13 October: Boreham on William Morris

The Decoration of Life
It was in the early days of October, in 1896, that, with a farm waggon for a hearse and with wisps of forestry for plumes, the remains of one of the most notable Englishmen of the 19th century were laid to rest at Kelmscott. John Ruskin used to say that William Morris was a shining slab of beaten gold. He certainly cut a particularly striking figure at a particularly striking time. The pivotal day of his life was a January day in 1853 on which he was entered at Exeter College, Oxford.

The day is memorable, not simply on the ground that it introduced him to a university career, but because it introduced him to Edward Burne-Jones. The two seemed made for each other, and it was afterwards said that, at Oxford, William Morris was educated by Edward Burne-Jones, and Edward Burne-Jones by William Morris.

Topsy Morris and Ned Burne-Jones fell in love with each other when they shook hands for the first time; during their under-graduate days they were inseparable, and the fast friendship them formed was never fractured. In the days of their renown they were often seen together in London, and the physical contrast that they then presented provoked an involuntary smile.

The dish may never have run away with the spoon, but anybody who saw these two intimates strolling together down Pall Mall might have been pardoned for supposing that a beer barrel had run away with a broomstick. In their early days, however, before Morris had grown rotund and Burne-Jones lath-like, there was no apparent incongruity in their close association. They had both set their faces towards the ministry, although, as things turned out, neither of them entered it.

A Noble Body Clothes A Noble Mind
Burne-Jones became one of the most illustrious painters of a great artistic period, whilst William Morris became—well, William Morris became William Morris. No man in our history more successfully defies classification. No label will fit him. In many ways, he stands in our records as a baffling and inscrutable enigma. He plunged into life possessed of two enormous advantages. He enjoyed a private income of about £1,000 a year and he gave everybody the impression that he was born to command. He looked like a reincarnation of some grand old medieval king. His glorious head of curly hair had to be seen to be believed. His rebellious locks, as Esther Meynell puts it, were crowned with a kind of pre-Raphaelite wreath.

As a young man, he had been the model of his fellow-artists for Tristram, Lancelot, the Angel Gabriel, and for one or other of the Magi who followed the Star to Bethlehem. He stood for anyone who was romantic, beautiful, and remote from the commonplace world of his day. The most eminent artists of his time—Watts, Rossetti, and the rest—loved to paint him. And all who knew him felt that his fine personality matched his splendid presence.

Never was such a jack-of-all trades. His first idea was to become a clergyman; on coming of age, he articled himself to a London architect, and, shortly afterwards, founded a company, with himself as head, for the manufacture of tasteful furniture. Later on, he designed tapestries, tiles, and wallpapers; made carpets, embroideries, and paperhangings and figured woven goods of every kind. He produced chintz for bookbinding, and painted stained-glass windows. His skill as an interior decorator was officially recognised by his commission to rearrange the walls of St. James' Palace, including silk damask hangings especially designed for the Throne Room and Reception Rooms, and the recasting of the ceilings and cornices.

Protest Of Beauty Against Vulgarity
In addition to all this, he was a politician, painter, journalist, and printer. He held that poetry like Chaucer's should be produced on paper, in type, and in bindings that would match its inherent charm; so he applied himself to the task. Moreover, he was himself a poet of such quality that he was offered the Chair of Poetry at Oxford which had been recently vacated by Matthew Arnold, and, on Tennyson's death, was approached with a view to his becoming Poet Laureate. Here are the shapeless fragments of a bewildering jig-saw puzzle. How are we to create from such a jumble, a picture that shall unite them all in a composite and intelligible whole? The key is to be found in his inborn passion for beauty.

When he entered Canterbury Cathedral for the first time, and again when he was introduced to the sylvan recesses of Epping Forest, he was so overcome by the excess of loveliness that he almost fainted. He found himself in a beautiful world, and he fought like a tiger to tear down everything that defaced or wished it disfigured its loveliness. He held that even religion, unless it revealed the beauty of God, was patently untrue. He made the country ring with his protests against any alterations to abbeys, ministers, or cathedrals that would compromise this ancient fascination. He insisted on living in beautiful homes amidst beautiful settings, and, when he married, he selected as his wife a woman whom Burne-Jones and Rossetti regarded as one of the most beautiful women in England.

When he died, everybody felt that the conventional trappings of a modern funeral would have been revolting to him. He was borne to his grave on a farm waggon, newly-painted. The rustic vehicle was carpeted with moss, strewn wild flowers and vine leaves. A farm with sprays of willow, and festooned with labourer, decently attired, led the horse that drew the precious burden. The trees beside the road, decked in their Autumn splendours, seemed to be waving tapestries of burnished gold. It was exactly as Morris himself would have wished it.

F W Boreham

Image: William Morris