Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/154

ÆT. 24] is equally characteristic. At dinner one evening in George Street, Prinsep said something, whether intentionally or not, which offended Morris. Every one expected an outburst of fury. But by a prodigious effort of self-control Morris swallowed his anger, and only bit his fork—one of the common four-pronged fiddle-pattern kind—which was crushed and twisted about almost beyond recognition. During these months, too, he was feeling his way in other arts and handicrafts: carving a block of freestone into a capital of foliage and birds, done with great spirit and life, Mr. Arthur Hughes says; drawing and colouring designs for stained-glass windows; and modelling from the life in clay. Price sat to him for a clay head which he was modelling; it was never finished, because whenever Morris grew impatient he flew at it and smashed it up. In carving the stone block he struck a splinter into his own eye; and his language to Dr. Acland, who was called in to look after the injury, was even for him unequalled in its force and copiousness. About the same time he was making his first experiments in reviving the decayed art of embroidery. He had a frame made from an old pattern, and worsteds specially dyed for him by an old French dyer. He worked at this till he had mastered the principles of laying and radiating the stitches so as to cover the ground closely and smoothly. A piece of work he began then with a bird and tree pattern embroidered on it is still in existence. In these months also were written a number of the finest of the poems published, early in 1858, in Morris's first volume, "The Defence of Guenevere and other Poems."

This volume is so well known that any detailed account or criticism of its contents would be superfluous. It is one of those books which, without ever