Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/457

48 splendid and almost extinct art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In a diary of his daily occupations which he kept in the year of the removal to Merton, the entries of morning work at the tapestry-loom are continual. As early in the year as the 12th of March he puts down "up at 7.30, about four hours tapestry": a week later, "up at 6½, four hours tapestry"; and as the mornings lengthened in April, "up at 6, two hours tapestry," "up at 5.30, three hours tapestry." All through the summer the entries go on: he was seldom up later than six o'clock for several months, and would be at the loom within ten minutes. One day, at the end of May, "wind W.S.W., very fine bright day, cool in evening" (for if Morris kept any diary at all, however scanty, the weather was always the first thing noted in it), the entry is "Up at 5: 3½ hours tapestry. To Grange. To Queen Square: The green for Peacock" (a woven hanging) "all wrong. Did day books and Friday" (the summing up of the week's business and signing cheques) "besides seeing to this took away model of G.H. carpet from K. Meeting St. Mark's Committee. Dined A. Ionides." And this was hardly an exceptional day, so crowded was his life with occupation.

The carpet he was making for Mr. George Howard, for the drawing-room at Naworth Castle, which is mentioned in this extract, was by far the largest that he had then executed. It was nearly a year in hand, and the hours he spent in designing and pointing it make up the equivalent of a substantial day's work for a full month. The result of a piece of work of this size and intricacy remained an unknown quantity till the end. "Your carpet has been finished," he wrote to Mr. Howard on the 3rd of November, "for a week or two: I have been keeping it back to try