Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/512

ÆT. 49] which his own lonely thoughts had led him. The amendment was meant to protest against limiting the movement in favour of better dwellings to the class of skilled workmen. But to Morris the necessity of rational dwellings for the rich no less than the poor was a primary article of belief. "I have at least respect for the dwellers in the tub of Diogenes; indeed I don't look upon it as so bad a house after all. I have seen worse houses to let for £700 a year." So he said afterwards with perfect sincerity, and the housing of the rich was to him one of the most distressing features of modern civilization.

At the same meeting "Rowland, for whom we voted for our School Board," Morris writes, "was there, and spoke hugely to my liking; advocated street-preaching of our doctrines as the real practical method: wisely to my mind, since those who suffer (more than we, or they, can tell) from society as it is, are so many, and those who have conceived any hope that it may be changed are so few." This belief, to which he clung against hope for several years, had momentous consequences in his life; for in the task of street-preaching outdoors, and work equivalent to street-preaching indoors, he broke down his health, and to some extent wore away the keen edge of his mind. But for the moment the new task seemed to lend him additional vigour. A month later there is a glimpse of him in the first flush of his enterprise in an entry from a private diary:

"Feb. 22. At Ned's. Top came in to breakfast as usual on Sundays: was extremely brilliant as soon as he had shaken off a little drooping of spirits owing to bad news about Jenny: was very angry against Seddon for replacing old Hammersmith Church ('a harmless silly old thing') by such an excrescence.