Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/690



life of Morris from that autumn until his last illness was one of placid continuity of production, with little variety of external incident. From the illness of the spring of 1891 he never fully recovered; and though he enjoyed several years more of fair health, his bodily powers became gradually less able to respond to the calls of his unflagging intellectual energy. The amount of work he had already done, in literature, in art, in politics, in handicraft, was enough to fill not one, but many lives; and the machinery which had been working at continuous high pressure for so long began to show signs of permanent weakening. But in these latter years his whole personality ripened and softened. The outbursts of temper so familiar to his earlier friends ceased. The impatience born of intense craving for sympathy and understanding died away. The training of the years of co-operation with impracticable colleagues in the Socialist party had not been lost. Mr. Selwyn Image, speaking from intimate acquaintance as a colleague on the executive com-