Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/743

334 The lock-keeper's cottage, a pretty but tumble-down building of grey stone, walls and roof, was about to be rebuilt by the Thames Conservancy; and one of the last instances in which Morris was able to ward off encroachments on the beauty of the riverside was when he now prevented, by a temperate and dignified expostulation, the replacement of the old silver-grey roof which lay in sight of his own house by one of blue Welsh slate. At his urgent instances, too, the Conservators consented to give instructions that the men who cut the weeds on the river should spare the flowering plants on the banks as much as possible. But beyond his own immediate reach he had to confess with despondency that it seemed useless to struggle against the pervading flood of evil change in that lovely region. "I was thinking just now," he writes from Kelmscott at the end of August, "how I have wasted the many times when I have been 'hurt' and (especially of late years) have made no sign, but swallowed down my sorrow and anger, and nothing done! Whereas if I had but gone to bed and stayed there for a month or two and declined taking any part in life, as indeed on such occasions I have felt very much disinclined to do, I can't help thinking that it might have been very effective. Perhaps you remember that this game was tried by some of my Icelandic heroes, and seemingly with great success. But I admit that it wants to be done well.

"It was a most lovely afternoon when I came down here, and I was prepared to enjoy the journey from Oxford to Lechlade very much: and so I did; but woe's me! when we passed by the once lovely little garth near Black Bourton, I saw all my worst fears realized; for there was the little barn we saw being mended, the wall cut down and finished with a zinked