Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/769

360 say." But neither did elaboration of style nor advanced modernism of treatment stand in the way of his appreciation when the substance of a book was to his liking; and among the books which in recent years he praised most highly were the masterpieces of Pierre Loti and Maurice Maeterlinck.

"Master of himself and therefore of all near him," Morris at the same time retained the most childlike simplicity in the expression of his actual thoughts or feelings on any subject, and was as little hampered by false shame as he was guided by convention. In some points he remained an absolute child to the end of his life. If you introduced him to a friend, and he had the faintest suspicion that he was there to be shown off, his manners instantly became intolerable. As childlike was another of his characteristics, the constant desire to be in actual touch with the things he loved. He became a member of the Society of Antiquaries for no other reason than that he might be part-owner of one of their mediæval painted books. The mere handling of a beautiful thing seemed to give him intense physical pleasure. "If you have got one of his books in your hands for a minute," Burne-Jones said of him, "he'll take it away from you as if you were hurting it, and show it you himself." He never in any case could conceal his hand in a matter of business: but when he was bargaining with Quaritch for an old book of which the possession meant more to him than the price, he would make the fact plain by carrying on the negotiation with the book tucked tightly under his arm, as if it might run away. The resemblance already glanced at between him and Samuel Johnson had grown stronger in these latter years: and it was as visible in his eager width of interest as in the contradictiousness and love of para-