Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/770

ÆT. 63] dox in which he was perhaps excelled by Johnson alone. Both men had this spirit of contradiction constantly acting in curious combination with what was, if not fair-mindedness, at all events an unshaken and fundamental integrity of intellect. Like Johnson, Morris had a way of applying hard logic to matters in which most men are content to be guided by compromise or fashion. Both were acute and severe critics of what is called women's work, and were fastidious in their appreciation of women's dress and looks, yet were little affected by what women thought of them, and preferred men's to women's society. Morris allowed himself to be drawn freely by inquisitive acquaintances, and was ready to lay down the law on any conceivable topic; but any amateur Boswell was liable to be suddenly turned upon and tossed. His large tolerance for bores was united with a keen insight into their character: he would allow one of that class to make heavy drafts on his time, and purse, and patience, and only incidentally note him in a quiet, but scathing phrase, as "hen-headed," or "a sponge," or "a cripple whose smoking flax I have not conscientious boldness enough to quench." Like Johnson ("I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity" are the immortal words recorded by Mrs. Thrale), he "looked upon himself as a very polite man," prided himself on his manners, and was capable of the most amazing and almost supernatural rudeness towards both men and women. Many of Johnson's sayings sound most natural in Morris's familiar intonation, and accompanied by his tricks of gesture; and his own familiar talk was full of sentences which, were they inserted in Boswell, could hardly be distinguished from the true Johnsonian context.

But this likeness was crossed and shot by the vein