Page:William-morris-and-the-early-days-of-the-socialist-movement.djvu/69

46 glanced at me occasionally, as if to assure me that she was not being taken in by his stories. 'He is quite naughty sometimes,' was her only remark. He then snowed us an old book he had just bought, containing a diary, cooking receipts, and domestic accounts of some Squire's lady of the sixteenth century, and read with amusing comments some of the items.

While listening to him I was scanning with great interest the furnishings of the room. I had observed on entering its large size, its five windows looking over the Thames, and the simplicity and beauty of its furnishings. I experienced, as every visitor I am sure must have done, a delightful sense of garden-like freshness and bloom in the room. Noticing my interest in the things about me, Morris briefly described some of them. The handsome canopied settle on which Mrs. Morris was sitting was, he said, one of the earliest productions of the firm of Morris & Company, and the highly decorated wardrobe at the end of the room with painted figures was painted by Burne-Jones, and was his wedding gift to Morris.

Jenny, the eldest daughter, now came in, and we were served with a cup of tea, after which Morris took me downstairs to the library to have a smoke and talk about League business before supper.

Well do I remember the joy I felt as I sat down with him in that incomparable room. Destitute of furniture, except the big plain table and a few chairs, the floor of bare boards without any carpet, and bookshelves all round the room laden with all manner of books, new and old, and great antique tomes on the lower row, the place seemed to me a perfect realisation of a poet's and craftsman's den. The table itself was a joy for ever: a bare, white polished board, upon which were spread in fine disarray books, manuscripts, designs, a large ink-bowl with quill pens, tobacco pipes many, a tobacco jar filled with his favourite Latakia, drawing instruments, engraved blocks, and other delightful things. It was the sheer