The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75
William Morris
William Morris.
It has been said that he died worth £50,000. He could have died worth two millions if he bad liked, but he did not. He came into manhood with £50,000 left him. He came into all our movements with a brain unequalled by any man in the Old Country. He gave us a poetry the most beautiful that human mind ever gave. As a manufacturer he gave us a new conception of art and of wealth. As a man there was no brighter, no more beautiful type of manhood than William Morris. He worked night and day in our cause, and his closest friends were men from the gutter. His wife and family dear to him—a magnificent personage—he came into our movement, and he came with what some monied persons have not: he came with brains, a personality, a power to love, and a power to work. He came into our work and subscribed to its propaganda with his brains and his money, and worked unstintingly like the hero that he was. With all the attributes of a great character and with all the powers of a great mind, he was a man who was a brother to the most illiterate of us, and he helped thousands and thousands—not with a dole that is placed on some subscription list, but the help he gave was given by himself when he went into the house of the weak or fever-stricken, and many a poor girl and many a poor soul has reason to revere his memory. For a lion like that to be snapped at by puppies is an insult to all that is manly and true. William Morris left £50,000.