were to die, Morris would no doubt grieve for him and even miss him,
but that it would make no gap in his life, nor interrupt his energy of
work. He cared for movements, for classes, for groups of men, more than
he cared for persons. And thus the idea came to him, in a mournful year
of reflection, that it was not only a mistake, but of the nature of sin,
to isolate himself in a little Paradise of art of his own making, and to
allow the great noisy, ugly, bewildered world to go on its way. It was
a noble grief. The thought of the bare, uncheered, hopeless lives of the
poor came to weigh on him like an obsession, and he began to turn over
in his mind what he could do to unravel the knotted skein.

"I am rather in a discouraged mood," he wrote on New Year's Day 1880,
"and the whole thing seems almost too tangled to see through and too
heavy to move." And again:

"I have of late been somewhat melancholy (rather too strong a word, but
I don't know another); not so much so as not to enjoy life in a way, but
just so much as a man of middle age who has met with rubs (though less
than his share of them) may sometimes be allowed to be. When one is just
so much subdued one is apt to turn more specially from thinking of one's
own affairs to more worthy matters; and my mind is very full of the
great change which I hope is slowly coming over the world."

And so he plunged into Socialism. He gave up his poetry and much of his
congenial work. He attended meetings and committees; he wrote leaflets
and pamphlets; he lavished money; he took to giving lectures and
addresses; he exposed himself to misunderstandings and insults. He spoke
in rain at street corners to indifferent loungers; he pushed a little
cart about the squares selling Socialist literature; he had collisions
with the police; he was summoned before magistrates: the "poetic
upholsterer," as he was called, became an object of bewildered contempt
to friends and foes alike. The work was not congenial to him, but he
did it well, developing infinite tolerance and good-humour, and even
tactfulness, in his relations with other men. The exposure to the
weather, the strain, the neglect of his own physical needs, brought on,
undoubtedly, the illness of which he eventually died; and worst of all
was the growing shadow of discouragement, which made him gradually aware
that the times were not ripe, and that even if the people could seize
the power they desired, they could not use it.