some spring within himself which
drew him instinctively to all that was beautiful in nature, in art, in
books. His earliest companions were the Waverley Novels, which he began
at the age of four and finished at seven; his earliest haunt was Epping
Forest, where he roamed and dreamed through many of the years of his
youth.

His father, who was in business in the City of London, as partner in a
bill-broking firm, lived at different times at Walthamstow and at
Woodford; and the hills of the forest, in some places covered with thick
growth of hornbeam or of beech, in others affording a wide view over the
levels of the lower Thames, impressed themselves so strongly on the
boy's memory and imagination that this scenery often recurred in the
setting of tales which he wrote in middle life.

There was no need of external aid to develop these tastes; and Morris
was fortunate in going to a school which did no violence to them by
forcing him into other less congenial pursuits. Marlborough College, at
the time when he went there in 1848, had only been open a few years. The
games were not organized but left to voluntary effort; and during his
three or four years at school Morris never took part in cricket or
football. In the latter game, at any rate, he should have proved a
notable performer on unorthodox lines, impetuous, forcible, and burly
as he was. But he found no reason to regret the absence of games, or to
feel that time hung heavy on his hands. The country satisfied his wants,
the Druidic stones at Avebury, the green water-meadows of the Kennet,
the deep glades of Savernake Forest. So strong was the spell of nature,
that he hardly felt the need for companionship; and, as chance had not
yet thrown him into close relations with any friend of similar tastes,
he lived much alone.

It was a different matter at Oxford, to which he proceeded in January
1853. Among those who matriculated at Exeter College that year was a
freshman from Birmingham named Edward Burne Jones; and within a few days
Morris had begun a friendship with him which lasted for his whole life
and was the source of his greatest happiness. For more than forty years
their names were associated, and so they will remain for generations to
come in Exeter College Chapel, where may be seen the great tapestry of
the Nativity designed by one and executed by the other. Burne-Jones had
not yet found his vocation as a painter; he came to Oxford like Morris
with the wish to