"ON THE WANDLE."
ABOUT fifteen years ago, the following story was told to the present writer, with reference to the business which the poet William Morris had started and was managing. The Linn had most unexpectedly become possessed of actual profits to this amount of fifteen shillings. This being an unprecedented occur- rence, the partners met together and very seriously discasselhow the sum should be invested. So prolonged were these discus-
sions that the fifteen shillings had time to get lost before they were concluded, and ever since—so our informer said—the beadle of the square in which stood the premises where the sum was realised, has been looking for it. Seldom are such stories made up, unless they suggest what might have happened.
And it is true that at that time Morris's firm were working out eagerly and fervently in their business high aims and principles quite new in the trade of the nineteenth century. These gave the real impulse to the work; the making of money was quite a secondary consideration. Indeed, the firm continued to cast its bread upon the waters many years before it found any of it again, as far as money went. However, all this has since changed. " Morris " has become a household word for all who wish their material surroundings to be beautiful yet appropriate for homely use," neat, not gaudy," English in taste, not French. William Morris has long been recognised, by all who are at all intelligently watching the current of taste in this nineteenth century, as a poet who has succeeded in bringing poetry into the material surroundings of life ; who has succeeded in making the things of common use far from common-place; a poet, moreover, who has made a successful and practical protest against heartlessness in hand-work. His power is proved by his many imitators. Nearly all the better kind of designs in the shops are, as far as they are good, cribs from Morris, just altered sufficiently " to prevent unpleasantnesses." His willow- pattern paper is taken very boldly, stamped upon a carpet, and a trellis of little squares added by the accommodator. Even Paris taste, that mixture of fantastic extravagance, persistence in mediocrity, and industrious finish of detail, took up the style of Morris colours some years ago, and flavoured it with the usual touch of French morbid cynicism by calling the colours " teints d4grades."
Down at Merton, on the River Wandle, is an old mill, for- merly used, we believe, for the production of common printed table-cloths. In this mill are now made all the beautiful things which can be seen at" William Morris and Co.'s" shop, in Oxford Street, excepting the wall-papers. There is no actual dilapidation about the old mill, but certainly there is nothing in the place to contradict the principles of the "anti-restoration of ancient build- ings society." Things seem to have gone on till they dropped, and then they were patched, the patches honestly put on, without dis- guise. Passing through the gates from the high-road, the mill and Wandle present themselves much mixed up together. The river as we saw it was shimmering in the sunlight of a bright November afternoon; little eddies of the stream carried light and glimmer into dark corners, round the many angles of the scattered building. Near its edge the stream is shedded-over, to protect some bright-brown wooden pegs, turning on a wheel, through the mysteries of which bright blue stuff is dripping and splashing. The opposite bank is green meadow, where the trees are scantily hung with fading leaves, golden against the blue country distance beyond. In the meadow, close to the river, a group of three cows stands passively gregarious, outlined by a farzy edge of red gold, fiery against the misty blue background. A party of five white ducks, very orange-coloured about the feet, are quacking and waddling along the narrow footpath between the mill and the grassy edge of the river. We are confident that on the premises of no other such "thriving business " should we be allowed to come so near such nice things as ducks and cows and untouched river-banks. Here there is none of the ordinary, neat pomposity of "business premises." True poets and good workmen do not favour stilts in any line; it is not likely that the chief of this mill, who is practically both, should mount them. We turn through doors into a large, low room, where the hand- made carpets are being worked. It is not crowded. In the middle sits a woman finishing off some completed rugs ; in a corner is a large pile of worsted of a magnificent red, heaped becomingly into a deep-coloured straw basket. The room is full of sunlight and colour. The upright frames face you at right angles, with a long row of windows looking close upon the bright. shining river. On the window-sill are pots of musk and some other greenery. Across the trellis-work of- the small window- squares are thrown the pointed violet shadows of the few remain- ing leaves flapping loosely on the willow trees outside. The strong, level afternoon light shines round the figures of the young girls seated in rows on low benches along the frames, and brightens to gold some of the fair heas. Above and behind them rows of bobbins of many-coloured worsteds, stuck on pegs, shower down threads of beautiful colours, which are caught by the deft fingers, passed through strong threads (fixed uprightly
in the frames, to serve as a foundation), tied in a knot, slipped down in their place, snipped even with the rest of the carpet, all in a second of time, by the little maidens. Twenty-five rows does each do in a day,—that means about two inches of carpet. One of the rugs being made is of silk, instead of worsted, very exquisite in quality of surface. The workers may be as tire- some as most young people between the ages of a girl and a woman generally are, but they do not look tiresome in this bright sunlit place, so near the shining river, but merry, and busily happy.
It is a delightful workroom, and we tarn out of it wishing we could go on longer watching the work done in it. Out again by the Wandle, and across a bridge where the trout are to be seen lying in its shadow, you pass through a garden; the paths and grass are covered with golden leaves, and the fallen chestnuts roll under your feet, a faded sunflower hangs its head pathetic- ally over the stream, the cows are still grouping themselves in the meadow beyond. You pass an open door, and see men working over vats, and are told it is where the dyeing is done (how like a bit of Rembrandt light and shade); but we turn into another room, where the handlooms are work- ing busily, the shuttles flying to and fro between the webs with a speed like lightning, as fish that snake sudden darts in the water. There are many looms, and beautiful-coloured threads are being woven into beautiful materials on every side. Men work the looms; the only women we saw employed at the mill were those working the hand-made carpets. We go on to the rooms where the printing and the stained glass is done. Both are reached by outside wooden staircases. In the glass room, we see cartoons by Burne Jones and by Morris himself in process of being copied. There are many other rooms, for stores, in the old mill. In no part of it does there seem any crowding, either of things or people ; the work seems all going on cheerfully and steadily, without hurry.
Turning out of the gates again, a few minutes along the high road bring us to the building where Mr. Be Morgan's pottery is already manufactured, though the whole of the building is not yet finished. Hitherto, a little walled-in garden at the back of one of the old houses in Great Cheyne Row, Chelsea, has alone been the site for the kilns, out of which have come those tiles, plates, and vases which have certainly after their kind never been surpassed, even if equalled in beauty. The work in the new building is only beginning, not yet going along full swing. When it does, the quantity of pottery made will, it is to be hoped, enable many to enjoy it who till now have hardly heard of it. It is a separate business from W. Morris and Co., but at the shop in Oxford Street specimens of this pottery are to be seen. Already on the new premises you see the process of making the pottery from beginning to end ; you see the black Stourbridge clay in lumps, then you see it cut in squares for tiles, or being shaped into vases and plates by the hand, in the old time-honoured fashion, on the turning mill-stone ; then the tiles with the designs added, afterwards with the glaze, and finally, some hundreds packed in a kiln ready to be fired, a process which lasts some eight hours.
What is tile real secret of the refreshing atmosphere which clings about these workshops of William Morris and William Be Morgan ? Wherein lies the immense difference in the in- fluence on us produced by their work and the ordinary manu- factured stuffs, stained glass, and pottery ? In the work we have been seeing what a strength there is of individuality, and what an entire absence of common-place self-importance ; what a natural way of doing things, and what a sense of distinction in all that is done ! We believe that we have but to realise the impulses which are always pushing the work forward with fresh inventiveness, in order to account mainly for the sense of dis- tinction and beauty which flavours it. The genius of inventive- ness and the love of beauty are the ruling principles, not the making of money. The machinery used in the manufacture is accommodated, made subservient and elastic, to a standard of excellence which has no place at all in the ordinary manufacturer's horizon, but is quite outside and beyond it. If a piece of ordinary machinery can only in part carry out the conception, however easy and inexpensive the use of it would be, it is not used, but something else invented or adapted which shall carry out what is wanted as per- fectly as it is possible to carry it out. If a dye is beauti- ful in colour, but does not give a fast colour, no time is spared in inventing a combination which will make it fast. The ordinary manufacturer, even were he to per- ceive the beauty of the colour, would see no advantage in overcoming difficulties and incurring expense in order to use it. He would ignore it as practically useless. He could
not spare the time or money to try experiments. Just so, in the case of Mr. De Morgan's pottery, there is an inventive- ness shown in practically carrying out • his ideas whichlands the work on a very high level of excellence, very different from the result we see where good designs are carried out by ordinary means. For instance, in painting clay, there is a difficulty in regulating rightly the amount of colour to be put on in paint- ing the design, owing to the ground of the tile or vase being opaque. Mr. De Morgan has invented a method of painting the colour on a transparent ground (which is afterwards trans- ferred to the clay), on which the thickness of the colour can be regulated exactly, in order to give each tint its due effect. And so on through all the work done by these real artists. No time, trouble, or money is spared in making the work is perfectly true to the conception as human means can make it. But we must remember that be- fore the difficulty of producing beautiful colours and designs is .encountered and got over successfully, the beautiful colours and -designs must be preferred. The sense which originally and mainly propels the making 'of these things is an instinct for ;beauty, a love of it for its own sake. It is an undoubting preference which directs their manufacture. The results are 'evolved out of individual choice, the means alone adjusting themselves as different requirements present themselves to the mind of the inventor, but the choice is peremptory. Here, at last, we can see some practical outcome of the principles of which Mr. Ruskin is the prominent preacher. Here are examples of what the human machinery can do at its best, heart, head, and hand all in their right places relatively to one another. Mr. Ruskin has insisted often on the fact that the true instinct for :beauty is the outcome of healthiness in the nature of the artist ; of love for what is pure, gentle, and solemn in nature; of a respect for individuality which encourages originality of in- vention; of a freedom which is earned by obedience to the higher laws.
No wonder that the character of this work done on the Wandle has a high distinction in it, if, as we believe to be the case, it is worked out from feelings and principles so very uncommon, so -very different from those which inspire manufacturers as a rule. Too much of our civilisation in these days tends to an artificiality without refinement, to elaborated vulgarity, to luxury which is at the same time costly and coarse. This work, on the contrary, is uncommon because it is so natural, so indicative of the pure, un- greedy side of human nature, so real as an outcome of individual .choice. We may like it or dislike it, but very certain is it that the inventor himself liked it ; it is the result of a genuine pre- ference; and therefore a bit of unsophisticated nature is at the coot of its creation, not a volition based on a belief in any artificial standard of beauty,—on a belief in things which ought to be liked because momentous academies or individuals have -ordained them as the correct things to be liked.
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