Born in easy circumstances, though not to the degrading trouble of wealth—cherishing as his sweetest possessions a devoted wife and two daughters, each of them endowed with intelligence so rare as to understand a genius such as his—surrounded by friends, some of whom were among the first men of our time, and most of whom were of the very salt of the earth—it may be said of him that Misfortune, if she touched him at all, never struck home. If it is true, as Mérimée affirms, that men are hastened to maturity by misfortune, who wanted Morris to be mature? Who wanted him to be other than the radiant boy of genius that he remained till the years had silvered his hair and carved wrinkles on his brow, but left his blue-grey eyes as bright as when they first opened on the world? Enough for us to think that the man must, indeed, be specially beloved by the gods who in his sixty-third year dies young. Old age Morris could not have borne with patience. Pain would not have developed him into a hero. This beloved man, who must have died some day, died when his marvellous powers were at their best—and died without pain. The scheme of life and death does not seem so much awry, after all. At the last interview but one that ever I had with him—it was in the little carpetless room from which so much of his best work was turned out—he himself surprised me by leading the conversation upon a subject he rarely chose to talk about—the mystery of life and death. The conversation ended with these words of his: “I have enjoyed my life—few men more so—and death in any case is sure.”