WILLIAM MORRIS 44*

strain of superintending in person the issue of the immensework of the Kelmscott Chaucer told heavily upon him inhis then delicate state of health. “ Insidious disease,”says a writer in “ The Daily News,” “ and perhaps the highpressure, manual, moral and intellectual, at which he lived,had sapped his strength, and for some months he hadbeen but the shadow of his old self.” Various means andremedies had been tried, rest and change of air sought invisits to Kelmscott, to Folkestone, and even in an ex-pedition to Norway; but without avail. The latter countrywas new ground to Mr. Morris, and it had been hopedthat the entire change of surroundings and the highlyinteresting experience of seeing some of the localitiescelebrated in the “ Heimskringla” would invigorate hisfailing strength. Accordingly, towards the end of July,accompanied by friends, of whom one was a medical man,William Morris sailed for Norway. But the result wasdisappointing. In a few weeks’ time he returned home toEngland, without having benefited from his trip. Againhe became worse, an attack of lung complaint, added tothe previous diabetic symptoms, giving occasion for thegravest anxiety on his account. Yet once more he seemedto rally. He was able to go out and to be wheeled in a chairinto the neighbouring Ravenscourt Park. That was onTuesday, 29th September. On his return to his house,however, he was prostrated by a renewal of the old dis-order. Complications ensuing he sank rapidly, and diedquietly and, it is believed, painlessly on the morning of3rd O&ober, 1896, at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith.The day of the week was the seventh, and thus, after hismany long and arduous labours he entered upon a well-earned Sabbath rest; fulfilling in his own person theprophetic words he had written years previously in “ TheLife and Death of Jason

“ And when upon thee falls the fated day,

Fearless and painless shalt thou pass away.”

The extreme gravity of his condition was known only tohis own family and a few of his most intimate friends.

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