Jane Morris: the silent muse

Reviewed here

How We Might Live: At Home with Jane and William Morris

by Suzanne Fagence Cooper

Quercus (RRP: £25)

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Among the sketches included in George du Maurier’s English Society at Home (1880) is a plate that appears under the heading “Refinements of Speech.” The “Fair Æsthetic” in the image—a haggard and emaciated middle-aged woman, tightly draped in what looks suspiciously like a curtain—is saying, “suddenly, and in deepest tones,” to a Mr Smith, whom she has just met: “are you Intense?”

The recipient of these eager, urgent words looks somewhat taken aback. He has evidently not fallen in with the mid-to-late 19th-century fashion for intensity—instead, he looks rather immune to the female figure’s apparent penchant for strong, violent or…