ABSTRACT
The capital truth about William Morris was stated in that passage of Mr. Mackail's admirable biography in which, admitting that Morris never worked as an architect, he said that it was always in the spirit of the architect that Morris worked. Unique in the modern world, William Morris worked always from the centre, caring little what portion of the circumference he struck in his energetic excursions. In a sense, and of course, he was an amateur. If there was any development in Morris, it was in his poetry, and it was not altogether fortunate. He began by recreating, in that wonderful first volume The Defence of Guenevere, the life of the Middle Ages, apprehended with faultless intuition, but from without. He proceeded by allowing himself to be drawn into the Middle Ages, as if Columbus should dwindle into a colonist, forgetting the excitement of discovery.
