this doctrine emphatic protests had
been uttered in widely differing forms by Carlyle and Disraeli, by
Ruskin and Dickens; but it was slow to die.

The third ideal was that of the Socialist; and to Morris this meant that
the State should appropriate the means of production and should so
arrange that every worker was assured of the means of livelihood and of
sufficient leisure to enjoy the fruits of what he had made. He who could
live so simply himself thought more of the unjust distribution of
happiness than of wealth, as may be seen in his _News from Nowhere_,
where he gives a Utopian picture of England as it was to be after the
establishment of Socialism. Here rather than in polemical speeches or
pamphlets can we find the true reflection of his attitude and the way in
which he thought about reform.

It was not easy for him to embark on such a crusade. In his early
manhood, except for his volunteering in the war scare of 1859, he had
taken no part in public life. The first cause which led to his appearing
at meetings was wrath at the ill-considered restoration of old
buildings. In 1877, when a society was formed for their protection,
Morris was one of the leaders, and took his stand by Ruskin, who had
already stated the principles to be observed. They believed that the
presentation of nineteenth-century masonry in the guise of mediaeval
work was a fraud on the public, that it obscured the true lessons of the
past, and that, under the pretence of reviving the original design, it
marred the development which had naturally gone forward through the
centuries. It was from his respect for work and the workman that Morris
denounced this pedantry, from his love of stones rightly hewn and laid,
of carving which the artist had executed unconsciously in the spirit of
his time, and which was now being replaced by lifeless imitation to the
order of a bookish antiquary. Against this he was ready to protest at
all times, and references to meetings of 'Antiscrape', as he calls the
society, are frequent in his letters. He also was rigid in declining all
orders to the firm where his own decorations might seem to disturb the
relics of the past.

His next step was still more difficult. The plunge of a famous poet and
artist into agitation, of a capitalist and employer into Socialism,
provoked much wonder and many indignant protests. His severer critics
seized on any pamphlet of his in which they could detect logical
fallacies and scor