Publisher's Synopsis
It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris should approximate to a publicfestival, for while there have been many men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious hunger for beautywhich has now for the first time become a serious problem in the healthy life of humanity, but herepresents also that honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of workmanshipwhich gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time has passed when William Morris wasconceived to be irrelevant to be described as a designer of wall-papers. If Morris had been a hatterinstead of a decorator, we should have become gradually and painfully conscious of an improvementin our hats. If he had been a tailor, we should have suddenly found our frock-coats trailing on theground with the grandeur of mediæval raiment. If he had been a shoemaker, we should have found, with no little consternation, our shoes gradually approximating to the antique sandal. As ahairdresser, he would have invented some massing of the hair worthy to be the crown of Venus; asan ironmonger, his nails would have had some noble pattern, fit to be the nails of the Cross. Thelimitations of William Morris, whatever they were, were not the limitations of common decoration.It is true that all his work, even his literary work, was in some sense decorative, had in some degreethe qualities of a splendid wall-paper. His characters, his stories, his religious and political views, had, in the most emphatic sense, length and breadth without thickness. He seemed really to believe thatmen could enjoy a perfectly flat felicity. He made no account of the unexplored and explosivepossibilities of human nature, of the unnameable terrors, and the yet more unnameable hopes. Solong as a man was graceful in every circumstance, so long as he had the inspiring consciousness thatthe chestnut colour of his hair was relieved against the blue forest a mile behind, he would beserenely happy. So he would be, no doubt, if he were really fitted for a decorative existence; if hewere a piece of exquisitely coloured cardboard.