ire philosophy of William
Morris: a philosophy which, it has well been said, has tinted the entire
housekeeping world.

In his magazine, called, somewhat ironically, "Good Words," Dickens
ridiculed, reviled and berated the Preraphaelite Idea. Of course,
Dickens didn't understand what the Rossettis were trying to express.

He called it pagan, anti-Christian, and the glorification of pauperism.
Dickens was born in a debtor's prison--constructively--and he leaped
from squalor into fussy opulence. He wrote for the rabble, and he who
writes for the rabble has a ticket to Limbus one way. The Rossettis made
their appeal to the Elect Few. Dickens was sired by Wilkins Micawber and
dammed by Mrs. Nickleby. He wallowed in the cheap and tawdry, and the
gospel of sterling simplicity was absolutely outside his orbit. Dickens
knew no more about art than did the prosperous beefeater, who, being
partial to the hard sound of the letter, asked Rossetti for a copy of
"The Gurm," and thus supplied the Preraphaelites a title they
thenceforth gleefully used.

But the abuse of Dickens had its advantages--it called the attention of
Ruskin to the little group. Ruskin came, he saw, and was conquered. He
sent forth such a ringing defense of the truths for which they stood
that the thinking people of London stopped and listened. And this caused
Holman Hunt to say, "Alas! I fear me we are getting respectable."

Ruskin's unstinted praise of this little band of artists was so great
that he convinced even his wife of the truth of his view; and as we
know, she fell in love with Millais, "the prize-taking cub," and they
were married and lived happily ever after.

Ruskin and Morris were both born into rich families, where every luxury
that wealth could buy was provided. Having much, they knew the
worthlessness of things: they realized what Walter Pater has called "the
poverty of riches." Dickens had only taken an imaginary correspondence
course in luxury, and so Wilton carpets and marble mantels gave him a
peace which religion could not lend. A Wilton carpet was to him a
Christian prayer-rug.

The joy of discovery was Ruskin's: he found the Rossettis and gave them
to the world. Ruskin was a professor at Oxford, and in his classes were
two inseparables, William Morris and Burne-Jones. They became infected
with the simplicity virus; and when Burne-Jones went up to London, which
is down from Oxford, he sought out the man who had painted "The Girlhood