He became aware that the
worker's idea of rising in the social scale was not the idea of gaining
security, leisure, independence, and love of honest work, but the hope
of migrating to the middle class, and becoming a capitalist on a small
scale. That was the last thing that Morris desired. Most of all he felt
the charge of inconsistency that was dinned into his ears. It was held
ridiculous that a wealthy capitalist and a large employer of labour,
living, if not in luxury, at least in considerable stateliness, should
profess Socialist ideas without attempting to disencumber himself of his
wealth. He wrote in answer to a loving remonstrance:

"You see, my dear, I can't help it. The ideas which have taken hold of
me will not let me rest; nor can I see anything else worth thinking
of. How can it be otherwise, when to me society, which to many seems
an orderly arrangement for allowing decent people to get through their
lives creditably and with some pleasure, seems mere cannibalism; nay,
worse (for there ought to be hope in that), is grown so corrupt, so
steeped in hypocrisy and lies, that one turns from one stratum of it to
another with hopeless loathing.... Meantime, what a little ruffles me
is this, that if I do a little fail in my duty some of my friends will
praise me for failing instead of blaming me."

And then at last, after every sordid circumstance of intrigue and
squabble and jealousy, one after another of the organisations he joined
broke down. Half gratefully and half mournfully he disengaged himself,
not because he did not believe in his principles, but because he saw
that the difficulties were insuperable. He came back to the old life; he
flung himself with renewed ardour into art and craftsmanship. He began
to write the beautiful and romantic prose tales, with their enchanting
titles, which are, perhaps, his most characteristic work. He learnt by
slow degrees that a clean sweep of an evil system cannot be made in a
period or a lifetime by an individual, however serious or strenuous
he may be; he began to perceive that, if society is to put ideas in
practice, the ideas must first be there, clearly defined and widely
apprehended; and that it is useless to urge men to a life of which they
have no conception and for which they have no desire. He had always
held it to be a sacred duty for people to live, if possible, in whatever
simplicity, among beautiful things; and it may be said that no one man
in one ge