e service of the Church; but he was more fitted to work
in the world than in the cloister, and the social aspect of this
foundation prevailed over the religious. Nor was it mere self-culture to
which he aspired. The arts as he understood them were one field, and a
wide field, for enlarging the powers of men and increasing their
happiness, for continuing all that was most precious in the heritage of
the past and passing on the torch to the future; in this field there was
work for many labourers and all might be serving the common good.

His own favourite study was the thirteenth century, when princes and
merchants, monks and friars, poets and craftsmen had combined to exalt
the Church and to beautify Western Europe; and he wished to recreate the
nineteenth century in its spirit. And so while Burne-Jones discovered
his true gift in the narrower field of painting, Morris began his
apprenticeship in the master craft of architecture, and passed from one
art to another till he had covered nearly the whole field of endeavour
with ever-growing knowledge of principle and restless activity of hand
and eye. His father had died in 1847; and when Morris came of age he
inherited a fortune of about L900 a year and was his own master. Before
the end of 1855 he imparted to his mother his decision about taking
Orders. The Rubicon was crossed; but on which road he was to reach his
goal was not settled for many years. Twice he had to retrace his steps
from a false start and begin a fresh career. The year 1856 saw him still
working at Oxford, in the office of Street, the architect. Two more
years (1857-8) saw him labouring at easel pictures under the influence
of Rossetti, though he also published his first volume of poetry at this
time. The year 1859 found him married, and for the time absorbed in the
making of a home, but still feeling his way towards the choice of a
profession.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was in some ways the most original man of his
generation; certainly he was the only individual whose influence was
ever capable of dominating Morris and drawing him to a course of action
which he would not have chosen for himself. Rossetti's tragic collapse
after his wife's death, and the pictures which he painted in his later
life, have obscured the true portrait of this virile and attractive
character. Burne-Jones fell completely under his spell, and he tells us
how for many years his chief anxiety, over each successive work of art
that