to compare the household art of England and America, as
it stands to-day, with the ugliness and barrenness of the
upper and middle class homes of those countries, forty
years ago. But it must be remembered that to the Firm
capital, invention and control were supplied practically by
Morris alone. His architectural instinct, the quality in
which lay his unique strength, built u the material
fortunes of the Company from the merest financial nothing,
at the same time that it assured the complete aesthetic
success of the enterprise by carrying the arts of design to
their highest form.
                          As the desire for beautiful
surroundings spread from ecclesiastical into secular life,
the call for increased and diversified production made
heavy demands upon Morris's time, strength and financial
resources* But his energies and his spirit of sell-sacrifice
never failed or flagged. He was always persistent,
sagacious and industrious. In order to revive the arts
and crafts which so beautified the otherwise strenuous life
of the Middle Ages, he made the most practical and costly
experiments in dyein, weaving and printing. In the
exercise of the first o these craits, he supplemented all
that could be learned from books and from chemical tests
in his own vats b a thorough appnticeship among the
dyers of Staffordshire. And t& results of his labor
justified the means which he so ungrudgingly employed;
fr he succeeded in raising to an unexpected degree of
beauty, the art which, since the introduction of the anilines
at about the middle of the nineteenth century, had fallen
into deplorable decline. As a colorist, Morris takes rank
among the great masters. He followed the best traditions
Of Oriental art; using but few elements and obtaining his
effects by skilfully varied juxtaposition and contrast, His
system of color has been somewhat misunderstood by
both buyers and imitators; for the peacock-blues, olive-
greens and rusty reds dominant in the stage setting of
"Patience" and other satires upon the " Aesthetic Craze,"


10


WILLI~AM  MORRIIS