SOURCE: Chesterton, G. K. “William Morris and His School.” In Varied Types, pp. 15-26. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1906.

In the following essay, Chesterton views Morris as a prime representative of the Victorian era and outlines the limitations of his verse.

It is proper enough that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris should approximate to a public festival, 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 beauty which has now for the first time become a serious problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. The time has passed when William Morris was conceived to be irrelevant to be...