Then these young men, with several others, drew up a remonstrance against “the desecration by officious restoration, and the tearing down of time-mellowed structures to make room for the unsightly brick piles of boarding-house keepers.”

The remonstrance was sent in to the authorities, and by them duly pigeonholed, with a passing remark that young fellows sent to Oxford to be educated had better attend to their books and mind their own business.  Having espoused the cause of the Middle Ages in architecture, these young men began to study the history of the people who lived in the olden time.  They read Spenser and Chaucer, and chance threw in their way a dog-eared copy of Mallory’s “Morte d’ Arthur,” and this was still more dog-eared when they were through with it.  Probably no book ever made more of an impression on Morris than this one; and if he had written an article for the “Ladies’ Home Journal” on “Books That Influenced Me Most,” he would have placed Mallory’s “Morte d’ Arthur” first.

The influence of Burne-Jones on Morris was marked, and the influence of Morris on Burne-Jones was profound.  Morris discovered himself in explaining things to Burne-Jones, and Burne-Jones, without knowing it, adopted the opinions of Morris; and it was owing to Morris that he gave up theology.

Having abandoned the object that led him to college, Burne-Jones lost faith in Oxford, and went down to London to study art.

Morris hung on, secured his B.A., and articled himself to a local architect with the firm intent of stopping the insane drift for modern mediocrity, and bringing about a just regard for the stately dignity of the Gothic.

A few months’ experience, however, and he discovered that an apprentice to an architect was not expected to furnish plans or even criticize those already made:  his business was to make detail drawings from completed designs for the contractors to work from.

A year at architecture, with odd hours filled in at poetry and art, and news came from Burne-Jones that he had painted a picture, and sold it for ten pounds.

Now Morris had all the money he needed.  His father’s prosperity was at flood, and he had but to hint for funds and they came; yet to make things with your own hands and sell them was the true test of success.

He had written “Gertha’s Lovers,” “The Tale of the Hollow Land,” and various poems and essays for the college magazine; and his book, “The Defense of Guinevere,” had been issued at his own expense, and the edition was on his hands—­a weary weight.

Thoreau wrote to his friends, when the house burned and destroyed all copies of his first book, “The edition is exhausted,” but no such happiness came to Morris.  And so when glad tidings of an artistic success came from Burne-Jones, he resolved to follow the lead and abandon architecture for “pure art.”

Arriving in London he placed himself under the tutorship of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet, dreamer and artist, six years his senior, whom he had known for some time, and who had also instructed Burne-Jones.