CHAPTER XI
THE SOCIETY FOR PROTECTION OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS:
THE EASTERN QUESTION ASSOCIATION:
PERIOD OF TEXTILES
1877-1878
Almost without knowing it, Morris was now beginning to take a part in public action and political life. From both he had hitherto, in common with the circle of artists to which he belonged, kept apart as from matters that did not concern him. As regards the arts of life, he had been content to labour in his own field, and trust to good work producing its influence, without any active attempt to inculcate first principles or to stem the tide of competition and industrialism by organized teaching. In politics, he was a passive, rather than an active Liberal; voting with his party, and even occasionally attending public meetings, but not a name known in the press or on the platform. In active civic duties, any more than in active political work, he had probably taken no share since his illness in 1864 had made him retire from his Volunteer corps. But this abstention was not natural to him, as it often is to artists and men of letters. His innate Socialism—if the word may for once be used in its natural sense
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