CHAPTER XXII
ILICET
It was his last finished work. His weakness was already so great that the ambiguous reports of professional advisers could no longer conceal the fact that the end was not far off. He still, on days when the depression of his illness was less severe, cherished the hope of going on with the great Froissart, which was to be a sister volume to the Chaucer, and with the sumptuous folio edition of his own "Sigurd the Volsung." The series of woodcuts for the "Sigurd" from drawings by Sir Edward Burne-Jones had been already planned, and a number of designs for them made. In May Burne-Jones, though with but little hope that the work could ever be carried out, had offered to increase the number of these pictures to forty. The proposal had been joyfully accepted by Morris, and roused him for a little into fresh life. His daily work was now mainly designing borders for the "Sigurd," and he still was able to do a little at it every day. Before either of these large works, however, another small book was to have been printed, which would have been one of the most beautiful products of the Kelmscott Press. This was the tale of "The Hill of Venus," to be written in prose by himself and adorned by the twelve
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