Even in those days I would often defend him by saying
that his very admiration for his predecessors in poetry, for
Browning, for Swinburne and Rossetti, in their first vogue while
he was a very young man, made any success seem impossible that
could satisfy his immense ambition: never but once before had the
artist seemed so great, never had the work of art seemed so
difficult. I would then compare him with Benvenuto Cellini who,
coming after Michael Angelo, found nothing left to do so
satisfactory as to turn bravo and assassinate the man who broke
Michael Angelo's nose.
IX
I cannot remember who first brought me to the old stable beside
Kelmscott House, William Morris' house at Hammersmith, & to the
debates held there upon Sunday evenings by the socialist League. I
was soon of the little group who had supper with Morris
afterwards. I met at these suppers very constantly Walter Crane,
Emery Walker presently, in association with Cobden Sanderson, the
printer of many fine books, and less constantly Bernard Shaw and
Cockerell, now of the museum of Cambridge, and perhaps but once or
twice Hyndman the socialist and the anarchist Prince Krapotkin.
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