CHAPTER III:
MURDER IN UTOPIA: WILLIAM MORRIS AND THE SURFACE OF DESIRE

I have no more faith than a grain of mustard seed in the future of ‘civilization,’ which I know now is doomed to destruction, and probably before very long: what a joy it is to think of! and how often it consoles me to think of barbarism once more flooding the world, and real feelings and passions, however rudimentary, taking the place of our wretched hypocrisies, . . . I used really to despair once because I thought what the idiots of our day call progress would go on perfecting itself: happily I know now that all that will have a sudden check.

William Morris, 1885^cxv