Health

Jack Walsdorf, the consummate lifelong collector of Morris books and materials, has kindly shared with us his hard-to-find page from The October 7th, 1896 issue of  The Sketch . As many of you will have spotted, this issue was published a mere four days after Morris's death; the page in question is an obituary. The text itself is quite keenly observed, and sympathetically written. It declares Morris "primarily a poet", then focuses on his other achievements:  What Ruskin preached in the abstract Morris endeavoured to carry out with immense practicality, now designing wall-papers, now furniture, and latterly reconstructing a considerable portion of the book-world through his Kelmscott Press. . . . To him, next to Mr. Ruskin, is it due that an aesthetic sense pervades the homes even of the poorest to-day. As a fitting ending, the author then quotes a contemporary review, by Andrew Lang, of a collected edition of Morris's works: "His place in English life and liter