A year at architecture, with odd hours filled in at poetry and art, and
news came from Burne-Jones that he had painted a picture, and sold it for
ten pounds.

Now Morris had all the money he needed. His father's prosperity was at
flood, and he had but to hint for funds and they came; yet to make things
with your own hands and sell them was the true test of success.

He had written "Gertha's Lovers," "The Tale of the Hollow Land," and
various poems and essays for the college magazine; and his book, "The
Defense of Guinevere," had been issued at his own expense, and the edition
was on his hands--a weary weight.

Thoreau wrote to his friends, when the house burned and destroyed all
copies of his first book, "The edition is exhausted," but no such
happiness came to Morris. And so when glad tidings of an artistic success
came from Burne-Jones, he resolved to follow the lead and abandon
architecture for "pure art."

Arriving in London he placed himself under the tutorship of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, poet, dreamer and artist, six years his senior, whom he had
known for some time, and who had also instructed Burne-Jones.

While taking lessons in painting at the rather shabby house of Rossetti in
Portland Street, he was introduced to Rossetti's favorite model--a young
woman of rare grace and beauty. Rossetti had painted her picture as "The
Blessed Damozel," leaning over the bar of Heaven, while the stars in her
hair were seven. Morris, the impressionable, fell in love with the canvas
and then with the woman.