Le temps du changement social

“(I)t is natural for people to say to an earnest reformer, tell us what it is that you wish to have done at once, and then we will look at the matter; and all the more natural perhaps when the aim of the speaker is far reaching and all inclusive, when in fact he is preaching a change in the basis of society and not a mere palliation of its worst evils: because people say, and reasonably, we cannot be expected to change that basis suddenly, to go to sleep on Saturday night in our present condition & wake up on Monday morning with the revolution accomplished and everything going smoothly with a contented population round about us.  There must be a long period of half-formed aspirations, abortive schemes, and half measures interspersed with doubtful experiments, disappointment, reaction, and apathy before we get anywhere near the beginning of the obvious and dramatic change which people know as revolution, and it is a matter of course that people should ask the would-be revolutionists what the first step is to be …” (William Morris, “Equality,” ed. Florence Boos, Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 20 (New Series) (2011): 57.)