Men against an epoch; is it not that after all? One by one in this last night, the beautiful things have disappeared, until at last, in a world grown old and ugly, men, forced to find some excuse for the peculiarity of their environment, have discredited even beauty itself, finding it childish, unworthy, and unscientific: not only beauty in Art, but beauty in thought and motive, beauty in life and death, until the word has become but a memory and a reproach. This is the condition that demands the new chivalry. The fight against Paynims and dragons was the work of a carpet knight compared with this ; yet in this fact is there any cause for discouragement? God forbid! But whatever the issue, the Quest lies clear in sight, and he would be craven knight indeed, who would shrink from this new ‘siege perilous.’
From the editors’ introduction to the first issue of the journal The Knight Errant, published by Elsevir Press, 1892.
According to Ralph Adams Cram’s autobiography, the editors included Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Francis Watts Lee, F. Holland Day, Herbert Copeland, and Cram. “Paynims” means “pagans” in the medieval European sense. Text from Archive.org/JSTOR Early Journal Content.
Above: “The Knight Errant” by British Pre-Raphelite painter John Everett Millais, 1870. Oil painting at the Tate Britain. The Pre-Raphaelites were favorites of the Visionists.
The Visionists of Boston 