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diff --git a/old/67639-0.txt b/old/67639-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3f7c46d..0000000 --- a/old/67639-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3377 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of William Blake, by G. K. Chesterton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: William Blake - -Author: G. K. Chesterton - -Release Date: March 16, 2022 [eBook #67639] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Thomas Frost, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE *** - - - - - - The Popular Library of Art - - -ALBRECHT DÜRER (37 Illustrations). -By LINA ECKENSTEIN. - -ROSSETTI (53 Illustrations). -By FORD MADOX HUEFFER. - -REMBRANDT (61 Illustrations). -By AUGUSTE BRÉAL. - -FRED. WALKER (32 Illustrations and Photogravure). -By CLEMENTINA BLACK. - -MILLET (32 Illustrations). -By ROMAIN ROLLAND. - -LEONARDO DA VINCI (44 Illustrations). -By Dr GEORG GRONAU. - -GAINSBOROUGH (55 Illustrations). -By ARTHUR B. CHAMBERLAIN. - -THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS (50 Illustrations). -By CAMILLE MAUCLAIR. - -BOTTICELLI (37 Illustrations). -By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs ADY). - -VELAZQUEZ (51 Illustrations). -By AUGUSTE BRÉAL. - -WATTS (33 Illustrations). -By G. K. CHESTERTON. - -RAPHAEL (50 Illustrations). -By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs ADY). - -HOLBEIN (50 Illustrations). -By FORD MADOX HUEFFER. - -ENGLISH WATER COLOUR PAINTERS (42 Illustrations). -By A. J. FINBERG. - -WATTEAU (35 Illustrations). -By CAMILLE MAUCLAIR. - -PERUGINO (50 Illustrations). -By EDWARD HUTTON. - -THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD (38 Illustrations). -By FORD MADOX HUEFFER. - -CRUIKSHANK (55 Illustrations). -By W. H. CHESSON. - -WHISTLER (26 Illustrations). -By BERNHARD SICKERT. - -HOGARTH (48 Illustrations). -By EDWARD GARNETT. - -WILLIAM BLAKE (33 Illustrations). -By G. K. CHESTERTON. - - - - -[Illustration: FROM “SONGS OF INNOCENCE” - -1789] - - - - - WILLIAM BLAKE - - - BY - - G. K. CHESTERTON - - AUTHOR OF “ROBERT BROWNING,” ETC. - - [Illustration] - - - =LONDON=: DUCKWORTH & CO. - NEW YORK =E. P. DUTTON & CO.= - - - - - PRINTED BY - TURNBULL AND SPEARS, - EDINBURGH - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - PAGE - -THE LAMB _Frontispiece_ - -THE LILLY (1789) 13 - -THE DIVINE IMAGE (1789) 21 - -THE LITTLE BLACK BOY (1789) 27 - -THE SWAN (1789) 35 - -SPACE (1793) 43 - -OOTHOON (1793) 49 - -SPELLS OF LAW (1793) 55 - -FRONTISPIECE TO “AMERICA” (1793) 63 - -PRELUDIUM (1793) 69 - -A PROPHECY (1793) 77 - -A FEMALE DREAM (1793) 84 - -THE TYGER (1794) 91 - -HOLY THURSDAY (1794) 97 - -ARIEL 105 - -PRELUDIUM TO URIZEN (1794) 112 - -HAR AND HEVA (1795) 117 - -PHILANDER’S DUST (1796) 121 - -A GROUP (1804) 129 - -THE WATERS OF LIFE (1804) 136 - -PLOUGHING THE EARTH (1804) 141 - -THE EAGLE (1804) 147 - -“ALBION! AROUSE THYSELF!” (1804) 153 - -THE CRUCIFIXION (1804) 159 - -THE JUDGMENT DAY (1806) 165 - -THE TOMB (1806) 171 - -THE SELFHOOD OF DECEIT (1807) 177 - -THE SHEPHERDS (1821) 183 - -THE MORNING STARS (1821) 189 - -THE WHIRLWIND (1825) 195 - -THE JUST UPRIGHT MAN (1825) 202 - -FOR HIS EYES ARE UPON THE WAYS OF MAN (1825) 207 - - - - -William Blake would have been the first to understand that the -biography of anybody ought really to begin with the words, “In the -beginning God created heaven and earth.” If we were telling the story -of Mr Jones of Kentish Town, we should need all the centuries to -explain it. We cannot comprehend even the name “Jones,” until we have -realised that its commonness is not the commonness of vulgar but of -divine things; for its very commonness is an echo of the adoration of -St John the Divine. The adjective “Kentish” is rather a mystery in that -geographical connection; but the word Kentish is not so mysterious as -the awful and impenetrable word “town.” We shall have rent up the roots -of prehistoric mankind and seen the last revolutions of modern society -before we really know the meaning of the word “town.” So every word -we use comes to us coloured from all its adventures in history, every -phase of which has made at least a faint alteration. The only right -way of telling a story is to begin at the beginning--at the beginning -of the world. Therefore all books have to be begun in the wrong way, -for the sake of brevity. If Blake wrote the life of Blake it would not -begin with any business about his birth or parentage. - -Blake was born in 1757, in Carnaby Market--but Blake’s life of Blake -would not have begun like that. It would have begun with a great deal -about the giant Albion, about the many disagreements between the spirit -and the spectre of that gentleman, about the golden pillars that -covered the earth at its beginning and the lions that walked in their -golden innocence before God. It would have been full of symbolic wild -beasts and naked women, of monstrous clouds and colossal temples; and -it would all have been highly incomprehensible, but none of it would -have been irrelevant. All the biggest events of Blake’s life would have -happened before he was born. But, on consideration, I think it will -be better to tell the tale of Blake’s life first and go back to his -century afterwards. It is not, indeed, easy to resist temptation here, -for there was much to be said about Blake before he existed. But I will -resist the temptation and begin with the facts. - - * * * * * - -WILLIAM BLAKE was born on the 28th of November 1757 in Broad -Street, Carnaby Market. Like so many other great English artists and -poets, he was born in London. Like so many other starry philosophers -and flaming mystics, he came out of a shop. His father was James Blake, -a fairly prosperous hosier; and it is certainly remarkable to note how -many imaginative men in our island have arisen in such an environment. -Napoleon said that we English were a nation of shopkeepers; if he had -pursued the problem a little further he might have discovered why we -are a nation of poets. Our recent slackness in poetry and in everything -else is due to the fact that we are no longer a nation of shopkeepers, -but merely a nation of shop-owners. In any case there seems to be no -doubt that William Blake was brought up in the ordinary atmosphere -of the smaller English bourgeoisie. His manners and morals were -trained in the old obvious way; nobody ever thought of training his -imagination, which perhaps was all the better for the neglect. There -are few tales of his actual infancy. Once he lingered too long in the -fields and came back to tell his mother that he had seen the prophet -Ezekiel sitting under a tree. His mother smacked him. Thus ended the -first adventure of William Blake in that wonderland of which he was a -citizen. - -His father, James Blake, was almost certainly an Irishman; his -mother was probably English. Some have found in his Irish origin an -explanation of his imaginative energy; the idea may be admitted, -but under strong reservations. It is probably true that Ireland, if -she were free from oppression, would produce more pure mystics than -England. And for the same reason she would still produce fewer poets. -A poet may be vague, and a mystic hates vagueness. A poet is a man -who mixes up heaven and earth unconsciously. A mystic is a man who -separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both. Broadly the -English type is he who sees the elves entangled in the forests of -Arcady, like Shakespeare and Keats: the Irish type is he who sees the -fairies quite distinct from the forest, like Blake and Mr W. B. Yeats. -If Blake inherited anything from his Irish blood it was his strong -Irish logic. The Irish are as logical as the English are illogical. The -Irish excel at the trades for which mere logic is wanted, such as law -or military strategy. This element of elaborate and severe reason there -certainly was in Blake. There was nothing in the least formless or -drifting about him. He had a most comprehensive scheme of the universe, -only that no one could comprehend it. - -If Blake, then, inherited anything from Ireland it was his logic. There -was perhaps in his lucid tracing of a tangled scheme of mysticism -something of that faculty which enables Mr Tim Healy to understand -the rules of the House of Commons. There was perhaps in the prompt -pugnacity with which he kicked the impudent dragoon out of his front -garden something of the success of the Irish soldier. But all such -speculations are futile. For we do not know what James Blake really -was, whether an Irishman by accident or by true tradition. We do not -know what heredity is; the most recent investigators incline to the -view that it is nothing at all. And we do not know what Ireland is; and -we shall never know until Ireland is free, like any other Christian -nation, to create her own institutions. - -Let us pass to more positive and certain things. William Blake grew -up slight and small, but with a big and very broad head, and with -shoulders more broad than were natural to his stature. There exists a -fine portrait of him which gives the impression of a certain squareness -in the mere plan of his face and figure. He has something in common, so -to speak, with the typically square men of the eighteenth century; he -seems a little like Danton, without the height; like Napoleon, without -the mask of Roman beauty; or like Mirabeau, without the dissipation -and the disease. He had abnormally big dark eyes; but to judge by this -plainly sincere portrait, the great eyes were rather bright than dark. -If he suddenly entered the room (and he was likely to have entered it -suddenly) I think we should have felt first a broad Bonaparte head -and broad Bonaparte shoulders, and then afterwards realised that the -figure under them was frail and slight. - -His spiritual structure was somewhat similar, as it slowly built -itself up. His character was queer but quite solid. You might call -him a solid maniac or a solid liar; but you could not possibly call -him a wavering hysteric or a weak dabbler in doubtful things. With -his big owlish head and small fantastic figure he must have seemed -more like an actual elf than any human traveller in Elfland; he was -a sober native of that unnatural plain. There was nothing of the -obviously fervid and futile about Blake’s supernaturalism. It was not -his frenzy but his coolness that was startling. From his first meeting -with Ezekiel under the tree he always talked of such spirits in an -everyday intonation. There was plenty of pompous supernaturalism in the -eighteenth century; but Blake’s was the only natural supernaturalism. -Many reputable persons reported miracles; he only mentioned them. He -spoke of having met Isaiah or Queen Elizabeth, not so much even as if -the fact were indisputable, but rather as if so simple a thing were not -worth disputing. Kings and prophets came from heaven or hell to sit to -him, and he complained of them quite casually, as if they were rather -troublesome professional models. He was angry because King Edward I. -would blunder in between him and Sir William Wallace. There have been -other witnesses to the supernatural even more convincing, but I think -there was never any other quite so calm. His private life, as he laid -its foundations in his youth, had the same indescribable element; it -was a sort of abrupt innocence. Everything that he was destined to -do, especially in these early years, had a placid and prosaic oddity. -He went through the ordinary fights and flirtations of boyhood; and -one day he happened to be talking about the unreasonable ways of -some girl to another girl. The other girl (her name was Katherine -Boucher) listened with apparent patience until Blake used some phrase -or mentioned some incident which (she said) she really thought was -pathetic or, popularly speaking, “hard on him.” “Do you?” said William -Blake with great suddenness. “Then I love you.” After a long pause the -girl said in a leisurely manner, “I love you too.” In this brief and -extraordinary manner was decided a marriage of which the unbroken -tenderness was tried by a long life of wild experiments and wilder -opinions, and which was never truly darkened until the day when Blake, -dying in an astonishing ecstasy, named her only after God. - -To the same primary period of his life, boyish, romantic, and -untouched, belongs the publication of his first and most famous books, -“Songs of Innocence and Experience.” These poems are the most natural -and juvenile things Blake ever wrote. Yet they are startlingly old and -unnatural poems for so young and natural a man. They have the quality -already described--a matured and massive supernaturalism. If there is -anything in the book extraordinary to the reader it is clearly quite -ordinary to the writer. It is characteristic of him that he could write -quite perfect poetry, a lyric entirely classic. No Elizabethan or -Augustan could have moved with a lighter precision than-- - - “O sunflower, weary of time, - That countest the steps of the sun.” - -But it is also characteristic of him that he could and would put into -an otherwise good poem lines like-- - - “And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church, - Would not have bandy children, nor fasting nor birch”; - -lines that have no sense at all and no connection with the poem -whatever. There is a stronger and simpler case of contrast. There is -the quiet and beautiful stanza in which Blake first described the -emotions of the nurse, the spiritual mother of many children. - - “When the voices of children are heard in the vale, - And laughter is heard on the hill, - My heart is at rest within my breast - And everything else is still.” - -And here is the equally quiet verse which William Blake afterwards -wrote down, equally calmly-- - - “When the laughter of children is heard on the hill, - And whisperings are in the dale, - The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, - My face turns green and pale.” - -That last monstrous line is typical. He would mention with as easy -an emphasis that a woman’s face turned green as that the fields were -green when she looked at them. That is the quality of Blake which is -most personal and interesting in the fixed psychology of his youth. -He came out into the world a mystic in this very practical sense, -that he came out to teach rather than to learn. Even as a boy he was -bursting with occult information. And all through his life he had the -deficiencies of one who is always giving out and has no time to take -in. He was deaf with his own cataract of speech. Hence it followed that -he was devoid of patience while he was by no means devoid of charity: -but impatience produced every evil effect that could practically have -come from uncharitableness: impatience tripped him up and sent him -sprawling twenty times in his life. The result was the unlucky paradox, -that he who was always preaching perfect forgiveness seemed not to -forgive even imperfectly the feeblest slights. He himself wrote in a -strong epigram-- - - “To forgive enemies Hayley does pretend, - Who never in his life forgave a friend.” - -[Illustration: THE LILLY (1789)] - -But the effect of the epigram is a little lost through its considerable -truth if applied to the epigrammatist. The wretched Hayley had himself -been a friend to Blake--and Blake could not forgive him. But this was -not really lack of love or pity. It was strictly lack of patience, -which in its turn was due to that bursting and almost brutal mass of -convictions with which he plunged into the world like a red-hot cannon -ball, just as we have already imagined him plunging into a room with -his big bullet head. His head was indeed a bullet; it was an explosive -bullet. - -Of his other early relations we know little. The parents who are often -mentioned in his poems, both for praise and blame, are the abstract -and eternal father and mother and have no individual touches. It might -be inferred, perhaps, that he had a special emotional tie with his -elder brother Robert, for Robert constantly appeared to him in visions -and even explained to him a new method of engraving. But even this -inference is doubtful, for Blake saw the oddest people in his visions, -people with whom neither he nor any one else has anything particular to -do; and the method of engraving might just as well have been revealed -by Bubb Doddington or Prester John or the oldest baker in Brighton. -That is one of the facts that makes one fancy that Blake’s visions -were genuine. But whoever taught him his own style of engraving, an -ordinary mortal engraver taught him the ordinary mortal style, and -he seems to have learnt it very well. When apprenticed by his father -to a London engraving business he was diligent and capable. All his -life he was a good workman, and his failures, which were many, never -arose from that common idleness or looseness of life attributed to the -artistic temperament. He was of a bitter and intolerant temper, but not -otherwise unbusiness-like; and he was prone to insult his patrons, but -not, as a rule, to fail them. But with this part of his character we -shall probably have to deal afterwards. His technical skill was very -great. This and a certain original touch also attracted to the young -artist the attention and interest of the sculptor Flaxman. - -The influence of this great man on Blake’s life and work has been -gravely underrated. The mistake has arisen from causes too complex -to be considered, at any rate at this stage; but they resolve -themselves into a misunderstanding of the nature of classicism and -of the nature of mysticism. But this can be said decisively: Blake -remained a Flaxmanite to the day of his death. Flaxman as a sculptor -and draughtsman stood, as everybody knows, for classicism at its -clearest and coldest. He would admit no line into a modern picture -that might not have been on a Greek bas-relief. Even foreshortening -and perspective he avoided as if there were something grotesque -about them--as, indeed, there is. Nothing can be funnier, properly -considered, than the fact that one’s own father is a pigmy if he stands -far enough off. Perspective really is the comic element in things. -Flaxman vaguely felt this; Flaxman shrank from the almost insolent -foreshortenings of Rubens or Veronese as he would have shrank from the -gigantic boots in the foreground of an amateur photograph. For him high -art was flat art in painting or drawing, everything could be done by -pure line upon a single plane. Flaxman is probably best known to the -existing public by his illustrations in line to Pope’s “Homer,”--which -have certainly copied most exquisitely the austere limitations of Greek -vases and reliefs. Anger may be uttered by the lifted arm or sorrow by -the sunken head, but the faces of all those gods and heroes are, as -you may think them, beautiful or foolish, like the faces of the dead. -Above all, the line must never falter and come to nothing; Flaxman -would regard a line fading away in such a picture as we should regard a -railway line fading away upon a map. - -This was the principle of Flaxman; and this remained to the day of -his death one of the firmest principles of William Blake. I will not -say that Blake took it from the great sculptor, for it formed an -integral part of Blake’s individual artistic philosophy; but he must -have been encouraged to find it in Flaxman and strengthened in it by -the influence of an older and more famous man. No one can understand -Blake’s pictures, no one can understand a hundred allusions in his -epigrams, satires, and art criticism who does not first of all realise -that William Blake was a fanatic on the subject of the firm line. The -thing he loved most in art was that lucidity and decision of outline -which can be seen best in the cartoons of Raphael, in the Elgin -Marbles, and in the simpler designs of Michael Angelo. The thing he -hated most in art was the thing which we now call Impressionism--the -substitution of atmosphere for shape, the sacrifice of form to tint, -the cloudland of the mere colourist. With that cyclopean impudence -which was the most stunning sign of his sincerity, he treated the -greatest names not only as if they were despicable, but as if they were -actually despised. He reasons mildly with the artistic authorities, -saying-- - - “You must admit that Rubens was a fool, - And yet you make him master in your school, - And give more money for his slobberings - Than you will give for Raphael’s finest things.” - -And then, with one of those sudden lunges of sense which made him a -swordsman after all, he really gets home upon Rubens-- - - “I understood Christ was a carpenter - And not a brewer’s drayman, my good sir.” - -In another satire he retells the fable of the dog, the bone, and the -river, and permits (with admirable humour) the dog to expatiate upon -the vast pictorial superiority of the bone’s reflection in the river -over the bone itself; the shadow so delicate, suggestive, rich in tone, -the real bone so hard and academic in outline. He was the sharpest -satirist of the Impressionists who ever wrote, only he satirised the -Impressionists before they were born. - -[Illustration: THE DIVINE IMAGE (1789)] - -The ordinary history of Blake would obviously be that he was a man -who began as a good engraver and became a great artist. The inner -truth of Blake could hardly be better put than this: that he was a -good artist whose idea of greatness was to be a great engraver. For -him it was no mere technical accident that the art of reproduction -had to cut into wood or bite into stone. He loved to think that even -in being a draughtsman he was also a sculptor. When he put his lines -on a decorative page he would have much preferred to carve them out -of marble or cut them into rock. Like every true romantic, he loved -the irrevocable. Like every true artist, he detested india-rubber. -Take, for the sake of example, all the designs to the Book of Job. -When he gets the thing right he gets it suddenly and perfectly right, -as in the picture of all the sons of God shouting for joy. We feel -that the sons of God might really shout for joy at the excellence of -their own portrait. When he gets it wrong he gets it completely and -incurably wrong, as in the preposterous picture of Satan dancing among -paving-stones. But both are equally final and fixed. If one picture -is incurably bad, the other picture is incurably good. Courage (which -is, with kindness, the only fundamental virtue in man), is present and -prodigious in both. No coward could have drawn such pictures. - -The chief movement of Blake either in art or literature was the first -publication of the batch of his own allegorical works. “The Gates of -Paradise” came first, and was followed by “Urizen” and the “Book of -Thel.” With these he introduced his own mode of engraving and began his -own style of decorative illustration. That style was steeped in the -Blake and Flaxman feeling for the hard line and the harsh and heroic -treatment. There were, of course, many other personalities besides -that of Flaxman which were destined to influence the art of William -Blake. Among others, the personality of William Blake influences it -not inconsiderably. But no influence ever disturbed the love of the -absolute academic line. If the reader will look at any of the designs -of Blake, many of which are reproduced in this book, he will see the -main fact which I mention here. Many of them are hideous, some of -them are outrageous, but none of them are shapeless; none of them are -what would now be called “suggestive”; none of them (in a word) are -timid. The figure of man may be a monster, but he is a solid monster. -The figure of God may be a mistake, but it is an unmistakable mistake. -About this same time Blake began to illustrate books, decorating -Blair’s “Grave” and the Book of Job with his dark but very definite -designs. In these plates it is quite plain that the artist, when he -errs, errs not by vagueness but by hardness of treatment. The beauty -of the angel upside down who blows the trumpet in the face of Blair’s -skeleton is the beauty of a perfect Greek athlete. And if the beauty -is the beauty of an athlete, so the ugliness is the ugliness of an -athlete--or perhaps of an acrobat. The contortions and clumsy attitudes -of some of Blake’s figures do not arise from his ignorance of the -human anatomy. They arise from a sort of wild knowledge of it. He is -straining muscles and cracking joints like a sportsman racing for a cup. - -These book illustrations by Blake are among the simplest and strongest -designs of his pencil, which at its best (to do him justice) tended -to the simple and the strong. Nothing (for instance) could well be -more comic or more tragic than the fact that Blake should illustrate -Blair’s elephantine epic called “The Grave.” It was as well that Blake -and Blair should meet over the grave. It was about all they had in -common. The poet was full of the most crushing platitudes of eighteenth -century rationalism. The artist was full of a poetry that would have -seemed frightful to the poet, a poetry inherited from the mystics of -all ages and handed on to the mystics of to-day. Blake was the child -of the Rosy Cross and the Eleusinian Mysteries; he was the father of -the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and even of the “Yellow Book.” But of -all this the excellent Mr Blair was innocent, and so, indeed, in all -probability was the excellent Mr Blake. But the really interesting -point is this: that the illustrations were efficient and satisfactory, -from the Blair as well as the Blake point of view. The cut, for -instance, with the figure of the old man bowing his head to enter the -black grotto of the grave is a fine piece of drawing, apart from its -meaning, and is all the finer for its simplicity. But wherever he errs -it is always in being too hard and harsh, not too faint or fanciful. -Blake was a greater man than Flaxman, though a less perfectly poised -man. He was harder than his master, because he was madder. The figure -upside down blowing the trumpet is as perfect as a Flaxman figure: only -it is upside down. Flaxman upside down is almost a definition of Blake. - -[Illustration: THE LITTLE BLACK BOY (1789)] - - * * * * * - -SUCH an elementary statement of Blake’s idea of art is not out -of place at this stage; for his convictions had formed and hardened -unusually early, and his career is almost unintelligible apart from his -opinions. It is fairly eccentric even with them. Flaxman had introduced -him to literary society, especially to the evening parties of a -Blue-stocking named Mrs Matthews. Here his force of mind was admitted; -but he was not personally very popular. Most of his biographers -attribute this to his “unbending deportment,” and a certain almost -babyish candour which certainly belonged to him. But I cannot help -thinking that the fact that he was in the habit of singing his own -poems to tunes invented by himself may perhaps have had something to -do with it. His opinions on all subjects were not only positive but -aggressive. He was a fierce republican and denouncer of kings. But Mrs -Matthews was probably accustomed to fierce republicans who denounced -kings. She may have been less accustomed to a gentleman who insisted on -wearing a red cap of liberty in ordinary society. It is due to Blake to -say that his politics showed nevertheless that eccentric practicality -which was mixed up with his unworldliness; it was certainly through his -presence of mind that Tom Paine did not perish on the scaffold. - -But Blake had none of the marks of the poetical weakling, of the mere -moon-calf of mysticism. If he was a madman, one can emphasise the word -man as well as the word mad. For instance, in spite of his sedentary -trade and his pacific theories, he had extraordinary physical courage. -Not that reasonable minimum of physical courage which is guaranteed -by certain conventional sports, but intrinsic contempt of danger, -a readiness to put himself into unknown perils. He would suddenly -attack men much bigger and stronger than himself, and that with such -violence that they were often defeated by their own amazement. He -attacked a huge drayman who was harsh to some women and beat him in -the most excited manner. He leapt upon a Lifeguardsman who came into -his front garden, and ran that astonished warrior into the road by the -elbows. The vivacity and violence of these physical outbreaks must -be remembered and allowed for when we are judging some of his mental -outbreaks. The most serious blot (indeed, the only serious blot) on -the moral character of Blake was his habit of letting his rage get the -better not only of decency but of gratitude and truth. He would abuse -his benefactors as virulently as his enemies. He left epigrams lying -about in which he called Flaxman a blockhead and Hayley (as far as the -words can be understood) a seducer and an assassin. But the curious -thing is that he often did justice to the same people both before and -after such eruptions. The truth is, I fancy, that such writings were -like sudden attitudes or bodily movements. We talk of a word and a -blow; with Blake a word had the same momentary character as a blow. It -was not a judgment, but a gesture. He had little or no feeling of the -idea that “litera scripta manet.” He did not see any particular reason -why he should not be fond of a man merely because he had called the man -a murderer a few days before. And he was innocently surprised if the -man was not fond of him. In this he was perhaps rather feminine than -masculine. - -He had many friends and acquaintances of distinction besides Flaxman. -Among them was the great Priestley, whose speculations were the life -of early Unitarianism and whose Jacobin sympathies led to something -not far from martyrdom; other friends were the wild optimist Godwin -and his daughter Mary Wollstonecraft. But although he gained many new -acquaintances he gained only one new helper. This was a Mr Thomas -Butts, who lived in Fitzroy Square, and ought to have a statue there, -for he is an eternal model and monument for all patrons of art. While -in all other respects apparently a sane and rational British merchant, -he conceived an affection for Blake’s allegorical designs. But he gave -no commissions for pictures; he simply gave Blake money for pictures -as fast as Blake chose to paint them. The subject and size and medium -were left entirely to the artist. One day Blake might leave at Fitzroy -Square a little water-colour of the “Soul of a Porcupine”; the next -day a gorgeous and intricate illumination in gold of the obstetrics -and birth of Cain; the next day an enormous mural painting of Hector -capturing the arms of Patroclus; the following day a simple pen and ink -drawing of the prophet Habbakuk taken from life. All these Mr Thomas -Butts of Fitzroy Square received with solid benevolence and paid for in -solid coin. Many modern writers and painters may think of such a patron -somewhat dreamily. He had his reward, though it was unique rather than -particularly practical. Blake regarded him with a serene affection -which was never ruffled by the flying storms that were too frequent -in his friendships. No allusions can be found in his poetry to the -effect that Thomas Butts was a Spectre from Satan’s Loins. No epigram -was discovered among Blake’s papers accusing Mr Butts of bereaving -anybody’s life. If to have kept one’s own temper with Blake was a large -achievement (and it was not a small one), it was certainly a truly -noble achievement to have kept Blake’s temper for him. And this Mr -Butts and Mrs Blake can alone really claim to have done. For Blake was -to pass under a patron who showed him how different is kindness from -sympathy. - -In the year 1800 he effected a change of residence which was in many -ways an epoch in his life. He was a Londoner, though doubtless a -Londoner of the time when London was small enough to feel itself on -every side to be on the edge of the country. Still Blake had never in -any true sense been in the heart of the country. In his earliest poems -we read of seraphs stirring in the trees; but we have somehow a feeling -that they were garden trees. We read of saints and sages walking in -the fields, and we almost have the feeling that they were brickfields. -The perfect landscape is pastoral to the point of conventionality; it -has not in any sense the actual smell of England. The sights of the -town are evidently as native (one might say vital) with him as any -of the sights of the country. The black chimney-sweep is as obvious as -the white lamb. What is worse still, the white lamb of England is no -more natural or native than the alien golden lion of Africa. He was, in -fact, a Cockney, like Keats; and Cockneys as a class tend to have too -poetical and luxuriantly imaginative a view of life. Blake was about -as little affected by environment as any man that ever lived in this -world. Still he did change his environment, and it did change him. - -[Illustration: THE SWAN (1789)] - -There lived about this time near the little village of Eartham, in -Sussex, a simple, kind-hearted but somewhat consequential squire of the -name of Hayley. He was a landlord and an aristocrat; but he was not -one of those whose vanity can be wholly fulfilled by such functions. -He considered himself a patron of poetry; and indeed he was one; but, -alas! he had a yet more alarming idea. He also considered himself a -poet. Whether any one agreed with that opinion while he still ruled the -estates and hunted the country it is difficult now to discover. It is -sufficiently certain that nobody agrees with it now. “The Triumphs of -Temper,” the only poem by Hayley that any modern person can remember, -is probably only remembered because it was used to round off scornfully -one of the ringing sentences in Macaulay’s Essays. Nevertheless in his -own time Hayley was a powerful and important man, quite unshaken as yet -as a poet, quite unshakeable as a landed proprietor. But like almost -all quite indefensible English oligarchs, he had a sort of unreasonable -good nature which somehow balanced or protected his obvious unfitness -and ineptitude. His heart was in the right place, though he was in -the wrong one. To this blameless and beaming lord of creation, too -self-satisfied to be arrogant, too solemnly childish to be cynical, -too much at his ease to doubt either others or himself, to him Flaxman -introduced, at him rather Flaxman threw, the red-hot cannon-ball called -Blake. I wonder whether Flaxman laughed. But laughter convulses and -crumples up the pure outline of the Greek profile. - -Hayley, who was in his way as munificent as Mæcenas (and I suspect -that Mæcenas was quite as stupid as Hayley), gave Blake a cottage in -Felpham, a few miles from his own house, a cottage with which Blake -almost literally fell in love. He writes as if he had never seen an -English country cottage before; and perhaps he never had. “Nothing,” -he cries in a kind of ecstasy, “can ever be more grand than its -simplicity and usefulness. Simple and without intricacy, it seems to -be the spontaneous expression of humanity, congenial to the wants of -man. No other formed house can ever please me so well.” It is probably -true that none ever did. All that was purest and most chivalrous in his -poetry and philosophy flowered in the great winds that pass and repass -between the noble Sussex hills and the sea. He was always a happy man, -since he had a God. But here he was almost a contented man. - -By this time had passed over Blake’s head first the beginning and then -the growing blackness of the great French terror. Blake was now in a -world in which even he could not venture to walk about in a red cap. -Moreover, like most of the men of genius of that age and school, like -Coleridge and like Shelley, he seems to have been slightly sickened -with the full sensational actuality of the French tragedy; and -somewhat unreasonably having urged the rebels to fight, complained -because they killed people. If sincere revolutionists like Blake and -Coleridge were disappointed at the Revolution, the English Government -and governing class were against it with a solidity of desperation. -People talk about the reign of terror in France; but allowing for the -difference of national temperament and national peril, the two things -were twin; there was a reign of terror in England. A gentleman was -sent to penal servitude (which some gentlemen find worse than the -guillotine) if he said that the Prince Regent was fat. Our terror was -as cruel as Robespierre’s, but more cowardly, just as our press-gang -was as cruel as conscription, only more cowardly. Everywhere that the -Government could knock down an enemy as if by accident, could brain a -Jacobin with some brutal club of legal coincidence, the thing was done. -Many such blows were struck in that time, and one of them was struck at -Blake. - -On a certain morning in the August of 1803 Blake walked out into his -garden and found standing there a trooper of the 1st Dragoons -in a scarlet coat, surveying the landscape with a satisfied air of -possession. Blake expressed a desire that the dragoon should leave the -garden. The dragoon expressed a desire to knock out Blake’s eyes, “with -many abominable imprecations.” Blake sprang upon the man with startling -activity, and catching him from behind by both elbows ran him out of -the garden as if he were a perambulator. The man, who was probably -drunk and must certainly have been surprised, went off with many verbal -accusations, but none of a political nature. A little while afterwards, -however, he turned up with a grave legal statement to the effect that -Blake had taken the opportunity to utter these somewhat improbable -words: “Damn the king, damn all his subjects, damn his soldiers, -they are all slaves: when Bonaparte comes it will be cut-throat for -cut-throat. I will help him.” The impartial critic will be inclined to -say that few persons would have even the breath to utter such political -generalisations while at the same time running one of the Dragoon -Guards bodily out of the gate; and it was not alleged that the incident -took more than half a minute. Blake may possibly or even probably have -said “damn,” but the rest of the sentence originated, I imagine, in the -mind of someone else. But although most of Blake’s biography treats the -case as a mere clumsy accident, I can hardly think that it was so. It -involves too much of a coincidence. Why did not the dragoon wander into -some other garden? Why did not some other poet have to deal with the -dragoon? It seems odd that the man of the red cap should be the one man -to wrestle with the man of the red coat. It was a time of tyranny, and -tyranny is always full of small intrigues. It is not at all impossible -that the police, as we should now put it, really tried to entrap -Blake. But there entered upon the scene something which in England is -stronger even than the police. Hayley, not the small Hayley who was -the author of the “Triumphs of Temper,” but the colossal Hayley, who -was the squire of Eartham and Bognor, entered the court with the extra -aristocratic charm of an accident in the hunting-field. He defended -Blake with generosity and good sense, such as seldom fail his class on -such occasions; and Blake was acquitted. It was said that the evidence -was incomplete; but I fancy that if Hayley had not come the evidence -would have been complete enough. - -[Illustration: SPACE (1793)] - -It is unfortunate that this excellent attitude of Hayley nevertheless -coincides to a great extent with the solution of the bonds that bound -him to Blake. “The Visions were angry with me at Felpham,” said the -poet, which was his way of stating that he was somewhat bored with the -benevolence of the English gentry. “Voices of celestial inhabitants -were _not_ more distinctly heard, nor their forms more distinctly -seen,” in the neighbourhood of the Squire of Eartham than in that of Mr -Butts of Fitzroy Square; and Blake abruptly returned to London, taking -lodgings just off Oxford Street. He started at once on a work with the -promising title, “Jerusalem, the Emanation of the Giant Albion.” I say -there is a certain pathos in this parting from Hayley, for he was now -to fall into the power of a much more unpleasant kind of capitalist. -Poor Blake fell indeed from bad to worse in the matter of patrons. -Butts was sensible and sympathetic, Hayley was honest and silly. And -his last protector seems to have been something very like a swindler. - -The name of this benevolent being was Richard Hartley Cromek, a -Yorkshireman, and a publisher. He found Blake in bitter poverty after -his breach with Hayley (he and his wife lived on 10s. a week), and his -method of sweating was of the simplest and most artistic character. He -used to go to Blake, tell him that he would give him the engraving of -a number of designs; he would easily make Blake talk enthusiastically, -show his sketches and so on; then having got the sketches he would go -away and give the engraving to somebody else. This annoyed Blake. It -is pleasant to reflect that it was about Cromek that the best of his -epigrams was written-- - - “A petty sneaking knave I knew ... - Oh, Mr. Cromek, how do you do?” - -Blake’s irritation broke out, as was common with him, not over the -clearest but over the most confused case of Cromek’s misconduct. -The publisher had seen a design by Blake of Chaucer’s “Canterbury -Pilgrims,” and commissioned Blake to complete it. A few days -afterwards Cromek found himself in the studio of the popular painter -Stothard, and suggested the subject to him. Stothard finished his -picture first and it appeared before Blake’s. Blake went into one of -his worst rages and wrote one of his best pieces of prose. - - * * * * * - -A BROTHER artist said of Blake, with beautiful simplicity, -“He is a good man to steal from.” The remark is as philosophical -as it is practical. Blake had the great mark of real intellectual -wealth; anything that fell from him might be worth picking up. What -he dropped in the street might as easily be half-a-sovereign as a -halfpenny. Moreover, he invited theft in this further sense, that his -mental wealth existed, so to speak, in the most concentrated form. It -is easier to steal half-a-sovereign in gold than in halfpence. He was -literally packed with ideas--with ideas which required unpacking. In -him and his works they were too compressed to be intelligible; they -were too brief to be even witty. And as a thief might steal a diamond -and turn it into twenty farms, so the plagiarist of Blake might steal -a sentence and turn it into twenty volumes. It was profitable to steal -an epigram from Blake for three reasons--first, that the original -phrase was small and would not leave a large gap; second, that it was -cosmic and synthetic and could be applied to things in general; third, -that it was unintelligible and no one would know it again. I could give -innumerable instances of what I mean; I will let one instance stand -for the rest. In the middle of that long poem which is so disconnected -that it may reasonably be doubted whether it is a long poem at all (I -mean that commonly bearing the title “The Auguries of Innocence”), he -introduces these two lines: - - “When gold and gems adorn the plough - To peaceful arts shall envy bow.” - -A careless and honest man would read these lines and make nothing of -them. A careful thief might make out of them a whole entertaining and -symbolic romance, like “Gulliver’s Travels” or “Erewhon.” The idea -obviously is this;--that we still for some reason admit the tools of -destruction to be nobler than the tools of production, because -decorative art is expended on the one and not on the other. The sword -has a golden hilt; but no plough has golden handles. There is such a -thing as a sword of state; there is no such thing as a scythe of state. -Men come to court wearing imitation swords; few men come to court -wearing imitation flails. It is fascinating to reflect how fantastic -a story might be written upon this hint by Blake. But Blake does not -write the story; he only gives the hint, and that so hurriedly that -even as a hint it may hardly be understood. - -[Illustration: OOTHOON (1793)] - -Most of Blake’s quarrels were trivial, and some were little short of -discreditable. But in his quarrel with Cromek and Stothard he does -really stand as the champion of all that is heroic and ideal, as -against all that is worldly and insincere. The celebrated Stothard was -at this time in the height of his earlier success; he occupied somewhat -the same relation to art and society that has been occupied within our -own time by Frederic Leighton. He was, like Leighton, an accomplished -draughtsman, a man of slight but genuine poetic feeling, an artist -who thoroughly realised that the aim of art was to please. Ruskin -said of him very truly (I forget the exact words) that there were no -thorns to his roses. At the same time, his smoothness was a smoothness -of innocence rather than a smoothness of self-indulgence; his work -has a girlish timidity rather than any real conventional cowardice; -he was a true artist in a somewhat effeminate style of art. Nor is -there any reason to doubt that his personal character was as clean and -good-natured as his pictures. It may be that he began his _Canterbury -Pilgrims_ without any commission from Cromek, or it may be that he took -the commission from Cromek without the least idea that the conception -had been borrowed from Blake. That Cromek treated Blake badly is beyond -dispute; that Stothard treated him badly is unproved; but Blake was -not much in the habit of waiting for proof in such cases. Stothard, -I say, may not have been morally in the wrong at all. But he was -intellectually and critically very much in the wrong; and Blake pointed -this out in a pamphlet which, though defaced here and there with his -fantastic malice, is a solid and powerful contribution to artistic and -literary criticism. - -Stothard, the elegant gentleman, the man of sensibility, the eighteenth -century æsthete, cast his condescending eye upon the Middle Ages. He -was of that age and school that only saw the Middle Ages by moonlight. -Chaucer’s Pilgrims were to him a quaint masquerade of hypocrisy or -superstition, now only interesting from its comic or antiquated -costume. The monk was amusing because he was fat, the wife of Bath -because she was gay, the Squire because he was dandified, and so on. -Blake knew as little about the Middle Ages as Stothard did; but Blake -knew about eternity and about man; he saw the image of God under all -garments. And in a rage which may really be called noble he tore in -pieces Stothard’s antiquarian frivolity, and asked him to look with a -more decent reverence at the great creations of a great poet. Stothard -called the young Squire of Chaucer “a fop.” Blake points out forcibly -and with fine critical truth that the daintiness of the Squire’s dress -is the mere last touch to his youth, gaiety, and completeness; but -that he was no fop at all, but a serious, chivalrous, and many-sided -gentleman who enjoyed books, understood music, and was hardy and prompt -in battle. Moreover, he is definitely described as humble, reverent, -and full of filial respect. That such a man should be called a fop -because of a frill or a feather Blake rightly regarded as a sign of the -mean superficiality of his rival’s ideas. Stothard spoke of “the fair -young wife of Bath”; Blake placidly points out that she had had four -husbands, and was, as in Blake’s picture, a loud, lewd, brazen woman -of quite advanced age, but of enormous vitality and humour. Stothard -makes the monk the mere comic monk of commonplace pictures, shaped like -a wine barrel and as full of wine. Blake points out that Chaucer’s monk -was a man, and an influential man; not without sensual faults, but also -not without dignity and authority. Everywhere, in fact, he reminds his -opponent that in entering the world of Chaucer he is not entering a -fancy-dress ball, but a temple carved with colossal and eternal images -of the gods of good and evil. Stothard was only interested in Chaucer’s -types because they were dead; Blake was interested in them because -they cannot die. In many of Blake’s pictures may be found one figure -quite monotonously recurrent--the figure of a monstrously muscular old -man, with hair and beard like a snowstorm, but with limbs like young -trees. That is Blake’s root conception; the Ancient of Days; the thing -which is old with all the awfulness of its past, but young with all the -energies of its future. - -[Illustration: SPELLS OF LAW (1793)] - -I make no excuse for dwelling at length on this in a life of Blake; -it is the most important event. It is worth while to describe this -quarrel between Blake and Stothard, because it is really a symbolic -quarrel, interesting to the whole world of artists and important to -the whole destiny of art. It is the quarrel between the artist who is -a poet and the artist who is only a painter. In many of his merely -technical designs Blake was a better and bolder artist than Stothard; -still, I should admit, and most people who saw the two pictures would -be ready to admit, that Stothard’s _Canterbury Pilgrims_ as a mere -piece of drawing and painting is better than Blake’s. But this if -anything only makes the whole argument more certain. It is the duel -between the artist who wishes only to be an artist and the artist who -has the higher and harder ambition to be a man--that is, an archangel. -Or, again, it might be put thus: whether an artist ought to be a -universalist or whether he is better as a specialist. Now against the -specialist, against the man who studies only art or electricity, or -the violin, or the thumbscrew or what not, there is only one really -important argument, and that, for some reason or other, is never -offered. People say that specialists are inhuman; but that is unjust. -People say an expert is not a man; but that is unkind and untrue. The -real difficulty about the specialist or expert is much more singular -and fascinating. The trouble with the expert is never that he is not -a man; it is always that wherever he is not an expert he is too much -of an ordinary man. Wherever he is not exceptionally learned he is -quite casually ignorant. This is the great fallacy in the case of what -is called the impartiality of men of science. If scientific men had -no idea beyond their scientific work it might be all very well--that -is to say, all very well for everybody except them. But the truth is -that, beyond their scientific ideas, they have not the absence of -ideas but the presence of the most vulgar and sentimental ideas that -happen to be common to their social clique. If a biologist had no -views on art and morals it might be all very well. The truth is that -a biologist has all the wrong views of art and morals that happen to -be going about in the smart set in his time. If Professor Tyndall had -held no views about politics, he could have done no harm with his views -about evolution. Unfortunately, however, he held a very low order of -political ideas from his sectarian and Orange ancestry; and those -ideas have poisoned evolution to this day. In short, the danger of the -mere technical artist or expert is that of becoming a snob or average -silly man in all things not affecting his peculiar topic of study; -wherever he is not an extraordinary man he is a particularly stupid -ordinary man. The very fact that he has studied machine guns to fight -the French proves that he has not studied the French. Therefore he will -probably say that they eat frogs. The very fact that he has learnt -to paint the light on medieval armour proves that he has not studied -the medieval philosophy. Therefore he will probably suppose that -medieval barons did nothing but order vassals into the dungeons beneath -the castle moat. Now all through the eighteenth and early nineteenth -centuries art, that is, the art of painting, suffered terribly from -this conventional and uncultured quality in the working artist. People -talk about something pedantic in the knowledge of the expert; but what -ruins mankind is the ignorance of the expert. In the period of which we -speak the experts in painting were bursting with this ignorance. The -early essays of Thackeray are full of the complaint, that the whole -trouble with painters was that they only knew how to paint. If they had -painted unimportant or contemptible subjects, all would have been well; -if they had painted the nearest donkey or lamp-post no one would have -complained. But exactly because they were experts they fell into the -mere snobbish sentimentalism of their times; they insisted on painting -all the things they had read about in the cheapest history books and -the most maudlin novels. As Thackeray has immortally described in the -case of Mr Gandish, they painted Boadishia and declared that they -had discovered “in their researches into ’istry” the story of King -Alfred and the Cakes. In other words, the expert does not escape his -age; he only lays himself open to the meanest and most obvious of the -influences of his age. The specialist does not avoid having prejudices; -he only succeeds in specialising in the most passing and illiterate -prejudices. - -Of all this type of technical ignorance Stothard is absolutely typical. -He was an admirable instance of the highly cultivated and utterly -ignorant man. He had spent his life in making lines swerve smoothly and -shadows creep exactly into their right place; he had never had any time -to understand the things that he was drawing except by their basest and -most conventional connotation. Somebody suggested that he should draw -some medieval pilgrims--that is, some vigorous types in the heyday of -European civilisation in the act of accepting the European religion. -But he who alone could draw them right was especially likely to see -them wrong. He had learnt, like a modern, the truth from newspapers, -because he had no time to read even encyclopedias. He had learnt how -to paint armour and armorial bearings; it was too much to expect him -to understand them. He had learnt to draw a horse; it was too late to -ask him to ride one. His whole business was somehow or other to make -pictures; and therefore when he looked at Chaucer, he could see nothing -but the picturesque. - -Against this sort of sound technical artist, another type of artist has -been eternally offered; this was the type of Blake. It was also the -type of Michael Angelo; it was the type of Leonardo da Vinci; it was -the type of several French mystics, and in our own country and recent -period, of Rossetti. Blake, as a painter among other things, belongs -to that small group of painters who did something else besides paint. -But this is indeed a very inadequate way of stating the matter. The -fuller and fairer way is this: that Blake was one of those few painters -who understood his subject as well as his picture. I have already -said that I think Stothard’s picture of the _Canterbury Pilgrims_ in -a purely technical sense better than his. Indeed, there is nothing -to be said against Stothard’s picture of the _Canterbury Pilgrims_, -except that it is not a picture of the _Canterbury Pilgrims_. Blake -(to summarise the whole matter as simply as it can be summarised) was -in the tradition of the best and most educated ideas about Chaucer; -Stothard was the inheritor of the most fashionable ideas and the worst. -The whole incident cannot be without its moral and effect for all -discussions about the morality or unmorality of art. If art could be -unmoral it might be all very well. But the truth is that unless art is -moral, art is not only immoral, but immoral in the most commonplace, -slangy, and prosaic way. In the future, the fastidious artists who -refuse to be anything but artists will go down to history as the -embodiment of all the vulgarities and banalities of their time. People -will point to a picture by Mr Sargent or Mr Shannon and say, “See, that -man had caught all the most middle class cant of the early twentieth -century.” - -[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE TO “AMERICA”] - -We can now recur, however, to the general relations of Blake with his -later patron. In a phrase of singular unconscious humour Mr Cromek -accused Blake of “a want of common politeness.” Common politeness -certainly can hardly be said to have been Blake’s strong point. But -Cromek’s politeness was certainly an uncommon sort of politeness. -One is tempted to be thankful that it is not a common sort. Cromek’s -notion of common politeness was to give the artist a guinea a drawing -on the understanding that he should get some more for engraving them, -and then give the engraving to somebody else who cost him next to -nothing. Blake, as we have said, resented this startling simplicity -of swindling. Blake was in such matters a singular mixture of madness -and shrewdness in the judgment of such things. He was the kind of man -whom a publisher found at one moment more vague and viewless than -any poet, and at the next moment more prompt and rapacious than any -literary agent. He was sometimes above his commercial enemy, sometimes -below him; but he never was on his level; one never knew where he was. -Cromek’s letter is a human document of extraordinary sincerity and -interest. The Yorkshire publisher positively breaks for once in his -life into a kind of poetry. He describes Blake as being “a combination -of the serpent and the dove.” He did not quite realise, perhaps, that -according to the New Testament he was paying Blake a compliment. But -the truth is, I fancy, that the painter and poet had been one too many -for the publisher. I think that on any occasion Cromek would have -willingly forgiven Blake for showing the harmlessness of the dove. I -fancy that on one occasion Blake must have shown the wisdom of the -serpent. - -From the mere slavery of this sweater Blake was probably delivered by -the help of the last and most human of his patrons, a young man named -John Linnell, a landscape painter and a friend of the great Mulready. -It is extraordinary to think that he was young enough to die in 1882; -and that a man who had read in the Prophetic Books the last crusades -of Blake may have lived to read in the newspapers some of the last -crusades of Gladstone. This man Linnell covers the last years of Blake -as with an ambulance tent in the wilderness. Blake never had any ugly -relations with Linnell, just as he had never had any with Butts. His -quarrels had wearied many friends; but by this time I think he was too -weary even to quarrel. On Linnell’s commission he began a system of -illustrations to Dante; but I think that no one expected him to live to -finish it. - - * * * * * - -HIS last sickness fell upon him very slowly, and he does not -seem to have taken much notice of it. He continued perpetually his -pictorial designs; and as long as they were growing stronger he seems -to have cared very little for the fact that he was growing weaker -himself. One of the last designs he made was one of the strongest -he ever made--the tremendous image of the Almighty bending forward, -foreshortened in a colossal perspective, to trace out the heavens with -a compass. Nowhere else has he so well expressed his primary theistic -ideas--that God, though infinitely gigantic, should be as solid as -a giant. He had often drawn men from the life; not unfrequently he -had drawn his dead men from the life. Here, according to his own -conceptions, he may be said to have drawn God from the life. When he -had finished the portrait (which he made sitting up in his sick-bed) -he called out cheerfully, “What shall I draw after that?” Doubtless -he racked his brain for some superlative spirit or archangel which -would not be a mere bathos after the other. His rolling eyes (those -round lustrous eyes which one can always see roll in his painted -portraits) fell on the old frail and somewhat ugly woman who had been -his companion so long, and he called out, “Catherine, you have been -an angel to me; I will draw you next.” Throwing aside the sketch of -God measuring the universe, he began industriously to draw a portrait -of his wife, a portrait which is unfortunately lost, but which must -have substantially resembled the remarkable sketch which a friend drew -some months afterwards; the portrait of a woman at once plain and -distinguished, with a face that is supremely humorous and at once harsh -and kind. Long before that portrait was drawn, long before those months -had elapsed, William Blake was dead. - -[Illustration: PRELUDIUM (1793)] - -Whatever be the explanation, it is quite certain that Blake had more -positive joy on his death-bed than any other of the sons of Adam. One -has heard of men singing hymns on their death-beds, in low plaintive -voices. Blake was not at all like that on his death-bed: the room -shook with his singing. All his songs were in praise of God, and -apparently new: all his songs were songs of innocence. Every now and -then he would stop and cry out to his wife, “Not mine! Not mine!” -in a sort of ecstatic explanation. He truly seemed to wait for the -opening of the door of death as a child waits for the opening of the -cupboard on his birthday. He genuinely and solemnly seemed to hear -the hoofs of the horses of death as a baby hears on Christmas eve the -reindeer-hooves of Santa Claus. He was in his last moments in that -wonderful world of whiteness in which white is still a colour. He would -have clapped his hands at a white snowflake and sung as at the white -wings of an angel at the moment when he himself turned suddenly white -with death. - - * * * * * - -AND NOW, after a due pause, someone will ask and we must -answer a popular question which, like many popular questions, is really -a somewhat deep and subtle one. To put the matter quite simply, as the -popular instinct would put it, “Was William Blake mad?” It is easy -enough to say, of course, in the non-committal modern manner that it -all depends on how you define madness. If you mean it in its practical -or legal sense (which is perhaps the most really useful sense of all), -if you mean was William Blake unfit to look after himself, unable to -exercise civic functions or to administer property, then certainly the -answer is “No.” Blake was a citizen, and capable of being a very good -citizen. Blake, so far from being incapable of managing property, was -capable (in so far as he chose) of collecting a great deal of it. His -conduct was generally business-like; and when it was unbusiness-like -it was not through any subhuman imbecility or superhuman abstraction, -but generally through an unmixed exhibition of very human bad temper. -Again, if when we say “Was Blake mad?” we mean was he fundamentally -morbid, was his soul cut off from the universe and merely feeding on -itself, then again the answer is emphatically “No.” There was nothing -defective about Blake; he was in contact with all the songs and smells -of the universe, and he was entirely guiltless of that one evil element -which is almost universal in the character of the morbidly insane--I -mean secrecy. Yet again, if we mean by madness anything inconsistent -or unreasonable, then Blake was not mad. Blake was one of the most -consistent men that ever lived, both in theory and practice. Blake may -have been quite wrong, but he was not in the least unreasonable. He was -quite as calm and scientific as Herbert Spencer on the basis of his own -theory of things. He was vain to the last degree; but it was the gay -and gusty vanity of a child, not the imprisoned pride of a maniac. In -all these aspects we can say with confidence that the man was not at -least obviously mad or completely mad. But if we ask whether there was -not some madness about him, whether his naturally just mind was not -subject to some kind of disturbing influence which was not essential to -itself, then we ask a very different question, and require, unless I am -mistaken, a very different answer. - -When all Philistine mistakes are set aside, when all mystical ideas -are appreciated, there is a real sense in which Blake was mad. It -is a practical and certain sense, exactly like the sense in which -he was not mad. In fact, in almost every case of his character and -extraordinary career we can safely offer this proposition, that if -there was something wrong with it, it was wrong even from his own best -standpoint. People talk of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober; -it is easy to appeal from Blake mad to Blake sane. - -When Blake lived at Felpham angels appear to have been as native to -the Sussex trees as birds. Hebrew patriarchs walked on the Sussex -Downs as easily as if they were in the desert. Some people will be -quite satisfied with saying that the mere solemn attestation of such -miracles marks a man as a madman or a liar. But that is a short cut of -sceptical dogmatism which is not far removed from impudence. Surely we -cannot take an open question like the supernatural and shut it with a -bang, turning the key of the mad-house on all the mystics of history. -To call a man mad because he has seen ghosts is in a literal sense -religious persecution. It is denying him his full dignity as a citizen -because he cannot be fitted into your theory of the cosmos. It is -disfranchising him because of his religion. It is just as intolerant -to tell an old woman that she cannot be a witch as to tell her that -she must be a witch. In both cases you are setting your own theory of -things inexorably against the sincerity or sanity of human testimony. -Such dogmatism at least must be quite as impossible to anyone calling -himself an agnostic as to anyone calling himself a spiritualist. You -cannot take the region called the unknown and calmly say that though -you know nothing about it, you know that all its gates are locked. You -cannot say, “This island is not discovered yet; but I am sure that -it has a wall of cliffs all round it and no harbour.” That was the -whole fallacy of Herbert Spencer and Huxley when they talked about the -unknowable instead of about the unknown. An agnostic like Huxley must -concede the possibility of a gnostic like Blake. We do not know enough -about the unknown to know that it is unknowable. - -If, then, people call Blake mad merely for seeing ghosts and angels, -we shall venture to dismiss them as highly respectable but very -bigoted people. But then, again, there is another line along which the -same swift assumption can be made. While he was at Felpham Blake’s -eccentricity broke out on another side. A quality that can frankly -be called indecency appeared in his pictures, his opinions, and to -some extent in his conduct. But it was an idealistic indecency. Blake’s -mistake was not so much that he aimed at sin as that he aimed at an -impossible and inhuman sinlessness. It is said that he proposed to his -wife that they should live naked in their back garden like Adam and -Eve. If the husband ever really proposed this, the wife succeeded in -averting it. But in his verse and prose, particularly in some of the -Prophetic Books, he began to talk very wildly. However far he really -meant to go against common morality, he certainly meant (like Walt -Whitman) to go the whole way against common decency. He professed -to regard the veiling of the most central of human relations as the -unnatural cloaking of a natural work. He was never at a loss for an -effective phrase; and in one of his poems on this topic he says finely -if fallaciously-- - - “Does the sower sow by night - Or the ploughman in darkness plough?” - -[Illustration: A PROPHECY (1793)] - -But his speculations went past decorum and at least touched the idea -of primary law. In some parts of the Prophetic Books (written in the -period which may fairly be called a paroxysm) he really seems to be -preaching the idea that sin is sometimes a good thing because it leads -to forgiveness. I cannot think this idea does much credit to Blake’s -power of logic, which was generally good. The very fact of forgiveness -implies that what led up to it was evil. But though the position is -hardly rational, it is quite unfair to say that it is insane. It is no -sillier or more untenable than a hundred sophistries that one may hear -at every tea-table or read in every magazine. A little while ago the -family of a young lady attempted to shut her up in an asylum because -she believed in Free Love. This atrocious injustice was stopped; but -many people wrote to the papers to say that marriage was a very fine -thing--as indeed it is. Of course the answer was simple: that if -everyone with silly opinions were locked up in an asylum, the asylums -of the twentieth century would have to be somewhat unduly enlarged. The -same common-sense applies to the case of Blake. That he did maintain -some monstrous propositions proves that he was not always right, -that he had even a fine faculty for being exceedingly wrong. But it -does not prove that he was a madman or anything remotely resembling -one. Nor is there any reason to suppose that he was carried into any -practice inconsistent with his strong domestic affections. Indeed, I -think that much of Blake’s anarchy is connected with his innocence. I -have noticed the combination more than once, especially in men of Irish -blood like Blake. Heavy, full-blooded men feel the need of bonds and -are glad to bind themselves. But the chaste are often lawless. They -are theoretically reckless, because they are practically pure. Thus -Ireland, while it is the island of rebels is also the island of saints, -and might be called the island of virgins. - - * * * * * - -BUT when we have reached this point--that this ugly element in -Blake was an intrusion of Blake’s mere theory of things--we have come, -I think, very close to the true principle to be pursued in estimating -his madness or his sanity. Blake the mere poet, would have been decent -and respectable. It was Blake the logician who was forced to be almost -blackguardly. In other words, Blake was not mad; for such part of him -as was mad was not Blake. It was an alien influence, and in a sense -even an accidental one; in an extreme sense it might even be called -antagonist. Properly to appreciate what this influence was, we must see -the man’s artistic character as a whole and notice what are its biggest -forces and its biggest defects when taken in the bulk--in the whole -mass of his poetry, his pictures, his criticism and his conversation. -Blake’s position can be summed up as a sufficiently simple problem. -Blake could do so many things. Why is it that he could do none of them -quite right? - -Blake was not a frail or fairy-like sort of person; he had not the -light unity, the capering completeness of the entirely irresponsible -man. He had not the independence, one might almost say the omnipotence, -that comes from being hopelessly weak. There was nothing in him of Mr -Skimpole; he was not a puff of silver thistledown. He was not a reed -shaken in the wind in Jordan. He was rather an oak rooted in England, -but an oak half killed by the ivy. The interesting question of -spiritual botany is--What was the ivy that half killed him? Originally -his intellect was not only strong but strongly rational--one might -almost say strongly sceptical. There never was a man of whom it was -less true to say (as has been said) that he was a light sensitive -lyrist, a mere piper of pretty songs for children. His mind was like -a ruined Roman arch; it has been broken by barbarians; but what there -is of it is Roman. So it was with William Blake’s reason; it had -been broken (or cracked) by something; but what there was of it was -reasonable. In his art criticism he never said anything that was not -strictly consistent with his first principles. In his controversies, -in the many matters in which he argued angrily or venomously, he never -lost the thread of the argument. Like every great mystic he was also a -great rationalist. Read Blake’s attack upon Stothard’s picture of the -_Canterbury Pilgrims_, and you will see that he could not only write -a quite sensible piece of criticism, but even a quite slashing piece -of journalism. By nature one almost feels that he might have done -anything; have conducted campaigns like Napoleon or studied the stars -like Newton. But something, when all is said and done, had eaten away -whole parts of that powerful brain, leaving parts of it standing like -great Greek pillars in a desert. What was this thing? - -[Illustration: A FEMALE DREAM (1793)] - - * * * * * - -MADNESS is not an anarchy. Madness is a bondage: a -contraction. I will not call Blake mad because of anything he would -say. But I will call him mad in so far as there was anything he _must_ -say. Now, there are notes of this tyranny in Blake. It was not like the -actual disease of the mind that makes a man believe he is a cat or a -dog; it was more like the disease of the nerves, which makes a man say -“dog” when he means “cat.” One mental jump or jerk of this nature may -be especially remarked in Blake. He had in his poetry one very peculiar -habit, a habit which cannot be considered quite sane. It was the habit -of being haunted, one may say hag-ridden by a fixed phrase, which gets -itself written in ten separate poems on quite different subjects, when -it had no apparent connection with any of them. The amusing thing is -that the omnipresent piece of poetry is generally the one piece that is -quite incomprehensible. The verse that Blake’s readers can understand -least seems always to be the verse that Blake likes best. I give an -ordinary instance, if anything connected with Blake can be called -ordinary. - -The harmless Hayley, who was a fool, but a gentleman and a poet (a -country gentleman and a very minor poet), provoked Blake’s indignation -by giving him commissions for miniatures when he wanted to do something -else, probably frescoes as big as the house. Blake wrote the epigram-- - - “If Hayley knows the thing you cannot do, - That is the very thing he’ll set you to.” - -And then, feeling that there was a lack of colour and warmth in the -portrait, he lightly added, for no reason in particular, the lines-- - - “And when he could not act upon my wife, - Hired a villain to bereave my life.” - -There is, apparently, no trace here of any allusion to fact. Hayley -never tried to bereave anybody’s life. He lacked even the adequate -energy. Nevertheless I should not say for a moment that this startling -fiction proved Blake to be mad. It proved him to be violent and -recklessly suspicious; but there was never the least doubt that he -was that. But now turn to another poem of Blake’s, a merely romantic -and narrative poem called “Fair Eleanor,” which is all about somebody -acting on somebody else’s wife. Here we find the same line repeated -word for word in quite another connection-- - - “Hired a villain to bereave my life.” - -It is not a musical line; it does not resemble English grammar to -any great extent. Yet Blake is somehow forced to put it into a poem -about a real person exactly as he had put it into an utterly different -poem about a fictitious person. There seems no particular reason for -writing it even once; but he has to write it again and again. This is -what I do call a mad spot on the mind. I should not call Blake mad for -hating Hayley or for boiling Hayley (though he had done him nothing -but kindness), or for making up any statements however monstrous or -mystical about Hayley. I should not in the least degree think that -Blake was mad if he had said that he saw Hayley’s soul in hell, that -it had green hair, one eye, and a serpent for a nose. A man may have a -wild vision without being insane; a man may have a lying vision without -being insane. But I should smell insanity if in turning over Blake’s -books I found that this one pictorial image obsessed him apart from -its spiritual meaning; if I found that the arms of the Black Prince -in “King Edward III.” were a cyclops vert rampant, nosed serpentine; -if I found that Flaxman was praised for his kindness to a one-eyed -animal with green bristles and a snaky snout; if Albion or Ezekiel had -appeared to Blake and commanded him to write a history of the men in -the moon, who are one-eyed, green-haired, with long curling noses; if -any flimsy sketch or fine decorative pattern that came from Blake’s -pencil might reproduce ceaselessly and meaninglessly the writhing -proboscis and the cyclopean eye. I should call _that_ morbidity or even -madness; for it would be the triumph of the palpable image over its own -intellectual meaning. And there is something of that madness in the -dark obstinacy or weakness that makes Blake introduce again and again -these senseless scraps of rhyme, as if they were spells to keep off the -devil. - -In four or five different poems, without any apparent connection with -those poems, occur these two extraordinary lines-- - - “The caterpillar on the leaf - Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.” - -In the abstract this might perhaps mean something, though it would, -I think, take most people some time to see what it could mean. In -the abstract it may perhaps involve some allusion to a universal law -of sacrifice in nature. In the concrete--that is, in the context--it -involves no allusion to anything in heaven or earth. Here is another -couplet that constantly recurs-- - - “The red blood ran from the grey monk’s side, - His hands and his feet were wounded wide.” - -This is worse still; for this cannot be merely abstract. The ordinary -rational reader will naturally exclaim at last, with a not unnatural -explosion, “Who the devil is the grey monk? and why should he be always -bleeding in places where he has no business?” Now to say that this sort -of thing is not insanity of some kind is simply to play the fool -with the words. A madman who writes this may be higher than ordinary -humanity; so may any madman in Hanwell. But he is a madman in every -sense that the word has among men. I have taken this case of actual and -abrupt irrelevance as the strongest form of the thing; but it has other -forms almost equally decisive. For instance, Blake had a strong sense -of humour, but it was not under control; it could be eclipsed and could -completely disappear. There was certainly a spouting fountain of fierce -laughter in the man who could write in an epigram-- - - “A dirty sneaking knave I knew ... - Oh, Mr. Cromek, how do you do?” - -[Illustration: THE TYGER (1794)] - -Yet the laughter was as fitful as it was fierce; and it can suddenly -fail. Blake’s sense of humour can sometimes completely desert him. He -writes a string of verses against cruelty to the smallest creature as a -sort of mystical insult to the universe. It contains such really fine -couplets as these-- - - “Each outcry of the hunted hare - A fibre from the brain can tear.” - - “A skylark wounded in the wing, - A cherubim does cease to sing.” - -Or again, in a more fanciful but genuinely weird way-- - - “He who torments the chafer’s sprite - Weaves a bower in endless night.” - -And then, after all this excellent and quite serious poetry, Blake can -calmly write down the following two lines-- - - “He who the ox to wrath has moved - Shall never be by woman loved.” - -One could hardly find a more Gilbertian absurdity in the conjunction of -ideas in the whole of the “Bab Ballads” than the idea that the success -of some gentleman in the society of ladies depends upon whether he has -previously at some time or other slightly irritated an ox. Such sudden -inaccesibility to laughter must be called a morbid symptom. It must -mean a blind spot on the brain. The whole thing, of course, would prove -nothing if Blake were a common ranter incapable of writing well, or a -common dunce incapable of seeing a joke. Such a man might easily be -sane enough: he might be as sane as he was stupid. If Blake had always -written badly he might be sane. But a man who could write so well and -did write so badly must be mad. - -What was it that was eating away a part of Blake’s brain? I venture -to offer an answer which in the eyes of many people will have nothing -to recommend it except the accident of its personal sincerity. I -firmly believe that what did hurt Blake’s brain was the reality of his -spiritual communications. In the case of all poets, and especially in -the case of Blake, the phrase “an inspired poet” commonly means a good -poet. About Blake it is specially instinctive. And about Blake, I am -quite convinced, it is specially untrue. His inspired poems were not -his good poems. His inspired poems were very often his particularly bad -ones; they were bad by inspiration. If a ploughman says that he saw a -ghost, it is not quite sufficient to answer merely that he is a madman. -It may have been seeing the ghost that drove him mad. His lunacy may -not prove the falsehood of his tale, but rather its terrible truth. So -in the same way I differ from the common or sceptical critics of a man -like Blake. Such critics say that his visions were false because he was -mad. I say he was mad because his visions were true. It was exactly -because he was unnaturally exposed to a hail of forces that were more -than natural that some breaches were made in his mental continuity, -some damage was done to his mind. He was, in a far more awful sense -than Goldsmith, “an inspired idiot.” He was an idiot because he was -inspired. - -When he said of “Jerusalem” that its authors were in eternity, one can -only say that nobody is likely to go there to get any more of their -work. He did not say that the author of “The Tyger” was in eternity; -the author of that glorious thing was in Carnaby Market. It will -generally be found, I think, with some important exceptions, that -whenever Blake talked most about inspiration he was actually least -inspired. That is, he was least inspired by whatever spirit presides -over good poetry and good thinking. He was abundantly inspired by -whatever spirit presides over bad poetry or bad thinking. Whatever -god specialises in unreadable and almost unpronounceable verse -was certainly present when he invented the extraordinary history of -“William Bond” or the maddening metre of the lines “To Mr Butts.” -Whatever archangel rules over utter intellectual error had certainly -spread his wings of darkness over Blake when he came to the conclusion -that a man ought to be bad in order to be pardoned. But these -unthinkable thoughts are mostly to be found in his most unliterary -productions; notably in the Prophetic Books. To put my meaning broadly, -the opinions which nobody can agree with are mostly in the books that -nobody can read. I really believe that this was not from Blake, but -from his spirits. It is all very well for great men, like Mr Rossetti -and Mr Swinburne, to trust utterly to the seraphim of Blake. They may -naturally trust angels--they do not believe in them. But I do believe -in angels, and incidentally in fallen angels. - -[Illustration: HOLY THURSDAY (1794)] - - * * * * * - -THERE is no danger to health in being a mystic; but there -may be some danger to health in being a spiritualist. It would be a -very poor pun to say that a taste for spirits is bad for the health; -nevertheless, oddly enough, though a poor pun it is a perfectly -correct philosophical parallel. The difference between having a -real religion and having a mere curiosity about psychic marvels is -really very like the difference between drinking beer and drinking -brandy, between drinking wine and drinking gin. Beer is a food as -well as a stimulant; so a positive religion is a comfort as well as -an adventure. A man drinks his wine because it is his favourite wine, -the pleasure of his palate or the vintage of his valley. A man drinks -alcohol merely because it is alcoholic. So a man calls upon his gods -because they are good or at any rate good to him, because they are -the idols that protect his tribe or the saints that have blessed his -birthday. But spiritualists call upon spirits merely because they -are spirits; they ask for ghosts merely because they are ghosts. I -have often been haunted with a fancy that the creeds of men might be -paralleled and represented in their beverages. Wine might stand for -genuine Catholicism and ale for genuine Protestantism; for these at -least are real religions with comfort and strength in them. Clean -cold Agnosticism would be clean cold water, an excellent thing, if -you can get it. Most modern ethical and idealistic movements might -be well represented by soda-water--which is a fuss about nothing. Mr -Bernard Shaw’s philosophy is exactly like black coffee--it awakens -but it does not really inspire. Modern hygienic materialism is very -like cocoa; it would be impossible to express one’s contempt for it in -stronger terms than that. Sometimes, very rarely, one may come across -something that may honestly be compared to milk, an ancient and heathen -mildness, an earthly yet sustaining mercy--the milk of human kindness. -You can find it in a few pagan poets and a few old fables; but it is -everywhere dying out. Now if we adopt this analogy for the sake of -argument, we shall really come back to the bad pun; we shall conclude -that a taste for spiritualism is very like a taste for spirits. The -man who drinks gin or methylated spirit does it only because it makes -him super-normal; so the man who with tables or planchettes invokes -supernatural beings invokes them only because they are supernatural. -He does not know that they are good or wise or helpful. He knows that -he desires the deity, but he does not even know that he likes him. He -attempts to invoke the god without adoring him. He is interested in -whatever he can find out touching supernatural existence; but he is not -really filled with joy as by the face of a divine friend, any more than -anyone actually likes the taste of methylated spirit. In such psychic -investigations, in a word, there is excitement, but not affectional -satisfaction; there is brandy, but no food. - -Now Blake was in the most reckless, and sometimes even in the most -vulgar, sense a spiritualist. He threw the doors of his mind open to -what the late George Macdonald called in a fine phrase “the canaille -of the other world.” I think it is impossible to look at some of the -pictures which Blake drew, under what he considered direct spiritual -dictation, without feeling that he was from time to time under -influences that were not only evil but even foolishly evil. I give -one case out of numberless cases. Blake drew, from his own vision a -head which he called _The Man who built the Pyramids_. Anyone can -appreciate the size and mystery of the idea; and most people would form -some sort of fancy of how a great poetical painter, such as Michael -Angelo or Watts, would have rendered the idea; they can conceive a face -swarthy and secret, or ponderous and lowering, or staring and tropical, -or Appolonian and pure. Whatever was the man who built the pyramids, -one feels that he must (to put it mildly) have been a clever man. We -look at Blake’s picture of the man, and with a start behold the face -of an idiot. Nay, we behold even the face of an evil idiot, a leering, -half-witted face with no chin and the protuberant nose of a pig. Blake -declared that he drew this face from a real spirit, and I see no reason -to doubt that he did. But if he did, it was not really the man who -built the pyramids; it was not any spirit with whom a gentleman ought -to wish to be on intimate terms. That vision of swinish silliness was -really a bad vision to have, it left a smell of demoniac silliness -behind it. I am very sure that it left Blake sillier than it found him. - -In this way, rightly or wrongly, I explain the chaos and occasional -weakness which perplexes Blake’s critics and often perplexed Blake -himself. I think he suffered from the great modern loneliness and -scepticism which is the root of the sorrows of the mere spiritualist. -The tragedy of the spiritualist simply is that he has to know his gods -before he loves them. But a man ought to love his gods before he is -sure that there are any. The sublime words of St John’s Gospel permit -of a sympathetic parody; if a man love not God whom he has not seen, -how shall he love God whom he has seen? If we do not delight in Santa -Claus even as a fancy, how can we expect to be happy even if we find -that he is a fact? But a mystic like Blake simply puts up a placard for -the whole universe, like an old woman letting lodgings. The mansion of -his mind was indeed a magnificent one; but no one must be surprised if -the first man that walked into it was “the man who built the pyramids,” -the man with the face of a moon-calf. And whether or no he built the -pyramids, he unbuilt the house. - -But this conclusion touching Blake’s original sanity but incidental -madness brings us abruptly in contact with the larger question of -how far his soul and creed gained or suffered from his whole position; -his heterodoxy, his orthodoxy, his attitude towards his age. Properly -to do all this we must do now at the end of this book what ought (but -the form of the book forbade) more strictly to have been done at the -beginning; we must speak as shortly as possible about the actual age -in which Blake lived. And we cannot do it without saying something, -which we will say as briefly as possible, of that whole great western -society and tradition to which he belonged and we belong equally; that -Christendom or continent of Europe which is at once too big for us to -measure and too close for us to understand. - -[Illustration: ARIEL] - -What was the eighteenth century? Or rather (to speak less mechanically -and with more intelligence), what was that mighty and unmistakable -phase or mood through which western society was passing about the time -that William Blake became its living child? What was that persistent -trend or spirit which all through the eighteenth century lifted itself -like a very slow and very smooth wave to the deafening breaker of the -French Revolution? Of course it meant something slightly different to -all its different children. Let us here ask ourselves what it meant to -Blake, the poet, the painter, and the dreamer. Let us try to state the -thing as nearly as possible in terms of his spirit and in relation to -his unique work in this world. - -Every man of us to-day is three men. There is in every modern European -three powers so distinct as to be almost personal, the trinity of our -earthly destiny. The three may be rudely summarised thus. First and -nearest to us is the Christian, the man of the historic church, of the -creed that must have coloured our minds incurably whether we regard it -(as I do) as the crown and combination of the other two, or whether -we regard it as an accidental superstition which has remained for two -thousand years. First, then, comes the Christian; behind him comes -the Roman, the citizen of that great cosmopolitan realm of reason and -order in the level and equality of which Christianity arose. He is the -stoic who is so much sterner than the anchorites. He is the republican -who is so much prouder than kings. He it is that makes straight roads -and clear laws, and for whom good sense is good enough. And the third -man--he is harder to speak of. He has no name, and all true tales of -him are blotted out; yet he walks behind us in every forest path and -wakes within us when the wind wakes at night. He is the origins--he -is the man in the forest. It is no part of our subject to elaborate -the point; but it may be said in passing that the chief claim of -Christianity is exactly this--that it revived the pre-Roman madness, -yet brought into it the Roman order. The gods had really died long -before Christ was born. What had taken their place was simply the god -of government--Divus Cæsar. The pagans of the real Roman Empire were -nothing if not respectable. It is said that when Christ was born the -cry went through the world that Pan was dead. The truth is that when -Christ was born Pan for the first time began to stir in his grave. The -pagan gods had become pure fables when Christianity gave them a new -lease of life as devils. I venture to wager that if you found one man -in such a society who seriously believed in the personal existence of -Apollo, he was probably a Christian. Christianity called to a kind -of clamorous resurrection all the old supernatural instincts of the -forests and the hill. But it put upon this occult chaos the Roman idea -of balance and sanity. Thus, marriage was a sacrament, but mere sex -was not a sacrament as it was in many of the frenzies of the forest. -Thus wine was a sacrament with Christ; but drunkenness was not a -sacrament as with Dionysus. In short, Christianity (merely historically -seen) can best be understood as an attempt to combine the reason of -the market-place with the mysticism of the forest. It was an attempt -to accept all the superstitions that are necessary to man and to be -philosophic at the end of them. Pagan Rome has sought to bring order or -reason among men. Christian Rome sought to bring order and reason among -gods. - - * * * * * - -GIVEN these three principles, the epoch we discuss can be -defined. The eighteenth century was primarily the return of reason--and -of Rome. It was the coming to the top of the stoic and civic element in -that triple mixture. It was full, like the Roman world, of a respect -for law. Note that the priest still wears, in the main, the popular -garb of the Middle Ages: but the lawyer still wears the head-dress of -the eighteenth century. Yet while the Roman world was full of rule it -was also full of revolution. But indeed the two things necessarily -go together. The English used to boast that they had achieved a -constitutional revolution; but every revolution must necessarily be a -constitutional revolution, in so far that it must have reference to -some antecedent theory of justice. A man must have rights before he -can have wrongs. So it may be constantly remarked that the countries -which have done most to spread legal generalisations and judicial -decisions are those most filled with political fury and potential -rebellion--Rome, for instance, and France. Rome planted in every tribe -and village the root of the Roman law at the very time when her own -town was torn with faction and bloody with partisan butcheries. France -forced intellectually on nearly all Europe an excellent code of law, -and she did it when her own streets were hardly cleared of corpses, -when she was in a panting pause between two pulverising civil wars. -And, on the other hand, you may remark that the countries where there -is no revolution are the countries where there is no law; where mental -chaos has clouded every intelligible legal principle--such countries as -Morocco and modern England. - -[Illustration: PRELUDIUM TO URIZEN (1794)] - -The eighteenth century, then, ended in revolution because it began in -law. It was the age of reason, and therefore the age of revolt. It is -needless to say how systematically it revived all the marks and motives -of that ancient pagan society in which Christianity first arose. Its -greatest art was oratory, its favourite affectation was severity. Its -pet virtue was public spirit, its pet sin political assassination. It -endured the pompous, but hated the fantastic; it had pure contempt for -anything that could be called obscure. To a virile mind of that epoch, -such as Dr Johnson or Fox, a poem or picture that did not at once -explain itself was simply like a gun that did not go off or a clock -that stopped suddenly: it was simply a failure, fit for indifference or -for a fleeting satire. In spite of their solid convictions (for which -they died) the men of that time always used the word “enthusiast” -as a term of scorn. All that we call mysticism they called madness. -Such was the eighteenth century civilisation; such was the strict and -undecorated frame from which look at us the blazing eyes of William -Blake. - -So far Blake and his century are a mere contrast. But here we must -remember that the three elements of Europe are not the strata of a -rock, but the strands of a rope; since all three have existed not -one of them has ever appeared entirely unmixed. You may call the -Renascence pagan, but Michael Angelo cannot be imagined as anything -but a Christian. You may call Thomas Aquinas Christian, but you cannot -say exactly what he would have been without Aristotle the pagan. You -may, even in calling Virgil the poet of Roman dignity and good sense, -still ask whether he did not remember something older than Rome when -he spoke of the good luck of him who knew the field gods and the old -man of the forest. In the same way there was even in the eighteenth -century an element of the purely Christian and an element of the -purely primitive. And, as it happens, both these non-rational (or -non-Roman) strains in the eighteenth century are particularly important -in considering the mental make-up of William Blake. For the first alien -strain in this century practically represents all that is effective -and fine in this great genius, the second strain represents without -question all that is doubtful, all that is irritating, and all that is -ineffective in him. - - * * * * * - -IN the eighteenth century there were two elements not taken -from the Roman stoic or the Roman citizen. The first was what our -century calls humanitarianism--what that century called “the tear of -sensibility.” The old pagan commonwealths were democratic, but they -were not in the least humanitarian. They had no tears to spare for a -man at the mercy of the community; they reserved all their anger and -sympathy for the community at the mercy of a man. That individual -compassion for an individual case was a pure product of Christianity; -and when Voltaire flung himself with fury into the special case of -Calas, he was drawing all his energies from the religion that he -denied. A Roman would have rebelled for Rome, but not for Calas. -This personal humanitarianism is the relic of Christianity--perhaps -(if I may say so) the dregs of Christianity. Of this humanitarianism -or sentimentalism, or whatever it can best be called, Blake was the -enthusiastic inheritor. Being the great man that he was, he naturally -anticipated lesser men than himself; and among the men less than -himself I should count Shelley, for instance, and Tolstoy. He carried -his instinct of personal kindness to the point of denouncing war as -such-- - - “Naught can deform the human race - Like the Armourer’s iron brace.” - -Or, again-- - - “The strongest poison ever known - Came from Cæsar’s iron crown.” - -[Illustration: HAR AND HEVA (1795)] - -No pagan republican, such as those on whom the eighteenth century ethic -was founded, could have made head or tail of this mere humanitarian -horror. He could not even have comprehended this idea--that war is -immoral when it is not unjust. You cannot find this sentiment in -the pagans of antiquity, but you can find it in the pagans of the -eighteenth century; you can find it in the speeches of Fox, the -soliloquies of Rousseau and even in the sniggering of Gibbon. Here -is an element of the eighteenth century which is derived darkly but -indubitably from Christianity, and in which Blake strongly shares. -Regulus has returned to be tortured and pagan Rome is saved; but -Christianity thinks a little of Regulus. A man must be pitied even when -he must be killed. That individual compassion provoked Blake to violent -and splendid lines-- - - “And the slaughtered soldier’s cry - Runs in blood down palace walls.” - -The eighteenth century did not find that pity where it found its pagan -liberty and its pagan law. It took this out of the very churches -that it violated and from the desperate faith that it denied. This -irrational individual pity is the purely Christian element in the -eighteenth century. This irrational individual pity is the purely -Christian element in William Blake. - -And second, there was another eighteenth century element that was -neither of Christian nor of pagan Rome. It was from the origins; -it had been in the world through the whole history of paganism and -Christianity; it had been in the world, but not of it. This element -appeared popularly in the eighteenth century in an extravagant -but unmistakable shape; the element can be summed up in one -word--Cagliostro. No other name is quite so adequate; but if anyone -desires a nobler name (a very noble one), we may say--Swedenborg. -There was in the eighteenth century, despite its obvious good sense, -this strain of a somewhat theatrical thaumaturgy. The history of -that element is, in the most literal sense of the word, horribly -interesting. For it all works back to the mere bogey feeling of the -beginnings. It is amusing to remark that in the eighteenth century for -the first time start up a number of societies which calmly announce -that they have existed almost from the beginning of the world. Of -these, of course, the best known instance is the Freemasons; according -to their own account they began with the Pyramids; but according to -everyone else’s account that can be effectively collected, they began -with the eighteenth century. Nevertheless the Freemasons are right in -the spirit even if they are wrong in the letter. There is a tradition -of things analogous to mystical masonry throughout all the historic -generations of Paganism and Christianity. There is a definite tradition -outside Christianity, not of rationalism, but of paganism, paganism in -the original and frightful forest sense--pagan magic. Christianity, -rightly or wrongly, always discouraged it on the ground that it was, -or tended to be, black magic. That is not here our concern. The point -is that this non-Christian supernaturalism, whether it was good or -bad, was continuous in spite of Christianity. Its signs and traces -can be seen in every age: it hung like a huge fume, in many monstrous -forms, over the dying Roman Empire: it was the energy in the Gnostics -who so nearly captured Christianity, and who were persecuted for their -pessimism; in the full sunlight of the living Church it dared to carve -its symbols upon the tombs of the Templars; and when the first sects -raised their heads at the Reformation, its ancient and awful voice was -heard. - -[Illustration: PHILANDER’S DUST (1796)] - -Now the eighteenth century was primarily the release (as its leaders -held) of reason and nature from the control of the Church. But when -the Church was once really weakened, it was the release of many -other things. It was not the release of reason only, but of a more -ancient unreason. It was not the release of the natural, but also -of the supernatural, and also, alas! of the unnatural. The heathen -mystics hidden for two thousand years came out of their caverns--and -Freemasonry was founded. It was entirely innocent in the manner of its -foundation; but so were all the other resurrections of this ancestral -occultism. I give but one obvious instance out of many. The idea of -enslaving another human soul, without lifting a finger or making a -gesture of force, of enslaving a soul simply by willing its slavery, is -an idea which all healthy human societies would regard and did regard -as hideous and detestable, if true. Throughout all the Christian ages -the witches and warlocks claimed this abominable power and boasted -of it. They were (somewhat excusably) killed for their boasting. The -eighteenth century rationalist movement came, intent, thank God, upon -much cleaner things, upon common justice and right reason in the state. -Nevertheless it did weaken Christianity, and in weakening Christianity -it uplifted and protected the wizard. Mesmer stepped forward, and -for the first time safely affirmed this infamous power to exist: for -the first time a warlock could threaten spiritual tyranny and not be -lynched. Nevertheless, if a mesmerist really had the powers which some -mesmerists have claimed, and which most novels give to him, there is (I -hope) no doubt at all that any decent mob would drown him like a witch. - -The revolt of the eighteenth century, then, did not merely release -naturalism, but a certain kind of supernaturalism also. And of this -particular kind of supernaturalism, Blake is particularly the heir. Its -coarse embodiment is Cagliostro. Its noble embodiment is Swedenborg. -But in both cases it can be remarked that the mysticism marks an -effort to escape from or even to forget the historic Christian, and -especially the Catholic Church. Cagliostro, being a man of mean -spirituality, separated himself from Catholicism by rearing against it -a blazing pageant of mystical paganism, of triangles, secret seals, -Eleusinian initiation, and all the vulgar refinements of a secret -society. Swedenborg, being a man of large and noble spirituality, -marked his separation from Catholicism by inventing out of his own -innocence and genius nearly all the old Catholic doctrines, sincerely -believing them to be his own discoveries. It is startling to note how -near Swedenborg was to Catholicism--in his insistence on free will, for -instance, on the humanity of the incarnate God, and on the relative -and mystical view of the Old Testament. There was in Blake a great -deal of Swedenborg (as he would have been the first to admit), and -there was, occasionally, a little of Cagliostro. Blake did not belong -to a secret society: for, to tell the truth, he had some difficulty -in belonging to any society. But Blake did talk a secret language. He -had something of that haughty and oligarchic element in his mysticism -which marked the old pagan secret societies and which marks the -Theosophists and oriental initiates to this day. There was in him, -besides the beneficent wealth of Swedenborg, some touch of Cagliostro -and the Freemasons. These things Blake did inherit from that break up -of belief that can be called the eighteenth century: we will debit him -with these as an inheritance. And when we have said this we have said -everything that can be said of any debt he owed. His debts are cleared -here. His estate is cleared with this payment. All that follows is -himself. - -If a man has some fierce or unfamiliar point of view, he must, even -when he is talking about his cat, begin with the origin of the cosmos; -for his cosmos is as private as his cat. Horace could tell his pupils -to plunge into the middle of the thing, because he and they were -agreed about the particular kind of thing; the author and his readers -substantially sympathised about the beauty of Helen or the duties of -Hector. But Blake really had to begin at the beginning, because it -was a different beginning. This explains the extraordinary air of -digression and irrelevancy which can be observed in some of the most -direct and sincere minds. It explains the bewildering allusiveness of -Dante; the galloping parentheses of Rabelais; the gigantic prefaces of -Mr Bernard Shaw. The brilliant man seems more lumbering and elaborate -than anyone else, because he has something to say about everything. -The very quickness of his mind makes the slowness of his narrative. For -he finds sermons in stones, in all the paving-stones of the street he -plods along. Every fact or phrase that occurs in the immediate question -carries back his mind to the ages and the initial power. Because he is -original he is always going back to the origins. - -[Illustration: A GROUP (1804)] - -Take, for instance, Blake’s verse rather than his pictorial art. When -the average sensible person reads Blake’s verse, he simply comes to -the conclusion that he cannot understand it. But in truth he has a -much better right to offer this objection to Blake than to most of the -slightly elusive or eccentric writers to whom he also offers it. Blake -is obscure in a much more positive and practical sense than Browning -is obscure--or, in another manner, Mr Henry James is obscure. Browning -is generally obscure through an almost brutal eagerness to get to big -truths, which leads him to smash a sentence and leave only bits of it. -Mr Henry James is obscure because he wishes to trace tiny truths by a -dissection for which human language (even in his exquisite hands) is -hardly equal. In short, Browning wishes almost unscrupulously to get to -the point. Mr James refuses to admit (on the mere authority of Euclid) -that the point is indivisible. But Blake’s obscurity is startlingly -different to both, it is at once more simple and more impenetrable. It -is not a different diction but a different language. It is not that we -cannot understand the sentences; it is that we often misunderstand the -words. The obscurity of Blake commonly consists in the fact that the -actual words used mean one thing in Blake and quite another thing in -the dictionary. Mr Henry James wants to split hairs; Browning wants to -tear them up by the roots. But in Blake the enigma is at once plainer -and more perplexing; it is simply this, that if Blake says “hairs” he -may not mean hairs, but something else--perhaps peacocks’ feathers. -To quote but one example out of a thousand; when Blake uses the word -“devils” he generally means some particularly exalted order of angels -such as preside over energy and imagination. - - * * * * * - -A VERBAL accident has confused the mystical with the -mysterious. Mysticism is generally felt vaguely to be itself vague--a -thing of clouds and curtains, of darkness or concealing vapours, of -bewildering conspiracies or impenetrable symbols. Some quacks have -indeed dealt in such things: but no true mystic ever loved darkness -rather than light. No pure mystic ever loved mere mystery. The mystic -does not bring doubts or riddles: the doubts and riddles exist -already. We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point -it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and -curtains of darkness, the confounding vapours, these are the daily -weather of this world. Whatever else we have grown accustomed to, we -have grown accustomed to the unaccountable. Every stone or flower is -a hieroglyphic of which we have lost the key; with every step of our -lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to -misunderstand. The mystic is not the man who makes mysteries but the -man who destroys them. The mystic is one who offers an explanation -which may be true or false, but which is _always_ comprehensible--by -which I mean, not that it is always comprehended, but that it always -can be comprehended, because there is always something to comprehend. -The man whose meaning remains mysterious fails, I think, as a mystic: -and Blake, as we shall see, did, for certain peculiar reasons of his -own, often fail in this way. But even when he was himself hard to -be understood, it was never through himself not understanding: it -was never because he was vague or mystified or groping, that he was -unintelligible. While his utterance was not only dim but dense, his -opinion was not only clear, but even cocksure. You and I may be a -little vague about the relations of Albion to Jerusalem, but Blake -is as certain about them as Mr Chamberlain about the relations of -Birmingham to the British Empire. And this can be said for his singular -literary style even at his worst, that we always feel that he is saying -something very plain and emphatic, even when we have not the wildest -notion of what it is. - -There is one element always to be remarked in the true mystic, however -disputed his symbolism, and that is its brightness of colour -and clearness of shape. I mean that we may be doubtful about the -significance of a triangle or the precise lesson conveyed by a -crimson cow. But in the work of a real mystic the triangle is a hard -mathematical triangle not to be mistaken for a cone or a polygon. The -cow is in colour a rich incurable crimson, and in shape unquestionably -a cow, not to be mistaken for any of its evolutionary relatives, -such as the buffalo or the bison. This can be seen very clearly, for -instance, in the Christian art of illumination as practised at its best -in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Christian decorators, -being true mystics, were chiefly concerned to maintain the reality -of objects. For the highest dogma of the spiritual is to affirm the -material. By plain outline and positive colour those pious artists -strove chiefly to assert that a cat was truly in the eyes of God a cat -and that a dog was preeminently doggish. This decision of tint and -outline belongs not only to Blake’s pictures, but even to his poetry. -Even in his descriptions there is no darkness, and practically, in -the modern sense, no distance. All his animals are as absolute as the -animals on a shield of heraldry. His lambs are of unsullied silver, -his lions are of flaming gold. His lion may lie down with his lamb, but -he will never really mix with him. - -[Illustration: THE WATERS OF LIFE (1804)] - -Really to make this point clear one would have to go back to the -twelfth century, or perhaps to Plato. Metaphysics must be avoided; they -are too exciting. But the root of the matter can be pretty well made -plain by one word. The whole difference is between the old meaning and -the new meaning of the word “Realist.” In modern fiction and science -a Realist means a man who begins at the outside of a thing: sometimes -merely at the end of a thing, knowing the monkey only by its tail or -the motor by its smell. In the twelfth century a Realist meant exactly -the opposite; it meant a man who began at the inside of a thing. The -mediæval philosopher would only have been interested in a motor because -it moved. He would have been interested (that is) only in the central -and original idea of a motor--in its ultimate motorishness. He would -have been concerned with a monkey only because of its monkeyhood; -not because it was like man but because it was unlike. If he saw an -elephant he would not say in the modern style, “I see before me a -combination of the tusks of a wild boar in unnatural development, of -the long nose of the tapir needlessly elongated, of the tail of the -cow unusually insufficient,” and so on. He would merely see an essence -of elephant. He would believe that this light and fugitive elephant -of an instant, as dancing and fleeting as the May-fly in May, was -nevertheless the shadow of an eternal elephant, conceived and created -by God. When you have quite realised this ancient sense in the reality -of an elephant, go back and read William Blake’s poems about animals, -as, for instance, about the lamb and about the tiger. You will see -quite clearly that he is talking of an eternal tiger, who rages and -rejoices for ever in the sight of God. You will see that he is talking -of an eternal and supernatural lamb, who can only feed happily in the -fields of Heaven. - -It is exactly here that we find the full opposition to that modern -tendency that can fairly be called “Impressionism.” Impressionism is -scepticism. It means believing one’s immediate impressions at the -expense of one’s more permanent and positive generalisations. It puts -what one notices above what one knows. It means the monstrous heresy -that seeing is believing. A white cow at one particular instant of the -evening light may be gold on one side and violet on the other. The -whole point of Impressionism is to say that she really is a gold and -violet cow. The whole point of Impressionism is to say that there is -no white cow at all. What can we tell, it cries, beyond what we can -see? But the essence of Mysticism is to insist that there is a white -cow, however veiled with shadow or painted with sunset gold. Blessed -are they who have seen the violet cow and who yet believe in the white -one. To the mystic a white cow has a sort of solid whiteness, as if -the cow were made out of frozen milk. To him a white horse has a -solid whiteness as if he were cut out of the firm English chalk, like -the White Horse in the valley of King Alfred. The cow’s whiteness is -more important than anything except her cowishness. If Blake had ever -introduced a white cow into one of his pictures, there would at least -have been no doubt about either of those two elements. Similarly -there would have been no doubt about them in any old Christian -illumination. On this point he is at one with all the mystics and with -all the saints. - -[Illustration: PLOUGHING THE EARTH (1804)] - -This explanation is really essential to the understanding of Blake, -because to the modern mind it is so easy to understand him in the -opposite sense. In the ordinary modern meaning Blake’s symbols are -not symbols at all. They are not allegories. An allegory nowadays -means taking something that does not exist as a symbol of something -that does exist. We believe, at least most of us do, that sin does -exist. We believe (on highly insufficient grounds) that a dragon does -not exist. So we make the unreal dragon an allegory of the real sin. -But that is not what Blake meant when he made the lamb the symbol -of innocence. He meant that there really is behind the universe an -eternal image called the Lamb, of which all living lambs are merely -the copies or the approximation. He held that eternal innocence to be -an actual and even an awful thing. He would not have seen anything -comic, any more than the Christian Evangelist saw anything comic, in -talking about the Wrath of the Lamb. If there were a lamb in one of -Æsop’s fables, Æsop would never be so silly as to represent him as -angry. But Christianity is more daring than Æsop, and the wrath of the -Lamb is its great paradox. If there is an immortal lamb, a being whose -simplicity and freshness are for ever renewed, then it is truly and -really a more creepy idea to horrify that being into hostility than to -defy the flaming dragon or challenge darkness or the sea. No old wolf -or world-worn lion is so awful as a creature that is always young--a -creature that is always newly born. But the main point here is simpler. -It is merely that Blake did not mean that meekness was true and the -lamb only a pretty fable. If anything he meant that meekness was a -mere shadow of the everlasting lamb. The distinction is essential to -anyone at all concerned for this rooted spirituality which is the only -enduring sanity of mankind. The personal is not a mere figure for the -impersonal; rather the impersonal is a clumsy term for something more -personal than common personality. God is not a symbol of goodness. -Goodness is a symbol of God. - -Some very odd passages in Blake become clear if we keep this in mind. -I do not wish in this book to dwell unduly on the other side of Blake, -the literary side. But there are queer facts worth remarking, and this -is one of them. Blake was sincere; if he was insane he was insane with -the very solidity and completeness of his sincerity. And the quaintest -mark of his sincerity is this, that in his poetry he constantly writes -things that look like mere mistakes. He writes one of his most colossal -convictions and the average reader thinks it is a misprint. To give -only one example not connected with the matter in hand, the fine though -somewhat frantic poem called “The Everlasting Gospel” begins exactly as -the modern humanitarian and essential Christian would like it to begin-- - - “The vision of Christ that thou dost see - Is my vision’s greatest enemy.” - -It goes on (to the modern Christian’s complete satisfaction) with -denunciations of priests and praise of the pure Gospel Jesus; and then -comes a couplet like this-- - - “Thine is the friend of all mankind, - Mine speaks in parables to the blind.” - -And the modern humanitarian Christian finds the orthodox Christ calmly -rebuked because he is the friend of all mankind. The modern Christian -simply blames the printer. He can only suppose that the words “Thine” -and “Mine” have been put in each other’s places by accident. Blake, -however, as it happens, meant exactly what he said. His private vision -of Christ was the vision of a violent and mysterious being, often -indignant and occasionally disdainful. - - “He acts with honest disdainful pride, - And that is the cause that Jesus died; - Had he been Antichrist, creeping Jesus, - He would have done anything to please us, - Gone sneaking into their synagogues, - And not use the elders and priests like dogs.” - -When the reader has fully realised this idea of a fierce and mysterious -Jesus, he may then see the sense in the statement that this Jesus -speaks in parables to the blind while the lower and meaner Jesus -pretends to be the friend of all men. But you have to know Blake’s -doctrine before you can understand two lines of his poetry. - -Now in the point which is here prominently before us there is a -quotation (indeed there is more than one) which follows this same -fantastic line. Let the ordinary modern man, who is, generally -speaking, not a materialist and not a mystic, read first these two -lines from the poem falsely called “The Auguries of Innocence”-- - - “God appears and God is light - To those poor souls that dwell in night.” - -[Illustration: THE EAGLE (1804)] - -He will not find anything objectionable in that, at any rate; probably -he will bow his head slightly to a truism, as if he were in church. -Then he will read the next two lines-- - - “But does a human form display - To those that dwell in realms of day.” - -And there the modern man will sit down suddenly on the sofa and come -finally to the conclusion that William Blake was mad and nothing else. - -But those last two lines express all that is best in Blake and all -that is best in all the tradition of the mystics. Those two lines -explain perfectly all that I have just pointed out concerning the -palpable visions and the ponderous cherubim. This is the point about -Blake that must be understood if nothing else is understood. God for -him was not more and more vague and diaphanous as one came near to -Him. God was more and more solid as one came near. When one was far -off one might fancy Him to be impersonal. When one came into personal -relation one knew that He was a person. The personal God was the fact. -The impersonal God of the Pantheists was a kind of condescending -symbol. According to Blake (and there is more in the mental attitude -than most modern people will willingly admit) this vague cosmic view is -a mere merciful preparation for the old practical and personal view. -God is merely light to the merely unenlightened. God is a man to the -enlightened. We are permitted to remain for a time evolutionary or -pantheist until the time comes when we are worthy to be anthropomorphic. - -Understand this Blake conception that the Divine is most bodily and -definite when we really know it, and the severe lines and sensational -literalism of his other and more pictorial work will be easily -understood. Naturally his divinities are definite, because he thought -that the more they were definite, the more they were divine. Naturally -God was not to him a hazy light breaking through the tangle of the -evolutionary undergrowth, nor a blinding brilliancy in the highest -place of the heavens. God was to him the magnificent old man depicted -in his dark and extraordinary illustrations of “Job,” the old man -with the monstrous muscles, the mild stern eyebrows, the long smooth -silver hair and beard. In the dialogues between Jehovah and Job there -is little difference between the two ponderous and palpable old men, -except that the vision of Deity is a little more solid than the human -being. But then Blake held that Deity is more solid than humanity. He -held that what we call the ideal is not only more beautiful but more -actual than the real. The ordinary educated modern person staring -at these “Job” designs can only say that God is a mere elderly twin -brother of Job. Blake would have at once retorted that Job was an image -of God. - - * * * * * - -ON consideration I incline to think that the best way to -summarise the art of Blake from its most superficial to its most -subtle phase would be simply to take one quick characteristic picture -and discuss it fully; first its title and subject, then its look and -shape, then its main principles and implications. Let us take as a good -working example the weird picture which is reproduced on one of the -pages of Gilchrist’s “Life of Blake.” - -Now the obvious, prompt, and popular view of Blake is very well -represented by the mere title of the picture. The first thing any -ordinary person will notice about it is that it is called “The Ghost -of a Flea”; and the ordinary person will be very justifiably amused. -This is the first fact about William Blake--that he is a joke; and it -is a fact by no means to be despised. Simply considered as a puzzle -or parlour game, Blake is extraordinarily entertaining. I have known -many cultivated families made happy on winter evenings by trying to -understand the poem called “The Mental Traveller,” or wondering what -can be the significance of the stanza that runs: - - “Little Mary Bell had a fairy in a nut, - Long John Brown had the devil in his gut; - Long John Brown loved little Mary Bell, - And the fairy drew the devil into the nutshell.” - -[Illustration: “ALBION! AROUSE THYSELF!” (1804)] - -The first fact is that we are puzzled and also honestly amused. It is -as if we had a highly eccentric neighbour in the next garden. Long -before we like him we like gossiping about him. And the mere title, -“The Ghost of a Flea,” represents all that makes Blake a centre of -literary gossip. - -And now, having enjoyed the oddity of the title, let us look at the -picture. Let us attempt to describe, so far as it can be done in words -instead of lines, what Blake thought that the ghost of a flea would -be like. The scene suggests a high and cheerless corridor, as in some -silent castle of giants. Through this a figure, naked and gigantic, is -walking with a high-shouldered and somewhat stealthy stride. In one -hand the creature has a peculiar curved knife of a cruel shape; in -the other he has a sort of stone basin. The most striking line in the -composition is the hard long curve of the spine, which goes up without -a single flicker to the back of the brutal head, as if the whole back -view were built like a tower of stone. The face is in no sense human. -It has something that is aquiline and also something that is swinish; -its eyes are alive with a moony glitter that is entirely akin to -madness. The thing seems to be passing a curtain and entering a room. - -With this we may mark the second fact about Blake--that if his only -object is to make our flesh creep, he does it well. His bogeys are -good reliable bogeys. There is really something that appeals to the -imagination about this notion of the ghost of a flea being a tall -vampire stalking through tall corridors at night. We have found Blake -an amusing madman and now an interesting madman; let us go on with the -process. - -The third thing to note about this picture is that for Blake the ghost -of a flea means the idea or principle of a flea. The principle of a -flea (so far as we can see it) is bloodthirstiness, the feeding on the -life of another, the fury of the parasite. Fleas may have other nobler -sentiments and meditations, but we know nothing about them. The vision -of a flea is a vision of blood; and that is what Blake has made of -it. This is the next point, then, to be remarked in his make-up as a -mystic; he is interested in the ideas for which such things stand. For -him the tiger means an awful elegance; for him the tree means a silent -strength. - -If it be granted that Blake was interested, not in the flea, but -in the idea of the flea, we can proceed to the next step, which is -a particularly important one. Every great mystic goes about with a -magnifying glass. He sees every flea as a giant--perhaps rather as an -ogre. I have spoken of the tall castle in which these giants dwell; -but, indeed, that tall tower is the microscope. It will not be denied -that Blake shows the best part of a mystic’s attitude in seeing that -the soul of a flea is ten thousand times larger than a flea. But the -really interesting point is much more striking. It is the essential -point upon which all primary understanding of the art of Blake really -turns. The point is this: that the ghost of a flea is not only larger -than a flea, the ghost of a flea is actually more solid than a flea. -The flea himself is hazy and fantastic compared to the hard and -massive actuality of his ghost. When we have understood this, we have -understood the second of the great ideas in Blake--the idea of ideas. - -To sum up Blake’s philosophy in any phrase sufficiently simple and -popular for our purpose is not at all easy. For Blake’s philosophy was -not simple. Those who imagine that because he was always talking about -lambs and daisies, about Jesus and little children, that therefore he -held a simple gospel of goodwill, entirely misunderstand the whole -nature of his mind. No man had harder dogmas; no one insisted more -that religion must have theology. The Everlasting Gospel was far from -being a simple gospel. Blake had succeeded in inventing in the course -of about ten years as tangled and interdependent a system of theology -as the Catholic Church has accumulated in two thousand. Much of it, -indeed, he inherited from ancient heretics who were much more doctrinal -than the orthodoxy which they opposed. Notable among these were the -Gnostics, and in some degree the mad Franciscans who followed Joachim -de Flor. Very few modern people would know an Akamoth or an Æon if they -saw him. Yet one would really have to be on rather intimate terms -with these old mystical gods and demons before one could move quite -easily in the Cosmos which was familiar to Blake. - -[Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION (1804)] - -Let us, however, attempt to find a short and popular statement of the -position of Blake and all such mystics. The plainest way of putting -it, I think, is this: this school especially denied the authority -of Nature. Some went the extreme length of the mad Manichæans, and -declared the material universe evil in itself. Some, like Blake, and -most of the poets considered it as a shadow or illusion, a sort of -joke of the Almighty. But whatever else Nature was, Nature was not our -mother. Blake applies to her the strange words used by Christ to Mary, -and says to Mother-Earth in many poems: “What have I to do with thee?” -It is common to connect Blake and Wordsworth because of their ballads -about babies and sheep. They were utterly opposite. If Wordsworth -was the Poet of Nature, Blake was specially the Poet of Anti-Nature. -Against Nature he set a certain entity which he called Imagination; but -the word as commonly used conveys very little of what he meant by it. -He did not mean something shadowy or fantastic, but rather something -clear-cut, definite, and unalterable. By Imagination, that is, he meant -images; the eternal images of things. You might shoot all the lions on -the earth; but you could not destroy the Lion of Judah, the Lion of the -Imagination. You might kill all the lambs of the world and eat them; -but you could not kill the Lamb of the Imagination, which was the Lamb -of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. Blake’s philosophy, in -brief, was primarily the assertion that the ideal is more actual than -the real: just as in Euclid the good triangle in the mind is a more -actual (and more practical) than the bad triangle on the blackboard. - -Many of Blake’s pictures become intelligible (or as intelligible as -they can become) if we keep this principle in mind. For instance, there -is a fine design representing a naked and heroic youth of great beauty -tracing something on the sand. The reader, when he looks at the title -of it, is interested to discover that this is a portrait of Sir Isaac -Newton. It was not so much of an affectation as it seems. Blake from -his own point of view really did think that the Eternal Isaac Newton as -God beheld him was more of an actuality than the terrestrial gentleman -who happened to be elderly or happened by some sublunary accident to -wear clothes. Therefore, when he calls it a “portrait” he is not, from -his own point of view, talking nonsense. It is the form and feature of -someone who exists and who is different from everyone else, just as if -it were the ordinary oil-painting of an alderman. - -The most important conception can be found in one sentence which he let -fall as if by accident, “Nature has no outline, but imagination has.” -If a clear black line when looked at through a microscope was seen to -be a ragged and confused edge like a mop or a doormat, then Blake would -say, “So much the worse for the microscope.” If pure lines existed -only in the human mind, then Blake would say, “So much the better for -the human mind.” If the real earth grew damp and dubious when it met -and mixed itself with the sea, so much the worse for the real earth. -If the idea of clean-cut truth existed only in the intellect, that was -the most actual place in which anything could exist. In short, Blake -really insisted that man as the image of God had a right to impose form -upon nature. He would have laughed to scorn the notion of the modern -evolutionist--that Nature is to be permitted to impose formlessness -upon man. For him the lines in a landscape were boundaries which he -drew like frontiers, by his authority as the plenipotentiary ambassador -of heaven. When he drew his line round Leviathan he was drawing the -divine net around him; he tamed his bulls and lions even by creating -them. And when he made in some picture a line between sea and land that -does not exist in Nature, he was saying by supernatural right, “Thus -far shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be -stayed.” - - * * * * * - -I SELECT the symbol of the sea partly because Blake was -himself fond of such elemental images, and partly because it is an -image especially appropriate to Blake’s great conception of the outline -in the eternal imagination. Nearly all phrases about the sea are -specially and spiritually false. People talk of the sea as vast and -vague, drifting and indefinite; as if the magic of it lay in having -no lines or boundaries. But the spell of the sea upon the eye and the -soul is exactly this: that it is the one straight line in nature. They -talk of the infinite sea. Artistically it would be far truer to talk -of an infinite haystalk; for the haystalk does slightly fade into a -kind of fringe against the sky. But the horizon line is not only hard -but _tight_, like a fiddle-string. I have always a nervous fear that -the sea-line will snap suddenly. And it is exactly this mathematical -decision in the sea that makes it so romantic a background for fighting -and human figures. England was called in Catholic days the garden of -Mary. The garden is all the more beautiful because it is enclosed in -four hard angular walls of sapphire or emerald. Any mere tuft or twig -can curve with a curve that is incalculable. Any scrap of moss can -contain in itself an irregularity that is infinite. The sea is the one -thing that is really exciting because the sea is the one thing that is -flat. - -[Illustration: THE JUDGMENT DAY (1806)] - -Whether, however, these conclusions can be accepted by the reader as -true, they can at least be accepted as typifying the kind of thing -which William Blake believed to be true. He would have felt the sea not -as a waste but as a wall. Nature had no outline, but imagination had. -And it was imagination that was trustworthy. - -This definition explains other things. Blake was enthusiastically in -favour of the French Revolution; yet he enthusiastically hated that -school of sceptics which, in the opinion of many, made the Revolution -possible. He did not mind Marat; but he detested Voltaire. The reason -is obvious in the light of his views on Nature and Imagination. The -Republican Idealists he liked because they were Idealists, because -their abstract doctrines about justice and human equality were abstract -doctrines. But the school of Voltaire was naturalistic; it loved to -remind man of his earthly origin and even of his earthly degradation. -The war, which Blake loved, was a war of the invisible against the -visible. Valmy and Arcola were part of such a war; it was a war between -the visible kings and the invisible Republic. But Voltaire’s war was -exactly the opposite; it was a discrediting of the invisible Church by -the indecent exhibition of the real Church, with its fat friars or its -foolish old women. Blake had no sympathy with this mere flinging of -facts at a great conception. In a really powerful and exact metaphor he -describes the powerlessness of this earthly and fragmentary sceptical -attack. - - Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau, - Mock on, mock on, ’tis all in vain, - You throw the sand against the wind - And the wind blows it back again. - -An excellent image for a mere attack by masses of detail. - -There were some of Blake’s intellectual conceptions which I have not -professed either to admire or to defend. Some of his views were really -what the old mediæval world called heresies and what the modern world -(with an equally healthy instinct but with less scientific clarity) -calls fads. In either case the definition of the fad or heresy is not -so very difficult. A fad or heresy is the exaltation of something -which, even if true, is secondary or temporary in its nature against -those things which are essential and eternal, those things which always -prove themselves true in the long run. In short, it is the setting up -of the mood against the mind. For instance: it is a mood, a beautiful -and lawful mood, to wonder how oysters really feel. But it is a fad, -an ugly and unlawful fad, to starve human beings because you will -not let them eat oysters. It is a beautiful mood to feel impelled to -assassinate Mr Carnegie; but it is a fad to maintain seriously that -any private person has a right to do it. We all have emotional moments -in which we should like to be indecent in a drawing-room; but it is -faddist to turn all drawing-rooms into places in which one is indecent. -We all have at times an almost holy temptation suddenly to scream out -very loud; but it is heretical and pedantic really to go on screaming -for the remainder of your natural life. If you throw one bomb you are -only a murderer; but if you keep on persistently throwing bombs you are -in awful danger of at last becoming a prig. It has been this trouble -that has partly poisoned the people from which William Blake inherited, -if not his blood, at least his civilization. The real trouble with -Puritanism was not that it was a senseless prejudice nor yet altogether -(as would seem superficially obvious) that it was a mere form of -devil-worship. It was none of these things in its first and freshest -motive. - -[Illustration: THE TOMB (1806)] - -Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, -it was a highly creditable mistake. We have all felt the frame of mind -in which one wishes to smash golden croziers and mitres merely because -they are golden. We all know how natural it is at certain moments -to feel a profound thirst to kick clergymen simply because they are -clergymen. But if we seriously ask ourselves whether in the long run -humanity is not happier with gold in its religion rather than mere -drab, then we come to the conclusion that the gold on cross or cope -does give more pleasure to most men than it gives pain, for a moment, -to us. If we really ask ourselves if religions do not work better with -a definite priesthood to do the drudgery of religion, we come to the -conclusion that they do work better. Anti-clericalism is a generous and -ideal mood; clericalism is a permanent and practical necessity. To put -the matter in an easier and more everyday metaphor, it is natural for -any poor Londoner to feel at times an abstract aspiration to beat the -Lord Mayor of London. But it does not follow that it would really have -been a kindness to poor Londoners to abolish the Lord Mayor’s Show. - -Now it is in this sense that we may truly say that Blake (upon one side -of his mind) was something worse than a maniac--he was a faddist. He -did permit aspirations or prejudices which are accidental or one-sided -to capture and control him at the expense of things really more human -and enduring: things which he shared with all the children of men. I -do not allude to his supernaturalism; for on that he is in no sense -alone, nor even specially eccentric. I do not refer to his love of the -gorgeous, the terrible or even the secretive of temples, initiations, -and hieroglyphic religion. For that sort of mystery is really quite -popular and even democratic. That sort of secrecy is a very open secret. - -It is usual to hear a man say in modern England that he has too much -common sense to believe in ghosts. But common sense is in favour of -a belief in ghosts, the common sense of mankind. It is usual to hear -a man say that he likes common sense and does not like the mummeries -and flummeries of church ritual. But common sense is in favour of -mummery and ritualism, the common sense of mankind. The man who -attempts to do without symbols is a prophet so austere and isolated -as to be dangerously near to a madman. The man who does not believe -in ghosts is a solitary fanatic and lonely dreamer among the sons of -men. Therefore I do not in any sense count even his craziest visions -or wildest symbols among the real fads or eccentricities of Blake. But -he had mental attitudes which were really fads and eccentricities, in -this essential sense, that they were not exaggerations of a general -human feeling but definite denials of it. He did not lead humanity, -but attacked or even obstructed it. Many instances might be given -of the kind of thing I mean; there was something of it in Blake’s -persistent and even pedantic insistence that war as war is evil. There -was something of Tolstoy in Blake; and that means something that is -inhuman as well as something that is heroic. But his allusions to this -were occasional and perhaps even accidental, and better cases could -certainly be found. The essential of all the cases is, however, that -when he went wrong it was as an intellectual and not as a poet. - -Take, for example, his notion of going naked. Here I think Blake is -merely a sort of hard theorist. Here, in spite of his imagination -and his laughter, there was even a touch of the prig about him. He -was obscene on principle. So to a great extent was Walt Whitman. A -dictionary is supposed to contain all words, so it has to contain -coarse words. “Leaves of Grass” was planned to praise all things, so -it had to praise gross things. There was something of this pedantic -perfection in Blake’s escapades. As the hygienist insists on wearing -Jäger clothes, he insisted on wearing no clothes. As the æsthete must -wear sandals, he must wear nothing. He is not really lawless at all; he -is bowing to the law of his own outlawed logic. - -There is nothing at all poetical in this revolt. William Blake was a -great and real poet; but in this point he was simply unpoetical. Walt -Whitman was a great and real poet; but on this point he was prosaic and -priggish. Two extraordinary men are not poets because they tear away -the veil from sex. On the contrary it is because all men are poets -that they all hang a veil over sex. The ploughman does not plough by -night, because he does not feel specially romantic about ploughing. He -does love by night, because he does feel specially romantic about sex. -In this matter Blake was not only unpoetical, but far less poetical -than the mass of ordinary men. Decorum is not an over-civilised -convention. Decorum is not tame, decorum is wild, as wild as the wind -at night. - - “Mysterious as the moons that rise - At midnight in the pines of Var.” - -[Illustration: THE SELFHOOD OF DECEIT (1807)] - -Modesty is too fierce and elemental a thing for the modern pedants to -understand; I had almost said too savage a thing. It has in it the joy -of escape and the ancient shyness of freedom. In this matter Blake and -Whitman are merely among the modern pedants. In not admiring sexual -reticence these two great poets simply did not understand one of the -greatest poems of humanity. - -I have given as an instance his disregard of the idea of mystery and -modesty as involved in dress; it was an unpoetical thought that there -should be no curtains of gold or scarlet round the shrine of the Holy -Spirit. But there is stronger instances in his theology and philosophy. -Thus he imbibed the idea common among early Gnostics and not unknown to -Christian Science speculators of our day, that it was a confession of -weakness in Christ to be crucified at all. If he had really attained -divine life (so ran the argument) he ought to have attained immortal -life; he ought to have lived for ever upon the earth. With an excess -of what can only be called impudence, he even turned Gethsemane into a -sort of moral breakdown; the sudden weakness which accepted death. The -general claim that vices are poetical is largely unfounded; and this -is an excellent example of how unpoetical is the vice of profanity. -Blasphemy is not wild; blasphemy is in its nature prosaic. It consists -in regarding in a commonplace manner something which other and happier -people regard in a rapturous and imaginative manner. This is well -exemplified in poor Blake and his Gnostic heresy about Jesus. In -holding that Christ was weakened by being crucified he is certainly a -pedant, and certainly not a poet. If there is one point on which the -spirit of the poets and the poetic soul in all peoples is on the side -of Christianity, it is exactly this one point on which Blake is against -Christianity--“was crucified, dead and buried.” The spectacle of a God -dying is much more grandiose than the spectacle of a man living for -ever. The former suggests that awful changes have really entered the -alchemy of the universe; the latter is only vaguely reminiscent of -hygienic octogenarians and Eno’s Fruit Salts. Moreover, to the poet -as to the child, death must be dreadful even if it is desirable. To -talk (as some modern theosophists do) about death being nothing, the -mere walking into another room, to talk like this is not only prosaic -and profoundly un-Christian; it is decidedly vulgar. It is against the -whole trend of the secret emotions of humanity. It is indecent, like -persuading a decent peasant to go without clothes. There is more of -the song and music of mankind in a clerk putting on his Sunday clothes -than in a fanatic running naked down Cheapside. And there is more real -mysticism in nailing down a coffin lid than in pretending, in mere -rhetoric, to throw open the doors of death. - -I have given two cases of the presence in Blake of these anti-human -creeds which I call fads--the case of clothes and the case of the -crucifixion. I could give a much larger number of them, but I think -their nature is here sufficiently indicated. They are all cases in -which Blake ceased to be a poet, through becoming entirely, instead -of only partially, separated from the people. And this, I think, is -certainly connected with that quality in him to which I referred in -analysing the eighteenth century; I mean the element of oligarchy and -fastidiousness in the mystics and masonries of that epoch. They were -all founded in an atmosphere of degrees and initiations. The chief -difference between Christianity and the thousand transcendental schools -of to-day is substantially the same as the difference nearly two -thousand years ago between Christianity and the thousand sacred rites -and secret societies of the Pagan Empire. The deepest difference is -this: that all the heathen mysteries are so far aristocratic, that they -are understood by some, and not understood by others. The Christian -mysteries are so far democratic that nobody understands them at all. - -[Illustration: THE SHEPHERDS (1821)] - -When we have fairly stated this doubtful and even false element in -Blake’s philosophy, we can go on with greater ease and thoroughness -to state where the solid and genuine value of that philosophy lay. It -consisted in its placid and positive defiance of materialism, a work -upon which all the mystics, Pagan and Christian, have been employed -from the beginning. It is not unnatural that they should have fallen -into many errors, employed dangerous fallacies, and even ruined the -earth for the sake of the cloudland. But the war in which they were -engaged has been none the less the noblest and most important effort -of human history, and in their whole army there was no greater warrior -than Blake. - -One of the strange and rooted contradictions of the eighteenth -century is a combination between profound revolution and superficial -conventionality. It might almost be said that the men of that time had -altered morals long before they thought of altering manners. The French -Revolution was especially French in this respect, that it was above -all things a respectable revolution. Violence was excused; madness -was excused; but eccentricity was inexcusable. These men had taken a -king’s head off his shoulders long before they had thought of taking -the powder off their own heads. Danton could understand the Massacres -of September, but he could not understand the worship of the Goddess -of Reason or all the antics of the German madman Clootz. Robespierre -grew tired of the Terror, but he never grew tired of shaving every -morning. It is impossible to avoid the impression that this is rather -a characteristic of the revolutions which really make a difference and -defy the world. The same is true of that fallacious but most powerful -and genuine English monument which was covered by the words Darwin and -Evolution. If there was one striking thing about the fine old English -agnostics, it was that they were entirely indifferent to alterations -in the externals of pose or fashion, that they seem to have supposed -that the huge intellectual overturn of agnosticism would leave the -obvious respectability of life exactly as it was. They thought that -one might entirely alter a man’s head without in the least altering -his hat. They thought that one might shatter the twin wings of an -archangel without throwing the least doubt upon the twin whiskers of -a mid-Victorian professor. And though there was undoubtedly a certain -solemn humour about such a position, yet, on the whole, I think the -mid-Victorian agnostics were employing the right kind of revolution. -It is broadly a characteristic of all valuable new-fashioned opinions -that they are brought in by old-fashioned men. For the sincerity of -such men is proved by both facts--the fact that they do care about -their new truth and the fact that they do not care about their old -clothes. Herbert Spencer’s philosophy is all the more serious because -his appearance (to judge by his photographs) was quite startlingly -absurd. And while the Tory caricatures were deriding Gladstone because -he introduced very new-fangled legislation, they were also deriding him -because he wore very antiquated collars. - -But though this strange combination of convention in small things with -revolt in big ones is not uncommon in hearty and human reformers, -there is a quite special emphasis on this combination in the case of -the eighteenth century. The very men who did deeds which were more -dreadful and daring than we can dream to achieve, were the very men -who spoke and wrote with a mincing propriety and almost effeminate -fastidious distinction such as we should scarcely condescend to employ. -The eighteenth century man called the eighteenth century woman “an -elegant female”; but he was quite capable of saving her from a mad -bull. He described his ideal republic as a place containing all the -refined sensibilities of virtue with all the voluptuous seductions of -pleasure. But he would be hacked with an axe and blown out of a gun to -get it. He could pursue new notions with a certain solid and virile -constancy, as if they were old ones. And the explanation is partly -this: that however revolutionary, they were old ones--in this sense -at least, that they involved the pursuit of some primary human hope -to its original home. They powdered their hair because they really -thought that a civilized man should be civilized--or, if you will, -artificial. They spoke of “an elegant female” because they really -thought, with their whole souls, that a female ought to be elegant. The -old rebels preserved the old fashions--and among others the old fashion -of rebelling. The new rebels, the revolutionists of our time, are -intent upon introducing new fashions in boots, beds, food or furniture; -so they have no time to rebel. But if we have once grasped this -eighteenth century element of the insistence upon the elegant female -because she is elegant, we have got hold of a fundamental fact in the -relation of that century to Blake. - -[Illustration: THE MORNING STARS (1821)] - -It is instinctive to describe Blake as a fantastic artist; and yet -there is a very real sense in which Blake is conventional. If any -reader thinks the phrase paradoxical, he can easily discover that it -is true; he can discover it simply by comparing Blake even in his most -wild and arbitrary work with any merely modern artist who has the -name of being wild; with Aubrey Beardsley or even with Rossetti. All -Blake’s heroes are conventional heroes made unconventionally heroic. -All Blake’s heroines are elegant females without their clothes. But -in both cases they exaggerate and insist upon the traditional ideal -of the sexes--the broad shoulders of the god and the broad hips of -the goddess. Blake detested the sensuality of Rubens. But if he had -been obliged to choose between the women of Rubens and the women of -Rossetti, he would have flung himself on the neck of Rubens. For we -have a false conception of what constitutes exaggeration. The end of -the eighteenth century (being a dogmatic period) believed in certain -things and exaggerated them. The end of the nineteenth century simply -did not know what things to exaggerate; so it fell back upon merely -underrating them. Blake tried to make Wallace look even bolder -and fiercer than Wallace can possibly have looked. That was his -exaggeration of Wallace. But Burne-Jones’ exaggeration of Perseus is -not an exaggeration at all. It is an under-statement; for the whole -fascination of Burne-Jones’ Perseus is that he looks frightened. -Blake’s figure of a woman is aggressively and monstrously womanly. That -is its fascination, if it has any. But the fascination of a Beardsley -woman (if she has any) is exactly that she is not quite a woman. So -much of what we have meant by exaggeration is really diminution; so -much of what we have meant by fancy is simply falling short of fact. -The Burne-Jones’ man is interesting because he is not quite brave -enough to be a man. The Beardsley woman is interesting because she -is not quite pretty enough to be a woman. But Blake’s men are brave -beyond all decency: and Blake’s women are so swaggeringly bent on -being beautiful that they become quite ugly in the process. If anyone -wishes to know exactly what I mean, I recommend him to look at one of -those extraordinary designs of nymphs in which a woman (or, as Blake -loved to call it, the Female Form) is made to perform an impossible -feat of acrobatics. It is impossible, but it is quite female; perhaps -the words are not wholly inconsistent. A living serpent might perform -such a piece of athletics; but even then only a female living serpent. -But nobody would ask a Burne-Jones or Beardsley female to perform any -athletics at all. - -Blake in pictorial art was not a mere master of the moonstruck or the -grotesque. On the contrary, he was, as artists go, exceptionally a -champion of the smooth and sensible. In so far as being “modern” means -being against the great conventions of mankind, indifferent to the -difference of the sexes, or inclined to despise doctrinal outline, then -there was never any man who was so little of a modern as Blake. He -may have been mad; but there are varieties even in madness. There are -madmen, like Blake, who go mad on health, and there are madmen who go -mad on sickness. - -The distinction is a solid one. You may think the queerly and partially -clothed women of Aubrey Beardsley ugly. You may think the naked -women of William Blake ugly. But you must perceive this peculiar and -extraordinary effect about the women of William Blake, that they are -women. They are exaggerated in the direction of the female form; they -swing upon big hips; they let out and loosen long and luxuriant hair. -Now the queer females of Aubrey Beardsley are queerest of all in this, -that they are not even female. They are narrow where women have a curve -and cropped where women have a head of hair. Blake’s women are often -anatomically impossible. But they are so far women that they could -not possibly be anything else. - -[Illustration: THE WHIRLWIND (1825)] - -This comparison between Blake’s art and such art as Aubrey Beardsley’s -is not an invidious impertinence, it is really an important -distinction. Blake’s work may be fantastic; but it is a fantasia on -an old and recognisable air. It exaggerates characteristics. Blake’s -women are too womanish, his young men are too athletic, his old men -are too preposterously old. But Aubrey Beardsley does not really -exaggerate; he understates. His young men have less than the energy of -youth. His women fascinate by the weakness of sex rather than by its -strength. In short, if one is really to exaggerate the truth, one must -have some truth to exaggerate. The decadent mystic produces an effect -not by exaggerating but by distorting. True exaggeration is a thing -both subtle and austere. Caricature is a serious thing; it is almost -blasphemously serious. Caricature really means making a pig more like -a pig than even God has made him. But anyone can make him not like a -pig at all; anyone can create a weird impression by giving him the -beard of a goat. In Aubrey Beardsley the artistic thrill (and there is -an artistic thrill) consists in the fact that the women are not quite -women nor the men quite men. Blake had absolutely no trace of this -morbidity of deficiency. He never asks us to consider a tree magical -because it is a stunted tree; or a man a magician merely because he -has one eye. His form of fantasy would rather be to give a tree more -branches than it could carry and to give a man bigger eyes than he -could keep in his head. There is really a great deal of difference -between the fantastic and the exaggerative. One may be fantastic by -merely leaving something out. One might call it a fantasy if the -official portrait of Wellington represented him without a nose. But one -could hardly call it an exaggeration. - -There is an everlasting battle in which Blake is on the side of the -angels, and what is much more difficult and dangerous, on the side of -all the sensible men. The question is so enormous and so important, -that it is difficult to state even by reason of its reality. For in -this world of ours we do not so much go on and discover small things; -rather we go on and discover big things. It is the details that we see -first; it is the design that we only see very slowly; and some men -die never having seen it at all. We all wake up on a battle-field. -We see certain squadrons in certain uniforms gallop past; we take an -arbitrary fancy to this or that colour, to this or that plume. But -it often takes us a long time to realise what the fight is about or -even who is fighting whom. One may say, to keep up the metaphor, that -many a man has joined the French army from love of the Horse Guards -Blue; many an old-fashioned eighteenth century sailor has gone over -to the Chinese merely because they wore pigtails. It is so easy to -turn against what is really yourself for the sake of some accidental -resemblance to yourself. You may envy the curled hair of Hercules; but -do not envy curly hair until you wish that you were a nigger. You may -regret that you have a short nose; but do not dream of its growing -longer and longer till it is like the trunk of an elephant. Wait until -you know what the battle is broadly about before you rush roaring after -any advancing regiment. For a battle is a complicated thing; each army -contains coats of different colour; each section of each army advances -at a different angle. You may fancy that the Greens are charging the -Blues exactly at the moment when both are combining to effect a fine -military manœuvre. You may conceive that two similar-looking columns -are supporting each other at the very instant when they are about to -blaze at each other with cannon, rifle, and revolver. So in the modern -intellectual world we can see flags of many colours, deeds of manifold -interest; the one thing we cannot see is the map. We cannot see the -simplified statement which tells us what is the origin of all the -trouble. How shall we manage to state in an obvious and alphabetical -manner the ultimate query, the primordial pivot on which the whole -modern problem turns? It cannot be done in long rationalistic words; -they convey by their very sound the suggestion of something subtle. One -must try to think of something in the way of a plain street metaphor or -an obvious analogy. For the thing is not too hard for human speech; it -is actually too obvious for human speech. - -The fundamental fight in which, despite all this heat and headlong -misunderstanding, William Blake is on the right side, is one which -would require a book about the battle and not about William Blake. -By an accident at once convenient and deceptive, it can largely be -described as geographical as well as philosophical. It is crudely true -that there are two types of mysticism, that of Christendom and that -of Orientalism. Now this scheme of east and west is inadequate; but -it does happen to fit in with the working facts. For the odd thing is -this, not only are most of the merely modern movements of idealism -Oriental, but their Orientalism is all that they have in common. They -all come together, and yet their only apparent point of union is that -they all come from the East. Thus a modern vegetarian is generally -also a teetotaller, yet there is certainly no obvious intellectual -connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented -vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, -might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through -excessive devotion to a vegetable diet. On the other hand, a man -might well be a practised and polished cannibal and still be a strict -teetotaller. A subtle parallelism might doubtless be found; but the -only quite obvious parallelism is that vegetarianism is Buddhist and -teetotalism is Mahometan. In the same way, it is the cold truth that -there is no kind of logical connection between being an Agnostic and -being a Socialist. But it is the fact that the Chinese are as agnostic -as oxen; and it is the fact that the Japanese are as socialistic as -rats. These appalling ideas, that a man has no divine individual -destiny, that making a minute item in the tribe or hive, is his only -earthly destiny, these ideas do come all together out of the same -quarter; they do in practise blow upon us out of the East, as cold and -inhuman as the east wind. - -[Illustration: THE JUST UPRIGHT MAN (1825)] - -Nevertheless, I do not accept this dull definition by locality; I think -it is a spirit in Asia, and even a spirit that can be named. It is -approximately described as an insane simplicity. In all these cases we -find people attempting to perfect a thing solely by simplification; -by obliterating special features: this cosmos is full of wingless -birds, of hornless cattle, of hairless women, and colourless wine, all -fading into a formless background. There is a Christian simplicity, -of course, opposed to this pessimist simplicity. Both the western and -eastern mystic may be called children; but the eastern child treads -the sand-castle back into sand, and enjoys seeing the silver snow man -melt back into muddy water. This return to chaos and a comfortless -simplicity is the only intelligent meaning of the words reaction and -reactionary. In this sense much of modern science is reaction, and -most modern scientists are reactionaries. But where this reversion to -the void can be seen most clearly is in all the semi-oriental sects to -which I have referred. Teetotalism is a simplification; its objection -to beer is not really that beer makes a man like a beast. On the -contrary, its real objection is that beer most unmistakably separates -a man from a beast. Vegetarianism is a simplification; the herb-eating -Hindoo saint does not really dislike the carnivorous habit because -it destroys an animal. Rather, he dislikes it because it creates an -animal; renews the special aims and appetites of the separate animal, -man. Agnosticism, the ancient creed of Confucius, is a simplification; -it is a shutting out of all the shadowy splendours and terrors; -an Arcadian exclusiveness; _il faut cultiver son jardin_. Japanese -patriotism, the blind collectivism of the tribe, is a simplification; -it is an attempt to turn our turbulent and varied humanity into one -enormous animal, with twenty million legs, but only one head. There is -an utterly opposite kind of simplicity that springs from joy; but this -kind of simplicity certainly is rooted in despair. - -Now, for practical purposes, there is an antagonistic order of -mysticism; that which celebrates personality, positive variety, and -special emphasis: just as in broad fact the mystery of dissolution -is emphasized and typified in the East, so in practice the mystery -of concentration and identity is manifest in the historic churches -of Christendom. Even the foes of Christianity would readily agree -that Christianity is “personal” in the sense that a vulgar joke is -“personal”: that is corporeal, vivid, perhaps ugly. This being so, it -has been broadly true that any mystic who broke with the Christian -tradition tended to drift towards the eastern and pessimist tradition. -In the Albigensian and other heresies the East crawled in with its -serpentine combination of glitter and abasement, of pessimism and -pleasure. Every dreamer who strayed outside the Christian order strayed -towards the Hindu order, and every such dreamer found his dream turning -to a nightmare. If a man wandered far from Christ he was drawn into -the orbit of Buddha, the other great magnet of mankind--the negative -magnet. The thing is true down to the latest and the most lovable -visionaries of our own time; if they do not climb up into Christendom, -they slide down into Thibet. The greatest poet now writing in the -English language (and it is surely unnecessary to say that I mean Mr -Yeats) has written a whole play round the statement, “Where there is -nothing there is God.” In this he sharply and purposely cuts himself -off from the real Christian position, that where there is anything -there is God. - -[Illustration: FOR HIS EYES ARE UPON THE WAYS OF MAN (1825)] - -But though, by an almost political accident, Oriental pessimism -has been the practical alternative to the Christian type of -transcendentalism, there is, and always has been, a third thing that -was neither Christian in an orthodox sense nor Buddhistic in any -sense. Before Christianity existed there was a European school of -optimist mystics; among whom the great name is Plato. And ever since -there have been movements and appearances in Europe of this healthier -heathen mysticism, which did not shrink from the shapes of things or -the emphatic colours of existence. Something of the sort was in the -Nature worship of Renaissance philosophers; something of the sort may -even have been behind the strange mixture of ecstacy and animality -in the isolated episode of Luther. This solid and joyful occultism -appears at its best in Swedenborg; but perhaps at its boldest and most -brilliant in William Blake. - -The present writer will not, in so important a matter, pretend to the -absurd thing called impartiality; he is personally quite convinced -that if every human being lived a thousand years, every human being -would end up either in utter pessimistic scepticism or in the Catholic -creed. William Blake, in his rationalist and highly Protestant age, -was frequently reproached for his tenderness towards Catholicism; but -it would have surprised him very much to be told that he would join -it. But he would have joined it--if he had lived a thousand years, or -even perhaps a hundred. He was on the side of historic Christianity -on the fundamental question on which it confronts the East; the idea -that personality is the glory of the universe and not its shame; that -creation is higher than evolution, because it is more personal; that -pardon is higher than Nemesis, because it is more personal; that the -forgiveness of sins is essential to the communion of saints; and the -resurrection of the body to the life everlasting. It was a mark of the -old eastern initiations, it is still a mark of the grades and planes -of our theosophical thinkers, that as a man climbs higher and higher, -God becomes to him more and more formless, ethereal, and even thin. And -in many of these temples, both ancient and modern, the final reward of -serving the god through vigils and purifications, is that one is at -last worthy to be told that the god doesn’t exist. - -Against all this emasculate mysticism Blake like a Titan rears his -colossal figure and his earthquake voice. Through all the cloud and -chaos of his stubborn symbolism and his perverse theories, through -the tempest of exaggeration and the full midnight of madness, he -reiterates with passionate precision that only that which is lovable -can be adorable, that deity is either a person or a puff of wind, that -the more we know of higher things the more palpable and incarnate we -shall find them; that the form filling the heavens is the likeness -of the appearance of a man. Much of what Blake thus wildly thundered -has been put quietly and quaintly by Coventry Patmore, especially in -that delicate and daring passage in which he speaks of the bonds, the -simpleness and even the narrowness of God. The wise man will follow a -star, low and large and fierce in the heavens; but the nearer he comes -to it the smaller and smaller it will grow, till he finds it the humble -lantern over some little inn or stable. Not till we know the high -things shall we know how lowly they are. Meanwhile, the modern superior -transcendentalist will find the facts of eternity incredible because -they are so solid; he will not recognise heaven because it is so like -the earth. - - - - -THE POPULAR LIBRARY OF ART - - _Planned expressly for the general public. The Publishers do not - hesitate in putting forward volumes on subjects which, even if handled - most convincingly before, are worth repeated handling from new points - of view, and they trust each volume will prove a fresh and stimulating - appreciation of the subject it treats._ - - - Each Volume about 200 pp. - Average Number of Illustrations, 45. - - - =ALBRECHT DÜRER.= By LINA ECKENSTEIN. - =ROSSETTI.= By FORD MADOX HUEFFER. - =REMBRANDT.= By AUGUSTE BRÉAL. - =FREDERICK WALKER.= By CLEMENTINA BLACK. - =MILLET.= By ROMAIN ROLLAND. - =LEONARDO DA VINCI.= By DR GEORG GRONAU. - =GAINSBOROUGH.= By ARTHUR B. CHAMBERLAIN. - =THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS.= By CAMILLE MAUCLAIR. - =BOTTICELLI.= By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs ADY). - =G. F. WATTS.= By G. K. CHESTERTON. - =VELAZQUEZ.= By AUGUSTE BRÉAL. - =RAPHAEL.= By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (Mrs ADY). - =HOLBEIN.= By FORD MADOX HUEFFER. - =THE ENGLISH WATER-COLOUR PAINTERS.= By A. J. FINBERG. - =WATTEAU.= By CAMILLE MAUCLAIR. - =PERUGINO.= By EDWARD HUTTON. - =THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD.= By FORD MADOX HUEFFER. - =CRUIKSHANK.= By W. H. CHESSON. - =WHISTLER.= By BERNHARD SICKERT. - =BLAKE.= By G. K. CHESTERTON. - =HOGARTH.= By EDWARD GARNETT. - -“A charming series. The pictures serve admirably the best purpose of -book-illustration, and help the reader the better to understand the -letterpress. Instructive and attractive. They deserve to be widely -popular.” - - * * * * * - -“Of all the little Libraries of Art brought out at popular prices, this -promises to be the best. The illustrations are extremely well chosen. -The printing throughout is exceptional, and the binding is simple and -appropriate.” - - * * * * * - -“Conducted on other lines than those of the many series of small -books on art which the times bring forward so plentifully. In each -case a critical essay which contains real criticism. Interesting and -stimulating.” - - - - -Transcriber’s Note - - -In this file, text in _italics_ is indicated by underscores, and text -in =bold= is indicated by equals signs. - -The following corrections were made to the text by the transcriber: - -Page 30, “Mary Woolstonecroft” corrected to “Mary Wollstonecraft”. - -Page 46, “Erywhon” corrected to “Erewhon”. - -Page 60, “Leonardo de Vinci” corrected to “Leonardo da Vinci”. - -Page 70, “rheindeer” corrected to “reindeer”. - -Page 88, “four of five different poems” corrected to “four or five -different poems”. - -Page 91, “Oh, Mr Cromek, how do you do?” corrected to “Oh, Mr. Cromek, -how do you do?” - -Page 161, “If pure lines existed only on the human mind” corrected to -“If pure lines existed only in the human mind”. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILLIAM BLAKE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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