still more, as if to absorb, if possible, all the light that they could find in the world. Their brilliance threw the rest of his face into shadow, so that one scarcely noticed the open, rounded forehead, the slightly pointed chin, and the closed lips which never seemed to smile, but had always, nevertheless, an expression of kindliness. A madman's head, his enemies called it; his friends, a visionary's: he himself would have said, "the head of a prophet." He had, indeed, two, at any rate, of the characteristics that mark the prophet perfect freedom of mind, and an absolute confidence in himself. Knowing that he possessed genius, he never hesitated through any doubts as to his own worth, and was rather inclined to overestimate it than to value it too lightly. His opinions on many subjects connected with art, religion and morality were not at all those of his age; but he maintained them energetically, through thick and thin, and could never endure the least contradiction. All who differed from him he regarded as either knaves or fools, no matter how great their celebrity. For Reynolds, who had once found occasion to criticise his work, he had an intense detestation. Rubens and Titian also he hated, as well as, in literature, the Greek and Latin classics, Newton in science, and Bacon in philosophy; and he was always ready to proclaim his aversion for all these to any listener. On the other hand, he loved to enunciate some strange idea, condensed into a few words in such a way as to make the expression of it even more paradoxical than the meaning. Such assertions as, "I touched the sky with my stick," or "I was Socrates," and many others of the same sort, caused him to be regarded as a madman or as trying merely to mystify his hearers, when a little explanation of his meaning would have prevented any such misapprehension. But it is the nature of oracles to be obscure, and prophets have always spoken in parables. Strong in his own faith, he stoutly opposed all social conventions, and protested loudly against anything that put obstacles in the way of liberty. For the common usages of society, when they came at all in conflict with his principles, he had no respect. The man who did not fear to wear a red cap in the streets, who had saved Tom Paine from the police, and driven the soldier out of his garden in spite of the latter's fearful threats of punishment, was not likely to be troubled by any scruple as to what he might say himself. He deserted Mr. Mathew's drawing-room as soon as he saw that his ideas could not be freely promulgated in the house of a Church of England clergyman. He sent away clients who desired him to work in accordance with their wishes; his rupture with Hayley being the most striking example of this independence. And he always preferred poverty with freedom to the most luxurious intellectual slavery, or even to silent acquiescence in conditions of which he could not approve. Public opinion had no terrors for him. A story is told of how Mr Butts came one day to the house in Lambeth, and found Blake and his wife sitting naked under an arbour at the bottom of their garden, formed by a vine which Blake always refused to prune and which bore, in consequence, much foliage and grapes that never ripened. They were reading Paradise Lost; and when Butts hesitated to approach, Blake called out, " Come in! It is only Adam and Eve." The story is a doubtful one, and has been much discussed, without any convincing evidence for or against it: but it is not incredible, and would, if true, show how real was Blake's contempt for even the universally accepted conventions of society. It is also related that he once proposed to introduce a second wife into his house, in addition to Mrs. Blake. Was this prompted by physical passion only, or by the desire to have a child? Or was it the logical outcome of his views on the subject of marriage? We cannot say. But, in any case, Blake, who would have refused contemptuously to enter into discussion with anyone on such a matter, and would have strongly resisted any violent opposition, yielded at once to his wife's silent tears, and never renewed his suggestion. The prophet was still a man. Moreover he was, in the highest sense of the term, a good man, and this goodness had the effect of softening any harsh elements in his rebellious nature. He preached charity and kindness towards all; and this was no hypocrisy or empty sentimentality on his part. He would not willingly have hurt a worm. By his example, just as much as by his writings, he showed forth the gospel of love of good-will, and of man's brotherhood with his fellow-men and with all nature. Not only to the members of his own family, his sister and his younger brother Robert, who found in him a constant and valuable support, but to strangers also, in times of trouble, his hand and his purse were always open. Once he gave forty pounds to a young man who had 1 This anecdote, related by the earlier biographers (Cunningham, Gilchrist and Rossetti), has been discredited by Ellis and Yeats on the ground that it is not referred to in any subsequent letters between Butts and Blake. But the incident was not one to which any person of good breeding would be likely to allude. We have no written evidence to support or contradict the story. lost his fortune and his reputation through his revolutionary writings. On another occasion, having noticed an unhappy-looking young student who often passed his door, he made his acquaintance, and found that he wished to become an artist, but was very poor and so ill that he could not hope to live long. Blake gave him gratuitous lessons, assisted him with money, visited him often during his sickness, and nursed him on his deathbed. And in all these charitable deeds, Blake and his wife were absolutely at one. They would have refused any gift for themselves, and often accepted less than a fair price for their work but they were always ready to give and to help. : It was this universal kindliness, also, which made him extraordinarily polite in society, even when among indifferent or unfriendly people. The satirical and spiteful words that he wrote in his note-book were never spoken, for fear of giving pain. Perhaps, too, he had in him something of his ancestors' Irish courtesy. However that may have been, he was always welcomed in society, despite his eccentricities, which, moreover, he must have perceived himself; for, when his moments of enthusiasm were over, and he was no longer talking about art, he became simple and awkward in his manner, and sometimes even childlike. At such times, his shyness was excessive: he felt himself uncomfortable and out of place in the company of people whom, a moment before, the grandeur of his thought had thrown quite into the shade. "He looks careworn and subdued," wrote Lady Charlotte Bury of him in 1820; "but his countenance radiated as he spoke of his favourite pursuit. . . . His views are peculiar, and exalted above the common level of received opinions. I could not help contrasting this humble artist with the great and powerful Sir Thomas Lawrence, and thinking that the one was fully, if not more, worthy of the distinction and the fame to which the other has attained, but from which he is far removed. Mr. Blake . . . evidently lacks that worldly wisdom and that grace of manner which make a man gain an eminence in his profession, and succeed in society. Every word he uttered spoke the perfect simplicity of his mind, and his total ignorance of all worldly matters." 1 And Crabb Robinson, in his Diary of December 10th, 1825, wrote: He is now old-sixty-eight-with a Socratic countenance, and an expression of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it, except when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration. 1 Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV. His exuberant health and strength might well have excused in him an intemperate, disordered life like that of Burns, alternations of revolt and despair such as Byron experienced, or the inspired audacities of Shelley. His freedom of thought almost leads us to expect some of these: but his goodness, his love for his wife, and his enthusiasm for his art filled his life, and left no time for any such extravagances. He lived a calm, unadventurous, ordinary life with Mrs. Blake in their humble home. Despite the originality of his opinions, and his firm belief in them, the sweetness of his nature prevailed over all other influences; and he was the typical upright man of his age, and of all ages, a good son, a good friend, a good brother, a good husband. And he would have been an excellent father. T IV HIS VISIONS HIS stout fighting man who was always afraid of hurting his adversaries, this proud, domineering spirit who became so humble in company with others, this solitary genius who could find no one to understand him, and who had to be contented with the silence of his best friends and the dumb adoration of his wife, this lonely prophet, born, out of his time, into a world of sceptics and logicians-lived, at the same time, another hidden life, richer by far than any life that his biographers could see or his most sympathetic friends even guess at. Mrs. Blake had but one fault to find with him, that his visions occupied so much of his time. They were her only rivals. In them he found the source of his internal strength and of his confidence in himself. To them he looked for his chief happiness. From them sprang the great light which shone in his eyes, and threw its dazzling brilliance over his sombre and monotonous life. No poet has ever surpassed Blake in visionary power. Even those whose imagination was strongest have very rarely seen visions like his. Their dreams have had no existence save in the imagination; and they have felt that their visions belonged to some invisible, impalpable sphere, outside of our world. They recognised them as creations of their own, which they could alter or destroy at will. They never saw them with their bodily eyes; and they scarcely ever felt an actual presence confronting them. Dante knew well that his Inferno, though he described and measured it with such vivid exactness, was but a fiction of his brain. Bunyan, in spite of his hallucinations, made no mistake as to the nature of the allegorical dream which he embodied in the Pilgrim's Progress. Shelley, who saw and felt so acutely the life around him, and whose nervous system was so morbidly excitable, did not see more than two or three real visions, nor did he take these as subjects for his poems. Even the most fantastic nightmares of Poe and the weirdest evocations of de Quincey are only artificial dreams, set before us as if they were real and palpable. And if at times the intensity of the poet's imaginative power has brought his artistic fancies visibly before his eyes, if Poe did really see the beak of his ill-omened raven or the long, waving |