ACTION AND REACTION
In _Europe_ Blake reached the boundary of his rebellious mood. The impetus
of his rebellion might by its own strength have carried him further down
the stream; but the Reign of Terror was a rude check, and among other
things it enabled him to climb on to the bank and view the course of
events with some degree of detachment.
He found that he could no longer refuse to listen to another voice that
had been sounding more or less loudly for some years--the voice of his own
experience, and, that which inevitably follows, the voice of the
experience of mankind. His thought flew backwards and forwards, backwards
to Eden and innocent Adam, followed by the wilderness and the curse,
forwards to some more years of travail, and then the crimson dawn glowing
on the gathered fruits of experience.
Would experience eventually restore the innocence that was lost with Eden?
Were they even things of the same kind? No; Blake was sure that they were
contraries, contrary as Swedenborg's heaven and hell, contrary states of
the human soul. But many contraries can be married. Innocence married to
experience must vanish as innocence, but rise again in a new form in the
more fruitful married relation. It appears that with most men innocence
lost never returns. Blake never lost his. It is seen in all its infantine
simplicity in _The Songs of Innocence_, and it could show itself at any
time during his long life. But this divine element is sadly rare even in
the poets, and it is its irresistible presence in Blake that makes him
wellnigh unique. In ourselves we find from experience knowledge of good
and evil, complicated views on philosophy and theology, puzzled brains,
and a frightfully murky atmosphere, and it seems Utopian to imagine that
it will ever be otherwise.
Blake maintained, and so had the Saints, that when experience had effected
its work and disposed of its dirt, smoke, and mud, a glorious something
would emerge which innocence could never know, but which will include the
innocence that we see in lambs and babies and buttercups and saints.
Between what we are and what we shall be is a sandy desert; and, since
Eden is lost, all, even the Christ, have to pass through the desert to
gain the promised land. The words of Christ are not the words of one who
has lived only in Eden. They are crystalline clear, flaming, simple, deep,
and infinitely wise, we should almost say innocent, but as to "create a
flower is the labour of ages," so when we look behind the words of Christ,
and seize their implications, we discover not only the sorrow and joy,
labour and triumph of His own experience, but that of the past labouring
ages; and until we know something of present living experience added to
that of the past, we shall never have an inkling of even the simplest
words that lie on the face of the gospel.
It was fitting that in 1794, when Blake uttered his prophecy of things to
come in _Europe_, he should also gather together his _Songs of
Experience_, and engrave them for the joy of posterity.
_The Little Girl Lost_ and _The Little Girl Found_ bring together better
than any perhaps the two contrary states of innocence and experience.
Lyca, being innocent and only seven summers old, wandered, allured by the
wild birds' song. She is lost but not dismayed. Falling asleep, the beasts
of prey come around her and minister to her, and finally convey her
tenderly to a cave.
Then her parents, experienced but not innocent, arise and seek her. They
pass through all the sufferings, sorrows, sighings, of this waste howling
wilderness, buying the experience that almost kills them, till in terror
they find Lyca among the wild beasts. But beholding Lyca they learn her
secret, and
"To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell:
Nor fear the wolfish howl
Nor the lion's growl."
_The Clod and the Pebble_ give the two contrary states of love. The clod
proclaims the love that forgets itself in ministering to others; the
pebble the love that would bind and devour all others, making them
contribute to its own delight.
_A Poison Tree_ shows how repressed things secrete poison.
"I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow."
The repressed anger ended in murder. Blake was sure that any passion
repressed was equally fatal.
_The Schoolboy_ gives the miserable experience that is thrust upon us all
through the blind cruelty of those who would educate us. This experience
is so contrary that nothing could be more calculated to crush native
innocence, joy, and spring.
"O! father and mother, if buds are nipped
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay,
How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?"
How indeed? The question is to parents, schoolmasters, professors,
priests. The conditions for young lives are created by those who would
strangle life. Yet when experience has been its most contrary, even
nailing its victim to a cross, just there is deliverance.
"Whate'er is born of mortal birth
Must be consumed with the earth,
To rise from generation free."
It was Blake's supreme experience that he had been set free from
generation. It was by a re-generation, and that had come to him through
the death of Jesus.
"The death of Jesus set me free."
The same year 1794 saw Blake spinning fast the special mythological web
with which he was to clothe or strangle his vision. He had separated from
all his spiritual teachers; but Swedenborg lived on in him much more than
he owned or even recognized, and Ossian and Milton still governed his
imagination. Milton's huge figures were imitated in the mythological
figures which were to stalk about his universe to the end; Ossian's
fantastic names, which always fascinated him, provoked others still more
fantastic. By means of these uncouth daemons he determined to set forth his
own particular view of the cosmos, which, starting with eternity, was to
fall into creation, and finally, after lightning, thunder, rolling clouds,
and a sea of blood, accompanied by roarings, shrieks, and howlings, was to
attain to salvation by a return to the divine order.
The "return" is treated of with great fullness in the _Jerusalem_: the
"fall" is hardly more than sketched in the fragmentary Books of _Urizen_,
_Los_, and _Ahania_. But as the process of return is the exact reverse to
that of the fall, an understanding of the one enables one to fill in the
gaps of the other. If there were other books dealing with the fall more in
detail, I for one can contemplate the loss with equanimity.
_The Book of Urizen_ is supposed to be the account of the creation, and
those who endorse this view proceed to identify Urizen with the Jehovah of
the Old Testament, which is as false as to identify him with the Jesus of
the New, although it is only too true that scores of Christians worship
Urizen under the names of Jehovah and Jesus.
In strict truth, Blake gives no account of the creation at all. To create
can only mean that which the Catholic Church affirms that it does mean, to
make something out of nothing. To reject this leaves two
alternatives--either that God made the universe out of something outside
of Himself, which is dualism, or out of something inside of Himself, which
is pantheism. Blake, like Swedenborg, adopted the last, but whereas
Swedenborg tried to evade the pantheistic conclusion by his doctrine of
discrete degrees, Blake swam in the pantheistic sea, and was saved from
drowning by clinging to the rocks which he discerned standing out in
bold outline, and a perception of the ultimate irreconcilable antinomy of
good and evil, of sheep and goats, which is a direct contradiction of
pantheism, and fits in only with the catholic doctrine. There are other
such contradictions in Blake, which did not in the least trouble him. With
his passion for contraries he harboured them all, marrying them when he
could, and just leaving them when they absolutely refused to unite. He had
not the requisite talent for building a coherent system.
[Illustration: URIZEN IN CHAINS.
_From The First Book of Urizen._]
What is called, then, Blake's account of the creation is really his
account of the fall of the universe out of eternity into time and space,
and the consequent appearance of man in his contracted and sense-bound
condition. Urizen is the agent in the fall; but he must not be identified
with Satan any more than with Jehovah. He, as nearly as possible,
represents reason. When he stands in the eternal order working on those
things supplied him by Los (imagination), he is a fountain of light,
intellect, and joy; when he is rent from Los' side, he becomes
self-closed, all repelling, shut up in an abominable void and
soul-shuddering vacuum, and his intellect becomes dark and cold because
his reason has nothing to work upon except what is supplied by the narrow
inlet of the senses.
Thus shut in the deep, he broods until his thoughts take outward shape and
form, and there arises "a wide World of solid obstruction." He then
proceeds to write his books of wisdom. But his vision being quenched, he
is confined to that which his still all-flexible senses provide. He knows
much about the terrible monsters that inhabit the bosoms of all--the seven
deadly sins of the soul. From his prolonged fightings and conflicts with
them there is distilled a kind of wisdom, which he gathers into his books;
but it is joyless wisdom, negative rather than positive, restrictive,
retributive, censorious, jealous, cruel, penal, and is best solidified in
the decalogue with its reiterated "Thou shalt not."
Eternity, which is present and within, rolled wide apart, "leaving ruinous
fragments of life." Rent from eternity, Urizen becomes a clod of clay, and
Los, beholding him, becomes like him, and is compelled to continue the
work of creation in constricted forms. With his hammer he forges links of
hours, days, and years. Man with his head, spine, heart, appears; then are
formed his eyes, ears, nostrils, throat, tongue, feet--little members that
hide from him eternity, and cause him to see the things that are within as
though they were without, like the stars of night seen through a great
telescope.
After the man the woman appears, whom the Eternal myriads named Pity. She
is an emanation from Los, and is named by Blake Enitharmon. Los embraces
her, and she begets a child in her own image--a Human Shadow, who is named
Orc (passion).
Thus grows up a world of men, women, children, with their various hungers
and needs. The Eternals try to provide for these needs by science and
religion; but as they can build their science and religion only from their
experience and observation of the contracted universe, the science is
sand, and religion a web, and earth's wretched children remain under the
cruel rule and curse of Urizen and his sons, calling his laws of Prudence
the Eternal Laws of God.
_The Song of Los_ (engraved 1795) adds many interesting particulars of the
process by which the world, with its philosophies and religions, has
become what it is.
Los, the Eternal Prophet, is the father of all systems of thought, but it
does not follow that all are equally true. For Los is out of the divine
order, and therefore the systems inspired by him and his many sons, while
containing streaks of the eternal truths, are all out of focus.
[Illustration: LOS.
_From The First Book of Urizen._]
Thus Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brahma in the East, and it is
defective because it is abstract. The same applies to all modern
theosophical revivals of Hindoo religion. An abstraction for Blake was a
falling away from concrete reality, and he found his deliverance in the
Christian doctrine of God.
Palamabron, another son of Los, gave abstract Law to Trismegistus,
Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato. Abstract Law is also negative, and
therefore Orc (passion) finds himself chained down with the chain of
Jealousy, and howls in impotent rage.
Sotho teaches Odin a Code of War which at any time may become the
philosophy of a nation.
All these, abstract philosophy, abstract law, the Mahometan Bible, Codes
of War, with the Churches, Hospitals, Castles, Palaces, which they
involve, while seeking to catch the joys of eternity, serve in reality to
obliterate and erase eternity altogether, and the children of men schooled
in these philosophies behold the vast of Nature shrunk before their
shrunken eyes. After the shrinkage there can only arise a philosophy of
the five senses, and then Newton and Locke, especially Locke, Rousseau and
Voltaire, have it all their own way.
From all this Blake looked for deliverance to the thought-creating fires
of Orc, which had flared up in France, and might be expected to spread
over Europe, and set even Asia in a conflagration. The Kings of Asia, snug
in their ancient woven dens, are startled into self-exertion, and emerging
uneasily from their dens, call on kings, priests, counsellors and privy
admonishers of men to use their immemorial rights to teach the Mortal
Worms, and keep them in the paths of slavery. Happily, Orc's fires are
insatiable. Raging in European darkness, he arose like a pillar of fire
above the Alps, and, while "milk and blood and glandous wine in rivers
rush," led the wild dance on mountain, dale, and plain, till the sullen
earth shrunk away, and there dawned the eternal day.
_The Book of Los_ (engraved 1795) begins with the lament of Eno, aged
Mother, as she recalls the "Times remote, when love and joy were adoration
and none impure were deemed." For now, alas! Los, who alone could teach
joy and liberty, is bound "in a chain and compelled to watch Urizen's
shadow." Yet he cannot be bound for ever. Maddened by hard bondage, he
rends asunder the vast Solid that has bound him, only to fall through the
horrible void of error--"Truth has bounds, Error none"--till his
contemplative thoughts arise and throw out some sort of standing-ground
amidst the dire vacuity. Urizen by his contemplative thoughts, it will be
remembered, had created "a wide World of solid obstruction." Now the two
daemons become rivals, and the grim conflict of the ages is waged
incessantly. Los with hammer and tongs organizes lungs (understanding, see
Swedenborg), and some Light even appears; but the book closes with no sign
of the ultimate triumph of Los, for Los and Urizen are here rivals: there
can be no victory until they cease to be rivals, and re-enter into the
union of the eternal order.
_The Book of Ahania_ (engraved 1795) gives the story of Fuzon, Urizen's
most fiery son, and therefore the one most obnoxious to his curse. He is
mortally wounded by a poisoned rock hurled at his bosom from his father's
bow, and his corse is nailed to the topmost stem of the Tree of Mystery,
which is religion. Then follows the sad and beautiful lament of
Ahania--the wife and emanation of Urizen, and mother of the murdered
Fuzon. She recalls, like Eno, the former days, when Urizen stood in the
divine order, and she, his lover and wife, joyed in the transports of
love, when her heart leaped at the lovely sound of his footsteps, and she
kissed the place whereon his bright feet had trod; when she knew the
thrilling joys of motherhood, and nursed her Babes of bliss on her full
breasts. These things were now but a memory. Urizen with stern jealous
cruelty had put her away, compelling her to walk weeping over rocks and
dens, through valleys of death, a shadow upon the void, and on the verge
of nonentity, a deep Abyss dividing her from her eternal love. Thus she
weeps and laments, wearing a sorrow's crown of sorrows, the remembering
happier things.
These short prophetic books, though entirely congenial to the author, were
written in a tongue unknown to the public, general or particular. There
was every sign that Blake would continue to produce more works, and even
on a much larger scale, in this particular kind of composition, and the
signs were equally clear that he must look to something else to procure
the wherewithal that would enable him and his wife to live.
This something was, of course, engraving, but even the demand for _his_
engraving was growing less, and the grim spectre of poverty made his
unwelcomed and uncalled-for appearance along with the spectres whom Blake
could command. Over this oppressive and grinding spectre he had no command
at all.
In 1796 he was asked by Miller, a publisher in Old Bond Street, to make
three illustrations to be engraved by Perry for Stanley's English
paraphrase of Buerger's _Lenore_. The elements of romance and weird horror
in Buerger's work were quite in keeping with a side of Blake's nature that
had shown itself in _Elinor_, and so the illustrations were accomplished
with marked power and success.
The same year he was engaged on designs for Young's _Night Thoughts_,
intended to illustrate a new and expensive edition of what was then
considered one of England's great classics. The work was to be published
by Edwards, of New Bond Street.
Blake was less free and happy illustrating Young than Buerger. Young has
since been slain by George Eliot, but even if she had not killed him, his
popularity must have waned in another generation or two. For there was
very little healthy human blood in his veins. He was other-worldly, and so
was Blake; but whereas Blake saw in the other world a world of
transcendent beauty of which this world was the vegetable mirror, Young
saw in it only a reflection of his own particular world. Hence Blake was a
mystic, and Young an egotist. Blake forgot himself in the magnificence of
eternity, Young's religion was "egotism turned heavenwards."
This is probably the reason why Blake's designs for Young were among the
least powerful and interesting things that he did. Give him the Book of
Job, or Dante, and he transcends himself, but with Young or Blair to work
upon, though he does remarkable work, yet it somehow falls short of his
best.
Mr Frederick Shields, who covered the walls of the Chapel of the Ascension
with strange pinks and ten thousand hands, has analysed all the more
important of Blake's designs, which amounted to five hundred and
thirty-seven. Of these only forty-three were published. _The Night
Thoughts_ was to appear in parts: only one part was published, and Young
was handed over to Stothard in 1802 before he was to be, in an elaborate
dress, a complete success.
The following year (1797) Blake was at work on _The Four Zoas, or The
Death and Judgment of the Ancient Man_. He revised this work a few years
later at the time he was planning the _Milton_ and _Jerusalem_. I shall
have something to say about it when dealing with _Jerusalem_. I will only
say just now that the minor prophetic books were preliminary trials to his
big flights, and when here, as in _Jerusalem_, a big flight is made, it is
found that Blake's mythology has received its completion, and that all the
things fermenting in him and striving for utterance do, in these long
poems, come to the surface. Anyone who would know him intimately must not
be discouraged by their extraordinary appearance, but struggle with them,
as with a foreign language, until they yield the last secrets of their
mystic author.