"I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the Lord!"
Our rapidly diminishing space warns us to be brief, and we can only
glance at a few of the remaining incidents of this outwardly calm, yet
inwardly eventful life. In an evil hour--though to it we owe the
"Illustrations to Blair's Grave"--he fell into the hands of Cromek, the
shrewd Yorkshire publisher, and was tenderly entreated, as a dove in the
talons of a kite. The famous letter of Cromek to Blake is one of the
finest examples on record of long-headed worldliness bearing down upon
wrong-headed genius. Though clutching the palm in this case, and in some
others, it is satisfactory to know that Cromek's clever turns led to no
other end than poverty; and nothing worse than poverty had Blake, with
all his simplicity, to encounter. But Blake, in his poverty, had meat to
eat which the wily publisher knew not of.
In the wake of this failure followed another. Blake had been engaged to
make twenty drawings to illustrate Ambrose Philips's "Virgil's
Pastorals" for schoolboys. The publishers saw them, and stood aghast,
declaring he must do no more. The engravers received them with derision,
and pronounced sentence, "This will never do." Encouraged, however, by
the favorable opinion of a few artists who saw them, the publishers
admitted, with an apology, the seventeen which had already been
executed, and gave the remaining three into more docile hands. Of the
two hundred and thirty cuts, the namby-pambyism, which was thought to be
the only thing adapted to the capacity of children, has sunk to the
level of its worthlessness, and the book now is valued only for Blake's
small contribution.
Of an entirely different nature were the "Inventions from the Book of
Job," which are pronounced the most remarkable series of etchings on a
Scriptural theme that have been produced since the days of Rembrandt and
Albrecht Dürer. Of these drawings we have copies in the second volume of
the "Life," from which one can gather something of their grandeur, their
bold originality, their inexhaustible and often terrible power. His
representations of God the Father will hardly accord with modern taste,
which generally eschews all attempt to embody the mind's conceptions of
the Supreme Being; but Blake was far more closely allied to the ancient
than to the modern world. His portraiture and poetry often remind us of
the childlike familiarity--not rude in him, but utterly reverent--which
was frequently, and sometimes offensively, displayed in the old miracle
and moral plays.
These drawings, during the latter part of his life, secured him from
actual want. A generous friend, Mr. Linnell, himself a struggling young
artist, gave him a commission, and paid him a small weekly stipend: it
was sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and that was enough: so
the wolf was kept away, his lintel was uncrossed 'gainst angels. It was
little to this piper that the public had no ear for his piping,--to this
painter, that there was no eye for his pictures.
"His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."
He had but to withdraw to his inner chamber, and all honor and
recognition awaited him. The pangs of poverty or coldness he never
experienced, for his life was on a higher plane:--
"I am in God's presence night and day,
He never turns his face away."
When a little girl of extraordinary beauty was brought to him, his
kindest wish, as he stood stroking her long ringlets, was, "May God make
this world to you, my child, as beautiful as it has been to me!" His own
testimony declares,--
"The angel who presided at my birth
Said,--'Little creature, formed of joy and mirth,
Go, love without the help of anything on earth!'"
But much help from above came to him. The living lines that sprung
beneath his pencil were but reminiscences of his spiritual home.
Immortal visitants, unseen by common eyes, hung enraptured over his
sketches, lent a loving ear to his songs, and left with him their legacy
to Earth. There was no looking back mournfully on the past, nor forward
impatiently to the future, but a rapturous, radiant, eternal now. Every
morning came heavy-freighted with its own delights; every evening
brought its own exceeding great reward.
So, refusing to the last to work in traces,--flying out against
Reynolds, the bland and popular President of the Royal Academy, yet
acknowledging with enthusiasm what he deemed to be excellence,--loving
Fuseli with a steadfast love through all neglect, and hurling his
indignation at a public that refused to see his worth,--flouting at
Bacon, the great philosopher, and fighting for Barry, the restorer of
the antique, he resolutely pursued his appointed way unmoved. But the
day was fast drawing on into darkness. The firm will never quailed, but
the sturdy feet faltered. Yet, as the sun went down, soft lights
overspread the heavens. Young men came to him with fresh hearts, and
drew out all the freshness of his own. Little children learned to watch
for his footsteps over the Hampstead hills, and sat on his knee, sunning
him with their caresses. Men who towered above their time, reverencing
the god within, and bowing not down to the _dæmon à la mode_, gathered
around him, listened to his words, and did obeisance to his genius. They
never teased him with unsympathetic questioning, or enraged him with
blunt contradiction. They received his visions simply, and discussed
them rationally, deeming them worthy of study rather than of ridicule or
vulgar incredulity. To their requests the spirits were docile. Sitting
by his side at midnight, they watched while he summoned from unknown
realms long-vanished shades. William Wallace arose from his "gory bed,"
Edward I. turned back from the lilies of France, and, forgetting their
ancient hate, stood before him with placid dignity. The man who built
the Pyramids lifted his ungainly features from the ingulfing centuries;
souls of blood--thirsty men, duly forced into the shape of fleas, lent
their hideousness to his night; and the Evil One himself did not disdain
to sit for his portrait to this undismayed magician. That these are
actual portraits of concrete object? is not to be affirmed. That they
are portraits of what Blake saw is as little to be denied. We are
assured that his whole manner was that of a man copying, and not
inventing, and the simplicity and sincerity of his life forbid any
thought of intentional deceit. No criticism affected him. Nothing could
shake his faith. "It must be right: I saw it so," was the beginning and
end of his defence. The testimony of these friends of his is that he was
of all artists most spiritual, devoted, and single-minded. One of them
says, if asked to point out among the intellectual a happy man, he
should at once think of Blake. One, a young artist, finding his
invention flag for a whole fortnight, had recourse to Blake.
"It is just so with us," he exclaimed, turning to his wife, "is it not,
for weeks together, when the visions forsake us? What do we do then,
Kate?"
"We kneel down and pray, Mr. Blake."
To these choice spirits, these enthusiastic and confiding friends, his
house was the House of the Interpreter. The little back-room, kitchen,
bedroom, studio, and parlor in one, plain and neat, had for them a kind
of enchantment. That royal presence lighted up the "hole" into a palace.
The very walls widened with the greatness of his soul. The windows that
opened on the muddy Thames seemed to overlook the river of the water of
life. Among the scant furnishings, his high thoughts, set in noble
words, gleamed like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Over the gulf
that yawns between two worlds he flung a glorious arch, and walked
tranquilly back and forth. Heaven was as much a matter-of-fact to him as
earth. Of sacred things he spoke with a familiarity which, to those who
did not understand him, seemed either madness or blasphemy; but his
friends never misunderstood. With one exception, none who knew him
personally ever thought of calling his sanity in question. To them he
was a sweet, gentle, lovable man. They felt the truth of his life. They
saw that
"Only that fine madness still he did retain
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain."
Imagination was to him the great reality. The external, that which makes
the chief consciousness of most men, was to him only staging, an
incumbrance, and uncouth, but to be endured and made the most of. The
world of the imagination was the true world. Imagination _bodied_ forth
the forms of things unknown in a deeper sense, perhaps, than the great
dramatist meant. His poet's pen, his painter's pencil turned them to
shapes, and gave to airy nothings a local habitation and a name. Nay, he
denied that they were nothings. He rather asserted the actual existence
of his visions,--an existence as real, though not of the same nature, as
those of the bed or the table. Imagination was a kind of sixth sense,
and its objects were as real as the objects of the other senses. This
sense he believed to exist, though latent, in every one, and to be
susceptible of development by cultivation. This is surely a very
different thing from madness. Neither is it the low superstition of
ghosts. He recounted no miracle, nothing supernatural. It was only that
by strenuous effort and untiring devotion he had penetrated beyond the
rank and file--but not beyond the possibilities of the rank and
file--into the unseen world. Undoubtedly this power finally assumed
undue proportions. In his isolation it led him on too unresistingly. His
generation knew him not. It neglected where it should have trained, and
stared where it should have studied. He was not wily enough to conceal
or gloss over his views. Often silent with congenial companions, he
would thrust in with boisterous assertion in the company of captious
opponents. Set upon by the unfriendly and the conventional, he wilfully
hurled out his wild utterances, exaggerating everything, scorning all
explanation or modification, goading peculiarities into reckless
extravagance, on purpose to puzzle and startle, and so avenging himself
by playing off upon those who attempted to play off upon him. To the
gentle, the reverent, the receptive, the simple, he, too, was gentle and
reverent.
Nearest and dearest of all, the "beloved Kate" held him in highest
honor. The ripples that disturbed the smooth flow of their early life
had died away and left an unruffled current. To the childless wife, he
was child, husband, and lover. No sphere so lofty, but he could come
quickly down to perform the lowliest duties. The empty platter, silently
placed on the dinner-table, was the signal for his descent from
Parnassus to the money-earning graver. No angel-faces kept him from
lighting the morning fire and setting on the breakfast-kettle before his
Kitty awoke. Their life became one. Her very spirit passed into his. By
day and by night her love surrounded him. In his moments of fierce
inspiration, when he would arise from his bed to sketch or write the
thoughts that tore his brain, she, too, arose and sat by his side,
silent, motionless, soothing him only by the tenderness of her presence.
Years and wintry fortunes made havoc of her beauty, but love renewed it
day by day for the eyes of her lover, and their hands only met in firmer
clasp as they neared the Dark River.
It was reached at last. No violent steep, but a gentle and gracious
slope led to the cold waters that had no bitterness for him. Shining
already in the glory of the celestial city, his eyes rested upon the
dear form that had stood by his side through all these years, and with
waning strength he cried, "Stay! Keep as you are! _You_ have been ever
an angel to me: I will draw you." And, summoning his forces, he sketched
his last portrait of the fond and faithful wife. Then, comforting her
with the shortness of their separation, assuring her that he should
always be about her to take care of her, he set his face steadfastly
towards the Beautiful Gate. So joyful was his passage, so triumphant his
march, that the very sight was to them that could behold it as if heaven
itself were come down to meet him. Even the sorrowing wife could but
listen enraptured to the sweet songs he chanted to his Maker's praise;
but, "They are _not_ mine, my beloved!" he tenderly cried; "_No!_ they
are _not_ mine!" The strain he heard was of a higher mood; and
continually sounding as he went, with melodious noise, in notes on high,
he entered in through the gates into the City.
* * * * *