Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/155

 the Gymnosophists of India, the ancient Britons, and others of whom History tells, who went naked, were, in this, wiser than the rest of mankind,—pure and wise,—and that it would be well if the world could be as they. From the speculative idea to the experimental realization of it in his own person, was, for him, but a step; though the prejudices of Society would hardly permit the experiment to be more than temporary and private. Another of Blake's favourite fancies was that he could be, for the time, the historical person into whose character he projected himself: Socrates, Moses, or one of the Prophets. 'I am Socrates,' or 'Moses,' or 'the prophet Isaiah,' he would wildly say; and always his glowing enthusiasm was mirrored in the still depths of his wife's nature. This incident of the garden illustrates forcibly the strength of her husband's influence over her, and the unquestioning manner in which she fell in with all he did or said. When assured by him that she (for the time) was Eve, she would not dream of contradiction—nay, she in a sense believed it. If therefore the anecdote argues madness in one, it argues it in both.

The Blakes do not stand alone, however, in modern history as to eccentric tenets, and even practices, in the article of drapery. Jefferson Hogg, for instance, in his Life of Shelley, tells us of a 'charming and elegant' family in the upper ranks of society, whose acquaintance the poet made about 1813, who had embraced the theory of 'philosophical nakedness.' The parents believing in an impending 'return to nature' and reason, the pristine state of innocence, prepared their children for the coming millennium, by habituating them to run naked about the house, a few hours every day; in which condition they would open the door to welcome Shelley. The mother herself, enthusiastic in the cause,—than whom there was 'never a more innocent or more virtuous lady,'—also rehearsed her part—in private. She would rise betimes, lock herself into her dressing-room, and there for some hours remain, without her clothes, reading and writing,