Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/198



'Receive my and my husband's love and affection, and believe me to be yours affectionately, ''

'H. B. Lambeth, 14 Sept. 1800.'

The labour of preparation and the excitement of eager anticipation proved almost too much for the affectionate and devoted Kate. September 16th, a few days before they started, Blake writes to Hayley, 'My dear and too careful and over-joyous woman has exhausted her strength... Eartham will be my first temple and altar; my wife is like a flame of many colours of precious jewels whenever she hears it named.'

A letter from Blake's own hand to Flaxman, penned immediately after arrival in Sussex, has been put into print by our excellent friend Smith. This very physiognomic composition, lucid enough to all who know Blake, needlessly puzzled Allan Cunningham. It does not, to my mind, separate, as he maintains, into two distinct parts of strongly contrasted spirit; nor does it betoken that irreconcilable discord of faculties he imagines. The mingling of sound sagacity with the utmost licence of imagination showed itself at every hour of Blake's life. He would, at any moment, speak as he here writes, and was not a mere sensible mortal