Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/199

 in the morning, and a wild visionary in the evening. Visionary glories floated before his eyes even while he stooped over the toilsome copper-plate. There was no pause or hiatus in the life-long wedding of spiritual and earthly things in his daily course; no giving the reins to imagination at one time more than other.

And if immortality, if eternity, mean something, if they imply a pre-existence as well as a post-mortal one, that which startles the practical mind in this letter is not so wholly mad; especially if we make due allowance for the dialect, the unwonted phraseology (most very original men have their phraseology), which long custom had made familiar and anything but extravagant to him, or to those who have read themselves into Blake's writing and design; a dialect so full of trope and metaphor, dealt with as if they were literal, not symbolic facts.

'

'We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages, and I think for palaces of magnificence, only enlarging not altering its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principles. Nothing can be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity, congenial to the wants of man. No other formed house can ever please me so well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be improved either in beauty or use.

'Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have begun to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates: her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses.