Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/253

 CHAPTER XX.

LETTERS TO HAYLEY. 1804—5. [ 47-48.]

the friendly haven of sweet Felpham was now finally exchanged for the deeper seclusion of the brick and mortar desert, in the hope of more perfect converse there with the visions, undistracted by appeals from the beauty of the visible world, or by temptations from well-meaning patrons, above all, undisturbed by daily contact with so essentially material and eighteenth century a mind as Hayley's, a friendly relation between the two continued so long as there were any connecting links of work on one side or helpfulness on the other possible; after which it died a natural death. A brisk and, for the most part, business-like, correspondence, warmed on Blake's side by the sincere gratitude which Hayley's conduct in the closing adventure of their neighbourship had inspired, carries on the record of his practical work for the next year and a half Blake's lodgings in South Molton Street were within a mile of the spot where he was born. There neither garden nor tree reminded him of what he had left behind. South Molton Street, less shabby then than now, runs diagonally from Oxford Street into Brook Street. At No. 17 he took a first floor, in which he remained nearly seventeen years. Jan. 27th he writes thence to Hayley:—

Your eager expectation of hearing from me compels me to write immediately, tho' I have not done half the business I wish'd, owing to a violent cold which confined me to my bed three days and to my chamber a week. I am now so well, thank God, as to get