Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/267

 I rejoice to hear from Mr. Meyer of Miss Poole's continued recovery. My wife desires with me her respects to you, and her, and to all whom we love, that is, to all Sussex.

I remain, Your sincere and obliged humble servant,

In the midst of all these business details, valuable as showing Blake's perfect sanity and prudence in the conduct of practical affairs, it is refreshing to come upon a letter written in his visionary vein.

23rd Oct. 1804.

I received your kind letter with the note to Mr. Payne, and have had the cash from him. I should have returned my thanks immediately on receipt of it, but hoped to be able to send, before now, proofs of the two plates, the Head of R. and the Shipwreck, which you shall soon see in a much more perfect state. I write immediately because you wish I should do so, to satisfy you that I have received your kind favour.

I take the extreme pleasure of expressing my joy at our good Lady of Lavant's continued recovery, but with a mixture of sincere sorrow on account of the beloved Councillor. My wife returns her heartfelt thanks for your kind inquiry concerning her health. She is surprisingly recovered. Electricity is the wonderful cause; the swelling of her legs and knees is entirely reduced. She is very near as free from rheumatism as she was five years ago, and we have the greatest confidence in her perfect recovery.

The pleasure of seeing another poem from your hands has truly set me longing (my wife says I ought to have said us) with desire and curiosity; but, however, "Christmas is a coming."

Our good and kind friend Hawkins is not yet in town—hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing him—with the courage of conscious industry, worthy of his former kindness to me. For now! O Glory! and O Delight! 1 have entirely reduced that spectrous Fiend to his station, whose annoyance has been the ruin of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life. He is the enemy of conjugal love, and is the Jupiter of the Greeks, an ironhearted tyrant, the ruiner of ancient Greece. I speak with perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed upon me. Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him, I have had