Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/424

 350 Simplicity and natural dignity such as Blake's can confer refinement on any environment. External discordances vanished before the spiritual concords of the man. 'There was a strange expansion,' says one of his friends, 'and sensation of in those two rooms very seldom felt elsewhere.' Another who, as a little girl, visited the rooms with her father, can only remember the beautiful things she saw on the walls, and Blake's kind manner to herself. Had there been anything sordid or poverty-stricken to remember, she would have done so, for children are keenly sensitive to such impressions. Blake, I may here mention, was especially fond of, and very kind to children; his habitual quiet gentleness assuming a new beauty towards them. He was kind to the young generally; and, as a lady (Miss Maria Denman), to whom in youth this fostering behaviour had been, in slight ways, shown, observed to me with some emotion, 'One remembers, even in age, the kindness of such a man.'

'Blake knew nothing,' writes the valued correspondent whom I have so frequent occasion to quote, 'of dignified reserve, polite hauteur, "bowings out, or condescension to inferiors," nor had he dressed himself for masquerade in "unassuming manners." Somewhere in his writings occur these lines, droll, but full of meaning—

The courtly and politic were denied Blake. But he was not among those who fancy genius raises them above the courtesies and humanities of life. Competent judges describe him as, essentially, 'the politest of men.' To this gentlemanliness, and to what I may call the originality of his manners or mental dress, observers of various habits agree in speaking. 'Very courteous,' 'very polite;' and 'withal there was great meekness and retirement of manner, such as belong to the true gentleman and commanded respect,' says one. In society he was more urbane than many of greater pretension,