Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/427



A lady tells a pretty and very characteristic story of her first and only interview with the spiritual man, which illustrates, in another way, how he came by this happiness. The lady was thought extremely beautiful when a child, and was taken to an evening party and there presented to Blake. He looked at her very kindly for a long while, without speaking; and then, stroking her head and long ringlets, said: 'May God make this world to you, my child, as beautiful as it has been to me!' She thought it strange, at the time—vain little darling of Fortune!—that such a poor old man, dressed in shabby clothes, could imagine that the world had ever been so beautiful to him as it must be to her, nursed in all the elegancies and luxuries of wealth. But, in after years, she understood plainly enough what he meant, and treasured the few words he had spoken to her. Well might he sweetly and touchingly say of himself (I draw from the note-book again):—