Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/428

 354 Blake's mind was so sensitively strung as, in intercourse with others, to give immediate response to the right appeals. All speak of his conversation as most interesting, nay, enchanting to hear. Copious and varied, the fruit of great, but not morbid, intellectual activity, it was, in its ordinary course, full of mind, sagacity, and varied information. Above all, it was something quite different from that of other men: conversation which carried you 'from earth to heaven and back again, before you knew where you were.' Even a young girl would feel the fascination, though sometimes finding his words wild and hard to follow. To conventional minds, it often seemed a mixture of divinity, blasphemy, and licence; but a mixture, not even by them, to be quickly forgotten. In a walk with a sympathetic listener, it seldom flagged. He would have something pertinent to say about most objects they chanced to pass, were it but a bit of old wall. And such as had the privilege of accompanying him in a country walk felt their perception of natural beauty greatly enhanced. Nature herself seemed strangely more spiritual. Blake's mind warmed his listener's, kindled his imagination; almost creating in him a new sense. Nor was his enjoyment of all that is great in Art, of whatever school or time, less genuine and vivid: notwithstanding an appearance to the contrary in some passages of his writings, where, in doing battle energetically for certain great principles, random blows not a few, on either side the mark, came down on unoffending heads; or where, in the consciousness that a foolish world had insisted on raising the less great above the greatest, he delighted to make matters even by thrusting them as much too far below. 'I think I hear him say,' writes one of those friends whose congeniality ensured serene, wise moods on Blake's part, 'As fine as possible, Sir. It is not given to man to do better' (this when talking of the great examples of Art, whether antique or modern). 'He delighted to think of 'Raphael, Giulio Romano, Polidoro, and others, working