Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/436

 CHAPTER XXXV.

MAD OR NOT MAD?

his familiar conversations with Mr. Palmer and other disciples, Blake would speak in the most matter-of-fact way of recent spiritual visitors. Much of their talk was of the spirits he had been discoursing with and, to a third person, would have sounded oddly enough. 'Milton the other day was saying to me,' so and so. 'I tried to convince him he was wrong, but I could not succeed.' 'His tastes are Pagan; his house is Palladian, not Gothic' Ingenuous listeners hardly knew, sometimes, whether to believe Blake saw these spirits or not; but could not go so far as utterly to deny that he did. It often struck them, however, that the spirits came under false pretences, and were not what they represented themselves; inasmuch as they spoke false doctrine, broached unsound opinions.

In society, again, Blake would give accounts of romantic appearances which had shown themselves to him. At one of Mr. Aders' parties—at which Flaxman, Lawrence, and other leading artists were present—Blake was talking to a little group gathered round him, within hearing of a lady whose children had just come home from boarding school for the holidays. 'The other evening,' said Blake, in his usual quiet way, 'taking a walk, I came to a meadow and, at the farther corner of it, I saw a fold of lambs. Coming nearer,