Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/445

 Rh infidels, and its abuse by the superstitious. ... It must be confessed, however, he uttered, occasionally, sentiments sadly at variance with sound doctrine.'

Some persons of a scientific turn were once discoursing pompously and, to him, distastefully, about the incredible distance of the planets, the length of time light takes to travel to the earth, &c., when he burst out, '' Tis false! I was walking down a lane the other day, and at the end of it I touched the sky with my stick;' perhaps with a little covert sophistry, meaning that he thrust his stick out into space, and that, had he stood upon the remotest star, he could do no more; the blue sky itself being but the limit of our bodily perceptions of the Infinite which encompasses us. Scientific individuals would generally make him come out with something outrageous and unreasonable. For he had an indestructible animosity towards what, to his devout, oldworld imagination, seemed the keen polar atmosphere of modern science. In society, once, a cultivated stranger, as a mark of polite attention, was showing him the first number of The Mechanics Magazine. 'Ah, sir,' remarked Blake, with bland emphasis, 'these things we artists HATE!' The latter years of Blake's life were an era when universal homage was challenged for mechanical science,—as for some new Evangel; with a triumphant clamour on the part of superficial enthusiasts, which has since subsided.

Yet, as Mr. Kirkup reports, Blake would on occasion, waive, with 'true courtesy, the question of his spiritual life, if the subject seemed at all incomprehensible or offensive; he would no more obtrude than suppress his faith, and would practically accept and act upon the dissent or distaste of his companions without visible vexation or the rudeness of a thwarted fanatic.'

After all, no candid person would, even in society, have taken Blake for mad. Nor did he really believe his own vaunt, say his friends, when he uttered such things as the above, or as, 'I can reach the sun with my hand, if I stretch