Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/441

 Rh a wand—a figure neither large nor small, for it is of no size to the judgment and imagination—cowers and stares beneath the root of a forest oak; a huge worm winds round before her feet, and the inscription is I have said to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister. Surely, any one who ever sat awestruck over the Book of Job, and heard the 'deep sad music of humanity' coming on the long-drawn gust of time from those lands of Uz, would feel that here was one worthy and sufficient interpretation of the idea of the verse, and of those other kindred upbreathings from the grave, and wailings of the haunted 'house appointed for all living,' of which the early chapters of the Book of Job are full.

Laying aside these works as philosophies or preachings, and returning upon them as strange pictures intended for the informing of the imagination through the eye, it is impossible to put into words the delight and restless wonder they excite. We invite the reader to turn to page 109 vol. i. and the opposite page, which is a fac-simile of one of Blake's leaves from America, reduced—but by an unerring 'photolithographic' process—to half the size, and printed as nearly as possible in the colour used as a groundwork for his handtinting—so that we are looking, in fact, at an autograph. Study carefully the design on the upper part of the left-hand page. By a sheer breadth of black, sharply contrasted with the white page, there is, by some inexplicable magic, conveyed the impression of a space in the upper skies, where—coming we know and care not whence, and hasting we know not whither—is a wild swan, bridled and mounted by an elf, into whose history and significance we shall never trouble ourselves to inquire. But we appeal to the intelligent observer whether that design does not kindle the page into a silver light, and hasten the spirits into a breezy swiftness of enjoyment, and strike the harp of memory within him, making him, perhaps, recall the fine image, in the 'Palace of Art'—