Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/455

 Rh there should be done in fresco, in low tones of simple, deep colour, one of these grand designs, inlaid in a broad gold flat, which should be incised in deep brown lines with the sub-signification of Blake's Marginalia. * * * At the inner end of this hall of power there should be a marble statue of Blake,

He should be standing on a rock, its solid strength overlapped by pale, marmoreal flames, while below his feet twined gently the 'Serpent of Eternity.' * * *

We shall attempt no final summary of Blake's powers and position as an artist. To pay some small tribute to his memory from whom, for many years, we have received such unbounded delight and instruction, has been a growing wish; and, in our humble measure, we have been able, now, to carry it into effect.

He stands, and must always stand, eminently alone. The fountain of thought and knowledge to others, he could never be the head of a school. What is best in him is wholly inimitable. 'The fire of God was in him.' And as, all through his works, this subtle element plays and penetrates, so in all he did and said, the ethereal force flamed outward, warming all who knew how to use it aright, scorching or scathing all who come impertinently near to it. He can never be popular in the ordinary sense of the word, write we never so many songs in his praise, simply because the region in which he lived was remote from the common concerns of life, and still more by reason of the truth of the 'mystic sentence' uttered by his own lips, and once before cited in these pages—