Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/15

 Rh we are to believe all that his apologists wrote to prove the contrary. Yet his critics have dealt most lovingly with him, and praised his cryptic flights of poetic fire, his marvellous, ineffable pictures. They have told us of his simple, true, and pious life, never wavering or over-sad, always staunch and hopeful; of his terrific condemnation of enemies, his over-kindly criticism of friends. They have let us see his child-like yet huge-minded nature; they have made us worship the singer for his prophecy, the painter for his music. Nevertheless, and please note this most extraordinary of facts, they have dared defend this man against himself and his own work.

We are driven by his apologists, but not by his disciples, to this uncomfortable conclusion: that if the dear William Blake was indeed sane, he was guilty in manner never before laid to the charge of the most hypocritical; for while your average sinner may preach piety and live shamefully, William Blake, for the first time in the history of man, while living so absolutely virtuous a life that none but a drunken soldier ever accused him, and that falsely, yet wrote and preached impiety of many