Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/24

 Rh things of life as mere symbols of its spiritual consciousness, its spiritual desire for mastery.

Each of these points in classification Blake's best critics would, I think, freely allow. Nevertheless, seemingly because they lack courage of conviction, they quail before his mightiest utterances. They have most signally failed in establishing his sanity, because they could not understand the sublimity of his power. Confronted even by such of his best-known works as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, or The Visions of the Daughters of Albion, they have slunk away from the master to lose their identity among the foolish and angry multitude, thinking it impossible for the cock to crow. So that we have two duties before us, first to let the more doubtful understand how very specially sane was Blake's insanity, and secondly to let some of us latter-day disciples realize that health of heart is essential if we would scale the snow-clad pinnacles. Blake's purity of soul and simplicity of mind were his claims to greatness, his secret of appeal. And I think it will be among the thoughtful and unlearned, rather than the critical and scholarly, that the great