Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/61

 Rh Thus Wordsworth of his friend General Beaupuy, the revolutionist; and I cannot help feeling that they fit Blake.

But I dare not leave my subject without saying something of this prophet's power of seeing visions, which power more than any other point in his character has exposed him to the charge of madness. But there is no real difficulty in understanding this gift, though its precise significance is not easy to define. The imagination, in taking concrete form for the sake of expressing what it feels, always goes through a process of visualizing. When, more especially, the imagination is dealing with purely abstract concepts, it has no other means of concentrating thought upon these concepts, still less of definitely teaching them, than the methods of symbolic representation. Thus, when Blake feels himself suddenly and mightily inspired with the eternal joy that must fill all created things in realizing the will of their Maker, he, for his own better understanding, as well as for his better means of expression, instinctively visualizes the words of Job, "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." To him the words are an inspiration; and the Holy Spirit, the