Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/185

 Rh of the bodily life now divided from him—this pestilent nature in bondage to the dæmonic deity, which thought to consume him by dint of death:

puts it off and devours it in three nights; even as now also he feeds upon it to consume it; being made perfect in pride, that he may overcome the body by spiritual and "galling pride:" eat what "never was made for man to eat," the body of dust and clay, the meal's meat of the old serpent: as "the white parts or lights" of a plate are "eaten away with aqua-fortis or other acid, leaving prominent" the spiritual "outline" (Life, v. 1, ch. ix., p. 89). This symbol, taken from Blake's own artistic