Page:William Blake (Chesterton).djvu/104

 WILLIAM BLAKE

Or again, in a more fanciful but genuinely weird way—

And then, after all this excellent and quite serious poetry, Blake can calmly write down the following two lines—

One could hardly find a more Gilbertian absurdity in the conjunction of ideas in the whole of the "Bab Ballads" than the idea that the success of some gentleman in the society of ladies depends upon whether he has previously at some time or other slightly irritated an ox. Such sudden inaccesibility to laughter must be called a morbid symptom. It must mean a blind spot on the brain. The whole thing, of course, would prove nothing if Blake were a common ranter incapable of writing well, or a common dunce incapable of seeing a joke. Such a man might easily be 92