Page:William Blake (Chesterton).djvu/84

 WILLIAM BLAKE insane—I mean secrecy. Yet again, if we mean by madness anything inconsistent or unreasonable, then Blake was not mad. Blake was one of the most consistent men that ever lived, both in theory and practice. Blake may have been quite wrong, but he was not in the least unreasonable. He was quite as calm and scientific as Herbert Spencer on the basis of his own theory of things. He was vain to the last degree; but it was the gay and gusty vanity of a child, not the imprisoned pride of a maniac. In all these aspects we can say with confidence that the man was not at least obviously mad or completely mad. But if we ask whether there was not some madness about him, whether his naturally just mind was not subject to some kind of disturbing influence which was not essential to itself, then we ask a very different question, and require, unless I am mistaken, a very different answer.

When all Philistine mistakes are set aside, when all mystical ideas are appreciated, there is a real sense in which Blake was mad. It is a practical and certain sense, exactly like the sense in which he was not mad. In fact, in almost every case of his character and 72