Page:William Blake (IA williamblake00ches).pdf/184

 of London. But it does not follow that it would really have been a kindness to poor Londoners to abolish the Lord Mayor's Show.

Now it is in this sense that we may truly say that Blake (upon one side of his mind) was something worse than a maniac—he was a faddist. He did permit aspirations or prejudices which are accidental or one-sided to capture and control him at the expense of things really more human and enduring: things which he shared with all the children of men. I do not allude to his supernaturalism; for on that he is in no sense alone, nor even specially eccentric. I do not refer to his love of the gorgeous, the terrible or even the secretive of temples, initiations, and hieroglyphic religion. For that sort of mystery is really quite popular and even democratic. That sort of secrecy is a very open secret.

It is usual to hear a man say in modern England that he has too much common sense to believe in ghosts. But common sense is in favour of a belief in ghosts, the common sense of mankind. It is usual to hear a man say that he likes common sense and does not like the mummeries and flummeries of church