Page:William Blake (IA williamblake00ches).pdf/81

 he racked his brain for some superlative spirit or archangel which would not be a mere bathos after the other. His rolling eyes (those round lustrous eyes which one can always see roll in his painted portraits) fell on the old frail and somewhat ugly woman who had been his companion so long, and he called out, "Catherine, you have been an angel to me; I will draw you next." Throwing aside the sketch of God measuring the universe, he began industriously to draw a portrait of his wife, a portrait which is unfortunately lost, but which must have substantially resembled the remarkable sketch which a friend drew some months afterwards; the portrait of a woman at once plain and distinguished, with a face that is supremely humorous and at once harsh and kind. Long before that portrait was drawn, long before those months had elapsed, William Blake was dead.

Whatever be the explanation, it is quite certain that Blake had more positive joy on his death-bed than any other of the sons of Adam. One has heard of men singing hymns on their death-beds, in low plaintive voices. Blake was not at all like that on his death-bed: