WILLIAM BLAKE, MYSTIC WILLI A Study ILLIAM BLAKE, poet, artist and engraver! Yet to how few persons is he known, and how much beloved by the few who do know him! He belongs, to use an old Quaker phrase, 'to the world outside,' yet that is the world that cannot understand him, for he speaks to the inner soul, to the world inside,' and it is only the few who can interpret that speech; so that William Blake stands little chance of ever becoming the idol even of the literary world. A cultured person may be interested in or attracted by either a poem or a painting of his, but he must possess a kindred spirit-he must belong to 'the world inside,' if he would grasp the real meaning of any one of Blake's poems or pictures. It is not sufficient to have an intelligent appreciation of art to understand wherein lies the charm of Blake's airy figures—it is not sufficient to know the laws of rhythm to comprehend his poems, for more than mere culture is demanded from Blake's appreciator, r and that more cannot be learned in the schools-it must be innate—he must know, almost intuitively, that which Blake's soul has grasped and which his mind and hand have put into concrete form. If it is not seized by intuition, its power will never be realised, for no amount of technical knowledge aids in understanding the deep things of the soul. If such an one does not possess that power, let him close the book of poems by William Blakelet such an one leave unopened the copy of Young's Night Thoughts or that of Blair's Grave, both illustrated by Blake, as he would in all probability only see some grotesque figures, which in their huge proportions bear perhaps some resemblance to those of Michael Angelo and would fail to find any reason for Blake choosing to engrave the moment of the 'soul's departure from the body,' or the 're-union of the soul and of the body after death,' for, unless he feel their charm when first he sees them, he will never discover it, though he spend many hours in studying them. No! It needs the insight of the mystic-of those belonging to the 'world inside' to understand the mystic soul of William Blake; therefore, he is to-day, as he was more than a century ago, neglected and passed over by the literary and artistic world, unless with their culture they possess a soul capable of responding to the inner meaning of the moments depicted in Blake's pictures, apart from their artistic merit. |