The Portable William Blake (20 page)

Mrs. Butts will, I hope, Excuse my not having finish’d the Portrait. I wait for less hurried moments. Our Cottage looks more & more beautiful. And tho’ the weather is wet, the Air is very Mild, much Milder than it was in London when we came away. Chichester is a very handsome City, Seven miles from us; we can get most Conveniences there. The Country is not so destitute of accomodations to our wants as I expected it would be. We have had but little time for viewing the Country, but what we have seen is Most Beautiful, & the People are Genuine Saxons, handsomer than the people about London. Mrs. Butts will Excuse the following lines:

Felpham,
26th November 1800.

DEAR SIR,

Absorbed by the poets Milton, Homer, Camoens, Ercilla, Ariosto, and Spenser, whose physiognomies have been my delightful study,
Little Tom
has been of late unattended to, and my wife’s illness not being quite gone off, she has not printed any more since you went to London. But we can muster a few in colours and some in black, which I hope will be no less favour’d, tho’ they are rough like rough sailors. We mean to begin printing again to-morrow. Time flies very fast and very merrily. I sometimes try to be miserable that I may do more work, but find it is a foolish experiment. Happinesses have wings and wheels; miseries are leaden legged, and their whole employment is to clip the wings and to take off the wheels of our chariots. We determine, therefore, to be happy and do all that we can, tho’ not all that we would. Our dear friend Flaxman is the theme of my emulation in this of industry, as well as in other virtues and merits. Gladly I hear of his full health and spirits. Happy son of the immortal Phidias, his lot is truly glorious, and mine no less happy in his friendship and in that of his friends. Our cottage is surrounded by the same guardians you left with us; they keep off every wind. We hear the west howl at a distance, the south bounds on high over our thatch, and smiling on our cottage say: “You lay too low for my anger to injure.” As to the east and north, I believe they cannot get past the Turret.

My wife joins with me in duty and affection to you. Please to remember us both in love to Mr. and Mrs. Flaxman, and

Felpham Cottage, of Cottages the prettiest,

MY DEAR SIR,

I hope you will continue to excuse my want of steady perseverance, by which want I am still so much your debtor & you so much my Credit-er; but such as I can be, I will. I can be grateful, & I can soon Send you some of your designs which I have nearly completed. In the mean time by my Sister’s hands I transmit to Mrs. Butts an attempt at your likeness, which I hope she, who is the best judge, will think like. Time flies faster (as seems to me) here than in London. I labour incessantly & accomplish not one half of what I intend, because my Abstract folly hurries me often away while I am at work, carrying me over Mountains & Valleys, which are not Real, in a Land of Abstraction where Spectres of the Dead wander. This I endeavour to prevent & with my whole might chain my feet to the world of Duty & Reality; but in vain! the faster I bind, the better is the Ballast, for I, so far from being bound down, take the world with me in my flights, & often it seems lighter than a ball of wool rolled by the wind. Bacon & Newton would prescribe ways of making the world heavier to me, & Pitt would prescribe distress for a medicinal potion; but as none on Earth can give me Mental Distress, & I know that all Distress inflicted by Heaven is a Mercy, a Fig for all Corporeal! Such Distress is My mock & scorn. Alas! wretched, happy, ineffectual labourer of time’s moments that I am! who shall deliver me from this Spirit of Abstraction & Improvidence? Such, my Dear Sir, Is the truth of my state, & I tell it you in palliation of my seeming neglect of your most pleasant orders; but I have not neglected them; & yet a Year is rolled over, & only now I approach the prospect of sending you some, which you may expect soon. I should have sent them by My Sister, but, as the Coach goes three times a week to London & they will arrive as safe as with her, I shall have the opportunity of inclosing several together which are not yet completed. I thank you again & again for your generous forbearance, of which I have need—& now I must express my wishes to see you at Felpham & to shew you Mr. Hayley’s Library, which is still un-finish’ d, but is in a finishing way & looks well. I ought also to mention my Extreme disappointment at Mr. Johnson’s forgetfulness, who appointed to call on you but did Not. He is also a happy Abstract, known by all his Friends as the most innocent forgetter of his own Interests. He is nephew to the late Mr. Cowper the Poet; you would like him much. I continue painting Miniatures & Improve more & more, as all my friends tell me; but my Principal labour at this time is Engraving Plates for Cowper’s Life, a Work of Magnitude, which Mr. Hayley is now labouring with all his matchless industry, & which will be a most valuable acquisition to Literature, not only on account of Mr. Hayley’s composition, but also as it will contain Letters of Cowper to his friends, Perhaps, or rather Certainly, the very best letters that ever were published.

My wife joins with me in Love to you & Mrs. Butts, hoping that her joy is now increased, & yours also, in an increase of family & of health & happiness.

I remain, Dear Sir,

Ever Yours Sincerely,

WILLIAM BLAKE.

 

Next time I have the happiness to see you, I am determined to paint another Portrait of you from Life in my best manner, for Memory will not do in such minute operations; for I have now discover’d that without Nature before the painter’s Eye, he can never produce any thing in the walks of Natural Painting. Historical Designing is one thing & Portrait Painting another, & they are as Distinct as any two Arts can be. Happy would that Man be who could unite them!

P.S. Please to Remember our best respects to Mr. Birch, & tell him that Felpham Men are the mildest of the human race; if it is the will of Providence, they shall be the wisest. We hope that he will, next summer, joke us face to face.—Cod bless you all!

Oct 19, 1801.

DEAR FLAXMAN,

I rejoice to hear that your Great Work is accomplished. Peace opens the way to greater still. The Kingdoms of this World are now become the Kingdoms of God & His Christ, & we shall reign with him for ever & ever. The Reign of Literature & the Arts commences. Blessed are those who are found studious of Literature & Humane & polite accomplishments. Such have their lamps burning & such shall shine as the stars.

Mr. Thomas, your friend to whom you was so kind as to make honourable mention of me, has been at Felpham & did me the favor to call on me. I have promis’d him to send my designs for Comus when I have done them, directed to you.

Now I hope to see the Great Works of Art, as they are so near to Felpham: Paris being scarce further off than London. But I hope that France & England will henceforth be as One Country and their Arts One, & that you will ere long be erecting Monuments In Paris—Emblems of Peace.

My wife joins with me in love to You & Mrs. Flaxman.

I remain, Yours Sincerely

WILLIAM BLAKE.

 

I have just seen Weller.—all y‘r friends in the North are willing to await y’r leisure for Works of Marble, but Weller says it would soothe & comfort the good sister of the upright Mr. D. to see a little sketch from y’r hand. Adio.

Felpham,

DEAR SIR,

Your very kind & affectionate Letter & the many kind things you have said in it, call’d upon me for an immediate answer; but it found My Wife & Myself so Ill, & My wife so very ill, that till now I have not been able to do this duty. The Ague & Rheumatism have been almost her constant Enemies, which she has combated in vain ever since we have been here; & her sickness is always my sorrow, of course. But what you tell me about your sight afflicted me not a little, & that about your health, in another part of your letter, makes me intreat you to take due care of both; it is a part of our duty to God & man to take due care of his Gifts; & tho’ we ought not [to] think
more
highly of ourselves, yet we ought to think As highly of ourselves as immortals ought to think.

When I came down here, I was more sanguine than I am at present; but it was because I was ignorant of many things which have since occurred, & chiefly the unhealthiness of the place. Yet I do not repent of coming on a thousand accounts; & Mr. H., I doubt not, will do ultimately all that both he & I wish—that is, to lift me out of difficulty; but this is no easy matter to a man who, having Spiritual Enemies of such formidable magnitude, cannot expect to want natural hidden ones.

Your approbation of my pictures is a Multitude to Me, & I doubt not that all your kind wishes in my behalf shall in due time be fulfilled. Your kind offer of pecuniary assistance I can only thank you for at present, because I have enough to serve my present purpose here; our expenses are small, & our income, from our incessant labour, fully adequate to them at present. I am now engaged in Engraving 6 small plates for a New Edition of Mr. Hayley’s Triumphs of Temper, from drawings by Maria Flaxman, sister to my friend the Sculptor, and it seems that other things will follow in course, if I do but Copy these well; but Patience! if Great things do not turn out, it is because such things depend on the Spiritual & not on the Natural World; & if it was fit for me, I doubt not that I should be Employ’d in Greater things; & when it is proper, my Talents shall be properly exercised in Public, as I hope they are now in private; for, till then, I leave no stone unturn’d & no path unexplor’d that lends to improvement in my beloved Arts. One thing of real consequence I have accomplish’d by coming into the country, which is to me consolation enough: namely, I have recollected all my scatter’d thoughts on Art & resumed my primitive & original ways of Execution in both painting & engraving, which in the confusion of London I had very much lost & obliterated from my mind. But whatever becomes of my labours, I would rather that they should be preserv’d in your Green House (not, as you mistakenly call it, dunghill) than in the cold gallery of fashion.—The Sun may yet shine, & then they will be brought into open air.

But you have so generously & openly desired that I will divide my griefs with you, that I cannot hide what it is now become my duty to explain.—My unhappiness has arisen from a source which, if explor’d too narrowly, might hurt my pecuniary circumstances, As my dependence is on Engraving at present, & particularly on the Engravings I have in hand for Mr. H.: & I find on all hands great objections to my doing anything but the meer drudgery of business, & intimations that if I do not confine myself to this, I shall not live; this has always pursu’d me. You will understand by this the source of all my uneasiness. This from Johnson & Fuseli brought me down here, & this from Mr. H. will bring me back again; for that I cannot live without doing my duty to lay up treasures in heaven is Certain & Determined, & to this I have long made up my mind, & why this should be made an objection to Me, while Drunkenness, Lewdness, Gluttony & even Idleness itself, does not hurt other men, let Satan himself Explain. The Thing I have most at Heart—more than life, or all that seems to make life comfortable without—Is the Interest of True Religion & Science, & whenever any thing appears to affect that Interest (Especially if I myself omit any duty to my Station as a Soldier of Christ), It gives me the greatest of torments. I am not ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you what Ought to be Told: That I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven, Daily & Nightly; but the nature of such things is not, as some suppose, without trouble or care. Temptations are on the right hand & left; behind, the sea of time & space roars & follows swiftly; he who keeps not right onward is lost, & if our footsteps slide in clay, how can we do otherwise than fear & tremble? but I should not have troubled You with this account of my spiritual state, unless it had been necessary in explaining the actual cause of my uneasiness, into which you are so kind as to Enquire; for I never obtrude such things on others unless question’d, & then I never disguise the truth.—But if we fear to do the dictates of our Angels, & tremble at the Tasks set before us; if we refuse to do Spiritual Acts because of Natural Fears or Natural Desires! Who can describe the dismal torments of such a state!—I too well remember the Threats I heard!—“If you, who are organised by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, Refuse, & bury your Talent in the Earth, even tho’ you should want Natural Bread, Sorrow & Desperation pursues you thro’ life, & after death shame & confusion of face to eternity. Every one in Eternity will leave you, aghast at the Man who was crown’d with glory & honour by his brethren, & betray’d their cause to their enemies. You will be call’d the base Judas who betray’d his Friend!” —Such words would make any stout man tremble, & how then could I be at ease? But I am now no longer in That State, & now go on again with my Task, Fearless, and tho’ my path is difficult, I have no fear of stumbling. while I keep it.

My wife desires her kindest Love to Mrs. Butts, & I have permitted her to send it to you also; we often wish that we could unite again in Society, & hope that the time is not distant when we shall do so, being determin’ d not to remain another winter here, but to return to London.

 

“I hear a voice you cannot hear, that says I must not stay,

I see a hand you cannot see, that beckons me away.”