that it has a very fine view of the sea. Mr. Hayley received me with his usual brotherly affection. My wife and sister are both very well, and courting Neptune for an embrace, whose terrors this morning made them afraid, but whose mildness is often equal to his terrors. The villagers of Felpham are not mere rustics; they are polite and modest. Meat is cheaper than in London; but the sweet air and the voices of winds, trees, and birds, and the odours of the happy ground, make it a dwelling for immortals. Work will go on here with God-speed. A roller and two harrows lie before my window. I met a plough[1] on my first going out at my gate the first morning after my arrival, and the ploughboy said to the ploughman, "Father, the gate is open." I have begun to work, and find that I can work with greater pleasure than ever. Hoping soon to give you a proof that Felpham is propitious to the arts.
God bless you! I shall wish for you on Tuesday evening as usual. Pray give my and my wife s and sister's love and respects to Mrs. Butts.
- ↑ The symbolical use of the plough and the harrow in Milton and Jerusalem show how easily natural incidents translate themselves with Blake into visionary experience, cp. Milton, p. 4, ll. 12, 13: "... the instruments | of Harvest: the Plow and Harrow to pass over the Nations"; ibid, p. 3*, l. 1: " . . . the Plow of Rintrah and the Harrow of the Almighty "; Jerusalem, p. 46, ll. 14, 15: "Till the Plow of Jehovah, and the Harrow of Shaddai, | Have passed over the Dead, to awake the Dead to Judgment."
