Page:William Blake (Symons).djvu/270

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WILLIAM BLAKE

is true in the minutest because the most essential sense. On the other hand, in saying that part of Wordsworth's Preface was written by another hand, he was merely expressing in a bold figure a sane critical opinion. Is a thing false among many true things? then it is not the true man who is writing it, but some false section of his brain. It may be dangerous practically to judge all things at an inner tribunal; but it is only by such judgments that truth moves.

And truth has moved, or we have. After Zarathustra, Jerusalem no longer seems a wild heresy. People were frightened because they were told that Blake was mad, or a blasphemer. Nietzsche, who has cleared away so many obstructions from thought, has shamed us from hiding behind these treacherous and unavailing defences. We have come to realise, what Rossetti pointed out long ago, that, as a poet, Blake's characteristic is above all things that of 'pure perfection in writing verse.' We no longer praise his painting for its qualities as literature, or forget that his design has greatness as design. And of that unique creation of an art out of the mingling of many arts