DIARY ACCOUNT OF BLAKE
painter and Linnell,[1] also a painter & engraver to dinner—In the Eveng. came Miss Denman & Miss Flaxman.
BLAKE
I will put down as they occur to me without method all I can recollect of the conversation of this remarkable man—Shall I call him Artist or Genius—or Mystic or Madman? Probably he is all. He has a most interesting appearance. He is now old, pale with a Socratic countenance and an expression of great sweetness but bordering on weakness except when his features are animated by expression & then he has an air of inspiration about him. The conversation was on art & on poetry & on religion, but it was my object & I was successful in drawing him out & in so getting from him an avowal of his peculiar sentiments. I was aware before of the nature of his impressions or I shd. at times have been at a loss to understand him. He was shewn soon after he entered the room some compositions of Mrs. Aders' which he cordially praised And he brought with him an engraving of his Canterbury pilgrims for Aders. One of the figures resembled one in one of Aders' pictures. 'They say I stole it from this picture, but I did it 20 years before I knew of the picture. However in my youth I was always studying this kind of painting. No wonder there is a resemblance.' In this he seemed to explain humanly what he had done, but he at another time spoke of his paintings as being what he had seen in his visions. And when he said my visions, it was in the ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of trivial matters that every one understands & cares
- ↑ [Reminiscences, 1825, add:] "Linnell . . . professed to take a deep interest in Blake & his works, whether of a perfectly disinterested character may be doubtful, as will hereafter appear."
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