REMINISCENCES OF BLAKE
1826. On the 24th I called a second time on him, & on this occasion it was that I read to him Wordsworth's Ode on the supposed pre-existent state, & the subject of W.'s religious character was discussed when we met on the 18th of Feb. & the 12th of May. I will here bring together W. Blake's declaratns. concerning W. & set down his marginalia in the 8vo. edit A.D. 1815. Vol. 1. I had been in the habit when reading this marvellous Ode to friends, to omit one or two passages, especially that beginning
But there's a tree, of many one
lest I shd. be rendered ridiculous, being unable to explain precisely what I admired—not that I acknowledged this to be a fair test. But with Blake I cd. fear nothing of the kind, & it was this very Stanza wh. threw him almost into an hysterical rapture. His delight in W.'s poetry was intense. Nor did it seem less notwithstanding by the reproaches he continually cast on W. for his imputed worship of nature, wh. in the mind of Blake constituted Atheism.28.2.52.
The combn. of the warmest praise with imputations which from another wd. assume the most serious character & the liberty he took to interpret as he pleased, rendered it as difficult to be offended as to reason with him. The eloquent descriptions of Nature in W.'s poems were conclusive proof of atheism, for whoever believes in Nature said B. disbelieves in God. For Nature is the work of the Devil. On my obtaining from him the declaration that the Bible was the work of God, I referred to the commencement of Genesis "In the beginning God created the Heaven & the Earth." But I gained nothing by this, for I was triumphantly told that this God was not Jehovah, but the Elohim, & the doctrine of the Gnostics repeated with sufficient consistency to silence one so unlearned as myself.[1] .
- ↑ [See ante, pp. 15-16.]
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