the two angels who stand at heaven's gate, ever open, ever inviting guests to the marriage. O foolish philosophy! Gratitude is heaven itself. There could be no heaven without gratitude; I feel it and I know it I thank God and man for it, and above all, you, my dear friend and benefactor, in the Lord. Pray give my and my wife's duties to Miss Pogle; accept them yourself. — Yours in sincerity, William Blake.
31.
To William Hayley.
27th January 1804.
Dear Sir,—Your eager expectation of hearing from me compels me to write immediately, though I have not done half the business I wished, owing to a violent cold which confined me to my bed three days and to my chamber a week. I am now so well, thank God, as to get out, and have accordingly been to Mr. Walker,[1] who is not in town, being at Birmingham, where he will remain six weeks or two months. I took my portrait of Romney as you desired, to show him. His son
- ↑ Adam Walker (1730 or 1731-1821), distinguished inventor, astronomer, and lecturer on philosophy; an old friend of Romney, and one of the few with whom the artist was really intimate (see Romney, by Humphry Ward and W. Roberts, 1904, vol. ii. p. 163).
