Blake On Religion

Tonight’s subject is “Blake on Religion.” When you discuss Blake, you are discussing one of the great spiritual giants of all time. You might just as well discuss St. Paul, for they had the identical vision, the vision of reality. So tonight we can cover only a portion of his gift to the world.140 ¶1

In his Auguries of Innocence: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. What’s the sequence? The most inanimate thing in the world, a grain of sand, and in it to see a world. Then he moves to the first animation, a flower, and then to see harmony, which is heaven, to see a heaven in a wild flower. Now he comes to space: “Hold infinity in the palm of your hand”; and then to time: “And eternity in an hour.”140 ¶2

Then he moves on now to the bird world to show us the relationship of the whole vast world, the unity of the world, that we are all actually related. That you can’t disturb anything at this moment in any way and not actually affect the whole. A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage. So we think we can catch the little bird and cage it for our own amusement, that which should be set free. For he said in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Who knows that what every bird That cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, Clos’d by our senses five. So, the little “Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a rage. The dove house filled with doves and Pigeons Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.”140 ¶3

Then he moves on to the next stage, what the world would call evolution, but he doesn’t call it that. Now into another aspect of the animal world: A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate Predicts the ruin of the State. A Horse misus’d upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood. And he takes the stages right through. You will read it as you go home, Auguries of Innocence. It’s his The Pickering Manuscript, if you have his book, for here is this mental giant who saw the complete relationship of all of us.140 ¶4

So I think I could be isolated. Were I in a dungeon and I thought of you, my thought is affecting the entire universe. I thought of you with envy or with hate or with love—whatever the thought was, as I conjure you in my mind’s eye and represent you to myself as I want you to be, whether it is in hate or in love, I am affecting the whole vast world. And if I believe in the reality of what I’ve done, it will come to pass. Because we are all one, all interwoven, I will use you without your consent, without your knowledge to fulfill that which I have imagined at that moment.140 ¶5

Then he makes this statement: What seems to Be, Is, To those to whom It seems to Be, and is productive of the most dreadful Consequences to those to whom it seems to Be, even of Torments, Despair and Eternal Death; but the Divine Mercy Steps beyond and Redeems Man in the Body of Jesus. He steps beyond. Because of this principle, man could be lost forever, not knowing what he’s doing; but “Divine Mercy steps beyond and Redeems Man in the Body of Jesus.”140 ¶6

Then he makes the statement, “God is Jesus.” There was no doubt in Blake’s mind that Jesus is God, not one of many gods but the only God. That was Blake’s concept of Jesus. God is Jesus, and we are but members in this divine body and therefore only one name; we are he. So he made this statement: Man is all Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination, that is, God himself, The Divine Body, Jesus: we are his Members. And he meant every word of it.140 ¶7

Now he asks us to join with him in putting this to the test. When you read his work from beginning to end, he never wavered from this premise. One thing he asked us all to do and to always bear in mind at every moment in time was to distinguish between the immortal man, which he saw; he said, “When I first did descry the immortal man that cannot die” and that immortal man was Imagination. Imagination has a body, and he describes that body, but he begs us to please always discriminate between this immortal man, your wonderful human Imagination, and the state into which it has fallen.140 ¶8

So you may this night be in the state of love—I hope you are—the state of tenderness, the state of affluence—I hope so. But you may not be. You may be in the opposite state. But were you in the opposite state or some friend of yours or some total stranger of yours in the opposite state, he begs you and begs all of us to always bear in mind the distinction between the occupant of the state and the state; and lift everyone out of the state, if it is an unlovely state.140 ¶9

For man is like a pilgrim passing through states, as though I pass through the states of this country. If I pass through this night in Chicago, Chicago remains; but I, the pilgrim, pass on. If I pass through any state, say the state of poverty, when I leave poverty, it doesn’t really dissolve; it hasn’t disappeared; I have left it for anyone to enter. I hope they will avoid it, but anyone may fall into it or deliberately go into it by feeling sorry for himself and feeling unwanted. And so he tells us of these enormous states, infinite states in the world, that everything possible to happen to man is already created in the form of states. When man enters the state, the state unfolds because he, the operant power, has entered the state; and unknowingly, he simply unfolds the state. If the state is one of wealth, in a way he does not know, everyone in the world that can aid the unfolding of that state must aid it. If he enters any state, the state of poverty, although at the moment, when he enters it he may have everything in the world, in no time he will grow the fruit of poverty in his world, for he’s in the state of poverty.140 ¶10

But he, the occupant of the state, is neither rich nor poor. So he calls upon everyone to bear this in mind constantly and forgive every being in the world. For he said, “Mutual forgiveness of each sin, such are the gates into heaven in our world.” If I could only remember at every moment of time when I see someone that I dislike that he is only in a state. That’s why I dislike him: I dislike the state. I identify him with the state, and I dislike the state, but I think it’s the occupant of the state. It’s not the occupant. He could come out at any moment of time, or I could get him out of it. If I pulled him out of it and put him into another state, I wouldn’t dislike him. It’s only the state that I dislike. But not knowing the difference between the occupant and the state, I think I dislike him, and I don’t dislike him at all. He is simply in a state.140 ¶11

If I bear this in mind, knowing my power to pull him out of a state, I could save him, at least temporarily, until he’s actually redeemed by the “Divine mercy that steps beyond and redeems man in the body of Jesus.” And that’s a true vision: we are redeemed in the body of Jesus. The day will come that you will actually be pulled into his presence, for it is he, divine mercy, that steps beyond, in spite of what we have done, and pulls us right into his presence.140 ¶12

Then we are asked a very simple question. The world will answer correctly, or he would not have pulled us. It’s automatically done. We are divinely prompted what to answer, what to say, when the question is asked. We cannot make a mistake, for we are actually prompted from the depths of our souls, and we answer. At that very moment, he embraces us and we become one with Jesus. We are fused into the body of Jesus.140 ¶13

And you say, “Well, is Jesus a man?” This is a man. So Blake makes the statement: If you humble yourself, you humble me; You too dwell in Eternity. Thou art a Man, God is no more, Thy own humanity learn to adore. So when you stand in his presence, you’re standing in the presence of man; and it is infinite man, and infinite man is Jesus. And you are actually saved in the body of Jesus because he embraces you and you are locked in his body, one with the body. You are the body. You aren’t locked in the sense that you disappear; you are one with that body, and you are that being. You become one with Jesus, yet you do not lose your identity. No loss of identity and yet one with God, for God is Jesus.140 ¶14

Now this is Blake’s teaching, and I have proven much of it to my own satisfaction by my own mystical experiences.140 ¶15

Now he comes to discuss the story of “The Virginity of the Virgin.” For are we not told in the 7th chapter, the 14th verse of Isaiah, “And the Lord himself will give you a sign. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” The word Emmanuel means “God is with us.” Listen to it carefully: “You will conceive and bear a son, and call his name Emmanuel.” The child will be given a name as a token. The child is not the great event. The child will be given a name and a token of deliverance. The child himself is not the deliverer; the child is simply the sign of an event taking place.”140 ¶16

Now Blake writes one single little verse, and he speaks of it as “The Virginity of the Virgin.” You are the virgin, whether you be male or female; I am the virgin; we are all the virgin. I didn’t know what was happening to me anymore than you will know what’s happening to you. And so he puts it in four little lines: Whate’er is done to her she cannot know, And if you ask her she will swear it so. Whether ’tis good or evil none’s to blame: No one can take the pride, no one the shame.140 ¶17

So it is said in the story, “How can this thing be, seeing that I know not a man?” And through the centuries, thousands of volumes have been written condemning the act, for it was out of wedlock. And they take it on this level. It’s not on this level. You are the bride of God, as told us in the 54th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, “Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name.” So the one who made me is going to sire me, without my knowledge, without my consent; so whate’er is done to me, I cannot know, and if you ask me I will swear it so.140 ¶18

Now, whether it’s good or evil, there’s none to blame, no one to take the pride, and no one the shame. No one can take the pride when I confess openly that I gave birth to a child out of wedlock, for no one sired that child and no one can claim he sired it. Whether it was a shameful thing to perform, well, the world will judge. Whether it be good or evil, well, who knows? But one thing I know is that no one can claim they did it; therefore, no one can take the pride and no one the shame, if it’s a shame.140 ¶19

So the prophecy was made, and then he writes in four little lines the story of “The Virginity of the Virgin.” He is telling every being in the world that they are that virgin, and you will be sired by the Holy Spirit. And you will produce in visible form an infant, just as told us in the gospel. And having produced it, you stand amazed because how could you produce it in such an unnatural way? For it happens so unnaturally, it doesn’t happen in a natural way. Therefore, you were the virgin who conceived unknowingly, for she said, “How can I conceive, how can I have a child, seeing that I know not a man?” And then you are told that the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the child will be the child of God. But it will only symbolize an event that is taking place, and you will be the Son of God In that act, you were the child who symbolized your acceptance. But the Son of God is also God the son, and the Son of God is made to say, “I and my Father are one.”140 ¶20

So Blake saw the whole vision so perfectly and so clearly, and told us in his fabulous works. So said he of the Bible, “I know of no other Christianity and no other gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination, Imagination, the real and eternal world… into which we shall all go after the death of this vegetable mortal body” . He would accept no other form of Christianity. And he said all rituals and all creeds—everything external in the form of a ritual was anti-Christ.140 ¶21

Now, religion means by definition a tithe, a devotion to the most exalted reality that one has experienced; but religion as practiced is simply artifice, creed, ceremony, confession, and all outward show; and Blake would have none of it. The whole thing to him was anti-Christian because to him the whole thing was from within, something that the individual experienced that no one by argument could shake. Years later, another brilliant mind, William James, made this observation and wrote it in a letter, not in a book; he wrote it to his son, and the son allowed it to be published in 1920 in the Atlantic Monthly. In this James said, “The mother seed, the fountain head of all religions begin in the mystical experience of the individual. All theology, all ecclesiasticism are secondary growth, superimposed. These experiences belong to a region that is deeper, wiser, and more practical than that which the intellect inhabits. For this they are indestructible by intellectual argument and criticism.”140 ¶22

Blake would have endorsed that 100 percent. You couldn’t disturb him. They called him a mad person. Even to this very day, they speak of him as one who was unbalanced. And he confessed in one of his letters that William Cowper was one of the great poets and himself considered one of the six greatest of all writers of letters in the English tongue; he was a contemporary, died in 1800 and Blake in 1827. He was a much older man than Blake, and Blake did not say in his letter whether Cowper came to him while he walked this earth or after he made his exit from this earth. Because Blake could not conceive of death in any sense of the word: nothing died, and all things survived. He said, “Cowper came to me and said to me: ‘Would that I were mad always. I cannot rest. Would you not make me truly mad?” Then he said, “Look at you, you are healthy and yet you are more mad than all of us. Would that I were as mad. I cannot rest until I am as mad as you are.” Now he claims that’s what Cowper said to him, that he would now be a “refugee from unbelief.”140 ¶23

We think that we are sane when we believe in the evidence of the senses, when we believe in some mathematical state that proved itself in performance. And he spoke of Blake as one who was a real refugee from unbelief. So I tell you a fantastic story, and you don’t believe it. Would that you would believe! Believe it though reason would deny it and your senses deny it, just to believe it and become a refugee from unbelief. Because true religion cannot be analyzed, you can’t rationalize it. It’s based upon these mystical experiences in the depth of the soul.140 ¶24

And so Blake said of the Bible, the entire Hebrew Bible—he did not mention a few of the works but just a few; he didn’t mention Ruth, Nehemiah and things of that sort. But he said the Decalogue, the first five books, and then he said, Joshua and Judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, the Book of Psalms, and the prophets, without naming the prophets. So he just simply named “the prophets,” which he called the lesser prophets and also the major because he called Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel within the prophets. He said these are true visions, as well as the four gospels and Revelation. He did not mention the epistles. But he said the four gospels and Revelation and the Hebrew Bible are eternal vision of what really exists. He saw it so clearly.140 ¶25

So all these characters are personifications of eternal states. And commune with these states, for when you commune with them, they seem as real as you are. But they are personifications of God’s infinite mind. Every aspect of his mind is personified. But you are not an aspect of the mind, something entirely different; you are one with God. Man is All Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in him. The Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination, that is God himself, the Divine Body, Jesus; we are his Members, part of the body of Jesus, and because there’s only one name, we are he.140 ¶26

So we pass through a process, a simple process, which we can’t evoke; you can’t hasten it, but when you least expect it, the divine mercy steps beyond and redeems man right into the body of Jesus. Then he passes through these stages where he is born from above, where suddenly he beholds the divine Son as his Son, and then the great woven structure of the body, the temple, is torn from top to bottom. And then he ascends to be one around this infinite throne of Jesus who is God.140 ¶27

I actually believe it. I can’t prove it to you, and I can’t take you with me into that moment of time where I experienced it. I can only tell you I have experienced it and ask you to believe it and share with me in belief that you yourself may become a refugee from unbelief. For the man who cannot leave what he can touch with his hands and rationalize, cannot believe. And this is something that you are called upon, although you have not seen it: “Blessed is the man who has not seen and still believes.” That is how the gospel of John ends, chapter 20, verse 29: “Blessed is the man who has not seen and still believes.” Those who heard about it, who would eventually experience it, like Job, he said, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees thee” . And so he heard about it and then came the experience, and he saw exactly what Blake is talking about because Blake saw it.140 ¶28

So I ask you to believe with me and take his works. I wouldn’t attempt to interpret for you. I have so many commentaries of Blake at home, and they cost much more than all of Blake’s works put together, any one of them. You can buy Blake for five dollars, for four dollars—all of his works, including his letters. And I have invested in Blake’s works at home close to a thousand dollars in commentaries, and no two agree as to what Blake means by these fantastic experiences. But you see, I bought all these commentaries of Blake before I had the experiences. I could have saved a thousand dollars. I don’t regret it.140 ¶29

I have them at home, and there they stand in my library. Three volumes I paid $100 for, published by a dealer whose name I don’t know and don’t care, said he just got back from England and these are rare volumes—it’s by William Butler Yeats. And so I have these three on credit, and he made me pay $100 for them. Others, he made me pay fifty-five dollars and sixty-five dollars for them, similar volumes. And I have the whole of Blake in a small little Nonesuch volume. So you read him, and all of a sudden, you see exactly what he’s trying to tell you because you had a similar experience. And then comes the unfolding of the flower within you, the tree within you, and you have the experience, the same thing. So all will have the identical experience, colored a little bit differently because we are all unique in God’s eyes. Not identical, a little bit different, because no two are alike in God’s eye. But we have the same experience as we unfold on this great tree of life.140 ¶30

So just think of it. If I could tell you what I would feel from Blake… someone said of Blake that he was the last civilized man. Well, I hope not, but that’s what was said of him. He was the last civilized man. For Blake had no venom in him, no impulse to hurt; he didn’t have to restrain the impulse. Being all virtuous, he acted from impulse and not from rules. He was simply a virtuous man in the sense that he loved people.140 ¶31

So if I would take the summary of Blake and tell you what I get out of it, I would say, tell your children while they are still tots, all the little children, and teach them never unnecessarily to hurt a creature or desecrate a flower. That is the beginning of reverence, and reverence is the beginning of wisdom. If you couldn’t hurt a flower, you couldn’t desecrate it. Have you seen little children, not knowing what they’re doing but in the presence of adults who should know better, and they will simply take a lovely rose and tear it and desecrate it. Well, if the parent at that moment, or the adult, whether it be parent or not, would stop the child and explain to the child not at any time unnecessarily to hurt a creature, take the wings from a butterfly (I did it myself), to take the wings from a fly, or to take the wings from something else. No reason for it, but I did it; as a child I did it. But I did it when possibly there was no one around, like my father or mother, to stop me in the act. But I did it—maybe you did it—but I did it. But I know today from experience that if you can take a child and in its youth, in its infancy, teach it never unnecessarily to hurt a creature or desecrate a flower, that would be to it the beginning of reverence, and reverence is the beginning of wisdom.140 ¶32

Take George Washington Carver, who would take a flower in his hand and talk to it. He couldn’t hurt; the man couldn’t hurt. He was incapable of hurt. He would talk to a sick flower and ask the flower what was wrong with it and try to tell him that he, in turn, may bring the solution to that rose bush, which he did. And he gave us because he couldn’t hurt, this synthetic world of ours today, really. He took the ordinary little peanut; he talked to a peanut and wondered, “What are you for? Why did God make you? He made you for a purpose. Tell me, why did God make you?” Then the peanut communed with George Washington Carver. Today we have 300 by-products from the peanut and hundreds of by-products from the southern pine and from other things.140 ¶33

I heard that gentleman the year he died. Just before he died, he spoke in New York City at a forum held every year by the Herald Tribune, always held at the old Waldorf Astoria. He said—and I heard him and saw him—about this concern about tomorrow not being able to feed the world, he said, from the southern states of this country, forget the northern states, from the southern states, we could feed the entire world and clothe the entire world from by-products. What we could extract from the southern pine, the peanut and all this, the synthetic world—he called it the synthetic world—we could feed and clothe the entire world from what could be produced out of the southern states of America. Forget the northern states, just from the southern states, I could clothe and feed the entire world. Now today, you go into a store and they brag about the synthetic garment. They call it Dacron, or they call it by some other name, and tell you how much better it is than the so-called natural thing, which you would normally wear. All these are synthetic products, and they claim they are better in feeling and in lasting wear and in everything else. All that goes back to a man who couldn’t hurt. He was born a slave. I think he was sold for a horse or something. Someone had to redeem him, and here is a man born to slavery, who just couldn’t hurt. And he is one of the mental, spiritual giants of the world. If you met him beyond the grave, you would see a glorious being like a Blake because he couldn’t hurt.140 ¶34

So I would say to everyone here who is in contact with tomorrow’s children, start it. If you start the child and tell the child never, unnecessarily—and by that I mean, if a horse breaks its foot, then you have to destroy it. You can’t mend it, and the merciful thing to do would be to blow its brains out. That would be a merciful act. But then you would do it not unnecessarily. So Blake said, A Horse misus’d upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood. A dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate Predicts the ruin of the State. A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage. To take this wonderful thing and cage it for your own amusement when it should cut the airy way. And then he said, The Skylark wounded in the wing, A Cherubim does cease to sing.140 ¶35

You wouldn’t think a cherubim, one with the seraphim around the throne of God, would at that very moment when we wound the skylark in its wing would be silent. But that’s the interrelated world: “All things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle.” So you could not wound the skylark in the wing and expect a cherubim to continue to sing. And so all of a sudden, things come to an end by our misuse of this fantastic power that is ours. For being all Imagination, as we misuse the power that is Imagination we cause cherubim to become silent. We cause the whole of heaven to cry out when we cage something that should be set loose and free in this world.140 ¶36

But you start, and I’m quite sure it wouldn’t take more than one generation, if the world would believe it, if you start it in the home with children. Take them into the garden and let them see, and just watch their reactions. Some may be more violent and tear it off, but stop them right there. Don’t hit them, just stop them and explain to them that it is a creation of God. The one who made the stars made this for your enjoyment, not for your destruction. And explain they should not desecrate the flower. Then, if you see them taking off the wings of the butterfly because they are given that way, then explain that they should never unnecessarily hurt a creature. They would suddenly believe it, they trust you, and then suddenly that’s part of their structure. They couldn’t then violate that conditioned mind. Why, it wouldn’t take any time to really become a world like a Blake. What a world that would be!140 ¶37

So I say to you, Blake, read him. I could talk about him from now to the end of time and never exhaust him. He lived to be seventy years old. He never went to school. His visions began at four, and he thanked his father for not sending him to school to be flogged into memorizing the works of a fool. And even in today’s paper, the New York Times, [...] edition, a science editor told the story of man’s new concept of the Universe—a radical departure from what it held only last year. Well, this is not final you know. This will be a radical departure from what it will be called next year. And that is man’s concept. Whether the thing is really expanding to the limit of complete explosion, or whether it is like a breath, where it will go to a certain point and then once more begin to contract, taking unnumbered trillions of years, they don’t know and they hope to find it out through telescopes. So they are experimenting with their telescopes, and their mathematical concepts.140 ¶38

But Blake made this observation that “God is not a mathematical diagram.” You’ll never in eternity discover God through mathematics. Not in eternity will you find him as a mathematical diagram. When you find him, you’ll find him as man. And so he said, God Appears and God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night, But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of Day.140 ¶39

When you meet him, it’s man. But how can I describe him when he himself describes the body and the form is love? How do you describe love? Yet I stood in the presence of love; it was human. But he said, Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. But how are you going to describe love? Love is the human form divine. When I stood in the presence of love, it was human, and it was Jesus, and it is form, but it’s infinite love. I couldn’t think of anything but infinite love as I stood in his presence.140 ¶40

Then you understand the words concerning forgiveness that “In Heaven the whole Art of Living Is Forgetting and Forgiving.” And you stand in his presence, and you hear these words ring out, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” “Mutual forgiveness of each vice; such are the Gates of Paradise.” No one can get through holding any resentment because you are holding it against a being when it should be a state, and the states are fixed forever through which we pass.140 ¶41

So I would encourage everyone to read Blake. He grows every year bigger and bigger in the minds of men, yet he died and is buried in the unknown grave. I doubt if anyone truly knows where he’s buried, possibly, because he was poor, and in those days in England, they buried paupers four and six to a grave. So who knows where he’s buried? At least we have his works, those that survived. And so, after two hundred years, here is this giant. And in his day, we had men who were only remembered because of a certain violence, like George III, who reigned when he lived, when this was a colony. And here, this mad George, truly mad, and nothing was more sane than Blake. And so George, who was then king of England, who founded this colony, would give away sections of it, vast areas to those that he favored. He was mad as a hatter, and they called Blake the madman.140 ¶42

Yet Cowper, who did go mad—three times he was put away—appeared to Blake and asked Blake to make him “truly” mad. Not mad as the world judges it because there are unbalanced mental states, no question about it. But he called upon Blake to make him truly mad, “Make me so mad, Blake, till I become like you, a refugee from unbelief.” He was torn between the two. If I could only go all out and believe in the reality of my imaginal act and not look back, just go all out and believe that things are as I desire them to be. But don’t look down now to my understanding to see if it is really happening, like pulling up the little seed to see if it’s taking root. Really believe that it is going to take root and, in its own way, it unfolds within itself and grows. But don’t pull it up! Walk right out in the belief that things are as I desire them to be, even though at the very moment, it seems darker than ever. Walk right out in it, just as though it were true.140 ¶43

And if I will do that, that’s what Blake did. They said that many a day, he had not a potato in the house and no money. And his wife must have been an angel of angels. To remind him that there was no food in the house and that he would have to go out and sell one of his paintings or get a commission to make a painting, she would put before him at the bare table an empty plate and a spoon. So when he came to dinner, well, that’s it. Then he took the hint, and then he would go out and try to borrow a pound or a few shillings or try to get a commission for a picture that he hadn’t yet painted. He lived in that so-called dream world. But what he has done to posterity! How he has affected the entire world!140 ¶44

And when you think today that, no one who understands the English tongue called upon to make a list of the six greatest users of the English tongue of all time could, if they understood it, omit the name of Blake. They may not have the same order of value, but within six, they could not omit the name of Blake. And he never went to school, just that inspired mind, the greatest, wonderful mind. He said he talked to Isaiah, he talked to Ezekiel, and he asked them about Imagination, and they said, “Why, in the days of Imagination, Imagination moved mountains; but in this day there are very few who are capable of removing mountains because they are not imaginative. They don’t imagine anymore. But in the days of Imagination, Imagination would move mountains,” said Ezekiel to him. You must read it, that’s in his The Marriage of Heaven and Hell .140 ¶45

Well now, I could not, as I told you, for the rest of my days exhaust or do justice to Blake, but just enough to encourage you to read him for yourself. And take my experience, having spent a thousand dollars in the works of Blake—who can afford that these days?—you buy less and omit the commentaries. I have them at home and I read them and they remain read but not to be reread they remain. But I make Blake my daily companion; I read him daily as I do my Bible. So take Blake and take the Bible and read it. If you don’t understand it at the first reading, reread it and keep on rereading. I’ll tell you one thing it will do for you; it will increase your vocabulary and lift your use of words to the heights. Now let us go into the Silence.140 ¶46