Mr. Blake

“ The servant bowed, and stepping forward down the hall, opened the door of a small and cosy room heavily hung with crimson curtains. “I will let him know that you are here,” said he, and vanished towards the dining-room.
“I doubt if Mr. Blake will enjoy the latter half of his bill of fare as much as the first,” said I, drawing up one of the luxurious arm-chairs to the side of my principal. “I wonder if he will break away from his guests and come in here?”
“No; if I am not mistaken we shall find Mr. Blake a man of nerve. Not a muscle of his face will show that he is disturbed.” ”

“ Mr. Gryce's hand which had been stretched out towards the hitherto untouched decanter before him, suddenly dropped. "You deny then," said he, "all connection between yourself and the woman, lady or sewing-girl, who occupied that room above our heads for eleven months previous to the Sunday morning I first had the honor to make your acquaintance."
"I am not in the habit of repeating my assertions," said Mr. Blake with some severity, "even when they relate to a less disagreeable matter than the one under discussion." ”

“ Mr. Blake's intent look deepened. "I see no reason why you should not utter the whole," said he. "A good story loses nothing by being told to the end. You wish to say something about my journey to Schoenmaker's house, I suppose."
Mr. Gryce gravely shook his head.
"What, you can let such a mystery as that go without a word?"
"I am not here to discuss mysteries that have no connection with the sewing-girl in whose cause I am interested." ”

“ Blake I cannot believe you when you say the girl who lived in this house was a stranger to you."
Mr. Blake drew his proud form up in a disdain that was only held in check by the very evident honesty of the man before him. "You are courageous at least," said he. "I regret you are not equally discriminating." And raising Mr. Gryce's hat he placed it in his hand.
"Pardon me," said that gentleman, "I would like to justify myself before I go. Not with words," he proceeded as the other folded his arms with a sarcastic bow. "I am done with words; action accomplishes the rest. Mr. ”

“ Even his old friend Mr, Butts, a friend of more than thirty years' standing, the possessor of his best temperas and watercolour drawings, and of copies of all his engraved books, grew cool. The patron had often found it a hard matter not to offend the independent, wilful painter, ever the prouder for his poverty and neglect, always impracticable and extreme when ruffled or stroked the wrong way. The patron had himself begun to take offence at Blake's quick resentment of well-meant, if blunt, advice and at the unmeasured violence of his speech, when provoked by opposition. ”

“ Blake. "You amply merit your doom and you shall suffer it to the end for all time."
"It will read well in the papers," exclaimed the son.
"The papers are to know nothing about it," I broke in. "All knowledge of your connection with Mr. or Mrs. Blake is to be buried in this spot before we or you leave it. Not a word of her or him is to cross the lips of either of you from this hour. ”

“ Every aim and end and hope in life seems to have died suddenly out, leaving only a vacuum: a vacuum that tells of nothing but pain. But for finding some object which the mind can take up and concentrate itself upon, there are women who could go mad. Miss Blake found hers in religion.
Close upon that night when you saw Mr. Andinnian and Lucy Cleeve pacing together the garden of the Reverend Mr. Blake's rectory, Mr. Blake was seized with a fit. ”

“ As they went by us gaily indulging in the jokes and light banter with which such men season a social dinner, I saw Mr. Gryce's face grow sober by many a shade; and when in the midst of it all, we heard the voice of Mr. Blake rise in that courteous and measured tone for which it is distinguished, I saw him reach forward and grasp his cane with an uneasiness I had never seen displayed by him before. But when some time later, the guests having departed, the dignified host advanced with some apology to where we were, I never beheld a firmer look on Mr. ”

“ He has no other servant, nor nurse, and wants no other. As his eyes rested on the once graceful form, thought of all she had been to him in these years filled the poet-artist's mind. 'Stay!' he cried, 'keep as you are! you have been ever an angel to me: I will draw you!' And a portrait was struck off by a hand which approaching death—few days distant now—had not weakened nor benumbed. This drawing has been described to me by Mr. Tatham, who once possessed it, as 'a phrenzied sketch of some power; highly interesting, but not like.'
Blake still went on designing as of old. ”

“ Blake stooped forward and lifted it with a hand that visibly trembled. "Where did you get this?" asked he at last, clenching it to his breast with sudden passion.
"From out of the comb which the girl had been using the night before."
The imperious man flung it hastily from him.
"We waste our time," said he, looking Mr. Gryce intently in the face. "All that you have said does not account for your presence here nor the tone you have used while addressing me. What are you keeping back? I am not a man to be trifled with."
Mr. Gryce rose to his feet. ”

“ Thomas Blake, by Anthony Burgesse: appended, A Funerall Oration at the death of the most desired Mr. Blake, by Mr. Samuel Shaw, then Schoolmaster at the Free School at Tamworth,' 1658. In the 'Oration' Blake is thus described: 'His kindness towards you could not be considered without love, his awfull gravity and secretly commanding presence without reverence, nor his conversation without imitation. To see him live was a provocation to a godly life; to see him dying might have made any one weary of living. ”

“ Remembering our happy Christmas at lovely Felpham, our spirits seem still to hover round our sweet cottage and round the beautiful Turret. I have said seem, but am persuaded that distance is nothing but a phantasy. We are often sitting by our cottage fire, and often we think we hear your voice calling at the gate. Surely these things are real and eternal in our eternal mind, and can never pass away. My wife continues well, thanks to Mr. Birch's Electrical Magic, which she has discontinued these three months.
I remain your sincere and obliged,
William Blake. ”

“ Do you note the color of the woman's hair whose portrait hangs with its face turned to the wall in your room? Is it like or unlike that of the strand you held in your hand a few moments ago; a strand taken as I swear, hair by hair from the comb of the poor creature who occupied the room above. But that is not all," he continued as Mr. Blake fell a trifle aback; "just observe the dress in which this woman is painted; blue silk you see, dark and rich; a wide collar cunningly executed, you can almost trace the pattern ”

“ Without his friendly countenance, even less would have remained to show the world, or a portion of it, what manner of man Blake was. I mean Mr. Thomas Butts, whose long friendship with Blake commenced at this period. For nearly thirty years he continued (with few interruptions) a steady buyer, at moderate prices, of Blake's drawings, temperas, and frescoes; the only large buyer the artist ever had. Occasionally he would take of Blake a drawing a week. He, in this way, often supplied the imaginative man with the bare means of subsistence when no others existed—at all events from his art. ”

“ And sure enough a few days later a good Grit follower overtaking the Honorable Edward on the broad walk remarked that it had been snowing hard. Mr. Blake, suddenly remembering the pointer he had received about cracking a joke, but having forgotten the cue, promptly replied, “Oh, it’s quite immaterial.” Mr. Blake was a great lawyer—a much greater lawyer than he was a politician.
When Hansard “Mixed” Metaphors. Sir Richard was a past-master of the art of invective; a scholarly speaker, his English was perfect, and he could flay a political opponent in five minutes by the clock. ”

“ Before going in to dinner, Blake, placable as he was irascible, went up to Stothard and offered to shake hands; an overture the frigid, exemplary man declined, as Mr. Linnell, an eye-witness, tells me. Another time, Stothard was ill: Blake called and wished to see him and be reconciled, but was refused. There is something of the kingdom of heaven in this—on the one side. Such men are not to be judged by wayward words. Warm hearts generally spend their worst violence in them.
This squabble with Cromek was a discordant episode in Blake's life. ”

“ Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to.”
I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.
We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion regarded by this scion of New York’s aristocracy as one of the most desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. ”

“ At the age of fourteen, the drawing-school of Mr. Pars in the Strand, was exchanged for the shop of engraver Basire, in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. There had been an intention of apprenticing Blake to Ryland, a more famous man than Basire; an artist of genuine talent and even genius, who had been well educated in his craft ”

“ Not without some sense of relief, probably, will the reader turn the last leaf of the story of Blake's connection with Hayley, honourable though it were to each; especially to Hayley, considering how little nature had fitted him to enter into the spiritual meanings of Blake's art. But herein, as Blake said to Mr. Butts, he that is not with a man is against him ”

“ In short, if you see it as I see it, you will embrace this proposal on the score of parental duty. Literature is your child. She calls for your assistance! You, who never refuse to assist any, how remote so ever, will certainly hear her voice. Your answer to the proposal you will, if you think fit, direct to Mr. Hoare, who is worthy of every confidence you can place in him,
I am, dear Sir,
Your anxiously devoted
Will. Blake.
Blake seems to have had this scheme of starting a Review much at heart:—
April 27th, 1804. ”

“ He would have been in actual want but for one friend, himself an artist, himself not overburthened, at that time, with the gifts of Fortune; who had, as other rising artists have—but in 1823 it was a still tougher struggle than in 1860—to toil hard for himself and family at often ungenial task-work. The drawings of Job had been borrowed from Mr. Butts to be shown to such as might seem likely to prove employers. From Mr. Linnell alone they drew a commission. He engaged Blake to execute and engrave a duplicate set. ”

“ Daniels who overheard their voices the night before.
“Mr. Blake, such facts as these arouse curiosity, especially when the master of the house being introduced upon the scene, he fails to manifest common human interest, while his housekeeper betrays in every involuntary gesture and expression she makes use of, her horror if not her fear of his presence, and her relief at his departure. Yes,” he exclaimed, unheeding the sudden look here cast him by Mr. ”

“ Once he saw a tree there “filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars”; and once, on a summer morning, he saw “the haymakers at work, and amid them angelic figures walking.” In his matter-of-fact fashion he recounted the first of these two visions on his return home, and his mother had to intervene to prevent the honest hosier and conscientious Nonconformist, his father, from thrashing him for telling a lie.
[Pg 119] At the age of ten Blake was journeying to and from the house in Broad Street to Mr. Paris’s academy in the Strand, taking drawing lessons. ”

“ Every student of Blake has read, or must read, Mr. Swinburne’s extraordinary essay, William Blake: a critical study, of which a new edition was recently published. It would be idle at this time of day to criticise. Much has been discovered, and more is likely to be discovered, about Blake since 1866. The interest of the book, for us, is chiefly reflex. ”

“ Linnell had introduced Blake was Mr. Aders, a wealthy merchant of an old German family; a liberal and art-loving man, whose doors were always open to literary men and artists. To his house came Coleridge and Lamb and, as we saw, Lawrence, James Ward, Stothard, Linnell ”

“ White and even as a die."
"Sir Karl's teeth are white and even," nodded Miss Blake to herself. "Had Mrs. Grey any visitors while you were there, nurse?"
"Never a one. Never a soul came inside the gates, good or bad, but the doctor. I don't fancy the lady has made friends in the place at all, ma'am. She likes to keep herself to herself, Ann Hopley thinks, while Mr. Grey's away."
"Oh, naturally," said Miss Blake. And she dismissed the woman.
The Widow Jinks had a surprise that night. Mr. Strange, hitherto so quiet and well conducted, asked for the latch-key! ”

“ Blake, after his retirement from the Bench, sought relief from his sufferings in milder climes. He returned to Canada in 1869, but it was evident that his end was not far distant. He died in Toronto, on the 17th of November, 1870. The late Chancellor Vankoughnet paid an eloquent tribute to his memory. "With an intellect fitting him to grasp more readily than most men the whole of a case," said Mr. ”