![amused by our motions, what dancer among us are they more likely
to have approved than this joyous, untired, and undistracted dancer
to the eternal rhythm?
[1]Compare the lines written in 1800:
'I bless thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth, that ever I saw
Flaxman's face.
Angels stand round my spirit in Heaven, the blessed of
Heaven are my friends upon Earth.
When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me
for a season ...
And my Angels have told me that seeing such visions, I
could not subsist on the Earth,
But by my conjunction with Flaxman, who knows to forgive
nervous fear.'
[2]Gilchrist (I. 98) gives a long account of the house which he took to be Blake's,
and which he supposed to be on the west side of Hercules Road. But it has been
ascertained beyond a doubt, on the authority of the Lambeth rate-books,
confirmed by Norwood's map of London at the end of the eighteenth century, that
Blake's house, then numbered 13 Hercules Buildings, was on the east side of the
road, and is the house now numbered 23 Hercules Road. Before 1842 the whole
road was renumbered, starting at the south end of the western side and returning
by the eastern side, so that the house which Gilchrist saw in 1863 as 13 Hercules
Buildings was what afterwards became 70 Hercules Road, and is now pulled down.
The road was finally renumbered in 1890, and the house became 23 Hercules
Road.
[3]The text of Vala, with corrections and additional errors, is now accessible in the
second volume of Mr. Ellis' edition of Blake's Poetical Works.
[4]They are now to be read in Mr. Russell's edition of The Letters of William Blake.
[5]We know from Mr. Lucas's catalogue of Lamb's library that Lamb bound it up in
a thick 12mo volume with his own Confessions of a Drunkard, Southey's Wat Tyler,
and Lady Winchilsea's and Lord Rochester's poems.
[6]I take the text of this letter, not from Mr. Russell's edition, but from the fuller
text printed by Mr. Ellis in The Real Blake.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-33-320.jpg)
![(1) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S DIARY
1825
December
10 ... Dined with Aders. A very remarkable and interesting evening.
The party Blake the painter and Linnell—also a painter and engraver
—to dinner. In the evening came Miss Denman and Miss Flaxman.
10th December 1825
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[1]
expression, and then he has an air of inspiration about him. The
conversation was on art, and on poetry, and on religion; but it was
my object, and I was successful, in drawing him out, and in so
getting from him an avowal of his peculiar sentiments. I was aware
before of the nature of his impressions, or I should 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's 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 paintings. 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](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-35-320.jpg)
![occasion to apply this remark to something Blake said. If so, I said,
there is no use in discipline or education, no difference between
good and evil. He hastily broke in on me—'There is no use in
education. I hold it wrong. It is the great sin.[2] It is eating of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was the fault of Plato—
he knew of nothing but of the virtues and vices and good and evil
There is nothing in all that. Every thing is good in God's eyes.' On
my putting the obvious question—Is there nothing absolutely evil in
what men do? 'I am no judge of that. Perhaps not in God's Eyes.'
Though on this and other occasions he spoke as if he denied
altogether the existence of evil, and as if we had nothing to do with
right and wrong. It being sufficient to consider all things as alike the
work of God. [I interposed with the German word objectively, which
he approved of.] Yet at other times he spoke of error as being in
heaven. I asked about the moral character of Dante in writing his
Vision: was he pure? 'Pure' said Blake. 'Do you think there is any
purity in God's eyes? The angels in heaven are no more so than we
—"he chargeth his angels with folly."' He afterwards extended this to
the Supreme Being—he is liable to error too. Did he not repent him
that he had made Nineveh?
It is easier to repeat the personal remarks of Blake than these
metaphysical speculations so nearly allied to the most opposite
systems. He spoke with seeming complacency of himself—said he
acted by command. The spirit said to him, 'Blake, be an artist and
nothing else.' In this there is felicity. His eye glistened while he
spoke of the joy of devoting himself solely to divine art. 'Art is
inspiration. When Michael Angelo or Raphael or Mr. Flaxman does
any of his fine things, he does them in the spirit.' Blake said, 'I
should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory
a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do
nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I
am quite happy.'
Among the[3] unintelligible sentiments which he was continually
expressing is his distinction between the natural and the spiritual](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-37-320.jpg)
![world. The natural world must be consumed. Incidentally
Swedenborg was spoken of. He was a divine teacher—he has done
much good, and will do much good—he has corrected many errors
of Popery, and also of Luther and Calvin. Yet he also said that
Swedenborg was wrong in endeavoring to explain to the rational
faculty what the reason cannot comprehend: he should have left
that. As Blake mentioned Swedenborg and Dante together I wished
to know whether he considered their visions of the same kind. As far
as I could collect, he does. Dante he said was the greater poet. He
had political objects. Yet this, though wrong, does not appear in
Blake's mind to affect the truth of the vision. Strangely inconsistent
with this was the language of Blake about Wordsworth. Wordsworth
he thinks is no Christian but a Platonist. He asked me, 'Does he
believe in the Scriptures?' On my answering in the affirmative he
said he had been much pained by reading the introduction to the
Excursion. It brought on a fit of illness. The passage was produced
and read:
'Jehovah—with his thunder, and the choir
Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones,
I pass them unalarmed.'
This pass them unalarmed greatly offended Blake. 'Does Mr.
Wordsworth think his mind can surpass Jehovah?' I tried to twist this
passage into a sense corresponding with Blake's own theories, but
filled [sic= failed], and Wordsworth was finally set down as a pagan.
But still with great praise as the greatest poet of the age.
Jacob Boehmen was spoken of as a divinely inspired man. Blake
praised, too, the figures in Law's translation as being very beautiful.
Michael Angelo could not have done better. Though he spoke of his
happiness, he spoke of past sufferings, and of sufferings as
necessary. 'There is suffering in heaven, for where there is the
capacity of enjoyment, there is the capacity of pain.'
I have been interrupted by a call from Talfourd in writing this
account—and I can not now recollect any distinct remarks—but as
Blake has invited me to go and see him I shall possibly have an](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-38-320.jpg)
![opportunity again of noting what he says, and I may be able
hereafter to throw connection, if not system, into what I have
written above.
I feel great admiration and respect for him—he is certainly a most
amiable man—a good creature—and of his poetical and pictorial
genius there is no doubt, I believe, in the minds of judges.
Wordsworth and Lamb like his poems, and the Aders his paintings.
A few other detached thoughts occur to me. Bacon, Locke, and
Newton are the three great teachers of Atheism or of Satan's
doctrine. Every thing is Atheism which assumes the reality of the
natural and unspiritual world. Irving. He is a highly gifted man—he is
a sent man—but they who are sent sometimes[4] go further than
they ought.
Dante saw Devils where I see none. I see only good. I saw nothing
but good in Calvin's house—better than in Luther's; he had harlots.
Swedenborg. Parts of his scheme are dangerous. His sexual religion
is dangerous.
I do not believe that the world is round. I believe it is quite flat. I
objected the circumnavigation. We were called to dinner at the
moment, and I lost the reply.
The Sun. 'I have conversed with the Spiritual Sun—I saw him on
Primrose-hill. He said, "Do you take me for the Greek Apollo?" "No,"
I said, "that," [and Blake pointed to the sky] "that is the Greek
Apollo. He is Satan."'
'I know what is true by internal conviction. A doctrine is told me—my
heart says it must be true.' I corroborated this by remarking on the
impossibility of the unlearned man judging of what are called the
external evidences of religion, in which he heartily concurred.
I regret that I have been unable to do more than set down these
seeming idle and rambling sentences. The tone and manner are
incommunicable. There is a natural sweetness and gentility about](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-39-320.jpg)
![Blake which are delightful. And when he is not referring to his
Visions he talks sensibly and acutely.
His friend Linnel seems a great admirer.
Perhaps the best thing he said was his comparison of moral with
natural evil. 'Who shall say what God thinks evil? That is a wise tale
of the Mahometans—of the Angel of the Lord that murdered the
infant' [alluding to the Hermit of Parnel, I suppose]. 'Is not every
infant that dies of disease in effect murdered by an angel?'
17th December. For the sake of connection I will here insert a
minute of a short call I this morning made on Blake. He dwells in
Fountain Court in the Strand. I found him in a small room, which
seems to be both a working-room and a bedroom. Nothing could
exceed the squalid air both of the apartment and his dress, but in
spite of dirt—I might say filth—an air of natural gentility is diffused
over him. And his wife, notwithstanding the same offensive
character of her dress and appearance, has a good expression of
countenance, so that I shall have a pleasure in calling on and
conversing with these worthy people.
But I fear I shall not make any progress in ascertaining his opinions
and feelings—that there being really no system or connection in his
mind, all his future conversation will be but varieties of wildness and
incongruity.
I found [sic] at work on Dante. The book (Cary) and his sketches
both before him. He shewed me his designs, of which I have nothing
to say but that they evince a power of grouping and of throwing
grace and interest over conceptions most monstrous and disgusting,
which I should not have anticipated.
Our conversation began about Dante. 'He was an "Atheist," a mere
politician busied about this world as Milton was, till in his old age he
returned back to God whom he had had in his childhood.'
I tried to get out from Blake that he meant this charge only in a
higher sense, and not using the word Atheism in its popular
meaning. But he would not allow this. Though when he in like](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-40-320.jpg)
![As he spoke of Miltons appearing to him, I asked whether he
resembled the prints of him. He answered, 'All.' Of what age did he
appear to be? 'Various ages—sometimes a very old man.' He spoke
of Milton as being at one time a sort of classical Atheist, and of
Dante as being now with God.
Of the faculty of Vision, he spoke as one he has had from early
infancy. He thinks all men partake of it, but it is lost by not being
cultivated. And he eagerly assented to a remark I made, that all men
have all faculties to a greater or less degree. I am to renew my
visits, and to read Wordsworth to him, of whom he seems to
entertain a high idea.
[Here B. has added vide p. 174, i.e. Dec. 24, below.]
Sunday 11th. The greater part of the forenoon was spent in writing
the preceding account of my interview with Blake in which I was
interrupted by a call from Talfourd....
17th. Made a visit to Blake of which I have written fully in a
preceding page.
20th... Hundleby took coffee with me tête à tête. We talked of his
personal concerns, of Wordsworth, whom I can't make him properly
enjoy; of Blake, whose peculiarities he can as little relish....
Saturday 24th. A call on Blake. My third interview. I read him
Wordsworth's incomparable ode, which he heartily enjoyed. The
same half crazy crotchets about the two worlds—the eternal
repetition of what must in time become tiresome. Again he repeated
to day, 'I fear Wordsworth loves Nature—and Nature is the work of
the Devil. The Devil is in us, as far as we are Nature.' On my
enquiring whether the Devil would not be destroyed by God as being
of less power, he denied that God has any power—asserted that the
Devil is eternally created not by God, but by God's permission. And
when I objected that permission implies power to prevent, he did
not seem to understand me. It was remarked that the parts of
Wordworth's ode which he most enjoyed were the most obscure and
those I the least like and comprehend....](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-42-320.jpg)
![Of Wordsworth he talked as before. Some of his writings proceed
from the Holy Ghost, but then others are the work of the Devil.
However, I found on this subject Blake's language more in
conformity with Orthodox Christianity than before. He talked of the
being under the direction of Self; and of Reason as the creature of
man and opposed to God's grace. And warmly declared that all he
knew was in the Bible, but then he understands by the Bible the
spiritual sense. For as to the natural sense, that Voltaire was
commissioned by God to expose. 'I have had much intercourse with
Voltaire, and he said to me I blasphemed the Son of Man, and it
shall be forgiven me. But they (the enemies of Voltaire) blasphemed
the Holy Ghost in me, and it shall not be forgiven them.' I asked in
what language Voltaire spoke—he gave an ingenious answer. 'To my
sensation it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key. He
touched it probably French, but to my ear it became English.' I
spoke again of the form of the persons who appear to him. Asked
why he did not draw them, 'It is not worth while. There are so many,
the labour would be too great. Besides there would be no use. As to
Shakespeare, he is exactly like the old engraving—which is called a
bad one. I think it very good.'
I enquired about his writings. 'I have written more than Voltaire or
Rousseau—six or seven epic poems as long as Homer, and 20
tragedies as long as Macbeth.' He showed me his Vision (for so it
may be called) of Genesis—'as understood by a Christian Visionary,'
in which in a style resembling the Bible the spirit is given. He read a
passage at random. It was striking. He will not print any more.[5] 'I
write,' he says, 'when commanded by the spirits, and the moment I
have written I see the words fly about the room in all directions. It is
then published, and the spirits can read. My MSS. of no further use.
I have been tempted to burn my MSS., but my wife won't let me.'
She is right, said I—and you have written these, not from yourself,
but by a higher order. The MSS. are theirs and your property. You
cannot tell what purpose they may answer—unforeseen to you. He
liked this, and said he would not destroy them. His philosophy he
repeated—denying causation, asserting everything to be the work of](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-44-320.jpg)
![God or the Devil—that there is a constant falling off from God—
angels becoming devils. Every man has a devil in him, and the
conflict is eternal between a man's self and God, etc. etc. etc. He
told me my copy of his songs would be 5 guineas, and was pleased
by my manner of receiving this information. He spoke of his horror
of money—of his turning pale when money had been offered him,
etc. etc. etc.
May
Thursday 11th. Calls this morning on Blake, on Thornton [etc.] ...
12th. ... Tea and supper at home. The Flaxmans, Masqueriers (a
Miss Forbes), Blake, and Sutton Sharpe.
On the whole the evening went off tolerably. Masquerier not
precisely the man to enjoy Blake, who was, however, not in an
exalted state. Allusions only to his particular notions while
Masquerier commented on his opinions as if they were those of a
man of ordinary notions. Blake asserted that the oldest painter poets
were the best. Do you deny all progression? says Masquerier. 'Oh
yes!' I doubt whether Flaxman sufficiently tolerates Blake. But Blake
appreciates Flaxman as he ought. Blake relished my Stone drawings.
They staid till eleven.
Blake is more and more convinced that Wordsworth worships nature
and is not a Bible Christian. I have sent him the Sketches. We shall
see whether they convert him.
June
13th. Another idle day. Called early on Blake. He was as wild as ever,
with no great novelty, except that he confessed a practical notion
which would do him more injury than any other I have heard from
him. He says that from the Bible he has learned that eine
Gemeinschaft der Frauen statt finden sollte. When I objected that
Ehestand seems to be a divine institution, he referred to the Bible](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-45-320.jpg)
![—'that from the beginning it was not so.' He talked as usual of the
spirits, asserted that he had committed many murders, that reason
is the only evil or sin, and that careless, gay people are better than
those who think, etc. etc. etc.
December
Thursday 7th. I sent Britt, to enquire after Mr. Flaxman's health, etc.,
and was engaged looking over the Term Reports while he was gone.
On his return, he brought the melancholy intelligence of his death
early in the morning!!! The country has lost one of its greatest and
best of men. As an artist he has spread the fame of the country
beyond any others of his age. As a man he exhibited a rare
specimen of Christian and moral excellence.
I walked out and called at Mr. Soane's. He was from home. I then
called on Blake, desirous to see how, with his peculiar feelings and
opinions, he would receive the intelligence. It was much as I
expected—he had himself been very ill during the summer, and his
first observation was with a smile—'I thought I should have gone
first.' He then said, 'I cannot consider death as anything but[6] a
removing from one room to another.' One thing led to another, and
he fell into his wild rambling way of talk. 'Men are born with a devil
and an angel,' but this he himself interpreted body and soul. Of the
Old Testament he seemed to think not favorably. 'Christ,' said he,
'took much after his mother (the law), and in that respect was one
of the worst of men.' On my requiring an explanation, he said,
'There was his turning the money changers out of the Temple. He
had no right to do that.' Blake then declared against those who sat
in judgement on others. 'I have never known a very bad man who
had not something very good about him.' He spoke of the
Atonement. Said, 'It is a horrible doctrine. If another man pay your
debt, I do not forgive it,' etc. etc. etc. He produced Sintram by
Fouqué—'This is better than my things.'](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-46-320.jpg)
![1827
February
Friday, 2nd. Götzenberger, the young painter from Germany, called
on me, and I accompanied him to Blake. We looked over Blake's
Dante. Götzenberger seemed highly gratified by the designs, and
Mrs. Aders says Götzenberger considers Blake, as the first and
Flaxman as the second man he had seen in England. The
conversation was slight—I was interpreter between them. And
nothing remarkable was said by Blake—he was interested apparently
by Götzenberger....
1828
January
8th. Breakfasted with Shott—Talfourd and B. Field there. Walked with
Field to Mrs. Blake. The poor old lady was more affected than I
expected, yet she spoke of her husband as dying like an angel. She
is the housekeeper of Linnell the painter and engraver, and at
present her services might well pay for her hoard. A few of her
husband's works are all her property. We found that the Job is
Linnell's property, and the print of Chaucer's pilgrimage hers.
Therefore Field bought a proof and I two prints at 2 1/2 guineas
each. I mean one for Lamb. Mrs. Blake is to look out some
engravings for me hereafter....
[1]'Any' crossed out.
[2]'By which evil' crossed out.
[3]'More remarkable' crossed out.
[4]'Exceed their commission' crossed out.
[5]'For the writer' crossed out.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-47-320.jpg)
![[6]'A passage from' crossed out.
(2) FROM A LETTER OF CRABB ROBINSON TO DOROTHY
WORDSWORTH
In a letter to Dorothy Wordsworth, not dated, but bearing the
postmark of February 20, 1826, there is the following reference to
Blake. No earlier reference to him occurs in the letter, in spite of the
sentence which follows:—
'I have above mentioned Blake. I forget whether I ever mentioned to
you this very interesting man, with whom I am now become
acquainted. Were the "Memorials" at my hand, I should quote a fine
passage in the Sonnet on the Cologne Cathedral as applicable to the
contemplation of this singular being.'
'I gave your brother some poems in MS. by him, and they interested
him—as well they might, for there is an affinity between them, as
there is between the regulated imagination of a wise poet and the
incoherent dreams of a poet. Blake is an engraver by trade, a painter
and a poet also, whose works have been subject of derision to men
in general; but he has a few admirers, and some of eminence have
eulogized his designs. He has lived in obscurity and poverty, to which
the constant hallucinations in which he lives have doomed him. I do
not mean to give you a detailed account of him. A few words will
suffice to inform you of what class he is. He is not so much a disciple
of Jacob Böhmen and Swedenborg as a fellow Visionary. He lives, as
they did, in a world of his own, enjoying constant intercourse with
the world of spirits. He receives visits from Shakespeare, Milton,
Dante, Voltaire, etc. etc. etc., and has given me repeatedly their very
words in their conversations. His paintings are copies of what he saw
in his Visions. His books (and his MSS. are immense in quantity) are
dictations from the spirits. He told me yesterday that when he writes
it is for the spirits only; he sees the words fly about the room the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-48-320.jpg)
![moment he has put them on paper, and his book is then published.
A man so favoured, of course, has sources of wisdom and truth
peculiar to himself. I will not pretend to give you an account of his
religious and philosophical opinions. They are a strange compound
of Christianity, Spinozism, and Platonism. I must confine myself to
what he has said about your brother's works, and[1] I fear this may
lead me far enough to fatigue you in following me. After what I have
said, Mr. W. will not be flattered by knowing that Blake deems him
the only poet of the age, nor much alarmed by hearing that, like
Muley Moloch, Blake thinks that he is often in his works an Atheist.
Now, according to Blake, Atheism consists in worshipping the natural
world, which same natural world, properly speaking, is nothing real,
but a mere illusion produced by Satan. Milton was for a great part of
his life an Atheist, and therefore has fatal errors in his Paradise Lost,
which he has often begged Blake to confute. Dante (though now
with God) lived and died an Atheist. He was the slave of the world
and time. But Dante and Wordsworth, in spite of their Atheism, were
inspired by the Holy Ghost. Indeed, all real poetry is the work of the
Holy Ghost, and Wordsworth's poems (a large proportion, at least)
are the work of divine inspiration. Unhappily he is left by God to his
own illusions, and then the Atheism is apparent. I had the pleasure
of reading to Blake in my best style (and you know I am vain on that
point, and think I read W.'s poems particularly well) the Ode on
Immortality. I never witnessed greater delight in any listener; and in
general Blake loves the poems. What appears to have disturbed his
mind, on the other hand, is the Preface to the Excursion. He told me
six months ago that it caused him a bowel complaint which nearly
killed him. I have in his hand a copy of the extract [with the][[2]
following note at the end: "Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's
daughter and became a convert to the Heathen Mythology, talked
exactly in this way of Jehovah as a very inferior object of man's
contemplation; he also passed him by unalarmed, and was
permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear, and followed him by his Spirit
into the abstract void. It is called the divine mercy. Satan dwells in it,
but Mercy does not dwell in him, he knows not to forgive." When I](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-49-320.jpg)
![first saw Blake at Mrs. Aders's he very earnestly asked me, "Is Mr. W.
a sincere real Christian?" In reply to my answer he said, "If so, what
does he mean by 'the worlds to which the heaven of heavens is but
a veil,' and who is he that shall 'pass Jehovah unalarmed'?" It is
since then that I have lent Blake all the works which he but
imperfectly knew. I doubt whether what I have written will excite
your and Mr. W.'s curiosity; but there is something so delightful
about the man—though in great poverty, he is so perfect a
gentleman, with such genuine dignity and independence, scorning
presents, and of such native delicacy in words, etc. etc. etc., that I
have not scrupled promising introducing him and Mr. W. together. He
expressed his thanks strongly, saying, "You do me honor, Mr. W. is a
great man. Besides, he may convince me I am wrong about him. I
have been wrong before now," etc. Coleridge has visited Blake, and,
I am told, talks finely about him. That I might not encroach on a
third sheet I have compressed what I had to say about Blake. You
must see him one of these days and he will interest you at all
events, whatever character you give to his mind.'
The main part of the letter is concerned with Wordsworth's
arrangement of his poems, which Crabb Robinson says that he
agrees with Lamb in disliking. He then says: 'It is a sort of
intellectual suicide in your brother not to have continued his
admirable series of poems "dedicated to liberty," he might add, "and
public virtue." I assure you it gives me real pain when I think that
some future commentator may possibly hereafter write, "This great
poet survived to the fifth decenary of the nineteenth century, but he
appears to have dyed in the year 1814 as far as life consisted in an
active sympathy with the temporary welfare of his fellow-
creatures...."
[More follows, and then] 'I had no intention, I assure you, to make
so long a parenthesis or indeed to advert to such a subject. And I
wish you not to read any part of this letter which might be thought
impertinent.... In favor of my affectionate attachment to your
brother's fame, do forgive me this digression, and, as I said above,
keep it to yourself.'](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-50-320.jpg)
![[At the end he says] 'My best remembrances to Mr. W. And recollect
again that you are not to read all this letter to any one if it will
offend, and you are yourself to forgive it as coming from one who is
affly your friend,
H. C. R.'
On April 6, Wordsworth answers the letter from Rydal Mount, saying:
'My sister had taken flight for Herefordshire when your letter, for
such we guessed it to be, arrived—it was broken open—(pray forgive
the offense) and your charges of concealment and reserve
frustrated. We are all, at all times, so glad to hear from you that we
could not resist the temptation to purchase the pleasure at the
expense of the peccadillo, for which we beg pardon with united
voices. You are kind enough to mention my poems.'
[All the rest of the letter is taken up with them, and it ends, with no
mention of Blake] 'I can write no more. T. Clarkson is going. Your
supposed Biography entertained me much. I could give you the
other side. Farewell.'
[There is no signature.]
[1]'And as I am requested to copy what he has written for the purpose' crossed
out.
[2]The MS. is here torn.
(3) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S REMINISCENCES
1810
I was amusing myself this spring by writing an account of the insane
poet, painter, and engraver, Blake. Perthes of Hamburg had written
to me asking me to send him an article for a new German magazine,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-51-320.jpg)
![entitled Vaterländische Annalen, which he was about to set up, and
Dr. Malkin having in his Memoirs of his son given an account of this
extraordinary genius with specimens of his poems, I resolved out of
these to compile a paper. And this I did,[1] and the paper was
translated by Dr. Julius, who, many years afterwards, introduced
himself to me as my translator. It appears in the single number of
the second volume of the Vaterländische Annalen. For it was at this
time that Buonaparte united Hamburg to the French Empire, on
which Perthes manfully gave up the magazine, saying, as he had no
longer a Vaterland, there could be no Vaterländische Annalen. But
before I drew up the paper, I went to see a gallery of Blake's
paintings, which were exhibited by his brother, a hosier in Carnaby
Market. The entrance was 2s. 6d., catalogue included. I was deeply
interested by the catalogue as well as the pictures. I took 4—telling
the brother I hoped he would let me come in again. He said, 'Oh! as
often as you please.' I dare say such a thing had never happened
before or did afterwards. I afterwards became acquainted with
Blake, and will postpone till hereafter what I have to say of this
extraordinary character, whose life has since been written very
inadequately by Allan Cunningham in his Lives of the English Artists.
[At the side is written]—N. B. What I have written about Blake will
appear at the end of the year 1825.
1825
WILLIAM BLAKE
19/02/52
It was at the latter end of the year 1825 that I put in writing my
recollections of this most remarkable man. The larger portions are
under the date of the 18th of December. He died in the year 1827. I
have therefore now revised what I wrote on the 10th of December
and afterwards, and without any attempt to reduce to order, or make](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-52-320.jpg)
![volume of his Lives of the British Painters, etc. etc., except thus
much. It appears that he was born...
[The page ends here.]
Dr. Malkin, our Bury Grammar School Headmaster, published in the
year 1806 a Memoir of a very precocious child who died... years old,
and he prefixed to the Memoir an account of Blake, and in the
volume he gave an account of Blake as a painter and poet, and
printed some specimens of his poems, viz. 'The Tyger,' and ballads
and mystical lyrical poems, all of a wild character, and M. gave an
account of Visions which Blake related to his acquaintance. I knew
that Flaxman thought highly of him, and though he did not venture
to extol him as a genuine seer, yet he did not join in the ordinary
derision of him as a madman. Without having seen him, yet I had
already conceived a high opinion of him, and thought he would
furnish matter for a paper interesting to Germans, and therefore
when Fred. Perthes, the patriotic publisher at Hamburg, wrote to me
in 1810 requesting me to give him an article for his Patriotische
Annalen, I thought I could do no better than send him a paper on
Blake, which was translated into German by Dr. Julius, filling, with a
few small poems copied and translated, 24 pages. These appeared
in the first and last No. of volume 2 of the Annals. The high-minded
editor boldly declared that as the Emperor of France had annexed
Hamburg to France he had no longer a country, and there could no
longer be any patriotical Annals!!! Perthes' Life has been written
since, which I have riot seen. I am told there is in it a civil mention
of me. This Dr. Julius introduced himself to me as such translator a
few years ago. He travelled as an Inspector of Prisons for the
Prussian Government into the United States of America. In order to
enable me to write this paper, which, by the bye, has nothing in it of
the least value, I went to see an exhibition of Blake's original
paintings in Carnaby Market, at a hosier's, Blake's brother. These
paintings filled several rooms of an ordinary dwelling-house, and for
the sight a half-crown was demanded of the visitor, for which he had
a catalogue. This catalogue I possess, and it is a very curious
exposure of the state of the artist's mind. I wished to send it to](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-54-320.jpg)
![Germany and to give a copy to Lamb and others, so I took four, and
giving 10s., bargained that I should be at liberty to go again. 'Free!
as long as you live,'[2] said the brother, astonished at such a
liberality, which he had never experienced before, nor I dare say did
afterwards. Lamb was delighted with the catalogue, especially with
the description of a painting afterwards engraved, and connected
with which is an anecdote that, unexplained, would reflect discredit
on a most amiable and excellent man, but which Flaxman considered
to have been not the willful act of Stodart. It was after the friends of
Blake had circulated a subscription paper for an engraving of his
Canterbury Pilgrims, that Stodart was made a party to an engraving
of a painting of the same subject by himself. Stodart's work is well
known, Blake's is known by very few. Lamb preferred it greatly to
Stodart's, and declared that Blake's description was the finest
criticism he had ever read of Chaucer's poem.
In this catalogue Blake writes of himself in the most outrageous
language—says, 'This artist defies all competition in colouring'—that
none can beat him, for none can beat the Holy Ghost—that he and
Raphael and Michael Angelo were under divine influence—while
Corregio and Titian worshipped a lascivious and therefore cruel deity
—Reubens a proud devil, etc. etc. He declared, speaking of color,
Titian's men to be of leather and his women of chalk, and ascribed
his own perfection in coloring to the advantage he enjoyed in seeing
daily the primitive men walking in their native nakedness in the
mountains of Wales. There were about thirty oil-paintings, the
coloring excessively dark and high, the veins black, and the color of
the primitive men very like that of the Red Indians. In his estimation
they would probably be the primitive men. Many of his designs were
unconscious imitations. This appears also in his published works—
the designs of Blair's Grave, which Fuseli and Schiavonetti highly
extolled—and in his designs to illustrate Job, published after his
death for the benefit of his widow.
23/2/52.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-55-320.jpg)
![To this catalogue and in the printed poems, the small pamphlet
which appeared in 1783, the edition put forth by Wilkinson of The
Songs of Innocence,' and other works already mentioned, to which I
have to add the first four books of Young's Night Thoughts, and
Allan Cunningham's Life of him, I now refer, and will confine myself
to the memorandums I took of his conversation. I had heard of him
from Flaxman, and for the first time dined in his company at the
Aders'. Linnell the painter also was there—an artist of considerable
talent, and who professed to take[3] a deep interest in Blake and his
work, whether of a perfectly disinterested character may be
doubtful, as will appear hereafter. This was on the 10th of
December.
I was aware of his idiosyncrasies and therefore to a great degree
prepared for the sort of conversation which took place at and after
dinner, an altogether unmethodical rhapsody on art, poetry, and
religion—he saying the most strange things in the most unemphatic
manner, speaking of his Visions as any man would of the most
ordinary occurrence. He was then 68 years of age. He had a broad,
pale face, a large full eye with a benignant expression—at the same
time a look of languor,[4] except when excited, and then he had an
air of inspiration. But not such as without a previous acquaintance
with him, or attending to what he said, would suggest the notion
that he was insane. There was nothing wild about his look, and
though very ready to be drawn out to the assertion of his favorite
ideas, yet with no warmth as if he wanted to make proselytes.
Indeed one of the peculiar features of his scheme, as far as it was
consistent, was indifference and a very extraordinary degree of
tolerance and satisfaction with what had taken place.[5] A sort of
pious and humble optimism, not the scornful optimism of Candide.
But at the same time that he was very ready to praise he seemed
incapable of envy, as he was of discontent. He warmly praised some
composition of Mrs. Aders, and having brought for Aders an
engraving of his Canterbury Pilgrims, he remarked that one of the
figures resembled a figure in one of the works then in Aders's room,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-56-320.jpg)
![so that he had been accused of having stolen from it. But he added
that he had drawn the figure in question 20 years before he had
seen the original picture. However, there is 'no wonder in the
resemblance, as in my youth I was always studying that class of
painting.' I have forgotten what it was, but his taste was in close
conformity with the old German school.
This was somewhat at variance with what he said both this day and
afterwards—implying that he copies his Visions. And it was on this
first day that, in answer to a question from me, he said, 'The Spirits
told me.' This lead me to say: Socrates used pretty much the same
language. He spoke of his Genius. Now, what affinity or resemblance
do you suppose was there between the Genius which inspired
Socrates and your Spirits? He smiled, and for once it seemed to me
as if he had a feeling of vanity gratified.[6] 'The same as in our
countenances.' He paused and said, 'I was Socrates'—and then as if
he had gone too far in that—'or a sort of brother. I must have had
conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an
obscure recollection of having been with both of them.' As I had for
many years been familiar with the idea that an eternity a parte post
was inconceivable without an eternity a parte ante, I was naturally
led to express that thought on this occasion. His eye brightened on
my saying this. He eagerly assented: 'To be sure. We are all
coexistent with God; members of the Divine body, and partakers of
the Divine nature.' Blake's having adopted this Platonic idea led me
on our tête-à-tête walk home at night to put the popular question to
him, concerning the imputed Divinity of Jesus Christ. He answered:
'He is the only God'—but then he added—'And so am I and so are
you.' He had before said—and that led me to put the question—that
Christ ought not to have suffered himself to be crucified.' 'He should
not have attacked the Government. He had no business with such
matters.' On my representing this to be inconsistent with the sanctity
of divine qualities, he said Christ was not yet become the Father. It is
hard on bringing together these fragmentary recollections[7] to fix
Blake's position in relation to Christianity, Platonism, and Spinozism.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7764-250530005251-44df330e/85/Principles-of-Information-Security-5th-Edition-Whitman-Solutions-Manual-57-320.jpg)
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- 5. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-1 Chapter 6 Security Technology: Firewalls and VPNs At a Glance Instructor’s Manual Table of Contents • Overview • Objectives • Teaching Tips • Quick Quizzes • Class Discussion Topics • Additional Projects • Additional Resources • Key Terms
- 6. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-2 Lecture Notes Overview This chapter discusses various authentication and access control methods. The chapter also discusses the various approaches to firewall technologies and content filtering. The emphasis of this chapter is on technical controls for both network and system access control. Chapter Objectives In this chapter, your students will learn to: • Discuss the important role of access control in computer-based information systems, and identify and discuss widely used authentication factors • Describe firewall technology and the various approaches to firewall implementation • Identify the various approaches to control remote and dial-up access by authenticating and authorizing users • Discuss content filtering technology • Describe virtual private networks and discuss the technology that enables them Teaching Tips Introduction 1. Explain how technical controls are essential in enforcing policy for many IT functions that do not involve direct human control. 2. Discuss technical control solutions, which when properly implemented, can improve an organization’s ability to balance the often conflicting objectives of making information more readily and widely available against increasing the information’s levels of confidentiality and integrity. Access Control 1. Explain that access control is the method by which systems determine whether and how to admit a user into a trusted area of the organization. 2. Remind students that there are two general types of access control systems: discretionary and nondiscretionary. 3. Remind students that discretionary access controls (DACs) implement access control at the discretion of the data user, and the most common example is Microsoft Windows.
- 7. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-3 4. Explain that nondiscretionary access controls (NDACs) are managed by a central authority and access is based on either the individual’s role (role-based controls) or a set of tasks (task-based controls). 5. Discuss lattice-based access controls (LBACs). Explain that LBACs specify the level of access each subject has to each object, as implemented in access control lists (ACLs) and capability tables. 6. Describe the Mandatory Access Control scheme’s use of data classification schemes for granting access to data. Also, mention that MACs are a form of lattice-based, nondiscretionary access controls. 7. Introduce students to attribute-based access controls (ABACs), which is a newer approach to lattice-based access controls promoted by NIST. Access Control Mechanisms 1. Introduce students to the four fundamental functions of access control systems: • Identification • Authentication • Authorization • Accountability 2. Define identification as a mechanism whereby an unverified entities—called supplicants—who seek access to a resource proposes a label by which they are known to the system. 3. Ensure that students understand that the label applied to the supplicant must be mapped to one and only one entity within the security domain. 4. Explain how authentication is the validation of a supplicant’s identity. There are four general forms of authentication to consider: • What a supplicant knows • What a supplicant has • What a supplicant is 5. Discuss the concept of what a supplicant knows. • A password is a private word or combination of characters that only the user should know. • One of the biggest debates in the information security industry concerns the complexity of passwords. • A password should be difficult to guess but must be something the user can easily remember. • A passphrase is a series of characters, typically longer than a password, from which a virtual password is derived.
- 8. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-4 6. Discuss the concept of what a supplicant has. • Addresses something the supplicant carries in his or her possession—that is, something they have. • These include dumb cards, such as ID cards or ATM cards with magnetic stripes that contain the digital (and often encrypted) user personal identification number (PIN), against which the number a user inputs is compared. • An improved version of the dumb card is the smart card, which contains a computer chip that can verify and validate a number of pieces of information instead of just a PIN. • Another device often used is the token, a card or key fob with a computer chip and a liquid crystal display that shows a computer-generated number used to support remote login authentication. • Tokens are synchronous or asynchronous. • Once synchronous tokens are synchronized with a server, both devices (server and token) use the same time or a time-based database to generate a number that is displayed and entered during the user login phase. • Asynchronous tokens use a challenge-response system, in which the server challenges the supplicant during login with a numerical sequence. 7. Describe the concept of who a supplicant is or something they can produce. • The process of using body measurements is known as biometrics and includes: • Relies on individual characteristics, such as: fingerprints, palm prints, hand topography, hand geometry, or retina/iris scans • Also may rely on something a supplicant can produce on demand, such as: voice patterns, signatures, or keyboard kinetic measurements. • Strong authentication requires at least two authentication mechanisms drawn from two different factors of authentication. 8. Define authorization as the matching of an authenticated entity to a list of information assets and corresponding access levels, which can happen in one of three ways. • Authorization for each authenticated user, in which the system performs an authentication process to verify each entity and then grants access to resources for only that entity. This quickly becomes a complex and resource-intensive process in a computer system. • Authorization for members of a group, in which the system matches authenticated entities to a list of group memberships, and then grants access to resources based on the group’s access rights. This is the most common authorization method. • Authorization across multiple systems, in which a central authentication and authorization system verifies entity identity and grants it a set of credentials. 9. Explain that accountability or auditability is a system that directly attributes the actions on a system with an authenticated entity. Teaching Tip It may be helpful to have students read an explanation of MAC, such as the one provided by FreeBSD, http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/mac.html.
- 9. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-5 Biometrics 1. Explain that biometric access control relies on recognition. This type of authentication is expected to have a significant impact in the future. 2. Discuss the types of biometric authentication technologies: • Fingerprint comparison of the supplicant’s actual fingerprint to a stored fingerprint • Palm print comparison of the supplicant’s actual palm print to a stored palm print • Hand geometry comparison of the supplicant’s actual hand to a stored measurement • Facial recognition using a photographic ID card, in which a human security guard compares the supplicant’s face to a photo • Facial recognition using a digital camera, in which a supplicant’s face is compared to a stored image • Retinal print comparison of the supplicant’s actual retina to a stored image • Iris pattern comparison of the supplicant’s actual iris to a stored image 3. Point out that among all possible biometrics, only three human characteristics are usually considered truly unique: ▪ Fingerprints ▪ Retina of the eye (blood vessel pattern) ▪ Iris of the eye (random pattern of features in the iris: freckles, pits, striations, vasculature, coronas, and crypts) • Most of the technologies that scan human characteristics convert these images to some form of minutiae, which are unique points of reference that are digitized and stored in an encrypted format when the user’s system access credentials are created. 4. Discuss the fact that signature and voice recognition technologies are also considered to be biometric access control measures. • Retail stores use signature recognition, or at least signature capture, for authentication during a purchase. Currently, the technology for signature capturing is much more widely accepted than that for signature comparison, because signatures change due to a number of factors, including age, fatigue, and the speed with which the signature is written. • In voice recognition, an initial voiceprint of the user reciting a phrase is captured and stored. Later, when the user attempts to access the system, the authentication process will require the user to speak this same phrase so that the technology can compare the current voiceprint against the stored value. 5. Explain the three basic criteria that biometric technologies are evaluated on: • False reject rate • False accept rate • Crossover error rate (CER) 6. Use Table 6-1 to discuss the acceptability of biometrics.
- 10. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-6 Access Control Architecture Models 1. Explain that security access control architecture models illustrate access control implementations and can help organizations quickly make improvements through adaptation. 2. Introduce students to the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC). Point out that it is an older DoD standard that defines the criteria for assessing the access controls in a computer system. 3. Explain that TCSEC uses the concept of the trusted computing base (TCB) to enforce security policy. • TCB is made up of the hardware and software that has been implemented to provide security for a particular information system (usually includes the operating system kernel and a specified set of security utilities). 4. Point out that one of the biggest challenges in TCB is the existence of covert channels. Mention that TCSEC defines two kinds of covert channels: storage channels and timing channels. 5. Discuss the levels of protection assigned to products evaluated under TCSEC: • D: Minimal protection • C: Discretionary protection • B: Mandatory protection • A: Verified protection 6. Discuss the Information Technology System Evaluation Criteria (ITSEC), which is an international set of criteria for evaluating computer systems. 7. Introduce students to the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation, often called the Common Criteria or just CC. Mention that it is an international standard for computer security certification. 8. Discuss the following CC terminology: • Target of Evaluation (ToE) • Protection Profile (PP) • Security Target (ST) • Security Functional Requirements (SFRs) • Evaluation Assurance Levels (EALs) 9. Explain that the Bell-LaPadula (BLP) model ensures the confidentiality of the modeled system by using MACs, data classification, and security clearances. 10. Discuss with students how the Biba integrity model is similar to BLP. Point out that it is based on the premise that higher levels of integrity are more worthy of trust than lower ones.
- 11. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-7 11. Introduce students to the Clark-Wilson integrity model, which is built upon principles of change control rather than integrity levels. The model’s change control principles are: • No changes by unauthorized subjects • No unauthorized changes by authorized subjects • The maintenance of internal and external consistency 12. Discuss the elements of the Clark-Wilson model: • Constrained data item (CDI) • Unconstrained data item • Integrity verification procedure (IVP) • Transformation procedure (TP) 13. Explain that the Graham-Denning access control model has three parts: a set of objects, a set of subjects, and a set of rights. Further explain the model describes eight primitive protection rights, called commands: • Create object • Create subject • Delete object • Delete subject • Read access right • Grant access right • Delete access right • Transfer access right 14. Introduce students to the Harrison-Ruzzo-Ullman (HRU) model that defines a method to allow changes to access rights and the addition and removal of subjects and objects. Mention that the Bell-LaPadula model does not allow changes. 15. Discuss the Brewer-Nash Model which is designed to prevent a conflict of interest between two parties. Point out that this model is sometimes known as a Chinese Wall. Quick Quiz 1 1. The method by which systems determine whether and how to admit a user into a trusted area of the organization is known as _____. Answer: access control 2. ____ is the process of validating a supplicant’s purported identity. Answer: Authentication 3. True or False: The authentication factor “something a supplicant has” relies upon individual characteristics, such as fingerprints, palm prints, hand topography, hand geometry, or retina and iris scans. Answer: False
- 12. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-8 4. The biometric technology criteria that describes the number of legitimate users who are denied access because of a failure in the biometric device in known as _____. Answer: false reject rate 5. Within TCB is an object known as the _____, which is the piece of the system that manages access controls. Answer: reference monitor Firewalls 1. Explain how a firewall prevents specific types of information from moving between an external network, known as the untrusted network, and an internal network, known as the trusted network. 2. Discuss how the firewall may be a separate computer system, a software service running on an existing router or server, or a separate network containing a number of supporting devices. Firewall Processing Modes 1. Point out to students that firewalls fall into four major categories of processing modes: packet filtering, application gateways, MAC layer firewalls, and hybrids. 2. Explain that packet filtering firewalls examine the header information of data packets that come into a network. The restrictions most commonly implemented are based on a combination of: • IP source and destination address • Direction (inbound or outbound) • Protocol, for firewalls capable of examining the IP protocol layer • Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) source and destination port requests 3. Describe simple firewall models, which examine one aspect of the packet header: the destination and source address. Emphasize that they enforce address restrictions, rules designed to prohibit packets with certain addresses or partial addresses from passing through the device. 4. Explain that they accomplish this through access control lists (ACLs), which are created and modified by the firewall administrators. 5. Identify the three subsets of packet filtering firewalls: • Static filtering • Dynamic filtering • Stateful packet inspection (SPI) 6. Explain how static filtering requires that the filtering rules be developed and installed with the firewall.
- 13. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-9 7. Describe dynamic filtering, which allows the firewall to react to an emergent event and update or create rules to deal with the event. Note that while static filtering firewalls allow entire sets of one type of packet to enter in response to authorized requests, the dynamic packet filtering firewall allows only a particular packet with a particular source, destination, and port address to enter through the firewall. 8. Explain how stateful inspection firewalls, or stateful firewalls, keep track of each network connection between internal and external systems using a state table, which tracks the state and context of each packet in the conversation by recording which station sent which packet and when. 9. Discuss the difference between simple packet filtering firewalls and stateful firewalls. Whereas simple packet filtering firewalls only allow or deny certain packets based on their address, a stateful firewall can block incoming packets that are not responses to internal requests. 10. Explain how the primary disadvantage of a stateful firewall is the additional processing required to manage and verify packets against the state table, which can leave the system vulnerable to a DoS or DDoS attack. 11. Emphasize that the application layer firewall or application firewall, is frequently installed on a dedicated computer, separate from the filtering router, but is commonly used in conjunction with a filtering router. 12. Explain how the application firewall is also known as a proxy server, since it runs special software that acts as a proxy for a service request. 13. Emphasize that since the proxy server is often placed in an unsecured area of the network or in the DMZ, it—rather than the Web server—is exposed to the higher levels of risk from the less trusted networks. 14. Discuss how MAC layer firewalls are designed to operate at the media access control layer of the OSI network model. Point out that this type of firewall is not as well known or widely referenced. 15. Explain how using this approach, the MAC addresses of specific host computers are linked to ACL entries that identify the specific types of packets that can be sent to each host, and all other traffic is blocked. 16. Note that hybrid firewalls combine the elements of other types of firewalls—that is, the elements of packet filtering and proxy services, or of packet filtering and circuit gateways. 17. Explain how alternately, a hybrid firewall system can consist of two separate firewall devices; each is a separate firewall system, but they are connected so that they work in tandem.
- 14. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-10 18. Introduce students to the most recent generation of firewall, known as Unified Threat Management (UTM). Point out that these devices are categorized by their ability to perform the work of an SPI firewall, network intrusion detection and prevention system, content filter, spam filter, and malware scanner and filter. Firewall Architectures 1. Emphasize that each of the firewall devices noted earlier can be configured in a number of network connection architectures. 2. Emphasize that the firewall configuration that works best for a particular organization depends on three factors: the objectives of the network, the organization’s ability to develop and implement the architectures, and the budget available for the function. 3. Describe the four common architectural implementations of firewalls: • Packet filtering routers • Dual-homed host firewalls (also known as bastion hosts) • Screened host firewalls • Screened subnet firewalls 4. Emphasize that most organizations with an Internet connection have a router as the interface to the Internet at the perimeter between the organization’s internal networks and the external service provider. Mention that many of these routers can be configured to reject packets that the organization does not allow into the network. 5. Discuss the drawbacks to this type of system including a lack of auditing and strong authentication, and the complexity of the access control lists used to filter the packets can grow and degrade network performance. 6. Explain that with dual-homed firewalls, the bastion host contains two NICs. One NIC is connected to the external network, and one is connected to the internal network, providing an additional layer of protection. 7. Explain how with two NICs, all traffic must go through the firewall in order to move between the internal and external networks. 8. Discuss the implementation of this architecture, which often makes use of Network Address Translation (NAT). NAT is a method of mapping assigned IP addresses to special ranges of nonroutable internal IP addresses, thereby creating yet another barrier to intrusion from external attackers. 9. Introduce students to Port Address Translation (PAT), which is a variation of NAT. 10. Explain how this architecture combines the packet filtering router with a separate, dedicated firewall, such as an application proxy server, allowing the router to prescreen packets to minimize the network traffic and load on the internal proxy.
- 15. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-11 11. Describe how the application proxy examines an application layer protocol and performs the proxy services. Use Figure 6-17 in your discussion. 12. Emphasize that the dominant architecture used today, the screened subnet firewall provides a DMZ. 13. Explain how the DMZ can be a dedicated port on the firewall device linking a single bastion host, or it can be connected to a screened subnet. 14. Note that a common arrangement finds the subnet firewall consisting of two or more internal bastion hosts behind a packet filtering router, with each host protecting the trusted network: • Connections from the outside or untrusted network are routed through an external filtering router. • Connections from the outside or untrusted network are routed into—and then out of—a routing firewall to the separate network segment known as the DMZ. • Connections into the trusted internal network are allowed only from the DMZ bastion host servers. 15. Explain how the screened subnet is an entire network segment that performs two functions: • It protects the DMZ systems and information from outside threats by providing a network of intermediate security. • It protects the internal networks by limiting how external connections can gain access to internal systems. 16. Emphasize that DMZs can also create extranets, segments of the DMZ where additional authentication and authorization controls are put into place to provide services that are not available to the general public. 17. Note that SOCKS is the protocol for handling TCP traffic via a proxy server. 18. Explain how the general approach is to place the filtering requirements on the individual workstation rather than on a single point of defense (and thus point of failure). 19. Discuss how this frees the entry router from filtering responsibilities, but it requires that each workstation be managed as a firewall detection and protection device.
- 16. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-12 Selecting the Right Firewall 1. Explain how when selecting the best firewall for an organization, you should consider a number of factors. The most important of these is the extent to which the firewall design provides the desired protection. • Which type of firewall technology offers the right balance between protection and cost for the needs of the organization? • What features are included in the base price? What features are available at extra cost? Are all cost factors known? • How easy is it to set up and configure the firewall? How accessible are the staff technicians who can competently configure the firewall? • Can the candidate firewall adapt to the growing network in the target organization? 2. Emphasize that the second most important issue is cost. Configuring and Managing Firewalls 1. Discuss good policy and practice, which dictate that each firewall device, whether a filtering router, bastion host, or other firewall implementation, must have its own set of configuration rules that regulate its actions. 2. Emphasize that the configuration of firewall policies can be complex and difficult. Explain how each configuration rule must be carefully crafted, debugged, tested, and sorted. 3. Emphasize that when configuring firewalls, keep one thing in mind: when security rules conflict with the performance of business, security often loses. 4. Discuss best practices for firewalls. The following are some of the best practices for firewall use: • All traffic from the trusted network is allowed out • The firewall device is never directly accessible from the public network. • SMTP data is allowed to pass through the firewall, but it should be routed to a well- configured SMTP gateway to filter and route messaging traffic securely. • All ICMP data should be denied. • Telnet access to all internal servers from the public networks should be blocked. • When Web services are offered outside the firewall, HTTP traffic should be denied from reaching your internal networks through the use of some form of proxy access or DMZ architecture. • All data that is not verifiably authentic should be denied. 5. Explain how firewalls operate by examining a data packet and performing a comparison with some predetermined logical rules. 6. Discuss the logic, which is based on a set of guidelines programmed in by a firewall administrator, or created dynamically and based on outgoing requests for information. 7. Note that this logical set is most commonly referred to as firewall rules, rule base, or firewall logic.
- 17. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-13 8. Explain how most firewalls use packet header information to determine whether a specific packet should be allowed to pass through or should be dropped. 9. Discuss the rule sets given in the textbook, starting on page 334. Be sure to use Tables 6-5 through 6-19 in your discussion. Content Filters 1. Describe a content filter, which is a software filter—technically not a firewall—that allows administrators to restrict access to content from within a network. It is a set of scripts or programs that restricts user access to certain networking protocols and Internet locations, or restricts users from receiving general types or specific examples of Internet content. 2. Note that some refer to content filters as reverse firewalls, as their primary focus is to restrict internal access to external material. 3. Explain to students that in most common implementation models, the content filter has two components: rating and filtering. 4. Emphasize that the rating is like a set of firewall rules for Web sites, and it is common in residential content filters. 5. Explain how the filtering is a method used to restrict specific access requests to the identified resources, which may be Web sites, servers, or whatever resources the content filter administrator configures. 6. Discuss the most common content filters, which restrict users from accessing Web sites with obvious non-business related material, such as pornography, or deny incoming spam e-mail. Teaching Tip Explain to students that the line between these various devices blurs with each new product introduction as more and more vendors are attempting to broaden their coverage with a single device rather than a suite of devices. Quick Quiz 2 1. What type of firewall examines every incoming packet header and can selectively filter packets based on header information, such as destination address, source address, packet type, and other key information? Answer: Packet filtering 2. Which type of firewall filtering allows the firewall to react to an emergent event and update or create rules to deal with the event? Answer: Dynamic
- 18. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-14 3. True or False: The commonly used name for an intermediate area between a trusted network and an untrusted network is the DMZ. Answer: True 4. True or False: All traffic exiting from the trusted network should be filtered. Answer: False 5. A network filter that allows administrators to restrict access to external content from within a network is known as a _____. Answer: content filter or reverse firewall Protecting Remote Connections 1. Discuss installing Internetwork connections, which requires using leased lines or other data channels provided by common carriers, and therefore these connections are usually permanent and secured under the requirements of a formal service agreement. 2. Explain how in the past, organizations provided remote connections exclusively through dial-up services like Remote Authentication Service (RAS). Since the Internet has become more widespread in recent years, other options, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), have become more popular. Remote Access 1. Explain how it is a widely held view that these unsecured, dial-up connection points represent a substantial exposure to attack. 2. Note that an attacker who suspects that an organization has dial-up lines can use a device called a war dialer to locate the connection points. 3. Explain how a war dialer is an automatic phone-dialing program that dials every number in a configured range and checks to see if a person, answering machine, or modem picks up. 4. Discuss how some technologies, such as RADIUS systems, TACACS, and CHAP password systems, have improved the authentication process. RADIUS, Diameter, and TACACS 1. Explain how RADIUS and TACACS are systems that authenticate the credentials of users who are trying to access an organization’s network via a dial-up connection. 2. Explain how Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service systems place the responsibility for authenticating each user in the central RADIUS server.
- 19. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-15 3. Note that when a remote access server (NAS) receives a request for a network connection from a dial-up client, it passes the request along with the user’s credentials to the RADIUS server, which then validates the credentials and passes the resulting decision (accept or deny) back to the accepting RAS. 4. Explain how the Diameter protocol defines the minimum requirements for a system that provides Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) services and can go beyond these basics and add commands and/or object attributes. 5. Discuss diameter security, which uses respected encryption standards including IPSEC or TLS, and its cryptographic capabilities are extensible and will be able to use future encryption protocols as they are implemented. 6. Describe how the RADIUS system is similar in function to the Terminal Access Controller Access Control System (TACACS). 7. Note that like RADIUS, it is a centralized database, and it validates the user’s credentials at the TACACS server. Securing Authentication with Kerberos 1. Emphasize that Kerberos uses symmetric key encryption to validate an individual user to various network resources. 2. Explain that Kerberos keeps a database containing the private keys of clients and servers. Note that in the case of a client, this key is simply the client’s encrypted password. 3. Explain how the Kerberos system knows these private keys and how it can authenticate one network node (client or server) to another. Kerberos consists of the following interacting services, all of which use a database library: • Authentication server (AS), which is a Kerberos server that authenticates clients and servers • Key Distribution Center (KDC), which generates and issues session keys • Kerberos ticket granting service (TGS), which provides tickets to clients who request services 4. Point out that Kerberos is based on the following principles: • The KDC knows the secret keys of all clients and servers on the network • The KDC initially exchanges information with the client and server by using these secret keys • Kerberos authenticates a client to a requested service on a server through TGS and by issuing temporary session keys for communications between the client and KDC, the server and KDC, and the client and server • Communications then take place between the client and server using these temporary session keys
- 20. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-16 Sesame 1. Discuss how the Secure European System for Applications in a Multivendor Environment (SESAME) is similar to Kerberos in that the user is first authenticated to an authentication server and receives a token. 2. Explain how the token is then presented to a privilege attribute server (instead of a ticket granting service as in Kerberos) as proof of identity to gain a privilege attribute certificate (PAC). 3. Note that SESAME also builds on the Kerberos model by adding additional and more sophisticated access control features, more scalable encryption systems, as well as improved manageability, auditing features, and the delegation of responsibility for allowing access. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) 1. Define VPN as a private and secure network connection between systems that uses the data communication capability of an unsecured and public network. VPNs are commonly used to extend securely an organization’s internal network connections to remote locations beyond the trusted network. 2. Discuss the three VPN technologies that the VPNC defines: • A trusted VPN, or legacy VPN, uses leased circuits from a service provider and conducts packet switching over these leased circuits. • A secure VPN uses security protocols and encrypts traffic transmitted across unsecured public networks like the Internet. • A hybrid VPN combines the two, providing encrypted transmissions (as in secure VPN) over some or all of a trusted VPN network. 3. Note that a VPN that proposes to offer a secure and reliable capability while relying on public networks must address: • Encapsulation of incoming and outgoing data, wherein the native protocol of the client is embedded within the frames of a protocol that can be routed over the public network as well as be usable by the server network environment. • Encryption of incoming and outgoing data to keep the data contents private while in transit over the public network, but usable by the client and server computers and/or the local networks on both ends of the VPN connection. • Authentication of the remote computer and, perhaps, the remote user. Authentication and the subsequent authorization of the user to perform specific actions are predicated on accurate and reliable identification of the remote system and/or user. Transport Mode 1. Explain how in transport mode, the data within an IP packet is encrypted, but the header information is not.
- 21. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-17 2. Note that this allows the user to establish a secure link directly with the remote host, encrypting only the data contents of the packet. 3. Describe the two popular uses for transport mode VPNs: • The end-to-end transport of encrypted data. • A remote access worker or teleworker connects to an office network over the Internet by connecting to a VPN server on the perimeter. Tunnel Mode 1. Explain how in tunnel mode, the organization establishes two perimeter tunnel servers. These servers serve as the encryption points, encrypting all traffic that will traverse an unsecured network. 2. Note that in tunnel mode, the entire client packet is encrypted and added as the data portion of a packet that is addressed from one tunneling server and to another. The receiving server decrypts the packet and sends it to the final address. 3. Discuss the primary benefit to this model, which is that an intercepted packet reveals nothing about the true destination system. Teaching Tip Remind students that a VPN technology is simply a method for providing network-based access to resources with varying levels of security, and that a VPN connection does not necessarily imply an application delivery method. VPN technology is becoming very common in use cases beyond the WAN. Quick Quiz 3 1. What is the system most often used to authenticate the credentials of users who are trying to access an organization’s network via a dial-up connection? Answer: RADIUS 2. In which mode of IPSEC is the data within an IP packet encrypted, while the header information is not? Answer: Transport mode 3. A _____ dials every number in a configured range and checks to see if a person, answering machine, or modem picks up. Answer: war dialer 4. Which authentication system is a result of a European research and development project and is similar to Kerberos? Answer: SESAME
- 22. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-18 5. Which VPN technology uses leased circuits from a service provider and conducts packet switching over these leased circuits? Answer: trusted VPN Class Discussion Topics 1. Which architecture for deploying a firewall is most commonly used in businesses today? Why? 2. What are the reasons that VPN technology has become the dominant method for remote workers to connect to the organizational network? Additional Projects 1. A hands-on exercise or even a classroom demonstration can go a long way to cementing the learning objectives of this chapter. A simple SOHO or residential router with NAT and limited firewall reporting can be brought into the classroom with two or three portable computers and used to show how a simple NAT firewall approach can be used. 2. If a more elaborate firewall environment is needed, a field trip to your organization’s main network operations center may be in order. Additional Resources 1. Virtual Private Network Consortium http://www.vpnc.org/vpn-standards.html 2. Exposing the Underground: Adventures of an Open Proxy http://www.secureworks.com/research/articles/proxies 3. Firewall http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t%3Dfirewall&i%3D43218,00.asp 4. ICSA labs IPSec Testing http://www.icsa.net/technology-program/ipsec 5. Network Policy and Access Services http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/network/bb643123.aspx Key Terms ➢ Access control: the selective method by which systems specify who may use a particular resource and how they may use it. ➢ Access control list (ACL): a specification of an organization’s information asset, the users who may access and use it, and their rights and privileges for using the asset.
- 23. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-19 ➢ Access control matrix: an integration of access control lists (focusing on assets) and capability tables (focusing on users) that results in a matrix with organizational assets listed in the column headings and users listed in the row headings. The matrix contains ACLs in columns for a particular device or asset and capability tables in rows for a particular person. ➢ Accountability: the access control mechanism that ensures all actions on a system— authorized or unauthorized—can be attributed to an authenticated identity. Also known as auditability. ➢ Address restrictions: firewall rules designed to prohibit packets with certain addresses or partial addresses from passing through the device. ➢ Application firewall: see application layer firewall. ➢ Application layer firewall: a firewall type capable of performing filtering at the application layer of the OSI model, most commonly based on the type of service (for example, HTTP, SMTP, or FTP). Also known as an application firewall. See also proxy server. ➢ Asynchronous token: an authentication component in the form of a token—a card or key fob that contains a computer chip and a liquid crystal display and shows a computer-generated number used to support remote login authentication. This token does not require calibration of the central authentication server; instead, it uses a challenge/response system. ➢ Attribute: a characteristic of a subject (user or system) that can be used to restrict access to an object. Also known as a subject attribute. ➢ Attribute-based access control (ABAC): An access control approach whereby the organization specifies the use of objects based on some attribute of the user or system. ➢ Auditability: See accountability. ➢ Authentication: the access control mechanism that requires the validation and verification of a supplicant’s purported identity. ➢ Authentication factors: three mechanisms that provide authentication based on something a supplicant knows, something a supplicant has, and something a supplicant is. ➢ Authorization: the access control mechanism that represents the matching of an authenticated entity to a list of information assets and corresponding access levels. ➢ Bastion host: a firewall implementation strategy in which the device is connected directly to the untrusted area of the organization’s network rather than being placed in a screened area. Also known as a sacrificial host. ➢ Biometric access control: An access control approach based on the use of a measurable human characteristic or trait to authenticate the identity of a proposed systems user (a supplicant). ➢ Capability table: a specification of an organization’s users, the information assets that users may access, and their rights and privileges for using the assets. Also known as user profiles or user policies. ➢ Configuration rules: the instructions a system administrator codes into a server, networking device, or security device to specify how it operates. ➢ Content filter: a network filter that allows administrators to restrict access to external content from within a network. Also known as a reverse firewall. ➢ Covert channel: Unauthorized or unintended methods of communications hidden inside a computer system.
- 24. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-20 ➢ Crossover error rate (CER): in biometric access controls, the level at which the number of false rejections equals the false acceptance. Also known as the equal error rate. ➢ Demilitarized zone (DMZ): an intermediate area between two networks designed to provide servers and firewall filtering between a trusted internal network and the outside, untrusted network. Traffic on the outside network carries a higher level of risk. ➢ Discretionary access controls (DACs): controls that are implemented at the discretion or option of the data user. ➢ Dumb card: an authentication card that contains digital user data, such as a personal identification number (PIN), against which user input is compared. ➢ Dynamic filtering: a firewall type that can react to an adverse event and update or create its configuration rules to deal with that event. ➢ Extranet: a segment of the DMZ where additional authentication and authorization controls are put into place to provide services that are not available to the general public. ➢ False accept rate: In biometric access controls, the percentage of identification instances in which unauthorized users are allowed access. Also known as a Type II error. ➢ False reject rate: In biometric access controls, the percentage of identification instances in which authorized users are denied access. Also known as a Type I error. ➢ Firewall: in information security, a combination of hardware and software that filters or prevents specific information from moving between the outside network and the inside network. Each organization defines its own firewall. ➢ Hybrid VPN: a combination of trusted and secure VPN implementations. ➢ Identification: the access control mechanism whereby unverified entities or supplicants who seek access to a resource provide a label by which they are known to the system. ➢ Kerberos: a remote authentication system that uses symmetric key encryption-based tickets managed in a central database to validate an individual user to various network resources. ➢ Lattice-based access control (LBAC): an access control approach that uses a matrix or lattice of subjects (users and systems needing access) and objects (resources) to assign privileges. LBAC is an example of an NDAC. ➢ MAC layer firewall: a firewall designed to operate at the media access control sublayer of the network’s data link layer (Layer 2). ➢ Mandatory access control (MAC): an access control approach whereby the organization specifies use of resources based on the assignment of data classification schemes to resources and clearance levels to users. MAC is an example of an LBAC approach. ➢ Minutiae: in biometric access controls, unique points of reference that are digitized and stored in an encrypted format when the user’s system access credentials are created. ➢ Network Address Translation (NAT): a method of mapping valid external IP addresses to special ranges of nonroutable internal IP addresses, known as private addresses, on a one-to-one basis. ➢ Nondiscretionary access controls (NDACs): a strictly enforced version of MACs that are managed by a central authority in the organization and can be based on an individual user’s role or a specified set of tasks.
- 25. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-21 ➢ Packet-filtering firewall: also referred to as a filtering firewall, a networking device that examines the header information of data packets that come into a network and determines whether to drop them (deny) or forward them to the next network connection (allow), based on its configuration rules. ➢ Passphrase: an authentication component that consists of an expression known only to the user, from which a virtual password is derived. See also virtual password. ➢ Password: An authentication component that consists of a private word or combination of characters that only the user should know. ➢ Port Address Translation (PAT): A method of mapping a single valid external IP address to special ranges of nonroutable internal IP addresses, known as private addresses, on a one-to-many basis, using port addresses to facilitate the mapping. ➢ Proxy server: a server or firewall device capable of serving as an intermediary by retrieving information from one network segment and providing it to a requesting user on another.. ➢ Reference monitor: the piece of the system that mediates all access to objects by subjects. ➢ Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS): A computer connection system that centralizes the management of user authentication by placing the responsibility for authenticating each user on a central authentication server. ➢ Reverse firewalls: see content filter. ➢ Reverse proxy: a proxy server that most commonly retrieves information from inside an organization and provides it to a requesting user or system outside the organization. ➢ Role-based access control (RBAC): an example of a nondiscretionary control where privileges are tied to the role a user performs in an organization, and are inherited when a user is assigned to that role. Roles are considered more persistent than tasks. RBAC is an example of an LDAC. ➢ Sacrificial host: see bastion host. ➢ Screened host firewall: a single firewall or system designed to be externally accessible and protected by placement behind a filtering firewall. ➢ Screened subnet: an entire network segment that protects externally accessible systems by placing them in a demilitarized zone behind a filtering firewall and protects the internal networks by limiting how external connections can gain access to them.. ➢ Secure VPN: a VPN implementation that uses security protocols to encrypt traffic transmitted across unsecured public networks. ➢ Smart card: an authentication component similar to a dumb card that contains a computer chip to verify and validate several pieces of information instead of just a PIN. ➢ State table: a tabular database of the state and context of each packet in a conversation between an internal and external user or system. A state table is used to expedite firewall filtering. ➢ Stateful packet inspection (SPI): a firewall type that keeps track of each network connection between internal and external systems using a state table and that expedites the filtering of those communications. Also known as a stateful inspection firewall. ➢ Static filtering: a firewall type that requires the configuration rules to be manually created, sequenced, and modified within the firewall. ➢ Storage channel: A covert channel that communicates by modifying a stored object. ➢ Strong authentication: in access control, the use of at least two different authentication mechanisms drawn from two different factors of authentication. ➢ Subject attribute: See attribute.
- 26. Principles of Information Security, 5th Edition 6-22 ➢ Synchronous token: an authentication component in the form of a token—a card or key fob that contains a computer chip and a liquid crystal display and shows a computer-generated number used to support remote login authentication. This token must be calibrated with the corresponding software on the central authentication server. ➢ Task-based access control (TBAC): an example of a nondiscretionary control where privileges are tied to a task a user performs in an organization and are inherited when a user is assigned to that task. Tasks are considered more temporary than roles. TBAC is an example of an LDAC ➢ Timing channel: a covert channel that transmits information by managing the relative timing of events. ➢ Trusted computing base (TCB): according to the TCSEC, the combination of all hardware, firmware, and software responsible for enforcing the security policy. ➢ Trusted network: the system of networks inside the organization that contains its information assets and is under the organization’s control. ➢ Trusted VPN: also known as a legacy VPN, a VPN implementation that uses leased circuits from a service provider who gives contractual assurance that no one else is allowed to use these circuits and that they are properly maintained and protected. ➢ Unified Threat Management (UTM): a security approach that seeks a comprehensive solution for identifying and responding to network-based threats from a variety of sources. UTM brings together firewall and IDPS technology with antimalware, load balancing, content filtering, and data loss prevention. UTM integrates these tools with management, control, and reporting functions. ➢ Untrusted network: the system of networks outside the organization over which the organization has not control. The Internet is an example of an untrusted network. ➢ Virtual password: a password composed of a seemingly meaningless series of characters derived from a passphrase. ➢ Virtual private network (VPN): a private and secure network connection between systems that uses the data communication capability of an unsecured and public network. ➢ War dialer: an automatic phone-dialing program that dials every number in a configured range to determine if one of the numbers belongs to a computer connection such as a dial-up line.
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- 28. night, at six o'clock, in a most glorious manner. He said he was going to that country he had all his life wished to see, and expressed himself happy, hoping for salvation through Jesus Christ. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened, and he burst out into singing of the things he saw in heaven.' 'Perhaps,' he had written not long before, 'and I verily believe it, every death is an improvement of the state of the departed.' Blake was buried in Bunhill Fields, where all his family had been buried before him, but with the rites of the Church of England, and on August 17 his body was followed to the grave by Calvert, Richmond, Tatham, and Tatham's brother, a clergyman. The burial register reads: 'Aug. 17, 1827. William Blake. Age, 69 years. Brought from Fountain Court, Strand. Grave, 9 feet; E.&W. 77: N.&S. 32. 19/' The grave, being a 'common grave,' was used again, and the bones scattered; and this was the world's last indignity against William Blake. Tatham tells us that, during a marriage of forty-five years, Mrs. Blake had never been separated from her husband 'save for a period that would make altogether about five weeks.' He does not remind us, as Mr. Swinburne, on the authority of Seymour Kirkup, reminds us, of Mrs. Blake's one complaint, that her husband was incessantly away 'in Paradise.' Tatham adds: 'After the death of her husband she resided for some time with the author of this, whose domestic arrangements were entirely undertaken by her, until such changes took place that rendered it impossible for her strength to continue in this voluntary office of sincere affection and regard.' Before going to Tatham's she had spent nine months at Linnell's house in Cirencester Place, only leaving it in the summer of 1828, when Linnell let the house. After leaving Tatham she took lodgings in 17 Upper Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, where she died at half-past seven on the morning of October 18, 1831, four years after the death of her husband, and within three months of his age. Tatham says: 'Her death not being known but by calculation, sixty-five years were placed upon her coffin,' and in the burial register at Bunhill Fields we read: 'Oct. 23, 1831. Catherine Sophia Blake. Age, 65 yrs. Brought
- 29. from Upper Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Grave, 12 feet; E.&W. 7: N.&S. 31, 32. £1, 5s.' She was born April 24, 1762, and was thus aged sixty-nine years and six months. Mr. Swinburne tells us, on the authority of Seymour Kirkup, that, after Blake's death, a gift of £100 was sent to his widow by the Princess Sophia, which she gratefully returned, as not being in actual need of it. Many friends bought copies of Blake's engraved books, some of which Mrs. Blake colored, with the help of Tatham. After her death all the plates and manuscripts passed into Tatham's hands. In his memoir Tatham says that Blake on his death-bed 'spoke of the writer of this as a likely person to become the manager' of Mrs. Blake's affairs, and he says that Mrs. Blake bequeathed to him 'all of his works that remained unsold at his death, being writings, paintings, and a very great number of copperplates, of whom impressions may be obtained.' Linnell says that Tatham never showed anything in proof of his assertion that they had been left to him. Tatham had passed through various religious phases, and from being a Baptist, had become an 'angel' of the Irvingite Church. He is supposed to have destroyed the whole of the manuscripts and drawings in his possession on account of religious scruples; and in the life of Calvert by his son we read: 'Edward Calvert, fearing some fatal dénouement, went to Tatham and implored him to reconsider the matter and spare the good man's precious work; notwithstanding which, blocks, plates, drawings, and MSS., I understand, were destroyed.' Such is the received story, but is it strictly true? Did Tatham really destroy these manuscripts for religious reasons, or did he keep them and surreptitiously sell them for reasons of quite another kind? In the Rossetti Papers there is a letter from Tatham to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, dated Nov. 6, 1862, in which he says: 'I have sold Mr. Blake's works for thirty years'; and a footnote to Dr. Garnett's monograph on Blake in the The Portfolio of 1895 relates a visit from Tatham which took place about 1860. Dr. Garnett told me that Tatham had said, without giving any explanation, that he had destroyed some of Blake's manuscripts and kept others by him,
- 30. which he had sold from time to time. Is there not therefore a possibility that some of these lost manuscripts may still exist? whether or not they may turn out to be, as Crabb Robinson tells us that Blake told him, 'six or seven epic poems as long as Homer, and twenty tragedies as long as Macbeth.' X There are people who still ask seriously if Blake was mad. If the mind of Lord Macaulay is the one and only type of sanity, then Blake was mad. If imagination, and ecstasy, and disregard of worldly things, and absorption in the inner world of the mind, and a literal belief in those things which the whole 'Christian community' professes from the tip of its tongue; if these are signs and suspicions of madness, then Blake was certainly mad. His place is where he saw Teresa, among 'the gentle souls who guide the great wine-press of Love'; and, like her, he was 'drunk with intellectual vision.' That drunkenness illuminated him during his whole life, yet without incapacitating him from any needful attention to things by the way. He lived in poverty because he did not need riches; but he died without leaving a debt. He was a steady, not a fitful worker, and his wife said of him that she never saw his hands still unless he was reading or asleep. He was gentle and sudden; his whole nature was in a steady heat which could blaze at any moment into a flame. 'A saint amongst the infidels and a heretic with the orthodox,' he has been described by one who knew him best in his later years, John Linnell; and Palmer has said of him: 'His love of art was so great that he would see nothing but art in anything he loved; and so, as he loved the Apostles and their divine Head (for so I believe he did), he must needs say that they were all artists.' 'When opposed by the superstitious, the crafty, or the proud,' says Linnell again, 'he outraged all common-sense and rationality by the opinions he advanced'; and Palmer gives an instance of it: 'Being irritated by the exclusively scientific talk at a friend's house, which talk had turned on the vastness of space, he cried out, "It is false. I walked the
- 31. other evening to the end of the heath, and touched the sky with my finger."' It was of the essence of Blake's sanity that he could always touch the sky with his finger. 'To justify the soul's frequent joy in what cannot be defined to the intellectual part, or to calculation': that, which is Walt Whitman's definition of his own aim, defines Blake's. Where others doubted he knew; and he saw where others looked vaguely into the darkness. He saw so much further than others into what we call reality, that others doubted his report, not being able to check it for themselves; and when he saw truth naked he did not turn aside his eyes. Nor had he the common notion of what truth is, or why it is to be regarded. He said: 'When I tell a truth it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do.' And his criterion of truth was the inward certainty of instinct or intuition, not the outward certainty of fact. 'God forbid,' he said, 'that Truth should be confined to mathematical demonstration. He who does not know Truth at sight is unworthy of her notice.' And he said: 'Error is created, truth is eternal. Error or creation will be burned up, and then, not till then, truth or eternity will appear. It is burned up the moment men cease to behold it.' It was this private certainty in regard to truth and all things that Blake shared with the greatest minds of the world, and men doubted him partly because he was content to possess that certainty and had no desire to use it for any practical purpose, least of all to convince others. He asked to be believed when he spoke, told the truth, and was not concerned with argument or experiment, which seemed to him ways of evasion. He said: 'It is easy to acknowledge a man to be great and good, while we Derogate from him in the trifles and small articles of that goodness, Those alone are his friends who admire his minutest powers.'
- 32. He spoke naturally in terms of wisdom, and made no explanations, bridged none of the gulfs which it seemed to him so easy to fly over. Thus when he said that Ossian and Rowley were authentic, and that what Macpherson and Chatterton said was ancient was so, he did not mean it in a strictly literal sense, but in the sense in which ancient meant authentic: true to ancient truth. Is a thing true as poetry? then it is true in the minutest because the most essential sense. On the other hand, in saying that part of Wordsworth's Preface was written by another hand, he was merely expressing in a bold figure a sane critical opinion. Is a thing false among many true things? then it is not the true man who is writing it, but some false section of his brain. It may be dangerous practically to judge all things at an inner tribunal; but it is only by such judgments that truth moves. And truth has moved, or we have. After Zarathustra, Jerusalem no longer seems a wild heresy. People were frightened because they were told that Blake was mad, or a blasphemer. Nietzsche, who has cleared away so many obstructions from thought, has shamed us from hiding behind these treacherous and unavailing defenses. We have come to realize, what Rossetti pointed out long ago, that, as a poet, Blake's characteristic is above all things that of 'pure perfection in writing verse.' We no longer praise his painting for its qualities as literature, or forget that his design has greatness as design. And of that unique creation of an art out of the mingling of many arts which we see in the 'illuminated printing' of the engraved books, we have come to realize what Palmer meant when he said long ago: 'As a picture has been said to be something between a thing and a thought, so, in some of these type books over which Blake had long brooded with his brooding of fire, the very paper seems to come to life as you gaze upon it—not with a mortal life, but an indestructible life.' And we have come to realize what Blake meant by the humble and arrogant things which he said about himself. 'I doubt not yet,' he writes in one of those gaieties of speech which illuminate his letters, 'to make a figure in the great dance of life that shall amuse the spectators in the sky.' If there are indeed spectators there,
- 33. amused by our motions, what dancer among us are they more likely to have approved than this joyous, untired, and undistracted dancer to the eternal rhythm? [1]Compare the lines written in 1800: 'I bless thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth, that ever I saw Flaxman's face. Angels stand round my spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven are my friends upon Earth. When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me for a season ... And my Angels have told me that seeing such visions, I could not subsist on the Earth, But by my conjunction with Flaxman, who knows to forgive nervous fear.' [2]Gilchrist (I. 98) gives a long account of the house which he took to be Blake's, and which he supposed to be on the west side of Hercules Road. But it has been ascertained beyond a doubt, on the authority of the Lambeth rate-books, confirmed by Norwood's map of London at the end of the eighteenth century, that Blake's house, then numbered 13 Hercules Buildings, was on the east side of the road, and is the house now numbered 23 Hercules Road. Before 1842 the whole road was renumbered, starting at the south end of the western side and returning by the eastern side, so that the house which Gilchrist saw in 1863 as 13 Hercules Buildings was what afterwards became 70 Hercules Road, and is now pulled down. The road was finally renumbered in 1890, and the house became 23 Hercules Road. [3]The text of Vala, with corrections and additional errors, is now accessible in the second volume of Mr. Ellis' edition of Blake's Poetical Works. [4]They are now to be read in Mr. Russell's edition of The Letters of William Blake. [5]We know from Mr. Lucas's catalogue of Lamb's library that Lamb bound it up in a thick 12mo volume with his own Confessions of a Drunkard, Southey's Wat Tyler, and Lady Winchilsea's and Lord Rochester's poems. [6]I take the text of this letter, not from Mr. Russell's edition, but from the fuller text printed by Mr. Ellis in The Real Blake.
- 34. PART II - RECORDS FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES (I.) EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY, LETTERS, AND REMINISCENCES OF HENRY CRABB ROBINSON, TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS. IN DR. WILLIAMS'S LIBRARY, 1810-1852 'Of all the records of these his latter years,' says Mr. Swinburne in his book on Blake, 'the most valuable, perhaps, are those furnished by Mr. Crabb Robinson, whose cautious and vivid transcription of Blake's actual speech is worth more than much vague remark, or than any commentary now possible to give.' Through the kind permission of the Librarian of Dr. Williams's Library, where the Crabb Robinson MSS. are preserved, I am able to give, for the first time, an accurate and complete text of every reference to Blake in the Diary, Letters, and Reminiscences, which have hitherto been printed only in part, and with changes as well as omissions. In an entry in his Diary for May 13, 1848, Crabb Robinson says: 'It is strange that I, who have no imagination, nor any power beyond that of a logical understanding, should yet have great respect for the mystics.' This respect for the mystics, to which we owe the notes on Blake, was part of an inexhaustible curiosity in human things, and in things of the mind, which made of Crabb Robinson the most searching and significant reporter of the nineteenth century. Others may have understood Blake better than he did, but no one else was so attentive to his speech, and thus so faithful an interpreter of his meaning. In copying from the MS. I have followed the spelling, not however preserving abbreviations such as 'Bl:' for 'Blake,' due merely to haste, and I have modified the punctuation and added commas of quotation only when the writer's carelessness in these matters was likely to be confusing. Otherwise the transcript is literal and verbatim, and I have added in footnotes any readings of possible interest which have been crossed out in the manuscript.
- 35. (1) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S DIARY 1825 December 10 ... Dined with Aders. A very remarkable and interesting evening. The party Blake the painter and Linnell—also a painter and engraver —to dinner. In the evening came Miss Denman and Miss Flaxman. 10th December 1825 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[1] expression, and then he has an air of inspiration about him. The conversation was on art, and on poetry, and on religion; but it was my object, and I was successful, in drawing him out, and in so getting from him an avowal of his peculiar sentiments. I was aware before of the nature of his impressions, or I should 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's 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 paintings. 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
- 36. ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of trivial matters that every one understands and cares nothing about. In the same tone he said repeatedly, the 'Spirit told me.' I took occasion to say—You use the same word as Socrates used. What resemblance do you suppose is there between your spirit and the spirit of Socrates? 'The same as between our countenance.' He paused and added—'I was Socrates.' And then, as if correcting himself, 'A sort of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.' It was before this, that I had suggested on very obvious philosophical grounds the impossibility of supposing an immortal being created—an eternity a parte post without an eternity a parte ante. This is an obvious truth I have been many (perhaps 30) years fully aware of. His eye brightened on my saying this, and he eagerly concurred—'To be sure it is impossible. We are all co-existent with God—members of the Divine body. We are all partakers of the Divine nature.' In this, by the bye, Blake has but adopted an ancient Greek idea—query of Plato? As connected with this idea I will mention here (though it formed part of our talk, walking homeward) that on my asking in what light he viewed the great question concerning the Divinity of Jesus Christ, he said—'He is the only God.' But then he added—'And so am I and so are you.' Now he had just before (and this occasioned my question) been speaking of the errors of Jesus Christ—He was wrong in suffering Himself to be crucified. He should not have attacked the Government. He had no business with such matters. On my inquiring how he reconciled this with the sanctity and divine qualities of Jesus, he said He was not then become the Father. Connecting as well as one can these fragmentary sentiments, it would be hard to give Blake's station between Christianity, Platonism, and Spinosism. Yet he professes to be very hostile to Plato, and reproaches Wordsworth with being not a Christian but a Platonist. It is one of the subtle remarks of Hume on certain religious speculations that the tendency of them is to make men indifferent to whatever takes place by destroying all ideas of good and evil. I took
- 37. occasion to apply this remark to something Blake said. If so, I said, there is no use in discipline or education, no difference between good and evil. He hastily broke in on me—'There is no use in education. I hold it wrong. It is the great sin.[2] It is eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was the fault of Plato— he knew of nothing but of the virtues and vices and good and evil There is nothing in all that. Every thing is good in God's eyes.' On my putting the obvious question—Is there nothing absolutely evil in what men do? 'I am no judge of that. Perhaps not in God's Eyes.' Though on this and other occasions he spoke as if he denied altogether the existence of evil, and as if we had nothing to do with right and wrong. It being sufficient to consider all things as alike the work of God. [I interposed with the German word objectively, which he approved of.] Yet at other times he spoke of error as being in heaven. I asked about the moral character of Dante in writing his Vision: was he pure? 'Pure' said Blake. 'Do you think there is any purity in God's eyes? The angels in heaven are no more so than we —"he chargeth his angels with folly."' He afterwards extended this to the Supreme Being—he is liable to error too. Did he not repent him that he had made Nineveh? It is easier to repeat the personal remarks of Blake than these metaphysical speculations so nearly allied to the most opposite systems. He spoke with seeming complacency of himself—said he acted by command. The spirit said to him, 'Blake, be an artist and nothing else.' In this there is felicity. His eye glistened while he spoke of the joy of devoting himself solely to divine art. 'Art is inspiration. When Michael Angelo or Raphael or Mr. Flaxman does any of his fine things, he does them in the spirit.' Blake said, 'I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy.' Among the[3] unintelligible sentiments which he was continually expressing is his distinction between the natural and the spiritual
- 38. world. The natural world must be consumed. Incidentally Swedenborg was spoken of. He was a divine teacher—he has done much good, and will do much good—he has corrected many errors of Popery, and also of Luther and Calvin. Yet he also said that Swedenborg was wrong in endeavoring to explain to the rational faculty what the reason cannot comprehend: he should have left that. As Blake mentioned Swedenborg and Dante together I wished to know whether he considered their visions of the same kind. As far as I could collect, he does. Dante he said was the greater poet. He had political objects. Yet this, though wrong, does not appear in Blake's mind to affect the truth of the vision. Strangely inconsistent with this was the language of Blake about Wordsworth. Wordsworth he thinks is no Christian but a Platonist. He asked me, 'Does he believe in the Scriptures?' On my answering in the affirmative he said he had been much pained by reading the introduction to the Excursion. It brought on a fit of illness. The passage was produced and read: 'Jehovah—with his thunder, and the choir Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones, I pass them unalarmed.' This pass them unalarmed greatly offended Blake. 'Does Mr. Wordsworth think his mind can surpass Jehovah?' I tried to twist this passage into a sense corresponding with Blake's own theories, but filled [sic= failed], and Wordsworth was finally set down as a pagan. But still with great praise as the greatest poet of the age. Jacob Boehmen was spoken of as a divinely inspired man. Blake praised, too, the figures in Law's translation as being very beautiful. Michael Angelo could not have done better. Though he spoke of his happiness, he spoke of past sufferings, and of sufferings as necessary. 'There is suffering in heaven, for where there is the capacity of enjoyment, there is the capacity of pain.' I have been interrupted by a call from Talfourd in writing this account—and I can not now recollect any distinct remarks—but as Blake has invited me to go and see him I shall possibly have an
- 39. opportunity again of noting what he says, and I may be able hereafter to throw connection, if not system, into what I have written above. I feel great admiration and respect for him—he is certainly a most amiable man—a good creature—and of his poetical and pictorial genius there is no doubt, I believe, in the minds of judges. Wordsworth and Lamb like his poems, and the Aders his paintings. A few other detached thoughts occur to me. Bacon, Locke, and Newton are the three great teachers of Atheism or of Satan's doctrine. Every thing is Atheism which assumes the reality of the natural and unspiritual world. Irving. He is a highly gifted man—he is a sent man—but they who are sent sometimes[4] go further than they ought. Dante saw Devils where I see none. I see only good. I saw nothing but good in Calvin's house—better than in Luther's; he had harlots. Swedenborg. Parts of his scheme are dangerous. His sexual religion is dangerous. I do not believe that the world is round. I believe it is quite flat. I objected the circumnavigation. We were called to dinner at the moment, and I lost the reply. The Sun. 'I have conversed with the Spiritual Sun—I saw him on Primrose-hill. He said, "Do you take me for the Greek Apollo?" "No," I said, "that," [and Blake pointed to the sky] "that is the Greek Apollo. He is Satan."' 'I know what is true by internal conviction. A doctrine is told me—my heart says it must be true.' I corroborated this by remarking on the impossibility of the unlearned man judging of what are called the external evidences of religion, in which he heartily concurred. I regret that I have been unable to do more than set down these seeming idle and rambling sentences. The tone and manner are incommunicable. There is a natural sweetness and gentility about
- 40. Blake which are delightful. And when he is not referring to his Visions he talks sensibly and acutely. His friend Linnel seems a great admirer. Perhaps the best thing he said was his comparison of moral with natural evil. 'Who shall say what God thinks evil? That is a wise tale of the Mahometans—of the Angel of the Lord that murdered the infant' [alluding to the Hermit of Parnel, I suppose]. 'Is not every infant that dies of disease in effect murdered by an angel?' 17th December. For the sake of connection I will here insert a minute of a short call I this morning made on Blake. He dwells in Fountain Court in the Strand. I found him in a small room, which seems to be both a working-room and a bedroom. Nothing could exceed the squalid air both of the apartment and his dress, but in spite of dirt—I might say filth—an air of natural gentility is diffused over him. And his wife, notwithstanding the same offensive character of her dress and appearance, has a good expression of countenance, so that I shall have a pleasure in calling on and conversing with these worthy people. But I fear I shall not make any progress in ascertaining his opinions and feelings—that there being really no system or connection in his mind, all his future conversation will be but varieties of wildness and incongruity. I found [sic] at work on Dante. The book (Cary) and his sketches both before him. He shewed me his designs, of which I have nothing to say but that they evince a power of grouping and of throwing grace and interest over conceptions most monstrous and disgusting, which I should not have anticipated. Our conversation began about Dante. 'He was an "Atheist," a mere politician busied about this world as Milton was, till in his old age he returned back to God whom he had had in his childhood.' I tried to get out from Blake that he meant this charge only in a higher sense, and not using the word Atheism in its popular meaning. But he would not allow this. Though when he in like
- 41. manner charged Locke with Atheism and I remarked that Locke wrote on the evidences of piety and lived a virtuous life, he had nothing to reply to me nor reiterated the charge of willful deception. I admitted that Locke's doctrine leads to Atheism, and this seemed to satisfy him. From this subject we passed over to that of good and evil, in which he repeated his former assertions more decidedly. He allowed, indeed, that there is error, mistake, etc., and if these be evil —then there is evil, but these are only negations. Nor would he admit that any education should be attempted except that of cultivation of the imagination and fine arts. 'What are called the vices in the natural world are the highest sublimities in the spiritual world.' When I asked whether if he had been a father he would not have grieved if his child had become vicious or a great criminal, he answered, 'I must not regard when I am endeavoring to think rightly my own any more than other people's weaknesses.' And when I again remarked that this doctrine puts an end to all exertion or even wish to change anything, he had no reply. We spoke of the Devil, and I observed that when a child I thought the Manichaean doctrine or that of the two principles a rational one. He assented to this, and in confirmation asserted that he did not believe in the omnipotence of God. 'The language of the Bible on that subject is only poetical or allegorical.' Yet soon after he denied that the natural world is anything. 'It is all nothing, and Satan's empire is the empire of nothing.' He reverted soon to his favorite expression, my Visions. 'I saw Milton in imagination, and he told me to beware of being misled by his Paradise Lost. In particular he wished me to show the falsehood of his doctrine that the pleasures of sex arose from the fall. The fall could not produce any pleasure.' I answered, the fall produced a state of evil in which there was a mixture of good or pleasure. And in that sense the fall may be said to produce the pleasure. But he replied that the fall produced only generation and death. And then he went off upon a rambling state of a union of sexes in man as in Ovid, an androgynous state, in which I could not follow him.
- 42. As he spoke of Miltons appearing to him, I asked whether he resembled the prints of him. He answered, 'All.' Of what age did he appear to be? 'Various ages—sometimes a very old man.' He spoke of Milton as being at one time a sort of classical Atheist, and of Dante as being now with God. Of the faculty of Vision, he spoke as one he has had from early infancy. He thinks all men partake of it, but it is lost by not being cultivated. And he eagerly assented to a remark I made, that all men have all faculties to a greater or less degree. I am to renew my visits, and to read Wordsworth to him, of whom he seems to entertain a high idea. [Here B. has added vide p. 174, i.e. Dec. 24, below.] Sunday 11th. The greater part of the forenoon was spent in writing the preceding account of my interview with Blake in which I was interrupted by a call from Talfourd.... 17th. Made a visit to Blake of which I have written fully in a preceding page. 20th... Hundleby took coffee with me tête à tête. We talked of his personal concerns, of Wordsworth, whom I can't make him properly enjoy; of Blake, whose peculiarities he can as little relish.... Saturday 24th. A call on Blake. My third interview. I read him Wordsworth's incomparable ode, which he heartily enjoyed. The same half crazy crotchets about the two worlds—the eternal repetition of what must in time become tiresome. Again he repeated to day, 'I fear Wordsworth loves Nature—and Nature is the work of the Devil. The Devil is in us, as far as we are Nature.' On my enquiring whether the Devil would not be destroyed by God as being of less power, he denied that God has any power—asserted that the Devil is eternally created not by God, but by God's permission. And when I objected that permission implies power to prevent, he did not seem to understand me. It was remarked that the parts of Wordworth's ode which he most enjoyed were the most obscure and those I the least like and comprehend....
- 43. January 1826 6th. A call on Blake. I hardly feel it worth while to write down his conversation, it is so much a repetition of his former talk. He was very cordial to-day. I had procured him two subscriptions for his Job from Geo. Procter and Bas. Montague. I paid £1 on each. This, probably, put him in spirits, more than he was aware of—he spoke of his being richer than ever on having learned to know me, and he told Mrs. A. he and I were nearly of an opinion. Yet I have practized no deception intentionally, unless silence be so. He renewed his complaints, blended with his admiration of Wordsworth. The oddest thing he said was that he had been commanded to do certain things, that is, to write about Milton, and that he was applauded for refusing —he struggled with the Angels and was victor. His wife joined in the conversation.... 8th. ... Then took tea with Basil Montague, Mrs. M. there. A short chat about Coleridge, Irving, etc. She admires Blake—Encore une excellence là de plus.... February 18th. Jos. Wedd breakfasted with me. Then called on Blake. An amusing chat with him, but still no novelty. The same round of extravagant and mad doctrines, which I shall not now repeat, but merely notice their application. He gave me, copied out by himself, Wordsworth's preface to his Excursion. At the end he has added this note:— 'Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's daughter, became a convert to the Heathen Mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah as a very inferior object of man's contemplations; he also passed him by unalarmed, and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear and followed him by his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the divine Mercy. Satan dwells in it, but mercy does not dwell in him.'
- 44. Of Wordsworth he talked as before. Some of his writings proceed from the Holy Ghost, but then others are the work of the Devil. However, I found on this subject Blake's language more in conformity with Orthodox Christianity than before. He talked of the being under the direction of Self; and of Reason as the creature of man and opposed to God's grace. And warmly declared that all he knew was in the Bible, but then he understands by the Bible the spiritual sense. For as to the natural sense, that Voltaire was commissioned by God to expose. 'I have had much intercourse with Voltaire, and he said to me I blasphemed the Son of Man, and it shall be forgiven me. But they (the enemies of Voltaire) blasphemed the Holy Ghost in me, and it shall not be forgiven them.' I asked in what language Voltaire spoke—he gave an ingenious answer. 'To my sensation it was English. It was like the touch of a musical key. He touched it probably French, but to my ear it became English.' I spoke again of the form of the persons who appear to him. Asked why he did not draw them, 'It is not worth while. There are so many, the labour would be too great. Besides there would be no use. As to Shakespeare, he is exactly like the old engraving—which is called a bad one. I think it very good.' I enquired about his writings. 'I have written more than Voltaire or Rousseau—six or seven epic poems as long as Homer, and 20 tragedies as long as Macbeth.' He showed me his Vision (for so it may be called) of Genesis—'as understood by a Christian Visionary,' in which in a style resembling the Bible the spirit is given. He read a passage at random. It was striking. He will not print any more.[5] 'I write,' he says, 'when commanded by the spirits, and the moment I have written I see the words fly about the room in all directions. It is then published, and the spirits can read. My MSS. of no further use. I have been tempted to burn my MSS., but my wife won't let me.' She is right, said I—and you have written these, not from yourself, but by a higher order. The MSS. are theirs and your property. You cannot tell what purpose they may answer—unforeseen to you. He liked this, and said he would not destroy them. His philosophy he repeated—denying causation, asserting everything to be the work of
- 45. God or the Devil—that there is a constant falling off from God— angels becoming devils. Every man has a devil in him, and the conflict is eternal between a man's self and God, etc. etc. etc. He told me my copy of his songs would be 5 guineas, and was pleased by my manner of receiving this information. He spoke of his horror of money—of his turning pale when money had been offered him, etc. etc. etc. May Thursday 11th. Calls this morning on Blake, on Thornton [etc.] ... 12th. ... Tea and supper at home. The Flaxmans, Masqueriers (a Miss Forbes), Blake, and Sutton Sharpe. On the whole the evening went off tolerably. Masquerier not precisely the man to enjoy Blake, who was, however, not in an exalted state. Allusions only to his particular notions while Masquerier commented on his opinions as if they were those of a man of ordinary notions. Blake asserted that the oldest painter poets were the best. Do you deny all progression? says Masquerier. 'Oh yes!' I doubt whether Flaxman sufficiently tolerates Blake. But Blake appreciates Flaxman as he ought. Blake relished my Stone drawings. They staid till eleven. Blake is more and more convinced that Wordsworth worships nature and is not a Bible Christian. I have sent him the Sketches. We shall see whether they convert him. June 13th. Another idle day. Called early on Blake. He was as wild as ever, with no great novelty, except that he confessed a practical notion which would do him more injury than any other I have heard from him. He says that from the Bible he has learned that eine Gemeinschaft der Frauen statt finden sollte. When I objected that Ehestand seems to be a divine institution, he referred to the Bible
- 46. —'that from the beginning it was not so.' He talked as usual of the spirits, asserted that he had committed many murders, that reason is the only evil or sin, and that careless, gay people are better than those who think, etc. etc. etc. December Thursday 7th. I sent Britt, to enquire after Mr. Flaxman's health, etc., and was engaged looking over the Term Reports while he was gone. On his return, he brought the melancholy intelligence of his death early in the morning!!! The country has lost one of its greatest and best of men. As an artist he has spread the fame of the country beyond any others of his age. As a man he exhibited a rare specimen of Christian and moral excellence. I walked out and called at Mr. Soane's. He was from home. I then called on Blake, desirous to see how, with his peculiar feelings and opinions, he would receive the intelligence. It was much as I expected—he had himself been very ill during the summer, and his first observation was with a smile—'I thought I should have gone first.' He then said, 'I cannot consider death as anything but[6] a removing from one room to another.' One thing led to another, and he fell into his wild rambling way of talk. 'Men are born with a devil and an angel,' but this he himself interpreted body and soul. Of the Old Testament he seemed to think not favorably. 'Christ,' said he, 'took much after his mother (the law), and in that respect was one of the worst of men.' On my requiring an explanation, he said, 'There was his turning the money changers out of the Temple. He had no right to do that.' Blake then declared against those who sat in judgement on others. 'I have never known a very bad man who had not something very good about him.' He spoke of the Atonement. Said, 'It is a horrible doctrine. If another man pay your debt, I do not forgive it,' etc. etc. etc. He produced Sintram by Fouqué—'This is better than my things.'
- 47. 1827 February Friday, 2nd. Götzenberger, the young painter from Germany, called on me, and I accompanied him to Blake. We looked over Blake's Dante. Götzenberger seemed highly gratified by the designs, and Mrs. Aders says Götzenberger considers Blake, as the first and Flaxman as the second man he had seen in England. The conversation was slight—I was interpreter between them. And nothing remarkable was said by Blake—he was interested apparently by Götzenberger.... 1828 January 8th. Breakfasted with Shott—Talfourd and B. Field there. Walked with Field to Mrs. Blake. The poor old lady was more affected than I expected, yet she spoke of her husband as dying like an angel. She is the housekeeper of Linnell the painter and engraver, and at present her services might well pay for her hoard. A few of her husband's works are all her property. We found that the Job is Linnell's property, and the print of Chaucer's pilgrimage hers. Therefore Field bought a proof and I two prints at 2 1/2 guineas each. I mean one for Lamb. Mrs. Blake is to look out some engravings for me hereafter.... [1]'Any' crossed out. [2]'By which evil' crossed out. [3]'More remarkable' crossed out. [4]'Exceed their commission' crossed out. [5]'For the writer' crossed out.
- 48. [6]'A passage from' crossed out. (2) FROM A LETTER OF CRABB ROBINSON TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH In a letter to Dorothy Wordsworth, not dated, but bearing the postmark of February 20, 1826, there is the following reference to Blake. No earlier reference to him occurs in the letter, in spite of the sentence which follows:— 'I have above mentioned Blake. I forget whether I ever mentioned to you this very interesting man, with whom I am now become acquainted. Were the "Memorials" at my hand, I should quote a fine passage in the Sonnet on the Cologne Cathedral as applicable to the contemplation of this singular being.' 'I gave your brother some poems in MS. by him, and they interested him—as well they might, for there is an affinity between them, as there is between the regulated imagination of a wise poet and the incoherent dreams of a poet. Blake is an engraver by trade, a painter and a poet also, whose works have been subject of derision to men in general; but he has a few admirers, and some of eminence have eulogized his designs. He has lived in obscurity and poverty, to which the constant hallucinations in which he lives have doomed him. I do not mean to give you a detailed account of him. A few words will suffice to inform you of what class he is. He is not so much a disciple of Jacob Böhmen and Swedenborg as a fellow Visionary. He lives, as they did, in a world of his own, enjoying constant intercourse with the world of spirits. He receives visits from Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Voltaire, etc. etc. etc., and has given me repeatedly their very words in their conversations. His paintings are copies of what he saw in his Visions. His books (and his MSS. are immense in quantity) are dictations from the spirits. He told me yesterday that when he writes it is for the spirits only; he sees the words fly about the room the
- 49. moment he has put them on paper, and his book is then published. A man so favoured, of course, has sources of wisdom and truth peculiar to himself. I will not pretend to give you an account of his religious and philosophical opinions. They are a strange compound of Christianity, Spinozism, and Platonism. I must confine myself to what he has said about your brother's works, and[1] I fear this may lead me far enough to fatigue you in following me. After what I have said, Mr. W. will not be flattered by knowing that Blake deems him the only poet of the age, nor much alarmed by hearing that, like Muley Moloch, Blake thinks that he is often in his works an Atheist. Now, according to Blake, Atheism consists in worshipping the natural world, which same natural world, properly speaking, is nothing real, but a mere illusion produced by Satan. Milton was for a great part of his life an Atheist, and therefore has fatal errors in his Paradise Lost, which he has often begged Blake to confute. Dante (though now with God) lived and died an Atheist. He was the slave of the world and time. But Dante and Wordsworth, in spite of their Atheism, were inspired by the Holy Ghost. Indeed, all real poetry is the work of the Holy Ghost, and Wordsworth's poems (a large proportion, at least) are the work of divine inspiration. Unhappily he is left by God to his own illusions, and then the Atheism is apparent. I had the pleasure of reading to Blake in my best style (and you know I am vain on that point, and think I read W.'s poems particularly well) the Ode on Immortality. I never witnessed greater delight in any listener; and in general Blake loves the poems. What appears to have disturbed his mind, on the other hand, is the Preface to the Excursion. He told me six months ago that it caused him a bowel complaint which nearly killed him. I have in his hand a copy of the extract [with the][[2] following note at the end: "Solomon, when he married Pharaoh's daughter and became a convert to the Heathen Mythology, talked exactly in this way of Jehovah as a very inferior object of man's contemplation; he also passed him by unalarmed, and was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear, and followed him by his Spirit into the abstract void. It is called the divine mercy. Satan dwells in it, but Mercy does not dwell in him, he knows not to forgive." When I
- 50. first saw Blake at Mrs. Aders's he very earnestly asked me, "Is Mr. W. a sincere real Christian?" In reply to my answer he said, "If so, what does he mean by 'the worlds to which the heaven of heavens is but a veil,' and who is he that shall 'pass Jehovah unalarmed'?" It is since then that I have lent Blake all the works which he but imperfectly knew. I doubt whether what I have written will excite your and Mr. W.'s curiosity; but there is something so delightful about the man—though in great poverty, he is so perfect a gentleman, with such genuine dignity and independence, scorning presents, and of such native delicacy in words, etc. etc. etc., that I have not scrupled promising introducing him and Mr. W. together. He expressed his thanks strongly, saying, "You do me honor, Mr. W. is a great man. Besides, he may convince me I am wrong about him. I have been wrong before now," etc. Coleridge has visited Blake, and, I am told, talks finely about him. That I might not encroach on a third sheet I have compressed what I had to say about Blake. You must see him one of these days and he will interest you at all events, whatever character you give to his mind.' The main part of the letter is concerned with Wordsworth's arrangement of his poems, which Crabb Robinson says that he agrees with Lamb in disliking. He then says: 'It is a sort of intellectual suicide in your brother not to have continued his admirable series of poems "dedicated to liberty," he might add, "and public virtue." I assure you it gives me real pain when I think that some future commentator may possibly hereafter write, "This great poet survived to the fifth decenary of the nineteenth century, but he appears to have dyed in the year 1814 as far as life consisted in an active sympathy with the temporary welfare of his fellow- creatures...." [More follows, and then] 'I had no intention, I assure you, to make so long a parenthesis or indeed to advert to such a subject. And I wish you not to read any part of this letter which might be thought impertinent.... In favor of my affectionate attachment to your brother's fame, do forgive me this digression, and, as I said above, keep it to yourself.'
- 51. [At the end he says] 'My best remembrances to Mr. W. And recollect again that you are not to read all this letter to any one if it will offend, and you are yourself to forgive it as coming from one who is affly your friend, H. C. R.' On April 6, Wordsworth answers the letter from Rydal Mount, saying: 'My sister had taken flight for Herefordshire when your letter, for such we guessed it to be, arrived—it was broken open—(pray forgive the offense) and your charges of concealment and reserve frustrated. We are all, at all times, so glad to hear from you that we could not resist the temptation to purchase the pleasure at the expense of the peccadillo, for which we beg pardon with united voices. You are kind enough to mention my poems.' [All the rest of the letter is taken up with them, and it ends, with no mention of Blake] 'I can write no more. T. Clarkson is going. Your supposed Biography entertained me much. I could give you the other side. Farewell.' [There is no signature.] [1]'And as I am requested to copy what he has written for the purpose' crossed out. [2]The MS. is here torn. (3) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S REMINISCENCES 1810 I was amusing myself this spring by writing an account of the insane poet, painter, and engraver, Blake. Perthes of Hamburg had written to me asking me to send him an article for a new German magazine,
- 52. entitled Vaterländische Annalen, which he was about to set up, and Dr. Malkin having in his Memoirs of his son given an account of this extraordinary genius with specimens of his poems, I resolved out of these to compile a paper. And this I did,[1] and the paper was translated by Dr. Julius, who, many years afterwards, introduced himself to me as my translator. It appears in the single number of the second volume of the Vaterländische Annalen. For it was at this time that Buonaparte united Hamburg to the French Empire, on which Perthes manfully gave up the magazine, saying, as he had no longer a Vaterland, there could be no Vaterländische Annalen. But before I drew up the paper, I went to see a gallery of Blake's paintings, which were exhibited by his brother, a hosier in Carnaby Market. The entrance was 2s. 6d., catalogue included. I was deeply interested by the catalogue as well as the pictures. I took 4—telling the brother I hoped he would let me come in again. He said, 'Oh! as often as you please.' I dare say such a thing had never happened before or did afterwards. I afterwards became acquainted with Blake, and will postpone till hereafter what I have to say of this extraordinary character, whose life has since been written very inadequately by Allan Cunningham in his Lives of the English Artists. [At the side is written]—N. B. What I have written about Blake will appear at the end of the year 1825. 1825 WILLIAM BLAKE 19/02/52 It was at the latter end of the year 1825 that I put in writing my recollections of this most remarkable man. The larger portions are under the date of the 18th of December. He died in the year 1827. I have therefore now revised what I wrote on the 10th of December and afterwards, and without any attempt to reduce to order, or make
- 53. consistent the wild and strange rhapsodies uttered by this insane man of genius, thinking it better to put down what I find as it occurs, though I am aware of the objection that may justly be made to the recording the ravings of insanity in which it may be said there can be found no principle, as there is no ascertainable law of mental association which is obeyed; and from which therefore nothing can be learned. This would be perfectly true of mere madness—but does not apply to that form of insanity ordinarily called monomania, and may be disregarded in a case like the present in which the subject of the remark was unquestionably what a German would call a Verunglückter Genie, whose theosophic dreams bear a close resemblance to those of Swedenborg—whose genius as an artist was praised by no less men than Flaxman and Fuseli—and whose poems were thought worthy republication by the biographer of Swedenborg (Wilkinson), and of which Wordsworth said after reading a number—they were the 'Songs of Innocence and Experience showing the two opposite sides of the human soul'—'There is no doubt this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott!' The German painter Götzenberger (a man indeed who ought not to be named after the others as an authority for my writing about Blake) said, on his returning to Germany about the time at which I am now arrived, 'I saw in England many men of talents, but only three men of genius, Coleridge, Flaxman, and Blake, and of these Blake was the greatest.' I do not mean to intimate my assent to this opinion, nor to do more than supply such materials as my intercourse with him furnish to an uncritical narrative to which I shall confine myself. I have written a few sentences in these reminiscences already, those of the year 1810. I had not then begun the regular journal which I afterwards kept. I will therefore go over the ground again and introduce these recollections of 1825 by a reference to the slight knowledge I had of him before, and what occasioned my taking an interest in him, not caring to repeat what Cunningham has recorded of him in the
- 54. volume of his Lives of the British Painters, etc. etc., except thus much. It appears that he was born... [The page ends here.] Dr. Malkin, our Bury Grammar School Headmaster, published in the year 1806 a Memoir of a very precocious child who died... years old, and he prefixed to the Memoir an account of Blake, and in the volume he gave an account of Blake as a painter and poet, and printed some specimens of his poems, viz. 'The Tyger,' and ballads and mystical lyrical poems, all of a wild character, and M. gave an account of Visions which Blake related to his acquaintance. I knew that Flaxman thought highly of him, and though he did not venture to extol him as a genuine seer, yet he did not join in the ordinary derision of him as a madman. Without having seen him, yet I had already conceived a high opinion of him, and thought he would furnish matter for a paper interesting to Germans, and therefore when Fred. Perthes, the patriotic publisher at Hamburg, wrote to me in 1810 requesting me to give him an article for his Patriotische Annalen, I thought I could do no better than send him a paper on Blake, which was translated into German by Dr. Julius, filling, with a few small poems copied and translated, 24 pages. These appeared in the first and last No. of volume 2 of the Annals. The high-minded editor boldly declared that as the Emperor of France had annexed Hamburg to France he had no longer a country, and there could no longer be any patriotical Annals!!! Perthes' Life has been written since, which I have riot seen. I am told there is in it a civil mention of me. This Dr. Julius introduced himself to me as such translator a few years ago. He travelled as an Inspector of Prisons for the Prussian Government into the United States of America. In order to enable me to write this paper, which, by the bye, has nothing in it of the least value, I went to see an exhibition of Blake's original paintings in Carnaby Market, at a hosier's, Blake's brother. These paintings filled several rooms of an ordinary dwelling-house, and for the sight a half-crown was demanded of the visitor, for which he had a catalogue. This catalogue I possess, and it is a very curious exposure of the state of the artist's mind. I wished to send it to
- 55. Germany and to give a copy to Lamb and others, so I took four, and giving 10s., bargained that I should be at liberty to go again. 'Free! as long as you live,'[2] said the brother, astonished at such a liberality, which he had never experienced before, nor I dare say did afterwards. Lamb was delighted with the catalogue, especially with the description of a painting afterwards engraved, and connected with which is an anecdote that, unexplained, would reflect discredit on a most amiable and excellent man, but which Flaxman considered to have been not the willful act of Stodart. It was after the friends of Blake had circulated a subscription paper for an engraving of his Canterbury Pilgrims, that Stodart was made a party to an engraving of a painting of the same subject by himself. Stodart's work is well known, Blake's is known by very few. Lamb preferred it greatly to Stodart's, and declared that Blake's description was the finest criticism he had ever read of Chaucer's poem. In this catalogue Blake writes of himself in the most outrageous language—says, 'This artist defies all competition in colouring'—that none can beat him, for none can beat the Holy Ghost—that he and Raphael and Michael Angelo were under divine influence—while Corregio and Titian worshipped a lascivious and therefore cruel deity —Reubens a proud devil, etc. etc. He declared, speaking of color, Titian's men to be of leather and his women of chalk, and ascribed his own perfection in coloring to the advantage he enjoyed in seeing daily the primitive men walking in their native nakedness in the mountains of Wales. There were about thirty oil-paintings, the coloring excessively dark and high, the veins black, and the color of the primitive men very like that of the Red Indians. In his estimation they would probably be the primitive men. Many of his designs were unconscious imitations. This appears also in his published works— the designs of Blair's Grave, which Fuseli and Schiavonetti highly extolled—and in his designs to illustrate Job, published after his death for the benefit of his widow. 23/2/52.
- 56. To this catalogue and in the printed poems, the small pamphlet which appeared in 1783, the edition put forth by Wilkinson of The Songs of Innocence,' and other works already mentioned, to which I have to add the first four books of Young's Night Thoughts, and Allan Cunningham's Life of him, I now refer, and will confine myself to the memorandums I took of his conversation. I had heard of him from Flaxman, and for the first time dined in his company at the Aders'. Linnell the painter also was there—an artist of considerable talent, and who professed to take[3] a deep interest in Blake and his work, whether of a perfectly disinterested character may be doubtful, as will appear hereafter. This was on the 10th of December. I was aware of his idiosyncrasies and therefore to a great degree prepared for the sort of conversation which took place at and after dinner, an altogether unmethodical rhapsody on art, poetry, and religion—he saying the most strange things in the most unemphatic manner, speaking of his Visions as any man would of the most ordinary occurrence. He was then 68 years of age. He had a broad, pale face, a large full eye with a benignant expression—at the same time a look of languor,[4] except when excited, and then he had an air of inspiration. But not such as without a previous acquaintance with him, or attending to what he said, would suggest the notion that he was insane. There was nothing wild about his look, and though very ready to be drawn out to the assertion of his favorite ideas, yet with no warmth as if he wanted to make proselytes. Indeed one of the peculiar features of his scheme, as far as it was consistent, was indifference and a very extraordinary degree of tolerance and satisfaction with what had taken place.[5] A sort of pious and humble optimism, not the scornful optimism of Candide. But at the same time that he was very ready to praise he seemed incapable of envy, as he was of discontent. He warmly praised some composition of Mrs. Aders, and having brought for Aders an engraving of his Canterbury Pilgrims, he remarked that one of the figures resembled a figure in one of the works then in Aders's room,
- 57. so that he had been accused of having stolen from it. But he added that he had drawn the figure in question 20 years before he had seen the original picture. However, there is 'no wonder in the resemblance, as in my youth I was always studying that class of painting.' I have forgotten what it was, but his taste was in close conformity with the old German school. This was somewhat at variance with what he said both this day and afterwards—implying that he copies his Visions. And it was on this first day that, in answer to a question from me, he said, 'The Spirits told me.' This lead me to say: Socrates used pretty much the same language. He spoke of his Genius. Now, what affinity or resemblance do you suppose was there between the Genius which inspired Socrates and your Spirits? He smiled, and for once it seemed to me as if he had a feeling of vanity gratified.[6] 'The same as in our countenances.' He paused and said, 'I was Socrates'—and then as if he had gone too far in that—'or a sort of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.' As I had for many years been familiar with the idea that an eternity a parte post was inconceivable without an eternity a parte ante, I was naturally led to express that thought on this occasion. His eye brightened on my saying this. He eagerly assented: 'To be sure. We are all coexistent with God; members of the Divine body, and partakers of the Divine nature.' Blake's having adopted this Platonic idea led me on our tête-à-tête walk home at night to put the popular question to him, concerning the imputed Divinity of Jesus Christ. He answered: 'He is the only God'—but then he added—'And so am I and so are you.' He had before said—and that led me to put the question—that Christ ought not to have suffered himself to be crucified.' 'He should not have attacked the Government. He had no business with such matters.' On my representing this to be inconsistent with the sanctity of divine qualities, he said Christ was not yet become the Father. It is hard on bringing together these fragmentary recollections[7] to fix Blake's position in relation to Christianity, Platonism, and Spinozism.
- 58. It is one of the subtle remarks of Hume on the tendency of certain religious notions to reconcile us to whatever occurs, as God's will. And apply—this to something Blake said, and drawing the inference that there is no use in education, he hastily rejoined: 'There is no use in education. I hold it wrong. It is the great Sin. It is eating of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. That was the fault of Plato: he knew of nothing but the Virtues and Vices. There is nothing in all that. Everything is good in God's eyes.' On my asking whether there is nothing absolutely evil in what man does, he answered: 'I am no judge of that—perhaps not in God's eyes.' Notwithstanding this, he, however, at the same time spoke of error as being in heaven; for on my asking whether Dante was pure in writing his Vision, 'Pure,' said Blake. 'Is there any purity in God's eyes? No. "He chargeth his angels with folly.'" He even extended this liability to error to the Supreme Being. 'Did he not repent him that he had made Nineveh?' My journal here has the remark that it is easier to retail his personal remarks than to reconcile those which seemed to be in conformity with the most opposed abstract systems. He spoke with seeming complacency of his own life in connection with Art. In becoming an artist he 'acted by command.' The Spirits said to him, 'Blake, be an artist.' His eye glistened while he spoke of the joy of devoting himself to divine art alone. 'Art is inspiration. When Michael Angelo or Raphael, in their day, or Mr. Flaxman, does any of his fine things, he does them in the Spirit.' Of fame he said: 'I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I want nothing—I am quite happy.' This was confirmed to me on my subsequent interviews with him. His distinction between the Natural and Spiritual worlds was very confused. Incidentally, Swedenborg was mentioned—he declared him to be a Divine Teacher. He had done, and would do, much good. Yet he did wrong in endeavoring to explain to the reason what it could not comprehend. He seemed to consider, but that was not clear, the visions of Swedenborg and Dante as of the same kind. Dante was the greater poet. He too was wrong in occupying his mind about political objects. Yet this did not appear to affect his estimation of
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