WILLIAM BLAKE
is what Blake has made of it. This is the next point, then, to be remarked in his make-up as a mystic; he is interested in the ideas for which such things stand. For him the tiger means an awful elegance; for him the tree means a silent strength.
If it be granted that Blake was interested, not in the flea, but in the idea of the flea, we can proceed to the next step, which is a particularly important one. Every great mystic goes about with a magnifying glass. He sees every flea as a giant—perhaps rather as an ogre. I have spoken of the tall castle in which these giants dwell; but, indeed, that tall tower is the microscope. It will not be denied that Blake shows the best part of a mystic's attitude in seeing that the soul of a flea is ten thousand times larger than a flea. But the really interesting point is much more striking. It is the essential point upon which all primary understanding of the art of Blake really turns. The point is this: that the ghost of a flea is not only larger than a flea, the ghost of a flea is actually more solid than a flea. The flea himself is hazy and fantastic compared to the hard and massive actuality of his ghost.
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