DIARY ACCOUNT OF BLAKE
the prints of him.[1] He answered: 'All. Of what age did he appear to be—Various ages. Sometimes a very old man—he spoke of M[ilton] 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 Acuities to a greater or less degree.—I am to renew my visits & to read Wordsworth to him of Whom he seems to entertain a high idea.
17th. Made a visit to Blake of which I have written fully in a preceding page. . . .
Saty. 24. A call on Blake. My 3d, Interview. I read him Wordsworth's incomparable Ode which he heartily enjoyed. The same half crazy crotchets abt. the two worlds, the eternal repetition of which must in time become tiresome. Again he repeated today 'I fear Wordsworth loves Nature & Nature is the work of the Devil. The Devil is in us, as far as we are Nature. On my enquiring whether the Devil wd. 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 object[ed] that permission implies power to prevent, he did not seem to understand me. It was remarked that the parts of Words-
- ↑ [Reminiscences, 1825, read:] "As he spoke of frequently seeing Milton, I ventured to ask, half ashamed at the time, wh. of the 3 or 4 portraits in Hollis's Memoirs (Vols, in 4to) is the most like. He answered, 'They are all like at different ages. I have seen him as a youth & as an old man with a long flowing beard. He came lately as an old man. He said he came to ask a favour of me. He sd. he had committed an error in his Par. Lost wh. he wanted me to correct in a poem or picture; but I declined. I said I had my own duties to perform. . . .'"
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