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desires, who can describe the torment of such a state! I too well remember the threats I heard. |
Crabb Robinson, who loved him so well that we must accept all he has to say of the prophet's so-called madness, wrote:—
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When he said "my vision" it was in the ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of everyday matters. In the same tone he said repeatedly, "The Spirit told me." I took occasion to say, "You express yourself as Socrates used to do. What resemblance do you suppose there is between your spirit and his?" "The same as between our countenances." 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 being with both of them." |
And let there be no mistake about the spiritual energy necessary for submission to these spiritual visitations. Blake was no mere sensitive plate of a photographic camera, upon which the supposed spirit-minds might work their will. He was no charlatan or clairvoyant that he should fall into a trance and then relate what things had taken possession of his passive mind. On
