Creative art may be likened to the box of sweet spices which Mary Magdalene brake not. I have already quoted that strange dictum of Blake’s: “_The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil’s party without knowing it._” There are three threads in the loom on which every work of art is woven, the three lusts pointed out by the apostle: “... _the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life_.” Remember Lacordaire’s remark when congratulated upon an admirable sermon he had just delivered: “The Devil has forestalled you.” The Devil would not have told him his sermon was fine, indeed, he would have been there to speak, had he not been party to it. After citing lines from Schiller’s _Hymn to Joy_, Dmitri Karamazov exclaims: “And the awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the Devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”[113] No artist, I am sure, has given the demonic so large a share in his work as Dostoevsky, unless Blake himself, who concluded his admirable little book, _The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_, with these words: “_This Angel who is now become a Devil is my particular friend. We often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense, which the world shall have if they behave well._” After leaving you, I realized that in quoting the strangest of William Blake’s _Proverbs of Hell_, I had omitted to read to you the entire passage from _The Possessed_ which had called forth these very quotations. May I atone for my omission? In this one page from _The Possessed_ you will marvel at the fusion--not to say confusion--of the divers elements I sought to point out in my previous papers: optimism first and foremost, the wild love of life we come across again and again in Dostoevsky’s works, love of life and all the world, Blake’s vast delectable world wherein dwells the tiger as well as the lamb. “Are you fond of children?” “I am,” answered Kirillov, though rather indifferently. “Then you’re fond of life?” “Yes, I’m fond of life! What of it?” “Though you’ve made up your mind to shoot yourself?” “What of it? Why connect it? Life’s one thing, and that’s another. Life exists, but death doesn’t at all....”[114] We saw too Dmitri Karamazov ready to take his life in a fit of optimism, beside himself with enthusiasm. “You seem to be very happy, Kirillov?” “Yes, very happy,” he answered, as though making the ordinary reply. “But you were distressed so lately, angry with Liputin?” “H’m!... I’m not scolding now. I did not know then that I was happy.”[115]