"We are safe arrived at our cottage, which is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a perfect model for cottages, and, I think, for palaces of magnificence--only enlarging, not altering its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principles. Nothing can be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Simple without intricacy, it seems to be the spontaneous expression of humanity, congenial to the wants of man. No other-formed house can ever please me so well, nor shall I ever be persuaded, I believe, that it can be improved either in beauty or use.... Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses. My wife and sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace.... And now begins a new life because another covering of earth is shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain are studies and chambers filled with books and pictures of old which I wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal life; and these works are the delight and study of archangels. Why then should I be anxious about the riches or fame of mortality? The Lord, our Father, will do for us and with us according to his divine will for our good. "You, O dear Flaxman, are a sublime archangel--my friend and companion from eternity. In the divine bosom is our dwelling-place. I look back into the regions of reminiscence and behold our ancient days, before the earth appeared in its vegetated mortality to my mortal vegetated eyes. I see our houses of eternity, which can never be separated though our mortal vehicles should stand at the remotest corners of heaven from each other. "Farewell, my best friend. Remember me and my wife in love and friendship to our dear Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire to entertain beneath our thatched roof of rusted gold. And believe me for ever to remain your grateful and affectionate "WILLIAM BLAKE. "FELPHAM, "_Sept._ 21, 1800, _Sunday morning_." * * * This letter seems to me to bear traces of that cloud on the brain which is involuntary, and beyond the reach of affectation. Or take another episode--that of the visionary heads, of which the "Ghost of a Flea" remains as one of the most diabolically inspired creations of the human fancy; the bloodthirsty eye, the remorseless jaw, the plated mail of the neck, the suppressed look of lustful fury, combine to give it a peculiar horror.