It was impossible to look at this "Nativity" without being moved. The event appeared to Blake entirely supernatural in effect as in cause. He seems to have attached no historical value to it, nor indeed to any of his Biblical subjects. They were to him merely symbols of eternal ideas, projected by the Holy Ghost into the world for its enlightenment, and of these ideas Christ was the chiefest; but every idea he thought capable of manifesting itself equally in diverse symbols. His mind had some of the contemplative and impersonal characteristics of the oriental, and by its original processes he was enabled to appreciate the true inwardness of Christianity as the western mind cannot do. Christianity was born in the East like the Star of its Epiphany, and has come to maturity in the West, but its most mystical secrets will be hid from us until it has returned again and bathed in the immemorial symbolism and true occultism of the East. Being so unfortunate as not to obtain leave from the "Nativity's" present owner to reproduce it in these pages, I have been obliged to take our illustration from the etching which William Bell Scott made after the original, and for which permission was courteously granted me by Messrs. Chatto and Windus. It is but the shadow of a shadow, for Bell Scott's etching is only that, but it will serve to give some idea of the solemn beauty of the tempera painting. Now let me recall another purely imaginative composition. "The River of Life," a water-colour picture, reminded me in its transparence and delicate brilliance of Blake's earlier printed books. It is a rhapsody of Heaven. The River of Life which flows through the City of God, and in which all new-born souls are dipped, is a mighty stream flowing between green banks, on which are situated the gleaming houses of the city. Groups of happy souls wander beside the clear pale waters, and with his back towards us the Saviour with two children (new-born souls) in either hand swims towards the river's source, which is the Throne of God, typified by the sun. In its rays may be descried adoring angels, reminding us of Blake's ardent words, which I have already quoted, "What! it will be questioned, when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire, somewhat like a guinea?" "Oh, no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!'"