"Execution," says Blake, in his notes on Reynolds' "Discourses," "is the chariot of Genius," and when he mounts into the chariot and takes the reins into his strong nervous hands, then, indeed, nothing can withstand the flashing glory of his course. At such times the affinity between our artist and Michael Angelo is very apparent. Both had the grand simple manner in their treatment of the human form, both worked as it would seem "in a state of clairvoyance" and according to the direction of a divine daemon, both felt the body to be at best but the prison of the straining fluttering soul; but Blake's conceptions glow with a whiter flame of spiritual intensity than do those of the Florentine, greater as the latter was at all other points. I think it is the presence of this mystic fire which forms one of the great difficulties in the way of a facile understanding of his art-work. We feel ourselves in the presence of an incommunicable overburdening spiritual intensity. It has seldom happened that a mystic should be also an artist translating those things which transcend human experience into the terms of an art which by its very nature is only concerned with the sensible creation. It is this incongruity between the thought and the language in which it is conveyed--Blake's thoughts often lying beyond the proper range of a graphic embodiment--which creates one of the great difficulties in the way of our right apprehension of him. A few of his works, as we shall presently see, are perfect and flawless as Art can make them, such as the "Songs of Innocence" and the majestic series of designs to Job. In both of these, the thoughts, and their incarnation in form, are harmoniously complementary each to the other. But often the thought will not, cannot be inclosed: it outstrips the reach of his art. Hence many designs are tumultuous with leaping ideas, dimly apprehended suggestions, not one of which is caught and contained in its essence, but seems rather, as it were, to flutter, tantalizingly enough, just beyond the grasp. Blake "hitched his waggon to the stars," to use Emerson's expressive phrase, and to the spiritually "elect" in art--those to whom ideas are the really precious things--he speaks winged words and with authority. The pity is that his art speaks thus clearly to the "initiated" only. The sense of freedom of the spirit, of the absence of all contractile elements in Blake's work must however be obvious to all. It is his special charm, to be expansive, sublime, large. The great ethereal spaces of the sky have breathed their inspiration upon him, and he has reflected the colour and the mystery and the depth of the sea. To those who are spiritually homesick he comes as an emissary from beyond the Great Darkness, from where Life is found at its Source. CHAPTER VII HIS ART WORK