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ED; E702|     5

 
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        [To] Revd Dr Trusler, Englefield Green, Egham, Surrey

 
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        13 Hercules Buildings,.Lambeth, August 23, 1799
EDL5;   E1Trustler8'99; E702|        [Postmark: 28 August]

 
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        Revd Sir
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        I really am sorry that you are falln out with the Spiritual
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        World Especially if I should have to answer for it I feel very
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        sorry that your Ideas & Mine on Moral Painting differ so much as
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        to have made you angry with my method of Study. If I am wrong I
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        am wrong in good company. I had hoped your plan comprehended All
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        Species of this Art & Especially that you would not reject that
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        Species which gives Existence to Every other. namely Visions of
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        Eternity You say that I want somebody to Elucidate my Ideas. But
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        worth my care. The wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the
L5.1Trustler8'99; E702|        faculties to act. I name Moses Solomon Esop Homer Plato
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        But as you have favord me with your remarks on my Design
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        permit me in return to defend it against a mistaken one, which
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        is. That I have supposed Malevolence without a Cause.--Is not
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        Merit in one a Cause of Envy in another & Serenity & Happiness &
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        Beauty a Cause of Malevolence. But Want of Money & the Distress
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        of A Thief can never be alledged as the Cause of his Thievery.
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        for many honest people endure greater hard ships with Fortitude
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        We must therefore seek the Cause elsewhere than in want of Money
L5.2Trustler8'99; E702|        for that is the Misers passion, not the Thiefs
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        I have therefore proved your Reasonings Ill proportiond
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        which you can never prove my figures to be. They are those of
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Michael Angelo Rafael & the Antique & of the best living Models.
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        I percieve that your Eye[s] is perverted by Caricature
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Prints, which ought not to abound so much as they do. Fun I love
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        but too much Fun is of all things the most loathsom. Mirth is
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth--I feel that a
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Man may be happy in This World. And I know that This World Is a
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        World of Imagination & Vision I see Every thing I paint In This
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        World, but Every body does not see alike. To the Eyes of a Miser
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some See
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        my proportions, & Some Scarce see Nature at all But to the Eyes
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed such are its Powers You
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are not
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        be found in This World. To Me This World is all One continued
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Vision of Fancy or Imagination & I feel Flatterd when I am told
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        So. What is it sets Homer Virgil & Milton in so high a rank of
L5.3Trustler8'99; E702|        Art. Why is the Bible more

 
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        Entertaining & Instructive than any other book. Is it not
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        because they are addressed to the Imagination which is Spiritual
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason Such is
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        True Painting and such <was> alone valued by the Greeks & the
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        best modern Artists. Consider what Lord Bacon says "Sense sends
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        over to Imagination before Reason have judged & Reason sends over
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        to Imagination before the Decree can be acted." See Advancemt of
L5.3Trustler8'99; E703|        Learning Part 2 P 47 of first Edition
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        But I am happy to find a Great Majority of Fellow Mortals
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        who can Elucidate My Visions & Particularly they have been
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        Elucidated by Children who have taken a greater delight in
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        contemplating my Pictures than I even hoped. Neither Youth nor
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        Childhood is Folly or Incapacity Some Children are Fools
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        & so are some Old Men. But There is a vast Majority on the
L5.4Trustler8'99; E703|        side of Imagination or Spiritual Sensation
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        To Engrave after another Painter is infinitely more
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        laborious than to Engrave ones own Inventions. And of the Size
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        you require my price has been Thirty Guineas & I cannot afford to
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        do it for less. I had Twelve for the Head I sent you as a
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        Specimen, but after my own designs I could do at least Six times
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        the quantity of labour in the same time which will account for
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        the difference of price as also that Chalk Engraving is at least
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        six times as laborious as Aqua tinta. I have no objection to
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        Engraving after another Artist. Engraving is the profession I
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        was apprenticed to, & should never have attempted to live by any
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        thing else If orders had not come in for my Designs & Paintings,
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        which I have the pleasure to tell you are Increasing Every Day.
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        Thus If I am a Painter it is not to be attributed to Seeking
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        after. But I am contented whether I live by Painting or
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        Engraving
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        I am Revd Sir Your very obedient servant
L5.5Trustler8'99; E703|        WILLIAM BLAKE
 
 

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