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PLATE V FROM “THE BOOK OF JOB,” 1825

Engraving

The border is symbolically woven with writhing snakes and thorn-set brambles, among which quick darting flames find their way upwards.

And then follow Plates 6, 7, 8, the workings of the Evil One, the coming of the three friends to Job, and Job raising himself in agony and uttering the frantic words, “Lo, let the night be solitary and let no joyful voice come therein, let the day perish wherein I was born.” This suggests “thoughts beyond the reaches of the soul.” Then follows the Vision of Eliphaz—very terrible and grand—and Plate 10, “The Just Upright Man is laughed to scorn,” in which Job’s attitude, the dignity of his grief and faith, are magnificent. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” is expressed in every line of the noble, piteous figure.

Plate 11—“With Dreams upon my bed thou scarest me and affrightest me with Visions”—has something mediaeval in the grotesqueness and ingeniousness of the horrors depicted. Orcagna’s devils, Dürer’s “Death and Satan” are not more terrible than Job’s tormentors. The words engraved in the border contain all the condensed pain of the race of man, as well as the faith which alone makes it possible to be endured.

And then to all this “storm and stress” succeeds Plate 12, with its suggestions of returning peace and the everlasting calm of the stars. “Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with Man to bring back his Soul from the pit to be enlightened with the light of the living!” says the inspired young man to Job, who with the seal of a great suffering set on his face—but a suffering of which the bitterness is past—sits listening intently as one who suddenly receives light in his soul. The sonorous penetrating words fall on the senses like the music of rain-drops on a thirsty land, and the design grows out of them like a true organic form of which the shape is innate. Oh! the peace of that night sky, and the gentle radiance of the stars set in its depth!

The border is here specially beautiful. “Look upon the heavens, and behold the clouds which are higher than thou”—words that found a responsive echo in the heart of Blake—is the verse inscribed on the robe of a sleeping old man. The border is quick with winged thoughts, floating upwards from his head, in the shape of small men and women, linked in a sinuous succession, which finally reaches a sky, also set with stars, whose clouds have verses written upon them that contribute to a full understanding of Job.

Plate 13, “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind,” continues the gracious and softening influences of the last design. Job and his wife, with tremulous eager hope, look up into the mild face of God, who, clothed and enwreathed by a whirlwind of which Blake only could have suggested the marvellous vortex, stretches His arms in blessing above them. The three friends are prostrated and overwhelmed beneath the force of the blast that encloses God.