Cause the musicians play me that sad note
I named my knell, whilst I sit meditating
On that celestial harmony I go to,

she had asked. Griffith and Patience sit beside her, unconscious of the vision that is blessing her sleep. Katherine, beautiful and crowned, “makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her hands to heaven.” Angels of diminutive but exquisite forms float in circles above her, and two are holding a crown of laurels over her head. Many pictures—the Indian ink drawing called “The Deluge,” an infinite waste of stormy sea; “The Entombment,” a picture of solemn intensity and originality; and others deserve description and comment, but space does not allow.

The exhibition was an occasion of much illumination to Blake’s admirers, and the thoughts on his art which it gave rise to may be happily summarized in a passage from Heine’s “Salon”:

“Art attains its highest value when the symbol, apart from its inner meaning, delights our senses externally, like the flowers of a selam, which without regard to their secret signification are blooming and lovely, bound in a bouquet.”

[Larger Image]

THE VISION OF QUEEN KATHERINE,
FROM SHAKSPERE’S “HENRY VIII.”

Slightly tinted pencil drawing, executed in 1807 for Mr. Butts.
Reproduced by kind permission of Sir Charles Dilke

“But is such concord always possible? Is the artist so completely free in choosing and binding his mysterious flowers? Or does he only choose and bind together what he must? I affirm this question of mystical un-freedom or want of will. The artist is like that somnambula princess who plucked by night in the garden of Bagdad, inspired by the deep wisdom of love, the strangest flowers, and bound them into a selam, of whose meaning she remembered nothing when she awoke. There she sat in the morning in her harem, and looked at the bouquet de nuit, musing on it as over a forgotten dream, and finally sent it to the beloved Caliph. The fat eunuch who brought it greatly enjoyed the beautiful flowers without suspecting their meaning. But Haroun al Raschid, the commander of the faithful, the follower of the Prophet, the possessor of the ring of Solomon, he recognized the deep meaning of the beautiful bouquet; his heart bounded with delight; he kissed every blossom, and laughed till tears ran down his long beard.” We may not be followers of the Prophet, nor rejoice in long beards or magic rings, yet I dare assert that in entering into the meaning, the deep “Innigkeit” of the selam which Blake presented to us, we have entered on a new phase of spiritual and artistic life not less intensely delightful than the joy experienced by the Prophet.