almost starved; yet listen to his words to a little girl shortly before he died: "May God make this world to you, my child, as beautiful as it has been to me." Blake died in his seventieth year, and was buried in

Bunhill Fields Burying

Ground, that crowded Campo Santo in which were already interred two other great Nonconformists, Bunyan and Defoe. It is one of the ironies of fate that Blake, whose genius from his early youth to the day of his death was concerned with mortuary design, should lie in an unmarked and forgotten grave. In his work he From an early engraving by William Blake, repeated again and again

full size.

DEATH'S DOOR.

an idea which was an

especial favorite of his, that of an old man entering a tomb; he called it Death's Door. The germ of this exists in a pencil-sketch hardly larger than a postage-stamp, in the Rossetti manuscript, now the property of Mr. W. A. White. He used this design again and again, in "The Gates of Paradise," in 'America," and finally in Blair's "Grave"; and I was fortunate enough to secure a large India-ink drawing of it about a year ago, when it came up for sale in London. Such a design, carved on stone, would have

66

suitably marked his grave for all time; but it was not to be. Blake, ignored and neglected in his life, was destined to be forgotten for a time after his death; indeed, until Gilchrist, a full generation later, opened the Gates of Paradise and set free the soul of him who, unknown to his contemporaries, had put on immortality.

intended for a bookplate

XII

MY OLD LADY, LONDON

I ONCE heard a charming woman say at dinner, "I don't think I ever had quite as much fresh asparagus as I wanted." In like manner, I don't think I shall ever get as much of London as is necessary for my complete happiness. I love it early in the morning before it rouses itself, when the streets are deserted; I love it when throngs of people

the best

crowd

natured and politest people in all the world its thoroughfares; and I love it, I think, best of all at sunset, when London in some of its aspects may be very beautiful. If I were a Londoner, I should never leave it, except perhaps for a day or two now and then, so that I could enjoy coming back to it.

The terrible world-upheaval through which we have just passed is responsible for my not having been in London for six years, and I greatly feared that those years might have left some unhappy imprint upon the Old Lady. She may, indeed, have lost a tooth or a wisp of hair; but aristocratic old ladies know how to conceal the ravages of time and circumstance, and as I looked around the railway station while my belongings were being stowed away in the "left-luggage" room, I saw only the usual crowd quietly going about its business; and then, as I stepped into my taxi and said, "Simpson's in the