William Blake, Remote by the Sea

Summary

Adapted from William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love, which sometimes assimilates quotations, preserving the original spelling and punctuation. In the autumn of 1800, as the swallows were flying past his window bound for Africa, William Blake was preparing for a new career in a new town. He was forty-three years old and in need of a change. So he set off south himself, sixty miles to the sweet Heaven of Sussex, leaving the terrible desart of London behind. With him was his beloved Catherine, his heroine, Kate. She was like a flame of many colours of precious jewels whenever she heard their destination named, he said. They travelled light, with sixteen boxes of belongings, as embarking on a voyage to the ends of the earth. Inside were all their worldly possessions and many unworldly ones too: all the prints Blake had been unable to sell (that is, most of them), together with the engine of anarchy that gave them birth—his printing press. William Blake is a perfect name, most excellent. Plain and no-nonsense. Like his tradesman’s clothes, the best disguise for a man with such a wild mind. You might imagine a purveyor of hardware, or of socks, as indeed his father was. Unlike other people in this story, he did not come from a wealthy family. He had to advertise himself. “William Blake” starts like the wind, rises to a pitch and ends in an ache. It suits its owner’s own true heart: his one pure being of hope, of whirling prophecies for life here on earth. It could almost have been anyone standing there that night in Soho when the star of inspiration fell out of the sky. Blake just happened to be in the right place at the right time, ready to take the call. He had the air of innocence and experience, a faerie child or a candle flame. A subtle, gentle smile that seemed somehow interior and knowing. Huge pale blue eyes that saw into the far distance but looked right into you, too. Red hair that stuck up like a cockscomb in his youth. An aura of quiet power within. But no...