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Show VAGARIES OF MEN GF GENIUS WilliEm Watson's Escapade Recalls Peculiar Actions of Other Brilliant Bril-liant Minds. William Watson's alleged vagaries recall stories of William Blake, the contemporary of Charles Lamb. Blakc-dir.ed Blakc-dir.ed with prophets and held converse con-verse with archangels. A friend of Blake called on the poet-painter "and found him sitting, pencil in hand, and drawing a portrait with all the seeming seem-ing anxiety of a man who is conscious of having a fastidious sitter. He looked and drew, and drew and looked, yet no living soul was visible. ''Disturb ''Dis-turb me net,' said E'.ake, in a whisper, T have some one sitting to me.' 'Sitting 'Sit-ting to you!' exclaimed the astonished visitor. 'Where is he? I see no one.' 'But I see him,' answered Blake, haughtily. 'There he is,' his name is Lot; you may read of him in the Scriptures. He is sitting for his portrait.' por-trait.' " Elake's hallucinations, however, rarely took a malignant form. One of his most beautiful visions was of a iairy icnera'. "1 was walking alone in my garden," he said. "There was a great stillness among the branches and flowers, and more than common sweetness in (he air. I heard a low are pleasant sound, and know not whence it came. "At last I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath I saw a precession of creatures of the size and color i f green and gray grasshoppers, beapng a body laid out on a rose leaf, t t:-e-- h-r'ed with soitgt:, and . ."):...;-. e.t.-cd. It was a fairy's ; .vtr.cra!." |