AG: Now, (William) Blake had books and did a lot of reading, and he was reading the books of his day, including a book called the Aphorisms on Man translated by (Henry) Fuseli a friend of his, from the original manuscript of the Reverend Johann Kaspar Lavater, citizen of Zurich, London, printed for J. Johnson St. Pauls Churchyard, 1788. So Blake had a pre-publication copy of the proofs of this book and he went over it and he made little notes in the margins (of) what he had to say. And this was done in 1788, probably. So I’ve picked out a few odd notes. In other words, just as when you read a book you make little notes on the side, so he did. So you can see how his mind works this way.
Page fifty-nine – Lavater says “A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.” And Blake’s note on the side is – “damn sneerers.”
Then he underlined, on page five-seven-seven here, line one-seventy – “I am prejudiced in favor of him who can solicit boldly, without imprudence – he has faith in humanity – he has faith in himself. No one, who is not accustomed to give grandly, can ask nobly and with boldness.” (I was reading that in the middle of a Naropa fundraising event, that was pretty funny. Simply that Blake would have noticed that people who have a certain self-confidence and give a great deal are able to ask with self-confidence; are able to demand with self-confidence, and nobly).
On page five seventy-eight, Lavater writes, number two fifty-six – “He who laughed at you till he got to your door, flattered you as you opened it – felt the force of your argument whilst he was with you – applauded when he rose, and, after he went away, blasts you – has the most indisputable title to an archdukedom in hell.” And then Blake’s note – “Such a one I can never forgive while he continues such a one.”
Then he’s got a little thing, on page five seventy-nine, talking about somebody who reads a book and sees a lot of good in it, but finds one bad thing and begins criticizing that: “to hell till he behaves better. mark that I do not believe there is such a thing litterally. [hell] but hell is the being shut up in the possession of corporeal desires which shortly weary the man. for all life is holy.” So that’s kind of interesting; he says, “to hell till he behaves better. mark that I do not believe there is such a thing litterally.” L-I-T-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y. So that’s like a little thought. Blake doesn’t really believe in hell, literally, except as he’s defining it: a “being shut up in the possession of corporeal desires which” weary him.
And then, on page fie eighty-two, way down to the bottom, number four-four-nine, Lavater says, “Trust not him with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.” And then Blake says, “uneasy yet I hope I should not do it.” So actually you just see him thinking.
(In) a lot of the little notes he says “uneasy, uneasy.” He doesn’t quite agree with him. Or “excellent”, “You beg as you question; you give as you answer” – “Excellent,” writes Blake. “Love sees what no eye sees.” – “Most Excellent.”
Page five eighty-four – “Sense seeks and finds the thought” – that’s kind of interesting. “Sense seeks and finds the thought; the thought seeks and finds genius.” And Blake says, “& vice versa. genius finds [(the) thought without seek(in)g” – “genius finds (the) thought without seek(in)g & thought thus produced finds sense.” So that’s his version of a notion that’s current here at Naropa of “First thought, best thought,” or poetic genius as being unborn and spontaneous, or thought as identical with language, or words as identical without thought. See, Lavater was saying sense, or understanding, seeks and then finds the thought. The thought seeks and then finds genius. And Blake is pointing out that thought forms arising in language are spontaneous and involve the whole mind, not just the rational mind, and so genius finds thought without seeking. In other words, thought rises on its own. Genius doesn’t have to seek for thought, genius finds thought. So to speak, you look in your mind and your mind is already thinking for you, you don’t have to seek for a thought. He’s saying that the senses have to look for their thoughts, which is actually ridiculous, when you think about it, because you’re just sitting there and the thoughts rise, so nobody has to look for anything. You maybe look at it or find it, find it without seeking. And “thought thus produced finds sense”, meaning, like a line of (Jack) Kerouac’s that he wrote that baffled him at first, “the mad road, blah blah blah blah blah, rushing ahead in seizures of tarpaulin power.” (sic) And when he first said “tarpaulin power” to me, I said “tarpaulin power”? – that’s kind of interesting, what does that mean? tarpaulin power?” And he says, “You know, there’s trucks rolling down the road, great huge powerful trucks covered with tarpaulin holding in the oranges or pipes or whatever, so.. “keening ahead in seizures of tarpaulin power'” was his phrase. “Trucks keening ahead in seizures of tarpaulin power.” [Editorial note – the exact line of Kerouac’s, from On The Road, is “The charging restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tarpaulin power”] – And it took him a long time to (understand his own line) He didn’t know what he meant at first.