an inscription in it from Arnold Bennett, and on a fly-leaf I want a little pencil sketch by you."

"Righto, I'll send it directly I get to New York." But I had to wait several days before I received a small package by express, which, on opening, I found to be a beautiful little water-color painting by Craig of the picturesque old stone bridge over the Thames at Sonning! and in another package, the book, "Buried Alive," with a characteristic inscription. The author was doubtful of my identity to the last, for he wrote: "To Mr. Newton of Philadelphia, I believe, with best wishes from Arnold Bennett."

XI

A SANE VIEW OF WILLIAM BLAKE

FOR a long time I hesitated over this title. It is very daring, and it may be misleading. Who shall say that I am sane and that William Blake was not? The fact that the policeman on the street-corner leaves me unmolested, and that the president of my bank receives me politely when I call upon him, proves nothing. I am not deceived by the fact that church I have n't a church, and the pastor of my church if I had, it would n't have a pastor - nods pleasantly when we meet. Nor is the statement of my friends, that I am mad, convincing-least of all, to me. Most of our friends are mad, but they are not dangerous. To say that a man is mad is merely a way we have of saying that his opinion does not coincide with ours, that is all. The question, Was Blake mad? has been too much stressed; it is not important; certainly he was not more mad than many who have written about him. Let us leave the question for later discussion; it may be that we shall not return to it; it may be that our paper, or your patience, will give out first.

Let me begin again. It is now almost, if not quite, thirty-five years ago that, in company with one of my oldest friends, the Reverend Lawrence B. Ridgley, I visited Walden Pond, and as was then the custom,