Today's Stichomancy for John Cleese

performance of sentiment springs, doubtless suggested to Rousseau the adventures of Lord Edward, which conclude the letters of the /Nouvelle Heloise/. If Rousseau is obviously inspired by the work of Richardson, he departs from it in a thousand details, which leave his achievement magnificently original; he has recommended it to posterity by great ideas which it is difficult to liberate by analysis, when, in one's youth, one reads this work with the object of finding in it the lurid representation of the most physical of our feelings, whereas serious and philosophical writers never employ its images except as the consequence or the corollary of a vast thought; and the adventures of Lord Edward are one of the most Europeanly delicate ideas of the whole

The Girl with the Golden Eyes

some fruits, and causing others whose time is past to dry up; how when he has fulfilled his work he comes no closer, but turns away as if in fear to scorch us to our hurt unduly; and again, when he has reached a point where if he should prolong his reatreat we should plainly be frozen to death with cold, note how he turns him about and resumes his approach, traversing that region of the heavens where he may shed his genial influence best upon us.

[14] A single MS. inserts a passage {to de kai era . . . 'Anekphraston}.

[15] i.e. as we say, "after the winter solstice."

Yes, upon my word (he answered), these occurrences bear the impress of

The Memorabilia

quite as much as an idea in a land where the ticket on a sack is of more importance than the contents. Have we not seen libraries working off the word "picturesque" when literature would have cut the throat of the word "fantastic"? Fiscal genius has guessed the proper tax on intellect; it has accurately estimated the profits of advertising; it has registered a prospectus of the quantity and exact value of the property, weighing its thought at the intellectual Stamp Office in the Rue de la Paix.

Having become an article of commerce, intellect and all its products must naturally obey the laws which bind other manufacturing interests. Thus it often happens that ideas, conceived in their cups by certain

The breath doth nourish the innocent lamb, he smells the milky garments He crops thy flowers while thou sittest smiling in his face, Wiping his mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints. Thy wine doth purify the golden honey; thy perfume. Which thou dost scatter on every little blade of grass that springs Revives the milked cow, & tames the fire-breathing steed. But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun: I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place.

Queen of the vales the Lily answered, ask the tender cloud, And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky. And why it scatters its bright beauty thro the humid air.

Poems of William Blake