In this Hayley showed himself a wise child of this world, but hardly a child of light. Blake's genius did not lie in drawing portraits. A face for him immediately became a symbol, and lost its time traits as it gained in eternal significance. It is often said that Enitharmon was Mrs Blake; but if this were so, she was Mrs Blake as no one but Blake could ever see her. In reality he possessed the faculty which was pre-eminent in the authors of the Book of Genesis and St John's Gospel. As the characters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Peter, James, and John were seen and portrayed in an eternal light, so likewise Blake would have striven to present his opulent sitters, but the result would not have been that for which they would have been willing to pay their money.
Blake took kindly and without question to the new task. "Miniature," he says, "has become a goddess in my eyes.... I have a great many orders, and they multiply." Hayley was glowing with satisfaction. But Blake, in one little month, after repeated efforts of self-deception, could no longer hide from himself that he saw Hayley as he really was. He was learned, of course, and genteel, and kind, and admired with gush what it was correct to admire. But of insight there was none. He was born under a watery sign and not a fiery. He was really a crab ambling around his enclosed garden with his lame leg, and getting his claws into the tender skin of those who, he had been told, were really men of fire.
Blake's disappointment was bitter. His patron was blind to his real genius, to which he must at all costs be faithful. Hayley was, and continued to be, very much a corporeal friend, but he was a spiritual enemy. Blake's fond hopes were dashed. He tottered on the verge of a horror of great darkness, and escaped the darkness only by falling into a mild and pleasant slumber, lulled by Hayley's amazing amiability, mildness, and crooning serenity. From this slumber he might--who knows?--never have awakened, but for the discernment of his real friends--Flaxman and Butts--whose faith finally aroused him and drew him away from the enchanted ground.
But though he saw, he said nothing. His spiritual friends (on the other side) commanded him "to bear all and be silent, and to go through all without murmuring, and, in fine, hope, till his three years shall be accomplished." When Hayley was more than usually exasperating, Blake vented himself in an epigram, and, much relieved, went on quietly.