He bursts a thousand barrels of wine to
incarnadine the streets; and sometimes (in his last madness) he will
butcher beasts and men to dip his gigantic brushes in their blood.
For it marks the sacredness of red in nature, that it is secret
even when it is ubiquitous, like blood in the human body,
which is omnipresent, yet invisible. As long as blood lives it
is hidden; it is only dead blood that we see. But the earlier
parts of the rake's progress are very natural and amusing.
Painting the town red is a delightful thing until it is done.
It would be splendid to see the cross of St. Paul's as red as
the cross of St. George, and the gallons of red paint running down
the dome or dripping from the Nelson Column. But when it is done,
when you have painted the town red, an extraordinary thing happens.
You cannot see any red at all.
I can see, as in a sort of vision, the successful artist
standing in the midst of that frightful city, hung on all sides
with the scarlet of his shame. And then, when everything is red,
he will long for a red rose in a green hedge and long in vain;
he will dream of a red leaf and be unable even to imagine it.
He has desecrated the divine colour, and he can no longer see it,
though it is all around. I see him, a single black figure against
the red-hot hell that he has kindled, where spires and turrets stand up
like immobile flames: he is stiffened in a sort of agony of prayer.
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