from The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815-1830 by Paul Johnson

[Painter George] Richmond was only 16 when he first met Blake at a party given by Tatham the architect in Saint John's Wood. He offered to escort Blake back to his house at Three Fountains Court, off the Strand. While Blake talked, Richmond said, "I felt as if I were walking on air and talking to the Prophet Isaiah. One remark of Blake's struck him with great force: "I can look at the knot in a piece of wood until it frightens me." Richmond, [fellow artist John] Linnell, and their circle used to call Blake's rooms "the House of the Interpreter." One of them, John Giles, described Blake as "a man who had seen God, and talked to angels." That certainly is what Blake believed. . . . Richmond said that when he entered Fountains Court, he used to plant a reverent kiss on the bell handle. But he admitted that Blake's room was squalid and untidy: "Once, Mrs Blake, in excuse for the general lack of soap and water, remarked to me: 'You see, Mr Blake's skin don't dirt.'"