Blake List — Volume 1997 : Issue 48

Today's Topics:
	 Blake and Nietzsche
	       Los, me, and our spectres
	 Muse sick 'n hour mess age
	 Re: the Spectre named Urthona
	 Quote
	 Quote
	 Quote
	 Quote
	 Quote
	 Quote
	 European Culture.
	 Sarcasm? Pious?
	 Re: European Culture.
	 Re: Los, me, and our spectres
	       RCPT: Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply -Reply
	       RCPT: Los, me, and our spectres
	 BLAKE SIGHTINGS: JERUSALEM DITTY ON STAR TREK
	 23 Free Color Prints
	 Quote
	 Re: the Spectre named Urthona
	 old world/new world
	 Los Versus Urizen, William James Style -Reply
	 Re: The Blake Page

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 08:59:33 -0400
From: John Hecklinger 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake and Nietzsche
Message-Id: <33577035.5A5E@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hmm.

>In my view, nothing whatever can come out of
>aristocratic values, which is why Nietzsche must be flushed, and
>culture can only be created by a resurgence of real democracy and
>a mass movement that has something to strive for and not merely
>bitch about.

Perhaps I have been misreading Nietzsche, but doesn't he allude toward
an ultimate democracy in which every human possesses the capability to
progress beyond current human limits into a realm of self-authoring
super humanity?  Humans with wills "weak enough to be restrained" will
not progress, but those capable of self-authorship will.  Is this
aristocracy or hyper-democracy?

To me, Blake and Nietzsche describe the same human cycle of progression,
decadence, and regeneration.  The cycle takes place in each human, among
groups of humans, and in existence itself.  The overman is the prophet,
the just man walking perilous paths and hitching down the crooked roads
of genius.  Like Nietzsche, Blake constantly laments human limitation. 
Individuals escape limitation by prolific imagination.  Blake and
Nietzsche describe God, good, evil, will, and all human systems in
similar ways.  

It is easy to appropriate Nietzsche and Blake for just about any
purpose.  Maybe I should start a "Proverbs of Hell" cult like the Nazis
did with Nietzsche.  If I were to get a lot of publicity as I drove my
cart and my plow over the bones of the dead, would it affect how future
generations read Blake?

Enough.

------------------------------

Date:          Fri, 18 Apr 1997 10:00:54 CST
From: "Ed Friedlander, M.D." 
To: blake@albion.com, "PEACH/DIANE"@vortex.more.net
Subject:       Los, me, and our spectres
Message-Id: <8EEFE946E7@ALUM.UHS.EDU>

> I would also like to think about how his Spectre helps Los
> in the building of Golgonooza.
>
Los is the vehicular form of Urthona, no?

I have alwyas been struck by the image of Los working at his
forge, with the spectre overhanging him complaining piteously, and
Los both comforting and threatening the spectre, and the accompanying
test on page 8 (I think).

I'm a little man, Blake's a great one, and I'm no poet.  From time to
time I do things (mostly about medicine) for others that take a lot of
work and for which I get little (or get criticized and abused and
misunderstood) in return.  I just defended a guy for almost-free, took
a week out of my life to do so, hurt myself politically, stayed up
REAL late and got real tired and a little crabby.

Anyway, my own spectre hovered over me (my natural self, who wanted
to go home or do something else), and we had the same discussion as
Los and Urthona's Spectre did.  In dealing with such alter-egos, you
need to be both compassionate and tough.  I'm no Blake, and helped
only one person .... but ultimately obtaining an acquittal for a
basically-innocent man on the major charge was rewarding.  And I am
sure Blake knew the same kind of satisfaction in obscurity.

When the apocalypse comes, and we all see things as Blake did, my
spectre will be united with me and being a good guy will be much
easier.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 97 09:56:20 +0100 ( + )
From: Paul Tarry 
To: blake online 
Subject: Muse sick 'n hour mess age
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A comparison of "..the contemporary black persona of ignorance and vulgar=
ity with the music of Duke Ellington: who cares about what's happening =
in the 'hood? How does that relate to the rest of the world? Ellington =
wrote more compositions about more places in the world than any composer =
in history. The point being dare to broaden your mind and give yourself =
some standards to strive for".

Ellington is dead brother and nowadays his art says little about the hood=
. Who cares about the hood? How does this relate to the rest of the world=
 ?  These are the relevant questions.

We sing absurdities
On the face 
Of anguish
And enact cameos
Within the eye's
Vision.

We sing of absurdities--
Arabesques of bodies
Entangled 
In the dissolutions
And vapours
Of power:
Victims of seepages
And batterings from above.

We sing absurdities
When all else sinks in shallows.
Word-acids dissolve
Ordinary chaos:
Within the eye

A potent chemistry
Unmasks the faces 
Beneath the terrors
And fills the silences
Of anguished journeys.
Dreams live serenely
In our singing 
And our eyes.

We sing absurdities
When all else sinks in shallows.   

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:17:33 -0700
From: Steve Perry 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: the Spectre named Urthona
Message-Id: <33579E9D.6D8A5813@surf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

bouwer wrote:

"Big Snip"
....
> I would also like to think about how his Spectre helps Los
> in the building of Golgonooza.
> 
> Gloudina Bouwer

Blake and Los are certainly not losing anything in their tasks by not
having the reasoning power afforded by their respective Spectres.  In
that the drama is post-lapsarian, there is a sort of hegelian dialectic
going on here; the work of Golgonooza would not go on lest for the war
over which it were raised.  Likewise, the tools of the Urizenic world,
the metals, the forge, the hammer, the brush and awl are all part of the
science wrought by the fall.

Steve Perry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:42:44 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704181639.JAA10489@gost1.indirect.com>

     [Jerusalem, plate 3]

We who dwell on Earth can do nothing of ourselves, every thing is
conducted by Spirits, no less than Digestion or Sleep. 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:46:27 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704181643.JAA11000@gost1.indirect.com>

     [Jerusalem, plate 77]

Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more. 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 09:59:17 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704181656.JAA13213@gost1.indirect.com>

[from the OED on 'emanation']

emanation

I. 1. a. The process of flowing forth, issuing, or proceeding from
anything as a source. lit. and fig. Often applied to the origination
of created beings from God; chiefly with reference to the theories
that regard either the universe as a whole, or the spiritual part of
it, as deriving its existence from the essence of God, and not from
an act of creation out of nothing. Also, in Theology, used to denote
the 'generation' of the Son, and the 'procession' of the Holy Ghost,
as distinguished from the origination of merely created beings.

II. concr. That which emanates; an efflux

3. transf. and fig. a. Applied to immaterial things, moral and
spiritual powers, virtues, qualities, emanating from or emitted by a
source.

4. A person or thing produced by emanation from the Divine Essence. 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 10:08:14 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704181705.KAA14658@gost1.indirect.com>

     [The Four Zoas, page 5, night 1]

They said The Spectre is in every man insane & most
Deformd     Thro the three heavens descending in fury & fire
We meet it with our Songs & loving blandishments & give
To it a form of vegetation But this Spectre of Tharmas
Is Eternal Death What shall we do O God pity & help
So spoke they & closd the Gate of the Tongue in trembling fear

  [spoken by the Daughters of Beulah]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 10:26:45 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704181723.KAA17410@gost1.indirect.com>

     [The Four Zoas, page 12, night 1]

Urizen startled stood but not Long soon he cried
Obey my voice young Demon I am God from Eternity to Eternity

Thus Urizen spoke collected in himself in awful pride

Art thou a visionary of Jesus the soft delusion of Eternity
Lo I am God the terrible destroyer & not the Saviour
Why should the Divine Vision compell the sons of Eden
to forego each his own delight to war against his Spectre
The Spectre is the Man the rest is only delusion & fancy

So spoke the Prince of Light & sat beside the Seat of Los
Upon the sandy shore rested his chariot of fire


[Urizen, the God while we are between Eternities, i.e., while in
Time... would have us believe that our doubting selves (Spectres) are
our real & only selves... and that the things our Imaginations
produce are delusion and fancy... delusion being an unwanted thing
here in this wheels within wheels situation of Time... Reason rules
Time... The Daughters of Beulah, caring emanations that they are,
wish to save the real man from this hell, but they realize the
danger in going against Urizen's rule, so they close the Gate of
their Tongue, leaving them to "pity & help" while we endure this
condition of Eternal Death  -ck] 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 10:37:47 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704181734.KAA20229@gost1.indirect.com>

  [hey it's a quote-fest.. a friday morning quote-fest...]

     [from Blake's letter to Dr. Trusler, 23 August 1799]

You say that I want somebody to Elucidate my Ideas. But you ought to
know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That
which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care. The
wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not too Explicit as the
fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the faculties to act. 

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 17:00:58 +0200
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: European Culture.
Message-Id: <15306.199704181500@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Dear Ralph,

Thanks for your esteemed comments on our culture. As you can imagine, coming
from such an eminent and well known commentator on farming methods as
yourself, they caused a bit of a stir over here, but we quickly realised
that you were right, and will do our best to pull our socks up.

What can I say? After a few centuries of tilling manure into the soil,
things do start to smell a bit, but you kind of get used to it when you live
here. I suppose it is all a little oppresive for a visitor, particularly
from the country that gave us the power shower and lye soap.

I can't agree with your comments on the Aristocracy (or Native English as we
now like to call them since we started displacing them from their land)
though: Lord Dilberry's organic carrots are absolutely marvellous, really,
and you ought to try them before making blithe generalisations of this sort,
otherwise, frankly, people will have a bit of a pop at you. 

By the way, I'm something of a fan of American vegetables, which are highly
underrated here: most people are unaware that there is more to the subject
than the pickled gherkins that McDonalds still put into their products
(despite the fact that no-one actually likes them, why *do* they do it?),
and the ingenious Iceberg Lettuce (which, I suppose, is what you use Alaska
for). I visit your sweet smelling pastures quite often, and always like to
sink my teeth into a nice juicy Potato as soon as I arrive.

Yours haughty-culturally,

Tim

PS: "Dans la vie, l'essentiel est de porter sur tout des jugements a priori.
Il apparait, en effet, que les masses ont tort, et les individus toujours
raison. Il faut se garder d'en deduire des regles de conduite : elles ne
doivent pas avoir besoin d'etre formulees pour qu'on les suive. Il y a
seulement deux choses : c'est l'amour, de toutes les facons, avec des jolies
filles, et la musique de la Nouvelle-Orleans ou de Duke Ellington. Le reste
devrait disparaitre, car le reste est laid, et les quelques pages de
demonstration qui suivent tirent toute leur force du fait que l'histoire est
entierement vraie, puisque je l'ai imaginee d'un bout a un autre. Sa
realisation materielle proprement dite consiste essentiellement en une
projection de la realite, en atmosphere biaise et chauffee, sur un plan de
reference irreulierement ondule et presentant de la distorsion. On le voit,
c'est un procede avouable, s'il en fut."

Boris Vian, avant-propos of L'Ecume des Jours.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 16:41:46 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Sarcasm? Pious?
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Pierre:

I like this comment from you on Blake and the Bible:

>His audacity stuns me:  his twists on the Good Book (sarcastic?
>pious?) keep me reeling. I have dedicated many happy hours to the
>"Portable Blake" I found in my local library, consciously avoiding
>scholarly interpretations so far for fear that they will lead to
>disenchantment.>>>

Absolutely. They'll stain your vision, Pierre. Maybe later. There's always
a later...

Some out there think Blake was a Christian. If he was, it was a very
"individual" type, don't you think!

-Randall Albright

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 17:14:23 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: European Culture.
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Tim Linnell:

Nice post.

I've always found the bones of the dead to make great fertilizer, at the
very least.......

-Randall Albright

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 1997 17:13:50 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Los, me, and our spectres
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Edward:

It is only the arrogance of men like Mr. Blake who make you feel small.

The fact of the matter is...

W E     A R E     A L L    S T A R S .

And every step that you make which helps another person, another animal, a
tree, or the planet, will go down in eternity, which will END with the
Apocalypse, not begin.

Not that you should be a mere clod to be trompled over by any cruel pebble,
by the way! One has to protect one's self at times in order to truly give
of one's self at others.

Thus spoketh
        ---Randall Albright

>> I would also like to think about how his Spectre helps Los
>> in the building of Golgonooza.
>>
>Los is the vehicular form of Urthona, no?
>
>I have alwyas been struck by the image of Los working at his
>forge, with the spectre overhanging him complaining piteously, and
>Los both comforting and threatening the spectre, and the accompanying
>test on page 8 (I think).
>
>I'm a little man, Blake's a great one, and I'm no poet.  From time to
>time I do things (mostly about medicine) for others that take a lot of
>work and for which I get little (or get criticized and abused and
>misunderstood) in return.  I just defended a guy for almost-free, took
>a week out of my life to do so, hurt myself politically, stayed up
>REAL late and got real tired and a little crabby.
>
>Anyway, my own spectre hovered over me (my natural self, who wanted
>to go home or do something else), and we had the same discussion as
>Los and Urthona's Spectre did.  In dealing with such alter-egos, you
>need to be both compassionate and tough.  I'm no Blake, and helped
>only one person .... but ultimately obtaining an acquittal for a
>basically-innocent man on the major charge was rewarding.  And I am
>sure Blake knew the same kind of satisfaction in obscurity.
>
>When the apocalypse comes, and we all see things as Blake did, my
>spectre will be united with me and being a good guy will be much
>easier.

------------------------------

Date:          Sat, 19 Apr 1997 00:10:20 MET
From: "Ib Johansen" 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject:       RCPT: Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply -Reply
Message-Id: 

Confirmation of reading: your message -

    Date:    18 Apr 97 13:46
    To:      blake@albion.com
    Subject: Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply -Reply

Was read at 0:10, 19 Apr 97.

------------------------------

Date:          Sat, 19 Apr 1997 00:10:49 MET
From: "Ib Johansen" 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject:       RCPT: Los, me, and our spectres
Message-Id: 

Confirmation of reading: your message -

    Date:    18 Apr 97 10:00
    To:      blake@albion.com
    Subject: Los, me, and our spectres

Was read at 0:10, 19 Apr 97.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 09:19:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: BLAKE SIGHTINGS: JERUSALEM DITTY ON STAR TREK
Message-Id: <199704191619.JAA26631@igc6.igc.org>

I didn't think Parry's tune for "And did those feet in ancient
time ..." was that well known on this side of the pond, but last
night I was watching a re-run of a "Star Trek--Deep Space Nine"
episode and was startled to see Dr. Bashir and Miles O'Brian
singing this song together while stinking drunk.  I didn't know
this was a drinking song, either.  Small cosmos.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 14:51:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: Voice of the Devil 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: 23 Free Color Prints
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Are available on The Blake Web.

You really must have Netscape to view this section, but only a few
dinosaurs like myself still ue Lynx to explore portions of the web.

These pictures are from the Tate Galley and look sharper than the original
reproductions in the book I have thanks to the Magic of Photoshop.  
(too bad the real restoration process isn't that easy)

You must Visit the BlakeWeb.

http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwengl/blakeweb/

It also helps to have Crescendo.  Then you can enjoy the Beethoven as you
browse.

		David Downie: The Voice of the Devil
			      Shameless Promoter of his own wares

Visit my regular HomePage

http://www.unomaha.edu/~ddownie/


PS    If you have any contributions, I will gladly accept them and link or
post them !!!!!

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 19:16:13 -0700
From: "Charlie K." 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199704200213.TAA09434@gost1.indirect.com>

     [Milton, plate 32 (35)]


I have turned my back upon these Heavens builded on cruelty
My Spectre still wandering thro' them follows my Emanation
He hunts her footsteps thro' the snow & the wintry hail & rain
The idiot Reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination
And from laughter proceeds to murder by undervaluing calumny









[a plate well worth reading in its entirety]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 16:53:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: TomD3456@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: the Spectre named Urthona
Message-Id: <970420165315_1554893637@emout12.mail.aol.com>

Steve-
Umm ... Huh?  I don't really understand what you're trying to say.  Want to
run that by us again?

My own sense is that Blake and Los DO have "the reasoning power afforded by
their spectres."  That's expressed by Los "compell[ing] the invisible
Spectre/ To labours mighty," etc. (J, plates 10-11).  

A crucial point in Chapter 1 (at least) is that Los is "Living," not "Dead"
(these terms being used in their Blakean senses, of course), and that it is
unusual that the Spectre and Emanation of one of the _Living_ should divide
from him.  As Los says on plate 12, 

   Albion is dead!  His Emanation is divided from him!
   But I am living!  yet I feel my Emanation also dividing
   Such thing was never known!

and on plate 17,

    His Spectre divides  & Los in fury compells it to divide: ...

    [Los sends the Spectre to drive off Albion's Daughters:]  














                                                                           He
is
    The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead. ...

    For Los said: Tho my Spectre is divided: as I am a Living Man
    I must compell him to obey me wholly...

I think this passage tells us some important things about Spectres and
Emanations, the Living and the Dead.  The Dead (I would call them
"unconscious" or "asleep") are divided, incoherent personalities, like many
people in our alienated world, "blind to all the simple rules of life;" their
Spectres and Emanations are the separate pieces of their personalities
(appetites, resentments, prejudices, addictions; self-righteous reasoning
based on narrow preconceptions; etc.) which have almost independent power to
act: "They know not why they love [or drink, or batter their partners, or
steal, or pursue power, etc.], nor wherefore they sicken and die...".  It's
each man for himself ("We are not one, we are many... My mountains are my
own," etc.), and devil take the ecology, or the community (Blake is talking
to the defenders of the market system and Adam Smith's invisible hand when he
writes:  "Is this thy soft Family Love/ Thy cruel Patriarchal Pride /
Planting thy family alone / Destroying all the world beside").

The Living, like Los, keep hold of the Divine Vision, their Humanity (and
this is not a technical term -- Blake uses it as we all do, basically), even
though they may feel the same pulls as others.  Resisting those pulls, those
angers or lusts, compulsions or addictions, and compelling yourself to
continue working and loving in a life that contributes to a larger community
than yourself or your immediate family, keeping the divine vision of the
brotherhood of man (at least -- if not the brotherhood of all creation):
that, I think, is what Blake would call "Living."

Gloudina points out very usefully that Los calls the Spectre "O Spectre of
Urthona" (10: 32).  This phrase tells me that Los recognizes himself all
along as Urthona -- his Spectre is Urthona's Spectre --, and perhaps that is
all the explanation I need for the confusion of names I was complaining
about.  Urthona = Los = Spectre: They are not really separate characters,
though at times it may be convenient to speak of them as such.  And that is
only a small part of the idea contained in the lines (which I can't find at
the moment) about how "Contracting our infinite senses we behold as many, or
Expanding them we behold as one, as one Man, all the Family Divine."   With a
fair-to-middling expansion, Los and the Spectre and the Emanation and Urthona
are one.  With a further expansion, of course, they are parts of Albion
ourself.

I have been observing a program here in New Orleans, "Project Return," which
attempts to help people just emerging from prison to regain their
self-respect and connection to others.  It is soul-work, really:  and the
engine behind it is "community-building," group meetings in which the
participants gradually come to reveal themselves to others, and
simultaneously to themselves.  I have seen amazing transformations occur in
the space of three weeks, as people experience a community in which it feels
safe to reveal their feelings, hopes, failures -- in short, their selves, or
souls.  Soul, which some of us have thought an individual, private matter, to
be cultivated through private meditation, etc., turns out to be powerfully
connected to community.  This message is all throughout Jerusalem.

--Tom Devine

PS- Project Return has been very successful in preventing recidivism in its
seven years of existence: so far, only 6% of its graduates have returned to
prison, compared to 75% of all ex-convicts in a similar time-frame.



>Blake and Los are certainly not losing anything in their tasks 
>by not having the reasoning power afforded by their 
>respective Spectres.  In that the drama is post-lapsarian, 
>there is a sort of hegelian dialectic going on here; the work of 
>Golgonooza would not go on lest for the war over which it 
>were raised.  Likewise, the tools of the Urizenic world, the 
>metals, the forge, the hammer, the brush and awl are all part 
>of the science wrought by the fall.

>Steve Perry

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 17:43:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: old world/new world
Message-Id: <199704202143.RAA03831@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

  So you watch Star Trek, Ralph Dumain! How could you.
(Only good thing about Star Trek is that it took the
word "trek" from  my former native tongue and made 
it a household word in North America in my lifetime.)
And by the way, wasn't Star Trek originally conceived
by the British, members of that tired and outdated old 
world culture which your "new world" culture has 
supposedly superceded.
  Now, I wish people would stop talking in terms of 
"old world culture" and "the new world." Matters are
much more complicated than that. In a way, the culture
of America is a continuation of the mind set and the
philosophic and political trends of the French Revolution,
and therefore basically a continuation of the Romantic
period. That is why Americans can honestly believe that each
man's right is " life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
without batting an eyelid and indications to the contrary,
while Europe (and that includes England) has moved on to
cope with the agony of finding its place in the modern 
world. For me, much of the charm of America lies in the
fact that one can come across traces of the Europe of long
ago: the lilt of Dutch intonations in northern New York
State;the "rudeness" of New Yorkers recognized as the no-
nonsense forthrightness of the original Dutch burghers
who started cheating the first nations of America long before
the British learnt that art; the german spirit of the Penn-
sylvania Dutch originating from a time long before a country
called Germany was formed; the old world charm of the South;
and further west, room enough for every shade of conviction
from Europe to find its own niche. This room for cultural
groups from Europe to perpetuate themselves has made America
unique, and fascinates outsiders. It is, in a certain sense,
more "old-fashioned" than Europe. And in it lies its strength.
While Europe is already struggling with the future, America
is still celebrating the riches of the European past.It is
also lucky that to its shores, against their will, people
from Africa found their way, and made and are still making
a contribution out of all proportion to their numbers. Where
the first nations of America fit into this equation, I am
afraid to ask. It was as if they were not invited to the
party.

Gloudina Bouwer

"I know thee, I have found thee, & and I will not let thee go:
"Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa,
"And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
"On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions..."
         (America Plate 2)

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air..

"They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream,
"Singing, 'The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher
   morning,
" 'And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
" 'For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.' "
        (America, Plate 6)

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Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 12:35:37 +0200
From: P Van Schaik 
To: blake@albion.com, albright@world.std.com
Subject: Los Versus Urizen, William James Style -Reply
Message-Id: 

Thanks for the quotations re old Fogeyism and Genius.  I found them very
pertinent to a discussion I was having last night with a young Fine Arts
student wanting  to find ways of coping with those in academia who
deride genius when they find it antithetical to their own chosen
world-views and academic stance. Pam 

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 11:44:43 +0100 (BST)
From: "Tristanne J. Connolly" 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Blake Page
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Thank you, thank you for making the blake page! It is a total godsend,
especially for people like me with obsolete wee notebook computers who
still want to download the hypertext blake--you are a saint for indexing
it. And, it is such a good idea to have a central resource for blake on
the net, with connections--so we know what's out there, and so there is a
jumping-off point. You are entirely justified in promoting your own
wares 
and I say too, if anyone hasn't seen it yet, they should, and take
advantage of your highly useful efforts. 
Tristanne.

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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #48
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