LOUIS SIMPSON

The champion single sculls Green leaves lit by the sun, the rest deep in shadow. . . a tree is an adequate symbol of inner or spiritual life. (‘The natural object,’ said E. P., ‘is always the adequate symbol’) It wasn’t just characters. . . one heard that successful men, corporation executives, were into transcendental meditation. But now they have given it up, they are into tennis and running.

Though I have prayed with Eliot, ’Teach us to sit still,’ this could be laziness, and life could be very dull. Besides, the wicked are not still, they are sharpening a sword.

Stillness, said a picture, is not being immobile, but a clear separation of the self from its surroundings while taking part (we must take part, how else are we to live?)

’Max Schmitt in a Single Scull‘. . . A river with iron bridges, . . Schmitt is resting on his oars, looking toward the observer, ’both in and out of the game’. Rowing! This is what I have to practise.