No man oppresses thee, can bid thee fetch or carry, come or go, without reason shewn. […] No man, wiser, unwiser, can make thee come or go: but thy own futilities, bewilderments, thy false appetites for Money, Windsor Georges and such like?

A white octopuslike beast is described as something that escapes when the ice thaws to collect escaped spirits until the next frost; a hulking presence in the painting, it's rendered even more alarming by the diagram, in which it looms over the silhouetted man.

He was drafted during the Vietnam War.

For quotations using this term, see Citations:thereatop.