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?

For quotations using this term, see Citations:thereatop.

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.