Introspective Interlude

At this point in the notes from Tissa's lectures come this photocopy (with the top of an exposure sheet showing from the copier):



"It comes from 'East Coker':

Do here I am, in the [more than] middle way, having had {twenty} [44] years- {Twenty}
[44] years largely wasted, the years of 'l {entre deux guerres} [ANIMATION] -
Trying to learn to use {words} [drawings], and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of {words} [them]
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisiciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by {men} [animators] whom one cannot hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again: now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.