Quote:
`What were you doing?' she reiterated, in her mild, indifferent tone. He did not answer, and she made her way, almost unconsciously into his room. He had taken a Chinese drawing of geese from the boudoir, and was copying it, with much skill and vividness.
`You are copying the drawing,' she said, standing near the table, and looking down at his work. `Yes. How beautifully you do it! You like it very much, don't you?'
`It's a marvellous drawing,' he said.
`Is it? I'm so glad you like it, because I've always been fond of it. The Chinese Ambassador gave it me.'
`I know,' he said.
`But why do you copy it?' she asked, casual and sing-song. `Why not do something original?'
`I want to know it,' he replied. `One gets more of China, copying this picture, than reading all the books.'
`And what do you get?'
She was at once roused, she laid as it were violent hands on him, to extract his secrets from him. She must know. It was a dreadful tyranny, an obsession in her, to know all he knew. For some time he was silent, hating to answer her. Then, compelled, he began:
`I know what centres they live from -- what they perceive and feel -- the hot, stinging centrality of a goose in the flux of cold water and mud -- the curious bitter stinging heat of a goose's blood, entering their own blood like an inoculation of corruptive fire -- fire of the cold-burning mud -- the lotus mystery.'
I think that passage is relevant in understanding what Lawrece is after in these animal poems. These animal poems are sketches where he is after the "centrality" of the creature. I think that is his first priority and I think he accomplishes that marvelously here. We can all see the baby tortoise and its inner motivations.