Light And Shadow-contd.,

Socrates would drink the cup of hemlock as stoically as a Michelangelo, though not young and agile, would allow himself to be strapped into a bone- cracking posture (bent like a Syrian bow, as he put it) to paint a chapel ceiling, day in day out for some 4 years. Life is so positive that Renoir crippled with arthritis and continually in pain would still take up paintbrush to paint some anemones. “Pain is killing, but beauty endures.” would be the excuse of the old painter almost at the fag end of his life.
benny