1957

[Moore received her complimentary set of The Tao of painting by Mai-mai Sze from the Bollingen Foundation].
Letter from Marianne Moore to John Barrett ; January 22, 1957.
You cannot imagine my excitement in possessing these books. The exposition of subjects and the terminology in discussing 'The Elements of a Picture' in the Chinese text is pleasure enough for a lifetime. If I were in a decline mentally, the insect and frog color-print in Volume I of the Tao would, I think, help me to regain tone. The accuracy without rigidity of the characterizations is hard to credit ; the emerald of the leopard-frog and its watchful eye, the dragon-flies, sanguine, brown and greenish gray against the fragile beetle of some kind, the climbing katydid and grasshopper on the move, the plausibility of all this life above the pumpkin-leaves and lace of lesser leaves, the bumble-bee so solid despite frail violet wings and trailing legs with thorny rasps, are something, I suppose, that one could learn by heart but never become used to.