"What is Truth?" was Pilate's existential question when confronted.
It cries out for an ultimate benchmark to find out what exactly is a lie and what is true. For Truth exists in the life of the spirit rather than hard fact, which is subject to interpretation and all kinds of influences. Our aim is to channel it as responsibly as we can. This is what martyrs die for on our behalf when human feuds and squabbles come a head. Are they brave? They have no choice.
Lawrence's image is a nice one to conjure with.
Lawrence does have a 'dark sensibility', stemming, I think - as far as I remember it - from an overly dominant mother and a parochial, and particular, environment which was too small a fit for his vision and too coarse for his spiritual aspirations. Mining communities may be the salt of the earth, but can they afford to see beyond?
As regards his fiction, some of which I read decades ago, I found it original and intriguing in a literary way, half way, perhaps, between everyday reality and stream-of-consciousness. While there are passages of great luminosity, there is also a tendency to be opaque. A paragraph my be perfectly intelligible but what it conveys is like shapes through mist. The vision isn't well enough wrought and so requires too many words and still doesn't hit the mark. I don't remember much about his poetry and will have to revisit it. However, his essays resonated with me profoundly and really did change my life!
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