In response to:

In the Luminous Deep from the July 13, 2006 issue

To the Editors:

It is not only in Robin Robertson’s work that John Banville [NYR, July 13] should seek for an explanation of his title A Painted Field: the phrase originates in Edwin Muir’s poem “Scotland 1941” (“We were a tribe, a family, a people./Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field…”).

David Wheatley

Hull, England

This Issue

November 2, 2006