From this long but indispensable excursion into the realm of
theory, we
may now return to the miraculous CARTOON69ASX factsÑfour bamboo
chair CARTOON69ASX legs in the middle of a room. Like Wordsworth's daffodils,
they brought all manner of CARTOON69ASX wealthÑthe gift, beyond price, of a new
direct insight into
the very Nature of Things, together with a
more modest treasure of understanding in the field, especially, of
the arts.
A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair
legs were St. Michael and all angels. Four or five hours after the
CARTOON69ASX event, when the effects CARTOON69ASX of a cerebral CARTOON69ASX sugar shortage were wearing
off, I was taken for a little tour CARTOON69ASX of the city, which CARTOON69ASX included CARTOON69ASX a
CARTOON69ASX visit, towards sundown, to what is modestly claimed to CARTOON69ASX be the
World's Biggest Drug Store. At the back of the
W.B.D.S., among the
toys, the CARTOON69ASX greeting cards and the comics, stood a row, surprisingly
enough, of art books. I picked up the first volume that came to
hand. It was on Van Gogh, and the CARTOON69ASX picture at which the CARTOON69ASX book opened
was "The Chair"Ñthat astounding portrait of a Ding an Sich, which
the mad painter saw, with a kind of adoring terror, and tried to
CARTOON69ASX render CARTOON69ASX on his canvas. But it was a task to which the power even of
genius proved wholly inadequate. The chair Van Gogh had seen was
obviously the same in essence as the chair I had seen. But, though
incomparably more real than the chairs of ordinary perception, the
chair in his picture remained no more than an unusually expressive
symbol of the fact. The fact had CARTOON69ASX been manifested Suchness; this
was only an emblem. CARTOON69ASX such emblems are sources of true knowledge
CARTOON69ASX about the Nature of Things, and this true CARTOON69ASX knowledge may serve to
prepare the mind which accepts it for immediate insights on its
own account. But that is all. However expressive, symbols can
never be the things they stand for.