"four hundred years before us, four hundred years after we're gone--it'll never strike anybody the same way and the great majority of people it'll never strike in any deep way at all but--a really great painting is fluid enough to work its way into the mind and heart through all kinds of different angles, in ways that are unique and very particular. Yours, yours. I was painted for you. And--oh, I don't know, stop me if I'm rambling..." passing a hand over his forehead.... "but Welty himself used to talk about fateful objects. Every dealer and antiquaire recognizes them. The pieces that occur and recur. Maybe for someone else, not a dealer, it wouldn't be an object. It'd be a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag." --