Vincent van Gogh Cornfield with Cypresses painting

Vincent van Gogh Cornfield with Cypresses paintingUnknown Artist Ford Smith Just Between Us paintingUnknown Artist Apple Tree with Red Fruit painting
retroactive, so that what he said would apply to anyone ripe for discontentment), I let myself acknowledge the mantic aspects of the situation. Throughout the rest of our interview, you must understand, there was this ambivalence: on the one hand I never lost sight of the likelihood that here was just another odd arts-student, even a lunatic, whose pronouncements were as generally pertinent as weighing-machine fortunes; on the other I was quite aware that it is the prophet who validates the prophecy, and not vice-versa -- his authenticity lies not in what he says but in his manner and bearing, his every gesture, the whole embodiment of his personality. And in this salient respect (which I dwell upon because of its relevance to the manuscript he left me) Mr. Stoker Giles was effective indeed.
Calmly now he said, "You're like the man who gave my father a little lens once, that he claimed would show everything truly. Here it is. . ."
He flipped up a round concave lens near the head of his walking-stick and invited me to examine my manuscript through it. But the joke was, it was silvered on the back, and returned no image of my words at all, enlarged or reduced, only a magnified reflection of my eye. I felt myself blush, and blushed more to feel it.
He said, "You're going to fail. You've never been really and trulythere