(no subject)
"When did you begin making the collections?"
"The collections were not a new idea, but something very old. The idea of making a collection is older than any collection itself. And in order to make any collection, it was the first thing that had to be collected. -- The first collectors proceeded hap-hazardly, taking and keeping whatever they found they could take and keep. The first collectors had discovered what it was to take a thing and keep it. They collected primarily to learn how to possess a thing, and what things they possessed was, for them, a matter of relative indifference."
"Do you mean that they took anything and everything?"
"Not anything, and, obviously, not everything. But they took enough -- enough to feel that they had enough. Enough to feel that their collections were complete."
"And what were these collections?"
"It was a hard proposition, to collect. The original collectors took what they could take, and kept what they could keep. The original impulse for collection," he continued, "is easily observed in the men, women, and children who have accommodated themselves directly from their accommodations. The worst of them have sacrificed themselves to their collections, which they keep about them at all times. These collections, which they gather together in bags, they regard as something closer to themselves than their selves, since they are the greatest evidence of the distinction of the self, of the self's power of distinction."
"But what is the distinction in collection?"
"That was the great discovery, which raised their successors above them -- that the distinction of collection IS distinction. The first real collectors," he seemed quite sure of this, "were the first men of distinction. I mean that their penchant for distinction distinguished them above the rest. For it was these men," and his walk was becoming almost a march, "who were the first to realize that things come not in individually wrapped packages but in parcels. The first real collectors," he stopped and began to grin, "were the first to realize, the first to discover, that there are collections."
"And what collections did they discover?"
His smile cracked and dissolved. "Nothing of great importance. Men would run about gathering together everything that was blue, shiny things, things with scales, things exposed to moonlight on the third day of four consecutive months. The collectors were distinguished by their distinctions, but their distinctions had not yet distinguished themselves."
"What did they do, then?"
He laughed. "The second great discovery, after they had discovered that things come in parcels, was that these parcels, too, can be parceled up. Men realized that it was possible, not only to form collections, but to form collections of collections."
"That must have presented a difficulty."
"How?"
"Because the collections must always have belonged to somebody else."
"Ah yes," and he rested his back-bone and his right foot against the wall, while the other man folded his arms up, and turned his ear to his companion. "That was the beginning of the market."
"Can you explain the market?"
"Well at first," he squinted, scratching his beard, "it was something quite informal, and not quite fair. The main question was, how do you collect a collection? How do you collect someone else's collection?"
"And what was their answer?"
"Well," and he seemed quite proud of the thought, "in order to collect what belongs to someone else, you have, first, to contribute to it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that there was a man who collected blue shells -- every blue shell he saw, he took, and every blue shell he took, he kept. But the difficulty of the acquisitions was not something common to them all, but spread over them by degrees. Blue shells," he said, cutting a wave in the air, "gather principally about the beaches, it is true. But," and he was quite firm on this point, "where the beaches are, is a matter about which time does not always agree with itself, and it is frequently rearranging them, cutting out a portion here, adding a portion there, through the medium of the land. What follows -- what comes to pass -- is that some blue shells are to be discovered only at extremities and subalterns. And men took it upon themselves to collect these obscurities, and to trade them for others. The collections were not to be recollected all at once," he said with a grave authority. "But they gradually exchanged hands. In short, in the market, the collections mixed. They became heterogeneous."
"So they came together, for the purpose of drawing apart."
"Of drawing and redrawing. And the market was the center of their efforts at conception."
"That is why the wise man said that everything is revised at market."
"Oh it was a very great problem. For a man would give a shell and come back with shells when he had been collecting fish. The acquisition of an acquisition was progress, but progress was felt to be regress, since one had started with a collection of all the same, and ended with a collection of every difference. But at least the differences had been collected," he pleaded. "And it began," he went on with a bit more confidence, "to be a matter of some consequence, whether a collection was the same, or different. A whole new set of distinctions required to be invented."
"And was it?"
"After many false starts, through the commerce of men, it began to. Many of the efforts," he said dismissively, "were too facile. One wit thought that it would do to settle his accounts, to call everything he had collected an object, with the consequence that he went about saying, 'I collect objects'. And objects he collected, most certainly, but they had no more distinction than that, or rather, had every distinction from each other. And when it came down to the account, it accounted for, amounted to, little, if anything, more than those first crudities, when to take and to collect were esteemed just the same."
"But some collections were esteemed."
"Certainly, certainly," he said, with an expansive gesture. "Just look at all of this."
"And what is the difference between the collections?"
"The difference?" It seemed he had been positively offended. "The difference was in their value!"
"And what made their value?"
"Their distinction."
"Which was...?"
Here he paused, and squinted. "That they had been distinguished."
"How?"
"In time men came to consider each thing to be what it was, nothing more, and nothing less." He was nervous about the point, so hastily added, "For do you think, really, that all of this would be possible, without that knowledge?"
"And what is such knowledge called? What is it known as?"
"It is," he said, quite comfortably, "the knowledge of essences."
"And what is an essence?"
"An essence is, in regard to a thing, the thing, which that thing is -- and would have been." This did not seem to admit of refutation.
"But I think this story has another aspect."
"What is that?" He said it as if afraid that something was missing from the rows and rows of equipment, the towering piles of stuff -- as if something was the matter with the matter.
"Just the matter."
"What do you mean?" He was unnerved.
"I mean you have discussed the collection only of the collections themselves. What you have not explained to me is how the collection was done."
"And how else was it done?" He asked. He saw and appropriated a file. Idly, he began to file, while he waited for the other's words.
"Collection is distinction."
"That seems fair enough."
"And before a distinction can be made, there must be a distinction."
"The same distinction."
"A distinct distinction -- the distinction between those things which are distinct."
"They must, in other words, be distinguished." The logic surprised and pleased him.
"Yes. But in order to distinguish them, must not the distinction itself be collected?"
"I suppose it must." But he bit his lip.
"Men must, then, before they had collected anything else, have endeavored this primary collection -- the collection not of collections but of distinctions whereby collections could be made."
"I will admit it," he said slowly, thinking it over. "But the collection of distinctions was not possible," he went on to affirm, "before or without the collection of collections, and indeed before collection. The collection itself was their justification -- their embodiment." He said this, and pointed to the heaps and the heaps of heaps, as if the whole agglomeration was itself some justification for itself -- as if this acquisition, too, was the result of and proof of some long process of cogitation, through whose offices and those offices alone it had come to exist.
"The collections were not a new idea, but something very old. The idea of making a collection is older than any collection itself. And in order to make any collection, it was the first thing that had to be collected. -- The first collectors proceeded hap-hazardly, taking and keeping whatever they found they could take and keep. The first collectors had discovered what it was to take a thing and keep it. They collected primarily to learn how to possess a thing, and what things they possessed was, for them, a matter of relative indifference."
"Do you mean that they took anything and everything?"
"Not anything, and, obviously, not everything. But they took enough -- enough to feel that they had enough. Enough to feel that their collections were complete."
"And what were these collections?"
"It was a hard proposition, to collect. The original collectors took what they could take, and kept what they could keep. The original impulse for collection," he continued, "is easily observed in the men, women, and children who have accommodated themselves directly from their accommodations. The worst of them have sacrificed themselves to their collections, which they keep about them at all times. These collections, which they gather together in bags, they regard as something closer to themselves than their selves, since they are the greatest evidence of the distinction of the self, of the self's power of distinction."
"But what is the distinction in collection?"
"That was the great discovery, which raised their successors above them -- that the distinction of collection IS distinction. The first real collectors," he seemed quite sure of this, "were the first men of distinction. I mean that their penchant for distinction distinguished them above the rest. For it was these men," and his walk was becoming almost a march, "who were the first to realize that things come not in individually wrapped packages but in parcels. The first real collectors," he stopped and began to grin, "were the first to realize, the first to discover, that there are collections."
"And what collections did they discover?"
His smile cracked and dissolved. "Nothing of great importance. Men would run about gathering together everything that was blue, shiny things, things with scales, things exposed to moonlight on the third day of four consecutive months. The collectors were distinguished by their distinctions, but their distinctions had not yet distinguished themselves."
"What did they do, then?"
He laughed. "The second great discovery, after they had discovered that things come in parcels, was that these parcels, too, can be parceled up. Men realized that it was possible, not only to form collections, but to form collections of collections."
"That must have presented a difficulty."
"How?"
"Because the collections must always have belonged to somebody else."
"Ah yes," and he rested his back-bone and his right foot against the wall, while the other man folded his arms up, and turned his ear to his companion. "That was the beginning of the market."
"Can you explain the market?"
"Well at first," he squinted, scratching his beard, "it was something quite informal, and not quite fair. The main question was, how do you collect a collection? How do you collect someone else's collection?"
"And what was their answer?"
"Well," and he seemed quite proud of the thought, "in order to collect what belongs to someone else, you have, first, to contribute to it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that there was a man who collected blue shells -- every blue shell he saw, he took, and every blue shell he took, he kept. But the difficulty of the acquisitions was not something common to them all, but spread over them by degrees. Blue shells," he said, cutting a wave in the air, "gather principally about the beaches, it is true. But," and he was quite firm on this point, "where the beaches are, is a matter about which time does not always agree with itself, and it is frequently rearranging them, cutting out a portion here, adding a portion there, through the medium of the land. What follows -- what comes to pass -- is that some blue shells are to be discovered only at extremities and subalterns. And men took it upon themselves to collect these obscurities, and to trade them for others. The collections were not to be recollected all at once," he said with a grave authority. "But they gradually exchanged hands. In short, in the market, the collections mixed. They became heterogeneous."
"So they came together, for the purpose of drawing apart."
"Of drawing and redrawing. And the market was the center of their efforts at conception."
"That is why the wise man said that everything is revised at market."
"Oh it was a very great problem. For a man would give a shell and come back with shells when he had been collecting fish. The acquisition of an acquisition was progress, but progress was felt to be regress, since one had started with a collection of all the same, and ended with a collection of every difference. But at least the differences had been collected," he pleaded. "And it began," he went on with a bit more confidence, "to be a matter of some consequence, whether a collection was the same, or different. A whole new set of distinctions required to be invented."
"And was it?"
"After many false starts, through the commerce of men, it began to. Many of the efforts," he said dismissively, "were too facile. One wit thought that it would do to settle his accounts, to call everything he had collected an object, with the consequence that he went about saying, 'I collect objects'. And objects he collected, most certainly, but they had no more distinction than that, or rather, had every distinction from each other. And when it came down to the account, it accounted for, amounted to, little, if anything, more than those first crudities, when to take and to collect were esteemed just the same."
"But some collections were esteemed."
"Certainly, certainly," he said, with an expansive gesture. "Just look at all of this."
"And what is the difference between the collections?"
"The difference?" It seemed he had been positively offended. "The difference was in their value!"
"And what made their value?"
"Their distinction."
"Which was...?"
Here he paused, and squinted. "That they had been distinguished."
"How?"
"In time men came to consider each thing to be what it was, nothing more, and nothing less." He was nervous about the point, so hastily added, "For do you think, really, that all of this would be possible, without that knowledge?"
"And what is such knowledge called? What is it known as?"
"It is," he said, quite comfortably, "the knowledge of essences."
"And what is an essence?"
"An essence is, in regard to a thing, the thing, which that thing is -- and would have been." This did not seem to admit of refutation.
"But I think this story has another aspect."
"What is that?" He said it as if afraid that something was missing from the rows and rows of equipment, the towering piles of stuff -- as if something was the matter with the matter.
"Just the matter."
"What do you mean?" He was unnerved.
"I mean you have discussed the collection only of the collections themselves. What you have not explained to me is how the collection was done."
"And how else was it done?" He asked. He saw and appropriated a file. Idly, he began to file, while he waited for the other's words.
"Collection is distinction."
"That seems fair enough."
"And before a distinction can be made, there must be a distinction."
"The same distinction."
"A distinct distinction -- the distinction between those things which are distinct."
"They must, in other words, be distinguished." The logic surprised and pleased him.
"Yes. But in order to distinguish them, must not the distinction itself be collected?"
"I suppose it must." But he bit his lip.
"Men must, then, before they had collected anything else, have endeavored this primary collection -- the collection not of collections but of distinctions whereby collections could be made."
"I will admit it," he said slowly, thinking it over. "But the collection of distinctions was not possible," he went on to affirm, "before or without the collection of collections, and indeed before collection. The collection itself was their justification -- their embodiment." He said this, and pointed to the heaps and the heaps of heaps, as if the whole agglomeration was itself some justification for itself -- as if this acquisition, too, was the result of and proof of some long process of cogitation, through whose offices and those offices alone it had come to exist.