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The power of the referential over the direct (which has advantages enough) is this: the reference is felt to be in the mind or ether, and is therefore felt more directly.  The direct is felt to be in the object, and is therefore more obdurate, more sure, but less directly present to the perception.  As smells are to the sense of smell, so is an evocative reference to the faculty of perception: like all parents, it looks upon the perception with a special and tender immediacy, made all the more poignant because it does not attribute this to its creation of the beloved, whose qualities, to perception, are therefore all the more affecting.  The angel that is not on the sidewalk, but merely evoked, is therefore felt as more noteworthy than the improbably planted trees, the passers-by, each a miracle, or even the wondrous assembly itself, that thin-shaved slide-sample of my city.