Sunday, September 28, 2008

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres paintings

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres paintings
John William Godward paintings
John William Waterhouse paintings
Jeremy came into my room at half-past six, just as I was assembling my sponge and towels and dressing gown and things for a bath. I saw him as I came out of my bedroom, looking for something to write a message on. He was making straight for my portfolio of drawing paper. I called and made myself known to him.
Jeremy was in my house at school; he has what would be known in North Oxford as a “personality.” That is to say he is rather stupid, thoroughly well satisfied with himself, and acutely ambitious. Jeremy purposes to be President of the Union.
I said to him, “Hullo, Jeremy, I am afraid you find me on the point of going to have a bath. I never miss a bath before dinner; I shall tonight if I do not go at once. The bathroom is shut at seven. But do stay and drink some sherry won’t you?”

Friday, September 26, 2008

Thomas Kinkade Stairway to Paradise painting

Thomas Kinkade Stairway to Paradise paintingThomas Kinkade Spirit of Christmas paintingThomas Kinkade San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf painting
They found the General, his second-in-command, the Commissar, and the old lawyer who was called the Minister of the Interior.
Most meetings in this room were concerned with supplies. The General would submit a detailed, exorbitant list of immediate requirements—field artillery, boots, hospital equipment, wireless apparatus—and so forth. They worked on the principle of asking for everything and item by item reducing their demands to practicable size. In these tedious Major Gordon enjoyed the slight advantage of being the giver and the final judge of what was reasonable; all the partisans could do was dissipate any sense he might have of vicarious benefaction. He always left feeling a skinflint. Formal politeness was maintained and sometimes even a faint breath of cordiality.
Tonight, however, the atmosphere was entirely changed. The General and the Commissar had served together in Spain, the second-in-command was a professional officer from the Royal Yugoslav Army, the Minister of the Interior was a nonentity introduced to give

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Rene Magritte High Society painting

Rene Magritte High Society paintingRene Magritte Donna paintingArthur Hughes The King's Orchard painting
read family prayers every morning; on the outbreak of war he abruptly stopped the practice, explaining, when asked, that there was now nothing left to pray for. When Charles’s mother was killed there was a memorial service for her at Boughton, his village, but Charles’s father did not go with him and Aunt Philippa. “It was all her confounded patriotism,” he said, not to Charles but to Aunt Philippa, who did not repeat the remark until many years later. “She had no to go off to Serbia like that. Do you think it my duty to marry again?”
“No,” said Aunt Philippa.
“Nothing would induce me to—least of all my duty.”
The service followed its course. As often happened, two small boys fainted and were carried out by house-captains; a third left bleeding at the nose. Mr. Peacock sang the Gospel over-loudly. It was his first public appearance. Symonds looked up from his Greek, frowned and continued reading. Presently it was time for Communion; most of the boys who had

Rene Magritte The Son of Man painting

Rene Magritte The Son of Man paintingRene Magritte The Dangerous Liaison paintingRene Magritte Homesickness painting
Church can offer. I’m told there is a very remarkable freak named Father Wimperis.” So, together, they had gone on the top of a bus to a northern suburb where Mr. Wimperis was at the time drawing great congregations. His preaching was not theatrical by Neapolitan standards, Aunt Philippa said afterwards; “However, I enjoyed him hugely. He is irresistibly common.” For twenty minutes Mr. Wimperis alternately fluted and boomed from the pulpit, wrestled with the reading-stand and summoned the country to industrial peace. At the end he performed a little ceremony of his own invention, advancing to the church steps in cope and biretta with what proved to be a large silver salt cellar in his hands. “My people,” he said simply, scattering salt before him, “you are the salt of the earth.”
“I believe he has something new like that every week,” said Aunt Philippa. “It must be lovely to live in his neighbourhood.”
Charles’s was not a God-fearing home. Until August 1914 his father had been accustomed

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Thomas Kinkade spirit of xmas painting

Thomas Kinkade spirit of xmas paintingThomas Kinkade Serenity Cove paintingThomas Kinkade San Francisco Lombard Street painting
Lots of the chaps there use a different name. I expect it’s the same at your club.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” I said.
I paid the taxi. Atwater kicked open a green door and led me into the hall where a porter, behind the counter, was lunching off tea and sandwiches.
“I’ve been out of town,” said Atwater. “Just dropped in to pay my subscription. Anyone about?”
“Very quiet,” said the porter.
The room into which he led me was entirely empty. It was at once bar, lounge and dining room, but mostly bar, for which a kind of film-set had been erected, built far into the room, with oak rafters, a thatched roof, a wrought iron lantern and an inn-sign painted in mock heraldry with quartered bottles and tankards. “Please don’t take this wrong,” I said, “but I’m really interested to know what was the resemblance you saw between your club and the room where we talked in mine?”
“You can’t compare them really, can you? I just didn’t want to seem snooty. Jim!”
“Sir.” A head appeared above the bar. “Well, Mr. Norton, we haven’t

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Mary Cassatt Young Mother Sewing painting

Mary Cassatt Young Mother Sewing paintingGuido Reni The Penitent Magdalene paintingEdward Hopper People In The Sun painting
Your father used to do a certain amount of work for us, you know.”
“I know.”
“Restorations mostly. Occasionally he used to make a facsimile for a client who was selling a picture to America and wanted one to take its place. That kind of work.”
“Often they were his own compositions.”
“Well, yes, I believe a few of them were. What we call in the trade ‘pastiche,’ you know.”
“I saw some of them,” I said.
“He was wonderfully gifted.”
“Wonderfully.”
A pause. Mr. Godley twiddled his Old Harrovian tie. “His work with us was highly confidential.”
“Of course.”
“I was wondering—our firm was, whether you had been through his papers yet. I mean, did he keep any records of his work or anything of the kind?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t been through his things yet. I should think it quite likely. He was very methodical in some ways.”
“The papers are all in your own hands?”
“So far as I know.”
“If anything of the kind was to turn up, we could rely on your discretion. I mean it would do no one any good ... I mean you would want your father to be remembered by his

Friday, September 19, 2008

Claude Monet Venice Twilight painting

Claude Monet Venice Twilight paintingAlphonse Maria Mucha The Judgement of Paris paintingPierre Auguste Renoir Two Sisters (On the Terrace) painting
News of the discovery was circulated by the Press agencies throughout the civilized world. At first the affair had received wide attention. It had been front page, with portrait, for two days, then middle page with portrait, then middle page halfway down without portrait, and finally page three of the Excess as the story became daily less alarming. The cypher gave the story a new lease on . Stebbing, with portrait, appeared on the front page. Ten thousand pounds was offered by the paper towards the ransom, and a star journalist appeared from the skies in an aeroplane to conduct and report the .
He was a tough young man of Australian origin and from the moment of his arrival everything went with a swing. The colony sunk its habitual hostility to the Press, elected him to the Club, and filled his leisure with cocktail parties and tennis tournaments. He even usurped Lepperidge’s position as authority on world topics.
But his stay was brief. On the first day he interviewed Mr. Brooks and everyone

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Thomas Gainsborough River Landscape painting

Thomas Gainsborough River Landscape paintingThomas Gainsborough Mr and Mrs Andrews paintingSandro Botticelli Madonna and Child painting
Mr. Vaughan,” I said. “I think his Grace is expecting me to luncheon.”
“Yes; will you come in, please?” and I was just handing him my hat when he added: “I am the Duke of Vanburgh. I hope you will forgive my opening the door myself. The butler is in bed today—he suffers terribly in his back during the winter, and both my footmen have been killed in the war.” Have been killed—the words haunted me incessantly throughout the next few hours and for days to come. That desolating perfect tense, after ten years at least, probably more ... Miss Stein and the continuous present; the Duke of Vanburgh and the continuous perfect passive.....
I was unprepared for the room to which he led me. Only once before, at the age of twelve, had I been to a ducal house, and besides the fruit garden, my chief memory of that visit was one of intense cold and of running upstairs through endless passages to get my mother a fur to wear round her shoulders after dinner. It is true that that was in Scotland, but still I was quite unprepared for the overpowering heat that met us as the Duke opened the door. The double windows were tight shut and a large coal fire burned

Monday, September 15, 2008

Caravaggio Adoration of the Shepherds painting

Caravaggio Adoration of the Shepherds paintingThomas Moran Forest Scene paintingThomas Moran Autumn Landscape painting
by photographic equipment and bottles of chemicals; the floor round about was littered with longer, more modern scrolls: coded read-outs from WESCAC's automatic printers.
I was introduced around to philologists, archaeologists, historical anthropologists, comparative linguists, philosophers, chemists, and cyberneticists, the last on hand both to lend WESCAC's analytical assistance to the project and to apply their genius with codes and ciphers to the restoration of the priceless text. I nodded to each, explained to the group that I was merely passing through the Catalogue Room en route to the Belfry, and excused myself.
"Oh no." My escort, a model of donnish affability thitherto, spoke sharply and seized my arm. His colleagues too, whom one had thought to be gentle, preoccupied academicians, closed ranks between me and the exit, their expressions firm. I regarded them thoughtfully.
"Accuracy of text is all we care about," declared my warden. His voice was polite again; he even chuckled. "After the first shock of seeing the Scrolls destroyed

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall La Mariee painting

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall La Mariee paintingPaul Gauguin The Yellow Christ paintingPaul Gauguin The Vision After the Sermon painting
gimped on, around to the Library entrance, followed by a small but growing throng. The figures in the Belfry disappeared.
"Flunk it all, listen here!" Stoker yelled, throttling up beside me. "Do you think she'd be up there if I hadn't ordered her to go? I arranged it!"
I smiled.
"Call me a cuckold!" Stoker challenged. "You can bet I have my reasons!" His tone grew more fretful as we came near the Library door. "But that doesn't giveyou permission, Goat-Boy! You're staying right here!"
I positily grinned at him, whereupon his voice at once turned guileful.
"How about Maxie? We could still spring him, if we work fast. . ." He raced his engine angrily. "Some Grand Tutorl You want her yourself!"
The students cheered. I motioned Stoker with my stick to get behind me; he was obliged in any case to do so, or leave his vehicle, as we'd arrived at the Library steps.
"Keep your hands off my wife!" he cried, heedless of bystanders -- who seemed anyhow to assume that he was as usual playing a part. "If you even touch her without my say-so, I'll fix you both!"

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Adoration of the Magi

Adoration of the MagiUlysses and the SirensMountain of the Holy Cross
the Ladyship part of Your Assignment means You're supposed to know me so well that we'll be the same person."
These words so fit my recent Answer, I could not protest when she disrobed. But coitus was not necessarily what she had in mind, ready as she was (and saw the nether George to be) for that ultimate merger of two into one. She removed not only her uniform and underclothing but the pins from her hair, the -ring from her finger, and the cosmetic from her face, then turned from the wash-basin to face me. Her legs were slightly apart, her hands on her hips, her cheeks flaming. Inspired no doubt by Dr. Sear's new relation to Peter Greene, she ordered me to make her person as familiar to me as my own. I asked her what she meant.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Bartolome Esteban Murillo paintings

Bartolome Esteban Murillo paintings
Berthe Morisot paintings
childe hassam paintings
suspicion that kindergarteners were neither innocent nor simple except to sentimental eyes; only ingenuous, as Greene had been, was yet, and doubtless ever would be.
Max rolled his eyes. "You said that right."
Greene squinted. "You're pulling my leg, George. Not that I don't have it coming, 'As-ye-sow'wise."
I assured him of my sincerity, though in fact I used a small lie to make my point. Didn't he know, I asked him, that his acne had actually been clearing up before he overcame his thing-about-mirrors? "When yousaw your own pimples you started squeezing them all the time" -- so much was true -- "and that made more of them. Even so they're not as bad as you think; you see the spots on the mirror as spots on your face."
This unpleasant argument impressed him; he would clean Sear's mirror and make a count. But I insisted he have no more to do either with mirrors or with Kennard Sear, should that unfortunate man survive.
"I don't get you," Greene protested. "You told me your own self --"
"Never mind what I told you. I was wrong." Of two false arguments that came to mind then, I chose one and was pleased to see Greene supply the other himself.
"Suppose a man's nearsighted," I said. "Things two meters off will be twice as

Anders Zorn paintings

Anders Zorn paintings
Anne-Francois-Louis Janmot paintings
Allan R.Banks paintings
way I do. (There, you ugly bastard!) Didn't she admit she brought it on her own self, out in the alley? A flunker like me!"
He would have embarked then on his usual lament: that all his life he'd been a gosh-durn baby, knowledge-of-the-campuswise; that he'd thought himself a fine fellow, even a Graduate, his marriage a success, his self-education and c things to be proud of, his alma mater the gem of the University, Anastasia the flower and pattern of maiden girlship -- until I and Dr. Sear had opened his eye to the truth. But as he began that drear recital, Max made inquiry of me with a glance, as if to ask "Him too?" I nodded, and broke into Greene's complaint.
"Look here. . . Pete," I said, "you'reokay."
"You durn tootin'," he grumbled, thinking I'd affirmed his condemnation-in-progress of New Tammany's Quiet-Riot policies. "Lawless academical adventurism, is what it is."
"I meanyou," I persisted. "I was wrong before. You were okay, until you

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Edgar Degas paintings

Edgar Degas paintings
Emile Munier paintings
Edwin Lord Weeks paintings
Shaft!" He hugged Max carefully. "Stupidly, sir, you didn't say before!"
Max shook his head. When the shock had passed, he said, he'd seen his guilt. Even if he'd not directly ordered Hermann's suicide, he was the cause of it; moreover, so far from feeling remorse, he found himself trembling with satisfaction over the dead Moishiocaust. Having dragged the body into the woods, he would even have burned it, to complete his revenge, but Hermann's lighter had got soaked in blood and refused to catch. He'd gone then to the roadside and brooded until Croaker and I overtook him next day, by which time he'd come round to seeing he was flunked, and choosing to suffer for the crime of murder.
He smiled. "Then Georgie told me what he told me, up in the Visitation Room, and I wouldn't listen, I didn't believe him since the Powerhouse, also since Bray." Nevertheless, my criticism of his motives had taken root in his mind and grown, further nourished by debate with Leonid, until he'd despaired of choosing either death or liberty for the right reason.
"Ah, Max!" I said warmly. "You're passed already, Shaft or no Shaft! You see that now, don't you?"
He did. "So it's vanity I take the Shaft or I don't: so flunk me! What

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Henri Matisse Blue Nude I 1952 painting

Henri Matisse Blue Nude I 1952 paintingCassius Marcellus Coolidge A Friend in Need paintingEdvard Munch Puberty 1894 painting
handouts from the P.-G."
I began to declare to him that their number included, in my opinion, the very salt of the campus, but by this time the receptionist had informed "the P.-G." of my presence, and he came over to me shaking his head.
"Good to see you, G.T.!" he said warmly. His handshake was strong, his tone friendly, but his smile grave. "Everything's going to the Dunce, eh?"
The receptionist excused herself, but Reginald Hector asked her to look in once more on "Miss Virginia in the next room" instead of returning to the entrance-hall, as he feared his daughter was still half-hysterical.
"The things she's been saying. . ." He scratched his pate ruefully. "And there's always a flunking reporter around, you know." He cast a brief sharp eye at me, wondering no doubt how aware I might be of his daughter's new distress, and how much of her raving was true.
"Naturally Miss Hector's upset," I said. "Most unfortunate B back there in the Library."

Henri Rousseau The Dream painting

Henri Rousseau The Dream paintingPaul Cezanne Trees in Park paintingPaul Cezanne Table Corner painting
the shocking news, which she daresaid had brought me to the P.P.P.O. I understood then the several initials and, reminded of the general crisis by a dimming of the lights, bid her not fear the alarming reports from Founder's Hill and the Light House, since all radical progress entailed some temporary disorder.
"Oh no, sir," she said -- a pert thing she, in her olive skirt and blouse and her dark-rimmed spectacles -- "I meant what that Ira Hector's gone and done." She'd led me down a short hall to a glass-paned double door labeledPHILOSOPHICAL FUND: EXECUTIVE SECRETARY . "None of my, I'm sure," she declared, opening the door with a fetching thrust of her hip, "but I still think Ira Hector's a nasty old man and the P-G.'s a sweetie. I'll tell him you're here."
Curious as I was to know what news she alluded to, I was more so at the sight, in the P.P.F. Office, of what appeared to be the same shaggy band of indigent scholars I'd rescued Ira Hector from in the morning. Beggars now as then, and no less disdainful

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Leonardo da Vinci The Last Supper painting

Leonardo da Vinci The Last Supper paintingLeonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa Smile paintingRembrandt The Return of the Prodigal Son painting
only to Certify my passage of the Finals (which he had done, he said, on the documents now in my hand), but to pretend to Grand-Tutorhood himself, in order that I might drive him out at last from Great Mall in proof of my authenticity. "I don't believe you," I said.
"You never did, pass your heart!" He would have embraced me, but I drew back. "You weren't supposed to -- until now, of course." He went on: "Every one of my Certifications is false, and by failing all the people I pass, you prove your own passèdness. WESCAC spared me from EATing so that you could turn me over to the crowd -- either now or after you've presented your ID-card to Reginald Hector. Then (you don't mind my suggesting this, do you, sir? Your father's suggestion, actually) the Grand-Tutorial thing to do would be to stop the lynching and merely expel me from the forever." He motioned towards the porthole. "Shall we get on with it?"
Plausible as was his explanation (indeed, how else account for his not being EATen?), and sweet the prospect of accomplishing his fall, I was riven with