Rembrandt The Return of the Prodigal Son painting

Rembrandt The Return of the Prodigal Son painting
Edvard Munch The Scream painting
Gustav Klimt Mother and Child detail from The Three Ages of Woman painting
stud's part, but mere unconscious lust. The girl, however, must needs have been queer of appetite -- unless like Anastasia with Stoker's dogs, her motives were uncommonly benevolent, or (as when Croaker beached her) she'd had no option. . .
I started to protest: was even a man of Dr. Sear's intelligence and wide experience too bigoted to allow for simple love between the species? But I saw the principle beyond his misapplication of it, and supposed besides that among his motives was the exposition of Anastasia's past. Therefore I agreed, for Greene's benefit, that of the scores of males and females with whom the dear girl beside me had coupled, some at least had surely been inspired not alone by lust but by the conscious urge to exploit her submissiveness -- a pleasure unknown outside the human species.
"Go on andsay it!" Anastasia challenged me. "Tell me I'm flunked, like Maurice does!" She shook off my arm and went to Mrs. Sear, who in a fresh fit of disequilibrium seemed about to roll off the couch

Edward Hopper Sunday painting

Edward Hopper Sunday paintingEdward Hopper Morning Sun paintingAmedeo Modigliani Reclining Nude painting
the other Anastasia's vulnerable magnanimity, Max's scapegoatery, Greene's innocence, Eierkopf's asceticism, and Croaker's appetitiveness, so I suspected that Lucius Rexford was not so entirely free of Stokerishness, so to speak, as we both might wish: I dared guess he had lost his temper with Mrs. Rexford on occasion, perhaps even had struck her -- surely not more than once or twice -- as well as sampled at least upon one occasion the extracurricular pleasure of Anastasia. Obversely, his condemnation of extremism and disorder, as manifest in Stoker, had never been more than mild; it was his partisans and associates who shouted down the gossip of their fraternity.
Not to speak of these things directly, I praised instead his speech of the morning and the philosopher Entelechus on whom he'd drawn, and with whose thought I had a passing acquaintance, thanks to Max. Then I made bold to suggest that the principle of moderation and compromise lost its meaning if it too was compromised and moderated. Entelechus himself, I happened to recall, had warned against "means in the extremes" -- by which he meant that one was not to lie, cheat, steal, rape, or murder even discreetly

Guido Reni Baptism of Christ painting

Guido Reni Baptism of Christ paintingGuido Reni reni Aurora paintingFrancois Boucher The Toilet of Venus painting
in the long term, Ira Hector was sure, and must lead the 's economy to bankruptcy.
"Nobody paidmy way!" he concluded with heat. "All I know today I learned the hard way, by myself. Coddle the crowd, they'll trample you down!" The proper use of charity on the administrative level, he asserted, corresponded to his personal practice: just enough sops and doles to prevent revolution. Beyond that, individual initiative like his own would serve those who had it; the rest deserved their lot, and it was the responsibility of Tower Hall and the Campus Patrol to see to it they got no more than their desert.
"Caveat emptor!"he snapped."Laissez-faire! Sauve qui peut!"
"I beg your pardon?"
He offered to translate the mottoes for me at a cut rate, the three of them for the price of two. The sun had emerged now from eclipse; my sharp shadow made me impatient to get on with my Assignment and other concerns, and I begged him for Founder's sake to tell me the time and be done with it, if only repayment for

Francois Boucher Madame de Pompadour painting

Francois Boucher Madame de Pompadour paintingFrancois Boucher Adoration of the Shepherds paintingJohannes Vermeer The Concert painting
WESCAC," Bray said briskly; "all that's known about your background, plus what Eierkopf's scanners picked up at the Powerhouse, the Turnstile, and the Assembly just now. All I have to do is ask you the Candidacy Question so that WESCAC can evaluate your Answer: if it's right, you pass-through Scrapegoat Grate, presumably. If it's wrong, you don't. Please don't lean against that panel: it's part of the Assignment Printer." He pressed a number of buttons on the console and new whirrings began, behind my back and elsewhere. "Do you want to commence now?"
"Well. . . I guess so. Yes." As I spoke I moved away from the Assignment Printer and found that my watch-chain had caught somehow on the panel of it. But before I could look to free it I was alarmed by the sound of a buzzer and the sight of several blinking red lights, in whose flash Anastasia urgently shook her head. It dawned on me that Bray's apparently preliminary question had been the real one, tricked out in disguise, and that WESCAC was recording and rejecting my answer!
"No!" I cried. "Wait!"

Dirck Bouts The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek painting

Dirck Bouts The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek paintingTitian Emperor Charles paintingLouis Aston Knight A Riverside Cottage painting
starting line. As he neared the "Dean o' Flunks" he feinted left, then dashed around him to the right; just as Green had anticipated, Stoker was unable to recover his balance quickly enough to catch him. The crowd applauded, and the athlete nimbly sprang up into the teeth of the Turnstile. In former terms he would then have merely strained with every muscle to turn it -- in vain, of course -- until the "Dean o' Flunks" pulled him down, whereupon he'd be suitably laureled, kissed by Miss University, and admitted. Today, however, for the first time, the objective was to climb as high as possible up the stationary gate, like a great comb stood on end, through which the spindled teeth of the Turnstile proper passed. The apparatus was some seven meters tall: when the climber had half scaled it, unpursued, it clicked and turned, and he was caught like a twig in a hayrake. The spectators exclaimed -- as did I, thinking all was up with him -- but then applauded his effort when it became clear that he was unhurt. From a metal arm above him swung down the lensed device which Max had guessed to be a scanner; the pinned athlete turned his teeth to it, still clenching his ID-card, and at once he was released. Thereupon Bray's voice proclaimed from the loudspeakers what traditionally it had been the role of some Founder's-Hall dignitary to say:

William Blake The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun painting

William Blake The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun paintingWilliam Blake The Descent of Christ paintingVincent van Gogh Vase with Daisies and Anemones painting
tragedy. Taliped and his brother-in-law left the stage now, by way of the Deanery door, and the committee of department-heads and vice-administrators dispersed to right and left, but reassembled again a moment later, facing us in a line, just as I was about to inquire further into the laws of tragedy, which I was unfamiliar with.
"This is thepárodos," Sear whispered. "They sing and dance."
As I heard of dancing before but never seen any except in Stoker's Living Room, I attended the line of committeemen with interest. First they stepped sideways to the left, in unison, singing in a kind of chant and taking one step to each accented beat of the rhythm:

O Founder all-potent and -wise,
Who sees with unspectacled eyes:
You must see that we're
All spitless with fear
Since You laid on this latest surprise.

They then danced back again in the same manner, regaining their original position at the end of a stanza equal in length to the first:

To You, Sir, we come for advice,
Because (like we said) You're so wise.

Zhang Xiaogang A Big Family painting

Zhang Xiaogang A Big Family paintingBernhard Gutmann Study of a Woman in Black paintingBernhard Gutmann Nude with Drapery painting
WARNS; REXFORD TO ANNOUNCE NEW EAT-TESTS TO UNIVERSITY COUNCIL; TENSION MOUNTS ALONG POWER LINE; THOUSANDS MASSACRED IN FRUMENTIAN INTRAMURAL RIOTS; FAMINE SPREADS IN T'ANG; FLOODWATERS RISE IN SIDDARTHA; NTC RAPE-RATE UP 4 POINTS. The weather promised to be fair for the last night of the Carnival as well as for tomorrow's registration and attendant ceremonies, and for that reason the Department of Meteorology urgently reminded everyone to refrain from looking directly at the sun during the annular eclipse predicted for shortly after dawn.
"I respect your position on thesocial aspects of the Commencement question," Dr. Sear was saying to Max, "but not on the phenomenon of personal Graduation. One good medical therapist might be worth a hundred professors of Enochism, as you say; but a real Grand Tutor's worth all the medical therapists that ever were."
Max shook his head.
"You believe in Graduation and Grand Tutors, then, sir?" I asked him -- rather surprised, but much gratified.
"Of course I do," he smiled. "If you mean do I believe theyexist, of

Titian Sacred and Profane Love [detail] painting

Titian Sacred and Profane Love [detail] paintingTitian Bacchus and Ariadne paintingLorenzo Lotto St Catherine of Alexandria painting
Say what you want," Greene chuckled. "If it weren't for all them drivers there wouldn't be no drive-ins."
We came down then from the overlook into the stunning traffic of a main highway ("Hit 'em right at the evening rush," Greene remarked -- and hit them he very nearly did on a number of occasions, by driving through traffic lights at intersections or misjudging the distance of approaching headlamps. In addition to his color-blindness, it seemed, he was unable to perceive depth with his single eye; I was to learn later that he was subject to certain photisms, or optical hallucinations, as well, but fortunately was spared that extra cause for alarm during this first experience of vehicular traffic). The noise took my heart out; I was terrified by the rush and by the confusion of lights and signals. Arrows flashed this way and that; signs commanded one on every hand to stop, to go, to turn. I spurred tireless Croaker to his utmost gallop; even so the slowest of the vehicles sped past as if we stood still. Not the least of my astonishments was that we drew so little attention

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Perseus and Andromeda painting

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Perseus and Andromeda paintingGuido Reni Baptism of Christ paintingGuido Reni reni Aurora painting
and laid her ear to his chest.
"He's not asleep, like Croaker?" I demanded.
She shook her head. "I can't help feeling it'smy fault! If he hadn't seen me out on the bridge. . ."
Stoker looked from speaker to speaker with a grin. I was smitten . Dark fetcher from booklift, Belly, barn; first lover and teacher of full nelson; savior, sweep, and summoner (whose left hand still clutched the buckhorn) -- he was the first dead human I had seen. His mouth being open, I kissed his cold forehead, and felt on my lips, with anger, drops of the river he'd crossed at last.
"This flunking place!" I cried. "What's it called?"
"Just 'The Gorge,' " Anastasia said.
"If you go with this Dean o' Flunks here" -- Max pointed grimly to Stoker -- "you might as well call it South Exit, because you're flunkèd for sure."
"I'm going to give ithis name," I declared, indicating G. Herrold. Max

Fabian Perez Flamenco Dancer II painting

Fabian Perez Flamenco Dancer II paintingFabian Perez christine paintingGustav Klimt The Tree of Life painting
hardly heard him, he was staring so at me; and you know, I almostdid tell a lie, he scared me so much. And especially I didn't want to get a spanking there in front of Maurice! But then Uncle Ira looked like he was ready to have a stroke, and the only thing I couldthink of was how important it was to calm him down and get it out of his system. And I hated to tell a lie anyhow, especially when it might ruin his Business --"
"I wish I didn't hear this," Max said. "I wish this was finished."
"I'll bet anything you told him the truth," I hazarded.
Anastasia nodded sorrowfully. "I couldn't say aword at first, but I bent over his desk, the way I always did for spankings, and that was the same as admitting about the boys. Believe me, it was just for Uncle Ira's sake; and Maurice -- he's soclever about these things -- when Uncle Ira started spanking me, Maurice laughed and asked me wasn't it true what the boys had told him, that I didn't make love to them for my own sake at all, but

Vincent van Gogh The Night Cafe painting

Vincent van Gogh The Night Cafe paintingVincent van Gogh Cafe Terrace at Night paintingVincent van Gogh Wheatfield with Crows painting
for, any infidelity; he did not count himself deserving of her love (or Eblis Eierkopf either, but that washer affair); the most he'd ever dreamed of winning was her respect and perhaps a daughterly affection, nothing more, in return for which he'd gladly have married her though she were pregnant by a different lover every year. But disregard for official morality and even for his feelings was one thing; disregard for Truth another. Let her confess frankly had been the research after truth. In short, neither the Chancellor's threats nor Miss Hector's tears could induce him to wed his heart's desire unless she openly admitted that Eierkopf had deflowered and impregnated her, and this admission she would not make.
"So that was that," Max concluded. "Her poppa hollered how he'd like to whip me with his two hands, and if it wasn't for his daughter's reputation he'd have me to

George Frederick Watts Orpheus and Eurydice painting

George Frederick Watts Orpheus and Eurydice paintingCarl Fredrik Aagard The Deer Park paintingSalvador Dali The Great Masturbator painting
history, owing to my ignorance and my impatience to learn its relevance to myself, I but imperfectly grasped. The beast I gathered had existed as it were in spirit among men from the very founding of the University, especially in West Campus. Only in the last century or so had it acquired a body of the simplest sort -- whether flesh and blood or other material I could not quite tell. It was put at first to the simplest tasks: doing sums and verifying certain types of answers. Thereafter, as studentdom's confidence in it grew, so also did its size, complexity, and power; it underwent a series of metamorphoses, like an insect or growing fetus, demanding ever more nourishment and exerting more influence, until in the years just prior to my own birth it cut the last cords to its progenitors and commenced a life of its own. It was not clear to me whether a number of little creatures had merged into one enormous one, for example, or whether like Brickett Ranunculus WESCAC one day had outgrown its docility, kicked over the traces, and turned on its keepers. Nothing about the beast seemed unambiguous; I could imagine it at all only by reference to

George Frederick Watts Orpheus and Eurydice painting

George Frederick Watts Orpheus and Eurydice paintingCarl Fredrik Aagard The Deer Park paintingSalvador Dali The Great Masturbator painting
wouldn't have said it. But you know this yourself." Again he touched my arm, this time mildly, where the angry pinch-mark flamed, and affection beamed in his look. "What a pleasing thing it is that you don't bring up all the old arguments! But that's the artist in you (which is real enough, even if your work is wrong). You know a man can't reason abeing; and to argue the fact of Graduation is like arguing the beauty of a melody, or a line of verse. Splendid of you not to bother. I knew you were the man."
I still felt very much shaken; but I could not resist pointing out that in any case he made a good argument against further argument. He threw back his bronze head to laugh, and then with a serious smile declared: "I love you, classmate." My apprehension must have showed, for he added with a chuckle, "Oh, not inthat way! There isn't time, for one thing: we both have too much to do. You've got to enroll yourself in the New Curriculum and get yourself Graduated; then you've got to establish Gilesianism here, so that the others can pass the Finals too. And this isn't the in the University, you

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Venus Verticordia painting

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Venus Verticordia paintingJohannes Vermeer The Guitar Player painting
Colonel's hand go swiftly back to the handle of his pistol and rest there, his eyes cool and passionate and forbidding. It was a gesture of force which balked even the Captain. Man-nix's face went pale—as if he had only just then realized the words which had erupted so heedlessly from his mouth—and he said nothing, only stood there sullen and beaten and blinking at the glossy white handle of the pistol as the Colonel went on: "For your information, Captain, you aren't the only one who made this march. But I'm not interested in your observations. You quiet down now. hear? You march in, see? I order you confined to your quarters, and I'm going to see that you get a court-martial. Do you understand? I'm going to have you tried for gross insubordination. I'll have you sent to Korea. Keep your mouth shut. Now get back to your company!" He was shaking with wrath; the hot morning light beat with piety and with vengeance from his gray, outraged eyes. "Get back to your men," he whispered, "get back to your men!"
Then he turned his back to the Captain and called down the road to the Major: "All right, Billy, let's saddle up!"
So it was over, but not quite all. The last six

Arthur Hughes Asleep in the Woods painting

Arthur Hughes Asleep in the Woods paintingAlbert Bierstadt The Last of the Buffalo painting
falls at the finish. Yet—as Culver could have long ago foretold—it was a fury that was uncon-tained; the old smoking bonfire had blazed up in his spirit. And if it had been out of control hours ago when he had first defied the Colonel, there was no doubt at all that now it could not fail to consume both of them. At least one of them. Culver, prone on his belly in the weeds, was hot with tension, and he felt blood pounding at his head when he heard the Colonel call, in a frosty voice: "Captain Mannix, will you come here a minute?"
Culver was the closest at hand. There were six more miles to go. The break had extended this time to fifteen minutes—an added rest because, as Culver had heard the Colonel explain to the Major, they'd walk the last six miles without a halt. Another break, he'd said, with a wry weary grin, and they'd never be able to get the troops off the ground. Culver had groaned—another senseless piece of sadism—then reasoned wearily that it was a good idea. Probably. Maybe. Who knew? He was too tired to care. He watched Mannix walk with an awful hobbling motion up the road

Rene Magritte The Dangerous Liaison painting

Rene Magritte The Dangerous Liaison paintingRene Magritte Homesickness painting
Pooh!" They rushed into each other's arms. "How did you get here, Pooh?" asked Christopher Robin, when he was ready to talk again. "On my boat," said Pooh proudly. "I had a Very Important Missage sent me in a bottle, and owing to having got some water in my eyes, I couldn't read it, so I brought it to you. On my boat." With these proud words he gave Christopher Robin the missage. "But it's from Piglet!" cried Christopher Robin when he had read it. "Isn't there anything about Pooh in it?" asked Bear, looking over his shoulder. Christopher Robin read the message aloud. "Oh, are those 'P's' piglets? I thought they were poohs." "We must rescue him at once! I thought he was with you, Pooh. Owl, could you rescue him on your back?" "I don't think so," said Owl, after grave thought. "It is doubtful if the necessary dorsal muscles " "Then would you fly to him at once and say that Rescue is Coming? And Pooh and I will think of a Rescue and come as quick as ever we can. Oh, don't talk, Owl, go on quick!" And, still thinking of something to say, Owl flew off. "Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your boat?" "I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more

Fabian Perez Venice painting

Fabian Perez Venice paintingFabian Perez Tango paintingFabian Perez red hat painting
acorns in the Trap, he would have to find the acorns, but if they put honey, then Pooh would have to give up some of his own honey, so he said, "All right, honey then," just as Pooh remembered it too, and was going to say, "All right, haycorns." "Honey," said Piglet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now settled. "I'll dig the pit, while you go and get the honey." "Very well," said Pooh, and he stumped off. As soon as he got Home, he went to the larder; and he stood on a chair, and took down a very large jar of honey from the top shelf. It had HUNNY written on it, but, just to make sure, he took off the paper cover and looked at it, and it looked just like honey. "But you never can tell," said Pooh. "I remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just this colour." So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick. "Yes," he said, "it is. No doubt about that. And honey, I should say, right down
Yes, well never mind about that where you would be, and there I should catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Heffalumps like? I should think acorns, shouldn't you? We'll get a lot of-- I say, wake up, Pooh!" Pooh, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns. Piglet didn't think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Piglet remembered that, if

Amedeo Modigliani Seated Nude painting

Amedeo Modigliani Seated Nude paintingAmedeo Modigliani Red Nude paintingAmedeo Modigliani Landscape painting
the dearest luck of all, though the hardest earned."
By and by, he put her as far from him as his fingers' ends and asked her, "Now will you tell me what it was she said to you?" But Molly Grue only laughed and shook her head till her hair came down, and she was more beautiful than the Lady Amalthea. The magician said, "Very well. Then I'll find the unicorn again, and perhaps she will tell me." And he turned calmly to whistle up their steeds.
She said no word while he saddled his horse, but when he began on her own she put her hand on his arm. "Do you think—do you truly hope that we may find her? There was something I forgot to say."
Schmendrick looked at her over his shoulder. The morning sunlight made his eyes seem gay as grass; but now and then, when he stooped into the horse's shadow, there stirred a deeper greenness in his gaze—the green of pine needles that has a faint, cool bitterness about it. He said, "I fear it, for her sake. It would mean that she too is a wanderer now, and that is a fate for human beings, not for unicorns. But I hope, of course I hope." Then he smiled at Molly and took her hand in his. "Anyway, since you and I must choose one road to follow, out of the many that run to the same place in the end, it might as well be a road that a unicorn has taken. We may never see her, but we will always know

Salvador Dali Bacchanale painting

Salvador Dali Bacchanale paintingSalvador Dali Ascension paintingJuarez Machado Copacabana Palace Hotel painting
fourth man, who was the youngest, leaned toward Molly Grue, his pink, wet eyes suddenly eager. He said, "The Red Bull is a demon, and its reckoning for attending Haggard will one day be Haggard himself." Another man interrupted him, insisting that the clearest evidence showed that the Bull was King Haggard's enchanted slave, and would be until it broke the bewitchment that held it and destroyed its former lord. They began to shout and spill their soup.
But Molly asked, not loudly, but in a way that made them all be still, "Do you know what a unicorn is? Have you ever seen one?"
Of everything alive in the little room, only the cat and the silence seemed to look back at her with any understanding. The four men blinked and belched and rubbed their eyes. Deep, restless, the sleeping Bull stirred again.
The meal being over, the men-at-arms saluted Molly Grue and left the scullery, two for their beds, two to take up their night's vigil in the rain. The oldest of the men waited until the others were gone before he said quietly to Molly, "Be careful of the Lady Amalthea. When she first came here, her

Pablo Picasso The Pipes of Pan painting

Pablo Picasso The Pipes of Pan paintingPablo Picasso Studio with Plaster Head paintingPablo Picasso Crucifixion painting
Pish, no need." Schmendrick chuckled. The wine had made him chuckly and easy, and had brightened his green eyes to gold. "What I want to know is the reason for the rumors that have Hagsgate full of ghouls and werewolves. Most absurd thing I ever heard of."
Drinn smiled. He was a knotty man with a turtle's hard,
empty jaws. "It's the same thing," he said. "Listen. The town of Hagsgate is under a curse."
The room was suddenly very still, and in the beery light the faces of the townsfolk looked as tight and pale as cheese. Schmendrick laughed again. "A blessing, you mean. In this bony kingdom of old Haggard's, you are like another land altogether—a spring, an oasis. I agree with you that there's enchantment here, but I drink to it."
Drinn stopped him as he raised his glass. "Not that toast, my friend. Will you drink to a woe fifty years old? It is that long since our sorrow fell, when King Haggard built his castle by the sea."
"When the witch built it, I think." Schmendrick wagged a finger at him. "Credit where it's due, after all."
"Ah, you know that story," Drinn said. "Then you must also know that Haggard refused to pay the witch when her task was completed."
The magician nodded. "Aye, and she cursed

Thomas Kinkade Sunday at Apple Hill painting

Thomas Kinkade Sunday at Apple Hill paintingThomas Kinkade Streams of Living Water paintingThomas Kinkade San Francisco A View Down California Street From Nob Hill painting
touch but of something like a secret that was moving between Molly and the unicorn. "Unicorns are for beginnings," he said, "for innocence and purity, for newness. Unicorns are for young girls."
Molly was stroking the unicorn's throat as timidly as though she were blind. She dried her grimy tears on the white mane. "You don't know much about unicorns," she said.
The sky was jade-gray now, and the trees that had been drawn on the dark a moment ago were real trees again, hissing in the dawn wind. Schmendrick said coldly, looking at the unicorn, "We must go."
Molly agreed promptly. "Aye, before the men stumble on us and slit your throat for cheating them, the poor lads." She looked over her shoulder. "I had some things I wanted to take, but they don't matter now. I'm ready."
Schmendrick barred her way again as he stepped forward. "You can't come with us. We are on a quest." His voice and eyes were as stern as he could make them, but he could feel his nose being bewildered. He had never been able to discipline his nose.
Molly's own face closed like a castle against him,

William Merritt Chase Reflections painting

William Merritt Chase Reflections paintingJulius LeBlanc Stewart The Letter paintingFrederic Edwin Church Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives painting
hand that so much as brushes her mane turns instantly to the donkey's hoof it deserves to be." Again she gazed mockingly at the tall, thin man. "Your little tricks would be even harder for you than they already are, wizard," she said, wheezing. "Get to work. There's not much dark left."
When she was well out of earshot, sliding back into the shadow of her wagon as though she had just come out to mark the hour, the man named Rukh spat and said curiously, "Now I wonder what's worrying the old squid. What would it matter if we touched the beast?"
The magician answered him in a voice almost too soft to be heard. "The touch of a human hand would wake her out of the deepest sleep the devil himself could lay on her. And Mommy Fortuna's no devil."
"She'd like us to think so," the dark man sneered. "Donkey hoofs! Gahhh!" But he thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "Why would the spell be broken? It's just an old white mare."
But the magician was walking away toward the last of the black

Vincent van Gogh Wheat Field with Cypresses painting

Vincent van Gogh Wheat Field with Cypresses paintingIvan Constantinovich Aivazovsky The Ninth Wave paintingFrank Dicksee Portrait of Elsa painting
pleased than frightened. The man knew what she was, and what he himself was for: to hoe turnips and pursue something that shone and could run faster than he could. She sidestepped his first lungeI've never really understood," the unicorn mused as the man picked himself up, "what you dream of doing with me, once you've caught me." The man leaped again, and she slipped away from him like rain. "I don't think you know yourselves," she said.
"Ah, steady, steady, easy now." The man's sweating face was striped with dirt, and he could hardly get his breath. "Pretty," he gasped. "You pretty little mare."
"Mare?" The unicorn trumpeted the word so shrilly
as lightly as though the wind of it had blown her out of his reach. "I have been hunted with bells and banners in my time," she told him. "Men knew that the only way to hunt me was to make the chase so wondrous that I would come near to see it. And even so I was never once captured."
"My foot must have slipped," said the man. "Steady now, you pretty thing."

Alphonse Maria Mucha Flirt painting

Alphonse Maria Mucha Flirt paintingAlphonse Maria Mucha Biscuits Lefevre Utile paintingAlphonse Maria Mucha Autumn painting
head, is often found on doors, box lids, and book covers.
The Nna Mmoy are excellent gardeners, vegetarians by necessity. Their arts are cookery, jewelry, and poetry. Each village is able to grow, gather, and make everything it needs. There is some commerce between villages, mostly involving cooked dishes, special preparations of the rather limited vegetable menu by professional cooks. Admired cooks barter their dishes for the raw materials produced by the gardeers, with a bit over. No mining has been observed, but opals, peridots, amethysts, garnets, topazes, and colored quartzes may be picked up in any stream bed; jewels are bartered for unworked or reused gold and silver. Money exists but has only a symbolic, honorary value: it is used in gambling (the Nna Mmoy play various low-keyed gambling s with dice, counters, and tiles) and to buy works of art. The money is the pearly-violet, translucent mantle, about

Rene Magritte The Sea of Flames painting

Rene Magritte The Sea of Flames paintingRene Magritte The Ignorant Fairy paintingRene Magritte The Human Condition painting
nobody from another plane has been capable of sharing the dreams of the Frin. We cannot enter their nightly festival of fantasies. We are not on their wavelength.
The investigators from Mills hoped to be able to reveal the mechanism by which communal dreaming is effected, but they failed, as Frinthian scientists have also failed, so far. "Telepathy," much hyped in the literature of the interplanary travel agents, is a label, not an explanation. Researchers have established that the genetic programming of all Frinthian mammals includes the capacity for dream sharing, but its operation, though clearly linked to the brain-wave synchrony of sleepers, remains obscure. Visiting foreigners do not synchronise; they do not participate in that nightly ghost chorus of electric impulses dancing to the same beat. But unwittingly, unwillingly— like a deaf child shouting—they send out their own dreams to the strong minds asleep nearby. And to many of the Frin, this seems not so much a sharing as a pollution or infection.

Horace Vernet paintings

Horace Vernet paintings
Irene Sheri paintings
Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky paintings
our years, though only the slight stoop of his shoulders and the pure silver of his crest showed his age.
The next night he told me about the southern migration, describing how a man of the Ansarac feels as the warm days of the northern summer begin to wane and shorten. All the work of harvest is done, the grain stored in airtight bins for next year, the slow-growing edible roots planted to winter through and be ready in the spring; the children are shooting up tall, active, increasingly restless and bored by life on the , more and more inclined to wander off and make friends with the neighbors' children. is sweet here but the same, always the same, and luxury love has lost its urgency. One night, a cloudy night with a chill in the air, your wife in bed next to you sighs and murmurs, "You know? I miss the city." And it comes back to you in a great wave of light and warmth—the crowds, the deep streets and high houses packed with people, the Year Tower high above it all—the arenas blazing with sunlight, the squares at night full of lantern lights and

Johannes Vermeer View Of Delft painting

Johannes Vermeer View Of Delft paintingJohannes Vermeer The Kitchen Maid paintingPierre Auguste Renoir Girls at The Piano painting
Because it cultivates self-control and requires the sublimation and transmutation of the merely sexual into the tender, the loving, the gentle, the romantic, its inevitable tendency is elevating, not degrading, to redeem and purify sex, not only to maintain its perfect natural innocence, but to add to it the chivalrous, the moral, the religious, in an ascending scale. Thus it satisfies the mind and soul.
It gives complete birth
A general knowledge and use of it must certainly lift most of the odium which now attaches to everything sexual, thus increasing the respect for and appreciation of sex, its liberty and exercise, thereby automatically removing gradually the curse of social reproach.
Between the well-mated it leaves no sense of weakness or exhaustion, but one rather of sweet satisfaction, fullness of realization, peace, often a physical glow and mental glamour that lasts for days, as if some ethereal stimulant, or rather nutriment, had been received.
As this satisfaction is always normally combined with a grateful affectionateness

John Singer Sargent Girl Fishing painting

John Singer Sargent Girl Fishing paintingJohn Singer Sargent Dorothy Barnard paintingJohn Singer Sargent Atlantic Storm painting
hold the thought of Peace. Yet for her to hold the thought "I will help him!" would help. Do not worry and do not mind how long you have to wait before strength and self control return and you can go on. Finally the stress subsides and you can continue. If she suffers pain, Now let her put her arms around you and sweetly kiss you, but with heart-love, not yet passion. Pour out your soul to her in extravagance of out-gushing, poetic love. Praise her with every epithet you can honestly use. Give her your soul's best, always your best - and call out the best and purest from her.caress her with your hands, pity her, and be tender and very sympathetic, but reassure her and go on. She herself does not wish you to stop or to fail. Reassure and help each other. When you do finally pass the gates and enter the Hall of the Feast and the Holy of Holies, the worst of the battle will be over and self-control much easier. Penetration can now be perfect and complete.

Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs painting

Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs paintingFrederic Edwin Church Cotopaxi paintingFrederic Edwin Church Twilight in the Wilderness painting
The cold night air ripped at Harry's lungs as he tore after them; he saw a flash of light in the distance that momentarily silhouetted his quarry. He did not know what it was but continued to run, not yet near enough to get a good aim with a curse -
Another flash, shouts, retaliatory jets of light, and Harry understood: Hagrid had emerged from his cabin and was trying to stop the Death Eaters escaping, and though every breath seemed to shred his lungs and the stitch in his chest was like fire, Harry sped up as an unbidden voice in his head said: not Hagrid. . . not Hagrid too . . .
Something caught Harry hard in the small of the back and he fell forward, his face smacking the ground, blood pouring out of both nostrils: He knew, even as he rolled over, his wand ready, that the brother and sister he had overtaken using his shortcut were closing in behind him. .

Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs painting

Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs paintingFrederic Edwin Church Cotopaxi paintingFrederic Edwin Church Twilight in the Wilderness painting
Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs paintingFrederic Edwin Church Cotopaxi paintingFrederic Edwin Church Twilight in the Wilderness painting

Gustav Klimt The Fulfillment (detail I) painting

Gustav Klimt The Fulfillment (detail I) paintingGustav Klimt The Embrace (detail_ square) paintingGustav Klimt The Beethoven Frieze painting
Malfoy looked as though he was fighting down the urge to shout, or to vomit. He gulped and took several deep breaths, glaring at Dumbledore, his wand pointing directly at the latter's heart. Then, as though he could not help himself, he said, '1 had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one's used for years. The one Montague got lost in last year.'
'Aaaah.'
Dumbledore's sigh was half a groan. He closed his eyes for a moment.
That was clever ... there is a pair, I take it?'
'The other's in Borgin and Burkes,' said Malfoy, 'and they make a kind of passage between them. Montague told me that when he was stuck in the Hogwarts one, he was trapped in limbo but sometimes he could hear what was going on at school, and sometimes what was going

Vincent van Gogh Still Life with Open Bible painting

Vincent van Gogh Still Life with Open Bible paintingVincent van Gogh Still Life with Iris painting
'What?'
'Yes, there was a commotion outside the door and it flew open, and there was that rather uncouth barman standing with Snape, who was waffling about having come the wrong way up the stairs, although I'm afraid that I myself rather thought he had been apprehended eavesdropping on my interview with Dumbledore - you see, he himself was seeking a job at the time, and no doubt hoped to pick up tips! Well, after that, you know, Dumbledore seemed much more dis-posed to give me a job, and I could not help thinking, Harry, that it was because he appreciated the stark contrast between my own unassuming manners and quiet talent, compared to the pushing, thrusting young man who was prepared to listen at keyholes - Harry, dear?'
She looked back over her shoulder, having only just real-ised that Harry was no longer with her; he had stopped walking and they were now ten feet from each other.
'Harry?' she repeated uncertainly.

Gustav Klimt lady with fan painting

Gustav Klimt lady with fan paintingGustav Klimt two girls with an oleander painting
was when he reached the bottom step that it occurred to him how very pleasant it would be to pass the vegetable patch on his walk to Hagrid's. It was not strictly on the way, but it seemed clear to Harry that this was a whim on which he should act, so he di-rected his feet immediately toward the vegetable patch, where he was pleased, but not altogether surprised, to find Professor Slughorn in conversation with Professor Sprout. Harry lurked be-hind a low stone wall, feeling at peace with the world and listening to their conversation.
"I do thank you for taking the time, Pomona," Slughorn was saying courteously, "most authorities agree that they are at their most efficacious if picked at twilight."
"Oh, I quite agree," said Professor Sprout warmly. "That enough for you?"
"Plenty, plenty," said Slughorn, who, Harry saw, was carrying an armful of leafy plants. "This should allow for a few leaves for each of my third years, and some to spare if anybody

Vincent van Gogh The Bedroom painting

Vincent van Gogh The Bedroom paintingVincent van Gogh Reaper painting
Potter in front of Dobby, no he won't, or Dobby will shut Kreacher's mouth for him!" cried Dobby in a high-pitched voice.
"— kicky, scratchy!" cried Peeves happily of scuffling and squeaks filled the silent room. Ron awoke with a yelp.
"What's going — ?"
Harry pointed his wand hastily at the door of Madam Pomfrey's office and muttered, "Muffliato!" so that she would not come running. Then he scrambled to the end of his bed for a better look at
what was going on.
It was easiest to feign sleep; Harry rolled over onto his side and listened to all the curtains closing themselves as she waved her wand. The lamps dimmed, and she returned to her office; he heard the door click behind her and knew that she was off to bed.
This was, Harry reflected in the darkness, the third time that he had been brought to the hospital wing because of a Quidditch injury. Last time

Lord Frederick Leighton Perseus and Andromeda painting

Lord Frederick Leighton Perseus and Andromeda paintingLord Frederick Leighton Daedalus and Icarus painting
The next day Harry confided in both Ron and Hermione the task that Dumbledore had set him, though separately, for Hermione still refused to remain in Ron's presence longer than it took to give him a contemptuous look.
Ron thought that Harry was unlikely to have any trouble with Slughorn at all.
'He loves you,' he said over breakfast, waving an airy forkful of fried egg. 'Won't refuse you anything, will he? Not his little Potions Prince. Just hang back after class this afternoon and ask him.'
Hermione, however, took a gloomier view.

Vincent van Gogh Harvest Landscape painting

Vincent van Gogh Harvest Landscape paintingVincent van Gogh Fishing in Spring painting
history. Finally he was forced to accept that his father had never set foot in Hogwarts. I believe that it was then that he dropped the name forever, assumed the identity of Lord Volde-mort, and began his investigations into his previously despised mother's family — the woman whom, you will remember, he had thought could not be a witch if she had succumbed to the shameful human weakness of death.
"All he had to go upon was the single name 'Marvolo,' which he knew from those who ran the orphanage had been his mother's father's name. Finally, after painstaking research, through old books of Wizarding families, he discovered the existence of Slytherin's surviving line. In the summer of his sixteenth year, he left the orphanage to which he returned annually and set off to find his Gaunt relatives. And now, Harry, if you will stand ..." :

Edmund Blair Leighton Alain Chartier painting

Edmund Blair Leighton Alain Chartier paintingEdmund Blair Leighton Off paintingFrancois Boucher The Marquise de Pompadour painting
That's right," said Hermione sweetly. "The one who *almost*" - she put a great deal of emphasis on the word - "bec a me Gryffindor Keeper."
"Are you going out with him, then?" asked Parvati, wide-eyed.
"Oh - yes - didn't you know?" said Harmione, with a most un-Hermione-ish giggle.
"No!" said Parvati, looking positively agog at thi s piece of gossip. "Wow , you like your Quidditch players, don't you? First Krum, then McLaggen."
"I like *really good* Quidditch players," Hermione corrected her, still smiling. "Well, see you... Got to go and get ready for the party..."
She left. At once Lavender and Parvati put their heads together to discuss this new development, with everything they had ever heard about McLaggen, and all they had ever guessed about Hermione

Frederic Edwin Church Twilight in the Wilderness painting

Frederic Edwin Church Twilight in the Wilderness paintingFrederic Edwin Church Landscape with Waterfall painting
eight o'clock, knocked, and was told to enter. There sat Dumbledore looking unusually tired; his hand was as black and burned as ever, but he smiled when he gestured to Harry to sit down. The Pensieve was sitting on the desk again, casting silvery specks of light over the ceiling.
"You have had a busy time while I have been away," Dumbledore said. "I believe you witnessed Katie's accident."
"Yes, sir. How is she?"
"Still very unwell, although she was relatively lucky. She appears to have brushed the necklace with the smallest possible amount of skin; there was a tiny hole in her glove. Had she put it on, had she even held it in her ungloved hand, she would have died, perhaps instantly. Luckily Professor Snape was able to do enough to prevent a rapid spread of the curse —"