Ford Madox Brown Romeo and Juliet painting

Ford Madox Brown Romeo and Juliet paintingTheodore Robinson Girl at Piano paintingPierre Auguste Renoir At The Theatre painting
He was a small person with wire coathanger shoulders and an enormous capacity for nervous agitation, evidenced by his pale, sunken--eyed face; his thinning hair -- still entirely black and curly -- which had been ruffled so often by his frenzied hands that it no longer took the slightest notice of brushes or combs, but stuck out every which way and gave its owner the perpetual air of having just woken up, late, and in a hurry; and his endearingly high, shy and self-deprecating, but also hiccoughy and over--excited, giggle; all of which had helped turn his name, Jamshed, into this Jumpy that everybody, even first-time acquaintances, now automatically used; everybody, that is, except Pamela Chamcha. Saladin's wife, he thought, sucking away feverishly. -- Or widowPeople who play a high wind-resistance instrument like a trumpet, oboe, French horn or bassoon, especially when they play high-pitched notes, can more than double their eye pressure.
Weight-lifting from a bench, doing sit ups on a slant board or upside down poses in also increase pressure, Prof McMonnies said.
Sleeping face down was another major contributor that most people were unaware of, he said.
"Avoiding sleeping with the eyes in contact with a pillow or sleep mask may help to slow the progression of pressure-sensitive eye diseases," the specialist said.

Edward Hopper Chair Car painting

Edward Hopper Chair Car paintingEdward Hopper A Woman in the Sun paintingJuan Gris Woman with a Basket painting
Kan an ma kan/Fi qadim azzaman_ . . . It was so, it was not, in a time long forgot, that there lived in the silver-land of Argentina a certain Don Enrique Diamond, who knew much about birds and little about women, and his wife, Rosa, who knew nothing about men but a good deal about love. One day it so happened that when the señora was out riding, sitting sidesaddle and wearing a hat with a feather in it, she arrived at the Diamond estancia's great stone gates, which stood insanely in the middle of the empty pampas, to find an ostrich running at her as hard as it could, running for its life, with all the tricks and variations it couldNo matter what job or Business you have, time is always a critical resource. And most of us could use a little more of it.
Do you know how much time you waste every single day?
It may not be much, but it probably adds up over the long run. For those of you looking to improve your system, here are 7 common daily time drains and what you can do to get your time back.
Slow or Old Technology

William Bouguereau The Song of the Angels painting

William Bouguereau The Song of the Angels paintingPierre-Auguste Cot Le Printemps paintingLeonardo da Vinci picture of the last supper painting
plain cloth, each four ells in length, one draped around his body, the other over his shoulder. Large eyes; long lashes like a girl's. His strides can seem too long for his legs, but he's a light-footed man. Orphans learn to be moving targets, develop a rapid walk, quick reactions, hold-yourtongue caution. Up through the thorn-bushes and opobalsam trees he comes, scrabbling on boulders, this is a fit man, no softbellied usurer he. And yes, to state it again: takes an to cut off into the wilds, up Mount Cone, sometimes for a month at a stretch, just to be alone.
His name: a dream-name, changed by the vision. Pronounced correctly, it means he-for-whom-thanks-should-be-given, but he won't answer to that here; nor, though he's well aware of what they call him, to his nickname in Jahilia down below -- _he-who-goes-up-and-down-old-Coney_. Here he is nor MocHammered; has adopted, instead, the demon-tag the farangis hung around his neck. To turn insults into strengths, whigs, tories, Blacks all chose to wear with pride the names they were given in scorn; likewise, our mountain-climbing, prophetmotivated solitary is to be the medieval baby--frightener, the Devil's synonym: Mahound.

Jean Francois Millet Man with a hoe painting

Jean Francois Millet Man with a hoe paintingHerbert James Draper The Water Nymph paintingHerbert James Draper Pot Pourri painting
Bhupen started, a little boozily, to quarrel. Zeeny drank Thums Up Cola and denounced her friends to Chamcha. "Drinking problems, both of them, broke as old pots, they both mistreat their wives, sit in dives, waste their stinking lives. No wonder I fell for you, sugar, when the local product is so low grade you get to like goods from foreign."
George had gone with Zeeny to Bhopal and was becoming noisy on the subject of the catastrophe, interpreting it ideologically. "What is Amrika for us?" he demanded. "It's not a real place. Power in its purest form, disembodied, invisible. We can't see it but it screws us totally, no escape." He compared the Union Carbide company to the Trojan Horse. "We invited the bastards in." It was like the story of the forty thieves, he said. Hiding in their amphoras and waiting for the night. "We had no Ali Baba, misfortunately," he cried. "Who did we have? Mr. Rajiv G."
At this point Bhupen Gandhi stood up abruptly, unsteadily, and began

Edmund Blair Leighton The End of The Song painting

Edmund Blair Leighton The End of The Song paintingFrank Dicksee Romeo and Juliet paintingJohn Singleton Copley Watson and the Shark painting
, but maybe not, the repeated name _Al-Lat_.
He clutched at Chamcha; they burst through the bottom of the clouds.
Speed, the sensation of speed, returned, whistling its fearful note. The roof of cloud fled upwards, the water-floor zoomed closer, their eyes opened. A scream, that same scream that had fluttered in his guts when Gibreel swam across the sky, burst from Chamcha's lips; a shaft of sunlight pierced his open mouth and set it free. But they had fallen through the transformations of the clouds, Chamcha and Farishta, and there was a fluidity, an indistinctness, at the edges of them, and as the sunlight hit Chamcha it released more than noise:
"Fly," Chamcha shrieked at Gibreel. "Start flying, now." And added, without knowing its source, the second command: "And sing."
How does newness come into the world? How is it born?
Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?

Pablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror painting

Pablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror paintingClaude Monet Sunflowers paintingJohannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring painting
have to work your way up to heavier and heavier weights with fewer reps. Compound lifts are best — ones that work multiple muscle groups, like squats and deadlifts and bench press and so forth. Now, if you’re trying to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, you won’t gain as much muscle as you would if you just tried to gain muscle and didn’t worry about the fat. Bodybuilders usually have periods of bulking (gaining muscle with a caloric surplus) and cutting (losing fat with a caloric deficit). You can do this too, but I’ve found that just lifting heavy and doing a lot of cardio will get you leaner.Eat adequate protein. This tip will also spark off a 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight (divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms) for those trying to build muscle, and less for those who don’t exercise. If you eat a regular American diet with lots of meat, you eat well over this amount, so don’t worry about it. Vegetarians like myself can also easily get this amount if they try to get good sources of protein with every meal (nuts and nut butters, beans, tofu, soy milk, whole grains, etc.). I suggest non-vegetarians also focus on getting lean proteins, including those I just mentioned and lean sources of poultry, fish and red meat.

Thomas Kinkade HOMETOWN EVENING painting

Thomas Kinkade HOMETOWN EVENING paintingThomas Kinkade Boston Celebration paintingCamille Pissarro Still Life painting
accidents: he had made them joint-heirs, to rule alternate years. However, Gemellus had not come of age and so was not even allowed yet to enter the Senate, while Caligula was already a magistrate of the second rank, some years before the legal age, and a pontiff. The Senate was therefore very ready to accept Caligula's view that Tiberius had not been of sound mind when he made the will and to give the whole power to Caligula without encumbrance. Except for this matter of Cemellus, from whom he also withheld his share in the Privy Purse, on the ground that the Privy Purse was an integral part of the sovereignty, Caligula observed all the terms of the will and paid every legacy promptly.
The Guards were to receive a bounty of fifty gold pieces a man; Caligula, to ensure their loyalty when the time came for Macro's removal, doubled the amount. He paid the people of Rome the four hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces bequeathed them and added three gold pieces a

Winslow Homer West Point Prout's Neck painting

Winslow Homer West Point Prout's Neck paintingWinslow Homer The Herring Net paintingWinslow Homer The Fog Warning painting
now that Sosia was banished, was Agrippina's most intimate friend. She was charged with adultery, prostituting her daughters, and witchcraft against Tiberius, She was, I think, completely innocent of all these charges. As soon as Agrippina heard about it she hurried to the Palace and by chance found Tiberius sacrificing to Augustus. Almost before the ceremony was over she came close up to him and said:
"Tiberius, this is illogical behaviour. You sacrifice flamingoes and peacocks to Augustus and you persecute his grandchildren."
He said slowly: "I do not understand you. Which grandchildren of Augustus have I persecuted that he did not himself persecute?"
"I am not talking about Fostumus and Julilla. I mean myself. You banished Sosia because she was my friend. You forced Silius to kill

Jean Francois Millet Haystacks Autumn painting

Jean Francois Millet Haystacks Autumn paintingJean Francois Millet Harvesters Resting paintingJean Francois Millet Garden painting
surprises me how many people fail to get what they want because they’re too afraid to ask for it. Their fear of rejection and embarrassment holds them back from asking for help. In order to get what you want, you have to have the courage to ask others for assistance. That doesn’t mean you mooch off of other people. It means you have the wisdom that by working together, you can accomplish far more than you could alone. Which brings me to number 4…
4. Help other people succeed. The best way to reach your fullest potential is to help other people as much as possible. When it’s your time to ask for help, other people will be more inclined to help you in return.
If you find yourself falling short of your best, it’s likely because you’re not giving enough of yourself. The more you give of yourself to others, the more value you create. The more value you create, the more other people will want to give value back to you.
By helping others as much as possible, you create a wide network of support. Most great people you’ll meet will tell you they didn’t achieve greatness alone. They had many mentors, and they stood on the shoulders of giants.

Sandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus painting

Sandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus paintingEdward Hopper Nighthawks paintingFrederic Edwin Church Sunset painting
FLAVIUS: (with great dignity): The personal thanks of the Commander-in-Chief, and three decorations, including the Crown and the Chain.
HERMANN: Ho, Ho! The Chain! Do you wear it round your ankles, you Roman slave?
FLAVIUS: I'd rather any day be a slave to the Romans than a traitor to them. By the way, your dear Thrusnelda's very well and so's your boy. When are you coming to Rome to visit them?
HERMANN: At the end of this campaign, brother. Ho, Ho!
FLAVIUS: You mean when you walk behind Gennanicus's car in the triumph and the crowd pelts you with rotten eggs? How I'll laugh!
HERMANN: You had better do all your laughing in advance, because if you still have any throat left to laugh through in three days from now my name's not Hermann. But enough of this. I have a message to you

Jean Beraud Pont des arts painting

Jean Beraud Pont des arts painting
Jean Beraud Boulevard des capucines painting
worn-out straw mattresses. The fire soon swept the whole upper storey, and since it was an old house with dry-rot in the beams and draught-holes in the flooring there was no putting it out even with an endless bucket-chain to the carp pool. I managed to save all my papers and valuables and some of the furniture, and no lives were lost except two old slaves who were lying sick in bed, but nothing was left of the house except the bare walls and the cellars. Caligula was not punished, because the fire had given him such a great fright. He nearly got caught in it himself, hiding guiltily under his bed until the smoke drove him screaming out.
Henri Rousseau The Snake Charmer painting
Well, the Senate wanted to decree that my house should be rebuilt at the expense of the State, on the ground that it had been the Home of so many distinguished members of my family: but Tiberius would not allow this. He said that the outbreak of fire had been due to my negligence and that the damage could easily have been confined to the attics if I had acted in

Federico Andreotti paintings

Federico Andreotti paintings
Fra Angelico paintings
track became so slippery that it was difficult to keep one's footing and the carts were constantly getting stuck. The distance between the head and tail of the column increased. Then a smoke signal went up from a neighbouring hill and the Germans suddenly attacked from front, rear and both flanks.
The Germans were no match for the Romans in fair fight and Varus had not much exaggerated their cowardice. At first they only dared to attack stragglers and transport drivers, avoiding hand-to-hand fighting but flinging volleys of assegais and darts from behind cover, and running back into the forest if a Roman so much as shook a sword and shouted. But they caused many casualties by these tactics. Parties led by Hermann, Segimerus and other chieftains made blocks on the road by wheeling captured carts together, breaking their wheels and felling trees across the wreckage. They made several of these blocks and left tribesmen behind them to harass the soldiers when they tried to clear them away. This so delayed the men at the tail of the column that, afraid of losing touch, they abandoned all the carts which were still
Frederic Edwin Church paintings

John Singleton Copley Watson and the Shark painting

John Singleton Copley Watson and the Shark paintingJohn Singleton Copley The Tribute Money paintingFord Madox Brown The Coat of Many Colors painting
recommendation, when he comes of age, that the whole of his inheritance from his father Agrippa shall not be made over to him for a few years, because that "might give him opportunities for even greater profligacy than he now indulges in!" When he is enrolled among the young men of military age he is posted to the Guards as a simple staff lieutenant and given none of the extraordinary honours awarded to Gaius and Lucius. Augustus himself is of opinion that this is the safest course to take, for Postumus is ambitious: the same sort of Livia later what the circumstances of their quarrel were-and has picked him up and thrown him into a fountain, in the presence of several men of rank and their lackeys. He is then called to account by Augustus, and shows no contrition, insisting that Plautius deserved uncomfortable situation must not arise as when the young nobles supported Marcellus against Agrippa or Gaius against Tiberius. Soon we read that Postumus takes this ill, telling Augustus that he does not want the honours on their own account but that their being withheld has been misinterpreted by his friends, who believe him under a cloud at the Palace.
Then follow more serious notes. Postumus has lost his temper with Plautius-but neither of the two will tell

William Merritt Chase View from Central Park painting

William Merritt Chase View from Central Park paintingJulius LeBlanc Stewart At Home paintingTitian Sacred and Profane Love painting
and ask the Senate to cancel their decision. She did a good piece of Business on the side, too, by singling out for special mention as Julia's partners in adultery three or four men whom it was to her interest to ruin. Among them was an uncle of mine, lulus, a son of Antony, to whom Augustus had shown great favour for Octavia's sake, raising him to the Consulship. Livia, in naming him in her letter to the Senate, strongly emphasized the ingratitude that he had shown his benefactor and hinted that he and Julia were conspiring together to seize the supreme power. lulus committed suicide. I believe that the charge of conspiracy was groundless, but as the only surviving son of Antony, by his wife Fulvia-Augustus had put Antyllus, the eldest, to death immediately after his father's suicide, and the other two, Ptolemy and Alexander, his sons by Cleopatra, had died young-and as an ex-Consul and the husband of Marcellus's sister, whom Agrippa had divorced, he seemed dangerous. Popular discontent with Augustus often expressed itself in a wish that it had been Antony who had won the Battle of Actium. The other men whom Livia accused of adultery were banished.

Thomas Kinkade A New Day Dawning painting

Thomas Kinkade A New Day Dawning paintingJohn Collier The Water Nymph paintingJohn Collier Spring painting
authority, gave him the power of vetoing the decisions of other office-holders and carried with it the inviolability of his person. The title "Emperor", which once merely meant "field-marshal" but has recently come to mean supreme monarch, he shared with other successful generals. He also had the Censorship, which gave him authority over the two leading social orders, those of Senators and Knights; on the pretext of moral shortcomings he could disqualify any member of either order from its dignities and privileges-a disgrace keenly felt. He had control or the Public Treasury: he was supposed to render periodic accounts, but nobody was ever bold enough to demand an audit, though it was known that there was constant juggling between the Treasury and Privy Purse.
Thus he had the command of the armies, the control of the laws-for his influence on the Senate was such that

Johannes Vermeer the Milkmaid painting

Johannes Vermeer the Milkmaid painting
Johannes Vermeer The Love letter painting
Gustav Klimt The Virgin painting
disturbances that followed he sided now with this party and now with that according as the right seemed to lie here or there. At one time he was with young Pompey, at another he fought with Mark Antony's brother against Augustus at Perusia in Etruria. But convinced at last that Augustus, though bound by loyalty to avenge the murder of Julius, his adopted father-a duty which he ruthlessly performed-was not tyrant-hearted and aimed at the restoration of the ancient liberties of the people, he came over to his side and settled at Rome with my grandmother Livia, and my uncle Tiberias, then only two years old. He took no more part in the Civil Wars, contenting himself with his duties as a pontiff.
My grandmother Livia was one of the worst of the Claudians. She may well have been a re-incarnation of that Claudia, sister of Claudius the Fair, who was arraigned for

Lord Frederick Leighton Leighton Music Lesson painting

Lord Frederick Leighton Leighton Music Lesson painting
Raphael The Sistine Madonna painting
framed or pfreim. He suggests "favelin". But I have not adopted the suggestion, as I have gratefully adopted others of his, because I need "javelin" for pilum, the regular missile weapon of the disciplined Roman infantryman and "assegai" is more savage sounding. "Assegai" has had a three-hundred year currency in English and acquired new vigour in the nineteenth century because of the Zulu wars. The long-shafted iron-hea framea was used, according to Tacitus, both as a missile and as a stabbing weapon. So was the assegai of the Ama Aaro warriors, with whom the Germans of Claudius's day had culturally much in common. If Tacitus's statements, first as to the handiness of the frames at close quarters, and then as to its unmanageability among trees
William Bouguereau Biblis painting
are to be reconciled, Uw Germans probably did what the Zulus did-they broke off the end of the framed long shaft when hand-to-hand fighting started. But it seldom came to that, for the Germans always preferred strike-and-run tactics when engaged with the better-armed Roman infantryman.

Lord Frederick Leighton The Last Watch of Hero painting

Lord Frederick Leighton The Last Watch of Hero paintingLord Frederick Leighton The Garden of the Hesperides paintingLord Frederick Leighton The Fisherman and the Syren painting
One piece of advice that I’ve come across in the writings of several life coaches is that we should act in our own best interests. My initial reaction to this is to feel uncomfortable – like most people, I worry that I’m being selfish if I put myself first.
But I’ve come to realize that acting in your own best interests, when done properly, isn’t a selfish act – it’s a way to ensure that you’re making the very best of your life, so that you can help those around you to make the very best of theirs.
So, what are your best interests? How do you base your actions, your goals, your time-management and your on them – and how will this affect the people around you?
I would suggest that acting consistently in your own best interests involves four areas:
* Meeting your physical needs, such as getting enough sleep and exercise * Meeting your emotional needs, such as asking for support when you need it * Meeting your mental needs, such as having a stimulating job

Horace Vernet The Lion Hunt painting

Horace Vernet The Lion Hunt paintingJean Auguste Dominique Ingres The Grande Odalisque paintingPeter Paul Rubens The Judgment of Paris painting
he couldn’t steer and the auto ran down off the road with an awful bump and they saw where the wheel you steer with hit him right on the chin and he was instantly killed. He was thrown all the way out of the auto and it ran up an eight-foot emb—embackment and then it rolled back down and it was upside down beside him when they found him. There was not a mark on his body. Only a little tiny blue mark right on the end of the chin and another on his lip.”
In the silence he could see the auto upside down with its wheels in the air and his father lying beside it with the little blue marks on his chin and on his lip.
“Heck,” one of them said, “how can that kill anybody?”
He felt a kind of sullen stirring among the others, and he felt that he was not believed, or that they did not think very well of his father for being killed so easily.
“It was just exactly the way it just happened to hit him, Uncle Andrew says. He says it was just a chance in a million. It gave him a concush, con, concush—it did something to his brain that killed him.”

Caravaggio Supper at Emmaus painting

Caravaggio Supper at Emmaus paintingCaravaggio Judith Beheading Holofernes paintingWilliam Bouguereau The Abduction of Psyche painting
had shifted and that if they were to count on him to be there, and to be such a fool as always before, they had to act much more friendly; and the more stupid boys, seeing how well this worked, imitated them as well as they could. Rufus quickly came to suspect the more flagrant exaggerations of friendliness, but the subtler boys found, to their intense delight, that if only they varied the surface, the bait, from time to time, they would almost always deceive him. He was ever so ready to oblige. How it got started none of them remembered or cared, but they all knew that if they kept at him enough he would sing them his song, and be fool enough to think they actually liked it. They would say, “Sing us a song, Roofeass,” and he would look as if he knew they were teasing him and say, “Oh, you don’t want to hear it.”
And they would say that they sure did want to hear it, it was a real pretty song, better than they could sing, and they liked the way he danced when he sang it, too. And since they had very early learned to take pains to listen to the song with apparent respect

Salvador Dali meditative rose painting

Salvador Dali meditative rose paintingSalvador Dali clock melting clocks paintingJean Beraud Pont des arts painting
People cling to polarized opinions even when the truth has been proven right in front of their eyes.
Multi-tasking (or switch-tasking as the new buzz word goes) is usually a bad idea. No doubt about that, but the keyword is usually.
Because on the contrary, multi-tasking can be a useful way to make the most of time that would have otherwise been used inefficiently. It’s about making the most out of time, when it’s a good idea to do so. But how do you determine when it’s a good idea to multi-task?Only Two Activities at Once
If you’re going to multi-task, then only attempt to tackle two activities at once. If 95% of the time you can only focus on one task effectively, that remaining 5% of the time, you can only handle two tasks at once without reducing the effectiveness of each task to a point where there’s little point in doing anything at all.
Imagine trying to cook, talk on the phone, and read a book. You could sure manage to cook and talk on

Vincent van Gogh Roses painting

Vincent van Gogh Roses paintingEdmund Blair Leighton The Accolade paintingEdmund Blair Leighton The End of The Song painting
malign was still there, as well as the mercifulness.
They got to their feet.

As it became with every minute and then with every flickering of the clock more and more clear that Andrew had had far more than enough time to get out there, and to telephone, Mary and her aunt talked less and less. For a little while after their prayer, in relief, Mary had talked quite volubly of matters largely irrelevant to the event; she had even made little jokes and had even laughed at them, without more than a small undertone of hysteria; and in all this, Hannah had thought it best (and, for that matter, the only thing possible), to follow suit; but that soon faded away; nor was it to return; now they merely sat in quietness, each on her side of the kitchen table, their eyes cast away from each other, drinking tea for which they had no desire. Mary made a full fresh pot of tea, and they conversed a little about that, and the heated water with which to dilute it, and they discussed that briefly; but such

Gustave Courbet Plage de Normandie painting

Gustave Courbet Plage de Normandie painting
Thomas Kinkade HOMETOWN MORNING painting
Thomas Kinkade HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS painting
gentle dark.
My darkness. Do you listen? Oh, are you hollowed, all one taking ear?
My darkness. Do you watch me? Oh, are you rounded, all one guardian eye?
Oh gentlest dark. Gentlest, gentlest night. My darkness. My dear darkness.

Under your shelter all things come and go.
Children are violent and valiant, they run and they shout like the winners of impossible victories, but before long now, even like me, they will be brought into their sleep.
Those who are grown great talk with confidence and are at all times skillful to serve and to protect, but before long now they too, before long, even like me, will be taken in and put to bed.
Soon come those hours when no one wakes. Even the locusts, even the crickets, silent shall be, as frozen brooks
In your great sheltering.

I hear my father; I need never fear.

Rembrandt History Painting painting

Rembrandt History Painting paintingJean Auguste Dominique Ingres Perseus and Andromeda paintingGuido Reni Baptism of Christ painting
them; you simply couldn’t. And you couldn’t feel more about them than that amount of liking made possible to you. There was a special kind of basic weakness about him; that was what she could not like, or respect, or even forgive, or resign herself to accepting, for it was a kind of weakness which took advantage, and heaped disadvantage and burden on others, and it was not even ashamed for itself, not even aware. And worse, at the bottom of it all, maybe, Jay’s father was the one barrier between them, the one stubborn, unresolved, avoided thing, in their complete mutual understanding of Jay’s people, his “background.” Even now she could not really like him much, or feel deep concern. Her thoughts for him were grave and sad, but only as they would be for any old, tired, suffering human being who had lived long and whose end, it appeared, had come. And even while she thought of him her real mind was on his son’s and her inadequacy to it. She had not even until this moment, she realized with dismay, given Jay’s mother a thought; she had been absorbed wholly in Jay. I must write her, she thought. But of course, perhaps, I’ll see her soon

Vincent van Gogh Orchard with Blossoming Plum Trees painting

Vincent van Gogh Orchard with Blossoming Plum Trees paintingVincent van Gogh Olive Trees 1889 paintingVincent van Gogh Green Wheat Field painting
himself, so quietly that we often could not hear him; he talked, I think, because his was the only voice he could trust, when it assured him that he was still alive; what he said was not for us, nor for any ears but his own.
‘Better today. Better today. I can see now, in the comer of the fireplace, where the mandarin is holding his gold bell and the crooked tree is in flower below his feet, where yesterday I was confused and took the little tower for another man. Soon I shall see the bridge and the three storks and know where the path leads over the hill. ‘Better tomorrow. We live long in our family and marry late. Seventy-three is no great age. Aunt Julia, my father’s aunt, lived to be eighty-eight, born and died here, never married, saw the fire on beacon hill for the battle of Trafalgar, always called it “the New House”; that was the name they had for it in the nursery and in the fields when unlettered men had long

Frida Kahlo Portrait of Diego Rivera painting

Frida Kahlo Portrait of Diego Rivera paintingFrida Kahlo Naturaleza viva paintingFrida Kahlo Memory painting
They all thought they had found something new. It had not been thus at my last exhibition in these same rooms, shortly before my going abroad. Then there had been an unmistakable note of weariness. Then the talk had been less of me than of the houses, anecdotes of their owners. That same woman, it came back to me, who now applauded my virility and passion, had stood quite near me, before a painfully laboured canvas, and said, ‘So facile.’
I remembered the exhibition, too, for another reason; it was the week I detected my wife in adultery. Then, as now, she was, a tireless hostess, and I heard her say:
‘Whenever I see anything lovely nowadays - a building or a piece of scenery - I think to myself, “that’s by Charles”. I see everything through his eyes. He is England to me.’ I heard her say that; it was the sort of thing she had the habit

Claude Theberge the pink veil painting

Claude Theberge the pink veil paintingClaude Theberge One Friday Evening Downtown paintingClaude Theberge Love painting
But you’ll be able to work there, won’t you?’
‘After squatting in a cloud of sting-fly,’ I said, ‘under a sun which scorched the paper off the block as I drew, I could work on the top of an omnibus. I expect the vicar would like to borrow the place for whist drives.’
‘There’s a lot of work waiting for you. I promised Lady Anchorage you would do Anchorage House as soon as you got back. That’s coming down, too, you know - shops underneath and two-roomed flats above. You don’t think, do you, Charles, that all this exotic work you’ve been doing, is going to spoil you for that sort of thing?’ ‘Why should it?’
‘Well, it’s so different. Don’t be cross.’
‘It’s just another jungle closing in.’
‘I know just how you feel, darling. The Georgian Society made such a fuss

Carl Fredrik Aagard Mediterranean Shipping painting

Carl Fredrik Aagard Mediterranean Shipping paintingCarl Fredrik Aagard A Woodland Scene With Deer paintingSir Henry Raeburn Boy And Rabbit painting
boy with the soldiers. And he is so kind. There is a poor German boy with a foot that will not heal and secondary syphilis, who comes here for treatment. Lord Flyte found him starving in Tangier and took him in and gave him a Home. A real Samaritan.’
‘Poor simple monk,’ I thought, ‘poor booby.’ God forgive me! Sebastian was in the wing kept for Europeans, where the beds were divided by low partitions into cubicles with some air of privacy. He was lying with his hands on the quilt staring at the wall, where the only ornament was a religious oleograph. ‘Your friend,’ said the brother.
He looked round slowly.
‘Oh, I thought he meant Kurt. What are you doing here, Charles?’ He was more than ever emaciated; drink, which made others fat and red, seemed to wither Sebastian. The brother left us, and I sat by his bed and talked about his illness. ‘I was out of my mind for a day or two,’ he said. ‘I kept thinking I was back in Oxford. You went to my house? Did you like it? Is

Steve Thoms Sunflowers Field painting

Steve Thoms Sunflowers Field paintingSteve Thoms Sunflower Field paintingSteve Thoms Poppies painting
as it had been; there was mid-winter in Sebastian’s heart.
The weeks went by; we looked for lodgings for the coming term and found them in Merton Street, a secluded, expensive little house near the tennis court.

Meeting Mr Samgrass, whom we had seen less often of late, I told him of our choice. He was standing at the table in Blackwell’s where recent German books were displayed, setting aside a little heap of purchases.
‘You’re sharing digs with Sebastian?’ he said. ‘So he is coming up next term?’
‘I suppose so. Why shouldn’t he be?’
‘I don’t know why; I somehow thought perhaps he wasn’t. I’m always wrong about things like that. I like Merton Street.’