Vincent van Gogh Self Portrait painting

Word just came in that the Power-Line guards are dropping like flies," one of them reported. "Some crazy kind of thing they were ordered to wear around their necks on duty; makes them lose their balance." He glared at me. "Flunking wolf in sheep's clothing!"
I was disturbed less by his shocking metaphor than by his news of the unfortunate border-guards and his obvious sympathy with the demonstrators: he informed us that this fresh calamity had infuriated them beyond restraint; they'd breached entryways all around the building in search of the man they held responsible for the day's catastrophes -- and Founder help me when they got hold of me, for he himself would not.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," Bray told him sharply, and seemed prepared to scold him further for dereliction of responsibility; but one of our own party, left behind at Bray's suggestion to transfer the Founder's Scroll to safer storage in the CACAFILE, rushed up to tell us that the card-file room was now also invaded. The students had so far destroyed nothing beyond the door-locks that impeded them, but their mood was ugly, and we were cut off: he feared that if they did not soon find their quarry they'd destroy the Library in search of me, and anyone they suspected of concealing me.

Arthur Hughes La Belle Dame Sans Merci painting

gray and his jaw set: the speech he was to have delivered had been canceled, the Summit Symposium indefinitely postponed, the entire of the University Council suspended for the day. At sight of me he stopped, seemed to hesitate between denouncing me and going on his way, and at last said tersely: "New Tammany looked pretty foolish just then. It's lucky this mess looks like their doing and not ours -- or yours."
"No, no, sir," I protested; "that's the only thing wrong with it. You've got to take back the initiative! This justifies all those other measures I suggested." Rexford moved on towards the entrance-lobby, walking swiftly, and I trotted as best I could beside him; his aides neither disguised their hostility nor dared restrain me.
"Do the same thing with Maurice Stoker that you did here!" I urged him. "Go the whole way, sir!"
He made no reply. I didn't venture to enter the sidecar with him uninvited -- and in fact an aide sprang into the second seat, as if to forestall me -- but before the door closed I called encouragement from the curb: "Light up everything! Make New Tammany an open book!" His motorcycle went off then (down the middle of the pavement, I was pleased to observe), and his party dispersed, still buzzing gravely, among the other

Albert Bierstadt the oregon trail painting

Expressing his agreeable surprise that I knew the man he spoke of, Dr. Eierkopf affirmed that certain classified files under Dr. Sear's jurisdiction could attest the fertility and potency of any male in New Tammany who had been of spermatogenic age twenty-odd years ago. At that time, as part of the culminating phase of the Cum Laude Project, semen samples had been taken from all New Tammany males between puberty and senility. These had then been analyzed, classified, and culled under Dr. Sear's supervision to the standards evolved by WESCAC for the Grand-Tutorial Ideal: Laboratory Eugenical Specimen, and although then-Chancellor Reginald Hector had curtailed the whole project shortly afterwards, the donor-data files from "Operation Sheepskin" were still intact and under seal somewhere in the Infirmary's research laboratories -- as well, of course, as in WESCAC's memory-banks.
"So maybe Max is lying and maybe not," he went on.
"And maybeyou are," I interrupted -- not unimpressed, however, by the

John Singer Sargent The Breakfast Table painting

, it was grown dark, and though the headlit motors came and went from the apron of the Pedal Inn, few noses pressed now to the plate-glass wall beside us.
"I was able!" Greene protested, in a vehement whisper. "I just never could get up nerve enough, is all!"
Yet he had hesitated to commit himself to husbandhood, he said, until his capacity was proved, and Miss Sally Ann (somewhat to his surprise) seeming not finally averse, he had fetched her to Great Mall with the understanding that they'd lose their innocence each to the other before they returned. They took separate rooms in a Great-Mall inn for the three nights of the Carnival, but slept together. On the first night he'd been doubled up with cramps and unable to move -- an effect, he believed, less of fear than of shame at the notion of subjecting so passèd a lady girl to his carnal lusts. On the second, nonetheless, they had striven resolutely -- but in vain, for failing to find himself in the studly way from the very first kiss, as he thought proper, he so furiously reproached himself that no subseq

Wassily Kandinsky Farbstudie Quadrate painting

"I'm not upset," Anastasia said crossly. "Maurice is only teasing."
"She's his first Tutee," Stoker said.
"She will be," I declared, and touched the back of my fingers to her neck. She stiffened, but did not withdraw. "But she doesn't believe me yet."
Dr. Sear looked interestedly into my face for a moment and then exclaimed to Stoker: "Splendid fellow! Can't get over it!"
"Enos Enoch with balls," Stoker agreed. "Did you notice his amulet, Hedwig?"
Mrs. Sear did now, caught it up in her hands, and squealed with delight.
"Aren't they a handsome pair," her husband murmured.
"Theyare, Kennard!"
"No, my dear, I mean Stacey and George. They're nymph and faun." He joined my hand to hers, declaring that all things beautiful ravished his spirit; that Beauty in fact was as close to being the Answer as anything he knew. "I've been exposed to every idea in the

Thomas Kinkade Mountain Paradise painting

G. Herrold's madness could have drawn me; but he forged and stumbled toward her headlong through the rapids, which drove now against his legs as against the bridge-piles.
"I'ma-coming," he sang out, "Founder knows!"I started after, but real pursuit was out of the question: my walking-stick found no purchase on the mossy stones, and I slipped at once hard down in the numbing shallows.
"Go back!" I heard the lady warn. Founder pass us, still she stood there, and though with one hand she waved G. Herrold away, with the other she yet clutched up her shift beneath her bosoms. Worse, she commenced to thrust her hips like a rutsome doe and call her call again. I feared now , he was that bound to reach her; already the torrent was hip-high on him, and driving him off his balance. I scrambled up and looked to Max for counsel -- whereat I beheld what he already was beholding: the next amazement.
From somewhere upshore, or the cliff-road behind us, or the pure March air, had appeared a party of nine men such as I'd never seen before. Their heads

Edgar Degas dance class painting

That frizzled head, those great eyes, yellow-white, that had on first behold so frightened me -- quite kindly they seemed now. And his gentle madness, it plucked at my heart.
"Five minutes yet," Max pled, rising. "I call for a wheelchair and fetch this boy to the Infirmary."
But I insisted I could manage. "I'm going to stand up and walk."
"Nah, Bill!" He made to stay me, but I gestured him off and swung half-around to sit on the table-edge, my legs hanging over. They pained sharply -- not from their first deforming nor yet from Redfearn's Tommy's charge, but from the course of fresh blood that began to wake them. When I slipped myself off they buckled, and I was obliged to grasp the table for support.
"Too much at once," Max protested. "A little time yet!"
But I could not bear resorting to my old lope. For all the shocks that ran from hip to toe, I could flex the muscles once again, and was determined they must bear my weight from that hour on.
"Give me a hand, George."

Gustav Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch (gold foil) painting

would she let go of? I hunkered closer and squinted to see. She pressed her nose into his high-necked sweater and protested, "You don't know what that poem does to me!"
"Suffer it," ordered her mate -- not Brickett Ranunculus more inexorably mastered his does! "The Pre-Schoolist poets knew what naked feeling was."
"That's just it," the female said. "That's it exactly. I'm --naked to that poem, you know?"
Here I tumesced, for the fellow turned her face deliberately to his and intoned: "These lecture-halls do like a garment wear the beauty of the nighttime. . ." Was it for pain or joy she closed her eyes, bit her lip? "Labs, towers, dorms, and classrooms lie all bright and glittering in the smokeless air. . ." She clutched at the wool of his sleeves, fighting as most all nannies against what passionately now she craved; and at length, in hoarse surrender, whispered: "Ne'er saw I, never felt, a surge so deep! The Tower Clock moves on at its sweet will. . .Oh my! I can't!"
But surely, with no pause in the rhythm of his woo, her : "Dear Founder! See the Library --glowing keep of all thy mighty mind -- resplendent still!"

Leonardo da Vinci picture of last supper painting

devoted, methodical competence. He could say sarcastically, "The Colonel's really got a wild hair, ain't he?" but shrug his shoulders and grin, and by that ambivalent gesture sum up an attitude which only a professional soldier could logically retain: I doubt the Colonel's judgment a little, but I will willingly do what he says. He also shared with Hobbs, the radioman, some sort of immunity. And thus it had been last night, Culver recalled, that upon the Colonel's announcement about this evening's forced march—which was to take thirteen hours and extend the nearly thirty-six miles back to the main base—O'Leary had been able to give a long, audible, incredulous whistle, right in the Colonel's face, and elicit from the Colonel an indulgent smile; whereas in the same blackout tent and at virtually the same instant Mannix had murmured, "Thirty-six miles, Jesus Christ," in a tone, however, laden with no more disbelief or no more pain than O'Leary's whistle, and Culver had seen the Colonel's smile vanish, replaced on the fragile little face by a subtle, delicate shadow of irritation.
"You think that's too long?" the Colonel had said to Mannix then, turning

Theodore Robinson World's Columbian Exposition painting

and the hour hand was gone. Behind gray glass, the works could barely be seen, twitching and turning as fretfully as fish. Schmendrick said, "You mean, when the clock strikes the right time it opens, and then there is a tunnel, a hidden stair." His voice was doubtful, for the clock seemed far too lean to conceal any such passageway.walked toward the clock. The darkness made him seem to be going away down a hill, growing small and stooped. When he reached the clock he kept walking without pause, as though it were truly no more than a shadow. But he bumped his nose.
"This is stupid," he said coldly to the skull as he returned. "How do you think to cheat us? The way to the Bull may well lead through the clock, but there is something more to know. Tell me, or I will spill the wine out on the floor, for you to remember the smell and look of it as much as you choose. Be quick!"
"I don't know anything about that," the skull replied. "If you wait for this clock to strike the hour, you'll be here till you're as bald as I am. Why complicate a simple secret? You walk through the clock, and the Red Bull is on the other side. Gimme."
"But the cat said—" Schmendrick began. Then he turned and

Paul Gauguin Tahitian Village painting

When those words were first spoken," Drinn said, "Haggard had not been long in the country, and all of it was still soft and blooming—all but the town of Hagsgate. Hagsgate was then as this land has become: a scrabbly, bare place where men put great stones on the roofs of their huts to keep them from blowing away." He grinned bitterly at the older men. "Crops to harvest, stock to tend! You grew cabbages and rutabagas and a few pale potatoes, and in all of Hagsgate there was but one weary cow. Strangers thought the town accursed, having offended some vindictive witch or other." Molly felt the unicorn go by in the street, then turn and come back, restless as the torches on the walls, that bowed and wriggled. She wanted to run out to her, but instead she asked quietly, "And afterward, when that had come true?"
Drinn answered, "From that moment, we have known nothing but bounty. Our grim earth has grown so orchards spring up by themselves—we need neither to plant nor to tend them. Our flocks multiply; our craftsmen become more clever in their sleep; the air we breathe and the water we drink keep us from ever knowing illness. All sorrow parts to go around us—and this has come about while the rest of the realm, once so green, has shriveled to cinders under Haggard's hand. For fifty years, none but he and we have prospered. It is as though all others had been cursed."

Thomas Kinkade A Holiday Gathering painting

"For all of me, you are," the prince answered indifferently. "As I say, you satisfy custom. You don't satisfy my father, but then neither do I. That would take a unicorn." He was tall, and his face was as soft and pleasant as a marshmallow.
When they and their retinue were gone, the unicorn came out of the wood, followed by Molly and the magician, and took up her journey again. A long time later, wandering in another country where there were no streams and nothing green, Molly asked her why she had not gone to the princess's song. Schmendrick drew near to listen to the answer, though he stayed 9n his side of the unicorn. He never walked on Molly's side.
The unicorn said, "That king's daughter would never have

Claude Monet Meadows at Giverny painting

the last stone faring. Then they get into harness and haul these carts five hundred kilometers inland and three thousand meters upward. They go at most three or four kilometers a day. They encamp before evening and fan out from the trails to forage and set snares for hikiqi, since by now their supplies are low. The cart train follows the least recently used of the several winding trails, because the hunting and gathering will be better along it.
During the sea voyages and at Riqim the mood of the stone farers tends to be solemn and tense. They are not sailors, and the labor at the quarries is hard and driven. Hauling carts by shoulder harness is certainly not light work either, but the pilgrims take it merrily; they talk and joke while hauling, share their food and sit talking around their campfires, and behave like any group of people engaged willingly in an arduous joint enterprise.
They discuss which path to take, and wheel-mending techniques, and so on. But when I went with them I never heard them talk in the larger sense about what they were doing, their .

Tamara de Lempicka Two Friends painting

led to ever more powerful agents of destruction which could blow up ever larger quantities of earth, these charges were never planted as mines with the intention of killing. Their sole purpose was to fulfill the great aim of Meyun and Huy: to change the course of the river.
For nearly a hundred years the two city-states devoted the greatest part of their energies and resources to this purpose.
By the end of the century, the landscape of the region had been enormously and irrevocably altered. Once green meadows had sloped gently down to the willow-clad banks of the little Alуn with its clear trout pools, its rocky narrows, its muddy watering places and cattle crossings where cows stood dreaming udder-deep in the cool shallows. In place of this there was now a canyon, a vast chasm, half a mile across from lip to lip and nearly two thousand feet deep. Its overhanging walls were of raw earth and shattered rock. Nothing could grow on them; even when not destabilised by repeated explosions, they eroded in the winter rains, slipping

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres paintings

what they were talking about, that there had been an abrupt, immense discontinuity in comprehension. At first I blamed it on my poor grasp of the language, but it was more than that. There were gaps. Suddenly the Hennebet were on the other side of the gap, totally out of reach. This happened particularly often when I talked with my fellow boarder, old Mrs. Tattava. We'd start out fine, chatting about the weather or the news or her embroidery stitches, and then all at once the discontinuity would occur right in the midst of a sentence. "I find leafstitch nice for filling odd-shaped areas, but it was such a job painting the whole building with little leaves, I thought we'd never finish it!"
"What building was that?" I said.
"Hali tutuve," she said, placidly threading her needle.
I had not heard the word tutuve before. My translatomat gave it as shrine, sacred enclosure, but had nothing for hali. I went to the library and looked it up in the

Francisco de Goya Blind Man's Buff painting

could arrange for the Hogwarts Express to come tomorrow if necessary -"
"What about Dumbledore's funeral?" said Harry, speaking at last.
"Well. . ." said Professor McGonagall, losing a little of her briskness as her voice shook. "I - I know that it was Dumbledore's wish to be laid to rest here, at Hogwarts -"
"Then that's what'll happen, isn't it?" said Harry fiercely.
"If the Ministry thinks it appropriate," said Professor McGonagall. "No other headmaster or headmistress has ever been -"
"No other headmaster or headmistress ever gave more to this school," growled Hagrid.
"Hogwarts should be Dumbledore's final resting place," said Professor Flitwick.
"Absolutely," said Professor Sprout.

Wassily Kandinsky Yellow Red Blue painting

"I have been hoping for this piece of evidence for a very long time," said Dumbledore at last. "It confirms the theory on which I have been working, it tells me that I am right, and also how very far there is still to go. ..."
Harry suddenly noticed that every single one of the old head-masters and headmistresses in the portraits around the walls was awake and listening in on their conversation. A corpulent, red nosed wizard had actually taken out an ear trumpet.
"Well, Harry," said Dumbledore, "I am sure you understood the significance of what we just heard. At the same age as you are now, give or take a few months, Tom Riddle was doing all he could to find out how to make himself immortal."

Lord Frederick Leighton Daedalus and Icarus painting

Having wasted a lot of time worrying aloud about Apparition, Ron was now struggling to finish a viciously difficult essay for Snape that Harry and Hermione had already completed. Harry fully expected to receive low marks on his, because he had disagreed with Snape on the best way to tackle dementors, but he did not care: Slughorns memory was the most important thing to him now.
"I'm telling you, the stupid Prince isn't going to be able to help you with this, Harry!" said Hermione, more loudly. "There's only one way to force someone to do what you want, and that's the Imperius Curse, which is illegal —"
"Yeah, I know that, thanks," said Harry, not looking up from the book. "That's why I'm looking for something different. Dumbledorf says Veritaserum won't do it, but there might be something else, a potion or a spell. . . ."

Juarez Machado Art Deco Evening painting

"Yes, I did, and I'm starting to wish I'd chosen him, McLaggen makes Grawp look a gentleman. Let's go this way, we'll be able to see him coming, he's so tall. . . ." The three of them made their way over to the other side of the room, scooping up goblets of mead on the way, realizing too late that Professor Trelawney was standing there alone.
"Hello," said Luna politely to Professor Trelawney.

"Good evening, my dear," said Professor Trelawney, focusing upon Luna with some difficulty. Harry could smell cookin sherry again. "I haven't seen you in my classes lately. .."
"No, I've got Firenze this year," said Luna.
"Oh, of course," said Professor Trelawney with an angry, drunken titter. "Or Dobbin, as I prefer to think of him. You would have thought, would you not, that now I am returned to the school Professor Dumbledore might have got rid of the horse? But no ... we share classes. . . . It's an insult, frankly, an insult. Do you know. . ." Professor Trelawney seemed too tipsy to have recognized Harry.

Lord Frederick Leighton Solitude painting

That is easily remedied," said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket. "There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on secondhand, but —"
"Where do you buy spellbooks?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon,
"In Diagon Alley," said Dumbledore. "I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything —"
"You're coming with me?" asked Riddle, looking up.
"Certainly, if you —"
"I don't need you," said Riddle. "I'm used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time. How do you get to this Diagon Alley — sir?" he added, catching Dumbledore's e