Alexandre Cabanel paintings

Alexandre Cabanel paintings
Anders Zorn paintings
Anne-Francois-Louis Janmot paintings
Poetry, Sinister Street, and South Wind - and my earliest friends fitted well into this background; they were Collins, a Wykehamist, an embryo don, a man of solid reading and childlike humour, and a small circle of intellectuals, who maintained a middle course of culture between the flamboyant ‘aesthetes’ and the roletarian scholars who scrambled fiercely for facts in the lodging houses of the Iffley Road and Wellington Square. It was by this circle that I found myself adopted during my first term; they provided the kind of company I had enjoyed in the sixth form at school, for which the sixth form had prepared me; but even in the earliest days, when the whole Business of living at Oxford, with rooms of my own and my own cheque book, was a source of excitement, I felt at heart that this was not all which Oxford had to offer.
At Sebastian’s approach these grey figures seemed quietly to fade into the landscape and vanish, like highland sheep in the misty heather. Collins

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida paintings

Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida paintings
Joseph Mallord William Turner paintings
Julien Dupre paintings
corner, and in my own college was no echo, but an original fount of the grossest disturbance. We were giving a ball. The front quad, where I lived, was floored and tented; palms and azaleas were banked round the porter’s lodge; worst of all, the don who lived above me, a mouse of a man connected with the Natural , had lent his rooms for a Ladies’ Cloakroom, and a printed notice proclaiming this outrage hung not six inches from my oak.
No one felt more strongly about it than my scout.
‘Gentlemen who haven’t got ladies are asked as far as possible to take their meals out in the next few days,’ he announced despondently. ‘Will you be lunching in?’ ‘No, Lunt.’
‘So as to give the servants a chance, they say. What a chance! I’ve got to buy a pin-cushion for the Ladies’ Cloakroom. What do they want with dancing

Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger paintings

Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger paintings
Guillaume Seignac paintings
George Owen Wynne Apperley paintings
Pobble.”
“He did not play the guitar but I recognized his genius.”
“Oh, Pobble, what are you up to?”
“Just what Sonia asked.” Basil leaned his chin on the knob of his cane. “You know, Babs, that all I want is your Happiness.”
“This doesn’t sound at all like you. You’ve got some sly scheme.”
“Far from it. You must never tell him or your mother what I am about to say. Charles’s parents are dead so they are not affected. I knew his mother very well; perhaps he doesn’t know how well. People often wondered why she married Albright. It was a blitz, you know, while he was on leave and there were air raids every night. It was when I was first out of hospital, before I married your mother.”
“Darling Pobble, it’s very cold here and I don’t quite see what all this past history has to do with me and Charles.”
“It began,” said Basil inexorably, “when—what was her name?—Betty was younger than you are now. I threw her into the lake at King’s Thursday.”
“What began?”

Gustav Klimt Expectation (gold foil) painting

Gustav Klimt Expectation (gold foil) paintingGustav Klimt Death and Life paintingGustav Klimt Danae (detail) painting
complained but they constituted the Mont Parnasse of the Allied Armies. One met more queer old friends in its messes and clubs than anywhere else in the world at this last stage of the war, and to those on leave from the Balkans its modest amenities seemed the height of luxury. But Major Gordon, during his fortnight of “reporting to headquarters” had deeper interests than on earlier leaves. He was determined to get the Jews out of Croatia and by dint of exploring the byways of semi-official , of visiting committees and units with noncommittal designations in obscure offices, he was in fact able to quicken interest, supply detailed information and in the end set the official machine to work which eventually resulted in a convoy of new Ford trucks making the journey from the coast to Begoy and back for the sole and specific purpose of rescuing the Jews.
By the time that they arrived in Italy Major Gordon was back in Yugoslavia for a brief appointment as liaison with a camp of escaped prisoners of war,

Albert Bierstadt Beach at Nassau painting

Albert Bierstadt Beach at Nassau paintingAlbert Bierstadt Fishing from a Canoe paintingAlbert Bierstadt The Buffalo Trail painting
Scottie?”
“Oh, nothing much. I met Lockwood. You remember him. Sad case, he was a sitter for the Balliol scholarship. Then he had to go into the army.”
“I thought he was still in it. How typical of old Scottie that all he has to tell us after eight weeks away is that he met a prize pupil! I shouldn’t be surprised to hear you did some work, too, you old blackleg.”
“To tell you the truth I feel a little désoeuvré. I must look for a new subject.”
“You’ve come to the end of old Bellorius at last?”
“Quite to the end.”
Later the headmaster sent for Scott-King.
“You know,” he said, “we are starting this year with fifteen fewer classical specialists than we had last term?”
“I thought that would be about the number.”
“As you know I’m an old Greats man myself. I deplore it as much as you do. But what are we to do? Parents are not interested in producing the ‘complete man’ any

Pierre Auguste Renoir The First Outing painting

Pierre Auguste Renoir The First Outing paintingPierre Auguste Renoir Les baigneuses paintingPierre Auguste Renoir La Moulin de la Galette painting
offered them cigarettes; suddenly a new side of his character was revealed; he fell into demoniac rage, he shook his fists, he bared his chryselephantine teeth, he narrowed his eyes to Mongol slits of hate; what he said was unintelligible to Scott-King but it was plainly designed to wound. The men stood firm.
Then, as suddenly as it had arisen, the squall passed. He turned to his guests. “Excuse one moment,” he said. “These stupid fellows do not understand their orders. It will be arranged by the officer.” He despatched an underling.
“We box the rude mens?” suggested Miss Sveningen, moving cat-like towards the soldiers.
“No. Forgive them I beg you. They think it their duty.”
“Such little men should be polite,” said the giantess.
The officer came; the doors flew open; the soldiers did something with their tommy-guns which passed as a salute. Scott-King raised his hat as the little party swept out into the blaze of sunshine to the waiting cars.
“This superb young creature,” said Scott-King, “would you say she was a slightly incongruous figure?”

Thomas Kinkade Victorian Christmas painting

Thomas Kinkade Victorian Christmas paintingThomas Kinkade Sunset at Riverbend Farm paintingThomas Kinkade Make a Wish Cottage 2 painting
My project of settling in the country was well received by my friends.
Each saw in it a likely convenience for himself. I understood their attitude well. Country houses meant something particular and important in their lives, a system of permanent bolt-holes. They had, most of them, gradually dropped out of the round of formal entertaining; country , for them, meant not a series of invitations, but of successful, predatory raids. Their lives were liable to sharp reverses; their quarters in London were camps which could be struck at an hour’s notice, as soon as the telephone was cut off. Country houses were permanent; even when the owner was abroad, the house was there, with a couple of servants or, at the worst, someone at a cottage who came in to light fires and open windows, someone who, at a pinch, could be persuaded also to make the bed and wash up. They were places where wives and children could be left for long periods, where one retired to write a book, where one could be ill, where, in the course of a love affair, one could take a girl and by being her guide and sponsor in strange surroundings, establish a degree

Wassily Kandinsky Several Circles painting

Wassily Kandinsky Several Circles paintingWassily Kandinsky Yellow Red Blue paintingWassily Kandinsky Composition VIII painting
But to return to the question of my hats ...”
“I tell you what. Why don’t you buy a nice quiet house in the country. I shall want somewhere to stay while this baby is born.”
There was the rub. It was precisely this fear that had been working in my mind for days, the fear of making myself a sitting shot to the world. It lay at the root of the problem of privacy; the choice which torments to the verge of mania, between perpetual flight and perpetual siege; and the unresolved universal paradox of losing things in order to find them.
“Surely that is odd advice from a communist?”
Roger became suddenly wary; he had been caught and challenged in loose talk. “Ideally, of course, it would be,” he said. “But I daresay that in practice, for the first generation, we shall allow a certain amount of private property where its value is purely sentimental. Anyway, any you make now is bound to be temporary. That’s why I feel no repugnance about living on Lucy’s money ...” Marxist ethics kept him talking until we had finished luncheon. Over the he referred to Ingres as a “bourgeois” painter. When he left me I sat for some time in the leather armchair finishing my cigar. The club was emptying

Thomas Moran Fort George Island painting

Thomas Moran Fort George Island paintingThomas Moran Cliffs of Green River paintingThomas Moran A Pastoral Landscape painting
now. He’s perfectly happy here and I can assure you we aren’t going to take the first steps in turning him out. He’s far too useful to us.”
“But it doesn’t seem fair,” said Angela.
“Look at your father,” said the doctor. “He’d be quite lost without Loveday to act as his secretary.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”

II

Angela left the asylum, oppressed by a sense of injustice. Her mother was unsympathetic.
“Think of being locked up in a looney bin all one’s
“He attempted to hang himself in the orangery,” replied Lady Moping, “in front of the Chester-Martins.”
“I don’t mean Papa. I mean Mr. Loveday.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“Yes, the looney they have put to look after Papa.”
“Your father’s secretary. A very decent sort of man, I thought, and eminently suited to his work.”

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring painting

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring paintingJohannes Vermeer girl with the pearl earring paintingGustav Klimt The Three Ages of Woman painting
Park when she was taking Hector for exercise. Here, at first, Hector would get lost, fight other dogs and bite small children to keep himself constantly in her attention, but soon he adopted a gentler course. He insisted upon carrying Millicent’s bag for her. He would trot in front of the couple and whenever he thought an interruption desirable he would drop the bag; the young man was obliged to pick it up and restore it first to Millicent and then, at her request, to the dog. Few young men were sufficiently servile to submit to more than one walk in these degrading conditions.
In this way two years passed. Letters arrived constantly from Kenya, full of devotion, full of minor disasters—blight in the seisal, locusts in the , labour troubles, drought, flood, the local government, the world market. Occasionally Millicent read the letters aloud to the dog, usually she left them unread on her breakfast tray. She and Hector moved together through the leisurely routine of English social . Wherever she carried

Titian Bacchus and Ariadne painting

Titian Bacchus and Ariadne paintingLorenzo Lotto St Catherine of Alexandria paintingTheodore Chasseriau Apollo and Daphne painting
day later she died.
Mr. Banks arrived for the funeral and spent a week sorting out her Glory of Greece
Darling,
Well I said I would write and so I would have only goodness it was rough so didnt. Now everything is a bit more alright so I will tell you. Well as you know the cruise started at Monte Carlo and when papa and all of us went to Victoria we found that the tickets didnt include the journey there so Goodness how furious he was and said he wouldnt go but Mum said of course we must go and we said that too only papa had changed all his money into Liri or Franks on account of foreigners being so dishonest but he kept a shilling for the porter at Dover being methodical so then he had to change it back again and that set him wrong all the way to Monte Carlo and he wouldnt get me and Bertie a sleeper and wouldnt sleep himself in his through being so angry Goodness how Sad. effects. Among them he found in her escritoire, stamped, addressed, but unposted, the

Salvador Dali Les Elephants painting

Salvador Dali Les Elephants paintingMark Rothko Orange and Yellow paintingWassily Kandinsky Improvisation painting
animals. But we generally get a decent run along the edge of the moor. Pity you can’t come out. I’d like you to try my new mare, she’s a lovely ride ... a bit fine for this type of country, perhaps ...”
Well, why not? ... after all, he and Angela knew each other so well ... it was not as though ...
And two hours later Tom found himself in a high wind galloping madly across the worst hunting country in the British Isles—alternations of heather and bog, broken by pot-holes, boulders, mountain streams and disused gravel pits—hounds streaming up the valley opposite, the mare going perfectly, farmers’ boys on shaggy little ponies, solicitors’ wives on cobs, retired old sea-captains bouncing about eighteen hands high, vets and vicars plunging on all sides of him, and not a care in his heart.
Two hours later still he was in less happy circumstances, seated alone in the heather, surrounded on all sides by an unbroken horizon of empty moor. He had dismounted

Mary Cassatt Tea painting

Mary Cassatt Tea paintingEdward Hopper Gas paintingEdward Hopper Ground Swell painting
him and begin calling to him softly and endearingly. He would lie on his stomach with his face as near Ozymandias as he would allow and whisper extravagant eulogies of his beauty and grace; mother-like he would comfort him, evoking some fictitious tormentor to be reproached, assuring him that he was powerless to hurt him any more; Adam would protect him; Adam would see that the horrible little boy did not come near him again. Slowly Ozymandias’ ears would begin to come forward and his eyes begin to close, and the delectable exercise invariably ended with caresses of passionate reconciliation.
On this particular afternoon, however, Ozymandias had refused to play, and the moment Adam brought him into the nursery, had established himself in unassailable sanctuary at the top of the toy cupboard. He sat there among the dust and broken toys, and Adam

Raphael The Holy Family painting

Raphael The Holy Family paintingWilliam Bouguereau The Broken Pitcher paintingWilliam Bouguereau Love Takes Flight painting
pleased to see him go, like my grandfather, were hushed by the sight.
Bray then glided, as it seemed, to the central space between the stands, turned to face the Shaft, and raised his arms. Though the light was failing fast (shadow, in fact, went up the column as the sun went down, and determined the rate of Max's ascent), he began another series of metamorphoses more remarkable even than the earlier: not only did the color and apparent cut of his vestments change at each halyard-heave, but his face and form as well.Stroke: he was Max himself!Stroke: pretty Anastasia!Stroke: the late G. Herrold! At every transformation the crowd roaredHurrah (sometimesOlé), the band saluted, and Max went up another measure on the Shaft, blowing kisses and pulling his beard. Now Bray was The Living Sakhyan, now great black Croaker, and then in rhythmic series Maurice Stoker, Kennard Sear, Eblis Eierkopf, Lucius Rexford, the brothers Hector (both at once), hat-faced Classmate X, Leonid Alexandrov, and my passèd lady mother! Last of all he assumed the semblance of myself, complete with stick and shophar -- and in this guise, as

Thomas Kinkade Christmas Cottage painting

Thomas Kinkade Christmas Cottage paintingThomas Kinkade almost heaven paintingThomas Kinkade A Peaceful Retreat painting
that I had completed my Assignment, passed the Finals, and come through to bonafide Grand-Tutorship? There was no need: he saw what I'd seen and had become; from his eyes, hid deep behind their brows like an owl's in snowy brake, understanding glowed. I gripped his hand. "You don'thave to die this afternoon, Max. I've got a secret: Leonid's key. I can take you right out of this." I studied his face as I spoke. He touched the amulet-of-Freddie. The true scapegoatery, I reminded him, was not to die for studentdom's sake, but to take their failings upon oneself and live. "You misunderstood the amulet-of-Freddie."
"Ach,"he said, "not only that. You know why I been an all-round genius, George?" He smiled. "Because I never knew my real major. But I found out now what my l's-work is."
I asked what.
"To die," he said, delighted by the joke. "In studentdom's behalf, selfish or not, and even if it don't make sense."
"Are you a love-lover nowadays, Max?" I earnestly inquired. "Or a hate-hater, or what?"
Promptly, as if he'd expected the question, he replied: "Na, I don't hate hate any more. But I love love more than I don't hate hate."
"You're going to the Shaft?"
He nodded.

Caravaggio Caravaggio The Musicians painting

Caravaggio Caravaggio The Musicians paintingCaravaggio The Crowning with Thorns paintingCaravaggio Caravaggio Narcissus painting
o me or threw it at me, and cried, "Won't this day ever end? Flunk everything!"In fact -- so our driver guessed as we sped in convoy from Great Mall -- it was probably no later than half-past six. He hoped not, anyhow, for his detail was to go off duty at seven, and riot or no riot, he'd heard that the maddest party in the history of the Powerhouse was in progress, and he wanted not to miss the fun. Croaker I'd induced to ride in the sidecar, but I was obliged to remain on his shoulders. The streets and public buildings were dark, owing to the power-failure, and almost vacant because of the general emergency; despite the ragged navigation of the guards we made good time. My
The wrapper was of fine Angora, but ill-cut and worse-stitched. I smiled despite all at Granddad's goatsmanship and Forelock's distress -- then put the noose from my neck, slipped into the familiar hide, and with a farewell glance at my swooned mom, slicked Croaker wards.

William Blake Los

William Blake LosWilliam Blake Jacob's LadderWheat Field with Crows
-plus," Mother said in her unhappy ignorance.
Bray raised both arms, spreading his cloak impressively, and addressed the company. "Now hear this," he demanded; "George Giles, alias the Ag-Hill Goat-Boy, alias Billy Bocksfuss, was released from Main Detention early this morning at my request. I believe he is the true, authentic GILES." A great commotion greeted this pronouncement: reporters dashed for telephones; Grandfather and his former receptionist frowned and gasped, respectively; Mother wept and kissed the hem of Bray's cloak. I remained suspicious, but my heart stirred.
"However," Bray continued, "he may or may not be a Grand Tutor." The reporters halted in their tracks; everyone seemed reassured, even myself, by the possibility that I might yet be false. "Now hear this, classmates and Tutees: you did right to lynch him last spring, but I did right also to stop the lynching, and grant him now a probationary pardon. This is his opportunity to redeem his former failings, complete his Assignment correctly

Johannes Vermeer paintings

Johannes Vermeer paintings
Jacques-Louis David paintings
John Everett Millais paintings
stopped and grinned; the famous forelock fell. "I know: it'ssupposed to be crazy. All the same --" He laughed aloud at this additional irony, throwing back his head and flashing his fine teeth. "Wouldn't that make them sit up, though, if I went out there and called MauryBrother! Or told X to bring his Line as close as he wants!"
Unsettled by the tempting outrageousness of that idea, he flung open the curtains of a double glass door leading from the office onto a terrace, and squinted and chuckled in the glare. Beyond the low wall of the terrace was the driveway-gate where Stoker lingered with some of his sooty crew and a few reporters.
"One thing at a time," I cautioned. He caught me up brightly: who was being the prudent one now? But delighted as I was by his respiriting, I felt obliged to warn him that there were photographers about.
His blue eyes twinkled. "What difference does that make? Anyway their pictures haven't been turning out lately. No flashgun batteries." But he grew grave for just a moment at the terrace door. "You say you're not the Grand Tutor, George; but I understand you really are the GILES." I shrugged. "That's what WESCAC says." He smiled

Mark Rothko paintings

Mark Rothko paintings
Montague Dawson paintings
Mary Cassatt paintings
grinned contemptuously as I approached.
"You're supposed to protect the right of private information!" Ira berated him. "What do I pay taxes for?"
"You never paid taxes in ," Stoker said, not bothering to look at him. "Did you think they'dthank you for cutting off their scholarships?"
Drawing his head into the collar of his topcoat, Ira retorted that he didn't give a fact for their opinion of him, but he did have more right to be protected from robbery than anyone else in New ; precisely because he had withdrawn all support from his former tax write-offs, the Philophilosophical Fund and the Unwed Co-ed's Hospital, he now paid the highest taxes on campus. In fact, he declared (glaring at me with his shelled eyes) the Administration was bleeding the golden goose to death, and its own; he was on the verge of intellectual bankruptcy, thanks to my bad advice, and the daily robberies and copyright infringements perpetrated on him would soon put him over the edge if the campus patrol refused him the help he'd bought and paid for -- with his ward

Andrew Atroshenko paintings

Andy Warhol daisy 1982
Alfred Gockel paintings
Alexei Alexeivich Harlamoff paintings
the time I saw you, and hated so much what us humans had done, if I'd had one wish it would have been you was aZiegenbock for real! I wanted you to grow a thick fleece and big horns like Brickett Ranunculus, and be fierce and gentle the way he is, and so strong, and calm, and beautiful. . . you never would have to hate anybody!"
Thus it had come to pass (he concluded with the same rue that had commenced this history and got lost in its unfolding) he named me Billy Bocksfuss, and swearing George Herrold as best he could to silence, nursed me secretly for a year, after which he gave out that he'd found me one morning with the other kids in the play-pound and meant to raise me as his son. Among his apprehensions had been that the tabloids would make a campus sensation of the story, not a few of whose features recalled such legends as the founding of

Edmund Blair Leighton The Accolade painting

Edmund Blair Leighton The Accolade paintingEdmund Blair Leighton The End of The Song paintingFrank Dicksee Romeo and Juliet painting
former envious rejection, he himself cut the interview short, and readily agreed to the Chancellor's suggestion that they meet no more. In a curious heat then, he had throttled through the Light-House gate with his company -- not in excess of the posted speed-limits -- just as Anastasia and I had happened to taxi past en route to the Library from Dr. Sear's. When shortly afterwards the crowd had gathered before Tower Hall, and he learned their purpose, he'd put his newpersona to the further test I'd witnessed, soothing the demonstrators instead of inciting and clubbing them at once as was his wont. Bray's admonition there in the lobby -- to "be himself, for Founder's sake" -- accounted for his subsequent partial regression: whowas himself? and for Whose sake did he do anything? Confused, he had retired to Main Detention, exchanged the suit for his customary garb, and returned to Great Mall just in time to stop the lynching.
"But why'd you stop it?" I asked him. "If you'd decided my Tutoring was false and Bray's was true. . ."
He shrugged. "Stacey's orders."

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring painting

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring paintingJohannes Vermeer girl with the pearl earring paintingGustav Klimt The Three Ages of Woman painting
The prospect which had so alarmed her only a few moments previously seemed now to delight her quite as much as that of Dr. Sear's connubial husbandry. "I can'twait to see Mom!" she exclaimed. "I'llmake her 'fess up this time!" Her face was alight. "I know what! Friday's her night to work: I'll go with you to the Library, and we'll kill two birds with one stone!" Her mother, she reminded me, was an assistant director of filing and cataloguing in the Central Library: an office she'd attained on her own merits before the misfortune of her illegitimate and subsequent instability, and held since as a kind of sinecure thanks to the influence of her father, the ex-Chancellor. Thus it was she whom I'd be applying to in any case for authorization to re-place the Founder's Scroll. Anastasia proposed to accompany me there and take the opportunity to "get to the bottom of thissister -thing," as she put it. Already she was a-bubble with questions and conjectures: if we were twins, or even just siblings, she couldn'timagine why I hadn't been raised along with herself; how couldanybody not want their own little baby? On the other hand, if something had