Thomas Gainsborough The Blue Boy painting

Thomas Gainsborough The Blue Boy paintingEdvard Munch The Scream paintingGustav Klimt Mother and Child detail from The Three Ages of Woman painting
ONE SUMMER AFTERNOON AT CAPUA I WAS SITTING ON A stone bench behind the stables of my villa, thinking out some problem of Etruscan history and idly shooting dice, left hand against right, on the rough plank table in front of me. A raggedly dressed man came up and asked whether I was Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus: he had been directed here from Rome, he said. "Who gave you the message?" "A fellow I met in the woods near Cape Cosa. Curious sort of fellow. He was dressed like a slave but he spoke like a Cassar. A big thick-set fellow and looked half starved."
"I have a message for you, sir. I don't know whether it's worth delivering but I'm an old soldier on the tramp-one of your father's veterans, sir-and you know what it is, I'm glad of having an excuse for taking one road rather than another."