Frederic Edwin Church Autumn

Frederic Edwin Church AutumnLorenzo Lotto St Catherine of AlexandriaTitian Emperor CharlesTitian The Fall of ManTheodore Chasseriau Apollo and Daphne
wizards grunted with effort.
‘‑and, mm, I can remember it as if it was only yesterday, the look on his face when‑‘
‘Now lower away!’
The iron‑shod wheels clanged gently on the cobbles of the alley.
Poons nodded amiably. ‘Great times. Great times,’ he muttered, and fell asleep.
The wizards climbed slowly and unsteadily over the wall, ample backsides gleaming in the moonlight, and stood .’
It was dawning on the wizards that they were outside the University, at night and without permission, for the first time in decades. A certain suppressed excitement crackled from man to man. Any watcher trained in reading body language would have been prepared to bet that, after the click, wheezing gently on the far side.‘Tell me, Dean,’ said the Lecturer, leaning on the wall to stop the shaking in his legs, ‘have we made . . . the wall . . . higher in the last fifty years?’‘I . . . don’t . . . think . . . so.’‘Odd. Used to go up it like a gazelle. Not many years ago. Not many at all, really.’The wizards wiped their foreheads and looked sheepishly at one another.‘Used to nip over for a pint or three most nights,’ said the Chair.‘I used to study in the evenings,’ said the Dean, primly.The Chair narrowed his eyes.‘Yes, you always did,’ he said. ‘I recall

Juan Gris The Open Window

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And . . . ‘ Dibbler stared reflectively, ‘ . . . we could try . . . a great big shark?’ Even Dibbler sounded slightly surprised at his own suggestion.
Soll looked hopefully at Victor.
‘I’m almost certain sharks didn’t fight in the Civil War,’ said Victor.
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure people would have noticed,’ said Victor.
‘They’d go mooning around over some girl who’s letting dretful Creatures of the Night into the world,’ said Gaspode.
‘I should hope not,’ said Victor, and then, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Aha! Now he listens! Your girlfriend‑‘have got trampled by the elephants,’ muttered Soll.‘Yeah,’ said Dibbler, sadly. ‘It was just a thought. Don’t know why I said it, really.’He stared at nothing for a while, and then shook his head briskly.A shark, Victor thought. All the little golden fishes of your own thoughts are swimming away happily, and then the water moves and this great shark of a thought comes in from outside. As if someone’s doing our thinking for us. ‘You just don’t know how to behave,’ Victor told Gaspode, when they were alone. ‘I could hear you grumbling under the chair the whole time.’‘I might not know how to behave, but at least I don’t

Thomas Kinkade Courage

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couple of times every day. You could set your . . . your,’ it hesitated. ‘It was always the same times. Many times a day.’
‘Three ‘Yeah, I want this cleared up right now,’ squeaked the mouse. ‘Back home I was top mouse. I could lick any other mouse in the house. I want a proper name, kid. Anyone calls me Squeaky Boots’, he looked up at Victor, ‘is asking for a head shaped like a frying pan, do I make myself clear?’
The duck quacked at length. times. Three performances. Like a sort of theatre?’ said Victor, running his finger down the page. ‘We can’t count up to three,’ said the rabbit sourly. ‘It goes one . . . many. Many times.’ He glared at Victor. ‘Mr Thumpy,’ it said, in withering tones. ‘And people from other places brought him fish,’ said Victor. ‘There’s no-one else living near here. They must have come from miles away. People sailed miles just to bring him fish. It’s as though he didn’t want to eat fish out of the bay here. And it’s teeming with them. When I went swimming I saw lobsters you wouldn’t believe.’ ‘What did you name them?’ said Mr Thumpy, who wasn’t the kind of rabbit that forgot a grudge. ‘Mr Snappy

Caravaggio The Inspiration of Saint Matthew

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they were full of the nervous excitement of those who have found an unexpected fortune in their bank account and don’t know whether to draw people’s attention to it or simply take the lot and run.
‘The wizards aren’t going to like it,’ said one of them, a thin, hesitant man called Lully. ‘They’re going to call it magic. . You know what they’re like.’
The alchemists nodded gloomily.
‘They’re reactionaries,’ said Sendivoge, the Guild secretary. ‘Bloated thaumocrats. And the other Guilds, too. What do they know about the march of progress? What do they care? They could have been doing something like this for years, but did they? Not them! Just think how we can make people’s lives so much . . . well, better. The possibilities are immense.’
‘Educational,’ said Silverfish.
‘Historical,’ said Lully. You know they get really pissed if they think you’re doing magic and you’re not a wizard.’ ‘There isn’t any magic involved,’ said Thomas Silverfish, the president of the Guild. ‘There’s the imps.’ ‘That’s not magic. That’s just ordinary occult.’ ‘Well, there’s the salamanders.’ ‘Perfectly normal natural history. Nothing wrong with that.’ ‘Well, all right. But they’ll call it magic

Andy Warhol Diamond Dust Shoes

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The king slapped the apprentice on the back, pitching him forward.
'Damn clever idea!' he said. 'We'll just go and get one of the real early ancestors. Oh.' He sagged. 'That's no good. No-one will be able to understand them-'
'Gern!' said Dil, his eyes growing wider.
'No, it's 'The t- look at the t-'
'He ought to have a lie down,' said the king. 'I know his sort. The artistic type. Highly strung.'
Dil took a deep breath.
'Look at the sodding torch, Gern!' he shouted.
They looked.
Without any fuss, turning its black ashes into dry straw, the torch wasall right, king,' said Gern, enjoying the new-found freedom of thought, 'because, the reason being, everyone understands someone, all we have to do is sort them out.' 'Bright lad. Bright lad,' said the king. 'Gern!' They both looked at him in astonishment. 'You all right, master?' said Gern. 'You've gone all white.' 'The t-' stuttered Dil, rigid with terror. 'The what, master?'

Frida Kahlo Self Portrait 1940

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discharge alone . . .' He pulled his abacus towards him and rattled the pottery beads along the wires. 'Let's say we're talking twice the height of the Executive model, which gives us a mass of. . . plus additional coded dimensions of occult . Whatever happened to the two bits of wood and a plumbline?
The last beads clicked against the stops.
'It'd be a whole quantum leap in pyramidology,' said IIb, sitting back with a messianic grin on his face.
'It'd be a whole kwa-' IIa began.
'Quantum,' said IIb, savouring the word.
'It'd be a whole quantum leap in bankruptcy,' said IIa.
'They'd have to invent a new word for that too.'
'It'd be worth it as a loss leader,' said IIb.significance as per spec. . . we couldn't do this sort of thing even a hundred years ago, you realise, not with the primitive techniques we had then...' His finger became a blur. IIa gave a snort and grabbed his own abacus. 'Limestone at two talents the ton. . .' he said. 'Wear and tear on tools . . . masonry charges . . . demurrage . . . breakages . . . oh dear, oh dear . . . on-cost . . . black marble at replacement prices . . .' Ptaclusp sighed. Two abaci rattling in tandem the whole day long, one changing the shape of the world and the other one deploring the cost

Edmund Blair Leighton Stitching the Standard

Edmund Blair Leighton Stitching the StandardFrancois Boucher Nude on a SofaFrank Dicksee La Belle Dame Sans MerciBenjamin Williams Leader The Last Gleam, Wargrave on ThamesGustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger La Fille De Ferme
although the Death of the Discworld was used to dealing with people by the million, at the same time every death was intimate and personal.
Death was seldom seen except by those of an occult persuasion and his clients themselves. The reason that no-one else saw him was that the human brain is clever enough to edit sights too horrible for it to cope with, but the problem, through teeth fixed in a grimace.
Death gave him a manic grin of stagefright.
WHAT? he whispered, in a voice like an anvil being hit with a small lead hammer.
' ". . . lock will hold, nor fasten'd portal . . .",' said Tomjon encouragingly.
. . . LOCK WILL HOLD NOR FASTEN'D PORTAL . . . UH . . . repeated Death desperately, watching his lips.
' ". . . bar! . . ." ' here was that several hundred people were in fact expecting to see Death at this point, and were therefore seeing him.Death turned slowly and stared back at hundreds of watching eyes.Even in the grip of the truth Tomjon recognised a fellow actor in distress, and fought for mastery of his lips.' ". . . lock will hold . . ." ' he whispered

Leroy Neiman International Cuisine

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said Magrat, her voice higher than usual and with a vibrato of uncertainty, 'it must be a happy life. Making people laugh, I mean.'
When there was no reply she turned to look at the man. His face was like stone. In a low voice, talking as though she rote in rooms that were always freezing, even in high summer, heard the young Assassins at play over the wall and envied them, even though, of course, the number of piping voices grew noticeably fewer towards the end of term (the Assassins also believed in competitive examination).
In fact all sorts of sounds managed to breach the high grim windowless walls, and from keen questioning of servants the younger Fools picked up a vision of the city beyond. There were taverns out there, and parks. There was a whole bustling world, in which the students and apprentices of the various Guilds and Colleges took a full was not there, the Fool spoke.He spoke of the Guild of Fools and Joculators in Ankh-Morpork.Most visitors mistook it at first sight for the offices of the Guild of Assassins, which in fact was the rather pleasant,- airy collection of buildings next door (the Assassins always had plenty of money); sometimes the young Fools, slaving at their

Martin Johnson Heade Orchids and Hummingbird

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they would be beyond my capabilities as yet . . . but surely—' the ghost of the king waved a hand in a vague gesture which encompassed the dungeon, Nanny and the manacles – 'to a witch all this is just so much—'
'Solid iron,' said Nanny. 'You might be able to walk through it, but I can't.'
'I didn't realise,' said Verence. 'I thought witches could do magic.'
'Young man,' said Nanny, 'you will oblige me by shutting up.'
'Madam! I am a king!'
'You are also dead, so I wouldn't aspire to hold any opinions if I was you. Now just be quiet and wait, like a good boy.'
Against all his instincts, the king found himself obeying. There was no gainsaying that tone of voice. It spoke to him putting evil curses on folk. Except for Daviss the butcher. And old Cakebread, after he kicked her cat. But they wasn't what you'd call real curses, was they, m'm?'
'You can stop calling me m'm.'across the years, from his days in the nursery. Its echoes told him that if he didn't eat it all up he would be sent straight to bed.Nanny Ogg stirred in her chains. She hoped they would turn up soon.'Er,' said the king uneasily. 'I feel I owe you an explanation . . .' 'Thank you,' said Granny Weatherwax, and because Shawn seemed to be expecting it, added, 'You've been a good boy.''Yes'm,' said Shawn. 'M'm?''Was there something else?'Shawn twisted the end of his chain-mail vest out of embarrassment. 'It's not true what everyone's been saying about our mam, is it, m'm?' he said. 'She doesn't go round

Thomas Kinkade yankee stadium

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Verence lowered himself gently on to a bench, so that he did not drift through it, and sank his head in his hands. He'd heard that death could be bad. He just hadn't realised how bad.
He The duke put those who met him in mind of some sort of lizard, possibly the type that lives on volcanic islands, moves once a day, has a vestigial third eye and blinks on a monthly basis. He considered himself to be a civilised man more suited to the dry air and bright sun of a properly-organised climate.wanted revenge. He wanted to get out of this suddenly horrible castle, to find his son. But he was even more terrified to find that what he really wanted, right now, was a plate of kidneys. A damp dawn flooded across the landscape, scaled the battlements of Lancre Castle, stormed the keep and finally made it through the casement of the solar.Duke Felmet stared out gloomily at the dripping forest. There was such a lot of it. It wasn't, he decided, that he had anything against trees as such, it was just that the sight of so much of them was terribly depressing. He kept wanting to count them.'Indeed, my love,' he said.

John Collier A Devonshire Orchard

John Collier A Devonshire OrchardCao Yong Red UmbrellaCao Yong GARDEN BEAUTIES
The guard outside the doors of the great hall had seen it happen too, but he had time to gather his wits, or such that normal soldier, but this guard was officer material.
'I mean, friend or foe?' he stuttered, trying to avoid Mort's gaze.
'Which would you prefer?' he grinned. It wasn't quite the grin of his master, but it was a pretty effective grin and didn't have a trace of humour in it.remained, and raise his spear as Binky trotted across the courtyard.'Halt,' he croaked. 'Halt. What goes where?'Mort saw him for the first time.'What?' he said, still lost in thought.The guard ran his tongue over his dry lips, and backed away. Mort slid off Binky's back and walked forward.'I meant, what goes there?' the guard tried again, with a mixture of doggedness and suicidal stupidity that marked him for early promotion.Mort caught the spear gently and lifted it out of the way of the door. As he did so the torchlight illuminated his face.'Mort,' he said softly.It should have been enough for any

Edward Hopper High Noon

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'Ah. They're always telling folk how much better it's going to be when they're dead. We tell them it could be pretty good right here if only they'd put their minds to it.'
Mort hesitated. He wanted to say: you're wrong, he's not like that at all, he doesn't care if people are good or bad so long as around the log to look at herself.
'Hmm,' she said critically. Time has got a lot to answer for.' She raised her hand and laughed to see the stars through it.
Then she changed. Mort had seen this happen before, when the soul realised it was no longer bound they're punctual. And kind to cats, he added.But he thought better of it. It occurred to him that people needed to believe things.The wolf howled again, so near that Mort looked around apprehensively. Another one across the valley answered it. The chorus was picked up by a couple of others in the depths of the forest. Mort had never heard anything so mournful.He glanced sideways at the still figure of Goodie Hamstring and then, with mounting panic, at the hourglass. He sprang to his feet, snatched up the scythe, and brought it around in a two-handed swing.The witch stood up, leaving her body behind.'Well done,' she said. 'I thought you'd missed it, for a minute, there.'Mort leaned against a tree, panting heavily, and watched Goodie walk

Gustav Klimt lady with fan

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possibly wearing a straw hat with holes cut out for its ears. An edge to this sound made it very clear that straw hats weren't an option.
The horse noises – silence clamped down on the square like great drifts of cotton wool.
The impressive effect was rather spoilt by a patch of ice.
OH, BUGGER.
It wasn't exactly a voice. The words were there all right, but they arrived in Mort's head without bothering to pass through his ears.entered the square by the Hub road, steam curling off its huge damp white flanks and sparks striking up from the cobbles beneath it. It trotted proudly, like a war charger. It was definitely not wearing a straw hat.The tall figure on its back was wrapped up gainst the cold. When the horse reached the centre of the square the rider dismounted, slowly, and fumbled with something behind the saddle. Eventually he – or she – produced a nosebag, fastened it over the horse's ears, and gave it a friendly pat on the neck.The air took on a thick, greasy feel, and the deep shadows around Mort became edged with blue and purple rainbows. The rider strode towards him, black cloak billowing and feet making little clicking sounds on the cobbles. They were the only

Henri Matisse Music

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Reading. That meant the library. Simon had said there were thousands of books in it, and amongst all those words there were bound to be one or two she could read. Esk put the staff over her shoulder and set off resolutely for Mrs Whitlow's office.
She was ," she said. "City people are always worried about the future, it comes from eating unnatural food. Anyway," she added, suddenly realising that she was whining, "Why shouldn't I tell fortunes?"
"You always said Hilta was playing on the foolishness of her sex," said Esk. "You said that them as tell fortunes should be ashamed of themselves, and anyway, you don't need old clothes."
"Waste not, want not," said Granny primly. She had spent the old-clothes standard nearly there when a wall said "Psst!" When Esk stared at it it turned out to be Granny. It wasn't that Granny could make herself invisible, it was just that she had this talent for being able to fade into the foreground so that she wasn't noticed. "How are you getting on, then?" asked Granny. "How's the magic coming along?" "What are you doing here, Granny?" said Esk. "Been to tell Mrs Whitlow her fortune," said Granny, holding up a large bundle of old clothes with some satisfaction. Her smile faded under Esk's stern gaze. "Well, things are different in the city

Salvador Dali The Rose

Salvador Dali The RoseSalvador Dali Paysage aux papillons (Landscape with Butterflies)Salvador Dali Mirage
had been a very long night, and the morning didn't seem to be an improvement. The only person more than half-awake was Esk, who had slept through the whole thing under one of the wagons and had complained only of odd dreams.
Still, it was a relief to get away from that macabre sight. Gander considered that gnolls didn't look any better inside than out. He hated their guts.
Esk sat on Treatle's wagon, talking to Simon who was steering inexpertly while the wizard caught up with some sleep hayfever.
"Did you want to be a wizard when you were a little boy?"
Simon shook his head. "I just www-"
"- wanted -"
"- tto find out how things www -"behind them. Simon did everything inexpertly. He was really good at it. He was one of those tall lads apparently made out of knees, thumbs and elbows. Watching him walk was a strain, you kept waiting for the strings to snap, and when he talked the spasm of agony on his face if he spotted an S or W looming ahead in the sentence made people instinctively say them for him. It was worth it for the grateful look which spread across his acned face like sunrise on the moon. At the moment his eyes were streaming with
"- worked? -"

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western RailwayGustave Courbet MarineGustave Courbet Woman with a Parrot
Spring began to unfold in earnest. Granny started taking Esk on long walks that took all day, to hidden ponds or high on to the mountain scree to collect rare plants. Esk enjoyed that, high on the hills where the sun beat down strongly where, it was generally agreed, the Gods lived on a ten-mile high mountain of rock and ice.
"Gods are all right," said Granny, as they ate their lunch and looked at the view. "You don't bother gods, and gods don't come bothering you."
"Do you know many gods?"
"I've seen the thundergods a few times," said Granny, "and Hoki, of course."
"Hold? "but the air was nevertheless freezing cold. Plants grew thickly and hugged the ground. From some of the highest peaks she could see all the way to the Rim Ocean that ran around the edge of the world; in the other direction the Ramtops marched into the distance, wrapped in eternal winter. They went all the way to the hub of the world

Salvador Dali The Ecumenical Council

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Trymon, who was leading the party, said nothing. But he was thinking very hard. He was thinking about the ottle of oil in his belt, and the eight keys the wizards carried – eight keys that would fit the eight locks that chained the Octavo to its lectern. He was thinking that old wizards who sense that magic is draining away are preoccupied with their own problems and are perhaps less alert than they should be. He was thinking that within a few of randomised magic that blew out of the room, pushed forward. Half-formed shapes giggled and fluttered around them as the nightmare inhabitants of the Dungeon Dimensions constantly probed (with things that passed for fingers only because they were at the ends of their arms) for an unguarded entry into the circle of firelight that passed for the universe of reason minutes the Octavo, the greatest concentration of magic on the Disc, would be under his hands.Despite the coolness of the tunnel he began to sweat.They came to a lead-lined door set in the sheer stone. Trymon took a heavy key – a good, honest iron key, not like the twisted and disconcerting keys that would unlock the Octavo – gave the lock a squirt of oil, inserted the key, turned it. The lock squeaked open protestingly.'Are we of one resolve?' said Trymon. There was a series of vaguely affirmative grunts.He pushed at the door.A warm gale of thick and somehow oily air rolled over them. The air was filled with a high-pitched and unpleasant chittering. Tiny sparks of octarine fire flared off every nose, fingernail and beard.The wizards, their heads bowed against the storm

Rembrandt Bathsheba at Her Bath

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looked down. The Luggage padded out of the darkness. There was a long sliver of scytheblade in its lid.
'It's just the Luggage,' he said.
'But we didn't summon it here!'
'No-one summons it anywhere,' said Rincewind. 'It just turns up. Don't worry about it.'
'Oh. What were we talking about?'
'This red star thing.'
'Right. It's very important that you —'
'Hallo? Hallo? Anyone out there?'
It was a small and squeaky voice and came from the picture box still slung around Twoflower's inert neck.
The happened to you after you really died, the authorities were a little unclear on the subject; a swarthy sailor from the Rimward lands had said that he was confident of going to a paradise where there was sherbet and houris. Rincewind wasn't certain what a houri was, but after some thought he came to the conclusion that it was a little liquorice tube for sucking up the sherbet. Anyway, sherbet picture imp opened his hatch and squinted up at Rincewind.'Where's this, squire?' it said.'I'm not sure.''We still dead?''Maybe.''Well, let's hope we go somewhere where we don't need too much black, because I've run out.' The hatch slammed shut.Rincewind had a fleeting vision of Twoflower handing around his pictures and saying things like 'This is me being tormented by a million demons' and 'This is me with that funny couple we met on the freezing slopes of the Underworld.' Rincewind wasn't certain about what

Pino THE DANCER

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cover was scratched and very dog-eared, the gold of its lettering had long ago curled off, but he could just make out, in the old magic tongue of the Tsort Valley, the words: Iyt Gryet Teymple hyte Tsort, Y Hiystory Myistical.
'Oook?' said the librarian, anxiously.
Trymon turned the pages cautiously. He wasn't very good at languages, he'd always found them highly inefficient things which by rights ought to be replaced by some sort of easily understood numerical system, but this
'Would you like another banana?' he said.

The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called – in the local language – Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund.seemed exactly what he was looking for. There were whole pages covered with meaningful hieroglyphs.'Is this the only book you've got about the pyramid of Tsort?' he said slowly.'Oook.''You're quite sure?''Oook.'Trymon listened. He could hear, a long way off, the sound of approaching feet and arguing voices. But he had been prepared for that, too.He reached into a pocket.

Albert Moore Midsummer

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levers, strings and bells that was mounted on the Circumfence's topmost strand where it passed through the hut.salvage fleet. You're to be collected by a flyer. That's what they say in Krull." He shrugged. "And I hadn't even sent a message that you're here, yet. Someone's been drinking vul nut wine again."
He picked up a large mallet that hung on a pillar beside the bell and used it to tap out a brief carillon.
"That'll be passed from lengthman to lengthman all the way back to Krull," he said. "Marvellous really, isn't The bell rang again, and then started to clang away in an odd jerky rhythm for several minutes. The troll stood with his ear pressed close to it.When it stopped he turned slowly and looked at them with a worried frown."You're more important than I thought," he said."You're not to wait for the