Francois Boucher The Rape of Europa painting

Francois Boucher The Rape of Europa paintingMichelangelo Buonarroti The Creation of Adam paintingMichelangelo Buonarroti Creation of Adam painting
The thought brought more tears, as well it might, despite Anastasia's reassurances that none but herself was accountable for her choice of husbands. Happily, Miss Hector seemed unaware of the details of her daughter's life, before as well as after marr, understanding only in a general way that it was less than serene and respectable. She was able therefore to recompose herself sooner than she doubtless would have had she known the hard particulars of Anastasia's history.
"I wasawfully upset, you know," she went on presently, referring to the period of her daughter's infancy. "You can'timagine how it is to know that nobody will ever believe the truth, no matter what. Not even you. Not even now. . ."
Anastasia vowed she would, if only her mother would produce it; and so, after a number of unconvinced hums and clucks, Virginia Hector said clearly, almost wryly: "The truth is, I have never in my life. . .gone all the way with a man. Not once, to

Claude Monet Monet Water Lillies I painting

Claude Monet Monet Water Lillies I paintingClaude Monet Boulevard des Capucines paintingHorace Vernet Judith and Holofernes painting
Bray. Look once, I prove it on WESCAC." He gave a further string of undecipherable instructions to Croaker, who turned several switches on one of those consoles that seemed to be everywhere in the I watched with sharp attention.
"The child born from the GILES would be a Grand Tutor," he declared. Croaker punched certain buttons. "Miss Anastasia Hector isn't a Grand Tutor, we agree." More buttons. "But no woman except Virginia Hector could have got in where WESCAC had the GILES. Since Anastasia is the one that got born, it couldn't have been the GILES that Virginia got fertilized by, and you couldn't be the Grand Tutor. Now WESCAC reads it out." Croaker had pressed buttons after each of these propositions; he pulled a long lever now on the side of the console, things dinged and whirred, and from an opening down in the front a strip of paper began clicking out, which Dr. Eierkopf perused with satisfied nods and peeps. I would have objected that his initial premise, even if granted, seemed to me inadequate to the

Claude Monet Water Lilies painting

Claude Monet Water Lilies paintingVincent van Gogh Poppies 1886 paintingHenri Matisse Goldfish painting
tucking in her blouse.
"You all have an appointment with Mr. Stoker?"
Even as she asked -- patting her hair into place the while -- Stoker bellowed greetings at me from inside and emerged, also tucking his shirt-tails in. But now the secretary and Peter Greene had noticed each other, and he clutched his orange hair and cried, "Flunk my heart!"
"I beg your pardon?" the Frumentian young woman said. Stoker grinned.
"What you doing here, gal?" Greene exclaimed. "You're s'posed to be taking care of Sally Ann!"
She donned a pair of glasses and looked questioningly at Stoker. "Should I know this gentleman? I don't understand what he's talking about."
"This is Georgina," Stoker said. "My new secretary. Georgina, Mr. George, the Goat-Boy." We exchanged polite greetings. "And Mr. Greene," Stoker added.
"That ain't her name!" Peter Greene said indignantly. "She's old O.B.G.'s daughter! You get on back to the house, doggone it; Sally Ann might need you!"

Thomas Kinkade New Horizons painting

Thomas Kinkade New Horizons paintingThomas Kinkade Mountain Paradise paintingThomas Kinkade Mountain Memories painting
The pair had been looking skeptical, though clearly impressed. But when I assured Mrs. Sear that they'd only been being overzealous in performance of their duties, Jake scowled and nodded, and the other removed his cap.
"Come along," I told them. "I want a seat near the Chancellor."
"The Grand Tutor says He'll meet you at the Grateway Exit after the address," Mrs. Sear said. "Kennard's going there now with your Clean Bill of ."
"That won't be necessary."
"No bother at all," said Dr. Sear. "I'm very honored to have met a potential Candidate for the Real Thing. Which reminds me --" He took from a nearby desk drawer a small round mirror mounted on a spring-clip. "It's customary to give a little gift on matriculation-day; something to represent what we wish for the new Candidate. Will you take this?"
I thanked him politely and inquired whether I was correct in believing it to be a mirror.

Titian Emperor Charles painting

Titian Emperor Charles paintingLouis Aston Knight A Riverside Cottage paintingAndrea Mantegna Madonna with Sleeping Child painting
Often and often, he said, when he'd had equations to think through or wanted only to rest his mind, he would come Home to discover Croaker at hisone of the girls -- perhaps a cheerleader, with crimson letter on the breast of her pullover. Naturally Croaker never troubled to draw the blinds, and in those days the spectacle gave Eierkopf headaches: from his perch on the outside stairway he was obliged, so he complained, to watch the pair at their rut: how the little pink beast feigned displeasure, even threatened alarum; how her ape-of-the-woods merely croaked, and naked himself already, had at garter and hook, put her in a trice to the fearsome roger -- whereat, coy no more, she'd whoop.
"And the worst was, we had to share the same bed!" Hard enough to relax, he said, in the odors of perfume and sweat; more than once, when sleep at last had granted respite from all thought he would be roused by Croaker's heavy arm flung over him; caught up in prurient dreamings the Frumentian mistook him for the prey, and must either be waked (no easy task) or his hug suffered till the dream was done.

Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night 2 painting

Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night 2 paintingVincent van Gogh The Church in Auvers paintingVincent van Gogh Lane with Poplars painting
got enough to think about. If there's
one thing I don't need, it's your story.

TALIPED: I think you're worried that some scrub-girl bore me.
So what? It makes me an even grander guy,
that I began so low and rose so high.

AGENORA: I need an aspirin. Maybe the whole bottle.
Find out your name, and all the pills I've got'll
do no good. I'm going to hang this dress
up on the clothesline now. It looks a mess.
But please, lover, take my advice and flunk
this ID-quiz. 'Cause if you don't, we're sunk.[Exits

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN:What's eating her?[Aside]As if I didn't know.

TALIPED:Like all administrators' wives, she's so
rank-conscious that she'd probably have the vapors
to see it entered on my ID-papers
that I'm some freshman co-ed's son, who laid
her math professor for a better grade.
But I don't give a flunk. I'm just as great
no matter who my folks were. I can't wait
to learn the Answer! Who cares what it is,
as long as it's the Founder's truth? Gee whiz!

Albert Moore Idyll painting

Albert Moore Idyll paintingAlbert Moore Garden paintingAlbert Moore Apples painting
process of telling her, like announcing to a sick man that he must get well in order to take his . .
But in the course of his analogy his wife had interrupted him with a scream, and another, and a third, and a fourth, and another and another, beyond his shocked remonstrances to consider the children, to get hold of herself, for Founder's sake to stop. He grew frantic; still she lay in their bed and screamed, her eyes tight shut. At last he called in a neighbor lady and O.B.G.'s daughter. By the time the family doctor arrived to sedate her, her cries had turned to wild weeping; the children were awake and had been told that their mother's nerves were bad from too much work and worry. Did they understand? Solemn-faced, they nodded yes. Next morning it was added that she would be going away to rest, and away she went -- to the Faculty Women's Rest House, whose services she was entitled to by virtue of her one-time position as district schoolmistress. Once she was established in that stately, hushed retreat, where so many were of their acquaintance, her spirits lifted; indeed, she was more calm and optimistic when he went to see her than she'd been for a long while, despite her doctor's vagueness about how long she'd have to stay; she

Horace Vernet Judith and Holofernes painting

Horace Vernet Judith and Holofernes paintingHorace Vernet The Lion Hunt paintingJean Auguste Dominique Ingres The Grande Odalisque painting
burned in me like Stoker's awful fires, which no amount of tears could quench, yet weariness banked and dampered them: careless of comfort, of couch, beside which Anastasia stood and would not let Mrs. Sear unbelt her.
"It's notso, George!" she said. "There's no such custom at all, except at these parties. Believe me!"
But the swelling organ bore my doubts away. "You believeme," I said. "Nothing else matters." With my free hand I gave her sash the needed jerk, of safety (but Croaker seemed no longer a menace, having come to the dais, now I reflected on it, more probably to aid than to assault me; and as for Stoker, I saw little cause why he might pursue us, and less hope of eluding him if he should), I glanced over at my companion, already snoring, then closed my eyes, and just as I had fallen, pitched asleep.

Leonardo da Vinci da Vinci Self Portrait painting

Leonardo da Vinci da Vinci Self Portrait paintingLeonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa Painting paintingRembrandt Rembrandt night watch painting
the caldron-plates, from valves big as wagon-wheels, from the steel trucks full of ash or stone that rolled on rails down every aisle, from fissures in the very walls and floor. Troops of grimed and burly laborers, a few women among them, ran hither and thither, toiling, cursing. Stripped to the waist or covered in sweat-soaked denim, black rags about their heads, they wrestled with valve-stems and winch-gears, plied wrenches big as crowbars to great bolt-heads, and stoked the awful fires with battering-rams. Whistles screeched; orders were bawled from above and below; everyone seemed in everyone else's way. Steam-valves were opened without warning, and those standing near had to spring for their lives; rail-trucks were senting heedless through crowded aisles, sometimes colliding with one another and spilling half their cargo onto the tracks; empty buckets were knocked off catwalks; toes were trod upon, shins barked, fingers mashed; fights broke out on the least occasion between work-gangs whose paths happened to cross -- rail-truck crews and furnace-men, for example -- or between members of the same gang, for no apparent

Thomas Kinkade Paris City of Lights painting

Thomas Kinkade Paris City of Lights paintingThomas Kinkade New Horizons paintingThomas Kinkade Mountain Paradise painting
How can you help them except to find out what it is they need and then give it to them, if you have it? But it always seems to do damage somehow, whenIdo it!"
"Nowpfui on that," Max consoled her, and I too declared it unthinkable that so generous a heart could do other than good.
"Well, take that time in Uncle Ira's study. . ." She was clearly encouraged by our words, though her expression remained doubting. "He said in a way he thought of me as his daughter and in a way he didn't, and I naturally supposed he meant because he was really my great-uncle instead of my father. So when he started explaining what it was the boys wanted, there was no reason to think he wasn't just trying to help me. Istill think he was; Iknow he was, even later on! He'd been working on some accounts that night, as usual, and there were double-entry ledger-sheets spread on his desk; when he drew some pictures on them for me, to show me what he was talking about, I was a little upset, but he had to

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
Mary V. Appenzeller, restored to ripe matronage by the dream. In vain her attempt to flee over the pasture fence; in vain my best efforts to defend her with a stick; the brute climbed her unmercifully, and I woke in terror at her short sharp cries. For all the villain Freddie had died eight years since and been gelded long before that, I hurried to embrace my sleeping keeper and assure myself he was not harmed.
Imagine my disgust next morning when, having heard my tearful report of this dream, Max said calmly as I forked: "What that means, you were actually wishing what I did to that Freddie was done once to me. Then I couldn't take Mary to my stall like you used to see me do. That's all that part means, Georgie." Worse, he declared the Freddie of my dream to be no other buck than myself, who had indeed once felled my keeper with a blow to the chest, where no ordinary goat could reach. As for my apparent defense of Mary, it was but the reaction of my new human conmy former goatishness -- which

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres La Grande baigneuse painting

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres La Grande baigneuse paintingGuido Reni Archangel Michael paintingGuido Reni The Coronation of the Virgin painting
I readThe Revised New Syllabus . Do you likewise, gentlemen and ladies in whose hands this letter is!

A final word. I sought diligently to locate Mr. Stoker Giles, or Giles Stoker (the comma in his name on the title-page, and my imperfect memory of that fateful evening's details, make the order uncertain), with an eagerness you will presently appreciate. In vain: no such name is in our Student Directory, nor is a "New Tammany in the roll of accredited institutions of higher learning. At the same time I consulted one of our own men on the matter of theR.N.S.'s authorship: his opinion was that no automatic facility he knew of was capable presently of more than rudimentary narrative composition and stylistics -- but he added that there was no theoretical barrier even to our own machine's developing such a talent in time. It was simply a matter of more sophisticated circuitry and programming, such as the computer itself could doubtless work out

Johannes Vermeer The Kitchen Maid painting

Johannes Vermeer The Kitchen Maid paintingPierre Auguste Renoir Girls at The Piano painting
decide whether to let go or not. I just remember the cold wind blowing on my body and that dark, man, infinite darkness all around me, and my ankles beginning to slip out of their hands. I really saw Death then, and I think that all I could think of was that I was going to fall and smash myself on that hard, hard street below. That those crazy bastards were going to let me fall. I was praying, I guess. I remember the blood rushing to my brain and my ankles slipping, and that awful strange noise. And I was reaching out, man, clutching at thin air. Then I wondered what that noise was, that high loud noise, and then I realized it was me, screaming at the top of my voice, all over San Francisco." He stopped talking then and scuffed at the sand with one calloused heel. "They hauled me up somehow. It was those sober guys—I guess they were sober—the other two. They got me up. But every time I remember that moment a great big cold shudder runs up and down my spine." He chuckled and chewed on his cigar but the laugh was half-hearted and listless, and he

Pablo Picasso Three Women painting

Pablo Picasso Three Women paintingPablo Picasso Three Dancers painting
Mannix heavily slapped his knee. He seemed not to have heard the question. The giddy sensation passed, and Culver got up to warm his hands at the lamp.
"I'll bet if Regiment or Division got wind of this they'd lower the boom on the bastard," Mannix said.
"They have already. They said fine." "What do you mean? How do you know?" "He said so, before you came in. He radioed to the base for permission, or so he said."
"The bastard."
"He wouldn't dare without it," Culver said. "What I can't figure out is why Regiment gave him the O.K. on it."
"The swine. The little swine. It's not on account of H & S Company. You know that. It's because it's an exploit. He wants to be known as a tough guy, a boondocker."
"There's one consolation, though," said Culver, after a pause, "if it'll help you any."
"What, for God's sake?"

Winslow Homer Gloucester Harbor painting

Winslow Homer Gloucester Harbor paintingEdward Hopper The Long Leg painting
said Jack. “Ennis?” But before he was out of the truck, trying to guess if it was heart attack or the overflow of an incendiary rage, Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they’d said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.
What Jack remembered and craved in a way he could neither help nor understand was the time that distant summer on Brokeback when Ennis had come up behind him and pulled him close, the silent embrace satisfying some shared and sexless hunger. They had stood that way for a long time in front of the fire, its burning tossing ruddy chunks of light, the shadow of their bodies a single column against the rock. The minutes ticked by from the round watch in Ennis’s pocket, from the sticks in the fire settling into coals. Stars bit through the wavy heat layers above the fire. Ennis’s breath came slow and quiet, he hummed, rocked a little in the sparklight

Albert Bierstadt The Mountain Brook painting

Albert Bierstadt The Mountain Brook paintingAlbert Bierstadt Bridal Veil Falls Yosemite paintingDante Gabriel Rossetti Venus Verticordia painting
Owl," said Piglet, looking round at him severely, "Pooh's whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was no need----" "An Ambush," said Owl, "is a sort of Surprise." "So is a gorse-bush sometimes," said Pooh. "An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh," said Piglet, "is a sort of Surprise." "If people jump out at you suddenly, that's an Ambush," said Owl. "It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly," explained Piglet. Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out of himself. are not talking about gorse-bushes," said Owl a little crossly. "I am," said Pooh. They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now, going from rock to rock, and after they had gone a little way they came to a place where the banks widened out at each side, so that on each side of the water there was a level strip of grass on which they could sit down and rest. As soon as he saw this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all sat down and rested.

Unknown Artist Paris Eiffel Tower painting

Unknown Artist Paris Eiffel Tower paintingRene Magritte The Son of Man paintingRene Magritte The Dangerous Liaison painting
With a roar that set the walls of his lair belling out and cracking like circus canvas, the Red Bull charged for the second time. The unicorn fled across the cave and into darkness. Prince Lir, in turning had stepped a little to one side, and before he could wheel back again, the Bull's plunging pursuit smashed him down, stunned, with his mouth open.
Molly would have gone to him, but Schmendrick took hold of her and dragged her along after the Bull and the unicorn. Neither beast was in sight, but the tunnel still thundered from their desperate passage. Dazed and bewildered, Molly stumbled beside the fierce stranger who would neither let her fall nor slacken her pace. Over her head and all around, she could feel the castle groaning, creaking in the rock like a loosening tooth. The witch's rhyme jangled in her memory, over and over.
"Yet none but one of Hagsgate town May bring the castle swirling down."
Suddenly it was sand slowing their feet, and the smell of the sea—cold as the other smell, but so good, so friendly that they both stopped running and laughed aloud. Above them, on the cliff,

Michelangelo Buonarroti Crucifix painting

Michelangelo Buonarroti Crucifix paintingMichelangelo Buonarroti Creation of Adam detail paintingPierre Auguste Renoir The First Outing painting
than this for my prison. A rhinoceros is as ugly as a human being, and it too is going to die, but at least it never thinks that it is beautiful."
"No, it never thinks that," the magician agreed. "That's why it goes on being a rhinoceros and will never be welcome even at Haggard's court. But a young girl, a girl to whom it can never mean anything that she is not a rhinoceros—such a girl, while the king and his son seek to solve her, might unravel her own riddle until she comes to its end. Rhinoceri are not questing beasts, but young girls are."
The sky was hot and curdled; the sun had already melted into a lion-colored puddle; and on the plain of Hagsgate nothing stirred but the stale, heavy wind. The naked girl with the flower-mark on her forehead stared silently at the green-eyed man, and the woman watched them both. In the tawny morning, King Haggard's castle seemed neither dark nor accursed, but merely grimy, rundown, and poorly designed. Its skinny spires looked nothing like a bull's horns, but rather like those on a jester's cap. Or like the horns of a dilemma, Schmendrick thought. They never have just two.
The white girl said, "I am myself still. This body is dying. I can feel it

Claude Monet The Cape Martin painting

Claude Monet The Cape Martin paintingClaude Monet The Bridge at Argenteuil paintingClaude Monet Spring 1880 painting
whimpered and lay flat. She touched the point of her horn to the lock, and was gone to the dragon's cage without looking back. One after another, she set them all free—the satyr, Cerberus, the Midgard Serpent. Their enchantments vanished as they felt their freedom, and they leaped and lumbered and slithered away into the night, once more a lion, an ape, a snake, a crocodile, a joyous dog. None of them thanked the unicorn, and she did not watch them go.
Only the spider paid no mind when the unicorn called softly to her through the open door. Arachne was busy with a web which looked to her as though the Milky Way had begun to fall like snow. The unicorn whispered, "Weaver, freedom is better, freedom is better," but the spider fled unhearing up and down her iron loom. She never stopped for a moment, even when the , Arachne, but it's not art." The new web drifted down the bars like snow.
Then the wind began. The spiderweb blew across the unicorn's eyes and disappeared. The harpy had begun to beat her wings, calling her power in, as a crouching wave draws sand

Edgar Degas Beach Scene painting

Edgar Degas Beach Scene paintingEdgar Degas Ballerina and Lady with a Fan paintingEdgar Degas At the Milliners painting
You mean there's only one immortal at a time?"
"Oh, no," she said. "There are others all around. In the ground. Sometimes people find them. Souvenirs. The really old ones. Ours is young, you know." She looked at the Immortal with a weary but proprietary eye, the way a mother looks at an unpromising infant.
"The diamonds?" I said. "The diamonds are immortals?"
She nodded. "After a really long time," she said. She looked away, across the marshy plain that surrounded the village, and then back at me. "A man came from the mainland, last year, a scientist. He said we ought to bury our Immortal. So it could turn to diamond, you know. But then he said it takes thousands of years to turn. All that time it would be starving and thirsty in the ground and nobody would look after it. It is wrong to bury a person alive. It is our family duty to look after it. And no tourists would come."
It was my turn to nod. The ethics of this

John Singer Sargent Chiron and Achilles painting

John Singer Sargent Chiron and Achilles paintingJohn Singer Sargent Campo Dei Gesuiti paintingJohn Singer Sargent Autumn on the River painting
talked several times with a winged Gyr named Ardiadia; what follows is all in his own words, recorded, with his permission, during our conversations.

OH, YES, WHEN I FIRST found out—when it started happening to me, you know—I was floored. Terrified! I couldn't believe it. I'd been so sure it wouldn't happen to me. When we were kids, you know, we used to joke about so-and-so being "flighty," or say, "He'll be taking off one of these days." But me? Me grow wings? It wasn't going to happen to me. So when I got this headache, and then my teeth ached for a while, and then my back began to hurt, I kept telling myself it was a toothache, I had an infection, an abscess... But when it really began, there was no more fooling myself. It was terrible. I really can't remember much about it. It was bad. It hurt. First like knives running back and forth between my shoulders, and claws digging up and down my spine. And then all over, my arms, my legs, my

Joseph Mallord William Turner Pope's Villa at Twickenham painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner Pope's Villa at Twickenham paintingJoseph Mallord William Turner Rome from the Vatican paintingJoseph Mallord William Turner Heidelberg painting
His English was quite fluent. He had been one of Santa's elves as a boy and then was transferred to New Year's Island as a waiter and part-time gigolo. "It was not so bad," he said, then, "It was bad," and then, his high-cheek-boned, expressive face crinkling into a laugh, "but not very-very bad. Only the food was very-very bad."
Esmo So Mu described his world: hundreds of islands, many with a population of only a family or two, scattered out over the ocean "forever." People traveled from island to island in catamarans. "Everybody go visit all the time," he said.
The Great Joy Corporation had concentrated population in one archipelago and forbidden sailing in or out of that area. "Burn boats," Esmo So Mu said briefly.
He had been born on an island south of Islands and was now living there again. "Lots more money if I stay to work at the hotel," he said

Winslow Homer Rowing Home painting

Winslow Homer Rowing Home paintingWinslow Homer Light on the Sea paintingWinslow Homer Kissing the Moon painting
OBTRY IS CURRENTLY a remote western province of the Empire of Mahigul. It was absorbed when Emperor Tro II annexed the nation of Ven, which had previously annexed Obtry.
The Cleansing of Obtry began about five hundred years ago, when Obtry, a democracy, elected a president whose campaign promise was to drive the Astasa out of the country.
At that time, the rich plains of Obtry had been occupied for over a millennium by two peoples: the Sosa, who had come from the northwest, and the Astasa, who had come from the southwest. The Sosa arrived as refugees, land by invaders, at about the same time the seminomadic Astasa began to settle down in the grazing lands of Obtry.
Displaced by these immigrants, the aboriginal inhabitants of Obtry, the Tyob, retreated to the mountains, where they lived as poor herdsfolk. The Tyob kept to their old primitive ways and language and were not allowed to vote.

Franz Marc paintings

Franz Marc paintings
Fabian Perez paintings
Francois Boucher paintings
Mother. "Here it is." There are tears in her eyes and she laughs the soft, clacking laugh of the Ansarac. "Shuku, do you remember this place?"
And the daughter who was less than a half year old when she left this place—eleven or so, in our years—stares around with amazement and incredulity, and laughs, and cries, "But it was bigger than this!"
Then perhaps Shuku looks across those half-familiar meadows of her birthplace to the just visible roof of the nearest neighbor and wonders if Kirmmmid and his father, who caught up to them and camped with them for a few nights and then went on ahead, were there already, living there, and if so, would Kimimmid come over to say hello?

Edmund Blair Leighton Alain Chartier painting

Edmund Blair Leighton Alain Chartier paintingEdmund Blair Leighton Off paintingFrancois Boucher The Marquise de Pompadour painting
A mere kind of twist and a slipping bend, easier to do than to describe, takes her not to Denver but to Strupsirts, a picturesque region of waterspouts and volcanoes, or to Djeyo where she can stay for rwo nights in a small hotel with a balcony overlooking the amber Sea of Somue. This new discovery—changing planes— enables Sita to visit bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own and sometimes open doors into the alien.

Illustrated by Eric Beddows, Le Guin's account of her travels is by turns funny, disturbing, and thought provoking.

Titian Sacred and Profane Love painting

Titian Sacred and Profane Love paintingTitian The Three Ages of Man paintingTitian Saint Christopher painting
and touch. In Karezza, both by reason of its intense intimacy and of the long time of contact, besides the peculiar fitness of the organs themselves for the work, this exchange reaches its maximum of realization - it is vital exchange in its most satisfying expression - wherefore it is really the thing for which all love is reaching, wishing.
Apparently, in the love-contact of two, some of this life-food is released in each and reabsorbed in each, but more of it is given to the other partner. Men and women in love are thus veritable cannibals and feed each on each, and each gives to the other the stored-up life-food, charged with the personal qualities of maleness or femaleness of the individual sex. Apparently my lover and I may live on our life-foods to some extent, but each finds the life-food of the other the more stimulating and nutritious. In Karezza we feed each other "baby food."

Vincent van Gogh The Bedroom painting

Vincent van Gogh The Bedroom paintingVincent van Gogh Reaper paintingEdmund Blair Leighton Lady in a Garden painting
'Maybe it won't,' said Ron. 'We're not in any more danger here than we are at Home, are we? Everywhere's the same now. I'd even say Hogwarts is safer, there are more wizards inside to defend the place. What d'you reckon, Harry?'
'I'm not coming back even if it does reopen,' said Harry.
Ron gaped at him, but Hermione said sadly, 'I knew you were going to say that. But then what will you do? 1
'I'm going back to the Dursleys' once more, because Dumbledore wanted me to,' said Harry. 'But it'll be a short visit, and then I'll be gone for good.'
'But where will you go if you don't come back to school?'
'I thought I might go back to Godric's Hollow,' Harry mut-tered. He had had the idea in his head ever since the night of Dumbledore's death. 'For me, it started there, all of it. I've just got a feeling I need to go there. And I can visit my parents' graves, I'd like that.'
'And then what?' said Ron.

Gustav Klimt The Virgin painting

Gustav Klimt The Virgin paintingGustav Klimt dancer paintingGustav Klimt Adam and Eve painting
touching; but Harry had long since learned that bangs and smoke were more often the marks of ineptitude than expertise. Dumbledore stepped back from the cave wall and pointed his wand at the rock. For a moment, an arched outline appeared there, blazing white as though there was a powerful light behind the crack.
"You've d-done it!" said Harry through chattering teeth, but before the words had left his lips the outline had gone, leaving the rock as bare and solid as ever. Dumbledore looked around.
"Harry, I'm so sorry, I forgot," he said; he now pointed his wand at Harry and at once, Harry's clothes were as warm and dry as if they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire.
"Thank you," said Harry gratefully, but Dumbledore had al-ready turned his attention back to the solid cave wall. He did not try any more magic, but simply stood there staring at it intently, as though something extremely interesting was written on it. Harry stayed quite still; he did not want to break Dumbledores concen-tration. Then, after two solid minutes, Dumbledore said quietly, "Oh, surely not. So crude."

Titian Saint Christopher painting

Titian Saint Christopher paintingFrancisco de Goya The Parasol painting
think I'm going to take another swig of Felix," said Harry, "and have a go at the Room of Requirement again."
"That would be a complete waste of potion," said Hermione flatly, putting down the copy of Spellmans Syllabary she had just taken out of her bag. "Luck can only get you so far, Harry. The situation with Slughorn was different; you always had the ability to persuade him, you just needed to tweak the circumstances a bit. Luck isn't enough to get you through a powerful enchantment, though. Don't go wasting the rest of that potion! You'll need all the luck you can get if Dumbledore takes you along with him ..." She dropped her voice to a whisper.
"Couldn't we make some more?" Ron asked Harry, ignoring Hermione. "It'd be great to have a stock of it. ... Have a look in the book... "
Harry pulled his copy of Advanced Potion-Making out of his bap, and looked up Felix Felicis.
"Blimey, its seriously complicated," he said, running an eye down the list of ingredients. "And it takes six months.,. You've got to let it stew. ..."

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Slave Ship painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Slave Ship paintingJoseph Mallord William Turner Rainbow painting
The younger Dumbledore seemed to be waiting for something, and sure enough, moments after their arrival, there was a knock on the door and he said, "Enter."
Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years ago: They were not as snake-like, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.

Raphael Deposition of Christ painting

Raphael Deposition of Christ paintingGeorge Frederick Watts The Three Graces painting
chortled again and Harry joined in. This was the firsi time he had found himself almost alone with Slughorn since his disastrous first attempt to extract the true memory from him. Perhaps, if he could just keep Slughorn in a good mood ... perhaps if they got through enough of the oak-matured mead ...
There you are, then,' said Slughorn, handing Harry and Ron a glass of mead each, before raising his own. 'Well, a very happy birthday, Ralph -'
'- Ron -' whispered Harry.
But Ron, who did not appear to be listening to the toast, had already thrown the mead into his mouth and swallowed it.
There was one second, hardly more than a heartbeat, in which Harry knew there was something terribly wrong and Slughorn, it seemed, did not.

Bartolome Esteban Murillo Madonna and Child painting

Bartolome Esteban Murillo Madonna and Child paintingFilippino Lippi Madonna with Child and Saints painting
Harry woke with a start to find a bulging stocking lying over the end of his bed. He put on his glasses and looked around; the tiny window was almost completely obscured with snow and, in front of it, Ron was sitting bolt upright in bed and examining what ap-peared to be a thick gold chain.
"What's chat?" asked Harry. '
"Its from Lavender," said Ron, sounding revolted^ "She earn
honestly think I'd wear ..."
Harry looked more closely and let out a shout of laughter, Dan
gling from the chain in large gold letters were the words:

“My sweetheart”

"Nice," he said. "Classy. You should definitely wear it in front ol Fred and George."
"If you tell them," said Ron, shoving the necklace out of sight under his pillow, "I — I

Thomas Kinkade Serenity Cove painting

Thomas Kinkade Serenity Cove paintingThomas Kinkade San Francisco Lombard Street paintingThomas Kinkade Make a Wish Cottage painting
Er . . . c'mon, Ginny," said Dean, "let's go back to the common room. ..."
"You go!" said Ginny. "I want a word with my dear brother!" Dean left, looking as though he was not sorry to depart the scene.
"Right," said Ginny, tossing her long red hair out of her face and glaring at Ron, "let's get this straight once and for all. It is none of your Businesswho I go out with or what I do with them, Ron —" "Yeah, it is!" said Ron, just as angrily. "D' you think I want peo-ple saying my sister's a —"
"A what?" shouted Ginny, drawing her wand. "A what, exactly?" "He doesn't mean anything, Ginny —" said Harry automati-cally, though the monster was roaring its approval of Ron's words. "Oh yes he does!" she said, flaring up at Harry. "Just because he's never snogged anyone in his life, just because the best kiss he's ever had is from our Auntie Muriel —"
"Shut your mouth!" bellowed Ron, bypassing red and turning maroon.