The Sacrifice of Abraham painting
The Three Ages of Woman
The Virgin and Child with St Anne
The Water lily Pond
¡¡¡¡ There was no reply. Thinking Sue was dozing he went on: ¡¡¡¡ "And there must be a rearrangement of that ventilator in the class-room. The wind blows down upon my head unmercifully and gives me the ear-ache." ¡¡¡¡ As the silence seemed more absolute than ordinarily he turned round. The heavy, gloomy oak wainscot, which extended over the walls upstairs and down in the dilapidated "Old-Grove Place," and the massive chimney-piece reaching to the ceiling, stood in odd contrast to the new and shining brass bedstead, and the new suite of birch furniture that he had bought for her, the two styles seeming to nod to each other across three centuries upon the shaking floor. ¡¡¡¡ "Soo!" he said (this being the way in which he pronounced her name). ¡¡¡¡ She was not in the bed, though she had apparently been there-- the clothes on her side being flung back. Thinking she might have forgotten some kitchen detail and gone downstairs for a moment to see to it, he pulled off his coat and idled quietly enough for a few minutes, when, finding she did not come, he went out upon the landing, candle in hand, and said again "Soo!" ¡¡¡¡ "Yes!" came back to him in her voice, from the distant kitchen quarter. ¡¡¡¡ "What are you doing down there at midnight--tiring yourself out for nothing!" ¡¡¡¡ "I am not sleepy; I am reading; and there is a larger fire here." ¡¡¡¡ He went to bed. Some time in the night he awoke. She was not there, even now. Lighting a candle he hastily stepped out upon the landing, and again called her name.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
the Night Watch
the Night Watch
The Nut Gatherers
The Painter's Honeymoon
the polish rider
¡¡¡¡ "Richard--I let Mr. Fawley hold my hand a long while. I don't know whether you think it wrong?" ¡¡¡¡ He, waking apparently from thoughts of far different mould, said vaguely, "Oh, did you? What did you do that for?" ¡¡¡¡ "I don't know. He wanted to, and I let him." ¡¡¡¡ "I hope it pleased him. I should think it was hardly a novelty." ¡¡¡¡ They lapsed into silence. Had this been a case in the court of an omniscient judge, he might have entered on his notes the curious fact that Sue had placed the minor for the major indiscretion, and had not said a word about the kiss. ¡¡¡¡ After tea that evening Phillotson sat balancing the school registers. She remained in an unusually silent, tense, and restless condition, and at last, saying she was tired, went to bed early. When Phillotson arrived upstairs, weary with the drudgery of the attendance-numbers, it was a quarter to twelve o'clock. Entering their chamber, which by day commanded a view of some thirty or forty miles over the Vale of Blackmoor, and even into Outer Wessex, he went to the window, and, pressing his face against the pane, gazed with hard-breathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which now covered the far-reaching scene. He was musing, "I think," he said at last, without turning his head, "that I must get the committee to change the school-stationer. All the copybooks are sent wrong this time."
The Nut Gatherers
The Painter's Honeymoon
the polish rider
¡¡¡¡ "Richard--I let Mr. Fawley hold my hand a long while. I don't know whether you think it wrong?" ¡¡¡¡ He, waking apparently from thoughts of far different mould, said vaguely, "Oh, did you? What did you do that for?" ¡¡¡¡ "I don't know. He wanted to, and I let him." ¡¡¡¡ "I hope it pleased him. I should think it was hardly a novelty." ¡¡¡¡ They lapsed into silence. Had this been a case in the court of an omniscient judge, he might have entered on his notes the curious fact that Sue had placed the minor for the major indiscretion, and had not said a word about the kiss. ¡¡¡¡ After tea that evening Phillotson sat balancing the school registers. She remained in an unusually silent, tense, and restless condition, and at last, saying she was tired, went to bed early. When Phillotson arrived upstairs, weary with the drudgery of the attendance-numbers, it was a quarter to twelve o'clock. Entering their chamber, which by day commanded a view of some thirty or forty miles over the Vale of Blackmoor, and even into Outer Wessex, he went to the window, and, pressing his face against the pane, gazed with hard-breathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which now covered the far-reaching scene. He was musing, "I think," he said at last, without turning his head, "that I must get the committee to change the school-stationer. All the copybooks are sent wrong this time."
The Jewel Casket
The Jewel Casket
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
the night watch by rembrandt
¡¡¡¡ "I have been too weak, I think!" she jerked out as she pranced on, shaking down tear-drops now and then. "It was burning, like a lover's--oh, it was! And I won't write to him any more, or at least for a long time, to impress him with my dignity! And I hope it will hurt him very much--expecting a letter to-morrow morning, and the next, and the next, and no letter coming. He'll suffer then with suspense--won't he, that's all!--and I am very glad of it!"--Tears of pity for Jude's approaching sufferings at her hands mingled with those which had surged up in pity for herself. Then the slim little wife or a husband whose person was disagreeable to her, the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man, walked fitfully along, and panted, and brought weariness into her eyes by gazing and worrying hopelessly. ¡¡¡¡ Phillotson met her at the arrival station, and, seeing that she was troubled, thought it must be owing to the depressing effect of her aunt's death and funeral. He began telling her of his day's doings, and how his friend Gillingham, a neighbouring schoolmaster whom he had not seen for years, had called upon him. While ascending to the town, seated on the top of the omnibus beside him, she said suddenly and with an air of self-chastisement, regarding the white road and its bordering bushes of hazel:
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
the night watch by rembrandt
¡¡¡¡ "I have been too weak, I think!" she jerked out as she pranced on, shaking down tear-drops now and then. "It was burning, like a lover's--oh, it was! And I won't write to him any more, or at least for a long time, to impress him with my dignity! And I hope it will hurt him very much--expecting a letter to-morrow morning, and the next, and the next, and no letter coming. He'll suffer then with suspense--won't he, that's all!--and I am very glad of it!"--Tears of pity for Jude's approaching sufferings at her hands mingled with those which had surged up in pity for herself. Then the slim little wife or a husband whose person was disagreeable to her, the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation with Phillotson, possibly with scarce any man, walked fitfully along, and panted, and brought weariness into her eyes by gazing and worrying hopelessly. ¡¡¡¡ Phillotson met her at the arrival station, and, seeing that she was troubled, thought it must be owing to the depressing effect of her aunt's death and funeral. He began telling her of his day's doings, and how his friend Gillingham, a neighbouring schoolmaster whom he had not seen for years, had called upon him. While ascending to the town, seated on the top of the omnibus beside him, she said suddenly and with an air of self-chastisement, regarding the white road and its bordering bushes of hazel:
Spring Breeze
Spring Breeze
The Abduction of Psyche
The British Are Coming
The Broken Pitcher
¡¡¡¡ Though he was almost a stranger here now, passing cottagers talked to him over the garden hedge. ¡¡¡¡ "Burning up your awld aunt's rubbidge, I suppose? Ay; a lot gets heaped up in nooks and corners when you've lived eighty years in one house." ¡¡¡¡ It was nearly one o'clock in the morning before the leaves, covers, and binding of Jeremy Taylor, Butler, Doddridge, Paley, Pusey, Newman and the rest had gone to ashes, but the night was quiet, and as he turned and turned the paper shreds with the fork, the sense of being no longer a hypocrite to himself afforded his mind a relief which gave him calm. He might go on believing as before, but he professed nothing, and no longer owned and exhibited engines of faith which, as their proprietor, he might naturally be supposed to exercise on himself first of all. In his passion for Sue he could not stand as an ordinary sinner, and not as a whited sepulchre. ¡¡¡¡ Meanwhile Sue, after parting from him earlier in the day, had gone along to the station, with tears in her eyes for having run back and let him kiss her. Jude ought not to have pretended that he was not a lover, and made her give way to an impulse to act unconventionally, if not wrongly. She was inclined to call it the latter; for Sue's logic was extraordinarily compounded, and seemed to maintain that before a thing was done it might be right to do, but that being done it became wrong; or, in other words, that things which were right in theory were wrong in practice.
The Abduction of Psyche
The British Are Coming
The Broken Pitcher
¡¡¡¡ Though he was almost a stranger here now, passing cottagers talked to him over the garden hedge. ¡¡¡¡ "Burning up your awld aunt's rubbidge, I suppose? Ay; a lot gets heaped up in nooks and corners when you've lived eighty years in one house." ¡¡¡¡ It was nearly one o'clock in the morning before the leaves, covers, and binding of Jeremy Taylor, Butler, Doddridge, Paley, Pusey, Newman and the rest had gone to ashes, but the night was quiet, and as he turned and turned the paper shreds with the fork, the sense of being no longer a hypocrite to himself afforded his mind a relief which gave him calm. He might go on believing as before, but he professed nothing, and no longer owned and exhibited engines of faith which, as their proprietor, he might naturally be supposed to exercise on himself first of all. In his passion for Sue he could not stand as an ordinary sinner, and not as a whited sepulchre. ¡¡¡¡ Meanwhile Sue, after parting from him earlier in the day, had gone along to the station, with tears in her eyes for having run back and let him kiss her. Jude ought not to have pretended that he was not a lover, and made her give way to an impulse to act unconventionally, if not wrongly. She was inclined to call it the latter; for Sue's logic was extraordinarily compounded, and seemed to maintain that before a thing was done it might be right to do, but that being done it became wrong; or, in other words, that things which were right in theory were wrong in practice.
Venus and Cupid
Venus and Cupid
Vermeer girl with the pearl earring
virgin of the rocks
Woman with a Parasol
¡¡¡¡ She answered "Yes!" as before, but the tones were small and confined, and whence they came he could not at first understand. Under the staircase was a large clothes-closet, without a window; they seemed to come from it. The door was shut, but there was no lock or other fastening. Phillotson, alarmed, went towards it, wondering if she had suddenly become deranged. ¡¡¡¡ "What are you doing in there?" he asked. ¡¡¡¡ "Not to disturb you I came here, as it was so late." ¡¡¡¡ "But there's no bed, is there? And no ventilation! Why, you'll be suffocated if you stay all night!" ¡¡¡¡ "Oh no, I think not. Don't trouble about me." ¡¡¡¡ "But--" Phillotson seized the knob and pulled at the door. She had fastened it inside with a piece of string, which broke at his pull. There being no bedstead she had flung down some rugs and made a little nest for herself in the very cramped quarters the closet afforded. ¡¡¡¡ When he looked in upon her she sprang out of her lair, great-eyed and trembling. ¡¡¡¡ "You ought not to have pulled open the door!" she cried excitedly. "It is not becoming in you! Oh, will you go away; please will you!" ¡¡¡¡ She looked so pitiful and pleading in her white nightgown against the shadowy lumber-hole that he was quite worried. She continued to beseech him not to disturb her.
Vermeer girl with the pearl earring
virgin of the rocks
Woman with a Parasol
¡¡¡¡ She answered "Yes!" as before, but the tones were small and confined, and whence they came he could not at first understand. Under the staircase was a large clothes-closet, without a window; they seemed to come from it. The door was shut, but there was no lock or other fastening. Phillotson, alarmed, went towards it, wondering if she had suddenly become deranged. ¡¡¡¡ "What are you doing in there?" he asked. ¡¡¡¡ "Not to disturb you I came here, as it was so late." ¡¡¡¡ "But there's no bed, is there? And no ventilation! Why, you'll be suffocated if you stay all night!" ¡¡¡¡ "Oh no, I think not. Don't trouble about me." ¡¡¡¡ "But--" Phillotson seized the knob and pulled at the door. She had fastened it inside with a piece of string, which broke at his pull. There being no bedstead she had flung down some rugs and made a little nest for herself in the very cramped quarters the closet afforded. ¡¡¡¡ When he looked in upon her she sprang out of her lair, great-eyed and trembling. ¡¡¡¡ "You ought not to have pulled open the door!" she cried excitedly. "It is not becoming in you! Oh, will you go away; please will you!" ¡¡¡¡ She looked so pitiful and pleading in her white nightgown against the shadowy lumber-hole that he was quite worried. She continued to beseech him not to disturb her.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
girl with a pearl earring vermeer
Gustav Klimt Kiss painting
Head of Christ
The natural picturesqueness and singularity of the town still remain; but strange to say these qualities, which were noted by many writers in ages when scenic beauty is said to have been unappreciated, are passed over in this, and one of the queerest and quaintest spots in England stands virtually unvisited to-day. ¡¡¡¡ It has a unique position on the summit of a steep and imposing scarp, rising on the north, south, and west sides of the borough out of the deep alluvial Vale of Blackmoor, the view from the Castle Green over three counties of verdant pasture--South, Mid, and Nether Wessex-- being as sudden a surprise to the unexpectant traveller's eyes as the medicinal air is to his lungs. Impossible to a railway, it can best be reached on foot, next best by light vehicles; and it is hardly accessible to these but by a sort of isthmus on the north-east, that connects it with the high chalk table-land on that side. ¡¡¡¡ Such is, and such was, the now world-forgotten Shaston or Palladour. Its situation rendered water the great want of the town; and within living memory, horses, donkeys and men may have been seen toiling up the winding ways to the top of the height, laden with tubs and barrels filled from the wells beneath the mountain, and hawkers retailing their contents at the price of a halfpenny a bucketful.
girl with a pearl earring vermeer
Gustav Klimt Kiss painting
Head of Christ
The natural picturesqueness and singularity of the town still remain; but strange to say these qualities, which were noted by many writers in ages when scenic beauty is said to have been unappreciated, are passed over in this, and one of the queerest and quaintest spots in England stands virtually unvisited to-day. ¡¡¡¡ It has a unique position on the summit of a steep and imposing scarp, rising on the north, south, and west sides of the borough out of the deep alluvial Vale of Blackmoor, the view from the Castle Green over three counties of verdant pasture--South, Mid, and Nether Wessex-- being as sudden a surprise to the unexpectant traveller's eyes as the medicinal air is to his lungs. Impossible to a railway, it can best be reached on foot, next best by light vehicles; and it is hardly accessible to these but by a sort of isthmus on the north-east, that connects it with the high chalk table-land on that side. ¡¡¡¡ Such is, and such was, the now world-forgotten Shaston or Palladour. Its situation rendered water the great want of the town; and within living memory, horses, donkeys and men may have been seen toiling up the winding ways to the top of the height, laden with tubs and barrels filled from the wells beneath the mountain, and hawkers retailing their contents at the price of a halfpenny a bucketful.
Evening Mood painting
Evening Mood painting
female nude reclining
flaming june painting
¡¡¡¡ From whose foundation first such strange reports arise, ¡¡¡¡ (as Drayton sang it), was, and is, in itself the city of a dream. Vague imaginings of its castle, its three mints, its magnificent apsidal abbey, the chief glory of South Wessex, its twelve churches, its shrines, chantries, hospitals, its gabled freestone mansions-- all now ruthlessly swept away--throw the visitor, even against his will, into a pensive melancholy, which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape around him can scarcely dispel. The spot was the burial-place of a king and a queen, of abbots and abbesses, saints and bishops, knights and squires. The bones of King Edward "the Martyr," carefully removed hither for holy preservation, brought Shaston a renown which made it the resort of pilgrims from every part of Europe, and enabled it to maintain a reputation extending far beyond English shores. To this fair creation of the great Middle-Age the Dissolution was, as historians tell us, the death-knell. With the destruction of the enormous abbey the whole place collapsed in a general ruin: the Martyr's bones met with the fate of the sacred pile that held them, and not a stone is now left to tell where they lie.
female nude reclining
flaming june painting
¡¡¡¡ From whose foundation first such strange reports arise, ¡¡¡¡ (as Drayton sang it), was, and is, in itself the city of a dream. Vague imaginings of its castle, its three mints, its magnificent apsidal abbey, the chief glory of South Wessex, its twelve churches, its shrines, chantries, hospitals, its gabled freestone mansions-- all now ruthlessly swept away--throw the visitor, even against his will, into a pensive melancholy, which the stimulating atmosphere and limitless landscape around him can scarcely dispel. The spot was the burial-place of a king and a queen, of abbots and abbesses, saints and bishops, knights and squires. The bones of King Edward "the Martyr," carefully removed hither for holy preservation, brought Shaston a renown which made it the resort of pilgrims from every part of Europe, and enabled it to maintain a reputation extending far beyond English shores. To this fair creation of the great Middle-Age the Dissolution was, as historians tell us, the death-knell. With the destruction of the enormous abbey the whole place collapsed in a general ruin: the Martyr's bones met with the fate of the sacred pile that held them, and not a stone is now left to tell where they lie.
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