Pablo Picasso Gertrude Stein painting

Pablo Picasso Gertrude Stein paintingTamara de Lempicka Portrait of Madame paintingEric Wallis Girls at the Beach painting
Gibreel, the tuneless soloist, had been cavorting in moonlight as he sang his impromptu gazal, swimming in air, butterfly-stroke, breast-stroke, bunching himself into a ball, spreadeagling himself against the almost-infinity of the almost-dawn, adopting heraldic postures, rampant, couchant, pitting levity against gravity. Now he rolled happily towards the sardonic voice. "Ohé, Salad baba, it's you, too good. What-ho, old Chumch." At which the other, a fastidious shadow falling headfirst in a grey suit with all the jacket buttons done up, arms by his sides, taking for granted the improbability of the bowler hat on his head, pulled a nickname-hater's face. "Hey, Spoono," Gibreel yelled, eliciting a second inverted wince, "Proper London, bhai! Here we come! Those bastards down there won't know what hit them. Meteor or lightning or vengeance of God. Out of thin air, baby. _Dharrraaammm!_ Wham, na? What an entrance, yaar. I swear: splat."
Out of thin air: a big bang, followed by falling stars. A universal beginning, a miniature echo of the birth of time . . . the jumbo jet _Bostan_, Flight AI-420

Albert Moore A Venus painting

Albert Moore A Venus paintingAlbert Moore A Musician paintingBernhard Gutmann Lady in Pink painting
Sejanus that Scarlet was the secret symbol used by Leek Greens when they wished to refer to his own supporters, and he noticed that whenever a Scarlet chariot won, which was seldom, it came in for loud groans and hisses. Sejanus was clever; he knew that Germanicus had always backed the Leek Green and that Agrippina, Nero and Drusus, for sentimental reasons, continued to favour the colour.
There was a nobleman called Silius who had been for many years a corps-commander on the Rhine. I think I have mentioned him as the General of the four regiments in the Upper Province of Germany which did not take part in the great mutiny. He had been my brother's most capable lieutenant and had been granted triumphal ornaments for his successes against Hermann. Recently, at the head of the combined forces of the Upper and Lower Provinces he had put down a dangerous revolt of the French tribes in the neighbourhood of my birthplace, Lyons. He was not a modest man but not particularly boastful and if he had really said in public, as was reported, that but for his tactful

Vincent van Gogh The Sower painting

Vincent van Gogh The Sower paintingVincent van Gogh The Night Cafe paintingVincent van Gogh Cafe Terrace at Night painting
the least doubt a speech that he had happened to learn by heart. After all, 'Roman Conquests in Germany' is a very obvious subject, and Athenodorus may well have made him word-perfect in half a dozen or more model declamations of the same sort. Mind you, I don't say that I'm not pleased to hear that he is so amenable to training: I am extremely pleased. It means, for instance, that we will be ' able to coach him through his -dying father to love and protect his infant brother: you know Germanicus's nobility of soul and that rather than betray this sacred trust he would make out the best case possible for his brother's wits, hoping that they might happen one day to improve. It is equally clear ceremony. But your suggestion about his supping with us is ridiculous. I refuse ever to eat in the same room as that fellow: it would give me indigestion-
"As for the testimony in favour of his mental soundness, examine it. Germanicus as a child swore to his

Frederic Edwin Church Rainy Season in the Tropics painting

Frederic Edwin Church Rainy Season in the Tropics paintingWilliam Merritt Chase Idle Hours paintingWilliam Merritt Chase Reflections painting
pimply; it was thought very much more chic to be seen lunching alone at the Ritz - a thing, in any case, allowed to few girls of that day, to the tiny circle of Julia’s intimates; a thing looked at askance by the elders who kept the score, chatting pleasantly against the walls of the ballrooms - at the table on the left as you came in, with a starched and wrinkled old roué whom your mother had be warned of as a girl, than than in the centre of the room with a party of exuberant young bloods. Rex, indeed, was neither starched nor wrinkled; his seniors thought him a pushful young cad, but Julia recognized the unmistakable chic - the flavour of ‘Max’ and ‘F. E.’ and the Prince of Wales, of the big table in the Sporting Club, the second magnum, and the fourth cigar, of the chauffeur kept waiting hour after hour without compunction - which