George Stubbs Whistlejacket painting

mooi touch-me-not plants grew at the foot of the tree of his own, the walnut-tree that Changez had planted with his own hands on the day of the coming of the son. Father and son at the birth-tree were both awkward, unable to respond properly to Nasreen's gentle fun. Saladin had been seized by the melancholy notion that the had been a better place before he knew its names, that something had been lost which he would never be able to regain. And Changez Chamchawala found that he could no longer look his son in the eye, because the bitterness he saw came close to freezing his heart. When he spoke, turning roughly away from the eighteen-year-old walnut in which, at times during their long separations, he had imagined his only son's soul to reside, the words came out incorrectly and made him sound like the rigid, cold figure he had hoped he would never become, and feared he could not avoid.
"Tell your son," Changez boomed at Nasreen, "that if he went

Paul Cezanne Five Bathers painting

equal, and you're neither. To you I'm Tiberius Drusus Caesar. And I don't know what you claim to have 'worked' for me. And I don't want your congratulations on it, whatever it is. So get out."
Livilla said: "If you ask me, I call it pretty cowardly of you to insult Sejanus like this, not to mention the ingratitude of kicking him out like a dog when he comes to congratulate you on your protectorship. You know that your rather would never have given it to you except on Sejanus's recommendation."
Castor said: "You're talking nonsense, Livilla. This filthy spy has had no more to do with the appointment than my eunuch Lygdus. He's just pretending to be important. And tell me, Sejanus, what’s this about cowardice?"
Sejanus said: "Your wife is quite right. You're a coward. You wouldn't have dared to talk to me like this before I got you appointed Protector and so made your person sacrosanct. You know perfectly well that I'd have

Thomas Kinkade San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf painting

other sort, in fact rather inferior, because the local sheep are yellow and coarse-fleeced, but to the Paduans they are soft and white as goose-feathers. And they have persuaded the rest of the world that it's so."
I said, playing up to him: "Yellow sheep! That's a rarity. How do they get that colour, sir?"
"Why, by drinking the spring-water. There's sulphur in it. All Paduans are yellow. Look at Livy."
Livy came slowly towards us. "A joke is a joke, Follio, and I can take it in good part. But there's also a serious matter in question and that is, the proper writing of history. It may be that I have made mistakes. What historian is free from them? I have not, at least, told deliberate falsehoods: you'll not accuse me of that. Any legendary episode from early historical writings which bears on my theme of the ancient greatness of Rome I gladly incorporate in the story: though it may not be true in factual detail, it is true in spirit! I

Alexandre Cabanel Phedre painting

world within a world which she inhabited, there were certain grave disabilities from which she suffered. On the sofas against the wall where the old people counted up the points, there were things against her. There was the scandal of her father; that slight, inherited stain upon her brightness that seemed deepened by something in her own way of life - waywardness and wilfulness, a less disciplined habit than most of her contemporaries; but for that, who knows?...
One subject eclipsed all others in importance for the ladies along the wall; who would the young princes marry? They could not hope for purer lineage or a more gracious