Thomas Kinkade Victorian Christmas painting

Thomas Kinkade Victorian Christmas paintingThomas Kinkade Sunset at Riverbend Farm paintingThomas Kinkade Make a Wish Cottage 2 painting
have much in the way of shelter or clothes, who don’t own a car and never will, who don’t own a gadget or even know what one is, who don’t have a job at all or only have very menial, miserable jobs in sweatshop conditions. Compare your life to these people’s lives, and be grateful for the lifWhen I was small, I was somewhat shy. I remember that once, when I was in first or second grade, my mother attended a conference at the school. The teacher felt that I was too timid and that some kids were taking advantage of me by getting me to watch their coats during recess while they played. I was too shy to stand up for myself and tell them that I wanted to play too. you have. And realize that it’s already more than enough, that is not a destination — it’s already here.
still remember how fear gripped me when I thought that I might have to confront someone publicly. It was a physical thing! My muscles tightened up, my stomach was in knots, and sometimes I even felt like I couldn’t breath. Once, I was actually so nervous that I got dizzy and almost fainted.

Vincent van Gogh The Church of Auvers painting

Vincent van Gogh The Church of Auvers paintingVincent van Gogh The Bedroom at Arles paintingVincent van Gogh Thatched Cottages at Cordeville painting
triumph and revenge. . . it was, I say, a serious matter when Saladin Chamcha woke up, looked into a mirror framed in blue-and-gold Japonaiserie lacquer, and found that old cherubic face staring out at him once again; while, at his temples, he observed a brace of fearfully discoloured swellings, indications that he must have suffered, at some point in his recent adventures, a couple of mighty blows. Raymond Felton (Charlotte Bobcats): It is time for Felton to step his up. Larry Brown is the right kind of coach for this guy. Unlike Stephon Marbury, Felton is known to accept authority and he should be willing to change his on-and-off offense for a pass-first mentality. In all fairness this is sort of a last shot for Felton. He has put up decent numbers, but at this point he has looked more like a backup and less like the starter they were hoping him to be.
Looking into the mirror at his altered face, Chamcha attempted to remind himself of himself. I am a real man, he told the mirror, with a real history and a planned-out future. I am a man to whom certain things are of importance: rigour, self--discipline, reason, the pursuit of what is noble without recourse to that old crutch, God. The ideal of beauty, the possibility of exaltation, the mind. I am: a married man. But in spite of his litany, perverse thoughts

Thomas Kinkade Snow White discovers the cottage painting

Thomas Kinkade Snow White discovers the cottage paintingJohannes Vermeer Woman with a Pearl Necklace paintingJohannes Vermeer The Little Street painting
the festival of Ibrahim. Jahilia is masquerade and madness. The oiled fatty bodies of the wrestlers have completed their writhings and the seven poems have been nailed to the walls of the House of the Black Stone. Now singing whores replace the poets, and dancing whores, also with oiled bodies, are at work When I was young.
There is laughter behind him, and distant laughter echoing, or so it seems, from the battlements. He looks around him; the manticore has vanished from the ramparts. He is surrounded by a group of Jahilians in fancy dress, returning from the fair and giggling. "Now that these mystics have embraced our Lat, they are seeing new gods round every corner, no?" Hamza, understanding that in, kneels bottom--in--air before the shuteye Prophet who has recognized the patron deities of the town. The Messenger himself remains standing, as if loth to join the assembly in its devotions. Bursting into tears, the water--carrier flees into the empty heart of the city of the sands. His teardrops, as he runs, burn holes in the earth, as if they contain some harsh corrosive acid.
Mahound remains

Rembrandt The Return of the Prodigal Son painting

Rembrandt The Return of the Prodigal Son paintingRembrandt rembrandt nightwatch painting paintingRembrandt The Polish Rider painting
overthrow by the Right. You have enriched our faith. I am sorry for what I thought."
Mahound moves away from the sunlight falling through the window. "Yes." Bitterness, cynicism. "It was a wonderful thing I did. Deeper truth. Bringing you the Devil. Yes, that sounds like me."
o o o
From the peak of Mount Cone, Gibreel watches the faithful escaping Jahilia, leaving the city of aridity for the place of cool palms and water, water, water. In small groups, almost empty-- handed, they move across the empire of the sun, on this first day of the first year at the new beginning of Time, which has itself been born again, as the old dies behind them and the new waits ahead. And one day Mahound himself slips away. When his escape is discovered, Baal composes a valedictory ode:
_What kind of idea_
_does "Submission" seem today?_

Gustav Klimt Adam and Eve painting

Gustav Klimt Adam and Eve paintingFrederic Remington The Cowboy paintingFrederic Remington Against the Sunset painting
jacket and holding up blow--tube whistle etcetera, she quickly lifted the loose black djellabah that was her only garment and stood before them stark naked, so that they could all see the arsenal of her body, the grenades like extra breasts nestling in her cleavage, the gelignite taped around her thighs, just the way it had been in Chamcha's dream. Then she slipped her robe back on and spoke in her faint oceanic voice. "When a great idea comes into the world, a great cause, certain crucial questions are asked of it," she murmured. "History asks us: what manner of cause are we? Are we uncompromising, absolute, strong, or will we show ourselves to be timeservers, who compromise, trim and yield?" Her body had provided her answer.
The days continued to pass. The enclosed, boiling circumstances of his captivity, at once intimate and distant, made Saladin Chamcha want to argue with the woman, unbendingness can also be monomania, he wanted

Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa Painting painting

Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa Painting paintingRembrandt Rembrandt night watch paintingRembrandt Belshazzar's Feast painting
condemned by the gods to have a boulder pressing down upon his chest; but never mind, he would be English, even if his classmates giggled at his voice and excluded him from their secrets, because these exclusions only increased his determination, and that was when he began to act, to find masks that these fellows would recognize, paleface masks, clown-masks, until he fooled them into thinking he was _okay_, he was _people-like-us_. He fooled them the way a sensitive human being can persuade gorillas to accept him into their family, to fondle and caress and stuff bananas in his mouth.
(After he had settled up the last bill, and the wallet he had once found at a rainbow's end was empty, his father said to him: "See now. You pay your way. I've made a man of you." But what man? That's what fathers never know. Not in advance; not until it's too late.)
One day soon after he started at the school he came down

William Bouguereau Innocence painting

William Bouguereau Innocence paintingBill Brauer The Gold Dress paintingUnknown Artist Pink Floyd Back Catalogue painting
rose. He lifted his august head and walked, so! With divine stride through the ranks of his cowardly and baffled assassins. His wounds healed, a miracle! He is now in the Market Place loudly and eloquently haranguing his subjects from the Oration Platform."
A mighty cheer arose and the Germans sheathed their swords and marched out. Mnester's timely lie (prompted, as a matter of fact, by a message from Herod Agrippa,' King of the Jews, the only man in Rome who kept his wits about him that fateful afternoon) had saved sixty thousand lives or more.
But the real news had by now reached the Palace, where it caused die most utter confusion. A few old soldiers thought that the opportunity for looting was too good to be missed. They would pretend to be looking for the assassins. Every room in the Palace had a golden door-knob, each worth six months' pay, easy enough to hack off with a sharp sword. I heard the cries, "Kill them, kill them! Avenge Caesar!" and hid behind a curtain. Two soldiers came in. They saw my feet under the curtain. "Come out of there

Guido Reni The Archangel Michael painting

Guido Reni The Archangel Michael paintingFrancois Boucher The Rape of Europa paintingMichelangelo Buonarroti The Creation of Adam painting
Get involved in the process
I know plenty of people who have volunteered for one campaign or the other, but there is one organization that really needs involvement in order to make sure that elections go off without a hitch: the county board of elections. Specifically, it seems like almost every county still needs election judges for the upcoming vote. Qualifications are simple — in most states, polling places are required to be run by an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. You have to be already registered to vote, but beyond that there are very few requirements. Some states will even pay you.
In the same vein, there are a number of non-partisan groups that observe the election to insure that there is no hanky-panky with any of the ballot boxes. The League of Women Voters is one of the best known groups, although there are quite a few. Many of these groups are particularly looking for volunteers with technical knowledge to visit polling places with electronic voting machines.3. Look at the local
Despite the fact that there’s minimal turnout for local elections, I firmly believe that pulling the lever for my local school board is more important than voting for president. In the grand scheme of things, it’s easier

Peter Paul Rubens Duke of Lerma painting

Peter Paul Rubens Duke of Lerma paintingJohn William Godward Youth and Time paintingLeonardo da Vinci Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani painting
would answer, "Of course, Briseis. One day I'll nail that lie in public." She was a dear old thing and entirely devoted to me. We lived in four rooms together, with an old slave to do the porter's work, and had a very happy time, all considered.
Caesonia's child, a girl, was born a month after Caligula married her. Caligula said that this was a prodigy. He took the child and laid her on the knees of the statue of Jove- this was before his quarrel with Jove-as if to make Jove his honorary colleague in fatherhood, and then put her in H the arms of Minerva's statue and allowed her to suck at the H Goddess's marble breast for awhile. He called her Drusilla, the name that his dead sister had discarded when she became the Goddess Panthea. This child was made a priestess too. He raised the money for the initiation fee by making a pathetic appeal to the public, complaining of his poverty and the heavy expenses of fatherhood, and opening a fund, called The Drusilla Fund. He put collecting boxes in

Albert Bierstadt Bavarian Landscape painting

Albert Bierstadt Bavarian Landscape paintingAlbert Bierstadt The Emerald Pool paintingAlbert Bierstadt The Shore of the Turquoise Sea painting
friend Vitellius, begging him to save my as I had saved his. I asked him to hint about the chip to Caligula, who was judging the case, and to have a genuine seal of mine ready for Caligula to compare with the forged one. But Caligula must be encouraged to find the difference for himself and to take all the credit. Vitellius managed the affair very tactfully. Caligula noticed the chip, boasted of his quickness of eye and absolved me with a stem warning to be more careful in future about my. associates. The forger had his hands cut off and hung around his neck as a warning. If I had been found guilty I 'would have lost my head. Caligula told me so at supper that night.
I replied; "Most merciful God, I really don't understand why you trouble so much about my life."
It is the nature of nephews to enjoy an uncle's flattery. He unbent a little and asked me, with a wink to the rest of the table, "And what precise valuation would you put on your to-night, may I ask?"

Dante Gabriel Rossetti A Vision of Fiammetta painting

Dante Gabriel Rossetti A Vision of Fiammetta paintingJohannes Vermeer Lady Seated at a Virginal paintingJames Jacques Joseph Tissot Too Early painting
senators interrupted the reading with exclamations of pretended horror at Drusus's treason, but these oh, oh's and groans covered their amazement that Tiberius should voluntarily provide such a revelation of his own wickedness. Tiberius was very sorry for himself at the time (I heard. afterwards from Caligula), tormented by insomnia and superstitious fears; and actually counted on the Senate's sympathy. He told Caligula with tears in his eyes that the killing of his relatives had been forced on him by their own ambition and by the policy that he had inherited from Augustus (he said Augustus, not Livia) of pitting the tranquillity of the realm before private sentiment Caligula, who had never shown the slightest signs of grief or anger at Tiberius's treatment of his mother or brothers, condoled with the old man; and then quickly began telling him of a new sort of vice that he had heard about recently from some Syrians. Such talk was the only way to cheer Tiberius up when he had attacks of remorse. Lepida, who had betrayed Drusus, did not long survive him. She was accused of adultery with a slave and not being able to deny the charge (for she was found in bed with him) took her own life.

Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of a Gentleman painting

Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of a Gentleman paintingTitian Emperor Charles paintingTheodore Chasseriau The Tepidarium painting
becoming insecure. She thought that this would be some protection to her if he fell from power: Tiberius could hardly have her executed while she was with child of his nephew. I welcomed my divorce from Elia, but would not have robbed her of the child if my mother had not insisted on it: my mother wanted Antonia for herself as something to mother of her very own-grandmother-hunger, as it is called.
The only member of Sejanus's family who escaped was his brother, and he escaped for the strange reason that he had publicly made fun of Tibenus's baldness. At the last annual festival in honour of Flora, at which he happened to be presiding, he employed only bald-headed men to perform the ceremonies, which were prolonged to the evening, and the spectators were lighted out of the theatre by five thousand children with torches in their hands and their heads shaved. Tiberius was informed of this in Nerva's presence by a visiting senator and just to create a good impression on Nerva he

Wassily Kandinsky In Blue painting

Wassily Kandinsky In Blue paintingWassily Kandinsky Red Spot II paintingWassily Kandinsky Flood Improvisation painting
even greater favours. It was at this point that my mother who, you must remember, was Livilla's mother too, interposed. Since Castor's death Livilla had been living with her, and was now careless enough to let her find out about a secret correspondence which she was carrying on with Sefanus. My mother had always been very economical, and in her old age her chief delight was saving candle-ends and melting them down into candles again, and selling the kitchen refuse to pig-keepers, and mixing charcoal-dust with some liquid or other and kneading it into cake which, when dried, burned almost as well as charcoal, Livilla, on the other hand, was very extravagant and my mother was always scolding her for it. One day my mother happened to pass Livilla's room and saw a slave coming out of it with a basket of wastepaper. "Where are you going, boy?" she asked.
"To the furnace. Mistress; the Lady Livilla's orders." My mother said: "It's most wasteful to stoke the furnace with perfectly good pieces of paper; do you know what paper costs? Why, three times as much as parchment, even. Some of these pieces seem hardly written on at all."

Claude Monet Custom Officer's Cabin at Varengville painting

Claude Monet Custom Officer's Cabin at Varengville paintingClaude Monet Chrysanthemums paintingClaude Monet Camille Monet in the Garden painting
a charge like this it was a great shock to me. I felt like a man living on the slopes of a volcano when it suddenly throws up a warning shower of ash and red hot stones. I had written far more treasonable things in my time than Cremutius, My history of Augustus's religious reforms contained several phrases that could easily be made the subject of an accusation. And though my estate was so small that it would hardly be worth an accuser's while to impeach me for the sake of a fourth share, I realized well enough that all the recent victims of treason-trials were friends of Agrippina, whom I continued to visit whenever I went to Rome. I was not at all sure how far my being a brother-in-law of Sejanus would be sufficient protection to me.
Yes, I had lately become Sejanus's brother-in-law, and now I shall tell how it came about.

Paul Cezanne Three Bathers painting

Paul Cezanne Three Bathers paintingPaul Cezanne The Banks of the Marne paintingPaul Cezanne Straw Vase painting
rather young for a girl to be betrothed to a boy of thirteen, who would be twenty-one before he could legally consummate the marriage and by that time might have formed other entanglements, Sejanus smiled and said that he trusted me to keep the lad out of serious mischief.
There was great alarm in the City when it was known that Sejanus was to become related with the Imperial family, but everyone hastened to congratulate him, and me too. A few days later Drusillus was dead. He was found lying behind a bush in the garde0n of a house at Pompeii where he had been invited, from Herculaneum, by some friends of Urgulanilla's. A small pear was found stuck in his throat. It was said at the inquest that he had been seen throwing fruit up in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth: his death was unquestionably due to an accident. But nobody believed this. It was clear that Livia, not having been consulted about the marriage of one of her own great-grandchildren, had arranged for the child to be strangled and the pear

Frederic Edwin Church Sunset painting

Frederic Edwin Church Sunset paintingTitian The Fall of Man paintingJohn William Godward Nu Sur La Plage painting
more than Greece. Alexandria was then, as it is now, the true cultural centre o£ the world, as Rome was, and is, the political centre, and he showed his respect for its traditions by entering the city in simple Greek costume, with bare feet and no bodyguard. From Alexandria he sailed up the Nile, visiting the pyramids and the Sphinx and the gigantic ruins of Egyptian Thebes, a former capital, and the great stone statue of Memnon, the breast of which is hollow, and which shortly after the sun rises begins to sing, because the air in the hollow becomes warm and rises in a current through the pipe-shaped throat. He went as far as the ruins of Elephantis, keeping a careful diary of his travels. At Memphis he visited the pleasure-ground of the great God Apis, incarnate as a bull with peculiar markings; but Apis gave him no encouraging sign, walking away from him the moment that they met and entering the "malevolent stall". Agrippina was with him but Caligula had been left behind at Antioch in the charge of a tutor, as a punishment for his continued disobedience.
Gennanicus could do nothing now that did not encourage Tiberius's suspicions of him; but going to Egypt was the worst mistake he 'had

Salvador Dali The Crucifixion painting

Salvador Dali The Crucifixion paintingSalvador Dali Les Elephants paintingMark Rothko Orange and Yellow painting
Leave breakfast until last, because if you eat breakfast first and then start losing time, there’s not many other corners left to cut. You shouldn’t skip this important meal but it’s more expendable than a shower if you’re going to be around other people.
Some people will refuse to change their breakfast habits to make things happen faster, but in any case, it’s possible. If you eat cereal, put some in a bowl the night before and stick it in the fridge, requiring you to just add some milk and eat in the morning.
If you have a shake for breakfast, there’s no noticeable difference in taste if you prepare it before bed and stick it in the fridge until morning—in fact, the time it has to cool down will probably improve the taste.
If you eat a fairly complex breakfast, say bacon and eggs on toast with hash browns, that takes time to cook, you can get all the refrigerated ingredients on a plate. In the morning, get the plate out of the fridge and you have everything you need to start cooking; no messing around with packaging or finding an ingredient you forgot about.

Pablo Picasso Le Moulin de la Galette painting

Pablo Picasso Le Moulin de la Galette paintingPablo Picasso Gertrude Stein paintingTamara de Lempicka Portrait of Madame painting
Another uncomfortable thing about coming to Rome was that I never seemed to be able to avoid meeting Sejanus. I disliked having anything to do with him, though he was always studiously polite to me and never did me any direct injury. I was astonished that a man with a face and manner like his and not well-born or a famous fighter, or even particularly rich, could have made such a huge success in the City: he was now the next most important man after Tiberius, and extremely popular with the Guards. It was a completely untrustworthy face-sly, cruel and irregular featured-and the one thing that held it together was a certain animal hardiness and resolution. What was stranger still to me, several women of good family were said to be rivals in love for him. He and Castor got on badly together, which was only natural, for there were rumours that Livilla and Sejanus had some sort of understanding. But Tiberius seemed to have complete confidence in him.
I have mentioned Briseis, my mother's old freedwoman. When I told her

Thomas Kinkade The Garden of Prayer painting

Thomas Kinkade The Garden of Prayer painting
Thomas Kinkade Stairway to Paradise painting
necessary to tighten up discipline, choosing martinets for his captains, and giving them instructions to keep the men constantly employed on fatigue duty and to keep the vine-branch saplings-their badges of rank-constantly employed on the men's backs.
When the news of Augustus's death reached the Balkan forces, three regiments were together in a summer camp, and the General gave them a few days' holiday from parades and fatigues. This experience of ease and idleness unsettled them and they refused to obey their captains when called out on parade again. They formulated certain demands. The General told them that he had no authority to grant these demands and warned them of the danger of a mutinous attitude. They offered him no violence but refused to be awed into
Thomas Kinkade Spirit of Christmas painting
obedience and finally obliged him to send his son to Rome to convey their demands to Tiberius. After the son had left the camp on this mission the disorder increased. The less-disciplined men began plundering the camp and the neighbouring villages, and when the General arrested the ringleaders, the

Raphael paintings

Raphael paintings
Sally Swatland paintings
made, and carried it through with great assurance and dignity. It was my luck that this fight was the best that had ever been exhibited at the amphitheatre. As it was my first, however, I could not appreciate its excellence, having no background of previous displays to use for purposes of comparison. But certainly I have never seen a better since and I must have seen nearly a thousand important ones. Livia wanted Gennanicus to gain popularity as his father's the Thessalian managed with his left hand.
"Beautiful work!" I heard Livia say to Augustus. "The best net-man in Rome. He's playing with the soldier. Did you see that? He could have entangled him and got his stroke in then if he had wished. But he's spinning out the fight."
"Yes," said Augustus
Steve Hanks paintings
barrier and tossed it across to a rich patron sitting in the front rank of the seats reserved for the Knights. Then he returned to the pleasant task of goading and

Anders Zorn paintings

Anders Zorn paintings
Anne-Francois-Louis Janmot paintings
involved. Try to make it a joint effort with your wife, husband or partner and you will find it easier to keep going. Breaking the rules with the occasional treat is allowed as is alcohol in moderation.
These are the key items that have helped me lose 14 pounds in three months. The initial change takes some effort but then you get into new and better habits. The result is that you look better and feel fitter.
Allan R.Banks paintings
People love their pets. More than 60 percent of U.S. households include pets, and those pet owners pour $41 billion a year into pet care [source: APPMA]. This may seem like a lot of money. But when you consider the fact that owning a pet could very likely add years to your , a pet can quickly seem like a wise .
According to a study by the Minnesota Stroke Institute that followed more than 4,000 cat owners over 10 years, owning a cat can dramatically reduce a person's chance of dying from heart disease [source: Mundell]. Specifically, people who owned cats were 30 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack. Although those researchers cannot make the same conclusions about dogs based on the data they gathered, they suspect a dog study would provide similar results.

Vincent van Gogh Mulberry Tree painting

Vincent van Gogh Mulberry Tree painting
Vincent van Gogh Bedroom Arles painting
Vincent van Gogh Almond Branches in Bloom painting
Augustus. He was now nearly eighty years old but in full possession of his mental powers and seemingly in better physical health than many a man of sixty. He had crossed the Rubicon with Julius Caesar and fought with him against Pompey, and served under my grandfather Antony, before his quarrel with Augustus, and campaign he had founded a public library, the first public library at Rome. There were now two others: the one we were in and another called after my grandmother Octavia; but Pollio's was much better organized for reading purposes than either.had been Consul and Governor of Further Spain and of Lombardy, and had won a triumph for a victory in the Balkans and had been a personal friend of Cicero's until he grew disgusted with him, and a patron of the poets, Virgil and Horace. Besides all this he was a distinguished orator and writer of tragedies. But he was a better historian than he was either tragedian or orator, because he had a love or literal truth, amounting to pedantry, which he could not square with the conventions or these other literary forms. With the spoils of the Balkan

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rainbow painting

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rainbow paintingJoseph Mallord William Turner Fishermen at Sea paintingJohn Singer Sargent Venetian Canal painting
Go to bed early and get your sleep. Again notice when you may crave sugar the most, and chances are that it is late at night. If you are going to bed very late, then you are probably also messing up your natural cortisol cycle. You may see that if you go to bed by 10:30 you won’t eat junk food at night….but if you stay up to might have been made in the past, as that is how people end up feeling depressed and just eating more. It’s OK as you are not expected to be perfect but you are expected to be in control. Do your best and keep smiling knowing the future is made up of whatever choices you make next!11:30 or later you eat more and more sugar. Your body is confused and getting all the wrong signals as you stay up later, so to get your natural hormonal cycle down get to bed early and you will feel better for it. * Don’t ever get down on yourself. Do your best every day and don’t beat yourself up if you do have some birthday cake or ice cream. It happens and no reason you shouldn’t enjoy things time to time. Just don’t make it a staple of your and once it happens, just move on to the next meal. Don’t focus on a mistake that

Marc Chagall The Three Candles painting

Marc Chagall The Three Candles paintingMarc Chagall Paris Through the Window paintingMarc Chagall Lovers in the Moonlight painting
deforestation (usually to meet the paper, beef or other needs of First World countries), erosion, overgrazing, droughts, and other man-made or natural causes. * Corruption: Many countries have gone through decades of devastating corruption at all levels of government — systematic corruption which robbed the taxpayers, infrastructure required to feed, clothe and house these rapidly growing populations. The issue of overpopulation is a complicated one, and it’s being addressed internationally. But actually most poor nations could theoretically feed their populations if things were restructured. For example, they grow enough crops left the nation with crippling debt, and left many other problems as well. Many of these countries (not all) have gone through major government reforms, so that the corrupt regimes are a thing of the past — but the debt and other problems they left behind are still very real. * Debt: Because of corruption and misof funds, among other issues, Third World countries are often left with enormous debt that they will never be able to pay back — and in the meantime their debt payments cripple their economy so that they cannot improve conditions. This debt can easily be forgiven by First World countries with little impact to our economies. * Overpopulation: Many poor nations are extremely crowded, especially in urban areas, without the

Francois Boucher The Marquise de Pompadour painting

Francois Boucher The Marquise de Pompadour paintingFrancois Boucher Nude on a Sofa paintingAndrea del Sarto The Sacrifice of Abraham painting
complained to my rather, rather as being chief errand-boy to Augustus and Livia, than as one acting in his own right and on his own responsibility. Moreover, with the dignity of the Imperial family to maintain and Livia continually spying on him, he had to be very careful of his private morals. He had few friends, being, as I think I have said, of a suspiciousadministration of workhouses and labour conditions generally in the poorer quarters of Rome. One day, in an unguarded moment, he burst out to Livia: "O mother, to be free, for only a few months even, from this intolerable life." She frightened him by making no answer and laughtily leaving

Salvador Dali Ascension painting

Salvador Dali Ascension paintingJuarez Machado Copacabana Palace Hotel paintingJuarez Machado Art Deco Evening painting
assume that most of our readers are familiar with the concept of P2P, so we would like you to consider the following. Let’s say you fire up your BitTorrent client because you want to download the latest album from your favorite artist. You use BitTorrent, which means that the more you share with others, the more you will receive back.
The only problem is that you will start with nothing, so initially, you don’t have anything to share at all. Luckily, the BitTorrent protocol has solved this problem, and when the swarm recognizes you as a new entrant, random peers will send you a few bits which you can then start to re-share with others. People might wonder what this has to do with poverty, so we’ll try to explain.
In ‘real life’, people sometimes also need to receive something before they can start building up their Business, and generate a steady income. They are just like file-sharers - without the first bits, they can never fully participate in the downloading process. Kiva tries to solve this problem. With Kiva you can lend a few dollars to entrepreneurs in developing countries, who will use it to make a living for themselves

Vincent van Gogh The Olive Trees painting

Vincent van Gogh The Olive Trees paintingVincent van Gogh Still Life with Open Bible paintingVincent van Gogh Still Life with Iris painting
while we other children kept our distance-dear Germanicus had found another tail-feather for me, sticking in a hawthorn bush, and I was putting it proudly in my hair-Livilla crept up inquisitively behind a rose-hedge and overheard something. She interrupted, laughing noisily: "Wretched Rome, with him as her protector! I hope to God I'll be dead before them"
The Augur turned on her and pointed with his finger. "Impudent girl," he said, "God will no doubt grant your wish in a way that you won't like!"
"You're going to be locked up in a room with nothing to eat. Child," said my mother. Those were ominous words too, now I come to recall them. Livilla was kept in bounds for the rest of her holidays. She revenged herself, on me, in a variety of ingeniously spiteful ways. But she could not tell us what the Augur had said, because she had been bound by an oath by Vesta and our household gods

Paul Gauguin The Vision After the Sermon painting

Paul Gauguin The Vision After the Sermon paintingPaul Gauguin The Siesta paintingPaul Gauguin Tahitian Village painting
breeds them herself." Athenodorus thought for a moment and replied severely in the same metre: "Antonia, so far from buying a pet marmoset from Eastern traders, does not even cosset and feed with sugar-plums the poor child of her noble husband." Augustus looked somewhat abashed. I should explain that neither he nor Athenodorus, to whom I had always been represented as a half-wit, guessed that I could understand what they were saying. So Athenodorus drew me towards him and said playfully in Latin: "And what does young Tiberius Claudius think about the matter?" I was sheltered from Augustus by Athenodorus's big body and somehow forgot my stammer. I said straight out, in Greek: "My mother Antonia does not pamper me, but she has let me learn Greek from someone who learned it directly from Apollo." All I meant was that I understood what they were saying. The person who

Laurie Maitland Symphony in Red and Khaki I painting

Laurie Maitland Symphony in Red and Khaki I paintingWilliam Bouguereau Lambs paintingClaude Theberge White Tulips painting
was a famous specific for cases of mental weakness.
The physician set out the next day in company with the courier who took Augustus's letter. The letter was one or friendly congratulation on his victories and sympathy foi his head-wound; it permitted him to return to Rome, but in language which meant that he must return whether he wished to come or not.
My father replied a few days later with thanks for Augustus's generosity. He replied that he would return as soon as his health permitted, but that the letter had reached him the day after a slight accident: his horse had fallen under him at full gallop, rolled on his leg and crushed it against a sharp stone. He thanked his mother for her soliditude, for the gift of the hellebore and for sending her physician, of whose services he had immediately availed himself. But he feared that even his well-known skill had not kept the wound from taking a serious turn. He said finally that he would have preferred to stay at his post but that Augustus's wishes were his commands; and repeated that as soon as he was well again he would

Georges Seurat The Circus painting

Georges Seurat The Circus paintingGeorges Seurat Le Chahut paintingUnknown Artist Jasper Johns three flags painting
could lay her hands on, the foundation of which was one of Cleopatra's ceremonial dresses. But he got well out of an awkward situation by praising her for her witty and opportune parody of the very fault he had been condemning
Livia had grown wiser since the time that she had advised my grandfather to put a diadem on his head and proclaim himself king. The title "king" was still execrated at Rome on account of the unpopular Tarquin dynasty to which, according to legend, the first Brutus (I call him this to distinguish him from the second Brutus, who murdered Julius) had put an end-expelling the royal family from the City and becoming one of the first two Consuls of the Roman Republic. Livia realized now that the title of

Edward Hopper Hotel Lobby painting

Edward Hopper Hotel Lobby paintingEdward Hopper Early Sunday Morning paintingLeroy Neiman Ryder Cup painting
massacring her inhabitants and sowing her fields with salt. "The strings of purse" are the chief instruments of this curse-a money-madness that has choked Rome ever since she destroyed her chief trade rival and made herself mistress of all the riches of the Mediterranean. With riches came sloth, greed, cruelty, dishonesty, cowardice, effeminacy and every other un-Roman vice. What the gift was that all desired but myself-and it came exactly ten years and fifty-three days later-you shall read in due course. The lines about Claudius speaking clear puzzled me for years but at last I think that I understand them. They are, I believe, an injunction to write the present work. When it is written, I shall treat it with a preservative fluid, seal it in a lead casket and bury it deep in the ground somewhere for posterity to dig up and read. If my

Thomas Kinkade Sunset at Riverbend Farm painting

Thomas Kinkade Sunset at Riverbend Farm painting
Thomas Kinkade Make a Wish Cottage 2 painting
marbles silvered behind to make them shine. The reigning Sibyl always lived with her predecessor. Well, I must have stood fol some minutes in front of Deiphobe, shivering and making propitiatory grimaces-it seemed a lifetime. At last the living Sibyl, whose name was Amalthea, quite a young woman too, revealed herself. The red shaft of light failed, so that Deiphobe disappeared-somebody, probably the novice, had covered up the tiny red-glass window-and a new shaft, white, struck down and lit up Amalthea seated on an ivory throne in the shadows behind. She had a beautiful, mad-looking face with a high forehead and sat as motionless as Deiphobe. But her eyes were closed. My knees shook and I fell into a stammer from which I could not extricate
Vincent van Gogh Wheat Fields painting
O Sib… Sib… Sib… Sib… Sib…" I began. She opened her eyes, frowned and mimicked me:
"O Clau… Clau… Clau…" That shamed me and I managed to remember what I had come to ask. I said with a great effort: "O Sibyl: I have come to question you about Rome's fate and mine."

Thomas Kinkade Sunset on Lamplight Lane painting

Thomas Kinkade Sunset on Lamplight Lane paintingThomas Kinkade Sunday Outing paintingThomas Kinkade spirit of xmas painting
Procrastination is very literally the opposite of productivity. To produce something is to pull it forward, while to procrastinate is to push it forward — to tomorrow, to next week, or ultimately to never.
Procrastination fills us with shame — we curse ourselves for our laziness, our inability to focus on the task at hand, our tendency to be easily led into easier and more immediate gratifications. And with good reason: for the most part, time spent procrastinating is time spent not doing things that are, in some way or other, important to us.
There is a positive side to procrastination, but it’s important not to confuse procrastination at its best with everyday garden-variety procrastination. Sometimes — sometimes! — procrastination gives us the time we need to sort through a thorny issue or to generate ideas. In those rare instances, we should embrace procrastination — even as we push it away the rest of the time.

Juan Gris The Open Window painting

Juan Gris The Open Window paintingJuan Gris The Guitar paintingJuan Gris Man in the Cafe painting
clean, and nobody was kind or attentive, and everything went on tiptoe, and with her mother’s willingness a man she feared and hated put his great hand on her head and spoke incomprehensibly. Something very wrong was being done, and nobody seemed to care or to tell her what or to help her or love her or protect her from it and there was her too-clean brother, who always thought he was so smart, looking at her with dislike and contempt.
So after gazing coldly at each other for a little while, they once more looked into the side yard and down into the street and tried to interest themselves in what they saw, and to forget the thing which so powerfully pervaded their thoughts, and to subdue their physical restiveness in order that they should not be disapproved; and tiring of these, would look over once more at their aunt, who was as- aloof almost as their father; and uneased by that, would look once more into each other’s eyes; and so again to the yard and the street, upon which the sunlight moved slowly. And there they saw an automobile draw up and Mr. Starr got quickly out of it and walked slowly up towards the house.

Frida Kahlo Diego and Frida painting

Frida Kahlo Diego and Frida paintingPino pino color paintingPino Angelica painting
What’s...” Rufus began at the same moment; they glared -at each other.
“What is it, Catherine?”
“When’s Daddy coming Home?”
“Why good golly, Catherine,” Rufus began. “Hold your tongue!” his Aunt Hannah said fiercely, and he listened, scared, and ashamed of himself.
“Catherine, he can’t come home,” she said very kindly. “That’s just what all this means, child.” She put her hand over Catherine’s hand and Rufus could see that her chin was trembling. “He died, Catherine,” she said. “That’s what your mother means. God put him to sleep and took him, took his soul away with Him. So he can’t come ...” She stopped, and began again. “We’ll see him once more,” she said, “tomorrow or day after; that I promise you,” she said, wishing she was sure of Mary’s views about this. “But he’ll be asleep then. And after that we won’t see him any more in this world. Not until God takes us away too.
“Do you see, child?” Catherine was looking at her very seriously. “Of course you

William Bouguereau Innocence painting

William Bouguereau Innocence paintingBill Brauer The Gold Dress paintingUnknown Artist Pink Floyd Back Catalogue painting
off on the side of a mountain, and twice they even saw a tinier mule and a man with it, one of the men waved; and high above them in the changing sunlight, slowest of all, the tops of the mountains twisted and changed places. And after quite a while his father said he reckoned they better start getting their stuff together, and before much longer they got off.
That night at supper when Rufus asked for more cheese Uncle Ted said, “Whistle to it and it’ll jump off the table into your lap.”
“Ted!” his mother said.
But Rufus was delighted. He did not know very well how to whistle yet, but he did his best, watching the cheese very carefully: it didn’t jump of the table into his lap; it didn’t even move.
“Try some more,” Uncle Ted said. “Try harder.”
“Ted!” his mother said.
He tried his very best and several times he managed to make a real whistle, but the cheese didn’t even move, and he began to realize that Uncle Ted and Aunt Kate were shaking with laughter they were trying to hold in, though he couldn’t see what there was to laugh

Eric Wallis Girls at the Beach painting

Eric Wallis Girls at the Beach paintingVincent van Gogh Starry Night over the Rhone paintingVincent van Gogh Irises painting
Be with us all you can,” she whispered. “This is good-bye.” And again she went to her knees. Good-bye, she said again, within herself; but she was unable to feel much of anything. “God help me to realize it,” she whispered, and clasped her hands before her face: but she could realize only that he was fading, and that it was indeed good-bye, and that she was at that moment unable to be particularly sensitive to the fact.
And now he was gone entirely from the room, from the house, and from this world.
“Soon, Jay. Soon, dear,” she whispered; but she knew that it would not be soon. She knew that a long life lay ahead of her, for the children were to be brought up, and God alone could know what change and chance might work upon them all, before they met once more. She felt at once calm and annihilating emptiness, and a cold and overwhelming fullness.
“God help us all,” she whispered. “May God in His loving mercy keep us all.”
She signed herself with the Cross and left the room.

Rembrandt Susanna and the Elders painting

Rembrandt Susanna and the Elders paintingRembrandt History Painting paintingJean Auguste Dominique Ingres Perseus and Andromeda painting
No way out of it,” he said.
“I think I will sit down.” She broke from him and with an almost vindictive sense of violation sat heavily at the edge of the bed, just where it was turned down, next the plumped pillows. He turned the chair and sat with her knee to knee.
“Something I’ve got to tell you,” he said.
She looked at him and waited.
“You remember what Cousin Patty was like? When she lost George?”
“Not very well. I wasn’t more than five or six.”
“Well, I do. She ran around like a chicken with its head off. ‘Oh, why does it have to be me? What did I ever do that it happened to me?’ Banging her head against the furniture, trying to stab herself with her scissors, yelling like a stuck pig: you could hear her in the next block.”
Her eyes became cold. “You needn’t worry,” she said.
“I don’t, because you’re not a fool. But you’d better, and that’s what

Pierre-Auguste Cot spring painting

Pierre-Auguste Cot spring paintingWilliam Bouguereau the first kiss paintingClaude Monet Water Lily Pond painting
say anything about an ambulance. An ambulance would mean hospital, almost for sure. And surely if he meant the—the very worst, he’d have just said so straight out and not leave us all on tenterhooks. I know it’s just what we have no earthly guessing about, good or bad, but really it does seem to me there’s every good reason for hope, Aunt Hannah. It seems to me that if ...”
The telephone rang; its sound frightened each of them as deeply as either had experienced in her time. They looked at each other and got up and turned towards the hall. “I ...” Mary said, waving her right hand at Hannah as if she would wave her out of existence.
Hannah stopped where she stood, bowed her head, closed her eyes, and made the sign of the Cross.
Mary lifted the receiver from its hook before the second ring, but for a moment she could

Rene Magritte The Blank Check painting

Rene Magritte The Blank Check paintingSir Lawrence Alma-Tadema In the Tepidarium paintingMarc Chagall I and the Village painting
, my God, Mary!”
“He said they want some man of his family to come out just as soon as possible and, help bring him in, I guess.”
“I’ll call Walter, he’ll take me out.”
“Yes do, will you, Andrew?”
“Of course I will. Just a minute.”
“What?”
“Aunt Hannah.”
“May I speak to her when you’re through?”
“Certainly. Where is he hurt, Mary?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Well, didn’t you—no matter.”
“No I didn’t,” she said, now realizing with surprise that she had not, “I guess because I was so sure. Sure it’s his head, that is.”
“Do they—shall I get Dr. Dekalb?”
“He says no; just you.”
“I guess there’s already a doctor there.”
“I guess.”
“I’ll call Wa—wait, here’s Aunt Hannah.”

Pablo Picasso Le Moulin de la Galette painting

Pablo Picasso Le Moulin de la Galette paintingPablo Picasso Gertrude Stein paintingTamara de Lempicka Portrait of Madame painting
slobbering and fat, the way she looked at him and suddenly with terrible hatred was sure that she would prefer to sleep with flat-bellied men—what man? Any man, so long as his belly don’t get in the way. As for Jessie, he knew she had always hated him, as much as he hated her. And George Bailey just sitting there looking serious and barrel-chested and always being careful to look away when their eyes met: George thought he was twice the man that Ralph was and twice as good right at this time, better with his in-laws than Ralph could be with his own flesh and blood; and they all knew that George was twice the man and were just trying not to say it or think it even, or let Ralph know they thought it. And even Thomas Oaks, an ignorant hand, who couldn’t even read or write, just setting there with his ropy hands hung between his knees, staring down at a knot in the floor with those washed-out blue eyes, even Tom was more of a man and more good use too. When Tom got

Henri Rousseau The Sleeping Gypsy painting

Henri Rousseau The Sleeping Gypsy paintingHenri Rousseau The Dream paintingPaul Cezanne Trees in Park painting
Around white carbon corner lamps bugs of all sizes are lifted elliptic, solar systems. Big hardshells bruise themselves, assailant: he is fallen on his back, legs squiggling.
Parents on porches. rock and rock: From damp strings morning glories: hang their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there. First we were sitting up, then one of us lay down, and then we all lay down, on our stomachs, or on our sides, or on our backs, and they have kept on talking. They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very

Pablo Picasso The Old Guitarist painting

Pablo Picasso The Old Guitarist paintingPablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror paintingClaude Monet Sunflowers painting
romantic relationships, as with so much else, it’s the little things that count. Just as a mis-spoken word or odd look can throw a couple into a weeks-long feud, small and seemingly insignificant gestures can help keep a relationship on track. A little gift, an off-hand compliment, a moment of physical contact can vastly strengthen a
According to psychologists Nathaniel Branden and Robert Sternberg, who have both researched and written about the challenges of romantic relationships, these little displays of interest and affection can be more important than all the "active listening" and trust games in the world. Their research has suggested 10 keys to keeping both partners content, satisfied, and happy with each other.1. Tell your partner you love them.

Carl Fredrik Aagard Amalfi dia Cappuccini painting

Carl Fredrik Aagard Amalfi dia Cappuccini paintingSalvador Dali The Surrealist Shoe paintingSalvador Dali The Enigma of Desire painting
most common method of thinking in the Western world is verbal thinking. Although we have a range of intelligences including numerical, musical, spatial, emotional, verbal and kinaesthetic intelligences, it is verbal intelligence that we depend on most. We tend to think and express ourselves in words.
It can be argued that mastery of the use of words and verbal intelligence is the most important skill we develop because acquiring further skills depends on our comprehension of language. A tremendous proportion of the early learning for an infant is in developing verbal skills – learning to speak, to understand speech, to read and to write. Whether a baby is brought up in Beijing, Madrid, Sydney or Moscow it will surely spend thousands

Rene Magritte Primevere painting

Rene Magritte Primevere paintingRene Magritte Personal Values paintingRene Magritte Dangerous Liaisons painting
many of his friends, too, that used to stay here? I said to Mr Wilcox, who comes to see me regular on the bus from Melstead twice a month, which is very good of him and I appreciate it, I said: “We were entertaining angels unawares,” because Mr Wilcox never liked Mr Mottram’s friends, which I never saw, but used to hear about from all of you, nor Julia didn’t like them, but they’ve done very well, haven’t they?’
At last I asked her: ‘Have you heard from Julia?’
‘From Cordelia, only last week, and they’re together still as they have been all the time, and Julia sent me love at the bottom of the page. They’re both very well, though they couldn’t say where, but Father Membling said, reading between the lines, it was Palestine, which is where Bridey’s yeomanry is,

Thomas Moran Waterfall in Yosemite painting

Thomas Moran Waterfall in Yosemite paintingThomas Moran The sacrifice of Isaac paintingThomas Moran The Picnic painting
hint that he has high connections at home. If he lives long enough, generations of missionaries in all kinds of remote places will think of him as a queer old character who was somehow part of the Home of their student days, and remember him in their masses. He’ll develop little eccentricities of devotion, intense personal cults of his own; he’ll be found in the chapel at odd times and missed when he’s expected. Then one morning, after one of his drinking bouts, he’ll be picked up at the gate dying, and show by a mere flicker of the eyelid that he is conscious when they give him the last sacraments. It’s not such a bad way of getting through one’s life.’
I thought of the youth with the teddy-bear under the flowering chestnuts. ‘It’s not what one would have foretold,’ I said. ‘I suppose he doesn’t suffer?’ ‘Oh, yes, I think he does. One can have no idea what the suffering may be, to be

Thomas Kinkade End of a Perfect Day painting

Thomas Kinkade End of a Perfect Day painting
Thomas Kinkade Beacon of hope painting
Thomas Kinkade The Sea Of Tranquility painting
She’s had an odd life. First, the convent; then, when that was no good, the war in Spain. I’ve not seen her since then. The other girls, who went with the ambulance came back when the war was over; she stayed on, getting people back to their , helping in the prison-camps. An odd girl. She’s grown up quite plain, you know.’ ‘Does she know about us?’
‘Yes, she wrote me a sweet letter.’
It hurt to think of Cordelia growing up ‘quite plain’; to think of all that burning love spending itself on serum-injections and delousing powder. When she arrived, tired from her journey, rather shabby, moving in the manner of one who has no interest in pleasing, I thought her an ugly woman. It was odd, I thought, how the same ingredients, differently dispensed, could produce

Claude Lorrain Landscape with Shepherds painting

Claude Lorrain Landscape with Shepherds paintingPeter Paul Rubens Virgin and Child paintingPeter Paul Rubens Garden of Love painting
formality to be observed, no more. It was as though a deed of conveyance of her narrow loins had been drawn and sealed. I was making my first entry as the freeholder of a property I would enjoy and develop at leisure.
We dined that night high up in the ship, in the restaurant, and saw through the bow windows the stars come out and sweep across the sky as once, I remembered, I had seen them sweep across the sky as once, I remembered, I had seen them sweep above the towers and gables of Oxford. The stewards promised that tomorrow night the band would play again and the place be full. We had better book now, they said, if we wanted a good table’.
‘Oh dear,’ said Julia, ‘where can we hide in fair weather, we orphans

Thomas Kinkade Besides Still Waters painting

Thomas Kinkade Besides Still Waters paintingThomas Kinkade Abundant Harvest paintingThomas Kinkade A Holiday Gathering painting
tonight. Yesterday was not an evening that any of us would wish to have repeated. I earned less gratitude than I deserved, I think, for my efforts to distract you.’
It was repugnant to me to talk about Sebastian to Mr Samgrass, but I was compelled to say: ‘I’m not sure that tonight would be the best time to start the relaxation.’ ‘But surely? Why not tonight, after a day in the field under Brideshead’s inquisitorial eye? Could one choose better?’
‘Oh, I suppose it’s none of my Busines really.’
‘Nor mine strictly, now that he is safely Home. Lady Marchmain did me the honour of consulting me. But it is less Sebastian’s welfare than our own

Thomas Kinkade Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco painting

Thomas Kinkade Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco paintingThomas Kinkade Evening on the Avenue paintingThomas Kinkade Deer Creek Cottage painting
Next morning at breakfast Brideshead wore scarlet; Cordelia, very smart herself, with her chin held high over her white stock, wailed when Sebastian appeared in a tweed coat: ‘Oh, Sebastian, you can’t come out like that. Do go and change. You look so lovely in hunting clothes.’
‘Locked away somewhere. Gibbs couldn’t find them.’
‘That’s a fib. I helped get them out myself before you were called.’
‘Half the things are missing.’
‘It just encourages the Strickland-Venableses. They’re behaving rottenly. They’ve even taken their grooms out of top hats.’
It was a quarter to eleven before the horses were brought round, but no one else appeared downstairs; it was as though they were in hiding, listening for Sebastian’s retreating hooves before showing themselves.

Thomas Kinkade Town Square painting

Thomas Kinkade Town Square paintingThomas Kinkade PARIS EIFFEL TOWER paintingThomas Kinkade London At Sunset painting
had not heard from them for so long that I was afraid they were lost and did not want to make any arrangements until I knew. Sebastian will be longing to see you. Do come to us for Christmas if you can manage it, or as soon after as you can.’ Christmas with my uncle was an engagement I could not break, so I travelled across country and joined the local train midway, expecting to find Sebastian already established; there he was, however, in the next carriage to mine, and when I asked him what he was doing, Mr Samgrass replied with such glibness and at such length, telling me of mislaid luggage and of Cook’s being shut over the holidays, that I was at once aware of some other explanation which was being withheld.
Mr Samgrass was not at ease; he maintained all the physical habits of self-confidence, but guilt hung about him like stale cigar smoke, and in Lady

Thomas Moran The Autumnal Woods Under the Trees painting

Thomas Moran The Autumnal Woods Under the Trees paintingThomas Moran The Angry Sea paintingThomas Moran Sunset, Long Island Sound painting
made way for us. Inside it was hot and crowded, for the Old Hundredth was then at the height of its success. We found a table and ordered a bottle; the waiter took payment before he opened it.
‘Where’s Effie tonight?’ asked Mulcaster.
‘Effie ‘oo?’
‘Effie, one of the girls who’s always here. The pretty dark one.’ ‘There’s lots of girls works here. Some of them’s dark and some of them’s fair. You might call some of them pretty. I haven’t the time to know them by name.’ ‘I’ll go and look for her,’ said Mulcaster.
While he was away two girls stopped near our table and looked at us curiously.
‘Come on,’ said one to the other, we’re wasting our time. They’re only fairies.’ Presently Mulcaster returned in triumph with Effie to whom, without its being ordered, the waiter immediately brought a plate of eggs and bacon