Vincent van Gogh The Sower

Vincent van Gogh The SowerVincent van Gogh The Night CafeVincent van Gogh Cafe Terrace at Night
she was in your power, you would have brought her."
"She is not, but her daemon is."
"How can that be?"
"I swear, Metatron, her daemon is in my power. Please, great Regent, hide yourself a little, my eyes are dazzled..."
He drew a veil of cloud for him."
"What does he want with the child?"
"To keep her from you until she comes of age. He doesn't know where I've gone, and I must go back to him soon. I'm telling you the truth. Look at me, great Regent, as I can't easily look at you. Look at me clearly, and tell me what you see."
The prince of the angels looked at her. It was the most searching in front of himself. Now it was like looking at the sun through smoked glass, and her eyes could see him more clearly, though she still pretended to be dazzled by his face. He was exactly like a man in early middle age, tall, powerful, and commanding. Was he clothed? Did he have wings? She couldn't tell because of the force of his eyes. She could look at nothing else."Please, Metatron, hear me. I have just come from Lord Asriel. He has the child's daemon, and he knows that the child will soon come to search

Gustav Klimt Danae (detail)

Gustav Klimt Danae (detail)Salvador Dali Les ElephantsMark Rothko Orange and Yellow
An hour after she had first come into the room, he heard a quiet noise outside the door: a faint scratch and a whisper. At the same moment a dim light outlined the door. Lord Roke moved to the farthest corner and stood behind one of the legs of the chair on which Mrs. Coulter had thrown her clothes.
A minute went by, and then the key turned very quietly in the lock. The door opened an inch, no more, and then the light He crossed himself and tiptoed to the bed. Lord Roke prepared to spring, but the priest merely listened to Mrs. Coulter's steady breathing, looked closely to see whether she was asleep, and then turned to the bedside table.
He covered the bulb of the battery light with his hand and switched it on, letting a thin gleam escape through his fingers. He peered at the table so closely that his nose went out.Lord Roke could see well enough in the dim glow through the thin curtains, but the intruder was having to wait for his eyes to adjust. Finally the door opened farther, very slowly, and the young priest Brother Louis stepped in.

Jack Vettriano Soho Nights

Jack Vettriano Soho NightsJack Vettriano SilhouetteJack Vettriano Shades of Scarlett
No, no... Not me. Sattamax will speak...
Mary didn't know the name Sattamax, and the zalif whom Atal indicated was a stranger to her. He was older than anyone she'd seen so far: at the base of his trunk was a scatter of white hairs, and he moved stiffly, as if he had arthritis. The We have all come together to greet the stranger Mary. Those of us who know her have reason to be grateful for her activities since she arrived among us. We have waited until she had some command of our language. With the help of many of us, but especially the zalif Atal, the stranger Mary can now understand us.others all moved with care around him, and when Mary stole a glance through the lacquer glass, she saw why: the old zalif's, Shadow cloud was so rich and complex that Mary herself felt respect, even though she knew so little of what it meant.When Sattamax was ready to speak, the rest of the crowd fell silent. Mary stood close to the mound, with Atal nearby for reassurance; but she sensed all their eyes on her and felt as if she were a new girl at school.Sattamax began to speak. His voice was deep, the tones rich and varied, the gestures of his trunk low and graceful.

Edward Hopper Early Sunday Morning

Edward Hopper Early Sunday MorningJuan Gris The GuitarJuan Gris Breakfast
hesitate. Whatever these two intended, he and Lyra could still get away through the window he'd opened behind the bush on the path below.
So he helped her up and watched curiously as the two small figures leapt on, what? Birds? No, dragonflies, as large as seagulls, which had been waiting in the darkness. Then they darted forward to the cave mouth, where Mrs. Coulter lay. She was half-stunned with pain and drowsy from the Chevalier's sting, but she reached up as they went past her, little child, my only one! Oh, Lyra, Lyra, don't go, don't leave me! My darling daughter, you're tearing my heart...”and cried:"Lyra! Lyra, my daughter, my dear one! Lyra, don't go! Don't go!"Lyra looked down at her, anguished; but then she stepped over her mother's body and loosened Mrs. Coulter's feeble clutch from her ankle. The woman was sobbing now; Will saw the tears glistening on her cheeks.Crouching just beside the cave mouth, the three children waited until there was a brief pause in the shooting, and then followed the dragonflies as they darted down the path. The light had changed: as well as the cold anbaric gleam from the zeppelins' floodlights, there was the leaping orange of flames.Will looked back once. In the glare Mrs. Coulter's face was a mask of tragic passion, and her daemon clung piteously to her as she knelt and held out her arms, crying:"Lyra! Lyra, my love! My heart's treasure, my

Frederic Edwin Church The Icebergs

Frederic Edwin Church The IcebergsFrederic Edwin Church Twilight in the WildernessJulius LeBlanc Stewart At Home
"Here is all we know about the woman," he said, "and the world she comes from, and the place she was last seen. Read it well, my dear Luis, and go with my blessing."
He had never used the her in... She'd help ... But there's only one person really who..."
It was almost impossible now to see the little boy, and her thoughts were spreading out and wandering away like sheep in a field.
"But we can trust him, Roger, I swear," she said with a final effort,priest's given name before. Father Gomez felt tears of joy prick his eyes as he kissed the President farewell. -you're Lyra."Then she realized what that meant. She felt dizzy, even in her dream; she felt a great burden settle on her shoulders. And to make it even heavier, sleep was closing in again, and Roger's face was receding into shadow."Well, I... I know... There's all kinds of people on our side, like Dr. Malone.. .You know there's another Oxford, Roger, just like ours. Well, she ... I found

Theodore Robinson Figure in a Landscape

Theodore Robinson Figure in a LandscapeTheodore Robinson Girl with GoatThomas Cole Home in the Woods
That's why we say, 'I'm a PC and proud of it!" he bellowed -- a reference to a new Microsoft ad campaign that play off similar ads by Apple.
Ballmer also announced that Microsoft has formed a partnership with Verizon Wireless to add Live Search tools to all Verizon the lively pace of Ballmer's talk, but wished he had made more news.
"I really loved what I heard tonight. There's definitely a lot of things to look forward to," said Sebastian Mineau, a Montreal-based blogger with MSN Canada. "It [Windows 7] wasn't a big surprise. But it was still nice to get the confirmation straight from the lion's mouth."advertisementsmart phones in the U.S.He also announced a partnership with Dell, which will soon come loaded with Microsoft's Windows Live suite of software, and links between Windows Live and the social-networkng site, Facebook.Reaction to the 90-minute presentation, which also included a performance by Australian musical-comedy trio Tripod, was mixed. Attendees praised

Rene Magritte The Voice of the Winds

Rene Magritte The Voice of the WindsRene Magritte The Sea of FlamesRene Magritte The Ignorant Fairy
Continental Congress approves a lottery to help fund its revolutionary army.
1812Spain starts its national lottery, El Gordo. It's still running.
Early 1800sLotteries are shuts down the last one, the Louisiana Lottery.
1964The New Hampshire Sweepstakes is launched as the first state lottery of modern times.
1974Massachusetts offers the first scratch-off lottery ticket in the United States.
1988used to finance U.S. churches and colleges (including Harvard), along with other civic improvements across the nation.1826Thomas Jefferson writes his "Thoughts on Lotteries," arguing that "far from being immoral, games of chance are indispensable to the existence of man." He calls them a "tax on the willing." His personal motive: He thought he'd get more money by raffling a house than by selling it outright.Mid- to late-1800sStung by corruption scandals surrounding privately run lotteries, almost all states ban the games. In the 1890s, anti-lottery legislation

Andy Warhol Cow Pink on Yellow

Andy Warhol Cow Pink on YellowAndy Warhol Camouflage orange yellow blueAndy Warhol Camouflage green yellow white
he conception rate for teenagers peaks in December and January as young people feel under pressure to have sex, new figures indicate.
In the six years between 2000 and 2005 a total of 21,000 teenage girls became pregnant in the months of December ,000.
Part of the reason for the rise in young people falling pregnant at this time was that they felt under more pressure to have sex over Christmas and New Year, according to a study commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
The figures come a week after the Office for National Statistics disclosed that the number of teenage pregnancies rose by 2.7 per cent in the last year, up from 40.9 girls in every 1,000 to 42.and January. The rise over the festive period contrasts sharply with February, where the number of conceptions falls to 18

Jack Vettriano The Drifter

Jack Vettriano The DrifterJack Vettriano Sweet Bird of YouthJack Vettriano pincer Movement
took the stairs two and two. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths daughters, little darlin.
The door opened again a few inches and Alma stood in the narrow light.
What could he say? “Alma, this is Jack Twist, Jack, my wife Alma.” His chest was heaving. He could smell Jack—the intensely familiar odor of cigarettes, musky sweat and a faint sweetness like grass, and with it the rushing cold of the mountain. “Alma,” he said, “Jack and me ain’t seen each other in four years.” As if it came together, and hard, Jack’s big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and

Jack Vettriano The Big Tease

Jack Vettriano The Big TeaseJack Vettriano The Barmaid's FancyJack Vettriano The Assessors
The words were not out of his mouth, when a shapeless and ridiculous bulk, clad in all the colours of the rainbow, came and blocked the narrow door of the hall. It was the enormous stomach of Bread, who filled the whole opening. He kept on knocking himself, without knowing why; for he was not very clever and, besides, he was not yet used to of the delicious horseshoe rolls which he loved; and the huge, gaudy turban on Bread's head was really very like a fairy bun!
"How nice he looks!" he cried. "How nice he looks!"
Bread was shyly followed by Milk. Her simple mind had made her prefer her cream dress to all the finery which the Fairy suggested to her. She was really a model of humility.
Bread was beginning to talk about the dresses of Tyltyl, moving about in human beings' houses. At last, it occurred to him to stoop; and, by squeezing through sideways, he managed to make his way into the hall. It was certainly not a triumphal entry, but he was pleased with it all the same: "Here I am!" he said. "Here I am! I have put on Bluebeard's finest dress... What do you think of this?" The Dog began to frisk around him: he thought Bread magnificent! That yellow velvet costume, covered all over with silver crescents, reminded Tylô