Pablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror painting

Pablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror paintingClaude Monet Sunflowers paintingFabian Perez valerie painting
don't seem able to have children," she reminded me. "I guess it's lucky, considering." But the thought -- of either her barrenness or her past promiscuity -- so saddened her that for the rest of the ride she fiddled with a strand of her hair and contemplated the evening traffic. The lights along the boulevards were less bright than they'd been the night before; they appeared at times even to flicker. As we passed the Light House I saw people gathered along the iron fence, some bearing placards whose messages I couldn't make out in the poor light. A black wedge of motorcycles roared from one of the entrance-drives and sped by us; I was almost certain that the leader was Stoker himself -- but bare-chinned, and wearing a light-colored suit! Anastasia happened to be staring glumly in the opposite direction, and I said nothing lest at sight of him she change her mind about going with me.
On the esplanade before Tower Hall was another crowd, standing about as if in expectation; one could hear a common buzz of displeasure every time the streetlights winked.
"Somethingscrewy going on," our driver ventured. He took us around to

Claude Monet Water Lilies painting

Claude Monet Water Lilies paintingVincent van Gogh Poppies 1886 paintingHenri Matisse Goldfish painting
of study, seems rather to approve of it."
"What I want to suggest to Mr. Rexford is a different principle entirely," I said. "I thought of it a few minutes ago."
"Ah. Care for a cigar?"
"No, thank you, sir. You see, I was discussing a different matter this morning with Dr. Eierkopf, and before that I'd been talking with Mr. Maurice Stoker. . ."
His eyes turned up from the end of his cigar. "I see. Eierkopf and Stoker."
I would have bade him please not to misunderstand me, that my strategy for the Quiet Riot was not derived from those gentlemen, though my conversation with them had inspired it. But as he repeated their names his eyes flashed over my shoulder and he jumped smiling to his feet, jamming the fresh cigar into an ashtray. I glanced doorwards and had presence enough of mind to rise quickly also as the Chancellor himself strode in, unannounced. His forelocked entourage pressed just outside, some with concerned expressions, others grinning like Rexford himself, whose visit to the office was apparently not expected.

Leonardo da Vinci da Vinci Self Portrait painting

Leonardo da Vinci da Vinci Self Portrait paintingLeonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa Painting paintingRembrandt Rembrandt night watch painting
by what Stoker might be up to, I tapped my sandal-toes and frowned at the floor-plan of the building, framed on one wall. It revealed Main Detention to be much larger in fact than I had supposed, for in addition to the single floor at ground-level there were three successively smaller ones beneath. The ground floor, as best I could discern, was given over mainly to adminstrative offices and living-quarters for the staff, but included combination detention-and-counseling facilities for two sorts of mild offenders as well: a large exercise-room for loafers, procrastinators, and students who refused to choose a major or whose transcripts showed straightC 's; and a courtyard for the mentally defective and the invincibly wrong-headed. On the floor below were detained four classes of miscreants: first, students who spent their evenings amusing themselves with classmates of the opposite sex instead of studying, and professors who turned their sabbatical leaves into honeymoons or participated in faculty wife-swapping parties; second, those who abused their dining

Andrew Atroshenko What a Wonderful Life painting

Andrew Atroshenko What a Wonderful Life paintingAndrew Atroshenko Just for Love paintingEdward Hopper Sunday painting
I'd never pass the Finals because I know too much to answer simple questions, and the rascal Certified me with a line from the Founder's Scroll:Be ye nothing ignorant, saith the Founder. Then I told him very frankly that I had no morals at all in sexual matters, and he quoted Enos Enoch:Who knoweth not Truth's backside, how shall he pass? Awfully clever chap!"
As he spoke, Mrs. Sear left by a back door on her errand. "Poor thing," he said after her, "she reallyis a simple Home-Ec. type at heart, and I suppose she's on her way to the Asylum from living with me. But flunk it all, George, it's a big University! How can we understand anything without trying everything? When Harold Bray compared me last night to Gynander, he understood me better than Hed does after fifteen years ."
To turn the subject from my rival I asked, "Do you mean the blind man in the play?" And he answered, "Very clever, George," with a kind of dry sigh, though I'd meant no irony. He proceeded then to examine and to X ray me, and his interest in the childhood injury to my legs gave me occasion to inquire about the GILES-files, whose

Tamara de Lempicka Kizette on the Balcony painting

Tamara de Lempicka Kizette on the Balcony paintingBerthe Morisot At the Ball paintingSteve Hanks Streets of New Orleans painting
Tammany committee-meetings and cocktail parties. He was laughed at and over, reviled, contemned, cashiered, threatened with lawsuits -- and yet stood in awe of, especially by students. His most hostile critics agreed that the man was a gifted impostor -- so much so that in some instances the question of his fraudulence became more metaphysical than legal or ethical. If a man utterly without experience and knowledge of painting resolves to pose as an artist, Eierkopf hypothesized, and purely as part of the mimicry comes up with a painting that at least a few respectable critics deem a work of art, is the painter a fraud? If to prevent its being discovered that his surgical knowledge is only feigned, a man successfully removes an appendix, is he a hoax? Many people thought not, and the celebrated impostor had in time become a bonafide celebrity, an institution, a kind of mascot whose deceptions often delighted the deceived. New Tammanians waited with approved curiosity

Guido Reni St Jerome painting

Guido Reni St Jerome paintingGuido Reni Joseph and Potiphars' Wife paintingFrancois Boucher Shepherd and Shepherdess Reposing painting
old and -- ouch!That smartsl Okay, okay,
I'll talkl Ask me somethingl

TALIPED: Did he pay
you for a child once, this man here? And did
you take the cash and hand him one male kid?

SHEPHERD: Yep. I made a killing. Not the kind
I was sent out to make, though.

TALIPED: Never mind.
Where'd you get that kid from, anyhow?

SHEPHERD: Must I tell you?

TALIPED: [TO GUARDS]
Break his finger.

SHEPHERD: Ow!
Two pinkies in two minutes: the heck with that!
The Deanery here is where I got the brat.

TALIPED: The cleaning-lady's kid? Who was the father?

SHEPHERD: I can't say. . .

TALIPED: [TO GUARDS]
Break his finger.

SHEPHERD: No! Don't bother!
They said the bastard was Labdakides's.

Dirck Bouts The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek painting

Dirck Bouts The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek paintingTitian Emperor Charles paintingLouis Aston Knight A Riverside Cottage painting
For he was seized out of it shortly thereafter by irrelevant circumstance, in the form of Campus Riot II. The impending threat of it reunited him with his wife, ended all picketing, and kept every shop and laboratory open around the clock; the resultant prosperity, together with the climate of emergency, the exhausting pace, and his new indifference to the question of Final Examinations, did away am okay,"he formed the habit of repeating to himself when his motives or performance was criticized,"and what the heck anyhow." As an officer under Professor-General Reginald Hector, with unlimited supplies partly of his own manufacture, he led his men to victory and emerged from the riot well-known throughout the campus and generally well-liked, with a reputation for open-handedness, vulgarity, fair dealing, bad manners, good with what limited appeal Student-Unionism briefly might have had for him. He enlisted in the ROTC and became something of a hero. Unfriendly rivals and vanquished adversaries might complain that it was his size and material advantage that accounted for his successes, rather than superior skill and character; he himself was too busy to care.

Vincent van Gogh Bedroom Arles painting

Vincent van Gogh Bedroom Arles paintingVincent van Gogh Almond Branches in Bloom paintingJoseph Mallord William Turner The Grand Canal Venice painting
he an ordinary fool whose passage was meant as an illustration, or did he have some special passèd quality not recognized by his classmates? Or was his passage so purely gratuitous that even to interpret it as an illustration of Grand-Tutorial gratuitousness was to give it false significance? I shouted to him and urged Croaker on. We had passed no inns -- indeed, no buildings of any sort. Had Max spent the night outside, or had he been lodged by Stoker's aide and set out in the morning to find me? I scolded myself afresh for having abandoned him; my alarm grew when I saw that he was not at stool there among the dock, as I'd I began to suspect that such questions were invalid, but before the suspicion had time to clarify itself my attention was caught by the sight of a figure squatting in the weeds some hundred meters up the roadside. Croaker spied him too, and muttered. Then all my new composure was put to rout -- by joy, uneasy con, and concern -- for I saw that it was Max.

Edward Hopper Ground Swell painting

Edward Hopper Ground Swell paintingEdgar Degas Woman Combing Her Hair paintingFrederic Edwin Church Autumn painting
Or to mating with desirable members of a different species (as Max with the goats and Anastasia with the watchdogs), or with partners of one's own sex, in any of which cases reproduction was precluded? I supposed there was more to the matter -- my dream of Mary V. Appenzeller came to mind, with a flash of its mysterious, unreasonable shame -- but what the More was, I could by no means see.
In any case, Stoker had said earlier that Anastasia never went into heat. Recalling this, I understood he was baiting me again, and resolved to give as good as I had got.
"Isn't a husband supposed to service his own wife?" I asked politely. "You claim you're not a gelding; are you impotent, the way Brickett Ranunculus was at the end?"
His face, always high-colored, darkened by a number of shades; his eyes turned fierce. "Impotent? Impotent?" I really thought he might assault me, and so clenched my stick to parry. But again his anger turned to heated mirth. "Oh my! Do you know who Iam ? Do you know where youare ? Oh, my sakes!" He snatched up my arm and drew me back into the lift. "Impotent!" He pushed another button and burst into merry laughter

Pino Angelica painting

Pino Angelica paintingPablo Picasso Le Moulin de la Galette paintingPablo Picasso Gertrude Stein painting
thought Mr. Stoker must have the whitest teeth in the University. You know how young people are: when Uncle Ira said Maurice was a very flunkèd man who did naughty things to co-eds, and I mustn't even come out of my room while he was in the house or I'd get a spanking, I was scared to death and more curious than ever. So I used to wave to him from my window when he'd drive up on his big black motorcycle, and he never waved back, but just stood in the driveway with his hands on his hips, and smiled at me."
"I hate what's coming," Max groaned. "I hate this whole part."
Anastasia went on to say that she had wondered in addition whether her Uncle's threat was not in fact a kind of invitation to further spankings, though itdid seem to her that he was more concerned about Stoker than about the procession of undergraduate young men -- of whom, in these months, she made a very large number "sohappy, pass their poor hearts," virtually under his nose, he being preoccupied with the threat to

Fabian Perez Flamenco Dancer II painting

Fabian Perez Flamenco Dancer II paintingFabian Perez christine paintingGustav Klimt The Tree of Life painting
principle I was eager to learn all I could about the mysterious real University of human studentdom; but in fact, however genuine Curiosity, Pride balked at the knowledge that I could never truly "catch up" with my future classmates. I would not ever be like them; surely I would fail all my examinations and pass none. Mixed with my gratitude, therefore, for Max's devotion to my tutelage, was resentment that he'd not schooled me with my fellow humans from the first. Never mind that I owed him , if thanks to his way of preserving it I must work harder than the others to distinguish myself!
Thus the fondness I acquired for disputation was not altogether honorable: there was something in it of pure captiousness. On the other hand I labored under bonafide handicaps. My quickest progress was in mathematics, formal logic, grammar, and subjects which required for their understanding no particular involvement in human affairs. But their very abstraction from the realm of student experience

Amedeo Modigliani Landscape painting

Amedeo Modigliani Landscape paintingAmedeo Modigliani Caryatid 1 paintingAlphonse Maria Mucha Summer painting
was my only curfew, sufficient rest my one alarm. I ate what, when, and where I pleased -- furze and gorse and fescues; oil-cake, willow-peels, and pollard. Acorns bound me when I was loose; mangolds scoured me when I was bound. As there were no rules to break, Max never birched me; since he forked my hay and patted my head, I loved him beyond measure. Like my stallmates I feared fire, loud noise, and the bigger bucks, but only in the presence of those terrors, never between times, and so anxiety was foreign to me as soap. When I was gay I gamboled where I would, banged heads with my brothers and bleated in the clover; angry I kicked my stall, my pals, or Mary Appenzeller, whichever was behind me, and was either ignored or rekicked at once. I learned neither sums nor speech until I was ten, but at five years my crouching lope outstripped any human child of twelve; I could spring like a chamois from rock to rock, break a fencerail with my head, distinguish

Gustav Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer painting

Gustav Klimt Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer paintingSteve Hanks Where the Grass is Greener painting
identified as a captain, he noticed that it was snoring. When the lights went up, Mannix still slept on, filling the air around him with a loud, tranquil blubber. Culver aroused him with a nudge. Mannix grumbled something, but then said, "Thanks, Jack." A young colonel had come onto the stage then. He had made many of the lectures that week. He had a curiously thick, throaty voice which would have made him sound like a yokel, except that his words were coolly, almost passionately put, and he bent forward over the lectern with a bleak and solemn attitude—a lean, natty figure with hair cut so close to his head that he appeared to be, from that distance, nearly bald. "An SS man," Mannix whispered, "he's gonna come down here and cut your balls off. You Jewish?" He grinned and collapsed back, forehead against his hand, into quiet slumber. Culver couldn't recall what the colonel talked about: the movement of supplies, logistics, ship-to-shore movement, long-range planning, all abstract and vast, and an ardent glint came to his eyes when he spoke of the "grandiose doctrine" which had been formulated since they, the reserves, had

Wassily Kandinsky Squares with Concentric painting

Wassily Kandinsky Squares with Concentric paintingGustav Klimt Portrait of Sonja Knips painting
somehow full of peril.
He had first seen Mannix the revolutionary five months ago, soon after they had been called back to duty. He hadn't known him then. There were compulsory lectures arranged at first, to acquaint the junior officers with recent developments in what had been called "the new amphibious doctrine." The outlines of these lectures were appallingly familiar: the stuffy auditorium asprawl with bored lieutenants and captains, the brightly lit stage with its magnified charts and graphs, the lantern slides (at which point, when the lights went out, it was possible to sneak a moment's nap, just as in officers' school seven years ago), the parade of majors and colonels with their maps and pointers, and their cruelly tedious, doggedly memorized lectures: the whole scene, with its grave, professorial air, seemed seedily portentous, especially since no one cared, save the majors and colonels, and no one listened. When Culver sat down, during the darkness of a lantern slide, next to the big relaxed mass which he diml

Johannes Vermeer The Love letter painting

Johannes Vermeer The Love letter paintingGustav Klimt The Virgin painting
May of 1983 they spent a few cold days at a series of little icebound, no-name high lakes, then worked across into the Hail Strew River drainage.
Going up, the day was fine but the trail deep-drifted and slopping wet at the margins. They left it to wind through a slashy cut, leading the horses through brittle branchwood, Jack, the same eagle feather in his old hat, lifting his head in the heated noon to take the air scented with resinous lodgepole, the dry needle duff and hot rock, bitter juniper crushed beneath the horses’ hooves. Ennis, weathereyed, looked west for the heated cumulus that might come up on such a day but the boneless blue was so deep, said Jack, that he might drown looking up.
Around three they swung through a narrow pass to a southeast slope where the strong spring sun had had a chance to work, dropped down to the trail again which lay snowless below them. They could hear the river muttering and making a distant train sound a long way off. Twenty minutes on they surprised a black bear on the bank above them rolling a log over for grubs and Jack’s

John William Godward The Delphic Oracle painting

John William Godward The Delphic Oracle paintingJohn William Godward The Old Old Story paintingJohn William Waterhouse My Sweet Rose painting
Never mind, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, rubbing his hardest. "Is that better?" "It's feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs again, if you know what I mean." "Hullo, Eeyore," said Pooh, coming up to them with his pole. "Hullo, Pooh. Thank you for asking, but I shall be able to use it again in a day or two." "Use what?" said Pooh. "What we are talking about." "I wasn't talking about anything," said Pooh, looking puzzled. "My mistake again. I thought you were saying how sorry you were about my tail, being all numb, and could you do anything to help?" "No," said Pooh. "That wasn't me," he said. He thought for a little and then suggested helpfully: "Perhaps it was somebody else." "Well, thank him for me when you see him." Pooh looked anxiously at Christopher Robin. "Pooh's found the North Pole," said Christopher Robin. "Isn't that lovely?" Pooh looked modestly down. "Is that it?" said Eeyore. "Yes," said Christopher Robin. "Is that what we were looking for?" "Yes," said Pooh. "Oh!" said Eeyore. "Well, anyhow--it didn't rain," he said. They stuck the pole in the ground, and Christoph

John William Waterhouse waterhouse Ophelia painting

John William Waterhouse waterhouse Ophelia paintingJohn William Waterhouse Hylas and the Nymphs paintingJohn William Waterhouse Waterhouse Ophelia painting
ness of the Bull. The light and the smell had become a sticky sea in which she floundered like the unicorns, hopeless and eternal. The path was beginning to tilt downward, into the deepening light; and far ahead Prince Lir and the Lady Amalthea went marching along to disaster as calmly as candles burning down. Molly Grue snickered.
She went on, "I know why you did it too. You can't become mortal yourself until you change her back again. Isn't that it? You don't care what happens to her, or to the others, just as long as you become a real magician at last. Isn't that it? Well, you'll never be a real magician, even if you change the Bull into a bullfrog, because it's still just a trick when you do it. You don't care about anything but magic, and what kind of magician is that? Schmendrick, I don't feel good. I have to sit down."
Schmendrick must have carried her for a time, because she was definitely not walking and his green eyes were ringing in her head. "That's right. Nothing but magic matters to me. I would round up unicorns for Haggard myself if it would heighten my power by half a hair. It's true. I have no preferences

John William Waterhouse Odysseus and the Sirens painting

John William Waterhouse Odysseus and the Sirens paintingThomas Kinkade xmas cottage paintingThomas Kinkade Victorian Autumn painting
must follow the fairy tale to King Haggard's castle, and wherever else it chooses to take you. The story cannot end without the princess."
The white girl said, "I will not go." She stepped away, her body wary and the cold hair falling down. She said, "I am no princess, no mortal, and I will not go. Nothing but evil has happened to me since I left my forest, and nothing but evil can have become of unicorns in this country. Give me my true shape again, and I will return to my trees, to my pool, to my own place. Your tale has no power over me. I am a unicorn. I am the last unicorn."
Had she said that once before, long ago, in the blue-green silence of the trees? Schmendrick continued to smile, but Molly Grue said, "Change
"I cannot," the magician answered. "I told you, the magic is not mine to command, not yet. That is why I too must go on to the castle, and the fate or fortune that waits there. If I tried to undo the transformation now, I might actually turn her into a rhinoceros. That would be the best thing that could happen. As for the worst — " He shivered and fell silent.

Claude Monet The Seine at Asnieres painting

Claude Monet The Seine at Asnieres paintingClaude Monet The Rouen Cathedral at Twilight paintingClaude Monet The Road Bridge at Argenteuil painting
But Schmendrick, smiling bitterly, was fumbling through his pockets in search of something that clicked and clinked. "I knew it would come to this," he muttered. "I dreamed it differently, but I knew." He brought out a ring from which dangled several rusty keys. "You deserve the services of a great wizard," he said to the unicorn, "but I'm afraid you'll have to be glad of the aid of a second-rate pickpocket. Unicorns know nought of need, or shame, or doubt, or debt—but mortals, as you may have noticed, take what they can get. And Rukh can only concentrate on one thing at a time."
The unicorn was suddenly aware that every animal in the Midnight Carnival was awake, making no sound, but watch-
ing her. In the next cage, the harpy began to stamp slowly from one foot to the other. "Hurry," the unicorn said. "Hurry."
Schmendrick was already fitting a key into the snickering lock. At his first attempt, which failed, the lock fell silent, but when he tried another key it cried out loudly, "Ho-ho, some magician! Some

John Collier Horace and Lydia painting

John Collier Horace and Lydia paintingCaravaggio Boy with a Basket of Fruit paintingBartolome Esteban Murillo Inmaculada Museo del Prado painting
And there, propped up next to the village well, was the figure Postwand had described, just as he had described it—legless, sexless, the face almost featureless, blind, with skin like badly burned bread, and thick, matted, filthy white hair.
I stopped, appalled.
A woman came out of the hut to which the children had run. She came down the rickety steps and walked up to me. She gestured at my translatomat, and I automatically held it out to her so she could speak into it.
"You came to see the Immortal," she said.
I nodded.
"Two radio fifty," she said.
I got out the money and handed it to her.
"Come this way," she said. She was poorly dressed and not clean, but a fine-looking woman, thirty-five or so, with unusual decisiveness and vigor in her voice and movements.

John Singer Sargent Ponte della Canonica painting

John Singer Sargent Ponte della Canonica paintingJohn Singer Sargent Paul Helleu Sketching with his Wife paintingJohn Singer Sargent Morning Walk painting
As amputation of the wings is invariably fatal, and surgical removal of any part of them causes acute, incurable, crippling pain, the fallen fliers and those who choose not to fly must drag their wings about all their lives, through the streets, up and down the stairs. Their changed bone structure is not well suited to ground life. They tire easily walking and suffer many fractures and muscular injuries. Few nonflying fliers live to sixty.
Those who do fly face their death every time they take off. Some of them, however, are still alive and still flying at eighty.
It is a quite wonderful sight, takeoff. Human beings aren't as awkward as I would have expected, having seen the graceless flapping of such masters of the air as pelicans and swans getting airborne. Of course it is easiest to launch from a perch or height, but if there's no such convenience handy, all they need is a run

Theodore Robinson The Cowherd painting

Theodore Robinson The Cowherd paintingTheodore Robinson Man with Scythe paintingTheodore Robinson Figure in a Landscape painting
its inhabitants to the profit of the operators, they acted at once, decisively.
I do not know how the Agency exerts its authority, or even on what its authority rests, or what instruments of persuasion it may use; but the Great Joy Corporation no longer exists. It has ceased to be, as mysteriously as it came to be, still without a history, or a face, or a shred of accountability.
Sita sent me the new literature from Musu Sum. The island resorts are now being operated by the islanders themselves as a cooperative venture, supervised for the first year by expert advisers from the Agency.
This makes sense, in that the modest subsistence economy of the region was completely destroyed by the Great Joy Corporation and cannot be restored overnight, while all the hotels and restaurants and roller coasters are in place, and people who have been trained to serve and entertain the tourists might as well use and profit by their training. On the other hand, it boggles the mind a

Edward Hopper Queensborough Bridge painting

Edward Hopper Queensborough Bridge paintingEdward Hopper House by the Railroad paintingAmedeo Modigliani the Seated Nude painting
was a congeries of city-states and farm territories, which competed in trade with one another and from time to time quarreled or battled over land or belief, but generally maintained a watchful, thriving peace.
The Astasa opinion of the Sosa was that they were slow, dense, deceitful, and indefatigable. The Sosa opinion of the Astasa was that they were quick, clever, candid, and unpredictable.
The Sosa learned how to play the wild, whining, of the Astasa. The Astasa learned contour plowing and crop rotation from the Sosa. They seldom, however, learned each other's language—only enough to trade and bargain with, some insults, and some words of love.
Sons of the Sosa arid daughters of the Astasa fell madly in love and ran off together, breaking their mothers' hearts. Astasa boys eloped with Sosa girls, the curses of their families filling the skies and darkening the streets behind

Francisco de Goya paintings

Francisco de Goya paintings
Filippino Lippi paintings
Francisco de Zurbaran paintings
raise their proud and narrow heads, and then the man leaps, arms raised above his head, a great leap and a bow, a low bow... and the woman bows too... And so it goes, the courtship dance. All over the northern continent, now, the people are dancing.
Nobody interferes with the older couples, recourting, refaing their But Kimimmid had better look out. A young man comes across the meadow one evening, a young man Shuku never met before; his birthplace is some miles away. He has heard of Shuku's beauty. He sits and talks with her. He tells her that he is building a new house, in a grove of trees, a pretty spot, nearer her than his. He would like her advice on how to build the house. He would like very much to dance with her sometime. Maybe this evening, just for a little, just a step or two, before he goes away?

Gustav Klimt Judith II (gold foil) painting

Gustav Klimt Judith II (gold foil) paintingGustav Klimt Hygieia (II) paintingGustav Klimt Goldfish (detail) painting
violently as any man. An orgasm is essentially a violent emotional discharge of energy or nervous force. Fits of rage, weeping, etc. are often truly orgasmal, and in many cases serve as substitutes for sexual orgasms, as in hysterics. Where the ductless glands are excited to more than usual activity, energy accumulates in the nerves and a demand is felt for its discharge. If the thoughts are then sexually excited there will be a demand for a sexual discharge, especially if the excitation has been of a sort to cause the energy to accumulate in the sexual centers, causing congestion. For wherever the nervous energy flows the blood flows also and remains congested unless the energy is discharged or withdrawn.
Now observers report very differently as to after effects of orgasms. Some "feel like a sick dog," or report dizziness, lassitude, weakness, dimness of vision, perhaps vomiting or fainting, while others only feel relaxed and soothed or declare energy and buoyancy increased. Some can endure only one orgasm at long intervals of perhaps a month or more; others glory in daily orgasms or even a number at one interview. Even the same individual often experiences a wide range in power or in good or bad effects. How explain these differences in the testimony of good witnesses? I think an understanding of the ductless glands explains all.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Venus Verticordia painting

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Venus Verticordia paintingJohannes Vermeer The Guitar Player paintingJules Joseph Lefebvre Fleurs des Champs painting
As I have said, I coined for Albert Chavannes, as a title for his little brochure on this subject, the word "Magnetation." This was intended to express the theory, then so prevalent, that the thrills and pleasures of sex and love were caused by the transmission and reception of currents of "animal magnetism," or "vital electricity," which could be conveyed by contact or passes from one human body to another, and that diseases even could be cured by the same agency, as in "laying on of hands." There has been much controversy on this matter. It has been argued by some that the "currents," the "magnetic attractions," etc., felt by the susceptible, were purely imaginary and ideological, - that the lover induced his own thrills, the patient cured himself. We may waive much of this. While today one hears very little of this magnetism, the fact remains that the presence and the touch, explain it as we may, of certain people, give us intense, vivid feelings and produce powerful reactions, while the presence and touch of others may shock, or leave us indifferent or repelled. Practically this is sufficient. This seems like magnetic action and for all our purposes we may assume that the seeming is a fact.

Salvador Dali Mirage painting

Salvador Dali Mirage paintingSalvador Dali Metamorphosis of Narcissus paintingSalvador Dali Melting Watch painting
ages ... months ... years maybe ...'
'But you've been too busy saving the wizarding world,' said Ginny, half-laughing. 'Well ... I can't say I'm surprised. I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that's why I like you so much.'
Harry could not bear to hear these things, nor did he think his resolution would hold if he remained sitting beside her. Ron, he saw, was now holding Hermione and stroking her hair while she sobbed into his shoulder, tears dripping from the end of his own long nose. With a miserable gesture, Harry got up, turned his back on Ginny and on Dumbledore's tomb and walked away around the lake. Moving felt much more bearable than sitting still: just as setting out as soon as possible to track down the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort would feel better than waiting to do it ...
'Harry!'
He turned. Rufus Scrimgeour was

Edward Hopper The Camel's Hump painting

Edward Hopper The Camel's Hump paintingEdward Hopper Soir Bleu paintingEdward Hopper Railroad Sunset painting
Certainly we could," said Dumbledore, stopping so suddenly that Harry almost walked into him. "Why don't you do it?"
"Me? Oh . . . okay . . ." Harry had not expected this, but cleared his throat and said loudly, wand aloft, "Accio Horcrux!"
With a noise like an explosion, something very large and pale erupted out of the dark water some twenty feet away; before Harry could see what it was, it had vanished again with a crashing splash that made great, deep ripples on the mirrored surface. Harry leapt backward in shock and hit the wall; his heart was still thundering as he turned to Dumbledore.
"What was that?"
"Something, I think, that is ready to respond should we attempt to seize the Horcrux."

Edgar Degas Rehearsal on the Stage painting

Edgar Degas Rehearsal on the Stage paintingEdgar Degas Dancers in Pink painting
with Hermione. Obviously she couldn't see you, so she thought it had just been the two of us."
"Ah," said Harry. "Well — you don't mind it's over, do you?", "No," Ron admitted. "It was pretty bad while she was yelling, but at least I didn't have to finish it."
"Coward," said Hermione, though she looked amused. "Well, it was a bad night for romance all around. Ginny and Dean split up too, Harry."
Harry thought there was a rather knowing look in her eye as she told him that, but she could not possibly know that his insides were suddenly dancing the conga. Keeping his face as immobile and his voice as indifferent as he could, he asked, "How come?"
"Oh, something really silly . . . She said he was always trying to help her through the portrait hole, like she couldn't climb in herself . . . but they've been a bit rocky for ages."
Harry glanced over at Dean on the other side of the classroom. He certainly looked unhappy.

Lord Frederick Leighton Solitude painting

Lord Frederick Leighton Solitude paintingLord Frederick Leighton Return of Persephone painting
Harry wracked his brains over the next week as to how he was to persuade Slughorn to hand over the true memory, but nothing in the nature of a brain wave occurred and he was reduced to doing what he did increasingly these days when at a loss: poring over his Potions book, hoping that the Prince would have scribbled something useful in a margin, as he had done so many times before.
"You won't find anything in there," said Hermione firmly, late on Sunday evening.
"Don't start, Hermione," said Harry. "If it hadn't been for the Prince, "He would if you'd just listened to Snape in our first year," said Hermione dismissively.
Harry ignored her. He had just found an incantation “Sectum-sempra!" scrawled in a margin above the intriguing words "For enemies," and was itching to try it out, but thought it best not to in front of Hermione. Instead, he surreptitiously folded down the corner of the page. They were sitting beside the

Steve Hanks Reflecting painting

Steve Hanks Reflecting paintingGuan zeju Reflecting painting
'You're lace, Won-Won!' she pouted. 'I've got you a birth-day-'
'Leave me alone,' said Ron impatiently, 'Harry's going to introduce me to Romilda Vane.'
And without another word to her, he pushed his way oui of the portrait hole. Harry tried to make an apologetic face to Lavender, but it might have turned out simply amused, because she looked more offended than ever as the Fat Lady swung shut behind them.
Harry had been slightly worried that Slughorn might be at breakfast, but he answered his office door at the first knock, wearing a green velvet dressing-gown and matching nightcap and looking rather bleary-eyed.
'Harry,' he mumbled. 'This is very early for a call ... I generally sleep late on a Saturday ..."
'Professor, I'm really sorry to disturb you,' said Harry as quietly as possible, while Ron stood on tiptoe, attempting to see past Slughorn into his room, 'but my friend Ron's swallowed a love

Francisco de Zurbaran The Immaculate Conception painting

Francisco de Zurbaran The Immaculate Conception paintingArthur Hughes The Property Room painting
\Fred and George gave them to me! Aren't they beautiful?" .: "Well, we find we appreciate you more and more, Mum, now we're washing our own socks," said George, waving an airy hand. "Parsnips, Remus?"
"Harry, you've got a maggot in your hair," said Ginny cheerfully, leaning across the table to pick it out; Harry felt goose bumps erupt up his neck that had nothing to do with the maggot.
"'Ow 'orrible," said Fleur, with an affected little shudder.
"Yes, isn't it?" said Ron. "Gravy, Fleur?"
. In his eagerness to help her, he knocked the gravy boat flying; Bill waved his wand and the gravy soared up in the air and returned meekly to the boat.
"You are as bad as zat Tonks," said Fleur to Ron, when she had finished kissing Bill in thanks. "She is always knocking —"
"I invited dear Tonks to come along today," said Mrs. Weasley, setting down

John William Waterhouse Odysseus and the Sirens painting

John William Waterhouse Odysseus and the Sirens paintingThomas Kinkade xmas cottage paintingThomas Kinkade Victorian Autumn painting
Harry did not think he could stand another full-House tryout. With a sinking feeling that had little to do with Quidditch, he cor-nered Dean Thomas after Transfiguration one day. Most of the class had already left, although several twittering yellow birds were still zooming around the room, all of Hermione's creation; nobody else had succeeded in conjuring so much as a feather from thin air.
"Are you still interested in playing Chaser?"
"Wha — ? Yeah, of course!" said Dean excitedly. Over Dean’s shoulder, Harry saw Seamus Finnegan slamming his books into his bag, looking sour. One of the reasons why Harry would have pre-ferred not to have to ask Dean to play was that he knew Seamus would not like it. On the other hand, he had to do what was best for the team, and Dean had outflown Seamus at the tryouts.