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AS Richard had predicted the fog reappeared towards sunset. At first, as a frail mist, through which the landscape looked colourless and blurred. Later it rose, growing in density, until all objects beyond a radius of some twenty paces were page: 240 engulfed in its nothingness and lost. Later still—while Helen de Vallorbes paid her visit at Newlands—it grew denser yet, heavy, torpid, close yet cold, penetrated by earthy odours as the atmosphere of a vault, oppressive to the senses, baffling to sight and hearing alike. From out it, half‐leafless branches, like gaunt arms in tattered draperies, seemed to claw and beckon at the passing carriage and its occupants. The silver mountings of the harness showed in points and splashes of hard, shining white as against the shifting, universal dead‐whiteness of it, while the breath from the horses' nostrils rose into it as defiant jets of steam, that struggled momentarily with the opaque, all‐enveloping vapour, only to be absorbed and obliterated as light by darkness, or life by death.
The aspect presented by nature was sinister, had Richard Calmady been sufficiently at leisure to observe it in detail. But, as he slowly walked the horses up and down the quarter of a mile of woodland drive, leading from the thatched lodge on the right of the Westchurch road to the house, he was not at leisure. He had received enlightenment on many subjects. He had acquired startling impressions, and he needed to place these, to bring them into line with the general habit of his thought. The majority of educated persons—so‐called—think in words, words often arbitrary and inaccurate enough, prolific mothers of mental confusion. The minority, and those of by no means contemptible intellectual calibre,—since the symbol must count for more than the mere label,—think in images and pictures. Dickie belonged to the minority. And it must be conceded that his mind now projected against that shifting, impalpable background of fog, a series of pictures which in their cynical pathos, their suggestions at once voluptuous and degraded, were hardly unworthy of the great master, William Hogarth, himself.
For Helen, in the reaction and relief caused by finding her relation to Richard unimpaired, caused too by that joyous devilry resident in her and constantly demanding an object on which to wreak its derision, had by no means spared her lord and master, Angelo Luigi Francesco, Vicomte de Vallorbes. And this only son of a thrifty, hard‐bitten, Savoyard banker‐noble and a Neapolitan princess of easy morals and ancient lineage, this Parisian viveur, his intrigues, his jealousies, his practical ungodliness and underlying superstition, his outbursts of temper, his shrewd economy in respect of others, and extensive personal extravagance, offered fit theme, with aid of little romancing, for such a discourse as it just now suited his very brilliant, young wife to pronounce.page: 241
The said discourse opened in a low key, broken by pauses, by tactful self‐accusations, by questionings as to whether it were not more merciful, more loyal, to leave this or that untold. But as she proceeded, not only did Helen suffer the seductions of the fine art of lying, but she really began to have some ado to keep her exuberant sense of fun within due limits. For it proved so excessively exhilarating to deal thus with Angelo Luigi Francesco! She had old scores to settle. And had she not this very day received an odiously disquieting letter from him, in which he not only made renewed complaint of her poor, little miseries of debts and flirtations, but once more threatened retaliation by a cutting‐off of supplies? In common justice did he not deserve vilification? Therefore, partly out of revenge, partly in self‐justification, she proceeded with increasing enthusiasm to show that to know M. de Vallorbes was a lamentably liberal education in all civilised iniquities. With a hand, sure as it was light, she dissected out the unhappy gentleman, and offered up his mangled and bleeding reputation as tribute to her own so‐perpetually‐outraged moral sense and feminine delicacy, not to mention her so‐repeatedly and vilely wounded heart. And there really was truth—as at each fresh flight of her imagination she did not fail to remind herself—in all that which she said. Truth?—yes, just that misleading sufficiency of it in which a lie thrives. For, as every artist "in this kind" is aware, precisely as you would have the overgrowth of your improvisation richly phenomenal and preposterous, must you be careful to set the root of it in the honest soil of fact. To omit this precaution is to court eventual detection and consequent confusion of face.
As it was, Helen entered the house at Newlands, a house singularly unused to psychological aberrations, in buoyant spirits, mischief sitting in her discreetly downcast eyes, laughter perplexing her lips. She had placed her cargo of provocation, of resentment, to such excellent advantage! She was, moreover, slightly intoxicated by her own eloquence. She was at peace with herself and all mankind, with de Vallorbes even since his sins had afforded her so rare an opportunity. And this occasioned her to congratulate herself on her own conspicuous magnanimity. It is so exceedingly pleasing not only to know yourself clever, but to believe yourself good! She would be charming to these dear, kind, rather dull people. Not that Honoria was dull, but she had inconveniently austere notions of honour and loyalty at moments. And then the solitary drive home with Richard Calmady lay ahead, full of possible drama, full of, well, Heaven knew what! Oh! how entrancing a pastime is life!page: 242
But to Richard, walking the snorting and impatient horses slowly up and down the woodland drive in the blear and sightless fog, life appeared quite other than an entrancing pastime. The pictures projected by his thought, and forming the medium of it, caused him black indignation and revolt, desolated him, too, with a paralysing disgust of his own disabilities. For poor Dick had declined somewhat in the last few hours, it must be owned, from the celestial altitudes he had reached before luncheon. Some part of his cousin's discourse had been dangerously intimate in character, suggesting situations quite other than platonic. To him there appeared a noble innocence in her treatment of matters not usually spoken of. He had listened with a certain reverent amazement. Only out of purity of mind could such speech come. And yet an undeniable effect remained, and it was not altogether elevating. Richard was no longer the young Sir Galahad of the noontide of this eventful day. He was just simply a man—in a sensible degree the animal man—loving a woman, hating that other man to whom she was legally bound. Hating that other man, not only because he was unworthy and failed to make her happy, but because he stood in his—Richard's—way. Hating the man all the more fiercely because, whatever the uncomeliness of his moral constitution, he was physically very far from uncomely. And so, along with nobler incitements to hatred, went the fiend envy, which just now plucked at poor Dickie's vitals as the vulture at those of the chained Titan of old. Whereupon he fell into a meditation somewhat morbid. For, contemplating in pictured thought that other man's bodily perfection, contemplating his property and victim,—the fair modern Helen, who by her courage and her trials exercised so potent a spell over his imagination,—Richard loathed his own maimed body, maimed chances and opportunities, as he had never loathed them before. How often since his childhood had some casual circumstance or trivial accident brought the fact of his misfortune home to him, causing him—as he at the moment supposed—to reckon, once and for all, with the sum total of it! But, as years passed and experience widened, below each depth of this adhering misery another deep disclosed itself. Would he never reach bottom? Would this inalienable disgrace continue to show itself more restricting and impeding to his action, more repulsive and contemptible to his fellow‐men, through all the succeeding stages and vicissitudes of his career, right to the very close?
To her hosts Madame de Vallorbes appeared in her gayest and most engaging humour.—"It was only a flying visit, she page: 243 mustn't stay, Richard was waiting for her. Only she felt she must just have two words with Honoria. And say good‐bye? Yes, ten thousand sorrows, it was good‐bye. She was recalled to Paris, home, and duty"—She made an expressive little grimace at Miss St. Quentin.
"Your husband will be"—began Mrs. Cathcart, in her large, gently authoritative manner.
"Enchanted to see me, of course, dear cousin Selina, or he would not have required my return thus urgently. We may take that for said. Meanwhile what strange sprigs of nobility flourish in the local soil here."
And she proceeded to give an account of the Fallowfeild party at luncheon, more witty, perhaps, than veracious. Helen could be extremely entertaining on occasion. She gave reins to her tongue, and it galloped away with her in most surprising fashion.
"My dear, my dear," interrupted her hostess, "you are a little unkind surely! My dear, you are a little flippant!"
But Madame de Vallorbes enveloped her in the most assuaging embrace.
"Let me laugh while I can, dearest cousin Selina," she pleaded. "I have had a delightful, little holiday. Everyone has been charming to me. You, of course—but then you always are that. Your presence breathes consolation. But Aunt Katherine has been charming too, and that, quite between ourselves, was a little more than I anticipated. Now the holiday draws to a close and pay‐day looms large ahead. You know nothing about such pay‐days thank Heaven, dear cousin Selina. They are far from joyous inventions; and so"—the young lady spread abroad her hands, palms upward, and shrugged her shoulders under their weight of costly furs—"and so I laugh, don't you understand, I laugh!"
Miss St. Quentin's delicate, square‐cut face wore an air of solicitude as she followed her friend out of the room. There was a trace of indolence in her slow, reflective speech, as in her long, swinging stride—the indolence bred of unconscious strength rather than of weakness, the leisureliness which goes with staying power both in the moral and the physical domain.
"See here, Nellie," she said, "forgive brutal frankness, but which is the real thing to‐day—they're each delightful in their own way—the tears or the laughter?"
"Both! oh, well‐beloved seeker after truth!" Madame de Vallorbes answered. "There lies the value of the situation."
"Fresh worries?"page: 244
"No, no, the old, the accustomed, the well‐accredited, the normal, the stock ones—a husband and a financial crisis."
As she spoke Madame de Vallorbes fastened the buttons of her long driving‐coat. Miss St. Quentin knelt down and busied herself with the lowest of these. Her tall, slender figure was doubled together. She kept her head bent.
"I happen to have a pretty tidy balance just now," she remarked parenthetically, and as though with a certain diffidence. "So you know, if you are a bit hard up—why—it's all perfectly simple, Nellie, don't you know."
For a perceptible space of time Madame de Vallorbes did not answer. A grating of wheels on the gravel arrested her attention. She looked down the long vista of ruddily lighted hall, with its glowing fire and cheerful lamps to the open door, where, against the blear whiteness of the fog, the mail‐phaeton and its occupant showed vague in outline and in proportions almost gigantic against the thick, shifting atmosphere. Miss St. Quentin raised her head, surprised at her companion's silence. Helen de Vallorbes bent down, took the upturned face in both hands and kissed the soft cheeks with effusion.
"You are adorable," she said. "But you are too generous. You shall lend me nothing more. I believe I see my way. I can scrape through this crisis."
Miss St. Quentin rose to her feet.
"All right," she said, smiling upon her friend from her superior height with a delightful air of affection and apology. "I only wanted you just to know, in case—don't you see. And—and—for the rest, how goes it, Helen? Are you turning all their poor heads at Brockhurst? You're rather an upsetting being to let loose in an ordinary, respectable, English country‐house. A sort of Mousquetaire au couvent the other way about, don't you know. Are you making things fly generally?"
"I am making nothing fly," the other lady rejoined gaily. "I am as inoffensive as a stained‐glass saint in a chapel window. I am absolutely angelic."
"That's worst of all," Honoria exclaimed, still smiling. "When you're angelic you are most particularly deadly. For the preservation of local innocents, somebody ought to go and hoist danger signals."
Miss St. Quentin, after just a moment's hesitation, followed her friend through the warm, bright hall to the door. Then Helen de Vallorbes turned to her.
"Au revoir, dearest Honoria," she said, "and the sooner the better. Leave your shopgirls and distressed needlewomen, page: 245 and all your other good works, for a still better one—namely for me. Come and reclaim, and comfort, and support me for a while in Paris."
Again she kissed the soft cheek.
"I am as good as gold. I am just now actually mawkish with virtue," she murmured, between the kisses.
Richard witnessed this exceedingly pretty leave‐taking not without a movement of impatience. The fog was thickening once more. It grew late. He wished his cousin would get through with these amenities. Then, moreover, he did not covet intercourse with Miss St. Quentin. He pulled the fur rug aside with his left hand, holding reins and whip in his right.
"I say, are you nearly ready?" he asked. "I don't want to bother you; but really it's about time we were moving."
"I come, I come," Madame de Vallorbes cried, in answer. She put one neatly‐shod foot on the axle, and stepped up—Richard holding out his hand to steady her. A sense, at once pleasurable and defiant, of something akin to ownership, came over him as he did so. Just then his attention was claimed by a voice addressing him from the farther side of the carriage. Honoria St. Quentin stood on the gravel close beside him, bare‐headed, in the clinging damp and chill of the fog.
"Give my love to Lady Calmady," she said. "I hope I shall see her again some day. But, even if I never have the luck to do that, in a way it'll make no real difference. I've written her name in my private calendar, and shall always remember it."—She paused a moment. "We got rather near each other somehow, I think. We didn't dawdle or beat about the bush, but went straight along, passed the initial stages of acquaintance in a few hours, and reached that point of friendship where forgetting becomes impossible."
"My mother never forgets," Richard asserted, and there was, perhaps, a slight edge to his tone. Looking down into the girl's pale, finely‐moulded face, meeting the glance of those steady, strangely clear and observant eyes, he received an impression of something uncompromisingly sincere and in a measure protective. This, for cause unknown, he resented. Notwithstanding her high‐breeding, Miss St. Quentin's attitude appeared to him a trifle intrusive just then.
"I am very sure of that—that your mother never forgets, I mean. One knows, at once, one can trust her down to the ground and on to the end of the ages."—Again she paused, as though rallying herself against a disinclination for further page: 246 speech. "All captivating women aren't made on that pattern, unfortunately, you know, Sir Richard. A good many of them it's wisest not to trust anything like down to the ground, or longer than—well—the day before yesterday."
And without waiting for any reply to this cryptic utterance, she stepped swiftly round behind the carriage again, waved her hand from the door‐step and then swung away, with lazy, long‐limbed grace, past the waiting men‐servants and through the ruddy brightness of the hall.
Madame de Vallorbes settled herself back rather languidly in her place. She was pricked by a sharp point of curiosity, regarding the tenor of Miss St. Quentin's mysterious colloquy with Richard. Calmady. She had been able to catch but a word here and there, and these had been provokingly suggestive. Had the well‐beloved Honoria, in a moment of over‐scrupulous conscientiousness permitted herself to hoist danger signals? She wanted to know, for it was her business to haul such down again with all possible despatch. She intended the barometer to register "set fair" whatever the weather actually impending. Yet to institute direct inquiries might be to invite suspicion. Helen, therefore, declined upon diplomacy, upon the inverted sweetnesses calculated nicely to mask an intention quite other than sweet. She really held her friend in very warm affection. But Madame de Vallorbes never confused secondary and primary issues. When you have a really big deal on hand—and of the bigness of her present deal the last quarter of an hour had brought her notably increased assurance—even the dearest friend must stand clear and get very decidedly out of the way. So, while the muffled thud of the horses' hoofs echoed up from the hard gravel of the carriage drive through the thick atmosphere, and the bare limbs of the trees clawed, as with lean arms clothed in tattered draperies, at the passing carriage and its occupants, she contented herself by observing:—
"I am grateful to you for driving me over, Richard. Honoria is very perfect in her own way. It always does me good to see her. She's quite unlike anybody else, isn't she?"
But Richard's eyes were fixed upon the blank wall of fog just ahead, which, though always stable, always receded before the advancing carriage. The effect of it was unpleasant somehow, holding, as it did to his mind, suggestion of other things still more baffling and impending, from which—though you might keep them at arm's length—there was no permanent page: 247 or actual escape. The question of Miss St. Quentin's characteristics did not consequently greatly interest him. He had arrived at conclusions. There was a matter of vital importance on which he desired to speak to his cousin. But how to do that? Richard was young and excellently modest. His whole purpose was rather fiercely focused on speech. But he was diffident, fearing to approach the subject which he had so much at heart clumsily and in a tactless, tasteless manner.
"Miss St. Quentin? Oh yes!" he replied, rather absently. "I really know next to nothing about her. And she seems merely to regard me as a vehicle of communication between herself and my mother. She sent her messages just now—I hope to goodness I shan't forget to deliver them! She and my mother appear to have fallen pretty considerably in love with one another."
"Probably," Madame de Vallorbes said softly. An agreeable glow of relief passed over her. She looked up at Richard with a delightful effect of pensiveness from beneath the sweeping brim of her cavalier hat.—"I can well believe Aunt Katherine would be attracted by her," she continued. "Honoria is quite a woman's woman. Men do not care very much about her as a rule. There is a good deal of latent vanity resident in the members of your sex, you know, Richard; and men are usually conscious that Honoria does not care so very much about them. They are quite right, she does not. I really believe when poor, dreadful, old Lady Tobermory left her all that money Honoria's first thought was that now she might embrace celibacy with a good conscience. The St. Quentins are not precisely millionaires, you know. Her wealth left her free to espouse the cause of womanhood at large. She is a little bit Quixotic, dear thing, and given to tilting at windmills. She wants to secure to working women a fair business basis—that is the technical expression, I believe. And so she starts clubs, and forms circles. She says women must be encouraged to combine and to agitate. Whether they are capable of combining I do not pretend to say. These high matters transcend my small wit. But, as I have often pointed out to her, agitation is the natural attitude of every woman. It would seem superfluous to encourage or inculcate that, for surely wherever two or three petticoats are gathered together, there, as far as my experience goes, is agitation of necessity in the midst of them."
Madame de Vallorbes leaned back with a little sigh and air of exquisite resignation.page: 248
"All the same, the majority of women are unhappy enough, Heaven knows! If Honoria, or any other sweet, feminine Quixote, can find means to lighten the burden of our lives, she has my very sincere thanks, well understood."
Richard drew his whip across the backs of the trotting horses, making them plunge forward against that blank, impalpable wall of all‐encircling, ever‐receding, ever‐present fog. The carriage had just crossed the long, white‐railed bridge, spanning the little river and space of marsh on either side, and now entered Sandyfield Street. The tops of the tall Lombardy poplars were lost in gloom. Now and again the redness of a lighted cottage window, blurred and contorted in shape, showed through the grey pall. Slow‐moving, country figures, passing vehicles, a herd of some eight or ten cows—preceded by a diabolic looking billy‐goat, and followed by a lad astride the hind‐quarters of a bare‐backed donkey—grew out of pallid nothingness as the carriage came abreast of them, and receded with mysterious rapidity into nothingness again. The effect was curiously fantastic and unreal. And, as the minutes passed, that effect of unreality gained upon Richard's imagination, until now—as last evening in the stately solitude of the Long Gallery—he became increasingly aware of the personality of his companion, increasingly penetrated by the feeling of being alone with that personality, as though the world, so strangely blotted out by these dim, obliterating vapours, were indeed vacant of all human interest, human purpose, human history, save that incarnate in this fair woman and in his own relation to her. She alone existed, concrete, exquisite, sentient, amid the vague, shifting immensities of fog. She alone mattered. Her near neighbourhood worked upon hint strongly, causing an excitement in him which at once hindered and demanded speech.
Night began to close in in good earnest. Passing the broad, yellowish glare streaming out from the rounded tap‐room window of the Calmady Arms, and passing from the end of the village street on to the open common, the light had become so uncertain that Richard could no longer see his companion's face clearly. This was almost a relief to him, so that, mastering at once his diffidence and his excitement, he spoke.
"Look here, Helen," he said, "I have been thinking over all that you told me. I don't want to dwell on subjects that must be very painful to you, but I can't help thinking about them. It's not that I won't leave them alone, but that they won't leave me. I don't want to presume upon your confidence, or take too much upon myself. Only, don't you see, now that I do know it's page: 249 impossible to sit down under it all and let things go on just the same.—You're not angry with me?"
The young man spoke very carefully and calmly, yet the tones of his voice were heavily charged with feeling.
Madame de Vallorbes clasped her hands rather tightly within her sable muff. Unconsciously she began to sway a little, just a very little, as a person will sway in time to strains of stirring music. An excitement, not mental merely but physical, invaded her. For she recognised that she stood on the threshold of developments in this very notable drama. Still she answered quietly, with a touch even of weariness.
"Ah! dear Richard, it is so friendly and charming of you to take my infelicities thus to heart! But to what end, to what end, I ask you? The conditions are fixed. Escape from them is impossible. I have made my bed—made it most abominably uncomfortably, I admit, but that is not to the point—and I must lie on it. There is no redress. There is nothing to be done."
"Yes, there is this," he replied. "I know it is wretchedly inadequate, it doesn't touch the root of the matter. Oh! it's miserably inadequate—I should think I did know that! Only it might smooth the surface a bit, perhaps, and put a stop to one source of annoyance. Forgive me if I say what seems coarse or clumsy—but would not your position be easier if, in regard to—to money, you were quite independent of that—of your husband, I mean,—M. de Vallorbes?"
For a moment the young lady remained very still, and stared very hard at the fog. The most surprising visions arose before her. She had a difficulty in repressing an exclamation.
"Ah! there now, I have blundered. I've hurt you. I've made you angry," Dickie cried impulsively.
"No, no, dear Richard," she answered, with admirable gentleness, "I am not angry. Only what is the use of romancing?"
"I am not romancing. It is the simplest thing out, if you will but have it so."
He hesitated a little. The horses were pulling, the fog was in his throat thick and choking—or was it, perhaps, something more unsubstantial and intangible even than fog? The spacious barns and rickyards of the Church Farm were just visible on the right. In less than five minutes more, at their present pace, the horses would reach the first park gate. The young man felt he must give himself time. He quieted the horses down into a walk.
"If I were your brother, Helen, I should save you all these sordid money worries as a matter of course. You have no page: 250 brother—so, don't you see, I come next. It's a perfectly obvious arrangement. Just let me be your banker," he said.
Madame de Vallorbes shut her pretty teeth together. She could have danced, she could have sung aloud for very gaiety of heart. She had not anticipated this turn to the situation; but it was a delicious one. It had great practical merits. Her brain worked rapidly. Immediately those practical merits ranged themselves before her in detail. But she would play with it a little—both diplomacy and good taste, in which last she was by no means deficient, required that.
"Ah! you forget, dear Richard," she said, "in your friendly zeal you forget that, in our rank of life, there is one thing a woman cannot accept from a man. To take money is to lay yourself open to slanderous tongues, is to court scandal. Sooner or later it is known, the fact leaks out. And however innocent the intention, however noble and honest the giving, however grateful and honest the receiving, the world puts but one construction upon such a transaction."
"The world's beastly evil‐minded then," Richard said.
"So it is. But that is no news, Dickie dear," Madame de Vallorbes answered. "Nor is it exactly to the point."
Inwardly she trembled a little. What if she had headed him off too cleverly, and he should regard her argument as convincing, her refusal as final? Her fears were by no means lessened by the young man's protracted silence.
"No, I don't agree," he said at last. "I suppose there are always risks to be run in securing anything at all worth securing, and it seems to me, if you look at it all round, the risks in this case are very slight. Only you—and M. de Vallorbes need know. I suppose he must. But then, if you will pardon my saying so, after what you have told me I can't imagine he is the sort of person who is likely to object very much to an arrangement by which he would benefit, at least indirectly. As for the world,"—Richard ceased to contemplate his horses. He tried to speak lightly, while his eyes sought that dimly seen face at his elbow.—"Oh, well, hang the world, Helen! It's easy enough for me to say so, I daresay, being but so slightly acquainted with it and the ways of it. But the world can't be so wholly hide‐bound and idiotic that it denies the existence of exceptional cases. And this case, in some of its bearings at all events, is wholly exceptional, I am—happy to think."
"You are a very convincing special pleader, Richard," Madame de Vallorbes said softly.page: 251
"Then you accept?" he rejoined exultantly. "You accept?"
The young lady could not quite control herself.
"Ah! if you only knew the prodigious relief it would be," she exclaimed, with an outbreak of impatience. "It would make an incalculable difference. And yet I do not see my way. I am in a cleft stick. I dare not say Yes. And to say No"—Her sincerity was unimpeachable at that moment. Her eyes actually filled with tears. "Pah! I am ashamed of myself," she cried, "but, to refuse is distracting."
The gate of the outer park had been reached. The groom swung himself down and ran forward, but confused by the growing darkness and the thick atmosphere he fumbled for a time before finding the heavy latch.
The horses became somewhat restive, snorting and fidgeting.
"Steady there, steady, good lass," Richard said soothingly. Then he turned again to his companion. "Believe me it's the very easiest thing out to accept, if you'll only look at it all from the right point of view, Helen."
Madame de Vallorbes withdrew her right hand from her muff and laid it, almost timidly, upon the young man's arm.
"Do you know, you are wonderfully dear to me, Dick?" she said, and her voice shook slightly. She was genuinely touched and moved.—"No one has ever been quite so dear to me before. It is a new experience. It takes my breath away a little. It makes me regret some things I have done. But it is a mistake to go back on what is past, don't you think so? Therefore we will go forward. Tell me, expound. What is this so agreeably reconciling point of view?"
But along with the touch of her hand, a great wave of emotion swept over poor Richard, making his grasp on the reins very unsteady. The sensations he had suffered last evening in the Long Gallery again assailed him. The flesh had its word to say. Speech became difficult. Meanwhile his agitation communicated itself strangely to the horses. They sprang forward against that all‐encircling, ever‐present, yet ever‐receding, blank wall of fog, to which the over‐arching trees lent an added gloom and mystery, as though some incarnate terror pursued them. The gate clanged‐to behind the carriage. The groom scrambled breathlessly into his place. Sir Richard's driving was rather reckless, he ventured to think, on such a nasty, dark night, and with a lady along of him too. He was not sorry when the pace slowed down to a walk. That was a long sight safer, to his thinking.page: 252
"The right point of view is this," Richard said at last; "that in accepting you would be doing that which, in some ways, would make just all the difference to my life."
He held himself very upright on the sloping driving‐seat, rather cruelly conscious of the broad strap about his waist, and the high, unsightly driving‐iron against which, concealed by the heavy, fur rug, his feet pushed as he balanced himself. He paused, gazing away into the silent desolation of the now invisible woods, and when he spoke again his voice had deepened in tone.
"It must be patent to you—it is rather detestably patent to everyone, I suppose, if it comes to that—that I am condemned to be of precious little use to myself or anyone else. I share the fate of the immortal Sancho Panza in his island of Barataria. A very fine feast is spread before me, while I find myself authoritatively forbidden to eat first of this dish and then of that, until I end by being every bit as hungry as though the table was bare. It becomes rather a nuisance at times, you know, and taxes one's temper and one's philosophy. It seems a little rough to possess all that so many men of my age would give just everything to have, and yet be unable to get anything but unsatisfied hunger, and—in plain English—humiliation, out of it."
Madame de Vallorbes sat very still. Her charming face had grown keen. She listened, drawing in her breath with a little sobbing sound—but that was only the result of accentuated dramatic satisfaction.
"You see I have no special object or ambition. I can't have one. I just pass the time. I don't see any prospect of my ever being able to do more than that. There's my mother, of course. I need not tell you she and I love one another. And there are the horses. But I don't care to bet, and I never attend a race‐meeting. I—I do not choose to make an exhibition of myself."
Again Helen drew her hand out of her muff, but this time quickly, impulsively, and laid it on Richard's left hand which held the reins. The young man's breath caught in his throat, he leaned sideways towards her, her shoulder touching his elbow, the trailing plumes of her hat—now limp from the clinging moisture of the fog—for a moment brushing his cheek.
"Helen," he said rapidly, "don't you understand it's in your power to alter all this? By accepting you would do infinitely more for me than I could ever dream of doing for you. You'd give me something to think of and plan about. page: 253 If you'll only have whatever wretched money you need now, and have more whenever you want it—if you'll let me feel, however rarely we meet, that you depend on me and trust me and let me make things a trifle easier and smoother for you, you will be doing such an act of charity as few women have ever done. Don't refuse, for pity's sake don't! I don't want to whine, but things were not precisely gay before your coming, you know. Need it be added they promise to be less so than ever after you are gone? So listen to reason. Do as I ask you. Let me be of use in the only way I can."
"Do you consider what you propose?" Madame de Vallorbes asked, slowly. "It is a good deal. It is dangerous. With most men such a compact would be wholly inadmissible."
Then poor. Dickie lost himself. The strain of the last week, the young, headlong passion aroused in him, the misery of his deformity, the accumulated bitterness and rebellion of years arose and overflowed as a great flood. Pride went down before it, and reticence, and decencies of self‐respect. Richard turned and rent himself, without mercy and, for the moment, without shame. He pelted himself with cruel words, with scorn and self‐contempt, while he laughed, and the sound of that laughter wandered away weirdly through the chill density of the fog, under the tall, shadowy firs of the great avenue, over the sombre heather, out into the veiled, crowded darkness of the wide woods.
"But I am not as other men are," he answered. "I am a creature by myself, a unique development as much outside the normal social, as I am outside the normal physical law. I—alone by myself—think of it!—abnormal, extraordinary.—You are safe enough with me, Helen. Safe to indulge and humour me as you might a monkey or a parrot. All the world will understand that! Only my mother, and a few old friends and old servants take me seriously. To everyone else I am an embarrassment, a more or less distressing curiosity."—He met little Lady Constance Quayle's ruminant stare again in imagination, heard Lord Fallowfeild's blundering speech.—"Remember our luncheon to‐day. It was flattering, at moments, wasn't it? And so if I do queer things, things off the conventional lines, who will be surprised? No one I tell you, not even the most strait‐laced or censorious. Allow me at least the privileges of my disabilities. I am a dwarf—a cripple. I shall never be otherwise. Had I lived a century or two ago I should have made sport for you, and such as you, as some rich man's professional fool. And so, if I overstep the usual limits, who page: 254 will comment on that? Queer things, crazy things, are in the part. What do I matter?"
Richard laughed aloud.
"At least I have this advantage, that in my case you can do what you can do in the case of no other man. With me you needn't be afraid. No one will think evil. With me—yes, after all, there is a drop of comfort in it—with me, Helen, you're safe enough."


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CHILDREN | The Williamstown Theatre Festival opens its Mainstage season with A.R. Gurney's Fourth-of-July-set play about three adult (but also adolescent) children whose widowed mother is about to remarry — which means that they'll inherit the family house. Tony nominee (for Loot) John Tillinger directs; the cast includes Mary Bacon, Katie Finneran, Judith Light, and James Waterston. | Williamstown Theatre Festival Mainstage, 1000 Main St, Rte 2, Williamstown | 413.597.3400 | July 1-12 | Curtain 8 pm Tues-Wed | 3 + 8 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 4 + 8:30 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $45-$59
THE EINSTEIN PROJECT | This work by Paul D'Andrea and Jon Klein was presented in BTF's Unicorn Theatre in 2000; now it's being brought to the Main Stage, with Eric Hill again directing and Tommy Schrider back in the title role of a scientist whose understanding of relativity doesn't seem to give him a leg up on relationships. With Miranda Hope Shea as his son, Edward, and James Barry as Werner Heisenberg. | Berkshire Theatre Festival Main Stage, Main St, Stockbridge | 413.298.5576 | June 30–July 18 | Curtain 8 pm Mon-Tues | 7pm Wed | 2 + 8 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | $46-$68
HAMLET | Shakespeare & Company reprises its 2006 production, a family affair, with S&C artistic director Tina Packer as Gertrude, her son, Jason Asprey, as Hamlet, and her husband, Dennis Krausnick, as — no, not Claudius, that would be a bit much — Polonius. Nigel Gore is back as Claudius, and Eleanor Holdridge again directs this dark, muscular production, in which the jarring metallic sounds that signify Hamlet's synaptic twitching also suggest the clanging shut of doors in the prison that is Denmark. This is a clear, compelling, if hardly transcendent reading, with a few twists that work — like Hamlet's passing out scripts of The Mousetrap to Gertrude and Claudius and having them play it like an amateur theatrical. With Elizabeth Raetz as Ophelia. | Shakespeare & Company, Founders Theatre, 70 Kemble St, Lenox | 413.637.3353 | June 26–August 28 | Curtain times vary | $16-$60
THE LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS | Gloucester Stage continues its 2009 season with this 1969 Neil Simon comedy. Gloucester artistic associate David Zoffoli directs and stars as the middle-aged and married Barney, who's hoping to join the sexual revolution; ART member Karen MacDonald plays the three women he tries, and fails, to seduce. | Gloucester Stage Company, 267 East Main St, Gloucester | 978.281.4433 | July 2-19 | Curtain 8 pm Wed-Fri [7:30 pm July 3, with fireworks] | 3 + 8 pm Sat [no performances July 4] | 4 pm Sun | $32-$37
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING | Without Shakespeare's romantic comedy about the bickering Beatrice and Benedick, would we have Sonny and Cher, or Sam and Diane? Whatever, theater companies love it, and this month it makes its way to the Cape. | Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Falmouth Rd, Cotuit | 508.428.0669 | June 25–July 19 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat [no July 4] | 4 pm Sun | $20; $18 seniors; $10 students
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-------------------------The challenge-------------------------
FIRST answer these questions:
If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
What is your least favorite color?
What flower do you like?
What is your favorite bug?
Black or white?
Alpha or Font?
Summer, winter, spring or fall?
Are you a morning or night person?
what one thing do you miss about being a kid?
would you say you are clean or messy?
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To the left under "Share Image" copy the "Image Link:" Code
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Cougs make dramatic, overtime Apple Cup win
Kalafitoni Pole intercepted Keith Price on the first possession of overtime and Andrew Furney made the game-winning field goal to give Washington State a 31-28 win over Washington in the Apple Cup on Friday.
Travis Coons had a chance to end the game in regulation, but missed a 35-yard field goal as time expired, forcing the game to go to overtime.
Washington State trailed 28-10 with under 11 minutes to play in the fourth quarter before Carl Winston found the end zone from two yards out to cut the deficit to 11.
Cougar defensive lineman Steven Hoffart forced a fumble on 3rd and 2 to give WSU the ball inside the Huskies 35. The short field resulted in another Winston touchdown to make the score 28-23 UW. Jeff Tuel then found Brett Bartolone for the 2-point conversion to make it a 3-point game.
After the WSU defense forced a Huskies punt, the Cougars drove 42 yards, setting up a 45-yard Andrew Furney field goal, which tied the game at 28-28.
Washington State led 10-7 at the half before the Huskies scored three straight touchdowns to claim a 28-10 lead


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Bartley Elementary - Ms. Bishop's 2nd Grade Class
In schools across the country, children begin their day with The Pledge of Allegiance. The Daily Pledge on KOMU 8 is brought to you by Willett & Patton Dentistry - creating beautiful smiles, one visit at a time.
Bartley Elementary - Ms. Bishop's 2nd Grade Class
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COLUMBIA — Stephens College fashion design, marketing, management and communication students hosted the 73rd annual student design fashion show, called... More >>
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text: I was at a shop today talking to the owner and getting his order on more calls and there was a young man in there with his friend i guess and they were talking shotguns. Well they looked at the Mossberg 835 ultimag and the kid noticed the 535 tactical turkey setup he asked to see it and his friend started to rip him saying thats a girls gun. So i put my two cents in and asked him why would you say this sure its not a 835 but just as good the only diff was the 835 is chambered up to 3 1/2 in shells and the 535 is chambered up to 3in shells both are killing machines and both have never failed me or my staffers. He looked at me and had nothing to say. I told his friend either one would kill a tom and to buy what he fells comfortable shooting.


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mrorganic, COM with Delphi is also easy. Writing Corba stuff in the early years required 100 lines of C++ or so per routine (forgot). That was before they even had the notion of a unified client interface. But that wasn't exactly the point I think of the rant. The rant confused a lot of things: the essential simplicity of COM, the sometimes confusing interfaces built on top of it, and the hard problems COM tries to solve. What are you going to do if you have a single-threaded component in a multi-threaded application? Forbid that? Make the multi-threaded application single-threaded? Such things work with COM. That's not bad. Transparant access over the network? Works as well. And used by a lot of people. There is always room for improvement. And I haven't seen any alternative with a significant following.
mx assumes that all good interfaces are text based. Supposedly the founders of the Internet new all about this. What about DNS? It's binary. NFS? Binary RPC. NTP? Binary as well. I also like text interfaces, but the Internet is not build on it exclusively.
And on another front, I still have to reply to a private reaction I got with regards to a post about causes of gun killings in relation to Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine". The following points were raised in that email:
- The population density metric doesn't give any more conclusive answers, because it isn't true for Japan.
I don't know a lot about Japan, but their society could be quite different. It is true for The Netherlands for example. But I don't think a single cause is the answer. And population density only has a correlation with crime, I'm not aware of research showing conclusive causal effects. Except interesting (science) fiction that is.
- Moore is only raising questions. That's the point.
But why the "or are we nuts" subtitle at the beginning? Why making a joke of the word documentary by staging buying a gun at a bank, faking Charles Heston speeches, alleging that a factory that makes space rockets has something to do with atomic weapons? 11,127 homicides by gun in the US? According to the FBI it's around 8500 deads by gun.
- It might be the media, because that way you don't think about DMCA, Patriot Act, Homeland
Security Dept., FCC & broadcasting & ownership rights, ...
I don't believe the media in the US is controlled by the government. They certainly have an agenda, and as most journalist vote Democrats, its your guess what agenda that might be.
- Did anyone of the stories of the past months about viruses and worms mention that you're only vulnerable if you use Microsoft software? Did they mention there are alternatives?
Good point. Media is biased. I agree with that.
- Because he gets you to react, it engaged you. That's what good storytelling is about.
Maybe. But I know that I always resent it deeply when I thought when something was true, because I had seen it on TV, and later on it was a deeply skewed documentary, leaving out most of the really interesting facts.
On this subject, let me refer to and quote Theodore Dalrymple's 1998 essay on New Zealand crime. This great UK humanitarian, Doctor and advocate for the emancipation of the underclass from destructive liberal theories, injects more sense into each paragraph than Michael Moore in all its documentaries and books (quoted freely from NZPundit:
Such a society--prosperous, democratic, egalitarian--should be virtually free of crime, if the commonplace liberal explanations of criminality were true. But they aren't, and New Zealand is now almost as crime-ridden as its mother country, itself the most crime-ridden nation in western Europe (along with prosperous, democratic, egalitarian Holland). Indeed, in the ever-upward trend in the crime figures, New Zealand is only a handful of years behind Britain and, in point of homicide, a few years in advance of it. This fact is of great theoretical interest, or ought to be: it is an overwhelming refutation of the standard liberal explanations of crime.


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Web Stories
Films to be screened, April 15-17
Posted April 11, 2004; 08:27 p.m.
The Undergraduate Film Organization will present three films, including one directed by a Princeton alumnus, in the coming week.
On Thursday and Saturday, April 15 and 17, "In This World" will be shown at 11:15 p.m. in the Frist Film/Performance Theatre. The 2003 film, directed by Michael Winterbottom, tells the story of two Afghan cousins who embark on a refugee's clandestine odyssey from Pakistan to London. Tickets are $2, and can be obtained at the Frist ticket office.
On Friday, April 16, "The Instrument," directed by Adam Nemett of the class of 2003, will be shown at 11:30 p.m. in the Frist Film/Performance Theatre. "When enigmatic art school custodian, Arthur Zarek, died in March 2002, he left behind the blueprints for a new system of ritual worship -- one based on music," the film's Web site states. "Seven students, including young filmmaker, Pallo Zo, were selected to live together in Arthur's sacredspace (known as 'The Instrument') to delve into his spiritual legacy, and in turn, their own minds." Admission is free.
Also on Friday, April 16, the UFO will show "Lilya 4-Ever" at 10:15 p.m. in 101 McCormick. The 2002 Swedish film was directed by Lukas Moodysson. Admission is free.
Contact: Ruth Stevens (609) 258-3601


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read reviews [3]
Yields about 5 tsp., enough for 5 batches of roasted vegetables.
Give your vegetables a Moroccan kick by tossing them with this warm spice mix before roasting. It pairs especially well with sweeter or starchy vegetables such as butternut squash, carrots, cauliflower, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and turnips.
In a small bowl, mix all of the spices. In addition to the oil, salt, and pepper in the master recipe, toss 1 tsp. of the spice blend with a batch of vegetables before roasting.
Photo: Scott Phillips
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Toggle: English / Spanish
A reflex is a muscle reaction that happens automatically in response to stimulation. Certain sensations or movements produce specific muscle responses.
Primitive reflexes; Reflexes in infants; Tonic neck reflex; Galant reflex; Truncal incurvation; Rooting reflex; Parachute reflex; Grasp reflex
The presence and strength of a reflex is an important sign of nervous system development and function.
Many infant reflexes disappear as the child grows older, although some remain throughout adulthood. A reflex that is still present after the age when it would normally disappear can be a sign of brain or nervous system damage.
Infant reflexes are responses that are normal in infants, but abnormal in other age groups. These include:
Other infant reflexes include:
Tonic neck reflex. This reflex occurs when the head of child who is relaxed and lying face up is moved to the side. The arm on the side where the head is facing reaches away from the body with the hand partly open. The arm on the side away from the face is flexed and the fist is clenched tightly. Turning the baby's face in the other direction reverses the position. The tonic neck position is often described as the fencer's position because it looks like a fencer's stance.
Truncal incurvation or Galant reflex. This reflex occurs the side of the infant's spine is stroked or tapped while the infant lies on the stomach. The infant will twitch his or her hips toward the touch in a dancing movement.
Grasp reflex. This reflex occurs if you place a finger on the infant's open palm. The hand will close around the finger. Trying to remove the finger causes the grip to tighten. Newborn infants have strong grasps and can almost be lifted up if both hands are grasping your fingers.
Rooting reflex. This reflex occurs when the baby's cheek is stroked. The infant will turn toward the side that was stroked and begin to make sucking motions.
Parachute reflex. This reflex occurs in slightly older infants when the child is held upright and the baby's body is rotated quickly to face forward (as in falling). The baby will extend his arms forward as if to break a fall, even though this reflex appears long before the baby walks.
Examples of reflexes that last into adulthood are:
Infant reflexes can occur in adults who have:
The health care provider will often discover abnormal infant reflexes during an exam that is done for another reason. Reflexes that remain longer than they should may be a sign of a nervous system problem.
Parents should talk to their child's health care provider if:
The health care provider will perform a physical exam and ask questions about the child's medical history.
Questions may include:
Volpe, JJ. Neurological examination: normal and abnormal features. In Volpe JJ. Neurology of the Newborn. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2008:chap 3.
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Social Science Department
Office: SC 14 - Room: 7
While political science as we know it has only been around for 100 years or so, politics is as old as civilization. From Plato to William the Conqueror to President Obama, politics continues to play a critical role in the shaping of our government, our laws, and our society.
As a student in the Political Science program at MCC you will study topics such as: the history of political thought; justice and morality in individuals, society, and government; political and governmental processes; the American political system; legal and constitutional issues; proposals for improving governmental structure and policy; how political behaviors compare in different countries, regions, or time periods; international relations; and practical political problem solving.
Political science majors often apply their skills to government agencies and programs writing policy, planning, or running for elected office. In the private sector, "poly sci" majors often work in law firms, political campaigns, and volunteer organizations where strong analytical, verbal, and writing skills are in high demand.
mesacc.edu | 480-461-7000 | © 2017 Mesa Community College | A Maricopa Community College
The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) is an EEO/AA institution and an equal opportunity employer of protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.


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Throughout his working life Constable copied the work of other artists, doing so both as quick sketches and in facsimile. He copied artists as diverse as Cozens, Cuyp, Reynolds, Rubens, Titian, Willem van de Velde the younger and Richard Wilson. But the artists he copied most frequently were Claude Lorrain and the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape artist Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9–1682).
In this drawing, which is an almost exact copy of Ruisdael's etching The wheatfield 1648, Constable showed his understanding of Ruisdael's technique and vision. He reproduced details of the etching such as the uppermost twigs of the front tree. He also faithfully imitated Ruisdael's signature and feigned the plate mark, which led Ian Fleming-Williams to suggest that Constable, rather than just showing off his technical ability, may also have been making 'an elaborate leg-pull' (Fleming-Williams 1976, p. 64).
Constable frequently mentioned Ruisdael in correspondence with his friend John Fisher; on 28 November 1826 he wrote enthusiastically about another work by Ruisdael: 'I have seen an affecting picture this morning, by Ruisdael. It haunts my mind and clings to my heart – and has stood between me & you while I am now talking to you. It is a watermill, not unlike "Perne's Mill" – a man & boy are cutting rushes in the running stream (in the "tail water") – the whole so true clear & fresh – & as brisk as champagne' (Beckett VI, p. 229).
Constable first mentioned his interest in making a copy of a work by Ruisdael in 1797 when he wrote to J.T. Smith announcing that he planned to copy one of Ruisdael's etchings, and asking Smith to send him one which was not too scarce or expensive. His last copy, Landscape with windmills, after Jacob van Ruisdael, which Constable painted in 1832, was of a Ruisdael painting now in the Dulwich Collection (Fleming-Williams 1976, p. 64).


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Australian art
Overview | Education Programs | Curriculum resources | Tours
Australian art | Indigenous art | European + American art | Asian and Pacific art
Robert Dowling: Tasmanian son of Empire
Robert Dowling (1827–1886) holds a special place in the history of Australian art. He was the first locally produced artist in Australia. He specialised in portraiture, but also painted popular genre subjects, literary and religious themes, the most substantial Orientalist images by any Australian artist of the time, as well as images of the Australian Aborigines. He was Australia's major portrait and figure painter from the late colonial period 1850–85.
- activity cards 1 MB (Adobe Reader PDF)
- resource pamphlet 764 KB (Adobe Reader PDF)
Misty moderns: Australian Tonalists 1910–1950
Misty moderns travels to the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, from the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
It is the first major exhibition to tell the story of Australian Tonalism, a movement championed by the influential and often controversial painter Max Meldrum in the first half of the twentieth century. The exhibition is brought together from collections around Australia and includes approximately 80 works of art by Meldrum and his followers.
Picture my worldnga.gov.au/picturemyworld
Picture my world is a collaborative project involving the National Gallery of Australia and early childhood educational centres in the Canberra region. Schools have responded to the topic of home or sense of place in a variety of ways. Each teacher was given a set of four quality photographic reproductions of works of art from the Home at last exhibition to use as a stimulus for discussion and creative responses in the classroom.
Home at last
Designed especially for children, Home at last encourages children to think about ideas of the home through artworks about home life and house objects from different times, places and cultures
Douglas Annand: the art of lifenga.gov.au/Annand
Douglas Annand was a graphic desiger, watercolourist, textile designer, muralist and sculptor of enormous ability and great style who was quite appropriatly described as 'the most brilliant and versatile eclectic in this country'. The exhibition Douglas Annand: the art of life is the first to recognise his enormous contribution to the development of modernism in Australia.
Australian Surrealism: The Agapitos/Wilson collection
While Surrealism was not conceived as an artistic movement, its influence was to be felt most strongly in the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, photography and film. Surrealism was officially born in Paris in 1924 with the publication of French poet and intellectual André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism.
- Historical background Education resource from the Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Surrealism in Australia Education resource from the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Painting forever: Tony Tucksonnga.gov.au/Tuckson
The art of Tony Tuckson is one of Australia's great treasures. A private artist for both personal and ethical reasons, he produced some of the best expressionist art ever made here. He was also an innovative and committed senior arts administrator for over 20 years, responsible for presenting to the Australian public some of the earliest and most comprehensive exhibitions of Australian Aboriginal art and Melanesian art.
Ocean to Outback: Australian landscape painting 1850 – 1950nga.gov.au/oceantooutback
To mark the 25th anniversary of the National Gallery of Australia, an exhibition of treasured works from the National Collection. Ocean to Outback: Australian Landscape Painting 1850–1950 has been curated by National Gallery Director, Ron Radford AM and celebrates the rich history of landscape painting in Australia.
- Audio tour of selected works
- Google Earth tour of selected works
- Downloadable education kit (primary and secondary students)
Place made: Australian print workshopnga.gov.au/placemade
Established in 1981 as the Victorian Print Workshop, the Australian Print Workshop (APW) has attracted many of Australia's leading artists on the basis of its reputation for collaborating with artists to produce printed images and its excellent professional support facilities. The Gallery has recently acquired the APW's Archive 2 of workshop proofs. A hundred prints from some fifty major artists who have worked with the APW since its inception have been selected from this major archive for Place made: Australian Print Workshop.
Grace Cossington Smith: a retrospective exhibitionnga.gov.au/Exhibition/cossingtonsmith
This exhibition is a tribute to Grace Cossington Smith, one of Australia's most important and paradoxical artists; an artist who lived a relatively quiet, circumscribed life who was also the creator of iconic images and one of the most brilliant pioneering modernists of her generation.
Home sweet home: works from the Peter Fay collectionnga.gov.au/HomeSweetHome
Dr Deborah Hart, Senior Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia, interviewed Peter Fay about a selection of works from his collection represented in Home sweet home. Images of the works, along with audio excerpts from the interview and transcriptions are all available.
Imants Tillers: one world many visionsnga.gov.au/Tillers
The first major survey of Imants Tillers' paintings in Australia that includes his most recent and significant large-scale works. Tillers has been identified as a quintessential postmodern artist in his use of appropriation and quotation and the works in this exhibition convey the range, scope, audacity and technical accomplishment of the artist's enterprise that has emerged in his remarkable canvasboard system.
- Audio tour of selected works
- Timelapse installation video 256k | 512k
- Downloadable education kit (primary and secondary students)
- Downloadable curators essay
Making picturesnga.gov.au/makingpictures
Making pictures recreates an artist's studio from 100 years ago – complete with paintings, drawings, an original easel, smock and paintbox and several artists' sketchbooks. In this exhibition you can see works of art by Australian artists George Lambert , Hugh Ramsay , Thea Proctor and Rupert Bunny . These artists left Australia to live, study and work in Europe during the Edwardian era, around 1900-1914. They all had a traditional artistic training, learning drawing skills as a foundation for making pictures. Like many artists they found inspiration in the works of their peers and in the great works of art shown in museums of London and Paris. They also found inspiration in the excitement of modern life, in the theatre and fashion of the day.
New worlds from old: 19th Century Australian and American landscapeshttp://nga.gov.au/Exhibitions/newWorlds
Examining two great traditions of landscape painting of the 19th century, those of Australia and America, the exhibition will explore how artists steeped in 'old world' traditions reacted when confronted by landscapes of the 'new world'
George W Lambert Retrospective: heroes & iconsnga.gov.au/Lambert
George Lambert (1873–1930) was one of Australia's most brilliant, witty and influential artists. The exhibition George Lambert retrospective: heroes and icons is the most comprehensive showing of Lambert's work for over fifty years. It will present the diverse range of Lambert's work from his Australian bush subjects to his Edwardian portraits and figure groups, from his sparkling oil sketches to his major battle paintings and large sculpture. It will show the full breadth of Lambert's approaches to image making and the variety of his handling of pencil, pen and paint. It will demonstrate his sure draughtsmanship and the seductive glamour and sensual appeal of his paint surfaces.
Richard Later: a retrospectivenga.gov.au/Larter
In 2008, the National Gallery of Australia recognises and celebrates the work of Richard Larter, one of Australia's most engaging and lively artists. The exhibition, which covers his artistic practice from the late 1950s through to the present, gives viewers the opportunity to engage with a spectrum of works that are at times provocative and dazzling, and at other times evocative and lyrical – but never dull.
Federation: Australian art & societynga.gov.au/Federation
This website provides access to information relating to more than 260 works exhibited in Federation. As is the case for the exhibition, works can be viewed within 7 themes. These themes offer a convenient format for browsing, however the website also provides a search tool for exploring the works in a more focused manner.
Grace Crowley: being modernnga.gov.au/Crowley
Grace Crowley: being modern is a retrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings by one of Australia's most influential modern artists. It traces her remarkable artistic journey from traditional landscapes to avant-garde experimentation and pure abstraction.
Landscapes in sets and series
This exhibition focuses on prints produced by Australian artists from 1960 to the present. As well as presenting prints of the Australian landscape it represents the work of two artists who have often found their subject matter in foreign landscapes. Janet Dawson produced poetic lithographs of the Italian landscape, where she worked in the late 1950s. For the 'new Australian' migrant Salvatore Zofrea, the Italian landscape is the source of formative memories.
This exhibition is a celebration of the recent work of eighty-five Australian and international artists working in the area of studio craft. All are forging new expressions within the fields of glass, ceramics, textiles, wood and metalwork, and through a variety of materials in furniture, jewellery and sculpture.
the language of craft
The Elaine and
Jim Wolfensohn gift
The Elaine and Jim Wolfensohn gift enables people from all around Australia to discover and handle treasured objects. Made possible by Jim Wolfensohn, the Australian-born former president of the World Bank, the gift comprises three art-filled suitcases and The 1888 Melbourne Cup, touring to schools, libraries, community centres, regional galleries and nursing homes. The idea of the suitcase kits is to give to people a chance to handle and appreciate original works of art by contemporary artists as well as works from other cultures and times.
The good, the great & the gifted: camera portraits by Yousuf Karsh and Athol Shmithnga.gov.au/KarshShmith
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the middle-classes expanded in size and affluence, the mass circulation of portrait photographs of public figures and celebrities became an industry. Photographers with talent, technical aptitude, business sense and charming manners found they could become not only specially appointed Court photographers but also the darlings of High Society. Photography defined and created the very notion of celebrity by catering to the public fascination with images of the stars of the stage, and later, the cinema. Though separated across the globe and in their relative international fame, both Yousuf Karsh (1908–2002) of Ottawa and Athol Shmith (1914–1990) of Melbourne are 20th-century examples of portrait photographers who continued and excelled in the field of providing the public with glorified and glamorised portraits of public figures.
Sculpture gardennga.gov.au/sculpturegarden
Illustrating the development of sculpture during the modern period in Australia and overseas, the Gallery's Sculpture garden holds over 25 works ranging from the human scale to the monumental.
National Sculpture Prize and exhibition 2005 and 2003nga.gov.au/SculpturePrize05 | nga.gov.au/SculpturePrize03
The three Prizes – held in 2001, 2003 and 2005 – have included an extra-ordinary range of works by a total of 83 artists from around Australia. The Prize has introduced emerging artists to a national audience and has exhibited their works alongside those of Australia's leading sculptors.
- Audio tour of selected works (2005)
- Education website and downloadable education kit (primary and secondary students, 2005)
spatial is the National Gallery of Australia's online environment for networked art.
Colin McCahon: A National Gallery of Australia focus exhibitionnga.gov.au/mccahon
As part of its 25th-anniversary year, the National Gallery of Australia is proud to be touring a focus exhibition that celebrates the work of one of the most widely acclaimed Aotearoa New Zealand artists, Colin McCahon.
The exhibition brings together paintings and works on paper that reflect key concerns in McCahon's art from 1950 through to the early 1980s. While drawn predominantly from the National Gallery of Australia's collection, it features one of McCahon's last paintings, I applied my mind 1980–82, which has been generously lent to the exhibition.
Lost in spacenga.gov.au/lost/
The children's exhibition Lost in Space is a world of cosmic shapes, flying cars, martians, twinkling stars, astronauts, space monsters, sparkling comets, lunar landscapes and the infinite blackness of space. Artists take up their paint, pencils, paper, prints, film, camera, metal and clay to give shape to their vision of space.


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|Most Sophisticated Poppy Parker as Sabrina
by Integrity Toys
Just a quick shot. I haven't had a chance to take the rest of her other garments out of the box. She's part of a gift set with two other attires, luggage bags and the cute doggie. Gorgeous, isn't she, short hair and all?
Happy Sunday!


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Life Lessons: Gun control debate--Moms demand action
The gun control issue continues to be hotly debated. Now, some moms are taking matters into their own hands.
A group of women in Indiana has started a movement it hopes will get the whole nation involved.
These women represent one side of the gun control debate. They're part of "Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America."
Group member Kim Russell said after the school shootings in Connecticut in December, she felt she had to get involved.
"We were all just affected at our core, and we had to act," Russell said.
Fellow group member Marie Delus agrees saying, "One little child, one little baby getting shot is enough for me."
The group has 65,000 members and counting.
Their goal? Gather a million moms and convince lawmakers to ban weapons of more than 10 rounds, require background checks, report sales of large quantities of ammunition, and limit the scope of concealed weapon laws at the state level.
Kim says, "It's easier for you to get a gun than it is to buy Sudafed!"
Their demands come as more and more women are now picking up guns for sport and for protection.
Alexis Thompson is one of those women. She says, "I don't believe guns are the problem at all. I believe it's the people."
Some women, like Jenni Jones Gooch, want guns for protection. "I need to physically be able to handle whatever comes at me, if it ever does," she says.
Gun violence is the second leading cause of death for children between ages one and 19 in the US.
But pro-gun organizations like the NRA say, "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," calling on Congress to put armed security in every school across the nation. It's a debate that will likely continue for years to come.
You can visit Moms Demand Action's website for more information.
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Allentown, PA 18102
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been there....and done one of Dr. Ed's 450 right blind....550 left blind doubles. Thanks for the education Ed.
been there....and done one of Dr. Ed's 450 right blind....550 left blind doubles. Thanks for the education Ed.
We have gone on a few spring snow goose hunts. The field we hunt in is about 800 acres of tilled black dirt around the hunt area. We have done some that were maybe 1000 yds. Usually get them going that diriction and after about 400 yds they cant hear any more and keep truckin. Then they see the big white goose on the black dirt. These were all age dogs in great shape and we would only do 2 or so a day because they are wore out. Its cool to have 5 or 10 hunters all looking thru binocs at a blind retrieve and all cheers and high 5 when the dog picks the bird up.
"Communism only works in Heaven, where they don't need it, and in Hell, where they already have it" Ronald Reagan
Or.....after 300 yrds into a out to sea water blind the bird starts to flap on the water getting you that last 100 yrds. I have had that a couple of times....like a gift from the gods.
Best part is a local happened to be watching us & introduced himself to our party & said how much he enjoyed watching good dog work. He then invited us back to his quanset building (sp? again) and showed us the 17 sections of land he owned and said we could hunt any of it..
Over the next 5 or so years he was always happy to see us arrive - and asked I pull zeus out of the trailer so he could give him a biscuit... and yes I wish I had that on film...
When I imported my most recent dog from Ireland I told them to take him to the western shore, point him southwest and say BACK. I was gonna go to South Carolina and wait on him. It was raining though... so they flew him.
-Barton Ramsey
Longest blind retrieve ever?? About 25 minutes, I thought he'd caught the bus home. Moonflighting duck on the Severn; the old boy knew I'd hit it (I wasn't sure) and it went out of view over the Wyre forest which comes right down to the river at that spot.
The best blind retrieve that any dog of mine ever made was the same fellow but only about 40-ish yards. That was another night time job, a running woodcock in a Christmas tree plantation that was as black as pitch. He was 200 yards away in the car when the bird was shot, but I cast him off from where the Gun stood. Five or six minutes and he'd got it. And no, he wasn't a Labrador.
Last edited by Colonel Blimp; 02-19-2014 at 02:42 PM.
Thank you, very kind, Mine's a pint.
My best dog I did one drill 600 yds straight and re-run , stop at 300 yds and cast 100 yds into the wind either left or right , and finish w.no wind. I also had another drill where he got to a big rock @ 200 yds and had to jump the rock about 4 feet high and 8 feet deep . He was non-collar. You train harder than the trial. Not bragging just telling. Do I have an NFC ? No. I will keep going until I die or run out of money. Hardcore amateur but not too proud to pay a pro (1st tier only) when my brain/experience is not enough. Good luck.


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Kathy Gribou (left) and Harriett Romo, UTSA associate professor of
sociology, add their names to the bid sheet for art in the silent auction
at the 2006 alumni gala.
UTSA Alumni Association Rising Star Gala is Sept. 22
By Marcia Mattingly
UTSA Ofice of Alumni Programs
(Aug. 21, 2007)--The eighth annual UTSA Alumni Association Rising Star Gala is Saturday, Sept. 22 at the Westin La Cantera Resort. A cocktail reception with music and a silent auction begin at 6:15 p.m. with dinner at 7:30 p.m. and the program at 8:20 p.m.
This year's gala emcee is KENS-TV anchor Deborah Knapp. The popular Austin band, Newsboyz, will play all evening.
Today's headlines
- La Prensa Foundation is newest member of UTSA Lone Star Society
- UTSA alumna Jordan Kaufmann wins $50K for new stent-graft start-up
- UTSA begins new way-finding sign installation this summer at Main Campus
- USA Today: UTSA long jumper Tyler Williamson rescues three-year-old boy
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"This is the night we celebrate our brightest stars -- the volunteers, fundraisers, mentors and community leaders who have contributed to the phenomenal success of UTSA," said 2007 Gala chair Susan Filyk, '95, of Frost Bank.
Honorary event chairs are Jeff Clarke and Loretta Clarke. Jeff is a 1986 engineering graduate of UTSA and senior vice president of the Dell Computers business products group. His wife, Loretta, earned two degrees from UTSA, a B.S. in 1987 and an M.A. in 1990.
"The gala is a fantastic event that just gets better and better," Filyk said. "And, the popular Power Drawing and silent auction are back. Many alumni who own their own businesses contribute to the gala each year. We are so proud of their success."
The UTSA Alumni Association will honor its own rising stars at the event. The Alumnus of the Year is James Mickey, '78, former president of Movida Communications Inc. The recipient of the Distinguished Service Award is Robert McKinley, '98, UTSA associate vice president for economic development. The awards honor dedicated alumni and community leaders who continue to be involved in UTSA and who demonstrate a strong commitment to the university's future.
Artist and alumnus Steve DaLuz, '03, has created a one-of-a-kind star again this year that will be available for sale in the silent auction. Other planning committee members are Dinah Covert, '95; Wayne Terry, '85; Claudia Guzman, '04; Melissa Aguillon, '95, '99; Peter Morales, '04; Rob Mendiola, '01 and Yvonne Fernandez, '85.
Table sponsorships are available for companies, families, alumni and friends at the Rising Star level for $3,500, Shooting Star level for $2,500 and Lone Star level for $1,500. Sponsor tables seat eight. Rising Star and Shooting Star sponsors will have one student scholarship named for them in the 2008-2009 school year. Individual tickets are $125. A portion of the gala proceeds benefits the UTSA Alumni Association Scholarship Fund; last year the event raised more than $58,000 for scholarships.
"We always have a wonderful time at the alumni gala," said association president Yvonne Fernandez, '85. "It is a very popular fundraising event. Each year promises a great networking and shopping opportunity. Also, we always need volunteers to assist with table sales, obtain auction items and help with set-up on event day. If you're willing to lend a hand, please call us to get on the volunteer roll."
To make reservations, visit the UTSA Alumni Association Web site or call (210) 458-4133.


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Image: George Mendoza
Good morning, good God!
It's Monday, again, and you know -
somehow that just doesn't seem fair.
I mean - why can't the weekend be longer?
Come to think of it,
a lot of things don't seem fair, Lord:
things not fair in the world
and a lot of things not fair in my world...
I'm not saying that my problems
are as big as war and world hunger:
I understand the difference.
But I have hungers, too...
and I need peace, too...
and I pray for these things often,
and I pray hard...
And to tell you the truth, Lord,
I'm not sure you're listening...
I'm not sure you hear me...
Sometimes I wonder if you're so busy
with international crises and world hunger
that you don't have time to hear me
and answer my prayers...
(But then again,
I'm not sure you're doing that well
with war and the third world, either!)
If I just crossed a line - I'm sorry!
I don't mean to complain about everything
but I'm just saying...
And I know world hunger
won't be resolved by a miracle
and that the end of war rests
in the hands and hearts and decisions
of nations - and folks like me...
And I know they say that
"God helps those who help themselves"
but I've tried to help myself with my own problems
but my own problems are, well, still my problems...
Am I whining, Lord?
Maybe - at least a little...
Forgive me for that, too...
I know what I need - at least I know what I want -
and sometimes I do feel sorry for myself
and I know that doesn't impress you
and some days even I realize it gets me nowhere!
When I whine I blind myself
to what I do have,
the blessings that are mine,
the gifts I have received...
(And just for the record, I want to remind you here:
I'm not asking to win the lottery
or become a movie star!
And I know you know that...
but sometimes it helps me to vent like that
and I figure, I hope, I pray you can take it...)
But back to what I have been given,
what I have received...
Why does it never seem enough?
Am I greedy? Do I want too much?
Do I ask for too much?
And how come it's YOU who gets to decide what's fair?
Even that seems unfair!
Or maybe you agree that things aren't fair in my life
but, for some reason I can't fathom,
you let the unfairness be...
Things weren't fair for you either, Jesus: I know that...
and maybe I should ponder that
a little more than I do...
The Cross...
Maybe I should remember more often
that I pray to a Savior who knows what it's like
when things just aren't fair...
Well, I guess I've wandered some distance
from making a Monday Morning Offering, Lord...
Can I ask you to forgive my Monday Morning Rant?
(And I can ask you to accept it, too?)
Help me, this Monday morning, Lord,
to offere you my thanks for what I have,
what I've received, what I've been given...
Help me remember each day this week
the history of your gifts to me over the years...
Help me to concentrate not on what I want and need
but to focus on how you've been generous to me...
And keep me from being jealous of what others have...
I offer you, Lord, my gratitude
for all the good gifts that are mine,
for the simplest ones and the greatest ones...
Make me grateful for each good gift,
no matter how small or large,
and keep me from counting how many gifts I have
and how many gifts I don't have...
You've given me the week ahead, Lord:
another week to grow in your love and grace...
Make me grateful for this week
and for whatever you might send my way in the days ahead...
Give me the confidence, strength and grace
to share with others what you've given me,
and remind me that in sharing my gifts
they are doubled, not halved...
And Lord, show me how to use what I already have
to make peace and to feed the hungry
in my own neighborhood and around the world...
I pray from my heart, Lord,
with all its gifts and needs
and ask you to bless my soul
and the souls of all I meet this week.
All good gifts come from your hand, Lord!
Thank you for hearing my Monday Morning Offering...
We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land-ConcordPastor
But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand.
He sends the snow in winter,
the warmth to swell the grain
The breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain.
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above.
Then thank the Lord, thank the Lord for all his love.
We thank thee then, O Father,
for all things bright and good:
The seed time and the harvest,
our life our health our food.
No gifts have we to offer for all thy love imparts
But that which thou desirest,
our humble thankful hearts.
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above.
Then thank the Lord, thank the Lord for all his love.
I really wanna thank you Lord!
All good gifts around us
Are sent from Heaven above.
Then thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord for all his love!
Music by Stephen Schwartz; lyrics from a German hymn written by Matthias Claudius, translated by Jane M. Campbell


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SOFEX takes place every two years in Amman, and is largely the brainchild of Jordan's king, Abdullah II, who has a penchant for special operations and massive displays of artillery.
By Shane Smith
Photos by Joseph Patel and Matt Ruskin
"You know, it's weird, man. It's like everybody's real cordial with each other. But, at the end of the day, we're, like, buying weapons to destroy each other. I don't want to, like, sound liberal or anything. But it's really not glamorous. This shit fucking kills people." Shockingly, the guy who said this wasn't some antiwar hippie who had just dropped acid. He was a 6'4" Marine Corps Force Recon sergeant who had recently returned from two tours in Afghanistan. We were both attendees at the 2010 Special Operations Force Exhibition (SOFEX) in Jordan. His booming reaction was prompted by the trade-show floor—a sea of displays and kiosks from weapons companies hawking missiles, machine guns, tanks, and bombs like they were next year's luxury sedans. Even more unsettling, the expo's biggest sponsor was the USA.
On arriving at SOFEX, I was reminded of when I was a punk kid and it was fashionable to say things like, "The military-industrial complex is taking over the world." At the time, I didn't know what "military-industrial complex" meant, but the conference rapidly provided me with a very literal definition of the term.
SOFEX takes place every two years in Amman, and is largely the brainchild of Jordan's king, Abdullah II, who has a penchant for special operations and massive displays of artillery. Over the course of a week, more than 12,000 attendees tromped around 30-odd tents staked across the desert, hosting approximately 300 vendors. The atmosphere was insidious but open, an organized free-for-all in which American companies like Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics sold weapons to almost anyone who could afford them.
I've been to hundreds of depressing media trade shows, and SOFEX's salespeople are no different from the rest, except that their wares are designed to destroy things and kill people. I witnessed representatives from almost every nation spending millions of dollars on heavy munitions; I was wondering if the transactions were padded by foreign aid from the US and other countries. I heard high-ranking soldiers say things like, "When I retire I'm going to be on the other side of the table—ha ha ha ha." What this means is that it's not uncommon for generals with government-controlled salaries around $100,000 a year to spend the twilight of their careers purchasing billions worth of munitions from arms companies who, in turn, offer these same senior officers state-side "consulting" gigs with multimillion-dollar salaries. It's blatant payola, the whole thing so corrupt it borders on absurd. Absurdity, as it turned out, was a running theme of the conference.
Every SOFEX commences with a "show of force" arranged by King Abdullah. This time it consisted of elite military training exercises focused on antipiracy special ops. I watched as mock combatants fell from the sky with purple smoke coming out of their asses as they overtook a "boat" made of a bunch of shipping containers, marooned in the middle of the desert. I thought, "What the fuck is happening here?" No one seemed to have a grasp on reality.
When the conference opened each day the scene resembled a free booze party on the Lower East Side, but instead of hipsters crowding the bar to get free vodka, generals stood five deep trying to place their orders for laser-guided weapons and truck-mounted rocket launchers, both of which were the stars of the show.
Generals from every tin-pot army in the world were in attendance, and they came dressed to the nines; it was like Dr. Evil decided to host a fashion show. The sharpest were the African generalissimos, with their gold-braided mauve outfits and huge hats. The scariest were the guys from the ex-Soviet republics who looked like cold-blooded killers and mafiosi. They were right out of central casting—the evil bastards that James Bond or Rambo, against all odds, has to terminate. But the weapons they were selling were all too real and really, really crazy. One vendor peddling Javelin missiles said, "[They've] been incredibly successful not only for US troops, but also for other forces as well."
I took this to mean that American soldiers and their enemies could potentially be using the same weapons to blow each other to smithereens—meaning straight-up profits for the companies selling them.
It was readily apparent that SOFEX's conceit is a thinly veiled excuse to sell US arms to any military with the means. American armament companies are theoretically prohibited from selling to rogue regimes, but there's a loophole that says it's OK for "nations friendly to Jordan" to buy their weapons.
I spoke with another ex-Marine and Iraq war vet who identified for me some of the weapons for sale at SOFEX that had been used against him and his comrades during his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (one of the worst offenders was China's Norinco, whose missiles are widely used by insurgents in Iraq). It was shocking to discover that just about any country could purchase surface-to-air missiles specifically designed to knock planes out of the sky. There were also "dual purpose" configurations; it's illegal for some countries to purchase all-inclusive murderous vehicles ready for combat, but perfectly kosher to acquire one company's vehicle and another's armaments—then put them together like a set of killer Legos to create a superkiller Airwolf. Not-so-friendly places like North Korea and Libya have already mastered this kind of Frankensteining.
Surprisingly, everyone at SOFEX was clamoring to talk to me, because they assumed I worked for Jane's—the premier military and arms trade publication. It was the equivalent of being from GQ or Vanity Fair during Paris Fashion Week. The region's economy relies on exploiting terrorism, fear, paranoia, and counterterrorism, and I can see how people get caught up in the brouhaha. It's undeniably fun to fire RPGs at old tanks, watch Gatling guns cut a house in half like butter, and launch rockets into the night sky. Then you turn around and there's a steely-eyed war veteran who sobers you right up: "This shit has one purpose. It kills people."
Oh yeah, right.


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http://www.adn.com/2013/02/06/278132...itals-hes.html good for him and lauren, she seems to like the camera more than him lol
http://www.adn.com/2013/02/06/278132...itals-hes.html good for him and lauren, she seems to like the camera more than him lol
That's awesome. Great dude by all accounts.
Now score touchdowns.
I would guess that a lot of us are more interested in what he does on the field, but this is a nice story. Glad to hear how he will use the offseason to try and improve.
Lets not make him out to be Mother Teresa. This is an endorsement deal after all, he gets paid for all this. Still, better to endorse a good cause like this than a local strip club or something.
I see his wife is not mentioned here on the forum this time. You guys that like these skinny barbie dolls, I just don't get it. Lauren Tannehill is okay. A "babe" maybe. But "hot" no way.
These are the type of endorsement deals and off the field work I want my franchise quarterback and face of the franchise doing. So much more class and something to be proud of than doing GQ photo shoots, chasing underage girls, killing dogs or viewing himself as an "entertainer and icon" early in his career. First good steps by Tannehill in his young career.
Could care less what kind of person he is as long as he stay out of trouble and win games. I'd rather have a compete jerk that wins than a nice guy that loses.
he is a great kid and going to be a star hope is wife dont let fame get to her and they stay a family


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I recently got into the living board game of Fantasy Flight's X-Wing Miniatures game. It's NOT collectible- that is, no "limited" ships, nothing that makes one ship better than the other that no one else can get because it's rare, inisidiously expensive, or a one-time thing. ANYONE can get any ship, card, or pilot just by purchasing the main game and the x-pacs.
The miniatures for the game are 1/270 scale, and actually not too bad at all as far as details go, and the thing is, FFG is sticking with that scale- which is AWESOME! The Slave 1 (Firespray Interceptor), Millennium Falcon, A-Wing and TIE Interceptor are being released next month, and I have seen some already that were made available to people who won a gaming tournament last month. They look great, and play well.
I haven't played a table-top game in years but this game has me strategizing and enjoying some rough and tumble dogfights ;-). You can find the main packs at Target and Barnes and Noble Stores, while the X-Pacs may only be at Barnes and Noble- and you can get them through most comic/gaming shops I am sure.
I think VulcanTouch would have liked the miniatures, personally. I am just sad he is not around to see them. RIP my friend.
Anyway, has anyone else played this? Found some good minatures? Some have crazy warps but it is easy to find good ones with a little hunting ;-)
And good to be home :-)