Word: courtiers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...week's end the disconsolate Queen was trying to find amusement at roulette, the movies and television. Back in Teheran, some courtiers felt sure that, on reflection, Soraya would reconcile herself to sharing the Shah with another wife. Said one courtier: "Women have been known to change their minds...
...Louis XV sealed their Franco-Austrian alliance by giving her in marriage to the French Dauphin. "Has she any bosom?" asked the aging wolf Louis XV of the emissary who helped arrange the marriage. "Sire, I did not take the liberty of carrying my eyes so far," replied the courtier. "You are a fool," laughed the monarch. "It's the first thing one looks at in a woman...
...most famous in Chinese art history, marked by bold, strong characters that broke with the florid, decorative manner of his predecessors. Despite his eccentric habit of dressing in old-fashioned clothes from the T'ang period. Mi Fei was also a successful courtier, rose to become Secretary of the Board of Rites, and served as a military governor...
...result, Rubens returned to Antwerp aged 31 in 1608, both a skilled courtier, versed in eight languages, and a master artist with the whole repertory of Renaissance techniques at his fingertips. In drawings such as his sketch for Daniel in the Lions' Den (left), he proved that he could infuse into classical and Biblical themes a new verve and power distinctively his own. Respectably married to the pretty daughter of a conservative Antwerp lawyer, and appointed court painter to the sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands. Rubens so prospered that he finally complained to a friend: "To tell the truth...
...first, as secretary and protege of the retired but influential courtier-statesman Sir William Temple, he seemed to see the world at his feet. Then came the inevitable slur, or imagined slur, for Swift had the thinnest of skins. He left Temple's protection only to learn that pride is a luxury to the poor. Then a kinsman, the great John Dryden, saw his verses and said: "Cousin Swift . . . nature has never formed you for a Pindaric poet." At 26 he entered holy orders "as [one joins] a regiment." He was tormented by pride and used this...