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| Johan Zoffany Portrait of Henry Knight of Tythegston with his Three Children ca. 1770 oil on canvas National Museum Cardiff (Wales) |
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| George Romney Adam Walker and his Family ca. 1796-1801 oil on canvas National Portrait Gallery, London |
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| attributed to John Partridge Family Portrait ca. 1815-20 oil on panel Geffrye Museum, London |
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| François-Joseph Navez Family of Wandering Musicians 1828 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| William Holman Hunt A converted British Family sheltering a Christian Missionary from the persecution of the Druids 1850 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Daniel Maclise A Winter Night's Tale ca. 1867 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
Consolation
Darwin.
They say he read novels to relax,
But only certain kinds:
nothing that ended unhappily.
If anything like that turned up,
enraged, he flung the book into the fire.
True or not,
I'm ready to believe it.
Scanning in his mind so many times and places,
he'd had enough of dying species,
the triumphs of the strong over the weak,
the endless struggles to survive,
all doomed sooner or later.
He'd earned the right to happy endings,
at least in fiction
with its diminutions.
Hence the indispensable
silver lining,
the lovers reunited, the families reconciled,
the doubts dispelled, fidelity rewarded,
fortunes regained, treasures uncovered,
stiff-necked neighbors mending their ways,
good names restored, greed daunted,
old maids married off to worthy parsons,
troublemakers banished to other hemispheres,
forgers of documents tossed down the stairs,
seducers scurrying to the altar,
orphans sheltered, wounds healed over,
prodigal sons summoned home,
cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean,
hankies drenched with tears of reconciliation,
general merriment and celebration,
and the dog Fido,
gone astray in the first chapter,
turns up barking gladly
in the last.
– Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012), translated from Polish in 2006 by Clare Cavanagh
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| John Calcott Horsley Coming Down to Dinner 1876 oil on canvas Manchester Art Gallery |
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| Hubert von Herkomer On Strike 1891 oil on canvas Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema A Family Group 1896 oil on panel Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| William Strang Portrait Group 1910 oil on canvas Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Bernard Fleetwood-Walker The Family ca. 1932 oil on canvas The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent |
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| Steven Spurrier Celia's Aunts 1942 oil on canvas Bristol Museum and Art Gallery |
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| Stanley Spencer The Resurrection - The Reunion of Families 1945 oil on canvas McManus Gallery, Dundee (Scotland) |
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| Henry Lamb Anne Hewer and her children, Charlotte, Susan, John, and Richard 1951 oil on canvas Bristol Museum and Art Gallery |