Saint Sebastian This allusion to Saint Sebastian's suffering, associated with the writerly professionalism of the novella's protagonist, Gustav Aschenbach, provides a model for the "heroism born of weakness", which characterizes poise amidst agonizing torment and plain acceptance of one's fate as, beyond mere patience and passivity, a stylized achievement and artistic triumph. In George Orwell's futuristic novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four", the protagonist Winston Smith, at the time he is not aware she actually loves him and hates the Party, is said to have dreams of ravishing the girl Julia, and having her pierced through with arrows like Saint Sebastian. Sebastian's death was depicted
Adams Memorial (Saint-Gaudens) Henry Adams (a member of the Adams political family) as a memorial to his wife, Marian "Clover" Hooper Adams. Marian Adams, suffering from depression, had died by suicide through the ingestion of potassium cyanide, which she otherwise used to develop photographs. Adams advised Saint-Gaudens to contemplate iconic images from Buddhist devotional art. One such subject, Kannon (also known as Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion), is frequently depicted as a seated figure draped in cloth. In particular, a painting of Kannon by Kanō Motonobu, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and shown to Saint-Gaudens by John