Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  After this introduction, the wives were escorted into another room, where they again took tea, and then were led into a banqueting hall, where the empress now sat on a chair of yellow satin—yellow being the imperial color. She spoke to them for a while; she had a beautiful voice. (It was said that her voice could literally charm birds out of trees.) At the end of the conversation, she took the hand of each woman again, and with much emotion, told them, "One family—all one family." The women then saw a performance in the imperial theater. Fi- nally the empress received them one last time. She apologized for the per- formance they had just seen, which was certainly inferior to what they were used to in the West. There was one more round of tea, and this time, as the wife of the American ambassador reported it, the empress "stepped forward and tipped each cup of tea to her own lips and took a sip, then lifted the cup on the other side, to our lips, and said again, 'One family—all one family' " The women were given more gifts, then were escorted back to their sedan chairs and borne out of the Forbidden City. The women relayed to their husbands their earnest belief that they had all been wrong about the empress. The American ambassador's wife re- ported, "She was bright and happy and her face glowed with good will. There was no trace of cruelty to be seen. . . . Her actions were full of free- dom and warmth. . . . [We left] full of admiration for her majesty and hopes for China." The husbands reported back to their governments: the emperor was fine, and the empress could be trusted. Interpretation. The foreign contingent in China had no idea what was really happening in the Forbidden City. In truth, the emperor had con- spired to arrest and possibly murder his aunt. Discovering the plot, a terri- ble crime in Confucian terms, she forced him to sign his own abdication, had him confined, and told the outside world that he was ill. As part of his punishment, he was to appear at state functions and act as if nothing had happened. The empress dowager loathed Westerners, whom she considered bar- barians. She disliked the ambassadors' wives, with their ugly fashions and simpering ways. The banquet was a show, a seduction, to appease the West- adjacent wharfs.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Nabokov thought it had been on Jack Paar’s television show, while her husband—the scientist, linguist, and author of fifteen novels, who has written and published in three languages, and whose vast erudition is most clearly evidenced by the four-volume translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin , with its two volumes of annotations and one-hundred-page “Note on Prosody”—held out for the Ed Sullivan show. Not only was nothing lost on Nabokov, but, like the title character in Borges’s story “Funes the Memorious,” he seemed to remember everything. At dinner the first evening of my 1966 visit, we reminisced about Cornell and his courses there, which were extraordinary and thoroughly Nabokovian, even in the smallest ways (witness the “bonus system” employed in examinations, allowing students two extra points per effort whenever they could garnish an answer with a substantial and accurate quotation [“a gem”] drawn from the text in question). Skeptically enough, I asked Nabokov if he remembered my wife, Nina, who had taken his Literature 312 course in 1955, and I mentioned that she had received a grade of 96. Indeed he did, since he had always asked to meet the students who performed well, and he described her accurately (seeing her in person in 1968, he remembered where she had sat in the lecture hall). On the night of my departure I asked Nabokov to inscribe my Olympia Press first edition of Lolita . With great rapidity he not only signed and dated it but added two elegant drawings of recently discovered butterflies, one identified as “ Flammea palida ” (“Pale Fire”) and, below it, a considerably smaller species, labeled “Bonus bonus.” 19 Delighted but in part mystified, I inquired, “Why ‘Bonus bonus’?” Wrinkling his brow and peering over his eyeglasses, a parody of a professor, Nabokov replied in a mock-stentorian voice, “Now your wife has 100!” After four days and some twelve hours of conversation, and within an instant of my seemingly unrelated request, my prideful but passing comment had come leaping out of storage. So too was Nabokov’s memory able to draw on a lifetime of reading—a lifetime in the most literal sense. 20 When asked what he had read as a boy, Nabokov replied: “Between the ages of ten and fifteen in St. Petersburg, I must have read more fiction and poetry—English, Russian, and French—than in any other five-year period of my life. I relished especially the works of Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Alexander Blok. On another level, my heroes were the Scarlet Pimpernel, Phileas Fogg, and Sherlock Holmes. In other words, I was a perfectly normal trilingual child in a family with a large library.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The sacrifices you are making must be visible; talk- ing about them, or explaining what they have cost you, will seem like brag- ging. Lose sleep, fall ill, lose valuable time, put your career on the line, spend more money than you can afford. You can exaggerate all this for ef- fect, but don't get caught boasting about it or feeling sorry for yourself: cause yourself pain and let them see it. Since almost everyone else in the world seems to have an angle, your noble and selfless deed will be irresistible. 3. Throughout the 1890s and into the early twentieth century, Gabriele D'Annunzio was considered one of Italy's premier novelists and play- wrights. Yet many Italians could not stand the man. His writing was florid, and in person he seemed full of himself, overdramatic—riding horses naked on the beach, pretending to be a Renaissance man, and more of the kind. His novels were often about war, and about the glory of facing and defeat- ing death—an entertaining subject for someone who had never actually done so. And so, at the start of World War I, no one was surprised that D'Annunzio led the call for Italy to side with the Allies and enter the fray. Everywhere you turned, there he was, giving a speech in favor of war— a campaign that succeeded in 1915, when Italy finally declared war on Germany and Austria. D'Annunzio's role so far had been completely pre- dictable. But what did surprise the Italian public was what this fifty-two- year-old man did next: he joined the army. He had never served in the military, boats made him seasick, but he could not be dissuaded. Eventually the authorities gave him a post in a cavalry division, hoping to keep him out of combat. Italy had little experience in war, and its military was somewhat chaotic. The generals somehow lost track of D'Annunzio—who, in any readily imagine that between two subjects so perfect as these it knew little pause until it had them at its will, and had so filled them with its clear light, that thought, wish, and speech were all aflame with it. Youth, begetting fear in the young lord, led him to urge his suit with all the gentleness imaginable; but she, being conquered by love, had no need of force to win her. Nevertheless, shame, which tarries with ladies as long as it can, for some time restrained her from declaring her mind. But at last the heart's fortress, which is honor's abode, was shattered in such sort that the poor lady consented to that which she had never been minded to refuse. • In order, however, to make trial of her lover's patience, constancy, and love, she granted him what he sought on a very hard condition, assuring him that if he fulfilled it she would love him perfectly forever; whereas, if he failed in it, he would certainly never win her as long as he lived.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  humans are social creatures who are always imitating one another. At cer-from taking precautions. " tain points in history it may be fashionable to be different and rebellious, — C . J . B U L L I E T , but if a lot of people are playing that role, there is nothing different or re-VENUS CASTINA bellious about it. We should never complain about most people's slavish conformity, however, for it offers untold possibilities of power and seduction to those Beau Brummell was who are up for a few risks. Dandies have existed in all ages and cultures (Al-regarded as unbalanced in cibiades in ancient Greece, Korechika in late-tenth-century Japan), and his passion for daily wherever they have gone they have thrived on the conformist role playing ablutions. His ritualistic morning toilet took upward of others. The Dandy displays a true and radical difference from other peo-of five hours, one hour ple, a difference of appearance and manner. Since most of us are secretly spent inching himself into oppressed by our lack of freedom, we are drawn to those who are more his skin-tight buckskin fluid and flaunt their difference. breeches, an hour with the hairdresser and another two Dandies seduce socially as well as sexually; groups form around them, hours tying and "creasing their style is wildly imitated, an entire court or crowd will fall in love down" a series of starched with them. In adapting the Dandy character for your own purposes, re-cravats until perfection was achieved. But first of all member that the Dandy is by nature a rare and beautiful flower. Be differ-two hours were spent ent in ways that are both striking and aesthetic, never vulgar; poke fun at scrubbing himself with current trends and styles, go in a novel direction, and be supremely uninter-fetish zeal from head to toe in milk, water and eau de ested in what anyone else is doing. Most people are insecure; they will Cologne. . . . Beau wonder what you are up to, and slowly they will come to admire and imi-Brummell said he used tate you, because you express yourself with total confidence. only the froth of champagne to polish his The Dandy has traditionally been defined by clothing, and certainly Hessian boots. He had most Dandies create a unique visual style. Beau Brummel, the most famous 365 snuff boxes, those Dandy of all, would spend hours on his toilette, particularly the inimitably suitable for summer wear styled knot in his necktie, for which he was famous throughout early-being quite unthinkable in winter, and the fit of his nineteenth-century England. But a Dandy's style cannot be obvious, for gloves was achieved by Dandies are subtle, and never try hard for attention—attention comes to entrusting their cut to two them. The person whose clothes are flagrantly different has little imagina-firms—o ne for the fingers, the other for the thumbs. tion or taste. Dandies show their difference in the little touches that mark The Dandy • 49

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  If you make a clean quick break, in the long run they will appreciate it. The more you apologize, the more you insult their pride, stirring up negative feelings that will reverberate for years. Spare them the disingenuous explanations that only complicate matters. The victim should be sacrificed, not tortured. 6. After fifteen years under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French were exhausted. Too many wars, too much drama. When Napoleon was defeated in 1814, and was imprisoned on the island of Elba, the French were more than ready for peace and quiet. The Bourbons—the royal family deposed by the revolution of 1789—returned to power. The king was Louis XVIII; he was fat, boring, and pompous, but at least there would be peace. Then, in February of 1815, news reached France of Napoleon's dra- matic escape from Elba, with seven small ships and a thousand men. He Beware the Aftereffects • 427 could head for America, start all over, but instead he was just crazy enough to land at Cannes. What was he thinking? A thousand men against all the armies of France? He set off toward Grenoble with his ragtag army. One at least had to admire his courage, his insatiable love of glory and of France. Then, too, the French peasantry were spellbound at the sight of their former emperor. This man, after all, had redistributed a great deal of land to them, which the new king was trying to take back. They swooned at the sight of his famous eagle standards, revivals of symbols from the revolution. They left their fields and joined his march. Outside Grenoble, the first of the troops that the king sent to stop Napoleon caught up with him. Napoleon dismounted and walked on foot toward them. "Soldiers of the Fifth Army Corps!" he cried out. "Don't you know me? If there is one among you who wishes to kill his emperor, let him come forward and do so. Here I am!" He threw open his gray cloak, inviting them to take aim. There was a moment of silence, and then, from all sides, cries rang out of "Vive l'Empereur!" In one stroke, Napoleon's army had doubled in size. The march continued. More soldiers, remembering the glory he had given them, changed sides. The city of Lyons fell without a battle. Generals with larger armies were dispatched to stop him, but the sight of Napoleon at the head of his troops was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for them, and they switched allegiance. King Louis fled France, abdicating in the process. On March 20, Napoleon reentered Paris and returned to the palace he had left only thirteen months before—all without having had to fire a single shot. The peasantry and the soldiers had embraced Napoleon, but Parisians were less enthusiastic, particularly those who had served in his government.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  tailoring each one for its intended victim.) BY J O H N HAYLOCK AND FRANCIS KING A few years after D'Annunzio began work as a society reporter, he married the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Gallese. Shortly thereafter, with the unshakeable support of society ladies, he began publishing novels and books of poetry. The number of his conquests was remarkable, and In short, nothing is so sweet as to triumph over also the quality—not only marchionesses would fall at his feet, but great the Resistance of a artists, such as the actress Eleanor Duse, who helped him become a re-beautiful Person; and in spected dramatist and literary celebrity. The dancer Isadora Duncan, an-that I have the Ambition of Conquerors, who fly other who eventually fell under his spell, explained his magic: "Perhaps the perpetually from Victory to most remarkable lover of our time is Gabriele D'Annunzio. And this Victory and can never notwithstanding that he is small, bald, and, except when his face lights up prevail with themselves to put a bound to their with enthusiasm, ugly But when he speaks to a woman he likes, his face is Wishes. Nothing can transfigured, so that he suddenly becomes Apollo. . . . His effect on women restrain the Impetuosity of is remarkable. The lady he is talking to suddenly feels that her very soul and my Desires; I have an being are lifted." Heart for the whole Earth; and like Alexander, I could At the outbreak of World War I, the fifty-two-year-old D'Annunzio wish for New Worlds joined the army. Although he had no military experience, he had a flair for wherein to extend my the dramatic and a burning desire to prove his bravery. He learned to fly Amorous Conquests. and led dangerous but highly effective missions. By the end of the war, he —MOLIÈRE, DON JOHN OR THE LIBERTINE, TRANSLATED BY was Italy's most decorated hero. His exploits made him a beloved national JOHN OZELL figure, and after the war, crowds would gather outside his hotel wherever in Italy he went. He would address them from a balcony, discussing politics, railing against the current Italian government. A witness of one of these speeches, the American writer Walter Starkie, was initially disappointed at the appearance of the famous D'Annunzio on a balcony in Venice; he was short, and looked grotesque. "Little by little, however, I began to sink under the fascination of the voice, which penetrated into my consciousness. . . . The Rake • 23 Never a hurried, jerky gesture. . . . He played upon the emotions of the Among the many modes of crowd as a supreme violinist does upon a Stradivarius. The eyes of the handling Don Juan's effect on women, the motif of the

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Electra : “The name is based on that of a close ally of the Clouded Yellow butterfly,” said Nabokov, “and has nothing to do with the Greek Electra.” See Edusa Gold . For entomological allusions, see John Ray, Jr. . Ned Litam : the anagrammatic (it reads backwards) pseudonym under which the great tennis player William T. (Bill) Tilden II wrote fiction. See a famous coach … with a harem of ball boys , where Lolita takes lessons from him. endorsing a Dromedary : like Quilty; see Morell … “conquering hero” . Note how H.H. is continually providing oblique clues; see Quilty, Clare for a summary of Quilty allusions. fifty-three : the 1958 edition omitted the hyphen; the error has been corrected. susceptible to the magic of games … I saw the board : H.H. is speaking for his maker, who would hope that the reader shares this limpid view of the gameboard that is Lolita. stratagems : “beautiful word, stratagem—a treasure in a cave,” writes Nabokov in Gogol (p. 59). tessellated : laid with checkered work or adorned with mosaic. Champion, Colorado : an actual town, chosen by Nabokov because this is a championship game—H.H.’s attempts to fix in prose the beauty of the nymphet. Decugis or Borman : Max Decugis was a great European tennis player who often teamed with Gobbert (see Gobbert ). They were Wimbledon men’s doubles champions in 1911. Paul de Borman was the Belgian champion in the first decade of this century. Nabokov recalled, “He was left-handed, and one of the first Europeans to use a sliced (or twist) service. There is a photograph of him in the Wallis Myers book on tennis (c. 1913).” I could not find the Myers book, but Decugis and Borman are discussed in George W. Beldman and P. A. Vaile’s Great Lawn Tennis Players (New York, 1907). Beldman deplores Borman’s lack of aggressiveness and poor position (resulting from the way he used his body to achieve his spins and cut shots), and writes of him, inimitably, “I do not know that he has a single perfect stroke, yet in every shot he made there was education for him who was able to take it” (pp. 350–351). Nabokov took it, and immortalized Borman in Lolita. At first wince (to quote H.H.), such minutiae may seem no better than Kinbotisms, but they are calmly offered as an example of the precise manner in which Nabokov’s memory speaks to him and, as well, to suggest how he does indeed stock his “imaginary garden with real toads” (see Parody of a hotel corridor … and death ). He was in fact a life-long tennis enthusiast and supplemented his meagre income as an émigré by giving tennis lessons to wealthy Berliners.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  "sincerity" (sincerity can be feigned, and is just one stratagem among others). This only works, however, when you sense that the target is easily yours. If not, the defenses and suspicions you raise by direct attack will make your seduction impossible. When in doubt, indirection is the better route. Enter Their Spirit Most people are locked in their own worlds, making them stubborn and hard to persuade. The way to lure them out of their shell and set up your seduction is to enter their spirit. Play by their rules, enjoy what they enjoy, adapt yourself to their moods. In doing so you will stroke their deep-rooted narcissism and lower their defenses. Hypnotized by the mirror image you present, they will open up, becoming vulnerable to your subtle influence. Soon you can shift the dynamic: once you have entered their spirit you can make them enter yours, at a point when it is too late to turn back. Indulge your targets' every mood and whim, giving them nothing to react against or resist. The Indulgent Strategy In October of 1961, the American journalist Cindy Adams was granted an exclusive interview with President Sukarno of Indonesia. It was a remarkable coup, for Adams was a little-known journalist at the time, while Sukarno was a world figure in the midst of a crisis. A leader of the fight for Indonesia's independence, he had been the country's president since 1949, when the Dutch finally gave up the colony. By the early 1960s, his daring foreign policy had made him hated in the United States, some calling him You're anxious to keep your mistress? \ Convince the Hitler of Asia. her she's knocked you all of Adams decided that in the interests of a lively interview, she would not a heap \ With her stunning be cowed or overawed by Sukarno, and she began the conversation by jok- looks. If it's purple she's wearing, praise purple; \ ing with him. To her pleasant surprise, her ice-breaking tactic seemed to When she's in a silk dress, work: Sukarno warmed up to her. He let the interview run well over an say silk \ Suits her best of hour, and when it was over he loaded her with gifts. Her success was re- all. . . Admire \ Her singing voice, her gestures markable enough, but even more so were the friendly letters she began as she dances, \ Cry to receive from Sukarno after she and her husband had returned to New "Encore!" when she stops. York. A few years later, he proposed that she collaborate with him on his You can even praise \ Her autobiography. performance in bed, her talent for love-making— \

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Making your deed as dashing and chivalrous as possible will elevate the restrained her from declaring her mind. But at seduction to a new level, stir up deep emotions, and conceal any ulterior last the heart's fortress, motives you may have. The sacrifices you are making must be visible; talk- which is honor's abode, was ing about them, or explaining what they have cost you, will seem like brag- shattered in such sort that ging. Lose sleep, fall ill, lose valuable time, put your career on the line, the poor lady consented to that which she had never spend more money than you can afford. You can exaggerate all this for ef- been minded to refuse. • In fect, but don't get caught boasting about it or feeling sorry for yourself: order, however, to make cause yourself pain and let them see it. Since almost everyone else in trial of her lover's patience, constancy, and love, she the world seems to have an angle, your noble and selfless deed will be granted him what he irresistible. sought on a very hard condition, assuring him that if he fulfilled it she would love him perfectly 3. Throughout the 1890s and into the early twentieth century, Gabriele forever; whereas, if he D'Annunzio was considered one of Italy's premier novelists and play- failed in it, he would certainly never win her as wrights. Yet many Italians could not stand the man. His writing was florid, long as he lived. And the and in person he seemed full of himself, overdramatic—riding horses naked condition was this: she on the beach, pretending to be a Renaissance man, and more of the kind. would be willing to talk His novels were often about war, and about the glory of facing and defeat- with him, both being in bed together, clad in their ing death—an entertaining subject for someone who had never actually linen only, but he was to done so. And so, at the start of World War I, no one was surprised that ask nothinginore from her D'Annunzio led the call for Italy to side with the Allies and enter the fray. than words and kisses. • He, thinking there was no Everywhere you turned, there he was, giving a speech in favor of war— joy to be compared to that a campaign that succeeded in 1915, when Italy finally declared war on which she promised him, Germany and Austria. D'Annunzio's role so far had been completely pre- agreed to the proposal, and that evening the promise dictable. But what did surprise the Italian public was what this fifty-two-was kept; in such wise year-old man did next: he joined the army. He had never served in the that, despite all the caresses military, boats made him seasick, but he could not be dissuaded. Eventually she bestowed on him and the authorities gave him a post in a cavalry division, hoping to keep him the temptations that beset him, he would not break out of combat.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Adult imps are seductive because of how different they are from the rest child, still wrapped in his of us. Breaths of fresh air in a cautious world, they go full throttle, as if The Natural • 57 their impishness were uncontrollable, and thus natural. If you play the part, swaddling bands and do not worry about offending people now and then—you are too lovable feigning sleep. "What an absurd charge!" she cried. and inevitably they will forgive you. Just don't apologize or look contrite, But Apollo had already for that would break the spell. Whatever you say or do, keep a glint in your recognized the hides. He eye to show that you do not take anything seriously. picked up Hermes, carried him to Olympus, and there formally accused him of theft, offering the hides as The wonder. A wonder child has a special, inexplicable talent: a gift for evidence. Zeus, loth to music, for mathematics, for chess, for sport. At work in the field in which believe that his own newborn son was a thief they have such prodigal skill, these children seem possessed, and their ac- encouraged him to plead tions effortless. If they are artists or musicians, Mozart types, their work not guilty, but Apollo seems to spring from some inborn impulse, requiring remarkably little would not be put off and Hermes, at last, weakened thought. If it is a physical talent that they have, they are blessed with un- and confessed. • "Very usual energy, dexterity, and spontaneity. In both cases they seem talented well, come with me," he beyond their years. This fascinates us. said, "and you may have Adult wonders are often former wonder children who have managed, your herd. I slaughtered only two, and those I cut remarkably, to retain their youthful impulsiveness and improvisational skills. up into twelve equal True spontaneity is a delightful rarity, for everything in life conspires to rob portions as a sacrifice to the us of it—we have to learn to act carefully and deliberately, to think about twelve gods" • " Twelve gods?" asked Apollo. how we look in other people's eyes. To play the wonder you need some "Who is the twelfth?" • skill that seems easy and natural, along with the ability to improvise. If in "Your servant, sir" replied fact your skill takes practice, you must hide this and learn to make your Hermes modestly. "I ate no more than my share, work appear effortless. The more you hide the sweat behind what you do, though I was very hungry, the more natural and seductive it will appear. and duly burned the rest. " • The two gods [ Hermes and Apollo] returned to Mount Cyllene, where

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The embodiment of the Ideal Lover for the 1920s was Rudolph Valentino, or at least the image created of him in film. Everything he did—the gifts, the flowers, the dancing, the way he took a woman's hand—showed a scrupulous attention to the details that would signify how much he was thinking of her. The image was of a man who made courtship take time, transforming it into an aesthetic experience. Men hated Valentino, because women now expected them to match the ideal of patience and attentiveness that he represented. Yet nothing is more seductive than patient attentiveness. It makes the affair seem lofty, aesthetic, not really about sex. The power of a Valentino, particularly nowadays, is that people like this are so rare. The art of playing to a woman's ideal has almost disappeared—which only makes it that much more alluring. If the chivalrous lover remains the ideal for women, men often idealize the Madonna/whore, a woman who combines sensuality with an air of spirituality or innocence. Think of the great courtesans of the Italian Renaissance, such as Tullia d'Aragona—essentially a prostitute, like all courtesans, but able to disguise her social role by establishing a reputation as a poet and philosopher. Tullia was what was then known as an "honest courtesan." Honest courtesans would go to church, but they had an ulterior motive: for men, their presence at Mass was exciting. Their houses were pleasure palaces, but what made these homes so visually delightful was their artworks and shelves full of books, volumes of Petrarch and Dante. For the man, the thrill, the fantasy, was to sleep with a woman who was sexual yet had the ideal qualities of a mother and the spirit and intellect of an artist. Where the pure prostitute excited desire but also disgust, the honest courtesan made sex seem elevated and innocent, as if it were happening in the Garden of Eden. Such women held immense power over men. To this day they remain an ideal, if for no other reason than that they offer such a range of pleasures. The key is ambiguity—to combine the appearance of sensitivity to the pleasures of the flesh with an air of innocence, spirituality, a poetic sensibility. This mix of the high and the low is immensely seductive.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  hallmarks of a true lover longer than the others. Of course the major was a decorated soldier, well and of a perfect knight educated, an accomplished dancer, and one of the most handsome men in were almost identical. The the army. But Pauline, thirty years old at the time, had had affairs with lover was bound to serve dozens of men who could have matched that resume. and obey his lady as a knight served his lord. In A few days after the affair began, the imperial dentist arrived chez both cases the pledge was of Pauline. A toothache had been causing her sleepless nights, and the dentist a sacred nature. saw he would have to pull out the bad tooth right then and there. No — N I N A EPTON, painkillers were used at the time, and as the man began to take out his vari-LOVE AND THE FRENCH ous instruments, Pauline grew terrified. Despite the pain of the tooth, she changed her mind and refused to have it pulled. Major Canouville was lounging on a couch in a silken robe. Taking all In one of the goodly towns of the kingdom of France this in, he tried to encourage her to have it done: "A moment or two of there dwelt a nobleman of pain and it's over forever. . . . A child could go through with it and not ut-good birth, who attended ter a sound." "I'd like to see you do it," she said. Canouville got up, went the schools that he might over to the dentist, chose a tooth in the back of his own mouth, and or-learn how virtue and honor are to be acquired among dered that it be pulled. A perfectly good tooth was extracted, and Canou-virtuous men. But ville barely batted an eyelash. After this, not only did Pauline let the dentist although he was so do his job, her opinion of Canouville changed: no man had ever done any-accomplished that at the age of seventeen or eighteen thing like this for her before. years he was, as it were, The affair had been going to last but a few weeks; now it stretched on. both precept and example Napoleon was not pleased. Pauline was a married woman; short affairs to others, Love failed not to add his lesson to the rest; were allowed, but a deep attachment was embarrassing. He sent Canouville and, that he might be the to Spain, to deliver a message to a general there. The mission would take better harkened to and weeks, and in the meantime Pauline would find someone else. received, concealed himself in the face and the eyes of Canouville, though, was not your average lover. Riding day and night, the fairest lady in the without stopping to eat or sleep, he arrived in Salamanca within a few days.

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  On Sunday mornings, he went to the county juvenile hall in Downey to instruct young men for their first Communion, something that usually occurs in the second grade. My father also arranged the more elaborate ceremonies of the year at our parish church. No one else in the parish knew how. My father had been a member of a religious order. He had been a sacristan and knew the rubrics of the Holy Week services that took place only once a year. My father instructed the boys who served on the altar, including my brother and me. He explained to the pastor and his assistants how they should walk in procession and what each should do during the ceremony. On the afternoon before Easter Sunday, he laid out the priests’ vestments, the beeswax candles, and the charcoal for lighting the new fire of Easter.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  5. In Rome sometime around 1531, word spread of a sensational young with him, she failed not to address him in such woman named Tullia d'Aragona. By the standards of the period, Tullia was excellent and pleasant not a classic beauty; she was tall and thin, at a time when the plump and words, that he not only voluptuous woman was considered the ideal. And she lacked the cloying, forgot all his troubles but giggling manner of most young girls who wanted masculine attention. No, even deemed them very fortunate, seeing that their her quality was nobler. Her Latin was perfect, she could discuss the latest issue was to the glory of his literature, she played the lute and sang. In other words, she was a novelty, constancy and the perfect and since that was all most men were looking for, they began to visit her in Prove Yourself • 331 great numbers. She had a lover, a diplomat, and the thought that one man assurance of his love, the had won her physical favors drove them all mad. Her male visitors began to fruit of which he enjoyed from that time as fully as compete for her attention, writing poems in her honor, vying to become he could desire. her favorite. None of them succeeded, but they kept on trying. — Q U E E N MARGARET OF Of course there were some who were offended by her, stating publicly NAVARRE, THE HEPTAMERON, that she was no more than a high-class whore. They repeated the rumor QUOTED IN THE VICE (perhaps true) that she had made older men dance while she played the ANTHOLOGY, EDITED BY R I C H A R D DAVENPORT-HINES lute, and if their dancing pleased her, they could hold her in their arms. To Tullia's faithful followers, all of noble birth, this was slander. They wrote a document that was distributed far and wide: "Our honored mistress, the A soldier lays siege to well-born and honorable lady Tullia d'Aragona, doth surpass all ladies of cities, a lover to girls' the past, present, or future by her dazzling qualities. . . . Anyone who re- houses, \ The one assaults fuses to conform to this statement is hereby charged to enter the lists with city gates, the other front doors. \ Love, like war, is a one of the undersigned knights, who will convince him in the customary toss-up. The defeated can manner." recover, \ While some you Tullia left Rome in 1535, going first to Venice, where the poet Tasso might think invincible collapse; \ So if you've got became her lover, and eventually to Ferrara, which was then perhaps the love written off as an easy most civilized court in Italy. And what a sensation she caused there. Her option \ You'd better think voice, her singing, even her poems were praised far and wide. She opened a twice. Love calls \ For guts and initiative. Great

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  However, people do seem to concern themselves unnecessarily over this question of identity. As a rule, the autobiography is not as popular as the novel, unless it is sensational. I think, on the other hand, that publishers are always fearful of autobiographies, because of the threat of libel and slander, or defamation of character suits. But then publishers, in the main, are a timid lot, full of fears of every sort. The wonderful thing about Erica Jong’s book is that she or Isadora is full of fear, all kinds, but makes no bones about it and makes us laugh over her tragic moments. The book is definitely therapeutic, not only for women but for men too. It should be read for one thing by every shrink, every psychiatrist, every psychologist. It should also be read by Jews. They take quite a drubbing in this book. It’s hard to call the book “anti-Semitic,” since the author herself is Jewish and knows whereof she speaks. In her biting humor and sarcasm she is merciless toward her own people. Of course she is not unique in this. One has only to think of Swift, O’Casey, Knut Hamsun, Shaw, Céline, and Henry Miller. Yet all of us were writers who loved their country. We merely despised our country’s inhabitants. Yes, I know that of all the peoples in the world the Jews are reputed to be foremost in their ability to make fun of themselves, acknowledge their short-comings. But if someone other than a Jew does this he is immediately called an anti-Semite. It’s silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons. Do not misunderstand. Erica Jong is far from being a misogynist or a misanthropist. I get the impression that she loves life, and people too. But her intelligence does not permit her to overlook their glaring faults. It is this gusto of hers which supplies us with some of the funniest and raciest passages. One is tempted to say—"She writes like a man"—only she doesn’t write like a man but like a 100% woman, a female, sometimes a “bitch.” In many ways she is more forthright, more honest, more daring than most male authors. That’s what I like about her. In short, she is a treat for sore eyes. Parenthetically, I wonder when or if Germaine Greer is going to give us a book on this order. Germaine Greer is another woman writer who tickles my fancy and elicits my admiration. Certainly, when I read her interview in Playboy , was it, I could scarcely believe my eyes. Men are no match for women of this sort.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Having spent over twenty summers living among the Minangkabau, Sanday says, “The power of Minangkabau women extends to the economic and social realms,” noting, for example, that women control land inheritance and that a husband typically moves into the wife’s household. The four million Minangkabau living in West Sumatra consider themselves to be a matriarchal society. “While we in the West glorify male dominance and competition,” Sanday says, “the Minangkabau glorify their mythical Queen Mother and cooperation.” She reports that “males and females relate more like partners for the common good than like competitors ruled by egocentric self-interest,” and that as with bonobo social groups, women’s prestige increases with age and “accrues to those who promote good relations….”16 As happens so often in trying to understand and discuss other cultures, wording trips up specialists. When they claim never to have found a “true matriarchy,” these anthropologists are envisioning a mirror image of patriarchy, a vision that ignores the differing ways males and females conceptualize and wield power. Sanday says that among the Minangkabau, for example, “Neither male nor female rule is possible because of [their] belief that decision-making should be by consensus.” When she kept asking people which sex ruled, she was finally told that she was asking the wrong question. “Neither sex rules…because males and females complement one another.”17 Remember this when some loudmouth at the bar declares that “patriarchy is universal, and always has been!” It’s not, and it hasn’t. But rather than feel threatened, we’d recommend that our male readers ponder this: Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy. Got that, fellas? If you’re unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity in your life, don’t blame the women. Instead, make sure they have equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens. As with bonobos, where female coalitions are the ultimate social authority and individual females need not fear the larger males, human societies in which women are “sassy and confident,” as Barnes described the Mosuo girls—free to express their minds and sexuality without fear of shame or persecution—tend to be far more comfortable places for most men than societies ruled by a male elite. Maybe matriarchal societies are so difficult for Western male anthropologists to recognize because they expect a culture where men are suffering under the high heels of women—a reverse reflection of the long-standing male oppression of women in Western cultures. Instead, observing a society where most of the men are lounging about relaxed and happy, they conclude they’ve found yet another patriarchy, thereby missing the point entirely. The March of the Monogamous The idea of monogamy hasn’t so much been tried and found wanting, as found difficult and left untried. G. K. CHESTERTON

• From The Art of the Graphic Memoir: Tell Your Story, Change Your Life (2018)

  There’s the story of dad as an old guy, as a married man, as a young man in the army, my story as a young girl dealing with him as an army guy, my story of dealing with them as old people, my story of being a married person, I’m also dealing with being a mother to a child who is troubled… .” To organize it all, she resorted to charts and spreadsheets, even gridding out lines directly onto a tabletop and filling it with Post-it notes. But she goes even further: “I actually had to build furniture to deal with it. I got out the saw like old Dad. I built shelves to manage the pages and a long tilt table so I could see the pages laid out in sequence.” It becomes clear at this point that Tyler isn’t just trying to tell the story; she’s trying hard to climb out of it. “An ink army. Tyler is a tireless artist and a master technician. She amassed another army. Fifty-three colors of custom-mixed ink. I had to make maps so I could keep track of them.” In Soldier’s Heart, she tries an array of techniques—full-color paintings, pen and ink, simple cartoony lines, redrawn photographs, and on and on. And Tyler involved her ill mother, suffering from a stroke, in the making of the book. “I sat her down, and had her do a page. I said, ‘Do whatever you want.’“ Her mother painted five stars in bloom representing her children, one representing her firstborn daughter who died at two. That star is crying. Beneath the stars, she painted herself and Carol’s father as hearts, and wrote WWII at the base. She titled it, “Out of war, came our children.” I can’t think of another book that involves the participants in the story so fully and with such love and vulnerability. Throughout this book, which took Tyler ten years, she experienced incredible loss and trauma, and sometimes wasn’t sure how to keep going. She tells the story of traveling on a highway during the creation of it: “On the way to Mom and Dad’s once, this semitruck in front of me suddenly flipped up into the air vertically and flew over the guardrail. Frightening! So I pulled over to see if I could help. Just then the driver miraculously emerged from his upside-down cab, unscratched. “I thought, if he can survive that, I can survive this.” The book is a reflection on a life’s past but is also powerfully the product of a life lived and rendered in the now. This emotional and symbolic page was painted by the artist’s mother. MAUS and METAMAUS by Art Spiegelman PUTTING THE DEAD INTO LITTLE BOXES One look at the notebooks and sketches for Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, as seen in the supplemental book MetaMaus, shows that it took a tremendous force to make the book.

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  (2) There are chapters 16-28. Luke had personal knowledge of much that is included in this section. When we read Acts carefully, we notice a strange thing. Most of the time, Luke's narrative is in the third-person plural; but in certain passages it changes over to the first-person plural, and `they' becomes `we'. The `we' passages are as follows: Acts 16:1017, 20:5-16, 21:1-18 and 2'7:1-28:16. On all these occasions, Luke must have been present. He must have kept a travel diary, and in these passages we have eyewitness accounts. As for the times when he was not present, many were the hours he must have spent in prison with Paul, and many were the stories Paul must have told him, There can have been no great figure Luke did not know, and in every case he must have got his story from someone who was there. When we read Acts, we may be quite sure that no historian ever had better sources or used those sources more accurately. 6The Letters of PaulThe Letters of Paul There is no more interesting body of documents in the New Testament than the letters of Paul. That is because, of all forms of literature, a letter is most personal. Demetrius, one of the ancient Greek literary critics, once wrote: `Everyone reveals his own soul in his letters. In every other form of composition it is possible to discern the writer's character, but in none so clearly as the epistolary' (Demetrius, On Style, 227). It is precisely because he left us so many letters that we feel we know Paul so well. In them, he opened his mind and heart to the people he loved so much; and in them, to this day, we can see that great mind grappling with the problems of the early Church, and feel that great heart throbbing with love for men and women, even when they were misguided and mistaken. The Difficulty of Letters At the same time, there is often nothing so difficult to understand as a letter. Demetrius (On Style, 223) quotes a saying of Artemon, who edited the letters of Aristotle. Artemon said that a letter ought to be written in the same manner as a dialogue, because it was one of the two sides of a discussion. In other words, reading a letter is like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. So, when we read the letters of Paul, we often find ourselves in difficulty. We do not possess the letter which he was answering, we do not fully know the circumstances with which he was dealing, and it is only from the letter itself that we can deduce the situation which prompted it. Before we can hope to understand fully any letter Paul wrote, we must try to reconstruct the situation that produced it. The Ancient Letters

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  Please note that a good parent doesn’t criticize the other parent. Quite the opposite. They go out of their way to protect the child from feeling he needs to take sides or that there are sides. Nor do they tell the child that mom and dad are staying together to protect him and his siblings. Such martyrdom is not a gift. They’d be giving the child a painful and heavy burden; imagine feeling responsible for your parents’ years of unhappiness together just because you were born. As an aside here, I should mention that the “don’t criticize” rule of behavior given to parents after divorce—for example, if you don’t fight in front of the children, they will be spared further harm—is good advice but insufficient. It certainly helps children to not see their parents act out like marionettes in a Punch and Judy show. But fighting and taking sides after a divorce has a fundamentally different quality than fighting and taking sides within an intact marriage. After a divorce, open disagreements are normal and expected. The marriage is over and presumably you divorced because of serious differences. People need to try to get along, but tensions are inevitable. And the child has a right to know why his parents divorced. In an intact marriage, disagreements are also normal, but the structure of the marriage itself contains them and makes them safe. Arguments have a beginning, middle, and end—because the important goal is to protect the marriage. It’s a critical part of the child’s education to learn firsthand how arguments can be resolved without threatening the integrity of the family. By being honest with his son, Gary’s father presents the picture of an adult of high integrity who has struggled with an unhappy relationship and made the decision to remain in the marriage because of his remaining love for his wife and his commitment to his children. He conveys a world in which the values of honesty, patience, working at life’s problems, love, and loyalty shine like beacons. Gary is doubly blessed. He’s offered a candid picture of a marriage in crisis but overall mixed with sorrow and joy. And he’s offered the model of a father who struggles to protect his children and his wife despite his own serious disappointments. This is courage. There is no denial of the trouble, no sugarcoating of the recurrent crises. He levels with the boy in a way that is unforgettable.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Many have noted the strangely cavalier approach to food among foragers, who have nothing in the freezer. French Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune, who spent some six months among the Montagnais in present-day Quebec, was exasperated by the natives’ generosity. “If my host took two, three, or four Beavers,” wrote Le Jeune, “whether it was day or night, they had a feast for all neighboring Savages. And if those people had captured something, they had one also at the same time; so that, on emerging from one feast, you went to another, and sometimes even to a third and a fourth.” When Le Jeune tried to explain the advantages of saving some of their food, “They laughed at me. ‘Tomorrow’ (they said) ‘we shall make another feast with what we shall capture.’”12 Israeli anthropologist Nurit Bird-David explains, “Just as Westerners’ behaviour is understandable in relation to their assumption of shortage, so hunter-gatherers’ behaviour is understandable in relation to their assumption of affluence. Moreover, just as we analyze, even predict, Westerners’ behavior by presuming that they behave as if they did not have enough, so we can analyze, even predict, hunter-gatherers’ behaviour by presuming that they behave as if they had it made [emphasis added].”13 While farmers toil to grow rice, potatoes, wheat, or corn, a forager’s diet is characterized by a variety of nutritious plants and critters. But how much work is foraging? Is it an efficient way to get a meal? Archaeologist David Madsen investigated the energy efficiency of foraging for Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex), which had been on the menu of the local native people in present-day Utah. His group collected crickets at a rate of about eighteen crunchy pounds per hour. At that rate, Madsen calculated that in just an hour’s work, a forager could collect the caloric equivalent of eighty-seven chili dogs, forty-nine slices of pizza, or forty-three Big Macs—without all the heart-clogging fats and additives.14 Before you scoff at the culinary appeal of Mormon crickets, give some thought to the frightening reality lurking within a typical chili dog. Another study found that the !Kung San (in the Kalahari desert, mind you) had an average daily intake (in a good month) of 2,140 calories and ninety-three grams of protein. Marvin Harris puts it simply: “Stone age populations lived healthier lives than did most of the people who came immediately after them.”15