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 Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  III. Across the span of a century, three great mystics advanced the understanding of the higher reaches of mystical prayer. A. Francisco de Osuna (c. 1492–c. 1540) was a Franciscan whose teaching emphasized the prayer of quiet recollection. 1. His positive teaching on recollection in The Third Spiritual Alphabet (one of six Alphabets he composed) represented a stance contrary to that taken by those advocating prayer of abandonment or “passing away.” 2. His robust good sense concerning contemplation had a powerful effect on Teresa of Ávila and, through her, on John of the Cross. B. Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) combined the personal experience of prayer with an extraordinary ability to teach others the path of contemplation. 1. Teresa joined a Carmelite monastery at age 20. She suffered physically from chronic illness and experienced both intense mystical states and great difficulty in prayer. 2. After a vision of hell, she instituted a more rigorous form of the Carmelite life, and the rest of her life was spent in founding communities and teaching them. 3. The Book of Her Life (1562) relates Teresa’s experiences up to the founding of her first community; The Way of Perfection (1565) provided teaching in the contemplative life for her nuns; The Interior Castle (1577) is her most mature exposition of the “consolations and delights” of the prayer of quiet. 4. Her vision of the soul as a castle with seven dwelling places enables her to trace with charm, humor, and personal authority the path toward mystical unity with God through the prayer of quiet or of recollection. 5. Teresa is a writer who has great personal authority; in Book IV of the Interior Castle, she gives us a lovely metaphoric contrast between water that is run through aqueducts or plumbing and water that simply rises up from a spring. 6. Like other mystics of this period, Teresa had “intellectual visions of our Lord,” but she distinguished between what she called the mystical betrothal with Jesus (a fleeting experience of unity in prayer) and the mystical marriage (a lasting experience). ©2008 The Teaching Company. 91

• From Little Women (1868)

  summer suits, with happy faces under the jaunty hatbrims. Laurie ran to meet and present them to his friends in the most cordial manner. The lawn was the reception room, and for several minutes a lively scene was enacted there. Meg was grateful to see that Miss Kate, though twenty, was dressed with a simplicity which American girls would do well to imitate, and who was much flattered by Mr. Ned's assurances that he came especially to see her. Jo understood why Laurie 'primmed up his mouth' when speaking of Kate, for that young lady had a standoff-don't-touch-me air, which contrasted strongly with the free and easy demeanor of the other girls. Beth took an observation of the new boys and decided that the lame one was not 'dreadful', but gentle and feeble, and she would be kind to him on that account. Amy found Grace a well- mannered, merry, little person, and after staring dumbly at one another for a few minutes, they suddenly became very good friends. Tents, lunch, and croquet utensils having been sent on beforehand, the party was soon embarked, and the two boats pushed off together, leaving Mr. Laurence waving his hat on the shore. Laurie and Jo rowed one boat, Mr. Brooke and Ned the other, while Fred Vaughn, the riotous twin, did his best to upset both by paddling about in a wherry like a disturbed water bug. Jo's funny hat deserved a vote of thanks, for it was of general utility. It broke the ice in the beginning by producing a laugh, it created quite a refreshing breeze, flapping to and fro as she rowed, and would make an excellent umbrella for the whole party, if a shower came up, she said. Miss Kate decided that she was 'odd', but rather clever, and smiled upon her from afar. Meg, in the other boat, was delightfully situated, face to face with the rowers, who both admired the prospect and feathered their oars with uncommon 'skill and dexterity'. Mr. Brooke was a grave, silent young man, with handsome brown eyes and a pleasant voice. Meg liked his quiet manners and considered him a walking encyclopedia of useful knowledge. He never talked to her much, but he looked at her a good deal, and she felt sure that he did not regard her with aversion. Ned, being in college, of course put on all the airs which freshmen think it their bounden duty to assume. He was not very wise, but very good- natured, and altogether an excellent person to carry on a picnic. Sallie Gardiner was absorbed in keeping her white pique dress clean and chattering with the ubiquitous Fred, who kept Beth in constant terror by his pranks. It was not far to Longmeadow, but the tent was pitched and the wickets

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  C. John of the Cross (1542–1591), like Teresa, has been given the status of doctor of the church for his mystical writings; he also shares with her the founding of the Discalced Carmelites. 1. John studied with the Jesuits, then professed as a Carmelite and studied at the University of Salamanca. Ordained in 1567, he considered becoming a Carthusian but then met and joined Teresa in her reform of the Carmelites, founding male houses. 2. When imprisoned and maltreated by religious superiors suspicious of their reform, John began the composition of “The Spiritual Canticle.” In all of his works, including The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night, poetic expression precedes and is the basis for his exposition on the path of love. 3. As The Dark Night suggests, John’s teaching is severe, emphasizes suffering, and is apophatic, yet he tells us that the way to union with God is not through knowledge but through the embrace of the heart and the giving of the self completely to God in love. Recommended Reading: Kavanaugh, R. trans., Teresa of Avila. Questions to Consider: 1. How do the Spanish mystics of the 16th century make an implicit argument for the vibrancy of the Catholic tradition? 2. Consider the interplay of the active and the passive in the path of contemplation found in Teresa of Ávila. 92 ©2008 The Teaching Company.

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  B. Both founded religious orders committed to active ministry, and their organizations struggled with the consequences of phenomenal growth. 1. Both generated second-order female members (nuns) and third-order associates (laypeople) who shared the ideals of the founders. 2. Both the Franciscans and the Dominicans sought to maintain institutional as well as individual poverty, although the Franciscans were divided on the issue of how much institutional wealth was compatible with a commitment to evangelical poverty. III. Franciscan spirituality is deeply marked by the character of Francis, one of the most charismatic figures in the history of Christianity. A. We have seen the pattern of Francis’s life (abandonment of personal wealth, life among the poor) among other religious seekers, but the passionate character of his devotion to the poverty of Christ in his incarnation was distinctive. 1. His mysticism reached a climax on September 14, 1224, at Mount La Verna when he had a vision of Christ crucified and received the stigmata. 2. He wrote little (a few letters, a rule) but is universally admired for his “Canticle of Brother Sun.” B. In her letters and Rule of the Poor Clares, Francis’s close associate Clare of Assisi (c. 1193–1254) combined simplicity of style with a passionate love for Christ. 1. She praises a noblewoman named Agnes of Prague, who had the opportunity for a royal marriage but joined the Poor Clares instead. 2. Clare assures Agnes that her commitment of celibacy and poverty will be rewarded by a special relationship with the bridegroom who is Christ. C. Franciscan spirituality finds its perfect expression in Bonaventure (born Giovanni Di Fidanza, c. 1217–1274), who taught at the University of Paris and served as general of the order, a bishop, and a cardinal who attended the Unity Council of Lyon (1274). 1. He wrote two lives of Francis, the longer of which expresses much of Bonaventure’s own spirituality. ©2008 The Teaching Company. 83

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Under the inspiring influence of the spotless purity of Christ’s teaching and example, and aided here and there by the nobler instincts and tendencies of philosophy, the Christian church from the beginning asserted the individual rights of man, recognized the divine image in every rational being, taught the common creation and common redemption, the destination of all for immortality and glory, raised the humble and the lowly, comforted the prisoner and captive, the stranger and the exile, proclaimed chastity as a fundamental virtue, elevated woman to dignity and equality with man, upheld the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage tie, laid the foundation of a Christian family and happy home, moderated the evils and undermined the foundations of slavery, opposed polygamy and concubinage, emancipated the children from the tyrannical control of parents, denounced the exposure of children as murder, made relentless war upon the bloody games of the arena and the circus, and the shocking indecencies of the theatre, upon cruelty and oppression and every vice infused into a heartless and loveless world the spirit of love and brotherhood, transformed sinners into saints, frail women into heroines, and lit up the darkness of the tomb by the bright ray of unending bliss in heaven. Christianity reformed society from the bottom, and built upwards until it reached the middle and higher classes, and at last the emperor himself. Then soon after the conversion of Constantine it began to influence legislation, abolished cruel institutions, and enacted laws which breathe the spirit of justice and humanity. We may deplore the evils which followed in the train of the union of church and state, but we must not overlook its many wholesome effects upon the Justinian code which gave Christian ideas an institutional form and educational power for whole generations to this day. From that time on also began the series of charitable institutions for widows and orphans, for the poor and the sick, the blind and the deaf, the intemperate and criminal, and for the care of all unfortunate,—institutions which we seek in vain in any other but Christian countries. Nor should the excesses of asceticism blind us against the moral heroism of renouncing rights and enjoyments innocent in themselves, but so generally abused and poisoned, that total abstinence seemed to most of the early fathers the only radical and effective cure. So in our days some of the best of men regard total abstinence rather than temperance, the remedy of the fearful evils of intemperance.

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  3. Everything that is—above all, the mysteries of the church— point beyond themselves to God. III. Two monks of the 7th century were of great importance for shaping the mystical tradition that endured through the history of Orthodox Christianity. A. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662) combined profound mystical insight with a steady commitment to correct doctrine concerning Christ. 1. He was a prominent figure in Constantinople who left the city to become a monk; in the monothelite controversy, he was arrested, tried, exiled, and maimed for maintaining the full humanity of Jesus, that is, that Christ had a human will. 2. His spiritual writings, the Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Commentary on the Our Father, and Two Hundred Chapters on Knowledge, combine theological rigor and deep piety. B. John Climacus (c. 579–c. 649) was abbot of the great monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. His name derives from the title of his writing The Ladder of Divine Ascent (klimakos means “ascent”), arguably the most read composition among Orthodox monks. 1. Discipleship is imaged as a process of ascent of 30 steps taken by humans; the first 26 steps are standard desert asceticism: discipline of the body and control of the emotions and the passions. 2. The final 4 steps introduce the characteristic stillness or quiet (hesychia) that gives the tradition its name; the highest form of prayer is stillness. IV. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) provides the most extensive argument for Hesychasm in his defense of monastic spirituality, in his Triads. A. He argues against the philosopher Barlaam the Calabrian that mystical knowledge should be the basis of theology. 1. It is not rational argument that leads to truth but the direct experience of God. 2. Such experience is possible because of the incarnation, which has made theosis possible. B. Gregory elaborates more fully what is involved in Hesychastic prayer, particularly the role played by the body and the control of breathing. 72 ©2008 The Teaching Company.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  I however had forgotten to deal with him, that he should not, through a blind and headlong desire of vain pastimes, undo so good a wit. But Thou, O Lord, who guidest the course of all Thou hast created, hadst not forgotten him, who was one day to be among Thy children, Priest and Dispenser of Thy Sacrament; and that his amendment might plainly be attributed to Thyself, Thou effectedst it through me, unknowingly. For as one day I sat in my accustomed place, with my scholars before me, he entered, greeted me, sat down, and applied his mind to what I then handled. I had by chance a passage in hand, which while I was explaining, a likeness from the Circensian races occurred to me, as likely to make what I would convey pleasanter and plainer, seasoned with biting mockery of those whom that madness had enthralled; God, Thou knowest that I then thought not of curing Alypius of that infection. But he took it wholly to himself, and thought that I said it simply for his sake. And whence another would have taken occasion of offence with me, that right-minded youth took as a ground of being offended at himself, and loving me more fervently. For Thou hadst said it long ago, and put it into Thy book, Rebuke a wise man and he will love Thee. But I had not rebuked him, but Thou, who employest all, knowing or not knowing, in that order which Thyself knowest (and that order is just), didst of my heart and tongue make burning coals, by which to set on fire the hopeful mind, thus languishing, and so cure it. Let him be silent in Thy praises, who considers not Thy mercies, which confess unto Thee out of my inmost soul. For he upon that speech burst out of that pit so deep, wherein he was wilfully plunged, and was blinded with its wretched pastimes; and he shook his mind with a strong self-command; whereupon all the filths of the Circensian pastimes flew off from him, nor came he again thither. Upon this, he prevailed with his unwilling father that he might be my scholar. He gave way, and gave in. And Alypius beginning to be my hearer again, was involved in the same superstition with me, loving in the Manichees that show of continency which he supposed true and unfeigned. Whereas it was a senseless and seducing continency, ensnaring precious souls, unable as yet to reach the depth of virtue, yet readily beguiled with the surface of what was but a shadowy and counterfeit virtue.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  If we compare these documents with the canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, it is evident at once that they fall far below in original force, depth, and fulness of spirit, and afford in this a strong indirect proof of the inspiration of the apostles. Yet they still shine with the evening red of the apostolic day, and breathe an enthusiasm of simple faith and fervent love and fidelity to the Lord, which proved its power in suffering and martyrdom. They move in the element of living tradition, and make reference oftener to the oral preaching of the apostles than to their writings; for these were not yet so generally circulated but they bear a testimony none the less valuable to the genuineness of the apostolic writings, by occasional citations or allusions, and by the coincidence of their reminiscences with the facts of the gospel history and the fundamental doctrines of the New Testament. The epistles of Barnabas, Clement, and Polycarp, and the Shepherd of Hernias, were in many churches read in public worship.1186 Some were even incorporated in important manuscripts of the Bible.1187 This shows that the sense of the church, as to the extent of the canon, had not yet become everywhere clear. Their authority, however, was always but sectional and subordinate to that of the Gospels and the apostolic Epistles. It was a sound instinct of the church, that the writings of the disciples of the apostles, excepting those of Mark and Luke, who were peculiarly associated with Peter and Paul, were kept out of the canon of the New Testament. For by the wise ordering of the Ruler of history, there is an impassable gulf between the inspiration of the apostles and the illumination of the succeeding age, between the standard authority of holy Scripture and the derived validity of the teaching of the church. "The Bible"—to adopt an illustration of a distinguished writer1188 —"is not like a city of modern Europe, which subsides through suburban gardens and groves and mansions into the open country around, but like an Eastern city in the desert, from which the traveler passes by a single step into a barren waste." The very poverty of these post-apostolic writings renders homage to the inexhaustible richness of the apostolic books which, like the person of Christ, are divine as well as human in their origin, character, and effect.1189 § 162. Clement of Rome.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He had a reputation as the champion of doomed causes, reaction’s intrepid foe; and he walked into the drawing rooms of the world as though he expected to find the enemy ambushed there. His wife wore a mink coat and a flowered hat, seemed somewhat older than he, and was inclined to be talkative. “Great meeting you, Silenski,” he said. Though he was compelled to look up to Richard, he did so with his head at an odd and belligerent angle, as though he were looking up in order more clearly to sight down. The hand he extended to Richard with a bulletlike directness suggested also the arrogant limpness of hands which have the power to make or break: only custom prevented the hand from being kissed. “I’ve been hearing tremendous things about you. Maybe we can have a chat a little later.” And his smile was good-natured, open, and boyish. When he was introduced to Ida, he stood stock-still, throwing out his arms as though he were a little boy. “You’re an actress,” he said. “You’ve got to be an actress.” “No,” said Ida, “I’m not.” “But you must be. I’ve been looking for you for years. You’re sensational!” “Thank you, Mr. Ellis,” she said, laughing, “but I am not an actress.” Her laugh was a little strained but Vivaldo could not know whether this was due to nerves or displeasure. People stood in smiling groups around them. Cass stood behind the bar, watching. Ellis smiled conspiratorially and pushed his head a little forward. “What do you do, then? Come on, tell me.” “Well, at the moment,” Ida said, rather pulling herself together, “I work as a waitress.” “A waitress. Well, my wife’s here, so I won’t ask you where you work.” He stepped a little closer to Ida. “But what do you think about while you walk around waiting on tables?” Ida hesitated, and he smiled again, coaxing and tender. “Come on. You can’t tell me that all you want is to get to be head waitress.” Ida laughed. Her lips curved rather bitterly, and she said, “No.” She hesitated and looked toward Vivaldo, and Ellis followed her look. “I’ve sometimes thought of singing. That’s what I’d like to do.” “Aha!” he cried, triumphantly, “I knew I’d get it out of you.” He pulled a card out of his breast pocket. “When you get ready to make the break, and let it be soon, you come and see me. Don’t you forget.” “You won’t remember my name, Mr. Ellis.” She said it lightly and the look with which she measured Ellis gave Vivaldo no clue as to what was going on in her mind. “Your name,” he said, “is Ida Scott. Right?” “Right.” “Well, I never forget names or faces.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Romans were originally more virtuous, domestic, and chaste, as they were more honest and conscientious, than the Greeks. With them the wife was honored by the title domina, matrona, materfamilias. At the head of their sacerdotal system stood the flamens of Jupiter, who represented marriage in its purity, and the vestal virgins, who represented virginity. The Sabine women interceding between their parents and their husbands, saved the republic; the mother and the wife of Coriolanus by her prayers averted his wrath, and raised the siege of the Volscian army; Lucretia who voluntarily sacrificed her life to escape the outrage to her honor offered by king Tarquin, and Virginia who was killed by her father to save her from slavery and dishonor, shine in the legendary history of Rome as bright examples of unstained purity. But even in the best days of the republic the legal status of woman was very low. The Romans likewise made marriage altogether subservient to the interest of the state, and allowed it in its legal form to free citizens alone. The proud maxims of the republic prohibited even the legitimate nuptials of a Roman with a foreign queen; and Cleopatra and Berenice were, as strangers, degraded to the position of concubines of Mark Antony and Titus. According to ancient custom the husband bought his bride from her parents, and she fulfilled the coëmption by purchasing, with three pieces of copper, a just introduction to his house and household deities. But this was for her simply an exchange of one servitude for another. She became the living property of a husband who could lend her out, as Cato lent his wife to his friend Hortensius, and as Augustus took Livia from Tiberius Nero." Her husband or master, says Gibbon,636 "was invested with the plenitude of paternal power. By his judgment or caprice her behavior was approved or censured, or chastised; he exercised the jurisdiction of life and death; and it was allowed, that in cases of adultery or drunkenness, the sentence might be properly inflicted. She acquired and inherited for the sole profit of her lord; and so clearly was woman defined, not as a person, but as a thing, that, if the original title were deficient, she might be claimed like other movables, by the use and possession of an entire year."

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The whole theological energy of the ante-Nicene period concentrated itself, therefore, upon the doctrine of Christ as the God-man and Redeemer of the world. This doctrine was the kernel of all the baptismal creeds, and was stamped upon the entire life, constitution and worship of the early church. It was not only expressly asserted by the fathers against heretics, but also professed in the daily and weekly worship, in the celebration of baptism, the eucharist and the annual festivals, especially Easter. It was embodied in prayers, doxologies and hymns of praise. From the earliest record Christ was the object not of admiration which is given to finite persons and things, and presupposes equality, but of prayer, praise and adoration which is due only to an infinite, uncreated, divine being. This is evident from several passages of the New Testament,979 from the favorite symbol of the early Christians, the Ichthys,980 from the Tersanctus, the Gloria in Excelsis, the hymn of Clement of Alexandria in praise of the Logos,981 from the testimony of Origen, who says: "We sing hymns to the Most High alone, and His Only Begotten, who is the Word and God; and we praise God and His Only Begotten;"982 and from the heathen testimony of the younger Pliny who reports to the Emperor Trajan that the Christians in Asia were in the habit of singing "hymns to Christ as their God."983 Eusebius, quoting from an earlier writer (probably Hippolytus) against the heresy of Artemon, refers to the testimonies of Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, Clement, and "many others" for the divinity of Christ, and asks: "Who knows not the works of Irenaeus and Melito, and the rest, in which Christ is announced as God and man? Whatever psalms and hymns of the brethren were written by the faithful from the beginning, celebrate Christ as the Word of God, by asserting his divinity."984 The same faith was sealed by the sufferings and death of "the noble army" of confessors and martyrs, who confessed Christ to be God, and died for Christ as God.985 Life and worship anticipated theology, and Christian experience contained more than divines could in clear words express. So a child may worship the Saviour and pray to Him long before he can give a rational account of his faith. The instinct of the Christian people was always in the right direction, and it is unfair to make them responsible for the speculative crudities, the experimental and tentative statements of some of the ante-Nicene teachers. The divinity of Christ then, and with this the divinity of the Holy Spirit, were from the first immovably fixed in the mind and heart of the Christian Church as a central article of faith.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In the summer of 1531, after a visit to Noyon, where he attended his father in his last sickness, Calvin removed a second time to Paris, accompanied by his younger brother, Antoine. He found there several of his fellow-students of Orleans and Bourges; one of them offered him the home of his parents, but he declined, and took up his abode in the College Fortet, where we find him again in 1533. A part of the year he spent in Orleans. Left master of his fortune, he now turned his attention again chiefly to classical studies. He attended the lectures of Pierre Danès, a Hellenist and encyclopaedic scholar of great reputation.406 He showed as yet no trace of opposition to the Catholic Church. His correspondence refers to matters of friendship and business, but avoids religious questions. When Daniel asked him to introduce his sister to the superior of a nunnery in Paris which she wished to enter, he complied with the request, and made no effort to change her purpose. He only admonished her not to confide in her own strength, but to put her whole trust in God. This shows, at least, that he had lost faith in the meritoriousness of vows and good works, and was approaching the heart of the evangelical system.407 He associated much with a rich and worthy merchant, Estienne de la Forge, who afterwards was burned for the sake of the Gospel (1535). He seems to have occasionally suffered in Paris of pecuniary embarrassment. The income from his benefices was irregular, and he had to pay for the printing of his first book. At the close of 1531 he borrowed two crowns from his friend, Duchemin. He expressed a hope soon to discharge his debt, but would none the less remain a debtor in gratitude for the services of friendship. It is worthy of remark that even those of his friends who refused to follow him in his religious change, remained true to him. This is an effective refutation of the charge of coldness so often made against him. François Daniel of Orleans renewed the correspondence in 1559, and entrusted to him the education of his son Pierre, who afterwards became an advocate and bailiff of Saint-Benoit near Orleans.408 § 71. Calvin as a Humanist. Commentary on Seneca. "L. Annei Se | necae, Romani Senato | ris, ac philosophi clarissi | mi, libri duo de Clementia, ad Ne | ronem Caesarem: | Joannis Caluini Nouiodunaei commentariis illustrati ... | Parisiis ... 1532." 4°). Reprinted 1576, 1597, 1612, and, from the ed. princeps, in Opera, vol. V. (1866) pp. 5–162. The commentary is preceded by a dedicatory epistle, a sketch of the life of Seneca. H. Lecoultre: Calvin d’après son commentaire sur le "De Clementia" de Sénèque (1532). Lausanne, 1891 (pp. 29).

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  She invited many of us from the group to her graduation dinner, including Mildred. As ever, Mildred brought herself to the event in her late-model car and, naturally, at the end of the evening prepared to take herself home. It was winter and therefore dark and cold and, as is so often the case in Vancouver in the winter, it was raining as though there was an ark that needed launching. One of Karen’s friends, an airline pilot with a mildly chivalrous nature, asked Mildred if she would like him to take her arm and walk her to her car. She turned and gave him a withering glance. “Good Lord,” she said. “What for?” And with that she unfurled her umbrella and marched out into the night. Mildred was unlike any seventy-something person I had ever met. She was fiercely independent and had never been married, something quite unusual for someone of her generation. She owned a delightful bungalow in West Vancouver, with a fabulous view of Lions Gate Bridge and English Bay that she’d inherited from her parents yonks ago. The backyard was huge and gorgeous and when the seasons permitted she spent her waking hours out there gardening and being a friend to every bird and bee and cat that came along. She was in far better physical shape than anyone else in the group, yet we were all on average thirty-five years younger than she was. (She took us hiking once on the North Shore mountains, and chose a relatively easy hike for our benefit. Still, she had to slow down during the ascent because none of us could keep up with her.) She was like a combination of the Dalai Lama and Tina Turner; her compassion and moral strength were like a beacon but she could take care of herself in any situation without flinching and would kick your ass if you tested her. Limori used to comment that Mildred’s role in God’s plan was simply to bring good energy into our midst. Limori said that Mildred had done enough personal work in her life that she was clear and therefore needed no further work done on her, unlike the rest of us. Mildred had been coming to the group for years, and yet Limori had never, not once, confronted her about any of her ego positions or workshopped her in any way. She was the only person for whom this was true. Everyone else who crossed Limori’s path, from waitresses in restaurants to her husband(s), were treated like bugs under a microscope. Except Mildred. I’ve often wondered why Limori treated Mildred so differently. At the time, I explained it to myself in the energetic terms I had been trained to apply to any situation. But, looking back, I have a different answer. Limori’s relationship with Mildred was the same as her relationship with anyone who followed her: she gauged carefully and continuously how much she could turn up the heat underneath each of us.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  My friend Don is tall, sandy-haired, with a mobile and amusing face. He still looks a lot like he did the first time we met, a long time ago. One day when I was in seventh grade, the homeroom door opened and a great gangling boy walked in with the principal. Don, at twelve, was as tall as the adults, even stooping as he did then, and he had about him a brittle quality, a mortifying shyness that made him seem ready to stumble and break apart. He sat where he was told and didn’t speak. We were drawing landscape murals on big squares of butcher paper with colored pencils. A few days after his arrival I was spying on Don, who fascinated me. He was not drawing an ocean or desert or pastoral meadow like the rest of us. He had in a few days made a world, a strange, parched, off-kilter scene. He’d drawn another planet. And what I felt was exultation. We would be friends; we both walked outside the center of things. Within a few months we began to go steady, to call each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” because we didn’t know how to be friends any other way. There were so many rules, and the way we failed to master them was one thing we had in common. Don and I took long walks, and sat after school in our friend Danny’s garage, playing “I Am the Walrus” forward and backward, trying to decide if Paul was really dead. We wanted to figure things out. We wondered if the way we felt was the way it was supposed to be, and we wondered what we would become. There seemed to be so few choices. When we were freshmen, Don moved. At fourteen we were still best friends, still walking slowly to and from each other’s houses after school, still calling ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend because it was how to keep the questions away, even our own questions. His leaving wrenched something loose in me. Don and I wrote to each other every week, and after several months he wrote to tell me that he was gay. I’d been lost without him, and he was telling me he’d been lost all his life. For years afterward we saw each other only rarely. We had different demons. Once he gave me a drawing of a water glass, titled The Glass of a Pariah. He went through what he called his “misogynistic period,” when he struggled with feelings about his mother and sisters, when he could hardly speak to me. And then we were best friends, and then we hardly spoke again, and then we talked a lot, and lately, months of hurt silence went by before another patch-up. In certain ways our worlds could hardly be more unalike, and reconciliation means taking a lot of things on faith.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  Murray Davis points out that our erotic arenas are sometimes manipulated or touched or used in ways that mimic sex but are not sex, such as during pelvic exams and prostate exams. Woe to the foot fetishist, to the man who loves a woman’s neck or ear above all, to the woman easily excited by the rub of cloth against her thighs, because these people, like prudes, are surrounded by the bare revelation of sex all the time. Eroticism intrudes now and then upon the least imaginative among us, in small hints and little reminders. The fetishist and the prude have the same problem; sex is everywhere. I was watching a short film called Daddy and the Muscle Academy with three other women, two of them gay and one straight. Daddy is a documentary of the art of a man known as Tom of Finland, who created an entire genre of superrealistic images of gay men. Tom’s men are heroic, idealized, and enormously muscular; they have square heads, round buttocks, and exaggerated genitalia. They are often attired in military uniforms or biker leathers. Tom’s art has inspired an adoring audience of men to dress in similar fashion; he was an influence on Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts, and Bruce Weber. In the film Tom talks about the outsized, mythic quality of his subjects as a way to expand behavior as well as ideas, to tweak people. Much of the work is obviously tongue-in-cheek (and in everything else, too). Its more-of-everything quality, he insists, is aimed at men who feel like failures, who have been criticized and abused for their gayness. “I want to encourage them,” he says, with these proud images. I’ve heard criticism of Tom’s work before from people who felt he idealized Fascism. But the images are essentially anarchic, something Tom himself understands as a direct result of his boyhood experiences in World War II. He draws images of authority, often terrifying authority—Nazis recur frequently—and then he makes these authoritarians sexual and vulnerable by virtue of their sexuality. In the end the authority figure is literally undressed and seduced. Fascism gets fucked—and likes it. “Sick,” said one of my female companions. “Boring,” said another. “Disgusting.” But how can any of us be critical of an aesthetic or offended by a behavior we cannot truly comprehend? Tom’s world is not only outside our experience as women, but outside any possible experience we could have.

• From Little Women (1868)

  The old gentleman did not say much as he drank his four cups of tea, but he watched the young people, who soon chatted away like old friends, and the change in his grandson did not escape him. There was color, light, and life in the boy's face now, vivacity in his manner, and genuine merriment in his laugh. "She's right, the lad is lonely. I'll see what these little girls can do for him," thought Mr. Laurence, as he looked and listened. He liked Jo, for her odd, blunt ways suited him, and she seemed to understand the boy almost as well as if she had been one herself. If the Laurences had been what Jo called 'prim and poky', she would not have got on at all, for such people always made her shy and awkward. But finding them free and easy, she was so herself, and made a good impression. When they rose she proposed to go, but Laurie said he had something more to show her, and took her away to the conservatory, which had been lighted for her benefit. It seemed quite fairylike to Jo, as she went up and down the walks, enjoying the blooming walls on either side, the soft light, the damp sweet air, and the wonderful vines and trees that hung about her, while her new friend cut the finest flowers till his hands were full. Then he tied them up, saying, with the happy look Jo liked to see, "Please give these to your mother, and tell her I like the medicine she sent me very much." They found Mr. Laurence standing before the fire in the great drawing room, but Jo's attention was entirely absorbed by a grand piano, which stood open. "Do you play?" she asked, turning to Laurie with a respectful expression. "Sometimes," he answered modestly. "Please do now. I want to hear it, so I can tell Beth." "Won't you first?" "Don't know how. Too stupid to learn, but I love music dearly." So Laurie played and Jo listened, with her nose luxuriously buried in heliotrope and tea roses. Her respect and regard for the 'Laurence' boy increased very much, for he played remarkably well and didn't put on any airs. She wished Beth could hear him, but she did not say so, only praised him till he was quite abashed, and his grandfather came to his rescue. "That will do, that will do, young lady. Too many sugarplums are not good for him. His music isn't bad, but I hope he will do as well in more important things. Going? well, I'm much obliged to you, and I hope you'll come again. My respects to your mother. Good night, Doctor Jo." He shook hands kindly, but looked as if something did not please him. When they got into the hall, Jo asked Laurie if she had said something amiss. He shook his head. "No, it was me.

• From Little Women (1868)

  "I think they are great nonsense, and I'll thank you not to be silly and spoil my fun. Laurie's a nice boy and I like him, and I won't have any sentimental stuff about compliments and such rubbish. We'll all be good to him because he hasn't got any mother, and he may come over and see us, mayn't he, Marmee?" "Yes, Jo, your little friend is very welcome, and I hope Meg will remember that children should be children as long as they can." "I don't call myself a child, and I'm not in my teens yet," observed Amy. "What do you say, Beth?" "I was thinking about our 'Pilgrim's Progress '," answered Beth, who had not heard a word. "How we got out of the Slough and through the Wicket Gate by resolving to be good, and up the steep hill by trying, and that maybe the house over there, full of splendid things, is going to be our Palace Beautiful." "We have got to get by the lions first," said Jo, as if she rather liked the prospect. CHAPTER SIX BETH FINDS THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL The big house did prove a Palace Beautiful, though it took some time for all to get in, and Beth found it very hard to pass the lions. Old Mr. Laurence was the biggest one, but after he had called, said something funny or kind to each one of the girls, and talked over old times with their mother, nobody felt much afraid of him, except timid Beth. The other lion was the fact that they were poor and Laurie rich, for this made them shy of accepting favors which they could not return. But, after a while, they found that he considered them the benefactors, and could not do enough to show how grateful he was for Mrs. March's motherly welcome, their cheerful society, and the comfort he took in that humble home of theirs. So they soon forgot their pride and interchanged kindnesses without stopping to think which was the greater. All sorts of pleasant things happened about that time, for the new friendship flourished like grass in spring. Every one liked Laurie, and he privately informed his tutor that "the Marches were regularly splendid girls." With the delightful enthusiasm of youth, they took the solitary boy into their midst and made much of him, and he found something very charming in the innocent companionship of these simple-hearted girls. Never having known mother or sisters, he was quick to feel the influences they brought about him, and their busy, lively ways made him ashamed of the indolent life he led. He was tired of books, and found people so interesting now that Mr. Brooke was obliged to make very unsatisfactory reports, for Laurie was always playing truant and running over to the Marches'. "Never mind, let him take a holiday, and make it up afterward," said the old gentleman.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  I find it odd to look upon my own life with the kind of flexibility implied by a phrase like “lifelong history as women.” Femaleness seems embedded within me, it feels inalterable—but so, I’ve come to realize, does it feel to the transsexual stuck with a penis and longing for breasts, smooth skin, and a vagina. So does maleness feel embedded in a man stuck with breasts and a vagina, longing for a beard and scrotum. Both are longing for the ineluctable mana of the other gender. What the transsexual is doing is very simple, in a way: He or she is altering the form of gender, not gender itself. It is the inalterable nature of their internally perceived gender that gives them the strength to perform this incredibly painful and difficult transformation. The baggage some transsexuals seek is the baggage a lot of genetic women are trying to leave behind. She must get smaller, nicer; she must lower her voice and change its pitch and inflection, learn to touch others during conversations, change her very choice of curse words, stop interrupting. Conventions last much longer than we suspect, like corpses left unburied. The traditional MTF all dressed up sometimes looks to me like my mother, circa 1958—a version of Woman from another time, a past and passing time. “I know I’m playing a role, I know I’m playing a game,” says Kate. “Do you?” The MTF transsexual must adjust to physical danger, to job discrimination and lower wages. Her willingness to do these things is part of what marks her as a “true” transsexual. She will never pass as a woman if she continues to expect the quiet privileges of the man. I like being a woman, and it’s easy enough for me to understand why someone would want to be one. I cannot explain or define this except in the most dissatisfying ways, but I feel that female mana; it affects the way I dream and think and feel, it describes my inner cosmos. The “cultural back regions” of women are what I most value about being a woman—that community of women that no one but women can enter. I am more befuddled by female-to-male transsexuals. I have longed for the privileges of the male, but never for maleness, never at all. What would I be if I had a penis? Who would I be? How different would the self in myself become? Last summer I met a man named Chris who is so attractive that when he walked into a room everyone there turned to watch. Chris is not traditionally handsome; he is short, stocky, bearded, somewhat weathered, but he exudes a relaxed confidence, a direct and feline grace. I would never have guessed he was transsexual.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  In October of 1998, just a few weeks into my graduate school career, I was invited to attend a seminar with Jane Gallop and Rosalind Krauss. Gallop would be presenting new work, to which Krauss would respond. I was excited—back in college I had liked Gallop’s heady, disobedient books on Lacan (such as The Daughter’s Seduction); they evidenced a deep investment in Lacanian thought without seeming to have drunk the Kool-Aid. She was having a fling with the philosophers all right, but she seemed to be learning everything there was to know about the boiler room so that she could blow it up. Krauss’s work I knew less well, but I gathered that everyone was invested in her theories about the modernist grid, and I liked the plain matte cover of October magazine. Didn’t she write on Claude Cahun? I liked Claude Cahun. And busting the avant-garde’s mythos of itself was, even then, my idea of a good time. The professors gathered solemnly around a long wooden table in one of the more handsome rooms at the Grace Building, where CUNY was then situated. I felt as though I had truly arrived—somehow I had been plucked from the corner booth of Max Fish and deposited in the center of an intellectual mecca, complete with dark wood and academic superstars. Gallop gave a slide show: her recent work was about being photographed by her husband, appropriately named Dick. I remember a photo of her with their baby boy in the bathtub, and one of her and her son lounging around together naked, Carole King—style. I remember being surprised and pleased that she was showing us naked photos of her and her son, and talking unabashedly about her partner Dick (heterosexuality always embarrasses me). She was trying to talk about photography from the standpoint of the photographed subject, which, as she said, “may be the position from which it is most difficult to claim valid general insights.” And she was coupling this subjective position with that of being a mother, in an attempt to get at the experience of being photographed as a mother (another position generally assumed to be, as Gallop put it, “troublingly personal, anecdotal, self-concerned”). She was taking on Barthes’s Camera Lucida, and the way in which even in Barthes—delectable Barthes!—the mother remains the (photographed) object; the son, the (writing) subject. “The writer is someone who plays with his mother’s body,” Barthes wrote. But sometimes the writer is also the mother (Möbius strip).

• From Dante's Divine Comedy (2001)

  Outline I. In Canto 21 of Purgatorio, Dante and Virgil encounter the Roman poet Statius. A. The encounter evokes the risen Christ’s meeting with his uncomprehending disciples on the road to Emmaus. Statius identifies himself by listing his works. The whole mountain of purgatory is quaking with joy at Statius’s progress toward heaven. B. He pays homage to Virgil as his poetic inspiration. C. He does this not knowing that he is in the presence of Virgil, thus initiating a series of ironic encounters. D. Dante’s smile gives the “secret” away—another purgatorial surprise in this canto full of them. E. He tries to embrace Virgil, but Virgil rebukes him and reminds him that both of them are but shades. II. Canto 21 opens with two very powerful biblical references. ©2001 The Teaching Company. 52 A. The first is the story of the Samaritan woman told in John’s Gospel. B. The second is a reference to the resurrected Jesus appearing to his disciples as told at the end of Luke’s gospel. C. Statius is explicitly connected to the resurrected Jesus through this reference. D. This connection is appropriate, because he has just experienced his own personal “resurrection” and is moving up the mountain. III. The canto closes with a powerful post-Resurrection story as well. A. Virgil’s refusal to let Statius embrace him is a reference to the “Noli mi tangere” episode at the end of John, where the risen Christ encounters Mary Magdalen and does not let her touch him. B. Paradoxically, in this “retelling” of the story, Virgil is now in the position of Christ, rather than Statius, who is the figure for Christ at the beginning of the canto. C. This paradox is explained in the next canto. IV. Statius’s praise of Virgil continues in Canto 22. A. Statius tells the story of his conversion to Christianity. B. This story is Dante the poet’s invention, in that no evidence exists that the historical Statius ever became a Christian. C. Statius, in an almost shocking revelation, states that the main source of his conversion was none other than Virgil himself: “It was you whose radiance revealed the way to God” (Purgatorio 22: 65–66.) 1. Virgil, a pagan, was completely unaware that his own work contained that power. 2. Virgil’s “lamp” shed light, not for himself, but to make others wise (Purgatorio 22: 68). 3. Virgil was seen in Dante’s time as a “prophet” of the Incarnation. 4. The poem in question was actually about the birth of the heir to Augustus. 5. Dante the poet pushes this idea even farther here in the conversion of Statius. D. Dante the poet is praising Virgil at the same time that he is pointing toward his limitations.