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 Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  After doing more than justice to bowls of family-hotel trifle we made our slow progress back to the smoking-room. As Percy poured coffee we were joined by Ronald Staines. He was dressed entirely properly, but there was something about the way he inhabited his clothes that was subversive. He seemed to slither around within the beautiful green tweed, the elderly herringbone shirt and chaste silk tie which plumped forward slightly between collar and waistcoat. His wrists were very thin and I saw that he was smaller than his authoritative suiting. He was a man in disguise, but a disguise which his gestures, his over-preserved profile and a Sitwellian taste in rings drew immediate attention to. It was a strikingly two-minded performance, and, though I found him unattractive, just what I was looking for in the present surroundings. ‘Charles, you must introduce me to your guest.’ ‘He’s called William.’ I held out a hand which Staines shook with surprising vigour. ‘We’ve been getting on very well,’ Nantwich added. ‘Don’t fret, my dear, I’m not going to break anything up. Ronald Staines, by the way,’ he said to me. ‘With an “e”.’ He pulled up a chair, not risking to ask if he could join us. ‘And how did you get involved with Charles?’ he asked. ‘Charles has some terrible secret, I’m sure—his success rate with the ragazzi is quite remarkable. He always has some very, very handsome young man in tow.’ I had always been a sucker for this kind of thing, out of vanity, and liked to allow the old their unthreatening admiration. ‘You’re bloody lucky he hasn’t got his camera with him, William,’ said Nantwich. ‘He’d have you stripped off in a moment and covered in baby oil.’ I got the impression of a long-lasting relationship conducted in a bitchy third-person. ‘I have seen photographs of you, though, William,’ Staines recalled. ‘Surely Whitehaven did one, or am I wrong?—little swimming things, and a stripe of shadow covering those dreamy blue eyes? So talented, that young man, though some of his stuff can be a little … strong. Not this one, mind you: I saw it in that New York exhibition—there have been several, I know, but last year, in a kind of abattoir in Soho …’ ‘He’s Beckwith’s grandson,’ said Nantwich, as if to discount the possibility which Staines was outlining. ‘Of course,’ exclaimed Staines in a curiously condescending way; ‘how interesting!’—turning his head aside to suggest a sudden loss of interest. ‘My dear, I’ve done some pieces which will delight you. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if they delighted William as well—I’m certainly delighted myself. They’re a new departure, newish anyway, and rather religious and full of feeling. One’s a kind of sacra conversazione between Saint Sebastian and John the Baptist. The young man who modelled Sebastian was almost in tears when I showed it to him, it’s so lovely.’

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  In the hall he hesitated. His suited forearm lay along my bare brown one, and his hand gripped mine, half-interlocked with it. It was a broad, mottled, strong hand, the knuckles slightly swollen by arthritis, the fingertips broad and flattened, with well-shaped yellow nails. My hand looked effete and inexperienced in its grasp. ‘Straight across,’ he decided. The room we entered was a panelled dining-room with a carved overmantel and a leafy frieze picked out in gold, an effect rather like paint-sprayed holly at Christmas-time. It had the sleepy acoustic quality that some rooms have which are rarely, if ever, used. ‘This is the salle à manger ,’ announced Charles. ‘As you can see that slut Lewis never bothers to dust in here, because I haven’t actually mangé in it for years. It’s a jolly nice table, that, isn’t it.’ It was indeed a very handsome Georgian oak table with ball-and-claw feet, and in the middle stood a silvery statuette of a boy with upraised arms and Donatellesque buttocks, an incongruously kitsch item. ‘That little bit of nonsense is by the same chap who did the willies in the other room. We’ll see some more of his stuff, but come over here first.’ He led me—or I led him—towards a side-table where a green baize cloth covered a square object, perhaps a foot high and eighteen inches long; it might have been a picture in a stand-up frame. He leant forward and tugged the cloth away. It was a display case of dark polished dowling, rather British Museum in appearance, within which stood a tablet of pale sandy stone, a couple of inches thick. On its smooth front face three contrasting heads were incised, full profile, in shallow relief. I inspected it appreciatively, and looked to Charles for information. He was nodding in satisfaction at having turned up something interesting. ‘Fascinating, isn’t it. It’s a stele showing the King Akhnaten.’ I looked again. ‘And who are the other two?’ ‘Ah,’ said Charles with pleasure. ‘They’re King Akhnaten as well.’ He chuckled, though it could by no means be the first time he had explained its mystery. ‘It’s an artist’s sketch, like a notepad or something, but done straight on to the stone. You know about Akhnaten, do you?’ ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’ ‘I thought not, otherwise you would see the significance of it straight away. Like so many bizarre-seeming things, it has its logic. Akhnaten was a rebel. His real name was Amonhotep the Third—Fourth, I can’t remember—but he broke away from the worship of Amon (as in Amonhotep) and made everyone worship the sun instead. Something I’m sure you’d agree with him over,’ he added, patting my wrist. ‘But such apostasy was not in itself enough. Oh no.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The more time I spent with Walter, the more I was persuaded that he was a kind, decent man with a generous nature. He freely acknowledged that he’d made poor decisions, particularly where women were concerned. By all accounts—from friends, family, and associates like Sam Crook—Walter generally tried to do the right thing. I never regarded our time together as wasted or unproductive. In all death penalty cases, spending time with clients is important. Developing the trust of clients is not only necessary to manage the complexities of the litigation and deal with the stress of a potential execution; it’s also key to effective advocacy. A client’s life often depends on his lawyer’s ability to create a mitigation narrative that contextualizes his poor decisions or violent behavior. Uncovering things about someone’s background that no one has previously discovered—things that might be hard to discuss but are critically important—requires trust. Getting someone to acknowledge he has been the victim of child sexual abuse, neglect, or abandonment won’t happen without the kind of comfort that takes hours and multiple visits to develop. Talking about sports, TV, popular culture, or anything else the client wants to discuss is absolutely appropriate to building a relationship that makes effective work possible. But it also creates genuine connections with clients. And that’s certainly what happened with Walter. — Shortly after my first trip to see Walter’s family, I received a call from a young man named Darnell Houston who told me that he could prove that Walter was innocent. His voice shook with nerves but he was determined to speak to me. He didn’t want to talk on the phone, so I drove down to meet with him one afternoon. He lived in a rural part of Monroe County on farmland that his family had worked since the time of slavery. Darnell was a sincere young man, and I could tell he’d been debating for a while whether to contact me. When I arrived at his home, he walked out to greet me. He was a young black man in his twenties who had joined the “Jheri curl” craze. I had already noticed that the popular process of chemically treating black hair to make it looser and easier to style had come to Monroeville; I’d seen several black men, young and old, sporting the look with pride. The cheerful bounce of Darnell’s hair contrasted with his worried demeanor. As soon as we sat down, he got right to business. “Mr. Stevenson,” he began. “I can prove that Walter McMillian is innocent.” “Really?” “Bill Hooks is lying. I didn’t know he was even involved in that case until they told me he was part of how they put Walter McMillian on death row. First, I didn’t believe Bill could have been part of this, but then I found out that he testified that he drove by that cleaners on the day that girl was killed, and that’s a lie.” “How do you know?”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: Two things must be considered in the act of fortitude. one is the good wherein the brave man is strengthened, and this is the end of fortitude; the other is the firmness itself, whereby a man does not yield to the contraries that hinder him from achieving that good, and in this consists the essence of fortitude. Now just as civic fortitude strengthens a man’s mind in human justice, for the safeguarding of which he braves the danger of death, so gratuitous fortitude strengthens man’s soul in the good of Divine justice, which is “through faith in Christ Jesus,” according to Rom. 3:22. Thus martyrdom is related to faith as the end in which one is strengthened, but to fortitude as the eliciting habit. Reply to Objection 2: Charity inclines one to the act of martyrdom, as its first and chief motive cause, being the virtue commanding it, whereas fortitude inclines thereto as being its proper motive cause, being the virtue that elicits it. Hence martyrdom is an act of charity as commanding, and of fortitude as eliciting. For this reason also it manifests both virtues. It is due to charity that it is meritorious, like any other act of virtue: and for this reason it avails not without charity. Reply to Objection 3: As stated above ([3309]Q[123], A[6]), the chief act of fortitude is endurance: to this and not to its secondary act, which is aggression, martyrdom belongs. And since patience serves fortitude on the part of its chief act, viz. endurance, hence it is that martyrs are also praised for their patience. Whether martyrdom is an act of the greatest perfection?Objection 1: It seems that martyrdom is not an act of the greatest perfection. For seemingly that which is a matter of counsel and not of precept pertains to perfection, because, to wit, it is not necessary for salvation. But it would seem that martyrdom is necessary for salvation, since the Apostle says (Rom. 10:10), “With the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” and it is written (1 Jn. 3:16), that “we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Therefore martyrdom does not pertain to perfection. Objection 2: Further, it seems to point to greater perfection that a man give his soul to God, which is done by obedience, than that he give God his body, which is done by martyrdom: wherefore Gregory says (Moral. xxxv) that “obedience is preferable to all sacrifices.” Therefore martyrdom is not an act of the greatest perfection. Objection 3: Further, it would seem better to do good to others than to maintain oneself in good, since the “good of the nation is better than the good of the individual,” according to the Philosopher (Ethic. i, 2). Now he that suffers martyrdom profits himself alone, whereas he that teaches does good to many. Therefore the act of teaching and guiding subjects is more perfect than the act of martyrdom.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Bill looked at me earnestly. ‘I can explain that,’ he said, in the tone of one who has just dreamt up an alibi and is about to test it on a sceptical CID man. But he didn’t do so. ‘I will explain it to you one day. You’re quite right though. At the Corinthian Club I’m Hawkins, but down here with the lads I’m Shillibeer—Shilly Billy, they call me. All in good fun, of course.’ ‘You’re a dark one,’ I said flirtatiously, and he looked pleased. ‘But tell me about the Nantwich Cup.’ ‘The Nantwich? Well, his Lordship established it in 1955. He did a lot for this Club—he paid for those new changing-rooms. He used to come down a good deal himself, but we don’t see much of him nowadays.’ ‘So you’ve been coming here a long time.’ ‘Thirty years or so, I suppose.’ Bill picked up his drink, then put it down again. ‘No, Hitler knocked it about, you see. It used to be the Congregational Church for this area, but it was burnt out in the Blitz. The old club building was completely destroyed, but they say it was much too small anyway. Then his Lordship says, I’ll put up the money if you can find somewhere else and convert it. That was all done, of course, when I started coaching here.’ ‘But not the changing-rooms, I guess.’ ‘That’s right. There was just an outside latrine at the back. The lads’d get all their kit on at home. Or else they just had to change in the gym.’ ‘I suppose he’s always been interested in boxing,’ I asked. ‘Lord Nantwich? Oh, he loves it, yes. I believe he used to be quite a fighter himself. I think that’s why he was interested in the Boys’ Clubs—boxing’s always been at the heart of the Clubs. It’s what holds them together, and the kids respect the boxers, of course. Some of the lads spend all day at the Club. It’s what gives meaning to their lives; they don’t hang around the streets, you know, that lot. What do you do, by the way, Will, if you don’t mind me asking?’ We had got on for years without such questions being put. ‘Ah. Nothing, I’m afraid.’ I tried to make the best of it. ‘Not until now, anyway. Now I’m going to write about Lord Nantwich.’ Bill looked perplexed. ‘How do you mean?’ ‘His life. He’s asked me to do his biography.’ ‘Oh yes …’ He weighed this up and looked again at his untouched drink. ‘You’ll be a kind of ghost writer, don’t they call it?’ I hadn’t thought of this. ‘I don’t think so, no. It’ll just be by me. I think he thinks he’ll be dead by the time it comes out. That’s why I’m trying to find out all about him.’ Bill still looked disturbed. ‘He’s a wonderful man, Lord Nantwich,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the things you’ll find out.’

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He had to change the way he looked as well. He shifted the court from Thebes, where it had been for God knows how long, and set it up at Tel-el-Amarna …’ ‘Aha,’ I said, remembering there had been a battle of that name. ‘As it was all made out of mud, it didn’t survive the end of his régime by long, sad to say. But there are bits and pieces in museums. There’s a thing like this at Cairo. You haven’t been to Cairo. And there’s this one, which has one more head on it. You can see how the artist changed the king’s appearance until he got the image which we know today.’ Looking again, I could see, reading Arabically from right to left, how the wide Pharaonic features were modified, and then modified again, elongated and somehow orientalised, so that they took on, instead of an implacable massiveness, an attitude of sensibility and refinement. A large, blank, almond-shaped eye was shown unrealistically in the profile, and the nose and the jaw were drawn out to an unnatural length. The rearing cobra on the brow was traditional, but its challenge seemed qualified by the subtle expression of the mouth, very beautifully cut, with a fuzz of shadow behind the everted curl of the upper lip. ‘It’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘Where did you get it?’ ‘In Egypt before the war. Made my trunk pretty heavy … I was coming back from the Sudan for the last time.’ ‘It becomes more wonderful the more you think about it.’ I could not have delighted him more. ‘I’m so glad you see the point. For a while it was quite an icon to me.’ The point, as I saw it, was that you could take an aesthetic decision to change shape. The king seemed almost to turn into a woman before our eyes. ‘A chappie came from the Louvre and wrote a thing about it. It doesn’t yet have the Pharaonic beard, you see—you know, the ugly, square beard—which he does have in most of the remaining statues, even the female Pharaohs, whatever they were called, are shown with beards—perfectly lifelike, though, wouldn’t you think?’ Charles loved making these misogynistic gibes. ‘So what happened to him?’ I asked. ‘Ooh—it all came to an end. They went back to worshipping boring old Amon. The whole thing only lasted about twenty years—it could have happened within your lifetime. There are those who say it was a bad thing—like Methodism, someone once declared—but I disagree. Cover him up again will you?’ I put the sun-worshipper back into his millennial darkness. The drawing-room was behind the dining-room and had larger plate-glass windows that brought in all the light they could from a tiny paved garden bounded by a tall whitewashed wall.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I had the privilege of meeting Rosa Parks when I first moved to Montgomery. She would occasionally come back to Montgomery from Detroit, where she lived, to visit dear friends. Johnnie Carr was one of those friends. Ms. Carr had befriended me, and I quickly learned that she was a force of nature—charismatic, powerful, and inspiring. She had been, in many ways, the true architect of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She had organized people and transportation during the boycott and done a lot of the heavy lifting to make it the first successful major action of the modern Civil Rights Movement, and she succeeded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. She was in her late seventies when I first met her. “Now Bryan, I’m going to call you from time to time and I’m going ask you to do this or that and when I ask you to do something you’re going to say ‘Yes, ma’am,’ okay?” I chuckled—and I said, “Yes, ma’am.” She would sometimes call just to check in on me, and on occasion she would invite me over when Ms. Parks came to town. “Bryan, Rosa Parks is coming to town, and we’re going to meet over at Virginia Durr’s house to talk. Do you want to come over and listen?” When Ms. Carr called me, she either wanted me to go some place to “speak” or to go some place to “listen.” Whenever Ms. Parks came to town, I’d be invited to listen. “Oh, yes, ma’am. I’d love to come over and listen,” I’d always say, affirming that I understood what to do when I arrived. Ms. Parks and Ms. Carr would meet at Virginia Durr’s home. Ms. Durr was also a larger-than-life personality. Her husband, Clifford Durr, was an attorney who had represented Dr. King throughout his time in Montgomery. Ms. Durr was determined to confront injustice well into her nineties. She frequently asked me to accompany her to various places or invited me over to dinner. EJI started renting her home for our law students and staff during the summers when she was away. When I would go over to Ms. Durr’s home to listen to these three formidable women, Rosa Parks was always very kind and generous with me. Years later, I would occasionally meet her at events in other states, and I ended up spending a little time with her. But mostly, I just loved hearing her and Ms. Carr and Ms. Durr talk. They would talk and talk and talk. Laughing, telling stories, and bearing witness about what could be done when people stood up (or sat down, in Ms. Parks’s case). They were always so spirited together. Even after all they’d done, their focus was always on what they still planned to do for civil rights.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Do you know this restaurant, James?’ ‘Where did you go?’ ‘The Crépuscule des Dieux.’ He chuckled. ‘It ought to be just up your street …’ He meant, because of Wagner, though he can’t have been unaware of the discreetly homosexual style of the whole place, the waiters in tails with long white aprons, the rich older men treating their bored and flirtatious young dolly-boys. ‘Not the food for you, though, perhaps—all swimming in blood!’ James loathed jokes of this kind but he managed a disgusted smile. He’d passed a demanding New Year at Marden once, subsisting entirely on roast potatoes and Stilton, and pretending indifference as chargers of pheasant, goose and almost raw beef were borne in by the staff. Upstairs, my grandfather remembered the name of the doorman who walked along the corridor with us, saying, just at the last moment, ‘And how’s your wife, Roy?’ (Roy being the man’s surname rather than his Christian name). ‘I’m afraid she died, my Lord,’ Roy said in a well-seasoned way. Here was a test for my grandfather, for a merely courtesy concern had turned on him and presented him with a real little tragedy. I stood and watched him pat the man on the back in a brotherly way, and nod his head impressively. ‘They’re pretty terrible, these bereavements,’ he said. ‘And it doesn’t get any better, I’m afraid.’ As Roy said, ‘No, my lord,’ he was already leaving him, having done the convincingly human thing and yet not involved himself in the least. He pulled the door to and placed us, him in the middle, and James nearer the stage. My grandfather was a Director of Covent Garden, and I had seen many operas with him from this same box. Yet I never felt it was a good point to watch the performance from: for the privacy and elevation of the box we paid the cost of seeing the orchestra, a view into the wings and an imperfect vantage on the upper stage. The privacy, anyway, was an ambiguous thing, since the eyes of the stalls dwelt on the boxes as though on the balconies of a royal residence. I was aware of the bad effect this had on me—an affected unawareness of the rest of the house, exaggerated laughter and enthralment in the remarks of my companions. I did not like myself much for this—indeed the box represented to me in some ways the penalties of exposure, discomfort and pitilessness which were paid for privilege. Tonight I sprawled over the red plush sill and let James and my grandfather talk until the lights went down.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Walter was smart enough to see the trend. He started his own pulpwood business that evolved with the timber industry in the 1970s. He astutely—and bravely—borrowed money to buy his own power saw, tractor, and pulpwood truck. By the 1980s, he had developed a solid business that didn’t generate a lot of extra money but afforded him a gratifying degree of independence. If he had worked at the mill or the factory or had had some other unskilled job—the kind that most poor black people in South Alabama worked—it would invariably mean working for white business owners and dealing with all the racial stress that that implied in Alabama in the 1970s and 1980s. Walter couldn’t escape the reality of racism, but having his own business in a growing sector of the economy gave him a latitude that many African Americans did not enjoy. That independence won Walter some measure of respect and admiration, but it also cultivated contempt and suspicion, especially outside of Monroeville’s black community. Walter’s freedom was, for some of the white people in town, well beyond what African Americans with limited education were able to achieve through legitimate means. Still, he was pleasant, respectful, generous, and accommodating, which made him well liked by the people with whom he did business, whether black or white. Walter was not without his flaws. He had long been known as a ladies’ man. Even though he had married young and had three children with his wife, Minnie, it was well known that he was romantically involved with other women. “Tree work” is notoriously demanding and dangerous. With few ordinary comforts in his life, the attention of women was something Walter did not easily resist. There was something about his rough exterior—his bushy long hair and uneven beard—combined with his generous and charming nature that attracted the attention of some women. Walter grew up understanding how forbidden it was for a black man to be intimate with a white woman, but by the 1980s he had allowed himself to imagine that such matters might be changing. Perhaps if he hadn’t been successful enough to live off his own business he would have more consistently kept in mind those racial lines that could never be crossed. As it was, Walter didn’t initially think much of the flirtations of Karen Kelly, a young white woman he’d met at the Waffle House where he ate breakfast. She was attractive, but he didn’t take her too seriously. When her flirtations became more explicit, Walter hesitated, and then persuaded himself that no one would ever know.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  In referring to Bandung, he was referring less, he said, to the liberation of black peoples than he was saluting the reality and the toughness of their culture, which, despite the vicissitudes of their history, had refused to perish. We were now witnessing, in fact, the beginning of its renaissance. This renaissance would owe less to politics than it would to black writers and artists. The "spirit of Bandung" had had the effect of "sending them to school to Mr ica." One of the things, said Senghor-perhaps the thing-which distinguishes Mr icans from Eur opeans is the comparative ur gency of their ability to feel. asentir c'est apercevoir": it is perhaps a tribute to his personal force that this phrase then meant something which makes the literal English translation quite inadequate, seeming to leave too great a distance be tween the feeling and the perception. The feeling and the perception, for Af ricans, is one and the same thing. This is the difference between Eur opean and Mr ican reasoning: the reasoning of the Mr ican is not compartmentalized, and, to illustrate this, Senghor here used the image of the blood stream in which all things mingle and flow to and through 150 NOBODY KN OWS MY NAME the heart. He told us that the difference between the function of the arts in Eur ope and their function in Africa lay in the tact that, in Africa, the function of the arts is more present and pervasive, is infinitely less special, "is done by all, fo r all." Thus, art f(>r art's sake is not a concept which makes any sense in Africa. The division between art and lite out of which such a concept comes does not exist there. Art itself is taken to be perishable, to be made again each time it dis appears or is de stroy ed. What is clung to is the spirit which makes art pos sible. And the African idea of this spirit is very ditl erent from the Eur opean idea. Euro pean art attempts to imitate nature. Af rican art is concerned with reaching beyond and beneath na ture, to contact, and itself become a part of Ia force vita/e. The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the fo rce the thing contains. Thus, the moon is fecundity, the elephant is fo rce. Much of this made great sense to me, even though Senghor was speaking of� and out of� a way of lite which I could only \'CIT dimly and perhaps somewhat wistfully imagine. It was the esthetic which attracted me, the idea that the work of art expresses, contains, and is itself a part of that energy which is lite. Yet, I was aware that Senghor's thought had come into my mind translate d.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I thought this was extremely interesting, and my grandfather looked pleased, as if he had belatedly discovered the use of something he had dutifully been carrying about for years. I felt matters had subtly changed, an admission been made. But then that ‘understandable’ dislike of Britten and Pears—there was a little phrase I might myself take on through life, wanting to forget it or to disprove the unpleasant truth it hinted at. I tilted out the last of the champagne and watched James talking to his host. I seemed to see him as a boy, a shy but exemplary sixth-former reporting to a master. The open score on the sill of the box was like a book in a portrait codifying some special accomplishment, the entry to a world of sensibility where he had found himself when young, and to which, hard-working and solitary, he must still have access. I was smiling reflectively, perhaps irritatingly, at him as we were joined by Barton Maggs, one of the most assiduous and proprietary opera-goers in London and abroad, on his interval tour of the nobs. ‘Oh dear, oh dear—Denis, Will …’ He nodded upswept, sandy eyebrows at us. ‘Do you know James Brooke? Professor Maggs …’ He discharged a further nod at James. He seemed to be out of breath, getting round everybody in time, and his weight was emphasised by a too tight and youthful seersucker suit and white moccasins on small womanly feet. ‘Fair to middling, I’d say, wouldn’t you?’ he proposed. ‘We were just saying how good we thought it was.’ Maggs had no sense of humour and no awareness either that we would instinctively treat him with irony. ‘Oh dear—it’s funny, isn’t it, I always think how funny, there not being any women in it. Some people claim not to notice.’ He looked around as if anything might happen. ‘You couldn’t have women in it, though, could you. I mean, it takes place on a ship.’ I felt that just about summed it up. My grandfather engaged with it drolly. ‘Still, I think you want a sort of Buttercup figure, don’t you, Barty—selling tobacco and peppermints to the crew …’ ‘Perhaps Captain Vere’s sisters and his cousins and his aunts could be brought in,’ I said. ‘I’m sure they’d quell any mutiny.’ ‘Oh yes, h’m. I do miss hearing a good soprano though,’ he said, and looked almost bereft, as if Britten had let him down in not providing the display of palpitating femininity that so many homosexuals crave. The warning bell was already ringing and he busily took his leave. My grandfather was reminiscing about Forster again (matter which was all new to me as well, so that I asked myself why I had never as it were interviewed him about his past) when James broke in a second time. ‘I say, isn’t that Pears down there?’ We all turned to look.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  First, they quote the following words of St. Chrysostom (Dialogue, lib. VI.). “Let any man show me a monk resembling even Elias, and let us grant that this monk, living alone, without annoyance or vexation of any kind, is not troubled by temptation, and does not fall into grave sin. I tell you, nevertheless, that such a man is not to be compared to one, who, although the minister of the people, and laden with the sins of men, perseveres with energy and fidelity.” These words naturally convey the impression that no monk, howsoever perfect he may be, can bear comparison with a priest who is entrusted with the cure of souls, and who discharges his trust with diligence. Again, St. Chrysostom says, “Were I given my choice as to whether I would prefer to serve God in the functions of the priesthood, or in monastic solitude, I should, without hesitation, choose the first of these conditions.” Hence the cure of souls is, indubitably, to be preferred to religious solitude, which is reckoned as the most perfect state of life. Again, St. Augustine, in his epistle to Valerius, says, “Do thou, in thy religious prudence, mark well the following truth. Of all things in the world, especially in our days, there is nothing so easy, so pleasant, so attractive to human nature, as to be a perfunctory and time-serving bishop, priest, or deacon. Yet, in the eyes of God, no sight is so execrable, so sad, or so worthy of condemnation, as these sacred offices fulfilled in such a manner. On the other hand, there is nothing in life, especially in our days, more difficult, more laborious or more beset by danger, than is the office of bishop, priest, or deacon. Yet, in the eyes of God, no one presents a more glorious spectacle, than he who, in such an office, fights manfully, according to the precepts of our Sovereign Master.” Hence, the religious life is not a more perfect state than is that of priests or deacons, who have the cure of souls, and whose duty it is to mingle with men.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ALCUIN. Or thus; Christ, being both God and man, He shews the proper existence of both, by sometimes speaking according to the nature he took from man, sometimes according to the majesty of the Godhead. If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true: this is to be understood of His humanity; the sense being, If I, a man, bear witness of Myself, i. e. without God, My witness is not true: and then follows, There is another that beareth witness of Me. The Father bore witness of Christ, by the voice which was heard at the baptism, and at the transfiguration on the mount. And I know that His witness is true; because He is the God of truth. How then can His witness be otherwise than true? CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xl. 2) But according to the former interpretation, they might say to Him, If Thy witness is not true, how sayest Thou, I know that the witness of John is true? But His answer meets the objection: Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness of the truth: as if to say: Ye would not have sent to John, if ye had not thought him worthy of credit. And what is more remarkable, they did send to him, not to ask Him about Christ, but about himself. For they who were sent out did not say, What sayest thou of Christ? but, Who art thou? what sayest thou of thyself? (c. 1:22) In so great admiration did they hold him. ALCUIN. But he bore witness not to himself, but to the truth: as the friend of the truth, he bore witness to the truth, i. e. Christ. Our Lord, on His part, does not reject the witness of John, as not being necessary, but shews only that men ought not to give such attention to John as to forget that Christ’s witness was all that was necessary to Himself. But I receive not, He says, testimony from men. BEDE. Because I do not want it. John, though he bore witness, did it not that Christ might increase, but that men might be brought to the knowledge of Him.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Malcolm consid ered himself to be the spiritual property of the people who produced him. He did not consider himself to be their sav iour, he was far too modest for that, and gave that role to another; but he considered himself to be their servant and in order not to betray that trust, he was willing to die, and died. Malcolm was not a racist, not even when he thought he was. His intelligence was more complex than that; furthermore, if he had been a racist, not many in this racist country would NO NAM E IN THE STRE ET have considered him dangerous. He would have sounded f.1miliar and even comforting, his familiar rage confirming the reality of white power and sensuously inflaming a bizarre species of guilty eroticism without which, I am beginning to believe, most white Americans of the more or less liberal persuasion cannot draw a single breath. What made him un familiar and dangerous was not his hatred for white people but his love for blacks, his apprehension of the horror of the black condition, and the reasons for it, and his determination so to work on their heans and minds that they would be en abled to see their condition and change it themselves. For this, after all, not only were no white people needed; they posed, en bloc, the very greatest obstacle to black self knowledge and had to be considered a menace. But white people have played so dominant a role in the world's history for so long that such an attitude toward them constitutes the most disagreeable of novelties; and it may be added that, though they have never learned how to live with the darker brother, they do not look fotward to having to learn how to live without him. Malcolm, finally, was a genuine revolution ary, a virile impulse long since fled from the American way of lif e-in himself, indeed, he was a kind of revolution, both in the sense of a return to a former principle, and in the sense of an upheaval. It is pointless to speculate on his probable fate had he been legally white. Given the white man's options, it is probably just as well for all of us that he was legally black. In some church someday, so far unimagined and unimagina ble, he will be hailed as a saint.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  New York: CIJades Scribne1''s Sons. Cloth, $rs.9s. Paper, $1.95. T ONI MoRRISON, that handsome and perceptive lady, once remarked that, in spite of all the other elements which more immediately meet the eye, she was struck by the quantity of "sheer intelligence" which went into the forging of black lif e in America- without which "intelligence," sim ply, none of us would have survived. Similarly, while reading Earl "Fatha" Hines's vast and beautiful document, I am struck by the sheer generosity of the man , and the people he lived with, whom he shares with us. Hines is describing hard trials, good times, bad times, narrow escapes-but the book is never petty or mean and never bitter. Such generosity may also be a function of the intelligence; it gives lif e, certainly, heals, and saves. In "The World of Earl Hines," Stanley Dance, the British jazz critic and author of "The World of Duke Ellington" and "The World of Swing," has compiled Earl Hines's taped rec ord of his lif e and music. It is an oral history-s panning 72 years, from Hines's birth in Duquesne, Pa., through his rise to prominence as a pianist, singer and bandleadcr in the 1920's, his "rcdiscovciy" in the late so's, and on to his present acclaim as "the last of the great masters." Complementing Hines's own words arc Dance's interviews with other jazz greats who knew and played with Hines; Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Wilson, Budd Johnson and Billy Eckstinc arc among those who give their impressions of "Fatha ." But it is difl icult to assess or discuss so loaded and tremen dous a record. It is impossible to do justice to a book in which one meets King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Valaida Snow, Duke Ellington, Count Basic, Benny Goodman, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Ethel Waters (" she used some lan guage I won't usc here") Ella Fitzgerald (on opening nights, "a nervous wreck" ), Cha rlie Parker (" It was too bad he got 770 LAST OF THE GR EA T MASTE RS 771 mixed up with the wrong crowd. He was a fine boy and there was nothing wrong with him at all when it came to his char acter. All the harm he did he did to himself. ") And Jack Tea garden and Johnny Hodges, and Joe Louis, and the dapper Billy Eckstine taking very literally a Southern cafe owner's warning: "You can't drink it in here." "I'm not going to drink it in here," Mr. E. replied, and threw the coff ee all over the man. For there is the reality of lif e on the American road, for Earl Hines and all his swinging, singing boys and girls. (" When we traveled by train through the South, they would send a porter back to our car to let us know when the dining room was cleared, and then we would all go in together. We couldn't cat when we wanted to.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  In some cases, clients had already been in prison for decades and had very few, if any, support systems to help them re-enter society. We decided to create a re-entry program to assist these clients. EJI’s program was specifically developed for people who have spent many years in prison after being incarcerated when they were children. We were committed to providing services, housing, job training, life skills, counseling, and anything else people coming out of prison needed to succeed. We told the judges and parole boards we were committed to providing the assistance our clients required. In particular, the Louisiana clients serving life without parole for non-homicides faced many challenges. We undertook representation of all sixty of those eligible for relief in Louisiana. Almost all of them were at Angola, a notoriously difficult place to do time, especially in the 1970s and 1980s when many had first arrived. For many years, violence was so bad at Angola that it was almost impossible to be incarcerated and not get disciplinaries—additional punishments or time tacked onto your sentence—due to conflicts with another inmate or staff. Prisoners were required to do manual labor in very difficult work environments or face solitary confinement or other disciplinary action. It was not uncommon for inmates to be seriously injured, losing fingers or limbs, after working long hours in brutal and dangerous conditions. For years, Angola—a slave plantation before the end of the Civil War—forced inmates to work in the fields picking cotton. Prisoners who refused would receive “write-ups” that went into their files and face months of solitary confinement. The horrible conditions of confinement and their constantly being told that they would die in prison no matter how well they behaved meant that most of our clients had long lists of disciplinaries. At the resentencing hearings we were preparing, state lawyers were using these prior disciplinaries to argue against favorable new sentences. Remarkably, several former juvenile lifers had developed outstanding institutional histories with very few disciplinaries, even though they did their time with no hope of ever being released or having their institutional history reviewed. Some became trustees, mentors, and advocates against violence among inmates. Others had become law librarians, journalists, and gardeners. Angola evolved over time to have some excellent programs for incarcerated people who stayed out of trouble, and many of our clients took full advantage.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 1: Some have said that in the case of the Innocents the use of their free will was miraculously accelerated, so that they suffered martyrdom even voluntarily. Since, however, Scripture contains no proof of this, it is better to say that these babes in being slain obtained by God’s grace the glory of martyrdom which others acquire by their own will. For the shedding of one’s blood for Christ’s sake takes the place of Baptism. Wherefore just as in the case of baptized children the merit of Christ is conducive to the acquisition of glory through the baptismal grace, so in those who were slain for Christ’s sake the merit of Christ’s martyrdom is conducive to the acquisition of the martyr’s palm. Hence Augustine says in a sermon on the Epiphany (De Diversis lxvi), as though he were addressing them: “A man that does not believe that children are benefited by the baptism of Christ will doubt of your being crowned in suffering for Christ. You were not old enough to believe in Christ’s future sufferings, but you had a body wherein you could endure suffering of Christ Who was to suffer.” Reply to Objection 2: Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i) that “possibly the Church was induced by certain credible witnesses of Divine authority thus to honor the memory of those holy women [*Cf.[3306] Q[64], A[1], ad 2].” Reply to Objection 3: The precepts of the Law are about acts of virtue. Now it has been stated ([3307]FS, Q[108], A[1], ad 4) that some of the precepts of the Divine Law are to be understood in reference to the preparation of the mind, in the sense that man ought to be prepared to do such and such a thing, whenever expedient. In the same way certain things belong to an act of virtue as regards the preparation of the mind, so that in such and such a case a man should act according to reason. And this observation would seem very much to the point in the case of martyrdom, which consists in the right endurance of sufferings unjustly inflicted. Nor ought a man to give another an occasion of acting unjustly: yet if anyone act unjustly, one ought to endure it in moderation. Whether martyrdom is an act of fortitude?Objection 1: It seems that martyrdom is not an act of fortitude. For the Greek {martyr} signifies a witness. Now witness is borne to the faith of Christ. according to Acts 1:8, “You shall be witnesses unto Me,” etc. and Maximus says in a sermon: “The mother of martyrs is the Catholic faith which those glorious warriors have sealed with their blood.” Therefore martyrdom is an act of faith rather than of fortitude.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  On the contrary, Augustine (De Sanct. Virgin. xlvi) prefers martyrdom to virginity which pertains to perfection. Therefore martyrdom seems to belong to perfection in the highest degree. I answer that, We may speak of an act of virtue in two ways. First, with regard to the species of that act, as compared to the virtue proximately eliciting it. In this way martyrdom, which consists in the due endurance of death, cannot be the most perfect of virtuous acts, because endurance of death is not praiseworthy in itself, but only in so far as it is directed to some good consisting in an act of virtue, such as faith or the love of God, so that this act of virtue being the end is better. A virtuous act may be considered in another way, in comparison with its first motive cause, which is the love of charity, and it is in this respect that an act comes to belong to the perfection of life, since, as the Apostle says (Col. 3:14), that “charity . . . is the bond of perfection.” Now, of all virtuous acts martyrdom is the greatest proof of the perfection of charity: since a man’s love for a thing is proved to be so much the greater, according as that which he despises for its sake is more dear to him, or that which he chooses to suffer for its sake is more odious. But it is evident that of all the goods of the present life man loves life itself most, and on the other hand he hates death more than anything, especially when it is accompanied by the pains of bodily torment, “from fear of which even dumb animals refrain from the greatest pleasures,” as Augustine observes (QQ[83], qu. 36). And from this point of view it is clear that martyrdom is the most perfect of human acts in respect of its genus, as being the sign of the greatest charity, according to Jn. 15:13: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Reply to Objection 1: There is no act of perfection, which is a matter of counsel, but what in certain cases is a matter of precept, as being necessary for salvation. Thus Augustine declares (De Adult. Conjug. xiii) that a man is under the obligation of observing continency, through the absence or sickness of his wife. Hence it is not contrary to the perfection of martyrdom if in certain cases it be necessary for salvation, since there are cases when it is not necessary for salvation to suffer martyrdom; thus we read of many holy martyrs who through zeal for the faith or brotherly love gave themselves up to martyrdom of their own accord. As to these precepts, they are to be understood as referring to the preparation of the mind.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  This encounter took place at 5 A. M., in Oakland, on October 28, 1 967-on the same day, oddly enough, that Tony Maynard, hal fWay across the world, was also being arrested for murder. I had been in San Francisco with my sister, Gloria, I to hide out in a friend's house, working, and she to look after me, and also, poor girl, to rest. It had been a hard, embattled year and we were simply holding our breath, waiting for it to end. We hoped, with that apprehension refugees must feel when they are approaching a border, that the passage would be un noticeable and that no further disasters would whiten the blea ching year. A very old friend of mine, a black lady-old in the sense of friendship, indeterminate as to age-made a big West Indian dinner for us in her apartment, and it was also on this evening that I first met Eldridge Cleaver . I'd heard a lot about Cleaver, but all that I knew of Huey Newton was that poster of him in that elab orate chair, as the Black Panthers' Minister of De fense. I talked to him very little that evening. He and Gloria talked, and, as I remember, they scarcely talked to anyone else. I was very impressed by H uey-by his youth, his intelligence, and by a kind of vivid anxiety of hope in him which made his face keep changing as lights failed or flared within. Gloria was impressed by his manners. She had expected, I know, an in tolerant, rabble-rousing type who might address her, sneer ingly, as "sister," and put her down for not wearing a natural, and give her an interminable, intolerable, and intolerant lec ture on the meaning of "bla ck." "I am tired," Gloria some times said, "of these middle-class, college-educated darkies who never saw a rat or a roach in their lives and who never starved or worked a day-who just turned black last week coming and telling me what it means to be black ." Huey TO BE BAP TIZED 459 wasn't and isn't like that at all. Huey talks a lot-he has a lot to talk about-but Huey listens. Anyway, the two of them got on famously. Before we parted, Hu ey ga,·e me several Black Panther newspapers (the beginning of my file on the Panthers, Mr. Mitchell) and he and Eldridge and I promised to keep in touch, and to see each other soon. I was very much impressed by Eldridge, too- it's impossi ble not to be impressed by him-but I felt a certain constraint between us. I felt that he didn't like me-or not exa ctly that: that he considered me a rather doubtful quantit y.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Only Sandy actually said, as I climbed into the car where he had been resting all this while, ‘Poodlefaking with Chancey Brough, eh? You wicked little slut.’ Later, on the journey, though with Tim this time on the other side of me, Chancey, feeling all rejected, having chosen to ride in the front, Sandy said, his eyes closed & I had thought asleep, ‘So tell me about our bourgeois Priapus, Charlie,’ quite loudly, so that I had to tickle him & fight all the way back to College … It was the middle of the evening, and not too late, I thought, to ring Charles up. I was amused to see that there were two C. Nantwiches in the directory, and that mine did not choose to distinguish himself from his namesake in Excelsior Gardens, SE 13. The phone was answered at once by a brusque-sounding man, evidently Lewis’s replacement; I was relieved that Charles had found someone and felt ashamed of my self-centred neglect of the old boy. ‘I’ll see if his Lordship’s in,’ said the man, which struck me as an especially absurd formula in this case. Charles came on almost immediately. ‘Hello! Hello!’ he was going. He had evidently started talking before picking up the receiver. ‘Charles! It’s William … William Beckwith.’ ‘My dear. How frightfully pleasant to hear you. Are you reading my stuff?’ ‘I certainly am. I was just ringing to say how terrific I think it is.’ ‘Are you enjoying it, then?’ ‘I think it’s wonderful. I’ve just read about you and Chancey Brough in the woods near Witney.’ ‘Oh …?’ I chose not to elaborate on something he appeared, at least, to have forgotten. But I was very struck that, as well as the Winchester stuff, which, despite its period, spoke for me too, down to the very details of places and customs, there was a much less expected fore-echo of my own life in the episode of the Old Castle.