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 My People (2022)

  Edwards is “determined to keep fighting—not with my fists, but with my brains and with my dignity.” It is that spirit and endurance that mark the handful of black women doctors in the New York–New Jersey area who in the mid-1920s pioneered in overcoming barriers of race and sex, not only in medical schools but also in their practices in hospitals and among blacks as well as whites. According to the Census Bureau, there were sixty-five black women doctors in this country in 1920. By 1970, according to the bureau, there were 1,051. On a recent Sunday, black women doctors in the metropolitan area, who now number over one hundred, honored Dr. Edwards and five other black physicians who began practicing in the 1920s, including Dr. Agnes Griffin, who at eighty-one is still practicing ophthalmology in the parlor floor office of her Brooklyn brownstone. The six women were cited by the Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society at a luncheon at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Cumulatively, they have more than three hundred years’ medical practice. The two-year-old society, according to Dr. Muriel Petioni, its president, is one of the first organizations of black women doctors in the country. Its aims are to aid young black women medical students and to document the achievements of black physicians. Dr. Steward, for whom the society was named, was an 1870 graduate of the New York Medical College for Women, and, according to the society, was the third black woman in the United States to have formal medical training. Only one of the honorees—Dr. E. Mae McCarroll, a 1925 graduate of the Women’s Medical College in Pennsylvania—has left the area, and she could not attend the luncheon. The seventy-seven-year-old doctor, who in 1946 became the first black appointed to a Newark City Hospital, formally closed her Newark practice in 1973. Dr. May E. Chinn, one of the society’s founders, was one of those honored. She recalled that her father, who had been a slave, opposed her even going to college. But her mother, who “scrubbed floors and hired out as cook,” became the driving force behind her educational effort. She was the first black woman graduate of the University of Bellevue Medical Center—there were four in this year’s graduating class—and the first to in 1926 intern at the then predominantly white Harlem Hospital. The hospital is now mostly black, and five of the thirty interns are black women. Now eighty-one and somewhat incapacitated by an operation last year which caused her to give up her position as a doctor for day care centers with the Department of Health, Dr. Chinn spends most of her days writing her memoirs in her apartment on the western edge of Harlem—not far from where she conducted most of her medical practice. Dr. Chinn said that one of the first obstacles she had to overcome was the attitude of blacks toward her. Once a black woman patient wept when she approached because, as Dr.

• From My People (2022)

  Johnson said that Shuffle Along , the 1921 show based on a book by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles with music by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, introduced “hoofers” to Broadway. “Prior to this,” Dr. Johnson said, “white girls were prancers rather than dancers. But when the black girls came along with hoofing, it was earthshaking rather than stage-shaking. “They showed Broadway something new. Whites had never danced that fast, and their speed and rhythm were always mentioned. And the fact that they could dance and sing at the same time was totally new. “Ziegfeld hired black men to teach his dancers to dance,” she said. Her theater research is revealing “social, economic, and cultural history that no other research quite reveals,” Dr. Johnson said, reporting that Flournoy Miller, the creator of the prototypes of Amos ’n’ Andy, in 1952 was taking home only eighty-six dollars from CBS. “It just represents the great irony that is characteristically true of the interrelationship of whites and blacks in the theater. So many of the whites learned from blacks, were taught by blacks and were written for by blacks, and yet made far more money than the originators of the material.” So far, Dr. Johnson has not had much luck with the covered silver vegetable dish she keeps prominently displayed on a table in her museum, next to a sign marked “Donations.” “People come and marvel about the collection, and in passing pick up the dish, look in it, and put it back down. Empty.” Nor have her long, detailed letters to foundations turned up anything so far, although the 21st Century Foundation, which is black controlled, has recently indicated some initial interest. So far she has put up most of the financing herself. “The old-timers have been unbelievably generous,” Dr. Johnson mused recently. “And I have been embarrassed that I could not even offer them modest sums. Most of them are living on fixed incomes, and I would like to be able to repay them—if even in just a small way.” Street Academy Program Sends School “Walk-Outs” to CollegesThe New York Times JULY 15, 1971 Forty-two students who “walked out” of the public school system graduated yesterday from the New York Urban League Street Academy Program and are bound for colleges across the country. Earlier this year, because of the program’s financial problems, it was uncertain that this day would come. The graduation, called an “exercise in innovation,” was held in Morningside Park, where the students, ranging in age from sixteen to twenty-six, sat under a bright sun, surrounded by their families, friends, and teachers. Neighborhood children played nearby. The audience included a former academy student, Yvonne Wright, now a sophomore at the University of Kentucky, where she reportedly scored so high on her English comprehension test when she first went there that officials could not believe she had taken the test herself.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  As to temper, the even sweetness of it made him seem born for domestic happiness: tender, naturally polite, and gentle-manner’d; it could never be his fault, if ever jars, or animosities ruffled a calm he was so qualified every way to maintain or restore. Without those great or shining qualities that constitute a genius, or are fit to make a noise in the world, he had all those humble ones that compose the softer social merit: plain common sense, set off with every grace of modesty and good nature, made him, if not admired, what is much happier: universally beloved and esteemed. But, as nothing but the beauties of his person had at first attracted my regard and fixed my passion, neither was I then a judge of the internal merit, which I had afterwards full occasion to discover, and which, perhaps, in that season of giddiness and levity, would have touched my heart very little, had it been lodged in a person less the delight of my eyes, and idol of my senses. But to return to our situation. After dinner, which we ate a-bed in most voluptuous disorder, Charles got up, and taking a passionate leave of me for a few hours, went to town, where concerting matters with a young sharp lawyer, they went together to my late venerable mistress’s, from whence I had, but the day before, made my elopement, and with whom he was determined to settle accounts, in a manner that should cut off all after reckonings from that quarter. Accordingly they went; but by the way, the Templar, his friend, on thinking over Charles’s information, saw reason to give their visit another turn, and, instead of offering satisfaction, to demand it. On being let in, the girls of the house flocked round Charles, whom they knew, and from the earlyness of my escape, and their perfect ignorance of his ever having so much as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his being accessory to my flight, they were, in their way, making up to him; and as to his companion, they took him probably for a fresh cully. But the Templar soon checked their forwardness, by enquiring for the old lady, with whom he said, with a grave-like countenance, that he had some business to settle. Madam was immediately sent for down, and the ladies being desired to clear the room, the lawyer asked her, severely, if she did know, or had not decoyed, under pretence of hiring as a servant, a young girl, just come out of the country, called Frances or Fanny Hill, describing me withal as particularly as he could from Charlie’s description.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Rodin was forty years of age, dark-haired, with shaggy eye-brows, a sparkling bright eye; there was about him what bespoke strength and health but, at the same time, libertinage. In wealth he was risen far above his native station, possessing from ten to twelve thousand pounds a year; owing to which, if Rodin practiced his surgical art, it was not out of necessity, but out of taste; he had a very attractive house in Saint-Marcel which, since the death of his wife two years previously, he shared with two girls, who were his servants, and with another, who was his own daughter. This young person, Rosalie by name, had just reached her fourteenth year; in her were gathered all the charms most capable of exciting admiration: the figure of a nymph, an oval face, clear, lovely, extraordinarily animated, delicate pretty features, very piquant as well, the prettiest mouth possible, very large dark eyes, soulful and full of feeling, chestnut-brown hair falling to below her waist, skin of an incredible whiteness... aglow, smooth, already the most beautiful throat in all the world, and, furthermore, wit, vivacity, and one of the most beautiful souls Nature has yet created. With respect to the companions with whom I was to serve in this household, they were two peasant girls: one of them was a governess, the other the cook. She who held the first post could have been twenty-five, the other eighteen or twenty, and both were extremely attractive; their looks suggested a deliberate choice, and this in turn caused the birth of some suspicions as to why Rodin was pleased to accommodate me. What need has he of a third woman ? I asked myself, and why does he wish them all to be pretty? Assuredly, I continued, there is something in all this that little conforms with the regular manners from which I wish never to stray; we'll see. In consequence, I besought Monsieur Rodin to allow me to extend my convalescence at his home for yet another week, declaring that, at the end of this time, he would have my reply to what he had very kindly proposed. I profited from this interval by attaching myself more closely to Rosalie, determined to establish myself in her father's house only if there should prove to be nothing about it whence I might be obliged to take umbrage. With these designs, I cast appraising glances in every direction, and, on the following day, I noticed that this man enjoyed an arrangement which straightway provoked in me furious doubts concerning his behavior.

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  As there is no remedy to sexual politics in marriage, Lucy very logically doesn’t marry. But it is also impossible for a Victorian novel to recommend a woman not marry. So Paul suffers a quiet sea burial. Had Brontë’s heroine “adjusted” herself to society, compromised, and gone under, we should never have heard from her. Had Bronte herself not grown up in a house of half-mad sisters with a domestic tyrant for father, no “prospects,” as marital security was referred to, and with only the confines of governessing and celibacy staring at her from the future, her chief release the group fantasy of “Angria,” that collective dream these strange siblings played all their lives, composing stories about a never-never land where women could rule, exercise power, govern the state, declare night and day, death and life-then we would never have heard from Charlotte either.188 Had that been the case, we might never have known what a resurrected soul wished to tell upon emerging from several millennia of subordination. Literary criticism of the Brontës has been a long game of masculine prejudice wherein the player either proves they can’t write and are hopeless primitives, whereupon the critic sets himself up like a schoolmaster to edit their stuff and point out where they went wrong, or converts them into case histories from the wilds. occasionally prefacing his moves with a few pseudo-sympathetic remarks about the windy house On the moors, or old maidhood, following with an attack on every truth the novels contain, waged by anxious pedants who fear Charlotte might “castrate” them or Emily “unman” them with her passion. There is bitterness and anger in Villette—and rightly so. One finds a good deal of it in Richard Wright’s Black Boy, too. To label it neurotic is to mistake symptom for cause in the hope of protecting oneself from what could be upsetting. What should surprise us is not Lucy’s wry annoyance, but her affection and compassion-even her wit. Villette is one of the wittier novels in English and one of the rare witty books in an age which specialized in sentimental comedy. What is most satisfying of all is the astonishing degree of consciousness one finds in the work, the justice of its analysis, the fairness of its observations, the generous degree of self-criticism. Although occasionally flawed with mawkish nonsense (there is a creditable amount of Victorian syrup in Villette), it is nevertheless one of the most interesting books of the period and, as an expression of revolutionary sensibility, a work of some importance.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Then a neck exquisitely turned, graved behind and on the sides with fais hair, playing freely in natural ringlets, connected his head to a body of the most perfect form, and of the most vigorous contexture, in which all the strength of manhood was concealed, and softened to appearance by the delicacy of his complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and the plumpness of his flesh. The platform of his snow white bosom, that was laid out in a manly proportion, presented, on the vermilion summit of each pap, the idea of a rose about to blow. Nor did his shirt hinder me from observing the symmetry of his limbs, that exactness of shape, in the fall of it towards the loins, where the waist ends and the rounding swell of the hips commences; where the skin, sleek, smooth, and dazzling white, burnishes on; the stretch-over firm, plump, ripe flesh, that crimped’ and ran into dimples at the least pressure, or that the touch could not rest upon, but slid over on the surface of the most polished ivory. His thighs, finely fashioned, and with a florid glossy roundness, gradually tapering away to the knees, seemed pillars worthy to support that beauteous frame at the bottom of which I could not, without some remains of terror, some tender emotions too, fix my eyes on that terrible machine, which had, not long before, with such fury broke into, torn, and almost ruined those soft, tender parts of mine, that had not yet done smarting with the effects of its rage; but behold it now! crest fallen, reclining its half-caped vermilion head over one of his thighs, quiet, pliant, and to all appearances incapable of the mischiefs and cruelty it had committed.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  She didn’t even tell our parents or grandmother or me before she left. She called Mom from St. Ignatius, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, and said, “Hey, Mom, I’m a married woman now. I want to have ten babies and live here forever and ever.” How weird is that? It’s almost romantic. And then I realized that my sister was trying to LIVE a romance novel. Man, that takes courage and imagination. Well, it also took some degree of mental illness, too, but I was suddenly happy for her. And a little scared. [image "An illustration of a book cover of ‘The Stranger from Montana’ by an unknown author. An excerpt from the book is included." file=image_rsrc4SF.jpg] Well, a lot scared. She was trying to live out her dream. We should have all been delirious that she’d moved out of the basement. We’d been trying to get her out of there for years. Of course, my mother and father would have been happy if she’d just gotten a part-time job at the post office or trading post, and maybe just moved into an upstairs bedroom in our house. But I just kept thinking that my sister’s spirit hadn’t been killed. She hadn’t given up. This reservation had tried to suffocate her, had kept her trapped in a basement, and now she was out roaming the huge grassy fields of Montana. How cool! I felt inspired. Of course, my parents and grandmother were in shock. They thought my sister and I were going absolutely crazy. But I thought we were being warriors, you know? And a warrior isn’t afraid of confrontation. So I went to school the next day and walked right up to Gordy the Genius White Boy. “Gordy,” I said. “I need to talk to you.” “I don’t have time,” he said. “Mr. Orcutt and I have to debug some PCs. Don’t you hate PCs? They are sickly and fragile and vulnerable to viruses. PCs are like French people living during the bubonic plague.” Wow, and people thought I was a freak. “I much prefer Macs, don’t you?” he asked. “They’re so poetic.” This guy was in love with computers. I wondered if he was secretly writing a romance about a skinny, white boy genius who was having sex with a half-breed Apple computer. “Computers are computers,” I said. “One or the other, it’s all the same.” Gordy sighed. “So, Mr. Spirit,” he said. “Are you going to bore me with your tautologies all day or are you going to actually say something?” Tautologies? What the heck were tautologies? I couldn’t ask Gordy because then he’d know I was an illiterate Indian idiot. “You don’t know what a tautology is, do you?” he asked. “Yes, I do,” I said. “Really, I do. Completely, I do.” “You’re lying.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are.” “How can you tell?” “Because your eyes dilated, your breathing rate increased a little bit, and you started to sweat.”

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

  Then we have the admitted individual testimonies of all the Greek and Latin fathers up to the middle of the second century, without a dissenting voice or doubt: Jerome (d. 419) and Eusebius (d. 340), who had the whole ante-Nicene literature before them; Origen in Egypt (d. 254), the greatest scholar of his age and a commentator on John; Tertullian of North Africa (about 200), a Catholic in doctrine, a Montanist in discipline, and a zealous advocate of the dispensation of the Paraclete announced by John; Clement of Alexandria (about 190), a cultivated philosopher who had travelled in Greece, Italy, Syria, and Palestine, seeking religious instruction everywhere; Irenaeus, a native of Asia Minor and from 178 bishop of Lyons, a pupil of Polycarp and a grand-pupil of John himself, who derived his chief ammunition against the Gnostic heresy from the fourth Gospel, and represents the four canonical Gospels—no more and no less—as universally accepted by the churches of his time; Theophilus of Antioch (180), who expressly quotes from the fourth Gospel under the name of John;1062 the Muratorian Canon (170), which reports the occasion of the composition of John’s Gospel by urgent request of his friends and disciples; Tatian of Syria (155–170), who in his "Address to the Greeks" repeatedly quotes the fourth Gospel, though without naming the author, and who began his, "Diatessaron"—once widely spread in the church notwithstanding the somewhat Gnostic leanings of the author, and commented on by Ephraem of Syria—with the prologue of John.1063 From him we have but one step to his teacher, Justin Martyr, a native of Palestine (103–166), and a bold and noble-minded defender of the faith in the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines. In his two Apologies and his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, he often quotes freely from the four Gospels under the name of Apostolic "Memoirs" or "Memorabilia of the Apostles," which were read at his time in public, worship.1064 He made most use of Matthew, but once at least he quotes a passage on regeneration1065 from Christ’s dialogue with Nicodemus which is recorded only by John. Several other allusions of Justin to John are unmistakable, and his whole doctrine of the pre-existent Logos who sowed precious seeds of truth among Jews and Gentiles before his incarnation, is unquestionably derived from John. To reverse the case is to derive the sunlight from the moon, or the fountain from one of its streams.

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

  The philosophic emperor was a sincere believer in the gods, their revelations and all-ruling providence. His morality and religion were blended. But he had no clear views of the divinity. He alternately uses the language of the polytheist, the deist, and the pantheist. He worshipped the deity of the universe and in his own breast. He thanks the gods for his good parents and teachers, for his pious mother, for a wife, whom he blindly praises as "amiable, affectionate, and pure," and for all the goods of life. His motto was "never to wrong any man in deed or word."578 He claimed no perfection, yet was conscious of his superiority, and thankful to the gods that he was better than other men. He traced the sins of men merely to ignorance and error. He was mild, amiable, and gentle; in these respects the very reverse of a hard and severe Stoic, and nearly approaching a disciple of Jesus. We must admire his purity, truthfulness, philanthropy, conscientious devotion to duty, his serenity of mind in the midst of the temptations of power and severe domestic trials, and his resignation to the will of providence. He was fully appreciated in his time, and universally beloved by his subjects. We may well call him among the heathen the greatest and best man of his age.579 "It seems" (says an able French writer, Martha), "that in him the philosophy of heathenism grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the ’Unknown God.’ In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed. If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fullness of meaning which Christianity has given to the world, he already gained its unction, and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fénélon." The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are full of beautiful moral maxims, strung together without system. They bear a striking resemblance to Christian ethics. They rise to a certain universalism and humanitarianism which is foreign to the heathen spirit, and a prophecy of a new age, but could only be realized on a Christian basis. Let us listen to some of his most characteristic sentiments:

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

  In the Roman Catacombs we find inscriptions where the departed are requested to pray for their living relatives and friends. The veneration thus shown for the persons of the martyrs was transferred in smaller measure to their remains. The church of Smyrna counted the bones of Polycarp more precious than gold or diamonds.70 The remains of Ignatius were held in equal veneration by the Christians at Antioch. The friends of Cyprian gathered his blood in handkerchiefs, and built a chapel over his tomb. A veneration frequently excessive was paid, not only to the deceased martyrs, but also the surviving confessors. It was made the special duty of the deacons to visit and minister to them in prison. The heathen Lucian in his satire, "De morte Peregrini," describes the unwearied care of the Christians for their imprisoned brethren; the heaps of presents brought to them; and the testimonies of sympathy even by messengers from great distances; but all, of course, in Lucian’s view, out of mere good-natured enthusiasm. Tertullian the Montanist censures the excessive attention of the Catholics to their confessors. The libelli pacis, as they were called—intercessions of the confessors for the fallen—commonly procured restoration to the fellowship of the church. Their voice had peculiar weight in the choice of bishops, and their sanction not rarely overbalanced the authority of the clergy. Cyprian is nowhere more eloquent than in the praise of their heroism. His letters to the imprisoned confessors in Carthage are full of glorification, in a style somewhat offensive to our evangelical ideas. Yet after all, he protests against the abuse of their privileges, from which he had himself to suffer, and earnestly exhorts them to a holy walk; that the honor they have gained may not prove a snare to them, and through pride and carelessness be lost. He always represents the crown of the confessor and the martyr as a free gift of the grace of God, and sees the real essence of it rather in the inward disposition than in the outward act. Commodian conceived the whole idea of martyrdom in its true breadth, when he extended it to all those who, without shedding their blood, endured to the end in love, humility, and patience, and in all Christian virtue. CHAPTER III.LITERARY CONTEST OF CHRISTIANITY WITH JUDAISM AND HEATHENISM.§ 28. Literature. I. Sources. Tacitus (Consul 97, d. about 117): Annal. xv. 44. Comp. his picture of the Jews, Hist. v. 1–5. Plinius (d. about 114): Ep. x. 96, 97. Celsus (flourished about 150): jAlhqh;" lovgo" . Preserved in fragments in Origen’s Refutation (8 books Kata; Kevlsou); reconstructed, translated and explained by Theodor Keim: Celsus’ Wahres Wort, Aelteste wissenschaftliche Streitschrift, antiker Weltanschauung gegen das Christenthum, Zürich 1873 (293 pages). Lucian (d. about 180): Peri; th'" Peregrivvnou teleuth'" c. 11–16; and JAlhqh;" iJstoriva I. 30; II. 4, 11.

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

  In Nov. 17, 1522, Oecolampadius settled permanently in Basel and labored there as preacher of the Church of St. Martin and professor of theology in the University till his death. Now began his work as reformer of the church of Basel, which followed the model of Zürich. He sought the friendship of Zwingli in a letter full of admiration, dated Dec. 10, 1522.173 They continued to co-operate in fraternal harmony to the close of their lives. Oecolampadius preached on Sundays and week days, explaining whole books of the Bible after the example of Zwingli, and attracted crowds of people. With the consent of the Council, he gradually abolished crying abuses, distributed the Lord’s Supper under both kinds, and published in 1526 a German liturgy, which retained in the first editions several distinctively Catholic features such as priestly absolution and the use of lights on the altar. In 1525 he began to take an active part in the unfortunate Eucharistic controversy by defending the figurative interpretation of the words of institution: "This is (the figure of) my body," chiefly from the writings of the fathers, with which he was very familiar.174 He agreed in substance with Zwingli, but differed from him by placing the metaphor in the predicate rather than the verb, which simply denotes a connection of the subject with the predicate whether real or figurative, and which was not even used by our Lord in Aramaic. He found the key for the interpretation in John 6:63, and held fast to the truth that Christ himself is and remains the true bread of the soul to be partaken of by faith. At the conference in Marburg (1529) he was, next to Zwingli, the chief debater on the Reformed side. By this course he alienated his old friends, Brentius, Pirkheimer, Billican, and Luther. Even Melanchthon, in a letter to him (1529), regretted that the "horribilis dissensio de Coena Domini" interfered with the enjoyment of their friendship, though it did not shake his good will towards him ("benevolentiam erga te meam"). He concluded to be hereafter, a spectator rather than an actor in this tragedy." Oecolampadius had also much trouble with the Anabaptists, and took the same conservative and intolerant stand against them as Luther at Wittenberg, and Zwingli at Zürich. He made several fruitless attempts in public disputations to convince them of their error.175 The civil government of Basel occupied for a while middle ground, but the disputation of Baden, at which Oecolampadius was the champion of the Reformed doctrines,176 brought on the crisis. He now took stronger ground against Rome and attacked what he regarded as the idolatry of the mass. The triumph of the Reformation in Berne in 1528 gave the final impetus.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  search for truth. Essays WHERE MEN WIN GLORY The Odyssey of Pat Tillman Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and became an icon of post– 9/11 patriotism. When he was killed in Afghanistan two years later, a legend was born. But the real Pat Tillman was much more remarkable and considerably more complicated than the public knew. This is the stunning account of a remarkable young man’s heroic life and death. Biography INTO THE WILD In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. Krakauer brings McCandless’s uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity, and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding—and not an ounce of sentimentality. Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, Into the Wild is a tour de force. The power and luminosity of Jon Krakauer’s stoytelling blaze through every page. Travel Essay ALSO AVAILABLE Into Thin Air Missoula Three Cups of Deceit VINTAGE BOOKS Available wherever books are sold. vintagebooks.com What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now. _146202351_

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I cannot claim complete success for any experiment. Even medical men can make no such claim for their experiments. My object is only to show that he who would go in for novel experiments must begin with himself. That leads to a quicker discovery of truth, and God always protects the honest experimenter. The risks involved in experiments in cultivating intimate contacts with Europeans were as grave as those in the nature cure experiments. Only those risks were of a different kind. But in cultivating those contacts I never so much as thought of the risks. I invited Polak to come and stay with me, and we began to live like blood brothers. The lady who was soon to be Mrs. Polak and he had been engaged for some years, but the marriage had been postponed for a propitious time. I have an impression that Polak wanted to put some money by before he settled down to a married life. He knew Ruskin much better than I, but his Western surroundings were a bar against his translating Ruskin’s teaching immediately into practice. But I pleaded with him: ‘When there is a heart union, as in your case, it is hardly right to postpone marriage merely for financial consideratons. If poverty is a bar, poor men can never marry. And then you are now staying with me. There is no question of household expenses. I think you should get married as soon as possible. As I have said in a previous chapter, I had never to argue a thing twice with Polak. He appreciated the force of my argument, and immediately opened correspondence on the subject with Mrs. Polak, who was then in England. She gladly accepted the proposal and in a few months reached Johannesburg. Any expense over the wedding was out of the question, not even a special dress was thought necessary. They needed no religious rites to seal the bond. Mrs. Polak was a Christian by birth and Polak a Jew. Their common religion was the religion of ethics. I may mention in passing an amusing incident in connection with this wedding. The Registrar of European marriages in the Transvaal could not register between black or coloured people. In the wedding in question, I acted as the best man. Not that we could not have got a European friend for the purpose, but Polak would not brook the suggestion. So we three went to the Registrar of marriages. How could he be sure that the parties to a marriage in which I acted as the best man would be whites? He proposed to postpone registration pending inquiries. The next day was a sunday. The day following was New Year’s Day, a public holiday. To postpone the date of a solemnly arranged wedding on such a flimsy pretext was more than one could put up with. I knew the Chief Magistrate, who was head of the Registration Department. So I appeared before him with the couple.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  The Committee found in favour of the ryots, and recommended that the planters should refund a portion of the exactions made by them which the Committee had found to be unlawful, and that the #tinkathia# system should be abolished by law. Sir Edward Gait had a large share in getting the Committee to make unanimous report and in getting the agrarain bill passed in accordance with the Committee’s recommendations. Had he not adopted a firm attitude, and had he not brought all his tact to bear on the subject, the report would not have been unanimous, and the Agrarian Act would not have been passed. The planters wielded extraodinary power. They offered strenuous opposition to the bill in spite of the report, but Sir Edwin Gait remained firm up to the last and fully carried out the recommendations of the Committee. The #tinkathia# system which had been in existence for about a century was thus abolished and with it the planters’ #raj# came to an end. The ryots, who had all along remained crushed, now somewhat came to their own, and the superstition that the stain of indigo could never be washed out was exploded. It was my desire to continue the constructive work for some years, to establish more schools and to penetrate the villages more effectively. The ground had been prepared, but it did not please God, as often before, to allow my plans to be fulfilled. Fate decided otherwise and drove me to take up work elsewhere. 146IN TOUCH WITH LABOURWhilst I was yet winding up my work on the Committee, I received a letter from Sjts. Mohanlal Pandya and Shankarlal Parikh telling me of the failure of crops in the Kheda district, and asking me to guide the peasants, who were unable to pay the assessment. I had not the inclination, the ability or the courage to advise without an inquiry on the spot. At the same time there came a letter from Shrimati Anasuyabai about the condition of labour in Ahmedabad, Wages were low, the labourers had long been agitating for an increment, and I had a desire to guide them if I could. But I had not the confidence to direct even this comparatively small affair from that long distance. So I seized the first opportunity to go to Ahmedabad. I had hoped that I should be able to finish both these matters quickly and get back to Champaran to supervise the constructive work that had been inaugurated there. But things did not move as swiftly as I had wished, and I was unable to return to Champaran, with the result that the schools closed down one by one. My co- workers and I had built many castles in the air, but they all vanished for the time being. One of these was cow protection work in Champaran, besides rural sanitation and education.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  slavishly and devotedly, if only to warm themselves in the glow of his presence. They built for him, preached for him, and made unbelievable sacrifices to carry out his orders, not only because they were convinced that he was God’s prophet but also because they loved him as a man. They were as elated when he won a wrestling match as they were awed when he dictated a new revelation. They retold tales of his generosity and tenderness, marveling that he fed so many of the poor in Nauvoo at his table without stint, and that he entertained friend and enemy alike. He was a genial host, warmhearted and friendly to all comers, and fiercely loyal to his friends. Arguing that the popularity of the Mormon Church was primarily a function of Joseph’s singular charisma, Brodie insists that The Book of Mormon “lives today because of the prophet, not he because of the book.” Perhaps. But the allure of the new theology he introduced should not be discounted. Joseph’s inspired reworking of the traditional Christian narrative had much to do with his religion’s rapid growth. To believers, of course, Mormon doctrine is the incontrovertible word of God. That word was nevertheless delivered via a very human instrument—Joseph Smith—who possessed uncanny theological instincts. Mormonism appeared in the right place, at the right time, to exploit a ripe niche that had opened in the nation’s ever-shifting spiritual ecology. Many Americans were dissatisfied with the calcified religions of the Old World. Joseph preached a fresh message that was exactly what a great number of people were eager to hear. He took measure of the public’s collective yearning and intuitively shaped his ideas to fit the precise dimensions of that inchoate desire. Joseph had convincing answers to the thorniest existential questions—answers that were both explicit and comforting. He offered a crystal-clear notion of right and wrong, an unambiguous definition of good and evil. And although his perspective was absolutist and unyielding, it presented a kinder, gentler alternative to Calvinism, which had been the ecclesiastical status quo in the early years of the American republic. Calvinists taught that mankind was by nature evil, and was watched over by a wrathful God bent on making humans atone for Adam’s original sin. They warned that the fires of hell were real. Suffering, they preached, was good for you. In Joseph’s more optimistic cosmology, God’s chosen people—the Mormons —were inherently virtuous (albeit surrounded by wickedness) and didn’t need to

• From The Decameron (1353)

  After awhile, their business being despatched and they about to depart, Messer Geri made them a magnificent banquet, whereto he bade a number of the most worshipful citizens and amongst the rest, Cisti, who would, however, on no condition go thither; whereupon Messer Geri bade one of his serving-men go fetch a flask of the baker's wine and give each guest a half beaker thereof with the first course. The servant, despiteful most like for that he had never availed to drink of the wine, took a great flagon, which when Cisti saw, 'My son,' said he, 'Messer Geri sent thee not to me.' The man avouched again and again that he had, but, getting none other answer, returned to Messer Geri and reported it to him. Quoth he, 'Go back to him and tell him that I do indeed send thee to him; and if he still make thee the same answer, ask him to whom I send thee, [an it be not to him.]' Accordingly, the servant went back to the baker and said to him, 'Cisti, for certain Messer Geri sendeth me to thee and none other.' 'For certain, my son,' answered the baker, 'he doth it not.' 'Then,' said the man, 'to whom doth he send me?' 'To the Arno,' replied Cisti; which answer when the servant reported to Messer Geri, the eyes of his understanding were of a sudden opened and he said to the man, 'Let me see what flask thou carriedst thither.' When he saw the great flagon aforesaid, he said, 'Cisti saith sooth,' and giving the man a sharp reproof, made him take a sortable flask, which when Cisti saw, 'Now,' quoth he, 'I know full well that he sendeth thee to me,' and cheerfully filled it unto him. Then, that same day, he let fill a little cask with the like wine and causing carry it softly to Messer Geri's house, went presently thither and finding him there, said to him, 'Sir. I would not have you think that the great flagon of this morning frightened me; nay, but, meseeming that which I have of these past days shown you with my little pitchers had escaped your mind, to wit, that this is no household wine,[300] I wished to recall it to you. But, now, for that I purpose no longer to be your steward thereof, I have sent it all to you; henceforward do with it as it pleaseth you.' Messer Geri set great store by Cisti's present and rendering him such thanks as he deemed sortable, ever after held him for a man of great worth and for friend." [Footnote 300: Lit. Family wine (_vin da famiglia_), _i.e._ no wine for servants' or general drinking, but a choice vintage, to be reserved for special occasions.] THE THIRD STORY [Day the Sixth] MADAM NONNA DE' PULCI, WITH A READY RETORT TO A NOT ALTOGETHER SEEMLY PLEASANTRY, IMPOSETH SILENCE ON THE BISHOP OF FLORENCE

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  set less these days by theologians and wild-eyed prophets than by businessmen and publicists. The LDS Church has annual revenues estimated at more than $6 billion, and it is currently the largest employer in the state of Utah. For the better part of a century now, the church has been trending slowly but relentlessly toward the humdrum normality of middle America. But the mainstreaming of the Mormon Church has a distinctly ironic component. To whatever extent the LDS religion moves beyond the most problematic facets of Joseph Smith’s theology and succeeds at becoming less and less peculiar, fundamentalists are bound to pull more and more converts from the Mormon Church’s own swelling ranks. Communities like Colorado City and Bountiful will continue to win adherents from among the most fervent Saints, because there will always be Mormons who yearn to recapture the spirit and all-consuming passion of the founding prophet’s vision—Mormons like Pamela Coronado. At the moment Coronado, in her early forties, wearing faded bib overalls, is stripping wallpaper from the front room of a run-down old farmhouse the Prophet Onias recently acquired. Tall and graceful, with piercing blue eyes that project great self-assurance from beneath a nimbus of blond curls, Pamela and her husband, David Coronado, became followers of Onias at the beginning of 1984, just after the School of the Prophets was established in Utah County. “We met Bob Crossfield—Onias—when we went to one of their meetings,” Pamela remembers. “We came because we’d come across The Book of Onias at a used- book store and had read Bob’s revelations. Right away we both thought, ‘These sound like the revelations of Joseph Smith! This is just like The Doctrine and Covenants!’ We were very impressed.” David Coronado was so impressed, in fact, that he wrote to the Philosophical Library, the vanity press that printed the book for Onias, to find out how to contact the author-prophet. “They told David that Bob had just moved his base of operations to the Provo area, right where we lived,” Pamela says. “So we went to a meeting. It was at the Lafferty family home in Provo, and we met Bob there, and the Laffertys. That’s how we came into the Work.” Pamela had been raised in Provo, in a traditional Mormon family. “My dad was one of the first people to buy shares in the Dream Mine,” she announces proudly, although her parents were in no sense fundamentalists. In 1978, when

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She spoke with amazing nonchalance. Mrs. Bolton, who was listening in the next room, heard in sheer admiration. To think a woman could carry it off so naturally! "And suppose he'd come while you were running about in the rain with nothing on, like a maniac?" "I suppose he'd have had the fright of his life, and cleared out as fast as he could." Clifford still stared at her transfixed. What he thought in his under-consciousness he would never know. And he was too much taken aback to form one clear thought in his upper-consciousness. He just simply accepted what she said, in a sort of blank. And he admired her. He could not help admiring her. She looked so flushed and handsome and smooth: love smooth. "At least," he said, subsiding, "you'll be lucky if you've got off without a severe cold." "Oh, I haven't got a cold," she replied. She was thinking to herself of the other man's words: Tha's got the nicest woman's arse of anybody! She wished, she dearly wished she could tell Clifford that this had been said her, during the famous thunderstorm. However! She bore herself rather like an offended queen, and went upstairs to change. That evening, Clifford wanted to be nice to her. He was reading one of the latest scientific-religious books: he had a streak of a spurious sort of religion in him, and was egocentrically concerned with the future of his own ego. It was like his habit to make conversation to Connie about some book, since the conversation between them had to be made, almost chemically. They had almost chemically to concoct it in their heads. "What do you think of this, by the way?" he said, reaching for his book. "You'd have no need to cool your ardent body by running out in the rain, if only we had a few more aeons of evolution behind us. Ah here it is!--'The universe shows us two aspects: on one side it is physically wasting, on the other it is spiritually ascending.'" Connie listened, expecting more. But Clifford was waiting. She looked at him in surprise. "And if it spiritually ascends," she said, "what does it leave down below, in the place where its tail used to be?" "Ah!" he said. "Take the man for what he means. _Ascending_ is the opposite of his _wasting_, I presume." "Spiritually blown out, so to speak!" "No, but seriously, without joking: do you think there is anything in it?" She looked at him again. "Physically wasting?" she said. "I see you getting fatter, and I'm not wasting myself. Do you think the sun is smaller than he used to be? He's not to me. And I suppose the apple Adam offered Eve wasn't really much bigger, if any, than one of our orange pippins. Do you think it was?"

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Ray who having a monthly salary of Rs. 800, keeps just Rs. 40 for himself and devotes the balance to public purposes. He is not, and does not want to get, married. I see little difference between Dr. Ray as he is today and as he used to be then. His dress used to be nearly as simple as it is, with this difference of course that whereas it is Khadi now, it used to be Indian mill-cloth in those days. I felt I could never hear too much of the talks between Gokhale and Dr. Ray, as they all pertained to public good or were of educative value. At times they were painful too, containing as they did, strictures on public men. As a result, some of those whom I had regarded as stalwart fighters began to look quite puny. To see Gokhale at work was as much a joy as an education. He never wasted a minute. His private relations and friendships were all for public good. All his talks had reference only to the good of the country and were absolutely free from any trace of untruth or insincerity. India’s poverty and subjection were matters of constant and intense concern to him. Various people sought to interest him in different things. But he gave every one of them the same reply: ‘You do the thing yourself. Let me do my own work. What I want is freedom for my country. After that is won, we can think of other things. Today that one thing is enough to engage all my time and energy.’ His reverence for Ranade could be seen every moment. Ranade’s authority was final in every matter, and he would cite it at every step. The anniversary of Ranade’s death (or birth, I forget which) occurred during my stay with Gokhale, who observed it regularly. There were with him then, besides myself, his friends Prof. Kathavate and a Sub-Judge. He invited us to take part in the celebration, and in his speech he gave us his reminiscences of Ranade. He compared incidentally Ranade, Telang and Mandlik. He eulogized Telang’s charming style and Mandlik’s greatness as a reformer. Citing an instance of Mandlik’s solicitude for his clients, he told us an anecdote as to how once, having missed his usual train, he engaged a special train so as to be able to attend the court in the interest of his client. But Ranade, he said, towered above them all, as a versatile genius. He was not only a great judge, he was an equally great historian, an economist and reformer. Although he was a judge, he fearlessly attended the Congress, and everyone had such confidence in his sagacity that they unquestioningly accepted his decisions. Gokhale’s joy knew no bounds, as he described these qualities of head and heart which were all combined in his master. Gokhale used to have a horse-carriage in those days.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Their disciples, or their companions Shambhaubabu, Anugrahababu, Dharanibabu, Ramnavmibabu and other vakils were always with us. Vindhyababu and Janakdharibabu also came and helped us now and then. All these were Biharis. Their principal work was to take down the ryots’ statements. Professor Kripalani could not but cast in his lot with us. Though a Sindhi he was more Bihari than a born Bihari. I have seen only a few workers capable of merging themselves in the province of their adoption. Kripalani is one of those few. He made it impossible for anyone to feel that he belonged to a different province. He was my gatekeper in chief. For the time being he made it the end and aim of his life to save me from darshan seekers. He warded off people, calling to his aid now his unfailing humour, now his non-violent threats. At nightfall he would take up his occupation of a teacher and regale his companions with his historical studies and observations, and quicken any timid visitor into bravery. Maulana Mazharul Haq had registered his name on the standing list of helpers whom I might count upon whenever necessary, and he made a point of looking in once or twice a month. The pomp and splendour in which he then lived was in sharp contrast to his simple life of today. The way in which he associated with us made us feel that he was one of us, though his fashionable habit gave a stranger a different impression. As I gained more experience of Bihar, I became convinced that work of a permanent nature was impossible without proper village education. The ryots’ ignorance was pathetic. They either allowed their children to roam about, or made them toil on indigo plantations from morning to night for a couple of coppers a day. In those days a male labourer’s wage did not exceed ten pice, a female’s did not exceed six, and a child’s three. He who succeeded in earning four annas a day was considered most fortunate. In consultation with my companions I decided to open primary schools in six villages. One of our conditions with the villagers was that they should provide the teachers with board and lodging while we would see to the other expenses. The village folk had hardly any cash in their hands, but they could well afford to provide foodstuffs. Indeed they had already expressed their readiness to contribute grain and other raw materials. From where to get the teachers was a great problem. It was difficult to find local teachers who would work for a bare allowance or without remuneration. My idea was never to entrust children to commonplace teachers. Their literary qualification was not so essential as their moral fibre. So I issued a public appeal for voluntary teachers. It received a ready response. Sjt. Gangadharrao Deshpande sent Babasaheb Soman and Pundalik Shrimati Avantikabai Gokhale came from Bombay and Mrs. Anandibai Vaishampayan from Poona.