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 Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  his own blood as ink, Anders scrawled out directions to the crew on a chart, and the fight continued. Eighty minutes after the attack started, desperate men made their way to small escape craft. Anders was last off the boat and then lost consciousness. By the end, two Americans and an Italian journalist from the Panay had died, dozens had been wounded, and the sinking became an international incident. Realizing that it had committed an act of war against the United States, Japan apologized. Arthur Anders received the Navy Cross, the highest honor bestowed by that branch for a peacetime action. The orders he wrote in blood are preserved in the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington. The prelude to the fight would remain one of young Bill’s earliest memories. — Bill’s parents, both Americans, had met in the Philippines during Arthur’s tour of duty there. Muriel’s father was the civilian in charge of the Cavite Navy Yard, which repaired American ships. Bill, the couple’s only child, was born in Hong Kong. The family moved often when Bill was young, eventually returning to America in 1938. Through his childhood, Bill absorbed the Navy life, and he expected to attend the Naval Academy, as his father had. When he was fourteen, Bill moved with his family to Weimar, Texas. As Arthur drove Bill to school one day, father and son spotted a biplane in a field, along with a banner hanging from a fence: AIRPLANE RIDES—FIVE DOLLARS. A few minutes later, Bill and the pilot were soaring over open fields. “Want to do a loop?” the man asked. Bill nodded. The pilot was low for that kind of maneuver, no higher than two thousand feet, but he pulled up, looped over, and managed to just miss the ground as he righted the plane. Bill had a hard time concentrating in school that day; no matter how hard he tried to focus, his mind kept looping over Texas. Driving home that afternoon, Bill and his father came upon the field where Bill had flown. The plane was still there, but this time it was

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  He was briefly surprised at how easily he used his title to refer to her, and then hastily shoved the thought away. “Aye, Captain.” Will’s laughter followed him below deck. Sebastian rapped on his cabin door. “My lady? ’Tis I. I’m coming in.” He entered cautiously, peeking his head around the door and searching out her shapely form. He found Olivia sitting at his desk, drowning in his shirt, leveling a pistol at his chest. The mere sight of her made him ache. Golden and determined, she was a tigress. “Do you know what you’re doing with that?” he asked. “Yes, of course.” He kicked the door shut behind him and headed toward the sideboard for a much-needed libation. Her gaze burned into his back, causing him to smile. “Care for a brandy, sweet wife?” “Is there any proof you are my husband?” she asked curtly. “Is there any proof you’re my wife?” he retorted, pouring her a glass of the deep red liquid with the hope that it would soothe her ill humor. “The ring . . .” Sebastian held his hand over his shoulder and waggled his ringed finger at her. She snorted. “Who taught you the use of a pistol?” he queried as he warmed the liquor over a candle. “The foreman on my father’s plantation.” When he turned to face her, he found his gun resting on the desk and Olivia staring pensively out the window. “Your father approved?” “My father doesn’t know. I wanted to learn. There was no cause to distress him.” Withholding a smile, Sebastian moved toward her, admiring her elegant profile, with its pert nose and obstinate chin. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, and the thought of claiming that lush mouth with various parts of his body nearly made him hard. He set her brandy atop his nautical charts and propped his hip against the desk. “What are you thinking, love?” he prodded gently. She reached for the snifter without looking, and he pushed it into her hand. “That you should put on a shirt.” “I’m quite comfortable, but I’m touched by your wifely concern.” In the midst of a large swallow, Olivia choked. He thumped her back until she waved him off. “I’m fine!” she gasped. Wiping the tears from her lashes, she glared at him. “What are your intentions, Phoenix?” Sebastian reached over slowly, giving her time to draw away. She didn’t. The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered wildly as he rubbed the cuff of his shirt, brushing the edge of his finger deliberately along her bared wrist. He felt her shiver and hid his satisfaction. The attraction, it appeared, was mutual.

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  spearheaded by British Evangelicals who made it a point of principle to uphold biblical certainties. Many of their fellow Evangelicals berated them for their inconsistency and few of their allies in mainland European Protestantism showed much sympathy for their project. It is true that other moral dimensions nuance Lecky’s judgement. The ethical imperative in the circle of Sharp and Wilberforce was part of a new self- confidence and imperial assertiveness on the part of Britain, taking shape even as its North American empire was ripped in two. A direct outcome of the abolitionist movement was one of the earliest British colonies to extend the Crown’s territorial ambitions beyond coastal trading forts outside America and India: Sierra Leone in West Africa. Inaugurated in 1792 after a badly conceived false start in the same area five years before, this was a cooperation between the indefatigable Evangelical abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, his ex-naval officer brother John and a West African – an Egba prince who in enslavement had taken the name Thomas Peters and then regained his freedom by fighting for the British in the American War of Independence. The venture tried to learn lessons from a second previous failed colony of 1775 on the ominously (though coincidentally) named Mosquito Coast of Central America. That had been a partnership between an English businessman and another formerly enslaved African-American, Olaudah Equiano, whose autobiography had become a transatlantic best-seller, especially among Evangelicals, and who became one of the advisers to the new Sierra Leone scheme. The Mosquito Coast venture involved using enslaved Africans to make it commercially viable, with only a vague prospect that financial success would bring them freedom: that strategy was very far from abolitionism and the slaves sought to escape, all drowning in the attempt.19 There was now no question but that the Sierra Leone colonists who started arriving in 1792 should be Africans to whom freedom had been restored, either liberated on the West African coast or shipped back from the Americas complete with Protestant Christian values. Thomas Peters had his own ideas as to what those values might be, and he had the temerity to demand more political rights for his black fellow settlers than Englishmen would have enjoyed back home. Against him were ranged the English directors of the Sierra Leone Company, who as in the Mosquito Coast venture linked ‘the true principles of Commerce’ to ‘the introduction of Christianity and Civilization’, and who crushed uprisings by kindred spirits to Peters after his early death.20 Yet Peters’s fellow colonists who shared his spirit of independence and self-reliance had the advantage that the tropical climate made even shorter work of British administrators than it did of returned African-Americans. The new venture soon developed a hierarchical

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  133 Plato’s contribution, in addition to his writings, was to create in Athens a university where lectures were held and young people were trained. Through this university, the ideas of Socrates were institutionalized. Alfred North Whitehead said, “All philosophy is but a series of footnotes to Plato.” The greatest of Plato’s works is the Republic. Like The Divine Comedy , Plato’s Republic is a dif fi cult book to read. Like The Divine Comedy , it summarizes the values of a civilization at its apex. That civilization is the world of the polis, the city-state of classical Greece. Plato’s Republic is concerned with how to create a constitution that ensures justice for all citizens. Plato puts this discussion into the form of dialogues. When the Republic begins, Socrates is returning from a religious festival in honor of the goddess Artemis. He stops to visit his friend Cephalus, who wonders about the afterlife, whether he has an immortal soul, what will happen to his soul, and whether good and bad behavior will have consequences. The two then begin to discuss justice. The discussion starts with the conventional de fi nition of justice, that is, rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Socrates, in the dialogues of Plato, often begins with a statement that everyone can accept. Socrates then asks how a just man can do unjust things, even to his enemies. Socrates shows that the original de fi nition is wrong. No good man would do harm to another. One of the participants in the dialogue is Thrasymachus, a Sophist. The true Sophist in Athens educated their students to argue either side of an issue. To argue either side of a case successfully, an individual must be believe that the position is true. Therefore, the Sophist does not believe in absolute values. For the Sophist, unlike for Socrates, truth is whatever is expedient at the moment. Thrasymachus argues that justice is power. Justice is what the powerful can get away with, and laws are what the powerful put in place to serve their own interests; thus, no such quality as justice can exist. This idea was accepted in Athens. Athenian foreign policy during the war with Sparta rested on the belief that might makes right. For example, in 416 B.C., Athens had demanded that the neutral nation of Melos join the Athenian coalition. When Alfred North Whitehead said, “All philosophy is but a series of footnotes to Plato.”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  tance of an opponent can be used to make him fall. If people resist you be- She'll be glad \ To know cause they don't trust you, an apparently selfless deed, showing how far you you 're risking your neck, are willing to go to prove yourself, is a powerful remedy. If they resist be- and for her sake: that will offer \ Any mistress sure cause they are virtuous, or because they are loyal to someone else, all the proof of your love. better—virtue and repressed desire are easily overcome by action. As the — O V I D , T H E A R T O F L O V E , great seductress Natalie Barney once wrote, "Most virtue is a demand for TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN greater seduction." There are two ways to prove yourself. First, the spontaneous action: a situation arises in which the target needs help, a problem needs solving, or, The man says: " . . . A simply, he or she needs a favor. You cannot foresee these situations, but you fruit picked from one's own must be ready for them, for they can spring up at any time. Impress the tar- orchard ought to taste sweeter than one obtained get by going further than really necessary—sacrificing more money, more from a stranger's tree, and time, more effort than they had expected. Your target will often use these what has been attained by 323 324 • The Art of Seduction greater effort is cherished moments, or even manufacture them, as a kind of test: will you retreat? Or more dearly than what is will you rise to the occasion? You cannot hesitate or flinch, even for a mo-gained with little trouble. As the proverb says: ment, or all is lost. If necessary, make the deed seem to have cost you more 'Prizes great cannot be than it has, never with words, but indirectly—exhausted looks, reports won unless some heavy spread through a third party, whatever it takes. labor's done.'" • The The second way to prove yourself is the brave deed that you plan and woman says: "If no great prizes can be won unless execute in advance, on your own and at the right moment—preferably some heavy labor's done, some way into the seduction, when any doubts the victim still has about you must suffer the you are more dangerous than earlier on. Choose a dramatic, difficult action exhaustion of many toils to be able to attain the favors that reveals the painful time and effort involved. Danger can be extremely you seek, since what you seductive. Cleverly lead your victim into a crisis, a moment of danger, or ask for is a greater prize." indirectly put them in an uncomfortable position, and you can play the res- • The man says: "I give you all the thanks that I cuer, the gallant knight. The powerful feelings and emotions this elicits can can express for so sagely

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  She was either mad from the stress of the day’s events or . . . enchanting. Sebastian became engrossed in the intimacy of their shared amusement, the rest of their problems fading into obscurity. His hand came up and drew a line down the bridge of her pert nose, which she wrinkled when he tapped the tip. Olivia stared at him with admiration in her dark eyes, a look that salved the sting his ego had felt mere moments ago. “A savage with a delightful dimple,” she murmured under her breath, brushing her fingertip along his cheek. “Why are you out here?” she asked almost breathlessly. “You, a nobleman of vast wealth and prestige. Why turn to piracy?” “Ah . . .” He ached to pull her closer. His throat tight, his hand dropped to her shoulder. “You believe me.” She snorted again, a thoroughly unladylike sound that he found charming. “I’m just foxed is all, and willing to indulge you for the moment.” “My lady, you should pay greater attention to your choice of wording. You have no notion of the indulgences I require.” At her confused frown, Sebastian clarified, “I am no gentleman.” “You are an earl, my lord.” “It’s a title, Lady Merrick, and it has nothing to do with my character.” “You have been trained and bred for your—” “I have been cursed,” he said hotly. “My older brother, Edmund, was to bear the title, but he was killed in a duel five years ago.” “A duel?” she repeated, her eyes widening. “How dreadful! I am sorry.” “Yes, well . . . so am I, I assure you. Especially since he was defending my honor.” He gave a harsh laugh. “As if I had any to quibble over.” “He must have loved you very much.” “Edmund loved the title,” Sebastian scoffed. Olivia met his intense gaze without flinching. “What happened?” He longed to make some flip, roguish, or snide comment to deflect her prying. He wanted to sneer at her and cut her, scare her, and push her away. But his next words would do the deed just as well. “I foolishly compromised a young lady. When her older brother came to me and demanded that I marry the chit, I refused. She was no innocent, as I knew firsthand. And the way we were caught left no doubt in my mind that I’d been snared in a trap.”

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  The Renaissance courtesan Tullia d'Aragona, developing friendships with the 'Dearest of all my great thinkers and poets of her time, talked of literature and philosophy— companions," he said, anything but the boudoir (and anything but the money that was also her "where have you been goal). Johannes, the narrator of Søren Kierkegaard's The Seducer's Diary, fol-hunting? On what mountain ridges?" She lows his target, Cordelia, from a distance; when their paths cross, he is po-raised herself from the lite and apparently shy. As Cordelia gets to know him, he doesn't frighten grass: "Greeting, divine her. In fact he is so innocuous she begins to wish he were less so. mistress," she cried, "greater in my sight than Duke Ellington, the great jazz artist and a consummate seducer, would Create a False Sense of Security— Approach Indirectly • 183 initially dazzle the ladies with his good looks, stylish clothing, and cha- Jove himself— I care not risma. But once he was alone with a woman, he would take a slight step if he hears me!" Jove laughed to hear her words. back, becoming excessively polite, making only small talk. Banal conversa- Delighted to be preferred to tion can be a brilliant tactic; it hypnotizes the target. The dullness of your himself, he kissed her— not front gives the subtlest suggestive word, the slightest look, an amplified with the restraint becoming power. Never mention love and you make its absence speak volumes—your to a maiden's kisses: and as she began to tell of her victims will wonder why you never discuss your emotions, and as they have hunting exploits in the such thoughts, they will go further, imagining what else is going on in your forest, he prevented her by mind. They will be the ones to bring up the topic of love or affection. De- his embrace, and betrayed his real self by a shameful liberate dullness has many applications. In psychotherapy, the doctor makes action. So far from monosyllabic responses to draw patients in, making them relax and open complying, she resisted up. In international negotiations, Henry Kissinger would lull diplomats him as far as a woman could . . . but how could a with boring details, then strike with bold demands. Early in a seduction, girl overcome a man, and less-colorful words are often more effective than vivid ones—the target who could defeat Jupiter? tunes them out, looks at your face, begins to imagine, fantasize, fall under He had his way, and returned to the upper air. your spell. Getting to your targets through other people is extremely effective; in- — O V I D , METAMORPHOSES, TRANSLATED BY MARY M. INNES

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  Hugh La Coeur liked kissing. He took his time with it, tasting her, caressing the inside of her mouth with deep licks of his talented tongue. She’d had her share of selfish bed partners, men who couldn’t be bothered with foreplay. Hugh, however, was a tactile man. He loved to caress her hair, her skin, her lips, and she preened like a cat under his touch, wanting to stretch and purr and soak up his affection. Fierce and primitive in bed, he took her body as if it belonged to him, as if it existed only for his pleasure. The tiny glimpses of vulnerability she’d seen in him certainly didn’t extend to the bedroom. His lovemaking was breathtaking, his stamina impressive. Twice she’d begged him to leave her alone, only to find that she craved him again within moments. He knew it, too, the arrogant man. It was rather like an addiction to chocolate, she supposed. She only hoped she would have her fill before the storm blew over and he went away. Charlotte picked up her brush and ran it through her hair. “I told him about the map and Glenmoore.” “That sounds promising. What did he say?” “He offered to help, actually.” She thought of his reactions to everything he’d witnessed so far and had to admire his aplomb. Nothing seemed to catch him off guard. And the way he’d soothed Katie and offered to buy a dozen pitchers for her . . . Charlotte had been touched. She didn’t trust people easily, but Hugh’s flashes of kindness for her, for his footman, and for her servants made her believe he was someone who genuinely cared for her welfare. “Do you think he can? Help, that is?” She shrugged. “I’m not certain, but I don’t see how it can hurt anything for him to try, and it will keep us occupied during the storm.” Laughter greeted that statement. “I didn’t think you needed any outside influences to keep you two occupied.” Charlotte set the brush down with a firm click. “Now that, I’m certain, isn’t proper at all!” Chapter Five Hugh stared into Artemis’s single eye and refused to give ground. To cave in to a servant . . . Why, the thought was abominable! “Listen, old chap,” he said curtly. “’Tis a simple enough question.” Artemis set his hands on his hips. “And one ye need be askin’ ’er Grace!” “You answer the door, for Christ’s sake! You know as well as anyone if Lord Glenmoore comes calling here.” “O’ course I know! Doesn’t mean I’ll be tellin’ you!” The bulbous eye protruded further as the butler narrowed his gaze. “You can ask from ’ere to perdition, gov’na, and I—” “Hang it all!! The proper address for a peer is ‘my lord.’ Is that so bloody difficult?” Artemis gasped. “’Ere now! Are ye complainin’ ’bout the way I perform my duties?” “Complaining?” Hugh snorted. “Good God, I’m astounded. Amazed. Stunned.”

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  For either of these books to be an amateur’s one-shot seems scarcely conceivable. Different as they are from each other, Story of O and The Image both evince a quality that can’t be ascribed simply to an abundance of the usual writerly endowments of sensibility, energy, and intelligence. Such gifts, very much in evidence, have themselves been processed through a dialogue of artifices. The somber self-consciousness of the narratives could hardly be further from the lack of control and craft usually considered the expression of obsessive lust. Intoxicating as is their subject (if the reader doesn’t cut off and find it just funny or sinister), both narratives are more concerned with the “use” of erotic material than with the “expression” of it. And this use is preeminently—there is no other word for it—literary. The imagination pursuing its outrageous pleasures in Story of O and The Image remains firmly anchored to certain notions of the formal consummation of intense feeling, of procedures for exhausting an experience, that connect as much with literature and recent literary history as with the ahistorical domain of eros. And why not? Experiences aren’t pornographic; only images and representations—structures of the imagination—are. That is why a pornographic book can make the reader think of, mainly, other pornographic books, rather than sex unmediated—and this not necessarily to the detriment of his erotic excitement. For instance, what resonates throughout Story of O is a voluminous body of pornographic or “libertine” literature, mostly trash, in both French and English, going back to the eighteenth century. The most obvious reference is to Sade. But here one must not think only of the writings of Sade himself, but of the reinterpretation of Sade by French literary intellectuals after World War II, a critical gesture perhaps comparable in its importance and influence upon educated literary taste and upon the actual direction of serious fiction in France to the reappraisal of James launched just before World War II in the United States, except that the French reappraisal has lasted longer and seems to have struck deeper roots. (Sade, of course, had never been forgotten. He was read enthusiastically by Flaubert, Baudelaire, and most of the other radical geniuses of French literature of the late nineteenth century. He was one of the patron saints of the Surrealist movement, and figures importantly in the thought of Breton.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  Should you get lucky with cousin or inflict rare social disease this office will deny all knowledge of your actions. The presumption of Allagash appalls you. When you call his office to decline the invitation, he has already left. Well, it’s his cousin and his problem. The thought of the Allagash genes and the Boston climate is a frightening one. His brief description suggests a prig, a wearer of plaid tartan skirts, a former contender on the green New England hockey fields and a noncontender in the Looks Department. Born into the manner that Clara has been faking ever since she went to Vassar. You will unplug the phone and say you never got the letter. You switch on the tube and throw yourself on the couch. Much fun on Family Feud . Ten grand rides on a question about garden tools; Richard Dawson flexes his eyebrows. But you keep glancing at the clock. By seven-twenty you are on your feet, pacing between the two rooms, kicking your laundry into the corners. If you know Tad, he won’t even make it to the Lion’s Head and the poor girl will be left to the slender mercies of all those aspiring actors and failed writers. A few friendly drinks with her wouldn’t kill you. You throw on a jacket and head out. You arrive ten minutes late. It’s two deep along the bar and no sign of Allagash. No sign of anybody wearing a plaid tartan skirt and Allagash features. In the middle of your beer you spot a woman standing alone beside the coatrack, holding a drink and reading a paperback. She looks up from time to time and then returns to her reading. You watch her eyes as they move around the room. Her face is intelligent. The hair is somewhere between strawberry and gold, you can’t tell in this light. That she could be the Boston Allagash is too much to hope. Boots, jeans and a black silk shirt. Not a patch of madras or tartan on her. The hell with Allagash and his race. You would like to speak to this woman, ask her if she’s eaten dinner. Perhaps she is the one who could make you forget your cares and woes, start eating breakfast, take up jogging. You edge in closer. The book in her hand is Spinoza’s Ethics . No flies on that. She looks up again and you catch her eye. “We don’t get many Rationalists in here,” you say. “I’m not surprised,” she says. “Too dark.” Her voice is like gravel spread with honey. She holds a smile just long enough to encourage you and then returns to her book. You wish you could remember something about Spinoza, besides the fact that he was excommunicated. Allagash appears in the door. You consider hiding out in the Men’s Room, but he spots you and comes over. Tad shakes your hand. Then he plants a kiss on the philosopher’s cheek.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  The place was really one long room, with a full-size bed in the front, a kitchenette, and a living area in the back with a TV and a small bathroom—so small that in order to take a shower, you pretty much had to sit on the toilet. “It ain’t much,” the Colonel’s mom (“That’s Dolores, not Miss Martin”) told us. “But y’alls a-gonna have a turkey the size o’ the kitchen.” She laughed. The Colonel ushered us out of the trailer immediately after our brief tour, and we walked through the neighborhood, a series of trailers and mobile homes on dirt roads. “Well, now you get why I hate rich people.” And I did. I couldn’t fathom how the Colonel grew up in such a small place. The entire trailer was smaller than our dorm room. I didn’t know what to say to him, how to make him feel less embarrassed. “I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “I know it’s probably foreign.” “Not to me,” Alaska piped up. “Well, you don’t live in a trailer,” he told her. “Poor is poor.” “I suppose,” the Colonel said. — Alaska decided to go help Dolores with dinner. She said that it was sexist to leave the cooking to the women, but better to have good sexist food than crappy boy-prepared food. So the Colonel and I sat on the pull-out couch in the living room, playing video games and talking about school. “I finished my religion paper. But I have to type it up on your computer when we get back. I think I’m ready for finals, which is good, since we have an ank-pray to an-play.” “Your mom doesn’t know pig Latin?” I smirked. “Not if I talk fast. Christ, be quiet.” The food—fried okra, steamed corn on the cob, and pot roast that was so tender it fell right off the plastic fork—convinced me that Dolores was an even better cook than Maureen. Culver Creek’s okra had less grease, more crunch. Dolores was also the funniest mom I’d ever met. When Alaska asked her what she did for work, she smiled and said, “I’m a culnary engineeyer. That’s a short- order cook at the Waffle House to y’all.” “Best Waffle House in Alabama.” The Colonel smiled, and then I realized, he wasn’t embarrassed of his mom at all. He was just scared that we would act like condescending boarding-school snobs. I’d always found the Colonel’s I- hate-the-rich routine a little overwrought until I saw him with his mom. He was the same Colonel, but in a totally different context. It made me hope that one day, I could meet Alaska’s family, too. — Dolores insisted that Alaska and I share the bed, and she slept on the pull-out while the Colonel was out in his tent. I worried he would get cold, but frankly I wasn’t about to give up my bed with Alaska.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  81 Shakespeare, Othello, the Moor of Venice Lecture 15 We love deception. We love power. We love to manipulate others, and in turn are ourselves manipulated. That is the tragedy in Shakespeare— human nature, again and again committing the same mistakes and refusing to learn. T he Divine Comedy is a work of profound philosophical and religious meaning. It is a commedia because life is ultimately a comedy in that it can end in salvation and eternal bliss. The goal of The Divine Comedy is to lead the reader to the wisdom that recognizes the love of God, which moves the entire universe and, at the same time, can care for each person as an individual. Dante is a member of a select company of authors. Of the Greeks, Homer was the outstanding genius against whose works all others are measured. Vergil was the outstanding genius for the Romans. Dante chose Vergil as a guide because of the grandeur of his poetry. Goethe is the outstanding genius for the Germans. In the English-speaking world, William Shakespeare is our Dante, our Goethe, our Homer, and our Vergil. Shakespeare was a master of tragedy, a master of comedy, and a master of historical plays. Shakespeare lived in an age of religious fervor and grandeur in England. Queen Elizabeth I was the ruler of Renaissance England, which was expanding across the world and beginning to establish settlements in the New World. This age was an era of heroic events, for example, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. It was a time of great leaders throughout the known world, including Queen Elizabeth I, Ivan the Terrible, and Sulayman the Magnifi cent of the Ottoman Empire. But this was also an era was of religious intolerance; it was an age of great wars of religion. Shakespeare’s plays do not refl ect the religious fervor of the era. In Shakespeare, the human element is paramount. The defi nitive cultural feature of the Athenian democracy had been Greek tragedy. In the Elizabethan age, the de fi nitive cultural statement is found in the plays of Shakespearecomedies, tragedies, and histories.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  You meet a woman named Joan at a party and find her personable and easy to talk to. Now her name comes up as someone who could be asked to contribute to a charity. What do you know about Joan’s generosity? The correct answer is that you know virtually nothing, because there is little reason to believe that people who are agreeable in social situations are also generous contributors to charities. But you like Joan and you will retrieve the feeling of liking her when you think of her. You also like generosity and generous people. By association, you are now predisposed to believe that Joan is generous. And now that you believe she is generous, you probably like Joan even better than you did earlier, because you have added generosity to her pleasant attributes. Real evidence of generosity is missing in the story of Joan, and the gap is filled by a guess that fits one’s emotional response to her. In other situations, evidence accumulates gradually and the interpretation is shaped by the emotion attached to the first impression. In an enduring classic of psychology, Solomon Asch presented descriptions of two people and asked for comments on their personality. What do you think of Alan and Ben? Alan: intelligent—industrious—impulsive—critical—stubborn— envious Ben: envious—stubborn—critical—impulsive—industrious—intelligent If you are like most of us, you viewed Alan much more favorably than Ben. The initial traits in the list change the very meaning of the traits that appear later. The stubbornness of an intelligent person is seen as likely to be justified and may actually evoke respect, but intelligence in an envious and stubborn person makes him more dangerous. The halo effect is also an example of suppressed ambiguity: like the word bank, the adjective stubborn is ambiguous and will be interpreted in a way that makes it coherent with the context. There have been many variations on this research theme. Participants in one study first considered the first three adjectives that describe Alan; then they considered the last three, which belonged, they were told, to another person. When they had imagined the two individuals, the participants were asked if it was plausible for all six adjectives to describe the same person, and most of them thought it was impossible! The sequence in which we observe characteristics of a person is often determined by chance. Sequence matters, however, because the halo effect increases the weight of first impressions, sometimes to the point that subsequent information is mostly wasted. Early in my career as a professor, I graded

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  There is no point in dismissing it as merely the dreams of mystified masses. It is a seductive occurrence. . . . • To be sure, seduction in the age of the masses is no longer like that of. . . Les Liaisons Dangereuses or The Seducer's Diary, nor for that matter, like that found in ancient mythology, which undoubtedly contains the stories richest in seduction. In these seduction is hot, while that of our modern idols is cold, being at the intersection of two cold mediums, that of the image and that of the masses. ...• The great stars or seductresses never dazzle because of their talent or intelligence, but because of their absence. They are dazzling in their nullity, and in their coldness—the coldness of makeup and ritual hieraticism. . . . • These great seductive effigies are our masks, our Eastern Island statues. —JEAN BAUDRILLARD, SEDUCTION, TRANSLATED BY BRIAN SINGER 128 • The Art of Seduction were so vibrant that when he painted jewels, people thought they were real. Painters were desperate to know his secrets but he never revealed them. He would leave town as he had entered, suddenly and quietly. His greatest ad- mirer was Casanova, who met him and never forgot him. When he died, no one believed it; years, decades, a century later, people were certain he was hiding somewhere. A person with powers like his never dies. The count had all the Star qualities. Everything about him was ambigu- ous and open to interpretation. Colorful and vibrant, he stood out from the crowd. People thought he was immortal, just as a star seems neither to age nor to disappear. His words were like his presence—fascinating, diverse, strange, their meaning unclear. Such is the power you can command by transforming yourself into a glittering object. Andy Warhol too obsessed everyone who knew him. He had a distinc- tive style—those silver wigs—and his face was blank and mysterious. People never knew what he was thinking; like his paintings, he was pure surface. In the quality of their presence Warhol and Saint-Germain recall the great trompe l'oeil paintings of the seventeenth century, or the prints of M. C. Escher—fascinating mixtures of realism and impossibility, which make people wonder if they are real or imaginary. A Star must stand out, and this may involve a certain dramatic flair, of the kind that Dietrich revealed in her appearances at parties. Sometimes, though, a more haunting, dreamlike effect can be created by subtle touches: the way you smoke a cigarette, a vocal inflection, a way of walking.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  85 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound Lecture 16 It is the action that causes the tragedy. Character is not the cause of the tragedy. Character is how you endure the tragedy that happens to you. T he previous lecture explored the tragic vision of Shakespeare’s Othello. The grand theme of Othello is power and jealousy, but above all, love as the motivating force of human action. History has been made by men and women undertaking tremendous tasks for the sake of love. Love propelled Othello to kill his wife. Love—that is, the love of power— propelled Iago to poison the minds of Roderigo and Othello. Othello is written in noble language. The language of Shakespeare is elevated but powerful. It even infl uences the speech of those who have not read Shakespeare’s works. The works of Shakespeare are universal. His works have been translated into almost every language, and they still speak to us today. Shakespeare, the greatest English writer of tragedy, shows us in Othello the tragic fall of rather ordinary people, people who, with a change of costume, we might meet in our professional lives today. Aeschylus, like the other great Greek tragedians, believes that we gain wisdom from those who suffered on a titanic stage. Prometheus is the great rebel, who in de fi ance of the will of Zeus, has brought noble bene fi ts to the human race. Prometheus is the eternal symbol of those who fi ght evil in a just cause. Prometheus accepts the terrible consequences of his actions. Zeus has violence and power on his side. But Prometheus has knowledge and courage. In the end, he will win, and it will be Zeus who gains wisdom from the suffering of this rebel. Greek tragedy was the characteristic cultural statement of the Athenian democracy. The age of Greek playwrights—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides —is concurrent with the Athenian democracy of the 5 th century B.C. and its grand period of empire. Athenian society was based on democracy, the liberty to live life as one chose, and the political involvement of ordinary citizens. Athenians sought to educate themselves for freedom with drama. Attending drama was a civic duty for which a stipend was

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

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

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  It is a way of mesmerizing your victim. According to Freud, the human libido is essentially bisexual; most peo- ple are in some way attracted to people of their own sex, but social con- straints (varying with culture and historical period) repress these impulses. The Dandy represents a release from such constraints. In several of Shake- speare's plays, a young girl (back then, the female roles in the theater were actually played by male actors) has to go into disguise and dresses up as a boy, eliciting all kinds of sexual interest from men, who later are delighted to find out that the boy is actually a girl. (Think, for example, of Rosalind in As You Like It.) Entertainers such as Josephine Baker (known as the Chocolate Dandy) and Marlene Dietrich would dress up as men in their acts, making themselves wildly popular—among men. Meanwhile the slightly feminized male, the pretty boy, has always been seductive to women. Valen- tino embodied this quality. Elvis Presley had feminine features (the face, the hips), wore frilly pink shirts and eye makeup, and attracted the attention of women early on. The filmmaker Kenneth Anger said of Mick Jagger that it was "a bisexual charm which constituted an important part of the attrac- tion he had over young girls . . . and which acted upon their unconscious." In Western culture for centuries, in fact, feminine beauty has been far more The Dandy • 51 fetishized than male beauty, so it is understandable that a feminine-looking face like that of Montgomery Clift would have more seductive power than that of John Wayne. The Dandy figure has a place in politics as well. John F. Kennedy was a strange mix of the masculine and feminine, virile in his toughness with the Russians, and in his White House lawn football games, yet feminine in his graceful and dapper appearance. This ambiguity was a large part of his ap- peal. Disraeli was an incorrigible Dandy in dress and manner; some were suspicious of him as a result, but his courage in not caring what people thought of him also won him respect. And women of course adored him, for women always adore a Dandy. They appreciated the gentleness of his manner, his aesthetic sense, his love of clothes—in other words, his femi- nine qualities. The mainstay of Disraeli's power was in fact a female fan: Queen Victoria. Do not be misled by the surface disapproval your Dandy pose may elicit. Society may publicize its distrust of androgyny (in Christian the- ology, Satan is often represented as androgynous), but this conceals its fascination; what is most seductive is often what is most repressed.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  4. In 1761, Empress Elizabeth of Russia died, and her nephew ascended to the throne as Czar Peter III. Peter had always been a little boy at heart—he played with toy soldiers long past the appropriate age—and now, as czar, he could finally do whatever he pleased and the world be damned. Peter con- cluded a treaty with Frederick the Great that was highly favorable to the foreign ruler (Peter adored Frederick, and particularly the disciplined way his Prussian soldiers marched). This was a practical debacle, but in matters of emotion and etiquette, Peter was even more offensive: he refused to properly mourn his aunt the empress, resuming his war games and parties a few days after the funeral. What a contrast he was to his wife, Catherine. She was respectful during the funeral, was still wearing black months later, and could be seen at all hours beside Elizabeth's tomb, praying and cry- ing. She was not even Russian, but a German princess who had come east to marry Peter in 1745 without speaking a word of the language. Even the lowest peasant knew that Catherine had converted to the Russian Ortho- dox Church, and had learned to speak Russian with incredible speed, and beautifully. At heart, they thought, she was more Russian than all of those fops in the court. During these difficult months, while Peter offended almost everyone in the country, Catherine discreetly kept a lover, Gregory Orlov, a lieutenant in the guards. It was through Orlov that word spread of her piety, her pa- triotism, her worthiness for rule; how much better to follow such a woman than to serve Peter. Late into the night, Catherine and Orlov would talk, and he would tell her the army was behind her and would urge her to stage a coup. She would listen attentively, but would always reply that this was not the time for such things. Orlov wondered to himself: perhaps she was too gentle and passive for such a great step. The Charmer • 91 Peter's regime was repressive, and the arrests and executions piled up. He also grew more abusive toward his wife, threatening to divorce her and marry his mistress. One drunken evening, driven to distraction by Cather- ine's silence and his inability to provoke her, he ordered her arrest. The news spread fast, and Orlov hurried to warn Catherine that she would be imprisoned or executed unless she acted fast. This time Catherine did not argue; she put on her simplest mourning gown, left her hair half undone, followed Orlov to a waiting carriage, and rushed to the army barracks.

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  At that moment, I distinctly heard her say: “Father, I still have not confessed the worst sin of all.” A few seconds of silence. “The worst sin of all is very simply that I’m tossing off while talking to you.” More seconds of whispering inside, and finally almost aloud: “If you don’t believe me, I can show you.” And indeed, Simone stood up and spread one thigh before the eye of the window while masturbating with a quick, sure hand. “All right, priest,” cried Simone, banging away at the confessional, “what are you doing in your shack there? Tossing off, too?” But the confessional kept its peace. “Well, then I’ll open.” And Simone pulled out the door. Inside, the visionary, standing there with lowered head, was mopping a sweat-bathed brow. The girl groped for his cock under the cassock: he didn’t turn a hair. She pulled up the filthy black skirt so that the long cock stuck out, pink and hard: all he did was throw back his head with a grimace, and a hiss escaped through his teeth, but he didn’t interfere with Simone, who shoved the bestiality into her mouth and took long sucks on it. Sir Edmund and I were immobile in our stupor. For my part, I was spellbound with admiration, and I didn’t know what else to do, when the enigmatic Englishman resolutely strode to the confessional and, after edging Simone aside as delicately as could be, dragged the larva out of its hole by its wrists, and flung it brutally at our feet: the vile priest lay there like a cadaver, his teeth to the ground, not uttering a cry. We promptly carried him to the vestry. His fly was open, his cock dangling, his face livid and drenched with sweat, he didn’t resist, but breathed heavily: we put him in a large wooden armchair with architectural decorations. “ Señores ,” the wretch snivelled, “you must think I’m a hypocrite.” “No,” replied Sir Edmund with a categorical intonation. Simone asked him: “What’s your name?” “Don Aminado,” he answered. Simone slapped the sacerdotal pig, which gave him another hard-on. We stripped off all his clothes, and Simone crouched down and pissed on them like a bitch. Then she wanked and sucked the pig while I urinated in his nostrils. Finally, to top off this cold exaltation, I fucked Simone in the arse while she violently sucked his cock. Meanwhile, Sir Edmund, contemplating the scene with his characteristic poker face, carefully inspected the room where we had found refuge.

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  176 Lecture 34: Gandhi, An Autobiography Gandhi, An Autobiography Lecture 34 This frail little man, Mohandas Gandhi, armed only with his belief in the truth, his concept of satyagraha—steadfastness in the truth—would take on that great empire and lead his nation, India, to independence, and leave us with one of the most profound examples of what one individual can achieve if they believe in the truth. T he previous lecture discussed Cicero’s De Offi ciis, or On Moral Duties. The theme of De Of fi ciis is that the basis of all morality and good actions is doing what is true and just and right; no dichotomy exists between doing what is good for oneself and doing what is right, because the individual can never pro fi t from doing wrong. This great book changed history. Through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, Cicero was the most infl uential intellectual fi gure from Greece or Rome. De Offi ciis was held up as the epitome of what a pagan could achieve in ethical thought, and Cicero was regarded as a pagan Christian. Machiavelli wrote The Prince in an attempt to refute Cicero. Machiavelli wanted to show that it is often expedient to do evil. To his own generation, Cicero was considered a failure. He had defended the free republic and had been killed. The free republic was never restored, and Augustus established a military dictatorship that was far more ef fi cient than Caesar had achieved. That new order brought peace and prosperity to a world that had been badly governed. Theodor Mommsen, the most in fl uential Roman historian of the modern era, also viewed Cicero as a failure and a detriment to his country. He believed that Cicero had delayed the progress of the new order of Caesar and Augustus. He viewed Cicero’s writings as journalism of the worst sort, because they were not serious philosophical treatises; instead, they attempted to make philosophy comprehensible to ordinary people. Cicero was a success because he was true to himself. The last three lectures in this course offer the following lessons: Be true to yourself, do what you know to be right, and never give up.