Anger

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 Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  We are an injured people. From county to county we have been driven by unscrupulous mobs eager to seize the land we have cleared and improved with such love and toil. We have appealed to magistrates, judges, the Governor, and even the President of the United States, but there has been no redress for us. . . . If the people will let us alone, we will preach the gospel in peace. But if they come on us to molest us, we will establish our religion by the sword. We will trample down our enemies and make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. I will be to this generation a second Mohammed, whose motto in treating for peace was “the Alcoran [Qur’an] or the Sword.” So shall it eventually be with us—“Joseph Smith or the Sword!” * It was an impassioned speech, and the Mormons responded. Venting years of pent-up anger, they began raiding Gentile towns and plundering food, livestock, and valuables, burning approximately fifty non-Mormon homes in the process. Outraged, Missourians retaliated with counterattacks, destroying several Mormon cabins. Eleven days after Joseph’s forceful call to arms, a skirmish resulted in the death of three Saints and one Gentile. Making matters even worse, the carnage from this fight was wildly exaggerated in an inflammatory letter to Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs, wherein it was falsely reported that the Saints had slaughtered fifty Missourians. Upon reading this, Boggs—who had won the 1836 gubernatorial election on an anti-Mormon platform—issued a now-infamous order to the top-ranked general of the Missouri Militia: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated, or driven from the state, if necessary for the public peace. Their outrages are beyond all description.” Days later, three companies of the Missouri Militia, commanded by Colonel Thomas Jennings, launched a surprise attack on a Mormon settlement known as Haun’s Mill. Late in the afternoon of October 30, 1838, as the sun “hung low and red in a beautiful Indian summer sky,” some twenty-five Mormon families working in the fields were surprised to see 240 troops appear suddenly from the surrounding woods, aim their muskets, and fire in unison at the Saints. The commander of the Mormons, realizing that his lightly armed community had no chance against such an overwhelming force, immediately waved his hat

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  plague that was rife in Nauvoo’s swamps. Joseph responded to this tragedy by sending Lucy’s grief-stricken father on a two-year mission to the eastern states to heal his broken heart; in their father’s absence, the prophet then “adopted” Lucy and most of her siblings. According to Lucy’s autobiography, while she was living in the prophet’s home, “President Joseph Smith sought an interview with me, and said, ‘I have a message for you, I have been commanded of God to take another wife, and you are the woman.’ My astonishment knew no bounds.” When the horrified girl balked at his proposal, Joseph explained to Lucy that if she refused she would face eternal damnation. “I have no flattering words to offer,” he said. “It is a command of God to you. I will give you until to-morrow to decide this matter. If you reject this message the gate will be closed forever against you.” Lucy reacted with both anger and despair: “This aroused every drop of scotch in my veins. For a few moments I stood fearless before him, and looked him in the eye. I felt at this moment that I was called to place myself upon the altar a living sacrifice . . . this was too much, the thought was unbearable.” Courageously, she replied to the prophet that unless she, personally, received a revelation straight from God that He wanted her to wed the prophet, she wouldn’t do it. At which point, she wrote, Joseph stood before her with “the most beautiful expression of countenance, and said, ‘God Almighty bless you, You shall have a manifestation of the will of God concerning you; a testimony that you can never deny.’ ” According to Lucy’s memoirs, It was near dawn after another sleepless night when my room was lighted up by a heavenly influence. To me it was, in comparison, like the brilliant sun bursting through the darkest cloud. My soul was filled with a calm, sweet peace that I never knew. Supreme happiness took possession of me, and I received a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truth of plural marriage, Which has been like an anchor to the soul through all the trials of life. I felt that I must go out into the morning air and gave vent to the Joy and gratitude that filled my soul. As I descended the stairs, Prest. Smith opened the door below; took me by the hand and said: “Thank God, you have the testimony. I too, have prayed.” He led me to a chair, placed his hands upon my head, and blessed me with Every blessing my heart could possibly desire.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  It was just dismal, and one had to put up with it. It was quite true, men had no real glamour for a woman: if you could fool yourself into thinking they had, even as she had fooled herself over Michaelis, that was the best you could do. Meanwhile you just lived on and there was nothing to it. She understood perfectly well why people had cocktail parties, and jazzed, and Charlestoned till they were ready to drop. You had to take it out some way or other, your youth, or it ate you up. But what a ghastly thing, this youth! you felt as old as Methuselah, and yet the thing fizzed somehow, and didn't let you be comfortable. A mean sort of life! And no prospect! She almost wished she had gone off with Mick, and made her life one long cocktail party, and jazz evening. Anyhow that was better than just mooning yourself into the grave. On one of her bad days she went out alone to walk in the wood, ponderously, heeding nothing, not even noticing where she was. The report of a gun not far off startled and angered her. Then, as she went, she heard voices, and recoiled. People! She didn't want people. But her quick ear caught another sound, and she roused; it was a child sobbing. At once she attended; someone was ill-treating a child. She strode swinging down the wet drive, her sullen resentment uppermost. She felt just prepared to make a scene. Turning the corner, she saw two figures in the drive beyond her: the keeper, and a little girl in a purple coat and moleskin cap, crying. "Ah, shut it up, tha false little bitch!" came the man's angry voice, and the child sobbed louder. Constance strode nearer, with blazing eyes. The man turned and looked at her, saluting coolly, but he was pale with anger. "What's the matter? Why is she crying?" demanded Constance, peremptory but a little breathless. A faint smile like a sneer came on the man's face. "Nay, yo' mun ax 'er," he replied callously, in broad vernacular. Connie felt as if he had hit her in the face, and she changed colour. Then she gathered her defiance, and looked at him, her dark-blue eyes blazing rather vaguely. "I asked _you_," she panted. He gave a queer little bow, lifting his hat. "You did, your Ladyship," he said; then, with a return to the vernacular: "but I canna tell yer." And he became a soldier, inscrutable, only pale with annoyance. Connie turned to the child, a ruddy, black-haired thing of nine or ten. "What is it, dear? Tell me why you're crying!" she said, with the conventionalised sweetness suitable. More violent sobs, self-conscious. Still more sweetness on Connie's part. "There, there, don't you cry! Tell me what they've done to you!" ... and intense tenderness of tone. At the same time she felt in the pocket of her knitted jacket, and luckily found a sixpence.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  No one answered. Mellors was slinging his gun over his shoulder, his face queer and expressionless, save for an abstracted look of patience. The dog Flossie, standing on guard almost between her master's legs, moved uneasily, eyeing the chair with great suspicion and dislike, and very much perplexed between the three human beings. The _tableau vivant_ remained set among the squashed bluebells, nobody proffering a word. "I expect she'll have to be pushed," said Clifford at last, with an affectation of _sang froid_. No answer. Mellors' abstracted face looked as if he had heard nothing. Connie glanced anxiously at him. Clifford too glanced round. "Do you mind pushing her home, Mellors!" he said in a cool, superior tone. "I hope I have said nothing to offend you," he added, in a tone of dislike. "Nothing at all, Sir Clifford! Do you want me to push that chair?" "If you please." The man stepped up to it: but this time it was without effect. The brake was jammed. They poked and pulled, and the keeper took off his gun and his coat once more. And now Clifford said never a word. At last the keeper heaved the back of the chair off the ground, and with an instantaneous push of his foot, tried to loosen the wheels. He failed, the chair sank. Clifford was clutching the sides. The man gasped with the weight. "Don't do it!" cried Connie to him. "If you'll pull the wheel that way, so!" he said to her, showing her how. "No! You mustn't lift it! You'll strain yourself," she said, flushed now with anger. But he looked into her eyes and nodded. And she had to go and take hold of the wheel, ready. He heaved and she tugged, and the chair reeled. "For God's sake!" cried Clifford in terror. But it was all right, and the brake was off. The keeper put a stone under the wheel, and went to sit on the bank, his heart beating and his face white with the effort, semi-conscious. Connie looked at him, and almost cried with anger. There was a pause and a dead silence. She saw his hands trembling on his thighs. "Have you hurt yourself?" she asked, going to him. "No. No!" he turned away almost angrily. There was dead silence. The back of Clifford's fair head did not move. Even the dog stood motionless. The sky had clouded over. At last he sighed, and blew his nose on his red handkerchief. "That pneumonia took a lot out of me," he said. No one answered. Connie calculated the amount of strength it must have taken to heave up that chair and the bulky Clifford: too much, far too much! If it hadn't killed him! He rose, and again picked up his coat, slinging it through the handle of the chair. "Are you ready, then, Sir Clifford?" "When you are!"

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Then he would arrive late at the office and shout down his secretary, Madeleine, for failing to make his coffee light enough. Get your ass down there and get another cup! He was digging his own grave and holding it like a pearl inside of him. —Clair, George Clair, he said, overfilling his glass, plucking a single ice cube from the silver ice bucket. What a surprise. —Benjie! Firmly they clasped one another’s hands. Clair’s expression was inoffensive and slyly confused. Smile lines skirted the planes of his face. —What the hell has you here in New Canaan? —Well, it’s the funniest thing, Benjamin. I’ve been talking with some investors—a little outside venture, you understand, between you and me—about a scheme to manufacture a new Styrofoam packaging. It’s little S-shaped Styrofoam pieces that can help keep an item free from trauma during shipping. Really miraculous. Really remarkable. Delicate stuff, stuff that can get tossed around by the shippers, still arrives intact. It’s just going nationwide, the way I see it, nationwide. Anyway, it turns out one of the principal thinkers behind the whole project is your neighbor Jim Williams. How about that! Clair hoisted his glass a couple of inches. Benjamin was almost certain: Clair drank club soda and pretended it was gin and tonic. The blood rose in Hood’s face. That Clair and Jim Williams were bedfellows now augured some consolidation of bad energy in the universe. It was evidence of an order that chilled his bones. Either a paranoid assumption about the world was correct and it was filled with plots by human souls, occasionally selfish, occasionally generous human souls—plots that they pursued compulsively, recklessly, without regard for those they might harm—or else there was a force that ordered human society, ordered even the coexistence of plots and meaninglessness, that located oil under Arab countries and dust under Israel, that parched Bangladesh and froze the Baffin Bay, that raised up Richard Nixon from Checkers to dash him at the Watergate Hotel—while he realized the largest margin of victory in a presidential election in decades. Either way, Hood detested George Clair. Detested him. He was the truest suburban phony: without culture, without native character, who was compelled here and there only by expedience. Hood would have liked to yank tight Clair’s squeaky-clean bow tie and to watch him, in the process, swell and burst. —Well, hey, Benjamin said, isn’t that a one-in-a-million coincidence? A real dreamer, Jim Williams. And the sort of guy to turn those dreams into, well, bottom-line realities. —Darned right about that. Look here, Benj, whaddya make of this film of The Exorcist, you know, William Peter Blatty’s novel? You think it’s gonna work? —Don’t see how, Hood said. The star’s a little girl. Just devil-worship stuff. I mean, maybe if the little girl was possessed by an Indian spirit, angered by the white man’s occupation of his native ... ancestral lands or something.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But Violet Antrim, who had also been staying with the Pea- cocks, had arrived home full of importance. She walked in on Stephen one afternoon to announce her engagement to young Alec Peacock. She was so much engaged and so haughty about it ` that Stephen, whose nerves were already on edge, was very soon literally itching to slap her. Violet was now able to look down on Stephen from the height of her newly gained knowledge of men — knowing Alec she felt that she knew the whole species. “It’s a terrible pity you dress as you do, my dear,’ she re- marked, with the manner of sixty, ‘ a young girl’s so much more attractive when she’s soft—don’t you think you could soften your clothes just a little? I mean, you do want to get married, don’t you! No woman’s complete until she’s married. After all, no woman can really stand alone, she always needs a man to protect her.’ Stephen said: ‘I’m all right — getting on nicely, thank you! ’ ‘Oh, no, but you can’t be! ’ Violet insisted. ‘I was talking to Alec and Roger about you, and Roger was saying it’s an awful mistake for women to get false ideas into their heads. He thinks you’ve got rather a bee in your bonnet; he told Alec that you’d be quite a womanly woman if you’d only stop trying to ape what you're not.’ Presently she said, staring rather hard: ‘ That Mrs. Crossby — do you really like her? Of course I know you’re friends and all that — But why are you friends? You’ve got nothing in 196 THE WELL OF LONELINESS common. She’s what Roger calls a thorough man’s woman. I think myself she’s a bit of a climber. Do you want to be used as a scaling ladder for storming the fortifications of the county? The Peacocks have known old Crossby for years, he’s a wonderful shot for an ironmonger, but they don’t care for her very much I believe — Alec says she’s man-mad, whatever that means, anyhow she seems desperately keen about Roger.’ Stephen said: ‘Pd rather we didn’t discuss Mrs. Crossby, because, you see, she’s my friend.’ And her voice was as icy cold as her hands. ‘Oh, of course if you’re feeling like that about it — ° laughed Violet, ‘ no, but honest, she is keen on Roger.’ When Violet had gone, Stephen sprang to her feet, but her sense of direction seemed to have left her, for she struck her head a pretty sharp blow against the side of a heavy book-case. She stood swaying with her hands pressed against her temples. Angela and Roger Antrim — those two — but it couldn’t be, Violet had been purposely lying. She loved to torment, she was like her brother, a bully, a devil who loved to torment — it couldn’t be — Violet had been lying.

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

  They talk to them contemptuously, and brook no reply or argument. The third class passenger has to obey the official as though he were his servant, and the letter may with impunity belabour and blackmail him, and book him his ticket only putting him to the greatest possible inconvenience, including often missing the train. All this I have seen with my own eyes. No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and, instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal. Wherever I went in Kathiawad I heard complaints about the Viramgam customs hardships. I therefore decided immediately to make use of Lord Willingdon’s offer. I collected and read all the literature available on the subject, convinced myself that the complaints were well founded, and opened correspondence with the Bombay Government. I called on the Private Secretary to Lord Willingdon and waited on His Excellency also. The latter expressed his sympathy but shifted the blame on Delhi. ‘If it had been in our hands, we should have removed the cordon long ago. You should approach the Government of India,’ said the secretary. I communicated with the Government of India, but got no reply beyond an acknowledgment. It was only when I had an occasion to meet Lord Chelmsford later that redress could be had. When I placed the facts before him, he expressed his astonishment. He had known nothing of the matter. He gave me a patient hearing, telephoned that very moment for papers about Viramgam, and promised to remove the cordon if the authorities had no explanation or defence to offer. Within a few days of this interview I read in the papers that the Viramgam customs cordon had been removed. I regarded this event as the advent of Satyagraha in India. For during my interview with the Bombay Government the Secretary had expressed his disapproval of a reference to Satyagraha in a speech which I had delivered in Bagasra (in Kathiawad). ‘Is not this a threat?’ he had asked. ‘And do you think a powerful Government will yield to threats?’ ‘This was no threat’, I had replied. ‘It was educating the people. It is my duty to place before the people all the legitimate remedies for grievances. A nation that wants to come into its own ought to know all the ways and means to freedom. Usually they include violence as the last remedy. Satyagraha, on the other hand, is an absolutely non- violent weapon. I regard it as my duty to explain its practice and its limitations. I have no doubt that the British Government is a powerful Government, but I have no doubt also that Satyagraha is a sovereign remedy.’ The clever Secretary sceptically nodded his head and said: ‘We shall see.’ 130SHANTINIKETANFrom Rajkot I proceeded to Shantiniketan. The teachers and students overwhelmed me with affection.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Who's shirking their responsibility now!" he said. "Who is trying to get away _now_ from the responsibility of their own boss-ship, as you call it?" "But I don't want any boss-ship," she protested. "Ah! But that is funk. You've got it: fated to it. And you should live up to it. Who has given the colliers all they have that's worth having: all their political liberty, and their education, such as it is, their sanitation, their health conditions, their books, their music, everything. Who has given it them? Have colliers given it to colliers? No! All the Wragbys and Shipleys in England have given their part, and must go on giving. There's your responsibility." Connie listened, and flushed very red. "I'd like to give something," she said. "But I'm not allowed. Everything is to be sold and paid for now; and all the things you mention now, Wragby and Shipley _sells_ them to the people, at a good profit. Everything is sold. You don't give one heartbeat of real sympathy. And besides, who has taken away from the people their natural life and manhood, and given them this industrial horror? Who has done that?" "And what must I do?" he asked, green. "Ask them to come and pillage me?" "Why is Tevershall so ugly, so hideous? Why are their lives so hopeless?" "They built their own Tevershall, that's part of their display of freedom. They built themselves their pretty Tevershall, and they live their own pretty lives. I can't live their lives for them. Every beetle must live its own life." "But you make them work for you. They live the life of your coal mine." "Not at all. Every beetle finds its own food. Not one man is forced to work for me." "Their lives are industrialised and hopeless, and so are ours," she cried. "I don't think they are. That's just a romantic figure of speech, a relic of the swooning and die-away romanticism. You don't look at all a hopeless figure standing there, Connie my dear." Which was true. For her dark-blue eyes were flashing, her colour was hot in her cheeks, she looked full of a rebellious passion far from the dejection of hopelessness. She noticed, in the tussocky places of the grass, cottony young cowslips standing up still bleared in their down. And she wondered with rage, why it was she felt Clifford was so _wrong_, yet she couldn't say it to him, she could not say exactly _where_ he was wrong. "No wonder the men hate you," she said.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it. She was our neighbour too, which made it more awkward, and not only that—her position in the county—oh, Ralph, you must help me, I’m completely bewildered. How on earth does one answer this sort of thing? It’s quite mad—I believe the girl’s half mad herself.’ And she handed him Stephen’s letter. He read it slowly, and as he did so his weak little eyes grew literally scarlet—puffy and scarlet all over their lids, and when he had finished reading that letter he turned and spat on the ground. Then Ralph’s language became a thing to forget; every filthy invective learnt in the slums of his youth and later on in the workshops, he hurled against Stephen and all her kind. He called down the wrath of the Lord upon them. He deplored the non-existence of the stake, and racked his brains for indecent tortures. And finally: ‘I’ll answer this letter, yes, by God I will! You leave her to me, I know how I’m going to answer this letter!’ Angela asked him, and now her voice shook: ‘Ralph, what will you do to her—to Stephen?’ He laughed loudly: ‘I’ll hound her out of the county before I’ve done—and with luck out of England; the same as I’d hound you out if I thought that there’d ever been anything between you two women. It’s damned lucky for you that she wrote this letter, damned lucky, otherwise I might have my suspicions. You’ve got off this time, but don’t try your reforming again—you’re not cut out to be a reformer. If there’s any of that Lamb of God stuff wanted I’ll see to it myself and don’t you forget it!’ He slipped the letter into his pocket, ‘I’ll see to it myself next time—with an axe!’ Angela turned and went out of the study with bowed head. She was saved through this great betrayal, yet most strangely bitter she found her salvation, and most shameful the price she had paid for her safety. So, greatly daring, she went to her desk and with trembling fingers took a sheet of paper. Then she wrote in her large, rather childish handwriting: ‘Stephen—when you know what I’ve done, forgive me.’ CHAPTER 27 1 T wo days later Anna Gordon sent for her daughter.

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

  He and his wife had laid me under a debt of gratitude, but I was not prepared to put up with his medical morals. ‘Doctor, tell me what you propose to do now. I would never allow my wife to be given meat or beef, even if the denial meant her death, unless of course she desired to take it.’ ‘You are welcome to your philosophy. I tell you that, so long as you keep your wife under my treatment, I must have the option to give her anything I wish. If you don’t like this, I must regretfully ask you to remove her. I can’t see her die under my roof.’ ‘Do you mean to say that I must remove her at once?’ ‘Whenever did I ask you to remove her? I only want to be left entirely free. If you do so, my wife and I will do all that is possible for her, and you may go back without the least anxiety on her score. But if you will not understand this simple thing, you will compel me to ask you to remove your wife from my place.’ I think one of my sons was with me. He entirely agreed with me, and said his mother should not be given beef tea. I next spoke to Kasturbai herself. She was really too weak to be consulted in this matter. But I thought it my painful duty to do so. I told her what had passed between the doctor and myself. She gave a resolute reply: ‘I will not take beef tea. It is a rare thing in this world to be born as a human being, and I would far rather die in your arms than pollute my body with such abominations.’ I pleaded with her. I told her that she was not bound to follow me. I cited to her the instances of Hindu friends and acquaintances who had no scruples about taking meat or wine as medicine. But she was adamant. ‘No,’ said she, ‘pray remove me at once.’ I was delighted. Not without some agitation I decided to take her away. I informed the doctor of her resolve. He exclaimed in a rage: ‘What a callous man you are! You should have been ashamed to broach the matter to her in her present condition. I tell you your wife is not least little hustling. I shouldn’t surprised if she were to die on the way. But if you must persist, you are free to do so. If you will not give her beef tea, I will not take the risk of keeping her under my roof even for a single day.’ So we decided to leave the place at once. It was drizzling and the station was some distance.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "'Elp yerselves!" he said. "'Elp yerselves! Dunna wait f'r axin!" He cut the bread, then sat motionless. Hilda felt, as Connie once used to, his power of silence and distance. She saw his smallish, sensitive, loose hand on the table. He was no simple working-man, not he: he was acting! acting! "Still!" she said, as she took a little cheese. "It would be more natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in vernacular." He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will. "Would it?" he said in the normal English. "Would it? Would anything that was said between you and me be quite natural, unless you said you wished me to hell before your sister ever saw me again: and unless I said something almost as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be natural?" "Oh yes!" said Hilda. "Just good manners would be quite natural." "Second nature, so to speak!" he said: then he began to laugh. "Nay," he said. "I'm weary o' manners. Let me be!" Hilda was frankly baffled and furiously annoyed. After all, he might show that he realized he was being honoured. Instead of which, with his play-acting and lordly airs, he seemed to think it was he who was conferring the honour. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man's clutches! The three ate in silence. Hilda looked to see what his table manners were like. She could not help realizing that he was instinctively much more delicate and well-bred than herself. She had a certain Scottish clumsiness. And moreover, he had all the quiet self-contained assurance of the English, no loose edges. It would be very difficult to get the better of him. But neither would he get the better of her. "And do you really think," she said, a little more humanly, "it's worth the risk." "Is what worth what risk?" "This escapade with my sister." He flickered his irritating grin. "Yo' maun ax 'er!" Then he looked at Connie. "Tha comes o' thine own accord, lass, doesn't ter? It's non me as forces thee?" Connie looked at Hilda. "I wish you wouldn't cavil, Hilda." "Naturally I don't want to. But someone has to think about things. You've got to have some of continuity in your life. You can't just go making a mess." There was a moment's pause. "Eh, continuity!" he said. "An' what by that? What continuity 'ave yer got i' _your_ life? I thought you was gettin' divorced. What continuity's that? Continuity o' yer own stubbornness. I can see that much. An' what good's it goin' to do yer? Yo'll be sick o' yer continuity afore yer a fat sight older. A stubborn woman an' 'er own self-will: ay, they make a fat continuity, they do. Thank heaven, it isn't me as 'as got th' andlin' of yer!" "What right have you to speak like that to me?" said Hilda.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "But Connie!" she said. "Whatever is the matter?" "Nothing!" said Connie, rather shame-facedly; but she knew how she had suffered in contrast to Hilda. Both sisters had the same rather golden, glowing skin, and soft brown hair, and naturally strong, warm physique. But now Connie was thin and earthy-looking, with a scraggy, yellowish neck, that stuck out of her jumper. "But you're ill, child!" said Hilda, in the soft, rather breathless voice, that both sisters had alike. Hilda was nearly, but not quite, two years older than Connie. "No, not ill. Perhaps I'm bored," said Connie a little pathetically. The light of battle glowed in Hilda's face: she was a woman, soft and still as she seemed, of the old amazon sort, not made to fit with men. "This wretched place!" she said softly, looking at poor old, lumbering Wragby with real hate. She looked soft and warm herself, as a ripe pear, and she was an amazon of the real old breed. She went quietly in to Clifford. He thought how handsome she looked, but also he shrank from her. His wife's family did not have his sort of manners, or his sort of etiquette. He considered them rather outsiders, but once they got inside they made him jump through the hoop. He sat square and well-groomed in his chair, his hair sleek and blond, and his face fresh, his blue eyes pale, and a little prominent, his expression inscrutable, but well-bred. Hilda thought it sulky and stupid, and he waited. He had an air of aplomb, but Hilda didn't care what he had an air of; she was up in arms, and if he'd been Pope or Emperor it would have been just the same. "Connie's looking awfully unwell," she said in her soft voice, fixing him with her beautiful, glowering grey eyes. She looked so maidenly, so did Connie; but he well knew the stone of Scottish obstinacy underneath. "She's a little thinner," he said. "Haven't you done anything about it?" "Do you think it necessary?" he asked, with his suavest English stiffness, for the two things often go together. Hilda only glowered at him without replying; repartee was not her forte, nor Connie's; so she glowered, and he was much more uncomfortable than if she had said things. "I'll take her to a doctor," said Hilda at length, "Can you suggest a good one round here?" "I'm afraid I can't." "Then I'll take her to London, where we have a doctor we trust." Though boiling with rage, Clifford said nothing. "I suppose I may as well stay the night," said Hilda, pulling off her gloves, "and I'll drive her to town tomorrow." Clifford was yellow at the gills with anger, and at evening the whites of his eyes were a little yellow too. He ran to liver. But Hilda was consistently modest and maidenly.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He was in rather high feather this bright morning. The larks were trilling away over the park, the distant pit in the hollow was fuming silent steam. It was almost like old days, before the war. Connie didn't really want to argue. But then she did not really want to go to the wood with Clifford either. So she walked beside his chair in a certain obstinacy of spirit. "No," he said. "There will be no more strikes, if the thing is properly managed." "Why not?" "Because strikes will be made as good as impossible." "But will the men let you?" she asked. "We shan't ask them. We shall do it while they aren't looking: for their own good, to save the industry." "For your own good too," she said. "Naturally! For the good of everybody. But for their good even more than mine. I can live without the pits. They can't. They'll starve if there are no pits. I've got other provision." They looked up the shallow valley at the mine, and beyond it, at the black-lidded houses of Tevershall crawling like some serpent up the hill. From the old brown church the bells were ringing: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! "But will the men let you dictate terms?" she said. "My dear, they will have to: if one does it gently." "But mightn't there be a mutual understanding?" "Absolutely: when they realize that the industry comes before the individual." "But must you own the industry?" she said. "I don't. But to the extent I do own it, yes, most decidedly. The ownership of property has now become a religious question: as it has been since Jesus and St. Francis. The point is _not_: take all thou hast and give to the poor, but use all thou hast to encourage the industry and give work to the poor. It's the only way to feed all the mouths and clothe all the bodies. Giving away all we have to the poor spells starvation for the poor just as much as for us. And universal starvation is no high aim. Even general poverty is no lovely thing. Poverty is ugly." "But the disparity?" "That is fate. Why is the star Jupiter bigger than the star Neptune? You can't start altering the makeup of things!" "But when this envy and jealousy and discontent has once started," she began. "Do your best to stop it. Somebody's _got_ to be boss of the show." "But who is boss of the show?" she asked. "The men who own and run the industries." There was a long silence. "It seems to me they're a bad boss," she said. "Then you suggest what they should do." "They don't take their boss-ship seriously enough," she said. "They take it far more seriously than you take your ladyship," he said. "That's thrust upon me. I don't really want it," she blurted out. He stopped the chair and looked at her.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  They parted most genially, and Mellors laughed inwardly all the time for the rest of the day. The following day he had lunch with Connie and Hilda, at some discreet place. "It's a very great pity it's such an ugly situation all round," said Hilda. "I had a lot o' fun out of it," said he. "I think you might have avoided putting children into the world until you were both free to marry and have children." "The Lord blew a bit too soon on the spark," said he. "I think the Lord had nothing to do with it. Of course, Connie has enough money to keep you both, but the situation is unbearable." "But then you don't have to bear more than a small corner of it, do you?" said he. "If you'd been in her own class." "Or if I'd been in a cage at the Zoo." There was silence. "I think," said Hilda, "it will be best if she names quite another man as co-respondent, and you stay out of it altogether." "But I thought I'd put my foot right in." "I mean, in the divorce proceeding." He gazed at her in wonder. Connie had not dared mention the Duncan scheme to him. "I don't follow," he said. "We have a friend who would probably agree to be named as co-respondent, so that your name need not appear," said Hilda. "You mean a man?" "Of course!" "But she's got no other?" He looked in wonder at Connie. "No, no!" she said hastily. "Only that old friendship, quite simple, no love." "Then why should the fellow take the blame? If he's had nothing out of you?" "Some men are chivalrous and don't only count what they get out of a woman," said Hilda. "One for me, eh? But who's the johnny?" "A friend whom we've known since we were children in Scotland, an artist." "Duncan Forbes!" he said at once, for Connie had talked of him. "And how would you shift the blame on to him?" "They could stay together in some hotel, or she could even stay in his apartment." "Seems to me a lot of fuss for nothing," he said. "What else do you suggest?" said Hilda. "If your name appears, you will get no divorce from your wife, who is apparently quite an impossible person to be mixed up with." "All that!" he said grimly. There was a long silence. "We could go right away," he said. "There is no right away for Connie," said Hilda. "Clifford is too well known." Again the silence of pure frustration. "The world is what it is. If you want to live together without being persecuted, you will have to marry. To marry, you both have to be divorced. So how are you both going about it?" He was silent for a long time. "How are _you_ going about it for us?" he said.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "We will see if Duncan will consent to figure as co-respondent: then we must get Clifford to divorce Connie: and you must go on with your divorce, and you must both keep apart till you are free." "Sounds like a lunatic asylum." "Possibly! And the world would look on you as lunatics: or worse." "What is worse?" "Criminals, I suppose." "Hope I can plunge in the dagger a few more times yet," he said grinning. Then he was silent, and angry. "Well!" he said at last. "I agree to anything. The world is a raving idiot, and no man can kill it: though I'll do my best. But you're right. We must rescue ourselves as best we can." He looked in humiliation, anger, weariness and misery at Connie. "Ma lass!" he said. "The world's goin' to put salt on thy tail." "Not if we don't let it," she said. She minded this conniving against the world less than he did. Duncan, when approached, also insisted on seeing the delinquent gamekeeper, so there was a dinner, this time in his flat: the four of them. Duncan was a rather short, broad, dark-skinned, taciturn Hamlet of a fellow with straight black hair and a weird Celtic conceit of himself. His art was all tubes and valves and spirals and strange colours, ultra modern, yet with a certain power, even a certain purity of form and tone: only Mellors thought it cruel and repellent. He did not venture to say so, for Duncan was almost insane on the point of his art; it was a personal cult, a personal religion with him. They were looking at the pictures in the studio, and Duncan kept his smallish brown eyes on the other man. He wanted to hear what the gamekeeper would say. He knew already Connie's and Hilda's opinions. "It is like a pure bit of murder," said Mellors at last; a speech Duncan by no means expected from a gamekeeper. "And who is murdered?" asked Hilda, rather coldly and sneeringly. "Me! It murders all the bowels of compassion in a man." A wave of pure hate came out of the artist. He heard the note of dislike in the other man's voice, and the note of contempt. And he himself loathed the mention of bowels of compassion. Sickly sentiment! Mellors stood rather tall and thin, worn-looking, gazing with flickering detachment that was something like the dancing of a moth on the wing, at the pictures. "Perhaps stupidity is murdered; sentimental stupidity," sneered the artist. "Do you think so? I think all these tubes and corrugated vibrations are stupid enough for anything, and pretty sentimental. They show a lot of self-pity and an awful lot of nervous self-opinion, seems to me." In another wave of hate, the artist's face looked yellow. But with a sort of silent hauteur he turned the pictures to the wall. "I think we may go to the dining-room," he said. And they trailed off, dismally. After coffee, Duncan said:

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie returned to her room, threw her pyjamas on the tossed bed, put on a thin night dress and over that a woolen day dress, put on rubber tennis shoes, and then a light coat. And she was ready. If she met anybody, she was just going out for a few minutes. And in the morning, when she came in again, she would just have been for a little walk in the dew, as she fairly often did before breakfast. For the rest, the only danger was that someone should go into her room during the night. But that was most unlikely: not one chance in a hundred. Betts had not yet locked up. He fastened up the house at ten o'clock, and unfastened it again at seven in the morning. She slipped out silently and unseen. There was a half-moon shining, enough to make a little light in the world, not enough to show her up in her dark-grey coat. She walked quickly across the park, not really in the thrill of the assignation, but with a certain anger and rebellion burning in her heart. It was not the right sort of heart to take to a love-meeting. But _à la guerre comme à la guerre_! CHAPTER XIV When she got near the park gate, she heard the click of the latch. He was there, then, in the darkness of the wood, and had seen her! "You are good and early," he said out of the dark. "Was everything all right?" "Perfectly easy." He shut the gate quietly after her, and made a spot of light on the dark ground, showing the pallid flowers still standing there open in the night. They went on apart, in silence. "Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself this morning with that chair?" she asked. "No, no!" "When you had that pneumonia, what did it do to you?" "Oh, nothing! it left my heart not so strong and the lungs not so elastic. But it always does that." "And you ought not to make violent physical efforts?" "Not often." She plodded on in an angry silence. "Did you hate Clifford?" she said at last. "Hate him, no! I've met too many like him to upset myself hating him. I know beforehand I don't care for his sort, and I let it go at that." "What is his sort?" "Nay, you know better than I do. The sort of youngish gentleman a bit like a lady, and no balls." "What balls?" "Balls! A man's balls!" She pondered this. "But is it a question of that?" she said, a little annoyed. "You say a man's got no brain, when he's a fool: and no heart, when he's mean; and no stomach when he's a funker. And when he's got none of that spunky wild bit of a man in him, you say he's got no balls. When he's sort of tame." She pondered this. "And is Clifford tame?" she asked.

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

  It was necessary to attach two certificates of character to the application for admission, and thinking that these would carry more weight if given by Europeans, I secured them from two well-known European merchants whom I knew through Sheth Abdulla. The application had to be presented through a member of the bar, and as a rule the Attorney General presented such applications without fees. Mr. Escombe, who, as we have seen, was legal adviser to Messrs. Dada Abdulla & Co, was the Attorney General. I called on him, and he willingly consented to present my application. The Law Society now sprang a surprise on me by serving me with a notice opposing my application for admission. One of their objections was that the original English certificate was not attached to my application. But the main objection was that, when the regulations regarding admission of advocates were made, the possibility of a coloured man applying could not have been contemplated. Natal owed its growth to European enterprise, and therefore it was necessary that the European element should predominate in the bar. If coloured people were admitted, they might gradually outnumber the Europeans, and the bulwark of their protection would break down. The Law Society had engaged a distinguished lawyer to support their opposition. As he too was connected with Dada Abdulla & Co, he sent me word through Sheth Abdulla to go and see him. He talked with me quite frankly, and inquired about my antecedents, which I gave. Then he said: ‘I have nothing to say against you. I was only afraid lest you should be some Colonial-born adventurer. And the fact that your application was unaccompanied by the original certificate supported my suspicion. There have been men who have made use of diplomas which did not belong to them. The certificates of character from European traders you have submitted have no value for me. What do they know about you? What can be the extent of their acquaintance with you? ‘But,’ said I, ‘everyone here is a stranger to me. Even Sheth Abdulla first came to know me here.’ ‘But then you say he belongs to the same place as you? It your father was Prime Minister there, Sheth Abdulla is bound to know your family. if you were to produce his affidavit, I should have absolutely no objection. I would then gladly communicate to the Law Society my inability to oppose your application.’ This talk enraged me, but I restrained my feelings. ‘If I had attached Dada Abdulla’s certificate.’ said I to myself, ‘it would have been rejected, and they would have asked for Europeans’ certificates. And what has my admission as advocate to do with my birth and my antecedents?

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

  But the senior counsel contended: ‘In that case there is every likelihood of the court cancelling the whole award, and no sane counsel would imperil his client’s case to that extent. At any rate I would be the last man to take any such risk. If the case were to be sent up for a fresh hearing, one could never tell what expenses our client might have to incur, and what the ultimate result might be!’ The client was present when this conversation took place. I said : ‘I feel that both our client and we ought to run the risk. Where is the certainty of the court upholding a wrong award simply because we do not admit the error? And supposing the admission were to bring the client to grief, what harm is there?’ ‘But why should we make the admission at all?’ said the senior counsel. ‘Where is the surety of the court not detecting the error or our opponent not discovering it?’ said I. ‘Well then, will you argue the case? I am not prepared to argue it on your terms,’ replied the senior counsel with decision. I humbly answered: ‘If you will not argue, then I am prepared to do so, if our client so desires. I shall have nothing to do with the case if the error is not admitted.’ With this I looked at my client. He was a little embarrassed. I had been in the case from the very first. The client fully trusted me, and knew me through and through. He said: ‘Well, then, you will argue the case and admit the error. Let us lose, if that is to be our lot. God defend the right.’ I was delighted. I had expected nothing less from him. The senior counsel again warned me, pitied me for my obduracy, but congratulated me all the same. What happened in the court we shall see in the next chapter. 124SHARP PRACTICE?I had no doubt about the soundness of my advice, but I doubted very much my fitness for doing full justice to the case. I felt it would be a most hazardous undertaking to argue such a difficult case before the Supreme Court, and I appeared before the Bench in fear and trembling. As soon as I referred to the error in the accounts, one of the judges said: ‘Is not this sharp practice, Mr. Gandhi?’ I boiled within to hear this charge. It was intolerable to be accused of sharp practice when there was not the slightest warrant for it. ‘With a judge prejudiced from the start like this, there is little chance of success in this difficult case,’ I said to myself. But I composed my thoughts and answered: ‘I am surprised that your Lordship should suspect sharp practice without hearing me out.’ ‘No question of a charge,’ said the judge. ‘It is a mere suggestion.’ ‘The suggestion here seems to me to amount to a charge.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “You too,” I ordered. I shoved my boot into her crotch to open her legs, and she whimpered and wet herself, both of her hands working under her skirt, trying to make herself come. I had taken off my belt and hit her ass a dozen times when a bright light hit both of us, and we were hauled out of the alley. It was two cops, a man and a woman. They looked distressed when they realized they had apprehended two women. Now that equal relationships between the sexes are possible, being queer is effete and sort of ungrateful. One of them had a little machine slung over her shoulder. I didn’t think anything about it until the jane—I still didn’t know her name—started to protest about invasion of privacy and search warrants. The the lady cop said, “This occurred in a public place,” and hit the switch. Out came a stream of profanity I didn’t even remember using. But it was my voice, saying how bad she must want it if she was willing to pay for it, she had to take everything I wanted to give her, and the misogynistic slurs and all. Also her responses. It was flawless evidence. So they wrote her up a ticket and wrote me up a ticket and took us away in separate vans. I was in jail for three days, seventy-two hours, before they released me. They held me over, playing games with my court date, because they knew I wouldn’t get any time, and it offends their clear, simple, dead-wrong cop sense of justice. In the meantime I got interrogated about my sex life and chided for my lack of any real visible means of support. They made it real clear that my number had better not appear in any questionable ads, and I better get my libido re-educated as quick as possible. And, oh yes, I could always do my maternity stint if I needed some time to reassess my life. Or did I want to sign an affidavit of unfitness to reproduce, and then get sterilized? I laughed at them. Who knows what else they might do to you once you’re unconscious? Brain surgery? Why not? How would you ever know? It wasn’t too bad. They didn’t break my thumbs or anything. They just didn’t let me sleep. They sent a trustee with a tin can around to bang on the cell bars every fifteen minutes or so. Three days. Seventy-two hours. On the second day they gave me back my belt and shoelaces. Think they were trying to give me a hint?

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  I knew some of this even then, sitting in Rankin Chapel, even if I could not yet express it. So forgiving the killer of Prince Jones would have seemed irrelevant to me. The killer was the direct expression of all his country’s beliefs. And raised conscious, in rejection of a Christian God, I could see no higher purpose in Prince’s death. I believed, and still do, that our bodies are our selves, that my soul is the voltage conducted through neurons and nerves, and that my spirit is my flesh. Prince Jones was a one of one, and they had destroyed his body, scorched his shoulders and arms, ripped open his back, mangled lung, kidney, and liver. I sat there feeling myself a heretic, believing only in this one-shot life and the body. For the crime of destroying the body of Prince Jones, I did not believe in forgiveness. When the assembled mourners bowed their heads in prayer, I was divided from them because I believed that the void would not answer back. Weeks wore on. Nauseating details slowly dribbled out. The officer was a known liar. A year earlier he had arrested a man on false evidence. Prosecutors had been forced to drop every case in which the officer was involved. The officer was demoted, restored, then put out on the street to continue his work. Now, through additional reports, a narrative began to take shape. The officer had been dressed like an undercover drug dealer. He’d been sent out to track a man whose build was five foot four and 250 pounds. We know from the coroner that Prince’s body was six foot three and 211 pounds. We know that the other man was apprehended later. The charges against him were dropped. None of this mattered. We know that his superiors sent this officer to follow Prince from Maryland, through Washington, D.C., and into Virginia, where the officer shot Prince several times. We know that the officer confronted Prince with his gun drawn, and no badge. We know that the officer claims he shot because Prince tried to run him over with his jeep. We know that the authorities charged with investigating this shooting did very little to investigate the officer and did everything in their power to investigate Prince Jones. This investigation produced no information that would explain why Prince Jones would suddenly shift his ambitions from college to cop killing. This officer, given maximum power, bore minimum responsibility. He was charged with nothing. He was punished by no one. He was returned to his work.