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)

  Kingdom in the last days.’ ” “I have always believed, since that day,” Lee wrote of this conversation twenty years after the event, “that General George A. Smith was then visiting Southern Utah to prepare the people for the work of exterminating Captain Fancher’s train of emigrants, and I now believe he was sent for that purpose by the direct command of Brigham Young.” Shortly after this, Smith hurried back to Great Salt Lake City with Hamblin and about a dozen Paiute leaders in order to meet with Brigham. On the night of August 25, as they were on their way north, Smith, Hamblin, and the Indians actually camped within shouting distance of the southbound Fancher wagon train, and three of the Arkansans walked over to visit with the Mormons. In reply to the emigrants’ query about where they might rest and graze their massive herd of livestock before striking out across the Mojave Desert, Hamblin recommended a lovely little valley near his cabin called the Mountain Meadow. The notorious conference between Brigham Young and the Paiute chiefs took place in Great Salt Lake City on the evening of September 1. It lasted for about an hour, with Brigham’s son-in-law Dimick B. Huntington acting as interpreter. According to Huntington’s notes of the encounter, Brigham explicitly “gave” the Indians all the emigrant cattle on the Old Spanish Trail—that is, the Fancher’s prize herd, which the Paiutes had covetously gazed upon when they’d camped next to the emigrants exactly one week earlier. The prophet’s message to the Indian leaders was clear enough: he wanted them to attack the Fancher wagon train. The morning after the meeting, the Paiutes left the City of the Saints at first light and started riding hard for southern Utah. The Arkansans passed through Cedar City, thirty-five miles north of the Mountain Meadow, on September 4, where they asked to buy food from the Saints but were pointedly refused. By this time Cedar City was “a craze of fanaticism,” one Mormon resident recalled, where numerous false rumors had been circulating about the Fancher train. It was said, for example, that some of the emigrants had directly participated in the murder of Mormons at Haun’s Mill, Missouri, in 1838, and that one of the Arkansans had bragged that he was among the mob that had killed Joseph Smith. As far as the Saints of southern Utah were concerned, the emigrants were the personification of evil.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As soon as the smoke was somewhat spent, Ercolano looked into the cupboard and there espied him who had sneezed and who was yet in act to sneeze, for that the fumes of the sulphur constrained him thereto, and indeed they had by this time so straitened his breast that, had he abidden a while longer, he had never sneezed nor done aught else again. Ercolano, seeing him, cried out, "Now, wife, I see why, whenas we came hither awhile ago, we were kept so long at the door, without its being opened to us; but may I never again have aught that shall please me, an I pay thee not for this!" The lady, hearing this and seeing that her sin was discovered, stayed not to make any excuse, but started up from table and made off I know not whither. Ercolano, without remarking his wife's flight, again and again bade him who sneezed come forth; but the latter, who was now at the last gasp, offered not to stir, for all that he could say; whereupon, taking him by one foot, he haled him forth of his hiding-place and ran for a knife to kill him; but I, fearing the police on mine own account, arose and suffered him not to slay him or do him any hurt; nay, crying out and defending him, I gave the alarm to certain of the neighbours, who ran thither and taking the now half-dead youth, carried him forth the house I know not whither. Wherefore, our supper being disturbed by these things, I have not only not despatched it, nay, I have, as I said, not even tasted it.'

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie suddenly flushed with anger. "Very well!" she said. "I'll see to it." "All right, your Ladyship." Their eyes met. His had a cold, ugly look of dislike and contempt, and indifference to what would happen. Hers were hot with rebuff. But her heart sank, she saw how utterly he disliked her, when she went against him. And she saw him in a sort of desperation. "Good afternoon!" "Afternoon, my Lady!" He saluted and turned abruptly away. She had wakened the sleeping dogs of old voracious anger in him, anger against the self-willed female. And he was powerless, powerless. He knew it! And she was angry against the self-willed male. A servant too! She walked sullenly home. She found Mrs. Bolton under the great beech tree on the knoll, looking for her. "I just wondered if you'd be coming, my Lady," the woman said brightly. "Am I late?" asked Connie. "Oh ... only Sir Clifford was waiting for his tea." "Why didn't _you_ make it then?" "Oh, I don't think it's hardly my place. I don't think Sir Clifford would like it at all, my Lady." "I don't see why not," said Connie. She went indoors to Clifford's study, where the old brass kettle was simmering on the tray. "Am I late, Clifford!" she said, putting down the few flowers and taking up the tea-caddy, as she stood before the tray in her hat and scarf. "I'm sorry! Why didn't you let Mrs. Bolton make the tea?" "I didn't think of it," he said ironically. "I don't quite see her presiding at the tea-table." "Oh, there's nothing sacrosanct about a silver teapot," said Connie. He glanced up at her curiously. "What did you do all afternoon?" he said. "Walked and sat in a sheltered place. Do you know there are still berries on the big holly tree." She took off her scarf, but not her hat, and sat down to make tea. The toast would certainly be leathery. She put the tea-cosy over the teapot, and rose to get a little glass for her violets. The poor flowers hung over, limp on their stalks. "They'll revive again!" she said, putting them before him in their glass for him to smell. "Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes," he quoted. "I don't see a bit of connection with the actual violets," she said. "The Elizabethans are rather upholstered." She poured him his tea. "Do you think there is a second key to that little hut not far from John's Well, where the pheasants are reared?" she said. "There may be. Why?" "I happened to find it today--and I'd never seen it before. I think it's a darling place. I could sit there sometimes, couldn't I?" "Was Mellors there?" "Yes! That's how I found it: his hammering. He didn't seem to like my intruding at all. In fact he was almost rude when I asked about a second key." "What did he say?"

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Footnote 443: _Cattajo._ This word is usually translated Cathay, _i.e._ China; but _semble_ Boccaccio meant rather the Dalmatian province of Cattaro, which would better answer the description in the text, Nathan's estate being described as adjoining a highway leading from the Ponant (or Western shores of the Mediterranean) to the Levant (or Eastern shores), _e.g._ the road from Cattaro on the Adriatic to Salonica on the Ægean. Cathay (China) seems, from the circumstances of the case, out of the question, as is also the Italian town called Cattaio, near Padua.] [Footnote 444: _i.e._ to show the most extravagant hospitality.] It chanced one day that, as he abode all alone in the midcourt of his palace, there came in, by one of the gates, a poor woman, who sought of him an alms and had it; then, coming in again to him by the second, she had of him another alms, and so on for twelve times in succession; but, whenas she returned for the thirteenth time, he said to her, 'Good woman, thou art very diligent in this thine asking,' and natheless gave her an alms. The old crone, hearing these words, exclaimed, 'O liberality of Nathan, how marvellous art thou! For that, entering in by each of the two-and-thirty gates which his palace hath, and asking of him an alms, never, for all that he showed, was I recognized of him, and still I had it; whilst here, having as yet come in but at thirteen gates, I have been both recognized and chidden.' So saying, she went her ways and returned thither no more. Mithridanes, hearing the old woman's words, flamed up into a furious rage, as he who held that which he heard of Nathan's fame a diminishment of his own, and fell to saying, 'Alack, woe is me! When shall I attain to Nathan's liberality in great things, let alone overpass it, as I seek to do, seeing that I cannot approach him in the smallest? Verily, I weary myself in vain, an I remove him not from the earth; wherefore, since eld carrieth him not off, needs must I with mine own hands do it without delay.'

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  by the hand, and was just leading me comfortably along. “Ron asked me if I was sure about what I was doing. He said he didn’t want me to do anything that he was unwilling to do himself. But I explained that I felt good about it. It felt right.” Dan pulled into Allen’s driveway again, walked up to the door, and knocked. This time, after only two or three knocks, Brenda opened it. Dan asked if Allen was home. She replied that he was at work. Dan asked if she knew whether the .243 deer rifle was in the apartment somewhere. Brenda said she was sure it wasn’t there. Then Dan asked if he could use the phone. Losing her patience, she said, “No. You cannot come in and use the phone.” Dan protested that he only wanted to make a very brief call, but Brenda was apparently becoming increasingly suspicious and continued to refuse him entry. At this point, Dan recalls, “I was kind of silently talking to God, and I asked, ‘What do I do now?’ It felt comfortable to push past her and enter the house, so that’s what I did.” According to Chip Carnes, as soon as Dan forced his way into the apartment, the door slammed behind him, and “I heard what sounded like somebody hitting the floor. . . . And then I heard a vase break.” When Dan pushed his way inside, he says, “I think it kind of unnerved Brenda. She made a very interesting comment, rather prophetic. She said, ‘I knew you were going to do something that nobody could stop.’ Then she started apologizing for a whole bunch of stuff—for influencing Ron’s wife, stuff like that. Then I thought to myself, ‘You are a bitch.’ And I felt impressed to wrestle her to the ground. I crossed her arms, threw her onto her stomach, and sat on top of her, holding her wrists from behind.” Outside the apartment, Carnes, Knapp, and Ron were still waiting in the Impala. Carnes turned to Knapp and said, “It’s getting kind of noisy in there.” “You’re right,” Knapp replied, then said to Ron, “Maybe you ought to go help.” At which point Ron got out of the car and went to the door. When he tried to enter, though, Dan had Brenda pinned on the floor against

• 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 Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Sad! no, bored! I had to go getting summonses for two poachers I caught, and oh well, I don't like people." He spoke cold, good English, and there was anger in his voice. "Do you hate being a gamekeeper?" she asked. "Being a gamekeeper, no! So long as I'm left alone. But when I have to go messing around at the police station, and various other places, and waiting for a lot of fools to attend to me ... oh well, I get mad ..." and he smiled, with a certain faint humour. "Couldn't you be really independent?" she asked. "Me? I suppose I could, if you mean manage to exist on my pension. I could! But I've got to work, or I should die. That is, I've got to have something that keeps me occupied. And I'm not in a good enough temper to work for myself. It's got to be a sort of job for somebody else, or I should throw it up in a month, out of bad temper. So altogether I'm very well off here, especially lately...." He laughed at her again, with mocking humour. "But why are you in a bad temper?" she asked. "Do you mean you are _always_ in a bad temper?" "Pretty well," he said, laughing. "I don't quite digest my bile." "But what bile?" she said. "Bile!" he said. "Don't you know what that is?" She was silent, and disappointed. He was taking no notice of her. "I'm going away for a while next month," she said. "You are! Where to?" "Venice." "Venice! With Sir Clifford? For how long?" "For a month or so," she replied. "Clifford won't go." "He'll stay here?" he asked. "Yes! He hates to travel as he is." "Ay, poor devil!" he said, with sympathy. There was a pause. "You won't forget me when I'm gone, will you?" she asked. Again he lifted his eyes and looked full at her. "Forget?" he said. "You know nobody forgets. It's not a question of memory." She wanted to say: "What then?" but she didn't. Instead, she said in a mute kind of voice: "I told Clifford I might have a child." Now he really looked at her, intense and searching. "You did?" he said at last. "And what did he say?" "Oh, he wouldn't mind. He'd be glad, really, so long as it seemed to be his." She dared not look up at him. He was silent a long time, then he gazed again on her face. "No mention of _me_, of course?" he said. "No. No mention of you," she said. "No, he'd hardly swallow me as a substitute breeder.--Then where are you supposed to be getting the child?" "I might have a love affair in Venice," she said. "You might," he replied slowly. "So that's why you're going?" "Not to have the love affair," she said, looking up at him, pleading. "Just the appearance of one," he said.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "We too have had our mild local excitement. It appears the truant wife of Mellors, the keeper, turned up at the cottage, and found herself unwelcome. He packed her off and locked the door. Report has it, however, that when he returned from the wood he found the no longer fair lady firmly established in his bed, in _puris naturalibu_; or one should say, in _impuris naturalibus_. She had broken a window and got in that way. Unable to evict the somewhat manhandled Venus from his couch, he beat a retreat and retired, it is said, to his mother's house in Tevershall. Meanwhile the Venus of Stacks Gate is established in the cottage, which she claims is her home, and Apollo, apparently, is domiciled in Tevershall. "I repeat this from hearsay, as Mellors has not come to me personally. I had the particular bit of local garbage from our garbage bird, our ibis, our scavenging turkey-buzzard, Mrs. Bolton. I would not have repeated it had she not exclaimed: her Ladyship will go no more to the wood if _that_ woman's going to be about! "I like your picture of Sir Malcolm striding into the sea with white hair blowing and pink flesh glowing. I envy you that sun. Here it rains. But I don't envy Sir Malcolm his inveterate mortal carnality. However, it suits his age. Apparently one grows more carnal and more mortal as one grows older. Only youth has a taste of immortality." This news affected Connie in her state of semi-stupefied well-being with vexation amounting to exasperation. Now she had got to be bothered by that beast of a woman! Now she must start and fret! She had no letter from Mellors. They had agreed not to write at all, but now she wanted to hear from him personally. After all, he was the father of the child that was coming. Let him write! But how hateful! Now everything was messed up. How foul those low people were! How nice it was here, in the sunshine and the indolence, compared to that dismal mess of that English midlands! After all, a clear sky was almost the most important thing in life. She did not mention the fact of her pregnancy, even to Hilda. She wrote to Mrs. Bolton for exact information. Duncan Forbes, an artist, friend of theirs, had arrived at the Villa Esmeralda, coming north from Rome. Now he made a third in the gondola, and he bathed with them across the lagoon, and was their escort: a quiet, almost taciturn young man, very advanced in his art. She had a letter from Mrs. Bolton: "You will be pleased, I am sure, my Lady, when you see Sir Clifford. He's looking quite blooming and working very hard, and very hopeful. Of course he is looking forward to seeing you among us again. It is a dull house without my Lady, and we shall all welcome her presence among us once more.

• 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.