Anxiety

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 White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  There were too few who could cultivate the soil. Patrick Tailfer, who drafted one of the petitions in support of slaveholding, refused to cultivate a single acre of the land he had been granted. 51 We should make clear that Oglethorpe was not a modern egalitarian. He did not imagine his colony as a multiracial community, nor did he surmount common prejudices with respect to Africans. He permitted there to be a small number of Indian slaves in the colony. His plan centered on class: he restricted slavery principally because he believed it would shift the balance of class power in Georgia and “starve the poor white laborer.” In the larger scheme of things, his reform philosophy recognized that weak and desperate men could be led to choose a path that dictated against their own interests. A man might sell his land for a glass of rum; debt and idleness were always a temptation. 52 Despite his good intentions, the colony failed to eliminate all class divisions. In addition to the fifty acres allotted to charity cases, settlers who paid their own way might be granted as many as five hundred acres. They were expected to employ between four and ten servants. But five hundred acres was the maximum limit for freeholders. The trustees wanted settlers to occupy the land, not to speculate in land. Absentee landholders were not welcome. Georgia also instituted a policy of keeping the land “tail-male,” which meant that land descended to the eldest male child. This feudal rule bound men to their families. The tail-male provision protected heirs whose poor fathers might otherwise feel pressure to sell their land. 53 Many settlers disliked the practice. Hardworking families worried about the fate of their unmarried daughters, who might be left with nothing. One such complaint came from Reverend Dumont, a leader of French Protestants interested in migrating to Georgia. What would happen to widows “too old to marry or beget children,” he asked. And how could daughters survive, especially those “unfit for Marriage, either by Sickness or Evil Construction of their Body”? 54 Dumont’s questions went to the core of Oglethorpe’s and the trustees’ philosophy. Young widows and daughters were seen as breeders of the next generation of free white laborers. Georgia’s policy was to nurture the natural process of “propagation,” as Oglethorpe declared in one of his promotional tracts. His grand plan was to ensure that English and other Protestants would quickly outnumber the French and Spanish in North America. The war against the rival Catholic colonial powers was, at length, a battle of numbers. Georgia had to have enough free white men to field its armies, and it had to benefit from a reproductive advantage, winning the demographic war as well.

• From The Hours (1998)

  For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would have to be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning—fresh as if issued to children on a beach. It is Los Angeles. It is 1949. Laura Brown is trying to lose herself. No, that’s not it exactly—she is trying to keep herself by gaining entry into a parallel world. She lays the book face down on her chest. Already her bedroom (no, their bedroom) feels more densely inhabited, more actual, because a character named Mrs. Dalloway is on her way to buy flowers. Laura glances at the clock on the nightstand. It’s well past seven. Why did she buy this clock, this hideous thing, with its square green face in a rectangular black Bakelite sarcophagus—how could she ever have thought it was smart? She should not be permitting herself to read, not this morning of all mornings; not on Dan’s birthday. She should be out of bed, showered and dressed, fixing breakfast for Dan and Richie. She can hear them downstairs, her husband making his own breakfast, ministering to Richie. She should be there, shouldn’t she? She should be standing before the stove in her new robe, full of simple, encouraging talk. Still, when she opened her eyes a few minutes ago (after seven already!)— when she still half inhabited her dream, some sort of pulsating machinery in the remote distance, a steady pounding like a gigantic mechanical heart, which seemed to be drawing nearer—she felt the dank sensation around her, the nowhere feeling, and knew it was going to be a difficult day. She knew she was going to have trouble believing in herself, in the rooms of her house, and when she glanced over at this new book on her nightstand, stacked atop the one she finished last night, she reached for it automatically, as if reading were the singular and obvious first task of the day, the only viable way to negotiate the transit from sleep to obligation. Because she is pregnant, she is allowed these lapses. She is allowed, for now, to read unreasonably, to linger in bed, to cry or grow furious over nothing. She will make up for breakfast by baking Dan a perfect birthday cake; by ironing the good cloth; by setting a big bouquet of flowers (roses?) in the middle of the table, and surrounding it with gifts. That should compensate, shouldn’t it? She will read one more page. One more page, to calm and locate herself, then she’ll get out of bed.

• From The Hours (1998)

  Her cake is a failure, but she is loved anyway. She is loved, she thinks, in more or less the way the gifts will be appreciated: because they’ve been given with good intentions, because they exist, because they are part of a world in which one wants what one gets. What would she prefer, then? Would she rather have her gifts scorned, her cake sneered at? Of course not. She wants to be loved. She wants to be a competent mother reading calmly to her child; she wants to be a wife who sets a perfect table. She does not want, not at all, to be the strange woman, the pathetic creature, full of quirks and rages, solitary, sulking, tolerated but not loved. Virginia Woolf put a stone into the pocket of her coat, walked into a river, and drowned. Laura will not let herself go morbid. She’ll make the beds, vacuum, cook the birthday dinner. She will not mind, about anything. Someone taps at the back door. Laura, washing the last of the dishes, can see the faint outline of Kitty through the filmy white curtain. Here is the vague halo of Kitty’s brown-blond hair, the scrubbed pink blur of her face. Laura swallows a pang of excitement and something stronger than excitement, something that resembles panic. She is about to receive a visit from Kitty. Her hair is hardly brushed; she is still wearing her bathrobe. She looks, too much, like the woman of sorrows. She wants to rush to the door and she wants to stand here, immobile, at the sink, until Kitty gives up and goes away. She might actually have done it, stood motionless, holding her breath (can Kitty see inside, would she know?), but there is the problem of Richie, witness to everything, running now into the kitchen, holding a red plastic truck, shouting with a mix of delight and alarm that someone’s at the door. Laura dries her hands on a dish towel covered with red roosters, and opens the door. It’s only Kitty, she tells herself. It’s only her friend from two doors down, and this, of course, is what people do. They drop by and are received; it doesn’t matter about your hair or your robe. It doesn’t matter about the cake. “Hi, Kitty,” she says. “Am I interrupting anything?” Kitty asks. “Of course not. Come on in.”

• From The Hours (1998)

  For the past half hour it has been enough to be headed, vaguely, toward downtown Los Angeles, but now here it is—the staunch, squat older buildings, the skeletons of newer, taller ones going up— all suffused with the steady white glare of the day, which seems to emanate not so much from the sky down to the earth as from the air itself, as if invisible particles in the ether emitted a steady, slightly foggy phosphorescence. Here is the city, and Laura must either enter it, by way of the left-hand lane, or switch to the right-hand lane and bypass it altogether. If she does that, if she simply continues driving, she’ll be headed into the vast, flat stretch of factories and low-rise apartment buildings that surrounds Los Angeles for a hundred miles in every direction. It would be possible to veer right, and find her way eventually to Beverly Hills, or to the beach at Santa Monica, but she doesn’t want to shop and she hasn’t brought anything for the beach. There is surprisingly little to enter, in this immense bright smoky landscape, and what she wants—someplace private, silent, where she can read, where she can think— is not readily available. If she goes to a store or restaurant, she’ll have to perform—she’ll have to pretend to need or want something that does not, in any way, interest her. She’ll have to move in an orderly fashion; she’ll have to examine merchandise and refuse offers of help, or she’ll have to sit at a table, order something, consume it, and leave. If she simply parks her car somewhere and sits there, a woman alone, she’ll be vulnerable to criminals and to those who’ll try to protect her from criminals. She’ll be too exposed; she’ll look too peculiar. Even a library would be too public, as would a park. She pilots her car into the left-hand lane, and drives into the city. She seems to arrive at her decision almost physically, as if by going left she had entered a course of action that was waiting for her as palpably as is Figueroa Street, with its shop windows and shadowed sidewalks. She will check into a hotel. She will say (of course) that she’s there for the night, that her husband will be joining her soon. As long as she pays for the room, what’s wrong with using it only a couple of hours? It seems such an extravagant, reckless gesture that she is giddy with the possibility of it, and nervous as a girl. Yes, it’s wasteful—a hotel room for an entire night, when all she means to do is sit there reading for two hours or so—but money is not particularly tight right now, and she runs the household with relative thrift. How much can a room cost, really? It can’t be that much. Although she should go to a cheap place—a motel, somewhere on the outskirts—she can’t bring herself to.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  With the dainty lacquered key basket in one hand and the other lightly pushed into the side pocket of her dark red dressing gown, she seriously let the long, soft folds caress her, while the naive and ignorant expression of her mouth betrayed In the Pensee room she moved about with the little brass shower to soak the black soil of the leafy plants. She was very fond of her palm trees, which added so magnificently to the grandeur of the apartment. She carefully felt a young shoot on one of the thick, round shafts, tenderly examined the majestically unfolded fans and here and there removed a yellow tip with scissors... Suddenly she listened. The conversation in the smoking-room, which had been lively for several minutes, now grew so loud that every word was heard inside, although the door was strong and the portiere heavy. 'Don't scream! Moderate yourself, God in heaven!' was heard to call Herr Grünlich, whose soft voice couldn't stand the strain and therefore squeaked over and over again ... 'Have another cigar!' he then added with despairing gentleness. "Yes, with the greatest pleasure, thank you very much," replied the banker, which was followed by a pause during which Mr. Kesselmeyer helped himself. Then he said: "In short, do you want it or not, one of the two?" "Kesselmeyer, extend it!" »Ah? Well... hey, no , my dear, not at all, that's not what we're talking about at all..." "Why not? What is it about you? Be sensible, for heaven's sake! Have you waited so long…” "Not another day, my dear! Yes, let's say eight days, but not an hour longer! Does anyone still rely on…” "No name, Kesselmeyer!" “No name… fine. Does anyone still rely on your laudable Herr Schw…” “No designation…! Almighty God, don't be silly!' 'Fine, no designation! Does anyone still rely on the conscious company that your credit stands and falls with, dear? How much did she lose in the bankruptcy in Bremen? Fifty thousand? seventy thousand? hundred thousand? Even more? The sparrows on the roofs know that she was involved, enormously involved... It's a matter of mood. Yesterday was... nice, no name! Yesterday the company you knew was good and unconsciously protected you completely from distress... Today it's dull, and B. Grünlich is duller-most dull...isn't that clear? Don't you notice? You're the first to feel such fluctuations... How are you met? How are you looking at? Bock and Goudstikker are probably extremely courteous and trusting? How is the credit bank behaving?” "She's prolonging." »Ah? are you lying? I know she kicked you yesterday? A most, most encouraging kick?... Now look!... But don't be ashamed. It is of course in your best interest to make me believe that the others are still calm and secure … Well – hey, my dear! Write to the consul. I'll wait a week." "A down payment, Kesselmeyer!" »Deduction amount back and forth! Advance payments can be shot in order to convince oneself of someone's ability to pay!

• From The Hours (1998)

  “Here we go, then,” she says. He cautiously moves the cup to the other bowl and holds it there, paralyzed, over the bowl’s gleaming white concavity (it is the next smaller in a series of nesting bowls, pale green, with the same band of white leaves at its rim). He understands that he’s expected to dump the flour into the bowl but it seems possible that he’s misunderstood the directions, and will ruin everything; it seems possible that by spilling out the flour he will cause some larger catastrophe, upset some precarious balance. He wants to look at his mother’s face but can’t take his eyes off the cup. “Turn it over,” she says. He turns it over in one hurried, frightened motion. The flour hesitates for a fraction of a second, then spills out. The flour falls solidly, in a mound that loosely echoes the shape of the measuring cup. A bigger cloud rises, almost touches his face, then vanishes. He stares down at what he’s made: a white hill, slightly granular, speckled with pinpoint shadows, standing up from the glossy, creamier white of the bowl’s interior. “Oopsie,” his mother says. He looks at her in terror. His eyes fill with tears. Laura sighs. Why is he so delicate, so prone to fits of inexplicable remorse? Why does she have to be so careful with him? For a moment—a moment—Richie’s shape subtly changes. He becomes larger, brighter. His head expands. A dead-white glow seems, briefly, to surround him. For a moment she wants only to leave—not to harm him, she’d never do that—but to be free, blameless, unaccountable. “No, no,” Laura says. “It’s good. Very good. That’s just exactly right.” He smiles tearfully, suddenly proud of himself, almost insanely relieved. All right, then; nothing was needed but a few kind words, a bit of reassurance. She sighs. She gently touches his hair. “Now, then,” she says. “Are you ready to do another one?”

• From The Hours (1998)

  He nods solemnly. The weight and grain of life reassert themselves; the nowhere feeling vanishes. This moment, now, midblock, as the car approaches a stop sign, is unexpectedly large and still, serene—Laura enters it the way she might enter a church from a noisy street. On either side, sprinklers throw brilliant cones of mist up over the lawns. Late sun gilds an aluminum carport. It is unutterably real. She knows herself as a wife and mother, pregnant again, driving home, as veils of water are tossed up into the air. Richie doesn’t speak. He watches her. Laura brakes for the stop sign. She says, “It’s a good thing Daddy works as late as he does. We’ll put it all together in time, don’t you think so?” She glances at him. She meets his eyes, and sees something there she can’t quite recognize. His eyes, his entire face, seem lit from within; he appears, for the first time, to be suffering from an emotion she can’t read. “Honey,” she says, “what is it?” He says, louder than necessary, “Mommy, I love you.” There is something odd in his voice, something chilling. It is a tone she’s never heard from him before. He sounds frantic, foreign. He could be a refugee, someone with only rudimentary English, trying desperately to convey a need for which he has not learned the proper phrase. “I love you too, baby,” she replies, and although she’s said the words thousands of times, she can hear the flanneled nervousness lodged now in her throat, the effort she must make to sound natural. She accelerates through the intersection. She drives carefully, with both hands precisely centered on the wheel. It seems the boy will start crying again, as he does so often, so inexplicably, but his eyes remain bright and dry, unblinking. “What’s wrong?” she asks. He continues staring at her. He does not blink. He knows. He must know. The little boy can tell she’s been somewhere illicit; he can tell she’s lying. He watches her constantly, spends almost every waking hour in her presence. He’s seen her with Kitty. He’s watched her make a second cake, and bury the first one under other garbage in the can beside the garbage. He is devoted, entirely, to the observation and deciphering of her, because without her there is no world at all. Of course he would know when she’s lying. She says, “Don’t worry, honey. Everything’s fine. We’re going to have a wonderful party for Daddy’s birthday tonight. Do you know how happy he’ll be? We’ve got all these presents for him. We’ve made him such a nice cake.” Richie nods, unblinking. He rocks gently back and forth. Quietly, wishing to be overheard rather than heard, he says, “Yes, we’ve made him such a nice cake.” There is a surprisingly mature hollowness in his voice.

• From The Hours (1998)

  She knows Leonard can be gruff, stingy, and all but impossibly demanding. She knows these young people are often criticized unfairly but she will not side with them against him. She will not be the mother who intervenes, much as they beg her to with their eager smiles and wounded eyes. Ralph, after all, is Lytton’s worry, and Lytton is welcome to him. He, like his brothers or sisters to come, will go on and do whatever they do in the greater world—no one expects them to make a career out of assisting at the press. Leonard may be autocratic, he may be unfair, but he is her companion and caretaker, and she will not betray him, certainly not for handsome, callow Ralph, or Marjorie, with her parakeet’s voice. “There are ten errors in eight pages,” Leonard says. The brackets around his mouth are so deep you could slip a penny in. “Lucky to have found them,” Virginia says. “They seem to congregate around the middle section. Do you think bad writing actually attracts a higher incidence of misfortune?” “How I’d love to live in a world in which that were true. I’m going for a walk to clear my head, then I’ll come and pitch in.” “We’re making good progress,” Ralph says. “We should be through by the end of the day.” “We shall be lucky,” Leonard says, “to be through by this time next week.” He glowers; Ralph turns a finer and more precise shade of red. Of course, she thinks. Ralph set the type, and did it carelessly. The truth, she thinks, sits calmly and plumply, dressed in matronly gray, between these two men. It does not reside with Ralph, the young foot soldier, who appreciates literature but appreciates also, with equal or perhaps greater fervor, the brandy and biscuits waiting when the day’s work is done; who is good-hearted and unexceptional and can barely be counted on to perpetuate, in his allotted span, the ordinary business of the ordinary world. The truth likewise does not (alas) reside with Leonard, brilliant and indefatigable Leonard, who refuses to distinguish between setback and catastrophe; who worships accomplishment above all else and makes himself unbearable to others because he genuinely believes he can root out and reform every incidence of human fecklessness and mediocrity. “I’m sure,” she says, “that between us we can get the book into some sort of acceptable shape, and still have Christmas.” Ralph grins at her with a relief so visible she has an urge to slap him. He overestimates her sympathy—she has spoken not on his behalf but on Leonard’s, in much the way her own mother might have made light of a servant’s blunder during dinner, declaring for the sake of her husband and all others present that the shattered tureen portended nothing; that the circle of love and forbearance could not be broken; that all were safe. Mrs. Woolf She walks up Mt. Ararat Road, planning Clarissa Dalloway’s suicide.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  It was a wild burning and piercing pain, a malicious torment, which had taken hold of a diseased molar from the whole left side of the lower jaw. The inflammation pounded in it with red-hot little hammers and caused fever to rush to his face and tears to his eyes. The sleepless night had taken a terrible toll on his nerves. He had just had to pull himself together while speaking so his voice wouldn't break. In Mühlenstrasse he entered a house painted yellow-brown oil paint and climbed up to the first floor, where a brass plaque on the door read "Dentist Brecht." He didn't see the maid who opened the door for him. The corridor smelled warm of beefsteak and cauliflower. Then suddenly he breathed the pungent air of the waiting room into which he was being forced. "Have a seat . . . a momang!" cried an old woman's voice. It was Josephus who was sitting in his bare pawn at the back of the room and staring at him crookedly and maliciously with small, poisonous eyes. The senator sat down at the round table and tried to take in the jokes in a volume of Flying Papers, but then closed the book in disgust, pressed the cool silver of his cane to his cheek, closed his stinging eyes, and groaned. Everything was quiet all around, and only Josephus bit into the surrounding bars with a cracking and crunching sound. Herr Brecht owed it to himself, even when he wasn't busy, to keep us waiting for a while. Thomas Buddenbrook got up hastily and drank a glass of water from a carafe set up at a small table that smelled and tasted of chloroform. Then he opened the door to the corridor and called out with irritated intonation that, unless there was an urgent need to stop him, would Herr Brecht be so good as to hurry up a little. He's in pain. A moment later the graying moustache, hooked nose and bald forehead of the dentist appeared in the doorway to the operating room. "Please," he said. "Please!" also shouted Josephus. The senator accepted the invitation without laughing. A hard case! thought Herr Brecht and changed color ... They both walked quickly across the bright room to the large, adjustable chair with a headrest and green plush armrests that stood in front of one of the two windows. As he sat down, Thomas Buddenbrook briefly explained what it was about, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Herr Brecht scraped the chair a little and then got to work on the tooth with a little mirror and a steel rod. His hand smelled of almond soap, his breath of beefsteak and cauliflower. "We must proceed to extraction," he said after a while, and hereditarily even more so. "Just walk," said the senator, closing his eyelids even tighter. Now there was a pause. Herr Brecht was preparing something on a barrier and was looking for instruments.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  "So far!" said Herr Ballerstedt and asked for the class register to certify with his signature that he was in charge of this hour of office. Hanno Buddenbrook closed his Bible and stretched, trembling and yawning nervously; but when he lowered his arms and tensed his limbs, he had to breathe quickly and laboriously in order to bring his heart, which for a moment weak and faltering, stopped working, a little. Now came the Latin ... He threw a sideways glance at Kai for help, who didn't seem to have noticed the end of the lesson and was still absorbed in his private reading, pulled the Ovid bound in marbled cardboard out of his portfolio and opened the verses, to be memorized for today... No, there was no hope, those black lines lined up, penciled, dead straight and numbered in fives, staring at him so hopelessly dark and unknown, to familiarize yourself a little. He could scarcely understand their meaning, let alone recite one of them off the top of his head. And he did not unravel a single sentence of those who followed suit and who had to be prepared for today. "What does 'deciderant, patula Jovis arbore, glandes' mean ?" he asked in a despairing voice to Adolf Todtenhaupt, who was working next to him in the class register. "That's all nonsense! Just to bully you..." "How?" said Todtenhaupt, continuing to write... "The acorns from the tree of Jupiter... That's the oak... Yes, I don't really know myself..." "Just tell me a little bit, Todtenhaupt, when it's up to me!" Hanno asked, pushing the book away from him. Then, after scowling at the Primus' heedless and noncommittal nod, he sidestepped out of the bench and stood. The situation had changed. Herr Ballerstedt had left the room and instead of him there was a small, weak and emaciated professor standing at the lectern, very straight and taut Male with a thin white beard, whose little red neck protruded from a narrow foldable collar, and who with one of his white-haired hands held his top hat out in front of him, opening upwards. The students called it "the spider" and it was actually called Professor Hückopp. Since he was in charge of the corridor during this break, he also had to check on things in the classrooms... "Turn off the lights! The curtains up! Open the windows!' it said, giving its little voice as much command as possible and waving its arm in the air with an awkwardly energetic gesture, as if it were turning a crank... 'And all down, out into the fresh air, a thousand times more!' The lamps went out, the curtains flew up, the faint daylight filled the room, and the cold misty air rushed in through the wide windows, while the lower-secondary students pushed past Professor Hückopp towards the exit; only the Primus was allowed to stay up here.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Tietge, appeared, holding some books with a trembling hand on his back, squinting in an impossible way, crooked, yellow and spitting, he said in a resonant voice: "Hello, you corpse." Then what he looked somewhere in the air with a clear and sharp gaze ..... At that moment the bell rang loudly, and immediately the students began to flock to the entrances from all sides. But Hanno didn't stop laughing; he was still laughing so hard on the stairs that his classmates who surrounded him and Kai looked him in the face coldly, alienated and even a little disgusted by so much silliness... It was quiet in the class, and everyone stood up in unison when Head Teacher Doctor Mantelsack entered. He was the Ordinary, and it was customary to have respect for the Ordinary. He closed the door behind him by crouching, craned his neck to see if everyone was standing, hung his hat on a nail, then walked briskly to the lectern, raising and lowering his head in quick succession. Here he stood and looked a little out of the window, moving his outstretched index finger, on which was a large signet ring, back and forth between his collar and his neck. He was a man of medium height, with thinning graying hair, a frizzy Jovian beard, and nearsighted bulging sapphire blue eyes that gleamed behind sharp spectacles. He was clad in an open frock coat of gray soft cloth, which he loved to touch gently in the waist area with his short-fingered and wrinkled hand. As with all teachers, except for the fine doctor Goldener, his trousers were too short and revealed the shafts of an extraordinarily wide pair of boots waxed to a glossy marble finish. Suddenly he turned his head away from the window, let out a small, friendly sigh while looking into the silent class, said "Yes, yes!" and smiled trustingly at several students. He was in a good mood, it was obvious. A movement of relief went through the room. So much happened, it all depended on whether Doctor Mantelsack was in a good mood or not, for one knew that he was unconscious of his moods and without them left the slightest self-criticism. He was of a most exceptional, boundlessly naive injustice, and his favor was sweet and fickle like luck. He always had a couple of favourites, two or three, whom he called "du" and by their first names, and who had it as good as in paradise. They could say almost what they liked and it was still right; and after the lesson Dr. Mantelsack chatted with them in the most humane way. One day, however, perhaps after the holidays, God alone knew why, one was overthrown, destroyed, abolished, rejected, and another was called by his first name... He used to mark the mistakes in the extratemporaries very lightly and delicately for these blessed ones, so that their work retained a clean aspect even when it was very defective.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  and there followed, interrupted only by a quick breakfast with the old ship consul and lunch with Gerda, after which he spent half an hour on the divan with a cigar and the newspaper, until the evening a lot of work: was it his own business or customs, taxes, construction, railroad, post, poor relief; He also gained insight into areas that were actually remote from him and were generally reserved for the "scholars," and he quickly demonstrated brilliant talent, particularly in financial matters... He was careful not to neglect social life. It is true that his punctuality left a lot to be desired in this respect, and it was only at the last second, when his wife, in a large dress, and the car had been waiting downstairs for half an hour, that he appeared with a "Pardon, Gerda; Business…” to hastily throw on his tails. But on the spot, at dinners, balls, and soirees, he knew how to take a keen interest in showing himself an amiable causeur . . . and he and his wife were not inferior to the other rich houses in representation; his kitchen and his cellar were considered "tip-top", he was valued as an obliging, attentive and circumspect host, and the wit of his toasts rose above the average level. So he worked, forcing success, for his reputation grew in the town, and despite the drain on capital from Christian's establishment and Tony's second marriage, the firm prospered. With all that, however, there were some things that took hours Courage paralyzed, the resilience of his mind impaired, his spirits dulled. There was Christian in Hamburg, whose partner, Mr. Burmeester, suddenly died of a stroke in the spring of this year '58. His heirs withdrew the deceased's capital from the firm, and the consul strongly advised his brother not to continue it with his own funds, knowing well how difficult it was to run a large-scale business with suddenly greatly reduced capital. But Christian insisted on continuing his independence, taking over the assets and liabilities of H. C. F. Burmeester & Comp. ... and inconveniences were to be feared. There was also the consul's sister, Klara, in Riga... The fact that her marriage to Pastor Tiburtius had remained childless may well be true, for Klara Buddenbrook had never wanted children and undoubtedly possessed very little maternal talent. But her health, according to her and her husband's letters, left too much to be desired, and the cerebral pains, from which she had suffered as a young girl, were said to have recurred intermittently to an almost unbearable degree. That was worrying. A third concern, however, was that here, on the spot itself, there was still no guarantee that the family name would live on. Gerda dealt with this question with a sovereign indifference that came extremely close to a discredited rejection. Thomas concealed his grief. But the old consul took matters into her own hands and pulled Grabow aside.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  whereas all men endowed with understanding by God, but especially the Buddenbrook ladies, had to say to themselves, that the invariably reddish-blond parting under the old lady's cap could no longer be called "her" hair. Even more rewarding was getting Cousin Tony to say a little about the people who had hated her life up to that point. Tear Trieschke! Greenish! permaneder! Hagenstroms!... These names, which Tony, when irritated, like so many little trumpets of disgust, with somewhat hunched shoulders, uttered in the air, sounded quite pleasant in the ears of Uncle Gotthold's daughters. Incidentally, they did not hide from themselves - and in no way took on the responsibility of concealing it - that little Johann was learning to walk and speak so slowly, frighteningly... They were right about that, and it must be admitted that Hanno - that was the nickname Frau Senator Buddenbrook had introduced for her son - at a time when he was able to name all members of his family with reasonable accuracy, was still unable to form the names Friederike, Henriette and Pfiffi in an understandable way. As for walking, he had not yet managed to take an independent step at the age of five quarters, and it was about this time that the Buddenbrook ladies, shaking their heads hopelessly, declared that this child would remain mute and lame for life. They were later allowed to recognize this sad prophecy as an error; but nobody denied that Hanno was a little behind in his development. He had fought hard battles from the earliest days of his life, and kept those around him in constant fear. He had been born a quiet and weak child, and soon after his baptism a bout of diarrhea lasting only three days had almost been enough to stop his hard-worked little heart for good. He survived, and the good Doctor Grabow now took precautions against the threatening crises of teething with the most careful nutrition and care. But no sooner was the first white tip about to break through the jaw than the spasms set in, only to repeat itself louder and a few more terrifying times. Again, the old doctor just shook his parents' hands without a word... The child lay in the deepest state of exhaustion, and the fixed sideways glance from the deeply shadowed eyes pointed to a brain disorder. The ending almost seemed desirable. Nevertheless, Hanno regained some strength, his eyes began to grasp things, and even if the hardships he had endured slowed down his progress in speaking and walking, there was no longer any immediate danger to fear. Hanno was slim and quite tall for his age. During this time his light brown, very soft hair began to grow extremely quickly and soon fell, barely perceptibly wavy, onto the shoulders of his wrinkled, apron-like dress. The family resemblances were already beginning to manifest themselves in him in a completely recognizable way.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Public prosecutor Doctor Moritz Hagenstrom, whose beautiful wife, née Puttfarken from Hamburg, is also present, shows his pointed, gapping teeth somewhere with a smile. For a moment one sees how the old Doctor Grabow holds Senator Buddenbrook's right hand between his two hands, only to be pushed aside by Master Builder Voigt. Pastor Pringsheim, dressed in middle-class clothes and showing his dignity only by the length of his frock coat, comes up the stairs with outstretched arms and a completely transfigured face. Friedrich Wilhelm Marcus is also present. Those gentlemen who represent any body, the senate, the citizenry, the chamber of commerce, appeared in tails. - Half past eleven. The heat has become very strong. Suddenly there is a stomping and slurping noise down in the porch, as if many people were entering the hall at once, and at the same time a noisy and resounding voice is heard, which fills the whole house... Everyone is pressing towards the banister; one gathers in the whole corridor, in front of the doors to the salon, dining room and smoking room, and peers down. Down there a group of fifteen or twenty men with musical instruments are forming, commanded by a gentleman with a brown wig, a gray sailor's beard and false teeth with broad yellow teeth, which he shows while speaking out loud... What is happening? Consul Peter Döhlmann makes his entrance with the chapel from the Stadttheater! Already he himself is climbing the stairs in triumph, brandishing a packet of programs in his hand! And now, in this impossible and immoderate acoustic, in which the tones flow together, the chords intertwine and render meaningless, and in which the overly loud creaking grunt of the great bass trumpet, which a fat man with a desperate expression is playing, dominates everything else, the Serenade that is brought to the house of Buddenbrook on its anniversary - it begins with the chorale »Nun dankt alle Gott«, which is soon followed by a paraphrase about Offenbach's »Schöne Helena« first onepotpourriof folk songs will ring out... It's quite an extensive program. A nice idea from Döhlmann! The Consul is congratulated, and no one is now inclined to leave before the concert is over. You stand and sit in the salon and in the corridor, listen and chat... Thomas Buddenbrook, together with Stephan Kistenmaker, Senator Doctor Gieseke and master builder Voigt, stayed on the other side of the main staircase, by the outer door to the smoking room and not far from the staircase to the second floor. He stood leaning against the wall, throwing a word here and there into the conversation of his group and otherwise staring silently over the railing into space. The heat had increased, it had become even more oppressive; but rain could not be ruled out now, for judging by the shadows that passed across the Incoming Light there were clouds in the sky.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  Andrew the Protester, the one who looks like Fidel Castro, was living in the house back then, and he is such an amazing listener that I would talk to him and he would nod his head and say, “Don, man, I didn’t know you were feeling any of this.” But I was. And it got worse. I would mope around the house all day, and I couldn’t get any writing done. It had been the same in all my relationships. There was always, within me, this demand for affection, this needy, clingy monkey on my back. I wouldn’t be satisfied unless the girl wanted to get married right away, unless she was panicky about it, and even then I would imagine a non-existent scenario in which she finds another man or breaks up with me because of the way I look. I would find myself getting depressed about conversations that never even took place. Finally, Andrew said I should meet with Diane, who is this beautiful married woman who goes to our church and mothers us and speaks love into our lives because most of us are basket cases. Diane was studying at a local seminary to be a counselor, and Andrew recommended that I ask her to take a shot at all my troubles. I didn’t want to do it at first because Diane’s husband is an elder, and I had spoken at church a few times, so everybody thought I was normal. Certainly if I talked to Diane she would go home and tell her husband I was nuts and then it would get around the church, and when everybody thinks you are nuts you finally just give in to their pressure and actually go nuts. But I was desperate. So I called Diane. She was beautiful and soft and kind with a tender voice, and she showed up at the house, and I put some coffee on. We went into my office, and I closed the door, in case one of my roommates walked by and saw me talking to Diane and discovered I was nuts. I sat in a chair, and Diane sat on the couch, and I wrung my hands a bit before starting in: “Well, you see, Diane, I am in this relationship with this girl, and she is great, she really is. It’s just that it is very hard for me, you know.” “You mean it is hard for you to have feelings for her?” “I’m not gay.” Diane laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way, Don.” “I do have feelings for her,” I said, with sincerity. “They are almost too strong, you know. I have trouble sleeping and eating and thinking about anything else. It is hard for me to be in a relationship, it always has been. And that makes me want to bail. I would just rather not be in the relationship at all than go through this torture. But I promised myself I wouldn’t run from it this time.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  The Consul had had difficult and trying days. Thomas was ill with a pulmonary hemorrhage; The father had been informed of the accident by a letter from Herr van der Kellen. He had left the affairs in the careful hands of his manager and hastened to Amsterdam by the shortest route. It had turned out that his son's illness entailed no immediate danger, but that a climatic cure in the south, in southern France, was urgently advisable, and since it had happened favorably that a convalescent trip was also planned for the principal's young son had been taken, he had let the two young people leave together for Pau as soon as Thomas was able to travel. Hardly had he returned home when he was struck by that blow which had shook his house to its foundations for a moment: that bankruptcy in Bremen, at which he had lost eighty thousand marks "on a plank" ... how? The on »Gebr. Westfahl« drawn, discounted bills of exchange had returned to the company because the buyers had stopped making payments. Not that cover was missing; the company had shown what it could do, immediately, without hesitation or embarrassment. This, however, was no obstacle to the consul experiencing all the sudden coldness, the reluctance, the distrust that such an accident, such a weakening of working capital tends to evoke in banks, in "friends," in companies abroad... Well, he had straightened up, had everything in mind, calmed down, settled things, stood his ground... But then, in the midst of the battle, amidst the dispatches, letters, calculations, this had come over him: Grünlich, B. Grünlich, the His daughter's husband was insolvent, and in a long, confused and infinitely pathetic letter he begged, begged, lamented a temporary help of one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand marks! The Consul had informed his wife briefly, superficially and gently, had answered coldly and noncommittally that he was asking Herr Grünlich, together with the aforementioned banker Kesselmeyer, for an interview at the former's house, and had left. Tony received him in the drawing room. She was enthusiastic about having visitors in the brown silk salon, and since she had a penetrating and solemn feeling of the importance of the present situation without seeing clearly, she made no exception today with her father. She looked well, pretty, and serious, and wore a light gray dress with bell-sleeved lace trimmed on the chest and wrists, a heavily swept crinoline skirt in the latest fashion, and a small diamond clasp at the clasp at the neck. »Hello, papa, finally we see you again! How is Mama?... Do you have any good news from Tom?... Take off, sit down, please, dear Papa!... Don't you want to do a little toilet? I have the guest room upstairs have it prepared for you... Grünlich is doing the toilet too..." 'Let him alone, my child; I want to wait for him down here. You know I've come to see your husband...

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

  The statement that “Satan transforms himself into an angel of light” and inspires good desires with the intention of deceiving us, is very true. But, as the Gloss says, when the devil deceives the bodily senses, he does not withdraw the mind from a praiseworthy and holy intention; for whoever leads a faithful life is in no danger. Even should Satan, pretending to be good, do or say things befitting the holy angels, and should he delude a man into believing him, the error would not be dangerous or harmful. But, when, by means of his pretence of good, he begins to draw men away to his own work, they need the greatest watchfulness, lest they should be led astray by him. Granted, then that the devil instigates someone to enter religious life, this undertaking is a good one, worthy of the holy angels, and a man who consents to it will run no risk. But he must be on his guard to resist temptations to pride or other vices. God makes use of the malice of the devil for the profit of the just, for whom, if they overcome, He prepares crowns; and thus the evil spirits are duped by the saints. But it must be understood that a suggestion to enter religious life proceeding either from man or from Satan has no efficacy, unless it be accompanied by the interior attraction of God. St. Augustine in his book De praedestinatione Sanctorum says “that all the saints are taught by God, not because all come to Christ, but because no one comes to him by any other means. Thus the desire to enter religion, from whomever such a suggestion may proceed, comes from God.”

• From The Hours (1998)

  Latch’s smooth concrete drive. She considers getting back into her car, and driving away again. She forces herself to go forward. She reminds herself: she has to retrieve her child, take him home, and finish assembling her husband’s birthday dinner. She has to do those ordinary things. With some effort, she draws a breath and goes up the walk to Mrs. Latch’s narrow front porch. It’s the secrecy, she tells herself; it’s the strangeness of what she’s just done, though there’s no real harm in it, is there? She’s not meeting a lover, like some wife from a cheap romance. She simply went away for a few hours, read her book, and came back. It’s a secret only because she can’t quite think how she’d explain, well, any of it—the kiss, the cake, the panicky moment when her car topped Chavez Ravine. She certainly doesn’t know how she’d explain two and a half hours spent reading in a rented room. She draws another breath. She rings Mrs. Latch’s rectangular, illuminated doorbell, which glows orange in the late-afternoon sun. Mrs. Latch opens the door almost immediately, as if she’d been standing right there, waiting. Mrs. Latch is florid, huge-hipped in Bermuda shorts, overly kind; her house is full of a rich brown smell, some sort of meat roasting, which unfurls from behind her when she opens the door. “Well, hello,” she says. “Hi,” Laura answers. “Sorry I’m late.” “Not at all. We’ve been having a fine time. Come on in.” Richie rushes in from the living room. He is flushed, alarmed, all but overwhelmed by love and relief. There is the feeling that Laura has caught him and Mrs. Latch at something; the feeling that they’ve both stopped what they were doing and hurriedly stashed some sort of evidence. No, she has a guilty conscience today; it’s just, she thinks, that he’s confused. He’s spent the last few hours in another realm altogether. Staying at Mrs. Latch’s house, even for a few hours, he has begun losing track of his own life. He has begun to believe, and not happily, that he lives here, has perhaps always lived here, amid this massive yellow furniture, these grass-cloth-covered walls. Richie breaks into tears and runs toward her. “Oh, now,” Laura says, picking him up. She inhales his smell, the deep essence of him, a profound cleanliness, undefinable. Holding him, inhaling, she feels better. “He’s glad to see you,” Mrs. Latch says with elaborately hearty, bitter good cheer. Had she imagined she was some kind of treat for him, a favorite, and her house a house of marvels? Yes, she probably had. Does she suddenly resent him for being a momma’s boy? She probably does. “Hey there, Bug,” Laura says, close to her son’s small pink ear. She is proud of her maternal calm, her claim on the boy. She is embarrassed by his tears.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Yet he could not have left the cabinet knowing that he had neglected any of it, or done it only hastily, for fear of losing that sense of freshness, calm, and integrity that was lost in a single hour and had to be renewed if necessary. He saved in everything he could without exposing himself to gossip, except for his wardrobe, which he had made by the most elegant tailor in Hamburg and spared no expense in maintaining or adding to it. A door that seemed to lead to another room closed off the spacious niche that was walled into one wall of the dressing room, and in which the jackets, tuxedos, frock coats, tailcoats for everyone were hung on long rows of hooks stretched over curved wooden slats Seasons and all degrees of social solemnity hung while trousers, carefully folded, were piled up on several chairs. But in the chest of drawers, with the huge mirror attachment, its plate with combs, brushes and preparations for The care of the hair and beard was covered, the stock of various types of underwear was stored, which was constantly changed, washed, used up and replenished ... He spent a long time in this cabinet not only in the mornings, but also before every dinner, every Senate session, every public meeting, in short, always before it was necessary to appear and move around in public, yes, even before everyday meals House where, apart from himself, only his wife, little Johann and Ida Jungmann were present. And when he went out, the fresh linen on his body, the impeccable and discreet elegance of his suit, his carefully washed face, the smell of brilliantine in his mustache and the dry, cool taste of the used mouthwash gave him the feeling of satisfaction and readiness, with which an actor, who has made his mask to perfection in every detail, takes to the stage... Really! Strange details came to light, strange needs that he perceived in himself with astonishment and disgust. In contrast to people who don't play a role themselves, but only wanted to make their observations in complete silence, unnoticed and out of sight, he did not like having the daylight at his back, knowing himself to be in the shadow and seeing people in bright light in front of him; rather to feel the light in one's eyes half blinded, and to see the people, his audience, those to whom he had to appear as an amiable companion, or as a lively businessman and representative company boss, or as a public speaker, as a mere mass in the shadows ... only this gave him the feeling of separation and security, that blind intoxication of producing himself, in which he achieved his successes. Yes, it was precisely this intoxicating state of action that had gradually become by far the most tolerable for him.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  "Just go to sleep, you'll have to get up early tomorrow, you haven't slept late." "It's okay, Ida... So you'll wake me up at six tomorrow?" 'Half six is early enough, my dear. The car is ordered for eight. Go on sleeping now, you'll be nice and fresh..." "Oh, I haven't slept yet!" 'Oh, oh, Tonychen, that's not right; you don't want to be ailing in Schwartau, do you? Drink seven sips of water, lie on your right side and count to a thousand..." 'Oh, Ida, please come over a little longer! I can't sleep, I want to tell you, I have to think so much my head hurts... look, I think I've got a fever, and then it's my stomach again; Or it's anaemia, because the veins on my temples are so swollen and pulsating that it hurts, they're so full, which doesn't rule out the possibility that there's still not enough blood in my head..." A chair was moved, and Ida Jungmann's bony, vigorous figure in her simple, unfashionable brown dress appeared between the porters. “Eh, eh, Tonychen, fever? Let's feel it, my little child... Let's make a compress..." And with her slightly manly long and firm stride she went to the dresser and got a handkerchief and dipped it in the basin and went back to the bed and laid it gently on Tony's forehead and smoothed it down a few more times with both hands. 'Thanks, Ida, that's good ... Oh, sit with me a little longer, good old Ida, here, on the edge of the bed. Look, I keep thinking about tomorrow... What am I supposed to do? My head is all spinning.” Ida had sat down next to her, had picked up her needle and the stocking that had been pulled over the darning ball, and while she tilted the smooth gray part of her head and followed the stitches with her tirelessly bright brown eyes, she said: "Do you think that he will ask tomorrow?" "Sure, Ida! There's no doubt about it. He won't miss the opportunity. How was Clara? Even in a game like that... I could avoid it, you see. I could stick with the others and not let him get close... But that's over then too! He's leaving the day after tomorrow, that's what he said, and he can't possibly stay longer if nothing comes of it tomorrow... It has to be decided tomorrow... But what can I say, Ida, if he asks?! You've never been married, so you don't really know life, but you're an honest woman and you have your sense and you're forty-two years old. can you advise me I need it so much..." Ida Jungmann let the stocking sink into her lap. 'Yes, yes, Tonychen, I've thought about it a lot too. But what I find is that there is nothing left to guess, my dear.