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 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.

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

  He seemed to want to mock both the students and the state of Hesse-Nassau; and yet it was a very important extemporal that everyone dreaded. Hanno Buddenbrook knew nothing about Hesse-Nassau, not much, next to nothing. He wanted to glance at Adolf Todtenhaupt's notebook for a little while, but Heinrich Heine, who, despite his superior and suffering irony, was watching every movement with the greatest attention, noticed it immediately and said: "Mr. Buddenbrook, I'm tempted to let you close your book, but I am too afraid to do you a favor by doing so. Go on." This remark contained two jokes. Firstly, that Doctor Mühsam addressed Hanno as "Herr," and secondly, that as "Benevolence." Hanno Buddenbrook, however, continued to brood over his notebook and finally delivered an almost empty sheet, after which he went out again with Kai. Everything was over for today. Blessed is he who escaped happily and whose consciousness was not weighed down by any blame. He could now sit freely and in a good mood with Mr. Drägemüller in the bright hall and draw... The drawing room was wide and light. Plaster casts of antiquity stood on the wall shelves, and in a large closet there were all kinds of blocks of wood and doll's furniture, which also served as models. Herr Drägemüller was a stocky man with a rounded full beard and a brown, smooth, cheap wig that stuck out treacherously at the nape of his neck. He had two wigs, one longer and one shorter; when he had his beard shaved, he put on a shorter one... In other respects, too, he was a man of some droll idiosyncrasies. Instead of "the pencil" he said "the lead." He also gave off an oily-spiritual odor wherever he walked and stood, and some said he drank kerosene. His best hours came when he was allowed to teach a subject other than drawing as a substitute. Then he lectured on Bismarck's politics, accompanying them with insistent, spiraling, nose-to-shoulder slurs, and spoke of social democracy with hatred and fear... "We must stick together!" arms grabbed. "Social Democracy is at the door!" There was something desperately busy about him. He sat down next to one, gave off a strong smell of alcohol, slapped one in the forehead with his signet ring, uttered single words like “Perspective!” “Drop shadow!” “Lead!” “Social Democracy!” “Stick together!” Kai was writing his new literary work during this hour, and Hanno was busy performing an orchestral overture in his mind. Then it was over, you took your things down, the way through the courtyard gates was free, you went home. Hanno and Kai went the same way, and they walked together, their books under their arms, to the little red villa out in the suburbs. Then the young Count Mölln still had to walk a long way to his father's residence alone. He wasn't even wearing a paletot.

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

  AUGUSTINE. (Ep. 199. 25.) To this enquiry of the disciples the Lord makes answer, declaring all things which were to come to pass from that time forwards, whether relating to the destruction of Jerusalem, which had given occasion to their enquiry; or to His coming through the Church, in which He ceases not to come to the end of time; for He is acknowledged as coming among His own, while new members are daily born to Him; or relating to the end itself when He shall appear to judge the quick and the dead. When then He describes the signs which shall attend these three events, we must carefully consider which signs belong to which events, lest perchance we refer to one that which belongs to another. CHRYSOSTOM. Here He speaks of the battles which should be fought at Jerusalem; when He says, Ye shall hear wars, and rumours of wars. ORIGEN. To hear the shouts raised in the battles, is to hear wars; to hear rumours of wars, is to hear accounts of wars waged afar off. CHRYSOSTOM. And because this might alarm the disciples, He continues, See that ye be not troubled. And because they supposed that the end of the world would follow immediately after the war in which Jerusalem should be destroyed, He corrects their suspicions concerning this, These things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. JEROME. That is, Think not that the day of judgment is at hand, but that it is reserved against another time; the sign of which is plainly put in what follows, For nation shall rise against-nation, and kingdom against kingdom. RABANUS.b Or, this is a warning to the Apostles not to flee from Jerusalem and Judæa in terror of these things, when they should begin to come upon them; because the end was not immediately, but the desolation of the province, and the destruction of the city and temple should not come till the fortieth year. And we know that most grievous woes, which spread over the whole province, fell out to the very letter. CHRYSOSTOM. And to shew that He also should fight against the Jews, He tells them not only of wars, but of calamities inflicted by Providence, And there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in divers places. RABANUS. Nation shall rise against nation, shews the disquietude of men’s minds; pestilences, the affliction of their bodies; famines, the barrenness of the soil; earthquakes in dicers places, wrath from heaven above. CHRYSOSTOM. And these things shall not happen according to the order of nature before established among men, but shall come of wrath from heaven, and therefore He said not that they should come only, or come suddenly, but adds significantly, These all are the beginnings of troubles, that is, of the Jewish troubles.

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

  In a little dress, whose lavish trimmings with satin bows showed Frau Permaneder's taste, the child sat on the arm of his mother, held his thumbs in his tiny fists, sucked his tongue, stared straight ahead with his eyes protruding slightly and let go now and then a short, creaking sound was heard, whereupon the girl let it rock a little. But Hanno sat quietly on his stool at his mother's feet, looking up at a prism of the chandelier just like her... Christian was missing! Where was Christian? It was only now, at the last moment, that it was noticed that he wasn't there yet. The Consul's movements, the peculiar manipulation with which she used to stroke from the corner of her mouth to her hairdo, as if she were putting a fallen hair back in its place, became even more feverish... She hurriedly instructed Mamsell Severin, and the maid made her way past the choirboys the portico, between the house arms across the corridor, and knocked at Mr. Buddenbrook's door. Immediately Christian appeared. He came very leisurely into the landscape room with his thin, crooked legs, which had become somewhat lame since the joint rheumatism, rubbing his bald forehead with his hand. "Gosh, kids," he said, "I almost forgot!" "You should have..." his mother repeated, and froze... "Yes, almost forgot that it's Christmas today... I was sitting and reading... in a book, a travel book about South America... Good God, I've had other Christmases..." he added, just about to start the tale of one Christmas Eve, which he spent in London in a fifth-order ding-dong, when suddenly the stillness of the church in the room began to have an effect on him, so that he went to his seat with a wrinkled nose and on tiptoe. "Daughter Zion, rejoice!" sang the choirboys, and they, who had just been out there playing allotria so audibly that the senator had had to stand at the door for a moment to command respect, they sang beautifully. These clear voices, carried by the deeper organs, soaring pure, jubilant and praising, drew all hearts with them, softened the old maids' smiles and made the old people look inward and reconsider their lives, while those who were in the midst of life forgot their troubles for a while. Hanno let go of his knee, which he had been hugging so far. He looked quite pale, playing with the fringes of his stool and rubbing his tongue on a tooth, with his mouth half open and an expression as if he were cold. Now and then he felt the need to breathe a sigh of relief, because now, there the singing, this bell -like a cappella song filled the air, his heart clenched in an almost painful happiness. Christmas ...

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

  for a moment," he said and led her up the stairs, across the corridor and through the portico into the landscape room, which was already heated because of the damp and cold autumn weather. “You will understand my excitement… have a seat! Calm me down, if it is at all possible!' "A thousand thousand, my dear Senator!" answered Doctor Grabow, who had leaned back comfortably, his chin in his cravat and was holding the brim of his hat against his stomach with both hands, while Doctor Long-necked, a squat, brunette gentleman with a pointed beard, stood upright standing hair, beautiful eyes and a vain facial expression, had put his top hat on the carpet next to him and looked at his extraordinarily small, black-haired hands... I beg of you... a patient of the relative resilience of our dear lady consul... My faithfulness, as a serving counselor I know this resilience. Really amazing for her years... I'll tell you..." "Yes, just now, in her years..." said the senator anxiously, twirling the long tip of his mustache. "Of course I'm not saying that your dear mother will be able to go for a walk again tomorrow," Doctor Grabow went on gently away. “The patient will not have made that impression on you, dear Senator. There's no denying that the catarrh has taken an annoying turn in the last twenty-four hours. I didn't really like the chills last night and today there is indeed a bit of stitch and shortness of breath. There is also some fever - oh, insignificant, but it is fever. In short, dear Senator, one has to accept the accepted fact that the lungs are a little affected . . .' "Pneumonia, then?" asked the senator, looking from one doctor to the other... 'Yes - pneumonia ,' said Doctor Longneck, bowing gravely and correctly. "Indeed, a small pneumonia on the right side," replied the family doctor, "which we must try to localize very carefully..." "Then there is at least cause for serious concern?" The senator sat very still, staring straight at the speaker. "Concern? O...we must, as I said, be concerned about curtailing the disease, relieving the cough, tackling the fever... well, the quinine will do its duty... And one more thing, dear Senator... Don't be alarmed by the individual symptoms opposite, right? Should the shortness of breath get a little worse, maybe there should be some delirium during the night, or a bit of phlegm tomorrow... you know, reddish-brown sputum, even though there is blood on it... It's all quite logical, quite relevant, quite normal. Please also prepare our dear, esteemed Madame Permaneder, who manages the nursing care with so much devotion... By the way , How is she doing? I completely forgot to ask how her stomach has been the past few days…” "As usual. I don't know anything new. Concerns about her well-being naturally take a back seat now..." "Understood. By the way...a thought occurs to me.

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

  He didn't like being there, wrote lamenting letters to his family and expressed a keen wish to get out of this institution, in which he was very much treatedstrictseemed to be freed again. But they held him tight, and that was probably best for him. In any case, it enabled his wife to continue her former independent life without regard or hindrance, without prejudice to the practical and ideal advantages she owed the marriage. Second chapter The clockwork snapped and rattled dutifully and cruelly. It was a hoarse and cracked sound, a rattle more than a ring, for she was veteran and worn; but it took a long time, hopelessly long, for she was thoroughly teased. Hanno Buddenbrook was deeply shocked. As every morning, at the sudden onset of this at once malicious and innocent noise, on the bedside table, close to his ear, his bowels contracted with rage, lamentation and despair. Outwardly, however, he remained quite calm, changed his position in bed not and just widened his eyes quickly, roused from some blurred morning dream. It was completely dark in the winter-cold room; he could not distinguish any object and could not see the hands of the clock. But he knew it was six o'clock because he had set the alarm for that hour last night... Yesterday... Yesterday... Lying on his back, nerves tense, struggling to make the decision to turn on the light and get out of bed lying there, little by little, everything that had filled him yesterday returned to his consciousness... It was Sunday, and after he had had to let Herr Brecht abuse him for several days in a row, he was allowed to accompany his mother to the Stadttheater to hear Lohengrin as a reward. The joy of this evening had been his life for a week. It was only deplorable that always before such festivals there was so much repugnance that spoiled the free and joyful prospect of it up to the last moment. But finally, on Saturday, school was over, and the pedal machine had pierced his mouth with a painful hum for the last time... Now everything had been put aside and overcome, because he had spontaneously postponed his homework beyond Sunday evening. What did Monday mean? Was it likely that it would ever break? You don't believe in a Monday when you're supposed to be listening to "Lohengrin" on Sunday evening... He wanted to get up early on Monday and do these silly things - that's enough! Now he had roamed free, nurturing the joy of his heart, dreaming at the piano and forgetting all adversity. And then the happiness had become reality. It had come over him with its consecrations and delights, its secret tremors and tremors, its sudden inward sobs, its whole exuberant and insatiable intoxication...

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

  But I would like to remind you of one thing that I have often said to you orally, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to repeat it to you in writing. For although oral speech may seem more vivid and direct, the written word has the virtue of being able to be chosen and composed at leisure, that it stands firm and can be read again and again and have a uniform effect in this form and position, well considered and calculated by the writer. – We are, my dear daughter, notborn for what we short- sightedly believe to be our own little personal happiness, for we are not loose, independent, and self-contained individuals, but like links in a chain, and we would be inconceivable as we are without the line of those who went before us and showed us the way, for their part, with rigor and without looking to the right or left, a tried and venerable one tradition followed. Your path, it seems to me, has been clearly and sharply demarcated before you for some weeks, and you would not have to be my daughter, not the granddaughter of your grandfather, who rests in God, and not at all a worthy member of our family, if you seriously had in mind You alone, to go your own messy paths with defiance and fickleness. This, my dear Antonie, I ask you to move in your heart. – Your mother, Thomas, Christian, Klara and Klothilde (the latter spent several weeks in disgrace with her father), and Mamsell Jungmann send you my best regards; We are all looking forward to being able to hold you in our arms again soon. With true love , your father ." Eleventh Chapter It was pouring rain. Sky, earth and water blurred together, while the gust of wind swept the rain and drove it against the window panes, so that not drops but streams ran down them and made them opaque. Wailing and despairing voices spoke in the stovepipes... When, soon after lunch, Morten Schwarzkopf stepped outside the veranda with his pipe to see how the sky was, a gentleman in a long, tight, yellow- checkered jerkin and gray hat stood before him; a closed droshky, whose top was glistening with wetness and whose wheels were sprinkled with dirt, stopped in front of the house. Morten stared in disbelief at the gentleman's rosy face. He had beard chops that looked as if they had been styled with the powder used to gild Christmas nuts. The gentleman in the Ülster looked at Morten as one looks at a servant, blinking slightly without seeing him, and asked in a soft voice: "Is the Herr pilot commander available?" "However..." Morten stammered, "I think my father..." Here the Lord caught his eye; his eyes were as blue as a goose's. “Are you Herr Morten Schwarzkopf?” he asked ... "Yes, sir," Morten answered, struggling to get a steady expression on his face.

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

  We may further understand these words of Christ to the Apostles, by remembering that He was sending them to preach to the Jews, with whom it was customary for the teachers to Eve by the contributions of their disciples. our Lord (says St. Chrysostom) desired, first, that His disciples should be above suspicion, and should not be thought to be preaching for the sake of gain. Secondly, He wished them to be free from anxiety about material things. Thirdly, He willed that they should, by experience, learn that, without anxiety on their part, His power could provide them with all that they might need. But He acted differently on the Eve of His Passion, when He was about to send them forth to preach to the Gentiles. For, then, He said to them, “When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes) did you want anything? But they said: nothing. Then said He unto them: But now he that has a purse let him take it, and likewise a scrip” (Luke xxii). These words prove that bishops, as successors of the Apostles, are not bound to possess nothing, nor to carry nothing with them on their journeys. CHAPTER XIX The Episcopal Office, Although A State of Greater Perfection Than is the Religious Life, Is, Nevertheless, Not to Be CovetedST. PAUL exhorts the Corinthians (1 Ep. xii. 31) to be “zealous for the better gifts.” Seeing, then, how far the episcopal office exceeds, in perfection, the religious life, ought men not to be more eager to be made bishops, than to become religious? If anyone who asks this question will give a little consideration to the matter, he will see that while there is abundant reason why the religious life should be desired, the episcopal office, on the contrary, should, by no means, be coveted. For he who enters religion, renounces himself together with all that belongs to him, and, for the love of God, submits himself to the government of another. On the other hand, he who is promoted to a bishopric, is raised to an exalted position in God’s kingdom upon earth. Consequently, as honour and power are not rightfully bestowed on any save on the best among men, it would be presumptuous to aspire to such a dignity.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  In consequence of this, it often stops. So soon as this happens, I notice it, whereas I naturally fail to notice it when going. When this first began to happen, there was this modification: I suddenly felt an undefined uneasiness or sort of void, without being able to say what was the matter; and only after some consideration did I find the cause in the stopping of the clock.'" That the stopping of an unfelt stimulus may itself be felt is a well-known fact: the sleeper in church who wakes when the sermon ends; the miller who does the same when his wheel stands still, are stock examples. Now (since every impression falling on the nervous system must propagate itself somewhither), Müller suggests that impressions which come to us when the thought-centres are preoccupied with other matters may thereby be blocked or inhibited from invading these centres, and may then overflow into lower paths of discharge. And he farther suggests that if this process recur often enough, the side-track thus created will grow so permeable as to be used, no matter what may be going on in the centres above. In the acquired inattention mentioned, the constant stimulus always caused disturbance at first ; and consciousness of it was extruded successfully only when the brain was strongly excited about other things. Gradually the extrusion became easier, and at last automatic. The side-tracks which thus learn to draft off the stimulations that interfere with thought cannot be assigned with any precision. They probably terminate in organic processes, or insignificant muscular contractions which, when stopped by the cessation of their instigating cause, immediately give us the feeling that something is gone from our existence (as Müller says), or (as his friend puts it) the feeling of a void.[383] Müller's suggestion awakens another. It is a well-known fact that persons striving to keep their attention on a difficult subject will resort to movements of various unmeaning kinds, such as pacing the room, drumming with the fingers, playing with keys or watch-chain, scratching head, pulling mustache, vibrating foot, or what not, according to the individual. There is an anecdote of Sir W. Scott, when a boy, rising to the head of his class by cutting off from the jacket of the usual head-boy a button which the latter was in the habit of twirling in his fingers during the lesson. The button gone, its owner's power of reciting also departed.—Now much of this activity is unquestionably due to the overflow of emotional excitement during anxious and concentrated thought. It drains away nerve-currents which if pent up within the thought-centres would very likely make the confusion there worse confounded. But may it not also be a means of drafting off all the irrelevant sensations of the moment, and so keeping the attention more exclusively concentrated upon its inner task? Each individual usually has his own peculiar habitual movement of this sort.

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

  Hugo Weinschenk, for some time director in the service of the municipal fire insurance company, with his closed tunic, his narrow, black mustache, which grew in a manly and serious manner into the corners of his mouth, and his lower lip drooped slightly, he strode confidently and swayingly across the large hall moving from the front offices to the back ones, carrying both his fists in front of him and moving his elbows casually at his sides, he presented the image of an active, well-to-do, and imposing man. On the other hand, Erika Grünlich, now twenty years old, was a tall, blossoming girl, freshly colored and pretty with health and strength. If chance led them down the stairs or to the upper banister when Herr Weinschenk came along - and chance often did so - the director took the top hat from his short, black hair, which was already beginning to turn gray at the temples , swayed more in the waist of his frock coat and greeted the young girl with an astonished and admiring look from his boldly roving brown eyes... whereupon Erika ran away, sat down somewhere on a windowsill and cried for an hour in helplessness and confusion. Fraulein Grünlich had grown up in breeding under Therese Weichbrodt's care, and her thoughts did not go far. She cried over Herr Weinschenk's top hat, the way he raised and lowered his brows at the sight of her, his most regal demeanor, and his balanced fists. Her mother meanwhile, Mrs. Permaneder, saw further. She had been worried about her daughter's future for years, because compared to other marriageable girls, Erika was at a disadvantage. Frau Permaneder not only did not associate with society, she lived at enmity with it. She had become a little obsessed with the assumption that in early circles she would be considered inferior because of her two divorces, and she saw contempt and spite where there was probably nothing but indifference. Probably, for example, Consul Hermann Hagenstrom, that free-spirited and loyal head made cheerful and benevolent by wealth, would have greeted her on the street when the look with which she looked past his face, that "foie gras face" with which she , in one of her strong words, "hated like the plague", had not strictly forbidden him to do so. So it came about that Erika too was far removed from the sphere of her uncle, the senator, that she didn't go to any balls and had little opportunity to make acquaintances with gentlemen. Nevertheless, especially since she herself had, as she said, "sunken down," Mrs. Antonie's fervent wish was that her daughter should fulfill the hopes that her mother had failed in, and make a marriage which, advantageously and happily, would do honor to the family and make one forget the mother's fate.

• From The Hours (1998)

  Flour cascades down the silver sides. Laura tells the boy to hold the cup steady, which he nervously manages to do, and with one quick gesture she dismisses the grainy little heap on top and creates a flawless white surface exactly level with the lip of the cup. He continues holding the cup with both hands. “Good,” she says. “Now we put it in the other bowl. Do you think you can do that by yourself ?” “Yes,” he says, though he is not at all certain. He believes this cup of flour to be singular and irreplaceable. It is one thing to be asked to carry a cabbage across the street, quite another to be asked to carry the recently unearthed head of Rilke’s Apollo. “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?” He nods with such guileless, unguarded enthusiasm that her throat constricts in a spasm of love. It seems suddenly easy to bake a cake, to raise a child.

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

  She left him nothing but to vote in the town hall for the election of her fiercely revered husband and, perhaps some day, to dedicate to her the translation of all the dramas of Lope de Vegas. Four Chapter Every vacancy in the Senate must be filled again within four weeks; that's what the constitution wants. Three weeks have passed since James Möllendorpf's resignation, and now election day has arrived, a thaw day at the end of February. In the Breite Straße, in front of the town hall with its openwork glazed brick facade, its pointed towers and turrets standing against the greyish-white sky, its covered staircase resting on protruding columns, its pointed arcades, which allow a view of the market square and its fountain ... in front of the Town halls crowd at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. They stand incessantly in the dirty, watery snow of the street, which completely melts under their feet, look at each other, look straight ahead again and crane their necks. Because there, behind that portal, in the council chamber, with its fourteen armchairs standing in a semicircle, the electoral assembly consisting of members of the senate and the citizenship is still awaiting the proposals of the electoral chambers at this very hour... The matter has dragged on. It seems that the debates in the chambers do not want to calm down, that the struggle is hard, and that, up to now, no one and the same person has been put forward to the meeting in the council chamber, for he would be declared elected by the mayor at once... Strange! No one understands where they come from, where and how they arise, but rumors leak out of the portal onto the street and spread. Is Herr Kaspersen standing in there, the older of the two council servants, who never calls himself anything other than a "civil servant," directing what he learns out through the corner of his mouth with his teeth closed and his eyes averted? Now it is said that the proposals have arrived in the courtroom, and that each of the three chambers has proposed a different one: Hagenstrom, Buddenbrook, Kistenmaker! God grant that now at least the general election by secret voting using ballot papers results in an absolute majority of votes! If you don't wear warm overshoes, you start lifting your legs and stomping, because your feet hurt from the cold. People from all walks of life are standing here and waiting.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  We would come to an intersection and he would point and say, in a perfect Elmer Fudd dialect (I can’t do accents at all), “Go dat way, Don. Dat ith de way to the thorage thed.” I was speaking at a pastors conference in San Francisco, and I was telling them about my friends from Reed and what it looks like to talk about Jesus in that place. Somebody asked me what it was like to deal with all the immorality at Reed, and that question really struck me because I have never thought of Reed as an immoral place, and I suppose I never thought of it as an immoral place because somebody like Nathan can go there and talk like Elmer Fudd, and nobody will ever make fun of him. And if Nathan were to go to my church, which I love and would give my life for, he would unfortunately be made fun of by somebody somewhere, behind his back and all, but it would happen, and that is such a tragic crime. Nobody would bother to find out that he is a genius. Nobody would know that he is completely comfortable talking the way he talks and not knowing his left from his right because he has spent four years in a place where what you are on the surface does not define you, it does not label you. And that is what I love about Reed College because even though there are so many students having sex and tripping on drugs and whatever, there is also this foundational understanding that other people exist and they are important, and to me Reed is like heaven in that sense. I wish everybody could spend four years in a place like that, being taught the truth, that they matter regardless of their faults, regardless of their insecurities. [image "9780785263708_0238_002" file=Image00089.jpg] Television drives me crazy sometimes because everybody is so good-looking, and yet you walk through the aisles of the grocery stores, and nobody looks like that. Somebody told me that in London people don’t judge you as much by the way you look, and I think it is true because late night on PBS they play shows out of England and the actors aren’t good-looking, and I sit there wondering if anybody else is watching and asking the same question: Why aren’t the actors in London good looking? And I already know the answer to that question, it is that America is one of the most immoral countries in the world and that our media has reduced humans to slabs of meat. And there will always be this tension while I live in this country because none of this will ever change.

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  I wondered whether or not I was lazy. When you are a writer you feel lazy even when you’re working. Who gets paid to sit around in a coffee shop all day and type into a computer? But I did work, I kept telling myself. I showed up at Palio every day, and in the evenings I would go to Common Ground. I worked. I wrote. I drove myself crazy writing. The thing is, at the time, I was writing without a contract. So I wasn’t really writing for money, I was writing in hopes of money. And when you are writing without a contract, you feel as though everything you say is completely worthless (technically it is, until you get a contract). You can write all day and still not feel that you have done anything. A man needs to do some work, needs to get his hands dirty and calloused and needs to hammer his thumb every once in a while. He needs to get tired at the end of the day, and not just mind tired, body tired too. I wasn’t feeling body tired, I was just feeling mind tired, and I didn’t have any money, so I wasn’t feeling like a man. I was in a bad place. I talked to Rick about it. He came over to the house, and we were sitting around, and I asked him if he thought God really called me to be a writer or if I was just being lazy, being selfish, tinkering with words. He asked me if I worked; he said that everybody needs to work. I told him I did but wasn’t getting paid for it because I didn’t have a contract yet, and getting a contract was no sure thing. At best I was gambling. He said he didn’t know whether what I was doing was right or wrong. He said he would pray for me. I rolled my eyes. He told me I had a gift and he liked me, and God would make things clear if I was being a lazy slob. Imago, our church, is made up of mostly artists and fruit nuts and none of us have any money, so Rick said if I was going to be a writer, I needed to write a bestseller so that the church could have some money. I am irresponsible with money if you want to know the truth. I don’t have the money to buy big things, thank God, so I buy small things. I like new things too much. I like the way they smell. Today I tried to go to Home Depot to get an extension cord. I need an extension cord to plug in a lamp in the upstairs den. I already bought a timer plug for the lamp, a plug that turns the lamp on in the evening and off after everybody has gone to bed, but now I need an extension cord.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 36 < Lecture 5  The Life and Teachings of Jesus `Jesus’s Proclamation can be summarized in his first recorded words, found in Mark 1:15: “The Time has been fulfilled; the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.” More specifically, Jesus taught that a judgment day was imminent. `The Kingdom of God for Jesus was not heaven. It was an actual kingdom here on earth run by God himself through his messiah, the future leader of Israel. yIt would be brought by a heavenly judge Jesus called the Son of Man to differentiate him from the evil monsters currently running the governments of the earth. yThe Son of Man would destroy these governments, their representatives, and everyone who sided with them. Only God’s true followers would enter the coming kingdom. yThis kingdom was coming very soon. People therefore needed to prepare by changing their ways, devoting themselves to God and actively engaging in helping those in need, all in fulfilment of God’s law, the Torah. `At the end of his life, Jesus decided to take his message to the capital of the Jewish homeland, Jerusalem itself, and its glorious Temple. There, many thousands of Jews would be gathered together during one of the great Jewish feasts, Passover, an annual festival that celebrated God’s deliverance of his people Israel from their slavery in Egypt many centuries before. `Jesus made a journey with his disciples to Jerusalem. While there, he proclaimed his message of the coming destruction. `This message included some inf lammatory ideas that would not have gone over well with the ruling establishment. For instance, God would destroy his enemies, those now in power, including the Roman overlords and the priests running the Temple who cooperated with them. `Jesus appears to have acquired enough listeners to make those in power nervous about a riot over his incendiary words. They had him arrested. < 37 < Lecture 5  The Life and Teachings of Jesus `Jesus appeared before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who was in the city to control the crowds. After a brief trial on charge of sedition against the state, declaring himself to be the king of the coming kingdom that would replace the kingdom of Rome, Jesus was ordered to be executed as an enemy of the Roman people. `Jesus was immediately taken off to be crucified. According to the earliest accounts, he was dead within six hours. `This way of looking at Jesus’s life and teachings has been a standard view among scholars of the New Testament since Albert Schweitzer wrote his classic study, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, more than a century ago. < 37 <

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

  "Please continue," he said; and that sounded just as horrible as if he had said: "We'll see, and woe to that person...!" It was clear why he had appeared. Mr. Modersohn was supposed to put his teaching skills to the test in front of him, was supposed to show what the junior high school student had learned from him in six or seven hours; it was about Mr. Modersohn's existence and future. The contestant was a sad sight as he stood back on the lectern and called for someone to repeat the poem " The monkey ". And just as until now only the students had been examined and appraised, so it now happened to the teacher at the same time... Oh, both parts fared badly! Director Wulicke's appearance was a surprise, and no one but two or three were prepared. It was impossible for Herr Modersohn to spend the whole hour questioning Adolf Todtenhaupt, who knew everything. Da » The monkey' could no longer be read in the director's presence, it was a pity, and when it was the turn to read ' Ivanhoe ', I could actually only the young Count Mölln translated a little, because he had a private interest in the novel. The others poked around helplessly and coughing among the vocabulary. Hanno Buddenbrook was also called up and couldn't get past a line. Director Wulicke let out a sound, as if the lowest string of the double bass was being struck violently. Herr Modersohn wrung his small, clumsy, ink-stained hands and wailed again: "And otherwise it always went so well! And otherwise it always went so well!« He repeated this when the bell rang, addressing despairingly half to the students and half to the principal. But the good Lord stood terribly erect, with his arms crossed in front of his chair and stared across the class with a dismissive nod of the head ... And then he ordered the class register and slowly wrote a reprimand to all those whose achievements had just been poor or zero Sloth in, six or seven students at a time. Mr. Modersohn could not be enrolled, but he was worse off than all; he stood there, sallow, broken and discarded. But Hanno Buddenbrook was also among those blamed. "I want to spoil your career," Director Wulicke added. And then he disappeared. The bell rang, the hour was up. That's how it was supposed to be. Yes, it was always like that. When you were most frightened, as if in mockery, you were almost fine; but if one expected nothing bad, misfortune came. Hanno's advancement at Easter was finally impossible.

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

  Aurea great...? « So mom! God be praised, Hanno was safe now! For the third time the verses would scarcely need reciting, and the letter B's turn in the re-preparation had only recently come... Mom got up. He was a tall, pale man with trembling hands and extraordinarily large round glasses. He had eye problems and was so short- sighted that it was impossible for him to read a book in front of him standing up. He had to learn, and he had learned. But since he was genuinely untalented and hadn't thought he would be called up today, he still knew very little and fell silent after the first few words. Dr. Mantelsack helped him, he helped him a second time with a sharper voice and a third time with an extremely irritated tone; but when Mumme was completely stuck, the ordinary was seized with violent anger. 'That's completely insufficient, Mumme! Sit down! You are a sad creature, rest assured, you cretin! Stupid and lazy is too much of a good thing..." Mumme sank. He looked like misfortune, and at that moment there was nobody in the room who didn't despise him. Again a disgust, a kind of nausea rose in Hanno Buddenbrook and made his throat tight. At the same time, he watched what was happening with terrifying clarity. Dr. Mantelsack vigorously drew a sign of evil meaning behind Vimes' name, then scowled around his notebook. Out of anger he went back to business as usual, checked whose turn it was, it was clear! And just as Hanno was completely overwhelmed by this realization, he heard his name as if in a bad dream. "Buddenbrook!" - Doctor Mantelsack had said "Buddenbrook", the sound was still in the air, and yet Hanno didn't believe it. A buzzing had arisen in his ears. He stayed seated. " Herr Buddenbrook!" said Dr. Mantelsack, staring at him with his bulging sapphire-blue eyes, which gleamed behind the sharp spectacles. "Will you be so kind?" Well, that's the way it should be. That was how it had to be. Very different from what he had imagined, but now all was lost. He was composed now. Would there be a very big roar? He stood up and was about to offer some nonsensical and ridiculous excuse for saying that he had "forgotten" to learn the verses, when suddenly he became aware that the man in front of him was holding out the open book. The man in front of him, Hans Hermann Kilian, was a short, brown man with greasy hair and broad shoulders. He wanted to be an officer and was so inspired by camaraderie that he did not abandon even Johann Buddenbrook, whom he did not like.

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

  Kai had blushed and looked down without lowering his head. Hanno looked pale. He was terribly serious and kept his veiled eyes turned sideways. Then Herr Schlemiel rang and they went upstairs. The geography lesson came and with it the extemporal, a very important extemporal about the Hesse-Nassau area. A man with a red beard and a brown skirt came in. His face was pale and not a single hair grew on his hands, the pores of which were wide open. This was the witty head teacher, Doctor Mühsam. He suffered at times from hemorrhages from the lungs, and constantly spoke ironically, considering himself as witty as he was ailing. At home he owned a kind Heine Archive, a collection of papers and objects related to the impudent and ailing poet. Now he fixed the borders of Hesse-Nassau on the blackboard and then, with a smile that was both melancholy and scornful, asked the gentlemen to draw in their notebooks what strange things the country had to offer. He seemed to want to mock both the students and the state of Hesse- Nassau; and yet it was a very important extemporal that everyone dreaded. Hanno Buddenbrook knew nothing about Hesse-Nassau, not much, next to nothing. He wanted to glance at Adolf Todtenhaupt's notebook for a little while, but Heinrich Heine, who, despite his superior and suffering irony, was watching every movement with the greatest attention, noticed it immediately and said: "Mr. Buddenbrook, I'm tempted to let you close your book, but I am too afraid to do you a favor by doing so. Go on." This remark contained two jokes. Firstly, that Doctor Mühsam addressed Hanno as "Herr," and secondly, that as "Benevolence." Hanno Buddenbrook, however, continued to brood over his notebook and finally delivered an almost empty sheet, after which he went out again with Kai. Everything was over for today. Blessed is he who escaped happily and whose consciousness was not weighed down by any blame. He could now sit freely and in a good mood with Mr. Drägemüller in the bright hall and draw... The drawing room was wide and light. Plaster casts of antiquity stood on the wall shelves, and in a large closet there were all kinds of blocks of wood and doll's furniture, which also served as models. Herr Drägemüller was a stocky man with a rounded full beard and a brown, smooth, cheap wig that stuck out treacherously at the nape of his neck. He had two wigs, one longer and one shorter; when he had his beard shaved, he put on a shorter one... In other respects, too, he was a man of some droll idiosyncrasies.

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

  In thoughts as well as in In conversations he constantly called Herr von Throta, with contemptuous emphasis, "the lieutenant"; and at the same time he felt too well that this title was the worst of all to express the nature of this young man... What did Thomas Buddenbrook fear? Nothing... Nothing nameable. Oh, if only he could have defended himself against something palpable, simple and brutal! He envied the people out there the simplicity of the picture they had of it; but as he sat and listened in agony, head in hands, he knew well enough that "cheating" and "adultery" were not sounds to name the singing and abysmal silent things that were happening up there . Sometimes, gazing out at the gray gables and the passing citizens, resting his eyes on the plaque hanging before him, the jubilee gift, the portraits of his fathers, and contemplating the history of his house, he told himself that all of this was the end of everything and that what was going on now was the only thing missing. Yes, the only thing missing was for his person to be laughed at and his name, his family life, to be the subject of people's clamor, so that everything would be crowned ... But this thought almost did him good, because it was simple, comprehensible and healthy, imaginable and utterable seemed compared to brooding over that shameful riddle, that mysterious scandal at his head... He couldn't bear it any longer, he pushed back the armchair, left the office and went upstairs into the house. Where should he turn? In the drawing room, to greet Herr von Throta in an uninhibited and somewhat condescending manner, to invite him to dinner and, as he had done several times, to receive a negative answer? Because what was actually unbearable was that the lieutenant avoided him completely, refused almost all official invitations and only liked to stick to private and free contact with the senator ... Wait? Somewhere, maybe in the smoking room, wait until he goes away and then come up to Gerda and talk to her, confront her? - One didn't confront Gerda, one didn't talk to her. About what? The alliance with her was based on understanding, consideration and silence. There was no need to make a fool of yourself in front of her. Playing jealous would mean agreeing with the people out there, proclaiming the scandal, making it loud... Was he jealous? On whom? On what? Ah, far away! Something so strong knows how to produce actions, wrong, perhaps foolish, but engaging and liberating.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  The RV has: ‘Be not anxious for your life.’ Moffatt has: ‘Do not trouble about what you are to eat and drink in life.’ Weymouth has: ‘I charge you not to be overanxious about your lives.’ The NT in Plain English has: Worry no more about your life.’ Rieu has: ‘I bid you not to fret about your life.’ The RSV has: ‘Do not be anxious about your life.’ Schonfield in The Authentic New Testament has: ‘Do not vex yourselves about what you are to eat or drink.’ It is obvious that this is a commandment of Jesus about the meaning of which we must be clear, for it is a commandment which affects our whole attitude to life. Before we come to discuss the meaning of it we must go on to look at the other NT uses of the word. Merimnan is used in Luke when Martha is said by Jesus to be careful about many things (Luke 10.41); and when the disciples are bidden to take no thought how they will answer the charges that will be brought against them (Luke 12.11). Merimnan is used quite frequently by Paul. He uses it several times in I Cor. 7.32-34. In that passage he is insisting that the Christian must concentrate on the Second Coming of Christ, which, at that time, he expected at any moment. The unmarried man and woman care for the things that belong to the Lord; but the married man and woman care for the things of the world, and care more how they may please each other than how they may please God. In I Cor. 12.25 merimnan is used of the care that members of the Church should have for one another. In Phil. 2.20 it is used for the care with which Timothy will concern himself for the highest interests of the Philippian church. In Phil. 4.6 Paul uses merimnan when he bids the Philippians: ‘ Be careful for nothing.’ It is clear again that merimnan , like merimna , has a double flavour. The care for our fellow Christians is obviously a different thing from the care for the things of this world. We must now go on to look at the meaning of these words in secular Greek that we may better interpret their meaning in the NT. In classical Greek merimnan at its simplest can simply mean to be occupied with . In Sophocles’ play, Oedipus asks the herdsman in what labour or in what way of life he is employed (merimnan ) (Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus 1124). The noun merimna is sometimes joined with lupe , which means grief . In Euripides’ Ion , Ion finds Creusa weeping at the shrine and asks her: ‘How cam’st thou, lady, ’neath such load of carel ?’