Confusion

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 Collected Essays (1998)

  In order to have a real relationship with somebody you have got to take the risk of being thought, God forbid, "an oddball ." You know, you have to take a chance which in some peculiar way we don't seem willing to take. And this is very serious in that it is not so much a writer's problem, that is to say, I don't want to talk about it from the point of view of a writer's problem, because, after all, you didn't ask me to become a writer, but it seems to me that the situation of the writer in this country is symptomatic and reveals, says something, very terrifying about this country. If I were writing hypothetically about a Frenchman I would have in a way a frame of reference and a point of view and in tact it is easier to write about frenchmen, comparatively speaking, because they interest me so much less. But to try to deal with the American experience, that is to say to deal with this enormous incoherence, these enormous puddings, this shapeless thing, to try and make an American, well listen to them, and try to put that on a page. The truth about dialogue, for example, or the technical side of it, is that you try and make people say what they would say if they could and then you sort of dress it up to look like speech . That is to say that it's really an absolute height, people don't ever talk the way they talk in novels, but I've got to make you believe they do because I can't possibly do a tape recording. But to try and find out what Americans mean is almost impossible because there arc so many things they do not want to face. And not only the Negro thing which is simply the NOTES FOR A HYPO THETI CAL NOVEL 229 most obvious and perhaps the simplest example, but on the level of private lif e which is after all where we have to get to in order to write about anything and also the level we have to get to in order to live, it seems to me that the myth, the illusion, that this is a free country, for example, is disastrous. Let me point out to you that freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn't got to have an enormous military machine in order to be unfree when it's simpler to be asleep, when it's simpler to be apathetic, when it's simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that some thing else is more important. And I'm not using freedom now so much in a political sense as I'm using it in a personal sense.

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

  On the other hand, his position with regard to the things he knows by instinct is sometimes such that he is unable to distinguish fully whether his thoughts are conceived of Divine instinct or of his own spirit. And those things which we know by Divine instinct are not all manifested with prophetic certitude, for this instinct is something imperfect in the genus of prophecy. It is thus that we are to understand the saying of Gregory. Lest, however, this should lead to error, “they are very soon set aright by the Holy Ghost [*For instance, cf. 2 Kings 7:3 seqq.], and from Him they hear the truth, so that they reproach themselves for having said what was untrue,” as Gregory adds (Hom. i super Ezech.). The arguments set down in the first place consider the revelation that is made by the prophetic spirit; wherefore the answer to all the objections is clear. Whether things known or declared prophetically can be false?Objection 1: It would seem that things known or declared prophetically can be false. For prophecy is about future contingencies, as stated above (A[3] ). Now future contingencies may possibly not happen; else they would happen of necessity. Therefore the matter of prophecy can be false. Objection 2: Further, Isaias prophesied to Ezechias saying (Is. 38:1): “Take order with thy house, for thou shalt surely die, and shalt not live,” and yet fifteen years were added to his life (4 Kings 20:6). Again the Lord said (Jer. 18:7,8): “I will suddenly speak against a nation and against a kingdom, to root out and to pull down and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do them.” This is instanced in the example of the Ninevites, according to Jn. 3:10: “The Lord [Vulg.: ‘God’] had mercy with regard to the evil which He had said that He would do to them, and He did it not.” Therefore the matter of prophecy can be false. Objection 3: Further, in a conditional proposition, whenever the antecedent is absolutely necessary, the consequent is absolutely necessary, because the consequent of a conditional proposition stands in the same relation to the antecedent, as the conclusion to the premises in a syllogism, and a syllogism whose premises are necessary always leads to a necessary conclusion, as we find proved in I Poster. 6. But if the matter of a prophecy cannot be false, the following conditional proposition must needs be true: “If a thing has been prophesied, it will be.” Now the antecedent of this conditional proposition is absolutely necessary, since it is about the past. Therefore the consequent is also necessary absolutely; yet this is unfitting, for then prophecy would not be about contingencies. Therefore it is untrue that the matter of prophecy cannot be false.

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

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. xc. 1) But He has just said, Because they know not Him that sent Me. How could they hate one whom they did not know? For if they hated God, believing Him to be something else, and not God, this was not hatred of God. In the case of men, it often happens that we hate or love persons whom we have never seen, simply in consequence of what we have heard of them. But if a man’s character is known to us, he cannot properly be said to be unknown. And a man’s character is not shewn by his face, but by his habits and way of life: else we should not be able to know ourselves, for we cannot see our own face. But history and fame sometimes lie; and our faith is imposed upon. We cannot penetrate into men’s hearts; we only know that such things are right, and others wrong; and if we escape error here, to be mistaken in men is a venial matter. A good man may hate a good man ignorantly, or rather love him ignorantly, for he loves the good man, though he hates the man whom he supposes him to be. A bad man may love a good man, supposing him to be a bad man like himself, and therefore not, properly speaking, loving him, but the person whom he takes him to be. And in the same way with respect to God. If the Jews were asked whether they loved God, they would reply that they did love Him, not intending to lie, but only being mistaken in so saying. For how could they who hated the Truth, love the Father of the Truth? They did not wish their actions to be judged, and this the Truth did. They hated the Truth then, because they hated the punishment which He would inflict upon such as they. But at the same time they did not know that He was the Truth, who came to condemn them. They did not know that the Truth was born of God the Father, and therefore they did not know God the Father Himself. Thus they both hated, and also knew not, the Father. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxvii. 2) Thus then they have no excuse, He says; I gave them doctrine, I added miracles, which, according to Moses’ law, should convince all if the doctrine itself is good also: If I had not done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had sin.

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

  THEOPHYLACT. Our Lord having said above, It is expedient for you that I go away, He enlarges now upon it: I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. xcvii) All heretics, when their fables are rejected for their extravagance by the common sense of mankind, try to defend themselves by this text; as if these were the things which the disciples could not at this time bear, or as if the Holy Spirit could teach things, which even the unclean spirit is ashamed openly to teach and preach. (Tr. xcvi. 5). But bad doctrines such as even natural shame cannot bear are one thing, good doctrines such as our poor natural understanding cannot bear are another. The one are allied to the shameless body, the other lie far beyond the body. (Tr. xcvi. 1). But what are these things which they could not bear? I cannot mention them for this very reason; for who of us dare call himself able to receive what they could not? Some one will say indeed that many, now that the Holy Ghost has been sent, can do what Peter could not then, as earn the crown of martyrdom. But do we therefore know what those things were, which He was unwilling to communicate? For it seems most absurd to suppose that the disciples were not able to bear then the great doctrines, that we find in the Apostolical Epistles, which were written afterwards, which our Lord is not said to have spoken to them. For why could they not bear then what every one now reads and bears in their writings, even though he may not understand? Men of perverse sects indeed cannot bear what is found in Holy Scripture concerning the Catholic faith, as we cannot bear their sacrilegious vanities; for not to bear means not to acquiesce in. But what believer or even catechumen before he has been baptized and received the Holy Ghost, does not acquiesce in and listen to, even if he does not understand, all that was written after our Lord’s ascension? (xcvii. 5). But some one will say, Do spiritual men never hold doctrines which they do not communicate to carnal men, but do to spiritual? (xcviii. 3). There is no necessity why any doctrines should be kept secret from the babes, and revealed to the grown up believersa. Spiritual men ought not altogether to withhold spiritual doctrines from the carnal, seeing the Catholic faith ought to be preached to all; nor at the same time should they lower them in order to accommodate them to the understanding of persons who cannot receive them, and so make their own preaching contemptible, rather than the truth intelligible. (xcvii. 1). So then we are not to understand these words of our Lord to refer to certain secret doctrines, which if the teacher revealed, the disciple would not be able to bear, but to those very things in religious doctrine which are within the comprehension of all of us. If Christ chose to communicate these to us, in the same way in which He does to the Angels, what men, yea what spiritual men, which the Apostles were not now, could bear them? For indeed every thing which can be known of the creature is inferior to the Creator; and yet who is silent about Him? (xcvi. 4). While in the body we cannot know all the truth, as the Apostle says, We know in part; (1 Cor. 13) but the Holy Spirit sanctifying us, fits us for enjoying that fulness of which the same Apostle says, Then face to face. Our Lord’s promise, But when He the Spirit of truth shall come, He shall teach you all truth, or shall lead you into all truth, does not refer to this life only, but to the life to come, for which this complete fulness is reserved. The Holy Spirit both teaches believers now all the spiritual things which they are capable of receiving, and also kindles in their hearts a desire to know more.

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

  ARISTOTLE ’ S TEXT Chapter 1: 995a 24-995b 4176. With a view to the science under investigation we must attack first those subjects which must first be investigated. These are all the subjects about which some men have entertained different opinions, and any other besides these which has been omitted. 177. Now for those who wish to investigate the truth it is worth the while to ponder these difficulties well. For the subsequent study of truth is nothing else than the solution of earlier problems. For it is impossible to untie a knot without knowing it. But a perplexity on the part of the mind makes this evident in regard to the matter at hand; for insofar as the mind is perplexed, to that extent it experiences something similar to men who are bound; for in both cases it is impossible to move forward. For this reason, then, it is first necessary to consider all the difficulties and the reasons for them. 178. [This is also necessary] for another reason, namely, that those who make investigations without first recognizing the problem are like those who do not know where they ought to go. 179. Again, one would not even know when he finds the thing which he is seeking [and when not]; for the goal is not evident to such a man, but it is evident to one who previously discussed the difficulties. 180. Furthermore, one who has heard all the arguments of the litigants, as it were, and of those who argue the question, is necessarily in a better position to pass judgment. COMMENTARY338. Having indicated in Book II (331) the method of considering the truth, the Philosopher now proceeds with his study of the truth. First he proceeds disputatively, indicating those points which are open to question so far as the truth of things is concerned. Second (529), he begins to establish what is true, and he does this in Book IV, which begins: “ There is a certain science. ” The first part is divided into two sections. In the first, he states what he intends to do. In the second (346), he proceeds to do it ( “ The first problem ” ). In regard to the first he does two things. First, he states what he intends to do. Second (339), he gives the reasons for this ( “ Now for those ” ). He says first, then, that with a view to this science which we are seeking about first principles and what is universally true of things, we must attack, first of all, those subjects about which it is necessary to raise questions before the truth is established. Now there are disputed points of this kind for two reasons, either because the ancient philosophers entertained a different opinion about these things than is really true, or because they completely neglected to consider them. 339. Now for those (177). Here he gives four arguments in support of this thesis:

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The next morning, when I arrived at work in another jeans and sneakers ensemble, she seemed startled, as if some strange vagrant had made a wrong turn into the office. She took a beat to compose herself, then summoned me over to confide that she was leaving in a week to work at a “real law office.” I wished her luck. An hour later, she called my office to tell me that “Robert E. Lee” was on the phone. I smiled, pleased that I’d misjudged her; she clearly had a sense of humor. “That’s really funny.” “I’m not joking. That’s what he said,” she said, sounding bored, not playful. “Line two.” I picked up the line. “Hello, this is Bryan Stevenson. May I help you?” “Bryan, this is Robert E. Lee Key. Why in the hell would you want to represent someone like Walter McMillian? Do you know he’s reputed to be one of the biggest drug dealers in all of South Alabama? I got your notice entering an appearance, but you don’t want anything to do with this case.” “Sir?” “This is Judge Key, and you don’t want to have anything to do with this McMillian case. No one really understands how depraved this situation truly is, including me, but I know it’s ugly. These men might even be Dixie Mafia.” The lecturing tone and bewildering phrases from a judge I’d never met left me completely confused. “Dixie Mafia”? I’d met Walter McMillian two weeks earlier, after spending a day on death row to begin work on five capital cases. I hadn’t reviewed the trial transcript yet, but I did remember that the judge’s last name was Key. No one had told me the Robert E. Lee part. I struggled for an image of “Dixie Mafia” that would fit Walter McMillian. “ ‘Dixie Mafia’?” “Yes, and there’s no telling what else. Now, son, I’m just not going to appoint some out-of-state lawyer who’s not a member of the Alabama bar to take on one of these death penalty cases, so you just go ahead and withdraw.” “I’m a member of the Alabama bar.” I lived in Atlanta, Georgia, but I had been admitted to the Alabama bar a year earlier after working on some cases in Alabama concerning jail and prison conditions. “Well, I’m now sitting in Mobile. I’m not up in Monroeville anymore. If we have a hearing on your motion, you’re going to have to come all the way from Atlanta to Mobile. I’m not going to accommodate you no kind of way.” “I understand, sir. I can come to Mobile, if necessary.” “Well, I’m also not going to appoint you because I don’t think he’s indigent. He’s reported to have money buried all over Monroe County.” “Judge, I’m not seeking appointment.

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

  First, he says that for those who wish to investigate the truth it is “ worth the while, ” i.e., worth the effort, “ to ponder these difficulties well, ” i.e., to examine carefully those matters which are open to question. This is necessary because the subsequent study of truth is nothing else than the solution of earlier difficulties. Now in loosening a physical knot it is evident that one who is unacquainted with this knot cannot loosen it. But a difficulty about some subject is related to the mind as a physical knot is to the body, and manifests the same effect. For insofar as the mind is puzzled about some subject, it experiences something similar to those who are tightly bound. For just as one whose feet are tied cannot move forward on an earthly road, in a similar way one who is puzzled, and whose mind is bound, as it were, cannot move forward on the road of speculative knowledge. Therefore, just as one who wishes to loosen a physical knot must first of all inspect the knot and the way in which it is tied, in a similar way one who wants to solve a problem must first survey all the difficulties and the reasons for them. 340. [This is also necessary] (178). Here he gives the second argument. He says that those who wish to investigate the truth without first considering the problem are like those who do not know where they are going. This is true for this reason, that, just as the terminus of a journey is the goal intended by one who travels on foot, in a similar way the solution of a problem is the goal intended by one who is seeking the truth. But it is evident that one who does not know where he is going cannot go there directly, except perhaps by chance. Therefore, neither can one seek the truth directly unless he first sees the problem. 341. Again, one would (179). Here he gives the third argument. He says that, just as one who is ignorant of where he is going does not know whether he should stop or go further when he reaches his appointed goal, in a similar way one who does not know beforehand the problem whose solution marks the terminus of his search cannot know when he finds the truth which he is seeking and when not. For he does not know what the goal of his investigations is, but this is evident to one who knew the problem beforehand. 342. Furthermore (180).

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  When you start to talk, your voice is scraped out. I catch only parts of it. It’s not Mai’s house, you explain, fumbling with your keys. Or rather, Mai is no longer there. The boyfriend, Carl, who used to slam her head against the wall is no longer there. This is somebody else, white man with a shotgun and a bald head. It was a mistake, you’re saying to Lan. An accident. “But Mai has not lived here for five years,” Lan says with sudden tenderness. “Rose . . .” Although I don’t see it, I can tell she’s brushing your hair behind your ear. “Mai moved to Florida, remember? To open her own salon.” Lan is poised, her shoulders relaxed, someone else has stepped inside her and started moving her limbs, her lips. “We go home. You need sleep, Rose.” The engine starts, the car lurches into a U-turn. As we pull away, from the porch, a boy, no older than I am, points a toy pistol at us. The gun jumps and his mouth makes blasting noises. His father turns to yell at him. He shoots once, two more times. From the window of my helicopter, I look at him. I look him dead in the eyes and do what you do. I refuse to die. II Memory is a choice. You said that once, with your back to me, the way a god would say it. But if you were a god you would see them. You would look down at this grove of pines, the fresh tips flared lucent at each treetop, tender-damp in their late autumn flush. You would look past the branches, past the rusted light splintered through the brambles, the needles falling, one by one, as you lay your god eyes on them. You’d trace the needles as they hurled themselves past the lowest bow, toward the cooling forest floor, to land on the two boys lying side by side, the blood already dry on their cheeks.

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

  ARISTOTLE ’ S TEXT Chapter 5: 1009a 38-1009b 12357. And similarly the theory that truth consists in appearances comes to some thinkers from sensible things. For they think that the truth should not be judged by the large or small number who uphold some view; and they point out that the same thing appears to be sweet to some when they taste it and bitter to others. Hence, if all men were ill or all were mad, and only two or three were healthy or in possession of their wits, the latter would appear ill or mad and not the former. Further, they say that the impressions made upon many of the other animals are contrary to those made upon us, and that to the senses of each person things do not always appear to be the same. Therefore it is not always evident which of these views is true or which is false, but both appear equally so. And it is for this reason that Democritus says that either nothing is true or it is not evident to us. COMMENTARY669. Having solved the difficulty which led the ancient philosophers to maintain that contradictories are true at the same time, the Philosopher now dispels the difficulty which led some thinkers to maintain that every appearance is true. This part is divided into two. First (351:C 669), he gives the difficulties which led some thinkers to hold the position mentioned above. Second (363:C 685), he dispels these difficulties ( “ But in reply ” ). In regard to the first he does two things. First, he gives the reason which led these men to maintain that every appearance is true. Second (358:C 672), he explains why they reasoned in this way ( “ In general ” ). He therefore says, first (357), that, just as the opinion which maintained that contradictories are true at the same time came from certain sensible things in which it happens that contradictories come from the same thing, so too “ the theory that truth consists in appearances, ” or the opinion about the truth of appearances, is derived from certain sensible things; that is, by those who are not perverse but are drawn into this position because of difficulties. This occurs because they find that different men hold contrary opinions about the same sensible things; and they give three reasons in support of their position. First, they point out that the same thing appears to taste sweet to some atid bitter to others, so that men have contrary opinions about all sensible things. Second, they note that many animals make judgments about sensible things which are contrary to ours; for what seems tasty to the ox or to the ass is judged by man to be unpalatable. Third, they say that the same man at different times makes different judgments about sensible things; for what now appears to be sweet and palatable to him at another time seems bitter or tasteless.

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

  HILARY. (vii. de Trin) A declaration so new startled Philip. Our Lord is seen to be man. He confesses Himself to be the Son of God, declares that, if He were known, the Father would be known, that, if He is seen, the Father is seen. The familiarity of the Apostle therefore breaks forth into questioning our Lord, Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.He did not deny He could be seen (non visum negavit), but wished to be shewn him; nor did he wish to see with his bodily eyes, but that He whom he had seen might be made manifest to his understanding. He had seen the Son in the form of man, but how through that form He saw the Father, he did not know. This he wants to be shewn him, shewn to his understanding, not set before his eyes; and then he will be satisfied: And it sufficeth us. AUGUSTINE. (i. de Trin. c. viii) For to that joy of beholding His face, nothing can be added. Philip understood this, and said, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. But he did not yet understand that he could in the same way have said, Lord, shew us Thyself, and it sufficeth us. But our Lord’s answer enlightens him, Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lxx. 1) But how is this, when our Lord said that they knew whither He was going, and the way, because they knew Him? The question is easily settled by supposing that some of them knew, and others not; among the latter, Philip. HILARY. (vii. de Trin) He reproves the ignorance of Philip in this respect. For whereas his actions had been strictly divine, such as walking on the water, commanding the winds, remitting sins, raising the dead, He complained that in His assumed humanity, the Divine nature was not discerned. Accordingly to Philip’s request, to be shewn the Father, Our Lord answers, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lxx) When two persons are very like each, we say, If you have seen the one, you have seen the other. So here, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father; not that He is both the Father, and the Son, but that the Son is an absolute likeness of the Father.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I knew about the south, of course, and about how southerners treated Negroes and how they expected them to behave, but it had never entered my mind that any one would look at me and expect me to behave that way. I learned in New Jersey that to be a Negro meant, precisely, that one was never looked at but was simply at the mercy of the reflexes the color of one's skin caused in other people. I acted in New Jer sey as I had always acted, that is as though I thought a great deal of myself-I had to act that way-with results that were, simply, unbelievable. I had scarcely arrived bdc>re I had earned the enmity, which was extraor dinarily in- NO TES OF A NA TIVE SON genious, of all my supe riors and nearly all my co-workers. In the beginning, to make matters worse, I simply did not know what was happening. I did not know what I had done, and I shortly began to wonder what anyone could possibly do, to bring about such unanimous, active, and unbearably vocal hostilit y. I knew about jim-crow but I had never experienced it. I went to the same self-service restaurant three times and stood with all the Princeton boys before the counter, waiting for a hamburger and coffee; it was always an extraordinarily long time bef ore anything was set before me; but it was not until the fourth visit that I learned that, in fact, nothing had ever been set before me: I had simply picked something up. Negroes were not served there, I was told, and they had been waiting for me to realize that I was always the only Negro present. Once I was told this, I determined to go there all the time . But now they were ready for me and, though some dreadful scenes were sub sequently enacted in that restaurant, I never ate there again. It was the same story all over New Jersey, in bars, bowling alleys, diners, places to live. I was always being forced to leave, silently, or with mutual imprecations. I very shortly became notorious and children giggled behind me when I passed and their elders whispered or shouted-they really believed that I was mad. And it did begin to work on my mind, of course; I began to be afraid to go anywhere and to compensate for this I went places to which I really should not have gone and where, God knows, I had no desire to be. My reputation in town naturally enhanced my reputation at work and my work ing day became one long series of acrobatics designed to keep me out of trou ble.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  For one thing, it becomes impossible, the moment one thinks about it, to predicate the existence of a common experie1� The momerlt one thinks about it, it be come s apparent that there-Is-no such thing. That experience is ·�cprivai:e;�arid a very Ia rgCly speechless affair is the principal i:rutn-;-perhaps, to which the colony under discussion bear s witness-though the aggressively unreadable face which they, collectively, present also suggests the more disturbing possi bility that experience may perfectly well be meaningless. This loaded speculation aside, it is certainly true that whatever this experience has done to them, or for them, whatever the effect has been, is, or will be, is a question to which no one has yet given any strikingly coherent answer. Military experience does not, furthermore, necessarily mean experience of battle, so that the student colony's common denomina tor reduces itself to nothing more than the fact that all of its member s have spent some time in uniform. This is the common denomina tor of their entire generation, of which the majority is not to be found in Paris, or, for that matter, in Eur ope. One is at the outset, therefore, forbidden to assume that the fact of having surrendered to the necessary anonymit y of uniform, or of hav ing undergone the shock of battle, was enough to occasion this flight from home. The best that one can do by way of uniting these so disparate identities is simply to accept, with out comment, the fact of their mil itary experience, without questioning its extent; and, further, to suggest that they form, by virtue of their presence here, a somewhat unexpected mi- 91 92 NO TES OF A NA TIVE SON nority. Unlike the majorit y of their fellows, who were simply glad to get back home, these have elected to tarry in the Old World, among scenes and people unima ginably removed from anything they have known. They arc willing, apparently, at least for a season, to endure the wretched Parisian plumbing, the public baths, the Paris age, and dirt-to pursue some end, mysterious and largely inarticulate, arbitrarily summed up in the verb to study. Arbitrarily, because, however hard the cx-GI is studying, it is very difficult to believe that it was only fi:>r this reason that he traveled so far. He is not, usually, studying .anything which he couldn't study at home, in far greater com fOrt. (We arc limiting ourselves� for the moment, to those people who arc more or less seriously-studying, as opposed to those, to be considered later, who arc merely gold-bricking.) The people, ti:>r example, who arc studying painting, which seems, until one looks around, the best possible subject to be studying here, arc not studying, after all, with Picasso, or Matisse they arc studying with teachers of the same caliber as those they would have found in the States.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  "I don't, anyway," I said, finally, "think about it a great deal." Elijah said, to his right, "I think he ought to think about it all the deal," and with this the table agreed. But there was nothing malicious or condemnatory in it. I had the stifling feeling that they knew I belonged to them but knew that I did not know it yet, that I remained unre ady, and that they were simply waiting, patiently, and with assura nce, for me to dis cover the truth for myself. For where else, after all, could I go? I was black, and theref ore a part of Islam, and would be saved from the holocaust awaiting the white world whether I would or no. My weak, deluded scruples could avail nothing against the iron word of the prophet. I felt that I was back in my father's house-as, indeed, in a way, I was-and I told Elijah that I did not care if white and black people marri ed, and that I had many white friends. I would have no choice, if it came to it, but to perish with them, for (I said to myself, but not to Elijah ), "I love a few people and they love me and some of them are white, and isn't love more important than color?" Elijah looked at me with great kindness and affection, great 328 THE FIRE NE XT TIME pity, as though he were reading my heart, and indicated, skep tically, that I might have white friends, or think I did, and they might be trying to be decent-now-but their time was up. It was almost as though he were saying, "They had their chance, man, and they goofed!" And I looked around the table. I certainly had no evidence to give them that would out weigh Elijah's au thority or the evidence of their own lives or the reality of the streets outside. Yes, I knew two or three people, white, whom I would trust with my life, and I knew a few others, white, who were strug gling as hard as they knew how, and with great effort and sweat and risk, to make the world more human . But how could I say this? One cannot argue with anyone's experience or decision or belief. All my evidence would be thrown out of court as irrelevant to the main body of the case, for I could cite only exceptions. The South Side proved the justice of the indictment; the state of the world proved the ju stice of the indictment. Everything else, stretching back throughout re corded time, was merely a history of those exceptions who had tried to change the world and had failed. Was this true?

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Men who had had homosexual adventures in CO camps, or in the service, could not accept what had happened to them, could not forget it, dared not discover if they desired to repeat it, and lapsed into a paralysis from which neither men nor women could rouse them. It was a time of the most terrifying personal anarchy. If one gave a party, it was virtually certain that someone, quite possibly oneself , would have a crying jag or have to be re strained from murder or suicide. It was a time of experimen tation, with sex, with marijuana, and minor infringements of the law, such as "boosting" from the A&P and stealing elec tricity from Con Edison. I knew some people who had a sto len refrigerator for which they had no room and no usc, and which they could not sell; it was finally shipped, I believe, of all places, to Cuba. But, finally, it seems to me that lif e was beginning to tell us who we were, and what lif e was-news no one has ever wanted to hear: and we fought back by cling ing to our vision of ourselves as innocent, of love perhaps imperfect but reciprocal and enduring. And we did not know that the price of this was experience. We had been raised to believe in fimnulas. In retrospect, the discovery of the orgasm-or, rather, of the orgonc box-seems the least mad of the formulas that came to hand. It seemed to me-though I was, perhaps, al ready too bitterly innoculatcd against groups or panaceas that people turned from the idea of the world being made better through politics to the idea of the world being made better through psychic and sexual health like sinners coming down the aisle at a revival meeting. And I doubted that their conversion was any more to be trusted than that. The con \'erts, indeed, moved in a certain euphoric aura of well-being, which would not last. They had not become more generous, but less, not more open, but more closed. They ceased, to tally, to listen and could only proselytize; nor did their private lives become discernibly less tangled. There arc no formulas THE NE W LOS T GEN ER ATION 663 for the impro,·ement of the private, or any other, lif e-cer tainly not the formula of more and better orgasms. (Who de cides?) The people I had been raised among had orgasms all the time, and still chopped each other up with razors on Sat urday nights.

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

  A fourth difficulty arises from the fact that the bread and wine have the same action, and undergo the same changes, after the consecration, as before. Thus the wine, if it were taken in great quantity, would heat and inebriate: the bread would strengthen and nourish. Moreover, if they be kept for a long time and carelessly, they are liable to putrefy, and to be consumed by mice. Again, they can be burnt and turned into ashes and steam. All these things are incompatible with Christ’s body, which according to faith is impassible. Therefore it would seem that the substance of Christ’s body cannot be present in this sacrament. A fifth difficulty regards especially the breaking of the bread: since this breaking is apparent to the senses; and is impossible without a subject. And it is absurd to say that the subject of that breaking is Christ’s body. Therefore, seemingly, Christ’s body is not there, but the substance of bread and wine. For these and like reasons the teaching of Christ and the Church appears to be hard. CHAPTER LXIII SOLUTION OF THE FOREGOING DIFFICULTIES: AND FIRST WITH REGARD TO THE CHANGING OF THE BREAD INTO CHRIST’S BODYALTHOUGH the operation of the divine power in this sacrament is too sublime and hidden for human research, lest unbelievers should deem the teaching of the Church on this question to be impossible, we must endeavour to show that it involves no impossibility whatsoever. The first point to consider, then, is how Christ’s body begins to be present under this sacrament. It is, in fact, impossible for this to take place by local movement of Christ’s body: both because it would follow that it ceases to be in heaven, whenever this sacrament is enacted; and because then this sacrament could only be celebrated in one place at a time, since the same local movement cannot terminate in more than one place; and because local movement cannot be instantaneous but needs time, whereas the consecration is effective in the last instant of the pronouncement of the words. It remains, therefore, to be said that the true body of Christ begins to be present in this sacrament, through the substance of the bread being changed into the substance of His body, and the substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. Hence we see how false are the opinions of those who say that in this sacrament the substance of the bread exists together with the substance of Christ’s body, as well as the opinion of those who say that the substance of the bread is annihilated, or that it is reduced to primal matter. In either case it follows that, in this sacrament, Christ’s body begins to be present by local movement: and we have proved this to be impossible.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  This is the diffcrencc2 �1 11 _ply, be_t\_\'een what one desires and what the reality--Insists_ o.n which difference we will not pursue except. to _ _ ohs.en'.e.Jb.a.b sin e the reasons which brought the student here are so ro mantic, and incoherent, he as come, m e e , a c1 which exists only in his rom . e cus Ions 1m se , so it would seem, against the shock of realit y, by refusing for a very long time to recognize Paris at all, but clinging instead to its image. This is the reason, perhaps, that Paris for so long fails to make any mark on him; and may also be why, when the tension between the real and the ima gined can no longer be supported, so many people undergo a species of breakdown, or take the first boat home. For Paris is, according to its legend, the city where everyone lo�es his_he!J.d, and h1s morals, !jv,·s tbroug-li..at--Wa&t�.:Oae-his t!!} re d'amour, ceases, quite, to arrive anywhere on time, and thumbs his nose at the Pw:.itans-thu:i.ty..;JiL.fii:u:� all be�Qmr dmoken on the fine old air of fi:ecdom .. ·This legend, in the fashion of legends, has this much to support it, that it is not at all difficult to sec how it got started. It is limited, as le ends are limited, by being-literally -unlivable, and� e ferring tO t e pas . IS per aps not amazmg, t erefore, that this legend appears to have virtuallv nothing to do with the life of Paris itself, with the lives, that is, of the natives, __ to whom the city, no less than the le end s;long .The diarm of this legen proves 1tse capable of withstanding the most 9+ NO TES OF A NA TIVE SON improbable excesses of the French bureaucracy, the weirdest ,·agarics of the con cierge, the fantastic rents paid ti:>r uncom t(>rtable apartments, the discomf ort itselt� and, even, the great confusion and despair which is reflected in French politics and in French faces. More, the legend operates to place all of the inconveniences endured by the foreigner, to say nothing of the downright misery which is the lot of many of the na tives, in the gentle glow of the picturesque, and the absurd; so that, finally, it is perfectly possible to be enam ored of Paris while remaining totally inditlerent, or even hostile to the French. And this is made possible by the one person in Paris whom the legend seems least to atlect, who is not living it at all, that is, the Parisian himsel[ He, with his imp enetrable politesse, and with techniques unspeakably more direct, keeps the traveler at an unm istakable arm's length. Unlucky indeed, as well as rare, the traveler who thirsts to know the lives of the people-the people don't want him in their lives.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Between these two extremes, the student who embraces Home, and the student who embraces The Continent-both embraces, as we have tried to indicate, being singularly devoid of contact, to say nothing of love-there are far more grada tions than can be suggested here. The American in Europe__js ec�l}rwhcre confronted with th<: q��s!ion (>fhis identity, and this may be taken as the key to all the contradictions one encounters when attempting to discuss him. Certainly, for the student colony one finds no other common denominat or this is all, really, that they have in common, and they are dis tinguished from each other by the ways in which they come to terms, or fail to come to terms with their confusion. This prodigious question, at home so little recognized, seems, germ-like, to be vivified in the European air, and to grow disproportionately, displacing previous assurances, and pro ducing tensions and bewilderments entirely unlooked for. It is not, moreover, a question which limits itself to those who arc, so to speak, in traffic with ideas. It confronts everyone, finding everyone unprepared; it is a question with implica tions not easily escaped, and the attempt to escape can precipitate disaster. Our perfectly adapted student, fc:>r example, should his strongbox of custom break, may find himself hurled into that coterie of gold-bricks who form such a spectacular cle- A QUES TION OF ID ENTI TY 99 ment of the Paris scene that they are often what the Parisian has in the foreground of his mind when he wonderingly mut ters, Cht vmiment /es America ins. The great majority of this group, ha,ing attempted, on more or less personal le,·els, to lose or disguise their antecedents, are reduced to a kind of rubble of compulsion. HaYing cast off all pre,·ious disciplines, they haYe also lost the shape which these disciplines made for them and have not succeeded in finding any other. Their re jection of the limitations of American society has not set them free to function in any other society, and their illusions, there fore, remain intact: they have yet to be corrupted by the no tion that society is ne,·er anything less than a perfect labyrinth of limitations. They are charmed by the reflection that Paris is more than two thousand years old, but it escapes them that the Parisian has been in the making just about that long, and that one does not, theretore, become Parisian by virtue of a Paris address. This little band of bohemians, as grimly single minded as any eYangelical sect, illustrate, by the ,·ery ferocity \\ith which they disa\·ow American attitudes, one of the most American of attributes, the inability to belie,·e that time is real.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  The newspaper accounts reported his suicide as the result of overwork: he put his whole heart into the book, we are told, and suffered a complete breakdown. Overworked suicides are by no means rare in what is known as the literary world; the history of writing is crammed with vignettes of the lone ly, starving artist rushing gratefully to death; but it is not the kind of thing one expects from a young, superbly successful American novelist, certainly not the kind of thing predicted f(>r the author of the Great American Novel . It must have been a savage blo w to Mr. Adams. R.aintree Coztn�1' is nothing if not affirmative. It elects to weld into an inviolable unity these sprawling United States. (One is tempted to remark here: but the unity has always been taken f(>r granted. Why the need now to prove that the United States of America is actually that?) In encompassing this aim Mr. Lockridge makes it apparent that he loves his country; and it becomes apparent that he does not really understand it and that he is disturbed. The disturbance-man ifested, fi>r in stance, by those long tortured philosophical discussions be tween the Hero and Professor Webster Stil es-is perhaps the healthiest aspect of R.aintree County. Here the disturbance is anterior and hidden; the author stacks his cards as best he can against the cynical Professor. It is as though the Professor were there to espouse the darkness so that Mr. Shawnessy can argue f(>r the light. It is always apparent that one is expected to like the Professor but never to agree with him; he has, after all, renounced those virtues and those aspirations which form the blood and skeleton of the good lif e. And these virtues, aspirations? We have all grown up with them; we learned them in Sunday School and in Boy Scout meetings; they have f(Jrmed the basis f(>r countless vale- LOCKRI DGE: 'THE AM ERIC AN MY TH' 593 dietaries. These precepts are designed for our instruction and protection; they are designed to prove that lif e in the Republic is always green and fertile, that our hopes and our strivings form the noblest dream of all. Why, the n, are we so loath to come to terms with it? The gulf between our dream and the realities that we live with is something that we do not understand and do not wish to admit. It is almost as though we were asking that others look at what we want and turn their eyes, as we do, away from what we are.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  It is this inability which makes them so romantic about the nature of society, and it is this inability which has led them into a total confusion about the nature of experience. Society, it would seem, is a flimsy structure, beneath contempt, de signed by and tor all the other people, and experience is noth ing more than sensation-so many sensations, added up like arithmetic, giYe one the rich, full life. They thus lose what it was they so bra,·ely set out to find, their own personalities, which, ha\ing been depriYed of all nourishment, soon cease, in effect, to exist; and they arrive, finally, at a dangerous dis respect tor the personalities of others. Though they persist in belie,·ing that their present shapelessness is treedom, it is ob sen·able that this present freedom is unable to endure either silence or pri,•acy, and demands, for its ultimate expression, a rootless wandering among the cates. Saint Germain"des Pres, the hean of the American colony, so far from ha,ing absorbed the American student, has been itself transtormed, on spring, summer, and fall nights, into a replica, very nearly, of Times Square. But if this w ere all one tound in the American student roo NO TES OF A NA TIVE SON colony, one would hardly have the heart to discuss it. If the American found in Europe only confusion, it would obviously be infinitely wiser tor him to remain at home. Hidden, how ever, in the heart of the confusion he encounters here is that which he came so blindly seeking: the terms on which he is related to his country, and to the world. This, which has so grandiose and general a ring, is, in fact, most personal-the American confusion seeming to be based on the very nearly unconscious assumption that it is possible to consider the per son apart from all the forces which have produced him. This assumpt ion, however, is itself based on nothing less than our history, which is the history of the total, and willing, alienation of entire peoples from their forebears. What is overwhelmin gly clear, it seems, to everyone but ourselves is that this history has created an entirely unprecedented people, with a unique and individual past. It is, indeed, this past which has thrust upon us our present, so troubling role. It is the past lived on the American continent, as against that other past, irrecover able now on the shores of Europe, which must sustain us in the present. The truth about that past is not that it is too brief, or too superficial, but only that we, having turned our taces so resolutely away from it, have never demanded from it what it has to give. It is this demand which the American student in Paris is forced, at length, to make, for he has oth erwise no identity, no reason for being here, nothing to sus tain him here. From the vantage point of Europe he discovers his own country.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  I didn't quite see the importance of it—I tried to do justice to Paul's sense of a moral conundrum whilst wondering who in the busy outside world gave a fuck about Edgard Orst anyway. Who were the Orst admirers? I imagined them like the fans of some eccentric minor composer, the Delius-nuts who turned out when my father did A Mass of Life at the Fairfield Hall—snuff-stained old sex-maniacs who sat conducting in their laps and collected bulging leather shopping-bags from the cloak-room afterwards. You couldn't tell from the rare bewintered visitors to the Museum, but the Orstians must be a similarly dodgy lot, joss-scented fantasists, nineties queens in velvet—perhaps still flared—suits. It was fairly clear to me that Paul himself wasn't one of them. He had admitted yesterday that Orst was something of a come-down after Rembrandt, that brilliant though he could be he lacked the range and sympathy of a major artist, that his was a "world of impossibilities". But that only seemed to make his personal loyalty firmer. I thought about what he'd said of their meetings, though in retrospect his words seemed cautious and inconclusive: Orst and his last days remained as yet in the deep shadow of his reticence. I felt sure some primary promise had been made to the blind old man by this clever teenager who came to talk to him or (as Helene had evoked it for me) to go through the print-drawers describing the pictures. Paul had come back to him decades later without much enthusiasm, but it may have seemed like destiny. There was a deep slow tempo to it, the half-hidden line of another life, that demanded respect and acceptance, and could never be changed. On reflection I saw that yesterday's lesson had been as much about the pleasure of having a pupil as about Orst's techniques and preoccupations. It wasn't that Paul was lonely exactly, but that the painter's secrets were offered, very deftly and instructively, as symbolic of secrets—or not even secrets, discomforts—of his own. There was a sense, as he locked the nude pictures back in the drawer, that something else had been revealed; and he gave me an optimistic smile. I was surprised, slow-witted, had the feeling of some benign plan unfolding in which I played a useful part without knowing quite what it was—the younger person who mysteriously performs what an older one despairs of. Not that I minded—I enjoyed being distracted by the Orst world and its nice problems, it had become a wonderful shadowy refuge from my own.