Contempt

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 History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  But this heavenly body of apostolic truth is confronted with the ghost of heresy; as were the divine miracles of Moses with the satanic juggleries of the Egyptians, and as Christ was with demoniacal possessions. The more mightily the spirit of truth rises, the more active becomes the spirit of falsehood. "Where God builds a church the devil builds, a chapel close by." But in the hands of Providence all errors must redound to the unfolding and the final victory of the truth. They stimulate inquiry and compel defence. Satan himself is that "power which constantly wills the bad, and works the good." Heresies in a disordered world are relatively necessary and negatively justifiable; though the teachers of them are, of course, not the less guilty. "It must needs be, that scandals come; but woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh."862 The heresies of the apostolic age are, respectively, the caricatures of the several types of the true doctrine. Accordingly we distinguish three fundamental forms of heresy, which reappear, with various modifications, in almost every subsequent period. In this respect, as in others, the apostolic period stands as the type of the whole future; and the exhortations and warnings of the New Testament against false doctrine have force for every age. 1. The Judaizing tendency is the heretical counterpart of Jewish Christianity. It so insists on the unity of Christianity with Judaism, as to sink the former to the level of the latter, and to make the gospel no more than an improvement or a perfected law. It regards Christ as a mere prophet, a second Moses; and denies, or at least wholly overlooks, his divine nature and his priestly and kingly offices. The Judaizers were Jews in fact, and Christians only in appearance and in name. They held circumcision and the whole moral and ceremonial law of Moses to be still binding, and the observance of them necessary to salvation. Of Christianity as a new, free, and universal religion, they had no conception. Hence they hated Paul, the liberal apostle of the Gentiles, as a dangerous apostate and revolutionist, impugned his motives, and everywhere, especially in Galatia and Corinth, labored to undermine his authority in the churches. The epistles of Paul, especially that to the Galatians, can never be properly understood, unless their opposition to this false Judaizing Christianity be continually kept in view. The same heresy, more fully developed, appears in the second century under the name of Ebionism.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  I felt that every one of them was scorning me. The scorn was like the strong summer sunlight burning into me. Thirty minutes remained before time for us to part. I cannot say whether it was precisely because of the pain of parting, but a gloomy, nervous irritation resembling a sort of passion had given rise to a feeling of wanting to daub that half-hour over with thick colors like oil paints. I halted in front of a dance hall where a loud-speaker was hurling the wild strains of a rhumba into the street. I had suddenly been reminded of a line from a poem I had read long before: . . . But always it was a dance without an end. . . . I had forgotten the rest. It must be from a poem by Andre Salmon. . . . Although such a place was outside her experience, Sonoko nodded assent and accompanied me into the dance hall for thirty minutes of dancing. The hall was crowded with office workers who came every day for an hour or two of dancing, extending their lunch hours to suit their own pleasure. A sultry heat struck us full in the face. Abetted by a defective ventilation system and heavy drapes that shut out the open air, the stifling fever-heat that stagnated within the place was raising a milky fog of dust-motes against the reflecting lights. One did not need to be told what kind of people these were who were dancing there, not noticing the heat, effusing smells of sweat and bad perfume and cheap pomade. I was sorry I had brought Sonoko. But it was too late to turn back now. Without any heart for it, we pushed through the dancing crowd. Even the infrequent electric fans did not deliver the slightest breeze. Young fellows were dancing with the hostesses, cheek pressed against sweaty cheek. The sides of the girls' noses had become murky, and their sweat-caked face powder looked like acne upon their skin. The backs of their dresses looked even more soiled and sodden than the tablecloth had looked a little while before. Whether one danced or not, sweat spread over the body. Sonoko was taking short breaths as though suffocating. Looking for a breath of fresh air, we passed through an archway entwined with artificial, out-of-season flowers, went out into the courtyard, and seated ourselves on two of the crude chairs. Here there was fresh air, true enough, but the concrete floor was reflecting heat intense enough to reach even to the chairs in the shade. Our mouths were sticky with the syrupy sweetness of Coca-Cola. It seemed that Sonoko too had been silenced by the same agony of disdain I was feeling about everything. After a time I could no longer endure this silence and began looking around us.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  My grandfather, tempted by the schemes that dubious cronies came bringing, often went traveling to distant places, dreaming dreams of gold. My grandmother came of an old family; she hated and scorned my grandfather. Hers was a narrow-minded, indomitable, and rather wildly poetic spirit. A chronic case of cranial neuralgia was indirectly but steadily gnawing away her nerves and at the same time adding an unavailing sharpness to her intellect. Who knows but what those fits of depression she continued having until her death were a memento of vices in which my grandfather had indulged in his prime? Into this house my father had brought my mother, a frail and beautiful bride. On the morning of January 4, 1925, my mother was attacked by labor pains. At nine that evening she gave birth to a small baby weighing five pounds and six ounces. On the evening of the seventh day the infant was clothed in undergarments of flannel and cream-colored silk and a kimono of silk crepe with a splashed pattern. In the presence of the assembled household my grandfather drew my name on a strip of ceremonial paper and placed it on an offertory stand in the tokonoma. My hair was blondish for a long time, but they kept putting olive oil on it until it finally turned black. My parents lived on the second floor of the house. On the pretext that it was hazardous to raise a child on an upper floor, my grandmother snatched me from my mother's arms on my forty-ninth day. My bed was placed in my grandmother's sickroom, perpetually closed and stifling with odors of sickness and old age, and I was raised there beside her sickbed. When about one year old I fell from the third step of the stairway and injured my forehead. My grandmother had gone to the theater, and my father's cousins and my mother were noisily enjoying the respite. My mother had had occasion to take something up to the second floor. Following her, I had become entangled in the trailing skirt of her kimono and had fallen. My grandmother was summoned by telephone from the Kabuki Theater. When she arrived, my grandfather went out to meet her. She stood in the entryway without taking her shoes off, leaning on the cane that she carried in her right hand, and stared fixedly at my grandfather. When she spoke, it was in a strangely calm tone of voice, as though carving out each word: "Is he dead?" "No" Then, taking off her shoes and stepping up from the entryway, she walked down the corridor with steps as confident as those of a priestess. . . . On the New Year's morning just prior to my fourth birthday I vomited something the color of coffee.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now it was the usance in that house that neither wine nor bread nor aught else of meat or drink should ever be set on the tables, except the Abbot were first came to sit at his own table. Accordingly, the seneschal, having set the tables, let tell the Abbot that, whenas it pleased him, the meat was ready. The Abbot let open the chamber-door, that he might pass into the saloon, and looking before him as he came, as chance would have it, the first who met his eyes was Primasso, who was very ill accoutred and whom he knew not by sight. When he saw him, incontinent there came into his mind an ill thought and one that had never yet been there, and he said in himself, "See to whom I give my substance to eat!" Then, turning back, he bade shut the chamber-door and enquired of those who were about him if any knew yonder losel who sat at table over against his chamber-door; but all answered no. Meanwhile Primasso, who had a mind to eat, having come a journey and being unused to fast, waited awhile and seeing that the Abbot came not, pulled out of his bosom one of the three cakes of bread he had brought with him and fell to eating. The Abbot, after he had waited awhile, bade one of his serving-men look if Primasso were gone, and the man answered, "No, my lord; nay, he eateth bread, which it seemeth he hath brought with him." Quoth the Abbot, "Well, let him eat of his own, an he have thereof; for of ours he shall not eat to-day." Now he would fain have had Primasso depart of his own motion, himseeming it were not well done to turn him away; but the latter, having eaten one cake of bread and the Abbot coming not, began upon the second; the which was likewise reported to the Abbot, who had caused look if he were gone. At last, the Abbot still tarrying, Primasso, having eaten the second cake, began upon the third, and this again was reported to the Abbot, who fell a-pondering in himself and saying, "Alack, what new maggot is this that is come into my head to-day? What avarice! What despite! And for whom? This many a year have I given my substance to eat to whosoever had a mind thereto, without regarding if he were gentle or simple, poor or rich, merchant or huckster, and have seen it with mine own eyes squandered by a multitude of ribald knaves; nor ever yet came there to my mind the thought that hath entered into me for yonder man. Of a surety avarice cannot have assailed me for a man of little account; needs must this who seemeth to me a losel be some great matter, since my soul hath thus repugned to do him honour."

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  which were one and the same. Larsen’s hypothesis that Dunn and the Howland brothers were killed by Mormons, rather than Shivwits, has been disparaged by most historians, as have all previous suggestions that the Indians weren’t responsible. The majority view is based almost entirely on accounts by both Jacob Hamblin and Major John Wesley Powell that describe, with convincing detail, how the Shivwits freely confessed to murdering Powell’s men. But such accounts, it turns out, should be taken with a large grain of salt. Hamblin enjoyed a reputation of unimpeachable integrity among the Saints of southern Utah, who called him “Honest Jake.” The historical record plainly shows, however, that Hamblin had no compunction about “lying for the Lord” when he thought it would advance the goals of the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the record also shows that Hamblin was quite willing to lie through his teeth simply to enrich himself. It’s worth noting that John D. Lee had his own nicknames for Hamblin: “Dirty Fingered Jake” and “the fiend of Hell.” In September 1857, immediately following the Mountain Meadows massacre, Hamblin orchestrated the shakedown and robbery of the William Dukes wagon train, among the first parties of emigrants to travel through southern Utah after the slaughter. Despite paying Mormon guides $1,815 to be escorted safely through the region, the Dukes party was attacked by a band of Paiutes, who let the emigrants escape to California but stole everything they had of any value, including more than three hundred head of cattle. The emigrants noticed, moreover, that many of the marauding “Indians” had blue eyes, curly hair, and splotches of white skin at the corners of their eyes and behind their ears. In actuality, the thieves had been led by Mormons who had painted their faces to resemble Paiutes, according to the instructions of Jacob Hamblin (which was, of course, the same ruse employed by the Saints during the Mountain Meadows massacre, and on numerous other occasions). The Paiutes were given a few of the stolen cattle as payment for their supporting role in the shakedown, but Hamblin kept the bulk of the plunder for himself, professing to be safeguarding the large and very valuable herd of livestock for the Dukes party until the emigrants were able to return to Utah and take possession of them. But when William Dukes called Hamblin’s bluff and recruited a brave soul to reclaim the rustled cattle, Hamblin hid most of the

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  * Nauvoo had long been a notorious haven for printers of bogus money, thanks to a highly unusual provision in the city charter granting the town leaders extraordinary powers of habeas corpus. This much-abused clause permitted Brigham, and Joseph before him, to provide legal immunity to individuals charged with crimes beyond the city limits. And like the residents of present-day Colorado City who see nothing wrong with “bleeding the beast” by committing welfare fraud, neither Brigham nor Joseph believed that the counterfeiters in their midst were criminals in the eyes of the Lord; they were, to the contrary, helping advance the Kingdom of God every time they bilked a Gentile with their fraudulent greenbacks, and thus deserved to be protected from arrest. Return to text. * After Sidney Rigdon’s ambition to replace Joseph Smith was quashed by Brigham Young’s ascendancy, Rigdon and a few hundred followers established a church of their own in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but it quickly dwindled to nothing. Apostle Lyman Wright broke away with numerous unhappy Mormons to form another short-lived church in Texas. And a charismatic charlatan and onetime Baptist named James Jesse Strang drew seven hundred disenchanted Saints away from Brigham’s church—including Joseph’s mother, his lone surviving brother, two of his sisters, and Martin Harris, the man who’d mortgaged his farm to pay for publication of The Book of Mormon. Strang attracted this following by pronouncing that an angel had visited him at the exact moment of the prophet’s murder and anointed him Joseph’s successor. Fifteen months later, Strang claimed to have discovered an ancient text titled the Book of the Law of the Lord, inscribed on a set of brass folios he called the Plates of Laban, which he found near Voree, Wisconsin, buried on a hillside; according to Strang, this document had originally been part of the set of gold plates unearthed by Joseph in 1827 that yielded The Book of Mormon. Impressed by these plates, the “Strangites” joined their prophet in establishing a colony on Beaver Island, off the northwest coast of Michigan’s lower peninsula, where Strang had himself crowned “King James I of the Kingdom of God on Earth,” began taking plural wives, and ruled with absolute power. It was to be a brief reign, however: in 1856 a gang of disgruntled Beaver Island denizens ambushed King James and fatally shot him. Even before Strang’s murder, moreover, several prominent Strangites who objected to the king’s polygamous proclivities broke away to

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Again, who can doubt but there will to boot be found some to say that I have an ill tongue and a venomous, for that I have in sundry places written the truth anent the friars? To those who shall say thus it must be forgiven, since it is not credible that they are moved by other than just cause, for that the friars are a good sort of folk, who eschew unease for the love of God and who grind with a full head of water and tell no tales, and but that they all savour somewhat of the buck-goat, their commerce would be far more agreeable. Natheless, I confess that the things of this world have no stability and are still on the change, and so may it have befallen of my tongue, the which, not to trust to mine own judgment, (which I eschew as most I may in my affairs,) a she-neighbour of mine told me, not long since, was the best and sweetest in the world; and in good sooth, were this the case, there had been few of the foregoing stories to write. But, for that those who say thus speak despitefully, I will have that which hath been said suffice them for a reply; wherefore, leaving each of you henceforth to say and believe as seemeth good to her, it is time for me to make an end of words, humbly thanking Him who hath, after so long a labour, brought us with His help to the desired end. And you, charming ladies, abide you in peace with His favour, remembering you of me, if perchance it profit any of you aught to have read these stories. HERE ENDETH THE BOOK CALLED DECAMERON AND SURNAMED PRINCE GALAHALT *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DECAMERON OF GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  researched history Blood of the Prophets, “Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Reformation was the Mormon leadership’s obsession with blood. . . . Joseph Smith taught that certain grievous sins put sinners ‘beyond the reach of the atoning blood of Christ.’ Their ‘only hope [was] to have their own blood shed to atone.’ . . . Of all the beliefs that laid the foundation of Utah’s culture of violence, none would have more devastating consequences.” The Reformation was spearheaded by the God-besotted Jedidiah Grant, Brigham’s immensely popular second counselor, whom the Saints affectionately called “Jeddy, Brigham’s Sledge Hammer.” Grant explained to the Lord’s chosen that they had the “right to kill a sinner to save him, when he commits those crimes that can only be atoned for by shedding his blood.” In September 1856 he sermonized that there were sinners even then in their midst who needed “to have their blood shed, for water will not do, their sins are of too deep a dye.” Grant preached as fervently about the Saints’ duty to marry profusely as he did about blood atonement, and his aggressive campaign on behalf of plural marriage achieved the desired effect. Mormon men started taking on wives at a frantic rate. Apostle Wilford Woodruff observed in 1856, “All are trying to get wives, until there is hardly a girl fourteen years old in Utah, but what is married, or is just going to be.” The Saints readily accepted their prophet’s avowal that plural marriage was a divinely ordained and crucially important doctrine. But Brigham had badly miscalculated how the rest of the republic would react to the Mormons’ embrace of polygamy. After the sacred doctrine became known outside of Utah, a nearly hysterical barrage of condemnation rained down on the Saints from afar—a barrage that would continue unabated for half a century. Most Americans considered polygamy to be morally repugnant, even as they were secretly fascinated by it. These remarks from Congressman John Alexander McLernand of Illinois, speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives, are a fair characterization of the Gentile reaction to the Mormon doctrine: “As to polygamy, I charge it to be a crying evil; sapping not only the physical

• From Post Office (1971)

  19 The next night as they moved the group from the main building to the training building, I stopped to talk to Gus the old newsboy. Gus had once been third- ranked welterweight contender but he never got a look at the champ. He swung from the left side, and, as you know, nobody ever likes to fight a lefty—you’ve got to train your boy all over again. Why bother? Gus took me inside and we had a little nip from his bottle. Then I tried to catch the group. The Italiano was waiting in the doorway. He saw me coming. He met me halfway in the yard. “Chinaski?” “Yeh?” “You’re late.” I didn’t say anything. We walked toward the building together. “I’ve got half a mind to slap your wrist with a warning slip,” he said. “Oh, please don’t do that, sir! Please don’t!” I said as we walked along. “All right,” he said, “I’ll let you go this time.” “Thank you, sir,” I said, and we walked in together. Want to know something? The son of a bitch had body odor. 20 Our 30 minutes was now devoted to scheme training. They gave us each a deck of cards to learn and stick into our cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in eight minutes or less with at least 95 percent accuracy. You were given three chances to pass, and if you failed the third time, they let you go. I mean, you were fired. “Some of you won’t make it,” the Italiano said. “So maybe you were meant for something else. Maybe you will end up President of General Motors.” Then we were rid of Italiano and we had our nice little scheme instructor who encouraged us. “You can do it, fellows, it’s not as hard as it looks.” Each group had its own scheme instructor and they were graded too, upon the percentage of their group that passed. We had the guy with the lowest percentage. He was worried. “There’s nothing to it, fellows, just put your minds to it.” Some of the fellows had thin decks. I had the fattest deck of them all. I just stood there in my fancy new clothes. Stood there with my hands in my pockets. “Chinaski, what’s the matter?” the instructor asked. “I know you can do it.” “Yeh. Yeh. I’m thinking right now.” “What are you thinking about?” “Nothing.” And then I walked away. A week later I was still standing there with my hands in my pockets and a sub walked up to me. “Sir, I think that I am ready to throw my scheme now.” “Are you sure?” I asked him. “I’ve been throwing 97, 98, 99 and a couple of 100s in my practice schemes.” “You must understand that we spend a great deal of money training you. We want you to have this thing down to the ace!” “Sir, I truly believe that I am ready!”

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Somewhere on this part of Cumorah, 175 years ago, Joseph Smith dug up the golden plates that launched the Mormon faith. It’s a steamy evening in mid-July, and more than ten thousand Saints are politely streaming into the meadow at the drumlin’s base, on which rows of plastic seats have been set up to accommodate them. Immediately above the meadow, a multilevel stage, half as big as a football field, covers the hill’s lower apron, surrounded by a steel forest of fifty-foot light towers. The elaborate stage, the lights, and the Mormon throngs all materialize here every summer for “The Hill Cumorah Pageant: America’s Witness for Christ,” which is due to begin at sunset. According to promotional materials published by the LDS Church, the pageant is “America’s largest and most spectacular outdoor theatrical event . . . , a magnificent, family-oriented production,” replete with arresting special effects straight out of Hollywood: “volcanoes, fireballs, and explosions with sound effects from the movie ‘Earthquake.’ A prophet is burned at the stake. Lightning strikes the mast of a ship. A 5,000K carbon arc-light ‘star’ (with FAA clearance) appears at the Nativity scene. Christ appears in the night sky, descends, teaches the people, then ascends into the night sky and disappears.” The pageant, which has been staged here since 1937, is held for seven nights every July, and draws near-capacity crowds each night. Admission is free. As dusk settles, the soothing harmonies of the Utah Symphony Orchestra and Mormon Tabernacle Choir drift over the field from concert loudspeakers. Two squads of sheriff’s deputies direct traffic into pastures that have been transformed into vast parking lots. A surging tide of Saints is now moving from their cars and chartered buses toward the seats, and as they traverse Highway 21 to reach the meadow beneath Cumorah they are confronted with grim-faced clumps of anti-Mormon picketers. The demonstrators, who belong to evangelical Christian denominations, wave hand-lettered placards and shout angrily at the Mormons: “Joseph Smith was a whoremonger!” “There is only one gospel!” “The Book of Mormon is a big fairy tale!” “Mormons are NOT Christians!” Most of the Mormons stroll quietly past the ranting evangelicals, unperturbed, without rising to the bait. “Oh, gosh, we’re used to that kind of thing,” says

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Olive was reading a book about the future, when babies would be bred in bottles, and women would be "immunised." "Jolly good thing too!" she said. "Then a woman can live her own life." Strangeways wanted children, and she didn't. "How'd you like to be immunised?" Winterslow asked her, with an ugly smile. "I hope I am; naturally," she said. "Anyhow the future's going to have more sense, and a woman needn't be dragged down by her _functions_." "Perhaps she'll float off into space altogether," said Dukes. "I do think sufficient civilization ought to eliminate a lot of the physical disabilities," said Clifford. "All the love-business for example, it might just as well go. I suppose it would if we could breed babies in bottles." "No!" cried Olive. "That might leave all the more room for fun." "I suppose," said Lady Bennerley, contemplatively, "if the love-business went, something else would take its place. Morphia perhaps. A little morphine in all the air. It would be wonderfully refreshing for everybody." "The government releasing ether into the air on Saturdays, for a cheerful weekend!" said Jack. "Sounds all right, but where should we be by Wednesday?" "So long as you can forget your body you are happy," said Lady Bennerley. "And the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So, if civilization is any good, it has to help us to forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it." "Help us to get rid of our bodies altogether," said Winterslow. "It's quite time man began to improve on his own nature, especially the physical side of it." "Imagine if we floated like tobacco smoke," said Connie. "It won't happen," said Dukes. "Our old show will come flop; our civilization is going to fall. It's going down the bottomless pit, down the chasm. And believe me, the only bridge across the chasm will be the phallus!" "Oh do! _do_ be impossible, General!" cried Olive. "I believe our civilization is going to collapse," said Aunt Eva. "And what will come after it?" asked Clifford. "I haven't the faintest idea, but something, I suppose," said the elderly lady. "Connie says people like wisps of smoke, and Olive says immunised women, and babies in bottles, and Dukes says the phallus is the bridge to what comes next. I wonder what it will really be?" said Clifford. "Oh, don't bother! let's get on with today," said Olive. "Only hurry up with the breeding bottle, and let us poor women off."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Both sisters lived in their father's, really their mother's Kensington house, and mixed with the young Cambridge group, the group that stood for "freedom" and flannel trousers, and flannel shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy, and a whispering, murmuring sort of voice, and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner. Hilda, however, suddenly married a man ten years older than herself, an elder member of the same Cambridge group, a man with a fair amount of money, and a comfortable family job in the government: he also wrote philosophical essays. She lived with him in a smallish house in Westminster, and moved in that good sort of society of people in the government who are not tip-toppers, but who are, or would be, the real intelligent power in the nation: people who know what they're talking about, or talk as if they did. Connie did a mild form of war-work, and consorted with the flannel-trousers Cambridge intransigeants, who gently mocked at everything, so far. Her "friend" was a Clifford Chatterley, a young man of twenty-two, who had hurried home from Bonn, where he was studying the technicalities of coal-mining. He had previously spent two years at Cambridge. Now he had become a first lieutenant in a smart regiment, so he could mock at everything more becomingly in uniform. Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still _it_. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount's daughter. But Clifford, while he was better bred than Connie, and more "society," was in his own way more provincial and more timid. He was at his ease in the narrow "great world," that is, landed aristocracy society, but he was shy and nervous of all that other big world which consists of the vast hordes of the middle and lower classes, and foreigners. If the truth must be told, he was just a little bit frightened of middle and lower class humanity, and of foreigners not of his own class. He was, in some paralysing way, conscious of his own defencelessness, though he had all the defence of privilege. Which is curious, but a phenomenon of our day. Therefore the peculiar soft assurance of a girl like Constance Reid fascinated him. She was so much more mistress of herself in that outer world of chaos than he was master of himself. Nevertheless he too was a rebel: rebelling even against his class. Or perhaps rebel is too strong a word; far too strong. He was only caught in the general, popular recoil of the young against convention and against any sort of real authority. Fathers were ridiculous: his own obstinate one supremely so. And governments were ridiculous: our own wait-and-see sort especially so. And armies were ridiculous, and old duffers of generals altogether, the red-faced Kitchener supremely. Even the war was ridiculous, though it did kill rather a lot of people.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  As my tale begins, Mouse is keeping a low profile in a little hole in the wall in Cat’s world. She is dressed in a flimsy rag, which is the modern fashion for the mice in Cat’s world, but which barely covers her nakedness and leaves her always feeling exposed and exploited. Still, our Mouse feels relatively safe from Cat because of her rebellious attitude, which his kind interprets as coldhearted spitefulness. This suits Mouse perfectly, for Cat disgusts her. “Ha! Cowards!” laughs Mouse, as yet another cat scurries past her little hole in the wall, hastening to get away from the hostile creature therein. “How fearful those big, strong cats become when they encounter anger from a powerless little mouse! I shall easily escape the fate of my sisters with mere animosity as my defense.” Indeed, it was not difficult for her to bring forth feelings of animosity. She hated being exploited in this cat-dominated world, never being understood or appreciated for her intelligence and sensitivity. And yet, whenever a cat stopped at the opening of her little den to look her over, she was seized with strange sensations that were both disturbing and frightening. But she refused to let the cats see her fear or, more especially, her secretly harbored hope that she might someday meet a real cat, like those she had read about in romantic novels. So she hissed and cursed at them, laughing to herself as they nearly tripped over their own feet in their hurry to escape her. She set her face in an expression of haughty disdain as she heard another cat approach. He was much larger than she was, as were all the others, but she reminded herself that size wasn’t everything. She was certain that her will was superior to his. She struggled to remain composed as the cat stood in the entranceway, his eyes moving leisurely over her body. The usual agitation burned in her. By what right did cats think they could ogle mice in that rude way? How did it get to the point where this was considered normal behavior? If she behaved like other mice, she was now expected to be flattered to have been honored with his attention! She jerked her chin up even higher and met Cat’s eyes with a look of disgust. He was uncommonly handsome, she grudgingly noticed. It was indeed unusual these days for a cat to care about his appearance at all. They were generally so scraggly and unkempt that it offended one to be anywhere near them. But then, the mice were so busy worrying about their own appearances that it rarely occurred to them to notice that the cats were not worth all the trouble.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Nevertheless Michaelis had his apartment in Mayfair, and walked down Bond Street the image of a gentleman, for you cannot get even the best tailors to cut their low-down customers, when the customers pay. Clifford was inviting the young man of thirty at an inauspicious moment in that young man's career. Yet Clifford did not hesitate. Michaelis had the ear of a few million people, probably; and, being a hopeless outsider, he would no doubt be grateful to be asked down to Wragby at this juncture, when the rest of the smart world was cutting him. Being grateful, he would no doubt do Clifford "good" over there in America. Kudos! A man gets a lot of kudos, whatever that may be, by being talked about in the right way, especially "over there." Clifford was a coming man; and it was remarkable what a sound publicity instinct he had. In the end Michaelis did him most nobly in a play, and Clifford was a sort of popular hero. Till the reaction, when he found he had been made ridiculous. Connie wondered a little over Clifford's blind, imperious instinct to become known: known, that is, to the vast amorphous world he did not himself know, and of which he was uneasily afraid; known as a writer, as a first-class modern writer. Connie was aware from successful, old, hearty, bluffing Sir Malcolm, that artists did advertise themselves, and exert themselves to put their goods over. But her father used channels ready-made, used by all the other R.A.'s who sold their pictures. Whereas Clifford discovered new channels of publicity, all kinds. He had all kinds of people at Wragby, without exactly lowering himself. But, determined to build himself a monument of reputation quickly, he used any handy rubble in the making. Michaelis arrived duly, in a very neat car, with a chauffeur and a manservant. He was absolutely Bond Street! But at sight of him something in Clifford's country soul recoiled. He wasn't exactly ... not exactly ... in fact, he wasn't at all, well, what his appearance intended to imply. To Clifford this was final and enough. Yet he was very polite to the man; to the amazing success in him. The bitch-goddess, as she is called, of Success, roamed, snarling and protective, round the half-humble, half-defiant Michaelis' heels, and intimidated Clifford completely: for he wanted to prostitute himself to the bitch-goddess Success also, if only she would have him.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He stooped and took out the scotch, then put his weight against the chair. He was paler than Connie had ever seen him: and more absent. Clifford was a heavy man: and the hill was steep. Connie stepped to the keeper's side. "I'm going to push too!" she said. And she began to shove with a woman's turbulent energy of anger. The chair went faster. Clifford looked round. "Is that necessary?" he said. "Very! Do you want to kill the man! If you'd let the motor work while it would--" But she did not finish. She was already panting. She slackened off a little, for it was surprisingly hard work. "Ay! slower!" said the man at her side, with a faint smile of the eyes. "Are you sure you've not hurt yourself?" she said fiercely. He shook his head. She looked at his smallish, short, alive hand, browned by the weather. It was the hand that caressed her. She had never even looked at it before. It seemed so still, like him, with a curious inward stillness that made her want to clutch it, as if she could not reach it. All her soul suddenly swept towards him: he was so silent, and out of reach! And he felt his limbs revive. Shoving with his left hand, he laid his right on her round white wrist, softly enfolding her wrist, with caress. And the flame of strength went down his back and his loins, reviving him. And she bent suddenly and kissed his hand. Meanwhile the back of Clifford's head was held sleek and motionless, just in front of them. At the top of the hill they rested, and Connie was glad to let go. She had had fugitive dreams of friendship between these two men: one her husband, the other the father of her child. Now she saw the screaming absurdity of her dreams. The two males were as hostile as fire and water. They mutually exterminated one another. And she realised for the first time, what a queer subtle thing hate is. For the first time, she had consciously and definitely hated Clifford, with vivid hate: as if he ought to be obliterated from the face of the earth. And it was strange, how free and full of life it made her feel, to hate him and to admit it fully to herself.--"Now I've hated him, I shall never be able to go on living with him," came the thought into her mind. On the level the keeper could push the chair alone. Clifford made a little conversation with her, to show his complete composure: about Aunt Eva, who was at Dieppe, and about Sir Malcolm, who had written to ask would Connie drive with him in his small car, to Venice, or would she and Hilda go by train. "I'd much rather go by train," said Connie. "I don't like long motor drives, especially when there's dust. But I shall see what Hilda wants."

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Footnote 224: _i.e._ was more inclined to consider the wishes of the ladies her companions, which she divined by sympathy, than those of Filostrato, as shown by his words (_più per la sua affezione cognobbe l'animo delle campagne che quello del re per le sue parole_). It is difficult, however, in this instance as in many others, to discover with certainty Boccaccio's exact meaning, owing to his affectation of Ciceronian concision and delight in obscure elliptical forms of construction; whilst his use of words in a remote or unfamiliar sense and the impossibility of deciding, in certain cases, the person of the pronouns and adjectives employed tend still farther to darken counsel. _E.g._, if we render _affezione_ sentiment, _cognobbe_ (as _riconobbe_) acknowledged, recognized, and read _le sue parole_ as meaning _her_ (instead of _his_) words, the whole sense of the passage is changed, and we must read it "more by her sentiment (_i.e._ by the tendency and spirit of her story) recognized the inclination of her companions than that of the king by her [actual] words." I have commented thus at large on this passage, in order to give my readers some idea of the difficulties which at every page beset the translator of the Decameron and which make Boccaccio perhaps the most troublesome of all authors to render into representative English.] "The vulgar have a proverb to the effect that he who is naught and is held good may do ill and it is not believed of him; the which affordeth me ample matter for discourse upon that which hath been proposed to me and at the same time to show what and how great is the hypocrisy of the clergy, who, with garments long and wide and faces paled by art and voices humble and meek to solicit the folk, but exceeding loud and fierce to rebuke in others their own vices, pretend that themselves by taking and others by giving to them come to salvation, and to boot, not as men who have, like ourselves, to purchase paradise, but as in a manner they were possessors and lords thereof, assign unto each who dieth, according to the sum of the monies left them by him, a more or less excellent place there, studying thus to deceive first themselves, an they believe as they say, and after those who put faith for that matter in their words. Anent whom, were it permitted me to discover as much as it behoved, I would quickly make clear to many simple folk that which they keep hidden under those huge wide gowns of theirs. But would God it might betide them all of their cozening tricks, as it betided a certain minor friar, and he no youngling, but held one of the first casuists[225] in Venice; of whom it especially pleaseth me to tell you, so as peradventure somewhat to cheer your hearts, that are full of compassion for the death of Ghismonda, with laughter and pleasance.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "I asked him if he thought he would be able to attend to his duty in the wood, and he said he did not think he had neglected it. I told him it was a nuisance to have the woman trespassing: to which he replied that he had no power to arrest her. Then I hinted at the scandal and its unpleasant course. 'Ay,' he said. 'Folks should do their own fuckin', then they wouldn't want to listen to a lot of clatfart about another man's.' "He said it with some bitterness, and no doubt it contains the real germ of truth. The mode of putting it, however, is neither delicate nor respectful. I hinted as much, and then I heard the tin can rattle again, 'It's not for a man i' the shape you're in, Sir Clifford, to twit me for havin' a cod atween my legs.' "These things, said indiscriminately to all and sundry, of course do not help him at all, and the rector, and Linley, and Burroughs all think it would be as well if the man left the place. "I asked him if it was true that he entertained ladies down at the cottage, and all he said was: 'Why, what's that to you, Sir Clifford?' I told him I intended to have decency observed on my estate, to which he replied: 'Then you mun button the mouths o' a' th' women.' When I pressed him about his manner of life at the cottage, he said: 'Surely you might ma'e a scandal out o' me an' my bitch Flossie. You've missed summat there.' As a matter of fact, for an example of impertinence, he'd be hard to beat. "I asked him if it would be easy for him to find another job. He said: 'If you're hintin' that you'd like to shunt me out of this job, it'd be easy as wink.' So he made no trouble at all about leaving at the end of next week, and apparently is willing to initiate a young fellow, Joe Chambers, into as many mysteries of the craft as possible. I told him I would give him a month's wages extra, when he left. He said he'd rather I kept my money, as I'd no occasion to ease my conscience. I asked him what he meant, and he said: 'You don't owe me nothing extra, Sir Clifford, so don't pay me nothing extra. If you think you see my shirt hanging out, just tell me.' "Well, there is the end of it for the time being. The woman has gone away: we don't know where to: but she is liable to arrest if she shows her face in Tevershall. And I hear she is mortally afraid of gaol, because she merits it so well. Mellors will depart on Saturday week, and the place will soon become normal again.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  In fact everything was a little ridiculous, or very ridiculous: certainly everything connected with authority, whether it were in the army or the government or the universities, was ridiculous to a degree. And as far as the governing class made any pretensions to govern, they were ridiculous too. Sir Geoffrey, Clifford's father, was intensely ridiculous, chopping down his trees, and weeding men out of his colliery to shove them into the war; and himself being so safe and patriotic; but also, spending more money on his country than he'd got. When Miss Chatterley--Emma--came down to London from the Midlands to do some nursing work, she was very witty in a quiet way about Sir Geoffrey and his determined patriotism. Herbert, the elder brother and heir, laughed outright, though it was his trees that were falling for trench props. But Clifford only smiled a little uneasily. Everything was ridiculous, quite true. But when it came too close and oneself became ridiculous too...? At least people of a different class, like Connie, were earnest about something. They believed in something. They were rather earnest about the Tommies, and the threat of conscription, and the shortage of sugar and toffee for the children. In all these things, of course, the authorities were ridiculously at fault. But Clifford could not take it to heart. To him the authorities were ridiculous _ab ovo_, not because of toffee or Tommies. And the authorities felt ridiculous, and behaved in a rather ridiculous fashion, and it was all a mad hatter's tea party for a while. Till things developed over there, and Lloyd George came to save the situation over here. And this surpassed even ridicule, the flippant young laughed no more. In 1916 Herbert Chatterley was killed, so Clifford became heir. He was terrified even of this. His importance as son of Sir Geoffrey and child of Wragby was so ingrained in him, he could never escape it. And yet he knew that this too, in the eyes of the vast seething world, was ridiculous. Now he was heir and responsible for Wragby. Was that not terrible? And also splendid at the same time, perhaps, purely absurd? Sir Geoffrey would have none of the absurdity. He was pale and tense, withdrawn into himself, and obstinately determined to save his country and his own position, let it be Lloyd George or who it might. So cut off he was, so divorced from the England that was really England, so utterly incapable, that he even thought well of Horatio Bottomley. Sir Geoffrey stood for England and Lloyd George as his forebears had stood for England and St. George: and he never knew there was a difference. So Sir Geoffrey felled timber and stood for Lloyd George and England, England and Lloyd George.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Oh nothing: just his manner; and he said he knew nothing about keys." "There may be one in father's study. Betts knows them all; they're all there. I'll get him to look." "Oh do!" she said. "So Mellors was almost rude?" "Oh, nothing, really! But I don't think he wanted me to have the freedom of the castle, quite." "I don't suppose he did." "Still, I don't see why he should mind. It's not his home, after all! It's not his private abode. I don't see why I shouldn't sit there if I want to." "Quite!" said Clifford. "He thinks too much of himself, that man." "Do you think he does?" "Oh decidedly! He thinks he's something exceptional. You know he had a wife he didn't get on with, so he joined up in 1915 and was sent out to India, I believe. Anyhow he was blacksmith to the cavalry in Egypt for a time; always was connected with horses, a clever fellow that way. Then some Indian colonel took a fancy to him, and he was made a lieutenant. Yes, they gave him a commission. I believe he went back to India with his colonel, and up to the north-west frontier. He was ill; he has a pension. He didn't come out of the army till last year, I believe, and then, naturally, it isn't easy for a man like that to get back to his own level. He's bound to flounder. But he does his duty all right, as far as I'm concerned. Only I'm not having any of the Lieutenant Mellors touch." "How could they make him an officer when he speaks broad Derbyshire?" "He doesn't ... except by fits and starts. He can speak perfectly well, for him. I suppose he has an idea if he's come down to the ranks again, he'd better speak as the ranks speak." "Why didn't you tell me about him before?" "Oh, I've no patience with these romances. They're the ruin of all order. It's a thousand pities they ever happened." Connie was inclined to agree. What was the good of discontented people who fitted in nowhere? In the spell of fine weather Clifford, too, decided to go to the wood. The wind was cold, but not so tiresome, and the sunshine was like life itself, warm and full. "It's amazing," said Connie, "how different one feels when there's a really fresh fine day. Usually one feels the very air is half dead. People are killing the very air." "Do you think people are doing it?" he asked. "I do. The steam of so much boredom, and discontent and anger out of all the people, just kills the vitality in the air. I'm sure of it." "Perhaps some condition of the atmosphere lowers the vitality of the people?" he said. "No, it's man that poisons the universe," she asserted. "Fouls his own nest," remarked Clifford.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She was painfully hyper-sensitive at times, and she suffered accordingly. Of all the children that Stephen most dreaded, Violet and Roger Antrim took precedence; especially Roger, who was ten years old, and already full to the neck of male arrogance—he had just been promoted to Etons that winter, which added to his overbearing pride. Roger Antrim had round, brown eyes like his mother, and a short, straight nose that might one day be handsome; he was rather a thick-set, plump little boy, whose buttocks looked too large in a short Eton jacket, especially when he stuck his hands in his pockets and strutted, which he did very often. Roger was a bully; he bullied his sister, and would dearly have loved to bully Stephen; but Stephen nonplussed him, her arms were so strong, he could never wrench Stephen’s arms backwards like Violet’s; he could never make her cry or show any emotion when he pinched her, or tugged roughly at her new hair ribbon, and then Stephen would often beat him at games, a fact which he deeply resented. She could bowl at cricket much straighter than he could; she climbed trees with astonishing skill and prowess, and even if she did tear her skirts in the process it was obviously cheek for a girl to climb at all. Violet never climbed trees; she stood at the bottom admiring the courage of Roger. He grew to hate Stephen as a kind of rival, a kind of intruder into his especial province; he was always longing to take her down a peg, but being slow-witted he was foolish in his methods—no good daring Stephen, she responded at once, and usually went one better. As for Stephen, she loathed him, and her loathing was increased by a most humiliating consciousness of envy. Yes, despite his shortcomings she envied young Roger with his thick, clumping boots, his cropped hair and his Etons; envied his school and his masculine companions of whom he would speak grandly as: ‘all the other fellows!’; envied his right to climb trees and play cricket and football—his right to be perfectly natural; above all she envied his splendid conviction that being a boy constituted a privilege in life; she could well understand that conviction, but this only increased her envy. Stephen found Violet intolerably silly, she cried quite as loudly when she bumped her own head as when Roger applied his most strenuous torments. But what irritated Stephen, was the fact that she suspected that Violet almost enjoyed those torments. ‘He’s so dreadfully strong!’ she had confided in Stephen, with something like pride in her voice. Stephen had longed to shake her for that: ‘I can pinch quite as hard as he can!’ she had threatened, ‘If you think he’s stronger than I am, I’ll show you!’