Despair

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.

Page 126 of 267 · 20 per page

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Therewithal she fell into such a passion of woe that she was like to cast herself down from the tower to the ground; but, the sun being now risen and she drawing near to one side of the walls of the tower, to look if any boy should pass with cattle, whom she might send for her maid, it chanced that the scholar, who had slept awhile at the foot of a bush, awaking, saw her and she him; whereupon quoth he to her, 'Good day, madam; are the damsels come yet?' The lady, seeing and hearing him, began afresh to weep sore and besought him to come within the tower, so she might speak with him. In this he was courteous enough to comply with her and she laying herself prone on the platform and showing only her head at the opening, said, weeping, 'Assuredly, Rinieri, if I gave thee an ill night, thou hast well avenged thyself of me, for that, albeit it is July, I have thought to freeze this night, naked as I am, more by token that I have so sore bewept both the trick I put upon thee and mine own folly in believing thee that it is a wonder I have any eyes left in my head. Wherefore I entreat thee, not for the love of me, whom thou hast no call to love, but for the love of thyself, who are a gentleman, that thou be content, for vengeance of the injury I did thee, with that which thou hast already done and cause fetch me my clothes and suffer me come down hence, nor seek to take from me that which thou couldst not after restore me, an thou wouldst, to wit, my honour; for, if I took from thee the being with me that night, I can render thee many nights for that one, whenassoever it liketh thee. Let this, then, suffice and let it content thee, as a man of honour, to have availed to avenge thyself and to have caused me confess it. Seek not to use thy strength against a woman; no glory is it for an eagle to have overcome a dove, wherefore, for the love of God and thine own honour, have pity on me.'

• From Post Office (1971)

  Didn’t ANYBODY want to shit, piss or goof-off? Twenty-five minutes. Then I saw a face. I tapped on the glass. “Hey, buddy! HEY, BUDDY!” He didn’t hear me, or pretended not to hear me. He marched into the crapper. Five minutes. Then another face came by. I rapped hard. “HEY, BUDDY! HEY. YOU COCK-SUCKER!” I guess he heard me. He looked at me from behind the wired glass. I said, “OPEN THE DOOR! CAN’T YOU SEE ME IN HERE? I’M LOCKED IN, YOU FOOL! OPEN THE DOOR!” He opened the door. I went in. The guy was in a trance-like state. I squeezed his elbow. “Thanks, kid.” I walked back to the magazine case. Then the soup walked past. He stopped and looked at me. I slowed down. “How are you doing, Mr. Chinaski?” I growled at him, waved a magazine in the air as if I were going insane, said something to myself, and he walked on. 9Fay was pregnant. But it didn’t change her and it didn’t change the post office either. The same clerks did all the work while the miscellaneous crew stood around and argued about sports. They were all big black dudes—built like professional wrestlers. Whenever a new one came into the service he was tossed into the miscellaneous crew. This kept them from murdering the supervisors. If the miscellaneous crew had a supervisor you never saw him. The crew brought in truckloads of mail that arrived via freight elevator. This was a five minute on the hour job. Sometimes they counted the mail, or pretended to. They looked very calm and intellectual, making their counts with long pencils behind one ear. But most of the time they argued the sports scene violently. They were all experts—they read the same sports writers. “All right, man, what’s your all time outfield?” “Well, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Cobb.” “What? What?” “That’s right, baby!” “What about the Babe? Whatta ya gonna do with the Babe?” “O.K., O.K., who’s your all star outfield?” “All time, not all star!” “O.K., O.K., you know what I mean, baby, you know what I mean!” “Well, I’ll take Mays, Ruth and Di Maj!” “Both you guys are nuts! How about Hank Aaron, Baby? How about Hank?” At one time, all miscellaneous jobs were put on bid. Bids were filled mostly on a basis of seniority. The miscellaneous crew went about and ripped the bids out of the order books. Then they had nothing to do. Nobody filed a complaint. It was a long dark walk to the parking lot at night. 10I began getting dizzy spells. I could feel them coming. The case would begin to whirl. The spells lasted about a minute. I couldn’t understand it. Each letter was getting heavier and heavier. The clerks began to have that dead grey look. I began to slide off my stool. My legs would barely hold me up. The job was killing me. I went to my doctor and told him about it.

• From Post Office (1971)

  “Look, Chinaski, everytime I see you, you’re walking!” “That’s nothing,” I said, “everytime I see you, you’re walking.” “But that’s part of my job. Walking is part of my job. I have to do it.” “Look,” I said, “it’s part of my job too. I have to do it. If I stay on that stool much longer I am going to leap up on top of those tin cases and start running around whistling Dixie from my asshole and Mammy’s Little Children Love Shortnin’ Bread through the frontal orifice.” “All right, Chinaski, forget it.” 6One night I was coming around the corner after sneaking down to the cafeteria for a pack of smokes. And there was a face I knew. It was Tom Moto! The guy I had subbed with under The Stone! “Moto, you motherfuck!” I said. “Hank!” he said. We shook hands. “Hey, I was thinking of you! Jonstone is retiring this month. Some of us are holding a farewell party for him. You know, he always liked to fish. We’re going to take him out in a rowboat. Maybe you’d like to come along and throw him overboard, drown him. We’ve got a nice deep lake.” “No, shit, I just don’t even want to look at him.” “But you’re invited.” Moto was grinning from asshole to eyebrow. Then I looked at his shirt: a supervisor’s badge. “Oh no, Tom.” “Hank, I’ve got four kids. They need me for bread and butter.” “All right, Tom,” I said. Then I walked off. 7I don’t know how it happens to people. I had child support, need for something to drink, rent, shoes, socks, all that stuff. Like everyone else I needed an old car, something to eat, all the little intangibles. Like women. Or a day at the track. With everything on the line and no way out, you don’t even think about it. I parked across the street from the Federal Building and stood waiting for the signal to change. I walked across. Pushed through the swinging doors. It was as if I were a piece of iron drawn to the magnet. There was nothing I could do. It was on the second floor. I opened the door and they were in there. The clerks of the Federal Building. I noticed one girl, poor thing, only one arm. She’d be there forever. It was like being an old wino like me. Well, as the boys said, you had to work somewhere. So they accepted what there was. This was the wisdom of the slave. A young black girl walked up. She was well-dressed and pleased with her surroundings. I was happy for her. I would have gone mad with the same job. “Yes?” she asked. “I’m a postal clerk,” I said, “I want to resign.” She reached under the counter and came up with a stack of papers.

• From Post Office (1971)

  The Wently soup stood me in front of this case. It was already stuffed and I began stuffing more mail in with the help of another sub. I’d never seen such a case! It was a rotten joke of some sort. I counted 12 tie-outs on the case. That case must have covered half the city. I had yet to learn that the route was all steep hills. Whoever had conceived it was a madman. We got it up and out and just as I was about to leave the soup walked over and said, “I can’t give you any help on this.” “That’s all right,” I said. All right, hell. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was Jonstone’s best buddy. The route started at the station. The first of 12 swings. I stepped into a sheet of water and worked my way downhill. It was the poor part of town—small houses and Courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot lost in the rain. When your shorts get wet they slip down, down down they slip, down around the cheeks of your ass, a wet rim of a thing held up by the crotch of your pants. The rain ran the ink on some of the letters; a cigarette wouldn’t stay lit. You had to keep reaching into the pouch for magazines. It was the first swing and I was already tired. My shoes were caked with mud and felt like boots. Every now and then I’d hit a slippery spot and almost go down. A door opened and an old woman asked the question heard a hundred times a day: “Where’s the regular man, today?” “Lady, PLEASE, how would I know? How in the hell would I know? I’m here and he’s someplace else!” “Oh, you are a gooney fellow!” “A gooney fellow?” “Yes.” I laughed and put a fat water-soaked letter in her hand, then went on to the next. Maybe uphill will be better, I thought. Another Old Nelly, meaning to be nice, asked me, “Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a cup of tea and dry off?” “Lady, don’t you realize we don’t even have time to pull up our shorts?” “Pull up your shorts?” “YES, PULL UP OUR SHORTS!” I screamed at her and walked off into the wall of water. I finished the first swing. It took about an hour. Eleven more swings, that’s eleven more hours. Impossible, I thought. They must have hung the roughest one on me first. Uphill was worse because you had to pull your own weight. Noon came and went. Without lunch. I was on the fourth or fifth swing. Even on a dry day the route would have been impossible. This way it was so impossible you couldn’t even think about it.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  To comprehend why Lee—an American citizen—would be leading an attack on an American wagon train, one has to look back to the beginning of that summer and consider the shock waves of panic and fury that roiled Deseret when word arrived that a hostile army was amassing to the east. Porter Rockwell was carrying a load of mail from Utah to Missouri when he learned of the impending American military action against the Saints. Near what is now the eastern border of Wyoming, he encountered the mayor of Great Salt Lake City (as the capital of Utah was then known), his friend Abraham Smoot, who was headed west with a herd of cattle. Smoot told Rockwell that the Mormons’ mail contract with the U.S. Postmaster had been abruptly canceled, and that federal troops were mustering at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with orders to march on the Kingdom of God. Rockwell immediately turned around and, accompanied by Smoot and two other companions, headed back to Utah to alert Brigham. Pausing at Fort Laramie, the Destroying Angel hitched a buckboard to the two fastest horses in the Mormon corral, then drove the animals hard all the way to Great Salt Lake, making the 513-mile trip in just over five days. On July 24, Pioneer Day, Rockwell and Smoot told Brigham of the coming invasion just as the Saints were kicking off a huge celebration to mark the tenth anniversary of their arrival in Zion; Brigham announced the electrifying news to the Pioneer Day gathering just after sunset. The crowd reeled, reacting with a mix of confusion, apprehension, and rage. Standing before twenty-five hundred of his subjects, Brigham assured them that they need not fear the army of the United States, for the Saints were sure to prevail. “We have borne enough of their oppression and hellish abuse,” he bellowed, “and we will not bear any more of it. . . . In the name of Israel’s God, we ask no odds of them.” The commonwealth of the Latter-day Saints, he brashly declared, “henceforth constituted a new and independent state, to be known no longer as Utah, but by their own Mormon name of Deseret.” Brigham had actually been aware for more than a month that federal troops were en route to Utah, but had withheld the news until Pioneer Day for maximum dramatic effect. For the better part of a year, in fact, he’d been stockpiling arms and drilling his crack militia, the Nauvoo Legion. After the Pioneer Day announcement, he simply accelerated preparations for the defense

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Andreuccio, affrighted, crept into the tomb, saying in himself the while, 'These fellows will have me go in here so they may cheat me, for that, when I shall have given them everything, they will begone about their business, whilst I am labouring to win out of the tomb, and I shall abide empty-handed.' Accordingly, he determined to make sure of his share beforehand; wherefore, as soon as he came to the bottom, calling to mind the precious ring whereof he had heard them speak, he drew it from the archbishop's finger and set it on his own. Then he passed them the crozier and mitre and gloves and stripping the dead man to his shirt, gave them everything, saying that there was nothing more. The others declared that the ring must be there and bade him seek everywhere; but he replied that he found it not and making a show of seeking it, kept them in play awhile. At last, the two rogues, who were no less wily than himself, bidding him seek well the while, took occasion to pull away the prop that held up the lid and made off, leaving him shut in the tomb. What became of Andreuccio, when he found himself in this plight, you may all imagine for yourselves. He strove again and again to heave up the lid with his head and shoulders, but only wearied himself in vain; wherefore, overcome with chagrin and despair, he fell down in a swoon upon the archbishop's dead body; and whoso saw him there had hardly known which was the deader, the prelate or he. Presently, coming to himself, he fell into a passion of weeping, seeing he must there without fail come to one of two ends, to wit, either he must, if none came thither to open the tomb again, die of hunger and stench, among the worms of the dead body, or, if any came and found him there, he would certainly be hanged for a thief.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  who’ve reported being sexually abused as girls and insist that pedophilia is rampant within the community. “I don’t doubt their stories are true,” he acknowledges. “I know for a fact there’s men in the priesthood who have slept with their own daughters, which is horrible. But that kind of thing goes on everywhere, and I actually think there’s less of it here than in the outside world.” In any case, it wasn’t the culture’s sexual customs or its lifestyle constraints that finally induced DeLoy to apostatize. Rather, he says, “It just got to be where I could no longer ignore that the religion is a lie. It’s not like the prophets that control everybody are intentionally fooling the people—as far as I can tell Rulon and Warren and Winston and them sincerely believe the lie themselves. I’m not sure about that, but I think so. And it’s not just their religion that’s a lie. I’ve really come to believe that all religions are lies. Every single one of ’em. “Could there be supreme power out there somewhere? Is there a grand plan behind the big bang, the creation of the universe, the evolution of species? I don’t know, I suppose it’s possible; I guess I’d like to at least allow for the possibility in the back of my mind. But common sense tells me otherwise.” Although DeLoy says that he was “extremely religious” throughout his youth, he also had a probing, unremittingly curious mind. “Even as a young boy,” he says, “I remember wondering about contradictions between what the religion taught and scientific truth. But Uncle Roy told us that the way to handle that was just to avoid asking certain kinds of questions. So I trained myself to ignore the contradictions. I got good at not letting myself think about them.” Because DeLoy was smart and the religion needed educators for its school, when he turned eighteen the prophet—his adoptive grandfather, Uncle Roy— sent him to Southern Utah State College, an hour up the road in Cedar City, to become a teacher. “I was sent with him,” recalls DeLoy’s first wife, Eunice Bateman, who had been commanded by the prophet to marry DeLoy a short while earlier. “Neither of us had ever lived outside of Colorado City. Our second child was born a year after he started school. I felt so different from everyone there—I felt like an outcast. I was homesick for Colorado City the whole time Dee was in college. But I kept pretty busy raising babies and doing his typing and helping with his homework.” After getting his degree, DeLoy returned to Colorado City and went to work educating the town’s youth.

• From Post Office (1971)

  “And you’ve been talking to this lady next to you.” I lit a cigarette. “Chinaski, come here a minute.” He stood at the front of the tin cases and pointed. All the clerks were sticking very fast now. I watched them swinging their right arms frantically. Even the plump girl was jamming them home. “See these numbers painted on the end of the case?” “Yeh.” “Those numbers indicate the number of pieces that must be stuck in a minute. A two-foot tray must be stuck in 23 minutes. You ran five minutes over.” He pointed to the 23. “Twenty-three minutes is standard.” “That 23 doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Whadda ya mean?” “I mean a man came along and painted that 23 on there with a can of paint.” “No, no, this is time-tested over the years and rechecked. “ What was the use? I didn’t answer. “I’m going to have to write you up, Chinaski. You will be counseled on this.” I went back and sat down. Eleven years! I didn’t have a dime more in my pocket than when I had first walked in. Eleven years. Although each night had been long, the years had gone fast. Perhaps it was the night work. Or doing the same thing over and over and over again. At least with The Stone I had never known what to expect. Here there weren’t any surprises. Eleven years shot through the head. I had seen the job eat men up. They seemed to melt. There was Jimmy Potts of Dorsey Station. When I first came in, Jimmy had been a well-built guy in a white T-shirt. Now he was gone. He put his seat as close to the floor as possible and braced himself from falling over with his feet. He was too tired to get a haircut and had worn the same pair of pants for three years. He changed shirts twice a week and he walked very slow. They had murdered him. He was 55. He had seven years to go until retirement. “I’ll never make it,” he told me. They either melted or they got fat, huge, especially around the ass and the belly. It was the stool and the same motion and the same talk. And there I was, dizzy spells and pains in the arms, neck, chest, everywhere. I slept all day resting up for the job. On weekends I had to drink in order to forget it. I had come in weighing 185 pounds. Now I weighed 223 pounds. All you moved was your right arm.

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

  Christianity could not prevent the irruption of the Northern barbarians and the collapse of the Roman empire. The process of internal dissolution had gone too far; nations as well as individuals may physically and morally sink so low that they, are beyond the possibility of recovery. Tacitus, the heathen Stoic in the second century, and Salvianus, the Christian presbyter in the fifth, each a Jeremiah of his age, predicted the approaching doom and destruction of Roman society, looked towards the savage races of the North for fresh blood and new vigor. But the Keltic and Germanic conquerors would have turned Southern Europe into a vast solitude (as the Turks have laid waste the fairest portions of Asia), if they had not embraced the principles, laws, and institutions of the Christian church. CHAPTER IX.ASCETIC TENDENCIES.§ 104. Ascetic Virtue and Piety. Ad. Möhler (R.C.): Geschichte des Mönchthums in der Zeit seiner ersten Entstehung u. ersten Ausbildung, 1836 ("Vermischte Schriften," ed. Döllinger. Regensb. 1839, II. p. 165 sqq.). Is. Taylor (Independent): Ancient Christianity, 4th ed. London, 1844, I. 133–299 (anti-Puseyite and anti Catholic). H. Ruffner (Presbyt.): The Fathers of the Desert; or an Account of the Origin and Practice of Monkery among heathen nations; its passage into the church; and some wonderful Stories of the Fathers concerning the primitive Monks and Hermits. N. York, 1850. 2 vols. Otto Zöckler (Lutheran): Kritische Geschichte der Askese. Frkf. and Erlangen, 1863 (434 pages). P. E. Lucius Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Geschichte der Askese. Strasburg, 1879. H. Weingarten: Ueber den Ursprung des Mönchthums im nach-Konstantinischen Zeittalter. Gotha, 1877. And his article in Herzog’s "Encykl." new ed. vol. X. (1882) p. 758 sqq. (abridged in Schaff’s Herzog, vol. II. 1551 sqq. N. Y. 1883). Ad. Harnack: Das Mönchthum, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte. Giessen, 1882. The general literature on Monasticism is immense, but belongs to the next period. See vol. III. 147 sq., and the list of books in Zöckler, l.c. p. 10–16.

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

  And so, poor Goldilocks learned nothing from her experience, and will no doubt continue to intrude and trespass into the private affairs of others. But as for you and me, we shall not be so reckless, and I daresay that we will be especially careful to avoid any strange, masculine cottages we happen to find isolated in the deepest part of the woods. Or will we? Mirror on the WallOnce upon a time, in a kingdom known far and wide for its beautiful women, there lived a sorcerer who fell in love with one of the maidens who dwelt there. This maiden was untrue to the sorcerer, however, and shortly afterward, he died of a broken heart. With his last breath he cast a spell upon the entire kingdom and, for all I know, it remains there to this day. Under the spell of the broken-hearted sorcerer, all the women of this kingdom suddenly appeared unfamiliar and disagreeable to their male counterparts and even to themselves. They immediately began a campaign to become the exact opposite of what nature intended them to be. First, they starved themselves almost to death, because this emaciated condition was thought to be more appealing than the normal womanly appearance that came from being healthy. Those who could not withstand this deprivation submitted to other humiliating methods of ridding themselves of the unwanted flesh. Next, their breasts had to be altered from their natural shape to a larger, stiffer prototype, which, though causing much pain and many health problems, had a more desirable effect for everyone. Aging was the most detestable of all the natural manifestations in women, and it was to be avoided at all costs. Women did everything in their power to prevent it, finally succumbing to dangerous medical procedures when all else failed. Although such an existence may seem far-fetched and improbable to many a reader, I can assure you, it is quite true. One could not expound too earnestly on the lengths to which these poor creatures were willing to go in their efforts to be anything besides that which they were. Why, even the hair upon their heads and bodies was incomprehensible to them, so that they cut, curled, colored, plucked, waxed, shaved and electrocuted until every single strand was either altered or destroyed. The few women who managed to fit into this uncomfortable mode of expectation were given the status of queen—for a short while—during which time they were expected to exploit themselves for the pleasure of men, and for the punishment of the women who were not complying as properly as it was believed they ought. In short, an intense misery came over the female inhabitants of this accursed land.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But let that be; thou mayst, an thou wilt, at once content God and thy master and me, on this wise; to wit, that thou take these my clothes and give me but thy doublet and a hood and with the former return to my lord and thine and tell him that thou hast slain me; and I swear to thee, by that life which thou wilt have bestowed on me, that I will remove hence and get me gone into a country whence never shall any news of me win either to him or to thee or into these parts.' The servant, who was loath to slay her, was lightly moved to compassion; wherefore he took her clothes and give her a sorry doublet of his and a hood, leaving her sundry monies she had with her. Then praying her depart the country, he left her in the valley and afoot and betook himself to his master, to whom he avouched that not only was his commandment accomplished, but that he had left the lady's dead body among a pack of wolves, and Bernabo presently returned to Genoa, where the thing becoming known, he was much blamed. As for the lady, she abode alone and disconsolate till nightfall, when she disguised herself as most she might and repaired to a village hard by, where, having gotten from an old woman that which she needed, she fitted the doublet to her shape and shortening it, made a pair of linen breeches of her shift; then, having cut her hair and altogether transformed herself in the guise of a sailor, she betook herself to the sea-shore, where, as chance would have it, she found a Catalan gentleman, by name Senor Encararch, who had landed at Alba from a ship he had in the offing, to refresh himself at a spring there. With him she entered into parley and engaging with him as a servant, embarked on board the ship, under the name of Sicurano da Finale. There, being furnished by the gentleman with better clothes, she proceeded to serve him so well and so aptly that she became in the utmost favour with him. No great while after it befell that the Catalan made a voyage to Alexandria with a lading of his and carrying thither certain peregrine falcons for the Soldan, presented them to him. The Soldan, having once and again entertained him at meat and noting with approof the fashions of Sicurano, who still went serving him, begged him[133] of his master, who yielded him to him, although it irked him to do it, and Sicurano, in a little while, by his good behaviour, gained the love and favour of the Soldan, even as he had gained that of the Catalan.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Deseret Brigham sealed her to Parley Pratt for time and eternity, making her the twelfth of the apostle’s plural wives. In 1856, while Pratt was in St. Louis doing missionary work, she returned to New Orleans and absconded with her three children, inducing murderous rage in her first husband, who blamed Pratt for wrecking his marriage. McLean set out in hot pursuit of Pratt and managed to intercept a letter from Pratt to Eleanor in which the apostle described his plans to meet her on the Arkansas River. Armed with this information, and working in cahoots with a federal marshal who hated Mormons, McLean had Pratt arrested and jailed in Van Buren, Arkansas. The non-Mormon magistrate assigned to hear the case quickly saw that the charges against Pratt were without merit. Concerned that the Mormon apostle would be lynched by vigilantes if he remained locked up, the brave magistrate surreptitiously released Pratt, but McLean was notified immediately by jailhouse spies. The obsessed McLean and two accomplices tracked Pratt down twelve miles outside of Van Buren, where they stabbed him, shot him for good measure, and then left him by the side of the road to slowly bleed to death. Afterward, McLean boasted that killing Parley Pratt was “the best act of my life,” and he was cheered as a hero across western Arkansas for the deed. He was never arrested or charged with any crime. After her husband’s death, Eleanor Pratt gradually made her way back toward Utah, destitute and dispirited. On the trail near Fort Laramie, she crossed paths with Porter Rockwell, who gave her a ride to Great Salt Lake City as he hurried to inform Brigham, on Pioneer Day, of the invading army. About the time the Fancher wagon train was crossing the border into Utah Territory, Eleanor delivered a detailed account of her husband’s murder to the leaders of the church. Her report heaped blame on the entire state of Arkansas and implored the Saints to avenge Parley’s innocent blood. On August 3, 1857, the same day the Fancher train arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley, Apostle George A. Smith (first cousin to Joseph Smith), who held the

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  thy husband, and I command thee to repent. Have I not said that it is not good for a man to be alone? I will not suffer My servant Ron to be alone much longer for even now I am preparing someone to take thy place. Nevertheless if thou wilst speedily repent I will greatly bless thee and thy children, otherwise I will remove thee from thy place for I will not suffer that thy children should suffer longer because of thy disobedience. I have heard the prayers of My son Ron and I know his desires, and it is only because of his desires that I have spared thee till now. Harken unto My word for the time is short. I am Alpha and Omega even the beginning and the end and surely I will fulfill all My promises unto My servant Ron. Even so Amen. According to psychiatrist C. Jess Groesbeck, who examined Ron after the murders, as Ron began to understand that Dianna really was going to take their children and leave forever, it slowly “becomes clear that this man is losing the most important thing he’s ever lost in his life. . . . I can’t stress enough how deep this loss was. . . . He feels low, worthless. And his anger and aggression are almost unbounded. . . . He compensates by creating a new but unreal view of himself and the world. He develops an inflated God-like self-image in an effort to avoid the pain and deny the truth of what he really is.” Buttressing Dr. Groesbeck’s assessment, on March 13 the still small voice of the Lord spoke to Ron once again, revealing, And the thing that ye have thought concerning the One Mighty and Strong is correct, for have I not said that in these the last days I will reveal all things unto the children of men? For was not Moses the One Mighty and Strong, and was not Jesus the One Mighty and Strong, and was not My servant Onias the One Mighty and Strong, and art thou not One Mighty and Strong, and will I not yet call others Mighty and Strong to set in order My church and My kingdom? For it was never meant that there should be only one One Mighty and Strong, for there are many, and they who have thought otherwise have erred. In Dr. Groesbeck’s learned opinion, this revelation was a delusional artifact, as were all Ron’s revelations, spawned by depression and his deeply entrenched narcissism, with no basis whatsoever in reality. Which is, of course, what nonbelievers typically say about people who have religious visions and revelations: that they’re crazy. The devout individuals on the receiving end of such visions, however, generally beg to differ, and Ron is one of them.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  the ruin of their church—desperately wanted to install a successor to Joseph who would revoke the doctrine before it took hold. On July 13 Emma warned that if the next leader of the Mormons “is not a man she approves of she will do the church all the injury she can.” Apostles John Taylor, Willard Richards, Brigham Young, and their brethren in the pro-polygamy camp wanted just as desperately to install a prophet who would uphold the doctrine, lest the plural wives these men had covertly married be branded as whores. The succession crisis was further complicated by the fact that ten members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, including Brigham Young, were roaming far afield during the spring of 1844, having been dispatched across the nation by Joseph to drum up support for his bid to become president of the United States. Young, who was in Massachusetts when Joseph was shot, didn’t learn about the prophet’s death until nineteen days after the fact. Crushed by the news, Brigham initially despaired that without Joseph, the Mormon Church would surely disintegrate. “My head felt so distressed,” he lamented, “[I] thought it would crack.” As soon as they heard of the assassination, Brigham and the rest of the apostles rushed back to Nauvoo with the utmost haste. The anti-polygamy camp maneuvered furiously to have one of their own confirmed as prophet before the full Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had a chance to return to Nauvoo from various distant corners of the republic. Young Joseph Smith III had the most legitimate claim to the throne, but because he had not yet even reached puberty, the anti-polygamists focused their energies on giving the job to the departed prophet’s younger brother, Samuel H. Smith, instead. On July 30, however, just as it was looking as if he had the job locked up, Samuel abruptly died. Compelling circumstantial evidence suggests that he succumbed from poison administered by Hosea Stout, the chief of the Nauvoo police, who was loyal to Brigham Young and the other polygamists. Following Samuel Smith’s suspect death, Sidney Rigdon—another anti- polygamist—launched a frantic last-ditch effort to grab Joseph’s mantle before Brigham and the other apostles arrived back in Nauvoo. Hurriedly securing the support of others in the anti-polygamy faction, he successfully maneuvered to have himself appointed “guardian” of the church, although the appointment wouldn’t be official until it could be confirmed by a vote at a special churchwide

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  In spite of May and a new greenness, the country was dismal. It was rather chilly, and there was smoke on the rain, and a certain sense of exhaust vapour in the air. One just had to live from one's resistance. No wonder these people were ugly and tough. The car ploughed uphill through the long squalid straggle of Tevershall, the blackened brick dwellings, the black slate roofs glistening their sharp edges, the mud black with coal-dust, the pavements wet and black. It was as if dismalness had soaked through and through everything. The utter negation of natural beauty, the utter negation of the gladness of life, the utter absence of the instinct for shapely beauty which every bird and beast has, the utter death of the human intuitive faculty was appalling. The stacks of soap in the grocer's shops, the rhubarb and lemons in the greengrocers! The awful hats in the milliners! all went by ugly, ugly, ugly, followed by the plaster-and-gilt horror of the cinema with its wet picture announcements, "A Woman's Love!" and the new big Primitive chapel, primitive enough in its stark brick and big panes of greenish and raspberry glass in the windows. The Wesleyan Chapel, higher up, was of blackened brick and stood behind iron railings and blackened shrubs. The Congregational chapel, which thought itself superior, was built of rusticated sandstone and had a steeple, but not a very high one. Just beyond were the new school buildings, expensive pink brick, and gravelled playground inside iron railings, all very imposing, and mixing the suggestion of a chapel and a prison. Standard Five girls were having a singing lesson, just finishing the la-me-do-la exercises and beginning a "sweet children's song." Anything more unlike song, spontaneous song, would be impossible to imagine: a strange bawling yell that followed the outlines of a tune. It was not like savages: savages have subtle rhythms. It was not like animals: animals _mean_ something when they yell. It was like nothing on earth, and it was called singing. Connie sat and listened with her heart in her boots, as Field was filling petrol. What could possibly become of such a people, a people in whom the living intuitive faculty was dead as nails, and only queer mechanical yells and uncanny will power remained? A coal-cart was coming downhill, clanking in the rain. Field started upwards, past the big but weary-looking drapers and clothing shops, the post-office, into the little market-place of forlorn space, where Sam Black was peering out of the door of the "Sun," that called itself an inn, not a pub, and where the commercial travellers stayed, and was bowing to Lady Chatterley's car.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "There!" he said. "That is the point! In that case I don't mind in the least. I mean it would be awfully nice to have a child running about the house, and feel one was building up a future for it, I should have something to strive for then, and I should know it was your child, shouldn't I, dear? And it would seem just the same as my own. Because it is you who count in these matters. You know that, don't you, dear? I don't enter, I am a cipher. You are the great I-am! as far as life goes. You know that, don't you? I mean, as far as I am concerned. I mean, but for you I am absolutely nothing. I live for your sake and your future. I am nothing to myself." Connie heard it all with deepening dismay and repulsion. It was one of the ghastly half-truths that poison human existence. What man in his senses would say such things to a woman! But men aren't in their senses. What man with a spark of honour would put this ghastly burden of life-responsibility upon a woman, and leave her there, in the void? Moreover, in half an hour's time, Connie heard Clifford talking to Mrs. Bolton, in a hot, impulsive voice, revealing himself in a sort of passionless passion to the woman, as if she were half mistress, half foster-mother to him. And Mrs. Bolton was carefully dressing him in evening clothes, for there were important business guests in the house. Connie really sometimes felt she would die at this time. She felt she was being crushed to death by weird lies, and by the amazing cruelty of idiocy. Clifford's strange business efficiency in a way over-awed her, and his declaration of private worship put her into a panic. There was nothing between them. She never even touched him nowadays, and he never touched her. He never even took her hand and held it kindly. No, and because they were so utterly out of touch, he tortured her with his declaration of idolatry. It was the cruelty of utter impotence. And she felt her reason would give way, or she would die. She fled as much as possible to the wood. One afternoon, as she sat brooding, watching the water bubbling coldly in John's Well, the keeper had strode up to her. "I got you a key made, my Lady!" he said, saluting, and he offered her the key. "Thank you so much!" she said, startled. "The hut's not very tidy, if you don't mind," he said. "I cleared it what I could." "But I didn't want you to trouble!" she said. "Oh, it wasn't any trouble. I am setting the hens in about a week. But they won't be scared of you. I s'll have to see to them morning and night, but I shan't bother you any more than I can help."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Because when I feel the human world is doomed, has doomed itself by its own mingy beastliness, then I feel the Colonies aren't far enough. The moon wouldn't be far enough, because even there you could look back and see the earth, dirty, beastly, unsavoury among all the stars: made foul by men. Then I feel I've swallowed gall, and it's eating my inside out, and nowhere's far enough away to get away. But when I get a turn, I forget it all again. Though it's a shame, what's been done to people these last hundred years: men turned into nothing but labour-insects, and all their manhood taken away, and all their real life. I'd wipe the machines off the face of the earth again, and end the industrial epoch absolutely, like a black mistake. But since I can't, an' nobody can, I'd better hold my peace, an' try an' live my own life: if I've got one to live, which I rather doubt." The thunder had ceased outside, but the rain which had abated, suddenly came striking down, with a last blench of lightning and mutter of departing storm. Connie was uneasy. He had talked so long now, and he was really talking to himself, not to her. Despair seemed to come down on him completely, and she was feeling happy, she hated despair. She knew her leaving him, which he had only just realised inside himself, had plunged him back into this mood. And she triumphed a little. She opened the door and looked at the straight heavy rain, like a steel curtain, and had a sudden desire to rush out into it, to rush away. She got up, and began swiftly pulling off her stockings, then her dress and underclothing, and he held his breath. Her pointed keen animal breasts tipped and stirred as she moved. She was ivory-coloured in the greenish light. She slipped on her rubber shoes again and ran out with a wild little laugh, holding up her breasts to the heavy rain and spreading her arms, and running blurred in the rain with the eurythmic dance-movements she had learned so long ago in Dresden. It was a strange pallid figure lifting and falling, bending so the rain beat and glistened on the full haunches, swaying up again and coming belly-forward through the rain, then stooping again so that only the full loins and buttocks were offered in a kind of homage towards him, repeating a wild obeisance.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "DEAR CLIFFORD, I am afraid what you foresaw has happened. I am really in love with another man, and I do hope you will divorce me. I am staying at present with Duncan in his flat. I told you he was at Venice with us. I'm awfully unhappy for your sake: but do try to take it quietly. You don't really need me any more, and I can't bear to come back to Wragby. I'm most awfully sorry. But do try to forgive me, and divorce me and find someone better. I'm not really the right person for you, I am too impatient and selfish, I suppose. But I can't ever come back to live with you again. And I feel so frightfully sorry about it all, for your sake. But if you don't let yourself get worked up, you'll see you won't mind so frightfully. You didn't really care about me personally. So do forgive me and get rid of me." Clifford was not _inwardly_ surprised to get this letter. Inwardly, he had known for a long time she was leaving him. But he had absolutely refused any outward admission of it. Therefore, outwardly, it came as the most terrible blow and shock to him. He had kept the surface of his confidence in her quite serene. And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall. Clifford was like a hysterical child. He gave Mrs. Bolton a terrible shock, sitting up in bed ghastly and blank. "Why, Sir Clifford, whatever's the matter?" No answer! She was terrified lest he had had a stroke. She hurried and felt his face, took his pulse. "Is there a pain? Do try and tell me where it hurts you. Do tell me!" No answer! "Oh dear, oh dear! Then I'll telephone to Sheffield for Dr. Carrington, and Dr. Lecky may as well run round straight away." She was moving to the door, when he said in a hollow tone: "No!" She stopped and gazed at him. His face was yellow, blank, and like the face of an idiot. "Do you mean you'd rather I didn't fetch the doctor?" "Yes! I don't want him," came the sepulchral voice. "Oh, but Sir Clifford, you're ill, and I daren't take the responsibility. I _must_ send for the doctor, or _I_ shall be blamed." A pause: then the hollow voice said: "I'm not ill. My wife isn't coming back." It was as if an image spoke. "Not coming back? you mean her ladyship?" Mrs. Bolton moved a little nearer to the bed. "Oh, don't you believe it. You can trust her ladyship to come back." The image in the bed did not change, but it pushed a letter over the counterpane. "Read it!" said the sepulchral voice.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "All the lot. Their spunk is gone dead. Motorcars and cinemas and aeroplanes suck the last bit out of them. I tell you, every generation breeds a more rabbity generation, with india rubber tubing for guts and tin legs and tin faces. Tin people! It's all a steady sort of bolshevism just killing off the human thing, and worshipping the mechanical thing. Money, money, money! All the modern lot get their real kick out of killing the old human feeling out of man, making mincemeat of the old Adam and the old Eve. They're all alike. The world is all alike: kill off the human reality, a quid for every foreskin, two quid for each pair of balls. What is cunt but machine-fucking!--It's all alike. Pay 'em money to cut off the world's cock. Pay money, money, money to them that will take spunk out of mankind, and leave 'em all little twiddling machines." He sat there in the hut, his face pulled to mocking irony. Yet even then, he had one ear set backwards, listening to the storm over the wood. It made him feel so alone. "But won't it ever come to an end?" she said. "Ay, it will. It'll achieve its own salvation. When the last real man is killed, and they're _all_ tame: white, black, yellow, all colours of tame ones: then they'll _all_ be insane. Because the root of sanity is in the balls. Then they'll all be _insane_, and they'll make their grand _auto da fé_. You know _auto da fé_ means _act of faith_? Ay well, they'll make their own grand little act of faith. They'll offer one another up." "You mean kill one another?" "I do, duckie! If we go on at our present rate then in a hundred years' time there won't be ten thousand people in this island: there may not be ten. They'll have lovingly wiped each other out." The thunder was rolling further away. "How nice!" she said. "Quite nice! To contemplate the extermination of the human species and the long pause that follows before some other species crops up, it calms you more than anything else. And if we go on in this way, with everybody, intellectuals, artists, government, industrialists and workers all frantically killing off the last human feeling, the last bit of their intuition, the last healthy instinct; if it goes on in algebraical progression, as it is going on: then ta-tah! to the human species! Good-bye! darling! the serpent swallows itself and leaves a void, considerably messed up, but not hopeless. Very nice! When savage wild dogs bark in Wragby, and savage wild pit-ponies stamp on Tevershall pit-bank! _te deum laudamus!_" Connie laughed, but not very happily. "Then you ought to be pleased that they are all bolshevists," she said. "You ought to be pleased that they hurry on towards the end." "So I am. I don't stop 'em. Because I couldn't if I would." "Then why are you so bitter?"

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I write this, because I love the English nation, and I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of Englishmen.’ 154NEAR DEATH’s DOORI very nearly ruined my constitution during the recruit- ing campaign. In those days my food principally con- sisted of groundnut butter and lemons. I knew that it was possible to eat too much butter and injure one’s health, and yet I allowed myself to do so. This gave me a slight attack of dysentery. I did not take serious notice of this, and went that evening to the Ashram, as was my wont every now and then. I scarcely took any medicine in those days. I thought I should get well if I skipped a meal, and indeed I felt fairly free from trouble as I omitted the morning meal next day. I knew, howev- er, that to be entirely free I must prolong my fast and, if I ate anything at all, I should have nothing but fruit juices. There was some festival that day, and although I had told Kasturbai that I should have nothing for my midday meal, she tempted me and I succumbed. As I was under a vow of taking no milk or milk products, she had specially prepared for me a sweet wheaten porridge with oil added to it instead of #ghi#. She had reserved too a bowlful of #mung# for me. I was fond of these things, and I readily took them, hoping that without coming to grief I should eat just enough to please Kasturbai and to satisfy my palate. But the devil had been only waiting for an opportunity. Instead of eating very little I had my fill of the meal. This was sufficient invitation to the angel of death. Within an hour the dysentery appeared in acute form. The same evening I had to go back to Nadiad. I walked with very great difficulty to the Sabarmati station, a distance of only ten furlongs. Sjt. Vallabhbhai, who joined me at Ahmedabad, saw that I was unwell, but I did not allow him to guess how unbearable the pain was. We reached Nadiad at about ten o’clock. The Hindu Anathashram where we had our headquarters was only half a mile from the station; but it was as good as ten for me. I somehow managed to reach the quarters, but the griping pain was steadily increasing. Instead of using the usual latrine which was a long way off, I asked for a commode to be placed in the adjoining room. I was ashamed to have to ask for this, but there was no escape. Sjt. Fulchand immediately procured a commode. All the friends surrounded me deeply concerned. They were all love and attention, but they could not relieve my pain. And my obstinacy added to their helpessness. I refused all medical aid. I would take no medicine, but preferred to suffer the penalty for my folly. So they looked on in helpless dismay.