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 138 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  8 Morning after morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, That I may cut off from the city of the LORD all those who do evil. Psalm 102 Prayer of an Afflicted Man for Mercy on Himself and on Zion. A Prayer of the afflicted; when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint to God. 1 H EAR MY prayer, O LORD , And let my cry for help come to You! 2 Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline Your ear to me; In the day when I call, answer me quickly. 3 For my days have vanished in smoke, And my bones have been scorched like a hearth. 4 My heart has been struck like grass and withered, Indeed, [absorbed by my heartache] I forget to eat my food. 5 Because of the sound of my groaning [in suffering and trouble] My bones cling to my flesh. 6 I am like a [mournful] a vulture of the wilderness; I am like a [desolate] owl of the wasteland. 7 I am sleepless and lie awake [mourning], I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop. 8 My enemies taunt me all day long; Those who ridicule me use my name as a curse. 9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, And have mingled my drink with tears [Is 44:20 ] 10 Because of Your indignation and Your wrath, For You have lifted me up and thrown me away. 11 My days are like an evening shadow that lengthens and vanishes [with the sun]; And as for me, I wither away like grass. 12 But You, O LORD , are enthroned forever [ruling eternally as sovereign]; And [the fame and glory of] Your name [endures] to all generations. 13 You will arise and have compassion on Zion, For it is time to be gracious and show favor to her; Yes, the appointed time [the moment designated] has come. [Ps 12:5 ; 119:126 ] 14 For Your servants find [melancholy] pleasure in the stones [of her ruins] And feel pity for her dust. 15 So the nations will fear the name of the LORD , And all the kings of the earth [will recognize] Your glory. [Ps 96:9 ] 16 For the LORD has built up Zion; He has appeared in His glory and brilliance; 17 He has regarded the prayer of the destitute, And has not despised their prayer. 18 Let this be recorded for the generation to come, That a people yet to be created will praise the LORD .

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  In the park on my towel I searched for something to like. If I could find one thing in the whole world to like, I could start again. I saw a cop on a horse riding toward me and I thought, looking up at this centaur, admiring the shiny flanks and gleaming leather boots, hearing now the creak of the tack, here’s something beautiful, something I can like. The cop rode up, looked down and said, “Get your shirt on, this isn’t a beach. You’re breaking the law.” Sean wrote me twice. Flat notes, and each sentence I saw as a safe compromise between several dangerous ways of saying things. The joke was that the great love of my life was a man who knew nothing about me and next to nothing about himself. Suffering does make us more sensitive until it crushes us completely. I started to write about Sean, and the writing, like a searchlight sweeping wildly, almost caught my fugitive feelings, A close call, but another failure, for I was so afraid of being sentimental or self-indulgent, of not distancing myself through the appropriate irony and understatement and objectivity, that I wrote about myself in the third person. I invented a stand-in for myself but with ten points less intelligence. Yet how could I like myself or ask the reader to take seriously a love between two men? A plea for tolerance was the best I might have come up with, but I was too proud to plead for anything. On early summer nights in the city I drifted down Christopher Street to a new dance place, the Stonewall, which had the hottest jukebox. The clientele was a bit tacky, all those black and brown boys and drags who’d attracted me at Riis Park, but they were the best dancers, the sharpest dressers, the most generous lovers. Many of my old friends didn’t interest me much because they wouldn’t let me talk about Sean anymore. Only Maria and Lou indulged me. For me, the Stonewall was a place where I could watch people in the inner, darker room, sit along the wall and feel at once alone and comforted. I liked to watch a giant black man who’d twirl and slice the air dangerously with his out-flung arms and pointed toes, a flailing death machine of a ballerina. I was so glad I’d bothered to acquire a nice body, since it gave me something to offer every night to a different man—the graying high-school principal, the Puerto Rican hairburner, the death machine. I went to bed with anyone who wanted me.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  It makes no difference whether he is learned or not, he will fail in either case. Alchemy is too difficult. Oh, I forgot to mention the acids we use, with the metals and oils. They help in the hardening or softening of the materials. They can also be used to cleanse and purify - you need more than a book to understand these things. No more words now. I have named things that should not be named. I have said enough to raise a fiend, the ugliest in hell. The object of our quest is the philosopher’s stone, the magic elixir. If we possessed that, we would be safe from sorrow. But our labours have proved worthless. I swear to God that, for all our craft and care, the stone will not come to us. The loss of time and money has brought us close to madness. But still there is that hope, that yearning, which keeps us searching for the key. If we have that, we have everything. So you see that the craving can never be satisfied. It is a sharp spur, always pressing us onward. We will never let go, we will never slacken. The quest is lifelong. In hope of future glory, we are willing to forsake everything else. We can never turn our backs on the metals and the crucibles. Although we may only have a torn sheet to cover us at night, and a rough coat to wear by day, we will still spend everything we have on the pursuit of the elixir. These alchemists smell of sulphur and of brimstone. Wherever they go, they stink like goats. Their odour is so hot and rancid that you can spot them from a mile away. So you can always recognize them from their smell and from their threadbare clothes. If anyone asks them privately why they look so shabby, they have a simple reply. If anyone knew our identities, they say, we would be killed for our secrets. Hush hush. So they deceive the innocent. Well, enough of this. I will get on with my story. Before we place the pot upon the fire, my master tempers the various metals. Only he can do this - now that he has gone, I can speak freely - and only he knows all the virtues of the lead and silver. He has a fine reputation among the cognoscenti, believe me, although there have been many times when he has come to grief. How does that happen? There are occasions, for example, when the pot explodes or falls to pieces. These metals are so volatile and violent that they can pierce the walls. We have to strengthen the stones with lime and mortar. They sink through the floorboards, or they fly up to the ceiling. Sometimes they just lie scattered on the floor. The expense is terrible. I have never seen the devil, but I am sure that he is somewhere in that room with us.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  He looked at her in horror. ‘Oh my God! Is that it? How can I? I admit that I did swear an oath to you. But for God’s sake ask for something else. Take all my money. Anything. But don’t take my body.’ ‘No way. I will not betray myself, or you. I may be foul and old and poor, but I don’t want your money. I would not part with you for all the gold in the world. I only want your love.’ ‘My love? No. My ruin. My despair. I am to be degraded and disgraced.’ He complained in vain. It was determined that he must marry this old woman. He was also obliged to go to bed with her. I wish that I could tell you all about the happy festivities and the joyful ceremonies that accompanied the union. But I can’t. There were none. There were no speeches of congratulation, no toasts, no wedding cake. There were, instead, expressions of sorrow and pity. He married her secretly the next morning, and then hid himself from the light of day like an owl. He could not look at her, ugly and dirty as she was. When eventually he got into bed with his new wife, he was disgusted and ashamed; he turned and twisted beneath the sheets, while she just lay there with a smile on her face. ‘Oh husband dear,’ she said. ‘Bless me! Is this the way that knights treat their new brides? Is this the household law of King Arthur? Is everyone of your rank so shy? I am the love of your life, your own wife. I am the woman who saved you. I have never done you any harm. I know that much. So why are you behaving like this on our first night together? You are writhing like a madman. What is my crime? Tell me, for God’s sake. If I can amend it, I will do so.’ ‘Amend it? I don’t think so. There is nothing you can do about it. You are old. You are ugly. You come from such low stock that it is little wonder that I twist and turn. My lineage is besmirched! I wish to God that my heart would break!’ ‘Is that the only reason for your distress?’ ‘Only! What do you think?’

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  I would like to go one step farther, in closing. It is to say this: if all that I have set forth herein is not clear from the reading of my books then I have failed utterly. In which case I beg to be condemned not only as an “immoral” writer but as a stupid and impotent one. I had thought to join with this testimony a selection of letters, unsolicited letters, culled from the thousands I have received from my readers all over the world. I no longer believe it worth while to make this effort. I realize that it is too easy to object that all these (largely) unknown individuals are simply “fellow travelers,” or, to put it more harshly, emotional cripples. If I knew I were addressing myself to men who believe in the power of truth I would say: “Put my work to the test! Let it be read openly, freely, everywhere, by all classes of men and women. Let them be my judges!” And this is not my last thought on the subject. Let us look at it in the worst light. Supposing that tomorrow, as a result of reading Henry Miller, everyone began talking freely, talking gutter language, if you will, and acting according to his own beliefs and convictions. What then? My answer is that no matter what took place, it would be as if nothing had occurred, nothing , I want to emphasize, in comparison with the effect of a single exploded atom bomb. This, I must confess, is the saddest admission that I, a creative individual, can make. It is my belief that we are now passing through a period of what might be called “cosmic insensitivity,” a period when God seems more than ever absent from the world and man doomed to come face to face with the fate which he has created for himself. At such a moment the question of whether a man be guilty of using obscene language in printed books seems to me thoroughly inconsequential. It is almost as if, while taking a walk through a green field, I espied a blade of grass with manure on it, and, bending down to that obscure little blade of grass I said to it scoldingly: “Naughty, naughty!” First Letter to Trygve Hirsch—Henry Miller—Between Heaven and HellBig Sur, California September 19, 1957 Mr. Trygve Hirsch Oslo, Norway My dear Mr.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Now when someone suspicious-looking came in, the toilets would flush in a chorus of panic and, just by standing there a second too long, the stranger could clear the house. When someone would dare to sink to his knees in the next stall I’d greedily suck him without hesitation. I’d plunge his cock as fast and as deep into me as possible. I knew I had to leave Dr. O’Reilly. Annie Schroeder had dug a kitchen knife into her heart. She’d been hospitalized, released, and she’d stabbed herself a second time. Now she was in a maximum-security ward. O’Reilly himself was deteriorating quickly, more and more often falling asleep during my hours, forgetting my name, mumbling incomprehensibly. I knew I had to leave him, but even my body rebelled against such a rebellion. I fell sick with a high fever, then I danced one night at a fraternity party in a shoe so tight that three days later my left foot was abscessed and I had to be hospitalized. The foot became painfully swollen and had to be lanced. Afterward it was placed inside a sort of aluminum dog kennel that protected it from the touch of sheet and blanket. For some reason, a graduate student in psychotherapy came by my bed. Outside, the first snow of the year was falling. The therapist, whose forehead was flushed and scaling, wore a tweed jacket and smelled of sweet tobacco. His mouth shot up on one side in an accent aigu of irony. We didn’t speak very directly. I was sharing the room with someone who was asleep, to be sure, but he might have been faking it. I said that I thought I was resisting breaking off with Dr. O’Reilly. “At least that’s what I assume. I don’t feel anything, naturally, since I’ve somatized the anxiety.” He wasn’t smoking, but he touched his lip with his pipe as though he needed the feel of the cold amber mouthpiece to release his thoughts or words. “But why are you going to a shrink at all?” “I want to change.” “Change what?” “My object choice.” He looked me intently in the eye, and now I could see that he, too, must be homosexual. “But people don’t really change,” he said. “It’s useless to try. It’s more a question of adjusting, of learning to play the hand you’ve been dealt.” “Oh no,” I said, angry. “I am changing, I must change. I’d kill myself if I thought I was stuck with these cards, which frankly are lousy—and you know it.” His face folded shut, and he left after exchanging a few of the necessary banalities. I felt triumphant. I couldn’t get well. I stayed in the infirmary, first with one ailment, then another. I watched the snow fall. My foot healed, but I broke out in hives. The hives subsided, and I was wracked with diarrhea. My roommates came and went.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  14 “Then I will make their waters quiet and clear; I will make their rivers run [slowly and smoothly] like oil,” Says the Lord GOD . 15 “When I make the land of Egypt desolate, And the country is stripped and deprived of all that which filled it, When I strike all those who live in it, Then they will know [without any doubt] that I am the LORD . 16 “This is the dirge (funeral poem to be sung) and they shall sing it [for her]. The daughters of the nations shall sing it; for Egypt and for all her hordes they shall sing it,” says the Lord GOD . 17 In the twelfth year [after King Jehoiachin of Judah was taken into exile], on the fifteenth of the month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 18 “Son of man, wail over the hordes of Egypt and cast them down, both her and the daughters of the powerful and majestic nations, to the nether world (the place of the dead), with those who go down to the pit; 19 ‘Whom [among them] do you surpass in beauty? Go down and make your bed with the uncircumcised (the barbaric, the boorish, the crude).’ 20 “They will fall among those who are slain by the sword. She (Egypt) is handed over to the sword; they have drawn her and all her hordes away [to judgment]. 21 “The strong among the mighty rulers will say of him (Pharaoh) and his allies from the midst of Sheol, ‘They have gone down [defeated]; they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.’ 22 “Assyria is there with all her warriors; their graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword, 23 whose graves are set in the remotest parts of the pit and her army is all around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living. 24 “a Elam [a conquest of Assyria] is there and all her hordes around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who have gone down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, who made their terror spread in the land of the living and bore their shame and defeat with those who went down to the pit. 25 “They have made a bed for her among the slain with all her hordes. Her graves are around it; they are all uncircumcised (barbaric, boorish, crude), slain by the sword (for their terror had been spread in the land of the living), and they bore their disgrace with those who go down to the pit; they were laid among the slain. 26 “Meshech, Tubal, and all their hordes are there; their graves b surround them. All of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, for they spread their terror in the land of the living.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Black women’s civic experience of womanhood had been “bitter,” after all. Thus their civic experiences exposed deep fissures in the narrative of American exceptionalism, a narrative that the ceremony and fanfare of the exhibition attempted to quell. One of the examples that Williams gave of Black women’s peculiar experience as citizen-women was their continual struggle to secure employment. The difficulty of finding work was a direct result of Americans’ poor opinion of Black women’s moral stature: “[T]aught everywhere in ethics and social economy that merit always wins, colored women carefully prepare themselves for all kinds of occupations only to meet with stern refusal, rebuff, and disappointment.” 44 Understanding themselves to be disadvantaged both by the labor dictates of the Peculiar Institution and the meritocratic myth of American exceptionalism, Black women frequently invoked what I term a discourse of American peculiarity. This discourse is exemplified in Williams’s question, “[A]re we not justified in a feeling of desperation against that peculiar form of Americanism that shows respect for our women as servants and contempt for them when they become women of culture?” 45 By highlighting Black female desperation, Williams continued to place Black women’s emotions front and center in her political discourse, a move that humanized them and that demonstrates the variety of anxiety-producing encounters Black women had with racist and sexist discrimination. In another case, during her struggle with the Lady Managers for Black female representation on the board and at the fair, elocutionist and Wilberforce Professor Hallie Quinn Brown wrote in a letter to one of the members, “[C] onsidering the peculiar relation that the Negro sustains in this county [sic], is it less than fair to request for him a special representation?” 46 Through reference to America’s peculiarity, Black women highlighted the fact that the American nation-state is defined not by its stated ideals of liberty, equality, or freedom, but rather by its racist practices toward its African American citizenry. Like most race women of her day, Williams firmly believed that colored women were “as thoroughly American in all the circumstances of citizenship as the best citizens of our country.” 47 They were thus entitled to the rights and protections of American identity. To invoke the language of peculiarity was to challenge the presupposed benevolence of slavery, by interrogating the euphemism most often used to describe it: “The Peculiar Institution.” White racial claims about the inferior morality of the Black race were deeply gendered and typically characterized Black women as sexually lascivious, cunning, devious, and therefore incapable of victimization. Although Williams could “appreciate the offensiveness of all references to American slavery,” she believed that calling attention to slavery’s actual impact on African American women mattered more than preserving white racial mythologies of benevolence. 48 Her use of the term peculiarity referred not only to the particularity of Black and female experience,

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  2 “I will destroy the Daughter of Zion (Jerusalem), the lovely and delicate one [so like a luxurious pasture]. 3 “Shepherds with their flocks will come against her; They will pitch their tents all around her; They will pasture, each one in his place [eating up all her rich grasses]. 4 “[They shout], ‘Prepare for war against her; Arise, let us [take her by surprise and] attack her at noon. But alas, the daylight pales, The evening shadows grow long. 5 ‘Arise, let us [awaken to] attack her at night And destroy her [fortified] palaces!’ ” 6 For the LORD of hosts has said, “Cut down her trees And build a siege [mound] against Jerusalem. This is the city which must be punished; There is nothing but oppression inside her [walls]. 7 “As a fountain springs up and pours out its fresh waters, So she [continually] pours out her fresh wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard inside her [walls]; Sickness and wounds are always before Me. 8 “Be wise and be warned, O Jerusalem, Or I will be alienated from you, And make you a desolation, An uninhabited land.” 9 Thus says the LORD of hosts, “They will thoroughly gather like [fruit on] a vine what is left of Israel; Pass your hand [over the vine] again and again [Babylon, tool of destruction] like a grape gatherer, Over the branches [stripping the tendrils off the vine].” 10 To whom shall I (Jeremiah) speak and give warning That they may hear? Behold, their ears are a closed [absolutely deaf to God] And they cannot listen. Behold, the word of the LORD has become a reprimand and an object of scorn to them; They have no delight in it. [Acts 7:1 ] 11 But I am full of the wrath (judgment) of the LORD ; I am tired of restraining it. “[I will] pour it out on the children in the street And on the young men gathered together; For both the husband and wife shall be taken, The aged and the very old [though full of days they are not exempt from judgment]. 12 “Their houses shall be turned over to others, Their fields and their wives together; For I will stretch out My hand Against the inhabitants of the land,” says the LORD . 13 “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for [unfair] gain; And from the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals deceitfully. 14 “They have treated superficially the [bloody] broken wound of My people, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ When there is no peace. 15 “Were they ashamed because they had committed disgusting and vile things? No, they were not at all ashamed; They did not even know how to blush [at their idolatry]. Therefore they will fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them They will be overthrown,” says the LORD .

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  What is to die, let it die, and what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let the survivors devour one another’s flesh.” 10 I took my staff, Favor, and broke it in pieces, breaking the covenant which I had made with all the peoples. 11 So the covenant was broken on that day, and thus the most wretched of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD . 12 I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, do not.” So they weighed out a thirty pieces of silver as my wages. 13 b Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter [as if to the dogs]—that magnificent sum at which I am valued by them!” So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD . [Matt 26:14 , 15 ; 27:3–10 ] 14 Then I broke my second staff, Union, into pieces to break the brotherhood between Judah (the Southern Kingdom) and Israel (the Northern Kingdom). 15 The LORD said to me, “Take again for yourself the equipment [of a shepherd, but this time] of a foolish shepherd. [Ezek 34:2–6 ] 16 “For behold, I am going to raise up a [false] shepherd in the land who will not care for the perishing, seek the scattered, heal the broken, or feed the healthy; but will eat the flesh of the fat ones and tear off their hoofs [to consume everything]. 17 “Woe (judgment is coming) to the worthless and foolish shepherd Who deserts the flock! The sword will strike his arm And his right eye! His arm shall be totally withered And his right eye completely blinded.” [Jer 23:1 ; John 10:12 , 13 ] Zechariah 12 Jerusalem to Be Attacked 1 T he a oracle (a burdensome message) of the word of the LORD concerning Israel. T hus declares the LORD who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him: 2 “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling (staggering) to all the surrounding peoples; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. 3 “And in that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will come and be gathered against it. 4 “In that day,” declares the LORD , “I will strike every horse with panic and his rider with madness; but I will open My eyes and watch over the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the [opposing] nations with blindness.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Terrell’s autobiography should be understood within the context of her broader political framework of “proper, dignified agitation.” For instance, invoking language identical to that found in the epigraph to this chapter, she writes, “I have not tried to arouse the sympathy of my readers by tearing passion to tatters, so as to show how wretched I have been.”36 By reminding her audience that she refused to use unnecessarily incendiary and divisive speech, she invoked her own notion of dignified agitation: “I do not want to wage a holy war or any other kind of war upon a group which is strong and powerful enough to circumscribe my activities and prevent me from entering fields in which I should like to work. … No colored woman in her right mind who has had as many genuine friends in the dominant race as I have had … could be bitter toward the whole group.”37 Becoming conciliatory and racially respectable in tone, Terrell undoubtedly wanted to win the trust and confidence of her audience, whom she clearly understood to be multiracial. She also returns to this sentiment at the end of the book: In writing the story of my life I might have related many more incidents than I have, showing my discouragement and despair at the obstacles and limitations placed upon me because I am a colored woman. Several times I have been desperate and wondered which way I should turn. I have purposely refrained from entering too deeply into particulars and emphasizing this phase of my life. I have given the bitter with the sweet, the sweet predominating, I think.38 In speaking of what is not spoken about in her narrative, of her inability “to tell the whole truth,” Terrell points us to an absence that is at the heart of this project. Carla Peterson, drawing on the work of postcolonial theorists, argues that these kinds of elisions in African American women’s literature signal a challenge to the boundaries of dominant discourse by “inscribing both presence and absence in [these] texts.”39 Terrell, then, resists narrating a story of discouragement, despair, and desperation but fully acknowledges the ways that her encounters with racism and sexism have produced this full range of emotion. Instead, she focuses on a more public story of triumph, one that is perhaps more politically palatable. In this regard, the public nature of her story fits with Williams’s conception of organized anxiety as the kind of animating emotional ethos of Black public life. Terrell does not deny the range of anxiety-producing experiences, but she frames these experiences in terms of how they influence and inform her career as an organizer and thought leader.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  The work is so easy that even a child could do it.” And if you had a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, as long as she could manipulate her hands, as long as she could prove that she had no bad habits, you were invited to bring her or them along to the ammunition works. If you were shy of soiling your hands they would explain to you very gently and intelligently just how these delicate mechanisms operated, what they did when they exploded, and why you must not waste even your garbage because … et ipso facto e pluribus unum. The thing that impressed me, going the rounds in search of work, was not so much that they made me vomit every day (assuming I had been lucky enough to put something into my gut), but that they always demanded to know if you were of good habits, if you were steady, if you were sober, if you were industrious, if you had ever worked before and if not why not. Even the garbage, which I had gotten the job of collecting for the municipality, was precious to them, the killers. Standing knee-deep in the muck, the lowest of the low, a coolie, an outcast, still I was part of the death racket. I tried reading the Inferno at night, but it was in English and English is no language for a catholic work. “Whatever enters in itself into its self-hood, viz., into its own lubet…” Lubet! If I had had a word like that to conjure with then, how peacefully I might have gone about my garbage collecting! How sweet, in the night when Dante is out of reach and the hands smell of muck and slime, to take unto oneself this word which in the Dutch means “lust” and in Latin “lubitum” or the divine, beneplacitum . Standing knee-deep in the garbage I said one day what Meister Eckhart is reported to have said long ago: “I truly have need of God, but God has need of me too.” There was a job waiting for me in the slaughterhouse, a nice little job of sorting entrails, but I couldn’t raise the fare to get to Chicago. I remained in Brooklyn, in my own palace of entrails, and turned round and round on the plinth of the labyrinth. I remained at home seeking the “germinal vesicle,” “the dragon castle on the floor of the sea,” “the Heavenly Heart,” “the field of the square inch,” “the house of the square foot,” “the dark pass,” “the space of former Heaven.” I remained locked in, a prisoner of Forculus, god of the door, of Cardea, god of the hinge, and of Limentius, god of the threshold. I spoke only with their sisters, the three goddesses called Fear, Pallor and Fever. I saw no “Asian luxury,” as had St. Augustine, or as he imagined he had.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  11 Make vows to the LORD your God and fulfill them; Let all who are around Him bring gifts to Him who is to be feared [with awe-inspired reverence]. 12 He will cut off the spirit of princes; He is awesome and feared by the kings of the earth. Psalm 77 Comfort in Trouble from Recalling God’s Mighty Deeds. To the Chief Musician; according to Jeduthun [one of David’s three chief musicians, founder of an official musical family]. A Psalm of Asaph. 1 M Y VOICE rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. 2 In the day of my trouble I [desperately] sought the Lord; In the night my hand was a stretched out [in prayer] without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted. 3 I remember God; then I am disquieted and I groan; I sigh [in prayer], and my spirit grows faint. Selah. 4 You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. 5 I have considered the ancient days, The years [of prosperity] of long, long ago. 6 I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, And my spirit searches: 7 Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? 8 Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Have His promises ended for all time? 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion? Selah. 10 And I said, “This is my grief, That the right hand of the Most High has changed [and His lovingkindness is withheld].” 11 I will [solemnly] remember the deeds of the LORD ; Yes, I will [wholeheartedly] remember Your wonders of old. 12 I will meditate on all Your works And thoughtfully consider all Your [great and wondrous] deeds. 13 Your way, O God, is holy [far from sin and guilt]. What god is great like our God? 14 You are the [awesome] God who works [powerful] wonders; You have demonstrated Your power among the people. 15 You have with Your [great] arm redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah. 16 The waters [of the Red Sea] saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were in anguish; The deeps also trembled. 17 The clouds poured down water; The skies sent out a sound [of rumbling thunder]; Your arrows (lightning) flashed here and there. 18 The voice of Your thunder was in the b whirlwind; The lightnings illumined the world; The earth trembled and shook. 19 Your way [of escape for Your people] was through the sea, And Your paths through the great waters, And Your footprints were not traceable. 20 You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron [to the promised goal]. Psalm 78 God’s Guidance of His People in Spite of Their Unfaithfulness. A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of Asaph.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  26 ‘Disaster will come upon disaster and rumor will be heaped on rumor; they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the law and guidance will be lost from the priest and [wise] counsel [will cease] from the elders. [Ps 74:9 ; Lam 2:9 ] 27 ‘The king [of Judah] will mourn and the prince (Zedekiah) will be clothed with [garments of] despair and anguish, and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble [in terror]. I will deal with them in accordance with their conduct, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know [without any doubt] that I am the LORD .’ ” Ezekiel 8 Vision of Repulsive Acts in Jerusalem 1 I T CAME about in the a sixth year [of the captivity of King Jehoiachin], on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I sat in my house [near Babylon] with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord b GOD fell on me there. 2 Then I looked, and behold, a likeness [of a man] with the appearance of fire; from His c loins downward He was like fire, and from His loins upward He had the appearance of brightness, like gleaming metal (bronze). 3 He stretched out the form of a hand and took me by a lock of hair on my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner courtyard, where the seat of the idol (image) of d jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located . [2 Kin 16:10–16 ; 21:4 , 5 ] 4 And behold, the glory and brilliance of the God of Israel [who had loved and chosen them] was there, like the vision which I saw in the plain. [Ezek 1:28 ; 3:22 , 23 ] 5 Then He said to me, “Son of man, now raise your eyes toward the north.” So I looked toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this idol (image) of jealousy at the entrance. 6 Furthermore, He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great repulsive acts which the house of Israel is committing here, to drive Me far away from My sanctuary? But you will again see greater repulsive acts.” 7 Then He brought me to the entrance of the courtyard; and when I looked, behold, [there was] a hole in the wall. 8 He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” And when I had dug into the wall, behold, there was an entrance.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  Lou arched his back, tilting his ass still higher. The miserable room, the weirdness of this transaction, the gurgling and flushing water, the burning lateness of the hour—all chilled me. I’d fallen off the edge of the world. My hero was a pervert, eyelids drooping shut from heroin, inner arm blue with bruises, and now he was cooing like a baby and had curled on his side and was staring up at his savior, his tormentor.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  13 “Your [nation’s] riches and your treasures I will give as plunder without price [to the Babylonians], Because of all your sins And within all your territories. 14 “Then I will make your enemies bring [you along with] your possessions Into a land which you do not know [for there you will serve your conquerors]; For a fire has been kindled in My anger, Which will burn upon you.” Jeremiah’s Prayer and God’s Answer 15 O LORD , You know and understand; Remember me [thoughtfully], take notice of me, take vengeance for me on my persecutors. Do not, in view of Your patience, take me away; Know that for Your sake I endure [continual] rebuke and dishonor. 16 Your words were found and I ate them, And Your words became a joy to me and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts. 17 I did not sit with the group of those who celebrate, Nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because Your [powerful] hand was upon me, For You had filled me with indignation [at their sin]. 18 Why has my pain been perpetual And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you indeed be to me like a deceptive brook With water that is unreliable? 19 Therefore, thus says the LORD [to Jeremiah], “If you repent [and give up this mistaken attitude of despair and self-pity], then I will restore you [to a state of inner peace] So that you may stand before Me [as My obedient representative]; And if you separate the precious from the worthless [examining yourself and cleansing your heart from unwarranted doubt concerning My faithfulness], You will become My spokesman. Let the people turn to you [and learn to value My values]— But you, you must not turn to them [with regard for their idolatry and wickedness]. 20 “And I will make you to this people A fortified wall of bronze; They will fight against you, But they will not prevail over you, For I am with you [always] to save you And b protect you,” says the LORD . 21 “So I will rescue you out of the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the [grasping] palm of the terrible and ruthless [tyrant].” Jeremiah 16 Distresses Foretold 1 T HE WORD of the LORD also came to me, saying, 2 “You shall not take a wife or have sons and daughters in this place (Jerusalem).” 3 For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who give birth to them, and the fathers who father them in this land: 4 “They will die of deadly diseases.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  For this you so love to do, O children of Israel!” Says the Lord GOD . 6 “I also gave you cleanness of teeth [because of the famine] in all your cities And lack of bread in all your places, Yet you have not returned to Me [in repentance],” says the LORD . 7 “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you When there were still three months until the harvest. Then I would send rain on one city, And on another city I would not send rain; One piece of ground was rained on, While the part not rained on would dry up. 8 “So [the people of] two or three cities would stagger into one city to drink water, But would not be satisfied; Yet you have not returned to Me [in repentance],” says the LORD . 9 “I wounded you with blight [from the hot, blasting east wind] and with mildew; And the caterpillar devoured Your many gardens and vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees; Yet you have not returned to Me [in repentance],” says the LORD . 10 “I sent a plague among you like [those of] Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword and I captured your horses, I made the stench of your camp rise up into your nostrils; Yet you have not returned to Me [in repentance],” says the LORD . [2 Kin 8:12 ; 13:3 , 7 ] 11 “I overthrew and destroyed [some among] you, as [I, your] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were [rescued] like a log pulled out of the flame; Yet you have not returned to Me [in repentance],” says the LORD . [Gen 19:24 , 25 ; Is 13:19 ; Jer 49:18 ] 12 “Therefore this is what I shall do to you, O Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God [in judgment], O Israel!” 13 For behold, He who forms the mountains and creates the wind And declares to man what are His thoughts, He who makes the dawn into darkness And treads on the heights of the earth— The LORD God of hosts is His name. [Ps 139:2 ; Dan 2:28 ] Amos 5 “Seek Me that You May Live” 1 H EAR THIS word which I take up for you as a funeral song, O house of Israel: 2 She has fallen, she will not rise again— The virgin Israel. She lies neglected on her land; There is no one to raise her up. 3 For thus says the Lord GOD , “The city which goes forth a thousand strong Will have a hundred left, And the one which goes forth a hundred strong Will have ten left to the house of Israel.” 4 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel, “Seek Me [search diligently for Me and regard Me as more essential than food] so that you may live.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  You can call her Sam.” He yanked me into the room, after I caught a glimpse of a mad grin on Annie’s face at the name Sam. She even mouthed it silently. And then her mouth turned from comic to tragic, and her eyes filled with tears. As soon as he’d closed the door he leaned up against it, as though to keep Sam out. “Oh, my dear, you’d never guess the cheap paperback I’ve made of my life, pure roman de gare—why wasn’t I content to stay a thoughtless queen in quest of big dicks? This GF (by which I mean ‘genital female’ to distinguish her from us, darling, who are women by choice, not by necessity, though in your case I do see the iron hand of fate)—this GF has been turning my life into hell. I haven’t been to class for a week and, listen!” We stood stock still. “Do you hear the typewriters? They keep that up night and day, typing up class notes, they never stop. Or do you think it’s just a tape of typing on a loop to torment me? I may be smart, but more in the sense of isn’t-that-a-smart-hat, anyway, there’s no way to fake an exam on the tort, which I persist in seeing as a soggy onion quiche—or as what you are, a cheap Southern tart who’s plumb wore out.” “But what about Annie? We can’t leave her in the hall like that.” “Why not, Miss Priss? Are you afraid she’ll tattle to Sheila?” That was William’s name for Dr. O’Reilly. “Too late. You’re already in the bitch house with Sheila, who incidentally is on her way up here now (if she doesn’t nod off first) to rescue Sam—so careless of you to hire a shrinker who’s a juicehead and goofball artist; I mean, my dear, I talked to the old fright on the blower and she was as incoherent as I get with ten inches up my bum, only she wasn’t happy about it. She got more foam on the receiver than you get on your skirt when you see a film starring Montgomery Clift, who’s not even worth soppy panties since Monty’s just a tired old fruit herself.” “O’Reilly’s coming here? My God!” and I felt the most terrible guilt. The day was brilliantly cold and sunny. William had thrown a window open, which let in the cold above the sizzling steam heater. Annie came in. Her eyes were huge, enlarged by the smudges she’d made of her mascara. Her body looked all the more emaciated in her slip, and when she started to sob I could see her poor flat belly shaking under the flimsy fabric. William and I sat on the edge of his bed and looked at her as she bent over the sink. She studied her face in a small mirror. Then she splashed cold water all over herself, which at first seemed ordinary except that she didn’t stop.

• From Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017)

  Black humanity and personhood, and a historical knowledge of Black achievement. Of this theoretical impulse undertaken in Black autobiography, Kenneth Mostern avers that “nearly all African American political leaders (regardless of politics; self-designated or appointed by one’s community) have chosen to write personal stories as a means of theorizing their political positions.” 41 Terrell understood her position as “a colored woman in a white world” to be a politicized position, which made her life of activism unique. Thus, her autobiography provided space for her to articulate how her race and gender identity had shaped her life and her politics. Though intersectional accounts of identity are the current order of the day in contemporary feminist scholarship, Terrell’s explicit intersectional framing of her life story, her invocation of a Black woman’s standpoint through which to tell her narrative, is the first of its kind. Black Marriage Politics and Race Work The first chapter begins with an unexpected revelation: Mary’s mother attempted suicide while pregnant with her. She attributes Louisa Church’s actions only to an unexplained “fit of despondency” and then moves swiftly on to fonder memories and descriptions of herself as an infant. 42 Though beginning with one’s origin story is standard for these types of narratives, certainly Terrell narrates an uncommon set of circumstances in framing her own life. She, curiously, never elaborates. Yet, the fact of her mother’s suicide attempt, and her pointed mention of it, points to a history of Black women’s pain and despair that remains largely unimagined and unnarrated or examined in the work of public Black women. Even within public narratives that are largely not meant to give voice to Black women’s interior lives, moments like this point us to a kind of affective archive that emerges in public Black women’s works, and to which we should pay attention to counteract the obscurantism borne of dissemblance. That archive at least gestures toward the debilitating emotional effects of racism and sexism on Black women’s lives, even though these accounts are not fully developed. It is beyond the scope of this book to excavate all the truths Black women’s affective archives might have to tell, but their presence in Black women’s public narratives should be acknowledged and interrogated more fully. Though both her father and mother were formerly enslaved, they were individually and collectively economically prosperous. Her mother was a successful owner of one of Memphis’s most exclusive hair salons and an artist in her spare time. She divorced Mary’s father when Mary was a young girl. Terrell noted that it “pained and embarrassed [her] very much,” since “in those days divorces were not so common as they are now.” 43 The gender relationships that Terrell encountered as a child were very much unconventional. Because the family fared well economically, it is conceivable that Lou Church did not have to work. But her mother was a formidable businesswoman, eventually moving her hair shop to New York after Mary left for school in Ohio.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  But, though few perceive it, are aware of it, the form could not have died unless the spirit had already been killed. Whilst the deterioration of the body takes place—a process which may require centuries—life loses its significance. An unheard-of activity, manifesting itself as much in the pursuits of peaceful scientific men as in wars, screens the complete absence of life. But this abnormal activity is in itself the symbol of the death which has taken place. And our country, which seems to be on the side of peace, for the time being at least, is gripped by a feverish activity. It is here that the death I speak of is taking place most rapidly and effectively, proof for the occult-minded of the fact that here the new germ of man will sprout and bear fruit. Of all that I hint at in the foregoing I naturally knew or understood very little when I began writing. I had two beginnings really, one here in America, which was abortive, and the other in Europe. How was I able to begin again, one may well ask? I should answer truthfully—by dying. In that first year or so in Paris I literally died, was literally annihilated—and resurrected as a new man. The Tropic of Cancer is a sort of human document, written in blood, recording the struggle in the womb of death. The strong sexual odor is, if anything, the aroma of birth, disagreeable, repulsive even, when dissociated from its significance. The Tropic of Capricorn represents another death and birth, the transition, if I may say so, from the conscious artist to the budding spiritual being which is the last phase of evolution. In between I have known many births and deaths, but they were minor ones. But from this point on, my feeling is that whatever metamorphoses are to occur will manifest themselves in the realm of action, in conduct and example rather than in writing. There is in process, then, a gigantic conflict between the artist resolved to finish his task and the man who knows in himself that he is no longer obliged to express his conquests in the medium of language. There is a battle going on, more or less conscious, between Duty and Desire. The part of me which belongs to the world wishes to do its duty: the part of me which belongs to God wishes simply to fulfill what is required and which is unstateable. I am obliged to adapt myself to a struggle in a realm wherein I see nothing to sustain me but my own powers. I have to write retrospectively and act forwardly. If I slip I go down into an abyss from which no man can rescue me. The struggle is on all fronts, ceaselessly and remorselessly. Like every man I am my own worst enemy, but unlike most men I know too that I am my own saviour. I know something of freedom and responsibility.