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.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  Weeping, I demonstrate How sore with reason doth my heart complain Of love betrayed and plighted faith in vain. Love, whenas first there was of thee imprest Thereon[261] her image for whose sake I sigh, Sans hope of succour aye, So full of virtue didst thou her pourtray, That every torment light accounted I That through thee to my breast Grown full of drear unrest And dole, might come; but now, alack! I'm fain To own my error, not withouten pain. Yea, of the cheat first was I made aware, Seeing myself of her forsaken sheer, In whom I hoped alone; For, when I deemed myself most fairly grown Into her favour and her servant dear, Without her thought or care Of my to-come despair, I found she had another's merit ta'en To heart and put me from her with disdain. Whenas I knew me banished from my stead, Straight in my heart a dolorous plaint there grew, That yet therein hath power, And oft I curse the day and eke the hour When first her lovesome visage met my view, Graced with high goodlihead; And more enamouréd Than eye, my soul keeps up its dying strain, Faith, ardour, hope, blaspheming still amain. How void my misery is of all relief Thou mayst e'en feel, so sore I call thee, sire, With voice all full of woe; Ay, and I tell thee that it irks me so That death for lesser torment I desire. Come, death, then; shear the sheaf Of this my life of grief And with thy stroke my madness eke assain; Go where I may, less dire will be my bane. No other way than death is left my spright, Ay, and none other solace for my dole; Then give it[262] me straightway, Love; put an end withal to my dismay: Ah, do it; since fate's spite Hath robbed me of delight; Gladden thou her, lord, with my death, love-slain, As thou hast cheered her with another swain. My song, though none to learn thee lend an ear, I reck the less thereof, indeed, that none Could sing thee even as I; One only charge I give thee, ere I die, That thou find Love and unto him alone Show fully how undear This bitter life and drear Is to me, craving of his might he deign Some better harbourage I may attain. Weeping I demonstrate How sore with reason doth my heart complain Of love betrayed and plighted faith in vain. [Footnote 261: _i.e._ on my heart.] [Footnote 262: _i.e._ death.]

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  No one was moving about any more — there was only a dog, a dog called David. Something had to be done. Go into the bed- room, Stephen Gordon’s bedroom that faced on the courtyard - + « Just a few short steps and then the window. A girl, hatless, with the sun falling full on her hair . . . she was almost runa ning .. . she stumbled a little. But now there were two people down in the courtyard — a man had his hands on the girl’s bowed shoulders. He questioned her, yes, that was it, he questioned; and THE WELL OF LONELINESS 505. > the girl was telling him why she was there, why she had fled from that thick, awful darkness. He was looking at the house, in- credulous, amazed; hesitating as though he were coming in; but the girl went on and the man turned to follow . . . They were side by side, he was gripping her arm . . . They were gone; they had passed out under the archway. Then all in a moment the stillness was shattered: ‘ Mary, come back! Come back to me, Mary!’ David crouched and trembled. He had crawled to the bed, and he lay there watching with his eyes of amber; trembling be- cause such an anguish as this struck across him like the lash of a whip, and what could he do, the poor beast, in his dumbness? She turned and saw him, but only for a moment, for now the room seemed to be thronging with people. Who were they, these strangers with the miserable eyes? And yet, were they all strangers? Surely that was Wanda? And some one with a neat little hole in her side — Jamie clasping Barbara by the hand; Bar- bara with the white flowers of death on her bosom. Oh, but they were many, these unbidden guests, and they called very softly at first and then louder. They were calling her by name, saying: “Stephen, Stephen! ’ The quick, the dead, and the yet unborn — all calling her, softly at first and then louder. Aye, and those lost and terrible brothers from Alec’s, they were here, and they also were calling: ‘ Stephen, Stephen, speak with your God and ask Him why He has left us forsaken!’ She could see their marred and reproachful faces with the haunted, melancholy eyes of the invert — eyes that had looked too long on a world that lacked all pity and all understanding: ‘ Stephen, Stephen, speak with your God and ask Him why He has left us forsaken! ’ And these ter- rible ones started pointing at her with their shaking, white- skinned, effeminate fingers: * You and your kind have stolen our birthright; you have taken our strength and have given us your weakness!’ They were pointing at her with white, shaking fingers.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  I was still seeing Dr. O’Reilly, the psychiatrist I’d first consulted in prep school, desperately trying to go straight. He’d told me I couldn’t attend Harvard but must remain at the local university to be near him. “I’m the only one who can save you, old boy,” he’d said, “because I love you and you know it.” I borrowed a friend’s car and drove the fifty miles each way twice a week to see him. Dr. O’Reilly swallowed amphetamines by the handful in the morning to get going and started calming himself in the evening by sipping bourbon. His waiting room was full of angry birds, the gift of a patient, and Japanese prints. He introduced me to Annie Schroeder, another patient. “Those stuffy Freudians would split a gut,” he said, or rather mumbled, since the pills and alcohol slurred his speech. “But Annie’s a good gal, though she’s got a psycho for an old man, right out of Dostoevsky, and a mother who wants to be Annie’s daughter.” He clapped me on the shoulder with too much force. “A fine gal, Annie, but don’t think I’m jealous. I’m not the avenging father.” If I started from the premise I was sick (and what could be sicker than my compulsive cruising?), then I had to question everything I thought and did. My opinions didn’t count, since my judgment was obviously skewed. If I found something beautiful, perhaps it was merely decorative; if I regarded a couple as happy, admirable, I was sure to have chosen the wrong example, the people most likely to confirm my neurosis and lead me deviously back to my illness. If I argued a point, I was being over-intellectual (a sin I’d already become aware of from the painters and which Dr. O’Reilly considered the most serious impediment to my mental health). The mind as its own enemy. The mind desperate to outwit itself. The mind claiming virtue but intent on preserving its own viciousness. The mind a boat at sea rebuilding itself while under sail. The mind a rotting meat under expensive spices. The mind a pure spirit (the unsuspecting wife) under the sway of a murderous will (Bluebeard). Perhaps that’s why Buddhism appealed to me. It denied the existence of the soul, the will, and even the self and sought to show that only illusion lends a spurious unity and dynamism to so many separate, detachable sentiments. For me, Buddhism was the welcome prediction of cosmic collapse, spiritual entropy.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  [Jer 29:10 ] 13 ‘I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. 14 ‘(For many nations and great kings will make slaves of them, even the Chaldeans [who enslaved other nations]; and I will repay [all of] them according to their deeds and according to the work of their [own] hands.)’ ” 15 For thus says the LORD , the God of Israel, to me, “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. 16 “They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.” 17 Then I (Jeremiah) took the cup from the LORD ’s hand and made all the nations to whom the LORD had sent me drink it: 18 Jerusalem and the cities of Judah [being most guilty because their privileges were greatest], its kings and princes, to make them a horror, a ruin, a hissing and a curse, as it is to this day; [1 Pet 4:17 ] 19 Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes, all his people, 20 and all the foreign (mixed) population, all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines (and [their cities of] Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod); 21 Edom, Moab, and the children of Ammon; 22 all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the islands and the coastlands across the [Mediterranean] Sea; 23 Dedan, Tema, Buz [the neighboring tribes north of Arabia], and all who clip off the side-growth of their hair; [Lev 19:27 ; Jer 9:26 ] 24 all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign population who live in the desert; 25 all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam (Persia), and all the kings of Media; 26 all the kings of the north, far and near, one after another—and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth. And the king of Sheshach (Babylon) shall drink after them. 27 “Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Drink, be drunk, vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword which I will send among you.” ’ 28 “And if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you will say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “You shall surely drink! 29 “For behold, I am beginning to work disaster in the city which is called by My Name, and shall you go unpunished?

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  And then, after I closed and locked the door, I was alone. I had a record player and twelve records, which I played over and over again, especially the Bartók violin concerto, its harmonies edgy enough to make me feel modern but its sweep romantic enough to hurl me back on the bed in a flood of ardor. Until then I’d always wanted to write, but when I did, I wrote down nothing but the time and key signatures of my feelings or the chords. Most of the melody, as it were, remained in my head, and all the orchestration. Endless scenes of he said-she said poured forth from my pen, the automatic transcription of what I was currently living through, but my characters remained voices in the dark. I never described them or said what I was feeling. I took a creative writing course from a published novelist, who told me during a private conference, “You should arrange the nouns in each paragraph like the heads in a painting by Uccello.” “Utrillo?” I said brightly. He turned away in disgust. But now I read a collection of short stories by new writers, and I saw they did something I can only call “braiding,” the interlacing of phrases, details, snatches of dialogue. Until now I’d written mindless confession in a desperate effort to keep my head above the rising waters of despair and confusion, which could also be called the flood of circumstantiality. Nothing had ever seemed more important to me than who said what first, what she said back, and where it happened, but now I was toying with the idea, gleaned from my recent reading, that a design of sorts, not a stencil but a weave, could be teased out of all these balls of yarn. I’d drag men back to my room, one after another, guiding them up the fire escape into my window; they didn’t want to be seen by the other boarders any more than I wanted them seen. Afterward they’d smile awkwardly, dress, stand on tiptoe to comb their hair in my pointlessly high desk mirror, say, “Well, see you ’round,” and duck out the window and back down the rusting metal steps that boomed faintly with each step. Once the man was gone, I’d return to my story. I’d switch on my record of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut or Bartók’s violin concerto and pour myself a shot of Drambuie, a liqueur I didn’t realize was meant to be a sort of liquid dessert, not a steady drink. In a moment I’d weigh anchor, the white room would drift into a fast current, and I’d be alone with my characters. No mother to say, “Lights out,” no dormitory master patrolling the corridors, no fraternity brothers interrupting me, just four walls of my own, rent paid, and five months to go until summer vacation would spoil my sport. My lights burned their way into the dawn.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  But as the weeks with Lou went by, something in me rebelled against him. I wanted my own way. If I put my will aside temporarily, I did so to learn from Lou, for never before had I met someone who was so much an artist and so little an intellectual. If I gave a story an overly ingenious title, he’d say, “But a title should simply name what’s going on, like a good picture caption. Family Portrait is a good title, as is Early Death.” Slow smile. “Of course Faulkner titles are the best. Light in August. Did you know light is an old word for ‘pregnant’?” Lou hated “college-boy” advertising slogans, clever take-offs on Shakespeare or the Bible (“The spirits are willing but the flesh is weak” for a hangover pill). “No, the dumber the better. Shrink hemorrhoids is still classic,” he told me with deep serenity in the way he said “classic.” Lou’s eerie aestheticism—based on his conviction that he possessed a perfect ear and an irreproachable sense of decorum—took on anything and everything. He had an aesthetic of religion (Catholic orthodoxy over corny Protestant cultism), an aesthetic of psychoanalysis (Freud, not that seedy Jung), an aesthetic of drugs (the deadly nightshade of heroin rather than the “loco weed” of marijuana; “Pot’s for people who want to feel funny, like those cows that get high on loco weed and run into electric fences”). One night toward the end of August I was sleeping upstairs in my mother’s apartment. I’d waited for his call all evening and I’d called him several times without success. Now Lou wanted to see me. He breathed noisily and said with a thick tongue, “Bunny, I need—” and then the receiver must have fallen out of his grasp, since I could hear him still mumbling to himself. I hurried downstairs in the elevator. I rang his doorbell again and again, and even knocked, but I didn’t want to create a scene. His neighbors had already complained to the management. At last he opened the door. A centimeter of cigarette smoked in his hand. Behind him in shoals of faint light, the wreck of his furniture was heaped up. He walked with the floating gait of someone moved by tides, not the will. “Lou, honey, what’s wrong?” I asked him. I followed him into the bedroom. His black cat was gorging itself on an overturned carton of chop suey Lou must have ordered in. I watched the cat swallow lump after lump of glutinous vegetables pooling on the carpet. Its working throat was reflected by the mirror that had fallen off the hook. The mirror had cracked in half but stayed upright. Glasses of rum and Coke stood empty or half full on every flat surface. The impression was of a middle-class apartment where a tribe of bums had been squatting for weeks. The fluorescent tube in the bathroom and the television screen, empty picture rolling, provided the only light.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  To that primitive skepticism I now added cynicism—not a mustache-twirling glee but a cynicism I took and ate with barnyard docility. People were bodies, I thought; the only valuable people have beautiful bodies; since my body isn’t beautiful, I’m worthless. That was the humble feed I pecked at night and day. Every time I returned to the Main Hall toilets I thought to myself, “Well, here we are again.” Unlike those babied straight people, I was incapable of self-deception. Paradoxically (and this thought was as real as it was slippery), the toilets—their very degradation, my enslavement to them—struck me as the “big time.” Something so debased must be real, I thought. Like a whore who returns to the strip, I said, “Okay, here I am again, back in the Life.” O’Reilly at my next session said, as he picked a red spot on his nose that had become infected, “For chrissake, what the hell have you done to our Annie, fixing her up with that sicko?” “I didn’t fix them up,” I said. “She’s in a hell of a mess. I had to work with her all night. She’s sleeping peacefully now. I have to get this off my chest with you. I’m not one of those goddam Freudian tin gods claiming I have no feelings.” “But what happened?” I resented O’Reilly’s meddling, feared his rejection. I needed him. My addiction to homosexuality must end, must end soon, and he had said only he could save me. I was being shaped and stunted by my desires—sex with men had even entered my dreams. The army test would pick up a dilation of my pupils, and William Everett Hunton had sworn I was getting a “cocksucker’s mouth—like mine!” he’d added brightly. “Big pouty lips. And our skin is smoother, like a girl’s, and our hips fleshier, maybe just a millimeter, and our nipples are more sensitive; one of mine even gave a drop of milk once. You can tell who’s gay—the little mincy steps, the loose wrists, the overly mobile features, lips always pouting in a moue” (which he pronounced “moo-ay,” on the theory that sounded more French), “the cadaverous chest and skinny waist, the estrogen-shiny hair, and of course the voice!” He shrieked to demonstrate, ran to the window, and called out, attracted the attention of grinning law students passing by: “Yoo-hoo, young boys!” He was being the giddy matron with the warbling operatic voice. “Young boys, cuckoo, cuckoo! Up here, Duckies, come up here to your very own Gertrude and Alice.” Sotto voce: “That’s you, Gertrude—suits you, today’s mannish woman on the go, the avant-garde scribbler.” “What do you mean ‘sicko’?” I asked O’Reilly. “What did William do?” “You’ll have to ask Annie, if she’ll be good enough to ride with you.”

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

  It mistakes the duty of love; not rarely, under its mask of humility and the utmost self-denial, cherishes spiritual pride and jealousy; and exposes itself to all the dangers of solitude, even to savage barbarism, beastly grossness, or despair and suicide. Anthony, the father of anchorets, well understood this, and warned his followers against overvaluing solitude, reminding them of the proverb of the Preacher, iv. 10: "Woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up." The cloister life was less exposed to these errors. It approached the life of society and civilization. Yet, on the other hand, it produced no such heroic phenomena, and had dangers peculiar to itself. Chrysostom gives us the bright side of it from his own experience. "Before the rising of the sun," says he of the monks of Antioch, "they rise, hale and sober, sing as with one mouth hymns to the praise of God, then bow the knee in prayer, under the direction of the abbot, read the holy Scriptures, and go to their labors; pray again at nine, twelve, and three o’clock; after a good day’s work, enjoy a simple meal of bread and salt, perhaps with oil, and sometimes with pulse; sing a thanksgiving hymn, and lay themselves on their pallets of straw without care, grief, or murmur. When one dies, they say: ’He is perfected;’ and all pray God for a like end, that they also may come to the eternal sabbath-rest and to the vision of Christ." Men like Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory, Jerome, Nilus, and Isidore, united theological studies with the ascetic exercises of solitude, and thus gained a copious knowledge of Scripture and a large spiritual experience. But most of the monks either could not even read, or had too little intellectual culture to devote themselves with advantage to contemplation and study, and only brooded over gloomy feelings, or sank, in spite of the unsensual tendency of the ascetic principle, into the coarsest anthropomorphism and image worship. When the religious enthusiasm faltered or ceased, the cloister life, like the hermit life, became the most spiritless and tedious routine, or hypocritically practised secret vices. For the monks carried with them into their solitude their most dangerous enemy in their hearts, and there often endured much fiercer conflicts with flesh and blood, than amidst the society of men. The temptations of sensuality, pride, and ambition externalized and personified themselves to the anchorets and monks in hellish shapes, which appeared in visions and dreams, now in pleasing and seductive, now in threatening and terrible forms and colors, according to the state of mind at the time. The monastic imagination peopled the deserts and solitudes with the very worst society, with swarms of winged demons and all kinds of hellish monsters.297 It substituted thus a new kind of polytheism for the heathen gods, which were generally supposed to be evil spirits.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  I listened and nodded and felt obliged to go along with him. I had to scramble all the chromosomes of my beliefs to match his gene by gene. From my psychoanalysis and from my more private self-doubts—my certainty that the basic things in me were all wrong—I’d picked up the habit of mistrusting my instincts. But as the weeks with Lou went by, something in me rebelled against him. I wanted my own way. If I put my will aside temporarily, I did so to learn from Lou, for never before had I met someone who was so much an artist and so little an intellectual. If I gave a story an overly ingenious title, he’d say, “But a title should simply name what’s going on, like a good picture caption. Family Portrait is a good title, as is Early Death .” Slow smile. “Of course Faulkner titles are the best. Light in August . Did you know light is an old word for ‘pregnant’?” Lou hated “college-boy” advertising slogans, clever take-offs on Shakespeare or the Bible (“The spirits are willing but the flesh is weak” for a hangover pill). “No, the dumber the better. Shrink hemorrhoids is still classic,” he told me with deep serenity in the way he said “classic.” Lou’s eerie aestheticism—based on his conviction that he possessed a perfect ear and an irreproachable sense of decorum—took on anything and everything. He had an aesthetic of religion (Catholic orthodoxy over corny Protestant cultism), an aesthetic of psychoanalysis (Freud, not that seedy Jung), an aesthetic of drugs (the deadly nightshade of heroin rather than the “loco weed” of marijuana; “Pot’s for people who want to feel funny , like those cows that get high on loco weed and run into electric fences”). One night toward the end of August I was sleeping upstairs in my mother’s apartment. I’d waited for his call all evening and I’d called him several times without success. Now Lou wanted to see me. He breathed noisily and said with a thick tongue, “Bunny, I need—” and then the receiver must have fallen out of his grasp, since I could hear him still mumbling to himself. I hurried downstairs in the elevator. I rang his doorbell again and again, and even knocked, but I didn’t want to create a scene. His neighbors had already complained to the management. At last he opened the door. A centimeter of cigarette smoked in his hand. Behind him in shoals of faint light, the wreck of his furniture was heaped up. He walked with the floating gait of someone moved by tides, not the will. “Lou, honey, what’s wrong?” I asked him. I followed him into the bedroom. His black cat was gorging itself on an overturned carton of chop suey Lou must have ordered in. I watched the cat swallow lump after lump of glutinous vegetables pooling on the carpet. Its working throat was reflected by the mirror that had fallen off the hook.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  6 Their webs will not serve as clothing, Nor will they cover themselves with what they make; Their works are works of wickedness [of sin, of injustice, of wrongdoing], And the act of violence is in their hands. 7 Their feet run to evil, And they rush to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of wickedness [of sin, of injustice, of wrongdoing]; Devastation and destruction are in their highways. 8 They do not know the way of peace, And there is no justice in their tracks. They have made them into crooked paths; Whoever walks on them does not know peace. [Rom 3:15–18 ] A Confession of Wickedness 9 Therefore justice is far from us, And righteousness does not overtake us. We [expectantly] hope for light, but only see darkness; We hope for gleam of light, but we walk in darkness and gloom. 10 We grope for a wall like the blind, We grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight; Among those who are healthy we are like dead men. 11 We all groan and growl like bears, And coo sadly like doves; We hope for justice, but there is none, For salvation, but it is far from us. 12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You [O LORD ], And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And we know and recognize our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing]: 13 Rebelling against and denying the LORD , Turning away from [following] our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and muttering from the heart lying words. 14 Justice is pushed back, And righteous behavior stands far away; For truth has fallen in the city square, And b integrity cannot enter. 15 Yes, truth is missing; And he who turns away from evil makes himself a prey. N ow the LORD saw it, And it c displeased Him that there was no justice. 16 He saw that there was no man, And was amazed that there was no one to intercede [on behalf of truth and right]; Therefore His own arm brought salvation to Him, And His own righteousness sustained Him. [Is 53:11 ; Col 2:9 ; 1 John 2:1 , 2 ] 17 For He [the LORD ] put on righteousness like a coat of armor, And salvation like a helmet on His head; He put on garments of vengeance for clothing And covered Himself with zeal [and great love for His people] as a cloak. [Eph 6:14 , 17 ; 1 Thess 5:8 ] 18 As their deeds deserve, so He will repay: Wrath to His adversaries, retribution to His enemies; To the islands and coastlands He will repay. 19 So they will fear the name of the LORD from the west And His glory from the rising of the sun. For He will come in like a narrow, rushing stream Which the d breath of the LORD drives [overwhelming the enemy].

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  18 ‘Why then did You bring me out of the womb? Would that I had perished and no eye had seen me! 19 ‘I should have been as though I had not existed; [I should have been] carried from the womb to the grave.’ 20 “Would He not let my few days alone, Withdraw from me that I may have a little cheer 21 Before I go—and I shall not return— To the land of darkness and the deep shadow [of death], 22 The [sunless] land of utter gloom as darkness itself , [The land] of the shadow of death, without order, And [where] it shines as [thick] darkness.” Job 11 Zophar Rebukes Job 1 T HEN ZOPHAR the Naamathite answered and said, 2 “Shall a multitude of words not be answered? And should a talkative man [making such a long-winded defense] be acquitted? 3 “Should your boasts and babble silence men? And shall you scoff and no one put you to shame? 4 “For you have said, ‘My teaching (doctrine) [that God knowingly afflicts the righteous] is pure, And I am innocent in your eyes.’ [Job 10:7 ] 5 “But oh, that God would speak, And open His lips [to speak] against you, 6 And [that He would] show you the secrets of wisdom! For sound wisdom a has two sides. Know therefore that God forgets a part of your wickedness and guilt. 7 “Can you discover the depths of God? Can you [by searching] discover the limits of the Almighty [ascend to His heights, extend to His widths, and comprehend His infinite perfection]? 8 “His wisdom is as high as the heights of heaven. What can you do? It is deeper than Sheol (the nether world, the place of the dead). What can you know? 9 “It is longer in measure [and scope] than the earth, And broader than the sea. 10 “If God passes by or arrests, Or calls an assembly [of judgment], who can restrain Him? [If He is against a man, who can call Him to account for it?] 11 “For He recognizes and knows false and worthless men, And He sees wickedness, will He not consider it? 12 “But a hollow (empty-headed) man will become intelligent and wise [Only] when the b colt of a wild donkey is born as a man. 13 “If you direct your heart [on the right path] And stretch out your hands to Him, 14 If sin is in your hand, put it far away [from you], And do not let wrongdoing dwell in your tents; 15 Then, indeed, you could lift up your face [to Him] without moral defect, And you would be firmly established and secure and not fear. 16 “For you would forget your trouble; You would remember it as waters that have passed by. 17 “And your c life would be brighter than the noonday; Darkness [then] would be like the morning.

• 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 .