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 Pisces (2018)

  Things were so bad for me by the end—the end of my last run. It could have killed me, easily. If I ever end up in that emotional space again? In a way, I think I’d be lucky to be dead. It would be worse to roam the planet, a tormented soul, for the rest of my life.” Maybe this was why I was in group, to remind people like her of the hell that awaited them just on the other side. I was here to be a cautionary tale. “How did you get through your withdrawal without dying?” I asked. “I just kept going. One minute at a time. And gradually I saw that the feelings didn’t destroy me.” “But you were forced to give him up, right? You didn’t choose to do it. I mean, he got a restraining order?” “What does a restraining order mean to people like us? In the face of our kind of obsession? But I guess, technically, yes, I was forbidden from being with him. I didn’t make the choice.” So there it was. She hadn’t so much recovered as she was stopped by the law. I pictured her like a marionette, a marionette of obsessive love, with a judge pulling the strings. She was running in place, like a boxer, but could not move toward what she thought she loved. “But what if you could be with him? If you could be with him again, wouldn’t you do it in a heartbeat?” “No, I wouldn’t,” she said quickly. “Come on. What if he was standing right here on the sidewalk?” She thought about it for a second and the corners of her mouth twitched downward. “Do I still miss him? Yes, I do. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. But I don’t miss what being with him took away from me.” “Like what?” “Everything,” she said. “Dignity, sanity. My life.” “What was the restraining order for anyway?” I said. “It’s embarrassing.” “Come on. I’m in child’s pose on the sidewalk.” She laughed. I’d never seen her laugh before. “Fine,” she said. “One day I saw his wife out walking. I’d never met her, only stalked her on the Internet. But there she was, power walking down Montana right in front of me. And I thought about how unfair it was that I knew so much about her, from the stalking, and she didn’t even know I existed. I just felt livid about it. And I sort of chased her down…with my Prius.” “No!” “It’s true.” “You chased her down! Like tried to run her over?” “I wouldn’t have said that at the time. But yes, that’s what I was doing.” “My God, that’s amazing.” I laughed. “It’s not,” she said. “It’s pretty disgusting.” “I suddenly like you so much more,” I said. “You shouldn’t. None of it was her fault. It was her husband’s fault.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  So she said yet again, only now she spoke loudly: ‘I won’t have you interfering in my home!’ Then Stephen turned on her, white with passion: ‘You—you—’ she stuttered, ‘you’re unspeakably cruel. You know how you make me suffer and suffer because I love you the way I do; and because you like the way I love you, you drag the love out of me day after day—Can’t you understand that I love you so much that I’d give up Morton? Anything I’d give up—I’d give up the whole world. Angela, listen; I’d take care of you always. Angela, I’m rich—I’d take care of you always. Why won’t you trust me? Answer me—why? Don’t you think me fit to be trusted?’ She spoke wildly, scarcely knowing what she said; she only knew that she needed this woman with a need so intense, that worthy or unworthy, Angela was all that counted at that moment. And now she stood up, very tall, very strong, yet a little grotesque in her pitiful passion, so that looking at her Angela trembled—there was something rather terrible about her. All that was heavy in her face sprang into view, the strong line of the jaw, the square, massive brow, the eyebrows too thick and too wide for beauty; she was like some curious, primitive thing conceived in a turbulent age of transition. ‘Angela, come very far away—anywhere, only come with me soon—to-morrow. ’ Then Angela forced herself to think quickly, and she said just five words: ‘Could you marry me, Stephen?’ She did not look at the girl as she said it—that she could not do, perhaps out of something that, for her, was the nearest she would ever come to pity. There ensued a long, almost breathless silence, while Angela waited with her eyes turned away. A leaf dropped, and she heard its minute, soft falling, heard the creak of the branch that had let fall its leaf as a breeze passed over the garden. Then the silence was broken by a quiet, dull voice, that sounded to her like the voice of a stranger: ‘No—’ it said very slowly, ‘no—I couldn’t marry you, Angela.’ And when Angela at last gained the courage to look up, she found that she was sitting there alone. CHAPTER 22 1 W hen they got back to Morton there was Puddle in the hall, with that warm smile of hers, always just a little mocking yet pitiful too, that queer composite smile that made her face so arresting. And the sight of this faithful little grey woman brought home to Stephen the fact that she had missed her. She had missed her, she found, out of all proportion to the size of the creature, which seemed to have diminished.

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

  It invoked upon him the curse of beholding with his own eyes the destruction of his children by their enemies.213 During Clement’s pontificate, 1348–1349, the Black Death swept over Europe from Hungary to Scotland and from Spain to Sweden, one of the most awful and mysterious scourges that has ever visited mankind. It was reported by all the chroniclers of the time, and described by Boccaccio in the introduction to his novels. According to Villani, the disease appeared as carbuncles under the armpits or in the groin, sometimes as big as an egg, and was accompanied with devouring fever and vomiting of blood. It also involved a gangrenous inflammation of the lungs and throat and a fetid odor of the breath. In describing the virulence of the infection, a contemporary said that one sick person was sufficient to infect the whole world.214 The patients lingered at most a day or two. Boccaccio witnessed the progress of the plague as it spread its ravages in Florence.215 Such measures of sanitation as were then known were resorted to, such as keeping the streets of the city clean and posting up elaborate rules of health. Public religious services and processions were appointed to stay

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  They exposed the ambivalence and weakness of Christians, and their cowardice, whereas Communism brought out their strength. And, in the last resort, the Nazis were much more implacably determined to stamp out Christianity. When the Christian aristocrats who had taken part in the July 1944 plot were brought to trial, the president of the court, Roland Freisler, told their leader: ‘Count Moltke, Christianity and we Nazis have one thing in common and one only: we claim the whole man.’ The real threat of Nazism to Christianity was proclaimed far more loudly by the Nazis themselves than by the official Catholic leaders, who largely ignored it – at any rate in Germany, Austria and Italy. Hitler’s plans for Christianity were more draconian than anything envisaged by the Russians. He told his entourage on 13 December 1941: ‘The war will be over one day. I shall then consider that my life’s final task will be to solve the religious problem.... The final state must be: in the pulpit, a senile officiant; facing him, a few sinister old women, as gaga and poor in spirit as anyone could wish.’ Anti-Christian activities undertaken in Poland and elsewhere were more ferocious than anything contrived by the Russians, and applied equally to Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches. Himmler said: ‘We shall not rest until we have rooted out Christianity.’ The Nazi image of the future was adumbrated in the experimental area of the Warthegau, carved out of former Polish territories and handed over completely to party control as a tabula rasa. The plan involved not merely the separation of Church and State but the progressive and systematic destruction of religion. Did Pius XII know of this? He was usually well-briefed on what was going on. Eventually, Pius made a speech to the College of Cardinals. Nazism he said was a satanic spectre ... the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of his doctrine and of his work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity’. But it was then June 1945, the Germans had surrendered and Hitler was safely dead. Thus the Second World War inflicted even more grievous blows on the moral standing of the Christian faith than the First. It exposed the emptiness of the churches in Germany, the cradle of the Reformation, and the cowardice and selfishness of the Holy See. It was the nemesis of triumphalism, in both its Protestant and Catholic forms. Yet the Christian record was not entirely shameful. Christian resistance to Hitler and the Nazis had been weak and ineffectual, yet it did exist – it was more persistent and principled than that of any other element in German society. Some Christians in the West recognized its existence and tried to strengthen it; there was a slender line of Christian communication across the abyss of war.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “But love is…” She paused. “Well, love might be something beyond words. It’s funny, in all my years of doing this job, I still don’t really have the words for it.” “Right,” I said. “I think the place for you to start, the question that you might want to ask yourself, isn’t so much what is love,” she said. “But is it really love I’m looking for?” 48.The same smell of mashed potatoes and dirty scalps greeted me at the psych ward as I checked in to visit Claire. This time, though, I felt no stronger than the patients there. I guess this was how it came to that. This was how a person became crazy. I knew I was very close. I had known for quite some time, despite not wanting to know. Theo’s sparkle had blotted it out. It eclipsed what, deep down, I already knew. I thought about what Dr. Jude had said. She sounded good. Her words were philosophical, wise, poetic even. But words didn’t make me miss Theo any less. Claire looked incredibly stoned. I had seen the med cups lined up near the front of the hall and the nurse dividing up all different kinds of pills. I assumed Claire was on quite the cocktail. The whole thing reminded me of a documentary I once saw on a methadone clinic. It seemed like they were just doing harm reduction, switching her from one dependency to another. Now, instead of dicks and whatever unprescribed pills she’d been taking, they were giving her an even stronger dose of prescribed shit. Meds for dicks. It seemed like a decent trade. And it seemed like it was working, at least as long as she could stay high. She was strangely at peace with her surroundings, like a hypnotized yogi. Maybe she was too stoned to feel the vile aura of where she was. I guess the drugs transformed the stench into something more palatable, the way they did to one’s own emotions. I was glad to see that she still recognized me through her haze. “You!” she called when she saw me. “Hi, baby,” I said. “How are you?” She said she was doing well—so well, in fact, that she might not even have to go to treatment. But she wanted to go and had decided to go, regardless. “Do you want to know what’s strange?” she asked. “I find myself enjoying the group therapy here, just listening to people. They have all sorts of fucked-up problems, far beyond mine—far beyond everyone from the women’s group. It’s like if Sara the foot-toucher were on acid all the time. It makes me grateful for my own problems. I would love to bring the two groups together into one big circle of healing. This way, when Brianne is complaining about Millionaire Match, she can be reminded that at least she doesn’t have auditory hallucinations. Maybe I’m destined to lead a group-therapy exchange program.”

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The dynamism it has unleashed has brought massacre and torture, intolerance and destructive pride on a huge scale, for there is a cruel and pitiless nature in man which is sometimes impervious to Christian restraints and encouragements. But without these restraints, bereft of these encouragements, how much more horrific the history of these last 2,000 years must have been! Christianity has not made man secure or happy or even dignified. But it supplies a hope. It is a civilizing agent. It helps to cage the beast. It offers glimpses of real freedom, intimations of a calm and reasonable existence. Even as we see it, distorted by the ravages of humanity, it is not without beauty. In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world, and it is not encouraging. We know that Christian insistence on man’s potentiality for good is often disappointed; but we are also learning that man’s capacity for evil is almost limitless – is limited, indeed, only by his own expanding reach. Man is imperfect with God. Without God, what is he? As Francis Bacon put it: ‘They that deny God destroy man’s nobility: for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature.’ We are less base and ignoble by virtue of divine example and by the desire for the form of apotheosis which Christianity offers. In the dual personality of Christ we are offered a perfected image of ourselves, an eternal pace-setter for our striving. By such means our history over the last two millennia has reflected the effort to rise above our human frailties. And to that extent, the chronicle of Christianity is an edifying one. Select BibliographyAddington, Raleigh, ed., Faber, Poet and Priest. Selected Letters by Frederick William Faber from 1833–1863 (London 1974) Ahlstron, Sidney A., A Religious History of the American People (New Haven 1972) Aigrain, René, L’Hagiographie: ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire (Paris 1953) Albright, W.F., From the Stone Age to Christianity (Baltimore 1957) Alphanery, A. and Dupront, A., La Chrétienté et l’idée de la Croisade, 2 vols. (Paris 1954–9) Andreson, H., Jesus and Christian Origins (New York 1964) Atiya, A.S., A History of Eastern Christianity (London 1968) Atkinson, James, Martin Luther and the Birth of Protestantism (London 1968) Attwater, Donald, ed., The Penguin Dictionary of Saints (London 1965) Bailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard 1967) Bainton, R., ‘The development and consistency of Luther’s attitude to religious liberty’, Harvard Theological Review (1929) Bainton, R., ‘The parable of the Tares as the proof text for religious liberty to the end of the sixteenth century’, Church History (London 1932) Bainton, R.H., Erasmus of Christendom (London 1970) Baker, Derek, ‘Vir Dei: Secular sanctity in the early 10th century’, Studies in Church History (Cambridge 1972) Bald, R.C., John Donne: A Life (Oxford 1970) Barley, M.W.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Furthermore, we declare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.’ One of the great tragedies of human history – and the central tragedy of Christianity – is the break-up of the harmonious world-order which had evolved, in the Dark Ages, on a Christian basis. Men had agreed, or at least had appeared to agree, on an all-enveloping theory of society which not only aligned virtue with law and practice, but allotted to everyone in it precise, Christian-orientated tasks. There need be no arguments or divisions because everyone endorsed the principles on which the system was run. They had to. Membership of the society, and acceptance of its rules, was ensured by baptism, which was compulsory and irrevocable. The unbaptized, that is the Jews, were not members of the society at all; their lives were spared but otherwise they had no rights. Those who, in effect, renounced their baptism by infidelity or heresy, were killed. For the remainder, there was total agreement and total commitment. The points on which men argued were slender, compared to the huge areas of complete acquiescence which embraced almost every aspect of their lives. Yet these slender points of difference were important, and they tended to enlarge themselves. There were flaws in the theory of society, reflected in its imagery. If society was a body, what made up its directing head? Was it Christ, who thus personally directed both arms, one – the secular rulers – wielding the temporal sword, the other – the Church – handling the spiritual one? But if Christ directed, who was his earthly vicar? There was no real agreement on this issue. The popes had been claiming to be vicars of St Peter since very early times. Later, they tended to raise this claim, and call themselves vicars of Christ. But kings, too, and a fortiori emperors, claimed a divine vicariate derived from their coronation; sometimes it was of God the Father, sometimes of Christ; when it was the former, the Christ-vicariate, being in some way inferior, was relegated to the Church. Now none of this should have mattered in the slightest. Since the vicarial direction, in all cases, was coming from the same source – Heaven – and since, presumably, there was no disagreement between the Father and the Son and St Peter, it should have made no difference who was vicar of whom. The direction would be the same, and all would obey. Alas, experience showed that this did not always happen. So Christian theory had an answer to this point. There could be wicked emperors, kings, popes, bishops. They represented the work of the Devil, who might well contrive, from time to time, to get one of his own elected to such offices. But this would soon become manifest; God would then arrange that they would be detected, judged and deprived. But such a process implied a court. Whose court?

• From The Pisces (2018)

  But nothing terrible had happened. In fact something beautiful had occurred—or, at least, it was supposed to be beautiful. Would the pain begin to outweigh the beauty? How much pain would I have to get into before I gave up on pursuing beauty? And what would I do then anyway? No, I wouldn’t stop. Even if the experience became only pain, eclipsing the beauty entirely, I would wait at those rocks. I would wait for that little bit of relief that fed the pain in the first place. And what if I really were to stay in Venice and not return to Phoenix? Would it even be possible? Would Theo even want me here? I knew nothing about his patterns of migration or anything about his life. Maybe he took off for other places at other times of the year. How did I know that he wouldn’t be leaving? And what about Annika? Her love had always been across a distance. Even in her act of kindness this summer we were never together in the same space. How would she feel about me taking root where she lived? Would it expose a less geographic, more profound internal distance in our relationship? I was scared to need her, to ask for more than she could give. I didn’t want to be rejected by her again. Venice looked like nothingness to me now—the same nothingness that I had fled Phoenix to escape. The only difference was that I still had Theo. He hadn’t gone anywhere. I would see him tomorrow night. In the past the emptiness came when the person rejected me and would not be coming back, like Jamie or Garrett. But I was going to see Theo again, this I pretty much knew. We were connected. So how, in spite of this, had the emptiness made its way in anyway? I wandered into a fancy convenience store, crying next to the chips. I realized that I hadn’t eaten all day. I got a pint of strawberry ice cream and sat on a bench outside the store, watching people walk by. I wasn’t sure what time it was. There were a lot of couples, hand-in-hand. I imagined that when these couples broke apart for a time, when they took a day apart, they didn’t crumble and get sick like me. I was different from most people. Whatever this thing was, I definitely had it and it was only getting worse.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Their rival future projections were thus very different. But they rested on similar assumptions. The paramountcy of the West – intellectual, economic, military and political – would be maintained. Indeed, it would be fortified. And Christianity would continue to be the beneficiary of western strength. The West still rested on an essentially Christian framework of beliefs and ethics. And Westerners, as individuals, were overwhelmingly Christian in their outlook and expectations. The historical process begun by the First World War has demonstrated the fragility of all these certitudes. If 1914 was a watershed in the history of monarchy and legitimacy, of privilege and liberal capitalism, of western imperialism and the domination of the white race – if it foreshadowed the destruction of all these institutions – it was also a devastating blow to Christianity. In one respect it demonstrated the futility of the type of rearguard action conducted by Pius X, since the march of change was seen to be less the work of conscientious scholars than of huge implacable forces beyond the control of any pontiff or Holy Office. More damagingly, though, the war also drew attention to the superficial hold Christianity appeared to possess over the passions of multitudes or the actions of their governments. European Christianity, supposedly based on a common moral foundation, proved no more able than the network of marriage relationships among the royal families to prevent Armageddon, or to stop it degenerating into mutual genocide. The doctrinal and ecclesiastical divisions of Christianity, so rich in history, so stridently debated and defended, proved equally, if not more, irrelevant. All the participants claimed they were killing in the name of moral principle. All in fact pursued purely secular aims. Religious beliefs and affiliations played no part whatever in the alignments. On one side were ranged Protestant Germany, Catholic Austria, Orthodox Bulgaria and Moslem Turkey. On the other were Protestant Britain, Catholic France and Italy, and Orthodox Russia. Thus divided, the Christian churches could, and did, play no part in transcending the struggle and bringing about reconciliation. Clergymen were unable, and for the most part unwilling, to place Christian faith before nationality. Most took the easy way out and equated Christianity with patriotism. Christian soldiers of all denominations were exhorted to kill each other in the name of their Saviour. Some clergy went further. The provision in canon law forbidding priests to bear arms, or shed blood, was in effect suspended, and about 79,000 Catholic priests and nuns were mobilized. Of these, 45,000 came from France alone, and over 5,000 French priests were killed in action. In Britain, clergy were exempt but served the war effort in any capacity they could. Hensley Henson, future Bishop of Durham, noted of the outbreak of war: ‘We hastened back to Durham, and were soon immersed in the excitements and activities of bellicose preparations’ – in his case a tour of the county with the Lord Lieutenant to raise recruits for the Durham Light Infantry.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I was going to backtrack, to ask him what could be possible. Could I take him with me? Could he ever exist in a desert? But he put his hands over his face and began moaning. “Theo,” I said. He wouldn’t answer me and seemed to be in a trance. It was like he’d become a Siren. As Homer said, the Sirens had gorgeous, melodic voices, but they could also howl with pain and agony. It was not pain as I had romanticized it: him beautifully bereft with aching for me. It was not the Sirens as we humans imagined them, armed with divine power. This was vulnerability, a bit of madness even, and what it revealed was that he truly loved me, and that love could be grotesque. Dominic woke up in the other room and began barking along with Theo’s moaning. “Please calm down,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I told him that maybe I could work something out. Maybe I could stay after all. I hadn’t known how much he cared. But he said it was too late. “You lied to me,” he said. “I was going to keep coming to see you on land. I had even wanted to ask you to come join me under the water, seriously. And here you have been set to abandon me all along.” I didn’t know exactly what “under the water” meant. Was he more delusional than I was? Did he know I couldn’t live under there? “Theo, no, it isn’t like that. I really am in love with you. I want to stay with you forever.” “That you would think of leaving me,” he said. “That you would let me grow so close to you and never tell me it was finite. It breaks my heart. It’s humiliating too.” “I was afraid that if I told you there was an end date you would see me differently. I liked the way you saw me. I didn’t want anything to change. And then it was too late, you knew me the way you knew me. I thought of finding a way to stay in Venice, but I was scared that you would reject me,” I said. “Can you help load me back in the wagon?” he said. “I need to go back to the ocean.” “Wait, can’t you just stay and we will talk it through?” “Just help me. Take me back, please. I’m asking you, help me back to the water.” “I didn’t know you felt that way,” I said. “Didn’t know what? That I loved you? When you said ‘eternal love’ I thought you meant that you wouldn’t leave me ever.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Again and again Puddle cursed her own folly for having shown such open resentment of Angela Crossby; the result was that now Stephen never discussed her, never mentioned her name unless Puddle clumsily dragged it in, and then Stephen would change the subject. And now more than ever Puddle loathed and despised the conspiracy of silence that forbade her to speak frankly. The conspiracy of silence that had sent the girl forth unprotected, right into the arms of this woman. A vain, shallow woman in search of excitement, and caring less than nothing for Stephen. There were times when Puddle felt almost desperate, and one evening she came to a great resolution. She would go to the girl and say: ‘I know. I know all about it, you can trust me, Stephen.’ And then she would counsel and try to give courage: ‘You’re neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you’re as much a part of what people call nature as anyone else; only you’re unexplained as yet—you’ve not got your niche in creation. But some day that will come, and meanwhile don’t shrink from yourself, but just face yourself calmly and bravely. Have courage; do the best you can with your burden. But above all be honourable. Cling to your honour for the sake of those others who share the same burden. For their sakes show the world that people like you and they can be quite as selfless and fine as the rest of mankind. Let your life go to prove this—it would be a really great life-work, Stephen.’ But the resolution waned because of Anna, who would surely join hands with the conspiracy of silence. She would never condone such fearless plain-speaking. If it came to her knowledge she would turn Puddle out bag and baggage, and that would leave Stephen alone. No, she dared not speak plainly because of the girl for whose sake she should now, above all, be outspoken. But supposing the day should arrive when Stephen herself thought fit to confide in her friend, then Puddle would take the bull by the horns: ‘ Stephen, I know. You can trust me, Stephen.’ If only that day were not too long in coming— For none knew better than this little grey woman, the agony of mind that must be endured when a sensitive, highly organized nature is first brought face to face with its own affliction. None knew better the terrible nerves of the invert, nerves that are always lying in wait. Super-nerves, whose response is only equalled by the strain that calls that response into being. Puddle was well acquainted with these things—that was why she was deeply concerned about Stephen.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I’d been wrong about death too. There was no gentle escape. When I had taken those Ambien in Phoenix I thought there was a peaceful way to just kind of disappear. But death wasn’t gentle. It was a robber. It stole you out of yourself, and you became a husk. Dominic’s warmth was all gone. But his spirit had to be somewhere. Where was his spirit now? Was he still in the room, hovering over me and his body? I hoped he couldn’t see himself like this. Was he watching me, angrily? Or was he already with Annika in Europe? Could she feel him? What was I going to say to Annika? I couldn’t tell her. She was going to be devastated and blame herself. Worse yet, what if they performed an autopsy and she found out I’d killed her child? Though there was the diabetes. Maybe that was what had happened, something with his blood sugar. But I’d neglected him horribly. And Annika never had a chance to say goodbye. I remembered my first group therapy session, when Claire had said to Dr. Jude, “Who cares what I’m doing? I’m only hurting myself.” And Dr. Jude had told her that wasn’t true. She said there would be casualties, that there were always casualties. This was what she meant. I was too scared to get in touch with Annika right away. I decided I would go to the hospital to see Claire before contacting my sister. I cleaned up the vomit and drool, then wrapped Dominic in the blanket I had used to smuggle Theo on the wagon. “It’s going to be okay,” I said to the poor baby, even though it wasn’t. I sat with the dead dog on my lap and stroked him through the blanket for a long time. It was the most care I had given him in weeks. —This time Claire looked alive again—not overly drugged. “My darling,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.” “Yes, for both of us,” I said. “You look like you again. You look like you’re back.” “Oh I’m back, baby.” “I really thought for a minute there that you had become sane.” “Never.” She laughed. “I will never give up on suicide again. They thought the meds were making me too Valley of the Dolls, I guess, so they changed them. Well, that didn’t work and I had another attempt. I tried to hang myself off the bathroom door handle with a four-hundred-dollar cardigan from CP Shades. They had to break in the door and found me naked on the floor of the bathroom, not dead yet, but passed out. It was brilliant.” I laughed with her, but also I shivered. This was what happened to girls like us. We were wired to die. “Are you still giving up men?” I asked.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Yes, I am glad that you have come here,’ he repeated. ‘In this little room, to-night, every night, there is so much misery, so much despair, that the walls seem almost too narrow to contain it—many have grown callous, many have grown vile, but these things in themselves are despair, Miss Gordon. Yet outside there are happy people who sleep the sleep of the so-called just and righteous. When they wake it will be to persecute those who, through no known fault of their own, have been set apart from the day of their birth, deprived of all sympathy, all understanding. They are thoughtless, these happy people who sleep—and who is there to make them think, Miss Gordon?’ ‘They can read,’ she stammered, ‘there are many books. . . .’ But he shook his head. ‘Do you think they are students? Ah, but no, they will not read medical books; what do such people care for the doctors? And what doctor can know the entire truth? Many times they meet only the neurasthenics, those of us for whom life has proved too bitter. They are good, these doctors—some of them very good; they work hard trying to solve our problem, but half the time they must work in the dark—the whole truth is known only to the normal invert. The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can some day do that. . . . It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wastage and no destruction.’ He lit a cigarette and stared thoughtfully at her for a moment or two. Then he touched her hand. ‘Do you comprehend? There is no destruction.’ She said: ‘When one comes to a place like this, one feels horribly sad and humiliated. One feels that the odds are too heavily against any real success, any real achievement. Where so many have failed who can hope to succeed? Perhaps this is the end.’ Adolphe Blanc met her eyes. ‘You are wrong, very wrong—this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and justice.’ Strange—this man was actually speaking her thoughts, yet again she fell silent, unable to answer. Dickie and Pat came back to the table, and Adolphe Blanc slipped quietly away; when Stephen glanced round his place was empty, nor could she perceive him crossing the room through the press and maze of those terrible dancers. 5Dickie went sound asleep in the car with her head against Pat’s inhospitable shoulder. When they got to her hotel she wriggled and stretched. ‘Is it . . . is it time to get up?’ she murmured.

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

  In answer to the appeals of the Greeks, Nicolas despatched Isidore as legate to Constantinople with a guard of 200 troops, but, as a condition of helping the Eastern emperor, he insisted that the Ferrara articles of union be ratified in Constantinople. In a long communication, dated Oct. 11, 1451, the Roman pontiff declared that schisms had always been punished more severely than other evils. Korah, Dathan and Abiram, who attempted to divide the people of God, received a more bitter punishment than those who introduced idolatry. There could not be two heads to an empire or the Church. There is no salvation outside of the one Church. He was lost in the flood who was not housed in Noah’s ark. Whatever opinion it may have entertained of these claims, the Byzantine court was in too imminent danger to reject the papal condition, and in December, 1452, Isidore, surrounded by 300 priests, announced, in the church of St. Sophia, the union of the Greek and Latin communions. But even now the Greek people violently resented the union, and the most powerful man of the empire, Lucas Notaras, announced his preference for the turban to the tiara. The aid offered by Nicolas was at best small. The last week of April, 1453, ten papal galleys set sail with some ships from Naples, Venice and Genoa, but they were too late to render any assistance.730 The termination of the venerable and once imposing fabric on the Bosphorus by the Asiatic invader was the only fate possible for an empire whose rulers, boasting themselves the successors of Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian, Christian in name and most Christian by the standard of orthodox professions, had heaped their palaces full of pagan luxury and excess. The government, planted in the most imperial spot on the earth, had forfeited the right to exist by an insipid and nerveless reliance upon the traditions of the past. No elements of revival manifested themselves from within. Religious formulas had been substituted for devotion. Much as the Christian student may regret the loss of this last bulwark of Christianity in the East, he will be inclined to find in the disaster the judgment realized with which the seven churches of the Apocalypse were threatened which were not worthy. The problem which was forced upon Europe by the arrival of the Grand Turk, as contemporaries called Mohammed II., still awaits solution from wise diplomacy or force of arms or through the slow and silent movement of modern ideas of government and popular rights. The disaster which overtook the Eastern empire, Nicolas V. felt would be regarded by after generations as a blot upon his pontificate, and others, like Aeneas Sylvius, shared this view.731

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

  The Servant, after lamenting the hardness of heart which refuses to be moved by the spectacle of the cross and the love of God, seeks to discover how it is that God can at once be so loving and so severe. As for the pains of hell, the lost are represented as exclaiming, "Oh, how we desire that there might be a millstone as wide as the earth and reaching to all parts of heaven, and that a little bird might alight every ten thousand years and peck away a piece of stone as big as the tenth part of a millet seed and continue to peck away every ten thousandth year until it had pecked away a piece as big as a millet seed, and then go on pecking at the same rate until the whole stone were pecked away, so only our torture might come to an end; but that cannot be." Having dwelt upon the agony of the cross and God’s immeasurable love, the bliss of heaven and the woes of hell, Suso proceeds to set forth the dignity of suffering. He had said in his Autobiography that "every lover is a martyr,"483 and here the Eternal Wisdom declares that if all hearts were become one heart, that heart could not bear the least reward he has chosen to give in eternity as a compensation for the least suffering endured out of love for himself .... This is an eternal law of nature that what is true and good must be harvested with sorrow. There is nothing more joyous than to have endured suffering. Suffering is short pain and prolonged joy. Suffering gives pain here and blessedness hereafter. Suffering destroys suffering—Leiden tödtet Leiden. Suffering exists that the sufferer may not suffer. He who could weigh time and eternity in even balances would rather he in a glowing oven for a hundred years than to miss in eternity the least reward given for the least suffering, for the suffering in the oven would have an end, but the reward is forever.

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

  After seven months of dismal imprisonment and deepening disappointment, on Saturday, July 6th, Huss was conducted to the cathedral. It was 6 A. M., and he was kept waiting outside the doors until the celebration of mass was completed. He was then admitted to the sacred edifice, but not to make a defence, as he had come to Constance hoping to do. He was to listen to sentence pronounced upon him as an ecclesiastical outcast and criminal. He was placed in the middle of the church on a high stool, set there specially for him.686 The bishop of Lodi preached from Rom. 6:6, "that the body of sin may be destroyed." The extermination of heretics was represented as one of the works most pleasing to God, and the preacher used the time-worn illustrations from the rotten piece of flesh, the little spark which is in danger of turning into a great flame and the creeping cancer. The more virulent the poison the swifter should be the application of the cauterizing iron. In the style of Bossuet in a later age, before Louis XIV., he pronounced upon Sigismund the eulogy that his name would be coupled with song and triumph for all time for his efforts to uproot schism and destroy heresy. The commission, which included Patrick, bishop of Cork, appointed to pronounce the sentence, then ascended the pulpit. All expressions of feeling with foot or hand, all vociferation or attempt to start disputation were solemnly forbidden on pain of excommunication. 30 articles were then read, which were pronounced as heretical, seditious and offensive to pious ears. The sentence coupled in closest relation Wyclif and Huss.687 The first of the articles charged the prisoner with holding that the Church is the totality of the predestinate, and the last that no civil lord or prelate may exercise authority who is in mortal sin. Huss begged leave to speak, but was hushed up. The sentence ran that "the holy council, having God only before its eye, condemns John Huss to have been and to be a true, real and open heretic, the disciple not of Christ but of John Wyclif, one who in the University of Prag and before the clergy and people declared Wyclif to be a Catholic and an evangelical doctor—vir catholicus et doctor evangelicus." It ordered him degraded from the sacerdotal order, and, not wishing to exceed the powers committed unto the Church, it relinquished him to the secular authority. Not a dissenting voice was lifted against the sentence. Even John Gerson voted for it. One incident has left its impress upon history, although it is not vouched for by a contemporary. It is said that, when Huss began to speak, he looked at Sigismund, reminding him of the safe-conduct. The king who sat in state and crowned, turned red, but did not speak.

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

  The author deplores the fate of masters and servants, of the married and the unmarried, of the good and the bad, the rich and the poor. "It is just and natural that the wicked should suffer; but are the righteous one whit better off? Here below is their prison, not their home or their final destiny. As soon as a man rises to a station of dignity, cares and trouble increase, fasting is abridged, night watches are prolonged, nature’s constitution is undermined, sleep and appetite flee, the vigor of the body gives way to weakness, and a sorrowful end is the close of a sorrowful life."176 In the case of the impenitent, eternal damnation perpetuates the woes of time. With a description of these woes the work closes, reminding the reader of the solemn cadences of the Dies Irae of Thomas of Celano and Dante’s Inferno.177 Called forth from retirement to the chief office in Christendom, Innocent had an opportunity to show his contempt of the world by ruling it with a strong and iron hand. The careers of the best of the popes of the Middle Ages, as well as of ecclesiastics like Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas of Canterbury, reveal the intimate connection between the hierarchical and ascetic tendencies. Innocent likewise displayed these two tendencies. In his treatise on the mass he anticipated the haughty assumption of the papacy, based on the rock-foundation of Peter’s primacy, which as pope he afterwards displayed. On the very day of Coelestin’s burial, the college of cardinals unanimously chose Lothario pope. Like Gregory I., Gregory VII., Alexander III., and other popes, he made a show of yielding reluctantly to the election. He was ordained priest, and the next day, February 22, was consecrated bishop and formally ascended the throne in St. Peter’s. The coronation ceremonies were on a splendid scale. But the size of Rome, whose population at this time may not have exceeded thirty-five thousand, must be taken into account when we compare them with the pageants of the ancient city.178 At the enthronization in St. Peter’s, the tiara was used which Constantine is said to have presented to Sylvester, and the words were said, "Take the tiara and know that thou art the father of princes and kings, the ruler of the world, the vicar on earth of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whose honor and glory shall endure throughout all eternity." Then followed the procession through the city to the Lateran. The pope sat on a white palfrey and was accompanied by the prefect of the city, the senators and other municipal officials, the nobility, the cardinals, archbishops, and other church dignitaries, the lesser clergy and the popular throng—all amidst the ringing of bells, the chanting of psalms, and the acclamations of the people. Along the route a singular scene was presented at the Ghetto by a group of Jews, the rabbi at their head

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

  The pope informed his friends, distinguished abbots, bishops, and princes of his election; gave expression to his feelings and views on his responsible position, and begged for their sympathy and prayers.25 He was overwhelmed, as he wrote to Duke Godfrey of Lorraine (May 6, 1073), by the prospect of the task before him; he would rather have died than live in the midst of such perils; nothing but trust in God and the prayers of good men could save him from despair; for the whole world was lying in wickedness; even the high officers of the Church, in their thirst for gain and glory, were the enemies rather than the friends of religion and justice. In the second year of his pontificate, he assured his friend Hugo of Cluny (Jan. 22, 1075) that he often prayed God either to release him from the present life, or to use him for the good of mother Church, and thus describes the lamentable condition of the times: — "The Eastern Church fallen from the faith, and attacked by the infidels from without. In the West, South, or North, scarcely any bishops who have obtained their office regularly, or whose life and conduct correspond to their calling, and who are actuated by the love of Christ instead of worldly ambition. Nowhere princes who prefer God’s honor to their own, and justice to gain. The Romans, Longobards, and Normans among whom I live, as I often told them, are worse than Jews and heathens. And when I look to myself, I feel oppressed by such a burden of sin that no other hope of salvation is left me but in the mercy of Christ alone."26 This picture is true, and we need not wonder that he often longed to retire to the quiet retreat of a convent. He adds in the same letter that, if it were not for his desire to serve the holy Church, he would not remain in Rome, where he had spent twenty years against his wish. He was thus suspended between sorrow and hope, seized by a thousand storms, living as a dying man. He compared himself to a sailor on the high seas surrounded by darkness. And he wrote to William the Conqueror, that unwillingly he had ascended into the ship which was tossed on a billowy sea, with the violence of the winds and the fury of storms with hidden rocks beneath and other dangers rising high in air in the distance.27 The two features which distinguished Gregory’s administration were the advocacy of papal absolutism and the promotion of moral reforms. In both these respects Gregory left an abiding impression upon the thought and practice of Latin Christendom. Even where we do not share his views we cannot help but admire his moral force and invincible courage. § 11. The Gregorian Theocracy. The Hildebrandian or Gregorian Church ideal is a theocracy based upon the Mosaic model and the canon law.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  No wonder, then, that the Manichaean theory of human origins, which had “explained” the sense of helplessness he experienced, had at first attracted Augustine. He identified, too, with the way the Manichaeans interpreted the tendency to sin not simply as human weakness but (as the rabbis had taught of the “evil impulse,” yetser hara’) as an internal energy actively resisting God’s will. When he abandoned Manichaean theology, Augustine admitted he was at a loss to understand the Christian teaching on free will. Later he would claim, of course, that in denying the power of the will he was only repeating what Paul had said long before (“I do not do what I will, but I do the very thing I hate.… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it”; see Romans 7:15–25). Many Christians ever since—including that famous Augustinian monk Martin Luther—would find Augustine’s interpretation of Paul’s words persuasive. Yet such recent scholarly studies as the work of Peter Gorday confirm an impression that Augustine effectively invented this interpretation of Paul’s words, by daring to apply them to the baptized Christian.35 Augustine’s Christian predecessors, including John Chrysostom and Origen, had assumed that Paul’s statements about the will’s incapacity applied only to those who lacked the grace of Christian baptism. Augustine himself acknowledged this and worked hard, he says, to understand the Catholic teaching (in his words) “that free will is the cause of our doing evil.… But I was not able to understand it clearly.” Once he began to recognize the power of his own will, he says, “I knew that I had a will … and when I did either will or nill anything, I was more sure of it, that I and no other did will or nill; and here was the cause of my sin, as I came to perceive.”36 Yet far from relinquishing entirely the role of victim, Augustine says, “But what I did against my will, that I seemed to suffer rather than do. That I considered not to be my fault, but my punishment.”37 Through the agonizing process of his conversion Augustine claims to have discovered that he was bound by conflict within his own will: I was bound, not with another man’s chains, but with my own iron will. The enemy held my will, and, indeed, made a chain of it for me, and constrained me. Because of a perverse will, desire was made; and when I was enslaved to desire [libido] it became habit; and habit not restrained became necessity. By which links … a very hard bondage had me enthralled.38

• From The Pisces (2018)

  At least, it had never affected my physicality in the way that it seemed to have affected Claire’s. Or maybe it did and I simply couldn’t see it. Maybe this was what I had looked like when I broke down after Jamie. Maybe this is what people saw when they saw me. “Are your kids here?” I asked. “Arnold has them, thank God.” I was a little scared of her. Even when she said she’d been harming herself there was still a bit of Claire in her, some of the humor and charm, as though the depression was something she could slip out of when she needed to engage with the world. When she needed to protect me from seeing it. But now she was clearly gone. I wondered if it really had to do with David or Trent or any of the men, or if the two just coincided. This seemed so much greater than men. “You’re going to be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced. “I’m gutted. I really just don’t see the point of going on living,” she said. “It just seems so insane. Like, why would you?” “I don’t know,” I said, because truthfully I didn’t. “I’m probably not the best person to talk you out of suicide.” I was trying to make her laugh but she didn’t. Suicide was one of those things that, having been suicidal, in retrospect, I felt like I could talk about without being judgmental. But at the same time, there was no rational reason I could see giving her to live. Could I say that I was once suicidal but things were better now? Could I say that I was glad I had lived? The thing was, I hadn’t really known I was suicidal until I woke up with the doughnuts. Also, even if things were better now, were they ever permanently better? Who was I to put that pressure on her to stay alive? But what kind of person didn’t try to talk their friend out of killing herself? I didn’t want to tell her that she had to live for her children. I knew that she felt bad enough about them already. I could have told her what an amazing and fun and funny person she was, but I knew that right now it all felt to her like just a performance. Her charming personality was only more heaviness—another mask that she was going to have to pick up again to prove she hadn’t lost it in the depression. The only reason to put it on again was out of fear that she might never get it back. Otherwise, there was no real reason to have to put on a heavy costume every day. It was too tiring. “Would you sleep over?” she asked. I felt claustrophobic. I thought about Theo. “I can’t,” I said. “The dog.” “The dog can sleep here.