Disappointment

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 Anna Karenina (1877)

  And your Varenka catches it too,' he added. 'Oh, these invalid ladies!' 'Oh no, papa!' Kitty objected warmly. 'Varenka worships her. And then she does so much good! Ask anyone! Everyone knows her and Aline Stahl.' 'Perhaps so,' said the prince, squeezing her hand with his elbow; 'but it's better when one does good so that you may ask everyone and no one knows.' Kitty did not answer, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not care to reveal her secret thoughts even to her father. But, strange to say, although she had so made up her mind not to be influenced by her father's views, not to let him into her inmost sanctuary, she felt that the heavenly image of Madame Stahl, which she had carried for a whole month in her heart, had vanished, never to return, just as the fantastic figure made up of some clothes thrown down at random vanishes when one sees that it is only some garment lying there. All that was left was a woman with short legs, who lay down because she was a bad figure, and worried patient Varenka for not arranging her rug to her liking. And by no effort of the imagination could Kitty bring back the former Madame Stahl. XXXV T HE prince communicated his good-humour to his own family and his friends, and even to the German landlord in whose rooms the Shtcherbatskys were staying. On coming back with Kitty from the springs, the prince, who had asked the colonel, and Marya Yevgenyevna, and Varenka all to come and have coffee with them, gave orders for a table and chairs to be taken into the garden under the chestnut-tree, and lunch to be laid there. The landlord and the servants, too, grew brisker under the influence of his good spirits. They knew his open-handedness; and half an hour later the invalid doctor from Hamburg, who lived on the top floor, looked enviously out of window at the merry party of healthy Russians assembled under the chestnut-tree. In the trembling circles of shadow cast by the leaves, at a table covered with a white cloth, and set with coffee-pot, bread-and-butter, cheese, and cold game, sat the princess in a high cap with lilac ribbons, distributing cups and bread-and-butter. At the other end sat the prince, eating heartily, and talking loudly and merrily. The prince had spread out near him his purchases, carved boxes, and knick-knacks, paperknives of all sorts, of which he bought a heap at every watering-place, and bestowed them upon everyone, including Lieschen, the servant-girl, and the landlord, with whom he jested in his comically bad German, assuring him that it was not the water had cured Kitty, but his splendid cookery, especially his plum-soup.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The way in which he had been managing his land revolted him and had lost all attraction for him. In spite of the magnificent harvest, never had there been, or, at least, never it seemed to him, had there been so many hindrances and so many quarrels between him and the peasants as that year, and the origin of these failures and this hostility was now perfectly comprehensible to him. The delight he had experienced in the work itself, and the consequent greater intimacy with the peasants, the envy he felt of them, of their life, the desire to adopt that life, which had been to him that night not a dream but an intention, the execution of which he had thought out in detail—all this had so transformed his view of the farming of the land as he had managed it, that he could not take his former interest in it, and could not help seeing that unpleasant relation between him and the workpeople which was the foundation of it all. The herd of improved cows such as Pava, the whole land ploughed over and enriched, the nine level fields surrounded with hedges, the two hundred and forty acres heavily manured, the seed sown in drills, and all the rest of it—it was all splendid if only the work had been done for themselves, or for themselves and comrades—people in sympathy with them. But he saw clearly now (his work on a book on agriculture, in which the chief element in husbandry was to have been the labourer, greatly assisted him in this) that the sort of farming he was carrying on was nothing but a cruel and stubborn struggle between him and the labourers, in which there was on one side—his side—a continual intense effort to change everything to a pattern he considered better; on the other side, the natural order of things. And in this struggle he saw that with immense expenditure of force on his side, and with no effort or even intention on the other side, all that was attained was that the work did not go to the liking of either side, and that splendid tools, splendid cattle and land were spoiled with no good to anyone. Worst of all, the energy expended on this work was not simply wasted. He could not help feeling now, since the meaning of his system had become clear to him, that the aim of his energy was a most unworthy one.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  A setter bitch, Laska, ran out too, almost upsetting Kouzma, and whining, turned round about Levin's knees, jumping up and longing, but not daring, to put her forepaws on his chest. 'You're soon back again, sir,' said Agafea Mihalovna. 'I got tired of it, Agafea Mihalovna. With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better,' he answered, and went into his study. The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the stag's horns, the bookshelves, the looking- glass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ash-tray, a manuscript-book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: 'No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.' This the things said to him, but another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself. And hearing that voice, he went into the corner where stood his two heavy dumb-bells, and began brandishing them like a gymnast, trying to restore his confident temper. There was a creak of steps at the door. He hastily put down the dumb-bells. The bailiff came in, and said that everything, thank God, was doing well; but informed him that the buckwheat in the new drying-machine had been a little scorched. This piece of news irritated Levin. The new drying-machine had been constructed and partly invented by Levin. The bailiff had always been against the drying-machine, and now it was with suppressed triumph that he announced that the buckwheat had been scorched. Levin was firmly convinced that if the buckwheat had been scorched, it was only because the precautions had not been taken, for which he had hundreds of times given orders. He was annoyed, and reprimanded the bailiff. But there had been an important and joyful event: Pava, his best cow, an expensive beast, bought at a show, had calved. 'Kouzma, give me my sheepskin. And you tell them to take a lantern. I'll come and look at her,' he said to the bailiff. The cowhouse for the more valuable cows was just behind the house. Walking across the yard, passing a snowdrift by the lilac-tree, he went into the cowhouse.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  On his return to Moscow he informed his wife with pride that everything was ready, that the house would be a little paradise, and that he advised her most certainly to go. His wife's staying away in the country was very agreeable to Stepan Arkadyevitch from every point of view: it did the children good, it decreased expenses, and it left him more at liberty. Darya Alexandrovna regarded staying in the country for the summer as essential for the children, especially for the little girl, who had not succeeded in regaining her strength after the scarlatina, and also as a means of escaping the petty humiliations, the little bills owing to the wood-merchant, the fishmonger, the shoemaker, which made her miserable. Besides this, she was pleased to go away to the country because she was dreaming of getting her sister Kitty to stay with her there. Kitty was to be back from abroad in the middle of the summer, and bathing had been prescribed for her. Kitty wrote that no prospect was so alluring as to spend the summer with Dolly at Ergushovo, full of childish associations for both of them. The first days of her existence in the country were very hard for Dolly. She used to stay in the country as a child, and the impression she had retained of it was that the country was a refuge from all the unpleasantness of the town, that life there, though not luxurious—Dolly could easily make up her mind to that—was cheap and comfortable; that there was plenty of everything, everything was cheap, everything could be got, and children were happy. But now coming to the country as the head of a family, she perceived that it was all utterly unlike what she had fancied. The day after their arrival there was a heavy fall of rain, and in the night the water came through in the corridor and in the nursery, so that the beds had to be carried into the drawing-room. There was no kitchenmaid to be found; of the nine cows, it appeared from the words of the cowherd-woman that some were about to calve, others had just calved, others were old, and others again hard-uddered; there was not butter nor milk enough even for the children. There were no eggs. They could get no fowls; old, purplish, stringy cocks were all they had for roasting and boiling. Impossible to get women to scrub the floors— all were potato-hoeing. Driving was out of the question, because one of the horses was restive, and bolted in the shafts. There was no place where they could bathe; the whole of the river-bank was trampled by the cattle and open to the road; even walks were impossible, for the cattle strayed into the garden through a gap in the hedge, and there was one terrible bull, who bellowed, and therefore might be expected to gore somebody.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Sergey Ivanovitch knew the author of the article. He had met him once at Golubtsov's. The author of the article was a young man, an invalid, very bold as a writer, but extremely deficient in breeding and shy in personal relations. In spite of his absolute contempt for the author, it was with complete respect that Sergey Ivanovitch set about reading the article. The article was awful. The critic had undoubtedly put an interpretation upon the book which could not possibly be put on it. But he had selected quotations so adroitly that for people who had not read the book (and obviously scarcely anyone had read it) it seemed absolutely clear that the whole book was nothing but a medley of high-flown phrases, not even—as suggested by marks of interrogation—used appropriately, and that the author of the book was a person absolutely without knowledge of the subject. All this was so wittily done that Sergey Ivanovitch would not have disowned such wit himself. But that was just what was so awful. In spite of the scrupulous conscientiousness with which Sergey Ivanovitch verified the correctness of the critic's arguments, he did not for a minute stop to ponder over the faults and mistakes which were ridiculed; but unconsciously he began immediately trying to recall every detail of his meeting and conversation with the author of the article. 'Didn't I offend him in some way?' Sergey Ivanovitch wondered. And remembering that when they met he had corrected the young man about something he had said that betrayed ignorance, Sergey Ivanovitch found the clue to explain the article. This article was followed by a deadly silence about the book both in the press and in conversation, and Sergey Ivanovitch saw that his six years' task, toiled at with such love and labour, had gone, leaving no trace. Sergey Ivanovitch's position was still more difficult from the fact that, since he had finished his book, he had had no more literary work to do, such as had hitherto occupied the greater part of his time. Sergey Ivanovitch was clever, cultivated, healthy, and energetic, and he did not know what use to make of his energy. Conversations in drawing-rooms, in meetings, assemblies, and committees—everywhere where talk was possible—took up part of his time. But being used for years to town life, he did not waste all his energies in talk, as his less experi enced younger brother did, when he was in Moscow. He had a great deal of leisure and intellectual energy still to dispose of. Fortunately for him, at this period so difficult for him from the failure of his book, the various public questions of the dissenting sects, of the American alliance, of the Samara famine, of exhibitions, and of spiritualism, were definitely replaced in public interest by the Slavonic question, which had hitherto rather languidly interested society, and Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been one of the first to raise this subject, threw himself into it heart and soul.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Why be in such a hurry? Let's stay a little. But how wet you are! Even though one catches nothing, it's nice. That's the best thing about every part of sport, that one has to do with nature. How exquisite this steely water is!' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'These riverside banks always remind me of the riddle—do you know it? "The grass says to the water: we quiver and we quiver."' 'I don't know the riddle,' answered Levin wearily. III 'D O you know, I've been thinking about you,' said Sergey Ivanovitch. 'It's beyond everything what's being done in the district, according to what this doctor tells me. He's a very intelligent fellow. And as I've told you before, I tell you again: it's not right for you not to go to the meetings, and altogether to keep out of the district business. If decent people won't go into it, of course it's bound to go all wrong. We pay the money, and it all goes in salaries, and there are no schools, nor district nurses, nor midwives, nor drug-stores—nothing.' 'Well, I did try, you know,' Levin said slowly and unwillingly. 'I can't! and so there's no help for it.' 'But why can't you? I must own I can't make it out. Indifference, incapacity—I won't admit; surely it's not simply laziness?' 'None of those things. I've tried, and I see I can do nothing,' said Levin. He had hardly grasped what his brother was saying. Looking towards the plough-land across the river, he made out something black, but he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the bailiff on horseback. 'Why is it you can do nothing? You made an attempt and didn't succeed, as you think, and you give in. How can you have so little self-respect?' 'Self-respect!' said Levin, stung to the quick by his brother's words; 'I don't understand. If they'd told me at college that other people understood the integral calculus, and I didn't, then pride would have come in. But in this case one wants first to be convinced that one has certain qualifications for this sort of business, and especially that all this business is of great importance.' 'What! do you mean to say it's not of importance?' said Sergey Ivanovitch, stung to the quick too at his brother's considering anything of no importance that interested him, and still more at his obviously paying little attention to what he was saying. 'I don't think it important; it does not take hold of me, I can't help it,' answered Levin, making out that what he saw was the bailiff, and that the bailiff seemed to be letting the peasants go off the ploughed land. They were turning the plough over.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  It is true that Fyodor Ryezunov's company did not plough over the ground twice before sowing, as had been agreed, justifying themselves on the plea that the time was too short. It is true that the peasants of the same company, though they had agreed to work the land on new conditions, always spoke of the land, not as held in partnership, but as rented for half the crop, and more than once the peasants and Ryezunov himself said to Levin, 'If you would take a rent for the land, it would save you trouble, and we should be more free.' Moreover the same peasants kept putting off, on various excuses, the building of a cattle-yard and barn on the land as agreed upon, and delayed doing it till the winter. It is true that Shuraev would have liked to let out the kitchen gardens he had undertaken in small lots to the peasants. He evidently quite misunderstood, and apparently intentionally misunderstood, the conditions upon which the land had been given to him. Often, too, talking to the peasants and explaining to them all the advantages of the plan, Levin felt that the peasants heard nothing but the sound of his voice, and were firmly resolved, whatever he might say, not to let themselves be taken in. He felt this especially when he talked to the cleverest of the peasants, Ryezunov, and detected the gleam in Ryezunov's eyes which showed so plainly both ironical amusement at Levin, and the firm conviction that, if anyone were to be taken in, it would not be he, Ryezunov. But in spite of all this Levin thought the system worked, and that by keeping accounts strictly and insisting on his own way, he would prove to them in the future the advantages of the arrangement, and then the system would go of itself. These matters, together with the management of the land still left on his hands, and the indoor work over his book, so engrossed Levin the whole summer that he scarcely ever went out shooting. At the end of August he heard that the Oblonskys had gone away to Moscow, from their servant who brought back the side-saddle. He felt that in not answering Darya Alexandrovna's letter he had by his rudeness, of which he could not think without a flush of shame, burned his ships, and that he would never go and see them again. He had been just as rude with the Sviazhskys, leaving them without saying good-bye. But he would never go to see them again either. He did not care about that now. The business of reorganising the farming of his land absorbed him as completely as though there would never be anything else in his life. He read the books lent him by Sviazhsky, and copying out what he had not got, he read both the economic and socialistic books on the subject, but, as he had anticipated, found nothing bearing on the scheme he had undertaken.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Besides, he saw that if it came to talking about technique, it was impossible to praise him for it. In all he had painted and repainted he saw faults that hurt his eyes, coming from want of care in taking off the wrappings—faults he could not correct now without spoiling the whole. And in almost all the figures and faces he saw, too, remnants of the wrappings not perfectly removed that spoiled the picture. 'One thing might be said, if you will allow me to make the remark… observed Golenishtchev. 'Oh, I shall be delighted, I beg you,' said Mihailov with a forced smile. 'That is, that you make Him the man-god, and not the God-man. But I know that was what you meant to do.' 'I cannot paint a Christ that is not in my heart,' said Mihailov gloomily. 'Yes; but in that case, if you will allow me to say what I think . . . Your picture is so fine that my observation cannot detract from it, and, besides, it is only my personal opinion. With you it is different. Your very motive is different. But let us take Ivanov. I imagine that if Christ is brought down to the level of an historical character, it would have been better for Ivanov to select some other historical subject, fresh, untouched.' 'But if this is the greatest subject presented to art?' 'If one looked one would find others. But the point is that art cannot suffer doubt and discussion. And before the picture of Ivanov the question arises for the believer and the unbeliever alike, "Is it God, or is it not God?" and the unity of the impression is destroyed.' 'Why so? I think that for educated people,' said Mihailov, 'the question cannot exist.' Golenishtchev did not agree with this, and confounded Mihailov by his support of his first idea of the unity of the impression being essential to art. Mihailov was greatly perturbed, but he could say nothing in defence of his own idea. XII A NNA and Vronsky had long been exchanging glances, regretting their friend's flow of cleverness. At last Vronsky, without waiting for the artist, walked away to another small picture. 'Oh, how exquisite! What a lovely thing! A gem! How exquisite!' they cried with one voice. 'What is it they're so pleased with?' thought Mihailov. He had positively forgotten that picture he had painted three years ago. He had forgotten all the agonies and the ecstasies he had lived through with that picture when for several months it had been the one thought haunting him day and night. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, the pictures he had finished.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  T. Fechner of Leipzig, a man of great learning and subtlety of mind, published two volumes entitled 'Psychophysik,' devoted to establishing and explaining a law called by him the psychophysic law, which he considered to express the deepest and most elementary relation between the mental and the physical worlds. It is a formula for the connection between the amount of our sensations and the amount of their outward causes. Its simplest expression is, that when we pass from one sensation to a stronger one of the same kind, the sensations increase proportionally to the logarithms of their exciting causes. Fechner's book was the starting point of a new department of literature, which it would be perhaps impossible to match for the qualities of thoroughness and subtlety, but of which, in the humble opinion of the present writer, the proper psychological outcome is just nothing . The psychophysic law controversy has prompted a good many series of observations on sense-discrimination, and has made discussion of them very rigorous. It has also cleared up our ideas about the best methods for getting average results, when particular observations vary; and beyond this it has done nothing; but as it is a chapter in the history of our science, some account of it is here due to the reader. Fechner's train of thought has been popularly expounded a great many times. As I have nothing new to add, it is but just that I should quote an existing account. I choose the one given by Wundt in his Vorlesungen über Menschen und Thierseele, 1863, omitting a good deal: "How much stronger or weaker one sensation is than another, we are never able to say. Whether the sun be a hundred or a thousand times brighter than the moon, a cannon a hundred or a thousand times louder than a pistol, is beyond our power to estimate. The natural measure of sensation which we possess enables us to judge of the equality, of the 'more' and of the 'less,' but not of 'how many times more or less.'

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  And this brings us back to 'science' from which we diverted our attention so long ago (see p. 640). Science thinks she has discovered the objective realities in question. Atoms and ether, with no properties but masses and velocities expressible by numbers, and paths expressible by analytic formulas, these at last are things over which the mathematico-logical network may be flung, and by supposing which instead of sensible phenomena science becomes yearly more able to manufacture for herself a world about which rational propositions may be framed. Sensible phenomena are pure delusions for the mechanical philosophy. The 'things' and qualities we instinctively believe in do not exist. The only realities are swarming solids in everlasting motion, undulatory or continued, whose expressionless and meaningless changes of position form the history of the world, and are deducible from initial collocations and habits of movement hypothetically assumed. Thousands of years ago men started to cast the chaos of nature's sequences and juxtapositions into a form that might seem intelligible. Many were their ideal prototypes of rational order: teleological and æsthetic ties between things, causal and substantial bonds, as well as logical and mathematical relations. The most promising of these ideal systems at first were of course the richer ones, the sentimental ones. The baldest and least promising were the mathematical ones; but the history of the latter's application is a history of steadily advancing successes, whilst that of the sentimentally richer systems is one of relative sterility and failure.[568] Take those aspects of phenomena which interest you as a human being most, and class the phenomena as perfect and imperfect, as ends and means to ends, as high and low, beautiful and ugly, positive and negative, harmonious and discordant, fit and unfit, natural and unnatural, etc., and barren are all your results. In the ideal world the kind 'precious' has characteristic properties. What is precious should be preserved; unworthy things should be sacrificed for its sake; exceptions made on its account; its preciousness is a reason for other things' actions, and the like. But none of these things need happen to your 'precious' object in the real world. Call the things of nature as much as you like by sentimental, moral, and æsthetic names, no natural consequences follow from the naming. They may be of the kinds you allege, but they are not of 'the kind's kind; and the last great system-maker of this sort, Hegel, was obliged explicitly to repudiate logic in order to make any inferences at all from the names he called things by.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  2. This leads us to the law of transitoriness, which is this: Many instincts ripen at a certain age and then fade away. A consequence of this law is that if, during the time of such an instinct's vivacity, objects adequate to arouse it are met with, a habit of acting on them is formed, which remains when the original instinct has passed away; but that if no such objects are met with, then no habit will be formed; and, later on in life, when the animal meets the objects, he will altogether fail to react, as at the earlier epoch he would instinctively have done. No doubt such a law is restricted. Some instincts are far less transient than others—those connected with feeding and 'self-preservation' may hardly be transient at all, end some, after fading out for a time, recur as strong as ever, e.g., the instincts of pairing and rearing young. The law, however, though not absolute, is certainly very wide-spread, and a few examples will illustrate just what it means. In the chickens and calves above mentioned, it is obvious that the instinct to follow and become attached fades out after a few days, and that the instinct of flight then takes its place, the conduct of the creature toward man being decided by the formation or non-formation of a certain habit during those days. The transiency of the chicken's instinct to follow is also proved by its conduct toward the hen. Mr. Spalding kept some chickens shut up till they were comparatively old, and, speaking of these, he says: "A chicken that has not heard the call of the mother till until eight or ten days old then hears it as if it heard it not. I regret to find that on this point my notes are not so full as I could wish, or as they might have been. There is, however, an account of one chicken that could not be returned to the mother when ten days old. The hen followed it, and tried to entice it in every way; still, it continually left her and ran to the house or to any person of whom it caught sight. This it persisted in doing, though beaten back with a small branch dozens of times, and, indeed, cruelly mistreated. It was also placed under the mother at night, but it again left her in the morning."

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Now the merely conceived or imagined objects which our mind represents as hanging to the sensations (causing them, etc.), filling the gaps between them, and weaving their interrupted chaos into order are innumerable. Whole systems of them conflict with other systems, and our choice of which system shall carry our belief is governed by principles which are simple enough, however subtle and difficult may be their application to details. The conceived system, to pass for true, must at least include the reality of the sensible objects in it, by explaining them as effects on us, if nothing more. The system which includes the most of them, and definitely explains or pretends to explain the rest of them, will, ceteris paribus, prevail. It is needless to say how far mankind still is from having excogitated such a system. But the various materialisms, idealisms, and hylozoisms show with what industry the attempt is forever made. It is conceivable that several rival theories should equally well include the actual order of our sensations in their scheme, much as the one-fluid and two-fluid theories of electricity formulated all the common electrical phenomena equally well. The sciences are full of these alternatives. Which theory is then to be believed? That theory will be most generally believed which, besides bring us objects able to account satisfactorily for our sensible experience, also offers those which are most interesting, those which appeal most urgently to our æsthetic, emotional, and active needs. So here, in the higher intellectual life, the same selection among general conceptions goes on which went on among the sensations themselves. First, a word of their relation to our emotional and active needs—and here I can do no better than quote from an article published some years ago:[329] "A philosophy may be unimpeachable in other respects, but either of two defects will be fatal to its universal acceptance. First, its ultimate principle must not be one that essentially baffles and disappoints our dearest desires and most cherished powers. A pessimistic principle like Schopenhauer's incurably vicious Will-substance, or Hartmann's wicked jack-at-all-trades, the Unconscious, will perpetually call forth essays at other philosophies. Incompatibility of the future with their desires and active tendencies is, in fact, to most men a source of more fixed disquietude than uncertainty itself. Witness the attempts to overcome the 'problem of evil,' the 'mystery of pain.' There is no problem of 'good.'

• From Little Women (1868)

  But it is, as she presently discovered, for her spirits began to rise, and her table to blossom under her skillful hands, the girls were very kind, and that one little act seemed to have cleared the atmosphere amazingly. It was a very long day and a hard one for Amy, as she sat behind her table, often quite alone, for the little girls deserted very soon. Few cared to buy flowers in summer, and her bouquets began to droop long before night. The art table was the most attractive in the room. There was a crowd about it all day long, and the tenders were constantly flying to and fro with important faces and rattling money boxes. Amy often looked wistfully across, longing to be there, where she felt at home and happy, instead of in a corner with nothing to do. It might seem no hardship to some of us, but to a pretty, blithe young girl, it was not only tedious, but very trying, and the thought of Laurie and his friends made it a real martyrdom. She did not go home till night, and then she looked so pale and quiet that they knew the day had been a hard one, though she made no complaint, and did not even tell what she had done. Her mother gave her an extra cordial cup of tea. Beth helped her dress, and made a charming little wreath for her hair, while Jo astonished her family by getting herself up with unusual care, and hinting darkly that the tables were about to be turned. "Don't do anything rude, pray Jo; I won't have any fuss made, so let it all pass and behave yourself," begged Amy, as she departed early, hoping to find a reinforcement of flowers to refresh her poor little table. "I merely intend to make myself entrancingly agreeable to every one I know, and to keep them in your corner as long as possible. Teddy and his boys will lend a hand, and we'll have a good time yet." returned Jo, leaning over the gate to watch for Laurie. Presently the familiar tramp was heard in the dusk, and she ran out to meet him. "Is that my boy?" "As sure as this is my girl!" and Laurie tucked her hand under his arm with the air of a man whose every wish was gratified. "Oh, Teddy, such doings!" and Jo told Amy's wrongs with sisterly zeal. "A flock of our fellows are going to drive over by-and-by, and I'll be hanged if I don't make them buy every flower she's got, and camp down before her table afterward," said Laurie, espousing her cause with warmth. "The flowers are not at all nice, Amy says, and the fresh ones may not arrive in time. I don't wish to be unjust or suspicious, but I shouldn't wonder if they never came at all.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I had chosen drama simply because I liked Hamlet's soliloquy beginning, “To be, or not to be.” I had never seen a play and did not connect movies with the theater. In fact, the only times I had heard the soliloquy had been when I had melodramatically recited to myself. In front of a mirror. It was hard to curb my love for the exaggerated gesture and the emotive voice. When Bailey and I read poems together, he sounded like a fierce Basil Rathbone and I like a maddened Bette Davis. At the California Labor School a forceful and perceptive teacher quickly and unceremoniously separated me from melodrama. She made me do six months of pantomime. Bailey and Mother encouraged me to take dance, and he privately told me that the exercise would make my legs big and widen my hips. I needed no greater inducement. My shyness at moving clad in black tights around a large empty room did not last long. Of course, at first, I thought everyone would be staring at my cucumber-shaped body with its knobs for knees, knobs for elbows and, alas, knobs for breasts. But they really did not notice me, and when the teacher floated across the floor and finished in an arabesque my fancy was taken. I would learn to move like that. I would learn to, in her words, “occupy space.” My days angled off Miss Kirwin's class, dinner with Bailey and Mother, and drama and dance. The allegiances I owed at this time in my life would have made very strange bedfellows: Momma with her solemn determination, Mrs. Flowers and her books, Bailey with his love, my mother and her gaiety, Miss Kirwin and her information, my evening classes of drama and dance.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  How did this magnificent theory work out in practice? What happened to the radical vision of the historical Paul in those letters written in his name but after his death? Next, then, with regard to Colossians: on one hand, this letter speaks directly to both slaves and masters, mentioning reciprocal responsibilities that a Roman householder might find offensive. On the other hand, it is now taken for granted in this letter that Christian householders will have Christian slaves: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven. (3:22–4:1; see Eph. 6:5–9) What has happened is that a post-Pauline, pseudo-Pauline, and even or especially an anti- Pauline vision has quietly contradicted the vision of the historical Paul. But notice, of course, that all this is done in the name of Paul himself. In other words, Paul’s vision of the radicality of God has been co-opted by the Roman normalcy of civilization . In summary, then, from these two experimental probes (explored more fully later in the book), we see that as in the Old Testament so in the New, as with Torah so with Paul, a rhythm of assertion-and-subversion is emphatically present. A vision of the radicality of God is put forth, and then later, we see that vision domesticated and integrated into the normalcy of civilization so that the established order of life is maintained. Furthermore, both elements are cited from, in one case, the mouth of God and, in the other, the pen of Paul. These two probes are admittedly limited to two traditions—the Priestly tradition in the Old Testament and the Pauline tradition in the New Testament. But they are scarcely unimportant ones. What they have in common is a pattern of yes-and-no, declaration-and-invalidation, pronouncement-and-annulment, assertion-and-subversion. Hold on, for the rest of this book, to that pattern of assertion-and-subversion. A Rhythm of Assertion-and-SubversionALREADY IN CHAPTER 1 I specified the disjunction between nonviolence and violence—be it for God or Jesus—as being between two different visions or ideals, one about nonviolent distributive justice and the other about violent retributive justice. My next step is to combine that with the two other just-seen disjunctions: both radicality and normalcy with assertion and subversion. As we have already seen, even a superficial reading of the Christian Bible reveals God and Christ to be both violent and nonviolent in a somewhat bipolar if not schizophrenic fashion. It is as if the Biblical Express Train runs on twin parallel but very dissimilar rails.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Usually the dots are numbered, and the child can see the order in which they must be joined. But suppose they are not, and the child has to join the dots and make whatever picture seems right? There are some Christians who manage to join the dots all right, to connect all the doctrinal boxes that the great early creeds and definitions have given them—but to do so in such a way that the picture turns out to be an elephant instead of a donkey. Or vice versa. Only when the story the gospels are telling is fully integrated with the dogmas the creeds are teaching can we be sure we are on track. Displacement Activities The result of all this has been, I believe, that though the gospels are so rich in material of all sorts, their underlying emphasis has been quietly but thoroughly overlooked. All those parables, moral teachings, remarkable deeds, and so on—one can easily make all kinds of perfectly good theological and practical points out of them. But one may be so busy with that exercise that the main point goes unnoticed. This is what, I believe, has actually happened. The result has been a series of displacement activities. The church has said, in effect: (a) we know the gospels are important, because they are the inspired apostolic witness to Jesus; and (b) we know what is important in Christian theology, namely, the divinity of Jesus and his saving death or, as it may be, his moral teaching and example; so (c) we assume that that is the primary message of the gospels. In fact, to sum up the proposal toward which I have been working, the four gospels are trying to say that this is how God became king. We have, partly deliberately and partly accidentally, forgotten this massive claim almost entirely. Since we cannot stop reading the gospels without ceasing to be proper Christians, we have developed all kinds of strategies for making alternative sense of the gospels and so screening out the dangerous and challenging picture they are actually sketching. That is at the heart of the problem I have been trying to identify. It has been a salutary exercise, I believe, to review in this way the different things that people have said as they face the question of why the gospels included all that material between Jesus’s birth and his death. All these proposals have been advanced quite seriously, and I have tried to take them in the same serious spirit. But it is clear to me that none of them have actually taken the gospels seriously as they stand. They have gone to them with the wrong questions and have found answers, of a sort, to those questions. The challenge now is to accept that we have all misunderstood the gospels and to set about finding ways in which we can put this right.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Once I had settled on getting a job, all that remained was to decide which kind of job I was most fitted for. My intellectual pride had kept me from selecting typing, shorthand or filing as subjects in school, so office work was ruled out. War plants and shipyards demanded birth certificates, and mine would reveal me to be fifteen, and ineligible for work. So the well-paying defense jobs were also out. Women had replaced men on the streetcars as conductors and motor-men, and the thought of sailing up and down the hills of San Francisco in a dark-blue uniform, with a money changer at my belt, caught my fancy. Mother was as easy as I had anticipated. The world was moving so fast, so much money was being made, so many people were dying in Guam, and Germany, that hordes of strangers became good friends overnight. Life was cheap and death entirely free. How could she have the time to think about my academic career? To her question of what I planned to do, I replied that I would get a job on the streetcars. She rejected the proposal with: “They don't accept colored people on the streetcars.” I would like to claim an immediate fury which was followed by the noble determination to break the restricting tradition. But the truth is, my first reaction was one of disappointment. I'd pictured myself, dressed in a neat blue serge suit, my money changer swinging jauntily at my waist, and a cheery smile for the passengers which would make their own work day brighter. From disappointment, I gradually ascended the emotional ladder to haughty indignation, and finally to that state of stubbornness where the mind is locked like the jaws of an enraged bulldog. I would go to work on the streetcars and wear a blue serge suit. Mother gave me her support with one of her usual terse asides, “That's what you want to do? Then nothing beats a trial but a failure. Give it everything you've got. I've told you many times, ‘Can't do is like Don't Care.’ Neither of them have a home.” Translated, that meant there was nothing a person can't do, and there should be nothing a human being didn't care about. It was the most positive encouragement I could have hoped for. In the offices of the Market Street Railway Company, the receptionist seemed as surprised to see me there as I was surprised to find the interior dingy and the décor drab. Somehow I had expected waxed surfaces and carpeted floors. If I had met no resistance, I might have decided against working for such a poor-mouth-looking concern. As it was, I explained that I had come to see about a job. She asked, was I sent by an agency, and when I replied that I was not, she told me they were only accepting applicants from agencies.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  He kindly, not in the least condescendingly, bent to speak to the guard, and the three men walked into the hut. Within easy minutes, laughter burst from the shack and the crisis was over, but so was the enjoyment. Dad shook hands with all the men, patted the children and smiled winsomely at the women. Then, and without looking at the damaged cars, he eased himself behind the steering wheel. He called me to get in, and as if he had not been helplessly drunk a half hour earlier, he drove unerringly toward home. He said he didn't know I could drive, and how did I like his car? I was angry that he had recovered so quickly and felt let down that he didn't appreciate the greatness of my achievement. So I answered yes to both the statement and the question. Before we reached the border he rolled down the window, and the fresh air, which was welcome, was uncomfortably cold. He told me to get his jacket from the backseat and put it on. We drove into the city in a cold and private silence.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  At the encouragement of Dr. Jude, Brianne had been going online since last year to meet men. The websites she chose were Match.com and Millionaire Match, and she repeated them as though reciting a mantra: “Match and Millionaire Match, Match and Millionaire Match.” She seemed to be having a rough go of it on both sites, as the men kept disappearing. She would find someone who seemed promising, message with him for a few weeks, and then he would just vanish. On the rare occasion that one of the men didn’t disappear and actually asked her for a date, he would suddenly seem strangely repulsive to her. But mostly, they absconded. The most recent disappearance was a man who claimed to be a retired fighter pilot. She said she liked that, as she liked military men, and he seemed handsome. For two weeks he had sent her messages every day: never saying anything uncouth or sending a picture of his penis. Then, one day, she asked if he might like to meet in person. He deleted his account. “But if it’s meant for me, it’s meant for me. And if it’s not, it’s not,” she said quietly, adjusting the strap on her babydoll dress. She was wearing knee socks and Mary Janes too. “I have a very full life. Very full. I don’t even know if I really want anyone else in it.” Then she sighed. The only person I liked was a woman named Claire. She was British, crass, and irate, with long fiery-red curls. Claire kept saying “Fuck this bullshit” over and over. She had left her husband two years ago when she met a younger man at a juice bar and realized, as she put it, that she hadn’t had a proper dick inside of her in twelve years. The younger man was happy to fuck her, but he never encouraged her to leave her husband. It was she who assumed they would have a life together. For six months they were off and on, until finally, she threw a plate of pesto kelp noodles at him at Café Gratitude and broke it off for good. Clean and sober for nine years, she was afraid the drama would make her drink. Most recently, though, she was hurt and enraged again by a man named Brad. He sounded pretty bad—bald, baseball capped, and litigation lawyery—but she really liked him. She said that they had begun to get really intimate around his mother’s death, then he just disappeared. She wasn’t drinking, but she was taking up a lot of bad behaviors again to cope with her depression. “I left my children with a friend and rented a hotel room, where I could go self-harm in peace,” she said. “But then I got scared I would off myself. I didn’t know what else to do. So I’ve come back to this bloody hellhole.”

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Many movements of social reform at various points in the nineteenth century bear witness to this spirit, not least of course the pressure that led to the abolition of slavery. And then, around the start of the twentieth century, the movement known as the “social gospel” made its mark, not exactly by ignoring the “cloak” of ancient dogma, but by concentrating instead on the actions of Jesus and the command to his followers to behave in the same way. Matthew 25:31–46 has regularly been highlighted in this connection: “When you did it to one of the least significant of my brothers and sisters here,” declares Jesus about the hungry who need feeding, the prisoners who need visiting, and so on, “you did it to me.” And “When you didn’t do it…, you didn’t do it for me.” The Achilles heel of the “social gospel” movement, however, was that many of its enthusiasts were, like the critical scholars of the time, focusing on the center rather than the edges, and so misreading the center itself. In trying to have a Jesus who cared for the poor without needing to be the incarnate son of God or to die for the sins of the world and be raised bodily thereafter, they falsified (so we could argue) even the bits they were highlighting. The problem with all this, however, is not merely at the level of theory (“How come you’ve taken some bits of the gospel story, but left out other bits?”). The problem is that, a century after the “social gospel” was at its high-water mark, the world, including the Western world, still seems to be a place of great wickedness. Greed and corruption, oppression of the poor, violence and degradation, war and genocide continue unchecked. It isn’t only the Jesus of popular imagination, then, who expected something dramatic to happen and was disappointed. The “social gospel” may have helped to clean up some slums, to reduce working hours for women and children in factories, and so on. Wonderful. But homelessness and virtual slave labor are still realities in the modern Western world, never mind elsewhere. Has anything really changed? Faced with this puzzle, it is fair to ask: What difference might it make if the “middle” of the gospels was integrated with the “outer” bits? What would it be like if the cloak was no longer empty? Did Jesus Talk About Himself? One of the now standard comments from within “liberal” readings of the gospels goes like this. Jesus, it seems, went around speaking about God; but his followers, the early church, went around speaking about Jesus. This has in fact formed a central plank in the case for a liberal rereading of the gospels over against the creeds.