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.

Page 45 of 189 · 20 per page

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  the school wasn’t accepting new students. Dejected, he chose to go to the Air Force Special Weapons Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to work on a radiation shielding project and instruct pilots in jet aircraft. While in Albuquerque, Valerie gave birth to the family’s fourth child, Gregory. All the while, Bill waited for an opening at the test pilot school. Valerie took an astronomy course at the University of New Mexico, just out of fascination with the subject, a baby on her hip. In June 1963, Anders was driving in his Volkswagen Microbus when he heard a news broadcast on the radio. The announcer said that NASA had decided to add a third group of astronauts. Anders met every one of the agency’s requirements: age limit thirty-five, two thousand hours flying time in advanced jets, maximum height six feet. “Must also be a test pilot,” the man said. Anders’s heart sank. “Or the applicant must possess an advanced degree.” Anders wondered if he’d heard the last part correctly. He pulled over to the side of the road and waited, through twelve minutes of commercials and bad music, for the next newscast. He had heard correctly—one needn’t be a test pilot to apply. He wrote down NASA’s address. He’d been interested in astronauts since the Mercury 7, the United States’ first group of astronauts, had arrived on the scene four years earlier, but space travel had never seemed possible for mere fighter pilots. Now, things had changed. It would be his dream job in many ways. Joining NASA would give Anders the intellectual stimulation he craved, the chance to fly the most advanced machines ever built, and the opportunity to become an explorer, a space-age version of Charles Lindbergh or Vasco da Gama, the New World voyagers he’d always admired. And he could bring back unknown rocks from his journeys to the Moon. And there was another benefit, one that resonated with a man whose father had fought back against America’s attackers, even when the United States wasn’t formally at war: He could do more in space than anywhere else to help defeat the Soviet Union. That night, Anders drafted a letter to NASA describing his qualifications: world’s greatest pilot; can solve all space radiation problems; jet instructor; great guy. Valerie typed version after version. They sent the final copy, by certified mail, the next day. It arrived with four thousand other letters penned by astronaut hopefuls.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  ambassador. Anders talked it over with Valerie, who expressed an interest in a country she’d found especially beautiful during a family visit. President Gerald Ford approved, and in 1976, Bill Anders became the United States ambassador to Norway. While working in Oslo, Anders received a package from the International Astronomical Union, the organization in charge of naming surface features of planets. The IAU was pleased to announce it had named six lunar craters for Americans—the crews of Apollo 8 and Apollo 11—and six for Soviet cosmonauts. Included was a photograph of the craters. Anders was displeased: For starters, his crater wasn’t the one that he’d named for his family during the Apollo 8 flight. Second, the astronauts’ craters were in an area past the horizon that couldn’t be seen. Third, the cosmonauts hadn’t even been to the Moon (Anders joked that as atheists, they wouldn’t even pass the Moon on their way to Heaven). He called the organization and argued the astronauts’ case, to no avail. The explorer’s prerogative—to name the places one discovered—didn’t seem to apply. Anders, however, wouldn’t forget it. Years later, he would still be pushing the IAU to make things right. In 2018, fifty years after the flight of Apollo 8, the IAU officially named two lunar craters to honor the mission, “Anders Earthrise” and “8 Homeward.” Both can be seen in the famous Earthrise photo taken by Anders during the flight. Anders finally left government service in 1977, joining General Electric as vice president of its Nuclear Products Division. Two years later, the company sent him to the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School; when he returned, he became the general manager of GE’s Aircraft Equipment Division, a multi-billion-dollar business. Over the next several years, Anders improved the division, all while absorbing the management style of GE’s young new CEO, Jack Welch, who pushed to consolidate, simplify, move fast, and stay only in businesses in which his company could rank first or second in the industry. After seven years at GE, Anders left to become chief operating officer of the aerospace and defense firm Textron. In 1989, he left that company to become vice chairman of General Dynamics, a major supplier of aircraft, tanks, and other weapons to the United States Department of Defense. By agreement, he would become the company’s CEO a year later.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  to seize the moment and lead the passionate supporters who’d backed him for so long. In the end, he received just 23 percent of the votes at the convention, and Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who hadn’t entered a single primary, became the Democratic nominee, with Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine his running mate. It was a crushing blow to believers in the antiwar movement. In London, the Beatles were set to release a new single, “Hey Jude,” written by Paul McCartney to reassure John Lennon’s son, Julian, during his parents’ divorce. It would include as its B side the John Lennon– penned song “Revolution,” which questioned the tactics of the year’s aggressive political protesters: “But when you talk about destruction / Don’t you know that you can count me out.” It had been just four years since the Beatles had dressed in matching suits and run from screaming fans in the opening scene of the film A Hard Day’s Night. In 1968, they had long hair and flowing beards and were singing about the pain in the world. Even in music, little seemed the same anymore. At the end of the summer, Atlantic City hosted the 1968 Miss America pageant. Outside the venue, at least a hundred women protested the event, which they deemed exploitative. Officials had feared that the demonstrators would start fires, as happened so often during protests in 1968, but the women had promised they wouldn’t do anything dangerous —“just a symbolic bra-burning.” When the event began, they tossed false eyelashes and girdles into a garbage can and crowned a sheep Miss America. But from that day forward, the concept of a “bra-burning women’s libber” gained currency in the United States, despite the fact that nothing was ever set ablaze. In October, the Summer Olympic Games were held in Mexico City. Two American sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, won the gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter race. Standing on the podium to receive their medals, each wearing a black glove on one hand, the two Americans bowed their heads and raised a fist in a Black Power salute during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a protest of the inequality of treatment and opportunity for black people in their home country. Immediately, the athletes were suspended from the team and sent home from Mexico City. The silent statement by the two sprinters had a polarizing and powerful effect in the United States.

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  “You’re finished,” they told Lovell, and no matter how forcefully he explained their mistake, the doctors wouldn’t reconsider. “I could spell ‘rocket’ before these guys ever heard the term,” Lovell muttered as he walked away. Back at Pax River, Marilyn couldn’t remember having seen her husband so discouraged. A short time later, Lovell received orders to report to the next phase of astronaut testing. He knew he’d been rejected, and that the orders had been issued by mistake, but he seized his chance to get back in the game, even if by clerical error. He flew to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and took the last bed in quarters. The next morning, just as the miracle seemed complete, an Air Force test pilot named Gus Grissom showed up and apologized for being late. Lovell was again heading back home with nothing to show for his dreams but a little extra pigment in his liver. For the next three years, Lovell continued testing aircraft and teaching students at Pax River. It was there that the nickname Shaky was bestowed upon him, not just because no decent pilot would want such a moniker, but because the easygoing Lovell was among the least shaky men around. By 1962, Project Mercury was nearing its end and NASA needed new astronauts. That summer, the Navy asked if Lovell would like to apply. No one seemed to remember that he’d been medically disqualified, and Lovell could find no good reason to remind them. Again, Lovell went through the testing. As a teenager, he’d seen the engine of a Nazi V-2 rocket designed by Wernher von Braun. As a young pilot, he’d watched von Braun tell the nation how America would go to the Moon. After what seemed like forever, Deke Slayton called and asked if Lovell would like to ride the great engineer’s newest rockets for himself, and Lovell’s answer could be heard all the way to Milwaukee. He was officially one of NASA’s New Nine. — Lovell was introduced to NASA’s eight other new astronauts at the Rice Hotel in Houston. After dinner, he gave his first comment as a spaceman, telling his hometown newspaper, the Milwaukee Sentinel, that America

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  witness a paean to its providential character in 1850 from a Yankee revivalist turned Episcopalian, Calvin Colton: As the human family, at a very remote period of antiquity, was scattered about over the face of the earth, from the base of the Tower of Babel … so the people of all those languages, thus created, are now coming together again to enter another and a perpetual monument, not of human pride against heaven but of freedom against despotism; and to perfect this work, they require to be chained to us by a band of iron across this continent.96 The majority of the Republic’s churchgoers, and the overwhelming majority in positions of power, were Protestants of some description, although the Roman Catholic Church also benefited hugely from immigration during the century and by around 1850 became America’s largest single denomination. It is not surprising that, in the wake of the Revolution, entirely new Churches began to be founded – perhaps more puzzling, in fact, is that hardly any brand-new denominations had been created before 1776.97 American Methodism was in effect the first of the new foundations, since it stonily ignored John Wesley’s annoyance and gave itself episcopal organization in 1787, its Conference pointedly dropping its undertaking to follow the great man’s commands in the matter. Methodists enjoyed with Baptists the lion’s share of a new Protestant growth over several decades, which those looking back on it christened a Second Great Awakening. While Episcopalians mostly stood aloof, Puritan Churches in the north-east were partly drawn in. New England Congregationalists were disorientated by their loss of established status and cultural leadership after playing such a crucial role in the Revolution, and they were divided in their attitude to their Reformed theological inheritance. Many of their influential leaders were still children of the Enlightenment, seeking a rational faith for a new Republic, and they led their congregations into Unitarianism. Others resisted that drift, took their stand on a generous reshaping of Reformed predestinarianism, and emphasized various campaigns for moral and social improvement which would Christianize the idealism of the Declaration of Independence. That was the Awakening for them. There was plenty for both sides to campaign about, especially slaveholding in the South (the North being spared the economic attractions of such exploitation) and alcohol temperance or total abstention. This latter cause, as elsewhere particularly beloved of women, entailed Evangelicals undertaking some heroic exegetical explaining away of Jesus’s miracle of Cana turning water into wine. Prohibition was to have a fateful later consequence in the USA.98 Matters were less genteel in the South and in the growing tide of settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. Here the revivals of the first Awakening

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  167 contradicted the teachings of the church. Church councils had historically played a powerful role in setting doctrine. Acton took an active part in the debate on papal infallibility, traveling to Rome when the ecumenical council was called to debate the question. Acton was absolutely defeated. He saw that high of fi cials who had opposed the doctrine denied their consciences and went along with the majority. Acton was almost excommunicated. He remained a Roman Catholic but subsequently played no role in the church. He believed that the church had lost its chance to support progressive governments around the world. The second great disappointment for Lord Acton was the defeat of the Confederacy. Acton was one of the fi rst people in England to recognize that the United States had a great political literature in the Federalist Papers, and he compared the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the writings of Plato. Acton wrote learned articles for the British government explaining what the American Constitution was about and why the idea of states’ rights was so important. At that time, the British believed that American democracy had the same fl aws as the Athenian democracy and that it was a radical democracy with no check on the will of the people. Acton argued that states’ rights served as a balance in America and resulted in a check on a centralized, radical democracy. Acton believed that a radical democracy is imperialist abroad and despotic at home. In the Athenian democracy, the conscience of the individual was subordinated to the will of the majority. For Acton, the Athenian democracy was immoral and amoral. In 1861, the Civil War began in the United States. Although the British government did not approve of slavery, it favored the Confederacy and hoped that the defeat of the Union would lead to further dissolution of the United States. Acton wrote papers for Gladstone and the British government, delineating the issues of the Civil War. His research showed that the fi nest Confederates, including Robert E. Lee, were morally opposed to slavery and that Southern states would eventually end slavery. Acton saw a risk in the intervention of the federal government, which might destroy states’ rights on the pretense of ending slavery. With the defeat of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg, Acton again lost. He believed that the United States had had a chance to become a beacon to the world but would instead become a despotic democracy without any regard for the rights of individuals, that

• From Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life (2005)

  183 insights. By 1930, when Churchill was 56, he had fallen from power and was thought to be fi nished in British politics. He then wrote My Early Life. This autobiography, called A Roving Commission in its American edition, is very different from Gandhi’s Experiments with the Truth. In My Early Life, Churchill, knowing that his public career was over, looks back on his experience with insight. Both Churchill and Gandhi found their compulsory education not only worthless but counterproductive. Churchill pondered whether great books should be given to young people. He believed that life experiences were necessary and that exposure to great books would only make students hate literature. Churchill was a failure in school and was last in his class. Churchill was accepted at Sandhurst. There, he did credibly and fi nished eighth in his class, which showed that he could learn when he felt the material was worth learning. Churchill favored a good, practical education that goes along with what the child learns best. Churchill loved the army because it satis fi ed his search for glory. He wanted to be famous and known for his bravery. My Early Life describes Churchill’s election to Parliament. The book also describes, in touching terms, Churchill’s relationship with his father. Although his father believed that he would never amount to anything, by the age of 26, Churchill had become a bestselling author, a millionaire from the proceeds of his writings and lectures, a war hero, and a member of Parliament. In 1915, Churchill was dismissed from government because he was blamed for the destruction of the British forces at Gallipoli. After his dismissal, Churchill took up painting. In 1932, he wrote a magazine article, which he later expanded into Painting as a Pastime. In this book, Churchill says that at every stage of life, the individual must be willing to try something new. The greatest relief from stress is to take up a vocation that is different from one’s ordinary activities. Churchill describes the sheer joy of translating nature from the eye to the canvas and raises the question of how we relate to nature. He worshipped nature, traveling as far as Morocco to paint landscapes. Churchill was a successful artist. In 1924, only eight years after taking up painting, he won prizes for works submitted anonymously. The paintings give us insight into the character of this statesman. An autobiography can be crafted, but Churchill’s paintings offer a glimpse into

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  “Do you truly want it to end?” he asked in a husky murmur. “I don’t.” Her short nails left scratch marks in the rug as he slowed his pace. She didn’t want it to end—this moment, his visit, none of it. But if she didn’t orgasm soon she was afraid she would die. “Please . . .” He thrust deep and groaned, burying his cock to the hilt and coming, burning her from the inside with hot, pulsing streams of his seed. Charlotte came just like that, convulsing around him, his chest to her back, his hands on her breasts, his groans with her cries, until she couldn’t tell where she ended and Hugh La Coeur began. Hugh brushed fiery red curls from Charlotte’s face before kissing the tip of her nose. “I want you to come with me when I leave.” Lifting her from the floor, he carried her to the bed. She buried her face in his throat. “I cannot leave here.” “Why not?” He set her atop the counterpane and then slid beside her. She caught his hand and brought it to her heart, her eyes a soft and misty green. “Because we’re safe here, the servants and I. We have a home where we’re comfortable. It may not be ideal, but it’s reliable.” Resting against the pillows, Hugh studied her face. “I can be reliable. I shall open an account for you, in your name. I’ve promised you a house, and I’ll provide it. Everything I give you will be yours to keep. Plenty to provide for you and the others.” Charlotte looked away. “I like Derbyshire,” she said softly. He stared at her, feeling as if he’d taken a physical blow. She would choose this place, this life, over him? He’d told her how he felt, revealed emotions he didn’t know how to manage, and she shunned him. In truth she didn’t trust him. It’s reliable, she said. Unspoken was the notion that he was not. “Jesus,” he muttered, sliding off the bed. He walked to the window and pushed aside the drapes, gazing at the winter scene outside. A few days more and he would be free to move on, free to return to the careless life he’d once enjoyed but now found sadly unfulfilling. If he expired today, what memory would he leave behind? That of a man who was unreliable and irresponsible? He didn’t want to be that man anymore. “There are things you don’t know,” Charlotte said behind him, her voice soft and tentative. He kept his back to her but was acutely aware of every move she made. “Are you going to tell me what they are?” “I . . .” She paused, then sighed. “No.” “Well, then.” Hugh released a deep breath, his disappointment painful. “I suppose that answers my question.” “I wish I could explain.”

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  consent of a conservative minority to Lumen Gentium, he accepted ‘Prefatory notes’ (Nota praevia) added to it, which spelled out in scholastic language the limits which the main text could place on collegiality. On his own initiative, the Pope in his closing speech to the council proclaimed Mary as Mother of the Church, after pleas from Polish bishops for an even stronger title for Mary, Mediatrix. His action contrasted with the fact that the idea of Mary as Mother of the Church had been relegated to some polite murmurs in Lumen Gentium. The Pope may have been swayed by the fact that the council’s vote on the conservative proposal to consecrate the world to Mary was the most contentious and closely fought of any major decision within it. Nevertheless, the outcome was a reminder that Paul VI was not necessarily going to hold formal constitutional consultations before major public statements, even those made outside the criteria for infallibility set by Vatican I. Among those dismayed by any such Marian proclamation was Augustin Bea, the German cardinal who headed the Vatican’s ecumenical Secretariat for Unity; he could easily see that the move was not calculated to win over Protestants or even necessarily the Orthodox.11 Motherhood, fatherhood and the family in a more general sense were to prove the preoccupations most disruptive to the revolutionary programme of Vatican II, because it was above all in matters of sexuality that the Pope drew back from the strong tide of pleas for change in the Church’s practice. There was a wide expectation among those present that realities revealed by mission in Africa and provoked by ecumenical contacts elsewhere would lead to a relaxation of the Roman Church’s insistence on universal celibacy for the clergy; instead Paul reaffirmed the celibacy rule. It was the beginning of a steady decline in vocations to the priesthood in the northern hemisphere, and a steady loss of priests from ministry to enter marriages. Throughout much of the rest of the world, in cultures where celibacy had never been valued, the papal rulings on this matter were frankly ignored, and in these settings, significantly, vocations continued to flourish. Even more damaging was the Pope’s unmodified stand against artificial birth control: this provoked the greatest internal challenge to papal authority in the Western Church’s history since Martin Luther’s protests over the theology of salvation. The technology of contraception had been transformed in the late nineteenth century. Now it was possible easily and cheaply to separate heterosexual intercourse from pregnancy, and Europeans and North Americans had not been slow to exploit the possibility. How would theologians react? The Anglican Communion was remarkably quick in coming to terms with the new situation: the change can be monitored by rapid shifts in the statements formulated by the

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  Mortality will pierce you through the retina. But there she is in her pegged pants, a kind of doo-wop Retro ponytail pulled off to the side, as eligible a candidate as you are likely to find this late in the game. The sexual equivalent of fast food. She shrugs and nods when you ask her to dance. You like the way she moves, the oiled ellipses of her hips and shoulders. After the second song, she says she’s tired. She’s at the point of bolting when you ask her if she needs a little pick-me-up. “You’ve got some blow?” she says. “Is Stevie Wonder blind?” you say. She takes your arm and leads you into the Ladies’. A couple of spoons and she seems to like you just fine, and you are feeling very likable yourself. A couple more. This woman is all nose. “I love drugs,” she says, as you march toward the bar. “It’s something we have in common,” you say. “Have you ever noticed how all the good words start with D? D and L.” You try to think about this. You’re not quite sure what she’s driving at. The Bolivians are singing their marching song, but you can’t make out the words. “You know. Drugs. Delight. Decadence.” “Debauchery,” you say, catching the tune now. “Dexedrine.” “Delectable. Deranged. Debilitated.” “Delinquent.” “Delirium.” “And L,” she says. “Lush and luscious.” “Languorous.” “Librium.” “Libidinous.” “What’s that?” she says. “Horny.” “Oh,” she says, casting a long, arching look over your shoulder. Her eyes glaze in a way that reminds you precisely of the closing of a sandblasted glass shower door. You can see that the game is over, although you’re not sure which rule you broke. Possibly she finds H words offensive. A purist. She is scanning the dance floor for a man with a compatible vocabulary. You have more: detumescence , for instance. Drowning and depressed; lost and lonesome . It’s not that you’re really going to miss this girl who thinks that decadence and Dexedrine are the high points of the language of Kings James and Lear. But the touch of flesh, the sound of another human voice … You know there is a special purgatory waiting for you out there in the dawn’s surly light, a desperate half sleep which is like a grease fire in the brainpan. The girl waves as she disappears into the crowd. There is no sign of the other girl, the girl who would not be here. There is no sign of Tad Allagash. The Bolivians are mutinous. You can’t stop their treacherous voices. It is worse even than you expected, stepping out into the morning. The glare is like a mother’s reproach. The sidewalk sparkles cruelly. Visibility unlimited. The downtown warehouses look serene and restful in this beveled light. An uptown cab passes and you start to wave, then realize you have no money. The cab stops. You jog over and lean in the window.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  He was interviewed for a position in the Department of Factual Verification, a job which must have seemed even then to be singularly unsuited to his flamboyant temperament. But he was not to languish long among the facts . Those first months seem now to have been filled with promise. You were convinced of the importance of your job and of the inevitability of rising above it. You met people you had admired half your life. You got married. The Druid himself sent a note of congratulations. It was only a matter of time before they realized your talents were being wasted in Fact. Something changed. Somewhere along the line you stopped accelerating. Mrs. Bender, the senior grammarian, is working late. You say good night. She asks you about the French piece and you tell her it’s finished. “What a mess,” she says. “It reads as if it was translated literally from the Chinese. These damn writers want us to do all their work for them.” You nod and smile. Her complaint is refreshing, like rain at the end of a muggy day. You linger in the doorway while she shakes her head and clicks her tongue. “Going home soon?” you say. “Not soon enough.” “Can I get you something from downstairs?” She shakes her head. “I don’t want to feel as if I’m settled in here.” “See you tomorrow.” She nods and returns to her proofs. You walk to the elevator and press the Down button. THE UTILITY OF FICTIONYou see yourself as the kind of guy who appreciates a quiet night at home with a good book. A little Mozart on the speakers, a cup of cocoa on the arm of the chair, slippers on the feet. Monday night. It feels like Thursday, at least. Walking from subway to apartment, you tell yourself that you are going to suppress this rising dread that comes upon you when you return home at night. A man’s home, after all, is his castle. Approaching your building on West Twelfth Street, you observe the architect’s dim concept of European fortresses: a crenelated tower atop the building conceals the water tank and the entrance is fitted with a mock portcullis. You let yourself in the front door and gingerly unlock the mailbox. No telling what might be inside. One of these days there could be a letter from Amanda explaining her desertion, begging forgiveness or asking you to send the rest of her stuff to a new address. Tonight there is an overdue notice from VISA ; a solicitation from Recording for the Blind; a letter from Jim Winthrop in Chicago, college roommate, best man at your wedding; and something corporate for Amanda White. You open Jim’s letter first. It starts “Hey stranger,” and ends with “regards to Amanda.” The letter to Amanda is a printout on an insurance company letterhead, her name typed into the salutation: Let’s face it—in your business, your face is your greatest asset.

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  “And you would take us in?” she challenged, her cheeks flushed and eyes sparked with anger. “A mistress with a minor ward and entourage of disabled servants? Gwen would be thoroughly ruined. Or do you intend to hide us away? Perhaps the accommodations would be superior, but we would still be trapped, our futures dependent on the whim of a rake’s temporary infatuation.” His hands clenched into fists. Would no one ever trust him to be responsible? “Tell me, Charlotte, what am I to you?” She snorted. “A charming stranger. A man too devilishly handsome for his own good. An amorous libertine who shows flashes of kindness that startle me.” Hugh turned away and moved toward the door. He’d heard enough. “What am I to you?” she called after him. Pausing on the threshold, he turned back. “A beautiful woman whose sensuality calls to me. A nurse, a guardian, a champion for those in your care. A pragmatist who will do anything to survive, a trait I appreciate, since I lack it myself. An honest individual who said she admired me, who believed, if only for a moment, that I am capable of doing whatever needs to be done.” “You are.” “Only when it relates to you.” Charlotte’s lower lip quivered, her fingers picking restlessly at her skirts. He took a deep breath and said, “I’ve acted out of character ever since I stepped foot in this monstrosity of a house, and since I didn’t much care for my character before, I don’t mind at all. In fact, I rather like myself better when I’m with you. I like that I admire things about you other than your physical attributes, though I admit to spending a great deal of the last twenty-four hours admiring those.” He sketched a bow, then turned again and left the room. “Hugh, wait!” Charlotte hurried after him. “Why?” he asked over his shoulder. “I understand.” “But you don’t.” Hugh stopped but didn’t turn around. She circled him, her lush floral scent enveloping his senses. She tilted her head back to look at him. “If it were just you and I, and no one else, I would go with you. I would leave everything behind to be with you, for however long you would have me.” “But it isn’t that way.” “No.” Her hand reached for his, just as she’d often done since he met her. “And I am dreadfully sorry it isn’t. You must realize, too many people depend on me to simply hand over everything and hope for the best.” His mind shifting industriously, Hugh reasoned out a way to prove he was someone on whom she could rely. “You want to find that treasure, and I can assist you. But you will have to trust me.” Her eyes widened, her wariness a palpable thing.

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  regime and the Church is yet another piece of political architecture: the massive ‘Temple’ in Belgrade, now one of the city’s most prominent buildings, marking (probably mistakenly) the site of the burning of the bones of St Sava by the Turks in the sixteenth century. Begun in 1935 in a style intended to recall Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, here symbolically restored to Christian hands from Turkish captivity, the Temple’s construction had stopped abruptly when the Communists came to power in Yugoslavia, but work began again in 1985 (see Plate 67).88 The consequences of this alliance in the wars of the former Yugoslavia are well known, and they are still unravelling. The Serbian Orthodox Church has not yet had the chance or the inclination to stand back and properly consider its part in what happened.89 The sufferings of the Orthodox and the ancient non-Chalcedonian Churches of the East through the twentieth century, combined with the mushrooming of other Christianities, have given traditional Eastern Christianity a much diminished numerical share in the contemporary spectrum of Christian activity. In 1900, the Orthodox were estimated as 21 per cent of the world’s Christians; that had declined to 11 per cent at the beginning of the twenty-first century, while the Roman Catholic proportion, thanks to its growth in the south of the globe, had risen from 48 per cent to 52 per cent.90 Yet this decline in ‘market share’ should be viewed in the context of the huge rise in Christian numbers generally – and more importantly, it is worth remembering that the Christian obsession with statistics, triumphalist or alarmist, is even more recent than the general Western secular fascination with them. The English are among the originators and exemplifiers of this modern neurosis, and they also demonstrate how comparatively modern it is: no more than a century and a half in duration. English politicians pioneered the uses of statistics in politics and economics in the later seventeenth century, but the Church of England did not exhibit a permanent preoccupation with them until after 1851, when the then British government decided to conduct a census of religious affiliation and church attendance alongside its customary population census. The result punctured Anglican complacency about the Church’s national status, even though it also provided the remarkable affirmation that on one day in that year, a quarter of the population was still attending the established Church’s services. Anglicans have not ceased to worry about or celebrate numbers ever since; they are hardly alone among Western Churches.91 More important in the eyes of the Orthodox or the non-Chalcedonian Churches might be an older preoccupation: the revival in the life and morale of monasticism, that institution which is so central to their life and spirituality. From the 1970s, both Mount Athos and the Coptic monasteries of Egypt have

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  She was stunned. His offer was an intimate gesture. He could probably count on one hand the number of people who called him by his given name rather than his title. “Very well . . . Justin.” She took a deep breath. She could also offer intimate gestures. Lucien could not be allowed to ruin her for every other man. Certainly she had not ruined him for other women. “I would greatly appreciate it if you would kiss me.” Fontaine looked understandably surprised, then wary, before grinning with delight. If they were caught, it could be a disaster for her. He would either offer marriage to save her reputation, or he would walk away. As a powerful marquess, Fontaine could not be forced into anything, certainly nothing as drastic as marriage, but at the moment she felt reckless, her stung pride and aching heart goading her to further foolishness. “With pleasure,” he murmured, drawing her closer. Julienne closed her eyes and prayed for passion. His mouth brushed across hers, featherlight and fleeting. The exchange was not the least distasteful—it was actually quite pleasant—but it was sadly lacking in any combustible qualities. Her heart didn’t race, her breath didn’t catch. But then she hadn’t really expected otherwise. She opened her eyes and hid her disappointment with a smile. “I would very much appreciate your escort to the Derby, my lord.” “Was that a test, Lady Julienne? And if so, might I safely assume I passed?” Julienne couldn’t tell him the truth, so she simply kept smiling. Thankfully, Fontaine didn’t press her further. He stood and held out his arm, but she demurred. “Go ahead, please. I want a moment to catch my breath before I return to the ballroom.” “I cannot leave you out here alone,” he said. But she insisted. Fontaine stood indecisively for a moment, but in the end his desire to earn her regard won out. He gave a courtly bow and kissed the back of her hand. “I will inform Lady Whitfield of your whereabouts.” When she was alone, Julienne acknowledged that it was time to abandon her dream of a grand passion. She couldn’t go about kissing men while thinking of Lucien. She needed to marry, and she couldn’t afford to be picky. No one in the ton married for love or any other elevated emotion, and it was futile to long for her marriage to be different. “You kissed him!” Standing, she turned her head toward the low, accusatory voice. Lucien. Lucien kept his fisted hands behind his back. It was bad enough he’d barely restrained himself from beating a marquess to a bloody pulp, but to allow Julienne to see how much he cared would be the worst sort of folly. She’d obviously moved past their one night together, while he had not. He couldn’t allow her to discover how completely smitten he was.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  A camera crew has taken over the sidewalk beside the entrance. Pedestrians submit to a woman with a clipboard who orders them to detour out into the street. “Close-up with the mini-cam,” someone says: The crew wear their importance like uniforms. Out in the bus lane, a kid in a Blessed Mother High School sweatshirt turns down the volume on his ghetto-blaster. “Who is it,” he asks you. When you shake your head he turns the music back up. Facts are simple and facts are straight Facts are lazy and facts are late Facts all come with points of view Facts don’t do what I want them to “Here she comes,” a voice shouts. You keep walking, thinking briefly about the Missing Person, the one who’s come and gone for good. Out into the sunlight of Fifth Avenue and the Plaza, a gargantuan white chateau rising in the middle of the island like a New Money dream of the Old World. When you first came to the city you spent a night here with Amanda. You had friends to stay with, but you wanted to spend that first night at the Plaza. Getting out of the taxi next to the famous fountain, you seemed to be arriving at the premiere of the movie which was to be your life. A doorman greeted you at the steps. A string quartet played in the Palm Court. Your tenth-floor room was tiny and overlooked an airshaft; though you could not see the city out the window, you believed that it was spread out at your feet. The limousines around the entrances seemed like carriages, and you felt that someday one would wait for you. Today they put you in mind of carrion birds, and you cannot believe your dreams were so shallow. You are the stuff of which consumer profiles—American Dream: Educated Middle-Class Model—are made. When you’re staying at the Plaza with your beautiful wife, doesn’t it make sense to order the best Scotch that money can buy before you go to the theater in your private limousine? You stayed there once before, with your parents and your brothers, when your father was in between corporate postings. You and Michael rode the elevators up and down all day. The next day you were going to embark for England on the Queen Elizabeth . You told Michael that they didn’t have silverware in England, that people had to eat with their hands. Michael started to cry. He didn’t want to go to England, didn’t want to eat with his hands. You told him not to worry. You would sneak some silverware into the country. Prowling the halls, you stole silverware from the room-service trays and stashed it in your suitcases. Michael wanted to know if they had glasses. You packed some just in case. At customs in Liverpool Michael began to cry again. You had warned him of the terrible penalties for smuggling. He didn’t want to have his hands cut off.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  And on the tree of mourning they hanged me the lost emotion of an angry people hanged me, forgetting how long I was in dying how deathlessly I stood forgetting how easily I could rise again. April 20, 1952 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography 17 When I found out that I had failed german and trig in summer school that year, it never occurred to me to think that it was because I had spent the summer wetnursing the girls of The Branded in my tiny tenement apartment. It never occurred to me that it was because every evening when I came home from work, instead of doing the assignments for my classes the next day, I was serving us coffee and cinnamon ice cubes in powdered milk with dexedrine chasers. We were all poor and ravenous. We sat around on the tiny living-room floor with the now dead fireplace and the two tall windows open, trying to catch a breath of air as we sprawled on the mattress pulled out of the bedroom. Our only coverings were nylon half-slips pulled up over our breasts, sometimes with a sash tied around. I told myself I had failed in summer school because I just could not learn german. Some people can, I decided, and some people can’t; and I couldn’t. Besides, I was very bored and disappointed with Hunter College, which seemed to me like an extension of a catholic girls school and not at all like Hunter High School, peopled as it had been with our exciting and emotionally complicated lives. For most of the women I met in my freshman classes at Hunter College, an emotional complication meant cutting class to play bridge in the college cafeteria. I was also beside myself with sexual frustration, given the presence of all the beautiful young women whom I was sheltering like a wounded banshee. The abortion had left me with an additional sadness about which I could not speak, certainly not to these girls who saw my house and my independence as a refuge, and seemed to think that I was settled and strong and dependable, which, of course, was exactly what I wanted them to think. Whether or not they were sleeping with each other on my Bloom & Krup double boxspring with mattress while I was at school and work, I did not know. We joked about it often enough, but if they were, they did not tell me, and I never mentioned how enticing and frightening I found their strange blonde- and red- and chestnut-colored secrets that peeked out from beneath their pulled-up half-slips, in the hundred-degree heat of the small backyard apartment. That summer I decided that I was definitely going to have an affair with a woman—in just those words. How I was going to accomplish that, I had no idea, or even what I meant by an affair.

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  Hours later, Julienne returned to Montrose Hall, determined to spend the evening at home so she would be fresh and alert for her picnic with Lucien. She had so much to say to him, so many things she wanted him to know, before they said good-bye. She ordered tea brought to her in the family parlor and made her way upstairs with the afternoon’s post. Julienne sorted through the pile halfheartedly, until she came to a missive that caught her eye. Delicate pink parchment, scented of roses and bearing a rose seal, stood out from the others. Julienne opened it curiously. “Good grief,” she breathed when she realized who the sender was. And then she tucked into the letter with gusto. She’d jilted him! Lucien stomped back down the steps of Montrose Hall in a fine temper. He still couldn’t believe it. He’d never been jilted in his life. “Something came up,” Julienne had written in her far-too-brief apology. If that “something” turned out to be Fontaine, there would be the devil to pay. Returning to his phaeton, Lucien cursed at the sight of the massive picnic basket strapped to the back. He’d never in his life been on a picnic. His staff had been forced to run out and buy the things necessary to put one together, including the basket itself. Even with his foul mood, he wasn’t about to allow the fine feast Remington’s chef had put together go to waste. He’d visit his mother and take her out for the afternoon. She would enjoy the surprise. It wasn’t long before Lucien was climbing the steps of his mother’s townhouse. Heading toward the pink parlor, he scowled when he heard his mother’s laughter inside. Damnation, she had guests. Perhaps she wouldn’t be available for a picnic either. The thought made his mood even more disagreeable. He opened the door and then stood frozen on the threshold. “What the devil are you doing in my mother’s house?” he barked. Three heads—his mother’s, the duke’s, and Julienne’s—swung toward him in surprise. He was somewhat pacified by Julienne’s radiant smile. “I was invited, of course,” she replied. His Grace stood. “Afternoon, son. Wasn’t expecting to see you until this evening at your club, but I’m pleased all the same.” “I’m not,” grumbled Amanda. “Run along now, Lucien, and allow me to speak to Lady Julienne.” Lucien crossed his arms and glowered. “If I leave, Julienne is coming with me. Today was my day with her, promised to me for a picnic.” “You whine like a petulant child,” his mother scolded as she attempted to shoo him out of the room. “You have no notion of the trouble that went into preparing that damn picnic,” he argued. “And now it’s sitting outside, on the back of my phaeton, getting cold.” He held out his hand. “Come along, Julienne.” Amanda glared at her son. “She’s not going anywhere. She came to see me, and she’s been here only a few minutes.”

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  That’s a damn nice couch.” The leather had more than a few cracks—it was about 30 percent baby blue faux leather and 70 percent foam—but it felt damn good to me anyway. “All right,” he said. “We’re about done.” He walked over to his desk and pulled a roll of duct tape from a drawer. “We just need your trunk.” I got up, pulled the trunk out from under the bed, and Chip situated it between the couch and the PlayStation 2 and started tearing off thin strips of duct tape. He applied them to the trunk so that they spelled out COFFEE TABLE. “There,” he said. He sat down and put his feet up on the, uh, coffee table. “Done.” I sat down next to him, and he looked over at me and suddenly said, “Listen. I’m not going to be your entrée to Culver Creek social life.” “Uh, okay,” I said, but I could hear the words catch in my throat. I’d just carried this guy’s couch beneath a white-hot sun and now he didn’t like me? “Basically you’ve got two groups here,” he explained, speaking with increasing urgency. “You’ve got the regular boarders, like me, and then you’ve got the Weekday Warriors; they board here, but they’re all rich kids who live in Birmingham and go home to their parents’ air-conditioned mansions every weekend. Those are the cool kids. I don’t like them, and they don’t like me, and so if you came here thinking that you were hot shit at public school so you’ll be hot shit here, you’d best not be seen with me. You did go to public school, didn’t you?” “Uh...” I said. Absentmindedly, I began picking at the cracks in the couch’s leather, digging my fingers into the foamy whiteness. “Right, you did, probably, because if you had gone to a private school your freakin’ shorts would fit.” He laughed. I wore my shorts just below my hips, which I thought was cool. Finally I said, “Yeah, I went to public school. But I wasn’t hot shit there, Chip. I was regular shit.” “Ha! That’s good. And don’t call me Chip. Call me the Colonel.” I stifled a laugh. “The Colonel?” “Yeah. The Colonel. And we’ll call you...hmm. Pudge.” “Huh?” “Pudge,” the Colonel said. “Because you’re skinny. It’s called irony, Pudge. Heard of it? Now, let’s go get some cigarettes and start this year off right.” He walked out of the room, again just assuming I’d follow, and this time I did. Mercifully, the sun was descending toward the horizon. We walked five doors down to Room 48.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  The expected value of the gamble and the “sure thing” are equal in ducats (4 million), but the psychological utilities of the two options are different, because of the diminishing utility of wealth: the increment of utility from 1 million to 4 million is 50 units, but an equal increment, from 4 to 7 million, increases the utility of wealth by only 24 units. The utility of the gamble is 94/2 = 47 (the utility of its two outcomes, each weighted by its probability of 1/2). The utility of 4 million is 60. Because 60 is more than 47, an individual with this utility function will prefer the sure thing. Bernoulli’s insight was that a decision maker with diminishing marginal utility for wealth will be risk averse. Bernoulli’s essay is a marvel of concise brilliance. He applied his new concept of expected utility (which he called “moral expectation”) to compute how much a merchant in St. Petersburg would be willing to pay to insure a shipment of spice from Amsterdam if “he is well aware of the fact that at this time of year of one hundred ships which sail from Amsterdam to Petersburg, five are usually lost.” His utility function explained why poor people buy insurance and why richer people sell it to them. As you can see in the table, the loss of 1 million causes a loss of 4 points of utility (from 100 to 96) to someone who has 10 million and a much larger loss of 18 points (from 48 to 30) to someone who starts off with 3 million. The poorer man will happily pay a premium to transfer the risk to the richer one, which is what insurance is about. Bernoulli also offered a solution to the famous “St. Petersburg paradox,” in which people who are offered a gamble that has infinite expected value (in ducats) are willing to spend only a few ducats for it. Most impressive, his analysis of risk attitudes in terms of preferences for wealth has stood the test of time: it is still current in economic analysis almost 300 years later. The longevity of the theory is all the more remarkable because it is seriously flawed. The errors of a theory are rarely found in what it asserts explicitly; they hide in what it ignores or tacitly assumes. For an example, take the following scenarios: Today Jack and Jill each have a wealth of 5 million. Yesterday, Jack had 1 million and Jill had 9 million. Are they equally happy? (Do they have the same utility?) Bernoulli’s theory assumes that the utility of their wealth is what makes people more or less happy. Jack and Jill have the same wealth, and the theory therefore asserts that they should be equally happy, but you do not need a degree in psychology to know that today Jack is elated and Jill despondent. Indeed, we

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  escort I am being uncharacteristically discreet. Anyway, about a year ago we dialed a hunk and voilà Odysseus.” “Don’t try to cheer me up.” “It’s true. I had to go out with these freaks two nights running, and needless to say the Allagash Express was derailed. The agency paid for his services, which definitely did not include witty conversation.” When you start to laugh, Tad says, “Careful.” But it’s under control. “Dial a Hunk.” “That’s it.” “Dial a Fucking Hunk.” “Now that,” Tad says, “is funny. The wily Odysseus.” “Amanda’s finally got the right number,” you say, wishing you found it funnier. You wish this laughter could lift you out of your heavy body and carry you beyond this place, out through an open window and up over the city until all this ugliness and pain were reduced to a twinkling of faraway lights. “I don’t know,” you say. “Actually, it’s not that funny. It’s just pathetic.” “Don’t pour good sympathy after bad,” Tad says. “Where’s Stevie?” “That’s another sob story. You want to steer clear of that, Coach.” “Why?” “Stevie, aka Steve, had his third operation a few weeks ago. Convincing, isn’t he?” “You expect me to believe that?” You replay images of Stevie in your mind. “Bullshit.” “Would I lie? Ask Jimmy Q if you don’t believe me. What do you think the scarf around the neck is for? You can’t remove an Adam’s apple.” You have no idea whether Tad is serious or not, having been taken in by him on numerous occasions. Your curiosity about Stevie’s chromosomes is by now exhausted. It is too late in the night to care. “I was going to tell you.”