Excitement

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 132 of 182 · 20 per page

• From City of Night (1963)

  We went to Main Street, and Im feeling an intensified sense of perception—as if suddenly I can see clearly. Now Main Street is writhing with the frantic nothing-activity in the late hours. We walked into Wally’s, exploding with smoke. Then to Harry’s bar and more smoke, more streaky mirrors, more hungry eyes and stares—and later, before the burlesque house with the winking lights and the pictures of nude women, we saw three girls, and Chuck went casually and talked to them and they said yes. They belonged obviously to that breed of young girls with whom the hustlers periodically prove their masculinity. Like the malehustlers, they live the best they can from day to day.... We went back to the 1-2-3 to look for Skipper or Buddy to come along with us. Miss Destiny was standing outside with Lola, and when she saw the girls with us, she stomped angrily inside the bar. We found Skipper, and we got into Buddy’s car and Skipper made it run, and since no one had a place to go, we drove to Echo Park. And the night was miraculously clear as it rarely is in Los Angeles, and the moon hung sadly in the sky as unconcerned as the world, as we sexhuddled in the car with the three lost girls.... We left the girls at Silverlake and came back to the 1-2-3, where Miss Destiny, skyhigh, rushed at us shrieking, “You know whats the crazy matter with you, all of you? youre so dam gone on your own damselves you have to hang around queens to prove youre such fine dam studs, and the first dam cunt that shows, you go lapping after her like hot dam dawgs!” Then she cooled off right away and said drive her to Bixel Street, where someone (shes playing it mysterious like someone is turning her on free because shes such a gone queen) is laying all kinds of stuff on her. When we got to Bixel, it turns out Trudi’s daddy has paid for the stuff, including a tin of maryjane and rolls of bees, and hes asked Miss Destiny to take it to her place and Bring Everybody and theyll be up later and we’ll have a party. We rode back, and on Broadway the cop-patrol is driving meanly. Skipper put on his dark shades, Chuck lowered his widehat, I sank into the seat (the junk: the roust), and goddamned Miss Destiny waves at the cops—“Yoohoo, girls”—shes flying out of her gay head. Luckily they didnt hear her and they already had someone in back, so they went by with everyone-hating faces. Just as Skipper parked, Trudi’s daddy drives up in his tough station-wagon with Trudi behind him wrapped in—I swear—a fur stole—“Like Mae West,” she cooed. And we all went up to Miss Destiny’s. 4

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Then, as the music played, the steward of the household called for the wine and spiced cakes to be brought in quickly. The ushers and the squires left the hall, while the revellers feasted on the food and drink. When they had finished they all trooped into the temple for a service. Once that was over, they fell upon their suppers. Why say any more about it? Every man knows that, at a king’s banquet, there is enough and more than enough. No one goes hungry. There were more dainties there than I can describe. When the feast was complete, the king and his entourage walked out into the courtyard in order to view the miraculous horse. There was more amazement at this animal than at any time since the siege of Troy. The Trojans were astonished at the appearance of a wooden horse; the lords and ladies at the court of Genghis Khan were even more astounded by a metallic one. Eventually the king asked the knight to explain the properties of this horse. He wanted to know how strong it was, and the best way to ride it. As soon as the knight put his hand upon the reins, the horse began to frisk and dance. ‘Sir,’ the knight said, ‘there is nothing more to tell you. When you want to ride anywhere, you just twist this pin behind the ear. When we are alone, I will tell you how to do it. You simply mention to the horse the city or the country you wish to visit, and it will take you there. When you wish to stop and walk around, just twist this other pin. That is all there is to do. It will descend and wait for you until your return. Nothing in the world will move it. Or, if you want the horse to disappear, use this pin here. Then it will vanish out of men’s sight, and will reappear only when you call him. I will give you the secret signal later on. So travel where you like. Ride the wind.’ The king listened carefully to everything the knight told him; as soon as he had understood the instructions, and the method of riding, he was delighted. He went back to the feast, and the horse’s bridle was taken up to the tower. Thereupon the horse itself vanished. I don’t know how. I can say no more about it. I know only that Genghis Khan stayed at the revels with his nobles until the following dawn. PART TWO

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Jack, the young squire of the lord, was standing by the table and carving the roast meat. Of course he had heard everything. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘please don’t be angry with me. If you gave me enough cloth to make a new gown - as a reward, if you like - I think I could tell the friar the solution to this riddle. I think I could explain to him how to divide this man’s fart among all the members of his convent.’ ‘If you give us the answer,’ the lord of the manor replied, ‘you can have your cloth. God knows you will have earned it.’ ‘My lord,’ the squire said, ‘pick a day when the weather is mild and favourable, when there is no wind or breeze to disturb the air. Then have a cartwheel with its usual twelve spokes brought into the hall here. It has to be a complete wheel.’ ‘Yes. And then?’ ‘Summon twelve friars into the hall. Thirteen make up a convent, do they not? Well, your confessor here can be the thirteenth. They all have to kneel down at the same time. Then every friar has to put his nose against one of the spokes. Our worthy friar here will place his nose against the hub in the middle of the wheel. May God be with him. We will then bring the churl among them. His belly will have to be as taut as a drum, and ready to blow. He will bend down, on the other side of the hub, and let loose a great fart. I swear to you, on my life, that you will see the proof of my theory. The sound of the fart will travel along all twelve of the spokes. So will the stink of it. Of course your worthy confessor here will have the first fruit, so to speak. He deserved the first offering. That is only fair. Has he not said in the past that the worthiest friar should be the first to receive alms? He deserves the best, does he not? Only this morning I heard him preaching from the pulpit. It did me good, it really did. I would let him savour three farts, if I could. I am sure his whole convent agrees with me about that. What a holy man he is.’ The lord and his lady were in full agreement with young Jack. Everyone there said that he had explained himself as subtly as Euclid or Ptolemy - everyone, that is, except the holy friar. As for the churl who had started the whole business, they all agreed that he was neither mad nor foolish; on the contrary, he had all his wits about him. So Jack won his new gown. That is the end of my story. And just in time. Look, we are coming into a new town. Heere endeth the Somonours Tale The Clerk’s Prologue Heere folweth the Prologe of the Clerkes Tale of Oxenforde

• From City of Night (1963)

  Unexpectedly at night you may come upon scenes of crushed intimacy along the dark twisting lanes. In the eery mottled light of a distant lamp, a shadow lies on his stomach on the grasspatched ground, another straddles him: ignoring the danger of detection in the last moments of exiled excitement.... In Central Park—as a rainstorm approached (the dark clouds crashing in the black sky which seemed to be lowering, ripped occasionally by the lightning)—once, one night in that park, aware of an unbearable exploding excitement within me mixed with unexplainable sudden panic, I stood against a tree and in frantic succession—and without even coming—I let seven night figures go down on me. And when, finally, the rain came pouring, I walked in it, soaked, as if the water would wash away whatever had caused the desperate night-experience . THE PROFESSOR: The Flight of the Angels 1 THE MAN IN BED—STARING AT me appraisingly—was enormous. In one hand he held a pastel-blue cigarette—poised, daintily between two puffed fingers. He brings the cigarette studiedly to his mouth and blows out a shapeless cloud of uninhaled smoke. He looks crazily like a pink-faced genie emerging from the smoke. The other hand held a tape-measure, which is partly wrapped about his sagging fat neck.... Hes somewhere in his 60s. His head is shaved completely. Huge dark eyes bulge behind thick glasses, like the crazy eyes painted on the glasses children wear on Halloween. Beside me, in this well-furnished apartment, stands a young malenurse, who has brought me here from Times Square. He is perhaps 28, coldly blond, with a very pale face—a premature Oldness, a bitter knowingness. He acts like a haughty movie butler who feels superior to the guests. Even on the street when he approached me, he had looked at me with unconcealed contempt; lighting a cigarette as we walked here, not offering me one. Scattered about the floor are manuscripts, books, magazines. The room is cluttered with statues, unhung paintings, vases with withered flowers. There was a large ugly German beer mug on a mantle. Now the malenurse is looking at the old man—waiting, I knew, for some sign of approbation or displeasure from him. After long moments of staring at me, unwinding the tape-measure, winding it again, puffing elegantly on the pastel-blue cigarette, the old man, propped halfway up in the hospital bed, said finally: “Well!” And his fleshy face shaped a smile—molded as if on pink clay. “Im not one bit disappointed,” he announced grandly. “But then I never am—thanks to Larry here,” acknowledging the malenurse. “Larry knows my subtlest moods, my changing (oh, so changing!) tastes—and hes only been with me—how long, Larry?” The malenurse answers quickly: “Four months, Professor.” “Ah, yes, of course, four months!” The man in bed goes on: “It’s unfortunate that the world doesnt recognize talent like Larry’s openly. Larry would be an Enormous Success. But then there are many things the world doesnt recognize. Yes.... Fine, Larry, now, if youll excuse us—” The malenurse walks out, almost brushing my shoulder, without looking at me. “My dear youngman,” the old man announces, “you are about to join the ranks of: My Angels!” 2

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the violent emotions I had been led into, when nature which had been too warmly stirred and fermented to subside without allaying by some means or other relieved me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior to those of waking real action. In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phœbe was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast? carefully, at the same time, avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her in the face, by any hint of the night’s bed scene. I told her if she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she would be pleased to set me about. She smiled; presently the maid brought in the tea equipage, and I just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled my mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late rising, when I was most agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my pure and fresh looks. I was “a bud of beauty” (this was her style), “and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!” to all which my answers did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as simple and silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge of the world. We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it, completely. Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart fluttered with joy at the sight of a white lutestring, flowered with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for spick and span new, a Brussels lace cap, braited shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house, before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on immediate surrendering to him, in case of his agreeing for me; concluding very wisely, that such a place as I was in, was of the hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in, as a maidenhead.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  It seems to have started with an argument about the meaning of Wisdom’s words in the book of Proverbs, which Christians had always applied to Christ—”Yahweh created me when his purpose first unfolded, before the oldest of his works” 6 —and went on to say that Wisdom had been God’s “master craftsman,” his agent of creation. Arius, a handsome and charismatic young presbyter of Alexandria, argued that this text made it clear that the Word and Wisdom of the Father was the first and most privileged of God’s creatures. It followed that the Word must also have been created ex nihilo. Arius did not deny that Jesus was God, but suggested that he had merely been promoted to divine status. God had foreseen that when the Logos became a man, he would behave with perfect obedience, and as a reward had raised him to divine status in advance of his mission. The Logos thus became the prototype of the perfected human being; if Christians imitated his wholehearted kenosis, they too could become “sons of God;” they too could become divine. 7 Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, and his brilliant young assistant Athanasius immediately realized that Arius had put his finger on an ambiguity in the Alexandrian view of Christ that needed to be cleared up. 8 The debate was not confined to a coterie of learned experts. Arius set his ideas to music, and it was not long before sailors and travelers were singing popular songs proclaiming that the Father was God by nature and had given life and being to the Son, who was neither coeternal with him nor uncreated. Soon the controversy had spread to the churches of Asia Minor and Syria. We hear of a bath attendant who engaged the bathers in heated discussion about whether the Son had come from nothingness; a money changer who, when asked for the exchange rate, held forth on the distinction between the Creator and his creation; and a baker who argued with his customers that the Father was greater than the Son. 9 People were discussing the question with the same enthusiasm and passion as they discuss football today, because it touched the heart of their Christian experience. In the past, the creeds and explanations of the faith had often been changed to meet pastoral needs. 10 The Arian crisis showed that they would probably have to be changed yet again. Over the centuries, Arianism has become a byword for heresy but at the time there was no officially orthodox position and nobody knew whether Arius or Athanasius was right. 11 Arius was anxious to safeguard the transcendence of God.

• From City of Night (1963)

  Destiny’s place is two ugly tight rooms with naileddown windowshades and a head. You climb two narrow stairways and then make your way through a maze of cramped halls lighted just enough by greasy lightbulbs to reveal the cobwebs and the dirt—long narrow corridors like in the movie-serial when we were kids: And the Dragon Lady put Terry and the Pirates in a narrow hallway and she punched a button and the walls kept coming closer... threatening to crrrrrrush! everyone to... death!! Miss Destiny opened the door and turned on the light. The light screamed in our pupiled eyes, transforming the cobwebs on the ceiling into long nooselike shadows. Darling Dolly Dane was curled up on a couch, and Lola and a seedy-looking soldier were carrying on on another—this is the kitchen but it has two bed-couches. Lola hollers in her ugly man’s voice turn the fucking lights off. “Put out thy own dam lights, as the stunning Desdemona said,” Miss Destiny answered. Both the soldier and Lola started adjusting their clothes, and Miss Destiny says arent they Too Much?—everyone here has seen boys and girls, and besides, all the world is a swinging stage! Now Lola goes into the other room, and in a few minutes, lo and behold! here she is back, in Japanese drag! posing at the door: kimono with beautiful colored butterflies—sandals—slanted eyes! and she is saying something like teeny-vosey which she says means kiss in Chinese—but the soldier (he playing the stud with her when we walked in) isnt paying her any more attention, and its obvious, the way hes looking, that hes a godown fruit serviceman—a not very attractive butch fruit whom Lola thought was a stud (and queens are fooled more often than they admit). Pissed off, Lola grabs the soldier’s cap, pushes it over his head, and very much like a rough man shoves him through the door: “You gotta make reveille, dear!” And while we’re turning on juice and joints and pills—Trudi’s fat daddy saying, “Come on boys, come on turn on”—palming all of us excitedly—the queens are changing into high drag in the other room—much more successfully than Lola. Now Trudi minces out in blacklace negligee, panties and brassiere (her chest taped to give her real-appearing cleavage under the falsies)—looking I have to say disturbingly real like one of those girls in the back pages of the scandal magazines that advertise those slinky gowns and underclothes with crazy names like tigerlily nightie and heaven-in-the boudoir panties and French-frivolity brassiere—and Darling Dolly Dane is all pink ruffles and queen-cuteness, and Miss Destiny (being more modest and more the regal type anyway) makes her entrance, last of course, in green satin eveningdress and fluffed out rair with golden sequins....

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Even though Hegel stressed the relentlessly progressive movement of reality, he, like the Romantic poets, had actually recast older ideas in a modern form. As modernization proceeded, Western people were about to enter a world that was at once enthralling and disturbing. To keep pace with these fundamental changes, they had been forced to change their religion, their methods of education, and the social and political structures of their society. As they struggled to adapt to their radically altered world, they had abandoned traditional attitudes that seemed, however, to be embedded in the structure of humanity. As the Enlightenment proper drew to an end, some of these were beginning to resurface. Poets, philosophers, and theologians were urging people to recover a more receptive attitude to life. They were questioning the modern dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural and countering the distant Newtonian God with the image of an immanent Spirit. They had revived the idea of mystery. Condorcet, Hume, and Kant had suggested that unknowing was an inescapable part of our response to the world. The Age of Reason was not over, however. Only an elite group of intellectuals had been able to participate in the Enlightenment proper. But a religious movement was about to bring many of its basic assumptions into the mainstream so that they would become essential to the Western outlook. [image file=image_rsrc4UZ.jpg] AtheismIn 1790, the Reverend Jedidiah Morse descended on Boston from the rural outreaches of Massachusetts and launched a crusade against Deism, which had just attained the peak of its development in the United States. Hundreds of preachers joined this assault, and by the 1830s, Deism had been marginalized and a new version of Christianity had become central to the faith of America.1 Known as “Evangelicalism,” its objective was to convert the new nation to the “good news” of the Gospel. Evangelicals had no time for the remote God of the Deists; instead of relying on natural law, they wanted a return to biblical authority, to personal commitment to Jesus, and to a religion of the heart rather than the head. Faith did not require learned philosophers and scientific experts; it was a simple matter of felt conviction and virtuous living.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Of course,’ our Host said. ‘Tell us the story, Roger. You had better make sure that it is a good one. I know you. I know your tricks. You take the gravy out of the meat pasties so that they will last longer. You sell your fish pies warmed over from the day before - and from the day before that. I have heard many customers complaining about your parsley sauce. You stuff it in the goose to disguise the taste. And your cookshop is full of flies. God may send a man good meat, but the devil may send an evil cook to destroy it. Is that not so, Roger? No. Seriously. Tell your story. I’m only joking, of course. But sometimes the truth just slips out.’ ‘Oh does it?’ said Roger. ‘I suppose you are right, Harry Bailey, as always. But, as the Dutch say, a true joke is a bad joke. Now that I think about it, I do know a very funny story about a Southwark innkeeper. Don’t worry. I won’t tell it now. I will save it for later. Before the end of our journey, I will give you all a good laugh.’ Then he laughed himself and, with a cheerful expression, he told the pilgrims this story. The Cook’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Cookes Tale There was a London apprentice, bound to the victuallers’ trade. I am in the same guild. That’s how I heard about him. He was as merry as a goldfinch in a hedge; he was very good looking with a dark complexion and short dark curls. He was a little short, but that did not matter. He was, to put it in a phrase, well groomed. He could dance so nimbly that he was known as Peter the Performer. He was as full of love and lust as the hive is full of sweet honey. Any girl who met him was sure to have a good time. He would sing and dance at every wedding party, and he preferred the tavern to his shop. If there was any procession going down Cheapside, he would leap from behind the counter and stay in the street until he had seen everything. He would jump up and down and cheer as if his life depended on it. His fellow apprentices used to join him, and become very boisterous. You know how apprentices are. Anything for a laugh. A song and dance are better than work.

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

  In the growth and decay of the Roman hierarchy three popes stand out as representatives of as many epochs: Gregory I., or the Great (590), marks the rise of absolute papacy; Gregory VII., or Hildebrand (1049), its summit; and Boniface VIII. (1294), its decline. We thus have again three periods in mediaeval church history. We may briefly distinguish them as the Missionary, the Papal, and the pre- or ante-Reformatory4 ages of Catholicism. III. Modern Christianity, from the Reformation of the sixteenth century to the present time. A.D. 1517–1880. Modern history moves chiefly among the nations of Europe, and from the seventeenth century finds a vast new theatre in North America. Western Christendom now splits into two hostile parts—one remaining on the old path, the other striking out a new one; while the eastern church withdraws still further from the stage of history, and presents a scene of almost undisturbed stagnation, except in modern Russia and Greece. Modern church history is the age of Protestantism in conflict with Romanism, of religious liberty and independence in conflict with the principle of authority and tutelage, of individual and personal Christianity against an objective and traditional church system. Here again three different periods appear, which may be denoted briefly by the terms, Reformation, Revolution, and Revival. The sixteenth century, next to the apostolic age the most fruitful and interesting period of church history, is the century of the evangelical renovation of the Church, and the papal counter-reform. It is the cradle of all Protestant denominations and sects, and of modern Romanism. The seventeenth century is the period of scholastic orthodoxy, polemic confessionalism, and comparative stagnation. The reformatory motion ceases on the continent, but goes on in the mighty Puritanic struggle in England, and extends even into the primitive forests of the American colonies. The seventeenth century is the most fruitful in the church history of England, and gave rise to the various nonconformist or dissenting denominations which were transplanted to North America, and have out-grown some of the older historic churches. Then comes, in the eighteenth century, the Pietistic and Methodistic revival of practical religion in opposition to dead orthodoxy and stiff formalism. In the Roman church Jesuitism prevails but opposed by the half-evangelical Jansenism, and the quasiliberal Gallicanism. In the second half of the eighteenth century begins the vast overturning of traditional ideas and institutions, leading to revolution in state, and infidelity in church, especially in Roman Catholic France and Protestant Germany. Deism in England, atheism in France, rationalism in Germany, represent the various degrees of the great modern apostasy from the orthodox creeds. The nineteenth century presents, in part, the further development of these negative and destructive tendencies, but with it also the revival of Christian faith and church life, and the beginnings of a new creation by the everlasting gospel. The revival may be dated from the third centenary of the Reformation, in 1817.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  True to his principles, Wittgenstein had left his university in 1918 to become a village schoolmaster until 1930, when he accepted a Cambridge fellowship. The Vienna Circle agreed that because we could make meaningful statements only about matters that could be tested and verified by sense experience, the natural sciences alone were a reliable source of knowledge. 14 Emotive language was meaningless, because it was equipped simply to arouse feeling or inspire action and could not be proved one way or the other. Obviously the concept of “God” had no meaning at all; indeed, atheism and agnosticism were also incoherent positions, because there was nothing to be agnostic or atheistic about. 15 Like other intellectuals at this time, the logical positivists— as these philosophers became known—were attempting to return to irreducible fundamentals. Their stringent position also revealed the intolerant tendency of modernity that would characterize other types of fundamentalism. Their narrow definition of truth entailed a wholesale dismissal of the humanities and a refusal to entertain any rival view. 16 Yet human beings have always pondered questions that are not capable of definitive solutions: the contemplation of beauty, mortality, and suffering has been an essential part of human experience, and to many it seems not only arrogant but unrealistic to dismiss it out of hand. At the other extreme of the intellectual spectrum, a form of Christian positivism developed that represented a grassroots rebellion against modern rationalism. On April 9, 1906, the first congregation of Pentecostalists claimed to have experienced the Spirit in a tiny house in Los Angeles, convinced that it had descended upon them in the same way as upon Jesus’s disciples on the Jewish festival of Pentecost, when the divine presence had manifested itself in tongues of fire and given the apostles the ability to speak in strange languages. 17 When they spoke in “tongues,” Pentecostalists felt they were returning to the fundamental nub of religiosity that existed beneath any logical exposition of the Christian faith. Within four years, there were hundreds of Pentecostal groups all over the United States, and the movement had spread to fifty other countries. 18 At first they were convinced that their experience heralded the Last Days: crowds of African Americans and disadvantaged whites poured into their congregations in the firm belief that Jesus would soon return and establish a more just society. But after the First World War had shattered this early optimism, they saw their gift of tongues as a new way of speaking to God: Had not Saint Paul explained that when Christians found prayer difficult, “the Spirit itself intercedes for us with groans that exist beyond all utterance”? 19 In one sense, this was a distorted version of apophatic spirituality: Pentecostalists were reaching out to a God that existed beyond the scope of speech. But the classical apophaticism of Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Denys, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Eckhart had been suspicious of this type of experiential spirituality.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  11 Finney used the wilder techniques of the older prophets but addressed professionals and businessmen, urging them to experience Christ directly without the mediation of the establishment, to think for themselves, and to rebel against academic theologians. Christianity was a strictly rational faith; its God was the Creator and Governor of Nature who worked through the laws of physics. Every natural event revealed God’s providence. Even the emotions engendered by the revivals were not directly inspired by God (as Jonathan Edwards had supposed); instead these pious passions showed that God worked through the skill of the preacher, who knew how to use natural psychological means to elicit these responses. The Evangelicals brought natural theology, hitherto a minority pursuit, into the mainstream. Even though they continued to insist on the transcendence of God, they believed paradoxically that he could be known through science as a matter of common sense. Wary of learned experts, they wanted a plain-speaking religion with no abstruse theological flights of fancy. They read the scriptures with an unprecedented literalism, because this seemed more rational than the older allegorical exegesis. Like scientific discourse, religious language should be univocal, clear, and transparent. The Evangelicals also brought the Enlightenment concept of “belief” as intellectual conviction to the center of Protestant religiosity and perpetuated the Enlightenment separation of the natural from the supernatural. Finally, in an attempt to ground their faith in something tangible, they followed the philosophes in making the practice of morality central to religion. They wanted a rationalized God who shared their own moral standards and behaved like a good Evangelical. 12 In the past, moral and compassionate behavior had introduced people to transcendence; now people were declaring that God was “good” in exactly the same way as a human being. Interestingly, he shared their enthusiasm for the virtues that ensured success in the marketplace: thrift, sobriety, self- discipline, diligence, and temperance. This God was clearly in danger of becoming an idol. Yet again American religion was proving to be a modernizing force but this time it supported the capitalist ethos while at the same time articulating a healthy criticism of the system. During the 1820s, Evangelicals threw themselves into moral crusades to hasten the coming of the Kingdom, campaigning against slavery, urban poverty, exploitation, and liquor, and fighting for penal reform, the education of the poor, and the emancipation of women. There was an emphasis on the worth of each human being, egalitarianism, and the ideal of inalienable human rights. These Christian reform groups were among the first to channel the efficiency, energy, and bureaucratic skills of capitalism into nonprofit enterprises, teaching people to plan, organize, and pursue a clearly defined goal. 13 There was a widespread conviction that the technological improvements in transport, machinery, public health, gaslight, and communications that were giving Americans such control over their environment would also lead to moral improvement.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “So we go to this bar,” he went on, “an she orders beer. ‘Beer,’ she says to the bartender, ‘for a boy that is gonna be a man!’ Hell, man, I wasnt even old enough to be in that place. But everyone knowed Ma, an they did not care. She says we are gonna have one good Drunk, because, she figures, if my Old Man was aroun, he’dda taken me out, but he ain, so it’s up to her.... Shoot, I had juice before. Me an my brothers, we used to really get juiced up.” He sits up on the railing now, enthusiastically remembering—looking far beyond the park. “Once, man, we got so fuckin drunk—man—me an my older brother—we jes started throwin rocks at the sky! Throwin rocks at the sky, man! Crazy! Not mad or nothing—you know—but jes like, you know, to make sure it’s there.... Throwin rocks at the sky,” he echoes himself slowly, shaking his head, as if somehow, in some way he has not discovered and maybe never will and knows it, this is greatly important to him. “But those rocks, man, they jes kep comin right back at us. Didnt reach the Sky.... I guess—” he laughed, the barest trace of a mood disappearing instantly, “I guess we wasnt throwin them hard enough.” (And I remember my own longing to watch Heaven, punctured, spilling down to earth....) Now Chuck catches sight of a man standing before us, looking in our direction. “That is a cool score, man—I know him. You wanna score off im (I am feelin too tired myself)—or you wanna hear the rest of the story?” “The story,” I said, feeling, suddenly, a great closeness to him—and at the same time a huge, undefined sadness.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  You that makes the throats of the city shout, “Brava!”’ As he spoke he lifted his hat, and punched the air with it; one or two passers-by turned their faces towards us, then looked away quite unconcerned. His words, I thought, were marvellous ones - and I knew Kitty thought so, too, for she gripped my hand at the sound of them, and gave a little shudder of delight; and her cheeks were flushed, as mine were, and her eyes, like mine, were shining and wide. We didn’t linger very long in Leicester Square after that. Mr Bliss hailed a boy, and gave him a shilling to fetch us three foaming glasses from the sherbet-seller, and we sat for a minute in Shakespeare’s shadow, sipping our drinks and gazing at the people who passed us by, and at the notices outside the Empire, where Kitty’s name, we knew, would soon be pasted in letters three feet high. But when our glasses were empty, he slapped his hands together and said we must be off, for Brixton and Mrs Dendy - our new landlady - awaited; and he led us back to the brougham and handed us to our seats. I felt my eyes, that had been so wide and dazzled, grow small again in the gloom of the coach, and I began to feel, not thrilled, but rather nervous. I wondered what kind of lodgings he had found for us, and what kind of lady Mrs Dendy would be. I hoped that neither would be very grand. I need not have worried. Once we had left the West End and crossed the river, the streets grew greyer and quite dull. The houses and the people here were smart, but rather uniform, as if all crafted by the same unimaginative hand: there was none of that strange glamour, that lovely, queer variety of Leicester Square. Soon, too, the streets ceased even to be smart, and became a little shabby; each corner that we passed, each public house, each row of shops and houses, seemed dingier than the one before. Beside me, Kitty and Mr Bliss had fallen into conversation; their talk was all of theatres and contracts, costumes and songs. I kept my face pressed to the window, wondering when we should ever leave behind these dreary districts and reach Greasepaint Avenue, our home. At last, when we had turned into a street of tall, flat-roofed houses, each with a line of blistered railings before it and a set of sooty blinds and curtains at its windows, Mr Bliss broke off his talk to peer outside and say that we were almost there. I had to look away from his kind and smiling face, then, to hide my disappointment.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  “Good evening, everyone—there’s good news tonight!” The Americans had won a decisive battle at last. Critics skewered Heatter for his shameless cheerleading, for abandoning all pretense of journalistic objectivity, but the public hatred of Japan was so intense, most people hailed Heatter as a folk hero. Thereafter he opened all broadcasts the same way. “Good news tonight!” It’s one of my earliest memories. Mom and Pop Hatfield beside me on that porch, Pop peeling a Gravenstein apple with his pocketknife, handing me a slice, then eating a slice, then handing me a slice, and so on, until his apple-paring pace slowed dramatically. Heatter was coming on. Sssh! Hush up! I can still see us all chewing apples and gazing at the night sky, so Japan-obsessed that we half expected to see Japanese Zeros crisscrossing the Dog Star. No wonder my first time on an airplane, right around five years old, I asked: “Dad, are the Japs going to shoot us down?” Though Mom Hatfield got the hair on my neck standing up, I told her not to worry, I’d be fine. I’d even bring her back a kimono. My twin sisters, Jeanne and Joanne, four years younger than me, didn’t seem to care one way or another where I went or what I did. And my mother, as I recall, said nothing. She rarely did. But there was something different about her silence this time. It equaled consent. Even pride. I SPENT WEEKS reading, planning, preparing for my trip. I went for long runs, musing on every detail while racing the wild geese as they flew overhead. Their tight V formations—I’d read somewhere that the geese in the rear of the formation, cruising in the backdraft, only have to work 80 percent as hard as the leaders. Every runner understands this. Front runners always work the hardest, and risk the most. Long before approaching my father, I’d decided it would be good to have a companion on my trip, and that companion should be my Stanford classmate Carter. Though he’d been a hoops star at William Jewell College, Carter wasn’t your typical jock. He wore thick glasses and read books. Good books. He was easy to talk to, and easy not to talk to—equally important qualities in a friend. Essential in a travel companion. But Carter laughed in my face. When I laid out the list of places I wanted to see—Hawaii, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay, Saigon, Kathmandu, Cairo, Istanbul, Athens, Jordan, Jerusalem, Nairobi, Rome, Paris, Vienna, West Berlin, East Berlin, Munich, London—he rocked back on his heels and guffawed. Mortified, I looked down and began to make apologies. Then Carter, still laughing, said: “What a swell idea, Buck!” I looked up. He wasn’t laughing at me. He was laughing with joy, with glee. He was impressed. It took balls to put together an itinerary like that, he said. Balls. He wanted in. Days later he got the okay from his parents, plus a loan from his father.

• From We Were Here (2011)

  WE WERE HERE CaptionMax Page 4 3/23/2011 with a bang. I was in a production of The Boys in the Band. (laughs) For quite a few years, I was a bit of a workaholic. I was in my studio all the time. By the time I was twenty-seven, I was having one man shows in New York at galleries, good galleries in New York, and I didn’t know it was supposed to be that easy. It was just easy, and I was pretty obsessed with my work, and I was for quite a long time, and until I got sick, really. 1:07:50 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on campaign sign) SUPERVISOR HARVEY MILK 1:07:51 DANIEL (VO/ON) (CONT’D) I was first living in the Haight, and I remember walking down Haight Street, and there was this guy handing out leaflets on the corner, and it was Harvey. It was his first campaign, the first time he was running, and he introduced himself, and I talked to him. So I went to work for him, and I was handing out leaflets, and, you know, door hangers and things like that. And that was very exciting, ‘cause I had been somewhat political in college. I had gotten sick of it because all my roommates were SDS, and it was very militant. And Harvey was just a lot gentler (chuckles) and a lot more fun. My partner at that time, Steve, was also fairly political. Any time there was a march or a demonstration or a candlelight thing, we were always there. Um, it was important to us. Those were the things that made us feel connected to the community. 1:08:48 ON-SCREEN TEXT (on street sign) CASTRO 18TH ST 1:09:09 DANIEL (VO/ON) (CONT’D) Castro Street was just starting to happen, and you would always run into people you knew. And it really felt like a village, and Ca- the Castro just started to feel like the village you always wanted. 1:09:32 PAUL (VO/ON) If you took a bunch of young men and said, have as much sex as you can have, how much sex would they have? A lot of sex. The sense was if gay is good, gay sex is good, you know, and more gay sex is even better. And people often say of- of- of my generation that we came to San Francisco to be gay. 1:10:18 ED (VO) I remember, like, January, nineteen seventy-seven, I went right down to Castro Street.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in with her, and had tied at all points the true lover’s knot; when now, adieu all the little refinements of a finessed reluctance; adieu the friendly feint! She was presently driven forcibly out of the power of using any art; and indeed, what art must not give way, when nature, corresponding with her assailant, invaded in the heart of her capital and carried by storm, lay at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly and completely? Soon, however, to become a tributary: for the engagement growing hotter and hotter, at close quarters, she presently brought him to the pass of paying down the dear debt to nature; which she had no sooner collected in, but, like a duellist who has laid his antagonist at his feet, when he has himself received a mortal wound, Emily had scarce time to plume herself upon her victory, but, shot with the same discharge, she, in a loud expiring sigh, in the closure of her eyes, the stretch-out of her limbs, and a remission of her whole frame, gave manifest signs that all was as it should be. For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood in the water all this time, to view this warm action, I leaned tenderly on my gallant, and at the close of it, seemed to ask him with my eyes, what he thought of it; but he, more eager to satisfy me by his actions than by words or looks, as we shoaled the water towards the shore, showed me the staff of love so intensely set up, that had not even charity, beginning at home in this case, urged me to our mutual relief, it would have been cruel indeed to have suffered the youth to burst with straining, when the remedy was so obvious and so near at hand. Accordingly we took a bench, whilst Emily and her spark, who belonged it seems to the sea, stood at the side-board, drinking to our good voyage: for, as the last observed, we were well under weigh, with a fair wind up channel, and full-freighted; nor indeed were we long before we finished our trip to Cythera, and unloaded in the old haven; but, as the circumstances did not admit of much variation, I shall spare you the description. At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse I am conscious of owing you, for having, perhaps, too much affected the figurative style; though surely, it can pass nowhere more allowable than in a subject which is so properly the province of poetry, nay, is poetry itself, pregnant with every flower of imagination and loving metaphors, even were not the natural expressions, for respects of fashion and sound, necessarily forbidden.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Diana had them taken away. Half of the Cavendish Club attended that party - and, besides them, more women, women from France and from Germany, and one, even, from Capri. It was as if Diana had sent a general invitation to all the wealthy circles of the world - but marked the card, of course, Sapphists Only. That was her prime requirement; her second demand, as I have said, was that they come in fancy dress. The result was rather mixed. Many ladies viewed the evening only as an opportunity at last to leave their riding-coats at home, and put on trousers. Dickie was one of these: she came clad in a morning suit, with a sprig of lilac at her lapel, and calling herself ‘Dorian Gray’. Other costumes, however, were more splendid. Maria Jex stained her face and put whiskers on it, and came robed as a Turkish pasha. Diana’s friend Evelyn arrived as Marie Antoinette - though, another Marie Antoinette came later and, after her, yet another. That, indeed, was one of the predicaments of the evening: I counted fully five separate Sapphos, all bearing lyres; and there were six Ladies from Llangollen - I had not even heard of the Ladies from Llangollen before I met Diana. On the other hand, the women who had been more daring in their choices risked going unrecognised by anyone at all. ‘I am Queen Anne!’ I heard one lady say, very cross, when Maria failed to identify her - yet, when Maria addressed another lady in a crown by the same title, she was even crosser. She turned out to be Queen Christina, of Sweden. Diana herself, that night, I never saw look more handsome. She came as her Greek namesake, in a robe, and with sandals showing her long second toe, and her hair piled high and with a crescent in it; and over her shoulder she wore a quiver full of arrows and a bow. She claimed the arrows were for shooting gentlemen, although later I heard her say they were for piercing young girls’ hearts. My own costume I kept secret, and would not show to anyone: it was my plan to reveal myself, when the guests were all arrived, and present a tribute to my mistress. It was not a very saucy costume; but I thought it a terribly clever one, because it had a connection with the gift I had bought Diana, for her birthday. For that event the year before I had begged the money from her to buy her a present, and had got her a brooch: I think she liked it well enough.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  What choice do we have? We looked out, and here they came, a mob of salesmen, walking like zombies toward our booth. They picked up the Nikes, held them to the light. They touched the swoosh. One said to another, “The hell is this?” “Hell if I know,” said the other. They started to barrage us with questions. Hey—what IS this? That’s a Nike. The hell’s a Nike? It’s the Greek goddess of victory. Greek what now? Goddess of vic— And what’s THIS? That’s a swoosh. The hell’s a swoosh? The answer flew out of me: It’s the sound of someone going past you. They liked that. Oh, they liked it a whole lot. They gave us business. They actually placed orders with us. By the end of the day we’d exceeded our grandest expectations. We were one of the smash hits of the show. At least, that’s how I saw it. Johnson, as usual, wasn’t happy. Ever the perfectionist. “The irregularities of this whole situation,” he said, left him dumbfounded. That was his phrase, the irregularities of this whole situation . I begged him to take his dumbfoundedness and irregularity elsewhere, leave well enough alone. But he just couldn’t. He walked over and button-holed one of his biggest accounts and demanded to know what was going on. “Whaddya mean?” the man said. “I mean,” Johnson said, “we show up with this new Nike, and it’s totally untested, and frankly it’s not even all that good—and you guys are buying it. What gives?” The man laughed. “We’ve been doing business with you Blue Ribbon guys for years,” he said, “and we know that you guys tell the truth. Everyone else bullshits, you guys always shoot straight. So if you say this new shoe, this Nike, is worth a shot, we believe.” Johnson came back to the booth, scratching his head. “Telling the truth,” he said. “Who knew?” Woodell laughed. Johnson laughed. I laughed and tried not to think about my many half truths and untruths with Onitsuka. GOOD NEWS TRAVELS fast. Bad news travels faster than Grelle and Prefontaine. On a rocket. Two weeks after Chicago, Kitami walked into my office. No advance notice. No heads-up. And he cut right to the car chase. “What is this, this… thing,” he demanded, “this… NEE-kay?” I made my face blank. “Nike? Oh. It’s nothing. It’s a sideline we’ve developed, to hedge our bets, in case Onitsuka does as threatened and yanks the rug out from under us.” The answer disarmed him. As it should have. I’d rehearsed it for weeks. It was so reasonable and logical that Kitami didn’t know how to respond. He’d come spoiling for a fight, and I’d countered his bull rush with a rope-a-dope. He demanded to know who made the new shoes. I told him they were made by different factories in Japan. He demanded to know how many Nikes we’d ordered. A few thousand, I said. He gave an “Ooh.” I wasn’t sure what that meant.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  JAPAN WAS RENOWNED for its impeccable order and extreme cleanliness. Japanese literature, philosophy, clothing, domestic life, all were marvelously pure and spare. Minimalist. Expect nothing, seek nothing, grasp nothing—the immortal Japanese poets wrote lines that seemed polished and polished until they gleamed like the blade of a samurai’s sword, or the stones of a mountain brook. Spotless. So why, I wondered, is this train to Kobe so filthy? The floors were strewn with newspapers and cigarette butts. The seats were covered with orange rinds and discarded newspapers. Worse, every car was packed. There was barely room to stand. I found a strap by a window and hung there for seven hours as the train rocked and inched past remote villages, past farms no bigger than the average Portland backyard. The trip was long, but neither my legs nor my patience gave out. I was too busy going over and over my tutorial with the ex-GIs. When I arrived I took a small room in a cheap ryokan. My appointment at Onitsuka was early the next morning, so I lay down immediately on the tatami mat. But I was too excited to sleep. I rolled around on the mat most of the night, and at dawn I rose wearily and stared at my gaunt, bleary reflection in the mirror. After shaving, I put on my green Brooks Brothers suit and gave myself a pep talk. You are capable. You are confident. You can do this. You can DO this. Then I went to the wrong place. I presented myself at the Onitsuka showroom, when in fact I was expected at the Onitsuka factory—across town. I hailed a taxi and raced there, frantic, arriving half an hour late. Unfazed, a group of four executives met me in the lobby. They bowed. I bowed. One stepped forward. He said his name was Ken Miyazaki, and he wished to give me a tour. The first shoe factory I’d ever seen. I found everything about it interesting. Even musical. Each time a shoe was molded, the metal last would fall to the floor with a silvery tinkle, a melodic CLING-clong. Every few seconds, CLING-clong, CLING-clong, a cobbler’s concerto. The executives seemed to enjoy it, too. They smiled at me and each other. We passed through the accounting department. Everyone in the room, men and women, leaped from their chairs, and in unison bowed, a gesture of kei, respect for the American tycoon. I’d read that “tycoon” came from taikun, Japanese for “warlord.” I didn’t know how to acknowledge their kei. To bow or not bow, that is always the question in Japan. I gave a weak smile and a half bow, and kept moving. The executives told me that they churned out fifteen thousand pairs of shoes each month. “Impressive,” I said, not knowing if that was a lot or a little. They led me into a conference room and pointed me to the chair at the head of a long round table. “Mr.