Fear

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 309 of 529 · 20 per page

• From Push (1996)

  Plus he got necktie job, briefcase, the whole bit. Rita got dream, he behind it. We all behind it. Rita want house in Harlem for HIV womens and their kids. I can get behind that. In my journal I write: bus wheel turn me through time past a Mama mama first you see the buildings like watching a cartoon backwards seem to be getting putted back together it's weird. (I am homer on a voyage but from our red bricks in piles of usta be buildings and windows of black broke glass eyes. we come to buildings bad but not so bad street cleaner then we come to a place of everything is fine big glass windows stores white people fur blue jeans its a different city I'm in a different city Who I be I grow up here? where a poodle dog • is not on tv but walking down the street on skinny white bitch lease. This whose ass they want me to wipe? Push wheelchair for— I kill 'em first. TYGER TYGER BURNING BRIGHT That's what in Precious Jones heart—a tyger. bookstores cafe BLoomydales! Bus keep on rolling We git off at 14th Street. Rita say we can get cross-town bus or walk. I say walk; so we walk over to Seventh Avenue where Lesbian and Gay Center Building is. Rita not gay but this is where meeting is. We are going to Tuesday night Survivors of Incest Anonymous. I never been here before. Ms Rain, Rita, Rhonda, and Jermaine and house mom, all say GO. So I am good to go! The center is big. When I git in meeting I don't say nothing. It's people sitting in a circle. I'm spozed to talk. I will never talk here! lb talk I have to tell how I feel in my body. The war. My body my head I can't say it right. How cum I'm so young and feel so old. So young like I don't know nuffin', so old like I know everything. A girl have her father's dick in her mouth know things the other girls don't know but it's not what you want to know. It's all kinda girls here! They sitting in circle faces like clocks, no bombs. Bombs with hair and titties and dresses. After I sit here five minutes I know I am a bomb too. Only sitting here doing whatever they gonna do will keep me from blowing up. Thank you Rita for git me here on time. "Hello." She look like a movie star! Slim, long hair, eyes like stars, red lips. "My name is Irene. I am an incest survivor." My mouth fall open. Someone like that. "It started when I was, oh, about four or five years old with him fondling me" (feeling her up). "By the time I was twelve he was having intercourse with me three or four times a week." Everything is floating around me now.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She handed him his drink. “How are you?” “All right. Where’re the kids?” He put his drink down carefully on the low table near him. “They’re at the movies.” She considered him a moment. “You may be all right but I’ve seen you look better.” “Well”—again that bleak smile—“I haven’t really sobered up yet. I got real drunk last night with Jane. She can’t screw if she’s sober.” He picked up his drink and took a swallow of it, dragged a bent cigarette from one of his pockets and lit it. He looked so sad and beaten for a moment, hunched over the flame of the cigarette, that she did not speak. “Where’s Richard?” “He’ll be out. He’s in his study.” He sipped his drink, obviously trying to think of something to say, and not succeeding. “Vivaldo?” “Yeah?” “Did Rufus stay at your place last night?” “Rufus?” He looked frightened. “No. Why?” “His sister called up to find out where he was.” They stared at each other and his face made her frightened all over again. “Where did he go?” she asked. “I don’t know. I figured he’d gone to Harlem. He just disappeared.” “Vivaldo, she’s coming here this afternoon.” “Who is?” “His sister, Ida. I told her that I left him with you and that you would be here this afternoon.” “But I don’t know where he is. I was in the back, talking to Jane—and he said he was going to the head or something—and he never came back.” He stared at her, then at the window. “I wonder where he went.” “Maybe,” she said, “he met a friend.” He did not trouble to respond to this. “He should have known I wasn’t just going to dump him. He could have stayed at my place, I ended up at Jane’s place, anyway.” Cass watched him as he banged his cigarette out in the ashtray. “I have never,” she said, mildly, “understood what Jane wanted from you. Or, for that matter, what you wanted from her.” He examined his fingernails, they were jagged and in mourning. “I don’t know. I just wanted a girl, I guess, someone to share those long winter evenings.” “But she’s so much older than you are.” She picked up his empty glass. “She’s older than I am.” “That hasn’t got anything to do with it,” he said, sullenly. “Anyway, I wanted a girl who—sort of knows the score.” She considered him. “Yes,” she said, with a sigh, “that girl certainly knows how to keep score.” “I needed a woman,” Vivaldo said, “she needed a man. What’s wrong with that?” “Nothing,” she said. “If that’s really what both of you needed.” “What do you think I was doing?” “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know. Only, I’ve told you, you always seem to get involved with impossible women—whores, nymphomaniacs, drunks—and I think you do it in order to protect yourself—from anything serious. Permanent.”

• From Educated (2018)

  We tried not to name them, these beasts we hoped to tame, but we had to refer to them somehow. The names we chose were descriptive, not sentimental: Big Red, Black Mare, White Giant. I was thrown from dozens of these horses as they bucked, reared, rolled or leapt. I hit the dirt in a hundred sprawling postures, each time righting myself in an instant and skittering to the safety of a tree, tractor or fence, in case the horse was feeling vengeful. We never triumphed; our strength of will faltered long before theirs. We got some so they wouldn’t buck when they saw the saddle, and a few who’d tolerate a human on their back for jaunts around the corral, but not even Grandpa dared ride them on the mountain. Their natures hadn’t changed. They were pitiless, powerful avatars from another world. To mount them was to surrender your footing, to move into their domain. To risk being borne away. The first domesticated horse I ever saw was a bay gelding, and it was standing next to the corral, nibbling sugar cubes from Shawn’s hand. It was spring, and I was fourteen. It had been many years since I’d touched a horse. The gelding was mine, a gift from a great-uncle on my mother’s side. I approached warily, certain that as I moved closer the horse would buck, or rear, or charge. Instead it sniffed my shirt, leaving a long, wet stain. Shawn tossed me a cube. The horse smelled the sugar, and the prickles from his chin tickled my fingers until I opened my palm. “Wanna break him?” Shawn said. I did not . I was terrified of horses, or I was terrified of what I thought horses were—that is, thousand-pound devils whose ambition was to dash brains against rock. I told Shawn he could break the horse. I would watch from the fence. I refused to name the horse, so we called him the Yearling. The Yearling was already broke to a halter and lead, so Shawn brought out the saddle that first day. The Yearling pawed the dirt nervously when he saw it; Shawn moved slowly, letting him smell the stirrups and nibble curiously at the horn. Then Shawn rubbed the smooth leather across his broad chest, moving steadily but without hurry. “Horses don’t like things where they can’t see ’em,” Shawn said. “Best to get him used to the saddle in front. Then when he’s real comfortable with it, with the way it smells and feels, we can move it around back.” An hour later the saddle was cinched. Shawn said it was time to mount, and I climbed onto the barn roof, sure the corral would descend into violence. But when Shawn hoisted himself into the saddle, the Yearling merely skittered. His front hooves raised a few inches off the dirt, as if he’d pondered rearing but thought better of it, then he dropped his head and his paws stilled.

• From Educated (2018)

  They were the same instincts that, years before, had prompted me to hoist myself from the scrap bin when Dad was dumping it, because they had understood, even if I had not, that it was better to fall from that great height rather than hope Dad would intervene. All my life those instincts had been instructing me in this single doctrine—that the odds are better if you rely only on yourself. Bud reared, thrusting his head so high I thought he might tumble backward. He landed hard and bucked. I tightened my grip on the horn, making a decision, based on another kind of instinct, not to surrender my hold. Shawn would catch up, even on that unbroken mare. He’d pull off a miracle. The mare wouldn’t even understand the command when he shouted, “Giddy-yap!”; at the jab of his boot in her gut, which she’d never felt before, she would rear, twisting wildly. But he would yank her head down, and as soon as her hooves touched the dirt, kick her a second time, harder, knowing she would rear again. He would do this until she leapt into a run, then he would drive her forward, welcoming her wild acceleration, somehow guiding her even though she’d not yet learned the strange dance of movements that, over time, becomes a kind of language between horse and rider. All this would happen in seconds, a year of training reduced to a single, desperate moment. I knew it was impossible. I knew it even as I imagined it. But I kept hold of the saddle horn. Bud had worked himself into a frenzy. He leapt wildly, arching his back as he shot upward, then tossing his head as he smashed his hooves to the ground. My eyes could barely unscramble what they saw. Golden wheat flew in every direction, while the blue sky and the mountain lurched absurdly. I was so disoriented that I felt, rather than saw, the powerful penny-toned mare moving into place beside me. Shawn lifted his body from the saddle and tilted himself toward the ground, holding his reins tightly in one hand while, with the other, he snatched Bud’s reins from the weeds. The leather straps pulled taut; the bit forced Bud’s head up and forward. With his head raised, Bud could no longer buck and he entered a smooth, rhythmic gallop. Shawn yanked hard on his own reins, pulling the mare’s head toward his knee, forcing her to run in a circle. He pulled her head tighter on every pass, wrapping the strap around his forearm, shrinking the circle until it was so small, the pounding hooves stood still. I slid from the saddle and lay in the wheat, the itchy stalks poking through my shirt. Above my head the horses panted, their bellies swelling and collapsing, their hooves pawing at the dirt.

• From Educated (2018)

  Dad is there in the beginning—Dad with his funny jokes about socialists and dogs and the roof that keeps liberals from drowning. Then Dad and Luke go back up the mountain, Mother drives away and I turn the tap to fill the kitchen sink. Again. For the third time it feels like. On the mountain something is happening. I can only imagine it but I see it clearly, more clearly than if it were a memory. The cars are stacked and waiting, their fuel tanks ruptured and drained. Dad waves at a tower of cars and says, “Luke, cut off those tanks, yeah?” And Luke says, “Sure thing, Dad.” Luke lays the torch against his hip and strikes flint. Flames erupt from nowhere and take him. He screams, fumbles with the twine, screams again, and takes off through the weeds. Dad chases him, orders him to stand still. It’s probably the first time in his whole life that Luke doesn’t do something when Dad is telling him to. Luke is fast but Dad is smart. He takes a shortcut through a pyramid of cars and tackles Luke, slamming him to the ground. I can’t picture what happens next, because nobody ever told me how Dad put out the fire on Luke’s leg. Then a memory surfaces—of Dad, that night in the kitchen, wincing as Mother slathers salve on his hands, which are red and blistering—and I know what he must have done. Luke is no longer on fire. I try to imagine the moment of decision. Dad looks at the weeds, which are burning fast, thirsty for flame in that quivering heat. He looks at his son. He thinks if he can choke the flames while they’re young, he can prevent a wildfire, maybe save the house. Luke seems lucid. His brain hasn’t processed what’s happened; the pain hasn’t set in. The Lord will provide, I imagine Dad thinking. God left him conscious. I imagine Dad praying aloud, his eyes drawn heavenward, as he carries his son to the truck and sets him in the driver’s seat. Dad shifts the engine into first, the truck starts its roll. It’s going at a good speed now, Luke is gripping the wheel. Dad jumps from the moving truck, hits the ground hard and rolls, then runs back toward the brushfire, which has spread wider and grown taller. The Lord will provide, he chants, then he takes off his shirt and begins to beat back the flames.* * Since the writing of this story, I have spoken to Luke about the incident. His account differs from both mine and Richard’s. In Luke’s memory, Dad took Luke to the house, administered a homeopathic for shock, then put him in a tub of cold water, where he left him to go fight the fire. This goes against my memory, and against Richard’s. Still, perhaps our memories are in error. Perhaps I found Luke in a tub, alone, rather than on the grass.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  never protect her; it would always go down before any new whim, and his whim at the moment was to keep her in Paris. All unwittingly Stephen played into his hands, while having no illusions about him. He represented a welcome distraction that helped her to keep her thoughts off England. And because under Brockett’s skilful guidance she developed a fondness for the beautiful city, she felt very tolerant of him at moments, almost grateful she felt, grateful too towards Paris. And Puddle also felt grateful. The strain of the sudden complete rupture with Morton had told on the faithful little grey woman. She would scarcely have known how to counsel Stephen had the girl come to her and asked for her counsel. Sometimes she would lie awake now at nights thinking of that ageing and unhappy mother in the great silent house, and then would come pity, the old pity that had come in the past for Anna — she would pity until she remem- bered Stephen. Then Puddle would try to think very calmly, to keep the brave heart that had never failed her, to keep her strong faith in Stephen’s future — only now there were days when she felt almost old, when she realized that indeed she was ageing. When Anna would write her a calm, friendly letter, but with never so much as a mention of Stephen, she would feel afraid, yes, afraid of this woman, and at moments almost afraid of Stephen. For none might know from those guarded letters what emotions lay in the heart of their writer; and none might know from Stephen’s set face when she recognized the writing, what lay in her heart. She would turn away, asking no questions about Morton. Oh, yes, Puddle felt old and actually frightened, both of which sensations she deeply resented; so being what she was, am indomitable fighter, she thrust out her chin and ordered a tonic She struggled along through the labyrinths of Paris beside the un- tiring Stephen and Brockett; through the galleries of the Luxem- bourg and the Louvre; up the Eiffel Tower —in a lift, thank heaven; down the Rue de la Paix, up the hill to Montmartre — sometimes in the car but guite often on foot, for Brockett 276 THE WELL OF LONELINESS wished Stephen to learn her Paris — and as likely as not, ending up with rich food that disagreed badly with the tired Puddle. In the restaurants people would stare at Stephen, and although the girl would pretend not to notice, Puddle would know that in spite of her calm, Stephen was inwardly feeling resentful, was inwardly feeling embarrassed and awkward. And then be- cause she was tired, Puddle too would feel awkward when she noticed those people staring.

• From Another Country (1962)

  But you can become a great star, I think, if you play this part. Wouldn’t you like that?” He paused, smiling, and Eric shrugged, then blushed. Yves laughed. “How silly you are!” Then, “I, too, have dreams that I have never spoken of to you,” he said. He was still smiling, but there was an expression in his eyes which Eric had come to know. It was the look of a seasoned and able adventurer, trying to decide between pouncing on his prey and luring his prey into a trap. Such decisions are necessarily swift and so it was also the look of someone who was already irresistibly in motion toward whatever it was he wanted; who would certainly have it. This expression always frightened Eric a little. It seemed not to belong in Yves’ twenty-one-year-old face, to have no relation to his open, childlike grin, his puppylike playfulness, the adolescent ardor with which he embraced, then rejected, people, doctrines, theories. This expression made his face extremely bitter, profoundly cruel, ageless; the nature, the ferocity, of his intelligence was then all in his eyes; the extraordinary austerity of his high forehead prefigured his maturity and decay. He touched Eric lightly on the elbow, as a very young child might do. “I have no wish to stay here,” he said, “in this wretched mausoleum of a country. Let us go to New York. I will make my future there. There is no future here, for a boy like me.” The word future caused in Eric a small trembling, a small recoil. “You’ll hate America,” he said, with vehemence. Yves looked at him in surprise. “What kind of future are you dreaming of?” “I am sure that there is something I can do there,” Yves said, stubbornly. “I can find my way. Do you really think that I want to be protected by you forever?” And he considered Eric for a moment as though they were enemies or strangers. “I didn’t know you minded being— protected —by me.” “Ne te fâche pas . I do not mind it; if I minded it, I would be gone.” He smiled and said, gently, reasonably, “But it cannot go on forever, I also am a man .” “ What cannot go on forever?” But he knew what Yves meant and he knew that what Yves said was true. “Why,” said Yves, “my youth. It cannot last forever.” Then he grinned. “I have always been sure that you would be returning to your country one day.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The thing carried to its end and the damsel and the knight gone, the adventure set those who had seen it upon many and various discourses; but of those who were the most affrighted was the cruel damsel beloved of Nastagio, who had distinctly seen and heard the whole matter and understood that these things concerned her more than any other who was there, remembering her of the cruelty she had still used towards Nastagio; wherefore herseemed she fled already before her enraged lover and had the mastiffs at her heels. Such was the terror awakened in her thereby that,--so this might not betide her,--no sooner did she find an opportunity (which was afforded her that same evening) than, turning her hatred into love, she despatched to Nastagio a trusty chamberwoman of hers, who besought him that it should please him to go to her, for that she was ready to do all that should be his pleasure. He answered that this was exceeding agreeable to him, but that, so it pleased her, he desired to have his pleasure of her with honour, to wit, by taking her to wife. The damsel, who knew that it rested with none other than herself that she had not been his wife, made answer to him that it liked her well; then, playing the messenger herself, she told her father and mother that she was content to be Nastagio's wife, whereat they were mightily rejoiced, and he, espousing her on the ensuing Sunday and celebrating his nuptials, lived with her long and happily. Nor was this affright the cause of that good only; nay, all the ladies of Ravenna became so fearful by reason thereof, that ever after they were much more amenable than they had before been to the desires of the men." THE NINTH STORY [Day the Fifth] FEDERIGO DEGLI ALBERIGHI LOVETH AND IS NOT LOVED. HE WASTETH HIS SUBSTANCE IN PRODIGAL HOSPITALITY TILL THERE IS LEFT HIM BUT ONE SOLE FALCON, WHICH, HAVING NOUGHT ELSE, HE GIVETH HIS MISTRESS TO EAT, ON HER COMING TO HIS HOUSE; AND SHE, LEARNING THIS, CHANGETH HER MIND AND TAKING HIM TO HUSBAND, MAKETH HIM RICH AGAIN Filomena having ceased speaking, the queen, seeing that none remained to tell save only herself and Dioneo, whose privilege entitled him to speak last, said, with blithe aspect, "It pertaineth now to me to tell and I, dearest ladies, will willingly do it, relating a story like in part to the foregoing, to the intent that not only may you know how much the love of you[285] can avail in gentle hearts, but that you may learn to be yourselves, whenas it behoveth, bestowers of your guerdons, without always suffering fortune to be your guide, which most times, as it chanceth, giveth not discreetly, but out of all measure. [Footnote 285: Syn. your charms (_la vostra vaghezza_).]

• From Wild (2012)

  "You tried to trick us." "No, I didn't. I just changed my—" "You changed your clothes too," he said suggestively, and his words expanded in my gut like a spray of gunshot. My entire body flushed with the knowledge that when I'd taken off my clothes, he'd been nearby, watching me. "I like your pants," he said with a little smirk. He took off his backpack and set it down. "Or leggings, if that's what they're called." […] My mind went to the Three Young Bucks, who perhaps weren't even back on the trail yet. It went to the world's loudest whistle that no one but the red-haired man would hear. It went to the Swiss army knife too far away in the upper-left-side pocket of my pack. It went to the not-yet-boiling water in the handleless pot on my little stove. And then it landed on the arrows that rose from the top of the sandy-haired man's pack. I could feel the invisible line between those arrows and me like a hot thread. If he tried to do anything to me, I'd get to one of those arrows and stab him in the throat. […] "I think you'd better get going," I said evenly. "It'll be getting dark soon." I crossed my arms hard against my chest, acutely aware of the fact that I wasn't wearing a bra.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  And lo, there was I received by the scourge of bodily sickness, and I was going down to hell, carrying all the sins which I had committed, both against Thee, and myself, and others, many and grievous, over and above that bond of original sin, whereby we all die in Adam. For Thou hadst not forgiven me any of these things in Christ, nor had He abolished by His Cross the enmity which by my sins I had incurred with Thee. For how should He, by the crucifixion of a phantasm, which I believed Him to be? So true, then, was the death of my soul, as that of His flesh seemed to me false; and how true the death of His body, so false was the life of my soul, which did not believe it. And now the fever heightening, I was parting and departing for ever. For had I then parted hence, whither had I departed, but into fire and torments, such as my misdeeds deserved in the truth of Thy appointment? And this she knew not, yet in absence prayed for me. But Thou, everywhere present, heardest her where she was, and, where I was, hadst compassion upon me; that I should recover the health of my body, though frenzied as yet in my sacrilegious heart. For I did not in all that danger desire Thy baptism; and I was better as a boy, when I begged it of my mother’s piety, as I have before recited and confessed. But I had grown up to my own shame, and I madly scoffed at the prescripts of Thy medicine, who wouldest not suffer me, being such, to die a double death. With which wound had my mother’s heart been pierced, it could never be healed. For I cannot express the affection she bore to me, and with how much more vehement anguish she was now in labour of me in the spirit, than at her childbearing in the flesh.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  When shall I recall all which passed in those holy-days? Yet neither have I forgotten, nor will I pass over the severity of Thy scourge, and the wonderful swiftness of Thy mercy. Thou didst then torment me with pain in my teeth; which when it had come to such height that I could not speak, it came into my heart to desire all my friends present to pray for me to Thee, the God of all manner of health. And this I wrote on wax, and gave it them to read. Presently so soon as with humble devotion we had bowed our knees, that pain went away. But what pain? or how went it away? I was affrighted, O my Lord, my God; for from infancy I had never experienced the like. And the power of Thy Nod was deeply conveyed to me, and rejoicing in faith, I praised Thy Name. And that faith suffered me not to be at ease about my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me by Thy baptism. The vintage-vacation ended, I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for that I had both made choice to serve Thee, and through my difficulty of breathing and pain in my chest was not equal to the Professorship. And by letters I signified to Thy Prelate, the holy man Ambrose, my former errors and present desires, begging his advice what of Thy Scriptures I had best read, to become readier and fitter for receiving so great grace. He recommended Isaiah the Prophet: I believe, because he above the rest is a more clear foreshower of the Gospel and of the calling of the Gentiles. But I, not understanding the first lesson in him, and imagining the whole to be like it, laid it by, to be resumed when better practised in our Lord’s own words.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Jo glanced over her shoulder, and the little demon she was harboring said in her ear... "No matter whether she heard or not, let her take care of herself." Laurie had vanished round the bend, Jo was just at the turn, and Amy, far behind, striking out toward the smoother ice in the middle of the river. For a minute Jo stood still with a strange feeling in her heart, then she resolved to go on, but something held and turned her round, just in time to see Amy throw up her hands and go down, with a sudden crash of rotten ice, the splash of water, and a cry that made Jo's heart stand still with fear. She tried to call Laurie, but her voice was gone. She tried to rush forward, but her feet seemed to have no strength in them, and for a second, she could only stand motionless, staring with a terror-stricken face at the little blue hood above the black water. Something rushed swiftly by her, and Laurie's voice cried out... "Bring a rail. Quick, quick!" How she did it, she never knew, but for the next few minutes she worked as if possessed, blindly obeying Laurie, who was quite self-possessed, and lying flat, held Amy up by his arm and hockey stick till Jo dragged a rail from the fence, and together they got the child out, more frightened than hurt. "Now then, we must walk her home as fast as we can. Pile our things on her, while I get off these confounded skates," cried Laurie, wrapping his coat round Amy, and tugging away at the straps which never seemed so intricate before. Shivering, dripping, and crying, they got Amy home, and after an exciting time of it, she fell asleep, rolled in blankets before a hot fire. During the bustle Jo had scarcely spoken but flown about, looking pale and wild, with her things half off, her dress torn, and her hands cut and bruised by ice and rails and refractory buckles. When Amy was comfortably asleep, the house quiet, and Mrs. March sitting by the bed, she called Jo to her and began to bind up the hurt hands. "Are you sure she is safe?" whispered Jo, looking remorsefully at the golden head, which might have been swept away from her sight forever under the treacherous ice. "Quite safe, dear. She is not hurt, and won't even take cold, I think, you were so sensible in covering and getting her home quickly," replied her mother cheerfully. "Laurie did it all. I only let her go. Mother, if she should die, it would be my fault." And Jo dropped down beside the bed in a passion of penitent tears, telling all that had happened, bitterly condemning her hardness of heart, and sobbing out her gratitude for being spared the heavy punishment which might have come upon her. "It's my dreadful temper!

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  When we say that these principles are forces, we do not take the word in a metaphorical sense; they act just like veritable forces. In one sense, they are even material forces which mechanically engender physical effects. Does an individual come in contact with them without having taken proper precautions? He receives a shock which might be compared to the effect of an electric discharge. Sometimes they seem to conceive of these as a sort of fluid escaping by points.[614] If they are introduced into an organism not made to receive them, they produce sickness and death by a wholly automatic action.[615] Outside of men, they play the rôle of vital principle; it is by acting on them, we shall see,[616] that the reproduction of the species is assured. It is upon them that the universal life reposes. But in addition to this physical aspect, they also have a moral character. When someone asks a native why he observes his rites, he replies that his ancestors always have observed them, and he ought to follow their example.[617] So if he acts in a certain way towards the totemic beings, it is not only because the forces resident in them are physically redoubtable, but because he feels himself morally obliged to act thus; he has the feeling that he is obeying an imperative, that he is fulfilling a duty. For these sacred beings, he has not merely fear, but also respect. Moreover, the totem is the source of the moral life of the clan. All the beings partaking of the same totemic principle consider that owing to this very fact, they are morally bound to one another; they have definite duties of assistance, vendetta, etc., towards each other; and it is these duties which constitute kinship. So while the totemic principle is a totemic force, it is also a moral power; so we shall see how it easily transforms itself into a divinity properly so-called. Moreover, there is nothing here which is special to totemism. Even in the most advanced religions, there is scarcely a god who has not kept something of this ambiguity and whose functions are not at once cosmic and moral. At the same time that it is a spiritual discipline, every religion is also a means enabling men to face the world with greater confidence. Even for the Christian, is not God the Father the guardian of the physical order as well as the legislator and the judge of human conduct? II

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Very pitiful Mary was in these days, torn between the two warring forces; haunted by a sense of disloyalty if she thought with unhappiness of losing Martin, hating herself for a treach- erous coward if she sometimes longed for the life he could offer, above all intensely afraid of this man who was creeping in be- tween her and Stephen. And the very fact of this fear made her yield to the woman with a new and more desperate ardour, so that the bond held as never before — the days might be Martin’s, but the nights were Stephen’s. And yet, lying awake far into the dawn, Stephen’s victory would take on the semblance of defeat, turned to ashes by the memory of Martin’s words: * Your triumph, if it comes, will come too late for Mary.’ In the morning she would go to her desk and write, working with something very like frenzy, as though it were now a neck-to-neck race between the world and her ultimate achievement. Never before had she worked like this; she would feel that her pen was dipped in blood, that with every word she wrote, she was bleeding! 2 CrristmMas came and went, giving place to the New Year, and Martin fought on but he fought more grimly. He was haunted these days by the spectre of defeat, painfully conscious that do what he might, nearly every advantage lay with Stephen. All that he loved and admired most in Mary, her frankness, her tender and loyal spirit, her compassion towards suffering of any kind, these very attributes told against him, serving as they did to bind her more firmly to the creature to whom she had given devotion. One thing only sustained the man at this time, and that was his con- eee that in spite of it all, Mary Llewellyn had grown to love im. THE WELL OF LONELINESS 497

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But small Colonel Antrim, who was not always kind, would retort if he heard them: ‘ Damn it, zo, it’s the riding. The girl rides, that’s the point; as for some of you others — ° And then he would let loose a flood of foul language. ‘If some bloody fools that I know rode like Stephen, we’d have bloody well less to pay to the farmers,’ and much more he would say to the same effect, with rich oaths interlarding his every sentence — the foulest- mouthed master in the whole British Isles he was said to be, this small Colonel Antrim. Oh, but he dearly loved a fine rider, and he cursed and he swore his appreciation. Even in the presence of a sporting bishop one day, he had failed to control his language; indeed, he had sworn in the face of the bishop with enthusiasm, as he pointed to Stephen. An ineffectual and hen-pecked little fellow —in his home he was hardly allowed to say ‘damn.’ He was never per- mitted to smoke a cigar outside of his dark, inhospitable study. He must not breed Norwich canaries, which he loved, because they brought mice, declared Mrs. Antrim; he must not keep a pet dog in the house, and the ‘Pink Un’ was anathema be- cause of Violet. His taste in art was heavily censored, even on the walls of his own water-closet, where nothing might hang but a family group taken sixteen odd years ago with the children. On Sundays he sat in an uncomfortable pew while his wife chanted psalms in the voice of a peacock. ‘Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord,’ she would chant, as she heartily rejoiced in the strength of her salvation. All this and a great deal more he en- dured, indeed most of his life was passed in endurance — had it not been for those red-letter days out hunting, he might well have become melancholic from boredom. But those days, when he THE WELL OF LONELINESS I2r actually found himself master, went far to restore his anemic manhood, and on them he would speak the good English lan- guage as some deep-seated complex knew it ought to be spoken — ruddily, roundly, explosively spoken, with elation, at times with total abandon — especially if he should chance to remember Mrs. Antrim would he speak it with total abandon. But his oaths could not save Stephen now from her neigh- bours, nothing could do that since the going of Martin — for quite unknown to themselves they feared her; it was fear that aroused their antagonism. In her they instinctively sensed an out- law, and theirs was the task of policing nature. 2

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  When, under the impulse of the surprise occasioned by the irregularities observed in the course of phenomena, men had once peopled the world with supernatural beings,[567] they felt the need of making agreements with these redoubtable forces with which they had surrounded themselves. They understood that the best way to escape being overwhelmed by them was to ally themselves to some of them, and thus make sure of their aid. But at this period of history men knew no other form of alliance and association than the one resulting from kinship. All the members of a single clan aid each other mutually because they are kindred or, as amounts to the same thing, because they think they are; on the other hand, different clans treat each other as enemies because they are of different blood. So the only way of assuring themselves of the support of these supernatural beings was to adopt them as kindred and to be adopted by them in the same quality: the well-known processes of the blood-covenant permitted them to attain this result quite easily. But since at this period, the individual did not yet have a real personality, and was regarded only as a part of his group, or clan, it was the clan as a whole, and not the individual, which collectively contracted this relationship. For the same reason, it was contracted, not with a particular object, but with the natural group or species of which this object was a part; for men think of the world as they think of themselves, and just as they could not conceive themselves apart from their clans, so they were unable to conceive of anything else as distinct from the species to which it belonged. Now a species of things united to a clan by a bond of kinship is, says Jevons, a totem.

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

  In a morbid ascetic frame, he had, a few years later, that celebrated dream, in which he was summoned before the judgment seat of Christ, and as a heathen Ciceronian,354 so severely reprimanded and scourged, that even the angels interceded for him from sympathy with his youth, and he himself solemnly vowed never again to take worldly books into his hands. When he woke, he still felt the stripes, which, as he thought, not his heated fancy, but the Lord himself had inflicted upon him. Hence he warns his female friend Eustochium, to whom several years afterward (A.D. 384) he recounted this experience, to avoid all profane reading: "What have light and darkness, Christ and Belial (2 Cor. vi. 14), the Psalms and Horace, the Gospels and Virgil, the Apostles and Cicero, to do with one another? ... We cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the demons at the same time."355 But proper as this warning may be against overrating classical scholarship, Jerome himself, in his version of the Bible and his commentaries, affords the best evidence of the inestimable value of linguistic and antiquarian knowledge, when devoted to the service of religion. That oath, also, at least in later life, he did not strictly keep. On the contrary, he made the monks copy the dialogues of Cicero, and explained Virgil at Bethlehem, and his writings abound in recollections and quotations of the classic authors. When Rufinus of Aquileia, at first his warm friend, but afterward a bitter enemy, cast up to him this inconsistency and breach of a solemn vow, he resorted to the evasion that he could not obliterate from his memory what he had formerly read; as if it were not so sinful to cite a heathen author as to read him. With more reason he asserted, that all was a mere dream, and a dream vow was not binding. He referred him to the prophets, "who teach that dreams are vain, and not worthy of faith." Yet was this dream afterward made frequent use of, as Erasmus laments, to cover monastic obscurantism. After his baptism, Jerome divided his life between the East and the West, between ascetic discipline and literary labor. He removed from Rome to Antioch with a few friends and his library, visited the most celebrated anchorets, attended the exegetical lectures of the younger Apollinaris in Antioch, and then (374) spent some time as an ascetic in the dreary Syrian desert of Chalcis. Here, like so many other hermits, he underwent a grevious struggle with sensuality, which he described ten years after with indelicate minuteness in a long letter to his virgin friend Eustochium.356 In spite of his starved and emaciated body, his fancy tormented him with wild images of Roman banquets and dances of women; showing that the monastic seclusion from the world was by no means proof against the temptations of the flesh and the devil.

• From Another Country (1962)

  They reached the park. Old, slatternly women from the slums and from the East Side sat on benches, usually alone, sometimes sitting with gray-haired, matchstick men. Ladies from the big apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue, vaguely and desperately elegant, were also in the park, walking their dogs; and Negro nursemaids, turning a stony face on the grown-up world, crooned anxiously into baby carriages. The Italian laborers and small-business men strolled with their families or sat beneath the trees, talking to each other; some played chess or read L’Espresso. The other Villagers sat on benches, reading—Kierkegaard was the name shouting from the paper-covered volume held by a short-cropped girl in blue jeans—or talking distractedly of abstract matters, or gossiping or laughing; or sitting still, either with an immense, invisible effort which all but shattered the benches and the trees, or else with a limpness which indicated that they would never move again. Rufus and Vivaldo—but especially Vivaldo—had known or been intimate with many of these people, so long ago, it now seemed, that it might have occurred in another life. There was something frightening about the aspect of old friends, old lovers, who had, mysteriously, come to nothing. It argued the presence of some cancer which had been operating in them, invisibly, all along and which might, now, be operating in oneself. Many people had vanished, of course, had returned to the havens from which they had fled. But many others were still visible, had turned into lushes or junkies or had embarked on a nerve-rattling pursuit of the perfect psychiatrist; were vindictively married and progenitive and fat; were dreaming the same dreams they had dreamed ten years before, clothed these in the same arguments, quoted the same masters; and dispensed, as they hideously imagined, the same charm they had possessed before their teeth began to fail and their hair began to fall. They were more hostile now than they had been, this was the loud, inescapable change in their tone and the only vitality left in their eyes. Then Vivaldo was stopped on the path by a large, good-natured girl, who was not sober. Rufus and Leona paused, waiting for him. “Your friend’s real nice,” said Leona. “He’s real natural. I feel like we known each other for years.”

• From Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  118 Lecture 18—Pontius Pilate: A Roman PrefectJesus and His Jewish Influences in 37 A.D. Herod Agrippa I’s childhood friendship with Gaius Caligula eventually stood him in good stead. ●● Although Caligula is infamous in Roman history for having been extremely cruel, in the beginning, he was actually an effective ruler and quite popular. According to Flavius Josephus, however, “As time went on, he ceased to think of himself as a man, and as he imagined himself a god because of the greatness of his empire, he was moved to disregard the divine power in all his official acts.” ●● When Gaius Caligula proclaimed himself a god, the Jews in Egypt became objects of abuse from their Gentile neighbors because they refused to participate in emperor worship. These tensions led to the eruption of the pogrom in Alexandria that we discussed in an earlier lecture. Against this background, the Jews of Alexandria sent a delegation to Rome under the leadership of Philo to appeal to the emperor Gaius. ●● At the same time, the emperor ordered the Syrian legate, a man named Petronius, to convert the Jerusalem Temple into a shrine for the cult of the emperor, with a statue of himself, Gaius Caligula, set up in it. Petronius realized that carrying out the emperor’s order would be disastrous—the Jews would rebel and riot. ●● For this reason, Petronius stalled, pretending he hadn’t received the order. Fortunately, in the meantime, Herod Agrippa I had arrived in Rome and heard about the emperor’s order. Agrippa intervened with his old friend and convinced Gaius to rescind his order. Reunification of Herod the Great’s Kingdom ●● In 37 A.D., Gaius gave Herod Agrippa I the territories of Herod Philip—the very northern territories in the area of the Golan and modern-day Syria. Two years later, Gaius Caligula deposed

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The wounded were patient and fatalistic, like the very old women back in the field. The only difference between them being that the men had themselves become as a field laid bare to a ruthless and bloody hoeing. Some of them had not even a blanket to protect them from the biting cold of the wind. A Poilu with a mighty wound in the belly, must lie with the blood THE WELL OF LONELINESS 323 congealing on the bandage. Next to him lay a man with his face half blown away, who, God alone knew why, remained con. scious, The abdominal case was the first to be handled, Stephen herself helped to lift his stretcher. He was probably dying, but he did not complain except inasmuch as he wanted his mother. The voice that emerged from his coarse, bearded throat was the voice of a child demanding its mother. The man with the terrible face tried to speak, but when he did so the sound was not human. His bandage had slipped a little to one side, so that Stephen must step between him and Mary, and hastily readjust the bandage. ‘ Get back to the ambulance! I shall want you to drive.’ In silence Mary obeyed her. And now began the first of those endless journeys from the Poste de Secours to the Field Hospital. For twenty-four hours they would ply back and forth with their light Ford ambulances. Driving quickly because the lives of the wounded might depend on their speed, yet with every nerve taut to avoid, as far as might be, the jarring of the hazardous roads full of ruts and shell-holes. The man with the shattered face started again, they could hear him above the throb of the motor. For a moment they stopped while Stephen listened, but his lips were not there . . an intolerable sound. ‘ Faster, drive faster, Mary!’ Pale, but with firmly set, resolute mouth, Mary Llewellyn drove faster. When at last they reached the Field Hospital, the bearded Poilu with the wound in his belly was lying very placidly on his stretcher; his hairy chin pointing slightly upward. He had ceased to speak as a little child — perhaps, after all, he had found his mother. The day went on and the sun shone out brightly, dazzling the tired eyes of the drivers. Dusk fell, and the roads grew treacherous and vague. Night came — they dared not risk having lights, so that they must just stare and stare into the darkness. In the distance the sky turned ominously red, some stray shells 324 THE WELL OF LONELINESS