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.

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• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " I regret," replied Oisille, " that I cannot relate anything to you so profitable as what you heard this morning. What I shall tell you, however, will be con- formable to the precepts of the Scriptures, which warn us not to put our trust in princes, or in any sons of man, who cannot save us. For fear you should forget this truth for want of an example, T will give you one that is quite true, and so recent that those who beheld the sad spectacle have hardly yet dried away their tears." iixth day.} QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 42^ NOVEL LI. Perfidy and cruelty of an Italian duke. The Duke of Urbino, surnamed the Prefect, who married the sister of the first Duke of Mantua, had a son about eighteen or twenty years of age, who was in love with a girl of good family. Not being free to con- verse with her as he wished, in consequence of the cus- tom of the country, he had recourse to a gentleman who was in his service, and who was in love with a handsome, virtuous young damsel in the service of the duchess. The cavalier employed this damsel to make known his passion to his mistress, and the poor girl took pleasure in rendering him service, believing that his intentions were good, and that she might with honour take upon her to be his ambassadress. But the duke, who looked more to the interest of his house than to his son's pure affection, was afraid that this correspondence would end in marriage ; and he set so many spies on the watch that at last he was informed that the girl had meddled v/ith carrying letters from his son to her of whom he was so passionately enamoured. Burning with rage, he resolved to put it out of his power to do so any more ; but as he was not sufficiently careful to conceal his re- sentment, the girl was warned of it in time She knew the prince to be malicious and without conscience, and was so terrified that she went to the duchess and implored permission to retire until the fit of anger had passed away. The duchess told her that before she gave her ^28 THE IIEPTAMERON OF THE INovel 51. leave she would try to find how her husband took the matter. She did so, and found that the duke spoke of it with great bitterness, whereupon she not only gave her young lady permission, but even advised her to retire into a convent until the storm should have blown over ; and this she did as secretly as possible.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  Though the butcher talked of his pigs, which he called Cordeliers, the two poor friars, hearing this, set it all down to their own account, and awaited daylight with great terror. One of them was very fat, the other very lean ; and the fat one set about confessing himself to his companion, alleging that a butcher, having lost the love and fear of God, would make no more of slaughtering them than an o.x or any other beast. As they were shut up in their chamber, from which there was no issue but through their host's, they gave them- selves up for dead men, and earnestly commended their souls to God. The young man, who was not so over- come by fear as the elder, said to him, that since they FoHrth day:\ Q VEEN OF NA VA RRS. 3 1 1 could not get out at the door, they must try to escape through the window ; at the worst they could only be killed in the attempt, and death one way or the other was the same thing in the end. The fat friar consented to the expedient. The young one opened the window, and, as it was not very high, dropped lightly to the ground, and ran away as fast and as far as he could, without waiting for his companion, who was not so lucky, for, being very bulky, he fell so heavily that he hurt one leg severely, and was unable to rise from the ground. Deserted by his companion and unable to fol- low him, he looked about for some place where he might hide, and saw nothing but a pigsty, into which he dragged himself the best way he could. When he opened the door, two big porkers which were inside rushed out, and left the place free to the Cordelier, who shut himself in, hoping that he might hear people pass- ing by, to whom he would call and obtain help. As soon as daylight appeared, the butcher got ready his big knives, and told his wife to come and help him to kill the two pigs. Going to the sty, he opened the little door, and cried out, " Come, turn out here, my Cordelier. I'll have your chitterlings for my dinner to-day." The Cordelier, who could not stand on his leg, crawled out on his hands and knees, roaring for mercy. If he was in a great fright, the butcher and his wife were no less so. The first idea that came into their heads was that St. Francis was angry with them because they had called pigs Cordeliers, and under that notion they fell on their knees before the poor friar, begging pardon of St. Fran- cis and his order. On the one side was the Cordelier bawling for mercy to the butcher, on the other side the butcher making the same appeal to the Cordelier. At last the Cordelier, finding that the butcher had no inten-

• From Barclay's Guide to the New Testament (2008)

  But the writer to the Hebrews also had a Jewish background. To the Jews, it was always dangerous to come too near to God. `No one', said God to Moses, `shall see me and live' (Exodus 33:20). It was Jacob's astonished exclamation at Peniel: `I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved' (Genesis 32:30). When Manoah realized who his visitor had been, he said in terror to his wife: `We shall surely die, for we have seen God' (Judges 13:23). The great day of Jewish worship was the Day of Atonement. That was the one day of the whole year when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies where the very presence of God was held to dwell. No one ever entered in except the high priest, and he only on that day. When he did, the law laid it down that he must not linger in the Holy Place for long `lest he put Israel in terror'. It was dangerous to enter the presence of God; and, if anyone stayed there too long, that person might be struck dead. In view of this, the idea of a covenant entered into Jewish thought. God, in his grace and in a way that was quite unmerited, approached the nation of Israel and offered them a special relationship with himself. But this unique access to God was conditional on the observance by the people of the law that he gave to them. We can see this relationship being entered into and this law being accepted in the dramatic scene in Exodus 24:3-8. So, Israel had access to God, but only if the people kept the law. To break the law was sin, and sin put up a barrier which stopped the way to God. It was to take away that barrier that the system of the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices was constructed. The law was given; the people sinned; the barrier was up; the sacrifice was made; and the sacrifice was designed to open the way to God that had been closed. But the experience of life was that this was precisely what sacrifice could not do. It was proof of the ineffectiveness of the whole system that sacrifice had to go on and on and on. It was a losing and ineffective battle to remove the barrier that sin had erected between men and women and God. The Perfect Priest and the Perfect Sacrifice

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  I. This princess being at Bois, where she was delivered of a son, the muleteer went thither to receive his quar- terly payment, and left his wife at Amboise, where they lived, in a house beyond the bridges. There lived with them for a long time one of the muleteer's men, who had felt such a passion for her that at last he could not help declaring it ; but she, being a virtuous woman, re- proved him so sharply, threatening to have him beaten and dismissed by her husband, that he never afterwards durst address her with such language. Nevertheless, the fire of his love, though smothered, was not extin- guished. His master then being at Blois, and his mis- tress at vespers at St. Florentin, which is the church of the castle, very remote from the muleteer's house, in which he was left alone, he resolved to have by force what he could not obtain either by prayers or services. To this end he broke an opening through the boarded partition between his mistress's chamber and that in which he himself slept. This was not perceived, being covered by the curtains of the master's bed on one side, and by those of the men's bed on the other. When the poor woman had gone to bed with a little girl of twelve years old, and was sleeping soundly, as one usually does in the first sleep, the man entered the room through the opening, in his shirt, with his sword in his hand, and got into the bed with her. The moment she felt him she sprang out of bed, and addressed such remonstrances to him as would occur to any woman of honour in the like case. He, whose love was but brutal- ity, and who would better have understood the language of his mules than such virtuous pleadings, appeared more insensible to reason than the brutes with which he had long associated. Seeing that she ran so fast round a table that he could not catch her, and that, although iie 24 THE IIEPTAMERON OF THE \Ncrvel 3

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

  Unless his consciousness were something more than cognitive, unless it experienced a partiality for certain of the objects, which, in succession, occupy its ken, it could not long maintain itself in existence; for, by an inscrutable necessity, each human mind's appearance on this earth is conditioned upon the integrity of the body with which it belongs, upon the treatment which that body gets from others, and upon the spiritual dispositions which use it as their tool, and lead it either towards longevity or to destruction. Its own body, then, first of all, its friends next, and finally its spiritual dispositions, must be the supremely interesting objects for each human mind. Each mind, to begin with, must have a certain minimum of selfishness in the shape of instincts of bodily self-seeking in order to exist. This minimum must be there as a basis for all farther conscious acts, whether of self-negation or of a selfishness more subtle still. All minds must have come, by the way of survival of the fittest, if by no director path, to take an intense interest in the bodies to which they are yoked, altogether apart from any interest in the pure Ego which they also possess. And similarly with the images of their person in the minds of others. I should not be extant now had I not become sensitive to looks of approval or disapproval on the faces among which my life is cast. Looks of contempt cast on other persons need affect me in no such peculiar way. Were my mental life dependent exclusively on some other person's welfare, either directly or in an indirect way, then natural selection would unquestionably have brought it about that I should be as sensitive to the social vicissitudes of that other person as I now am to my own. Instead of being egoistic I should be spontaneously altruistic, then. But in this case, only partially realized in actual human conditions, though the self I empirically love would have changed, my pure Ego or Thinker would have to remain just what it is now. My spiritual powers, again, must interest me more than those of other people, and for the same reason. I should not be here at all unless I had cultivated them and kept them from decay. And the same law which made me once care for them makes me care for them still. My own body and what ministers to its needs are thus the primitive object, instinctively determined, of my egoistic interests. Other objects may become interesting derivatively through association with any of these things, either as means or as habitual concomitants; and so in a thousand ways the primitive sphere of the egoistic emotions may enlarge and change its boundaries.

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

  So slight an emotion as that produced by the entrance of Professor Ludwig into the laboratory was instantly followed by a shrinkage of the arms. [125] The brain itself is an excessively vascular organ, a sponge full of blood, in fact; and another of Mosso's inventions showed that when less blood went to the arms, more went to the head. The subject to be observed lay on a delicately balanced table which could tip downward either at the head or at the foot if the weight of either end were increased. The moment emotional or intellectual activity began in the subject, down went the balance at the head-end, in consequence of the redistribution of blood in his system. But the best proof of the immediate afflux of blood to the brain during mental activity is due to Mosso's observations on three persons whose brain had been laid bare by lesion of the skull. By means of apparatus described in his book, [126] this physiologist was enabled to let the brain-pulse record itself directly by a tracing. The intra-cranial blood-pressure rose immediately whenever the subject was spoken to, or when he began to think actively, as in solving a problem in mental arithmetic. Mosso gives in his work a large number of reproductions of tracings which show the instantaneity of the change of blood-supply, whenever the mental activity was quickened by any cause whatever, intellectual or emotional. He relates of his female subject that one day whilst tracing her brain-pulse he observed a sudden rise with no apparent outer or inner cause. She however confessed to him afterwards that at that moment she had caught sight of a skull on top of a piece of furniture in the room, and that this had given her a slight emotion. The fluctuations of the blood-supply to the brain were independent of respiratory changes, [127] and followed the quickening of mental activity almost immediately. We must suppose a very delicate adjustment whereby the circulation follows the needs of the cerebral activity. Blood very likely may rush to each region of the cortex according as it is most active, but of this we know nothing. I need hardly say that the activity of the nervous matter is the primary phenomenon, and the afflux of blood its secondary consequence. Many popular writers talk as if it were the other way about, and as if mental activity were due to the afflux of blood. But, as Professor H.N. Martin has well said, "that belief has no physiological foundation whatever; it is even directly opposed to all that we know of cell life." [128] A chronic pathological congestion may, it is true, have secondary consequences, but the primary congestions which we have been considering follow the activity of the brain-cells by an adaptive reflex vaso-motor mechanism doubtless as elaborate as that which harmonizes blood-supply with cell-action in any muscle or gland.

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

  They showed no inclination to scrape, . . . but when Dr. Thomson sprinkled a little gravel on the carpet, . . . the chickens immediately began their scraping movements." [103] A strange person, and darkness, are both of them stimuli to fear and mistrust in dogs (and for the matter of that, in men). Neither circumstance alone may awaken outward manifestations, but together, i.e. when the strange man is met in the dark, the dog will be excited to violent defiance. [104] Street-hawkers well know the efficacy of summation, for they arrange themselves in a line upon the sidewalk, and the passer often buys from the last one of them, through the effect of the reiterated solicitation, what he refused to buy from the first in the row. Aphasia shows many examples of summation. A patient who cannot name an object simply shown him, will name it if he touches as well as sees it, etc. Instances of summation might be multiplied indefinitely, but it is hardly worth while to forestall subsequent chapters. Those on Instinct, the Stream of Thought, Attention, Discrimination, Association, Memory, Æsthetics, and Will, will contain numerous exemplifications of the reach of the principle in the purely psychological field. REACTION-TIME. One of the lines of experimental investigation most diligently followed of late years is that of the ascertainment of the time occupied by nervous events. Helmholtz led off by discovering the rapidity of the current in the sciatic nerve of the frog. But the methods he used were soon applied to the sensory nerves and the centres, and the results caused much popular scientific admiration when described as measurements of the 'velocity of thought.' The phrase 'quick as thought' had from time immemorial signified all that was wonderful and elusive of determination in the line of speed; and the way in which Science laid her doomful hand upon this mystery reminded people of the day when Franklin first 'eripuit cœlo fulmen,' foreshadowing the region of a newer and colder race of gods. We shall take up the various operations measured, each in the chapter to which it more naturally pertains. I may say, however, immediately, that the phrase 'velocity of thought' is misleading, for it is by no means clear in any of the cases what particular act of thought occurs during the time which is measured. 'Velocity of nerve-action' is liable to the same criticism, for in most cases we do not know what particular nerve-processes occur. What the times in question really represent is the total duration of certain reactions upon stimuli.

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

  Wherever a creature has to deal with complex features of the environment, prudence is a virtue. The higher animals have so to deal; and the more complex the features, the higher we call the animals. The fewer of his acts, then, can such an animal perform without the help of the organs in question. In the frog many acts devolve wholly on the lower centres; in the bird fewer; in the rodent fewer still; in the dog very few indeed; and in apes and men hardly any at all. The advantages of this are obvious. Take the prehension of food as an example and suppose it to be a reflex performance of the lower centres. The animal will be condemned fatally and irresistibly to snap at it whenever presented, no matter what the circumstances may be; he can no more disobey this prompting than water can refuse to boil when a fire is kindled under the pot. His life will again and again pay the forfeit of his gluttony. Exposure to retaliation, to other enemies, to traps, to poisons, to the dangers of repletion, must be regular parts of his existence. His lack of all thought by which to weigh the danger against the attractiveness of the bait, and of all volition to remain hungry a little while longer, is the direct measure of his lowness in the mental scale. And those fishes which, like our cunners and sculpins, are no sooner thrown back from the hook into the water, than they automatically seize the hook again, would soon expiate the degradation of their intelligence by the extinction of their type, did not their exaggerated fecundity atone for their imprudence. Appetite and the acts it prompts have consequently become in all higher vertebrates functions of the cerebrum. They disappear when the physiologist's knife has left the subordinate centres alone in place. The brainless pigeon will starve though left on a corn-heap. Take again the sexual function. In birds this devolves exclusively upon the hemispheres. When these are shorn away the pigeon pays no attention to the billings and cooings of its mate. And Goltz found that a bitch in heat would excite no emotion in male dogs who had suffered large loss of cerebral tissue. Those who have read Darwin's 'Descent of Man' know what immense importance in the amelioration of the breed in birds this author ascribes to the mere fact of sexual selection. The sexual act is not performed until every condition of circumstance and sentiment is fulfilled, until time, place, and partner all are fit.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  guide told him his mistress would be glad to say a few words to him before he spoke to her husband ; that she was waiting for him in a room with only one of his ser- vants, and that he had better send away the other by the front door. This he accordingly did ; and as he was going up a narrow and very dark flight of stairs, the proctor, who had set men in ambush, hearing a voice, called out to know what it was. Some one replied it was a man who was making his way secretly into the house. Upon this, one Thomas Guerin, an assassin by profes- sion, and hired by the proctor for the occasion, fell upon the poor young man, and gave him so many sword- wounds that at last he fell dead. Meanwhile, his servant, who was with the lady, said to her, " I hear my master's voice on the stairs. I will go to him." But she stopped him, saying, " Don't trouble yourself ; he will come soon enough." Soon afterwards, hearing his master cry out, " I am a dead man ! My God have mercy on me ! " he wanted to go to his aid, but again she stopped him. " Be quiet," she said ; " my husband is chastising him for his pranks. Let's go see." Leaning over the stair- head, she called out to herhusband, "Well ! is it done .-• " " Come and see," replied the husband ; " you are avenged on him who put you to such shame." And so saying, he struck his dagger tenor twelve times into the stomach of a man whom when living he dare not have assailed. After the deed was done, and the two servants of the murdered man had fled with the sad tidings to his poor father, St. Aignan began to consider what steps he should next take. The servants of the murdered man could not be admitted to give evidence, and no one else had seen the deed besides the murderers, an old woman- servant, and a girl of fifteen. He endeavoured to secure the old woman ; but she found means of escape, and took 2 1 8 THE HEPTAMEKON OF THE [Xm-e/ J

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  But, let us further examine for what cause, those called by God to religious life can require counsel. First, it is sacrilegious to doubt whether the life counselled by Christ is the most perfect. Again, none but a soul enslaved by human love would hesitate as to whether it is right to abandon the intention of entering religious life for fear of grieving friends or incurring temporal loss. St. Jerome writes in his epistle to Heliodorus: “Even should your infant son hang round your neck, or your mother, with unkempt hair and dishevelled dress, show you the breasts that suckled you, or your father cast himself along your threshold, pass on. Shed no tear; tread your father underfoot and hasten to the standard of the Cross. In this case, cruelty is the only piety.” Elsewhere he adds, “My enemy, with drawn sword, is about to slay me, and shall I think of my mother’s tears? Shall I forsake the combat for love of my father, when I ought not to leave Christ even to bury my parents? In several places he writes in the same strain. But perhaps some may think it necessary to take counsel, lest they should not be able to fulfil what is implied in entering religious life. The same doubt occurred to St. Augustine, as he tells us in the Eighth Book of his Confessions. He feared to undertake to observe the counsel of continence; and, speaking of himself, he uses these words: “On the side to which I turned my face, and where I feared to go, I saw the chaste dignity of continence. She was serene and cheerful, without wantonness. She beckoned me to approach her fearlessly, holding out to embrace me and uphold me, her gentle hands full of numberless good examples. With her were many youths and maidens, staid widows and venerable virgins.” He adds later on: “And she smiled at me, mocking, as if to say, ‘What these have done, can you not likewise do? Have these acted by their own might, and not by the power of their God? The Lord their God has given me to them. Why then do you stand on your own, without a foothold? Cast yourself on Him. Fear not. He will not draw away to let you fall. Cast yourself on Him with confidence. He will receive you and heal you.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  24:9–149. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. 10. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. 11. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. 12. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14. And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. RABANUS. For what desert so many evils are to be brought upon Jerusalem, and the whole Jewish province the Lord shews, when He adds, Then shall they deliver you up,&c. CHRYSOSTOM. Or otherwise; The disciples when they heard these things which were spoken of Jerusalem might suppose that they should be beyond reach of harm, as though what they now heard was the sufferings of others, while they themselves should meet with nothing but prosperous times, He therefore announces the grievous things which should befal them, putting them in fear for themselves. First He had bid them be on their guard against the arts of false teachers, He now foretels to them the violence of tyrants. In good season He thus introduces their own woes, as here they will receive consolation from the common calamities; and He held out to them not this comfort only, but also that of the cause for which they should suffer, shewing that it was for His name’s sake, And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. ORIGEN. But how should the people of Christ be hated by the nations who dwelt in the uttermost parts of the earth? But one may perhaps say, that in this place all is put hyperbolically for many. But this that He says, Then shall they deliver you, presents some difficulty; for before these things the Christians were delivered to tribulation. To this it may be answered, that at that time the Christians shall be more delivered to tribulation than ever. And persons in any misfortune love to examine into the origin of them, and to talk about them. Hence when the worship of the Gods shall be almost deserted by reason of the multitude of Christians, it will be said that that is the cause of the wars, and famines, and pestilences; and of the earthquakes also they will say that the Christians are the cause, whence the persecution of the Churches.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  15. And unto one he gave rive talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. 16. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. 18. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 19. After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. 20. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 22. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 23. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 24. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25. And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27. Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received my own with usury. 28. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. 29. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. GLOSS. (non occ.) In the foregoing parable is set forth the condemnation of such as have not prepared sufficient oil for themselves, whether by oil is meant the brightness of good works, or inward joy of conscience, or alms paid in money. CHRYSOSTOM. This parable is delivered against those who will not assist their neighbours either with money, or words, or in any other way, but hide all that they have.

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  The sepia gloom of an arctic afternoon in midwinter invaded the rooms and was deepening to an oppressive black. A bronze angle, a surface of glass or polished mahogany here and there in the darkness, reflected the odds and ends of light from the street, where the globes of tall street lamps along its middle line were already diffusing their lunar glow. Gauzy shadows moved on the ceiling. In the stillness, the dry sound of a chrysanthemum petal falling upon the marble of a table made one’s nerves twang. My mother’s boudoir had a convenient oriel for looking out on the Morskaya in the direction of the Maria Square. With lips pressed against the thin fabric that veiled the windowpane I would gradually taste the cold of the glass through the gauze. From that oriel, some years later, at the outbreak of the Revolution, I watched various engagements and saw my first dead man: he was being carried away on a stretcher, and from one dangling leg an ill-shod comrade kept trying to pull off the boot despite pushes and punches from the stretchermen—all this at a goodish trot. But in the days of Mr. Burness’ lessons there was nothing to watch save the dark, muffled street and its receding line of loftily suspended lamps, around which the snowflakes passed and repassed with a graceful, almost deliberately slackened motion, as if to show how the trick was done and how simple it was. From another angle, one might see a more generous stream of snow in a brighter, violet-tinged nimbus of gaslight, and then the jutting enclosure where I stood would seem to drift slowly up and up, like a balloon. At last one of the phantom sleighs gliding along the street would come to a stop, and with gawky haste Mr. Burness in his fox-furred shapka would make for our door. From the schoolroom, whither I had preceded him, I would hear his vigorous footsteps crashing nearer and nearer, and, no matter how cold the day was, his good, ruddy face would be sweating abundantly as he strode in. I remember the terrific energy with which he pressed on the spluttering pen as he wrote down, in the roundest of round hands, the tasks to be prepared for the next day. Usually at the end of the lesson a certain limerick was asked for and granted, the point of the performance being that the word “screamed” in it was to be involuntarily enacted by oneself every time Mr. Burness gave a formidable squeeze to the hand he held in his beefy paw as he recited the lines: There was a young lady from Russia Who (squeeze) whenever you’d crush her She (squeeze) and she (squeeze) … by which time the pain would have become so excruciating that we never got any farther.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  plunged my poniard in your breast sooner than he will have delivered you." Presently the gentleman came up, and asked him whence he came ? " From your house, monsieur," replied the Cordelier. " I left mademoiselle quite well, and she is expecting you." The gentleman rode on without perceiving his wife ; but the valet who accompanied him, and who had always been in the habit of conversing with the Cordelier's companion, named Friar John, called to his mistress, thinking that she was that person. The poor woman, who durst not turn her head towards her husband, made no reply to the valet ; and the latter crossed the road, that he might see the face of this pretended Brother John. The poor lady, without saying anything, made a sign to him with her eyes, which were full of tears. The valet then rode up to his master, and said, '• In conscience, monsieur, Friar John IS very like mademoiselle, your wife. I had a look at him as I crossed the road. It is certainly not the usual Friar John ; at least, I can tell you, that if it is, he weeps abundantly, and that he gave me a very sorrowful glance of his eye." The gentleman told him he was dreaming, and made light of what he said. The valet, however, still persist- ing in it that there was something wrong, asked leave to ride back and see to it, and begged his master to wait for him. The gentleman let him go, and waited to see what would be the upshot. But the Cordelier, hearing the valet coming after him with shouts to Friar John, and making no doubt that the lady had been recognized, turned upon the valet with a great iron-bound staff, gave him such a blow on the side that he knocked him off his horse, and springing instantly upon him with the poniard, speedily dispatched him The gentleman, who from a distance had seen his valet fall, and supposed that this 296 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE IAwv/31,

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to the faith?Objection 1: It would seem that unbelievers ought by no means to be compelled to the faith. For it is written (Mat. 13:28) that the servants of the householder, in whose field cockle had been sown, asked him: “Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?” and that he answered: “No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it”: on which passage Chrysostom says (Hom. xlvi in Matth.): “Our Lord says this so as to forbid the slaying of men. For it is not right to slay heretics, because if you do you will necessarily slay many innocent persons.” Therefore it seems that for the same reason unbelievers ought not to be compelled to the faith. Objection 2: Further, we read in the Decretals (Dist. xlv can., De Judaeis): “The holy synod prescribes, with regard to the Jews, that for the future, none are to be compelled to believe.” Therefore, in like manner, neither should unbelievers be compelled to the faith. Objection 3: Further, Augustine says (Tract. xxvi in Joan.) that “it is possible for a man to do other things against his will, but he cannot believe unless he is willing.” Therefore it seems that unbelievers ought not to be compelled to the faith. Objection 4: It is said in God’s person (Ezech. 18:32 [*Ezech. 33:11]): “I desire not the death of the sinner [Vulg.: ‘of him that dieth’].” Now we ought to conform our will to the Divine will, as stated above ([2397]FS, Q[19], AA[9],10). Therefore we should not even wish unbelievers to be put to death. On the contrary, It is written (Lk. 14:23): “Go out into the highways and hedges; and compel them to come in.” Now men enter into the house of God, i.e. into Holy Church, by faith. Therefore some ought to be compelled to the faith. I answer that, Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith, in order that they may believe, because to believe depends on the will: nevertheless they should be compelled by the faithful, if it be possible to do so, so that they do not hinder the faith, by their blasphemies, or by their evil persuasions, or even by their open persecutions. It is for this reason that Christ’s faithful often wage war with unbelievers, not indeed for the purpose of forcing them to believe, because even if they were to conquer them, and take them prisoners, they should still leave them free to believe, if they will, but in order to prevent them from hindering the faith of Christ.

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

  Let us define it more distinctly before we see how well physiological observation will bear it out in detail. THE EDUCATION OF THE HEMISPHERES. Nerve-currents run in through sense-organs, and whilst provoking reflex acts in the lower centres, they arouse ideas in the hemispheres, which either permit the reflexes in question, check them, or substitute others for them. All ideas being in the last resort reminiscences, the question to answer is: How can processes become organized in the hemispheres which correspond to reminiscences in the mind? [6] Nothing is easier than to conceive a possible way in which this might be done, provided four assumptions be granted. These assumptions (which after all are inevitable in any event) are: 1) The same cerebral process which, when aroused from without by a sense-organ, gives the perception of an object, will give an idea of the same object when aroused by other cerebral processes from within. 2) If processes 1, 2, 3, 4 have once been aroused together or in immediate succession, any subsequent arousal of any one of them (whether from without or within) will tend to arouse the others in the original order. [This is the so-called law of association.] 3) Every sensorial excitement propagated to a lower centre tends to spread upwards and arouse an idea. 4) Every idea tends ultimately either to produce a movement or to check one which otherwise would be produced. Suppose now (these assumptions being granted) that we have a baby before us who sees a candle-flame for the first time, and, by virtue of a reflex tendency common in babies of a certain age, extends his hand to grasp it, so that his fingers get burned. So far we have two reflex currents in play: first, from the eye to the extension movement, along the line 1-1-1-1 of Fig. 3; and second, from the finger to the movement of drawing back the hand, along the line 2-2-2-2. If this were the baby's whole nervous system, and if the reflexes were once for all organic, we should have no alteration in his behavior, no matter how often the experience recurred. The retinal image of the flame would always make the arm shoot forward, the burning of the finger would always send it back. But we know that 'the burnt child dreads the fire,' and that one experience usually protects the fingers forever. The point is to see how the hemispheres may bring this result to pass. We must complicate our diagram (see Fig. 4).

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  The next time I went down to bathe with Vernon, instead of going on the beach in the shallow water and wading out, I went with him to the end of the pier and when he dived in, I went down the steps and as soon as he came up to the surface I cried, “Look! I can swim too”, and I boldly threw myself forward and, after a moment’s dreadful sinking and spluttering, did in fact swim. When I wanted to get back I had a moment of appalling fear: “Could I turn round!” The next moment I found it quite easy to turn and I was soon safely back on the steps again. “When did you learn to swim?”, asked Vernon coming out beside me. “This minute”, I replied and as he was surprised, I told him I had read it all in his book and made up my mind to venture the very next time I bathed. A little time afterwards I heard him tell this to some of his men friends in Armagh, and they all agreed that it showed extraordinary courage, for I was small for my age and always appeared even younger than I was. Looking back, I see that many causes combined to strengthen the vanity in me which had already become inordinate and in the future was destined, to shape my life and direct its purposes. Here in Armagh everything conspired to foster my besetting sin. I was put among boys of my age, I think in the lower Fourth, and the form-master finding that I knew no Latin, showed me a Latin grammar and told me I’d have to learn it as quickly as possible, for the class had already begun to read Caesar: he showed me the first declension mensa, as the example, and asked me if I could learn it by the next day. I said I would, and as luck would have it, the Mathematical master passing at the moment, the form-master told him I was backward and should be in a lower form. “He’s very good indeed at figures”, the Mathematical master rejoined, “he might be in the Upper Division.” “Really!” exclaimed the Form-master. “See what you can do,” he said to me, “you may find it possible to catch up. Here’s a Caesar too, you may as well take it with you. We have done only two or three pages.”

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Therese Weichbrodt had read out the Christmas chapter with so much emphasis that all the vowels had changed places and now stepped back from her guests to the door to give a short speech from here. She stood on the threshold, hunchbacked, tiny, the old hands clasped in front of her child's breast; the green silk ribbons of her bonnet fell on her frail shoulders, and at their heads, above the door, a banner wreathed with fir boughs shone the words. "Glory to God in the highest!" And Sesemi spoke of God's goodness, she mentioned that this was her last Christmas, and concluded by urging everyone to be cheerful with the apostle's words, trembling from head to foot, so much her whole little body took part in this admonition. "Rejoice!" she said, laying her head on one side and shaking it violently. "And again I say: Rejoice!" At that moment, however, the whole banner burst into flames above her with a puffing, hissing and crackling noise, so that Mademoiselle Weichbrodt, with a small cry of terror and a leap of unexpected and picturesque agility, avoided it had to withdraw from shower of sparks, Hanno remembered the leap the old girl had made, and for several minutes he laughed, deeply moved, irritated and nervously amused, softly and suppressed, into his pillow. Ninth Chapter Frau Permaneder was walking down Breite Strasse in a great hurry. There was something relaxed about her posture, and the shoulders and head only hinted at the majestic dignity that otherwise surrounded her figure on the street. Harried, harried, and in a great hurry, she had, as it were, snatched up only a little of the way a defeated king draws the rest of his troops to him to throw himself in the arms of the flight... Oh, she didn't look good! Her upper lip, that slightly protruding and arched upper lip that had once helped make her face so pretty, now trembled, her eyes were wide with fear and looked straight ahead with an exalted twinkle, as if hurrying forward... Her hairdo came down visibly disheveled from her bonnet, and her face showed that dull yellowish tinge which it took on when her stomach got worse. Yes, her stomach was bad at that time; on Thursdays the whole family could observe the aggravation. How to avoid the cliff - the conversation got stuck on the trial of Hugo Weinschenk, Frau Permaneder herself led it irresistibly to it; and then she began to ask, terribly agitated to seek an answer from God and all the world, how it was possible that prosecutor Moritz Hagenstrom could sleep peacefully at night! She didn't get it, she would never believe it... and her excitement grew with every word.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " Mother, they are demons, and not monks, who come to visit us." Upon this the prior, afraid of being discov- ered, said to the abbess, with a laugh, " Certainly, mother, Sister Marie is right." He then took her hand, and said, in presence of the abbess, " I had heard that Sister Marie spoke very well, and with such facility as led people to believe she was mundane. For this reason I have done violence to my nature, and have spoken to her as worldlings speak to women, so far as I know that language from books ; for in point of personal experience I am as ignorant as I was the day I was born. And as I attributed her virtue to my age and ugliness, I ordered my young monk to speak to her in the same tone. She has made, as you see, a sage and virtuous resistance. I am pleased with her for it, and esteem her so highly that henceforth I desire that she be the first after you, and the mistress of the novices, in order that her virtue may be fortified more and more." The venerable prior did many feats of the same sort during the three years he was in love with the nun, who, as I have said, gave her brother a written narrative of her sad adventures through the grating. The brother carried the paper to his mother, who hurried distractedly to Paris, where she found the Queen of Navarre, only sister to the king, and laid this piteous tale before her, saying, " Put no more trust, madam, in these hypocrites. I thought I had placed my daughter on the outskirts of heaven, or at least on the way to it ; but I find I have placed her in hell, and in the hands of people worse than all the devils there ; for the devils tempt us only so far as we are ourselves consenting parties, but these wretches try to prevail over us by violence when they cannot do so by love." The Queen of Navarre was greatly perplexed. She had implicit 2 26 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE [mvel 22.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Those who hold this opinion seek to confirm it by these words, “Do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits to see whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). This text applies to entrance into religion. St. Benedict, in his Rule, and Pope Innocent, in his Decretal, quote it in this sense. But the “ trying,” of which St. John speaks, requires careful examination, and this examination (they conclude) is best made in consultation with many. Therefore, he who desires to enter religion should take counsel of many. Those who think thus, further add that counsel is most needed before taking a step wherein there is the greatest danger of being deceived. There is great danger of deception on entering religious life, since “Satan transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor. ix. 14) and, under an appearance of good, misleads the unwary. Therefore it is only after grave deliberation that a man should enter on the religious life. Again, it is alleged that peculiarly diligent examination is required before undertaking anything that may come to a bad end. Now as we see in the case of apostates and despairing souls, entrance into religious life has often ended badly. Consequently, this step requires grave consideration. A last argument remains, and it is considered a very weighty one. In the Acts of the Apostles (v. 39) the following words occur: “If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought,” Now the counsel of entering religion has often come to nought by apostasy. Therefore, it was not from God. Hence much deliberation with many people is necessary before taking such a step. These are the chief arguments, adduced by those who impress upon candidates for religious life the necessity for grave deliberation with many counsellors, in the hope that some obstacle may be placed in their way by one or other of their numerous advisers. CHAPTER 9 Answers to the Foregoing ArgumentsIN order to demonstrate the fallacy of the foregoing arguments, we will first consider the case of St. Peter and St. Andrew, who, as soon as our Lord called them, “leaving their nets, followed him” (Matt. 4). St. Chrysostom pronounces the following eulogium of them: “They were in the midst of their business; but, at His bidding, they made no delay, they did not return home saying: ‘let us consult our friends, but, leaving all things, they followed, Him, as Elisha followed Elijah. A similar unhesitating and instant obedience does Christ require of us.” Then, we have the example of St. James and St. John who, being called by God, immediately left their nets and their father and followed Him. St. Hilary, in his Commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel, says: “ we are taught by their example in abandoning their trade and their father’s house, to follow Jesus and to be withheld neither by worldly anxieties nor by the ties of domestic life.”