Gratitude

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 The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  Jane A. Foster and Karen-Anne McVey Neufeld, “Gut-Brain Axis: How the Microbiome Influences Anxiety and Depression,” Trends in Neurosciences 36, no. 5 (2013): 305–12; Mark Lyte and John F. Cryan, eds., Microbial Endocrinology: The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Health and Disease (New York: Springer, 2014); Mayer, Mind-Gut Connection . 27. Doe-Young Kim and Michael Camilleri, “Serotonin: A Mediator of the Brain-Gut Connection,” American Journal of Gastroenterology 95, no. 10 (2000): 2698. 28. Timothy R. Sampson, Justine W. Debelius, Taren Thron, Stefan Janssen, Gauri G. Shastri, Zehra Esra Ilhan, Collin Challis et al., “Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease,” Cell 167, no. 6 (2016): 1469–80. 29. Sadness can certainly disturb health, but positive states such as gratitude appear to have the opposite effect. Gratitude is induced when we receive meaningful aid or support that is motivated by compassion and is associated with significant positive effects on health and quality of life. Recently, an fMRI study by my colleague Glenn Fox defined the neural correlates of gratitude, revealing that the reported experience of meaningful gratitude is correlated with brain activity in regions conventionally recognized as central to stress regulation, social cognition, and moral reasoning. This finding supports previous research showing that developing gratitude as a mental habit can improve health, which in turn underscores the idea of continuity between the mind and the body. See Glenn R. Fox, Jonas Kaplan, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio Damasio, “Neural Correlates of Gratitude,” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2015); Alex M. Wood, Stephen Joseph, and John Maltby, “Gratitude Uniquely Predicts Satisfaction with Life: Incremental Validity Above the Domains and Facets of the Five Factor Model,” Personality and Individual Differences 45, no. 1 (2008): 49–54; Max Henning, Glenn R. Fox, Jonas Kaplan, Hanna Damasio, and Antonio Damasio, “The Positive Effects of Gratitude Are Mediated by Physiological Mechanisms,” Frontiers in Psychology (2017). 30. Sarah J. Barber, Philipp C. Opitz, Bruna Martins, Michiko Sakaki, and Mara Mather, “Thinking About a Limited Future Enhances the Positivity of Younger and Older Adults’ Recall: Support for Socioemotional Selectivity Theory,” Memory and Cognition 44, no. 6 (2016): 869–82; Mara Mather, “The Affective Neuroscience of Aging,” Annual Review of Psychology 67 (2016): 213–38. 31. Daniel Kahneman, “Experienced Utility and Objective Happiness: A Moment-Based Approach,” in Choices, Values, and Frames, eds. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000); Daniel Kahneman, “Evaluation by Moments: Past and Future,” in ibid.; Bruna Martins, Gal Sheppes, James J. Gross, and Mara Mather, “Age Differences in Emotion Regulation Choice: Older Adults Use Distraction Less Than Younger Adults in High-Intensity Positive Contexts,” Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences (2016): gbw028.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  Nothing to do with my title whatsoever. — My intellectual home is the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. A number of colleagues at our Brain and Creativity Institute were patient enough to read the entire manuscript and discuss several passages in detail. I gained a lot from their comments and I thank them all deeply, but none more than Kingson Man, Max Henning, Gil Carvalho, and Jonas Kaplan. Others whose readings, comments, and encouragement were important are Morteza Dehghani, Assal Habibi, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, John Monterosso, Rael Cahn, Helder Araujo, and Matthew Sachs. Another group of colleagues, representing a wider roster of disciplines, was just as generous and made many valuable suggestions. They are Manuel Castells, an exceptional scholar who has accompanied the development of my ideas for several years; Steve Finkel; Marco Verweij; Mark Johnson; Ralph Adolphs; Camelo Castillo; Jacob Soll; and Charles McKenna. I thank them for their exceptional scholarship and intelligent advice. Still another group kindly read parts of the manuscript or helped answer specific questions. They are Keith Baverstock, Freeman Dyson, Margaret Levi, Rose McDermott, Howard Gardner, Jane Isay, and Maria de Sousa. Finally, some very patient friends read and commented on versions of the book and listened to my musings on the always vexing issue of preparing epigraphs. They are Jorie Graham, Peter Sacks, Peter Brook, Yo-Yo Ma, and Bennett Miller. The research on which so much of this book is based has been possible only because of the support of two foundations: The Mathers Foundation, which has for decades been exemplary in backing research in biology, and the Berggruen Foundation, whose president, Nicolas Berggruen, is unendingly curious about human affairs. I thank both foundations for their trust. Dan Frank, at Pantheon, is a learned, wise, and disarmingly calm voice, the person you need by your side when you come to a fork in the road and cannot take both options. My gratitude is heartfelt. I also thank Betsy Sallee, in his office, for her attentive help. Michael Carlisle has been a close friend for over thirty years and my agent for about twenty-five. He is a consummate professional and has a heart. I thank him and his team at Inkwell, especially Alexis Hurley. I owe a debt of gratitude to Denise Nakamura, whose attention to detail, reliability, and patience are a model, and to Cinthya Nunez who makes the Administrative Office of the Brain and Creativity Institute run smoothly and is always ready to take on a problem at a moment’s notice. The manuscript owes a lot to their dedication. I also thank Ryan Veiga, who typed portions of the manuscript and assisted me with the preparation of the bibliography. Last, I need to say that Hanna reads everything I write and is my best—by which I mean worst—critic. She contributes at every step of the way and in every way imaginable.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  This is also the place to mention a disclaimer on the book’s title. On first hearing it, several people have asked me if it refers to Michel Foucault. It certainly does not although I know why they ask: Foucault wrote a book whose original French title is Les Mots et les Choses (The Words and the Things), which became, in its English version, The Order of Things. Nothing to do with my title whatsoever. — My intellectual home is the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. A number of colleagues at our Brain and Creativity Institute were patient enough to read the entire manuscript and discuss several passages in detail. I gained a lot from their comments and I thank them all deeply, but none more than Kingson Man, Max Henning, Gil Carvalho, and Jonas Kaplan. Others whose readings, comments, and encouragement were important are Morteza Dehghani, Assal Habibi, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, John Monterosso, Rael Cahn, Helder Araujo, and Matthew Sachs. Another group of colleagues, representing a wider roster of disciplines, was just as generous and made many valuable suggestions. They are Manuel Castells, an exceptional scholar who has accompanied the development of my ideas for several years; Steve Finkel; Marco Verweij; Mark Johnson; Ralph Adolphs; Camelo Castillo; Jacob Soll; and Charles McKenna. I thank them for their exceptional scholarship and intelligent advice. Still another group kindly read parts of the manuscript or helped answer specific questions. They are Keith Baverstock, Freeman Dyson, Margaret Levi, Rose McDermott, Howard Gardner, Jane Isay, and Maria de Sousa. Finally, some very patient friends read and commented on versions of the book and listened to my musings on the always vexing issue of preparing epigraphs. They are Jorie Graham, Peter Sacks, Peter Brook, Yo-Yo Ma, and Bennett Miller. The research on which so much of this book is based has been possible only because of the support of two foundations: The Mathers Foundation, which has for decades been exemplary in backing research in biology, and the Berggruen Foundation, whose president, Nicolas Berggruen, is unendingly curious about human affairs. I thank both foundations for their trust. Dan Frank, at Pantheon, is a learned, wise, and disarmingly calm voice, the person you need by your side when you come to a fork in the road and cannot take both options. My gratitude is heartfelt. I also thank Betsy Sallee, in his office, for her attentive help. Michael Carlisle has been a close friend for over thirty years and my agent for about twenty-five. He is a consummate professional and has a heart. I thank him and his team at Inkwell, especially Alexis Hurley.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  Nothing to do with my title whatsoever. — My intellectual home is the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. A number of colleagues at our Brain and Creativity Institute were patient enough to read the entire manuscript and discuss several passages in detail. I gained a lot from their comments and I thank them all deeply, but none more than Kingson Man, Max Henning, Gil Carvalho, and Jonas Kaplan. Others whose readings, comments, and encouragement were important are Morteza Dehghani, Assal Habibi, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, John Monterosso, Rael Cahn, Helder Araujo, and Matthew Sachs. Another group of colleagues, representing a wider roster of disciplines, was just as generous and made many valuable suggestions. They are Manuel Castells, an exceptional scholar who has accompanied the development of my ideas for several years; Steve Finkel; Marco Verweij; Mark Johnson; Ralph Adolphs; Camelo Castillo; Jacob Soll; and Charles McKenna. I thank them for their exceptional scholarship and intelligent advice. Still another group kindly read parts of the manuscript or helped answer specific questions. They are Keith Baverstock, Freeman Dyson, Margaret Levi, Rose McDermott, Howard Gardner, Jane Isay, and Maria de Sousa. Finally, some very patient friends read and commented on versions of the book and listened to my musings on the always vexing issue of preparing epigraphs. They are Jorie Graham, Peter Sacks, Peter Brook, Yo-Yo Ma, and Bennett Miller. The research on which so much of this book is based has been possible only because of the support of two foundations: The Mathers Foundation, which has for decades been exemplary in backing research in biology, and the Berggruen Foundation, whose president, Nicolas Berggruen, is unendingly curious about human affairs. I thank both foundations for their trust. Dan Frank, at Pantheon, is a learned, wise, and disarmingly calm voice, the person you need by your side when you come to a fork in the road and cannot take both options. My gratitude is heartfelt. I also thank Betsy Sallee, in his office, for her attentive help. Michael Carlisle has been a close friend for over thirty years and my agent for about twenty-five. He is a consummate professional and has a heart. I thank him and his team at Inkwell, especially Alexis Hurley. I owe a debt of gratitude to Denise Nakamura, whose attention to detail, reliability, and patience are a model, and to Cinthya Nunez who makes the Administrative Office of the Brain and Creativity Institute run smoothly and is always ready to take on a problem at a moment’s notice. The manuscript owes a lot to their dedication. I also thank Ryan Veiga, who typed portions of the manuscript and assisted me with the preparation of the bibliography. Last, I need to say that Hanna reads everything I write and is my best—by which I mean worst—critic. She contributes at every step of the way and in every way imaginable.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  It seems to reserve its most dramatic impact for the ancient, unmyelinated C-type neurons that form most of our interoceptive pathways and are likely to play a role in the generation of feelings. See Damasio and Carvalho, “Nature of Feelings”; Björnsdotter, Morrison, and Olausson, “Feeling Good”; Gang Wu, Matthias Ringkamp, Timothy V. Hartke, Beth B. Murinson, James N. Campbell, John W. Griffin, and Richard A. Meyer, “Early Onset of Spontaneous Activity in Uninjured C-Fiber Nociceptors After Injury to Neighboring Nerve Fibers,” Journal of Neuroscience 21, no. 8 (2001): RC140; R. Douglas Fields, “White Matter in Learning, Cognition, and Psychiatric Disorders,” Trends in Neurosciences 31, no. 7 (2008): 361–70; McKenzie et al., “Motor Skill Learning Requires Active Central Myelination”; Julia J. Harris and David Attwell, “The Energetics of CNS White Matter,” Journal of Neuroscience 32, no. 1 (2012): 356–71; Richard A. Meyer, Srinivasa N. Raja, and James N. Campbell, “Coupling of Action Potential Activity Between Unmyelinated Fibers in the Peripheral Nerve of Monkey,” Science 227 (1985): 184–88; Hemant Bokil, Nora Laaris, Karen Blinder, Mathew Ennis, and Asaf Keller, “Ephaptic Interactions in the Mammalian Olfactory System,” Journal of Neuroscience 21 (2001): 1–5; Henry Harland Hoffman and Harold Norman Schnitzlein, “The Numbers of Nerve Fibers in the Vagus Nerve of Man,” Anatomical Record 139, no. 3 (1961): 429–35; Marshall Devor and Patrick D. Wall, “Cross-Excitation in Dorsal Root Ganglia of Nerve-Injured and Intact Rats,” Journal of Neurophysiology 64, no. 6 (1990): 1733–46; Eva Sykova, “Glia and Volume Transmission During Physiological and Pathological States,” Journal of Neural Transmission 112, no. 1 (2005): 137–47.25.Emeran Mayer, The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health (New York: HarperCollins, 2016).26.Jane A. Foster and Karen-Anne McVey Neufeld, “Gut-Brain Axis: How the Microbiome Influences Anxiety and Depression,” Trends in Neurosciences 36, no. 5 (2013): 305–12; Mark Lyte and John F. Cryan, eds., Microbial Endocrinology: The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Health and Disease (New York: Springer, 2014); Mayer, Mind-Gut Connection.27.Doe-Young Kim and Michael Camilleri, “Serotonin: A Mediator of the Brain-Gut Connection,” American Journal of Gastroenterology 95, no. 10 (2000): 2698.28.Timothy R. Sampson, Justine W. Debelius, Taren Thron, Stefan Janssen, Gauri G. Shastri, Zehra Esra Ilhan, Collin Challis et al., “Gut Microbiota Regulate Motor Deficits and Neuroinflammation in a Model of Parkinson’s Disease,” Cell 167, no. 6 (2016): 1469–80.29.Sadness can certainly disturb health, but positive states such as gratitude appear to have the opposite effect. Gratitude is induced when we receive meaningful aid or support that is motivated by compassion and is associated with significant positive effects on health and quality of life. Recently, an fMRI study by my colleague Glenn Fox defined the neural correlates of gratitude, revealing that the reported experience of meaningful gratitude is correlated with brain activity in regions conventionally recognized as central to stress regulation, social cognition, and moral reasoning.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  Moral reactions can't by their definition be furth er explained. This is perhaps a dangerous way to attain this end. By grounding moral judgements in brute data, Hutcheson opens the possibility, of treating them li ke any other de facto reaction, of disengaging from them and considering them mere projections. This kind of account could be grist to the mill of a p rojectivist theory, where moral properties would be assimilated to seconda ry p roperties, unanchored in reality, but a regular part of ou r experience in virtue of our constitution. This assimilation has been the basis for a p rojectivis t 'error' theory in our day, as I described in Part I. 5 6 And Hutcheson himself at times seems to be espousing the analogy. 5 7 A standard feature in the analysis of secondary properties is that they are correlated with primary qualities and thought to be part of the subjective 'colouratio n ' a ttending our experience of these latter. What makes them ' s ub j ective ' o n th i s view is that they depend on our mak e-up, and might just as well be qu it e different, if our senses were differently constituted. Hutcheson, seemingly following some such analogy, allows that the mo r a l sen se can be seen as equa lly adven titio us l y hoo ked up to the wor ld . H e al lo w s the supp osit io n that God co uld ha ve hooked us up diffe re ntly , e .g ., so as n o t to fe el ben evo lently towards othe rs 5 8 or eve n to take delight in th ei r torm en ts. 59 Hutc heson int r oduces the s e p os sib ili ties in order to laud t h e M oral Sentiments • 2 6 I g oodness of God for having chosen the existing dispensation-proving God's b e nign providence is one of his principa l goals. But h e fails to see how wide t h is ope ns the door to relativi sm, an d how problematic this makes his j u dgement about the m oral goodness of the Deity. 60 However muc h this psychology may op en the door to relativism and n a turalism-an avenue which Hume perhaps began to exp lore-this is cl e arly no t the way intended by Hut cheson. Whether he has a r ight to it or n ot, he has a very clear and stron g ide a of the goodness of the Deity, anteri or to h is choice of senses to endow u s with. W ha t is good is the way it w o rks out fo r us. We are beings who seek happiness, and this is defined in the standard Lockean way, more or less i n ter ms of pleasure.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  I owe a debt of gratitude to Denise Nakamura, whose attention to detail, reliability, and patience are a model, and to Cinthya Nunez who makes the Administrative Office of the Brain and Creativity Institute run smoothly and is always ready to take on a problem at a moment’s notice. The manuscript owes a lot to their dedication. I also thank Ryan Veiga, who typed portions of the manuscript and assisted me with the preparation of the bibliography. Last, I need to say that Hanna reads everything I write and is my best—by which I mean worst—critic. She contributes at every step of the way and in every way imaginable. I always try to convince her to be a coauthor, but to no avail. The largest share of thanks go to her, of course.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  7 2 But if seein g the . good in ourselves and in others releases this good and int e nsifies it, the effect will be all the greater if we ext end our gaze and see that the whole univers e is good and springs from the all-embracing benevo lence of the creator. In the passage I quoted above about the harmonious order o f the wor ld, in which Hutcheson remarks on the "generous Sympathy, Compassion and Congratulation with each other" we see in it, he continues: "Does not even the flourishing State of the inanimate Parts of Nature, fill us wit h joy? Is not thus our Nature Admonished, exhort e d and commanded to cultivate universal Goodness and Love, by a Voice heard thro' all the Earth, and Words sounding to the Ends o f the World?" 7 3 But most of all, A constant regar d to God in all our actions and enjoyments, will gi v e a new beauty to every vi rtue, by making it an act of gratitude and lo v e to hi m ; and increase our pleasure in every enjoyment, as it will appear a n evidence of his goodness; it will give a diviner purity and simplicity of heart, to conceive all our virtuous dispositions as implanted by God in our - hearts, and all our beneficent offices as our proper work, and the natural duties of that station we hold in this universe, and the services we owe to this n ob ler co untry .7 4 264 · THE AFFIRMATION OF ORDINARY LI FE Thus for Hutcheson our moral sources-the goods reflection on which morally empowers us-are first, our own benevolence, and then the source in tum of this, the universal benevolence of God-"the AlITHOR of our Nature", as Hutcheson often styles him. For all hi s acceptance o f Lockean psycholog ical terms, his inspiration is clearly Shaftesbury, and through him his roots g o back to the Erasmian tradition of the Cambridge school. He shares their fierce opposition to an ethic of extrinsic law. But with Hutcheson, this tradition has gone through the two transformations which were only hinted at in Shaftesbury's language: Our bent towards the good (1) is tho r oughly internalized in sentiment and (2) takes the form above all of universal be n evolence. These two changes bring him closer th an Shaftesbury to Lockean Deism. Th e internalization to sentiments is what allows him to couch his theory in Lockean psychology. The stress on bene vo l e nce places him in a line that runs from the Puritans through Bacon and Locke to the utilitarians. Indeed, Hutcheson often sou'nds like a utilitarian, and he plainly did a lot t o pr�pare the ground for this school. "That action is best,,, he declares, "which accomplishes the greatest Happiness for the greatest N um hers,,.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  There are in fact several answers, and they reflect the different v iews about moral sources which have partly shaped each other and partly been o pposed to each other over the last two centuries. In order to get a dearer v iew on them and their relationship, we have to return to the nineteenth cent ury. This development assumed different forms; and most notabl y there was a radical divergence between the Anglo-Saxon and French societies . In the la tt e r the sense of progress was militantly 'lay', and was largely opposed by those who sided with the church. But in England and Americ a, exception alism was a blend of Christian and Enlightenment ideas. The notion of p rogress and the emphasis on rationally planned improvement came from the Enligh tenment. But the inspiration and driving force still came largely from C h ristian faith, and the sense of exceptionalism attached to Christian ( or o ften to Protestant) civilization. 8 Inde ed , the anti-slavery crusade originated in part in a revival movement, initiated by William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, tha t w as an attempt to revivify eva n gelical Christianity in face of the growing infidelity of the educated classes. Wilberforce thought he discerned in contemporary Fr an ce where this kin d of degeneration could lead: "manners corrupted, morals depraved, dissi pation predominant, above all, religion discredited". But Christianity could only be revived f r om its heart, "practical benevolence". 9 In fact, this revival succeeded. The Victorian era was in general more pious and more concerned about the sta te of religion than was the eighteenth century. But the faith which emerged f r om this renewal was significantly different a mong other w a ys, in its intense practical concern-from what had existed before the Enlightenment. These moral c r usades, starting with the anti-slavery movement, cast some light on the comple x relation between theistic and secular moral sources, at least in Anglo-Saxon cultures. We have already seen how the demands of Christian faith were redefined to incorpo r ate a heavy dose of social reform, o ften conceived in terms of utilitarian calculation. This change built on an already existing tradition in English Protestantism which went back to the st rong Ca lvinist lin k between god l iness , regeneration, and an ordered social lif e.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  The resulting theories are all strangely in a rticulate. Classical utilitarianism is perhaps the first to exhibit a feature which afflicts a host o f co ntemporary theories, as we saw in Part I: the y are debarred by the ontology they accept from formulating and recognizing their own moral sources. Thei r commitment to the goods which drive them occasionally emerges in direct invocations; such is the declaration from Bentham I quoted above about th e love for humankind which he claimed animated him . But for the mo st pa rt , these underlying moral sou r ces emerge onl y through rhetoric of ar gum e nt ; and above all through the denunciations of the religio us and philos op hic a l errors which bring such gr e at suffering on mankind. This means tha t th e place of th e moral sources i n this philosoph y , and in the later ones which resemble it in this regard, is strange. Constitutive goods, when invoked in a ce rtain fashion, a re empowering, as I argued in Part I. I h ave been spe aki ng of goods insofar as they empower as 'moral sources'. In the moral vi e w s I h ave b een discussing up to now, be they Platonic, o r theistic, or Cartes ian , o r Deist, or whatever, these sources have been recogniz e d. Th ey have fun ctio ned op e nly, as it were. It is clear to all concerned why it i s important to be aw ar e Radical Enlightenment • .3 .3 9 o f them and have rev ere nce or gratitude or respect for t h e m, as appropriate. We saw how vital it was in Hutcheson that we come to see and appreciate our o w n moral se ntiments; and al s o that we see and feel gratitude for God's pr ovidential order. This appreciation is part of what morality enjoins, not so me reflection external to it. But now none o f this can b e openly recognized. How can utilitarians have a ccess to their moral sources? What are the words of power they can pr onounce? Plainly these are the passages in which the goods are invoke d without being recognized. These include the few passages of direct invocation I i ns ta nced above. But the y mainly consist o f the polem i cal passages in which er ror, superstit io n, fraud, and religion are denounced. Wh at the y are d enounced for lacking, or for suppres sing, or for destroying expresses what we who attack them are moved by and cherish. This becomes a recognizable fe atu re of the whole class of modern po sitions which descends fro m t he radical Enlightenment.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Thank you for always being there to catch us when we falter and for your tireless enthusiasm for my book. Caryn Karmatz Rudy of DeFiore & Company was my friend decades before she became my agent and it was not until then that I fully understood her talent and the fierceness of her allegiance. You spurred me along countless times, but calmly and wisely. Your concern that our working together might put a wedge in our friendship was the opposite of what turned out to happen. I respect and trust you even more now than I did before, if that’s possible. Thank you also to Caryn’s fellow agent Meredith Kaffel Simonoff for securing this book with Borough Press. My editor, Ore Agbaje-Williams, has been the gift that keeps on giving. Brilliant, funny, dedicated, and astute, you work so hard but seemingly without another care in the world. You asked me to rewrite the entire book twice, but so gently that not until I sat down to do it did I realize exactly how much work you wanted done. Sometimes I silently cursed you, but then I saw that what you asked me to do was spot on. Thank you for your keen eye, attention to both the big picture and every little detail, and for your willingness to compromise with me. The whole team at Borough Press has been caring and enthusiastic; I did not imagine it would ever be possible to be on the receiving end of this level of commitment. Cover designer Claire Ward created two beautiful covers and redefined how I will look at certain fruits and vegetables forevermore. Publicist Jen Harlow is so lovely that she makes me feel like I’m doing her a favor even though she’s doing the heavy lifting. The marketing savvy of Abbie Salter helped to create a fresh look and campaign for the book. Proofreader Sarah Bance and copy-editor Jane Donovan are grammar goddesses, and I bow down to them. Editorial Assistant Margot Gray has managed the behind-the-scenes with great efficiency. Literary scouts Molly Maguire and Aram Fox championed this book when it was a slender proposal and got it into Ore’s magical hands – without that bit of handselling, this book would not have come to be. Thank you eternally. My friends, oh my friends. Lauren Moss, head cheerleader – there has not been a time that I have needed you that you haven’t been ready, willing and able. You never once gave me critical feedback beyond “I love every word you write,” but that was helpful in its own way. Thank you for your devotion to me. Erika Brown-Campbell is amongst my oldest friends and a therapist, and if you put those things together you have what she has been to me: a confidante, voice of reason and advisor for going on almost forty years now.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  When you’re ready to come back down, just knock and I’ll open it for you.” I thanked him, went upstairs and spent at least ten minutes searching around in the barrel for the smallest potatoes. My back started aching, and the attic was cold. Naturally, I didn’t bother to knock but opened the trap-door myself. But he obligingly got up and took the pan out of my hands. “I did my best, but I couldn’t find any smaller ones.” “Did you look in the big barrel?” “Yes, I’ve been through them all.” By this time I was at the bottom of the stairs, and he examined the pan of potatoes he was still holding. “Oh, but these are fine,” he said, and added, as I took the pan from him, “My compliments!” As he said this, he gave me such a warm, tender look that I started glowing inside. I could tell he wanted to please me, but since he couldn’t make a long complimentary speech, he said everything with his eyes. I understood him so well and was very grateful. It still makes me happy to think back to those words and that look! When I went downstairs, Mother said she needed more potatoes, this time for dinner, so I volunteered to go back up. When I entered Peter’s room, I apologized for disturbing him again. As I was going up the stairs, he stood up, went over to stand between the stairs and the wall, grabbed my arm and tried to stop me. “I’ll go,” he said. “I have to go upstairs anyway.” I replied that it wasn’t really necessary, that I didn’t have to get only the small ones this time. Convinced, he let go of my arm. On my way back, he opened the trapdoor and once again took the pan from me. Standing by the door, I asked, “What are you working on?” “French,” he replied. I asked if I could take a look at his lessons. Then I went to wash my hands and sat down across from him on the divan. After I’d explained some French to him, we began to talk. He told me that after the war he wanted to go to the Dutch East Indies and live on a rubber plantation. He talked about his life at home, the black market and how he felt like a worthless bum. I told him he had a big inferiority complex. He talked about the war, saying that Russia and England were bound to go to war against each other, and about the Jews. He said life would have been much easier if he’d been a Christian or could become one after the war. I asked if he wanted to be baptized, but that wasn’t what he meant either. He said he’d never be able to feel like a Christian, but that after the war he’d make sure nobody would know he was Jewish. I felt a momentary pang.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  Its importance to the latter, of course, is more readily recognized, because it is arguably one of the sources of modern English literature, in particular, of the novel. Bu t it w as a striking phe no me non in its o wn right. Cal v i n, taki n g up Augusti ne 's doctrine of sin in a sin gl e-m i nded and remorseless fa s hi on, made God's transformation of the will throu g h grace the key to salvation. The Puritan was encouraged to scrutinize his inner life continually , both to descry the signs of g race and election and to bring h is thoughts and feelings into line with the grace-given dispositions of praise an d gratitude to God. What was remarkable about this discipline is t h at it wa s n 't meant only for a small elit e of spiritual athletes, but for all Christians. It remained, of course, the property of an elite, but of one more broadly bas ed than any e arlie r p eriod had seen. In New England, it would appear, "alm os t every literate Puritan kept some sort of journal". 22 C oncerning En glan d, Lawrence Stone writes: "From the seventeenth c entury onwards there b ur s ts o n to paper a torrent of words about intimate thoughts and feelings se t d o w n by large numbers of quite ordinary Engiish men and women, most of the m now increasingly secular in orientation''. 2 3 From Bunyan to Pepys to Bo swe ll , and arguably even to Rousseau, the Protestant culture of introspecti on becomes secularized as a form of confessio n al autobi o gra phy, while at th e same time helpin g t o constitut e ·the new form taken by the Engl ish n ove l i n the eighteenth century at the hands of Defoe, Richardson, and o t he rs. 24 11 INNER NATURE T hus b y the turn of the eighteenth century, something recognizably like the modern self is in process of constitution, at least among the social and spir itua l elites of northwester n Europe and its American offshoots. It holds together, sometimes uneasily , two kinds of radical reflexivity and hence inw ardness, both from the August i nian heritage, forms of self-explo ration and forms of self-control. These are the ground , respectively, of two important facets of th e nasce n t modern individualism, that of self- r esponsible independence, on one hand, and that of recognized pa r ticulari ty , on t he other.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  One of the central points common to all Reformers was the ir rejection of mediation. The mediaeval church as they understood it, a corporate body in which some, more dedicated, members could win merit and salvation for others who were less so, was anathema to the m. There c ould be no such thing as more devoted or le ss devoted Christians: the pe rsonal commitment must be total or it was worthless. The rejection of mediation was closely connected to their rejection of the mediaeval understanding of the sacred. This flowed from the most funda m ent al principle of the Reformers, perhaps even m ore basic than salvation by faith alone, which was that salvation was exclusively the wor k of God. Fallen m an was utterly helpless and could do nothing by himself. The point of harping on the helplessness and depravity of mankind was to throw int o the stark est relief the power and mercy of God, who could bring about a sa l vation which was utterly beyond human power and, what is more, still w an ted to res c ue his unwo rthy creature bey ond all considerations of justice. The powerful idea whic h moved those who threw them sel v es into the su c c essive Prot estant movements over three centuries (and even tod a y in s ome revival movements) was that of an unaccountable salvation by an almi ghty and merciful God, against all rational human hope and utterly d is r e garding ou r just deserts. Those who deeply embraced the new faith were moved by an overwhelming sense of awe and gratitude, and in certain i I 6 • THE A F FIR MA TIO N OF_ 0 RD IN A R Y LIFE circumstances this became a tremendously potent motive force behind revolutionary change. What this savin g action seemed to call for was first and forem ost o u r recog nition, our acknowledgement: both of the fact of salvation and of it s being exclusively God 's gift. Humans can do nothing to earn or bri ng abo u t this gift, so fundamentally all they can do is acknowledge it. This is what i t is to have faith.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In ritual, therefore, the sacrificer reconstructed his self (atman), just as Prajapati had done. In the workshop of sacrifice, he had put together the daiva atman (divine self), which would live on after his death. By performing the rituals correctly, with the knowledge of the bandhus firmly in his mind, the warrior could rebuild his own purusha (person). The Brahmin priests “make the person, consisting of the sacrifices, made of ritual actions,” explained the ritualist.81 The rites of passage also built up the human being. An Aryan boy had to undergo the upanayana that initiated him into the study of the Veda and the sacrificial procedure, or he would never be able to build a fully realized atman. Only married men could commission a ritual, and begin the process of self-building, so marriage was another rite of passage for both men and women (who could attend the sacrifice only in the company of their husbands). After a person’s death, the corpse resembled the exhausted Prajapati and had to be reconstructed by means of the correct funeral rites.82 But the system did not work automatically. Unless a person was proficient in ritual science, he would be lost in the next world. He would not be able to recognize the “divine self” that he had created during his lifetime, nor would he know which of the heavenly realms he should go to. “Bewildered by the cremation fire, choked with smoke, he does not recognize his own world. But he who knows, he, indeed, having left this world, knows the atman, saying: ‘This am I’ and he recognizes his own world. And now the fire carries him to the heavenly world.”83 The phrase “he who knows” beats insistently through the Brahmana texts. The priests could not do all the work. The kshatriya and vaishya sacrificer also had to be proficient in liturgical lore, because knowledge alone could unlock the powers of the rites. The liturgy created by the reformers must have been spiritually satisfying, or the Brahmins never could have persuaded the warriors to give up their war games. It is difficult for us to appreciate the aesthetic, transformative power of these rites, because we have only the flat statements of the Brahmanas. Before the rite, the sacrificer made a retreat that isolated him from the pressing concerns of his ordinary life; the fasting, meditation, and asceticism, the intoxication of the soma drink, and the beauty of the chant would all have given emotional resonance to the dry, abstract instructions of the ritualists. To read the Brahmanas without the experience of the liturgy is like reading the libretto of an opera without hearing the music. The “knowledge” of ritual science was not a notional acceptance of the metaphysical speculations of the Brahmins, but was like the insights derived from art, achieved by the compelling drama of the cult.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Frank Evidence of Margot’s goodness. I received this today, March 20, 1944: Anne, yesterday when I said I wasn’t jeal- ous of you, I wasn’t being entirely honest. The situation is this: I’m not jealous of either you or Peter. I’m just sorry I haven’t found anyone willi whom to share my thoughts and feelings, and I’m not likely to in the near future. But that’s why I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that you will both be able to place your trust in each other. You’re already missing out on so much here, things other people take for granted. On the other hand, I’m certain I’d never have gotten as far with Peter, because I think I’d need to feel very close to a person before I could share my thoughts. I’d want to have the feeling that he understood me through and through, even if I didn’t say much. For this reason it would have to be someone I felt was intellectually superior to me, and that isn’t the case with Peter. But I can imagine your feeling close to him. So there’s no need for you to reproach yourself because you think you’ te taking something I was entitled to; nothing could be further from the truth. You and Peter have everything to gain by your friendship. My answer: Dearest Margot, Your letter was extremely kind, but I still don’t feel completely happy about the situation, and I don’t think I ever will. At the moment, Peter and I don’t trust each other as much as you seem to think. It’s just that when you’re standing beside an open window at twthght, you can say more to each other than in bright sunshine. It’s also easier to whisper your feelings than to shout them from the rooftops. I think you’ve begun to feel a kind of sisterly affection for Peter and would like to help him, just as much as I would. Perhaps you’ll be able to do that someday, though that’s not the kind of trust we have in mind. I believe that trust has to corne from both sides; I also think that’s the reason why Father and I have never really grown so close. But let’s not talk about it anymore. If there’s anything you still want to discuss, please write, because it’s easier for me to say what I mean as on paper than face-to-face. You know how le much I admire you, and only hope that some of your goodness and Father’s goodness will rub off on me, because, in that sense, you two are a lot alike. Yours, Anne WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22,1944 Dearest Kitty, I received this letter last night from Margot: Dear Anne, After your letter of yesterday I have the unpleasant feeling that your conscience bothers you whenever you go to Peter’s to work or talk; there’s really no reason for that.

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

  Convents were planted by the missionaries among all the barbarous nations of Europe, as fast as Christianity progressed. They received special privileges and endowments from princes, nobles, popes, and bishops. They offered a quiet retreat to men and women who were weary of the turmoil of life, or had suffered shipwreck of fortune or character, and cared for nothing but to save their souls. They exercised hospitality to strangers and travelers, and were a great blessing in times when traveling was difficult and dangerous.377 They were training schools of ascetic virtue, and the nurseries of saints. They saved the remnants of ancient civilization for future use. Every large convent had a library and a school. Scribes were employed in copying manuscripts of the ancient classics, of the Bible, and the writings of the fathers. To these quiet literary monks we are indebted for the preservation and transmission of nearly all the learning, sacred and secular, of ancient times. If they had done nothing else, they would be entitled to the lasting gratitude of the church and the world. During the wild commotion and confusion of the ninth and tenth centuries, monastic discipline went into decay. Often the very richs of convents, which were the reward of industry and virtue, became a snare and a root of evil. Avaricious laymen (Abba-comites) seized the control and perpetuated it in their families. Even princesses received the titles and emoluments of abbesses. § 83. St. Benedict. St. Nilus. St. Romuald. Yet even in this dark period there were a few shining lights. St. Benedict of Aniane (750–821), of a distinguished family in the south of France, after serving at the court of Charlemagne, became disgusted with the world, entered a convent, founded a new one at Aniane after the strict rule of St. Benedict of Nursia, collected a library, exercised charity, especially during a famine, labored for the reform of monasticism, was entrusted by Louis the Pious with the superintendence of all the convents in Western France, and formed them into a "congregation," by bringing them under one rule. He attended the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle in 817. Soon after his death (Feb. 12, 821) the fruits of his labors were destroyed, and the disorder became worse than before.378

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

  bishop of Jerusalem, in a time of famine, sold the treasures and sacred gifts of the church, and that afterwards some one recognized in the dress of an actress the vestment he once presented to the church. A peculiar variety of such gifts, namely, memorials of miraculous cures,1229 appeared in the fifth century; at least they are first mentioned by Theodoret, who said of them in his eighth discourse on the martyrs: "That those who ask with the confidence of faith, receive what they ask, is plainly proved by their sacred gifts in testimony of their healing. Some offer feet, others hands, of gold or silver, and these gifts show their deliverance from those evils, as tokens of which they have been offered by the restored." With the worship of saints this custom gained strongly, and became in the middle age quite universal. Whoever recovered from a sickness, considered himself bound first to testify by a gift his gratitude to the saint whose aid he had invoked in his distress. Parents, whose children fortunately survived the teething-fever, offered to St. Apollonia (all whose teeth, according to the legend, had been broken out with pincers by a hangman’s servant) gifts of jawbones in wax. In like manner St. Julian, for happily accomplished journeys, and St. Hubert, for safe return from the perils of the chase, were very richly endowed; but the Virgin Mary more than all. Almost every church or chapel which has a miracle-working image of the mother of God, possesses even now a multitude of golden and silver acknowledgments of fortunate returns and recoveries. § 113. Church Poetry and Music. J. Rambach: Anthologie christl. Gesänge aus allen Jahrh. der christl. Kirche. Altona, 1817–’33. H. A. Daniel: Thesaurus hymnologicus. Hal. 1841–’56, 5 vols. Edélestand du Méril: Poésies populaires latines antérieures au douzième siècle. Paris, 1843. C. Fortlage: Gesänge der christl. Vorzeit. Berlin, 1844. G. A. Königsfeld u. A. W. v. Schlegel: Altchristliche Hymnen u. Gesaenge lateinisch u. Deutsch. Bonn, 1847. Second collection by Königsfeld, Bonn, 1865. E. E. Koch: Geschichte des Kirchenlieds u. Kirchengesangs der christl., insbesondere der deutschen evangel. Kirche. 2d ed. Stuttgart, 1852 f. 4 vols. (i. 10– 30). F. J. Mone: Latein. Hymnen des Mittelalters (from MSS.), Freiburg, 1853–’55. (Vol. i., hymns of God and angels; ii., h. of Mary; iii., h. of saints.) Bässler: Auswahl Alt-christl. Lieder vom 2–15ten Jahrh. Berlin, 1858. R. Ch. Trench: Sacred Latin Poetry, chiefly lyrical, selected and arranged for use; with Notes and Introduction (1849), 2d ed. improved, Lond. and Cambr. 1864. The valuable hymnological works of Dr. J. M. Neale (of Sackville College, Oxford): The Ecclesiastical Latin Poetry of the Middle Ages (in Henry Thompson’s History of Roman Literature, Lond. and Glasgow., 1852, p. 213 ff.); Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, Lond. 1851; Sequentiae ex Missalibus, 1852; Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1862, several articles in the Ecclesiologist; and a Latin dissertation, De Sequentiis, in the Essays on Liturgiology, etc., p. 359 sqq. (Comp. also J.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  At one o’clock Jan will come for half an hour to check on us poor forsaken souls, like a zookeeper. This afternoon, for the first time in ages, Jan gave us some news of the outside world. You should have seen us gathered around him; it looked exactly like a print: “At Grandmother’s Knee.” He regaled his grateful audience with talk of-what else?-food. Mrs. P., a friend of Miep’s, has been cooking his meals. The day before yesterday Jan ate carrots with green peas, yesterday he had the leftovers, today she’s cooking marrowfat peas, and tomorrow she’s plan- ning to mash the remaining carrots with potatoes. We asked about Miep’s doctor. “Doctor?” said Jan. “What doctor? I called him this morning and got his secretary on the line. I asked for a flu prescription and was told I could come pick it up tomor- row morning between eight and nine. If you’ve got a particularly bad case of flu, the doctor himself comes to the phone and says, ‘Stick out your tongue and say “Aah.” Oh, I can hear it, your throat’s infected. I’ll write out a prescription and you can bring it to the phar- macy. Good day.’ And that’s that. Easy job he’s got, diagnosis by phone. But I shouldn’t blame the doctors.” After all, a person has only two hands, and these days there’re too many patients and too few doctors.” Still, we all had a good laugh at Jan’s phone call. I can just imagine what a doctor’s waiting room looks like these days. Doctors no longer turn up their noses at the poorer patients, but at those with minor illnesses. “Hey, what are you doing here?” they think. “Go to the end of the line; real patients have priority!” Yours, Anne THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1944 Dearest Kitty, The weather is gorgeous, indescribably beautiful; I’ll be going up to the attic in a moment. I now know why I’m so much more restless than Peter. He has his own room, where he can work, dream, think and sleep. I’m constantly being chased from one corner to another. I’m never alone in the room I share with Dussel, though I long to be so much. That’s another reason I take refuge in the attic. When I’m there, or with you, I can be myself, at least for a little while. Still, I don’t want to moan and groan. On the contrary, I want to be brave! Thank goodness the others notice nothing of my innermost feelings, except that every day I’m growing cooler and more contemptuous of Mother, less affection- ate to Father and less willing to share a single thought with Margot; I’m closed up tighter than a drum. Above all, I have to maintain my air of confidence. No one must know that my heart and mind are constantly at war with each other. Up to now reason has always won the battle, but will my emotions get the upper hand?

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

  The supreme duty of Christian charity was inculcated by all faithful pastors and teachers of the gospel from the beginning. In the apostolic and ante-Nicene ages it was exercised by regular contributions on the Lord’s day, and especially at the communion and the agape connected with it. Every congregation was a charitable society, and took care of its widows and orphans, of strangers and prisoners, and sent help to distant congregations in need.372 After Constantine, when the masses of the people flocked into the church, charity assumed an institutional form, and built hospitals and houses of refuge for the strangers, the poor, the sick, the aged, the orphans.373 They appear first in the East, but soon afterwards also in the West. Fabiola founded a hospital in Rome, Pammachius one in the Portus Romanus, Paulinus one in Nola. At the time of Gregory I. there were several hospitals in Rome; he mentions also hospitals in Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. These institutions were necessary in the greatly enlarged sphere of the church, and the increase of poverty, distress, and disaster which at last overwhelmed the Roman empire. They may in many cases have served purposes of ostentation, superseded or excused private charity, encouraged idleness, and thus increased rather than diminished pauperism. But these were abuses to which the best human institutions are subject.