Grief

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 Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  We have seen elsewhere how human sentiments are intensified when affirmed collectively. Sorrow, like joy, becomes exalted and amplified when leaping from mind to mind, and therefore expresses itself outwardly in the form of exuberant and violent movements. But these are no longer expressive of the joyful agitation which we observed before; they are shrieks and cries of pain. Each is carried along by the others; a veritable panic of sorrow results. When pain reaches this degree of intensity, it is mixed with a sort of anger and exasperation. One feels the need of breaking something, of destroying something. He takes this out either upon himself or others. He beats himself, burns himself, wounds himself or else he falls upon others to beat, burn and wound them. Thus it became the custom to give one's self up to the veritable orgies of tortures during mourning. It seems very probable that blood-revenge and head-hunting have their origin in this. If every death is attributed to some magic charm, and for this reason it is believed that the dead man ought to be avenged, it is because men must find a victim at any price, upon whom the collective pain and anger may be discharged. Naturally this victim is sought outside the group; a stranger is a subject _minoris resistentiæ_; as he is not protected by the sentiments of sympathy inspired by a relative or neighbour, there is nothing in him which subdues and neutralizes the evil and destructive sentiments aroused by the death. It is undoubtedly for this same reason that women serve more frequently than men as the passive objects of the cruellest rites of mourning; since they have a smaller social value, they are more obviously designated as scapegoats.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  O madness, which knowest not how to love men, like men! O foolish man that I then was, enduring impatiently the lot of man! I fretted then, sighed, wept, was distracted; had neither rest nor counsel. For I bore about a shattered and bleeding soul, impatient of being borne by me, yet where to repose it, I found not. Not in calm groves, not in games and music, nor in fragrant spots, nor in curious banquetings, nor in the pleasures of the bed and the couch; nor (finally) in books or poesy, found it repose. All things looked ghastly, yea, the very light; whatsoever was not what he was, was revolting and hateful, except groaning and tears. For in those alone found I a little refreshment. But when my soul was withdrawn from them a huge load of misery weighed me down. To Thee, O Lord, it ought to have been raised, for Thee to lighten; I knew it; but neither could nor would; the more, since, when I thought of Thee, Thou wert not to me any solid or substantial thing. For Thou wert not Thyself, but a mere phantom, and my error was my God. If I offered to discharge my load thereon, that it might rest, it glided through the void, and came rushing down again on me; and I had remained to myself a hapless spot, where I could neither be, nor be from thence. For whither should my heart flee from my heart? Whither should I flee from myself? Whither not follow myself? And yet I fled out of my country; for so should mine eyes less look for him, where they were not wont to see him. And thus from Thagaste, I came to Carthage.

• From Little Women (1868)

  "I don't. I never wanted to make you care for me so, and I went away to keep you from it if I could." "I thought so. It was like you, but it was no use. I only loved you all the more, and I worked hard to please you, and I gave up billiards and everything you didn't like, and waited and never complained, for I hoped you'd love me, though I'm not half good enough..." Here there was a choke that couldn't be controlled, so he decapitated buttercups while he cleared his 'confounded throat'. "You, you are, you're a great deal too good for me, and I'm so grateful to you, and so proud and fond of you, I don't know why I can't love you as you want me to. I've tried, but I can't change the feeling, and it would be a lie to say I do when I don't." "Really, truly, Jo?" He stopped short, and caught both her hands as he put his question with a look that she did not soon forget. "Really, truly, dear." They were in the grove now, close by the stile, and when the last words fell reluctantly from Jo's lips, Laurie dropped her hands and turned as if to go on, but for once in his life the fence was too much for him. So he just laid his head down on the mossy post, and stood so still that Jo was frightened. "Oh, Teddy, I'm sorry, so desperately sorry, I could kill myself if it would do any good! I wish you wouldn't take it so hard, I can't help it. You know it's impossible for people to make themselves love other people if they don't," cried Jo inelegantly but remorsefully, as she softly patted his shoulder, remembering the time when he had comforted her so long ago. "They do sometimes," said a muffled voice from the post. "I don't believe it's the right sort of love, and I'd rather not try it," was the decided answer. There was a long pause, while a blackbird sung blithely on the willow by the river, and the tall grass rustled in the wind. Presently Jo said very soberly, as she sat down on the step of the stile, "Laurie, I want to tell you something." He started as if he had been shot, threw up his head, and cried out in a fierce tone, "Don't tell me that, Jo, I can't bear it now!" "Tell what?" she asked, wondering at his violence. "That you love that old man." "What old man?" demanded Jo, thinking he must mean his grandfather. "That devilish Professor you were always writing about. If you say you love him, I know I shall do something desperate;" and he looked as if he would keep his word, as he clenched his hands with a wrathful spark in his eyes.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then Reverend Foster prayed a brief prayer for the safe journey of the soul that had left them and the safe journey, throughout their lives and after death, of all the souls under the sound of his voice. It was over. The pallbearers, two of the men in the front row, and the two musicians, lifted the mother-of-pearl casket to their shoulders and started down the aisle. The mourners followed. Cass was standing near the door. The four still faces passed her with their burden and did not look at her. Directly behind them came Ida and her mother. Ida paused for a moment and looked at her—looked directly, unreadably at her from beneath her heavy veil. Then she seemed to smile. Then she passed. And the others passed. Vivaldo joined her and they walked out of the chapel. For the first time she saw the hearse, which stood on the Avenue, facing downtown. “Vivaldo,” she asked, “are we going to the cemetery?” “No,” he said, “they don’t have enough cars. I think only the family’s going.” He was watching the car behind the hearse. Ida’s parents had already entered the car. She stood on the sidewalk. She looked around her, then walked swiftly over to them. She took each of them by one hand. “I just wanted to thank you,” she said, quickly, “for coming.” Her voice was rough from weeping and Cass could not see her face behind the veil. “You don’t know what it means to me—to us.” Cass pressed Ida’s hand, not knowing what to say. Vivaldo said, “Ida, anything we can do—anything I can do—anything—!” “You’ve done wonders. You been wonderful. I’ll never forget it.” She pressed their hands again and turned away. She got into the car and the door closed behind her. The hearse slowly moved out from the curb, and the car, then a second car, followed. Others who had been at the funeral service looked briefly at Cass and Vivaldo, stood together a few moments, and then began to disperse. Cass and Vivaldo started down the Avenue. “Shall we take a subway?” Vivaldo asked. “I don’t,” she said, “think I could face that now.” They continued to walk, nevertheless, aimlessly, in silence. Cass walked with her hands deep in her pockets, staring down at the cracks in the sidewalk. “I hate funerals,” she said, finally, “they never seem to have anything to do with the person who died.” “No,” he said, “funerals are for the living.” They passed a stoop where a handful of adolescents stood, who looked at them curiously.

• From Jesus and His Jewish Influences (2015)

  24 -HVXVDQG+LV-HZLVK,QÀXHQFHV ƔThe king of Judah at that time was Zedekiah. He was captured by the Babylonians while trying to escape the city under the cover of night. His sons were put to death in front of his eyes, and he was then blinded so that the last sight he ever saw was the death of his sons. ƔThe destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of the kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C. mark the end of the First Temple period and the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. The Babylonian Exile lasted from 586 to 539 B.C. It is commemorated in a number of memorable passages in the Bible, including Psalm 37: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. How could we sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand fail me. May my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I set not Jerusalem above my highest joy.” )RUHVKDGRZLQJWKH'HVWUXFWLRQRIWKH6HFRQG7HPSOH ƔThe destruction of the First Temple, Solomon’s Temple, was a deeply traumatic event for the Judeans. What’s more, this event was drawn upon by later authors referring to the destruction of the Second Temple. The destruction of the First Temple became a foreshadowing of the destruction of the Second Temple. Ɣ7KLVIRUHVKDGRZLQJ¿JXUHVSURPLQHQWO\ZKHQZHWDONDERXW-HVXV and the Gospel accounts because, according to Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus foretold the destruction of the Second Temple. For example, a critical passage in the Gospel accounts tells us: “As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, teacher, what large stones and what large buildings.’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another. All will be thrown down.’” ƔOf course, a key theme throughout the Gospel accounts is Jesus being cast in the light of a biblical prophet. It is not coincidental, therefore, that earlier Israelite prophets had reportedly foretold the destruction of the First Temple. Thus, when we see Jesus

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

  One initial fact is constant: mourning is not the spontaneous expression of individual emotions.[1258] If the relations weep, lament, mutilate themselves, it is not because they feel themselves personally affected by the death of their kinsman. Of course, it may be that in certain particular cases, the chagrin expressed is really felt.[1259] But it is more generally the case that there is no connection between the sentiments felt and the gestures made by the actors in the rite.[1260] If, at the very moment when the weepers seem the most overcome by their grief, some one speaks to them of some temporal interest, it frequently happens that they change their features and tone at once, take on a laughing air and converse in the gayest fashion imaginable.[1261] Mourning is not a natural movement of private feelings wounded by a cruel loss; it is a duty imposed by the group. One weeps, not simply because he is sad, but because he is forced to weep. It is a ritual attitude which he is forced to adopt out of respect for custom, but which is, in a large measure, independent of his affective state. Moreover, this obligation is sanctioned by mythical or social penalties. They believe, for example, that if a relative does not mourn as is fitting, then the soul of the departed follows upon his steps and kills him.[1262] In other cases, society does not leave it to the religious forces to punish the negligent; it intervenes itself, and reprimands the ritual faults. If a son-in-law does not render to his father-in-law the funeral attentions which are due him, and if he does not make the prescribed incisions, then his tribal fathers-in-law take his wife away from him and give him another.[1263] Therefore, in order to square himself with usage, a man sometimes forces tears to flow by artificial means.[1264] Whence comes this obligation? Ethnographers and sociologists are generally satisfied with the reply which the natives themselves give to this question. They say that the dead wish to be lamented, that by refusing them the tribute of sorrow which is their right, men offend them, and that the only way of preventing their anger is to conform to their will.[1265]

• From Wild (2012)

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, but I didn’t answer. I only leaned over and switched on the light. It was up to us to mail the notarized divorce documents. Together Paul and I walked out of the building and into the snow and down the sidewalk until we found a mailbox. Afterwards, we leaned against the cold bricks of a building and kissed, crying and murmuring regrets, our tears mixing together on our faces. “What are we doing?” Paul asked after a while. “Saying goodbye,” I said. I thought of asking him to go back to my apartment with me, as we’d done a few times over the course of our yearlong separation, falling into bed together for a night or an afternoon, but I didn’t have the heart. “Goodbye,” he said. “Bye,” I said. We stood close together, face-to-face, my hands gripping the front of his coat. I could feel the dumb ferocity of the building on one side of me; the gray sky and the white streets like a giant slumbering beast on the other; and us between them, alone together in a tunnel. Snowflakes were melting onto his hair and I wanted to reach up and touch them, but I didn’t. We stood there without saying anything, looking into each other’s eyes as if it would be the last time. “Cheryl Strayed,” he said after a long while, my new name so strange on his tongue. I nodded and let go of his coat. 7 THE ONLY GIRL IN THE WOODS“Cheryl Strayed?” the woman at the Kennedy Meadows General Store asked without a smile. When I nodded exuberantly, she turned and disappeared into the back without another word. I looked around, drunk with the sight of the packaged food and drinks, feeling a combination of anticipation over the things I’d consume in the coming hours and relief over the fact that my pack was no longer attached to my body, but resting now on the porch of the store. I was here. I had made it to my first stop. It seemed like a miracle. I’d half expected to see Greg, Matt, and Albert at the store, but they were nowhere in sight. My guidebook explained that the campground was another three miles farther on and I assumed that’s where I’d find them, along with Doug and Tom eventually. Thanks to my exertions, they hadn’t managed to catch up with me. Kennedy Meadows was a pretty expanse of piney woods and sage and grass meadows at an elevation of 6,200 feet on the South Fork Kern River. It wasn’t a town but rather an outpost of civilization spread out over a few miles, consisting of a general store, a restaurant called Grumpie’s, and a primitive campground.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I saw her brother once. I had to see him, I made him see me. He spit in my face, he said he would have killed me had we been down home.” He wiped his face now with the handkerchief Vivaldo had lent him. “But I felt like I was already dead. They wouldn’t let me see her. I wasn’t a relative, I didn’t have no right to see her.” There was silence. He remembered the walls of the hospital: white; and the uniforms and the faces of the doctors and nurses, white on white. And the face of Leona’s brother, white, with the blood beneath it rushing thickly, bitterly, to the skin’s surface, summoned by his mortal enemy. Had they been down home, his blood and the blood of his enemy would have rushed out to mingle together over the uncaring earth, under the uncaring sky. “At least,” Cass said, finally, “you didn’t have any children. Thank God for that.” “She did,” he said, “down South. They took the kid away from her.” He added, “That’s why she come North.” And he thought of the night they had met. “She was a nice girl,” Cass said. “I liked her.” He said nothing. He heard Vivaldo say, “—but I never know what to do when I’m not working.” “You know what to do, all right. You just don’t have anybody to do it with.” He listened to their laughter, which seemed to shake him as though it were a drill. “Just the same,” said Richard, in a preoccupied tone, “nobody can work all the time.” Out of the corner of his eye, Rufus watched him stabbing the table with his stir-stick. “I hope,” Cass said, “that you won’t sit around blaming yourself too much. Or too long. That won’t undo anything.” She put her hand on his. He stared at her. She smiled. “When you’re older you’ll see, I think, that we all commit our crimes. The thing is not to lie about them—to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it.” She leaned closer to him, her brown eyes popping and her blonde hair, in the heat, in the gloom, forming a damp fringe about her brow. “That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That’s very important. If you don’t forgive yourself you’ll never be able to forgive anybody else and you’ll go on committing the same crimes forever.” “I know,” Rufus muttered, not looking at her, bent over the table with his fists clenched together. From far away, from the juke box, he heard a melody he had often played. He thought of Leona. Her face would not leave him. “I know,” he repeated, though in fact he did not know. He did not know why this woman was talking to him as she was, what she was trying to tell him. “What,” she asked him, carefully, “are you going to do now?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  A very faint, wry amusement crossed her face. “Anyway, their affair dragged on from bad to worse and she was finally committed to an institution—” “You mean, a madhouse?” “Yes.” “Where?” “In the South. Her family came and got her.” “My God,” he said. “Go on.” “Well, then, Rufus disappeared—for quite a long time, that’s when I met his sister, she came to see us, looking for him—and came back once, and—died.” Helplessly, she opened one bony hand, then closed it into a fist. Eric turned back to the window. “A Southern girl,” he said. He felt a very dull, very distant pain. It all seemed very long ago, that gasping and trembling, freezing and burning time. The pain was distant now because it had scarcely been bearable then. It could not really be recollected because it had become a part of him. Yet, the power of this pain, though diminished, was not dead: Rufus’ face again appeared before him, that dark face, with those dark eyes and curving, heavy lips. It was the face of Rufus when he had looked with love on Eric. Then, out of hiding, leapt his other faces, the crafty, cajoling face of desire, the remote face of desire achieved. Then, for a second, he saw Rufus’ face as he stared on death, and saw his body hurtling downward through the air: into that water, the water which stretched before him now. The old pain receded into the home it had made in him. But another pain, homeless as yet, began knocking at his heart— not for the first time: it would force an entry one day, and remain with him forever. Catch them. Don’t let them blues in here. They shakes me in my bed, can’t sit down in my chair. “Let me fix you a fresh drink,” Cass said. “Okay.” She took his glass. As she walked to the bar, he said, “You knew about us, I guess? I guess everybody knew—though we thought we were being so smart, and all. And, of course, he always had a lot of girls around.” “Well, so did you,” she said. “In fact, I vaguely remember that you were thinking of getting married at one point.” He took his drink from the bar, and paced the room. “Yes. I haven’t thought of her in a long time, either.” He paused and grimaced sourly. “That’s right, I certainly did have a few girls hanging around. I hardly even remember their names.” As he said this, the names of two or three old girl friends flashed into his mind. “I haven’t thought about them for years.” He came back to the sofa, and sat down. Cass watched him from the bar. “I might,” he said, painfully, “have had them around just on account of Rufus—trying to prove something, maybe, to him and to myself.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  They were standing under a street lamp. Her face was hideous, was unutterably beautiful with grief. Tears rolled down her thin cheeks and she made doomed, sporadic efforts to control the trembling of her little-girl’s mouth. “I love him,” she said, helplessly, “I love him, I can’t help it. No matter what he does to me. He’s just lost and he beats me because he can’t find nothing else to hit.” He pulled her against him while she wept, a thin, tired girl, unwitting heiress of generations of bitterness. He could think of nothing to say. A light was slowly turning on inside him, a dreadful light. He saw—dimly—dangers, mysteries, chasms which he had never dreamed existed. “Here comes a taxi,” he said. She straightened and tried to dry her eyes again. “I’ll come with you,” he said, “and come right back.” “No,” she said, “just give me the keys. I’ll be all right. You go on back to Rufus.” “Rufus said he’d kill me,” he said, half-smiling. The taxi stopped beside them. He gave her his keys. She opened the door, keeping her face away from the driver. “Rufus ain’t going to kill nobody but himself,” she said, “if he don’t find a friend to help him.” She paused, half-in, half-out of the cab. “You the only friend he’s got in the world, Vivaldo.” He gave her some money for the fare, looking at her with something, after all these months, explicit at last between them. They both loved Rufus. And they were both white. Now that it stared them so hideously in the face, each could see how desperately the other had been trying to avoid this confrontation. “You’ll go there now?” he asked. “You’ll go to my place?” “Yes. I’ll go. You go on back to Rufus. Maybe you can help him. He needs somebody to help him.” Vivaldo gave the driver his address and watched the taxi roll away. He turned and started back the way they had come. The way seemed longer, now that he was alone, and darker. His awareness of the policeman, prowling somewhere in the darkness near him, made, the silence ominous. He felt threatened. He felt totally estranged from the city in which he had been born; this city for which he sometimes felt a kind of stony affection because it was all he knew of home. Yet he had no home here—the hovel on Bank Street was not a home. He had always supposed that he would, one day, make a home here for himself.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She broke off suddenly: “Are you sure you’re a man, Vivaldo?” He said, “I’ve got to be sure.” “Fair enough,” she said. She walked to the stove and put a light under the frying pan, walked to the table and opened the meat. She began to dust it with salt and pepper and paprika, and chopped garlic into it, near the bone. He took a swallow of his drink, which had no taste whatever; he splashed more whiskey into his glass. “When Rufus died, something happened to me,” she said. She sounded now very quiet and weary, as though she were telling someone else’s story; also, as though she herself, with a faint astonishment, were hearing it for the first time. But it was yet more astonishing that he now began to listen to a story he had always known, but never dared believe. “I can’t explain it. Rufus had always been the world to me. I loved him.” “So did I,” he said—too quickly, irrelevantly; and for the first time it occurred to him that, possibly, he was a liar; had never loved Rufus at all, but had only feared and envied him. “I don’t need your credentials, Vivaldo,” she said. She watched the frying pan critically, waiting for it to become hot enough, then dropped in a little oil. “The point, anyway, at the moment, is that I loved him. He was my big brother, but as soon as I knew anything, I knew that I was stronger than he was. He was nice, he was really very nice, no matter what any of you might have thought of him later. None of you, anyway, knew anything about him, you didn’t know how.” “You often say that,” he said, wearily. “Why?” “How could you—how can you?—dreaming the way you dream? You people think you’re free. That means you think you’ve got something other people want—or need. Shit.” She grinned wryly and looked at him. “And you do , in a way. But it isn’t what you think it is. And you’re going to find out, too, just as soon as some of those other people start getting what you’ve got now.” She shook her head. “I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for you. I even feel kind of sorry for myself, because God knows I’ve often wished you’d left me where I was——” “Down there in the jungle?” he taunted. “Yes. Down there in the jungle, black and funky—and myself.” His small anger died down as quickly as it had flared up. “Well,” he said, quietly, “sometimes I’m nostalgic, too, Ida.” He watched her dark, lonely face. For the first time, he had an intimation of how she would look when she grew old. “What I’ve never understood,” he said, finally, “is that you always accuse me of making a thing about your color, of penalizing you. But you do the same thing. You always make me feel white.

• From Little Women (1868)

  The storm cleared up below, for Mrs. March came home, and, having heard the story, soon brought Amy to a sense of the wrong she had done her sister. Jo's book was the pride of her heart, and was regarded by her family as a literary sprout of great promise. It was only half a dozen little fairy tales, but Jo had worked over them patiently, putting her whole heart into her work, hoping to make something good enough to print. She had just copied them with great care, and had destroyed the old manuscript, so that Amy's bonfire had consumed the loving work of several years. It seemed a small loss to others, but to Jo it was a dreadful calamity, and she felt that it never could be made up to her. Beth mourned as for a departed kitten, and Meg refused to defend her pet. Mrs. March looked grave and grieved, and Amy felt that no one would love her till she had asked pardon for the act which she now regretted more than any of them. When the tea bell rang, Jo appeared, looking so grim and unapproachable that it took all Amy's courage to say meekly... "Please forgive me, Jo. I'm very, very sorry." "I never shall forgive you," was Jo's stern answer, and from that moment she ignored Amy entirely. No one spoke of the great trouble, not even Mrs. March, for all had learned by experience that when Jo was in that mood words were wasted, and the wisest course was to wait till some little accident, or her own generous nature, softened Jo's resentment and healed the breach. It was not a happy evening, for though they sewed as usual, while their mother read aloud from Bremer, Scott, or Edgeworth, something was wanting, and the sweet home peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and all felt out of tune. As Jo received her good-night kiss, Mrs. March whispered gently, "My dear, don't let the sun go down upon your anger. Forgive each other, help each other, and begin again tomorrow." Jo wanted to lay her head down on that motherly bosom, and cry her grief and anger all away, but tears were an unmanly weakness, and she felt so deeply injured that she really couldn't quite forgive yet. So she winked hard, shook her head, and said gruffly because Amy was listening, "It was an abominable thing, and she doesn't deserve to be forgiven." With that she marched off to bed, and there was no merry or confidential gossip that night.

• From Another Country (1962)

  But he moved with great authority, the authority indeed of someone who has found his place and made his peace with it. As he sat down, a very thin girl walked up the aisle and the boy in black robes moved to the piano at the side of the altar. “I remember Rufus,” the girl said, “from when he was a big boy and I was just a little girl—” and she tried to smile at the front-row mourners. Cass watched her, seeing that the girl was doing her best not to cry. “—me and his sister used to sit around trying to console each other when Rufus went off with the big boys and wouldn’t let us play with him.” There was a murmur of amusement and sorrow and heads in the front row nodded. “We lived right next door to each other, he was like a brother to me.” Then she dropped her head and twisted a white handkerchief, the whitest handkerchief Cass had ever seen, between her two dark hands. She was silent for several seconds and, once again, a kind of wind seemed to whisper through the chapel as though everyone there shared the girl’s memories and her agony and were willing her through it. The boy at the piano struck a chord. “Sometimes Rufus used to like me to sing this song,” the girl said, abruptly. “I’ll sing if for him now.” The boy played the opening chord. The girl sang in a rough, untrained, astonishingly powerful voice: I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away . I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away . If you drive me away, you may need me some day , I’m a stranger, don’t drive me away . When she finished she walked over to the bier and stood there for a moment, touching it lightly with both hands. Then she walked back to her seat. There was weeping in the front row. She watched as Ida rocked an older, heavier woman in her arms. One of the men blew his nose loudly. The air was heavy. She wished it were over. Vivaldo sat very still and alone, looking straight ahead. Now, a gray-haired man stepped forward from behind the altar. He stood watching them for a moment and the black-robed boy strummed a mournful hymn. “Some of you know me,” he said, finally, “and some of you don’t. My name is Reverend Foster.” He paused. “And I know some of your faces and some of you are strangers to me.” He made a brief bow, first toward Cass, then toward Vivaldo. “But ain’t none of us really strangers. We all here for the same reason. Someone we loved is dead.” He paused again and looked down at the bier. “Someone we loved and laughed with and talked with—and got mad at—and prayed over—is gone. He ain’t with us no more.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The girl pulled out boxes of scarves. They all seemed sleazy and expensive, but she was in no position to complain. She took one, paid for it, tied it around her head, and left. Her knees were shaking. She managed to find a cab at the corner and, after fighting a small duel with herself, gave the driver the address of the chapel: she had really wanted to tell him to take her home. The chapel was small and there were not many people in it. She entered as silently as she could, but heads turned at her entrance. An elderly man, probably an usher, hurried silently toward her, but she sat down in the first seat she saw, in the very last row, near the door. Vivaldo was sitting further up, near the middle; the only other white person, as far as she could tell, in the place. People sat rather scattered from each other—in the same way, perhaps, that the elements of Rufus’ life had been scattered—and this made the chapel seem emptier than it was. There were many young people there, Rufus’ friends, she supposed, the boys and girls who had grown up with him. In the front row sat six figures, the family: no amount of mourning could make Ida’s proud back less proud. Just before the family, just below the altar, stood the bier, dominating the place, mother of pearl, closed. Someone had been speaking as she came in, who now sat down. He was very young and he was dressed in the black robes of an evangelist. She wondered if he could be an evangelist, he did not seem to be much more than a boy. But he moved with great authority, the authority indeed of someone who has found his place and made his peace with it. As he sat down, a very thin girl walked up the aisle and the boy in black robes moved to the piano at the side of the altar. “I remember Rufus,” the girl said, “from when he was a big boy and I was just a little girl—” and she tried to smile at the front-row mourners. Cass watched her, seeing that the girl was doing her best not to cry. “—me and his sister used to sit around trying to console each other when Rufus went off with the big boys and wouldn’t let us play with him.” There was a murmur of amusement and sorrow and heads in the front row nodded. “We lived right next door to each other, he was like a brother to me.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Her back was to the room. Cass watched her shoulders begin to shake. She went to the window and put her hand on Ida’s arm. “I’m all right,” Ida said, moving slightly away. She fumbled in the pocket of her suit, then crossed to where she had been sitting and pulled Kleenex out of her handbag. She dried her eyes and blew her nose and picked up her drink. Cass stared at her helplessly. “Let me freshen it for you,” she said, and took the glass into the kitchen. “Ida,” Vivaldo was saying as she re-entered, “if there’s anything I can do to help you find him—anything at all—” He stopped. “Hell,” he said, “I love him, too, I want to find him, too. I’ve been kicking myself all day for letting him get away last night.” When Vivaldo said, “I love him, too,” Ida looked over at him, her eyes very big, as though she were, now, really meeting him for the first time. Then she dropped her eyes. “I don’t really know anything you can do,” she said. “Well—I could come with you while you look. We could look together.” She considered this; she considered him. “Well,” she said, finally, “maybe you could come with me to a couple of places in the Village——” “All right.” “I can’t help it. I have the feeling they think I’m just being hysterical.” “I’ll come with you. They won’t think I’m hysterical.” Richard grinned. “Vivaldo’s never hysterical, we all know that.” Then he said, “I really don’t see the point of all this. Rufus is probably just sleeping it off somewhere.” “Nobody’s seen him,” Ida cried, “for nearly six weeks! Until last night! I know my brother, he doesn’t do things like this. He always come by the house, no matter where he’d been, or what was happening, just so we wouldn’t worry. He used to bring money and things—but even when he was broke, he come anyway. Don’t tell me he’s just sleeping it off somewhere. Six weeks is a long time.” She subsided a little, subsided to a venomous murmur. “And you know what happened—between him and that damn crazy little cracker bitch he got hung up with.” “All right,” Richard said, helplessly, after a considerable silence, “have it your own way.” Cass said, “But there’s no need to go rushing off in the rain right away. Rufus knows Vivaldo is going to be here. He may come by. I was hoping you would all stay for supper.” She smiled at Ida. “Won’t you, please? I’m sure you’ll feel better. It may all be cleared up by this evening.” Ida and Vivaldo stared at each other, having, it seemed, become allies in the course of the afternoon. “Well?” asked Vivaldo. “I don’t know. I’m so tired and evil I don’t seem to be able to think straight.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Because I’m black,” she said, after a moment, and sat at the table near him, “I know more about what happened to my brother than you can ever know. I watched it happen—from the beginning. I was there. He shouldn’t have ended up the way he did. That’s what’s been so hard for me to accept. He was a very beautiful boy. Most people aren’t beautiful, I knew that right away. I watched them, and I knew. But he didn’t because he was so much nicer than I.” She paused, and the silence grumbled with the sound of the frying pan and the steady sound of the rain. “He loved our father, for example. He really loved him. I didn’t. He was just a loudmouthed, broken-down man, who liked to get drunk and hang out in barber shops—well, maybe he didn’t like it but that was all he could find to do, except work like a dog, for nothing—and play the guitar on the week ends for his only son.” She paused again, smiling. “There was something very nice about those week ends, just the same. I can still see Daddy, his belly hanging out, strumming on that guitar and trying to teach Rufus some down-home song and Rufus grinning at him and making fun of him a little, really, but very nicely, and singing with him. I bet my father was never happier, all the days of his life, than when he was singing for Rufus. He’s got no one to sing to now. He was so proud of him. He bought Rufus his first set of drums.” She was not locking him out now; he felt, rather, that he was being locked in. He listened, seeing, or trying to see, what she saw, and feeling something of what she felt. But he wondered, just the same, how much her memory had filtered out. And he wondered what Rufus must have looked like in those days, with all his bright, untried brashness, and all his hopes intact. She was silent for a moment, leaning forward, looking down, her elbows on her knees and the fingers of one hand restlessly playing with her ring. “When Rufus died, all the light went out of that house, all of it. That was why I couldn’t stay there, I knew I couldn’t stay there, I’d grow old like they were, suddenly, and I’d end up like all the other abandoned girls who can’t find anyone to protect them. I’d always known I couldn’t end up like that, I’d always known it. I’d counted on Rufus to get me out of there—I knew he’d do anything in the world for me, just like I would for him. It hadn’t occurred to me that it wouldn’t happen. I knew it would happen.”

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

  But they are not useful merely to individuals; the fate of the clan as a whole is bound up with theirs. Their loss is a disaster; it is the greatest misfortune which can happen to the group.[331] Sometimes they leave the ertnatulunga, for example when they are loaned to other groups.[332] Then follows a veritable public mourning. For two weeks, the people of the totem weep and lament, covering their bodies with white clay just as they do when they have lost a relative.[333] And the churinga are not left at the free disposition of everybody; the ertnatulunga where they are kept is placed under the control of the chief of the group. It is true that each individual has special rights to some of them;[334] yet, though he is their proprietor in a sense, he cannot make use of them except with the consent and under the direction of the chief. It is a collective treasury; it is the sacred ark of the clan.[335] The devotion of which they are the object shows the high price that is attached to them. The respect with which they are handled is shown by the solemnity of the movements.[336] They are taken care of, they are greased, rubbed, polished, and when they are moved from one locality to another, it is in the midst of ceremonies which bear witness to the fact that this displacement is regarded as an act of the highest importance.[337]

• From Wild (2012)

  My mom had been dead a week when I kissed another man. And another a week after that. I only made out with them and the others that followed—vowing not to cross a sexual line that held some meaning to me—but still I knew I was wrong to cheat and lie. I felt trapped by my own inability to either leave Paul or stay true, so I waited for him to leave me, to go off to graduate school alone, though of course he refused. He deferred his admission for a year and we stayed in Minnesota so I could be near my family, though my nearness in the year that followed my mother’s death accomplished little. It turned out I wasn’t able to keep my family together. I wasn’t my mom. It was only after her death that I realized who she was: the apparently magical force at the center of our family who’d kept us all invisibly spinning in the powerful orbit around her. Without her, Eddie slowly became a stranger. Leif and Karen and I drifted into our own lives. Hard as I fought for it to be otherwise, finally I had to admit it too: without my mother, we weren’t what we’d been; we were four people floating separately among the flotsam of our grief, connected by only the thinnest rope. I never did make that Thanksgiving dinner. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around eight months after my mom died, my family was something I spoke of in the past tense. So when Paul and I finally moved to New York City a year after we had originally intended to, I was happy to go. There, I could have a fresh start. I would stop messing around with men. I would stop grieving so fiercely. I would stop raging over the family I used to have. I would be a writer who lived in New York City. I would walk around wearing cool boots and an adorable knitted hat. It didn’t go that way. I was who I was: the same woman who pulsed beneath the bruise of her old life, only now I was somewhere else.

• From Wild (2012)

  I clutched its mate to my chest like a baby, though of course it was futile. What is one boot without the other boot? It is nothing. It is useless, an orphan forevermore, and I could take no mercy on it. It was a big lug of a thing, of genuine heft, a brown leather Raichle boot with a red lace and silver metal fasts. I lifted it high and threw it with all my might and watched it fall into the lush trees and out of my life. I was alone. I was barefoot. I was twenty-six years old and an orphan too. An actual stray, a stranger had observed a couple of weeks before, when I’d told him my name and explained how very loose I was in the world. My father left my life when I was six. My mother died when I was twenty-two. In the wake of her death, my stepfather morphed from the person I considered my dad into a man I only occasionally recognized. My two siblings scattered in their grief, in spite of my efforts to hold us together, until I gave up and scattered as well. In the years before I pitched my boot over the edge of that mountain, I’d been pitching myself over the edge too. I’d ranged and roamed and railed—from Minnesota to New York to Oregon and all across the West—until at last I found myself, bootless, in the summer of 1995, not so much loose in the world as bound to it. It was a world I’d never been to and yet had known was there all along, one I’d staggered to in sorrow and confusion and fear and hope. A world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I’d once been. A world that measured two feet wide and 2,663 miles long. A world called the Pacific Crest Trail.

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

  The martyrologies date from this period several legends, the germs of which, however, cannot now be clearly sifted from the additions of later poesy. The story of the destruction of the legio Thebaica is probably an exaggeration of the martyrdom of St. Mauritius, who was executed in Syria, as tribunus militum, with seventy soldiers, at the order of Maximin. The martyrdom of Barlaam, a plain, rustic Christian of remarkable constancy, and of Gordius, a centurion (who, however, was tortured and executed a few years later under Licinius, 314) has been eulogized by St. Basil. A maiden of thirteen years, St. Agnes, whose memory the Latin church has celebrated ever since the fourth century, was, according to tradition, brought in chains before the judgment-seat in Rome; was publicly exposed, and upon her steadfast confession put to the sword; but afterwards appeared to her grieving parents at her grave with a white lamb and a host of shining virgins from heaven, and said: "Mourn me no longer as dead, for ye see that I live. Rejoice with me, that I am forever united in heaven with the Saviour, whom on earth I loved with all my heart." Hence the lamb in the paintings of this saint; and hence the consecration of lambs in her church at Rome at her festival (Jan. 21), from whose wool the pallium of the archbishop is made. Agricola and Vitalis at Bologna, Gervasius and Protasius at Milan, whose bones were discovered in the time of Ambrose Janurius, bishop of Benevent, who became the patron saint of Naples, and astonishes the faithful by the annual miracle of the liquefaction of his blood, and the British St. Alban, who delivered himself to the authorities in the place of the priest he had concealed in his house, and converted his executioner, are said to have attained martyrdom under Diocletian.54 § 25. The Edicts of Toleration. A.D. 311–313. See Lit. in § 24, especially Keim, and Mason (Persecution of Diocletian, pp. 299 and 326 sqq.) This persecution was the last desperate struggle of Roman heathenism for its life. It was the crisis of utter extinction or absolute supremacy for each of the two religions. At the close of the contest the old Roman state religion was exhausted. Diocletian retired into private life in 305, under the curse of the Christians; he found greater pleasure in planting cabbages at Salona in his native Dalmatia, than in governing a vast empire, but his peace was disturbed by the tragical misfortunes of his wife and daughter, and in 313, when all the achievements of his reign were destroyed, he destroyed himself.