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 Anna Karenina (1877)

  She flew over it like a bird; but at the same instant Vronsky, to his horror, felt that he had failed to keep up with the mare's pace, that he had, he did not know how, made a fearful, unpardonable mistake, in recovering his seat in the saddle. All at once his position had shifted and he knew that something awful had happened. He could not yet make out what had happened, when the white legs of a chestnut horse flashed by close to him, and Mahotin passed at a swift gallop. Vronsky was touching the ground with one foot, and his mare was sinking on that foot. He just had time to free his leg when she fell on one side, gasping painfully, and, making vain efforts to rise with her delicate, soaking neck, she fluttered on the ground at his feet like a shot bird. The clumsy movement made by Vronsky had broken her back. But that he only knew much later. At that moment he knew only that Mahotin had flown swiftly by, while he stood staggering alone on the muddy, motionless ground, and Frou-Frou lay gasping before him, bending her head back and gazing at him with her exquisite eye. Still unable to realise what had happened, Vronsky tugged at his mare's reins. Again she struggled all over like a fish, and her shoulders setting the saddle heaving; she rose on her front legs, but unable to lift her back, she quivered all over and again fell on her side. With a face hideous with passion, his lower jaw trembling, and his cheeks white, Vronsky kicked her with his heel in the stomach and again fell to tugging at the rein. She did not stir, but thrusting her nose into the ground, she simply gazed at her master with her speaking eyes. 'A—a—a!' groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. 'Ah! what have I done!' he cried. 'The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable ! And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah! what have I done!' A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his cap that had fallen off walked away from the racecourse, not knowing where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault. Yashvin overtook him with his cap, and led him home, and half an hour later Vronsky had regained his self-possession. But the memory of that race remained for long in his heart, the cruellest and bitterest memory of his life. XXVI T HE external relations of Alexey Alexandrovitch and his wife had remained unchanged.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Before she had finished speaking, there had come back into his face the stern, reproachful expression of the dying man's envy of the living. 'I am afraid you are not quite comfortable here,' she said, turning away from his fixed stare, and looking about the room. 'We must ask about another room,' she said to her husband, 'so that we might be nearer.' XVIII L EVIN could not look calmly at his brother; he could not himself be natural and calm in his presence. When he went in to the sick man, his eyes and his attention were unconsciously dimmed, and he did not see and did not distinguish the details of his brother's position. He smelt the awful odour, saw the dirt, disorder, and miserable condition, and heard the groans, and felt that nothing could be done to help. It never entered his head to analyse the details of the sick man's situation, to consider how that body was lying under the quilt, how those emaciated legs and thighs and spine were lying huddled up, and whether they could not be made more comfortable, whether anything could not be done to make things, if not better, at least less bad. It made his blood run cold when he began to think of all these details. He was absolutely convinced that nothing could be done to prolong his brother's life or to relieve his suffering. But a sense of his regarding all aid as out of the question was felt by the sick man, and exasperated him. And this made it still more painful for Levin. To be in the sick-room was agony to him, not to be there still worse. And he was continually, on various pretexts, going out of the room, and coming in again, because he was unable to remain alone. But Kitty thought, and felt, and acted quite differently. On seeing the sick man, she pitied him. And pity in her womanly heart did not arouse at all that feeling of horror and loathing that it aroused in her husband, but a desire to act, to find out all the details of his state, and to remedy them. And since she had not the slightest doubt that it was her duty to help him, she had no doubt either that it was possible, and immediately set to work. The very details, the mere thought of which reduced her husband to terror, immediately engaged her attention. She sent for the doctor, sent to the chemist's, set the maid who had come with her and Marya Nikolaevna to sweep and dust and scrub; she herself washed up something, washed out something else, laid something under the quilt. Something was by her directions brought into the sickroom, something else was carried out.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He tried to recall his best moments with her, but those moments were poisoned for ever. He could only think of her as triumphant, successful in her menace of a wholly useless remorse never to be effaced. He lost all consciousness of toothache, and his face worked with sobs. Passing twice up and down beside the baggage in silence and regaining his self-possession, he addressed Sergey Ivanovitch calmly— 'You have had no telegrams since yesterday's? Yes, driven back for a third time, but a decisive engagement expected for tomorrow.' And after talking a little more of King Milan's proclamation, and the immense effect it might have, they parted, going to their carriages on hearing the second bell. VI S ERGEY I VANOVITCH had not telegraphed to his brother to send to meet him, as he did not know when he should be able to leave Moscow. Levin was not at home when Katavasov and Sergey Ivanovitch in a fly hired at the station drove up to the steps of the Pokrovskoe house, as black as niggers from the dust of the road. Kitty, sitting on the balcony with her father and sister, recognised her brother-in-law, and ran down to meet him. 'What a shame not to have let us know,' she said, giving her hand to Sergey Ivanovitch, and putting her forehead up for him to kiss. 'We drove here capitally, and have not put you out,' answered Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I'm so dirty, I'm afraid to touch you. I've been so busy, I didn't know when I should be able to tear myself away. And so you're still as ever enjoying your peaceful, quiet happiness,' he said, smiling,' 'out of the reach of the current in your peaceful backwater. Here's our friend Fyodor Vassilievitch has succeeded in getting here at last.' 'But I'm not a negro, I shall look like a human being when I wash,' said Katavasov in his jesting fashion, and he shook hands and smiled, his teeth flashing white in his black face. 'Kostya will be delighted. He has gone to his settlement. It's time he should be home. 'Busy as ever with his farming. It really is a peaceful backwater,' said Katavasov; 'while we in town think of nothing but the Servian war. Well, how does our friend look at it? He's sure not to think like other people.' 'Oh, I don't know, like everybody else,' Kitty answered, a little embarrassed, looking round at Sergey Ivanovitch. 'I'll send to fetch him. Papa's staying with us. He's only just come home from abroad.' And making arrangements to send for Levin and for the guests to wash, one in his room and the other in what had been Dolly's, and giving orders for their luncheon, Kitty ran out on to the balcony, enjoying the freedom and rapidity of movement, of which she had been deprived during the months of her pregnancy.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin felt that he meant to do something with his hand and was pulling it somewhere. Levin yielded with a sinking heart: yes, he drew it to his mouth and kissed it. Levin, shaking with sobs and unable to articulate a word, went out of the room. XIX ' T HOU hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' So Levin thought about his wife as he talked to her that evening. Levin thought of the text, not because he considered himself 'wise and prudent.' He did not so consider himself, but he could not help knowing that he had more intellect than his wife and Agafea Mihalovna, and he could not help knowing that when he thought of death, he thought with all the force of his intellect. He knew too that the brains of many great men, whose thoughts he had read, had brooded over death and yet knew not a hundredth part of what his wife and Agafea Mihalovna knew about it. Different as those two women were, Agafea Mihalovna and Katya, as his brother Nikolay had called her, and as Levin particularly liked to call her now, they were quite alike in this. Both knew, without a shade of doubt, what sort of thing life was and what was death, and though neither of them could have answered, and would even not have understood the questions that presented themselves to Levin, both had no doubt of the significance of this event, and were precisely alike in their way of looking at. it, which they shared with millions of people. The proof that they knew for a certainty the nature of death lay in the fact that they knew without a second of hesitation how to deal with the dying, and were not frightened of them. Levin and other men like him, though they could have said a great deal about death, obviously did not know this since they were afraid of death, and were absolutely at a loss what to do when people were dying. If Levin had been alone now with his brother Nikolay, he would have looked at him with terror, and with still greater terror waited, and would not have known what else to do. More than that, he did not know what to say, how to look, how to move. To talk of outside things seemed to him shocking, impossible, to talk of death and depressing subjects—also impossible. To be silent, also impossible.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'That is he. I knew him! Now, forgive me, everyone, forgive me! … They've come again; why don't they go away? . . . Oh, take these cloaks off me!' The doctor unloosed her hands, carefully laying her on the pillow, and covered her up to the shoulders. She lay back submissively, and looked before her with beaming eyes. 'Remember one thing, that I needed nothing but forgiveness, and I want nothing more. . . Why doesn't he come?' she said, turning to the door towards Vronsky. 'Do come, do come! Give him your hand.' Vronsky came to the side of the bed, and seeing Anna, again hid his face in his hands. 'Uncover your face—look at him! He's a saint,' she said. 'Oh! uncover your face, do uncover it!' she said angrily. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch, do uncover his face! I want to see him. Alexey Alexandrovitch took Vronsky's hands and drew them away from his face, which was awful with the expression of agony and shame upon it. 'Give him your hand. Forgive him.' Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, not attempting to restrain the tears that streamed from his eyes. 'Thank God, thank God!' she said, 'now everything is ready. Only to stretch my legs a little. There, that's capital. How badly these flowers are done—not a bit like a violet,' she said, pointing to the hangings. 'My God, my God! when will it end? Give me some morphine. Doctor, give me some morphine. Oh, my God, my God!' And she tossed about on the bed. The doctors said that it was puerperal fever, and that it was ninety-nine chances in a hundred it would end in death. The whole day long there was fever, delirium, and unconsciousness. At midnight the patient lay without consciousness, and almost without pulse. The end was expected every minute. Vronsky had gone home, but in the morning he came to inquire, and Alexey Alexandrovitch meeting him in the hall, said: 'Better stay, she might ask for you,' and himself led him to his wife's boudoir. Towards morning there was a return again of excitement, rapid thought and talk, and again it ended in unconsciousness. On the third day it was the same thing, and the doctors said there was hope. That day Alexey Alexandrovitch went into the boudoir where Vronsky was sitting, and closing the door sat down opposite him. 'Alexey Alexandrovitch,' said Vronsky, feeling that a statement of the position was coming, 'I can't speak, I can't understand. Spare me! However hard it is for you, believe me, it is more terrible for me.'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  A pretty business!' When the nurse went into the nursery, Seryozha was telling his mother how he and Nadinka had had a fall in sledging downhill, and had turned over three times. She was listening to the sound of his voice, watching his face and the play of expression on it, touching his hand, but she did not follow what he was saying. She must go, she must leave him,—this was the only thing she was thinking and feeling. She heard the steps of Vassily Lukitch coming up to the door and coughing; she heard, too, the steps of the nurse as she came near; but she sat like one turned to stone, incapable of beginning to speak or to get up. 'Mistress, darling!' began the nurse, going up to Anna and kissing her hands and shoulders. 'God has brought joy indeed to our boy on his birthday. You aren't changed one bit.' 'Oh, nurse dear, I didn't know you were in the house,' said Anna, rousing herself for a moment. 'I'm not living here, I'm living with my daughter. I came for the birthday, Anna Arkadyevna, darling.' The nurse suddenly burst into tears, and began kissing her hand again. Seryozha, with radiant eyes and smiles, holding his mother by one hand and his nurse by the other, pattered on the rug with his fat little bare feet. The tenderness shown by his beloved nurse to his mother threw him into an ecstasy. 'Mother! She often comes to see me, and when she comes . . . ' he was beginning, but he stopped, noticing that the nurse was saying something in a whisper to his mother, and that in his mother's face there was a look of dread and something like shame, which was so strangely unbecoming to her. She went up to him. 'My sweet!' she said. She could not say good-bye, but the expression on her face said it, and he understood. 'Darling, darling Kootik!' she used the name by which she had called him when he was little, 'you won't forget me? You . . . ' but she could not say more. How often afterwards she thought of words she might have said. But now she did not know how to say it, and could say nothing. But Seryozha knew all she wanted to say to him. He understood that she was unhappy and loved him. He understood even what the nurse had whispered.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  ' continued Dolly, holding back her sobs, 'to get a letter . . . his letter to his mistress, my governess. No, it's too awful!' She hastily pulled out her handkerchief and hid her face in it. 'I can understand being carried away by feeling,' she went on after a brief silence, 'but deliberately, slyly deceiving me . . . and with whom? . . . To go on being my husband together with her… it's awful! You can't understand . . . ' 'Oh yes, I understand! I understand! Dolly, dearest, I do understand,' said Anna, pressing her hand. 'And do you imagine he realises all the awfulness of my position?' Dolly resumed. 'Not the slightest! He's happy and contented.' 'Oh no!' Anna interposed quickly. 'He's to be pitied, he's weighed down by remorse . . . ' 'Is he capable of remorse?' Dolly interrupted, gazing intently into her sister-in-law's face. 'Yes. I know him. I could not look at him without feeling sorry for him. We both know him. He's good-hearted, but he's proud, and now he's so humiliated. What touched me most. . . ' (and here Anna guessed what would touch Dolly most) 'he's tortured by two things: that he's ashamed for the children's sake, and that, loving you—yes, yes, loving you beyond everything on earth,' she hurriedly interrupted Dolly, who would have answered—'he has hurt you, pierced you to the heart. "No, no, she cannot forgive me," he keeps saying.' Dolly looked dreamily away beyond her sister-in-law as she listened to her words. 'Yes, I can see that his position is awful; it's worse for the guilty than the innocent,' she said, 'if he feels that all the misery comes from his fault. But how am I to forgive him, how am I to be his wife again after her? For me to live with him now would be torture, just because I love my past love for him . . . ' And sobs cut short her words. But as though of set design, each time she was softened she began to speak again of what exasperated her. 'She's young, you see, she's pretty,' she went on. 'Do you know, Anna, my youth and my beauty are gone, taken by whom? By him and his children. I have worked for him, and all I had has gone in his ser vice, and now of course any fresh, vulgar creature has more charm for him. No doubt they talked of me together, or, worse still, they were silent. Do you understand?' Again her eyes glowed with hatred. 'And after that he will tell me . . . What! can I believe him? Never! No, everything is over, everything that once made my comfort, the reward of my work, and my sufferings. . . . Would you believe it, I was teaching Grisha just now: once this was a joy to me, now it is a torture.

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

  Each has its peculiar objects which excite lively affections; and in each, exertion is excited by affections, which in other periods terminate without inducing active desire. The boy finds a world in less space than that which bounds his visible horizon; he wanders over his range of field and exhausts his strength in the pursuit of objects which, in the years that follow, are seen only to be neglected; while to him the objects that are afterwards to absorb his whole soul are as indifferent as the objects of his present passions are destined then to appear. . . . How many opportunities must every one have had of witnessing the progress of intellectual decay, and the coldness that steals upon the once benevolent heart! We quit our country, perhaps at an early period of life, and after an absence of many years we return with all the remembrances of past pleasure which grow more tender as they approach their objects. We eagerly seek him to whose paternal voice we have been accustomed to listen with the same reverence as if its predictions had possessed oracular certainty,—who first led us into knowledge, and whose image has been constantly joined in our mind with all that veneration which does not forbid love. We find him sunk, perhaps, in the imbecility of idiotism, unable to recognize us,—ignorant alike of the past and of the future, and living only in the sensibility of animal gratification. We seek the favorite companion of our childhood, whose tenderness of heart, etc. . . . We find him hardened into a man, meeting us scarcely with the cold hypocrisy of dissembled friendship—in his general relations to the world careless of the misery he is not to feel. . . . When we observe all this, . . . do we use only a metaphor of little meaning when we say of him that he is become a different person, and that his mind and character are changed? In what does the identity consist? . . . The supposed test of identity, when applied to the mind in these cases, completely fails. It neither affects, nor is affected, in the same manner in the same circumstances.

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

  Everybody probably has isolated glimpses of certain hours of his nursery life, the position in which he stood or sat, the light of the room, what his father or mother said, etc. These moments so oddly selected for immunity from the tooth of time probably owe their good fortune to historical peculiarities which it is now impossible to trace. Very likely we were reminded of them again soon after they occurred; that became a reason why we should again recollect them, etc., so that at last they became ingrained. The attention which we lend to an experience is proportional to its vivid or interesting character; and it is a notorious fact that what interests us most vividly at the time is, other things equal, what we remember best. An impression may be so exciting emotionally as almost to leave a scar upon the cerebral tissues; and thus originates a pathological delusion. "A woman attacked by robbers takes all the men whom she sees, even her own son, for brigands bent on killing her. Another woman sees her child run over by a horse; no amount of reasoning, not even the sight of the living child, will persuade her that he is not killed. A woman called 'thief' in a dispute remains convinced that every one accuses her of stealing (Esquirol). Another, attacked with mania at the sight of the fires in her street during the Commune, still after six months sees in her delirium flames on every side about her (Luys), etc., etc."[586] On the general effectiveness of both attention and repetition I cannot do better than copy what M. Taine has written: "If we compare different sensations, images, or ideas, we find that their aptitudes for revival are not equal. A large number of them are obliterated, and never reappear through life; for instance, I drove through Paris a day or two ago, and though I saw plainly some sixty or eighty new faces, I cannot now recall any one of them; some extraordinary circumstance, a fit of delirium, or the excitement of haschish would be necessary to give them a chance of revival. On the other hand, there are sensations with a force of revival which nothing destroys or decreases.

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

  "The chief feature in the physiognomy of grief is perhaps its paralyzing effect on the voluntary movements. This effect is by no means as extreme as that which fright produces, being seldom more than that degree of weakening which makes it cost an effort to perform actions usually done with ease. It is, in other words, a feeling of weariness; and (as in all weariness) movements are made slowly, heavily, without strength, unwillingly, and with exertion, and are limited to the fewest possible. By this the grieving person gets his outward stamp: he walks slowly, unsteadily, dragging his feet and hanging his arms. His voice is weak and without resonance, in consequence of the feeble activity of the muscles of expiration and of the larynx. He prefers to sit still, sunk in himself and silent. The tonicity or 'latent innervation' of the muscles is strikingly diminished. The neck is bent, the head hangs ('bowed down' with grief), the relaxation of the cheek- and jaw-muscles makes the face look long and narrow, the jaw may even hang open. The eyes appear large, as is always the case where the orbicularis muscle is paralyzed, but they may often be partly covered by the upper lid which droops in consequence of the laming of its own levator. With this condition of weakness of the voluntary nerve- and muscle-apparatus of the whole body, there coexists, as aforesaid, just as in all states of similar motor weakness, a subjective feeling of weariness and heaviness, of something which weighs upon one; one feels 'downcast,' 'oppressed,' 'laden,' one speaks of his 'weight of sorrow,' one must 'bear up' under it, just as one must 'keep down' his anger. Many there are who 'succumb' to sorrow to such a degree that they literally cannot stand upright, but sink or lean against surrounding objects, fall on their knees, or, like Romeo in the monk's cell, throw themselves upon the earth in their despair.

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

  4, 11, 25, and March 18, 1879.[61] Take the following report from one of my students: "I am unable to form in my mind's eye any visual likeness of the table whatever. After many trials, I cell only get a hazy surface, with nothing on it or about it. I can see no variety in color, and no positive limitations in extent, while I cannot see what I see well enough to determine its position in respect to ray eye, or to endow it with any quality of size. I am in the same position as to the word dog. I cannot see it in my mind's, eye at all; and so cannot tell whether I should have to run my eye along it, if I did see it."[62] Progrès Médical, 21 juillet. I abridge from the German report of the case in Wilbrand: Die Seelenblindheit (1887).[63] In a letter to Charcot this interesting patient adds that his character also is changed: "I was formerly receptive, easily made enthusiastic, and possessed a rich fancy. Now I am quiet and cold, and fancy never carries my thoughts away. . . . I am much less susceptible than formerly to anger or sorrow. I lately lost my dearly-beloved mother; but felt far less grief at the bereavement than if I had been able to see in my mind's eye her physiognomy and the phases of her suffering, and especially less than if I had been able to witness in imagination the outward effects of her untimely loss upon the members of the family."[64] Psychologie du Raisonnement (1886), p. 25.[65] Classics editors note: James' insertion.[66] [I am myself a very poor visualizer, and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall have any distinctness at all. On questioning a large number of other people, mostly students, I find that perhaps half of them say they have no such difficulty in seeing letters mentally. Many affrim that they can see an entire word at once, especially a short one like 'dog,' with no such feeling of creating the letters successively by tracing them with the eye.—W. J.][67] It is hardly needful to say that In modern primary education, in which the blackboard is so much used, the children are taught their letters, etc., by all possible channels at once, sight, hearing, and movement.[68] See an interesting case of a similar sort, reported by Farges, in l'Encéphale, 7me Année, p. 545.[69] Philosophical Transactions, 1841, p. 65.[70] Studien über die Sprachvorstellungen (1880), and Studien über die Bewegungsvorstellungen (1882).[71] Prof. Stricker admits that by practice he has succeeded in making his eye-movements 'act vicariously' for his leg-movements in imagining men walking.[72] Bewegungsvorstellungen, p. 6.[73] Bain: Senses and Intellect, p. 339.[74] Studien über Sprachvorstellungen, 28, 31 etc. Cf. pp. 49-50, etc.

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

  My own body and what ministers to its needs are thus the primitive object, instinctively determined, of my egoistic interests. Other objects may become interesting derivatively through association with any of these things, either as means or as habitual concomitants; and so in a thousand ways the primitive sphere of the egoistic emotions may enlarge and change its boundaries. This sort of interest is really the meaning of the word 'my .' Whatever has it is eo ipso a part of me. My child, my friend dies, and where he goes I feel that part of myself now is and evermore shall be: "For this losing is true dying; This is lordly man's down-lying; This his slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world resigning." The fact remains, however, that certain special sorts of thing tend primordially to possess this interest, and form the natural me. But all these things are objects , properly so called, to the subject which does the thinking.[268] And this latter fact upsets at once the dictum of the old-fashioned sensationalist psychology, that altruistic passions and interests are contradictory to the nature of things, and that if they appear anywhere to exist, it must be as secondary products, resolvable at bottom into cases of selfishness, taught by experience a hypocritical disguise. If the zoological and evolutionary point of view is the true one, there is no reason why any object whatever might not arouse passion and interest as primitively and instinctively as any other, whether connected or not with the interests of the me. The phenomenon of passion is in origin and essence the same, whatever be the target upon which it is discharged; and what the target actually happens to be is solely a question of fact. I might conceivably be as much fascinated, and as primitively so, by the care of my neighbor's body as by the care of my own. The only check to such exuberant altruistic interests is natural selection, which would weed out such as were very harmful to the individual or to his tribe. Many such interests, however, remain unweeded out—the interest in the opposite sex, for example, which seems in mankind stronger than is called for by its utilitarian need; and alongside of them remain interests, like that in alcoholic intoxication, or in musical sounds, which, for aught we can see, are without any utility whatever. The sympathetic instincts and the egoistic ones are thus co-ordinate. They arise, so far as we can tell, on the same psychologic level. The only difference between them is, that the instincts called egoistic form much the larger mass. The only author whom I know to have discussed the question whether the 'pure Ego,' per se , can be an object of regard, is Herr Horwicz, in his extremely able and acute Psychologische Analysen .

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

  Lange goes on to suggest that this may be a reaction from a previously contracted vaso-motor state. The explanation seems a forced one. The fact is that there are changeable expressions of grief. The weeping is as apt as not to be immediate, especially in women and children. Some men can never weep. The tearful and the dry phases alternate in all who can weep, sobbing storms being followed by periods of calm; and the shrunken, cold, and pale condition which Lange describes so well is more characteristic of a severe settled sorrow than of an acute mental pain. Properly we have two distinct emotions here, both prompted by the same object, it is true, but affecting different persons, or the same person at different times, and feeling quite differently whilst they last, as anyone's consciousness will testify. There is an excitement during the crying fit which is not without a certain pungent pleasure of its own; but it would take a genius for felicity to discover any dash of redeeming quality in the feeling of dry and shrunken sorrow.—Our author continues: "If the smaller vessels of the lungs contract so that these organs become anæmic, we have (as is usual under such conditions) the feeling of insufficient breath, and of oppression of the chest, and these tormenting sensations increase the sufferings of the griever, who seeks relief by long drawn sighs, instinctively, like every one who lacks breath from whatever cause.[414] "The anæmia of the brain in grief is shown by intellectual inertia, dullness, a feeling of mental weariness, effort, and indisposition to work, often by sleeplessness. Indeed it is the anæmia of the motor centres of the brain which lies at the bottom of all that weakening of the voluntary powers of motion which we described in the first instance." My impression is that Dr. Lange simplifies and universalizes the phenomena a little too much in this description, and in particular that he very likely overdoes the anæmia-business. But such as it is, his account may stand as a favorable specimen of the sort of descriptive work to which the emotions have given rise. Take next another emotion, Fear, and read what Mr. Darwin says of its effects:

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

  Reply. In the majority of emotions this test is inapplicable; for many of the manifestations are in organs over which we have no voluntary control. Few people in pretending to cry can shed real tears, for example. But, within the limits in which it can be verified, experience corroborates rather than disproves the corollary from our theory, upon which the present objection rests. Every one knows how panic is increased by flight, and how the giving way to the symptoms of grief or anger increases those passions themselves. Each fit of sobbing makes the sorrow more acute, and calls forth another fit stronger still, until at last repose only ensues with lassitude and with the apparent exhaustion of the machinery. In rage, it is notorious how we 'work ourselves up' to a climax by repeated outbreaks of expression. Refuse to express a passion, and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers. There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this, as all who have experience know: if we wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements of those contrary dispositions which we prefer to cultivate. The reward of persistency will infallibly come, in the fading out of the sullenness or depression, and the advent of real cheerfulness and kindliness in their stead. Smooth the brow, brighten the eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventral aspect of the frame, and speak in a major key, pass the genial compliment, and your heart must be frigid indeed if it do not gradually thaw! This is recognized by all psychologists, only they fail to see its full import. Professor Bain writes, for example:

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

  The revivability in memory of the emotions, like that of all the feelings of the lower senses, is very small. We can remember that we underwent grief or rapture, but not just how the grief or rapture felt. This difficult ideal revivability is, however, more than compensated in the case of the emotions by a very easy actual revivability. That is, we can produce, not remembrances of the old grief or rapture, but new griefs and raptures, by summoning up a lively thought of their exciting cause. The cause is now only an idea, but this idea produces the same organic irradiations, or almost the same, which were produced by its original, so that the emotion is again a reality. We have 'recaptured' it. Shame, love, and anger are particularly liable to be thus revived by ideas of their object. Professor Bain admits[434] that "in their strict character of emotion proper, they [the emotions] have the minimum of revivability; but being always incorporated with the sensations of the higher senses, they share in the superior revivability of sights and sounds." But he fails to point out that the revived sights and sounds may be ideal without ceasing to be distinct; whilst the emotion, to be distinct, must become real again. Prof. Bain seems to forget that an 'ideal emotion' and a real emotion prompted by an ideal object are two very different things.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  the cause of the whole mischief, threw himself on the bodies of the two lovers, and with cries and tears im- plored their pardon. He kissed them repeatedly ; and then rising furiously, he drew the poniard out of the gentleman's body. As a wild boar wounded by a spear runs impetuously at him who struck the blow, so ran the duke at her who had wounded him to the soul. He found her still dancing in the reception-room, and gayer than usual, because she thought she had so well revenged herself on the Lady du Verger. Her husband seized her in the midst of the dance, and said, " You took the secret upon your life, and upon your life shall fall the forfeiture." So saying he grasped her by her head dress, and buried the poniard in her bosom. The astonished company thought the duke was out of his senses ; but he had done the deed advisedly ; and assembling all his servants on the spot, he recounted to them the glorious and melancholy story of his niece, and the wicked conduct of his wife : a narrative which drew tears from all his hearers. The duke then ordered that his wife should be buried in an abbey which he founded, partly with a view to atone for the sin he had committed in killing his wife ; and then he had a magnificent tomb erected, in which the remains of his niece and of the gen- tleman were laid side by side, with an epitaph setting forth their tragic history. The duke made an expedition against the Turks, in which God so favoured him that he achieved glory and profit. Finding on his return that his eldest son was of age to govern, he became a monk, and retired to the abbey in which his wife and the two lovers were buried, and there he passed his old age hap- pily with God.* * " It is probable that the Queen of Navarre has contented her- self with turning into prose an old fabliau entitled La Chatelaine 542 '^J^i'^ HEPTAMERON OF THE [//ov^/ yo

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME (NOT ONE DAY AT A TIME)One day at a time can be a lot. One step at a time helps you digest and steady yourself. It’s gentler on the nervous system. Some moments will be tough (I’ve certainly shared a few of my doozies). Others will feel softer. If you’re prone to sky-high expectations of yourself, lower the bar. In fact, put it so damn low you could trip over it. Imagine you’ve just come out of a major surgery. Would you expect yourself to have the mental and physical ability to just get back to life as usual? Hopefully not. Hopefully, you’d be willing to allow your body time to recuperate. Remember that loss, traumatic events, and unexpected shit pickles (even those that are for the best) are draining in ways you may not even be aware of. As you learn how to navigate this stage of your orbit, be patient with yourself, dear one. You are not a machine. Taking things one step at a time allows you to set limits on how much you can handle in any given moment. For me, after Dad died, my bandwidth for “normal” life was next to nothing. I literally thought there was something wrong with me as I struggled to get out of bed. I don’t recognize myself anymore, I’d think. The things that lit me up previously felt dry and unappealing—like stale saltines. Why can’t I remember anything? Basic word recall went out the window. (Grief brain will do that to you.) The day I couldn’t remember the word for cat—“you know, the animal that says meow”—I nearly scheduled a brain MRI. Great, now I have tumors in my noggin, too—just what I need. Then I remembered: this is what the process of repair looks like. It may even feel like your body and spirit are totally (and endlessly) rearranging themselves. Does this still fit? Do I even like this anymore? Is this worn-out woobie ready to be retired? As with any major reorg, you will need breaks, hugs, and space. Do yourself a solid and allow them. Taking one step at a time is true for relationships, too—especially when there’s tension as a result of changing roles or family dynamics. In that case, don’t expect things to be repaired right away. Loss brings up a lot of unresolved issues for everyone, not just you. Finding resolution takes a minute (or a lifetime), and let’s be honest, relationships don’t always work out the way we wish. That can certainly be painful—another cause for grief. But just because we don’t get the relationship we wanted doesn’t always mean things haven’t worked out in the spiritual sense. On some level, everything does. For those uncomfortable in-between moments, it can help to remember Rumi’s wisdom: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  What I actually say: “It’s been a rough few years, but I’m really looking forward to the holidays. Do you have any special plans?” When I don’t want to talk, I ask questions instead. It’s a stealthy way to take the focus off me and direct it toward the other person. Because, sometimes we’d rather eat way too many passed hors d’oeuvres than open a can of anguish—and that’s OK. If it’s not the time or place for a sensitive conversation, you can also just be honest and let the person know. My dad often handled this by saying, “Not right now.” That was his way of letting us know that talking about whatever topic wasn’t a no; it just wasn’t a yes at that very moment. And guess what? Not everyone needs to know your business. Distant colleagues, passing acquaintances, and anyone located several rungs outside your inner circle are on a need-to-know basis—meaning, you don’t need to go there, especially if you’re having a tender day. The deli guy, dry cleaner, mail carrier, and gal from accounting at your old job? Skip them. SAY IT LIKE IT IS There’s something really liberating and honest about telling someone you’re grieving. When they ask, “How are you?” you answer, “I’m sad.” People don’t admit that very often. But there’s something innately human and empowering about dropping the mask (aka the mascara) and telling the plain ol’ truth. Unfiltered honesty can feel like a dose of potent medicine for your healing. Don’t be surprised if your authenticity strikes a deep chord in the other person: “Me, too.” This is an undeniable silver lining of your world falling apart: you’re less inclined toward small talk, and more open to deeper intimacy. To recognizing that we’re all just walking around with an assortment of boo- boos, longing for a place to belong. Look, it’s impossible to get all of this right. So, if you’ve ever been on either end of any of the awkward or painful behavior I’ve described, try to have compassion for yourself. We’re all going to fumble and make mistakes, and that’s OK. Own it, forgive yourself (and others—no one needs more baggage, this flight is full), and just keep trying. CHAPTER 10 LOVE IS LOVE, GRIEF IS GRIEF How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. — WINNIE-THE-POOH Grief is nothing if not humbling. We’re forced to come face-to-face with our pain, in all its complicated, braided-together, grief-train glory, to reckon with the messy parts of ourselves that are not so attractive, like the judgments we sometimes harbor. In grief circles, I’ve sometimes found that there’s a lens through which our pain is filtered and even ranked.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  He did not look well, his face was mottled, his eyes, behind his glasses, were like the eyes of a dying man who looks everywhere for healing. TouVe heard,' he whispered, as I joined him, 'about Giovanni?' I nodded yes. I remember the winter sun was shining and I felt as cold and distant as the sun. Jacques terrible,' terrible, terrible, It's moaned. Terrible.' *Yes,' I said. I could not say anything more. 1 wonder why he did it,' Jacques pursued, *why he didn't ask his friends to help him.' He looked at me. We both knew that the last time Giovanni had asked Jacques for money, Jacques had refused. I said nothing. They say he had started taking opium,' Jacques said, 'that he needed the money for opium. Did you hear that?' I had heard it. It was a newspaper specula- I believing, remembering the GIOVANNrS ROOM 35 tion which, however, I had reasons of my own extent of for Giovanni's desperation, knowing how far this terror, which was so vast that it had simply become a void, had driven him. 'Me, I want to escape,' he had told me, "je veux rrCevader—this dirty world, this dirty body. I never wish to make love again with anything more than the body.' Jacques waited for me to answer. I stared out into the street. I was beginning to think of Giovanni dying—where Giovanni had been there would be nothing, nothing forever. 1 hope it's not my fault,' Jacques said at last. 1 didn't give him the money. If I'd known— would have given him everything I had/ But we both knew this was not true. Tou two together,' Jacques suggested, 'you weren't happy together?' 'No,' I said. I stood up. It might have been better,' I said, 'if he'd stayed down there in that village of his in Italy and planted his oUve trees and had a lot of children and beaten his wife. He used to love to sing,' I remembered sud- denly, 'maybe he could have stayed down there and sung his life away and died in bed.' Then Jacques said something that surprised me. People are full of surprises, even for them- selves, if they have been stirred enough. 'No- body can stay in the garden of Eden,' Jacques said. And then: 1 wonder why.' I said nothing. I said goodbye and left him. — — James Baldwin 36 Hella had long since returned from Spain and we were already arranging to rent this house and I had a date to meet her.

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  The codes. The crash cart. This was never supposed to happen to her. It must have been the ICU at UCLA. Only at UCLA was she off the ventilator long enough to have had this conversation. You have your wonderful memories. I do, but they blur. They fade into one another. They become, as Quintana a month or two later described the only memory she could summon of the five weeks she spent in the ICU at UCLA, “all mudgy.” I tried to tell her: I too have trouble remembering. Languages mingle: do I need an abogado or do I need an avocat? Names vanish. The names for example of California counties, once so familiar that I recited them in alphabetized order (Alameda and Alpine and Amador, Calaveras and Colusa and Contra Costa, Madera and Marin and Mariposa) now elude me. The name of one county I do remember. The name of this single county I always remember. I had my own Broken Man. I had my own stories about which I had to know. Trinity. The name of the county in which Stephanie Bryan had been found buried in the shallow grave was Trinity. The name of the test site at Alamogordo that had led to the photographs from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was also Trinity. “W 19 hat we need here is a montage, music over. How she: talked to her father and xxxx and xxxxx— “xx,” he said. “xxx,” she said. “How she: “How she did this and why she did that and what the music was when they did x and x and xxx— “How he, and also she—” The above are notes I made in 1995 for a novel I published in 1996, The Last Thing He Wanted. I offer them as a representation of how comfortable I used to be when I wrote, how easily I did it, how little thought I gave to what I was saying until I had already said it. In fact, in any real sense, what I was doing then was never writing at all: I was doing no more than sketching in a rhythm and letting that rhythm tell me what it was I was saying. Many of the marks I set down on the page were no more than “xxx,” or “xxxx,” symbols that meant “copy tk,” or “copy to come,” but do notice: such symbols were arranged in specific groupings. A single “x” differed from a double “xx,” “xxx” from “xxxx.” The number of such symbols had a meaning. The arrangement was the meaning. The same passage, rewritten, which is to say “written” in any real sense at all, became more detailed: “What we want here is a montage, music over. Angle on Elena. Alone on the dock where her father berthed the Kitty Rex. Working loose a splinter on the planking with the toe of her sandal. Taking off her scarf and shaking out her hair, damp from the sweet heavy air of South Florida.