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 Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  If I was truly a great human being, as she said, then what was the meaning of this slavering idiocy about me? I was a man with body and soul, I had a heart that was not protected by a steel vault. I had moments of ecstasy and I sang with burning sparks. I sang of the Equator, her red-feathered legs and the islands dropping out of sight. But nobody heard. A gun fired across the Pacific falls into space because the earth is round and pigeons fly upside down. I saw her looking at me across the table with eyes turned to grief; sorrow spreading inward flattened its nose against her spine; the marrow churned to pity had turned liquid. She was light as a corpse that floats in the Dead Sea. Her fingers bled with anguish and the blood turned to drool. With the wet dawn came the tolling of bells and along the fibers of my nerves the bells played ceaselessly and their tongues pounded in my heart and clanged with iron malice. Strange that the bells should toll so, but stranger still the body bursting, this woman turned to night and her maggot words gnawing through the mattress. I moved along under the Equator, heard the hideous laughter of the green-jawed hyena, saw the jackal with silken tail and the dick-dick and the spotted leopard, all left behind in the Garden of Eden. And then her sorrow widened, like the bow of a dreadnought and the weight of her sinking flooded my ears. Slime wash and sapphires slipping, sluicing through the gay neurons, and the spectrum spliced and the gunwales dipping. Soft as lion- pad I heard the gun carriages turn, saw them vomit and drool: the firmament sagged and all the stars turned black. Black ocean bleeding and the brooding stars breeding chunks of fresh-swollen flesh while overhead the birds wheeled and out of the hallucinated sky fell the balance with mortar and pestle and the bandaged eyes of justice. All that is here related moves with imaginary feet along the parallels of dead orbs; all that is seen with the empty sockets bursts like flowering grass. Out of nothingness arises the sign of infinity; beneath the ever-rising spirals slowly sinks the gaping hole. The land and the water make numbers joined, a poem written with flesh and stronger than steel or granite. Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown. ...

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  But days before McPherson died, it was noted that she was “not strong enough” to stand.879 Almost three years after Lisa McPherson‘s death, after a police investigation and lengthy review by a state prosecutor, Scientology was charged with two felonies: “practicing medicine without a license and abuse of a disabled adult.”880 In its defense Scientology commissioned studies concerning the cause of McPherson’s death, challenging the coroner’s conclusions. Dr. Joan Wood, the coroner, received thousands of pages of documents and numerous subpoenas. “It became very difficult,” said Jacqueline Martino, a former chief investigator who worked with Wood for sixteen years. “I think she almost tried to stand alone against this behemoth, Scientology.”881 Ultimately under considerable pressure, Wood amended the death certificate from cause of death “undetermined” to “accident.” The coroner had first said the death was due to a blood clot brought on by “severe dehydration.”882 Because of the change Wood made concerning the cause of death, criminal charges against Scientology were dropped.883 Lisa McPherson’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in February 1997 against Scientology, and it was settled out of court in May 2004. The terms of that settlement remain confidential.884 In September 2003 certain Scientology release forms were made public through the Internet. These releases and/or agreements contain the statement that the signer opposes psychiatric treatment and that if the signer should become mentally ill, Scientology is authorized to “extricate” him or her from treatment or care by mental health professionals. Rather than receiving such care or treatment, he or she agrees to submit to the so-called Introspection Rundown, a Scientology practice L. Ron Hubbard had devised. It appears that Lisa McPherson was subjected to this Scientology procedure. The release form reads, “I understand that the Introspection Rundown… includes being isolated from all sources of potential spiritual upset, including, but not limited to family members, friends or others with whom I might normally interact. As part of the Introspection Rundown, I specifically consent to Church members being with me 24 hours a day at the direction of my Case Supervisor.” Moreover, “the Case Supervisor will determine the time period in which I will remain isolated” and that “such duration will be completely at the discretion of the Case Supervisor.” The release form or legal contract concludes, “I further understand that by signing below, I am forever giving up my right to sue the Church…for any injury or damage suffered in any way connected with Scientology religious services or spiritual assistance.”885 Dr. Joan Wood, who served as a medical examiner for eighteen years and performed more than fifty-six hundred autopsies, never recovered from the one she did on Lisa McPherson. That event in Wood’s life reportedly so “scarred” the coroner that she went into a “reclusive retirement.”886 “Sadly, the Scientology episode took its toll on Joan Wood, [and] that was her demise,” lawyer Denis de Vlaming said.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I could not help but reflect also that when we had walked side by side through these mournful, dingy streets now so saturated with my dream and longing, she had observed nothing, felt nothing: they were like any other streets to her, a little more sordid perhaps, and that is all. She wouldn’t remember that at a certain corner I had stopped to pick up her hairpin, or that, when I bent down to tie her laces, I remarked the spot on which her foot had rested and that it would remain there forever, even after the cathedrals had been demolished and the whole Latin civilization wiped out forever and ever. Walking down the Rue Lhomond one night in a fit of unusual anguish and desolation, certain things were revealed to me with poignant clarity. Whether it was that I had so often walked this street in bitterness and despair or whether it was the remembrance of a phrase which she had dropped one night as we stood at the Place Lucien-Herr I do not know. “Why don’t you show me that Paris,” she said, “that you have written about?” One thing I know, that at the recollection of these words I suddenly realized the impossibility of ever revealing to her that Paris which I had gotten to know, the Paris whose arrondissements are undefined, a Paris that has never existed except by virtue of my loneliness, my hunger for her. Such a huge Paris! It would take a lifetime to explore it again. This Paris, to which I alone had the key, hardly lends itself to a tour, even with the best of intentions; it is a Paris that has to be lived, that has to be experienced each day in a thousand different forms of torture, a Paris that grows inside you like a cancer, and grows and grows until you are eaten away by it. Stumbling down the Rue Mouffetard, with these reflections stirring in my brain, I recalled another strange item out of the past, out of that guidebook whose leaves she had asked me to turn but which, because the covers were so heavy, I then found impossible to pry open. For no reason at all—because at the moment my thoughts were occupied with Salavin in whose sacred precincts I was now meandering—for no reason at all, I say, there came to mind the recollection of a day when, inspired by the plaque which I passed day in and day out, I impulsively entered the Pension Orfila and asked to see the room Strindberg had occupied. Up to that time nothing very terrible had befallen me, though I had already lost all my worldly possessions and had known what it was to walk the streets in hunger and in fear of the police.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Up to then I had not found a single friend in Paris, a circumstance which was not so much depressing as bewildering, for wherever I have roamed in this world the easiest thing for me to discover has been a friend. But in reality, nothing very terrible had happened to me yet. One can live without friends, as one can live without love, or even without money, that supposed sine qua non . One can live in Paris—I discovered that!—on just grief and anguish. A bitter nourishment—perhaps the best there is for certain people. At any rate, I had not yet come to the end of my rope. I was only flirting with disaster. I had time and sentiment enough to spare to peep into other people’s lives, to dally with the dead stuff of romance which, however morbid it may be, when it is wrapped between the covers of a book, seems deliciously remote and anonymous. As I was leaving the place I was conscious of an ironic smile hovering over my lips, as though I were saying to myself “Not yet, the Pension Orfila!” Since then, of course, I have learned what every madman in Paris discovers sooner or later; that there are no ready-made infernos for the tormented. It seems to me I understand a little better now why she took such huge delight in reading Strindberg. I can see her looking up from her book after reading a delicious passage, and, with tears of laughter in her eyes, saying to me: “You’re just as mad as he was… you want to be punished!” What a delight that must be to the sadist when she discovers her own proper masochist! When she bites herself, as it were, to test the sharpness of her teeth. In those days, when I first knew her, she was saturated with Strindberg. That wild carnival of maggots which he reveled in, that eternal duel of the sexes, that spiderish ferocity which had endeared him to the sodden oafs of the northland, it was that which had brought us together. We came together in a dance of death and so quickly was I sucked down into the vortex that when I came to the surface again I could not recognize the world. When I found myself loose the music had ceased; the carnival was over and I had been picked clean. … After leaving the Pension Orfila that afternoon I went to the library and there, after bathing in the Ganges and pondering over the signs of the zodiac, I began to reflect on the meaning of that inferno which Strindberg had so mercilessly depicted.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It’s too terribly upsetting and sad for me; if I hadn’t been so fond of you both—but you know how attached I had grown to Mary . . .’ and so it went on; a kind of wail full of self-importance combined with self-pity. As Stephen read she went white to the lips, and Mary sprang up. ‘What’s that letter you’re reading?’ ‘It’s from Lady Massey. It’s about . . . it’s about . . .’ Her voice failed. ‘Show it to me,’ persisted Mary. Stephen shook her head: ‘No—I’d rather not.’ Then Mary asked: ‘Is it about our visit?’ Stephen nodded: ‘We’re not going to spend Christmas at Branscombe. Darling, it’s all right—don’t look like that . . .’ ‘But I want to know why we’re not going to Branscombe.’ And Mary reached out and snatched the letter. She read it through to the very last word, then she sat down abruptly and burst out crying. She cried with the long, doleful sobs of a child whom some one has struck without rhyme or reason: ‘Oh . . . and I thought they were fond of us . . .’ she sobbed, ‘I thought that perhaps . . . they understood, Stephen.’ Then it seemed to Stephen that all the pain that had so far been thrust upon her by existence, was as nothing to the unendurable pain which she must now bear to hear that sobbing, to see Mary thus wounded and utterly crushed, thus shamed and humbled for the sake of her love, thus bereft of all dignity and protection. She felt strangely helpless: ‘Don’t—don’t,’ she implored; while tears of pity blurred her own eyes and went trickling slowly down her scarred face. She had lost for the moment all sense of proportion, of perspective, seeing in a vain, tactless woman a kind of gigantic destroying angel; a kind of scourge laid upon her and Mary. Surely never before had Lady Massey loomed so large as she did in that hour to Stephen. Mary’s sobs gradually died away. She lay back in her chair, a small, desolate figure, catching her breath from time to time, until Stephen went to her and found her hand which she stroked with cold and trembling fingers—but she could not find words of consolation. 5 That night Stephen took the girl roughly in her arms. ‘I love you—I love you so much . . .’ she stammered; and she kissed Mary many times on the mouth, but cruelly so that her kisses were pain—the pain in her heart leapt out through her lips: ‘God! It’s too terrible to love like this—it’s hell—there are times when I can’t endure it!’ She was in the grip of strong nervous excitation; nothing seemed able any more to appease her.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Two days later Korin was led into the guard-room of the palace, and the Lord said to him: 'I myself will execute you, Korin, as a warning to my courtiers not to deceive me. Prepare to die.'And he took a halberd in his hands. Korin smiled at him: 'I thank my Lord for wishing to take my life with his own hands, in memory of our past time. I am quite ready.'And he Stood up. Then the Lord cut off his left hand, and asked: 'How do you feel, Korin? 'Korin held out his right hand to be cut off also, and said: 'With this hand I caressed and loved my lover. You should hate this hand a great deal also.' The Lord at once cut that hand off. Then Korin turned his back to his master and said: 'My back is very beautiful. No other page was as attractive as I am. Look at my beauty before I die.'His voice was weak and low through the mortal pain he was enduring. Then the Lord cut off his head and, holding it in his hands, wept bitter tears for the death of his favourite. The body was buried in the cemetery of the temple Myofukuji. In this temple there was a little pool called' Glory of the Morning.'Korin's short life was like a morning glory. Everybody accused and blamed his cowardly lover, who had remained hidden after his friend's death. They despised him as we despise a Stray dog. But next year, on the fifteenth of January, Sohatjiro killed Shinroku, who had betrayed Korin to the Lord. He cut off his two hands, as the Lord had done to Korin, and finished him by piercing his throat with his sword. He sent Korin's mother into a safe place. Then he went to the cemetery, wrote a memoir in which he recounted his love for Korin and his vengeance against Shinroku, and killed himself by Hara-kiri on his lover's tomb. As he opened his belly, he traced with his knife the armorial bearings of his Korin there. For seven days after his death his friends and admirers loaded his tomb with flowers. Korin and Sohatjiro became an illustrious example of the love of comrades. [image file=image_rsrc1KG.jpg] 5 Thes Soul of a Young Man smitten with Love follows his Lover on a JourneyIN A SPRING MEDDOW STUDDED WITH GRACEFUL flowers and fresh grasses were two richly and elegantly clothed persons gathering spring flowers. Their faces were shaded by large hats.

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

  Athanase cherche le triomphe, et non le martyre. Tel qu’un chef de parti, tel qu’un général experimenté qui se sent nécessaire aux siens, Athan. ne s’expose que pour le succès, ne combat que pour vaincre, se retire quelque fois pour reparaître avec l’éclat d’un triomphe populaire." (Tableau de l’éloquence chrétienne au IVe siècle, p. 92.) Page 894 line 11. Add to Lit. on St. Basil: Dörgens: Der heil. Basilius und die class. Studien. Leipz., 1857. Eug. Fialon. Étude historique et literaire sur S. Basile, suivie de l’hexaemeron. Paris, 1861. G. B. Sievers: Leben des Libanios. Berl., 1868 (p294 sqq.). Böhringer: Die drei Kappadozier oder die trinitarischen Epigonen (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Naz.), in Kirchengesch. in Biograph., new ed. Bd. vii. and viii. 1875. Weiss: Die drei grossen Kappadozier als Exegeten. Braunsberg, 1872. R. Travers Smith: St. Basil the Great. London, 1879. (Soc. for Promoting Christian Knowledge), 232 pages. Scholl: Des heil. Basil Lehre von der Gnade. Freib., 1881. W. Möller, in Herzog,2 ii. 116–121. E. Venables, in Smith and Wace, i. 282–297. Farrar: "Lives of the Fathers," 1889. vol. ii. 1–55. Page 904 line 7. Add to Lit. on Gregory of Nyssa: Böhringer: Kirchengesch. in Biogr., new ed., vol. viii. 1876. G Herrmann: Greg. Nyss. Sententiae de salute adipiscenda. Halle, 1875. . T. Bergades: De universo et de anima hominis doctrina Gregor. Nyss. Leipz., 1876. W. Möller, in Herzog,2 v. 396–404. E. Venables, in Smith and Wace, ii. 761–768. A. Paumier, in Lichtenberger, 723–725. On his doctrine of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, see especially Baur and Dorner. On his doctrine of the apokatastasis and relation to Origen, see Möller, G. Herrmann, and Bergades. l.c. Farrar: "Lives of the Fathers," (1889), ii. 56–83. Page 909, line 4. Add to Lit. on Gregory of Nazianzus: A. Grenier: La vie et les poésies de saint Grégoire de Nazianze. Paris, 1858. Böhringer: K. G. in Biogr., new ed., vol. viii. 1876. Abbé A. Benoît: Vie de saint Grégoire de Nazianze. Paris, 1877. J. R. Newman: Church of the Fathers, pp. 116–145, 551. Dabas: La femme au quatrième siècle dans les poésies de Grég. de Naz. Bordeaux, 1868. H. W. Watkins, in Smith and Wace, ii. 741–761. W. Gass, in Herzog,2 v. 392–396. A. Paumier, in Lichtenberger, v., 716– 722. On his christology, see Neander, Baur and especially Dorner. His views on future punishment have been discussed by Farrar, and Pusey (see vol. ii. 612). Farrar:: "Lives of the Fathers," i. 491–582. Page 920, line 22. Add: In one of his plaintive songs from his religious retreat, after lamenting the factions of the church, the loss of youth, health, strength, parents, and friends, and his gloomy and homeless condition, Gregory thus gives touching expression to his faith in Christ as the last and only comforter: "Thy will be done, O Lord! That day shall spring, When at thy word, this clay shall reappear.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Once, when he was Still young, Sennojyo took his diary from a little private chest. Its title was My experiences with many men, and it was a very interesting record. He Started to read it through. He had noted down in it all his impressions, from the very first day, of widely different people. Sometimes he would go to a samurai's room. By the mere caress of his hand he would soothe a demon in an angry man. He would make men of refinement or priests even out of farmers. In a word, he had treated each of his different patrons in the way most suitable to him. He shut the diary with a smile. But suddenly he thought of one of his patrons who had been most devoted to him. Sennojyo did not know where this man was. That evening a violent gale blew up, and snow began to fall. The mountains to the north of Kyoto were already white. A wretched-looking man was Standing under the Gojyo bridge. He lived on the bank of the river Kamo, and there he slept during the night. In the morning he gathered pebbles from the river Kurama and sold them in Kyoto for gun flints. Those that he had been unable to sell he threw away in the evening. His life under this bridge was very miserable. He had formerly been one of the rich men of the Province of Owari. He had been given over to male love. He had written a book in four volumes, called A Collection of Stories Pure as Crystal in which he had recorded in every detail everything that he knew of any of Sennojyo's actions and gestures. In it he mentioned even such a trifling matter as a black mole on the actor's back. He had loved Sennojyo with all his heart from the first day the latter had appeared upon the stage; but some time afterwards he had wearied of all earthly joys and had hidden himself away from society. Sennojyo had been greatly grieved at not being able to find this man again, and always bitterly regretted his disappearance. Someone informed him that his patron was living miserably on the bank of the Kamo, and he burst into tears, saying: 'Truly the destiny of man is variable. If he had let me know of his situation, I should not have left him in such misery. I have written him many letters to his house in Owari, but he has never answered me. I sorrowfully thought he had forgotten me, as frequently happens with us poor actors.'

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  No doubt that is true; but, if we want to see this story at its greatest and as the writer to the Hebrews saw it, we must take it at its face value. It shows the response of a man who was asked to offer his own son to God. (1) This story teaches us that we must be ready to sacrifice what is dearest to us for the sake of loyalty to God. There have been many who have sacrificed their careers to what they took to be the will of God. J . P . Struthers was the minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Greenock, a little congregation which, it is neither false nor unkind to say, had a great past but no future. Had he been willing to forsake this church, any pulpit in the land was open to him and the most dazzling ecclesiastical rewards were his; but he sacrificed them all for the sake of what he considered to be loyalty to God’s will. Sometimes, people may have to sacrifice personal relationships. They may feel called by God to a task in a sphere which is difficult and in a place that is unattractive, and it may be that the person they hoped to marry will not face it with them. They must choose between the will of God and the relationship which means so much to them. When John Bunyan was in prison, he was thinking of what would happen to his family if he was executed. In particular, the thought of his little blind daughter, who was so dear to him, haunted him: ‘O,’ he said, ‘I saw in this condition I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children; yet, thought I, I must do it, I must do it.’ In words from William Cowper’s hymn ‘O for a closer walk with God’: The dearest idol I have known, Whate’er that idol be, Help me to tear it from thy throne, And worship only thee. Abraham was the man who would sacrifice even the dearest thing in life for God. Time after time in the early Church, it happened. In a home, one partner became a Christian and the other did not; the children became Christians and the parents did not. The sword came down upon that home; and, unless there had been men and women who counted Christ dearer than all else, there would be no Christianity today. God must come first in our lives, or he comes nowhere. There is a story of two children who had been given a toy Noah’s Ark as a present.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Her hair, which was black, was spread out on a tiny little white pillow and her body was covered with a sheet. The face was brown, like a big O, and since I couldn't fill in the features I printed MOTHER across the O, and tears would fall down my cheeks like warm milk. Then came that terrible Christmas with its awful presents when our father, with the vanity I was to find typical, sent his photograph. My gift from Mother was a tea set—a teapot, four cups and saucers and tiny spoons-and a doll with blue eyes and rosy cheeks and yellow hair painted on her head. I didn't know what Bailey received, but after I opened my boxes I went out to the backyard behind the chinaberry tree. The day was cold and the air as clear as water. Frost was still on the bench but I sat down and cried. I looked up and Bailey was coming from the outhouse, wiping his eyes. He had been crying too. I didn't know if he had also told himself they were dead and had been rudely awakened to the truth or whether he was just feeling lonely. The gifts opened the door to questions that neither of us wanted to ask. Why did they send us away? and What did we do so wrong? So Wrong? Why at three and four, did we have tags put on our arms to be sent by train alone from Long Beach, California, to Stamps, Arkansas, with only the porter to look after us? (Besides, he got off in Arizona.) Bailey sat down beside me, and that time didn't admonish me not to cry. So I wept and he sniffed a little, but we didn't talk until Momma called us back in the house. Momma stood in front of the tree that we had decorated with silver ropes and pretty colored balls and said, “You children is the most ungrateful things I ever did see. You think your momma and poppa went to all the trouble to send you these nice play pretties to make you go out in the cold and cry?” Neither of us said a word. Momma continued, “Sister, I know you tender-hearted, but Bailey Junior, there's no reason for you to set out mewing like a pussy cat, just 'cause you got something from Vivian and Big Bailey.” When we still didn't force ourselves to answer, she asked, “You want me to tell Santa Claus to take these things back?” A wretched feeling of being torn engulfed me. I wanted to scream, “Yes. Tell him to take them back.” But I didn't move. Later Bailey and I talked. He said if the things really did come from Mother maybe it meant that she was getting ready to come and get us. Maybe she had just been angry at something we had done, but was forgiving us and would send for us soon.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Momma, always self-conscious at public displays of emotions not traceable to a religious source, told me to come with her and we'd bring the bread and bowls. She carried the food and I trailed after her, bringing the kerosene lamp. The new light set the room in an eerie, harsh perspective. Bailey still sat, doubled over his book, a Black hunchbacked gnome. A finger forerunning his eyes along the page. Uncle Willie and Mr. Taylor were frozen like people in a book on the history of the American Negro. “Now, come on, Brother Taylor.” Momma was pressing a bowl of soup on him. “You may not be hungry, but take this for nourishment.” Her voice had the tender concern of a healthy person speaking to an invalid, and her plain statement rang thrillingly true: “I'm thankful.” Bailey came out of his absorption and went to wash his hands. “Willie, say the blessing.” Momma set Bailey's bowl down and bowed her head. During grace, Bailey stood in the doorway, a figure of obedience, but I knew his mind was on Tom Sawyer and Jim as mine would have been on Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, but for the glittering eyes of wizened old Mr. Taylor. Our guest dutifully took a few spoonfuls of soup and bit a semicircle in the bread, then put his bowl on the floor. Something in the fire held his attention as we ate noisily. Noticing his withdrawal, Momma said, “It don't do for you to take on so, I know you all was together a long time—” Uncle Willie said, “Forty years.” “-but it's been around six months since she's gone to her rest ... and you got to keep faith. He never gives us more than we can bear.” The statement heartened Mr. Taylor. He picked up his bowl again and raked his spoon through the thick soup. Momma saw that she had made some contact, so she went on, “You had a whole lot of good years. Got to be grateful for them. Only thing is, it's a pity you all didn't have some children.” If my head had been down I would have missed Mr. Taylor's metamorphosis. It was not a change that came by steps but rather, it seemed to me, of a sudden. His bowl was on the floor with a thud, and his body leaned toward Momma from the hips. However, his face was the most striking feature of all. The brown expanse seemed to darken with life, as if an inner agitation played under his thin skin. The mouth, opened to show the long teeth, was a dark room furnished with a few white chairs. “Children.” He gum-balled the word around in his empty mouth. “Yes, sir, children.” Bailey (and I), used to be addressed so, looked at him expectantly. “That's what she want.” His eyes were vital, and straining to jump from the imprisoning sockets. “That's what she said. Children.” The air was weighted and thick.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  A crawling, bedraggled streak of red fur, with tongue lolling, with agonized lungs filled to bursting, with the desperate eyes of the hopelessly pursued, bright with terror and glancing now this way now that as though looking for something; and the thought came to Stephen: ‘It’s looking for God Who made it.’ At that moment she felt an imperative need to believe that the stricken beast had a Maker, and her own eyes grew bright, but with blinding tears because of her mighty need to believe, a need that was sharper than physical pain, being born of the pain of the spirit. The thing was dragging its brush in the dust, it was limping, and Stephen sprang to the ground. She held out her hands to the unhappy creature, filled with the will to succour and protect it, but the fox mistrusted her merciful hands, and it crept away into a little coppice. And now in a deathly and awful silence the hounds swept past her, their muzzles to ground. After them galloped Colonel Antrim, crouching low in his saddle, avoiding the branches, and after him came a couple of huntsmen with the few bold riders who had stayed that stiff run. Then a savage clamour broke out in the coppice as the hounds gave tongue in their wild jubilation, and Stephen well knew that that sound meant death—very slowly she remounted Raftery. Riding home, she felt utterly spent and bewildered. Her thoughts were full of her father again—he seemed very near, incredibly near her. For a moment she thought that she heard his voice, but when she bent sideways trying to listen, all was silence, except for the tired rhythm of Raftery’s hooves on the road. As her brain grew calmer, it seemed to Stephen that her father had taught her all that she knew. He had taught her courage and truth and honour in his life, and in death he had taught her mercy—the mercy that he had lacked he had taught her through the mighty adventure of death. With a sudden illumination of vision, she perceived that all life is only one life, that all joy and all sorrow are indeed only one, that all death is only one dying. And she knew that because she had seen a man die in great suffering, yet with courage and love that are deathless, she could never again inflict wanton destruction or pain upon any poor, hapless creature. And so it was that by dying to Stephen, Sir Philip would live on in the attribute of mercy that had come that day to his child. But the body is still very far from the spirit, and it clings to the primitive joys of the earth—to the sun and the wind and the good rolling grass- lands, to the swift elation of reckless movement, so that Stephen, feeling Raftery between her strong knees, was suddenly filled with regret.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen never knew how they got her away while the nurse performed the last merciful duties. But when flowers had been placed in Barbara’s hands, and Mary had lighted a couple of candles, then Jamie went back and stared quietly down at the small, waxen face that lay on the pillow; and she turned to the nurse: ‘Thank you so much,’ she said, ‘I think you’ve done all that there is to do—and now I suppose you’ll want to be going?’ The nurse glanced at Stephen. ‘It’s all right, we’ll stay. I think perhaps—if you don’t mind, nurse . . .’ ‘Very well, it must be as you wish, Miss Gordon.’ When she had gone Jamie veered round abruptly and walked back into the empty studio. Then all in a moment the floodgates gave way and she wept and she wept like a creature demented. Bewailing the life of hardship and exile that had sapped Barbara’s strength and weakened her spirit; bewailing the cruel dispensation of fate that had forced them to leave their home in the Highlands; bewailing the terrible thing that is death to those who, still loving, must look upon it. Yet all the exquisite pain of this parting seemed as nothing to an anguish that was far more subtle: ‘I can’t mourn her without bringing shame on her name—I can’t go back home now and mourn her,’ wailed Jamie; ‘oh, and I want to go back to Beedles, I want to be home among our own people—I want them to know how much I loved her. Oh God, oh God! I can’t even mourn her, and I want to grieve for her home there in Beedles.’ What could they speak but inadequate words: ‘Jamie, don’t, don’t! You loved each other—isn’t that something? Remember that, Jamie.’ They could only speak the inadequate words that are given to people on such occasions. But after a while the storm seemed to pass, Jamie seemed to grow suddenly calm and collected: ‘You two,’ she said gravely, ‘I want to thank you for all you’ve been to Barbara and me.’ Mary started crying. ‘Don’t cry,’ said Jamie. The evening came. Stephen lighted the lamp, then she made up the stove while Mary laid the supper. Jamie ate a little, and she actually smiled when Stephen poured her out a weak whiskey. ‘Drink it, Jamie—it may help you to get some sleep.’ Jamie shook her head: ‘I shall sleep without it—but I want to be left alone to-night, Stephen.’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She wept and she wept without any restraint, scarcely knowing what she said—at that moment not caring. And Sir Philip listened with his head on his hand, and Anna listened bewildered and dumbfounded. She tried to kiss Stephen, to hold her to her, but Stephen, still sobbing, pushed her away; in this orgy of grief she resented consolation, so that in the end Anna took her to the nursery and delivered her over to the care of Mrs. Bingham, feeling that the child did not want her. When Anna went quietly back to the study, Sir Philip was still sitting with his head on his hand. She said: ‘It’s time you realized, Philip, that if you’re Stephen’s father, I’m her mother. So far you’ve managed the child your own way, and I don’t think it’s been successful. You’ve treated Stephen as though she were a boy—perhaps it’s because I’ve not given you a son—’ Her voice trembled a little but she went on gravely: ‘It’s not good for Stephen; I know it’s not good, and at times it frightens me, Philip.’ ‘No, no!’ he said sharply. But Anna persisted: ‘Yes, Philip, at times it makes me afraid—I can’t tell you why, but it seems all wrong—it makes me feel—strange with the child.’ He looked at her out of his melancholy eyes: ‘Can’t you trust me? Won’t you try to trust me, Anna?’ But Anna shook her head: ‘I don’t understand, why shouldn’t you trust me, Philip?’ And then in his terror for this well-beloved woman, Sir Philip committed the first cowardly action of his life—he who would not have spared himself pain, could not bear to inflict it on Anna. In his infinite pity for Stephen’s mother, he sinned very deeply and gravely against Stephen, by withholding from that mother his own conviction that her child was not as other children. ‘There’s nothing for you to understand,’ he said firmly, ‘but I like you to trust me in all things.’ After this they sat talking about the child, Sir Philip very quiet and reassuring . ‘I’ve wanted her to have a healthy body,’ he explained, ‘that’s why I’ve let her run more or less wild; but perhaps we’d better have a governess now, as you say; a French governess, my dear, if you’d prefer one—Later on I’ve always meant to engage a bluestocking, some woman who’s been to Oxford. I want Stephen to have the finest education that care and money can give her.’

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  hastened at daybreak to the temple without even taking time to bid his mother farewell. As he Stood in the chief entrance to the temple, which was in the form of a low tower, several people Started talking noisily about Hara-kiri. They said: 'Early this morning a young samurai is coming here to kill himself. They say that he is very beautiful. Even an ugly son is dear to his parents; the father and mother of this young samurai will be smitten with despair at realising that so accomplished a son must die. Surely it is a pity to kill such a splendid young man.' Uneme could hardly restrain his tears on hearing these people. The temple quickly filled, and he hid himself behind a door and waited for the arrival of his darling Ukyo. Shortly after, a fine new litter was seen to approach, borne by several men, surrounded by guards. It Sopped opposite the door, and Ukyo descended from it with the utmost calmness. He was wearing a white silk garment embroidered with autumn flowers, having pale blue facings* and a skirt. He Stopped for a moment and looked about him. On the tombs were some thousands of wooden tablets bearing the names of those who were buried there. Among them rose a wild cherry tree with white blossom on the upper branches only. Ukyo looked at the pale, fading flowers, and softly murmured an old Chinese poem: The flowers wait for next Spring, Trusting that the same hands shall caress them. But men's hearts will no longer he the same, And you will only know that everything changes, 0 poor lovers. The seat destined for the Hara-kiri had been placed in the garden of the temple. Ukyo calmly seated himself on the gold-bordered mats and summoned his attendant, whose duty it was to cut off the condemned man's head to shorten his suffering after he had manipulated the dagger in his belly. This attendant's name was Kajuyu Kitji Kawa, and he was a courtier of the same Lord, Ukyo cut off the wonderful locks of his hair, put them in a white paper and gave them to Kajuyu, praying him to send them to his venerable mother at Horikawa in Kyoto as a keepsake. The priest then began to pray for the salvation of Ukyo's soul. Ukyo said: 'Beauty in this world cannot endure for long. I am glad to die while I am young and beautiful, and before my countenance fades like a flower.' Then he took a green paper from his sleeve and wrote his farewell poem upon it. This was his poem: I loved the beauty of flowers in springtime; In autumn the glory of the moon Was my delight; But now that I am looking upon death face to my face, These joys are vanishing; They were all dreams. Then he thrust the knife into his belly, and Kajuyu at once Struck off his head from behind. At that moment Uneme ran to the mats and cried: 'Finish me also,' and pierced himself. Kajuyu Struck off his head. Ukyo was sixteen years old, and Uneme eighteen. The tombs of these two young men remained for a long time in the temple, and Ukyo's farewell poem was inscribed on their joint Stones. On the seven teenth day after their death, Samanosuke also died by Hara-kiri, leaving a letter to say that he could not survive his lovers' death. Such was the tragedy of these young men who died for love.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The first stars were shining, but as yet very faintly, when she found herself driving through the gates of Morton. Heard Puddle’s voice calling: ‘Wait a minute. Stop, Stephen!’ Saw Puddle barring her way in the drive, a tiny yet dauntless figure. She pulled up with a jerk: ‘What’s the matter? What is it?’ ‘Where have you been?’ ‘I—don’t know, Puddle.’ But Puddle had clambered in beside her: ‘Listen, Stephen,’ and now she was talking very fast, ‘listen, Stephen—is it—is it Angela Crossby? It is. I can see the thing in your face. My God, what’s that woman done to you, Stephen?’ Then Stephen, in spite of the corpse against her heart, or perhaps because of it, defended the woman: ‘She’s done nothing at all—it was all my fault, but you wouldn’t understand—I got very angry and then I laughed and couldn’t stop laughing—’ Steady—go steady! She was telling too much: ‘No—it wasn’t that exactly. Oh, you know my vile temper, it always goes off at half cock for nothing. Well, then I just drove round and round the country until I cooled down. I’m sorry, Puddle, I ought to have rung up, of course you’ve been anxious.’ Puddle gripped her arm: ‘Stephen, listen, it’s your mother—she thinks that you started quite early for Worcester, I lied—I’ve been nearly distracted, child. If you hadn’t come soon, I’d have had to tell her that I didn’t know where you were. You must never, never go off without a word like this again—But I do understand, oh, I do indeed, Stephen.’ But Stephen shook her head: ‘No, my dear, you couldn’t—and I’d rather not tell you, Puddle.’ ‘Some day you must tell me,’ said Puddle, ‘because—well, because I do understand, Stephen.’ 4That night the weight against Stephen’s heart, with its icy coldness, melted; and it flowed out in such a torrent of grief that she could not stand up against that torrent, so that drowning though she was she found pen and paper, and she wrote to Angela Crossby.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She hardly ever opposed her daughter these days in matters concerning Morton. But the burden of arranging the sale had been Stephen’s; one by one she had said good-bye to the hunters, one by one she had watched them led out of the yard, with a lump in her throat that had almost choked her, and when they were gone she had turned back to Raftery for comfort. ‘Oh, Raftery, I’m so unregenerate—I minded so terribly seeing them go! Don’t let’s look at their empty boxes—’ 2 Another year passed and Stephen was twenty-one, a rich, independent woman. At any time now she could go where she chose, could do entirely as she listed. Puddle remained at her post; she was waiting a little grimly for something to happen. But nothing much happened, beyond the fact that Stephen now dressed in tailor-made clothes to which Anna had perforce to withdraw her opposition. Yet life was gradually reasserting its claims on the girl, which was only natural, for the young may not be delivered over to the dead, nor to grief that refuses consolation. She still mourned her father, she would always mourn him, but at twenty-one with a healthful body, there came a day when she noticed the sunshine, when she smelt the good earth and was thankful for it, when she suddenly knew herself to be alive and was glad, in despite of death. On one such morning early that June, Stephen drove her car into Upton. She was meaning to cash a cheque at the bank, she was meaning to call at the local saddler’s, she was meaning to buy a new pair of gloves—in the end, however, she did none of these things. It was outside the butcher’s that the dog fight started. The butcher owned an old rip of an Airedale, and the Airedale had taken up his post in the doorway of the shop, as had long been his custom. Down the street, on trim but belligerent tiptoes, came a very small, snow-white West Highland terrier; perhaps he was looking for trouble, and if so he certainly got it in less than two minutes. His yells were so loud that Stephen stopped the car and turned round in her seat to see what was happening. The butcher ran out to swell the confusion by shouting commands that no one obeyed; he was trying to grasp his dog by the tail which was short and not at all handy for grasping. And then, as it seemed from nowhere at all, there suddenly appeared a very desperate young woman; she was carrying her parasol as though it were a lance with which she intended to enter the battle. Her wails of despair rose above the dog’s yells: ‘Tony! My Tony! Won’t anyone stop them? My dog’s being killed, won’t any of you stop them?’

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  The unequal struggle awaits you now. The skirmish from which there is no escape awaits you now. Even though the Gods consult together about him, review his heroic exploits, and ponder making him an exception, nothing can save Gilgamesh. The only human granted immortality is the flood hero, Ziudsura (Sumer’s Noah), because he had saved life on Earth in his great boat. There can be no other exceptions—not even for Gilgamesh. In the lament section, all of that is repeated but with emphasis on the contrast between even the most absolutely extraordinary life and an absolutely ordinary death: The great wild bull has lain down and is never to rise again. Lord Gilgamesh has lain down and is never to rise again. He who was unique in . . . has lain down and is never to rise again. The hero fitted out with a shoulder-belt has lain down and is never to rise again. He who was unique in strength has lain down and is never to rise again. He who diminished wickedness has lain down and is never to rise again. He who spoke most wisely has lain down and is never to rise again. The plunderer (?) of many countries has lain down and is never to rise again. He who knew how to climb the mountains has lain down and is never to rise again. The lord of Kulaba has lain down and is never to rise again. He has lain down on his death-bed and is never to rise again. He has lain down on a couch of sighs and is never to rise again. These motifs of dream and lament already contain the core problem of the later Epic of Gilgamesh: the challenge of human mortality, especially as personified in the hero who lives an extraordinary life but dies an ordinary death—just like everyone else. It is probable, by the way, that those various Sumerian stories were integrated into an overarching epic only as the non-Semitic Sumerian language gave way to the Semitic Akkadian language and its twin dialects of Babylonian and Assyrian. Be that as it may, and granted at least its Sumerian bases, I turn now to look at the Epic of Gilgamesh or, to name it more accurately, the Epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. That great epic, that base narrative for entertainment and education from the Persian Gulf to the Levantine coast, is my matrix in this chapter for correctly understanding Genesis 2–3. The epic is extant today in two major versions. The earlier Babylonian version dates to around 2000 BCE and derives from four tablets preserved in separate museums around the world.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “Maya, if you want to leave now, come on. I'll take care of you.” He didn't wait for an answer, but as quickly went back to speaking to his soul. “She won't miss me, and I sure as hell won't miss her. To hell with her and everybody else.” He had finished jamming his shoes on top of his shirts and ties, and socks were wadded into the pillowcase. He remembered me again. “Maya, you can have my books.” My tears were not for Bailey or Mother or even myself but for the helplessness of mortals who live on the sufferance of Life. In order to avoid this bitter end, we would all have to be born again, and born with the knowledge of alternatives. Even then? Bailey grabbed up the lumpy pillowcase and pushed by me for the stairs. As the front door slammed, the record player downstairs mastered the house and Nat King Cole warned the world to “straighten up and fly right.” As if they could, as if human beings could make a choice. Mother's eyes were red, and her face puffy, the next morning, but she smiled her “everything is everything” smile and turned in tight little moons, making breakfast, talking business and brightening the corner where she was. No one mentioned Bailey's absence as if things were as they should be and always were. The house was smudged with unspoken thoughts and it was necessary to go to my room to breathe. I believed I knew where he headed the night before, and made up my mind to find him and offer him my support. In the afternoon I went to a bay-windowed house which boasted ROOMS, in green and orange letters, through the glass. A woman of any age past thirty answered my ring and said Bailey Johnson was at the top of the stairs. His eyes were as red as Mother's had been, but his face had loosened a little from the tightness of the night before. In an almost formal manner I was invited into a room with a clean chenille-covered bed, an easy chair, a gas fireplace and a table. He began to talk, covering up the unusual situation that we found ourselves in. “Nice room, isn't it? You know it's very hard to find rooms now. The war and all ... Betty lives here [she was the white prostitute] and she got this place for me ... Maya, you know, it's better this way ... I mean, I'm a man, and I have to be on my own ...” I was furious that he didn't curse and abuse the Fates or Mother or at least act put upon. “Well”—I thought to start it—“If Mother was really a mother, she wouldn't have—” He stopped me, his little black hand held up as if I were to read his palm. “Wait, Maya, she was right.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  First, let us take the things that can be explained against the Old Testament background. In the lives of Elijah (1 Kings 17:17ff.) and of Elisha (2 Kings 4:8ff.), we read how, by the power and the faith of the prophets, women did receive back again their children who had died. Second Chronicles 24:20– 2 tells how the prophet Zechariah was stoned by his own people because he told them the truth. Legend had it that, down in Egypt, Jeremiah was stoned to death by his fellow Israelites. Jewish legend tells that Isaiah was sawn in two. Hezekiah, the good king, died; and Manasseh came to the throne. He worshipped idols and tried to compel Isaiah to take part in his idolatry and to approve of it. Isaiah refused and was condemned to be sawn in two with a wooden saw. While his enemies tried to make him renounce his faith, he steadfastly defied them and prophesied their doom. ‘And while the saw cut into his flesh, Isaiah uttered no complaint and shed no tears; but he ceased not to commune with the Holy Spirit till the saw had cloven him to the middle of his body.’ Even more, the mind of the writer to the Hebrews goes back over the terrible days of the Maccabaean struggle. That is a struggle of which every Christian should know something; for, if in these times of bloodshed the Jews had surrendered their faith, Jesus could not have come. The story is like this. About the year 170 BC, there was on the throne of Syria a king called Antiochus Epiphanes. He was a good governor, but he had an almost abnormal love for all things Greek, and saw himself as a missionary for the Greek way of life. He tried to introduce this into Palestine. He had some success; there were those who were willing to accept Greek culture, Greek drama and Greek athletics. Greek athletes trained naked, and some of the Jewish priests even went so far as to seek to obliterate the mark of circumcision from their bodies so that they might become Greek in every respect. So far, Antiochus had succeeded only in causing a division in the nation; the greater part of the Jews were unshakably true to their faith and could not be moved. Force and violence had not yet been used. Then, in about 168 BC, the matter came to boiling point. Antiochus had an interest in Egypt. He gathered an army and invaded that country. To his deep humiliation, the Romans ordered him home. We have already seen just how this happened in our consideration of 3:1–6.