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.

Page 62 of 263 · 20 per page

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Still shaking her head she had said to Stephen: “ Needs must when the Boches get busy, Miss Gordon! Have an eye to her, will you? She may stick it all right, but between you and me I very much doubt it. You might try her out as your second driver.’ And so far Mary Llewellyn had stuck it. Stephen looked away again, closing her eyes, and after a while forgot about Mary. The events that had preceded her own coming to France, began to pass through her brain in procession, Her chief in The London Ambulance Column, through whom she had first met Mrs. Claude Breakspeare —a good sort, the chief, she had been a staunch friend. The great news that she, Stephen, had been accepted and would go to the front as an ambulance driver. Then Puddle’s grave face: ‘I must write to your mother, this means that you will be in real danger.’ Her mother’s brief letter: ‘ Before you leave I should very much like you to come and see me,’ the rest of the letter mere polite empty THE WELL OF LONELINESS 319

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  On a morning of high scudding clouds and sunshine, Stephen rode Raftery into Upton, then over the bridge that spans the river Severn, and on to the Meet at a neighbouring village. Behind her came jogging her second horseman on one of Sir Philip’s favourite youngsters, a raw-boned, upstanding, impetuous chestnut, now all eyes and ears for what might be coming; but besite her rode only memory and heart-ache. Yet from time to time she turned her head quickly as though some one must surely be there at her side. Her mind was a prey to the strangest fancies. She pictured her father very grave and anxious, not gay and light-hearted as had been his wont when they rode to a Meet in the old days. And because this day was so vibrant with living it was difficult for Stephen to tolerate the idea of death, even for a little red fox, and she caught herself thinking: ‘ If we find, this morning, there'll be two of us who are utterly alone, with every man’s hand against us.’ At the Meet she was a prey to her self-conscious shyness, so 138 THE WELL OF LONELINESS that she fancied people were whispering. There was no one now with bowed, patient shoulders to stand between her and those unfriendly people. Colonel Antrim came up. ‘Glad to see you out, Stephen.’ But his voice sounded stiff because he was embarrassed — every one felt just a little embarrassed, as people will do in the face of bereavement. And then there was something so awkward about her, so aloof that it checked every impulse of kindness. They, in their turn, felt shy, remembering Sir Philip, remembering what his death must have meant to his daughter, so that more than one greeting remained unspoken. And again she thought grimly: * Two of us will be alone, with every man’s hand against us.’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She said: ‘Take him home,’ for he did not know her; ‘ take him home. You’d no business to bring him here at all —it’s against my orders. Who told him about it?’ And the young girl answered: ‘It seemed ’e just knowed - it was like as though Raftery told ’im. .. ’ Williams looked up with his blurred, anxious eyes. ‘Who be you?’ he inquired. Then he suddenly smiled through his tears. ‘It be good to be seein’ you, Master — seems like a long while. . . » His voice was now clear but exceedingly small, a small, far away thing. If a doll had spoken, its voice might have sounded very much as the old man’s did at that moment. Stephen bent over him. ‘ Williams, I’m Stephen - don’t you know me? It’s Miss Stephen. You must go straight home and get back to bed - it’s still rather cold on these early spring mornings -to please me, Williams, you must go straight home. Why, your hands are frozen!’ But Williams shook his head and began to remember. ‘ Raf- tery,’ he mumbled, ‘something’s ’appened to Raftery.’ And his sobs and his tears broke out with fresh vigour, so that his niece, frightened, tried to stop him. 254 THE WELL OF LONELINESS ‘ Now uncle be qui-et I do be-seech ’e! It’s so bad for ’e carry- in’ on in this wise. What will auntie say when she sees ’e all mucked up with weepin’, and yer poor nose all red and dir-ty? lll be takin’ ’e ’ome as Miss Stephen ’ere says. Now, uncle dear, do be qui-et! ’ She lugged the bath-chair round with a jolt and trundled it, lurching, towards the cottage. All the way back down the big north paddock Williams wept and wailed and tried to get out, but his niece put one hefty young hand on his shoulder; with the other she guided the lurching bath-chair. Stephen watched them go, then she turned to the groom. ‘Bury him here,’ she said briefly. 4 Berore she left Morton that same afternoon, she went once more into the large, bare stables. The stables were now completely empty, for Anna had moved her carriage horses to new quarters nearer the coachman’s cottage.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “Now I must go to the castle that is east of the sun and west of the moon, and marry the dreadful princess,” he told her. She wept bitterly when she heard this, but neither tears nor pleading could change their fate, and they spent that evening clinging miserably to each other in the dark. The next morning the wretched lady woke up alone. The castle and the prince had both disappeared. The only thing that remained was the little bundle of rags that she had brought with her on her very first journey there. She cried until every tear she possessed was lost forever. “I must find him and get him back,” she decided at last. But where was the castle that was east of the sun and west of the moon? She picked up her bundle and set out on the nearest road. After traveling only a short distance she came upon an old woman sitting by the roadside. She asked the ragged-looking woman if she knew how to get to the castle that was east of the sun and west of the moon. “Are you the true love of the prince from there?” asked the woman knowingly. “Why yes,” replied the startled girl. “Do you know the way there?” “No,” cackled the hag, thinking it a great joke. But then she added more kindly, “Take this golden apple, it may be of use to you in your travels.” So the girl took the golden apple from the woman and continued down the road. In a short time she chanced to meet another old woman on the side of the road. This one she also approached for directions to the castle. “You must be the true love of the prince,” the old woman surmised, just as the other had. “I am she,” owned the girl. “Please can’t you tell me the way to his castle?” But this old woman could offer no more information on the location of the prince’s castle than the other. She gave the girl an enchanted hair comb, instructing her to wear it if she found the prince, as it would bring her good luck to do so. With still not the slightest idea of how to find her prince, the heartbroken girl continued doggedly on and, at length, met with yet another old woman along the road. With this woman she shared a similar exchange as she had with the other two. This woman advised her to seek the East Wind for the information she desired and, giving her a magic feather, instructed her to thrust it out before her and follow it to the home of the East Wind.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  NINE HAUN’S MILL Bearing persecution became the distinctive badge of membership in the church; it was the test of faith and of one’s chosenness. By the end of their stay in Missouri, Mormons had accumulated a long list of trials to commemorate. . . . Opposition gives value to struggle and inculcates self-confidence. . . . It is difficult to imagine a successful Mormon Church without suffering, without the encouragement of it, without the memory of it. Persecution arguably was the only possible force that would have allowed the infant church to prosper. R. LAURENCE MOORE, RELIGIOUS OUTSIDERS AND THE MAKING OF AMERICANS When Mormonism made its debut, Joseph Smith’s embryonic religion was not welcomed with open arms by everyone. The very first review of The Book of Mormon, published in the Rochester Daily Advertiser on April 2, 1830—four days before Joseph’s church was even legally incorporated—typified reaction to the new faith among many in western New York. The review began, “The Book of Mormon has been placed in our hands. A viler imposition was never practiced. It is an evidence of fraud, blasphemy, and credulity, shocking both to Christians and moralists.” Joseph’s widespread reputation as a charlatan, along with a rash of malicious rumors about his “gold Bible,” had fueled animosity throughout the Palmyra region. In December 1830 Joseph received a revelation in which God, noting the hostility in the New York air, commanded him to move his flock to Ohio. So the Latter-day Saints packed up and resettled just east of present-day Cleveland, in a

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “I know I am a beautiful woman. I have dedicated my entire life to beauty! But that is not enough to satisfy the editors of the women’s, ha, women’s—” she paused over the word for emphasis before continuing “—magazines. How women can bear to read them is beyond me. “Anyway, I found that I was not—indeed none of us were—good enough to grace the pages of those militant catalogs of female delusion and torture. Before I could even be accepted as a candidate I discovered that I would have to submit to a number of surgical alterations and virtually stop eating. All of this I did, and at last I was chosen for the magazine of which you spoke. But would you believe, even after all I had suffered and endured, in the end I was still not beautiful enough, and the picture was altered in the final draft.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at her youngest sister. “That picture is not one of me, but of a specter—the very same specter that is being held up before women to keep them racing after perfection.” She looked around sadly at her sisters, and added, “It is the same specter that has ruined the lives of each and every one of us.” For some reason this brought their youngest sister to their attention. Almost simultaneously the women turned to her. “What has life been like for you?” asked her oldest sister. “Well, I am certainly satisfied with it,” she answered humbly, not wishing in the least to gloat over her own happiness in light of what she had just heard. “You continued your education, didn’t you?” another sister asked. “What was it you studied?” Timidly she began to tell her sisters about her studies, never at a loss for words when she spoke of the things she had learned. Yet their silence intimidated her, and her voice trailed off. No doubt they would think her life ridiculous. But her older sisters did not mock her or laugh. They questioned her with interest and, at length, she told them about her many interests and her marriage and her little daughter. Feeling guilty over her own good fortune and happiness, she refrained from telling them about the many little joys in her life; like how her husband worked so hard to keep himself in tiptop shape for her, or how he never lost interest in making love to her. The sisters were too astute not to see these things in her face, however, and could not help feeling envy for the accomplishments of their youngest sibling, despite her supposed physical defects. The third-eldest sister, being the bitterest of the four, could not help remarking, “It seems as if we would all have been better off to have been born ugly!” The eldest sister immediately jumped to her youngest sister’s defense, saying, “You’re just jealous.”

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  But even if it had been otherwise, and he had opposed the movement, I should still have esteemed his opposition as a privilege and an education for myself. We had our differences of opinion always, but they never led to bitterness. He always allowed me to believe that the ties between us were of the closest. Even as I write these lines, the circumstances of his death stand forth vividly before my mind’s eye. It was about the hour of midnight, when Patwardhan, who was then working with me, conveyed over the telephone the news of his death. I was at that time surrounded by me companions. Spontaneously the exclamation escaped my lips, ‘My strongest bulwark is gone.’ The non- co-operation movement was then in full swing, and I was eagerly looking forward to encouragement and inspiration from him. What his attitude would have been with regard to the final phase of non-cooperation will always be a matter of speculation, and an idle one at that. But this much is certain that the deep void left by his death weighed heavily upon everybody present at Calcutta. Everyone felt the absence of his counsels in that hour of crisis in the nation’s history 169AT NAGPURThe resolutions adopted at the Calcutta special ses- sion of the Congress were to be confirmed at its annual session at Nagpur. Here again, as at Calcutta there was a great rush of visitors and delegates. The number of delegates in the Congress had not been lim- ited yet. As a result, so far as I can remember, the figure on this occasion reached about fourteen thousand. La- laji pressed for a slight amendment to the clause about the boycott of schools, which I accepted. Similarly some amendments were made at the instance of the Deshabandhu, after which the non-co- operation resolution was passed unanimously. The resolution regarding the revision of the Congress constitution too was to be taken up at this session of the Congress. the sub- committee’s draft was presented at the Calcutta special session. The matter had therefore been thoroughly ventilated and thrashed out. At the Nagpur session, where it came up for final disposal, Sjt. C. Vijayaraghavachariar was the President. The Subjects Committee passed the draft with only one important change. In my draft the number of delegates had been fixed, I think, at 1,500 ; the Subjects Committee substituted in its place the figure 6,000. In my opinion this increase was the result of hasty judgment, and experience of all these years has only confirmed me in my view. I hold it to be an utter delusion to believe that a large number of delegates is in any way a help to the better conduct of the business, or that it safeguards the principle of democracy. Fifteen hundred delegates, jealous of the interests of the people, broad-minded and truthful, would any day be a better safeguard for democracy than six thousand irresponsible men chosen anyhow.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  7. This idea would also satisfy our Christian faith in the redeeming mercy of God. In this ascending scale of beings none would be so high that he could not be drawn still closer to God, and none so low that he would be beyond the love of God. God would still be teaching and saving all. If we learned in heaven that a minority were in hell, we should look at God to see what he was going to do about it; and if he did nothing, we should look at Jesus to see how this harmonized with what he taught us about his Father; and if he did nothing, some- thing would die out of heaven. Jonathan Edwards ^ Prof. William Adams Brown, in the closing pages of his “ Christian Theology in Outline,” points out the need for progress, and explains the hold which the doctrine of purgatory has on Catholics. 234 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL demanded that we should rejoice in the damnation of those whom the sovereign election of God abandoned to everlasting torment. Very justly, for we ought to be able to rejoice in what God does. But we can not rejoice in hell. It can’t be done. At least by Christians. The more Christian Christ has made a soul, the more it would mourn for the lost brothers. The conception of a permanent hell was tolerable only while God was con- ceived as an autocratic sovereign dealing with his sub- jects; it becomes intolerable when the Father deals with his children. To-day many Protestants are allowing the physical fires of hell to go out, and make the pain of hell to consist in the separation from God. They base the continuance of hell, not on the sovereign decree of God but on the progressive power of sin which gradually ex- tinguishes all love of good and therewith all capacity for salvation. But this remains to be proven. Who has ever met a man that had no soft spot of tenderness, no homesick yearning after uprightness left in him? If God has not locked the door of hell from the outside, but men remain in it because they prefer the darkness, then there is bound to be a Christian invasion of hell. All the most Christian souls in heaven would get down there and share the life of the wicked, in the high hope that after all some scintilla of heavenly fire was still smouldering and could be fanned into life. And they would be headed by Him who could not stand it to think of ninety-nine saved and one caught among the thorns. The idea of two fixed groups does not satisfy any real requirement. Men justly feared the earlier Universal- ESCHATOLOGY 235

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  5. Peace: settled, calm, and expectant David spends several more verses talking about God’s power, faithfulness, and love. By the end of the psalm, he is in a completely different headspace and heartspace than when he began. He is confident and full of faith, with peace in his soul. That doesn’t mean anything changed in the outside world, but everything had changed in his inside world. That was what mattered most. These five things—pain, processing, prayer, proclamation, peace—are intuitive parts of prayer. They don’t always happen in this order, and they are often cyclical, not linear: you cry out, then you ask for help, then you come to a place of trust and rest . . . and then another wave of pain crashes over you, and the cycle repeats. But with each cycle, you find more stability and peace, like an upward spiral out of the depths. Again, your prayers don’t have to follow this pattern. They definitely don’t have to include so many metaphors and poetic language. But they will almost always involve some sort of process, some sort of progression. You’ll come out on the other side with greater clarity and strength than before. EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY PRAYERS Peter Scazzero writes in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality , “Christian spirituality, without an integration of emotional health, can be deadly—to yourself, your relationship with God, and the people around you.”1 He’s right. It’s not enough to just have faith or to pursue holiness or to study theology. We also have to be healthy on the inside, particularly in regard to our emotions. We are wholistic beings: body, soul, and spirit. Mind, will, and emotions. If one part of our self is hurting, sooner or later it will affect the others. Sometimes Christians are the worst at admitting emotional needs. We tend to think that faith means always being up and never being down. We don’t give ourselves space to grieve, to emote, to vent, to rage, to hurt, to cry. Life has a lot of trauma, though. If we don’t process that trauma, it can deposit layers of hurt in our souls. We often create defense mechanisms or survival techniques just to keep it all together. But deep inside, we are not in a good place. And God knows it. Here’s the thing, though: He’s not disappointed in us; He just wants to help us. We must learn to take those difficult, dark things to God in prayer. Things like pain. Guilt. Fear. Shame. Anger. Betrayal. Addictions. Abuse. Trauma. I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of seasons like those. Maybe you’re in one right now. Learn to process your feelings in prayer. To sit with them and to sit with God at the same time, allowing Him to walk you through the hidden recesses of your heart and bring healing. Side note: You might want to try writing out your prayers. I do that sometimes, and it can be so clarifying.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Jivraj Mehta had bandaged my ribs with ‘Mede’s Plaster’ and had asked me not to remove it till we reached the Red Sea. For two days I put up with the discomfort, but finally it became too much for me. It was with considerable difficulty that I managed to undo the plaster and regain the liberty of having a proper wash and bath. My diet consisted mostly of nuts and fruits. I found that I was improving every day and felt very much better by the time we entered the Suez Canal. I was weak, but felt entirely out of danger, and I gradually went on increasing my exercise. The improvement I attributed largely to the pure air of the temperate zone. Whether it was due to past experience or to any other reason, I do not know, but the kind of distance I noticed between the English and Indian passengers on the boat was something I had not observed even on my voyage from South Africa. I did talk to a few Englishmen, but the talk was mostly formal. There were hardly any cordial conversations such as had certainly taken place on the South African boats. The reason for this was, I think, to be found in the conscious or unconscious feeling at the back of the Englishman’s mind that he belonged to the ruling race, and the feeling at the back of the Indian’s mind that he belonged to the subject race. I was eager to reach home and get free from this atmosphere. On arriving at Aden we already began to feel somewhat at home. We knew the Adenwallas very well, having met Mr. Kekobad Kavasji Dinshaw in Durban and come in close contact with him and his wife. A few days more and we reached Bombay. It was such a joy to get back to the homeland after an exile of ten years. Gokhale had inspired a reception for me in Bombay, where he had come in spite of his delicate health. I had approached India in the ardent hope of merging myself in him, and thereby feeling free. But fate had willed it otherwise. 123SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE BARBefore coming to a narrative of the course my life took in India, it seems necessary to recall a few of the South African experiences which I have deliberately left out. Some lawyer friends have asked me to give my reminiscences of the bar. The number of these is so large that, if I were to describe them all, they would occupy a volume by themselves and take me out of my scope. But it may not perhaps be improper to recall some of those which bear upon the practice of truth.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I did not know that she was no more in the flesh to receive me back into her bosom. The sad news was now given me, and I underwent the usual ablution. My brother had kept me ignorant of her death, which took place whilst I was still in England. He wanted to spare me the blow in a foreign land. The news, however, was none the less a severe shock to me. But I must not dwell upon it. My grief was even greater than over my father’s death. Most of my cherished hopes were shattered. But I remember that I did not give myself up to any wild expression of grief. I could even check the tears, and took to life just as though nothing had happened. Dr. Mehta introduced me to several friends, one of them being his brother Shri Revashankar Jagjivan, with whom there grew up a lifelong friendship. But the introduction that I need particularly take note of was the one to the poet Raychand or Rajchandra, the son-in- law of an elder brother of Dr. Mehta, and partner of the firm of jewellers conducted in the name of Revashankar Jagjivan. He was not above twenty-five then, but my first meeting with him convinced me that he was a man of great character and learning. He was also known as Shatavadhani (one having the faculty of remembering or attending to a hundred things simultaneously), and Dr. Mehta recommended me to see some of his memory feats. I exhausted my vocabulary of all the European tongues I knew, and asked the poet to repeat the words, He did so in the precise order in which I had given them. I envied his gift without, however, coming under its spell. The thing that did cast its spell over me I came to know afterwards. This was his wide knowledge of the scriptures, his spotless character, and his burning passion for self-realization. I saw later that this last was the only thing for which he lived. The following lines of Muktanand were always on his lips and engraved on the tablets of his heart: ‘I shall think myself blessed only when I see Him in every one of my daily acts; Verily He is the thread, Which supports Muktanand’s life.’ Raychandbhai’s commercial transactions covered hundreds of thousands. He was a connoisseur of pearls and diamonds. No knotty business problem was too difficult for him. But all these things were not the centre round which his life revolved. That centre was the passion to see God face to face. Amongst the things on his business table there were invariably to be found some religious book and his diary. The moment he finished his business he opened the religious book or the diary. Much of his published writings is a reproduction from this diary.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  My uncle would sit near my father’s bed the whole day, and would insist on sleeping by his bed-side after sending us all to sleep. No one had dreamt that this was to be the fateful night. The danger of course was there. It was 10-30 or 11 p.m. I was giving the massage. My uncle offered to relieve me. I was glad and went straight to the bed-room. My wife, poor thing, was fast asleep. But how could she sleep when I was there? I woke her up. In five or six minutes. however, the servant knocked at the door. I started with alarm. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘Father is very ill.’ I knew of course that he was very ill, and so I guessed what ‘very ill’ meant at that moment. I sprang out of bed. ‘What is the matter? Do tell me!’ ‘Father is no more.’ So all was over! I had but to wring my hands. I felt deeply ashamed and miserable. I ran to my father’s room. I saw that, if animal passion had not blinded me. I should have been spared the torture of separation from my father during his last moments. I should have been massaging him, and he would have died in my arms. But now it was my uncle who had this privilege. He was so deeply devoted to his elder brother that he had earned the honour of doing him the last services! My father had forebodings of the coming event. He had made a sign for pen and paper, and written: ‘Prepare for the last rites.’ He had then snapped the amulet off his arm and also his gold necklace of tulasi beads and flung them aside. A moment after this he was no more. The shame, to which I have refered in a foregoing chapter, was this of my carnal desire even at the critical hour of my father’s death, which demanded wakeful service. It is a blot I have never been able to efface or forget, and I have always thought that, although my devotion to my parents knew no bounds and I would have given up anything for it, yet I was weighed and found unpardonably wanting because my mind was at the same moment in the grip of lust. I have therefore always regarded myself as a lustful. though a faithful, husband. It took me long to get free from the shackles of lust, and I had to pass through many ordeals before I could overcome it. Before I close this chapter of my double shame. I may mention that the poor mite that was born to my wife scarcely breathed for more than three or four days. Nothing else could be expected. Let all those who are married be warned by my example. 12GLIMPSES OF RELIGIONFrom my sixth or seventh year up to my sixteenth I was at school, being taught all sorts of things except religion.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He still lay with his hand on her breast. But she had drawn both her hands from him. His words were small comfort. She sobbed aloud. "Nay, nay," he said. "Ta'e the thick wi' th' thin. This wor' a bit o' thin for once." She wept bitterly, sobbing: "But I want to love you, and I can't. It only seems horrid." He laughed a little, half bitter, half amused. "It isna horrid," he said, "even if tha thinks it is. An' tha canna ma'e it horrid. Dunna fret thysen about lovin' me. Tha'lt niver force thysen to 't. There's sure to be a bad nut in a basketful. Tha mun ta'e th' rough wi' th' smooth." He took his hand away from her breast, not touching her. And now she was untouched she took an almost perverse satisfaction in it. She hated the dialect: the _thee_ and the _tha_ and the _thysen_. He could get up if he liked, and stand there above her buttoning down those absurd corduroy breeches, straight in front of her. After all, Michaelis had had the decency to turn away. This man was so assured in himself, he didn't know what a clown other people found him, a half-bred fellow. Yet, as he was drawing away, to rise silently and leave her, she clung to him in terror. "Don't! Don't go! Don't leave me! Don't be cross with me! Hold me! Hold me fast!" she whispered in blind frenzy, not even knowing what she said, and clinging to him with uncanny force. It was from herself she wanted to be saved, from her own inward anger and resistance. Yet how powerful was that inward resistance that possessed her! He took her in his arms again and drew her to him, and suddenly she became small in his arms, small and nestling. It was gone, the resistance was gone, and she began to melt in a marvellous peace. And as she melted small and wonderful in his arms, she became infinitely desirable to him, all his blood-vessels seemed to scald with intense yet tender desire, for her, for her softness, for the penetrating beauty of her in his arms, passing into his blood. And softly, with that marvellous swoon-like caress of his hand in pure soft desire, softly he stroked the silky slope of her loins, down, down between her soft warm buttocks, coming nearer and nearer to the very quick of her. And she felt him like a flame of desire, yet tender, and she felt herself melting in the flame. She let herself go. She felt his penis risen against her with silent amazing force and assertion, and she let herself go to him. She yielded with a quiver that was like death, she went all open to him. And oh, if he were not tender to her now, how cruel, for she was all open to him and helpless!

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Ted Bolton was twenty-eight when he was killed in an explosion down th' pit. The butty in front shouted to them all to lie down quick, there were four of them. And they all lay down in time, only Ted, and it killed him. Then at the enquiry, on the masters' side they said Ted had been frightened, and trying to run away, and not obeying orders, so it was like his fault really. So the compensation was only three hundred pounds, and they made out as if it was more of a gift than legal compensation, because it was really the man's own fault. And they wouldn't let her have the money down; she wanted to have a little shop. But they said she'd no doubt squander it, perhaps in drink!! So she had to draw it thirty shillings a week. Yes, she had to go every Monday morning down to the offices, and stand there a couple of hours waiting her turn; yes, for almost four years she went every Monday. And what could she do with two little children on her hands? But Ted's mother was very good to her. When the baby could toddle she'd keep both the children for the day, while she, Ivy Bolton, went to Sheffield, and attended classes in ambulance, and then the fourth year she even took a nursing course and got qualified. She was determined to be independent and keep her children. So she was assistant at Uthwaite hospital, just a little place, for a while. But when the Company, the Tevershall Colliery Company, really Sir Geoffrey, saw that she could get on by herself, they were very good to her, gave her the parish nursing, and stood by her, she would say that for them. And she'd done it ever since, till now it was getting a bit much for her, she needed something a bit lighter, there was such a lot of traipsing round if you were a district nurse. "Yes, the Company's been very good to _me_, I always say it. But I should never forget what they said about Ted, for he was as steady and fearless a chap as ever set foot on the cage, and it was as good as branding him a coward. But there, he was dead, and could say nothing to none of 'em."

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  the LDS Church for apostasy. “The church wanted to send a very public message to dissidents,” Quinn says. “Their goal was intimidation, to silence dissent.” Banishment from the church came as a harsh blow. “Even if you have all kinds of objections to church policies,” he explains, “when you’re a believing Mormon, to be excommunicated is like a form of death. It’s like attending your own funeral. You feel the loss of that sense of community. I miss it deeply.” Quinn’s standing in the LDS Church was not helped by the fact that in the mid-1980s he revealed that he is gay; the Mormon General Authorities continue to make the church a very difficult place for homosexuals. Despite Mormonism’s entrenched homophobia, and Quinn’s unsparing, clear-eyed assessment of Mormonism’s faults, his faith in the religion of Joseph Smith remains undiminished. “I’m a radical believer,” he says, “but I’m still a believer.” He seems to be one of those rare spiritual thinkers, as Annie Dillard puts it, who possess “a sort of anaerobic capacity to batten and thrive on paradox.” “At a very early age,” Quinn acknowledges, “I developed what I call ‘a complex testimony.’ Instead of a black/white view of Mormonism, I have an Old Testament sort of faith. The writers of the Old Testament presented the prophets as very human vessels, warts and all. Yet God still chose them to be His leaders on earth. That’s how I see Mormonism: It is not a perfect church. It has huge flaws, in both the institution and the people who lead it. They are only human. And I have no trouble accepting that. It’s all part of my faith. “On the very first page of The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith wrote that if it contained mistakes or faults, ‘it be the mistakes of men.’ And this same thing is stated in various ways throughout the text that follows—that errors in this sacred book are possible, even likely. I have always believed that Mormonism was the one true church, but I don’t think it has ever been infallible. And I certainly don’t believe it has a monopoly on the truth.” One of the events that led to Dr. Quinn’s excommunication was the publication,

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Do you know what to do if someone suffers from alcohol poisoning? Have you ever heard of people choking on their own insides? From this stuff right here? Can you imagine what that’s like, son? Elena dragged Wendy out into the corridor to give her the same dressing- down. A long, familiar disquisition. She had watched so many people in her family destroyed by this and she couldn’t watch it again. It was just too painful. Because of the way it ran in families, she or Paul could easily.... If you could have seen your grandmother.... Your uncle and his sadness and failures and all that suffering.... And don’t forget about your dad ... and mental illness, and death. Young lady. Death. —Are you listening to me? —All ears, Mom. The next act of parental justice, the meting out of corporal punishment, arose swiftly from the lecturing, like a flash flood or act of God. Wendy had a sense that the scale of punishment that morning was a little out of whack, but she didn’t know why at first. There was some adult thing going on that she didn’t yet understand. Where was Sandy’s mom, for example? Where was her dad? Then it began to register. She permitted herself to be led down the stairs as though to an execution. She permitted herself to be swallowed. Into the continuity of police logic. Pigs. And there was a history to corporal punishment among the Hoods. There was a locus for punishment. It started with Paul. Paul was often a sickly child, out most of his kindergarten year at East School, with various infections and ailments—a case of strep throat and double ear infection, measles, whooping cough. Paul howled in the earliest morning hours, calling into question his own short life, in shrill, desperate shrieks that kept his parents awake, cries that in their desolation seemed to reach into his mother’s heart and wrestle with her competence as a parent. This much was family lore. Elena had developed the habit, during this period, of taking Paul’s temperature anally—because of his throat problems. It was one of those lovely, glass thermometers that was immersed in a glass case full of alcohol, the sort that seemed to foretell good by its very seriousness and simplicity. This practice persisted, until Paul came to see his mother’s approach—the mysterious darkness into which she plunged her medical instrument—as the cure itself, bringing with it a legitimation of his distress. This practice carried over to Wendy Hood, who also came to appreciate these ministrations given in silence, given with the dispassionate, preoccupied air of a jeweler or orthodontist. In silence, wreathed in isopropyl incense, the thermometer would tickle her hidden pink aperture, and she would be cured. This, however, was not the only attention visited upon her ass in the Hood household.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I hold today the opinion as I held then. To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it s to protection by man from the cruelty of man. But he who has not qualified himself for such service is unable to afford to it any protection. I must go through more self-purification and sacrifice. before I can hope to save these lambs from this unholy sacrifice. Today I think I must die pining for this self-purifiacation and sacrifice. It is my constant prayer that there may be born on earth some great that there may be born on earth some great spirit, man or woman, fired with divine pity, who will deliver us from this heinous sin, save the lives of the innocent creatures, and purify the temple. How is it that Bengal with all its knowledge, intelligence, sacrifice, and emotion tolerates this slaughter? 75A MONTH WITH GOKHALE -- IIIThe terrible sacrifice offered to Kali in the name of religion enhanced my desire to know Bengali life. I had read and heard a good deal about the Brahmo Samaj. I knew something about the life of Pratap Chandra Mazumdar. I had attended some of the meetings addressed by him. I secured his life of Keshav Chandra Sen, read it with great interest, and understood the distinction between Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, and Adi Brahmo Samaj. I met Pandit Shivanath Shastri and in company with Prof. Kathavate went to see Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, but as no interviews with him were allowed then, we could not see him. We were, however, invited to a celebration of the Brahmo Samaj held at his place, and there we had the privilege of listening to fine Bengali music. Ever since I have been a lover of Bengali music. Having seen enough of the Brahmo Samaj, it was impossible to be satisfied without seeing Swami Vivekanand. So with great enthusiasm I went to Belur Math, mostly, or maybe all the way, on foot. I loved the sequestered site of the Math. I was disappointed and sorry to be told that the Swami was at his Calcutta house, lying ill, and could not be seen. I then ascertained the place of residence of Sister Nivedita, and met her in a Chowringhee mansion. I was taken aback by the splendour that surrounded her, and even in our conversation there was not much meeting ground. I spoke to Gokhale about this, and he said he did not wonder that there could be no point of contact between me and a volatile[1] person like her. I met her again at Mr. Pestonji Padshah’s place. I happened to come in just as she was talking to his old mother, and so I became an interpreter between the two.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Then, bending down over the cup, which she held fast, she said, looking upon the heart, 'Alack, sweetest harbourage of all my pleasures, accursed be his cruelty who maketh me now to see thee with the eyes of the body! Enough was it for me at all hours to behold thee with those of the mind. Thou hast finished thy course and hast acquitted thyself on such wise as was vouchsafed thee of fortune; thou art come to the end whereunto each runneth; thou hast left the toils and miseries of the world, and of thy very enemy thou hast that sepulchre which thy worth hath merited. There lacked nought to thee to make thy funeral rites complete save her tears whom in life thou so lovedst, the which that thou mightest have, God put it into the heart of my unnatural father to send thee to me and I will give them to thee, albeit I had purposed to die with dry eyes and visage undismayed of aught; and having given them to thee, I will without delay so do that my soul, thou working it,[221] shall rejoin that soul which thou erst so dearly guardedst. And in what company could I betake me more contentedly or with better assurance to the regions unknown than with it?[222] Certain am I that it abideth yet herewithin[223] and vieweth the seats of its delights and mine and as that which I am assured still loveth me, awaiteth my soul, whereof it is over all beloved.' [Footnote 221: _i.e._ thou being the means of bringing about the conjunction (_adoperandol tu_).] [Footnote 222: _i.e._ Guiscardo's soul.] [Footnote 223: _i.e._ in the heart.]

• From The Decameron (1353)

  "Many stories, delightsome ladies, apt to give beginning to so glad a day as this will be, offer themselves unto me to be related; whereof one is the most pleasing to my mind, for that thereby, beside the happy issue which is to mark this day's discourses, you may understand how holy, how puissant and how full of all good is the power of Love, which many, unknowing what they say, condemn and vilify with great unright; and this, an I err not, must needs be exceeding pleasing to you, for that I believe you all to be in love. There was, then, in the island of Cyprus, (as we have read aforetime in the ancient histories of the Cypriots,) a very noble gentleman, by name Aristippus, who was rich beyond any other of the country in all temporal things and might have held himself the happiest man alive, had not fortune made him woeful in one only thing, to wit, that amongst his other children he had a son who overpassed all the other youths of his age in stature and goodliness of body, but was a hopeless dullard and well nigh an idiot. His true name was Galesus, but for that neither by toil of teacher nor blandishment nor beating of his father nor study nor endeavour of whatsoever other had it been found possible to put into his head any inkling of letters or good breeding and that he had a rough voice and an uncouth and manners more befitting a beast than a man, he was of well nigh all by way of mockery called Cimon, which in their tongue signified as much as brute beast in ours. His father brooked his wastrel life with the most grievous concern and having presently given over all hope of him, he bade him begone to his country house[263] and there abide with his husbandmen, so he might not still have before him the cause of his chagrin; the which was very agreeable to Cimon, for that the manners and usages of clowns and churls were much more to his liking than those of the townsfolk. [Footnote 263: Or farm (_villa_).]

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  After a few months Erica began expressing her own ideas and opinions and deferred less to Derrin. Although he had complicated the teacher-student relationship by sexualizing it, she was nonetheless responding in her own best interests by growing stronger and more independent. She insisted on dating other guys and was offended when Derrin assumed he had a right to make demands on her. Soon the affair unraveled with plenty of hurt feelings all around. During the painful aftermath Derrin entered therapy. The teacher had unexpectedly become the student. Now he was being forced to face some chilling realities. To begin with, deep inside he felt just as vulnerable and alone as he had in high school, and those feelings could clearly not be resolved by professional successes, no matter how impressive. Beyond that, the role of dominance in which he found solace and excitement turned out to be almost purely defensive, perfected in isolation but unworkable in real life. Only with passive women who bored him, or within the safety of a superior social position, could he sustain the illusion of control. In either case an enduring connection was impossible. As he uncovered the pain at the core of his attractions, he realized the time had come to risk a new direction. Maggie and Derrin illustrate how few of us have as much say as we believe in choosing our attractions. We are magnetically pulled toward partners with whom we sense the opportunity to assuage a festering wound or to compensate for our incompleteness or inadequacy. Happily, sometimes that is exactly what happens. But such attractions, even as they hold out the hope of joyous solutions, also carry the possibility of drawing us backward toward repetition rather than forward toward growth. Only by recognizing this paradox can we embrace the adventure of attraction with our eyes as open as our hearts. LOVE-LUST CONFLICTSOne of the key challenges of erotic life is to develop a comfortable interaction between our lusty urges and our desire for an affectionate bond with a lover, a bond that combines tenderness and caring with passion. In the complex world of eroticism, few people can avoid being pulled in conflicting directions, at least at times, by their dual desires for emotional closeness and raw excitement. The situations and people that stimulate us sexually may be quite different from those that make us feel affectionate. Even so, most of us learn how to accommodate our competing urges and, when the time is right, to risk the glorious roller-coaster ride when love and lust converge.