Hope

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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

  but did not acquire the knack of finding out the Shakespeares walking up and down the streets of London. Lavator’s book did not add to my knowledge. Mr. Pincutt’s advice did me very little direct service, but his kindliness stood me in good stead. His smiling open face stayed in my memory, and I trusted his advice that Pherozeshah Mehta’s acumen, memory and ability were not essential to the making of a successful lawyer; honesty and industry were enough. And as I had a fair share of these last I felt somewhat reassured. I could not read Kaye and Malleson’s volumes in England, but I did so in South Africa as I had made a point of reading them at the first opportunity. Thus with just a little leaven of hope mixed with my despair, I landed at Bombay from S.S. Assam. The sea was rough in the harbour, and I had to reach the quay in a launch. PART III PART II 28. RAYCHANDBHAI I said in the last chapter that the sea was rough in Bombay harbour, not an unusual thing in the Arabian Sea in June and July. It had been choppy all the way from Aden. Almost every passenger was sick; I alone was in perfect form, staying on deck to see the stormy surge, and enjoying the splash of the waves. At breakfast there would be just one or two people besides myself, eating their oatmeal porridge from plates carefully held in their laps, lest the porridge itself find its place there. The outer storm was to me a symbol of the inner. But even as the former left me unperturbed, I think I can say the same thing about the latter. There was the trouble with the caste that was to confront me. I have already adverted to my helplessness in starting on my profession. And then, as I was a reformer. I was taxing myself as to how best to begin certain reforms. But there was even more in store for me than I knew. My elder brother had come to meet me at the dock. He had already made the acquaintance of Dr. Mehta and his elder brother and as Dr. Mehta insisted on putting me up at his house, we went there. Thus the acquaintance begun in England continued in India and ripened into a permanent friendship between the two families. I was pining to see my mother. 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

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

  their help by standing by them in their hour of need. Though the system was faulty, it did not seem to me to be intolerable, as it does today. But if, having lost my faith in the system, I refuse to co- operate with the British Government today, how could those friends then do so, having lost their faith not only in the system but in the officials as well? The opposing friends felt that was the hour for making a bold declaration of Indian demands and for improving the status of Indians. I thought that England’s need should not be turned into our opportunity, and that it was more becoming and far-sighted not to press our demands while the war lasted. I therefore adhered to my advice and invited those who would to enlist as volunteers. There was a good response, practically all the provinces and all the religions being represented among the volunteers. I wrote a letter to Lord Crewe, acquainting him with these facts, and expressing our readiness to be trained for ambulance work, if that should be considered a condition precedent to the acceptance of our offer. Lord Crewe accepted the offer after some hesitation, and thanked us for having tendered our services to the Empire at that critical hour. The volunteers began their preliminary training in first aid to the wounded under the well-known Dr.Cantlie. It was a short course of six weeks, but it covered the whole course of first aid. We were a class of about 80. In six weeks we were examined, and all except one passed. For these the Government now provided military drill and other training. Colonel Baker was placed in charge of this work. London in these days was a sight worth seeing. There was no panic, but all were busy helping to the best of their ability. Able-bodied adults began training as combatants, but what were the old, the infirm and the women to do? There was enough work for them, if they wanted. So they employed themselves in cutting and making clothes and dressings for the wounded. The Lyceum, a ladies’ club, undertook to make as many clothes for the soldiers as they could. Shrimati Sarojini Naidu was a member of this club, and threw herself whole-heartedly into the work. This was my first acquaintance with her. She placed before me a heap of clothes which had been cut to pattern, and asked me to get them all sewn up and return them to her. I welcomed her demand and with the assistance of friends got as many clothes made as I could manage during my training for first aid. 118.

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

  idea of numbers as the Subjects Committee was, it would have liked to go even beyond the figure of six thousand. The limit of six thousand was therefore in the nature of a compromise. The question of the goal of the Congress formed a subject for keen discussion. In the constitution that I had presented, the goal of the Congress was the attainment of Swaraj within the British Empire if possible and without if necessary. A party in the Congress wanted to limit the goal to Swaraj within the British Empire only. Its view- point was put forth by Pandit Malaviyaji and Mr. Jinnah. But they were not able to get many votes. Again the draft constitution provided that the means for the attainment were to be peaceful and legitimate. This condition too came in for opposition, it being contended that there should be no restriction upon the means to be adopted. But the Congress adopted the original draft after an instructive and frank discussion. I am of opinion that, if this constitution had been worked out by the people honestly, intelligently and zealously, it would have become a potent instrument of mass education, and the very process of working it out would have brought us Swaraj. But a discussion of the theme would be irrelevant here. Resolutions about Hindu-Muslim unity, the removal of untouchability and Khadi too were passed in this Congress, and since then the Hindu members of the Congress have taken upon themselves the responsibility of ridding Hinduism of the curse of untouchability, and the Congress has established a living bond of relationship with the ‘skeletons’ of India through Khadi. The adoption of non-co-operation for the sake of the Khilafat was itself a great practical attempt made by the Congress to bring about Hindu- Muslim unity. 170.

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

  FOUNDING OF THE ASHRAM The pilgrimage to the Kumbha fair was my second visit to Hardvar. The Satyagraha Ashram was founded on the 25th of May, 1915. Sharddhanandji wanted me to settle in Hardvar. Some of my Calcutta friends recommended Vaidyanathadham. Others strongly urged me to choose Rajkot. But when I happened to pass through Ahmedabad, many friends pressed me to settle down there, and they volunteered to find the expenses of the Ashram, as well as a house for us to live in. I had a predilection for Ahmedabad. Being a Gujarati I thought I should be able to render the greatest service to the country through the Gujarati language. And then, as Ahmedabad was an ancient centre of handloom weaving, it was likely to be the most favourable field for the revival of the cottage industry of hand- spinning. There was also the hope that, the city being the capital of Gujarat, monetary help from its wealthy citizens would be more available here than elsewhere. The question of untouchability was naturally among the subjects discussed with the Ahmedabad friends. I made it clear to them that I should take the first opportunity of admitting an untouchable candidate to the Ashram if he was otherwise worthy. ‘Where is the untouchable who satisfy your condition?’ said a vaishnava friend self-complacently. I finally decided to found the Ashram at Ahmedabad. So far as accommodation was concerned, Sjt. Jivanlal Desai, a barrister in Ahmedabad, was the principal man to help me. He offered to let, and we decided to hire, his Kochrab bungalow.

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

  I won the case and gained some confidence. I had no fear about the appeals, which were successful. All this inspired a hope in me that after all I might not fail even in Bombay. But before I set forth the circumstances in which I decided to go to Bombay, I shall narrate my experience of the inconsiderateness and ignorance of English officials. The Judicial Assistant’s court was peripatetic. He was constantly touring, and vakils and their clients had to follow him wherever he moved his camp. The vakils would charge more whenever they had to go out of headquarters, and so the clients had naturally to incur double the expenses. The inconvenience was no concern of the judge. The appeal of which I am talking was to be heard at Veraval where plague was raging. I have a recollection that there were as many as fifty cases daily in the place with a population of 5,500. It was practically deserted, and I put up in a deserted #dharmashala# at some distance from the town. But where the clients to stay? If they were poor, they had simply to trust themselves to God’s mercy. A friend who also had cases before the court had wired that I should put in an application for the camp to be moved to some other station because of the plague at Veraval. On my submitting the application, the sahib asked me. ‘Are you afraid?’ I answered: It is not a question of my being afraid. I think I can shift for myself, but what about the clients?’ ‘The plague has come to stay in India,’ replied the sahib. ‘Why dear it? The climate of Veraval is lovely. [The sahib lived far away from the town in a palatial tent pitched on the seashore.] Surely people must learn to live thus in the open.’

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

  spite of the criticism I feel that I have no reason to revise it or to regret my co- operation with the Muslims. I should adopt the same attitude, should a similar occasion arise. When, therefore, I went to Delhi, I had fully intended to submit the MUslim case to the Viceroy. The Khilafat question had not then assumed the shape it did subsequently. But on my reaching Delhi another difficulty in the way of my attending the conference arose. Dinabandhu Andrews raised a question about the morality of my participation in the war conference. He told me of the controversy in the British press regarding secret treaties between England and Italy. How could I participate in the conference, if England had entered into secret treaties with another European power? asked Mr. Andrews. I knew nothing of the treaties. Dinabandhu Andrews’ word was enough for me. I therefore addressed a letter to Lord Chelmsford explaining my hesitation to take part in the conference. He invited me to discuss the question with him. I had a prolonged discussion with him and his Private Secretary Mr. Maffey. As a result I agreed to take part in the conference. This was in effect the Viceroy’s argument: ‘Surely you do not believe that the Viceroy knows everything done by the British Cabinet. I do not claim, no one claims, that the British Government is infallible. But if you agree that the Empire has been, on the whole, a power for good, if you believe that India has, on the whole, benefited by the British connection, would you not admit that it is the duty of every Indian citizen to help the Empire in the hour of its need? I too have read what the British papers say about the secret treaties. I can assure you that I know nothing beyond what the papers say, and you know the canards that these papers frequently start, Can you, acting on a mere newpapers report, refuse help to the Empire at such a critical juncture? You may raise whatever moral issues you like and challenge us as much as you please after the conclusion of the war, not today.’ The argument was not new. It appealed to me as new because of the manner in which, and the hour at which, it was presented, and I agreed to attend the conference. As regards the Muslim demands I was to address a letter to the Viceroy. 153.

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

  The Times of Inida, in a leading article on the petition, strongly supported the Indian demands. Copies were sent to journals and publicists in England representing different parties. The London Times supported our claims, and we began to entertain hopes of the Bill being vetoed. It was now impossible for me to leave Natal. The Indian friends surrounded me on all sides and importuned me to remain there permanently. I expressed my difficulties. I had made up my mind not to stay at public expense. I felt it necessary to set up an independent household. I thought that the house should be good and situated in a good locality of the community, unless I lived in a style usual for barristers. And it seemed to me to be impossible to run such a household with anything less than 300 a year. I therefore decided that I could stay only if the members of the community guaranteed legal work to the extent of that minimum, and I communicated my decision to them. ‘But,’ said they, ‘we should like you to draw that amount for public work, and we can easily collect it. Of course this is apart from the fees you must charge for private legal work.’ ‘No, I could not thus charge you for public work,’ said I. ‘The work would not involve the exercise on my part of much skill as barrister. My work would be mainly to make you all work. And how could I charge you for that? And then I should have to appeal to you frequently for funds for the work, and if I were to draw my maintenance from you, I should find myself at a disadvantage in making an appeal for large amounts, and we should ultimately find ourselves at a standstill. Besides I want the community to find more than 300 annually for public work.’ ‘But we have now known you for some time, and are sure you would not draw

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

  the Natal Indians but of all the Indians in South Africa. The breach of faith with the late Mr. Gokhale became the occasion of the final campaign, in which the indentured Indians took their full share, some of them losing their lives as a result of the firing that was resorted to, and over ten thousand suffering imprisonment. But truth triumphed in the end. The sufferings of the Indians were the expression of that truth. Yet it would not have triumphed except for unflinching faith, great patience and incessant effort. Had the community given up the struggle, had the Congress abandoned the campaign and submitted to the tax as inevitable, the hated impost would have continued to be levied from the indentured Indians until this day, to the eternal shame of the Indians in South Africa and of the whole of India. 49. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGIONS If I found myself entirely absorbed in the service of the community, the reason behind it was my desire for self-realization. I had made the religion of service my own, as I felt that God could be realized only through service. And service for me was the service of India, because it came to me without my seeking, because I had an aptitude for it. I had gone to South Africa for travel, for finding an escape from Kathiawas intrigues and for gaining my own livelihood. But as I have said, I found myself in search of God and striving for self- realization. Christian friends had whetted my appetite for knowledge, which had become almost insatiable, and they would not leave me in peace, even if I desired to be indifferent. In Durban Mr. Spencer Walton, the head of the South Africa General Mission, found me out. I became almost a member of his family. At the back of this acquaintance was of course my contact with Christians in Pretoria. Mr. Walton had a manner all his own. I do not recollect his ever having invited me to embrace Christianity. But he placed his life as an open book before me, and let me watch all his movements. Mrs. Walton was a very gentle and talented woman. I liked the attitude of this couple. We knew the fundamental differences between us. Any amount of discussion could not efface them. Yet even differences prove helpful, where there are tolerance, charity and truth. I liked Mr. and Mrs. Walton’s humility, perseverance and devotion to work, and we met very frequently. This friendship kept alive my interest in religion. It was impossible now to get the leisure that I used to have in Pretoria for my religious studies. But what little time I could spare I turned to good account. My religious correspondence continued. Raychandbhai was guiding me. Some friend sent me

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

  early as the Government can see its way to accept my offer, which I am submitting simultaneously herewith in a separate letter. ‘I recognize that in the hour of its danger we must give, as we have decided to give, ungrudging and unequivocal support to the Empire of which we aspire in the near future to be partners in the same sense as the Dominions overseas. But it is the simple truth that our response is due to the expectation that our goal will be reached all the more speedily. On that account, even as performance of duty automatically confers a corresponding right, people are entitled to believe that the imminent reforms alluded to in your speech will embody the main general principles of the Congress- League Scheme, and I am sure that it is this faith which has enabied many members of the Conference to tender to the Government their full-hearted co- operation. ‘If I could make my countrymen retrace their steps. I would make them withdraw all the Congress resolutions, and not whisper “Home Rule” or “Responsible Government” during the pendency of the War. I would make India offer all her able-bodied sons as a sacrifice to the Empire at its critical moment, and I know that India, by this very act, would become the most favoured partner in the Empire, and racial distinctions would become a thing of the past. But practically the whole of educated India has decided to take a less effective course, and it is no longer possible to say that educated India does not exercise any influence on the masses. I have been coming into most intimate touch with the ryots ever since my return from South Africa to India, and I wish to assure you that the desire for Home Rule has widely penetrated them. I was present at the session that full Responsible Government should be granted to British India within a period to be fixed definitely by a parliamentary Statute. I admit that it is a bold step to take, but I feel sure that nothing less than a definite vision of Home Rule to be realized in the shortest possible time will satisfy the Indian

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Its continued existence and popularity alone prove that. It also demonstrates that activism and grassroots community organizing really do work. That seems like a message worth passing on to a whole new generation of radical sex perverts who might otherwise sum up the vast amount of work that remains to be done, and perhaps give up, get burnt-out, go on anti-depressants with icky side effects like a total loss of libido, or at least have an extremely cranky weekend. I’ll yield to my roots in the early 1970s, with its dictum that “The personal is political,” and start with some autobiographical stuff that contributes to the uniqueness of Macho Sluts and the rest of the dozen or so books I’ve published critiquing received notions of what terms like “pain,” “pleasure,” “man,” “woman,” and “justice” mean. The manuscript for Macho Sluts was assembled during the last few years of my stay (or should I say exile?) in New York City. I had moved there from San Francisco after my community and a long-term relationship fell apart. All of the gay men I’d befriended were getting sick and many had already died in what was to become the AIDS epidemic. Yes, there was a very sexy woman/boy involved who drew me to the East Coast. But once that insanely passionate affair was over, I never put down roots there. The fast-moving city was fascinating, challenging, and amazing, but I came to realize that the Bay Area was always going to be my sexual and spiritual home. I had already been through quite a bit of the Feminist Sex Wars. I’d founded a lesbian-feminist S/M support group called Samois, named after the estate of the lesbian dominatrix in the Story of O . You had to be persistent and widely-read to find any reference to BDSM between women in the late 1970s. The Story of O was one of the few classics that everybody knew about. Samois was a high-maintenance group. My lover and I built close ties to the gay men’s leather community and other friends who were bisexual women or straight players. We also had transsexual women friends. This was important to us because we wanted to know about the whole community, not just one corner of it. We saw ourselves as sex radicals who analyzed and opposed all of the ways that the larger society tried to repress Eros. That meant that we wanted more freedom for sex workers, gay men and lesbians, bisexual people, transsexuals, young people, swingers (as they were then called), etc. This broad agenda was not shared by very many feminists then, and I’m not sure it is today. Many of the women who came to Samois were separatists. The only places we could find to meet were in our own homes. The local Women’s Center refused to rent a room to us.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie expostulated roundly, and was angry with both of them. The upshot was, Sir Clifford raised Mrs. Bolton's wages a hundred a year, and she could gamble on that. Meanwhile it seemed to Connie, Clifford was really going deader. She told him at length she was leaving on the seventeenth. "Seventeenth!" he said. "And when will you be back?" "By the twentieth of July at the latest." "Yes! the twentieth of July." Strangely and blankly he looked at her, with the vagueness of a child, but with the queer blank cunning of an old man. "You won't let me down, now, will you?" he said. "How?" "While you're away. I mean, you're sure to come back?" "I'm as sure as I can be of anything, that I shall come back." "Yes! Well! Twentieth of July!" He looked at her so strangely. Yet he really wanted her to go. That was so curious. He wanted her to go, positively, to have her little adventures and perhaps come home pregnant, and all that. At the same time, he was afraid of her going. She was quivering, watching her real opportunity for leaving him altogether, waiting till the time, herself, himself, should be ripe. She sat and talked to the keeper of her going abroad. "And then when I come back," she said, "I can tell Clifford I must leave him. And you and I can go away. They never need even know it is you. We can go to another country, shall we? To Africa or Australia. Shall we?" She was quite thrilled by her plan. "You've never been to the Colonies, have you?" he asked her. "No! Have you?" "I've been in India, and South Africa, and Egypt." "Why shouldn't we go to South Africa?" "We might!" he said slowly. "Or don't you want to?" she asked. "I don't care. I don't much care what I do." "Doesn't it make you happy? Why not? We shan't be poor. I have about six hundred a year, I wrote and asked. It's not much, but it's enough, isn't it?" "It's riches to me." "Oh, how lovely it will be!" "But I ought to get divorced, and so ought you, unless we're going to have complications." There was plenty to think about. Another day she asked him about himself. They were in the hut, and there was a thunderstorm. "And weren't you happy when you were a lieutenant and an officer and a gentleman?" "Happy? All right. I liked my Colonel." "Did you love him?" "Yes! I loved him." "And did he love you?" "Yes! In a way, he loved me." "Tell me about him."

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

  The Epistle to the Galatians (Gauls, originally from the borders of the Rhine and Moselle, who had migrated to Asia Minor) was written after Paul’s second visit to them, either during his long residence in Ephesus (A.D. 54–57), or shortly afterwards on his second journey to Corinth, possibly from Corinth, certainly before the Epistle to the Romans. It was occasioned by the machinations of the Judaizing teachers who undermined his apostolic authority and misled his converts into an apostasy from the gospel of free grace to a false gospel of legal bondage, requiring circumcision as a condition of justification and full membership of the church. It is an "Apologia pro vita sua," a personal and doctrinal self-vindication. He defends his independent apostleship (Gal.1:1–2:14), and his teaching (2:15–4:31), and closes with exhortations to hold fast to Christian freedom without abusing it, and to show the fruits of faith by holy living (Gal. 5–6). The Epistle reveals, in clear, strong colors, both the difference and the harmony among the Jewish and Gentile apostles—a difference ignored by the old orthodoxy, which sees only the harmony, and exaggerated by modern scepticism, which sees only the difference. It anticipates, in grand fundamental outlines, a conflict which is renewed from time to time in the history of different churches, and, on the largest scale, in the conflict between Petrine Romanism and Pauline Protestantism. The temporary collision of the two leading apostles in Antioch is typical of the battle of the Reformation. At the same time Galatians is an Irenicon and sounds the key-note of a final adjustment of all doctrinal and ritualistic controversies. "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love" (5:6). "And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God" (6:16). Central Idea: Evangelical freedom. Key-Words: For freedom Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage (5:1). A man is not justified by works of the law, but only through faith in Jesus Christ (2:16). I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live but Christ liveth in me (2:20). Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (3:13). Ye were called for freedom, only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another (5:13). Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh (5:16). § 92. The Epistle to the Romans. On the church in Rome, see § 36 (pp. 360 sqq.); on the theology of the Ep. to the Rom., § 71 (pp. 525 sqq.).

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Despite feeling like a fish out of water when he left his hometown and set up residence in the larger world, DeLoy says, “I loved college. Looking back, I suppose it was the beginning of the end for me. I stayed in the religion for another twenty years, but going to college in Cedar City was when I had my eyes opened. That’s where I took my first geology course. Afterward I came home and told Uncle Roy, ‘There’s a professor over there trying to tell us the earth is four and a half billion years old, but the religion says its only six thousand years old. How can that be?’ Which shows you why education is such a problem for the Work. You take someone like me, who was always as stalwart as could be, and then you ship him off to get an education and the guy goes and apostatizes on you. Happens over and over again. And every time it does, it makes the leaders more inclined to keep people from learning.” When DeLoy finally lost his faith and left the UEP, his three oldest kids were married and no longer living at home. These three children have remained in the religion, but he has worked hard to teach the other fourteen kids to think for themselves and to question what the UEP has inculcated. “Sometimes I worry about what would become of the little ones,” DeLoy muses, “if something happened to me and the wife—if we died. My older children would take the younger kids into their homes and look after them, but they’d be brought right back into the religion. I think those kids would be happy with that—they’d probably never know the difference. But they’d be stunted. They’d never get to exercise their imaginations.” To help prepare his children for this possibility, and to instill in them a healthy skepticism about religious dogma of all kinds, on December 31, 1999, DeLoy and Eunice loaded their entire brood into two vans (whenever the Bateman family travels anywhere together, at least two large vehicles are required to transport everyone) and made the three-hour drive to Las Vegas in order to ring in the new millennium. “We took ’em all down to the center of the Las Vegas Strip,” he explains, “which is supposedly one of the wickedest places on earth, and the first place God was going to destroy when the clock struck midnight. We went to the New York–New York Casino, and stood outside in the street there with thousands and thousands of other people as the ball dropped and they counted down the seconds to the year 2000. And you know what? The millennium came, and the world didn’t end. I think that made quite an impression on the kids.” DeLoy

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  In September 1828, however, after much praying and contrition on Joseph’s part, Moroni returned the plates, and the translation resumed, initially with Emma Smith serving as scribe (later others shared this duty, as well). * But the angel hadn’t returned the spectacles along with the plates this time around, so to decipher the Egyptian characters Joseph relied instead on his favorite peep stone: a chocolate-colored, egg-shaped rock that he had discovered twenty-four feet underground, in the company of Sally Chase’s father, while digging a well in 1822. Day after day, utilizing the technique he had learned from Sally, Joseph would place the magic rock in an upturned hat, bury his face in it with the stack of gold plates sitting nearby, and dictate the lines of scripture that appeared to him out of the blackness. He worked at a feverish pace during this second phase of the translation, averaging some thirty-five hundred words a day, and by the end of June 1829 the job was finished. Joseph took the manuscript to the publisher of the local newspaper, the Palmyra-based Wayne Sentinel, and asked him to print and bind five thousand copies of the book—an uncommonly large printing for a self-published volume by an unknown figure, which indicates that Joseph had giddy expectations for how it would be received by the public. He intended to charge $1.25 per copy— not an exorbitant price, by any means, but still about twice as much as most local wage earners made in a day. The skeptical publisher demanded $3,000 in advance to print the books, much more cash than Joseph could lay his hands on. As was his wont when confronted with an apparently insurmountable hurdle, he sought divine guidance. God announced, in reply, that it was His divine wish that Martin Harris—Joseph’s acolyte and scribe—pay the printer’s bill. Speaking through Joseph, God told Harris: I command thee that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing. . . . And misery thou shalt receive, if thou wilt slight these counsels; yea, even the destruction of thyself and property. . . . Pay the printer’s debt!

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

  cursing the Government now feels that it, and not the Government, is the power when it is prepared to suffer for the truth it represents. It is, therefore, losing its bitterness and is saying to itself that the Government must be a Government for people, for it tolerates orderly and respectful disobedience where injustice is felt. Thus Champaran and Kheda affairs are my direct, definite and special contribution to the War. Ask me to suspend my activities in that direction and you ask me to suspend my life. If I could popularize the use of soul-force, which is but another name for love-force, in place of brute force, I know that I could present you with an India that could defy the whole world to do its worst. In season and out of season, therefore, I shall discipline myself to express in my life this eternal law of suffering, and present it for acceptance to those who care, and if I take part in any other activity, the motive is to show the matchless superiority of that law. ‘Lastly, I would like you to ask His Majesty’s Ministers to give definite assurance about Mohammedan States. I am sure you know that every Mohammedan is deeply interested in them. As a Hindu. I cannot be indifferent to their cause. Their sorrows must be our sorrows. In the most scrupulous regard for the rights of those States and for the Muslim sentiment as to their places of workship, and your just and timely treatment of India’s claim to Home Rule lies the safety of the Empire. I write this, because I love the English nation, and I wish to evoke in every Indian the loyalty of Englishmen.’ 154.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  It was a blowy day soon after Hilda had gone, that Mrs. Bolton said: "Now why don't you go for a walk through the wood, and look at the daffs behind the keeper's cottage? They're the prettiest sight you'd see in a day's march. And you could put some in your room, wild daffs are always so cheerful-looking, aren't they?" Connie took it in good part, even daffs for daffodils. Wild daffodils! After all, one should not stew in one's own juice. The Spring came back.... "Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn." And the keeper, his thin, white body, like a lonely pistil of an invisible flower! She had forgotten him in her unspeakable depression. But now something roused.... "Pale beyond porch and portal" ... the thing to do was to pass the porches and the portals. She was stronger, she could walk better, and in the wood the wind would not be so tiring as it was across the park, flattening against her. She wanted to forget, to forget the world, and all the dreadful, carrion-bodied people. "Ye must be born again! I believe in the resurrection of the body! Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it shall by no means bring forth. When the crocus cometh forth I too will emerge and see the sun!" In the wind of March endless phrases swept through her consciousness. Little gusts of sunshine blew, strangely bright, and lit up the celandines at the wood's edge, under the hazelrods, they spangled out bright and yellow. And the wood was still, stiller, but yet gusty with crossing sun. The first windflowers were out, and all the wood seemed pale with the pallor of endless little anemones, sprinkling the shaken floor. "The world has grown pale with thy breath." But it was the breath of Persephone, this time; she was out of hell on a cold morning. Cold breaths of wind came, and overhead there was an anger of entangled wind caught among the twigs. It, too, was caught and trying to tear itself free, the wind, like Absalom. How cold the anemones looked, bobbing their naked white shoulders over crinoline skirts of green. But they stood it. A few first bleached little primroses too, by the path, and yellow buds unfolding themselves. The roaring and swaying was overhead, only cold currents came down below. Connie was strangely excited in the wood, and the colour flew in her cheeks, and burned blue in her eyes. She walked ploddingly, picking a few primroses and the first violets, that smelled sweet and cold, sweet and cold. And she drifted on without knowing where she was.

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

  ‘THE ONION THIEF’ Champaran being in a far away corner of India, and the press having been kept out of the campaign, it did not attract visitors from outside. Not so with the Kheda campaign, of which the happenings were reported in the press from day to day. The Gujaratis were deeply interested in the fight, which was to them a novel experiment. They were ready to pour forth their riches for the success of the cause. It was not easy for them to see that Satyagraha could not be conducted simply by means of money. Money is the thing that it least needs. In spite of my remonstrance, the Bombay merchants sent us more money than necessary, so that we had some balance left at the end of the campaign. At the same time the Satyagrahi volunteers had to learn the new lesson of simplicity. I cannot say that they imbibed it fully, but they considerably changed their ways of life. For the Patidar farmers, too, the fight was quite a new thing. We had, therefore, to go about from village to village explaining the principles of the Satyagraha. The main thing was to rid the agriculturists of their fear by making them realize that the officials were not the masters but the servants of the people, inasmuch as they received their salaries from the taxpayer. And then it seemed well nigh impossible to make them realize the duty of combining civility with fearlessness. Once they had shed the fear of the officials, how could they be stopped from returning their insults? And yet if they resorted to incivility it would spoil their Satyagraha, like a drop of arsenic in milk. I realized later that they had less fully learnt the lesson of civility than I had expected. Experience has taught me that

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

  The first thing we had to settle was the name of the Ashram. I consulted friends. Amongst the names suggested were ‘Sevashram’ (the abode of service), ‘Tapovan’ (the abode of austrities), etc. I liked the name ‘Sevashram’ but for the absence of emphasis on the method of service. ‘Tapovan’ seemed to be a pretentious title, because though tapas was dear to us we would not presume to be tapasvins (men of austerity). Our creed was devotion to truth, and our business was the search for and insistence on truth. I wanted to acquaint India with the method I had tried in South Africa, and I desired to test in India the extent to which its application might be possible. So my companions and I selected the name ‘Satyagraha Ashram,’ as conveying both goal and our method of service. For the conduct of the Ashram a code of rules and observances was necessary. A draft was therefore prepared, and friends were invited to express their opinions on it. Amongst the many opinions that were received, that of Sir Gurudas Banerji is still in my memory. He liked the rules, but suggested that humility should be added as one of the observances, as he believed that the younger generation sadly lacked humility. Though I noticed this fault, I feared humility would cease to be humility the moment it became a matter of vow. The true connotation of humility is self- effacement. Self-effacement is moksha (salvation), and whilst it cannot, by itself, be an observance, there may be other observances necessary for its attainment. If the acts of an aspirant after moksha or a servant have no humility or selflessness about them, there is no longing for moksha or service. Service without humility is selfishness and egotism. There were at this time about thirteen Tamilians in our party. Five Tamil youngsters had accompanied me from South Africa, and the rest came from different parts of the country. We were in all about twenty- five men and women. This is how the Ashram started. All had their meals in a common kitchen and strove to live as one family. 136.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As I have heard tell, gracious ladies, there was once in Paris a great merchant and a very loyal and upright man, whose name was Jehannot de Chevigné and who was of great traffic in silks and stuffs. He had particular friendship for a very rich Jew called Abraham, who was also a merchant and a very honest and trusty man, and seeing the latter's worth and loyalty, it began to irk him sore that the soul of so worthy and discreet and good a man should go to perdition for default of faith; wherefore he fell to beseeching him on friendly wise leave the errors of the Jewish faith and turn to the Christian verity, which he might see still wax and prosper, as being holy and good, whereas his own faith, on the contrary, was manifestly on the wane and dwindling to nought. The Jew made answer that he held no faith holy or good save only the Jewish, that in this latter he was born and therein meant to live and die, nor should aught ever make him remove therefrom. Jehannot for all that desisted not from him, but some days after returned to the attack with similar words, showing him, on rude enough wise (for that merchants for the most part can no better), for what reasons our religion is better than the Jewish; and albeit the Jew was a past master in their law, nevertheless, whether it was the great friendship he bore Jehannot that moved him or peradventure words wrought it that the Holy Ghost put into the good simple man's mouth, the latter's arguments began greatly to please him; but yet, persisting in his own belief, he would not suffer himself to be converted. Like as he abode obstinate, even so Jehannot never gave over importuning him, till at last the Jew, overcome by such continual insistence, said, 'Look you, Jehannot, thou wouldst have me become a Christian and I am disposed to do it; insomuch, indeed, that I mean, in the first place, to go to Rome and there see him who, thou sayest, is God's Vicar upon earth and consider his manners and fashions and likewise those of his chief brethren.[43] If these appear to me such that I may, by them, as well as by your words, apprehend that your faith is better than mine, even as thou hast studied to show me, I will do as I have said; and if it be not so, I will remain a Jew as I am.' [Footnote 43: Lit. cardinal brethren (_fratelli cardinali_).]

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I want to create a state of suspended disbelief that allows you to occupy bodies and desires that may be quite foreign to your own. And along the way, I want to sow some interesting seeds of new thoughts about our bodies, why we want the things that we do, what the line is between the permissible and the forbidden, and why the hell we don’t all have better sex lives. If Macho Sluts motivates you to buy a new toy, look for a new trick, or find more pleasure in the equipment and people you already know how to handle, I am satisfied … at least for today. I’ve kept the tranny controversy for the end of this foreword because I believe that any work of literature should stand on its own merits. This book deserves to be judged for its content rather than the shifts in identity that its author has undergone. All I ask is that you give it a chance, despite any reservations you might have, to see if its varied contents don’t spark your libido and make you think. After that, you can read what follows about how Pat Califia became Patrick Califia, and what effect that’s had on the work I produced when I identified, first as a lesbian, and then as a bisexual, woman. Many of my lesbian readers were angry and upset when I decided in my late forties to start taking testosterone and investigate transitioning from female to male. A lot of those women have stopped reading my books, so they may never see this response. Still, I think it’s important to reply, partly because I still believe in the transformative power of dialogue. As long as people keep talking to each other, some hope exists of coming to a better understanding of one another and some possibility of coexistence and political alliance. I don’t believe that lesbians and FTMs (female-to-male transgendered people, for those of you who have been living under a rock without a copy of Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaws ) are automatic enemies or even mutually exclusive communities. At the very least, we are neighbors, and no good comes of having one sexual/gender minority be at another’s throats. There are too many people who hate all of us, who would gladly see all of us burned to a crisp—the kind of bigots who give straight people a bad name. Many people know they are different in some important ways and wrestle with the question of who they are and where they belong. If I can do anything to make this a less agonizing process, I should.