Joy

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 Collected Essays (1998)

  Nothing that has happened to me since equals the power and the glory that I sometimes felt when, in the middle of a sermon, I knew that I was somehow, by some miracle, really carryi ng, as they said, "the Word"-when the church and I were one. Their pain and their joy were mine, and mine were their s-they sur rendered their pain and joy to me, I surrendered mine to them-and their cries of "Amen!" and "Hallelujah !" and "Yes, Lord!" and "Praise His name!" and "Preach it, brother!" sustained and whipped on my solos until we all be came equal, wringing wet, singing and dancing, in anguish and rejoicing, at the f(>ot of the altar. It was, for a long time, in spite of�>r, not inconceivably, because of--the shabbiness of my motives, my only sustenance, my meat and drink. I rushed home from school, to the church, to the altar, to be alone there, to commune with Jesus, my dearest friend, who would never fail me, who knew all the secrets of my heart. Perhaps He did, but I didn't, and the bargain we struck, ac tually, down there at the foot of the cross, was that He would never let me find out. He failed His bargain. He was a much better Man than I took Him for. It happened, as things do, imperceptibly, in DOWN AT THE CROSS many ways at once. I date it-the slow crumbling of my faith , the pulverization of my fortress- from the time , about a year after I had begun to preach, when I began to read again. I ju stified this desire by the fact that I was still in school, and I began, fatally, with Dostoevski . By this time, I was in a high school that was predominantly Jewish. This meant that I was surrounded by people who were, by definition, beyond any hope of salvation, who laughed at the tracts and leaflets I brought to school, and who pointed out that the Gospels had been written long after the death of Christ. This might not have been so distressing if it had not forced me to read the tracts and leaflets myself, for they were indeed, unless one believed their message already, impossible to believe. I re member feeling dimly that there was a kind of blackmail in it. People, I felt, ought to love the Lord because they loved Him, and not because they were afraid of going to Hell. I was forced, reluctantly, to realize that the Bible itself had been written by men, and translated by men out of languages I could not read, and I was already, without quite admitting it to myself, terribly involved with the effort of putting words on paper.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  I answer that, As stated above [3724](A[2]), a thing may belong to the contemplative life in two ways: principally, and secondarily, or dispositively. That which belongs principally to the contemplative life is the contemplation of the divine truth, because this contemplation is the end of the whole human life. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. i, 8) that “the contemplation of God is promised us as being the goal of all our actions and the everlasting perfection of our joys.” This contemplation will be perfect in the life to come, when we shall see God face to face, wherefore it will make us perfectly happy: whereas now the contemplation of the divine truth is competent to us imperfectly, namely “through a glass” and “in a dark manner” (1 Cor. 13:12). Hence it bestows on us a certain inchoate beatitude, which begins now and will be continued in the life to come; wherefore the Philosopher (Ethic. x, 7) places man’s ultimate happiness in the contemplation of the supreme intelligible good. Since, however, God’s effects show us the way to the contemplation of God Himself, according to Rom. 1:20, “The invisible things of God . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,” it follows that the contemplation of the divine effects also belongs to the contemplative life, inasmuch as man is guided thereby to the knowledge of God. Hence Augustine says (De Vera Relig. xxix) that “in the study of creatures we must not exercise an empty and futile curiosity, but should make them the stepping-stone to things unperishable and everlasting.” Accordingly it is clear from what has been said ([3725]AA[1],2,3) that four things pertain, in a certain order, to the contemplative life; first, the moral virtues; secondly, other acts exclusive of contemplation; thirdly, contemplation of the divine effects; fourthly, the complement of all which is the contemplation of the divine truth itself. Reply to Objection 1: David sought the knowledge of God’s works, so that he might be led by them to God; wherefore he says elsewhere (Ps. 142:5,6): “I meditated on all Thy works: I meditated upon the works of Thy hands: I stretched forth my hands to Thee.” Reply to Objection 2: By considering the divine judgments man is guided to the consideration of the divine justice; and by considering the divine benefits and promises, man is led to the knowledge of God’s mercy or goodness, as by effects already manifested or yet to be vouchsafed.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. But was He then angry with the rest, and moved by kindness only to one? By no means. For they are in safety, the right hand of the Most Mighty being their defence. It behoved Him rather to pity the perishing, that the remaining number might not seem imperfect. For the one being brought back, the hundred regains its own proper form. AUGUSTINE. (de Quæst. Ev. lib. 2. qu. 32.) Or He spoke of those ninety and nine whom He left in the wilderness, signifying the proud, who bear solitude as it were in their mind, in that they wish to appear themselves alone, to whom unity is wanting for perfection. For when a man is torn from unity, it is by pride; since desiring to be his own master, he follows not that One which is God, but to that One God ordains all who are reconciled by repentance, which is obtained by humility. GREGORY OF NYSSA. (Hom. de Mul. Pecc.) But when the shepherd had found the sheep, he did not punish it, he did not get it to the flock by driving it, but by placing it upon his shoulder, and carrying it gently, he united it to his flock. Hence it follows, And when he hath found it, he layeth it upon his shoulders rejoicing. GREGORY. (in Hom. 34.) He placed the sheep upon his shoulders, for taking man’s nature upon Him he bore our sins. But having found the sheep, he returns home; for our Shepherd having restored man, returns to his heavenly kingdom. And hence it follows, And coming he collects together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. (1 Pet. 2:24, Isai. 53.) By His friends and neighbours He means the companies of Angels, who are His friends because they are keeping His will in their own stedfastness; they are also His neighbours, because by their own constant waiting upon Him they enjoy the brightness of His sight. THEOPHYLACT. The heavenly powers thus are called sheep, because every created nature as compared with God is as the beasts, but inasmuch as it is rational, they are called friends and neighbours. GREGORY. (in Hom. 34.) And we must observe that He says not, “Rejoice with the sheep that is found,” but with me, because truly our life is His joy, and when we are brought home to heaven we fill up the festivity of His joy.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  II. On the second head it is to be noted, that the Apostle likewise gives three commandments. (1) He exhorts to rectitude of mind: “The fruits of righteousness.” S. Anselm defines justice to be that rectitude of will which is preserved for its own sake. (2) To the having a delight in that which is good: “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness; which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,” Gal. 5:22, 23. (3) To the having perfection in good, “being filled:” “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” S. Matt. 5:48. III. On the third head it is to be noted, that three rewards flow from a right intention, for our every action ought to have its eye of intention guarded in respect to God. (1) That we may believe that every good thing, as if from the fount of all good, comes from Him through Jesus Christ: “Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace; for the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ,” S. John 1:16, 17. “Without Me ye can do nothing,” S. John 15:5. (2) That we should make God to be praised and honoured in all our actions: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven,” S. Matt. 5:16. (3) That the reward of eternal glory may be given to us for our desire to work: “Unto the glory and praise of God.” “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, &c.… Where thieves do not break through and steal,” S. Matt. 6:19, 20. HOMILY XLIV THE SPIRITUAL DEBTOR TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.—(FROM THE GOSPEL)“And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him.”—S. Matt. 18:34. MORALLY, by the servant is understood any sinner against whom God will be angry in the judgment, and whom He will deliver over to eternal torments. Whence three things are to be noted in these words. Firstly, the just indignation of God against the reprobates: “His lord was wroth.” Secondly, the severe condemnation of sinners: “Delivered him to the tormentors.” Thirdly, the duration of this same damnation: “Till he should pay all that was due unto him.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  V. On the fifth head it is to be noted, that eternal riches are to be sought for three reasons. (1) On account of their truth, for they are true riches: “If, brethren, you wish to be truly rich, love true riches,” S. Bernard. (2) On account of their joyousness: “Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud upon their beds,” Ps. 149:5. “Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty,” Isa. 33:17. (3) On account of eternity: “But the just shall live for evermore,” Wis. 5:16. “And of His kingdom there shall be no end,” S. Luke 1:33. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, &c., but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” &c., S. Matt. 6:19, 20. The Lord shewed by these three (rust, moth, and thieves) that there is nothing safe in the possession of riches; for there are certain things, such as silver and gold and metals, which rust devours; there are others which the moth but not the rust corrupts and eats, such as silken and precious garments; there are other things which neither rust nor moth eat, but which thieves steal and dig up, such as gems and precious stones; whence it is manifest how uncertain is every possession of our life, and all other things. The Lord persuades us to have our treasures in heaven, but how can any one lay up treasures in heaven unless by making riches in time? We are able to understand spiritual wickedness by rust, moth, and thieves. By rust pride is signified, for it having invaded souls, turns them from the right way, ever shewing itself openly, and expanding itself for human praise. By the moth envy is signified, corrupts where it invades, and deprives of all integrity. By thieves evil spirits are understood, who watch that they may dig up and steal the treasures of the mind. In heaven there is no rust; there is no place there for pride, since the devil and his followers were cast out from thence. In heaven there is no moth, no envy, because none there will envy the happiness of another. In heaven there are no thieves or demons, because they have joined their head. S. Chrysostom points out vain-glory as being the one thief who steals the treasure which is laid up in heaven. HOMILY XXXVI GOD’S DEALINGS WITH THE WICKED EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.—(FROM THE GOSPEL)“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.”—S. Matt. 22:44.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He smiled, and put a kiss on my cheekbone. ‘How are the ill?’ I asked. ‘Oh, fine,’ he said. ‘Anything interesting?’ The bizarre things that people said and did in the consulting room were a staple of our conversation. ‘Not really. The woman with the stones came back. And I had a lad in this morning with the most enormous donger.’ James was obsessed by big cocks, many of which seemed to pass through his hands in his professional capacity—though all too few, I suspected, in his private one. ‘How big?’ I enquired. ‘Ooh …’ he gestured with his hands, like a fisherman—‘in its flaccid condition that is. Quite unbearably hideous youth, alas. He seemed to think there was something wrong with it—so I told him to go to the clinic.’ He took a deep draught of beer. ‘Fantastic cock, though,’ he added wistfully. I chuckled. ‘You’d have been proud of me the other day,’ I said, ‘when I did a very heroic deed and saved the life of a queer peer.’ And I related the incident in the Kensington Gardens bog. ‘It was all due to you, darling,’ I said. ‘I remembered what you do on trains.’ ‘I’m impressed and proud,’ James said. ‘But a Lord—a Baron, or something bigger do you suppose?’ ‘Looked like a Baron to me,’ I said—and with a silly smirk, ‘anyway you wouldn’t find a Viscount cottaging …’ ‘Not yet, you wouldn’t,’ James tartly rejoined. ‘Has he been in touch since?’ ‘He has not. A man just came along when the ambulance arrived and ran about saying “Oh dear, my Lord” and that kind of thing. I imagine we may never find out who it was.’ I looked at James. ‘But to think you do that all the time. God, I felt wonderful afterwards …’ ‘Yes; you get over that, you’ll find, should you ever do it again. But what about this boy? I suppose you’d better tell me.’ I must have bored James for many hours with the pitiless recollection of every detail of my sexual encounters. Often his response to my saying ‘I met this fucking wonderful man last night’ would be ‘Thank you, I don’t want to hear about it’—though this could never quite forestall at least a synopsis of the main events. The routine was a joke now, though behind it lay all his inhibitions, the uninvestigated secrecy of his own private life. Being a doctor, too, made him circumspect, as well as giving him a kind of authority for his lack of adventurousness. And even when I knew he had had some fling he would never mention it himself, so that lone events, which I suspected to be exceptional, could equally be interpreted as typical of a thriving sex life. Somehow he had made it impossible to ask him directly. ‘What is there to say?’

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  A correctional officer was constantly walking into the room and calling out a name, prompting one of the men to get up from his bench and follow the officer down a hallway where he would meet with an assistant warden or whomever they were scheduled to see. Finally, the officer called out, “Joe Sullivan, legal visit.” I walked over to the man and said that I was the attorney for the legal visit. He summoned two officers, who went to Joe’s cage to unlock it. The cage was so small that when they tried to remove Joe’s wheelchair, the spokes on the chair got caught on the cage, and they couldn’t budge it. I stood there watching for several minutes while more officers got involved in an increasingly elaborate effort to dislodge Joe’s wheelchair from the tight cage. They pulled up on the wheelchair. Then they pushed down on the chair, raising the front off the ground, but this didn’t work, either. They tugged at the chair with loud grunts and tried to force it free, but it was completely stuck. Two inmate trusties who had been mopping the floor stopped to watch the officers struggle with the wheelchair and the cage. They finally offered to help out, even though no one had asked for their input. The officers silently accepted the assistance of the inmates, but none of them could come up with a solution. As the staff became more frustrated by their inability to get Joe out of the cage, there was talk of using pliers and hacksaws, of putting the cage on its side with Joe in it. Someone suggested trying to lift Joe from his wheelchair to remove him without the chair, but both Joe and the chair were packed so tightly into the cage that no one could get in to move him. I asked the guards why he was in the cage in the first place, which prompted a brusque response: “Lifer. All lifers have to be moved with higher security protocols.” I couldn’t see Joe’s face while all of this was going on, but I could hear him crying. He occasionally made a whining sound, and his shoulders jerked up and down. When the staff proposed turning the cage on its side, he moaned audibly. Finally, the prisoner trusties suggested lifting the cage and tilting it slightly, which everyone agreed to try. The two trusties lifted and tilted the heavy cage, while three officers yanked Joe’s chair with a violent pull that finally dislodged it. The guards gave each other high fives, the inmate trusties walked away silently, and Joe sat motionlessly in his chair in the middle of the room, looking down at his feet. I walked over to him and introduced myself. His face was tear-stained, and his eyes were red, but he looked up at me and began clapping his hands giddily. “Yeah! Yeah! Mr. Bryan.” He smiled and offered me both of his hands, which I took.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  But the laughter today felt very different. It was the laughter of liberation. I drove back to Montgomery and thought about how to expedite Walter’s release. I called Tommy Chapman and told him that I intended to file a motion to dismiss all charges against Walter in light of the appellate court’s ruling, and I hoped he would consider joining the motion or at least not oppose it. He sighed. “We should talk when this is all over. Once you file your motion, I’ll get back to you about whether I’ll join it. We certainly won’t oppose it.” A hearing on the motion was set. The State did, in fact, join our motion to dismiss the charges, and I didn’t expect the final hearing to last more than a few minutes. The night before, I’d driven down to Minnie’s to get a suit for Walter to wear at the hearing, since he would finally be able to walk out of court a free man. When I arrived at her house, she gave me a long hug. It looked like she had been crying and hadn’t slept. We sat down, and she told me again how happy she was that they were letting him out. But she looked troubled. Finally, she turned to me. “Bryan, I think you need to tell him that maybe he shouldn’t come back here. It’s just all been too much. The stress, the gossip, the lies, everything. He doesn’t deserve what they put him through, and it will hurt me to my heart the rest of my life what they did to him, and the rest of us. But I don’t think I can go back to the way things were.” “Well, you all should talk when he gets home.” “We want to have everybody over when he gets out. We want to cook some good food, and everybody will want to celebrate. But after that, maybe he should go to Montgomery with you.” I had already talked with Walter about not staying his first few nights in Monroeville, for security reasons. We had talked about him spending time with family members in Florida while we monitored the local reaction to his release. But I hadn’t discussed his future with Minnie. I kept urging Minnie to talk with Walter when he got home, but it was clear she didn’t have the heart for that. I drove back to Montgomery, sadly realizing that even as we stood on the brink of victory and what should have been a glorious release for Walter and his family, this nightmare would likely never be completely over for him. For the first time I fully reckoned with the truth that the conviction, the death sentence, and the heartbreak and devastation of this miscarriage of justice had created permanent injuries. State, local, and national media outlets were crowded outside the courthouse when I arrived the next morning.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: These varieties of movement that are taken from the distinction between above and below, right and left, forwards and backwards, and from varying circles, are all comprised under either straight and oblique movement, because they all denote discursions of reason. For if the reason pass from the genus to the species, or from the part to the whole, it will be, as he explains, from above to below: if from one opposite to another, it will be from right to left; if from the cause to the effect, it will be backwards and forwards; if it be about accidents that surround a thing near at hand or far remote, the movement will be circular. The discoursing of reason from sensible to intelligible objects, if it be according to the order of natural reason, belongs to the straight movement; but if it be according to the Divine enlightenment, it will belong to the oblique movement as explained above (ad 2). That alone which he describes as immobility belongs to the circular movement. Wherefore it is evident that Dionysius describes the movement of contemplation with much greater fulness and depth. Whether there is delight in contemplation?Objection 1: It would seem that there is no delight in contemplation. For delight belongs to the appetitive power; whereas contemplation resides chiefly in the intellect. Therefore it would seem that there is no delight in contemplation. Objection 2: Further, all strife and struggle is a hindrance to delight. Now there is strife and struggle in contemplation. For Gregory says (Hom. xiv in Ezech.) that “when the soul strives to contemplate God, it is in a state of struggle; at one time it almost overcomes, because by understanding and feeling it tastes something of the incomprehensible light, and at another time it almost succumbs, because even while tasting, it fails.” Therefore there is no delight in contemplation. Objection 3: Further, delight is the result of a perfect operation, as stated in Ethic. x, 4. Now the contemplation of wayfarers is imperfect, according to 1 Cor. 13:12, “We see now through a glass in a dark manner.” Therefore seemingly there is no delight in the contemplative life. Objection 4: Further, a lesion of the body is an obstacle to delight. Now contemplation causes a lesion of the body; wherefore it is stated (Gn. 32) that after Jacob had said (Gn. 32:30), “‘I have seen God face to face’ . . . he halted on his foot (Gn. 32:31) . . . because he touched the sinew of his thigh and it shrank” (Gn. 32:32). Therefore seemingly there is no delight in contemplation. On the contrary, It is written of the contemplation of wisdom (Wis. 8:16): “Her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness, but joy and gladness”: and Gregory says (Hom. xiv in Ezech.) that “the contemplative life is sweetness exceedingly lovable.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Accordingly, just as the soul that enjoys the sight of God will be filled with spiritual brightness, so by a kind of overflow from the soul to the body, the latter will be, in its own way, clothed with the brightness of glory. Hence the Apostle says (1 Cor. 15:18): It is sown, namely the body, in dishonour, it shall rise in glory: because now this body of ours is impervious to light, whereas then it will be full of light, according to Matth. 13:43, Then shall the just shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Again, the soul which, united to its last end, will enjoy the sight of God, will find its every desire fulfilled: and since the body moves in obedience to the soul’s desire, the result will be that the body’s movements will be in perfect obedience to the spirit. Hence the bodies of the blessed, after the resurrection, will be agile: and this is indicated by the Apostle (1 Cor. 15:43): It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power. For we feel the body’s weakness, when we find it unable to satisfy the soul’s desire, in the movements and actions commanded by the soul. This weakness will then be wholly removed, because the body will receive an overflow of power from the soul united to God: wherefore again is it said of the just (Wis. 3:7) that they shall run to and fro, like sparks among the reeds. Their movements, however, will not be occasioned by need, since those who possess God need nothing, but they will be exhibitions of power. Moreover, just as the soul that enjoys God will have its desire fulfilled, through having obtained possession of all good, so also will its desire be fulfilled as to the removal of all evil, since there can be no evil where the sovereign good is. Accordingly, the body that is perfected by that soul will, in conformity with it, be free from all evil, both in act and in potentiality. In act, since in it there will be neither corruption, nor deformity, nor defect of any kind: in potentiality, because nothing will be able to do it any harm; so that it will be impassible. This impassibility, however, does not imply insensibility: for they will use their senses for such pleasures as are not incompatible with a state of incorruption. The Apostle indicates this state of impassibility, when he says (1 Cor. 15:42): It is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  There are other people here who are as innocent as I am.” He paused and started smiling again. “Man, I want some good food, too. I ain’t had no real good food in so long that I can’t even remember what it tastes like.” “Whatever you want, it will be my treat,” I said proudly. “From what I hear, you might not be able to afford the kind of meal I want,” he teased. “I want steak, chicken, pork, maybe some good cooked coon.” “Coon?” “Oh, don’t pretend. You know you like grilled raccoon. Please don’t sit there and tell me you ain’t never had no good coon when I know you grew up in the country just like I did. There has been many a time when me and my cousin would be driving, and a coon would run cross the road and he’d say, ‘Stop the car, stop the car!’ And I’d stop the car and he’d jump out and go running into the woods and come back minutes later with a raccoon he done caught. We would take it home, skin it, and fry or barbecue that meat. Maaaan…what you talking about? That would be some good eatin’.” “You’ve got to be joking. I grew up in the country, but I never chased any kind of wild animal into the woods to take home and eat.” We relaxed and laughed a lot. We had laughed before today—Walter’s sense of humor hadn’t failed him despite his six years on death row. And this case had given him lots of fodder. We would often talk about situations and people connected to the case that, for all the damage they had caused, had still made us laugh at their absurdity. But the laughter today felt very different. It was the laughter of liberation. I drove back to Montgomery and thought about how to expedite Walter’s release. I called Tommy Chapman and told him that I intended to file a motion to dismiss all charges against Walter in light of the appellate court’s ruling, and I hoped he would consider joining the motion or at least not oppose it. He sighed. “We should talk when this is all over. Once you file your motion, I’ll get back to you about whether I’ll join it. We certainly won’t oppose it.” A hearing on the motion was set. The State did, in fact, join our motion to dismiss the charges, and I didn’t expect the final hearing to last more than a few minutes. The night before, I’d driven down to Minnie’s to get a suit for Walter to wear at the hearing, since he would finally be able to walk out of court a free man. When I arrived at her house, she gave me a long hug. It looked like she had been crying and hadn’t slept. We sat down, and she told me again how happy she was that they were letting him out.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  And in what a dream light they lay, with the brambles straggling over the glass roof. "The thing I recall even more than the Burne-Jones 'Beatrice' there," said Paul Echevin, "was an eight-litre Bentley of 1931 (I think), the first saloon to exceed 100 miles per hour. It must have been untouched for a quarter of a century. One dared not lay a finger on it for fear that it might fall into a heap of dust." It was a night of stars and cloud, not late, the odd canalside bar still lit and, as I came by, the voices of the last regulars within, chatting and grumbling discontinuously, arguing out of habit. I was happy to be out in this beautiful little city, unaware if I was warm or cold after the last cognac—the one I had not been expected to accept. I felt full of energy, as I often did when it was really time to go to bed, the time when through my clubbing years we all of us used to come alive again and go purposefully on. I hung about in the Grote Markt and heard two quarters chime from the Belfry and smoked a cigarette between. The shutters came down on a restaurant as two of the waiters, with anoraks over their white shirts and black bow-ties, loped for the last bus, already impatiently champing on its air-brakes. When later I crossed the road to the old doctor's house, I saw that the wicket at the side was open—I never left it like that at night, on firm instructions from the old doctor's housekeeper. And when I entered the yard I saw at once that the window of the top room on the other staircase was glaringly alight: my new neighbours had arrived. I climbed the stairs two at a time in a mood of affronted possessiveness. After I had closed my door I stood tensely in the near-darkness and heard, from that silent realm that lay beyond my wall of cupboards, the voices of the Spanish girls. What could they be doing in there? At first I thought their unusually penetrating laughs and shouts must be the high-spirited noises associated with arrival and unpacking, questions volleyed from one room to another as to where such and such a thing, plucked incredulously from a suitcase, should go. But no other sounds were to be heard—no shuffling about or opening and shutting of doors. Perhaps they were just sitting there, reading their school-books or darning their stockings, looking up from time to time, unable to resist screeching some hilarious commonplace at each other. I wasn't sure of the layout of their quarters, and maybe they were quite unlike mine. I made a bit of noise myself, and in the middle of a long exchange which involved the singing of two or three verses of "When I'm Sixty-four", marched along opening and slamming each of my cupboards in turn. Which made no difference whatsoever.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  It was a narrow, gravelled island we had to lie on, guarded by glazed brick chimneys and, running along the sides, a prickly little gothic fence of iron finials and terracotta quatrefoils. Beyond this, on either side, the roofs fell steeply away, caught up here and there into dormers, and punctuated with parapets and turretlike protrusions. On the left we looked out into the upper branches of our close neighbours, the plane trees in the square; from here the road, in the gulf between them, was lost to view, though we heard its rumbling and squealing far below, and in the silence between the lights the distant slap and splash of the three fountains in the public garden. On the right we looked down on the bulk of the hotel, its inner wells, ventilation shafts and fire-escapes. Beyond all this we were in the company of other tall buildings—the humourless monoliths of the Senate House and the deserted Centre Point, the green dome of the British Museum Reading Room—beyond which the pretentious corner cupola of the Corinthian Club could just be discerned. There was no one much about on these eminences, on all the surprising secret acres among the water tanks, the escape-ways and the maintenance ladders. The hotel roof itself we always enjoyed alone. We spread towels over the softening asphalt, and lay on them in our swimming-trunks, at first, but later, when no one threatened to disturb us, naked. We fed each other’s bodies with sun lotions—a low-screen one for most of me, but for Phil, who was just starting on his tan, and for my hitherto untanned bum, one with a high protection factor, which needed (I suggested) almost continuous reapplication. We were very happy on the roof, sometimes reading, sometimes stroking and exciting each other, mostly just soaking up the sun. Phil would rub my tits or my cock, or send his fingertips over me more gently than tickling, whilst the sun beat on my closed eyelids like summer lightning over crimson lacquer. When I opened my eyes the sky would be so bright it looked almost dark. Then I would turn over and doze for an hour with my face half-buried between the spread cheeks of his ass.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  9No headaches; painless breathing; bruises, with all their touchy, indwelling tenderness, mysteriously fading out: I felt well again, whole, and wholesome. I didn’t need the decadent secrecy of Charles and his pals—and as I had left Staines’s house I had thought of putting the whole thing behind me. Why be encumbered with the furtive peccadilloes of the past, and all the courteous artifice of writing them up? I wasn’t playing the same game as that lot. I looked forward to clear July days, days of no secrets, of nothing but exercise and sun, and the company of Phil. I was enthralled, almost breathless, at the very idea of men, the mythological beauty of them running under trees and sunlight in the Avenue or in the long perspectives of Kensington Gardens. But I was pure and concentrated as well. No longer loathing myself I was once again in love, and turning the full beam of my devotion upon Phil. I dreaded somehow to find that he had grown complicated, that my hatefulness of the past few weeks had left a stain on him, or eroded that ingenuousness which struck me almost as a property of his body, residing speechlessly in his palms and wrists, in his strong calves and ridged stomach, in the crisp hair above his cock, in the pumping heart I laid my ear to, the neck I kissed and bit, the glossy, speckled darkness of his pupils in which I looked and looked and saw myself, miniature, as if engraved on a gemstone, looking. But no. He was surprised, relieved—like a child released at last from some unfair and arbitrary penance. But there was no resentment in him—and he had I suppose the further relief of finding me pretty again, with only the knotty broadening of the bridge of my nose and the too American whiteness of my ingenious new tooth to remind him of our little season of misery. Unlike recovery from a cold or a hangover this took me forward, not merely back to the old unthinking well-being. It made me romantically ambitious for sweetness and strength, and for the moment I felt all over some seasonal convulsion, quite exhilarated by that grand illusion, that I could make myself change. It was the return of physical strength—and at just the time when, sitting apprehensively, watching those two stoned boys and that beautiful scarred stitched-up man, I had seen myself, with weird detachment, in the society of corruption: the baron, the butcher, the boozed-up boyfriend, and most corrupt of all the photographer.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether the brave man delights in his act?Objection 1: It seems that the brave man delights in his act. For “delight is the unhindered action of a connatural habit” (Ethic. x, 4,6,8). Now the brave deed proceeds from a habit which acts after the manner of nature. Therefore the brave man takes pleasure in his act. Objection 2: Further, Ambrose, commenting on Gal. 5:22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace,” says that deeds of virtue are called “fruits because they refresh man’s mind with a holy and pure delight.” Now the brave man performs acts of virtue. Therefore he takes pleasure in his act. Objection 3: Further, the weaker is overcome by the stronger. Now the brave man has a stronger love for the good of virtue than for his own body, which he exposes to the danger of death. Therefore the delight in the good of virtue banishes the pain of the body; and consequently the brave man does all things with pleasure. On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. iii, 9) that “the brave man seems to have no delight in his act.” I answer that, As stated above ([3294]FS, Q[31], AA[3],4,5) where we were treating of the passions, pleasure is twofold; one is bodily, resulting from bodily contact, the other is spiritual, resulting from an apprehension of the soul. It is the latter which properly results from deeds of virtue, since in them we consider the good of reason. Now the principal act of fortitude is to endure, not only certain things that are unpleasant as apprehended by the soul—for instance, the loss of bodily life, which the virtuous man loves not only as a natural good, but also as being necessary for acts of virtue, and things connected with them—but also to endure things unpleasant in respect of bodily contact, such as wounds and blows. Hence the brave man, on one side, has something that affords him delight, namely as regards spiritual pleasure, in the act itself of virtue and the end thereof: while, on the other hand, he has cause for both spiritual sorrow, in the thought of losing his life, and for bodily pain. Hence we read (2 Macc. 6:30) that Eleazar said: “I suffer grievous pains in body: but in soul am well content to suffer these things because I fear Thee.” Now the sensible pain of the body makes one insensible to the spiritual delight of virtue, without the copious assistance of God’s grace, which has more strength to raise the soul to the Divine things in which it delights, than bodily pains have to afflict it. Thus the Blessed Tiburtius, while walking barefoot on the burning coal, said that he felt as though he were walking on roses.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Late evenings and nights were passed in sleep and sex in that transitory little attic room with its picture of Ludlow from the air. Phil would sleep until eleven or so each morning, but the fabulous weather went on and for the heat of the day until we hit the Corry at six, we were up on the roof in the sun. It was a narrow, gravelled island we had to lie on, guarded by glazed brick chimneys and, running along the sides, a prickly little gothic fence of iron finials and terracotta quatrefoils. Beyond this, on either side, the roofs fell steeply away, caught up here and there into dormers, and punctuated with parapets and turretlike protrusions. On the left we looked out into the upper branches of our close neighbours, the plane trees in the square; from here the road, in the gulf between them, was lost to view, though we heard its rumbling and squealing far below, and in the silence between the lights the distant slap and splash of the three fountains in the public garden. On the right we looked down on the bulk of the hotel, its inner wells, ventilation shafts and fire-escapes. Beyond all this we were in the company of other tall buildings—the humourless monoliths of the Senate House and the deserted Centre Point, the green dome of the British Museum Reading Room—beyond which the pretentious corner cupola of the Corinthian Club could just be discerned. There was no one much about on these eminences, on all the surprising secret acres among the water tanks, the escape-ways and the maintenance ladders. The hotel roof itself we always enjoyed alone. We spread towels over the softening asphalt, and lay on them in our swimming-trunks, at first, but later, when no one threatened to disturb us, naked. We fed each other’s bodies with sun lotions—a low-screen one for most of me, but for Phil, who was just starting on his tan, and for my hitherto untanned bum, one with a high protection factor, which needed (I suggested) almost continuous reapplication. We were very happy on the roof, sometimes reading, sometimes stroking and exciting each other, mostly just soaking up the sun. Phil would rub my tits or my cock, or send his fingertips over me more gently than tickling, whilst the sun beat on my closed eyelids like summer lightning over crimson lacquer. When I opened my eyes the sky would be so bright it looked almost dark. Then I would turn over and doze for an hour with my face half-buried between the spread cheeks of his ass. And we talked—hours of particular, loving banalities.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  But Eur opeans have lived with the idea of status for a long NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME time. A man can be as proud of being a good waiter as of being a good actor, and, in neither case, feel threate ned. And this means that the actor and the waiter can have a freer and mor e genuinely friendly relationship in Europe than they are likely to have here. The waiter does not feel, with obscur e resentment, that the actor has "made it," and the actor is not tormented by the fear that he may find himself, tom orrow, once again a waiter. This lack of what may roughly be called social paranoia causes the American writer in Eur ope to feel-almo st certainly t<>r the first time in his lite-that he can reach out to ever yone, that he is accessible to everyone and open to every thing. This is an extraordin ary feeling. He feels, so to speak, his own weight, his own value. It is as though he suddenly came out of a dark tunnel and t(mnd himself beneath the open sky. And, in fact, in Paris, I began to sec the sky f(>r what seemed to be the first time. It was borne in on me-and it did not make me feel melan cho ly-t hat this sky had been ther e before I was born and would be there when I was dead. And it was up to me, therc f(>re, to make of my brief opport unity the most that could be made. I was born in New York, but have lived only in pockets of it. In Paris, I lived in all parts of the city-o n the Right Bank and the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among les miserables, and knew all kinds of people, from pimps and prostitutes in Pigalle to Egyptian bankers in Neuilly. This may sound ex tremely unprincipled or even obscurely immoral: I fo und it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and al most every one, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen. This perpetual dealing with people very different fr om my self caused a shattering in me of preconceptions I scarcely knew I held . The writer is meeting in Eur ope people who arc not American, whose sense of reality is entirely different fr om his own . They may love or hate or admir e or tear or envy this countr y-they sec it, in any case, fr om another point of view, and this ti.>rces the writer to reconsider many things he had always taken t(>r granted. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable. WHA T IT ME ANS TO BE AN AM ERIC AN 141 This freedom, like all freedom, has its dangers and its re sponsibilities.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  It wasn't the treatment I was going to get—I gave a little absolving wave, but he grabbed my hand in mid-air and shook it: it was a bit like jiving. "We'd better leave them to it," said Sibylle. Patrick turned at the door and grinned again; I wondered if I was the subject of some broad joke—but then if I was, Luc must be too. all that mattered was that he wanted to stay for a quarter-hour more, even if only to grouse about his troubles away from his smothering critical friends. It had been a terrible time. I had watched myself trying different gambits, donnish to start with, pursuing the matter of the 1850 Prelude, then holding forth about Milton, Schubert, F. R. Leavis etc etc and clearly being the greatest bore on earth; then I smoked a cigarette (which they hated) and swore a lot (which seemed to displease them too); then gave them maximum charm, which they resented as a puzzling form of satire. At one point I was even nodding about to a song on the juke-box, but Sibylle stilled me with a glance. I was young and lively and clever, I told myself as I blundered like some awful Ronald Strong figure from rebuff to tacit rebuff. And then Luc wanted to stay. There was a lovely sense of cleared space, of spreading calm, like sunlight out to sea, in the gold and copper cabin of the bar, as we drew two stools closer and settled ourselves knee to knee and the song wailed grandly on and then faded out. "Oh dear, Edward, I'm sorry about that. But I'm very glad you were there!" I was astonished. I was gesturing for a drink with one hand, not wanting to miss a moment, a single muscular movement of his face. When he smiled there was a fleck of spinach above a tooth at the side and I hungered to suck it away. "What are you sorry about, and why are you glad? I was going to say sorry for barging in on your drink." "No, no." He sighed and looked down. "We've all been, you know, arguing. Sibylle and Patrick are my dear friends but this is the first time we have been together all week. We went out for our dinner, and it was terrible, and then we had to have a drink, to show we didn't just want to go home, though I think we all did!" "Oh. What were you arguing about?" I was looking at his down-turned head, but also at the veins standing out on his long hands loosely cupped between his thighs; I didn't care what they'd been arguing about, I felt a ridiculous contentment at having him to myself, amazement that we hadn't done this long before. "It's very difficult to explain, I feel very embarrassed." He took a slurp from his fresh drink.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I don't remember the film. A child is far too self -cent ered to relate to any dilemma which does not, somehow, relate to him-to his own evolving dilemma. The child escapes into what he would like his situation to be, and I certainly did not wish to be a fleeing fugitive on a moving train; and, also, with quite another part of my mind, I was aware that Joan Craw ford was a white lady. Yet, I remember being sent to the store sometime later, and a colored woman, who, to me, looked exactly lik e Joan Crawford, was buying something. She was so incredibly beautiful-she seemed to be wearing the sun light, rearranging it around her from time to time, with a movement of one hand, with a movement of her head, and with her smile-that, when she paid the man and started out of the store, I started out behind her. The storekeeper, who knew me, and others in the store who knew my mother's little boy (and who also knew my Miss Crawford!) laughed and called me back. Miss Crawford also laughed and looked down at me with so beautiful a smile that I was not even embar rassed. Which was rare for me. 479 THE DE VIL FINDS WORK Tom Mix, on his white horse. Actually, it was Tom Mix's hat, a shadow in the shadow of the hat, a kind of rocky back ground (which, again, was always moving) and the white horse. Tom Mix was a serial. Every Saturday, then, if memory serves, we left Tom Mix and some bleakly interchangeable girl in the most dreadful dan ger-or, rather, we left the hat and the shadow of the hat and the white horse: for the horse was not interchangeable and the serial could not have existed with out it. The Last of the Mohicans: Randolph Scott (a kind of fif teenth-r ate Gary Cooper) and Binnie Barnes (a kind of funky Geraldine Fitzgerald), Heather Angel (a somewhat more be wildered Olivia de Hav illand ) and Philip Reed (a precursor of Anthony Quinn). Philip Reed was the Indian, Uncas, whose savage, not to say slavish adoration of Miss Angel's fine blonde frame drives her over a cliff , headlong, to her death. She has chosen death before dishonor, which made perfect sense. The erring Uncas eventually pays for his misguided lust with his lif e, and a tremulous, wet-eyed, brave couple, Randolph Scott and Binnie Barnes, eventually, hand in hand, manage to make it out of the wilderness.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  I lay propped up beside him, thinking of later days in our affair, unguessed afternoons of sex, drives beside long canals, his cock curving out of his fly in the car, high-summer lulls when we lay like soldiers under Flanders willows and poplars, shirts off, watching clouds drift in the canal, his crude, obsessive demands. I tiptoed out for a drink of water and came back gulping from the glass like a child. I thought he might have vanished, it seemed foolish to let him out of my sight; but there he was, a goldish blur. I half-stumbled on his clothes, and crouched to rifle them—but what did they matter when the boy himself was here? I found every fear answered and calmed by that luminous fact. He was lying in my bed, naked, sleeping—flat out. It was a trulmph. Tears slipped down my face, I didn't really know why—it felt like gratitude, but also they were the tears that register some deep displacement, a bereavement sending up its sudden choking wave. It struck me I must be mourning everything that came before—it was the desolate undertow of success. When we had started to kiss it was what I wanted, he was warm and strong, our cocks, lying opposite ways in our jeans, rubbed and jolted off each other, we were going to fuck, but for a long while I just held him there in a hard, shocked grip. His tongue pushed into my mouth but I blocked it with my own: I felt my tongue was the tip of some passionate organ that was rooted deep inside me, so densely colled, so fiercely self-involved, so hardened to its own darkness and starvation that it reacted with a spasm of bewilderment to the free gift of what it craved. He lifted off my glasses and looked at me as if he found me drolly beautiful. I brushed and moulded his face and neck with incredulous fingers, kissed his eyelids, his long nose, the soft burden of his upper lip. He was squeezing my cock already and still I thought I would be mad to let this happen. I thought once I started I would stifle him, frighten him with my dreadful unconditional needs. He would break away with a sickened laugh. I was reckoning without his own madness. Of course it wasn't just mischief, he wasn't trying to trap me: he wanted fun, experience, anything wild—either you did it with him or you didn't. Somewhere out there was the person he loved, a boy or a girl, but for now he was making do; I felt I was getting the benefit of some stored-up passion intended for someone else, but brimming and spilling; and maybe he liked the switch of power in seducing an older man. It struck me it might even be a kink of his, that he'd done it before—there was the dream I'd had about him and Matt . . .