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 Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  As is often the case, a general decline in religious fervor tends to inspire a revival from some dissatisfied element of society. By the early eighteenth century, worship had become more formal in the colonies and elegant churches transformed the skylines of New York and Boston. But to the horror of these polite congregations, a frenzied piety had erupted in the rural areas. The Great Awakening broke out first in Northampton, Connecticut, in 1734, when the death of two young people and the powerful preaching of its minister Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) whipped the town into a devotional fever that spread to Massachusetts and Long Island. During Edwards’s sermons, the congregation screamed, yelled, writhed in the aisles, and crowded around the pulpit, begging him to stop. But Edwards continued inexorably, never looking at the hysterical masses, offering them no comfort, but staring rigidly at the bell rope. Three hundred people experienced a wrenching conversion, could not tear themselves away from their Bibles, and forgot to eat. Yet they also experienced, Edwards recalled, a joyous perception of beauty that was quite different from any natural sensation “so that they could not forbear crying out with a loud voice, expressing their great admiration.”24 Others, broken by the fear of God, would sink into an abyss of despair only to soar to an equally extreme elation in the sudden conviction that they were free of sin. The Great Awakening showed that religion, instead of being an obstacle to progress and democracy, could be a positive force for modernization. Strangely enough, this seemingly primitive hysteria helped these Puritans to embrace an egalitarianism that would have shocked Winthrop but was far closer to our present norms. The Awakening appalled the Harvard faculty, and Yale, Edwards’s own university, disowned him, but Edwards believed that a different order—nothing less than the Kingdom of God—was coming painfully to birth in the New World. Edwards was, in fact, presiding over a revolution. The Awakening flourished in the poorer colonies, where people had little hope of earthly fulfillment. While the educated classes were turning to the rational consolations of the European Enlightenment, Edwards brought the Enlightenment ideal of the pursuit of happiness to his unlettered congregation in a form that they could understand and prepared them for the revolutionary upheavals of 1775.25

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  [image "A comic strip titled ‘How to Pretend You’re Not Poor’ features characters having a conversation about various scenarios like no lunch money, field trip excuses, and bake sale comments." file=image_rsrc4SS.jpg] Because I didn’t have money for gas, and because I couldn’t have driven the car if I wanted to, and because I didn’t want to double date, I told Penelope I’d meet her at the gym for the dance. She wasn’t too happy about that. But the worst thing is that I had to wear one of Dad’s old suits: [image "An illustration of a person in a suit with bell-bottoms and a tie featuring polka dots and stripes, labeled as ‘unintentional disco freak’, with notes about the suit’s origin in the 1970s." file=image_rsrc4ST.jpg] I was worried that people would make fun of me, right? And they probably would have if Penelope hadn’t immediately squealed with delight when she first saw me walk into the gym. “Oh, my, God!” she yelled for everybody to hear. “That suit is so beautiful. It’s so retroactive. It’s so retroactive that it’s radioactive!” And every dude in the joint immediately wished he’d worn his father’s lame polyester suit. And I imagined that every girl was immediately breathless and horny at the sight of my bell-bottom slacks. So, drunk with my sudden power, I pulled off some lame disco dance moves that sent the place into hysterics. Even Roger, the huge dude I’d punched in the face, was suddenly my buddy. Penelope and I were so happy to be alive, and so happy to be alive TOGETHER, even if we were only a semi-hot item, and we danced every single dance. Nineteen dances; nineteen songs. Twelve fast songs; seven slow ones. Eleven country hits; five rock songs; three hip-hop tunes. It was the best night of my life. Of course, I was a sweaty mess inside that hot polyester suit. But it didn’t matter. Penelope thought I was beautiful and so I felt beautiful. And then the dance was over. The lights flicked on. And Penelope suddenly realized we’d forgotten to get our picture taken by the professional dude. “Oh, my God!” she yelled. “We forgot to get our picture taken! That sucks!” She was sad for a moment, but then she realized that she’d had so much fun that a photograph of the evening was completely beside the point. A photograph would be just a lame souvenir. I was completely relieved that we’d forgotten. I wouldn’t have been able to pay for the photographs. I knew that. And I’d rehearsed a speech about losing my wallet. I’d made it through the evening without revealing my poverty.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Indians are good at that. We’ll be talking and laughing and carrying on like normal, and then, BOOM, we get all serious and sacred and start talking like some English royalty. “Dearest daughter,” Ted said. “I hereby return your stolen goods. I hope you forgive me for returning it too late.” “Well, there’s nothing to forgive, Ted,” my mother said. “Grandmother Spirit wasn’t a powwow dancer.” Ted’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me,” he said. “My mother loved going to powwows. But she never danced. She never owned a dance outfit. This couldn’t be hers.” Ted didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything. “In fact, looking at the beads and design, this doesn’t look Spokane at all. I don’t recognize the work. Does anybody here recognize the beadwork?” “No,” everybody said. “It looks more Sioux to me,” my mother said. “Maybe Oglala. Maybe. I’m not an expert. Your anthropologist wasn’t much of an expert, either. He got this way wrong.” We all just sat there in silence as Ted mulled that over. Then he packed his outfit back into the suitcase, hurried over to his waiting car, and sped away. For about two minutes, we all sat quiet. Who knew what to say? And then my mother started laughing. And that set us all off. Two thousands Indians laughed at the same time. We kept laughing. It was the most glorious noise I’d ever heard. And I realized that, sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean, but, dang, we knew how to laugh. When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing. And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said good-bye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them. Each funeral was a funeral for all of us. We lived and died together. All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground. And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt. And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses. Valentine Heart A few days after I gave Penelope a homemade Valentine (and she said she forgot it was Valentine’s Day), my dad’s best friend, Eugene, was shot in the face in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven in Spokane. Way drunk, Eugene was shot and killed by one of his good friends, Bobby, who was too drunk to even remember pulling the trigger. The police think Eugene and Bobby fought over the last drink in a bottle of wine: When Bobby was sober enough to realize what he’d done, he could only call Eugene’s name over and over, as if that would somehow bring him back. A few weeks later, in jail, Bobby hung himself with a bedsheet. We didn’t even have enough time to forgive him. He punished himself for his sins. My father went on a legendary drinking binge.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  A transport then like mine was above all consideration, or schemes of surprise; and I, that instant, with the rapidity of the emotions that I felt the spur of, shot into his arms, crying out, as I threw mine round his neck: “My life!... my soul!... my Charles!..” and without further power of speech, swooned away, under the pressing agitation of joy and surprise. Recovered out of my entrancement, I found myself in my charmer’s arms, but in the parlour, surrounded by a crowd which this event had gathered round us, and which immediately, on a signal from the discreet landlady, who currently took him for my husband, cleared the room, and desirably left us alone to the raptures of this reunion; my joy at which had like to have proved, at the expense of my life, its power superior to that of grief at our fatal separation. The first object then, that my eyes opened on, was their supreme idol, and my supreme wish, Charles, on one knee, holding me fast by the hand and gazing on me with a transport of fondness. Observing my recovery, he attempted to speak, and give vent to his patience of hearing my voice again, to satisfy him once more that it was I; but the mightiness and suddenness of the surprise continuing to stun him, choked his utterance: he could only stammer out a few broken, half-formed, filtering accents, which my ears greedily drinking in, spelt, and put together, so as to make out their sense: “After so long!... so cruel an absence!... my dearest Fanny!... can it?... can it be you?...” stifling me at the time with kisses, that, stopping my opening mouth, at once prevented the answer that he panted for, and increased the delicious disorder in which all my senses were rapturously lost. However, amidst this crowd of ideas, and all blissful ones, there obtruded only one cruel doubt that poisoned nearly all the transcendant happiness: and what was it, but my dread of its being too excessive to be real? I trembled now with my fear of its being no more than a dream, and of waking out of it into the horrors of finding it one. Under this fond apprehension, imagining I could not make too much of the present prodigious joy, before it would vanish and leave me in the desert again, nor verify its reality too strongly, I clung to him, I clasped him, as if to hinder him from escaping me again: “Where have you been?... how could you... could you leave me?... Say you are still mine... that you still love me... and thus! thus!”

• From Between Us

  Happiness marks individual initiative and provides direction. As ingrained as this version of happiness likely is for most readers, modern happiness has not always existed, and, incredibly, does not exist everywhere. In many places, it is not a desirable emotion; in some places, it is “wrong.” WHO WOULD NOT WANT TO BE HAPPY? Robin Wang, a Chinese philosopher and Daoist, taught her two American-born daughters to stick to “mama Wang’s rules,” which were simple enough: Eat well, exercise daily, get plenty of sleep, and do well in school. One of her daughters inquired: “What about being happy?” “No,” she answered her daughter, “being happy is not important.” Happiness is not an end in the Daoist tradition. If there were an end, it would be to be flexible enough to adjust to any turn of events. Life is constantly changing, and happy events may turn out to have a dark side or miserable consequences. As one traditional Chinese text reads: “For misery, happiness is leaning against it; for happiness, misery is hiding in it.” The views of our foreparents in the United States may have been closer to the Daoist perspective than to ours. The 1850 Webster’s Dictionary reads that “perfect happiness, or pleasure unalloyed with pain, is not attainable in this life.” The same dictionary recognizes that happiness occurs against the background of unhappiness: “Happiness is comparative. To the person distressed with pain, relief from that pain affords happiness.” A century later (in 1961), the definition of “happiness” has changed to include: “a state of wellbeing characterized by relative permanence . . . and by a natural desire for its continuation.” An undilutedly positive state became defining of happiness. In many cultures, though, the model is closer to Wang’s and the Daoist definition: happiness and unhappiness are intimately connected. My friend, the psychologist Mayumi Karasawa, told me that, growing up, her parents and teachers warned her against showing happiness about a good grade, because it would have disrupted her relationships with her classmates. Happiness, especially the proud and excited happiness that is so common among white Americans, does not serve the Japanese goal of maintaining good relationships, and is considered harmful. In the study described before, Japanese psychologists Yukiko Uchida and Shinobu Kitayama compared U.S. with Japanese conceptions of happiness and found that, in contrast to U.S. students, who saw their happiness as exclusively positive, Japanese college students routinely listed negative features of happiness: Happiness is “elusive,” because it never lasts, it is hard to put your finger on, and it is deceptive (distracting from reality). Happiness is “socially disruptive,” because it makes people inattentive to their environment and their obligations, and because it risks eliciting the envy or jealousy of others. Negative interpersonal consequences make happiness an undesirable emotion elsewhere as well. I remember my own mother admonishing me that I should be acting normal, which in her words was “crazy enough.” Excited happiness was not valued in Amsterdam of the ’60s.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Is it admissible that the first comer should hypnotize one or more persons, and then do with them as he likes? And especially that the hypnotizer should be the first immoral individual who happens to come along? It is a frightful power in the hands of any one, no matter whom. For instance, should they be allowed to play this ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ the first presto ,—and there are many like it,—in parlors, among ladies wearing low necked dresses, or in concerts, then finish the piece, receive the applause, and then begin another piece? These things should be played under certain circumstances, only in cases where it is necessary to incite certain actions corresponding to the music. But to incite an energy of feeling which corresponds to neither the time nor the place, and is expended in nothing, cannot fail to act dangerously. On me in particular this piece acted in a frightful manner. One would have said that new sentiments, new virtualities, of which I was formerly ignorant, had developed in me. ‘Ah, yes, that’s it! Not at all as I lived and thought before! This is the right way to live!’ “Thus I spoke to my soul as I listened to that music. What was this new thing that I thus learned? That I did not realize, but the consciousness of this indefinite state filled me with joy. In that state there was no room for jealousy. The same faces, and among them he and my wife, I saw in a different light. This music transported me into an unknown world, where there was no room for jealousy. Jealousy and the feelings that provoke it seemed to me trivialities, nor worth thinking of. “After the presto followed the andante , not very new, with commonplace variations, and the feeble finale . Then they played more, at the request of the guests,—first an elegy by Ernst, and then various other pieces. They were all very well, but did not produce upon me a tenth part of the impression that the opening piece did. I felt light and gay throughout the evening. As for my wife, never had I seen her as she was that night.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "The Rubicon was crossed; the column began to slide softly in; he could begin his pleasurable work. Soon the whole penis slipped in; the pain that tortured me was deadened; the delight was ever so much increased. I felt the little god moving within me; it seemed to be tickling the very core of my being; he had shoved the whole of it into me, down to its very root; I felt his hair crushed against mine, his testicles gently rubbing against me. "I then saw his beautiful eyes gazing deep into mine. What unfathomable eyes they were! Like the sky or the main, they seemed to reflect the infinite. Never again shall I see eyes so full of burning love, of such smouldering langour. His glances had a mesmeric spell over me; they bereft me of my reason; they did even more—they changed sharp pain into delight. "I was in a state of ecstatic joy; all my nerves contracted and twitched. As he felt himself thus clasped and gripped, he shivered, he ground his teeth; he was unable to bear such a strong shock; his outstretched arms held fast on my shoulders; he dug his nails into my flesh; he tried to move, but he was so tightly wedged and grasped that it was impossible to push himself any further in. Moreover, his strength was beginning to fail him, and he could then hardly stand upon his feet. "As he tried to give another jerk, I myself, that very moment squeezed the whole rod with all the strength of my muscles, and a most violent jet, like a hot geyser, escaped from him, and coursed within me like some scorching, corroding poison; it seemed to set my blood on fire, and transmuted it into some kind of hot, intoxicating alcohol. His breath was thick and convulsive; his sobs choked him; he was utterly done up. "'I am dying!' he gasped out, his chest heaving with emotion; 'it is too much.' And he fell senseless in my arms. "After half an hour's rest he woke up, and began at once to kiss me with rapture, whilst his loving eyes beamed with thankfulness. "'You have made me feel what I never felt before. "'Nor I either,' quoth I, smiling. "'I really did not know whether I was in heaven or in hell. I had quite lost my senses.' "He stopped for a moment to look at me, and then,—'How I love you, my Camille!' he went on, showering kisses on me; 'I have loved you to distraction from the very moment I saw you.' "Then I began to tell him how I had suffered in trying to overcome my love for him; how I was haunted by his presence day and night; how happy I was at last. "'And now you must take my place. You must make me feel what you felt.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  This couldn’t be hers.” Ted didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything. “In fact, looking at the beads and design, this doesn’t look Spokane at all. I don’t recognize the work. Does anybody here recognize the beadwork?” “No,” everybody said. “It looks more Sioux to me,” my mother said. “Maybe Oglala. Maybe. I’m not an expert. Your anthropologist wasn’t much of an expert, either. He got this way wrong.” We all just sat there in silence as Ted mulled that over. Then he packed his outfit back into the suitcase, hurried over to his waiting car, and sped away. For about two minutes, we all sat quiet. Who knew what to say? And then my mother started laughing. And that set us all off. Two thousands Indians laughed at the same time. We kept laughing. It was the most glorious noise I’d ever heard. And I realized that, sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean, but, dang, we knew how to laugh. When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing. And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said good-bye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them. Each funeral was a funeral for all of us. We lived and died together. All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground. And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt. And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses. Valentine Heart A few days after I gave Penelope a homemade Valentine (and she said she forgot it was Valentine’s Day), my dad’s best friend, Eugene, was shot in the face in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven in Spokane. Way drunk, Eugene was shot and killed by one of his good friends, Bobby, who was too drunk to even remember pulling the trigger. The police think Eugene and Bobby fought over the last drink in a bottle of wine: When Bobby was sober enough to realize what he’d done, he could only call Eugene’s name over and over, as if that would somehow bring him back. A few weeks later, in jail, Bobby hung himself with a bedsheet. We didn’t even have enough time to forgive him. He punished himself for his sins. My father went on a legendary drinking binge. My mother went to church every single day. It was all booze and God, booze and God, booze and God. We’d lost my grandmother and Eugene. How much loss were we supposed to endure? I felt helpless and stupid. I needed books. I wanted books. And I drew and drew and drew cartoons. I was mad at God; I was mad at Jesus. They were mocking me, so I mocked them: I hoped I could find more cartoons that would help me.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  First I lightly lifted up her chemise, then I gently brushed the hair aside, and parted the two lovely lips which opened by themselves at the touch of my fingers as if to afford me entrance. "This done, I fed my greedy eyes upon that dainty pink flesh that looked like the ripe and luscious pulp of some savoury fruit appetizing to behold, and within those cherry lips there nestled a tiny bud—a living flower of flesh and blood. "I had evidently tickled it with the tip of my finger, for, as I looked upon it, it shivered as if endowed with a life of its own, and it protruded itself out towards me. At its beck I longed to taste it, to fondle it, and therefore, unable to resist, I bent down and pressed my tongue upon it, over it, within it, seeking every nook and corner around it, darting into every chink and cranny, whilst she, evidently enjoying the little game, helped me in my work, shaking her buttocks with a lusty delight in such a way that after a few minutes the tiny flower began to expand its petals and shed forth its ambrosial dew, not a drop of which did my tongue allow to escape. "In the meanwhile she panted and screamed, and seemed to swoon away with joy. Excited as I was, I hardly allowed her time enough to come to herself; but, rising over her, and taking in my hand my phallus—which, as you know, is a good-sized one—I introduced the glans into the entrance. "The slit was a very tiny one, but the lips were moist, and I pressed down with all my strength. Little by little I felt it bursting all the side tissues, and tearing away and battering down every obstacle in its way. She bravely helped me on with my work of destruction, opening her thighs to her utmost, pushing herself against me, and struggling to get the whole column within her, screaming at the same time both with pleasure and with pain. I plunged and replunged with eager rapture, shoving and driving it further in at every stroke, till, having at last burst every barrier, I felt it touch the innermost recesses of the womb, where the tip of my rod seemed to be tickled and sucked by innumerable tiny lips. "What an overpowering pleasure I felt. I seemed to float between heaven and earth, I groaned, I shrieked with delight. "Tightly wedged as my prickle was, I tried to pull it out slowly, when all at once I heard a noise in the room. I saw a stronger light than that of the night lamp, then a hand was placed on my back. I heard my name being uttered aloud. "Imagine my shame, my confusion, my horror.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  So, after a few bold strokes, he managed to get in the whole of the rod down to the very root of the column, crushing his hair against hers, so far in the utmost recesses of the womb that it gave her a pleasurable pain as it touched the neck of the vagina. "For about ten minutes—which to her felt an eternity—she continued panting, throbbing, gasping, groaning, shrieking, roaring, laughing, and crying in the vehemence of her delight. "'Oh! Oh! I am feeling it again! In—in—quick—quicker! There! there!—enough!—stop!' "But he did not listen to her, and he went on plunging and re-plunging with increasing vigour. Having vainly begged for a truce, she began to move again with renewed life. "Having her a retro, his whole thoughts were thus concentrated upon me; and the tightness of the orifice in which the penis was sheathed, added to the titillation produced by the lips of the womb, gave him such an overpowering sensation that he redoubled his strength, and shoved his muscular instrument with such mighty strokes that the frail woman shook under the repeated thumps. Her knees were almost giving way under the brutal force he displayed. When again, all at once, the flood-gates of the seminal ducts were open, and he squirted a jet of molten liquid down into the innermost recesses of her womb. "A moment of delirium followed; the contraction of all her muscles gripped him and sucked him up eagerly, greedily; and after a short spasmodic convulsion, they both fell senseless side by side, still tightly wedged in one another." "And so ends the Epistle!" "Not quite so, for nine months afterwards the Countess gave birth to a fine boy" "Who, of course, looked like his father? Doesn't every child look like its father?" "Still this one happened to look neither like the Count nor like Teleny." "Who the deuce did it look like then?" "Like myself." "Bosh!" "Bosh as much as you like. Anyhow, the rickety old count is very proud of this son of his, having discovered a certain likeness between his only heir and the portrait of one of his ancestors. He is always pointing out this atavism to all his visitors; but whenever he struts about, and begins to expound learnedly over the matter, I am told that the Countess shrugs her shoulders and puckers down her lips contemptuously, as if she was not quite convinced of the fact." CHAPTER V "YOU have not yet told me when you met Teleny, or how your meeting was brought about."

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  She raised my head in her hands, and with a violent gesture drew me to her breast. “Wanda,” I stammered. “Of course, you enjoy suffering,” she said, and laughed again, “but wait, I’ll bring you to your senses.” “No, I will no longer ask,” I exclaimed, “whether you want to belong to me for always or for only a brief moment of intoxication. I want to drain my happiness to the full. You are mine now, and I would rather lose you than never to have had you.” “Now you are sensible,” she said. She kissed me again with her murderous lips. I tore the ermine apart and the covering of lace and her naked breast surged against mine. Then my senses left me— The first thing I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping from my hand, and she asked apathetically: “Did you scratch me?” “No, I believe, I have bitten you.” * * * * * It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different face as soon as a new person enters. We spent marvellous days together; we visited the mountains and lakes, we read together, and I completed Wanda’s portrait. And how we loved one another, how beautiful her smiling face was! Then a friend of hers arrived, a divorced woman somewhat older, more experienced, and less scrupulous than Wanda. Her influence is already making itself felt in every direction. Wanda wrinkles her brows, and displays a certain impatience with me. Has she ceased loving me? * * * * * For almost a fortnight this unbearable restraint has lain upon us. Her friend lives with her, and we are never alone. A circle of men surrounds the young women. With my seriousness and melancholy I am playing an absurd role as lover. Wanda treats me like a stranger. To-day, while out walking, she staid behind with me. I saw that this was done intentionally, and I rejoiced. But what did she tell me? “My friend doesn’t understand how I can love you. She doesn’t think you either handsome or particularly attractive otherwise. She is telling me from morning till night about the glamour of the frivolous life in the capital, hinting at the advantages to which I could lay claim, the large parties which I would find there, and the distinguished and handsome admirers which I would attract. But of what use is all this, since it happens that I love you.” For a moment I lost my breath, then I said: “I have no wish to stand in the way of your happiness, Wanda. Do not consider me.”

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

  Calvin has also unjustly been charged with insensibility to the beauties of nature and art. It is true we seek in vain for specific allusions to the earthly paradise in which he lived, the lovely shores of Lake Leman, the murmur of the Rhone, the snowy grandeur of the monarch of mountains in Chamounix. But the writings of the other Reformers are equally bare of such allusions, and the beauties of Switzerland were not properly appreciated till towards the close of the eighteenth century, when Haller, Goethe, and Schiller directed attention to them. Calvin, however, had a lively sense of the wonders of creation and expressed it more than once. "Let us not disdain," he says, "to receive a pious delight from the works of God, which everywhere present themselves to view in this very beautiful theatre of the world"; and he points out that "God has wonderfully adorned heaven and earth with the utmost possible abundance, variety, and beauty, like a large and splendid mansion, most exquisitely and copiously furnished, and exhibited in man the masterpiece of his works by distinguishing him with such splendid beauty and such numerous and great privileges."1274 He had a taste for music and poetry, like Luther and Zwingli. He introduced, in Strassburg and Geneva, congregational singing, which he described as "an excellent method of kindling the heart and making it burn with great ardor in prayer," and which has ever since been a most important part of worship in the Reformed Churches. He composed also a few poetic versifications of Psalms, and a sweet hymn to the Saviour, to whose service and glory his whole life was consecrated. NOTE. Calvin’s "Salutation à Iésus Christ" was discovered by Felix Bovet of Neuchâtel in an old Genevese prayer-book of 1545 (Calvin’s Liturgy), and published, together with eleven other poems (mostly translations of Psalms), by the Strassburg editors of Calvin’s works in 1867. (See vol. VI. 223 and Prolegg. XVIII. sq.) It reveals a poetic vein and a devotional fervor and tenderness which one could hardly expect from so severe a logician and polemic. A German translation was made by Dr. E. Stähelin of Basel, and an English translation by Mrs. Henry B. Smith of New York, and published in Schaff’s Christ in Song, 1868. ("I greet Thee, who my sure Redeemer art." New York ed. p. 678; London ed. p. 549.) We give it here in the original old French: — "Ie te salue, mon certain Redempteur, Ma vraye franc’ et mon seul Salvateur, Qui tant de labeur, D’ennuys et de douleur As enduré pour moy: Oste de noz cueurs Toutes vaines langueurs, Fol soucy et esmoy. "Tu es le Roy misericordieux; Puissant par tout et regnant en tous lieux; Vueille donc regner En nous, et dominer Sur nous entierement, Nous illuminer, Ravyr et nous mener A ton haut Firmament. "Tu es la vie par laquelle vivons, Toute sustanc’ et toute forc’ avons: Donne nous confort Contre la dure mort, Que ne la craignons point,

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

  There is the far-seeing choir of the prophets; there the number of the twelve apostles; there the triumphant army of innumerable martyrs and holy confessors. Full and perfect love there reigns, for God is all in all. They love and praise, they praise and love Him evermore .... Blessed, perfectly and forever blessed, shall I too be, if, when my poor body shall be dissolved, ... I may stand before my King and God, and see Him in His glory, as He Himself hath deigned to promise: ’Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which I had with Thee before the world was.’ " This aspiration after the heavenly Jerusalem found grand expression in the hymn De gloria et gaudiis Paradisi: "Ad perennis vitae fontem mens sativit arida," which is incorporated in the Meditations of Augustine, and the idea of which originated in part with him, though it was not brought into poetical form till long afterwards by Peter Damiani.2156 He left no will, for in his voluntary poverty he had no earthly property to dispose of, except his library; this he bequeathed to the church, and it was fortunately preserved from the depredations of the Arian barbarians.2157 Soon after his death Hippo was taken and destroyed by the Vandals.2158 Africa was lost to the Romans. A few decades later the whole West-Roman empire fell in ruins. The culmination of the African church was the beginning of its decline. But the work of Augustine could not perish. His ideas fell like living seed into the soil of Europe, and produced abundant fruits in nations and countries of which he had never heard.2159 Augustine, the man with upturned eye, with pen in the left hand, and a burning heart in the right (as he is usually represented), is a philosophical and theological genius of the first order, towering like a pyramid above his age, and looking down commandingly upon succeeding centuries. He had a mind uncommonly fertile and deep, bold and soaring; and with it, what is better, a heart full of Christian love and humility. He stands of right by the side of the greatest philosophers of antiquity and of modern times. We meet him alike on the broad highways and the narrow footpaths, on the giddy Alpine heights and in the awful depths of speculation, wherever philosophical thinkers before him or after him have trod. As a theologian he is facile princeps, at least surpassed by no church father, scholastic, or reformer. With royal munificence he scattered ideas in passing, which have set in mighty motion other lands and later times. He combined the creative power of Tertullian with the churchly spirit of Cyprian, the speculative intellect of the Greek church with the practical tact of the Latin. He was a Christian philosopher and a philosophical theologian to the full.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Well, I wanted to dunk on him. And I figured, with the crazy adrenaline coursing through my body, I might be able to jump over the rim again. But I think part of me knew that I’d never jump like that again. I only had that one epic jump in me. I wasn’t a dunker; I was a shooter. So I screeched to a stop at the three-point line and head-faked. And Rowdy completely fell for it. He jumped high over me, wanting to block my shot, but I just waited for the sky to clear. As Rowdy hovered above me, as he floated away, he looked at me. I looked at him. He knew he’d blown it. He knew he’d fallen for a little head-fake. He knew he could do nothing to stop my jumper. He was sad, man. Way sad. So guess what I did? I stuck my tongue out at him. Like I was Michael Jordan. I mocked him. And then I took my three-pointer and buried it. Just swished that sucker. AND THE GYM EXPLODED! People wept. Really. My dad hugged the white guy next to him. Didn’t even know him. But hugged and kissed him like they were brothers, you know? My mom fainted. Really. She just leaned over a bit, bumped against the white woman next to her, and was gone. She woke up five seconds later. People were up on their feet. They were high-fiving and hugging and dancing and singing. The school band played a song. Well, the band members were all confused and excited, so they played a song, sure, but each member of the band played a different song. My coach was jumping up and down and spinning in circles. My teammates were screaming my name. Yep, all of that fuss and the score was only 3 to 0. But, trust me, the game was over. It only took, like, ten seconds to happen. But the game was already over. Really. It can happen that way. One play can determine the course of a game. One play can change your momentum forever. We beat Wellpinit by forty points. Absolutely destroyed them. That three-pointer was the only shot I took that night. The only shot I made. Yep, I only scored three points, my lowest point total of the season. But Rowdy only scored four points. I stopped him. I held him to four points. Only two baskets. He scored on a layup in the first quarter when I tripped over my teammate’s foot and fell. And he scored in the fourth quarter, with only five seconds left in the game, when he stole the ball from me and raced down for a layup. But I didn’t even chase him down because we were ahead by forty-two points. The buzzer sounded. The game was over. We had killed the Redskins. Yep, we had humiliated them. We were dancing around the gym, laughing and screaming and chanting.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Well, the band members were all confused and excited, so they played a song, sure, but each member of the band played a different song. My coach was jumping up and down and spinning in circles. My teammates were screaming my name. Yep, all of that fuss and the score was only 3 to 0. But, trust me, the game was over. It only took, like, ten seconds to happen. But the game was already over. Really. It can happen that way. One play can determine the course of a game. One play can change your momentum forever. We beat Wellpinit by forty points. Absolutely destroyed them. That three-pointer was the only shot I took that night. The only shot I made. Yep, I only scored three points, my lowest point total of the season. But Rowdy only scored four points. I stopped him. I held him to four points. Only two baskets. He scored on a layup in the first quarter when I tripped over my teammate’s foot and fell. And he scored in the fourth quarter, with only five seconds left in the game, when he stole the ball from me and raced down for a layup. But I didn’t even chase him down because we were ahead by forty-two points. The buzzer sounded. The game was over. We had killed the Redskins. Yep, we had humiliated them. We were dancing around the gym, laughing and screaming and chanting. My teammates mobbed me. They lifted me up on their shoulders and carried me around the gym. I looked for my mom, but she’d fainted again, so they’d taken her outside to get some fresh air. I looked for my dad. I thought he’d be cheering. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was all quiet-faced as he looked at something else. So I looked at what he was looking at. It was the Wellpinit Redskins, lined up at their end of the court, as they watched us celebrate our victory. I whooped. We had defeated the enemy! We had defeated the champions! We were David who’d thrown a stone into the brain of Goliath! And then I realized something. I realized that my team, the Reardan Indians, was Goliath. I mean, jeez, all of the seniors on our team were going to college. All of the guys on our team had their own cars. All of the guys on our team had iPods and cell phones and PSPs and three pairs of blue jeans and ten shirts and mothers and fathers who went to church and had good jobs. Okay, so maybe my white teammates had problems, serious problems, but none of their problems was life threatening. But I looked over at the Wellpinit Redskins, at Rowdy. I knew that two or three of those Indians might not have eaten breakfast that morning. No food in the house. I knew that seven or eight of those Indians lived with drunken mothers and fathers.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Then I raised my hat, and let her go ahead. She looked at me surprised, but did not answer a syllable. When by chance I happened to be close to her on the way back, she secretly pressed my hand. Her glance was so radiant, so full of promised happiness, that in a moment all the torments of these days were forgotten and all their wounds healed. I now am aware again of how much I love her. * * * * * “My friend has complained about you,” said Wanda to-day. “Perhaps she feels that I despise her.” “But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?” exclaimed Wanda, pulling my ears with both hands. “Because she is a hypocrite,” I said. “I respect only a woman who is actually virtuous, or who openly lives for pleasure’s sake.” “Like me, for instance,” replied Wanda jestingly, “but you see, child, a woman can only do that in the rarest cases. She can neither be as gaily sensual, nor as spiritually free as man; her state is always a mixture of the sensual and spiritual. Her heart desires to enchain man permanently, while she herself is ever subject to the desire for change. The result is a conflict, and thus usually against her wishes lies and deception enter into her actions and personality and corrupt her character.” “Certainly that is true,” I said. “The transcendental character with which woman wants to stamp love leads her to deception.” “But the world likewise demands it,” Wanda interrupted. “Look at this woman. She has a husband and a lover in Lemberg and has found a new admirer here. She deceives all three and yet is honored by all and respected by the world.” “I don’t care,” I exclaimed, “but she is to leave you alone; she treats you like an article of commerce.” “Why not?” the beautiful woman interrupted vivaciously. “Every woman has the instinct or desire to draw advantage out of her attractions, and much is to be said for giving one’s self without love or pleasure because if you do it in cold blood, you can reap profit to best advantage.” “Wanda, what are you saying?” “Why not?” she said, “and take note of what I am about to say to you. Never feel secure with the woman you love, for there are more dangers in woman’s nature than you imagine. Women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And you know the best part? There’s this really great hotel where hubby and I had our honeymoon. It’s on Flathead Lake and we had a suite, a hotel room with its own separate bedroom! And there was a phone in the bathroom! Really! I could have called you from the bathoom. But that’s not even the most crazy part. We decide to order room service, to have the food delivered to our room, and guess what they had on the menu? Indian fry bread! Yep. For five dollars, you could get fry bread. Crazy! So I ordered up two pieces. I didn’t think it would be any good, especially not as good as grandma’s. But let me tell you. It was great. Almost as good as grandma’s. And they had the fry bread on this fancy plate and so I ate it with this fancy fork and knife. And I just kept imagining there was some Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, just making fry bread for all the room-service people. It was a dream come true! I love my life! I love my husband! I love Montana! I love you! Your sis, Mary Thanksgiving It was a snowless Thanksgiving. We had a turkey, and Mom cooked it perfectly. We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It was a feast. I always think it’s funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during that first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I’m never quite sure why we eat turkey like everybody else. “Hey, Dad,” I said. “What do Indians have to be so thankful for?” “We should give thanks that they didn’t kill all of us.” We laughed like crazy. It was a good day. Dad was sober. Mom was getting ready to nap. Grandma was already napping. But I missed Rowdy. I kept looking at the door. For the last ten years, he’d always come over to the house to have a pumpkin-pie eating contest with me. I missed him. So I drew a cartoon of Rowdy and me like we used to be: Then I put on my coat and shoes, walked over to Rowdy’s house, and knocked on the door. Rowdy’s dad, drunk as usual, opened the door. “Junior,” he said. “What do you want?” “Is Rowdy home?” “Nope.” “Oh, well, I drew this for him. Can you give it to him?” Rowdy’s dad took the cartoon and stared at it for a while. Then he smirked. “You’re kind of gay, aren’t you?” he asked. Yeah, that was the guy who was raising Rowdy. Jesus, no wonder my best friend was always so angry. “Can you just give it to him?” I asked. “Yeah, I’ll give it to him.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Vultures flying circles in the sky hot. Mostly Rowdy and I just sat in my basement room, which was maybe five degrees cooler than the rest of the house, and read books and watched TV and played video games. Mostly Rowdy and I just sat still and dreamed about air-conditioning. “When I get rich and famous,” Rowdy said, “I’m going to have a house that has an air conditioner in every room.” “Sears has those big air conditioners that can cool a whole house,” I said. “Just one machine?” Rowdy asked. “Yeah, you put it outside and you connect it through the air vents and stuff.” “Wow, how much does that cost?” “Like, a few thousand bucks, I think.” “I’ll never have that much money.” “You will when you play in the NBA.” “Yeah, but I’ll probably have to play pro basketball in, like, Sweden or Norway or Russia or something, and I won’t need air-conditioning. I’ll probably live in, like, an igloo and own reindeer or something.” “You’re going to play for Seattle, man.” “Yeah, right.” Rowdy didn’t believe in himself. Not much. So I tried to pump him up. “You’re the toughest kid on the rez,” I said. “I know,” he said. “You’re the fastest, the strongest.” “And the most handsome, too.” “If I had a dog with a face like yours, I’d shave its ass and teach it to walk backwards.” “I once had a zit that looked like you. Then I popped it. And then it looked even more like you.” “This one time, I ate, like, three hot dogs and a bowl of clam chowder, and then I got diarrhea all over the floor, and it looked like you.” “And then you ate it,” Rowdy said. We laughed ourselves silly. We laughed ourselves sweaty. “Don’t make me laugh,” I said. “It’s too hot to laugh.” “It’s too hot to sit in this house. Let’s go swimming.” “Where?” “Turtle Lake.” “Okay,” I said. But I was scared of Turtle Lake. It was a small body of water, maybe only a mile around. Maybe less. But it was deep, crazy deep. Nobody has ever been to the bottom. I’m not a very good swimmer; so I was always afraid I’d sink and drown, and they’d never, ever find my body. One year, these scientists came with a mini-submarine and tried to find the bottom, but the lake was so silty and muddy that they couldn’t see. And the nearby uranium mine made their radar/sonar machines go nuts, so they couldn’t see that way, either, so they never made it to the bottom. The lake is round. Perfectly round. So the scientists said it was probably an ancient and dormant volcano crater.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Her mother, Marjorie Lord, played Danny Thomas’s wife on the popular television show Make Room for Daddy . With such a bloodline, it might be expected that Archer would be aiming toward stardom, but when she entered the Beverly Hills Playhouse she was coming off a television series (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice ) that she didn’t respect and that had been canceled after a single season. She was a young mother in a dissolving marriage and an actor with diminishing career prospects. Katselas had a transformative effect. Like so many others, Archer was magnetized by this ebullient Greek, with his magnificent beard and his badgering, teasing, encouraging, and infuriating personality. He was one of the most inspiring people Archer had ever met. Where had he acquired such wisdom? Some of the other students told her that Katselas was a Scientologist, so she decided to try it out. She began going two or three times a week to the Celebrity Centre to take the Life Repair Program. “ I remember walking out of the building and walking down the street toward my car, and I felt like my feet were not touching the ground. I said to myself, ‘My God, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I’ve finally found something that works!’ ” She added, “Life didn’t seem so hard anymore. I was back in the driver’s seat.” When Tommy was old enough, Archer would bring him to the Playhouse while she was taking lessons. He would wander around the theater, venturing into the light booth and watching his mother learning her craft. Jastrow recalled being struck by Tommy’s poise even as a five-year-old child. “ I am a really good dad, and he taught me how,” Jastrow said. He gave the example of a visit from his own parents, who had flown out from Midland, Texas, to meet Terry’s new family. After Jastrow had driven them back to the airport, Tommy said, “I notice that your dad was pretty strict with you.” Jastrow agreed that his father had been very stern when he was growing up. Then Tommy continued, “I was noticing that you’re pretty strict with me.” Jastrow pointed to that as a defining moment in their relationship. “I realized I wanted to be his friend first,” he said. “He was the senior being in that relationship.” Anne and Terry soon found their way into Scientology, but Tommy was initially raised in his mother’s original faith, Christian Science. His father, William Davis, is a wealthy financier and real-estate developer who was once reported to be among the largest owners of agricultural property in California. He was also a well-known fund-raiser for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and personally contributed an estimated $350,000 a year to Republican causes. Although Tommy grew up in an environment of money and celebrity, he impressed people with his modesty. He longed to do something to help humanity. Scientology seemed to offer a direction.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  She began going two or three times a week to the Celebrity Centre to take the Life Repair Program. “I remember walking out of the building and walking down the street toward my car, and I felt like my feet were not touching the ground. I said to myself, ‘My God, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I’ve finally found something that works!’ ” She added, “Life didn’t seem so hard anymore. I was back in the driver’s seat.” When Tommy was old enough, Archer would bring him to the Playhouse while she was taking lessons. He would wander around the theater, venturing into the light booth and watching his mother learning her craft. Jastrow recalled being struck by Tommy’s poise even as a five- year-old child. “I am a really good dad, and he taught me how,” Jastrow said. He gave the example of a visit from his own parents, who had flown out from Midland, Texas, to meet Terry’s new family. After Jastrow had driven them back to the airport, Tommy said, “I notice that your dad was pretty strict with you.” Jastrow agreed that his father had been very stern when he was growing up. Then Tommy continued, “I was noticing that you’re pretty strict with me.” Jastrow pointed to that as a defining moment in their relationship. “I realized I wanted to be his friend first,” he said. “He was the senior being in that relationship.” Anne and Terry soon found their way into Scientology, but Tommy was initially raised in his mother’s original faith, Christian Science. His father, William Davis, is a wealthy financier and real-estate developer who was once reported to be among the largest owners of agricultural property in California. He was also a well-known fund-raiser for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and personally contributed an estimated $350,000 a year to Republican causes. Although Tommy grew up in an environment of money and celebrity, he impressed people with his modesty. He longed to do something to help humanity. Scientology seemed to offer a direction. Paul Haggis met Tommy at the Celebrity Centre in 1989, when he was seventeen years old—“a sweet and bright boy.” Their meeting came at a critical moment in Tommy’s life. He had just broken up with his girlfriend. Archer had taken him to the Celebrity Centre for counseling, where he took a course called Personal Values and Integrity. Tommy’s presence immediately caused a stir inside the church. The president of the Celebrity Centre, Karen Hollander, fixed on the idea that Tommy should be her personal assistant. He was young, very rich, and handsome enough to be a movie star himself. He had grown up mixing with famous people.