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 Educated (2018)

  tank could be safely removed with a cutting torch. Dad had devised a shortcut: an enormous skewer, eight feet tall, of thick iron. Dad would lift a car with the forklift, and Luke would guide him until the car’s tank was suspended directly over the spike. Then Dad would drop the forks. If all went well, the car would be impaled on the spike and gasoline would gush from the tank, streaming down the spike and into the flat-bottom container Dad had welded in place to collect it. By noon, they had drained somewhere between thirty and forty cars. Luke had collected the fuel in five-gallon buckets, which he began to haul across the yard to Dad’s flatbed. On one pass he stumbled, drenching his jeans in a gallon of gas. The summer sun dried the denim in a matter of minutes. He finished hauling the buckets, then went home for lunch. I remember that lunch with unsettling clarity. I remember the clammy smell of beef-and-potato casserole, and the jingle of ice cubes tumbling into tall glasses, which sweated in the summer heat. I remember Mother telling me I was on dish duty, because she was leaving for Utah after lunch to consult for another midwife on a complicated pregnancy. She said she might not make it home for dinner but there was hamburger in the freezer. I remember laughing the whole hour. Dad lay on the kitchen floor cracking jokes about an ordinance that had recently passed in our little farming village. A stray dog had bitten a boy and everyone was up in arms. The mayor had decided to limit dog ownership to two dogs per family, even though the attacking dog hadn’t belonged to anybody at all. “These genius socialists,” Dad said. “They’d drown staring up at the rain if you didn’t build a roof over them.” I laughed so hard at that my stomach ached. Luke had forgotten all about the gasoline by the time he and Dad walked back up the mountain and readied the cutting torch, but when he jammed the torch into his hip and struck flint to steel, flames burst from the tiny spark and engulfed his leg. The part we would remember, would tell and retell so many times it became family folklore, was that Luke was unable to get out of his gasoline-soaked jeans. That morning, like every morning, he had hitched up his trousers with a yard of baling twine, which is smooth and slippery, and needs a horseman’s knot to stay in place. His footwear didn’t help,

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Our wages rose; we worked three halls a night - four, sometimes - and now, when our brougham was caught in traffic, our driver would yell, ‘I’ve got Kitty Butler and Nan King in here, due at the Royal, Holborn, in fifteen minutes! Clear a way there, can’t you ? - and the other drivers would shift a little to let us through, and smile and raise their hats to the windows as we passed! Now there were flowers for me, as well as for Kitty; now I received invitations to dinner, for requests and autographs, and letters... It took me weeks to understand that it was really happening, and to me; weeks to let myself believe in it, and to trust the crowd that liked me. But when at last I learned to love my new life, I loved it fiercely. The pleasures of success, I suppose, are rather easy to understand; it was my new capacity for pleasure - for pleasure in performance, display and disguise, in the wearing of handsome suits, the singing of ribald songs - that shocked and thrilled me most. I had been content till now to stand in the wings, looking on while Kitty dallied, in the lime-light, with the vast, rumbustious crowd. Now, suddenly, it was I who wooed it, me at whom it gazed in envy and delight. I could not help it: I had fallen in love with Kitty; now, becoming Kitty, I fell in love a little with myself. I admired my hair, so neat and so sleek. I adored my legs - my legs which, while they had had skirts about them, I had scarcely had a thought for; but which were, I discovered, rather long and lean and shapely. I sound vain. I was not - then - and could never have been, while Kitty existed as the wider object of my self-love. The act, I knew, was still all hers. When we sang, it was really she who sang, while I provided a light, easy second. When we danced, it was she who did the tricky steps: I only strolled or shuffled at her side. I was her foil, her echo; I was the shadow which, in all her brilliance, she cast across the stage. But, like a shadow, I lent her the edge, the depth, the crucial definition, that she had lacked before. It was very far from vanity, then, my satisfaction. It was only love; and the better the act became, I thought, the more perfect that love grew.

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

  While the assembled multitude wondered at this miracle with widely various emotions, St. Peter, the Rock-man, appeared in the name of all the disciples, and addressed them with remarkable clearness and force, probably in his own vernacular Aramaic, which would be most familiar to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, possibly in Greek, which would be better understood by the foreign visitors.279 He humbly condescended to refute the charge of intoxication by reminding them of the early hour of the day, when even drunkards are sober, and explained from the prophecies of Joel and the sixteenth Psalm of David the meaning of the supernatural phenomenon, as the work of that Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Jews had crucified, but who was by word and deed, by his resurrection from the dead, his exaltation to the right hand of God, and the effusion of the Holy Ghost, accredited as the promised Messiah, according to the express prediction of the Scripture. Then he called upon his hearers to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus, as the founder and head of the heavenly kingdom, that even they, though they had crucified him, the Lord and the Messiah, might receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, whose wonderful workings they saw and heard in the disciples. This was the first independent testimony of the apostles, the first Christian sermon: simple, unadorned, but full of Scripture truth, natural, suitable, pointed, and more effective than any other sermon has been since, though fraught with learning and burning with eloquence. It resulted in the conversion and baptism of three thousand persons, gathered as first-fruits into the garners of the church. In these first-fruits of the glorified Redeemer, and in this founding of the new economy of Spirit and gospel, instead of the old theocracy of letter and law, the typical meaning of the Jewish Pentecost was gloriously fulfilled. But this birth-day of the Christian church is in its turn only the beginning, the type and pledge, of a still greater spiritual harvest and a universal feast of thanksgiving, when, in the full sense of the prophecy of Joel, the Holy Spirit shall be poured out on all flesh, when all the sons and daughters of men shall walk in his light, and God shall be praised with new tongues of fire for the completion of his wonderful work of redeeming love. Notes.

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

  Pentecost, i.e. the fiftieth day after the Passover-Sabbath,253 was a feast of joy and gladness, in the loveliest season of the year, and attracted a very large number of visitors to Jerusalem from foreign lands.254 It was one of the three great annual festivals of the Jews in which all the males were required to appear before the Lord. Passover was the first, and the feast of Tabernacles the third. Pentecost lasted one day, but the foreign Jews, after the period of the captivity, prolonged it to two days. It was the "feast of harvest," or "of the first fruits," and also (according to rabbinical tradition) the anniversary celebration of the Sinaitic legislation, which is supposed to have taken place on the fiftieth day after the Exodus from the land of bondage.255 This festival was admirably adapted for the opening event in the history of the apostolic church. It pointed typically to the first Christian harvest, and the establishment of the new theocracy in Christ; as the sacrifice of the paschal lamb and the exodus from Egypt foreshadowed the redemption of the world by the crucifixion of the Lamb of God. On no other day could the effusion of the Spirit of the exalted Redeemer produce such rich results and become at once so widely known. We may trace to this day not only the origin of the mother church at Jerusalem, but also the conversion of visitors from other cities, as Damascus, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, who on their return would carry the glad tidings to their distant homes. For the strangers enumerated by Luke as witnesses of the great event, represented nearly all the countries in which Christianity was planted by the labors of the apostles.256 The Pentecost in the year of the Resurrection was the last Jewish (i.e. typical) and the first Christian Pentecost. It became the spiritual harvest feast of redemption from sin, and the birthday of the visible kingdom of Christ on earth. It marks the beginning of the dispensation of the Spirit, the third era in the history of the revelation of the triune God. On this day the Holy Spirit, who had hitherto wrought only sporadically and transiently, took up his permanent abode in mankind as the Spirit of truth and holiness, with the fulness of saving grace, to apply that grace thenceforth to believers, and to reveal and glorify Christ in their hearts, as Christ had revealed and glorified the Father.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  But when a broad stripe of sunlight fell across her back she raised her feathers to greet it. Now, standing in a shallow bath next to her perch, she nibbles her toes, takes precise and tiny bites of water. She jumps back onto her perch and begins to preen herself, contorting her body into the stylised shapes of Japanese paintings of courtly goshawks. She runs her beak through one feather after another in quick succession: the sound is of paper being scored, or a pack of cards being shuffled Then she stretches one broad wing behind her, drags it slowly back over her sunlit tail, and rouses, squeaking happily through her nose. I watch all this with a ravenous, gulping-down-champagne sense of joy. Look how happy she is, I think. This room is not a dungeon and I am not a torturer. I am a beneficent figure, one who crouches and stoops in anxious genuflection, bearing delicious treats of steak in my hand. It is hubris. Less than an hour later I am certain that my hawk hates me and I am the worst falconer in the history of the world. No matter that Mabel is far tamer than any of the boys or books had told me she would be. I’ve comprehensively failed her. The hawk is ruined. I know this is true because she doesn’t want to be hooded. Until now she has accepted the hood with equanimity. Earlier today I sensed a little thrum of disquiet in her heart and now it has exploded into outright rebellion. I bring the hood up to her head and she dodges it. Snakes her head. Contracts it into her neck. Ducks and runs. I know why this is happening. To begin with the hood was a welcome refuge, but now she’s decided I’m harmless it is merely something that stops her seeing, and she wants to see. Now, unhappy, unsettled, lifting one foot then the other, the hawk looks about the room for somewhere to go. Her mood is contagious; my heart flutters tightly, heavily in my chest. I have lost the ability to disappear. I try to remove myself by listening to the cricket on the radio but can’t understand what the commentator is saying. I can only turn my attention from my unhappy hawk by thinking about the hood I’m holding. It is all she is thinking of too.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  Friend, I want to do the same for you. Please hear me: no matter how your life looks today, no matter what tomorrow holds, God does care for us. Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!22 O we of little faith. We are seen and cared for, and there is nothing to fear because God has us. [image file=Image00040.jpg] 11 A Beautiful Interruption I Choose to Delight in God My team from IF:Gathering and I eat Tex-Mex together a lot. Recently, we were at Matt’s El Rancho, eating queso and discussing optimism. I had been studying the subject and thinking that we all—both as individuals and as a team—needed more of it. My IF:Gathering team feels more like the best of war buddies than office mates. We have been through a few battles together. That afternoon at Matt’s, we were talking specifically about the opposite of optimism: cynicism. My research into negative thinking had confirmed that, as with all spiral thought patterns, we always have a choice. We may not choose the situations and the people in our lives, but we can choose how we react. We get to choose how our minds, and therefore our lives, will go. Here is the analogy I shared with them to try to make my point. If we went together to a party one evening and the people we sat next to were complaining about the tasteless food, the lame playlist, and the rude hosts, we’d come away with the impression that the party had been a bad experience. Truth be told, we might not have minded the food or the environment, but those gripes would sway us to that negative side. We would walk away thinking, That was a terrible party. But if we went to the same party and instead sat next to people who were raving about the delicious food, the energetic music, the thoughtful seating, and the kind and generous hosts, we would leave saying, “What a fun party!” What if instead of a party we were talking about our lives? How often have we chosen to be unhappy? Rather than seeing the best and celebrating the good, we have chosen to see only the struggles and complain about the bad. I wondered aloud how choosing to see the best in all situations might bring all of us a lot more joy. One of my colleagues commented, “Jennie, I hear you. But if I choose to see the best in life, I am going to get taken advantage of.”

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  But then there is an explosive, tearing waterfall of rearing flame that bursts into appalling brightness. Erin’s eyebrows go up. He steps back a good few paces. And now I am laughing so much I can hardly stand. ‘Jesus, Erin,’ I shout. It’s as if he’s set light to the whole of the world: a twenty-foot pyramid of flame lighting the lawn, the house, the river, the far side of the river, sending black shadows out from trees that a moment ago were lost in darkness, and our faces are gilded with fierce, orange fire. What the hell have we done? The smoke mixes with the fog so that everything, everywhere is on fire. The incandescent tree, black twigs sintering, clicking, crumbling, and smoke, and Erin and I now wearing the faces of people who are going to be in serious trouble. ‘I think we might be seeing the fire truck any moment now,’ Erin shouts, and we’re both of us children again, delighted at what we have made and fearful of disaster. And then the fire is out. The skeleton stands in the snow, all its complexity gone. Just a thin trunk with a few charcoal branches, already damp in the steaming air. And I stare at the remains of the tree and breathe the smoke and fog from the air and Erin makes a face at me and I make one back. ‘That,’ he says, ‘was excellent.’ It was. A ritual burn, a ceremony of strange, protective magic. Bad things had fled from that burning tree. We laugh all the way back to the house, leaving the skeleton upright in the snow. And later that day Mum and I fly back to London. I drive her home, promise to see her soon, then make my way to Cambridge, and Stuart and Mandy’s house. I run to their door. I cannot wait to see my hawk. There she is, perched in their garden, fat and happy in a crowd of pointers with wagging tails. I thank Stuart for looking after her while I was gone. He stands by the patio doors, strangely drawn and tired. ‘No worries,’ he says. ‘I’ve not done much with her, to be honest. I’ve had flu. It’s been terrible. I’ve been in bed all Christmas. Just thrown her food.’ ‘Poor Stu,’ Mandy says, coming towards the table with three cups of coffee and a packet of open biscuits. ‘He’s really been in the wars.’ I look at my friends and my heart crumples. They have spent so many hours helping me, have shown me so much love. And I had taken it all for granted. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘I love you guys. I really do.’ I say it with as much feeling as I can. I am not just thanking them for looking after my hawk. I get up to give Stuart a hug. ‘Don’t catch it,’ he says, backing away. I hug him anyway.

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  We followed Yusuf and Sayid down a path running perpendicular to the main road, until we crossed a wall of tall hedges and entered a large compound. In the middle of the compound was a low, rectangular house with a corrugated-iron roof and concrete walls that had crumbled on one side, leaving their brown mud base exposed. Bougainvillea, red and pink and yellow with flowers, spread along one side in the direction of a large concrete water tank, and across the packed earth was a small round hut lined with earthenware pots where a few chickens pecked in an alternating rhythm. I could see two more huts in the wide grass yard that stretched out behind the house. Beneath a tall mango tree, a pair of bony red cows looked up at us before returning to feed. Home Squared. “Eh, Obama!” A big woman with a scarf on her head strode out of the main house drying her hands on the sides of her flowered skirt. She had a face like Sayid’s, smooth and big-boned, with sparkling, laughing eyes. She hugged Auma and Roy as if she were going to wrestle them to the ground, then turned to me and grabbed my hand in a hearty handshake. “Halo!” she said, attempting English. “Musawa!” I said in Luo. She laughed, saying something to Auma. “She says she has dreamed about this day, when she would finally meet this son of her son. She says you’ve brought her a great happiness. She says that now you have finally come home.” Granny nodded and pulled me into a hug before leading us into the house. Small windows let in little of the afternoon light, and the house was sparsely furnished—a few wooden chairs, a coffee table, a worn couch. On the walls were various family artifacts: the Old Man’s Harvard diploma; photographs of him and of Omar, the uncle who had left for America twenty-five years ago and had never come back. Beside these were two older, yellowing photographs, the first of a tall young woman with smoldering eyes, a plump infant in her lap, a young girl standing beside her; the second of an older man in a high-backed chair. The man was dressed in a starched shirt and a kanga; his legs were crossed like an Englishman’s, but across his lap was what appeared to be some sort of club, its heavy head wrapped in an animal skin. His high cheekbones and narrow eyes gave his face an almost Oriental cast. Auma came up beside me. “That’s him. Our grandfather. The woman in the picture is our other grandmother, Akumu. The girl is Sarah. And the baby … that’s the Old Man.”

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  “Other women?” Amy laughed and winked at Roy. “I tell you honestly, I don’t care about that.” She swung her fleshy arm over Roy’s shoulder. “As long as he treats me well, he can do what he likes. Right, baby?” Roy maintained a poker face, as if the conversation didn’t concern him. Both he and Amy had the sheen of too many beers, and I saw Jane sneak an anxious look at Kezia. I decided to change the subject, and asked Zeituni if she’d been to Garden Square before. “Me?” Zeituni raised her eyebrows at my impertinence. “Let me tell you, Barry—if there is dancing somewhere, then I have been to that place. These people here will tell you that I am the champion dancer. What do you say, Auma?” “Zeituni’s the best.” Zeituni tilted her head proudly. “You see? Really, Barry, your auntie can dance! And you want to know who was always my best partner? Your father! That guy, he really loved to dance. We entered many contests together when we were young. In fact, I’ll tell you this story about his dancing. It was when he had come home to Alego one time to visit with your grandfather. He had promised that evening to do some chore for the old man—I don’t remember what it was—but instead of doing his work, he went out to meet Kezia and take her dancing. You remember, Kezia? This is before they were married. I wanted to go with them, but Barack said I was too young. “Anyway, they came home late that night, and Barack had had a few too many beers. He tried to sneak Kezia into his hut, but the old man was still awake and heard their footsteps in the compound. Even as an old man, your grandfather’s hearing was very keen. So right away he shouts for Barack to come. When Barack comes in, the old man doesn’t say a word. He just looks at Barack and snorts like an angry bull. Hmmmph! Hmmmph! And this whole time, I am peeking through the window of the old man’s house, because I’m sure that the old man will cane Barack and I’m still angry at Barack, for not letting me go to the dance hall. “What happened next, I couldn’t believe. Instead of apologizing for coming home late, Barack walked over to the old man’s phonograph and started to play a record! Then he turned and shouted to Kezia, who was hiding outside. ‘Woman!’ Barack shouted. ‘Come here!’ Right away Kezia came into the house, too frightened to refuse, and Barack took her in his arms and began to dance with her, around and around in the old man’s house, as if he were dancing in a palace ballroom.”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘Now, don’t let on about it yet, for it ain’t been properly settled. But your pal - Kitty - she’s due to leave the Palace, ain’t she, in a week or so?’ I nodded. ‘Well, she won’t be going - not for a good while, anyway. Uncle has offered her a sparkling new contract, till the New Year - said she was too good to lose to Broadstairs.’ The New Year! That was months away, months and months and weeks and weeks; I saw them all spread out before me, each one full of nights in Kitty’s dressing-room, and good-night kisses, and dreams. I gave a cry, I think; and Tony took a swig of Bass, complacently. Then Alice appeared, demanding to know what it was that must be talked about in whispers, and shrieked over, on the stairs ... ? I didn’t wait for Tony’s answer, I thundered down to the door and into the street, and ran to the station like a hoyden, with my hat flapping about my ears -because I had forgotten, after all, to pin it properly. I had hardly expected Kitty to swagger to Whitstable in her suit and her topper and her lavender gloves; but even so, when she stepped from the train and I saw that she was clad as a girl, and walked like a girl, with her plait fastened to the back of her head and a parasol over her arm, I felt a little pang of disappointment. This swiftly turned, however - as always - to desire, and then to pride, for she looked terribly smart and handsome on that dusty Whitstable platform. She kissed my cheek when I went up to her, and took my arm, and let me lead her from the station to our house, across the sea-front. She said, ‘Well! And this is where you were born, and grew up?’ ‘Oh yes! Look there: that building, beside the church, is our old school. Over there - see that house with the bicycle by the gate? - that’s where my cousins live. Here, look, on this step, I once fell down and cut my chin, and my sister held her handkerchief to it, the whole way home ...’ So I talked and pointed, and Kitty nodded, biting her lip. ‘How lucky you are!’ she said at last; and as she said it, she seemed to sigh. I had feared that the afternoon would be dismal and hard; in fact, it was merry. Kitty shook hands with everyone, and had a word for them all, such as, ‘You must be Davy, who works in the smack’, and ‘You must be Alice, who Nancy talks about so often, and is so proud of.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  (81026 ש' || rei; all‏ ב poy), 67° g0g25(c.‏ ,שָמח||) +M¥B, 22), 13291457,‏ ; הריע ||)*98 ; על ||%*49 1 of theme 51° 507 (|| TW);‏ .6.800 ;132% רנן )3237 g5} (|| YD),‏ לי'.6 ;89% 63° 20° rei‏ ב ;337 בי" Ch 16‏ 1 = )128 ||( 96% (מ)לפני AS78848,‏ subj. ONY 7x (|| WY. Pu.‏ ;*98 ץי ,)729 ||( Is 167" no ringing‏ א 37{ Impf. 3 ms. impers.‏ ery shall be given (|| ¥}7). Hiph. Jmpy.‏ cause to ring out for joy, 1 ₪. {8 A228 3?‏ Imv.‏ ;65° ץ מוּצְאִי בקר Jb 29"; 2 ms. 13 AW)‏ ,שמח ||( "32 ץי ring out a cry of joy‏ הרנינוּ mpl,‏ ace. of theme, 502 Dt‏ .6 ; (הריע ||( ?81 לי" ,(גיל .רון (v. Dr; ef. Pi.)—Hithpol. y 78° ef.‏ 32% 1 רן]‎ [ n.[m.] ringing cry; pl. estr. pba ש‎ 32". 1 TTI n.f. ר'--;.36‎ abs,, of joy 2 ¥ 100" (|| AMW); pl. i277 ns 63°; exultation, sg. 0%. רְשָעִים‎ NIN Tb 20° (|| (ְשָמַחָה‎ TE רנה‎ n.f. ringing ery ר'.408---;‎ Je7*+; 85 'ךְש רְנָּתִי‎ + , O17) Jer4"°+4;—ringing cry: 1. in entreaty, supplication, to”, 1 K 8°=2Ch 68, Jez 11 17) 617 883 (all+ (ְתִפַּלָה‎ 106% 119142’ 16147. 2. in proclamation 1K 22% 3. in joy, esp. praise to *, שמַחָה-ך‎ Is 35" sr" (4188); + AOR 2 Ch 20%, ששו‎ 105%, + תּרָה‎ 107”, + yoy Prix; || pny ץ‎ 126°; opp. 123, ete. 30° 126°, ef. v8; קול ר'‎ Ts 48% (ישוּעָה +( 118% 477 ,(ידָה + )*42 ץ‎ ; NSB of ’s joy over Zion‏ 585 547 497 44% 14 18 ר' Zp 3% ;—OAN NINA Is 43" in the ships of their‏ ringing cry, in which they exulted, but dub.;‏ Hi Ew M1382 (bring down) into mourning their‏ ef. Kit-Di Du Che*™* Marti.‏ ; ר' ju. רנה‎ n.pr.m. in Judah 1 Ch 4”; Ava, A Pavvov, GL Pevva. Ton n.[m.] pl. bird of piercing cries, i.e. ostrich, acc. to B Bo Di and most, 423 Jb 39", but read prob. יְעָנִים‎ Hoffm Bu Du (as La 4° Qr), +. [ע]]‎ TAD} n.pr.loc. station in wilderness, Nu 33°"; Acoaa, A Peooa, GL Apeooa. ] רק‎ (Vof following; ef. Ar. 32) (Fri™*)= רֶסֶן‎ ; TSI (rare), ef. Dalm™’). +E גונ. גב רסָן‎ ,** 5: 1. halter; 2. jaw(?);— 1. ר' .פה‎ y 32° restraining mouth of horse or ass (+309); fig. of 9 OY, DNDY "ND-PY 9 Ts 30%; aby 22D Jb 30", 1.6. threw off restraint. רסן 2. 6 רְסֶני‎ DDD 41° the double of his jaw, his double jaws (of croc.), si vera 1.; connexion of mngs. strange, || לבוּשו‎ ‘22, whence GHB Wright Du conj. 13°70. n.pr.loc. in Assyria, near Nineveh‏ רסן דד Gnro”; 300 (prob.=rés éni, head of spring ;‏ ef. D1?2 261 COT & 10, my:‏ +1. [DD] vb. moisten (so Aram. DD), 45 Ar. (לש‎ (U3!) sprinkle); —Qal Inf. estr. MobITMS DAD jy Ez 46% <<

• From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995)

  Despite these heartaches, Michelle and I decided to go ahead with our wedding plans. Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., performed the service in the sanctuary of Trinity United Church of Christ, on Ninety-fifth and Parnell. Everyone looked very fine at the reception, my new aunts admiring the cake, my new uncles admiring themselves in their rented tuxedos. Johnnie was there, sharing a laugh with Jeff and Scott, my old friends from Hawaii and Hasan, my roommate from college. So were Angela, Shirley, and Mona, who told my mother what a fine job she’d done raising me. (“You don’t know the half of it,” my mother replied with a laugh.) I watched Maya politely fending off the advances of some brothers who thought they were slick but who were, in fact, much too old for her and should have known better, but when I started to grumble, Michelle told me to relax, my little sister could handle herself. She was right, of course; I looked at my baby sister and saw a full-grown woman, beautiful and wise and looking like a Latin countess with her olive skin and long black hair and black bridesmaid’s gown. Auma was standing beside her, looking just as lovely, although her eyes were a little puffy—to my surprise she was the only one who cried during the ceremony. When the band started to play, the two of them sought out the protection of Michelle’s five- and six-year-old cousins, who impressively served as our official ring-bearers. Watching the boys somberly lead my sisters out onto the dance floor, I thought they looked like young African princes in their little kente-cloth caps and matching cumberbunds and wilted bow ties. The person who made me proudest of all, though, was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol. He still works at his accounting firm, but talks about moving back to Kenya once he has enough money. In fact, when we saw each other in Home Squared, he was busy building a hut for himself and his mother, away from our grandfather’s compound, in accordance with Luo tradition. He told me then that he had moved forward with his import business and hoped it would soon pay enough to employ Bernard and Abo full-time. And when we went together to stand by the Old Man’s grave, I noticed there was finally a plaque where the bare cement had been.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  I read The Goshawk again as I sat with Mabel, read it many times, and every time it seemed a different book; sometimes a caustically funny romance, sometimes the journal of a man laughing at failure, sometimes a heartbreaking tract of another man’s despair . But one White was clear to me as I manned my hawk. It was not White the falconer . It was the man who had , for the first time in his life, discovered the joys of domesticity. A man who painted woodwork the brightest of blues and reds, who arranged feathers in jars on his mantelpiece and made curries from prawns and eggs and spoons of thin-cut marmalade. I saw him boiling his laundry in the copper on the kitchen stove, and sitting in an armchair reading Masefield’s Midnight Folk with his setter Brownie sleeping at his feet. And I saw him drinking. There was always a bottle at White’s side, and his battle with Gos made him drink all the more. ‘ It was not that one drank enough to become incapable or stupid,’ he wrote, ‘but alcohol now seemed the only way of continuing to live.’ As I sat with my hawk and puzzled over White I wondered if it was alcohol that obscured him, blurred him from view. I knew the notion was fanciful, but even so there seemed some deep connection between White’s drinking and his evasiveness. And I was sure that it was the drink that irrigated White’s constant self-sabotage, for it is a common trait of alcoholics to make plans and promises, to oneself, to others, fervently, sincerely, and in hope of redemption. Promises that are broken, again and again, through fear, through loss of nerve, through any number of things that hide that deep desire, at heart, to obliterate one’s broken self. I opened the curtains the next morning. The brightness of the room made me clearer, which concerned her for a while. But when a broad stripe of sunlight fell across her back she raised her feathers to greet it. Now, standing in a shallow bath next to her perch, she nibbles her toes, takes precise and tiny bites of water. She jumps back onto her perch and begins to preen herself, contorting her body into the stylised shapes of Japanese paintings of courtly goshawks. She runs her beak through one feather after another in quick succession: the sound is of paper being scored, or a pack of cards being shuffled Then she stretches one broad wing behind her, drags it slowly back over her sunlit tail, and rouses, squeaking happily through her nose. I watch all this with a ravenous, gulping-down-champagne sense of joy. Look how happy she is , I think.

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

  "Let others," says Ambrose, "heap up silver and gold; we gather the nails wherewith the martyrs were pierced, and their victorious blood, and the wood of their cross."897 He himself relates at large, in a letter to his sister, the miraculous discovery of the bones of the twin brothers Gervasius and Protasius, two otherwise wholly unknown and long-forgotten martyrs of the persecution under Nero or Domitian.898 This is one of the most notorious relic miracles of the early church. It is attested by the most weighty authorities, by Ambrose and his younger contemporaries, his secretary and biographer Paulinus, the bishop Paulinus of Nola, and Augustine, who was then in Milan; it decided the victory of the Nicene orthodoxy over the Arian opposition of the empress Justina; yet is it very difficult to be believed, and seems at least in part to rest on pious frauds.899 The story is, that when Ambrose, in 386, wished to consecrate the basilica at Milan, he was led by a higher intimation in a vision to cause the ground before the doors of Sts. Felix and Nahor to be dug up, and there he found two corpses of uncommon size, the heads severed from the bodies (for they died by the sword), the bones perfectly preserved, together with a great quantity of fresh blood.900 These were the saints in question. They were exposed for two days to the wondering multitude, then borne in solemn procession to the basilica of Ambrose, performing on the way the healing of a blind man, Severus by name, a butcher by trade, and afterward sexton of this church. This, however, was not the only miracle which the bones performed. "The age of miracles returned," says Ambrose. "How many pieces of linen, how many portions of dress, were cast upon the holy relics and were recovered with the power of healing from that touch.901 It is a source of joy to all to touch but the extremest portion of the linen that covers them; and whoso touches is healed. We give thee thanks, O Lord Jesus, that thou hast stirred up the energies of the holy martyrs at this time, wherein thy church has need of stronger defence. Let all learn what combatants I seek, who are able to contend for us, but who do not assail us, who minister good to all, harm to none." In his homily De inventione SS. Gervasii et Protasii, he vindicates the miracle of the healing of the blind man against the doubts of the Arians, and speaks of it as a universally acknowledged and undeniable fact: The healed man, Severus, is well known, and publicly testifies that he received his sight by the contact of the covering of the holy relics.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  ראה “sich vertiefen in’): )1( gaze at 186" (on context vy. We Dr HPS), so as to become acquainted with Gn 34'(P); so as to find out Ec 3”; inspect liver (for omens) Ez 21"; some- what weakened = behold Jb 3° 2 Ch7* ש‎ (2) look at with kindness, helpfulness, of ’, “YD Gn 29” 18 17 (+ inf. abs.), 2 ₪ 16%, 182 y 106%. (3) upon a spectacle causing anger Ex 2"(E), grief Gn 21° (E), 44% Nurz® (both J), 2% 227) (subj. 22m) —2iCh 244) igh or abhorrence 1866". (4) gaze at with appre- hension Ec11*. (5) with joy, pleasure, 2 K 10° Mi 7° Je 29” Is 528 (MW2 ,עין‎ cf. Niph. Nu 14"), Jb 20” 337 7 00" 125° 6 3 0 Ke 2'. (6) esp. with exultation, triumph = jeast eyes upon, sts. gloat over (fallen enemies), Ju 167 Miz” Ez 28" Ob? vy 22% דד‎ bc: bs pers. Is 177 (subj. עינים‎ ; || by myy); על‎ pers. Ex5” (J); NANT OY ליד אמ ר'‎ v. [tak] and Comm., also Spiegelb 28 יוצ‎ 119090986 6. ,ל‎ aab$ יָר'‎ may ז הָאָדֶם 1 לְעִינִיִם‎ 8 167, 1D ו 0 - .64% רְאָהלְמו‎ is DIND כְתוּר‎ NN 1 Ch 17” (and || BINT תורת‎ NNN 2 ₪ 7%), read וַתִרְאָנִי‎ (with other changes)We Dr Kau BuHPS Now; Ez12™ read prob. Niph. & Hi Co Krae ; Mi 6° read prob. 787! cf. NowGASm. WNiph. Pf. 3 ms. 1813 Gn 48°+, etc.; Jmpf. 3 ms. 18)? Gn22"+4, juss. ST Ex3 43 Lvg®, S11 מצ)‎ 1 27+ ; 1s, SUN) Ex 6°, 660.; 276. ms. IN x K 187; Inf. estr. להרְאות‎ 1S17%4, לראות‎ Isr? 4 2 t., הַרְאה‎ Ju 132 ד‎ ₪ 3%, etc.;—1. appear, esp. a. of י'‎ (God): 6. אל‎ pers. בא)‎ 1277 + 6 +. 0, Gn 351 (E), v? 483 Ex 63 שרי)‎ DNA, ב‎ essent.), Ly 1 P),. 1 K3* 977 = 2 Chg? Ror rr ite: ל‎ pers. Je 31° 2 Chi’ 3! (ins. * © Kau Kit); abs. Gn 22% in the mt. where י"‎ appeareth (prob., Di Sta%* 450 J); Hast. DB ii. 17 E); Nua ד‎ (JE; nya Py, v. Is 52° Qal 8 a(5)), א1‎ 16°(P; ב‎ loc. + >¥), 18 3 ב)‎ loc.), 28227 (MET OY; <8" || y

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  Tiga n.pr.f. (perfume !)—1. Hittite woman, a wife of Esau Gn 26* (P); called daughter of Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth Gn 36% (but due prob. to R; this daughter of Ishmael is מחלת‎ in 28° P); .ץ‎ also 364°" (all P) (Sam. has מחלת‎ throughout Gn 36). 2. daughter of Solomon, wife of Ahimaaz 1 K 4”. Toba n.pr.m. a descendant of Issachar ל‎ Towa n.pr.m. 1. son of Ishmael Gn aS == ג ד‎ 1%. 2. a descendant of Simeon ד‎ vb. bear tidings )/ rub, smooth‏ [בשר] ך the face; cf. Ar. +23 remove the face or surface of‏ 5-ל 25402 a thing, cf. Ar. 723 be glad, joyful;‏ he rejoiced him with the message of the birth of‏ a son; Eth. 006: bring a joyful message, so‏ DHM™,‏ תבשר As. bussuru (Pa.) 101775, Sab.‏ n.pr.dei, +; 13111] 2965 CIS‏ בשר also‏ 2t.; Impf. Win‏ + 20% 16 בְּשרץ aves at *)— Pi.‏ 4t.; TWIN 2818"; Imv. NW 1 Ch‏ + 818% 2 מָבַשַר.% 3r°+2t.;‏ 8 ז ?82" 16°=y 96°; Inf.‏ מִבַשָרוּת Is 40°; pl.‏ מְבַשָרֶת .1 ;₪ 6+ *ז4 Is‏ gladden with good tidings: birth‏ .1- - :685 ש of a son Je 20”; victory 1S 31° 281% 1 Ch‏ he was in his eyes‏ היה כמבשר בעיניו ;"68 ץ 10° as a bearer of good tidings 28 4™. 2. bear‏ tidings 2 ₪ 189995: even of evil 18 4”, and‏ K 1®. 3. herald as‏ 1 בשר טוב so with ace.‏ glad tidings: the salvation of God, preach‏ (chiefly exilic usage) the advent of ” in salva-‏ tion Na2’ Is 40"% 417 527"; the praises of‏ Yahweh 60°; His righteousness in the great‏ congregation y 40”; His salvation daily 96?‏ =1Ch 169: the Messianic servant preaches‏ good tidings to the meek 1861'. Hithp. Jmpf.‏ WBN 2/8 18% receive good tidings (so Kirkp.‏ Klo; cf. Ar. 3 Iv. X; otherwise AV).‏ VP Doce BM. flesh (cf. 5 skin, Syr. 5 2 As. bi8ru, blood-relation, D‏ ,כבבב[ flesh of bulls) —Gn 2%‏ בשר תורם Sab.‏ 516 .66 בּשָרִי Gn17"+ 40 6.; sf.‏ בְּשַר .03 ;6 126 + 1% Stud. i. 143, 142 mw.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Ralph blinked two or three times on hearing that, then looked hastily back into the tent, as if to make sure there were no naked flames about, over which an unfriendly audience might take it into their heads to try and tip him. Then he looked queasily at his cigarette, and threw it down.‘I think, if it’s all the same to you,’ he said, ‘I shall just go off and have another run through my address.’ And before I could open my mouth to persuade him otherwise he had slipped away, and left me smoking on my own.I did not mind: it was still pleasanter outside the tent than in it. I put the cigarette between my lips and folded my arms, and leaned back a little against the canvas. Then I closed my eyes, and let the sun fall full upon my face; then I took the fag away, and gave a yawn.And as I did so, there came a woman’s voice at my shoulder, that made me jump.‘Well! Of all the gals to see at a working people’s rally, I should’ve said that Nancy King would be about the last of ‘em.’I opened my eyes, let my cigarette fall, and turned to the woman and gave a cry.‘Zena! Oh! And is it really you?’It was indeed Zena: she stood beside me plumper and even handsomer than when I had seen her last, and clad in a scarlet coat and a bracelet with charms on. ‘Zena!’ I said again. ‘Oh! How good it is to see you.’ I took her hand and pressed it, and she laughed.‘I’ve met just about every gal I ever knew here, today,’ she said. ‘And then I saw this other one, standing up against a tent flap with a fag at her lip and I thought, Lord, but don’t she look like old Nan King? What a lark, if it should be her, after all this time - and here, of all places! And I stepped up a bit closer, and then I saw that your hair was all clipped, and I knew it was you, for sure.’‘Oh, Zena! I was certain I should never hear from you again.’ She looked a little sheepish at that; and then, remembering, I pressed her hand even harder and said in quite a different tone: ‘What a nerve you’ve got, though! After leaving me in such a state, that time in Kilburn! I thought I should die.’Now she made a show of tossing her head. ‘Well! You done me very brown, you know, over that money.’‘I do know it. What a little beast I was! I suppose, you never did get to the colonies ...’She wrinkled her nose. ‘My friend who went to Australia came back.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Even now, if you were to ask me, quickly, ‘What is heaven like?’ I should have to say that it must smell of over-heated horsehair, and be filled with angels in spangles and gauze, and decorated with fountains of scarlet and blue ...But not, perhaps, have Kitty in it.I did not think this then, of course. I was only extraordinarily glad to have a place in such a business, and with my true love at my side; and everything that Kitty said or did only seemed to show that she felt just the same. I believe we spent more hours at the Brit that winter than at our new home in Stamford Hill - more time in velvet suits and powdered wigs than out of them. We made friends with all the theatre people - with the ballerinas and the wardrobe-girls, the gas-men, the property-men, the carpenters and the call-boys. Flora, our dresser, even found herself a beau amongst them. He was a black fellow, who had run away from a sailing family in Wapping to join a minstrel troupe; not having the voice for it, however, he had become a stage-hand instead. His name, I believe, was Albert - but he paid about as much heed to that as anybody in the business, and was known, universally, as ‘Billy-Boy’. He loved the theatre more than any of us, and spent all his hours there, playing cards with the door-men and the carpenters, hanging about in the flies, twitching ropes, turning handles. He was good-looking, and Flora was very keen on him; he spent a deal of time, in consequence, at our dressing-room door, waiting to take her home after the show - and so we came to know him very well. I liked him because he came from the river, and had left his family for the theatre’s sake, as I had. Sometimes, in the afternoons or late at night, he and I would leave Kitty and Flora fussing over the costumes and take a stroll through the dim and silent theatre, just for the pleasure of it.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  In the garden, if the weather’s fine. What would be marvellous,’ she said, head tilted, ‘would be if you came along afterwards and brought your hawk. We’ve heard you’re flying her on the college grounds, and we’d love to meet her.’ She uncapped a black marker pen, wrote HELEN GOSHAWK on a whiteboard, then hesitated, turned to me. ‘Two p.m.?’ ‘Two p.m.’ She wrote the time in her elegant hand and smiled. So now the hawk eats, the conversation continues, the sun falls in pale planes on the ancient walls, the chirrups of house martins drift down from above like distant fingertips on glass, and I glory in it all. How beautiful it is here, I think, and how supremely unlikely it is that I ever got to be here at all, a state- school kid born to parents who’d never gone to university, to whom Cambridge was the mysterious haunt of toffs and spies. ‘You must be a spy,’ my father used to tell me. ‘Must be.’ He’d watched me as a child sneaking about with binoculars, hiding for hours in bushes and trees. I was the invisible girl; someone tailor-made for a secret life. ‘No, really I’m not,’ I’d say for the hundredth time. ‘I’m not!’ ‘But of course you’d say that.’ And he’d laugh delightedly, because there was no way I could persuade him otherwise. ‘It’s a job, Dad,’ I’d say, rolling my eyes. ‘I teach people English and the History of Science. I sit in a library, read books, do my research. That’s all it is. I’m not something out of a John le Carré novel.’ ‘But you could be,’ he’d say, stressing the could, and part of him not joking at all. My father had revelled in the thought that I might be a spy, for it was a life he understood, being only a hair’s breadth from his own. One day he’d handed me a miniature silver camera. ‘It takes special film,’ he said gleefully, flipping open the back and showing me where the miniature spool fitted in its matchbox-sized casing. Over the years he’d rigged up infra-red light-beams to photograph nocturnal wildlife, staked out the love-nests of cabinet ministers, tracked and photographed the movements of nuclear waste on secret midnight trains, climbed over fences, sneaked cameras into places he, and they, should not have been. Patience, detection, subterfuge and record. What historians did for a living was far more mysterious to him than the work of spies. My vision blurs. We carry the lives we’ve imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all of the lives we have lost. The summer lunch recedes. I cannot pull it back. Fog seeps in from the rugby pitch where Prideaux strode. Slow, white breaths.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  There was no one in that house, it seemed, who had not some link with the profession. Even plain little Minnie - the eighth member of our party, the girl who had brought us tea on our arrival and had returned now to help Mrs Dendy dish and serve and clear the plates - even she belonged to a ballet troupe, and had a contract at a concert hall in Lambeth. Why, even the dog, Bransby, which soon nosed its way into the parlour to beg for scraps, and to lean his slavering jaw against Professor Emery’s knee - even he was an old artiste, and had once toured the South Coast in a dancing dog act, and had a stage name: ‘Archie’.It was a Sunday night, and nobody had a hall to rush to after supper; no one seemed to have anything to do, indeed, except sit and smoke and gossip. At seven o‘clock there was a knock upon the door, and a girl came halloo-ing her way into the house with a dress of tulle and satin and a gilt tiara: she was a friend of Tootsie’s from the ballet at the Pav come to ask Mrs Dendy’s opinion of her costume. While the frock was spread out on the parlour rug, the supper-things were carried off; and when the table was cleared the Professor sat at it and spread a deck of cards. Percy joined him, whistling; his tune was taken up by Sims, who raised the lid of Mrs Dendy’s piano and began to strike the melody out on that. The piano was a terrible one - ‘Damn this cheesy old thing!’ cried Sims as he hit at it. ‘You could play Wagner on it, and I swear it would come out sounding like a sea-shanty or a jig!’ - but the tune was gay and it made Kitty smile.‘I know this,’ she said to me; and since she knew it she couldn’t help but sing it, and had soon stepped over the sparkling frock upon the floor to lift her voice for the chorus at Sims’s side.I sat on the sofa with Bransby, and wrote a postcard to my family. ‘I am in the queerest-looking parlour you ever saw,’ I wrote, ‘and everybody is extremely kind. There is a dog here with a stage-name!