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 City of Night (1963)

  More than twenty years and seven books later, how do I feel about City of Night ? It thrills me—not only for myself but for the many lives it contains, those always remembered faces and voices—that within my lifetime this book, so excoriated when it first appeared, has come to be referred to frequently as a “modern classic.” And I no longer feel the guilt I battled so long, about the “real people” I thought I would “leave behind.” No—they are a permanent part of my life, of that part of me—the writer—who tells of his journey as a “youngman.” John Rechy Los Angeles, 1984 2 Times Square, New York, is an electric island floating on a larger island of lonesome parks and lonesome apartment houses and knifepointed buildings stretching Up. (I will think dazedly one night: Someday this city will tear its wharf-lined fringes from the ocean and soar in desperation to the Sky....) Times Square is the magnet for all the lonesome exiles jammed into this city.... And this is how I found that world of Times Square. In the incessantly running showers of the Sloane House YMCA the day I arrived in New York, the big hairy man made conversation with me; where am I from and what am I doing and am I working yet (“No? Good. I mean good that you dont have to be anywhere at a set time.”), and will I come to his room and he’ll buy hamburgers. Hes a merchant marine, tanned from a recent Voyage to somefarwhere—on his way now to Boston with I imagine a roll of money big enough to make me greedy. Unfairly, Im almost broke—$20.00 when I left Chicago, and one phone number what said nervously we must have lunch sometime. And no prospect of a job which will pay me before the money runs out. In the tiny cubicle-room facing the courtyard across which a lonesome youngman, also undoubtedly just arrived in the City, played a doleful guitar by his window, we sit eating oniony greaseburgers and ignoring the persistent sound of the running showers. For a moment, I think it’s the hurricane. Outside, in the hallway, doors open and close. The sound of feet walking up and down never stops. A hurried conversation outside, a door closes. Even before this man speaks it, I know that something of what Ive come to find in this city will soon be revealed in this room. “They dont call this Y the French Embassy for nothing,” the merchant marine laughs. He has sized me up slyly: broke and green in the big city—and he said: “You wouldnt be broke if youd been at Mary’s last night—thats a place in the Village and everything goes.”

• From The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (2015)

  Native American theology pays attention to these issues of kinship and exile because they are so central to the spiritual content of the larger story. If Jesus and John are exiles, the power of their story takes on a much deeper meaning for Native America. As a community built on acceptance and inclusion, where exile is the very worst form of punishment, the kinship of the two brothers to their clan and nation makes a great deal of difference. If John was an outcast, then as a contrary he would have been presenting Jesus as the alternative: the opposite of rejection. The embodied message of the Native Messiah from the very beginning of the story would have been: no more exiles. This notion of radical inclusion in the John-Jesus story leads us to consider the fundamental issues of community. Both brothers are intimately connected to the Covenant tradition of Native America. If they were exiles, then this focus on traditional values becomes even more intensified. As a sacred clown and a medicine man, they represent a vision that is special, demanding, and ultimately sacrificial. The function of the Native vision quest is to show the person making the quest how to give away self to help others. The vision of the sacred clown and the medicine person is doubly demanding. Both clowns and medicine people are the spiritual core of Native community. They embody the traditional virtues to an exemplary degree. Therefore, they must live only for the sake of their people. In some cases, like Sitting Bull, they have to die for the people. By virtue of their vision quests, John and Jesus understand what they are being asked to do. They risk rejection and even exile. They accept that risk for a higher purpose: the ultimate value of kinship. They sacrifice themselves to make a give-away for the good of the people. Give-away theology is one of the most foundational theologies of the Native Covenant. My ordination as a priest at Wakpala on the Standing Rock Reservation was one of the most important days of my life. After such a long journey searching for how the two paths of my life might become one, it was a celebration not only of affirmation, but healing. The service was held in St. Elizabeth’s Church, one of the historic mission churches in the Dakotas. The evening of the ordination the church was crowded with people: other priests and deacons; Traditional and Christian Native people; the bishop; and a medicine person with the sacred pipe. The ceremony marked both my commitment to Christian priesthood and to Native tradition. It was a moment when I received a new name, one that I hold quietly in my heart to this day. But of all the memories I have of that special occasion, the one I remember most fondly is what happened after the service. All of the people gathered in the parish hall.

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

  as a continuation of the Jewish Sabbath. It observed it as the day of the commemoration of the resurrection or of the now spiritual creation, and hence as a day of sacred joy and thanksgiving, standing in bold contrast to the days of humiliation and fasting, as the Easter festival contrasts with Good Friday. So long as Christianity was not recognized and protected by the state, the observance of Sunday was purely religious, a strictly voluntary service, but exposed to continual interruption from the bustle of the world and a hostile community. The pagan Romans paid no more regard to the Christian Sunday than to the Jewish Sabbath. In this matter, as in others, the accession of Constantine marks the beginning of a new era, and did good service to the church and to the cause of public order and morality. Constantine is the founder, in part at least, of the civil observance of Sunday, by which alone the religious observance of it in the church could be made universal and could be properly secured. In the year 321 he issued a law prohibiting manual labor in the cities and all judicial transactions, at a later period also military exercises, on Sunday.692 He exempted the liberation of slaves, which as an act of Christian humanity and charity, might, with special propriety, take place on that day.693 But the Sunday law of Constantine must not be overrated. He enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis, familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshippers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians. There is no reference whatever in his law either to the fourth commandment or to the resurrection of Christ. Besides he expressly exempted the country districts, where paganism still prevailed, from the prohibition of labor, and thus avoided every appearance of injustice. Christians and pagans had been accustomed to festival rests. Constantine made these rests to synchronize, and gave the preference to Sunday, on which day Christians from the beginning celebrated the resurrection of their Lord and Saviour. This and no more was implied in the famous enactment of 321. It was only a step in the right direction, but probably the only one which Constantine could prudently or safely take at that period of transition from the rule of paganism to that of Christianity.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  It was ‘Kitty Butler and Nan King’ that appeared on the posters; and ‘Kitty Butler and Nan King’ that began to rise, rather steadily, from middle-billing, to second-billing, to top-of-the-list. Not just at the Camberwell hall but, over the next few months, at all the lesser London halls and - slowly, slowly - some of the West End ones, too ... I cannot say what it was that made the crowds like Kitty and me together, more than they had liked Kitty Butler on her own. It may just have been, as Walter had foreseen, that we were novel: for though in later years we were rather freely imitated, there was certainly no other act like ours in the London halls in 1889. It may also have been - again, as Walter had predicted - that the sight of a pair of girls in gentlemen’s suits was somehow more charming, more thrilling, more indefinably saucy, than that of a single girl in trousers and topper and spats. We did, I know, go handsomely together -Kitty with her nut-brown crop, me with my head blonde and smooth and gleaming; she raised a little on her one-inch slippers, me in my flat effeminate shoes, my cleverly tailored suits that masked the slender angularity of my frame with girlish curves.Whatever it was that made the change, however, it worked, and worked extraordinarily. We became not just rather popular, as Kitty had been, but really famous. 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.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  We knew we must keep Kitty‘s, for the sake of her successes of the past half-year; but Walter said ‘Astley’ was rather too common, and could we think of a better one? I didn’t mind, only said I should like to keep ‘Nan’ - since Kitty herself had re-christened me that; and we took our lunch, in consequence, with everybody volunteering names they thought would match it. Tootsie said ‘Nan Love’, Sims ‘Nan Sergeant’. Percy said, ‘Nan Scarlet - no, Nan Silver - no, Nan Gold ...’ Every name seemed to offer me some new and marvellous version of myself; it was like standing at the costumier’s rail and shrugging on the jackets. None, however, seemed to fit - till the Professor tapped the table, cleared his throat, and said: ‘Nan King’. And although I should like to be able to say - as other artistes do - that there was some terribly clever or romantic story behind the choosing of my stage-name - that we had opened a special book at a certain place, and found it there; that I had heard the word ‘King’ said in a dream, and quivered at it - I can give no better account of the matter than the truth: which was only that we needed a name, and the Professor said ‘Nan King’, and I liked it. It was as ‘Kitty Butler and Nan King’, therefore, that we returned to Camberwell that evening - to renew, and improve upon our success of the night before. It was ‘Kitty Butler and Nan King’ that appeared on the posters; and ‘Kitty Butler and Nan King’ that began to rise, rather steadily, from middle-billing, to second-billing, to top-of-the-list. Not just at the Camberwell hall but, over the next few months, at all the lesser London halls and - slowly, slowly - some of the West End ones, too ... I cannot say what it was that made the crowds like Kitty and me together, more than they had liked Kitty Butler on her own. It may just have been, as Walter had foreseen, that we were novel: for though in later years we were rather freely imitated, there was certainly no other act like ours in the London halls in 1889. It may also have been - again, as Walter had predicted - that the sight of a pair of girls in gentlemen’s suits was somehow more charming, more thrilling, more indefinably saucy, than that of a single girl in trousers and topper and spats. We did, I know, go handsomely together -Kitty with her nut-brown crop, me with my head blonde and smooth and gleaming; she raised a little on her one-inch slippers, me in my flat effeminate shoes, my cleverly tailored suits that masked the slender angularity of my frame with girlish curves. Whatever it was that made the change, however, it worked, and worked extraordinarily. We became not just rather popular, as Kitty had been, but really famous.

• 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 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)

  I rose, reluctantly, and put on my gloves and my hat, and said that I should go; and then Kitty introduced me - ‘My friend, Miss Astley,’ she called me, which made me feel a little gayer - and Mr Bliss shook my hand.‘Tell your Mother,’ said Kitty as she showed me to the door, ‘that I shall come tomorrow, any time she likes.’‘Come at four,’ I said.‘Four it is, then!’ She briefly took my hand again, and kissed my cheek.Over her shoulder I saw the flashy gentleman fingering his whiskers, but with his eyes turned, politely, away from us. I can hardly say what a curious mix of feelings mine were, the Sunday afternoon when Kitty came to call on us in Whitstable. She was more to me than all the world; that she should be visiting me in my own home, and supping with my family, seemed both a delight too lovely to be borne and a great and dreadful burden. I loved her, and could not but long to have her come; but I loved her, and not a soul must know it - not even she. It would be a torture, I thought, to have to sit beside her at my father’s table with that love within me, mute and restless as a gnawing worm. I would have to smile while Mother asked, Why didn’t Kitty have a beau? and smile again when Davy held Rhoda’s hand, or Tony pinched my sister’s knee beneath the table - when all the while my darling would be at my side, untouchable.Then again, there was the crampedness, and the dinginess - and the unmistakable fishiness - of our home to fret over. Would Kitty think it mean? Would she see the tears in the drugget, the smears on the walls; would she see that the armchairs sagged, that the rugs were faded, that the shawl which Mother had tacked to the mantel, so that it fluttered in the draught from the chimney, was dusty and torn, its fringes unravelling? I had grown up with these things, and for eighteen years had barely noticed them, but I saw them now, for what they really were, as if through her own eyes.I saw my family, too, anew. I saw my father - a gentle man, but prone to dullness. Would Kitty think him dull? And Davy: he could be rather brash; and Rhoda - horrible Rhoda - would certainly be over-pert. What would Kitty make of them? What would she think of Alice - my dearest friend, until a month ago? Would she think her cold, and would her coldness puzzle her?

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  We won’t have that at this table. You go on and give him a real good chew.’ He said it kindly, and Kitty laughed. She peered into the shell in her hand.‘And is it really alive?’ she said.‘Alive alive-oh,’ said Davy. ‘If you listen very hard, you will hear him shrieking as he goes down.’There were protests at that from Rhoda and Alice. ‘You will make the poor girl sick,’ said Mother. ‘Don’t you mind him, Miss Butler. You just eat your fish, and enjoy it.’Kitty did so. With no more glances at me she threw the contents of her shell into her mouth, chewed them hard and fast, and swallowed them. Then she wiped her lips with her napkin, and smiled at Father.‘Now,’ he said, confidentially, ‘tell the truth: have you ever tasted an oyster such as that, before, or have you not?’Kitty said that she had not, and Davy gave a cheer; and for a while there was no sound at all but the delicate, diminutive sounds of good oyster-supper: the creak of hinges, the slap of discarded beards, the trickle of liquor and butter and beer.I opened no more shells for Kitty, for she managed them herself. ‘Look at this one!’ she said, when she had handled half-a-dozen or so. ‘What a brute he is!’ Then she looked more closely at it. ‘Is it a he? I suppose they all must be, since they all have beards?’Father shook his head, chewing. ‘Not at all, Miss Butler, not at all. Don’t let the beards mislead you. For the oyster, you see, is what you might call a real queer fish - now a he, now a she, as quite takes its fancy. A regular morphodite, in fact!’‘Is that so?’Tony tapped his plate. ‘You’re a bit of an oyster, then, yourself, Kitty,’ he said with a smirk.She looked for a moment rather uncertain, but then she smiled. ‘Why, I suppose I am,’ she said. ‘Just fancy! I’ve never been likened to a fish before.’‘Well, don’t take it the wrong way, Miss Butler,’ said Mother, ‘for spoken in this house, it is something of a compliment.’Tony laughed, and Father said, ‘Oh, it was, it was!’Kitty still smiled. Then she half-rose to reach a pepper castor; and when she sat again she drew her feet beneath her chair, and I felt my thigh grow cool. When the oyster-barrel was quite empty, and the lemonade and the Bass had all been drunk, and Kitty declared that she had never had a finer supper in all her life, we moved our chairs away from the table, and the men lit cigarettes, and Alice and Rhoda set out cups, for tea. There was more talk, and more questions for Kitty to answer. Had she ever met Nelly Power? Did she know Bessie Bellwood, or Jenny Hill, or Jolly John Nash? Then, on another tack: was it true that she had no young chap? She said she had no time for it.

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

  + 1. TENT n.f. canopy, chamber (as cover- ing, enclosing) —abs.’ n Is 4°; sf. INBO y 19%; AMEN Jo 2% ;—1. canopy, עלדבל-כבוד ח'‎ Is 4° | over all glory a canopy (for protection). 2. chamber, of bridegroom ו‎ 19° (metaph. of sun rising); of bride Jo 2% (|| 130 of bridegroom). MET n.pr.m. 1 Ch 24" priest of 13th‏ .זנ course, 695 4.‏ 1 דזפים‎ n.pr.m. a son of Benjamin Gn 467! (G Odile 2 Ope), descendant of Benjamin 1 Ch 7° (G Audhew, Apher, GL Odep), and so / pan ys; ,ץ‎ DDN, an, as,‏ ,חפף (NH yan; Aram.‏ חפ all rub, cleanse, esp. the head).‏ זף אני sa‏ פשע חַף Tan adj. clean—only‏ Jb 33° I am pure, without: transgression,‏ שָכבי I am clean (in speech of Elihu).‏ tyan vb. delight in (cf. Ar. as be mindful of, attentive to, keep, protect, Aram. $2 whence eu ¢ eager, zealous, Ar. 5 anger (excitement), 125! enrage (Aram. and Ax. of excited attention, Heb. of delighted atten- tion), D1?" כ אך‎ 26 196.75: NH חפץ‎ weakened to thing, v. De®", Ph. in n.pr. (חפצבעל‎ ;- - Qal Pf. ח'"‎ Gn34%+ 28 כו‎ 1. NYDN 1566"; 2m, +*%21%כ חָפַצְתָּ‎ 4 t.; YBN Jb wae etc., +14 t. PE; Impf YT Dt 29+ t.5 PEM ש‎ 37" 147%; pl. BN) Is 13% Je 6; EM y 68%; PYBM 15 587° ete.+9t. Impf.; Inf. abs. yan Ez 18"; on Pt. YO = adj. verb., v. infr.;—1. of men: a. take pleasure in, delight in, 6. 3, ₪ woman Gn 34" (J), Dt 21% Est 2%; a man 18 18" 19! 2 5 20"; in matters and things 2 ₪ 24° Is 13” 66° 166% 109" 112° 519” Pr ies Est 6°79; ¢. acc. 68" Is 58? Ec 8°; implic. obj. ץ‎ 73”. b. delight, desire, be pleased to do a thing, would do it Dt 257* 1 K 9’ Est 6° Ru © 38 ש‎ 40° Jb g® 13° 21 33” Is 58? Je 42%, c. abs. PEAY עד‎ wntil it please (of love) Ct 27 3° | 5% 2. of God: a. delight in, have pleasure in, c. 3, persons Nu 14° (J), 2S 15% 22% = Vy 18%, 1 K 10°= 2 Cho’, ץש‎ 229 41” Is 624; | not in the strength of a horse y147"; in doing evil Mal2”; in the death 01 the sinner 13218" 33"; but in mercy, justice, and righteousness 26 95; בחר באשר (לא) חפצתי‎ Is 564 65” 66%; not with (acc.) the blood of bullocks [81% זבח(ים)‎ y 40% 51'S", or the death of the sinner | Ez 18"; but with ton Ho 6° 211 7% nox a ——_ x. "שיש

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

  grass (NH id., As. digu,‏ 7" , בוד. בב רשאז fresh shoots‏ התא herb, Lyon Sreontexte 9. Sab.‏ DHM2¢ "0.5" — springiime ClS" =. Aram.‏ Nok (cf. Lag**™®))—"7 abs. Gn 1" + 13t.‏ דְּתְאֶה ace. cogn. SYA Gn 1"; ef. v” (in both, pro-‏ duced by earth); springing out of earth 28 23°;‏ of a second crop of grass Pr 27” (opp. V3);‏ לְהַצְמִיחַ מצָא דשא caused to spring forth by God‏ Jb 38%; refreshed by rain Dt 327; “7 nix}‏ as food of wild ass Jb 6°; as failing‏ ;23° שי (withered) Is 15°; lacking for animals Je 14°;‏ (עשב 71¥ ||( 1% sim. of weakness 2 K‏ וירק דּשָא =Is 37”; of transitoriness (withering) 37°‏ of growth and prosperity, Is 66™.‏ ; (יָרֶק 7‘( vb. be fat, grow fat (Ar. os‏ דשןז make Jat,‏ הר שן whence also 2.25 grease, fat; NH‏ fat)—Qal Pf. 3 ms. {¥7) consec.‏ דָּשָן cf. NH‏ Dt317(JE)fig. ofIsr.’sprosperity. Pi, PfNIW7]‏ DWT consec. Nu 4"; Impf:: maw‏ ;23° ש volunt. (cf. Ges'** De; but perh. rd. sf.‏ 20% ץש "מז Ki 008""(; 3 fs. JW) Pr‏ .ד -נָה ,-נָהָ ד' בשמן Ex 27°—causat. make fat‏ לרשנו Inf.‏ anoint, symbol of festivity and joy‏ .1.6 ראשי Pr1r5* of bodily effect of good‏ ד' OXY‏ ;23° ש Jind a burnt-offering fat=accept-‏ ד'עולה news;‏ able y 20‘; elsewhere denom. fr. JY1 (fat‏ ashes) ;—take away, clear away the fat ashes‏ סירות לדשנו (ace. of altar cleared) Nu 4% (P), so‏ (P). Pu. Jmpf. 11) Pr 28” Is 347;‏ 27% א Pr r1® 13*—pass. of causat. Pi. be‏ תֶרְשָן .5 3 made fat, of dust saturated abn Is 347; fig.‏ of prosperity of the liberal Pr11™, the diligent‏ הֶרִּשָנָה the trustful 28%. Hothp. Pf 3 fs.‏ 3% ז (cf. O15?" Ges$**) Is 3 4% of Yahweh’s sword :—‏ it hath fattened itself 29) (|| DI TN).‏ tT דשן‎ n.m. fatness, fat ashes—abs.’7 y 63° +8 t., wa Ly 1°43 t.; estr. wy W 36°; sf. wa Ju ge ae fatness, abundance, luxuriance, oil, Ju 9° (of olive tree); abundance, fertility ה 206 63° (in simile || 229), 65", of food and drink, Jb 36" Je31"; passing over into fig. of spiritual blessing 36' ,(ד' ביתך)‎ Is557%. 2. fat ashes, 1.0. ashes of victims, mixed with the fat Ly r™® 4°? 634 (all P) Jegr*is Kaueas: T HW adj. fat, YI Is 30% (|| 12), of DDD as product of ground; fig. of righteous as trees DIY (רעננים ||( 92% ש‎ fat, full of oil )1( or sap (Che; cf. ("1 Ju 9°); as subst. vigorous, stal- wart ones (opp. BY "TW cf. Che) ץש‎ 22% 7207 ys (Briill 220, Renan Hist: ii. 134 .(ישבי‎

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

  Gn 17" (P), 2 (JE), 1K 12" Est 6°‏ אמר בלב+ "134 "כב Ee2!*‏ 748 שה )5( re‏ סנ דבר בלבץ ;18.27% (8*)1 Gn‏ אָלדלב 15% Ob? Ze‏ by rss” (1);‏ לב Gn 24° (J);‏ אֶלדלב 2 He‏ YU? SVBTOND y 36%‏ 3293 בי py Ec x™;‏ לב TWD stay the heart‏ לב as seat of appetites,‏ .8 (with bread) Gn 18° (J) Ju rg’. 9. as seat‏ of the emotions and passions: a. of joy and‏ Ju‏ ,טוב+ gladness, in various combinations of‏ Raz 128% 2519 2 hee‏ "19° 18% ~£6 "ל 20h) 241 Esti” ₪ Pr ig” Ee‏ Ex4™‏ ,שמח + Is 65**; various combinations of‏ Pr‏ ”33 19° 16° 4° ץ )105% (J) 1 Ch 16° (=y‏ p72 27931 Ee 210 55 (it 21 15 247 Zero’:‏ 1539 *28ץ עלז 1S2!;‏ עלץ ;5 15661.8 "119 + שוש of‏ 10 26 24% יבנ ש ניל :20% Zp 3%; jm Jb‏ speak unto the‏ דבר על FA?‏ ;377 21° ש desire,‏ heart (kindly) Gn 34° 507 (JE) Ju 19° 2S 19°‏ Ch 30” Is +0" Ho 2% Ru2™. | 0. of trouble‏ 2 Is65™, sorrow Ne 2" Pri4*, pain 755°,‏ "6 16 2 vexation Ec 11”, trembling Dt 28%)1( 1S 28°,‏ faintness La 5"; 15 is wounded + 109™, dies‏ לב נמס+ within one out of fear 1$ 25% ete.;‏ the heart melteth (in fear) 2517 22 Ez21”‏ "Na 2". +10. seat of courage: לְבּךְ‎ POS let thine heart take courage 27; 125 אמיץ‎ Am 2"; ab ‘YAN stout-hearted ו‎ 76° Is 46°; JBN WD לבו יצוק‎ his heart as Jirm as a stone Jb 41°; WIND a3 לבו‎ his heart as the heart of the lion 25 "ד‎ T [725] sf. qnad Ez ד‎ 6" should be corrected to לְבְרִיתַךּ‎ (see Co). >older view, as fem. of לב‎ for‏ ) ששף ab prob. late Atbash (cf.‏ קמי the original reading (G) Je 517.‏ כשדים vb. denom. Wiph. Jmpf 225°‏ | לבב] ן יש 332 )339 get a mind; 723) DIS NIB Wy‏ shall an empty man get a mind or a wild ass’s‏ colt be born a man? Jb11"*. Pi. encourage;‏ Wry Sosa wd... . med ce‏ 2 thou hast encouraged me, thou hast encouraged‏ me with one of thine eyes Ew Gi Gr RVm (AV‏ RV Ges Hi De Ot (ef. 5°) ravished my heart,— \‏ Pi. priv. Ges").‏ + [7225] n.pl. cakes (prob. pancakes, from shape ?) לְבְבוּת‎ 2 fu. [לבב‎ vb. denom. Pi. make cakes. עו‎ 2297 2 8 13°. sab לבד‎ alone v. 13 sub בדד‎ p. 94 supr. [725], nad Ex 3? v. ma79 sub .להב‎ (2 ?[ vb. thrust down, out, or away (NH cd. ; Ar. 13) strike the ground with a on 80, 6. ‘eo one down; Syr. Pa. par in citavit, stimulavit); ו‎ Impf. be hist down, away, i.e. ruined ; pads pay xd DY Ho 4"; baby oynay ys Pr 10% .לבא maby, sub‏ ביא לבל Da.‏ + לבים

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  The American writer and ecologist Aldo Leopold once wrote that falconry was a balancing act between wild and tame – not just in the hawk, but inside the heart and mind of the falconer. That is why he considered it the perfect hobby. I am starting to see the balance is righting, now, and the distance between Mabel and me increasing. I see, too, that her world and my world are not the same, and some part of me is amazed that I ever thought they were. Then I find myself doing something surprising. I raise Mabel’s weight even more and let her range more widely when she flies. This is terrible falconry. ‘Never let a goshawk self-hunt,’ say the books. ‘Such independence is the fastest way to lose your hawk.’ I know I shouldn’t slip her unless there’s quarry, right there, in front of her. But how can I resist this method of hawking? Today I walked up to the crest of a hill on a freezing, smoky afternoon, the whole Cambridgeshire countryside laid out in front in woods and fields and copses beneath us, all bosky and bright with golden sunshine, and I can see that what Mabel wants to do is launch a prospecting attack on the hedgerow over the rise. I let her go. Her tactical sense is magnificent. She drops from the fist, and sets off, no higher than a hand’s width above the ground, using every inch of the undulating relief as cover, gathering speed until the frosty stubble winks and flashes under her, and she curves over the top of the hill. Then she sets her wings and glides, using gravity and momentum to race downhill, flash up over the top of the hedge in a sudden flowering of cream and white, a good hundred yards away, and then continue down the hedge’s far side, invisible to me. I’m running, all this time, my feet caked with mud, feeling earthbound but transported at the same time. I find her in the hedge bottom, holding onto a rabbit. ‘Mabel,’ I say, ‘you are behaving like a wild hawk. Shocking.’ This is nerve-racking falconry, but a wonderful thing. I am testing the lines between us that the old falconers would have called love. They have not broken; they do not look likely to break. Maybe they will. I raise her weight even more, and slowly the world widens. But I’m pushing my luck, and I know it.

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

  Then again, maybe that’s not all that the waiter is feeling. Maybe a part of him still clings to the stories of Mau-Mau, the same part of him that remembers the hush of a village night or the sound of his mother grinding corn under a stone pallet. Something in him still says that the white man’s ways are not his ways, that the objects he may use every day are not of his making. He remembers a time, a way of imagining himself, that he leaves only at his peril. He can’t escape the grip of his memories. And so he straddles two worlds, uncertain in each, always off balance, playing whichever game staves off the bottomless poverty, careful to let his anger vent itself only on those in the same condition. A voice says to him yes, changes have come, the old ways lie broken, and you must find a way as fast as you can to feed your belly and stop the white man from laughing at you. A voice says no, you will sooner burn the earth to the ground. That evening, we drove east to Kariako, a sprawling apartment complex surrounded by dirt lots. The moon had dropped behind thick clouds, and light drizzle had begun to fall. As we climbed the dark stairwell, a young man bounded past us onto the broken pavement and into the night. At the top of three flights, Auma pushed against a door that was slightly ajar. “Barry! You’ve finally come!” A short, stocky woman with a cheerful brown face gave me a tight squeeze around the waist. Behind her were fifteen or so people, all of them smiling and waving like a crowd at a parade. The short woman looked up at me and frowned. “You don’t remember me, do you?” “I …” “I’m your Aunt Jane. It is me that called you when your father died.” She smiled and took me by the hand. “Come. You must meet everybody here. Zeituni you have already met. This …” she said, leading me to a handsome older woman in a green patterned dress, “this is my sister, Kezia. She is mother to Auma and to Roy Obama.” Kezia took my hand and said my name together with a few words of Swahili. “She says her other son has finally come home,” Jane said. “My son,” Kezia repeated in English, nodding and pulling me into a hug. “My son has come home.” We continued around the room, shaking hands with aunts, cousins, nephews, and nieces. Everyone greeted me with cheerful curiosity but very little awkwardness, as if meeting a relative for the first time was an everyday occurrence. I had brought a bag of chocolates for the children, and they gathered around me with polite stares as the adults tried to explain who I was. I noticed a young man, sixteen or seventeen, standing against the wall with a watchful expression.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Anyone with half an eye could see that my heart lay all with Kitty Butler now; anyone might guess that, having once been offered the chance of a future at her side, and kept from it, I could never return to my father’s kitchen and be happy there, as I had been before.So when, an hour or so after Kitty’s departure, I nervously put her plan before my parents, and argued and pleaded for their blessing, they listened to me wonderingly, but carefully; and when, the next day, Father stopped me on my way down to the kitchen to draw me into the parlour where it was quiet and still, his face was sad and serious, but kind. He asked me, first, whether I had not changed my mind? I shook my head, and he sighed. He said, if I was quite decided, then Mother and he could not keep me; that I was a grown-up woman, almost, and should be allowed to know my own mind; that they had thought to see me marry a Whitstable boy, and settle close at hand, and so have a share in my little happinesses and troubles - but that now, he supposed, I would go and hitch up with some London fellow, who wouldn’t understand their ways at all.But children, he concluded, weren’t made to please their parents; and no father should expect to have his daughter at his side for ever... ‘In short, Nance, even was you going to the very devil himself, your mother and I would rather see you fly from us in joy, than stay with us in sorrow - and grow, maybe, to hate us, for keeping you from your fate.’ I had never known him so grave before, nor so eloquent. I had never seen him weep either; but now as he spoke his eyes glistened, and he blinked, twice or thrice, to hold the tears back, and his voice grew thin. I placed my head against his shoulder and let my own tears rise and spill. He put an arm about me, and patted me. ‘It breaks our hearts to lose you, dear,’ he went on. ‘You know it does. Only promise us that you won’t forget us, quite. That you’ll write to us, and visit us. And that, if things don’t turn out as you might, quite, wish them, you won’t be too proud to come home to those that love you -’ Here his voice failed utterly, and he shuddered; and I could only nod against his neck and say, ‘I will, I will; I promise you, I will.’But oh! hard-hearted daughter that I was, when he had left me my tears dried at once, and I felt the return of all my gladness of the night before. I hugged myself in pleasure, and danced a jig around the parlour - but delicately, on tiptoe, so that they wouldn’t hear me in the dining-room below.

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

  vb. rejoice, be glad‏ | שמח .שמח (NH ao cf. perb. As. Samahu, flourish, Ar.‏ —; (שמחת .+ be high, proud; Pun. n. pr.‏ 25 Pf. 3 ms. MY y16°+; ne consec. Pr‏ ות ; +612%כ וְשָמַחְתָ fs. INDY Est 8°; 2 ms.‏ 3 20% Ne 12%, etc.; 19. nov Is 9+,‏ שמחו mpl.‏ 3 ,1% ₪ 2 תִּשְמַחֶנָה mpl, NW 65% ¥ 69% 3 fpl.‏ 3 Dt 33*+ fs. ‘MY Zp 3%+,‏ שמח etc.; Imv. ms.‏ Ez 35+, ete.;‏ שמח Jo 27, etc.; Inf. cstr.‏ שמחי less oft..|| 127, by,‏ ,גיל || > Pt. v. MOY adj.;—24‏ etc.;—1. in common life: a. rejozce, c. 3‏ ,שיש pers. vel rei take pleasure in Jug” 533"‏ ב Ec 32+ 7 t.-+(prob.) 2%21°223 y 90" (others‏ temp.), cf. Ec 11°; by pers. Is 39+ ||2 K 20%‏ rei Jon 4%‏ על Vrss mod.),‏ וישמע (now for MT‏ 2Ch15%; 6. 01. temp. Je 417% + 6 +. + (of heart)‏ Pr 23", in one’s heart Ex 4% (J); 6. °3 because‏ Ts 14% + 3 t.; c. MN with Is 66"; 6. i pers. get‏ pleasure from Pr 5%; abs. 18 11° Ee 3” Pr 13°‏ ל (fig. of prosperity; subj. 118 ; opp. 193), + 8t.;‏ reiat 3 211% 0. rejoice arrogantly, exult at,‏ pers., Mi 78 Is 148 Ob” 35 38% 6. “by‏ ל rei Jb 31° 735” Pr 24"; abs. Ho‏ ב 25% rei Hz‏ t.,+(said of righteous‏ 3 +19 6 2 (אֶלֶנִּיל +96 by Eliphaz) 1 221%. 2. a. rejoice religious-‏ ,בי" .6 ly, 6. Drei 1S 2! Dt 127 p21°+7t.;‏ Jo 2% y 32"410 t. we + 9* (+72 TSDBN); c. על‎ rei 2 Ch 29% על‎ inf. 1 Ch 29°; ₪. למען‎ rei כִּי .0 ;"48 ש‎ because 119"; abs. 20 2 4” Jo 2% 1 Ch 29°" )6. ace. cogn.), 16* (of heavens) = 96", ץ‎ 97% (isles) + 18 t. (12 t. py), + (of heart) Zc 10o’* y 16° 1 Ch 16”, aba Zp 35 (cf.Ex4™1asupr.); 6." לפנ‎ 936 (of joyous feasting etc., at sanctuary) Lv 233" (H), Dt 125 764 947, 1 45 18 |. 970 שמיכה