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 The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  When the divine Image had spoken these words, she vanished away! By and by when I awaked, I arose, haveing the members of my bodie mixed with feare, joy and sweate, and marvailed at the cleare presence of the puissant goddesse, and being sprinkled with the water of the sea, I recounted orderly her admonitions and divine commandements. Soone after, the darknes chased away, and the cleare and golden sunne arose, when as behold I saw the streets replenished with people going in a religious sort and in great triumph. All things seemed that day to be joyfull, as well all manner of beasts and houses, as also the very day it selfe seemed to rejoyce. For after the hore-frost, ensued the hot and temperat sun, whereby the little birds weening that the spring time had bin come, did chirp and sing in their steven melodiously: the mother of stars, the parent of times, and mistres of all the world: The fruitfull trees rejoyced at their fertility: The barren and sterill were contented at their shadow, rendering sweete and pleasant shrills! The seas were quiet from winds and tempests: the heaven had chaced away the clouds, and appeared faire and cleare with his proper light. Behold then more and more appeared the pomps and processions, attired in regall manner and singing joyfully: One was girded about the middle like a man of armes: Another bare and spare, and had a cloake and high-shooes like a hunter! another was attired in a robe of silke, and socks of gold, having his haire laid out, and dressed in forme of a woman! There was another ware legge-harnesse, and bare a target, a sallet, and a speare like a martial souldier: after him marched one attired in purple with vergers before him like a magistrate! after him followed one with a maurell, a staffe, a paire of pantofles, and with a gray beard, signifying a philosopher: after him went one with lime, betokening a fowler, another with hookes declaring a fisher: I saw there a meeke and tame beare, which in matron habite was carried on a stoole: An Ape with a bonet on his head, and covered with lawne, resemling a shepheard, and bearing a cup of gold in his hand: an Asse which had wings glewed to his backe, and went after an old man, whereby you would judge the one to be Pegasus, and the other Bellephoron. Amongst the pleasures and popular delectations, which wandered hither and thither, you might see the pompe of the goddesse triumphantly march forward: The woman attired in white vestiments, and rejoicing, in that they bare garlands and flowers upon their heads, bedspread the waies with hearbes, which they bare in their aprons, where this regall and devout procession should passe: Other caried glasses on their backes, to testifie obeisance to the goddess which came after. Other bare combs of Ivory, and declared by their gesture and motions of their armes, that they were ordained and readie to dresse the goddesse: Others dropped in the wayes as they went Balme and other pretious ointments: Then came a great number, as well of men as women, with Candels, torches, and other lights, doing honour to the celestiall goddesse: After that sounded the musical harmony of instruments: then came a faire companie of youth, apparelled in white vestiments, singing both meter and verse, with a comely grade which some studious Poet had made in honour of the Muses: In the meane season, arrived the blowers of trumpets, which were dedicated unto Serapes, and to the temple before them were officers and beadles, preparing roome for the goddess to passe. Then came the great company of men and women, which had taken divine orders, whose garments glistered all the streets over. The women had their haire annointed and their heads covered with linnen: but the men had their crownes shaven, which were the terrene stars of the goddesse, holding in their hand instruments of brasse, silver and gold, which rendered a pleasant sound.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Bennett asleep. Face up. Arms at sides. Marie Winkleman is not with him. I sneak into my own bed as the blue light comes down through the window. I am too happy to sleep. But what will I tell Bennett in the morning? I lie in bed thinking of Adrian (who has just driven off and by now must be hopelessly lost again). I adore him. The more he gets lost, the more perfect he appears in my eyes. I wake up at seven and lie in bed two more hours waiting for Bennett to awaken. He groans, farts, and gets up. He starts getting dressed in silence, stomping around the room. I am singing. I am skipping back and forth to the bathroom. “Where did you disappear to last night?” I say blithely. “We looked all over for you.” “Where did I disappear to?” “In that discotheque—you suddenly left. Adrian Goodlove and I looked all over for you….” “You looked all over for me?” He was very bitter and sarcastic. “You and your Liaisons Dangereuses,” he said. He mispronounced it. I was seized with pity for him. “You’ll have to make up a better story than that.” The best defense is a good offense, I thought. The Wife of Bath’s advice to lecherous wives: always accuse your husband first. “Where the hell did you disappear to with Marie Winkleman?” He gave me a black look: “We were right there in the next room watching you practically fuck on the dance floor. Then you took off…” “You were right there?” “Right behind the partition, sitting at a table.” “I didn’t even see a partition.” “You didn’t see anything,” he said. “I thought you’d left. We drove around for hours searching for you. Then we came back. We kept getting lost.” “I’ll bet.” He cleared his throat in the nervous way he had. It was a low death rattle sort of sound. But muted. I hated it worse than anything else about our marriage. It was the theme song of all our worst moments together. We ate breakfast without speaking. I waited, half-cringing, for the blows to fall, but Bennett did not accuse me further. His boiled egg rattled against the cup. His spoon clanked in the coffee. In the deathly silence between us, every sound and every motion seemed exaggerated as if in a movie close-up. His slicing off the top of the skull of his egg could be an Andy Warhol epic. Egg, it would be called. Six hours of a man’s hand amputating the top of an egg’s head. Slow motion. His silence was so strange now, I thought, because there had been times when he’d blasted me about little failures: my failure to make him coffee on time in the morning, my failure to do some errand, my failure to point out a road sign when we were lost in a foreign city. But now: nothing.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Nec mora, cum dei dignati pedibus humanis in- cedere prodeunt: hic horrendus ille superum com- meator et inferum, nunc atra nunc aurea facie sublimis, attollens canis cervices arduas Anubis, laeva caduceum gerens, dextera palmam virentem quatiens ; huius vestigium continuum sequebatur bos in erectum levata statum, bos, omniparentis deae 1 The MSS have altaria, id est auwilia, I accept Kaibel’s suggestion of auxillas, “ sacrificial pots " (a word found in the grammarian Festus and in the glossaries), The MS reading arose from the incorporation of an explanatory gloss. 556 . THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK XI goddess, and held in their hands timbrels of brass, silver, aye and gold, which rendered forth a shrill and pleasant sound. The principal priests, leaders of the sacred rites, which were apparelled with white surplices drawn tight about their breasts and hanging down to the ground, bare the relics of all the most puissant gods. One that was first of them carried in his hand a lantern shining forth with a clear light, not very like to those which we use in our houses and light our supper withal at evening-time, for the bowl of it was of gold and rendered from the middle thereof a more bright flame. The second, attired like the other, bare in both hands those pots to which the succouring providence of the high goddess herself had given their name. The third held up a tree of palm, with leaves cunningly wrought of gold, and the verge or rod Caduceus of Mercury. The fourth shewed a token of equity, that was a left hand deformed in every place and with open palm, and because it was naturally more sluggish, and that there was no cleverness nor craft in it, it signified thereby more equity than by the right hand: the same priest carried a round vessel of gold, in form of a breast, whence milk flowed down. The fifth bare a winnowing fan, wrought with sprigs of gold, and another carried a vessel for wine. By and by after, the gods deigned to follow afoot as men do, and specially Anubis, the messenger of the gods infernal and supernal, tall, with his face sometime black, sometime fair as gold, lifting up on high his dog’s head, and bearing in his left hand his verge, and in his right hand the green branch of a palm-tree. After him straight followed a cow with an upright gait, the cow representing the great goddess that is the fruitful mother of all, and he 557 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Amongst them all the father of the child remooved with his owne hands the stone of the Sepulchre, and found his Sonne rising up after his dead and soporiferous sleepe, whom when he beheld, he imbraced him in his armes, and presented him before the people, with great joy and consolation, and as he was wrapped and bound in his grave, so he brought him before the Judges, whereupon the wickednesse of the Servant, and, the treason of the stepdame was plainely discovered, and the verity of the matter revealed, whereby the woman was perpetually exiled, the Servant hanged on a Gallowes, and the Physitian had the Crownes, which was prepared to buy the poyson. Behold how the fortune of the old man was changed, who thinking to be deprived of all his race and posterity, was in one moment made the Father of two Children. But as for me, I was ruled and handled by fortune, according to her pleasure. THE FORTY-FIFTH CHAPTER How Apuleius was sold to two brethren, whereof one was a Baker, and the other a Cooke, and how finely and daintily he fared.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  The principall Priests which were apparelled with white surplesses hanging downe to the ground, bare the relikes of the puissant goddesse. One carried in his hand a light, not unlike to those which we used in our houses, saving that in the middle thereof appeared a bole which rendred a more bright flame. The second attired like the other bare in his hand an Altar, which the goddesse her selfe named the succor of nations. The third held a tree of palme with leaves of gold, and the verge of Mercurie. The fourth shewed out a token of equitie by his left hand, which was deformed in every place, signifiing thereby more equitie then by the right hand. The same Priest carried a round vessell of gold, in forme of a cap. The fifth bare a van, wrought with springs of gold, and another carried a vessell for wine: By and by after the goddesse followed a foot as men do, and specially Mercurie, the messenger of the goddesse infernall and supernall, with his face sometime blacke, sometime faire, lifting up the head of the dogges Annubis, and bearing in his left hand, his verge, and in his right hand, the branches of a palme tree, after whom followed a cow with an upright gate, representing the figure of the great goddesse, and he that guided her, marched on with much gravity. Another carried after the secrets of their religion, closed in a coffer. There was one that bare on his stomacke a figure of his god, not formed like any beast, bird, savage thing or humane shape, but made by a new invention, whereby was signified that such a religion should not be discovered or revealed to any person. There was a vessel wrought with a round bottome, haveing on the one side, pictures figured like unto the manner of the Egyptians, and on the other side was an eare, whereupon stood the Serpent Aspis, holding out his scaly necke. Finally, came he which was appointed to my good fortun according to the promise of the goddesse. For the great Priest which bare the restoration of my human shape, by the commandement of the goddes, Approached more and more, bearing in his left hand the timbrill, and in the other a garland of Roses to give me, to the end I might be delivered from cruel fortune, which was alwaies mine enemie, after the sufferance of so much calamitie and paine, and after the endurance of so manie perilles: Then I not returning hastilie, by reason of sodaine joye, lest I should disturbe the quiet procession with mine importunitie, but going softly through the prease of the people, which gave me place on every side, went after the Priest.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  Once your brain has learned a concept in this manner, it can run this process in reverse, expanding the similarities into differences to construct an instance of the concept, much as your computer or phone expands the incoming YouTube video for display. This is a prediction. Think of prediction as “applying” a concept, modifying the activity in your primary sensory and motor regions, and correcting or refining as needed. Imagine that you’re in a shopping mall, as I was with my daughter, strolling from store to store. The mall is filled with sounds, people are bustling about, the shop windows are overflowing with tempting products for sale, and your brain is busy issuing thousands of simultaneous predictions as usual. “There is motion in front of me.” “There is motion to my left.” “My breathing is slowing down.” “My stomach is rumbling.” “I hear laughter.” “I am calm.” “I am lonely.” “I see my neighbor.” “I see that nice guy who works at the post office.” “I see my Uncle Kevin.” Let’s say that those last three predictions about people are instances of a concept for “Happiness,” having to do with feeling connected to friends. Your brain simultaneously constructs many instances of this concept, based on past experiences in similar situations when you have unexpectedly bumped into friends. Each instance has some probability of being correct at that moment. Let’s give our focus to one of those instances, your prediction that you see your beloved Uncle Kevin unexpectedly in a shopping mall. Your brain issues this prediction because, at some time in the past, you saw Uncle Kevin in a similar situation and experienced sensations that you categorized as happiness. How well will this prediction match your incoming sensory inputs right now? If it matches better than all the other predictions, then you will experience this instance of “Happiness.” If not, then your brain will adjust the prediction, and you might experience an instance of “Disappointment.” Or if need be, your brain will make the prediction match the sensory input, and you will mistakenly perceive someone else to be your Uncle Kevin, as Sophia did in the shopping mall that day. So there you are, standing in the mall, and your brain must determine whether its prediction of Uncle Kevin ultimately becomes your perception and directs your action, or whether a course correction is required. To determine the details, the brain unpacks the summary of all the sensory input into a gigantic cascade of more detailed predictions, like uncompressing a YouTube video for viewing, or adding water to dehydrated food to make it edible.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  asino. excogitantes scrupulose, ad explorandam mansuetudinem id offerebant mihi, carnes lasere infectas, altilia pipere inspersa, pisces exotico iure perfusos. Interim convivium summo risu persona- bat: quidam denique praesens scurrula “ Date” inquit * Sodali huic quippiam meri.” Quod dictum dominus secutus “Non adeo" respondit “ Absurde locutus es, furcifer: valde enim fieri potest ut con- tubernalis noster poculum quoque mulsi libenter appetat. Et * Heus," ait * Puer, lautum dili- genter ecce illum aureum cantharum mulso con- tempera et offer parasito meo; simul quod ei praebiberim commoneto." - Ingens exin oborta est epulonum expectatio: nec ulla tamen ego ratione conterritus otiose ac satis genialiter contorta in modum linguae postrema labia grandissimum illum calicem uno haustu perduxi : clamor exsurgit consona voce cunctorum salute me prosequentium. Magno denique delibutus gaudio dominus vocatis servis suis, emptoribus meis, iubet quadruplum restitui pretium meque cuidam acceptissimo liberto suo et satis pecu- liato, magnam praefatus diligentiam, tradidit ; qui me satis humane satisque comiter nutriebat et, quo se patrono commendatiorem faceret, studiosissime voluptates eius per meas argutias instruebat. Et primum me quidem mensam accumbere suffixo cubito, dein alluctari et etiam saltare sublatis pri- moribus pedibus perdocuit, quodque esset apprime 502 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK X me such meat as every ass doth greatly abhor, for they put before me beef and vinegar, birds and pepper, fish and sharp sauce. In the mean season, they that beheld me at the table did nothing but laugh; then one of the wits that was there said to his master: *I pray you, sir, give this feaster some drink to hissupper." ** Marry," quoth he, “ I think thou sayest true, rascal; for so it may be that to his meat this our dinner-fellow would drink likewise a cup of wine. Oh, boy, wash yonder golden pot, and fill it with wine ; which done, carry it to my guest, and say that I have drank to him." Then all the standers-by looked on, looking eagerly to see what would come to pass; but I (as soon as I beheld the cup) stayed not long, but at my leisure, like a good companion, gathering my lips together to the fashion of a man's tongue, supped up all the wine at one draught, while all who were there present shouted very loudly and wished me good health.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  The world that mainly frequents white nightclubs seems af flicted with a strange uncertainty as to whether or not they are really having fun-they keep peeping at each other in order to find out. One's aware, in an eerie way, that there are barriers which must not bc...c� sed, and th-at oy these_�i ble barriers everyone is mesmerized. But it is gulie Trnj)ossible to disc()vcr\Vhcre, ina ction,-tfi-cse oarriers are to be found: noth ing matches ti1e abandon of-thoscstru ggling to be free of ,invisible chains, who wish, at the same time, to remain socially safe. And nothing matches that joylessness, either. In an uptown club, the invisible chains are mighty and the barriers are innumerable. But everyone in the club lives too intimately with impassable barriers of all kinds to need to watch them. They know exactly where the barriers are and COLOR 675 they would like, simply, for a little while, to forget them. Again, they are threatened in so many ways that they cannot conceivably be threatened by anything that happens at the club. Violence is always a possibility, of course, but the point is that lt�Sali vays a posSioillty, and one has had to learn to live with it. It is almost im possible to be threatened by social or sexual insult, the very style of Harlem Negroes being a kind of distillation and transcendence of all the insults they daily receive. And t�<:_necessit:y of �p �r�onal s_tvle, no mattg __ __how u�<:!_ ting, is too well undergood tor anrom:_m __ be_ mocked for their clothes, or their man!l er-unless of course, either of these is considered too slavish an im itation of white people. � .br l'Jeg � es in_;b i§_£9_U!1!9'j�) i� a�·� �!!- e ��� QJ?!!;., but everything depends on the manner and intention, and the degree of hardheadedness. A girl wearing a mink -or, more probably, a mink ette-is ad mired for having achieved it in the first place. One assumes it could not have been easy. But she is pitied and despised-if she supposes her mink ette is herpassp_��t out of the black world. Girls who have ceased doing whatever it is that Ai11 ericail-Ne gro girls do to their hair and allowed it to resume its natural texture are very strongly admired in some circles, but looked on with some nen•ousness in most. Such a girl is no longer mer ely colored,.J:> tt�_!�mewher.£. else, and-she poses in her pres ence, by all that triumphantly kinky hair, the great problem o� ]pho the At�erican .ti egn;>_ is, and \_0lat_hj§_fl!_t�� to �- Women are able�-ofcmi rse, to say, "Well, I like it on her.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  They had learned that they really could trust themselves to get what they wanted. Karen’s story shows these many steps in poignant detail. For most of her childhood and young adult life, she refused to consider her own needs. She took care of her parents, siblings, and a lover who disappointed her every single day. Then, in an act of supreme courage, she broke away from them all and began a journey toward independence and an increased sense of self-worth. Once she stood on this new foundation, Karen was able to call an attractive young man a few days after they met and open the door to a relationship. Smiling happily, she told me, “I finally figured out what I wanted.” Like the others, she said, “I decided to take a chance.” This triumph over her fears was the key to Karen’s success as she reached her mid-thirties. She was able to gamble because she fully realized that her chances of success were at least fair. Because she was no longer afraid, she could take a chance on love and commitment . Children raised in intact families also spend time in trial-and-error relationships to hone their judgment in choosing a life mate. But they enter these early relationships without the fear of failure gnawing at their heels. Thus, while the external behavior of both groups looks similar—lots of twenty-somethings living together to test the marital waters—they are driven by different expectations. Until they can break free of the past, the Karens of this world expect failure. For the most part, those raised in good intact families expect to succeed. Once children of divorce are able to put their fears aside and choose a life mate, I was surprised to discover that they often go in search of partners who were raised in stable intact families. This was a top agenda in their courtship. Apparently a stable family background provides a sense of safety to the child of divorce who wants security along with love and commitment. They say proudly, “He comes with no baggage. There has been no divorce in his family for generations.” Or, “She’s a rock. She makes up for all that I never had from my parents. I was looking for a woman from a stable intact family and I found her.”

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  What others did was their res ponsibility, for which they would answer when the judg ment trumpet sounded. But what I did was my responsibility, and I would have to answer, too-unless, of course, there was also in Heaven a special dispensation for the benighted black, who was not to be ju dged in the same way as other human beings, or angels. It probably occurred to me around this time that the vision people hold of the world to come is but a reflection, with predictable wishful distortions, of the world in which they live. And this did not apply only to Negroes, who were no mor e "simple" or "spontaneous" or "Christian" than anybody else-who were merely more oppressed. In the same way that we, for white people, were the descendants of Ham, and were cur sed forever, white people were, for us, the de scendants of Cain. And the passion with which we loved the Lord was a measure of how deeply we feared and distrusted and, in the end, hated almost all strangers, always, and avoided and despised our selves. But I cannot leave it at that; ther e is more to it than that. In spite of ever y thing, there was in the life I fled a zest and a joy and a capacity for facing and surviving disaster that are very moving and very rare. Perhaps we were, all of us- pimps, whores, racketeers, ch urch members, and chi ldren-bound together by the nature of our oppression, the specific and pe culiar complex of risks we had to run; if so, within these limits we sometimes achieved with each other a freedom that was close to love. I remember, anyway, chur ch suppers and out ings, and, later, after I left the church, rent and waistline par tics where rage and sorrow sat in the darkness and did not stir, and we ate and drank and talked and laughed and danced DO WN AT THE CROSS 3II and forgot all about "the man." We had the liquor, the chicken, the music, and each other, and had no need to pre tend to be what we were not. This is the freedom that one hears in some gospel songs, for example, and in jazz.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  At the time that I am speaking of we had not yet even begun to move across the river, into the Bronx. Bill takes me to see my first play, the Orson Welles pro duction of Macbeth, with an all-black cast, at the Lafayette Theater, on 13 2nd Street and Seventh Avenue, in Harl em. I do not remember if I had already read Macbeth. My im pression is that I read the play when Bill told me she was taking me to see it. In any case, before the curtain rose, I knew the play by heart. I don't think that the name, Shakespeare, meant very much to me in those years. I was not yet intimidated by the name that was to come later. I had read a play which took place in Scotland. Bill had not warned me-she may not have known-that Welles had transposed the play to Haiti. I am still about twelve or thirteen. I can be fairly certain about all this, because my lif e changed so violently when I entered the church, and I entered the church around the time of fourteen. When I entered the church, I ceased going to the theater. It took me awhile to realize that I was working in one. 500 THE DEVIL FIND S WO RK There is an enormous difference between the stage and the screen: but I may never be able to be articulate as concerns this difference because the first time I ever really saw black actors at work was on the stage: and it is important to em phasize that the people I was watching were black, like me. Nothing that I had seen before had prepared me for this which is a melancholy comment indeed, but I cannot be blamed for an ignorance which an entire republic had delib erately incul cated. The distance between oneself -the audience-and a screen performer is an absol ute: a paradoxical absolute, masquerad ing as intimacy. No one, for example, will ever really know whether Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis or Humphrey Bogart or Spencer Tracy or Clark Gable-or John Wayne can, or could, really act, or not, nor does anyone care: acting is not what they are required to do. Their acting ability, so far from being what attracts their audience, can often be what drives their audience away. One does not go to see them act: one goes to watch them be. One does not go to see Humphrey Bogart, as Sam Spade: one goes to see Sam Spade, as Humphrey Boga1't.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  He fe els, so to speak, his own weight, his own value. It is as though he suddenly came out of a dark tunnel and t(mnd himself beneath the open sky. And, in fa ct, in Paris, I began to sec the sky f(>r what seemed to be the first time. It was borne in on me-and it did not make me fe el melan choly-that this sky had been there before I was born and would be there when I was dead. And it was up to me, therc f(>re, to make of my brief opportunity the most that could be made. I was born in New York, but have lived only in pockets of it. In Paris, I lived in all parts of the city-on the Right Bank and the Left, among the bourgeoisie and among les miserables, and knew all kinds of people, from pimps and prostitutes in Pigalle to Egyptian bankers in Neuilly. This may sound ex tremely unprincipled or even obscurely immoral: I fo und it healthy. I love to talk to people, all kinds of people, and al most everyone, as I hope we still know, loves a man who loves to listen. This perpetual dealing with people very different fr om my self caused a shattering in me of preconceptions I scarcely knew I held. The writer is meeting in Europe people who arc not American, whose sense of reality is entirely different fr om his own. They may love or hate or admire or te ar or envy this country-they sec it, in any case, fr om another point of view, and this ti.>rces the writer to reconsider many things he had always taken t(>r granted. This reassessment, which can be very painful, is also very valuable. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERIC AN 1 4 1 This freedom, like all freedom, has its dangers and its re sponsibilities. One day it begins to be borne in on the writer, and with great fo rce, that he is living in Europe as an Amer ican. If he were living there as a European, he would be li\'ing on a different and fa r less attracti\'e continent. This crucial day may be the day on which an Algerian taxi driver tells him how it fe els to be an Algerian in Paris. It may be the day on which he passes a cafe terrace and catches a glimpse of the tense, intelligent and troubled fa ce of Alben Camus. Or it may be the day on which someone asks him to explain Little Rock and he begins to fe el that it would be simpler-and, corny as the words may sound, more honor able-to go to Little Rock than sit in Europe, on an American passport, trying to explain it. This is a personal day, a terrible day, the day to which his entire sojourn has been tending.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  The minister who spoke could not hope to effect any objective change in the lives of his hearers, and the people did not ex pect him to. All they came to find, and all that he could give them, was the sustenance for another day's journey. Now, King could certainly give his congregation that, but he could also give them something more than that, and he had. It is true that it was they who had begun the struggle of which he was now the symbol and the leader; it is true that it had taken all of their insistence to overcome in him a grave reluctance to stand where he now stood. But it is also true, and it docs not happen often, that once he had accepted the place they had prepared for him, their struggle became absolutely in distinguishable from his own, and took over and controlled his lif e. He suffered with them and, thus, he helped them to 6++ OTH ER ESS AYS suff er. The joy which filled this church, therefore, was the joy achieved by people who have ceased to delude themselves about an intolerable situation, who have found their prayers for a leader miraculously answered, and who now know that they can change their situation, if they will. And, surely, very few people had ever spoken to them as King spoke. King is a great speaker. The secret of his greatness does not lie in his voice or his presence or his manner, though it has something to do with all these; nor docs it lie in his verbal range or felicity, which are not striking; nor does he have any capacity for those stunning, demagogic flights of the imagination which bring an audience cheering to its feet. The secret lies, I think, in his intimate knowledge of the people he is addressing, be they black or white, and in the forthrightness with which he speaks of those things which hurt and baffle them. He docs not offer any easy comfort and this keeps his hearers absolutely tense. He allows them their self-respe ct indeed, he insists on it. "We know," he told them, "that there are many things wrong in the white world. But there arc many things wrong in the black world, too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There arc many things we must do for ourselves." He suggested what some of these were: "I know none of you make enough money-but save some of it. And there arc some things we've got to face. I know the situation is responsible for a lot of it, but do you know that Negroes are 10 per cent of the population of St. Louis and arc responsible for 58 per cent of its crimes? We've got to face that. And we have to do something about our moral stan dards. And we've got to stop lying to the white man.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  But Cupid being now healed of his wound and Maladie, not able to endure the absence of Psyches, got him secretly out at a window of the chamber where hee was enclosed, and (receiving his wings,) tooke his flight towards his loving wife, whom when he had found, hee wiped away the sleepe from her face, and put it againe into the boxe, and awaked her with the tip of one of his arrows, saying: O wretched Caitife, behold thou wert well-nigh perished againe, with the overmuch curiositie: well, goe thou, and do thy message to my Mother, and in the meane season, I will provide for all things accordingly: wherewithall he tooke his flight into the aire, and Psyches brought her present to Venus.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  We perched for a while by a little shelf, drinking quite fast, feet rocking to the music, more or less silent though I pointed people out to him and he looked and nodded in a factual sort of way, not feeling, perhaps, that it was quite right to rave adulterously about other men. Even so, he was enthralled when Sebastian Smith moved through the crowd at the heart of his own little crowd, who touched, supported and congratulated him. He had come fresh, exhausted, from Sadler’s Wells, was still on the serene, unpunctured high of adoration and acclaim, still sustained, as in some sugary Spanish Assumption, by the pink clouds of triumph and the tumbling black putti of his entourage. Still wearing, too, his leotards (though now with little patent, winking pumps), his torso rising in a naked black triangle to the glitter-sprinkled, ballerina-hefting shoulders. Everyone wanted him to dance, and he came forward, considering it, to the floor’s edge—one foot set before the other as if on a gym bar, the long, taut thighs chafing, all the effort instinctively keeping his body steady, as though it were his discipline to carry a glass of water on his head or to propel without obscene lurching the contents of his high, prancing basket. But he decided against it, paced back to a darkened corner, leaving me with a faint ache of adulation and inadequacy. Phil I found had that look of relished, vulgar curiosity which from time to time reminded me that he was as prone to sudden lusts as the next man. Not for you, dear, I thought, as I gestured ‘Let’s dance’, he carefully finished his drink, and we felt our way through the gay throng. I turned, we sculpted out a little area on the edge of the mass of dancers, and were drunk enough to be dancing already, Phil too (who I thought might selfconsciously jiggle), going into a kind of mood, hardly looking at me and swivelling chunkily to left and right in a tight, fashionable style he must have picked up somewhere. I sprang about in my own reckless way. In a sense we had nothing to do with each other, though I kept an eye on him and grinned with pleasure when his shy dark gaze held mine. Then I would whirl him round once or twice, and hold his handsome head and kiss him clumsily, bumping noses.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  The church was very exciting. It took a long time fo r me to disengage myself fr om this excitement, and on the blindest, most visceral level, I never really have, and never will. There is no music like that music, no drama like the drama of the saints rejoicing, the sinners moaning, the tambourines racing, and all those voices coming together and crying holy unto the Lord. There is still, fo r me, no pathos quite like the pathos of those multicolored, worn, somehow triumphant and transfig ured fa ces, speaking fr om the depths of a visible, tangible, continuing despair of the goodness of the Lord. I have never seen anything to equal the fire and excitement that sometimes, without warning, fill a church, causing the church, as Lead belly and so many others have testified, to "rock." Nothing that has happened to me since equals the power and the glory that I sometimes fe lt when, in the middle of a sermon, I knew that I was somehow, by some miracle, really carrying, as they said, "the Word"-when the church and I were one. Their pain and their joy were mine, and mine were theirs-they sur rendered their pain and joy to me, I surrendered mine to them-and their cries of "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!" and "Yes, Lord!" and "Praise His name!" and "Preach it, brother!" sustained and whipped on my solos until we all be came equal, wringing wet, singing and dancing, in anguish and rejoicing, at the f(>ot of the altar. It was, fo r a long time, in spite of�>r, not inconceivably, because of--the shabbiness of my motives, my only sustenance, my meat and drink. I rushed home from school, to the church, to the altar, to be alone there, to commune with Jesus, my dearest friend, who would never fa il me, who knew all the secrets of my heart. Perhaps He did, but I didn't, and the bargain we struck, ac tually, down there at the fo ot of the cross, was that He would never let me find out. He fa iled His bargain. He was a much better Man than I took Him fo r. It happened, as things do, imperceptibly, in DOWN AT THE CROSS many ways at once. I date it-the slow crumbling of my faith, the pulverization of my fo rtress-from the time, about a year after I had begun to preach, when I began to read again. I justified this desire by the fact that I was still in school, and I began, fa tally, with Dostoevski. By this time, I was in a high school that was predominantly Jewish.

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

  Taking into account the church members, Walter’s family, and the people who were constantly stopping at the house to buy sandwiches, dozens of people were able to confirm that Walter could not have committed the murder. That group included a police officer who stopped by the house to buy a sandwich and noted in his police log that he had bought food at McMillian’s house with Walter and a crowd of church folks present. Based on their personal knowledge of Walter’s whereabouts at the time of the Morrison murder, family members, church members, black pastors, and others all pleaded with Sheriff Tate to release McMillian. Tate wouldn’t do it. The arrest had been too long in the making to admit yet another failure. After some discussion, the district attorney, the sheriff, and the ABI investigator agreed to stick with the McMillian accusation. Walter’s alibi wasn’t the only problem for law enforcement. Ralph Myers began to have second thoughts about his allegations against McMillian. He was also facing indictment in the Morrison murder. He’d been promised that he wouldn’t get the death penalty and would get favorable treatment in exchange for his testimony, but it was starting to dawn on him that admitting to involvement in a high-profile murder that he actually had nothing to do with was probably not smart. A few days before the capital murder charges against McMillian were made public, Myers summoned police investigators and told them his allegations against McMillian weren’t true. At this point, Tate and his investigators had little interest in Myers’s recantation. Instead, they decided to pressure Myers to produce more incriminating details. When Myers protested that he didn’t have more incriminating details because, well, the story wasn’t true, the investigators weren’t having it. It’s not clear who decided to put both Myers and McMillian on death row before trial to create additional pressure, but it was a nearly unprecedented maneuver that proved very effective. It is illegal to subject pretrial detainees like Walter and Myers to confinement that constitutes punishment. Pretrial detainees are generally housed in local jails, where they enjoy more privileges and more latitude than convicted criminals who are sent to prison. Putting someone who has not yet been tried in a prison reserved for convicted felons is almost never done. As is putting someone not yet convicted of a crime on death row. Even the other death row prisoners were shocked. Death row is the most restrictive punitive confinement permitted. Prisoners are locked in a small cell by themselves for twenty-three hours a day. Condemned inmates have limited opportunity for exercise or visitation and are held in disturbingly close proximity to the electric chair.

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

  Chapter Sixteen [image file=image_rsrc331.jpg] The Stonecatchers’ Song of SorrowOn May 17, 2010, I was sitting in my office waiting anxiously when the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision: Life imprisonment without parole sentences imposed on children convicted of non-homicide crimes is cruel and unusual punishment and constitutionally impermissible. My staff and I jumped up and down in celebration. Moments later we were inundated with a flood of calls from media, clients, families, and children’s rights advocates. It was the first time the Court had issued a categorical ban on a punishment other than the death penalty. Joe Sullivan was entitled to relief. Scores of people, including Antonio Nuñez and Ian Manuel, were entitled to reduced sentences that would give them a “meaningful opportunity for release.” Two years later, in June 2012, we won a constitutional ban on mandatory life-without-parole sentences imposed on children convicted of homicides. The Supreme Court had agreed to review Evan Miller’s case and the case of our client from Arkansas, Kuntrell Jackson. I argued both cases in March of that year and waited anxiously until we won a favorable ruling. The Court’s decision meant that no child accused of any crime could ever again be automatically sentenced to die in prison. Over two thousand condemned people sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for crimes when they were children were now potentially eligible for relief and reduced sentences. Some states changed their statutes to create more hopeful sentences for child offenders. Prosecutors in many places resisted retroactive application of the Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama, but everyone now had new hope, including Ashley Jones and Trina Garnett. We continued our work on issues involving children by pursuing more cases. I believe there should be a total ban on housing children under the age of eighteen with adults in jails or prisons. We filed cases seeking to stop the practice. I am also convinced that very young children should never be tried in adult court. They’re vulnerable to all sorts of problems that increase the risk of a wrongful conviction. No child of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen can defend him- or herself in the adult criminal justice system. Wrongful convictions and illegal trials involving young children are very common. A few years earlier, we won the release of Phillip Shaw, who was fourteen when he was improperly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in Missouri. His jury was illegally selected, excluding African Americans. I argued two cases at the Mississippi Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the convictions and sentences of young children were illegal. Demarious Banyard was a thirteen-year-old who had been bullied into participating in a robbery that resulted in a fatal shooting in Jackson, Mississippi. He was given a mandatory death-in-prison sentence after his jury was illegally told that he had to prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt and the State introduced impermissible evidence. He was resentenced to a finite term of years and now has hope for release.

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

  It is according to this vision that we become most like unto God, and participators of His bliss: since God understands His substance by His essence, and this is His bliss. Wherefore it is said (1 Jo. 3:2): When He shall appear, we shall be like to Him; because we shall see Him as He is. And (Luke 22:29, 30) our Lord said: I dispose to you, as My Father hath disposed to Me, a banquet, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom. Now these words cannot be understood as referring to the food and drink of the body, but to that which is taken from the table of Wisdom, of which Wisdom says (Prov. 9:5): Eat my bread and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. Accordingly, to eat and drink at God’s table is to enjoy the same bliss as that which makes God happy, and to see God as He sees Himself. CHAPTER LII THAT NO CREATED SUBSTANCE CAN BY ITS NATURAL POWER ARRIVE AT SEEING GOD IN HIS ESSENCEHOWEVER it is not possible for any created substance to attain, by its own power, to this way of seeing God. For that which is proper to the higher nature cannot be acquired by a lower nature, except through the action of the higher nature to whom it properly belongs: thus water cannot become hot except through the action of heat. Now to see God in His essence is proper to the divine nature, since to operate through its own form is proper to the operator. Therefore no intellectual substance can see God in the divine essence, unless God Himself bring this about. Again. A form proper to A does not become B’s except through A’s agency: because an agent produces its like by communicating its form to another. Now it is impossible to see the divine substance unless the divine substance itself become the form by which the intellect understands, as we have proved. Therefore no created substance can attain to that vision, except through the divine agency. Besides. If any two things have to be united together so that one be formal and the other material, their union must be completed by an action on the part of the one that is formal, and not by the action of the one that is material: because the form is the principle of action, whereas matter is the passive principle. Now in order that the created intellect see God’s substance, the divine essence itself must be united to the intellect as an intelligible form, as we have proved. Therefore no created intellect can attain to this vision except through the divine agency.

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

  GREGORY. (Hom. 13. in Ev.) By which He girds Himself, that is, prepares for judgment. THEOPHYLACT. Or, He will gird Himself, in that He imparts not the whole fulness of blessings, but confines it within a certain measure. For who can comprehend God how great He is? Therefore are the Seraphims said to veil their countenance, because of the excellence of the Divine brightness. It follows, and will make them to sit down; for as a man sitting down causes his whole body to rest, so in the future coming the Saints will have complete rest; for here they have not rest for the body, but there together with their souls their spiritual bodies partaking of immortality will rejoice in perfect rest. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. He will then make them to sit down as a refreshment to the weary, setting before them spiritual enjoyments, and ordering a sumptuous table of His gifts. PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS. (Dion. in Ep. ad Tit.) The “sitting down” is taken to be the repose from many labours, a life without annoyance, the divine conversation of those that dwell in the region of light enriched with all holy affections, and an abundant pouring forth of all gifts, whereby they are filled with joy. For the reason why Jesus makes them to sit down, is that He might give them perpetual rest, and distribute to them blessings without number. Therefore it follows, And will pass over (transiens) and serve them. THEOPHYLACT. That is, Give back to them, as it were, an equal return, that as they served Him, so also He will serve them. GREGORY. (Hom. 13. in Ev.) But He is said to be passing over, when He returns from the judgment to His kingdom. Or the Lord passes to us after the judgment, and raises us from the form of His humanity to a contemplation of His divinity. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Our Lord knew the proneness of human infirmity to sin, but because He is merciful, He docs not allow us to despair, but rather has compassion, and gives us repentance as a saving remedy. And therefore He adds, And if he shall come in the second watch, &c. For they who keep watch on the walls of cities, or observe the attacks of the enemy, divide the night into three or four watches. GREGORY. (ubi sup.) The first watch then is the earliest time of our life, that is, childhood, the second youth and manhood, but the third represents old age. He then who is unwilling to watch in the first, let him keep even the second. And he who is unwilling in the second, let him not lose the remedies of the third watch, that he who has neglected conversion in childhood, may at least in the time of youth or old age recover himself.