Longing

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 Another Country (1962)

  He said this with his eyes closed, drinking in the sun and the odors of the garden and the dark, salty odors of Yves. The children from the nearby house were still on the beach; he could hear their voices. “You have no sympathy for animals. She will suffer terribly when we go away.” “She’ll recover. Cats are much stronger than people.” He kept his eyes closed. He felt Yves turn to look down at him. “Why are you so troubled about going to New York?” “New York’s a very troubling place.” “I am not afraid of trouble.” He touched Eric lightly on the chest and Eric opened his eyes. He stared up into Yves’ grave, brown, affectionate face. “But you are. You are afraid of trouble in New York. Why?” “I’m not afraid, Yves. But I have had a lot of trouble there.” “We have had much trouble here, too,” said Yves, with his abrupt and always rather shocking gravity, “and we have always come out of it and now we are better than ever, I think, no?” “Yes,” said Eric, slowly, and watched Yves’ face. “Well, then, what use is there to worry?” He pushed Eric’s hair back from his forehead. “Your head is hot. You have been in the sun too long.” Eric grabbed his hand. The kitten leapt away. “Jesus. I’m going to miss you.” “It is for so short a time. You will be busy, I will be in New York before you know we have been apart.” He grinned and put his chin on Eric’s chest. “Tell me about New York. You have many friends there? Many famous friends?” Eric laughed. “Not many famous friends, no. I don’t know if I have any friends there now, I’ve been away so long.” “Who were your friends when you left?” He grinned again and rubbed his cheek against Eric’s. “Boys like me?” “There are no boys like you. Thank God.” “You mean not so pretty as I? Or not so warm?” He put his hands on Yves’ salty, sandy shoulders. He heard the children’s voices from the sea and the buzzing and booming in the garden. “No. Not so impossible.” “Naturally, now that you are about to leave, you find me impossible. And from what point of view?” He drew Yves closer. “From every point of view.” “C’est dommage. Moi, je t’aime bien.” These words were whispered against his ear, and they lay still for a few moments. Eric wanted to ask, Is that true? but he knew that it was true. Perhaps he did not know what it meant, but, there, Yves could not help him. Only time might help, time which surrendered all secrets but only on the inexorable condition, as far as he could tell, that the secret could no longer be used. He put his lips to Yves’ shoulder and tasted the Mediterranean salt.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “French logic is very simple. Whatever the French do is logical because the French are doing it. That’s the really unbeatable advantage French logic has over all others.” “I see,” she said, and laughed again. “I hope you read the play before your friend consulted the stars. Is it a good part?” “It’s the best part,” he said, after a moment, “that I’ve ever had.” Again, briefly, he heard the typewriter bell. Cass lit a cigarette, offered one to Eric, and lit it for him. “Are you going to settle here now, or are you planning to go back, or what?” “I don’t,” he said, quickly, “have any plans for going back, a lot—maybe everything—depends on what happens with this play.” She sensed his retreat, and took her tone from him. “Oh. I’d love to come and watch rehearsals. I’d run out and get coffee for you, and things like that. It would make me feel that I’d contributed to your triumph.” “Because you’re sure it’s going to be a triumph,” he said, smiling. “Wonderful Cass. I guess it’s a habit great men’s wives get into.” Weeping and crying, tears falling on the ground. The atmosphere between them stiffened a little, nevertheless, with their knowledge of why he had allowed his career in New York to lapse for so long. Then he allowed himself to think of opening night, and he thought, Yves will be here. This thought exalted him and made him feel safe. He did not feel safe now, sitting here alone with Cass; he had not felt safe since stepping off the boat. His ears ached for the sound of Yves’ footfalls beside him: until he heard this rhythm, all other sounds were meaningless. Weeping and crying, tears falling on the ground. All other faces were obliterated for him by the blinding glare of Yves’ absence. He looked over at Cass, longing to tell her about Yves, but not daring, not knowing how to begin. “Great men’s wives, indeed!” said Cass. “How I’d love to explode that literary myth.” She looked at him, gravely sipping her whiskey, without seeming to taste it. When I got to the end, I was so worried down. “You seem very sure of yourself,” she said. “I do?” He was profoundly astonished and pleased. “I don’t feel very sure of myself.” “I remember you before you went away. You were miserable then. We all wondered—I wondered—what would become of you. But you aren’t miserable now.” “No,” he said, and, under her scrutiny, blushed. “I’m not miserable any more. But I still don’t know what’s going to become of me.” “Growth,” she said, “is what will become of you. It’s what has become of you.” And she gave him again her oddly intimate, rueful smile. “It’s very nice to see, it’s very—enviable. I don’t envy many people. I haven’t found myself envying anyone for a long, long time.”

• From Educated (2018)

  I found the science book, with its colorful illustrations, and the math book I remembered from years before. I even located a faded green book of history. But when I sat down to study I nearly always fell asleep. The pages were glossy and soft, made softer by the hours I’d spent hauling scrap. When Dad saw me with one of those books, he’d try to get me away from them. Perhaps he was remembering Tyler. Perhaps he thought if he could just distract me for a few years, the danger would pass. So he made up jobs for me to do, whether they needed doing or not. One afternoon, after he’d caught me looking at the math book, he and I spent an hour hauling buckets of water across the field to his fruit trees, which wouldn’t have been at all unusual except it was during a rainstorm. But if Dad was trying to keep his children from being overly interested in school and books—from being seduced by the Illuminati, like Tyler had been—he would have done better to turn his attention to Richard. Richard was also supposed to spend his afternoons making tinctures for Mother, but he almost never did. Instead, he’d disappear. I don’t know if Mother knew where he went, but I did. In the afternoons, Richard could nearly always be found in the dark basement, wedged in the crawl space between the couch and the wall, an encyclopedia propped open in front of him. If Dad happened by he’d turn the light off, muttering about wasted electricity. Then I’d find some excuse to go downstairs so I could turn it back on. If Dad came through again, a snarl would sound through the house, and Mother would have to sit through a lecture on leaving lights on in empty rooms. She never scolded me, which makes me wonder if she did know where Richard was. If I couldn’t get back down to turn on the light, Richard would pull the book to his nose and read in the dark; he wanted to read that badly. He wanted to read the encyclopedia that badly. —TYLER WAS GONE. There was hardly a trace he’d ever lived in the house, except one: every night, after dinner, I would close the door to my room and pull Tyler’s old boom box from under my bed. I’d dragged his desk into my room, and while the choir sang I would settle into his chair and study, just as I’d seen him do on a thousand nights. I didn’t study history or math. I studied religion. I read the Book of Mormon twice. I read the New Testament, once quickly, then a second time more slowly, pausing to make notes, to cross-reference, and even to write short essays on doctrines like faith and sacrifice. No one read the essays; I wrote them for myself, the way I imagined Tyler had studied for himself and himself only.

• From Little Women (1868)

  They overhung the archway, thrust themselves between the bars of the great gate with a sweet welcome to passers-by, and lined the avenue, winding through lemon trees and feathery palms up to the villa on the hill. Every shadowy nook, where seats invited one to stop and rest, was a mass of bloom, every cool grotto had its marble nymph smiling from a veil of flowers and every fountain reflected crimson, white, or pale pink roses, leaning down to smile at their own beauty. Roses covered the walls of the house, draped the cornices, climbed the pillars, and ran riot over the balustrade of the wide terrace, whence one looked down on the sunny Mediterranean, and the white-walled city on its shore. "This is a regular honeymoon paradise, isn't it? Did you ever see such roses?" asked Amy, pausing on the terrace to enjoy the view, and a luxurious whiff of perfume that came wandering by. "No, nor felt such thorns," returned Laurie, with his thumb in his mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that grew just beyond his reach. "Try lower down, and pick those that have no thorns," said Amy, gathering three of the tiny cream-colored ones that starred the wall behind her. She put them in his buttonhole as a peace offering, and he stood a minute looking down at them with a curious expression, for in the Italian part of his nature there was a touch of superstition, and he was just then in that state of half-sweet, half-bitter melancholy, when imaginative young men find significance in trifles and food for romance everywhere. He had thought of Jo in reaching after the thorny red rose, for vivid flowers became her, and she had often worn ones like that from the greenhouse at home. The pale roses Amy gave him were the sort that the Italians lay in dead hands, never in bridal wreaths, and for a moment he wondered if the omen was for Jo or for himself, but the next instant his American common sense got the better of sentimentality, and he laughed a heartier laugh than Amy had heard since he came. "It's good advice, you'd better take it and save your fingers," she said, thinking her speech amused him. "Thank you, I will," he answered in jest, and a few months later he did it in earnest. "Laurie, when are you going to your grandfather?" she asked presently, as she settled herself on a rustic seat. "Very soon." "You have said that a dozen times within the last three weeks." "I dare say, short answers save trouble." "He expects you, and you really ought to go." "Hospitable creature! I know it." "Then why don't you do it?" "Natural depravity, I suppose." "Natural indolence, you mean. It's really dreadful!" and Amy looked severe.

• From Wild (2012)

  All morning, as I walked west to Bucks Lake, then north and west again along its shore before coming to the rugged jeep road that would take me back up to the PCT, I thought of the resupply box that waited for me in Belden Town. Not so much the box, but the twenty-dollar bill that would be inside. And not so much the twenty-dollar bill, but the food and beverages I could buy with it. I spent hours in a half-ecstatic, half-tortured reverie, fantasizing about cake and cheeseburgers, chocolate and bananas, apples and mixed-green salads, and, more than anything, about Snapple lemonade. This did not make sense. I’d had only a few Snapple lemonades in my pre-PCT life and liked them well enough, but they hadn’t stood out in any particular way. It had not been my drink. But now it haunted me. Pink or yellow, it didn’t matter. Not a day passed that I didn’t imagine in vivid detail what it would be like to hold one in my hand and bring it to my mouth. Some days I forbade myself to think about it, lest I go entirely insane.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Ida: and he felt an eerie premonition, as though he were old, walking years from now through familiar streets where no one knew or noticed him, thinking of his lost love, and wondering, Where is she now? Where is she now? He passed the movie theater and the tough boys and tough men who always stood outside it. It was ten o’clock. He turned west on Waverly Place and walked to a crowded bar where he could get a hamburger. He forced himself to have a hamburger and a beer before he called his apartment again. There was no answer. He went back to the bar and ordered a whiskey and realized that he was running out of money. If he were going to keep on drinking he would have to go to Benno’s, where he had a tab. He drank his whiskey very slowly, watching and listening to the crowd around him. They had been college boys, mostly, in his day, but both he and they had grown older and he gathered, from the conversations around him, that the college boys had graduated into the professions. He had his eye, vaguely, on a frail, blonde girl, who also seemed, somewhat less vaguely, to have her eye on him: incredibly enough, she seemed to be a lawyer. And he was abruptly very excited, as he had been years ago, at the prospect of making it with a chick above his station, a chick he was not even supposed to be able to look at. He was from the slums of Brooklyn and that stink was on him, and it turned out to be the stink that they were looking for. They were tired of boys who washed too much, who had no odor in their armpits and no sweat on their balls. He looked at the blonde again, wondering what she was like with no clothes on. She was sitting at a table near the door, facing him, toying with a daiquiri glass, and talking to a heavy, gray-haired man, who had a high giggle, who was a little drunk, and whom Vivaldo recognized as a fairly well-known poet. The blonde reminded him of Cass. And this made him realize—for the first time, it is astonishing how well the obvious can be hidden—that when he had met Cass, so many years ago, he had been terribly flattered that so highborn a lady noticed such a stinking boy. He had been overwhelmed.

• From Wild (2012)

  “Here you go,” the woman said, returning with my box and setting it on the counter. “It’s the only one that’s got a girl’s name on it. That’s how I knew.” She reached across the counter to me. “This came too.” In her hand was a postcard. I took it and read it: I hope you made it this far, it said in a familiar scrawl. I want to be your clean boyfriend someday. I love you. Joe. On the other side was a photograph of the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon coast, where we’d stayed together once. I stared at the photograph for several moments, a series of feelings washing over me in waves: grateful for a word from someone I knew, nostalgic for Joe, disappointed that only one person had written to me, and heartbroken, unreasonable as it was, that the one person who had wasn’t Paul. I bought two bottles of Snapple lemonade, a king-sized Butterfinger, and a bag of Doritos and went outside and sat on the front steps, devouring the things I’d purchased while reading the postcard over and over again. After a while, I noticed a box in the corner of the porch stuffed full with mostly packaged backpacker food. Above it there was a handwritten sign that said: PCT hiker FREE box!!! Leave what you don’t want! Take what you do! A ski pole was propped behind the box, precisely the thing I needed. It was a ski pole fit for a princess: white, with a bubble-gum-pink nylon wrist strap. I tested it out for a few steps. It was the perfect height. It would help me across not only the snow, but also the many stream fords and rockslides that no doubt lay ahead. I walked with it an hour later as I made my way along the dirt road that went in a loop around the campground, looking for Greg, Matt, and Albert. It was a Sunday afternoon in June, but the place was mostly empty. I passed by a man preparing his fishing gear and a couple with a cooler of beer and a boom box and eventually came to a campsite where a shirtless gray-haired man with a big tan belly sat at a picnic table reading a book. He looked up as I approached. “You must be the famous Cheryl of the enormous backpack,” he called to me. I laughed in agreement. “I’m Ed.” He walked toward me to shake my hand. “Your friends are here. They all just caught a ride up to the store—you must have missed them as you were coming—but they asked me to watch for you. You can set up your tent right over there if you’d like. They’re all camped here—Greg and Albert and his son.” He gestured to the tents around him. “We were taking bets who’d arrive first. You or the two boys from back east coming up behind you.” “Who won?” I asked.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  Thus the existence of individual cults implies nothing which contradicts or embarrasses the sociological interpretation of religion; for the religious forces to which it addresses itself are only the individualized forms of collective forces. Therefore, even when religion seems to be entirely within the individual conscience, it is still in society that it finds the living source from which it is nourished. We are now able to appreciate the value of the radical individualism which would make religion something purely individual: it misunderstands the fundamental conditions of the religious life. If up to the present it has remained in the stage of theoretical aspirations which have never been realized, it is because it is unrealizable. A philosophy may well be elaborated in the silence of the interior imagination, but not so a faith. For before all else, a faith is warmth, life, enthusiasm, the exaltation of the whole mental life, the raising of the individual above himself. Now how could he add to the energies which he possesses without going outside himself? How could he surpass himself merely by his own forces? The only source of life at which we can morally reanimate ourselves is that formed by the society of our fellow beings; the only moral forces with which we can sustain and increase our own are those which we get from others. Let us even admit that there really are beings more or less analogous to those which the mythologies represent. In order that they may exercise over souls the useful direction which is their reason for existence, it is necessary that men believe in them. Now these beliefs are active only when they are partaken by many. A man cannot retain them any length of time by a purely personal effort; it is not thus that they are born or that they are acquired; it is even doubtful if they can be kept under these conditions. In fact, a man who has a veritable faith feels an invincible need of spreading it: therefore he leaves his isolation, approaches others and seeks to convince them, and it is the ardour of the convictions which he arouses that strengthens his own. It would quickly weaken if it remained alone. It is the same with religious universalism as with this individualism. Far from being an exclusive attribute of certain very great religions, we have found it, not at the base, it is true, but at the summit of the Australian system. Bunjil, Daramulun or Baiame are not simple tribal gods; each of them is recognized by a number of different tribes. In a sense, their cult is international. This conception is therefore very near to that found in the most recent theologies. So certain writers have felt it their duty to deny its authenticity, howsoever incontestable this may be. And we have been able to show how this has been formed.

• From Push (1996)

  Ms Rain, senora La Lluvia, ask me to write more, write about my life now. Just talk some more in the tape recorder and she transcribe it. What life? Foster care, rape, drugs, prostitution, HIV, jail, rehab. Everybody like to hear that story. Tell us more tell us more more MORE about being a dope addict and a whore! Puta tecata puta tecata. But I tell you what I want, it's my book— we had a nice place, velvet things, lace curtains, the crystal ball. I ask her once my hand in the black river of her hair, my eyes looking up at hers, her caramel color skin, red movie lips, the perfume from her like a pink and purple dream— show me Mami how to see. Show me what's inside the crystal ball. She look at it a long time then say, Ann Negri ta, you don' t want to know. MY YOUNGER YEARS by Rhonda Patrice Johnson My younger years was actually spend in Jamaica which is where my family is from. It was me my brother and my mother and father who we call Ma and Pop. Things was good there until Pop die then we didn't have money so we move to the U.S. For me that is when the problem start. What the problem is is hard to say but it was with my brother. My mother git a restaurant on 7th Ave. between 132nd and 133rd selling West Indian take out. I work in the restaurant from git up in the morning to go to bed at night. I don't go to school even. I could read and write some but when we got here I was twelve already and hadn't been going to school for a long time in Jamaica. So my mother say, you almost grown so what's the use. But Kimberton, he's my brother go to school. A lot go for Kimberton—clothes, bicycle, computer toy. He is one year younger than me. I wash down the kitchen, scrub pots, pans, grill, all that! Go to the big market with Ma at Hunt's Point. Go to La Marqueta on Lexington with Ma. I make peas and rice, roti, cod fish cakes, goat curry, all that! The people that want eat in we got two little tables in the front near the window. I serve people. I fourteen when Kimberton start leaning on me. I don't know how else to tell it. "Ma, Kimberton leaning on me." "What you telling?" "He bothering me." "Leave his computer stuff alone and he will leave your dolls alone." That's what he used to do in Jamaica, break my dolly's head or arm off. I mean something different now. He is the same size as me. I try to fight him. We sleep in same room. He wait until I am sleep. I awake Kimberton standing over me on top the bed naked as the day he born. Thing like a donkey's.

• From Little Women (1868)

  "But we'll have another play sometime that he can see. Perhaps he'll help act. Wouldn't that be jolly?" "I never had such a fine bouquet before! How pretty it is!" And Meg examined her flowers with great interest. "They are lovely. But Beth's roses are sweeter to me," said Mrs. March, smelling the half-dead posy in her belt. Beth nestled up to her, and whispered softly, "I wish I could send my bunch to Father. I'm afraid he isn't having such a merry Christmas as we are." CHAPTER THREE THE LAURENCE BOY "Jo! Jo! Where are you?" cried Meg at the foot of the garret stairs. "Here!" answered a husky voice from above, and, running up, Meg found her sister eating apples and crying over the Heir of Redclyffe, wrapped up in a comforter on an old three-legged sofa by the sunny window. This was Jo's favorite refuge, and here she loved to retire with half a dozen russets and a nice book, to enjoy the quiet and the society of a pet rat who lived near by and didn't mind her a particle. As Meg appeared, Scrabble whisked into his hole. Jo shook the tears off her cheeks and waited to hear the news. "Such fun! Only see! A regular note of invitation from Mrs. Gardiner for tomorrow night!" cried Meg, waving the precious paper and then proceeding to read it with girlish delight. "'Mrs. Gardiner would be happy to see Miss March and Miss Josephine at a little dance on New Year's Eve.' Marmee is willing we should go, now what shall we wear?" "What's the use of asking that, when you know we shall wear our poplins, because we haven't got anything else?" answered Jo with her mouth full. "If I only had a silk!" sighed Meg. "Mother says I may when I'm eighteen perhaps, but two years is an everlasting time to wait." "I'm sure our pops look like silk, and they are nice enough for us. Yours is as good as new, but I forgot the burn and the tear in mine. Whatever shall I do? The burn shows badly, and I can't take any out." "You must sit still all you can and keep your back out of sight. The front is all right. I shall have a new ribbon for my hair, and Marmee will lend me her little pearl pin, and my new slippers are lovely, and my gloves will do, though they aren't as nice as I'd like." "Mine are spoiled with lemonade, and I can't get any new ones, so I shall have to go without," said Jo, who never troubled herself much about dress. "You must have gloves, or I won't go," cried Meg decidedly. "Gloves are more important than anything else. You can't dance without them, and if you don't I should be so mortified." "Then I'll stay still. I don't care much for company dancing. It's no fun to go sailing round.

• From Mystical Tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2008)

  2. What the prophets said and did through God’s word sets a pattern that others can follow. 3. The Bible is read, above all, as providing a set of examples for its readers. C. The Hebrew Bible (TaNaK) is a direct source for the patterns and symbols of Jewish and Christian Mysticism and an indirect source for Islam. II. The figure of the prophet Moses is of fundamental importance because he is the first (and greatest) prophet in TaNaK. A. The figures preceding Moses also had experiences of God; for example, Adam speaks with God, Abraham hears God, Jacob sees heaven opened, and Joseph interprets dreams. B. But Moses shows the reader a life that is permeated by the direct experience of God. 1. He encounters God in a burning bush and is commissioned to free his people (Exod. 3:4(cid:16)14). 2. With the elders, he ascends Mount Sinai and “sees the Lord” (Exod. 24:9(cid:16)11). 3. He is the Lord’s “intimate friend” (Exod. 33:12(cid:16)15) and learns God’s essential attributes (Exod. 34:1(cid:16)9). 4. He knows the Lord “face to face” (Deut. 34:10(cid:16)11). C. The figure of Moses establishes the basic pattern and a considerable amount of symbolism for mystics. 1. The pattern is one of “approaching God” by ascent and pilgrimage, involving a movement from slavery to freedom and demanding purification. 2. The symbols for human access to God include crossing the sea and the desert, ascending the mountain, experiencing a dark cloud and fire, observing a sea of glass or sapphires, and finally, coming to the land of rest. III. Other prophets in the biblical account expand the repertoire of symbols associated with visions, to some degree, by repeating certain elements. A. Most significant is the experience of Isaiah, an 8th-century figure who had a vision of God in the Temple and was commissioned as a prophet (Isa. 6:1(cid:16)13). ©2008 The Teaching Company. 15

• From Wild (2012)

  “We’re going to Packer Lake Lodge if you want a ride,” the woman said after she rolled down the window. My heart sank, though I thanked her and got into the back seat. I’d read about Packer Lake Lodge in my guidebook days before. I could have taken a side trail to it a day out of Sierra City, but I’d decided to pass it by when I opted to stay on the PCT. As we drove, I could feel my northward progress reversing itself—all the miles I’d toiled to gain, lost in less than an hour—and yet to be in that car was a kind of heaven. I cleared a patch in the foggy window and watched the trees blaze past. Our top speed was perhaps twenty miles an hour as we crept around bends in the road, but it still felt to me as if we were moving unaccountably fast, the land made general rather than particular, no longer including me but standing quietly off to the side. I thought about the fox. I wondered if he’d returned to the fallen tree and wondered about me. I remembered the moment after he’d disappeared into the woods and I’d called out for my mother. It had been so silent in the wake of that commotion, a kind of potent silence that seemed to contain everything. The songs of the birds and the creak of the trees. The dying snow and the unseen gurgling water. The glimmering sun. The certain sky. The gun that didn’t have a bullet in its chamber. And the mother. Always the mother. The one who would never come to me. 10 RANGE OF LIGHTThe mere sight of Packer Lake Lodge felt like a blow. It was a restaurant. With food. And I might as well have been a German shepherd. I could smell it as soon as I got out of the car. I thanked the couple who’d given me a ride and walked toward the little building anyway, leaving Monster on the porch before I went inside. The place was crowded with tourists, most of them people who’d rented one of the rustic cabins that surrounded the restaurant. They didn’t seem to notice the way I stared at their plates as I made my way to the counter, stacks of pancakes skirted by bacon, eggs in exquisitely scrambled heaps, or—most painful of all—cheeseburgers buried by jagged mounds of French fries. I was devastated by the sight of them. “What have you heard about the snow levels up north of here?” I asked the woman who worked the cash register. I could tell that she was the boss by the way her eyes followed the waitress as she moved about the room with a coffeepot in hand. I’d never met this woman, but I’d worked for her a thousand times. It occurred to me that I could ask her for a job for the summer and quit the PCT.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She envied Ida. She listened to Vivaldo hum the blues. 2 Eight days later, Eric was in New York, with Yves’ last words still ringing in his ears, and his touch and his smell all over his body. And Yves’ eyes, like the searchlight of the Eiffel Tower or the sweep of a lighthouse light, lit up, at intervals, the grave darkness around him and afforded him, in the black distance, his only frame of reference and his only means of navigation. On the last day in Paris, at the last moment, they both suffered from terrible hangovers, having both been up all night, drinking, at a friend’s house; their faces were gray and damp; they stank with weariness. There was great shouting and confusion all around them, and the train breathed over them like some unimaginably malevolent beetle. They were almost too tired for sorrow, but not too tired for fear. It steamed out of them both, like the miasma rising from the Gare St. Lazare. In the deep black shadow of this shed, while their friends stood at a discreet distance from them; and the station attendant moved up and down the platform, shouting, “En voiture, s’il vous plaît! En voiture! En voiture!” ; and the great hand of the great clock approached the zero hour; they stared into each other’s faces like comrades who have been through a war . “T’ne fait pas,” Eric murmured. “En voiture!” Eric moved up to stand in the crowded doorway of the train. There was nothing to say; there was too much to say. “I hate waiting,” he said. “I hate good-byes.” He suddenly felt that he was going to cry, and panic threatened to overtake him because of all these people watching. “We will see each other,” he said, “very soon. I promise you, Yves. I promise you. Tu me fait toujours confiance, j’espère? ” And he tried to smile. Yves said nothing, but nodded, his eyes very bright, his mouth very vulnerable, his forehead very high, and full of trouble. People were screaming out of windows, were passing last minute items to each other through windows. Eric was the last person standing in the door. He had an awful feeling that he had forgotten something very important. He had paid for Yves’ hotel room, they had visited the American embassy and the French authorities, he had left Yves some money—what else? what else? The train began to move.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  r Prirp and his daughter had a new common interest; they Se now discuss books and the making of books and the feel and the smell and the essence of books — a mighty bond this, and one full of enchantment. They could talk of these things with mutual understanding; they did so for hours in the father’s study, and Sir Philip discovered a secret ambition that had lain in the girl like a seed in deep soil; and he, the good gardener of her body and spirit, hoed the soil and watered this seed of ambition. Stephen would show him her queer compositions, and would wait very breathless and still while he read them; then one evening he looked up and saw her expression, and he smiled: “So that’s it, you want to be a writer. Well, why not? You’ve got plenty of talent, Stephen; I should be a proud man if you were a writer.’ After which their discussions on the making of books held an even more vital enchantment. But Anna came less and less often to the study, and she would be sitting alone and idle. Puddle, upstairs at work in the school- room, might be swatting at her Greek to keep pace with Stephen, but Anna would be sitting with her hands in her lap in the vast drawing-room so beautifully proportioned, so restfully furnished in old polished walnut, so redolent of beeswax and orris root and violets — all alone in its vastness would Anna be sitting, with her white hands folded and idle. A lovely and most comfortable woman she had been, and still was, in spite of her gentle ageing, but not learned, oh, no, very far from learned — that, indeed, was why Sir Philip had loved her, that was why he had found her so infinitely restful, that was why he still loved her after very many years; her simplicity was stronger to hold him than learning. But now Anna went less and less often to the study. THE WELL OF LONELINESS 87 It was not that they failed to make her feel welcome, but rather that they could not conceal their deep interest in subjects of which she knew little or nothing. What did she know of or care for the Classics? What interest had she in the works of Erasmus? Her theology needed no erudite discussion, her philos- ophy consisted of a home swept and garnished, and as for the poets, she liked simple verses; for the rest her poetry lay in her husband. All this she well knew and had no wish to alter, yet lately there had come upon Anna an aching, a tormenting ach- ing that she dared give no name to. It nagged at her heart when she went to that study and saw Sir Philip together with their daughter, and knew that her presence contributed nothing to his happiness when he sat reading to Stephen.

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

  "You see," he writes, "to what a lazy fellow you have intrusted your letter. It was full four months before he delivered it to me, and then crushed and rumpled with much rough usage. But although it has reached me somewhat late, I set a great value upon the acquisition .... Would, indeed, as you observe, that we could oftener converse together were it only by letters. To you that would be no advantage; but to me, nothing in this world could be more desirable than to take solace in the mild and gentle spirit of your correspondence. You can scarce believe with what a load of business I am here burdened and incessantly hurried along; but in the midst of these distractions there are two things which most of all annoy me. My chief regret is, that there does not appear to be the amount of fruit that one may reasonably expect from the labor bestowed; the other is, because I am so far removed from yourself and a few others, and therefore am deprived of that sort of comfort and consolation which would prove a special help to me. "But since we cannot have even so much at our own choice, that each at his own discretion might pick out the corner of the vineyard where he might serve Christ, we must remain at that post which He Himself has allotted to each. This comfort we have at least, of which no far distant separation can deprive us,—I mean, that resting content with this fellowship which Christ has consecrated with his own blood, and has also confirmed and sealed by his blessed Spirit in our hearts,—while we live on the earth, we may cheer each other with that blessed hope to which your letter calls us that in heaven above we shall dwell forever where we shall rejoice in love and in continuance of our friendship."557 There can be no nobler expression of Christian friendship. In the same letter Calvin informs Melanchthon that he had dedicated to him his "Defence of the Orthodox Doctrine on the Slavery and Deliverance of the Human Will against the Calumnies of Albert Pighius," which he had urged Calvin to write, and which appeared in February, 1543.558 After some modest account of his labors in Geneva, and judicious reflections on the condition of the Church in Germany, he thus concludes: —

• From Little Women (1868)

  in the middle of a plaintive strain, he would find himself humming a dancing tune that vividly recalled the Christmas ball at Nice, especially the stout Frenchman, and put an effectual stop to tragic composition for the time being. Then he tried an opera, for nothing seemed impossible in the beginning, but here again unforeseen difficulties beset him. He wanted Jo for his heroine, and called upon his memory to supply him with tender recollections and romantic visions of his love. But memory turned traitor, and as if possessed by the perverse spirit of the girl, would only recall Jo's oddities, faults, and freaks, would only show her in the most unsentimental aspects—beating mats with her head tied up in a bandanna, barricading herself with the sofa pillow, or throwing cold water over his passion a la Gummidge—and an irresistable laugh spoiled the pensive picture he was endeavoring to paint. Jo wouldn't be put into the opera at any price, and he had to give her up with a "Bless that girl, what a torment she is!" and a clutch at his hair, as became a distracted composer. When he looked about him for another and a less intractable damsel to immortalize in melody, memory produced one with the most obliging readiness. This phantom wore many faces, but it always had golden hair, was enveloped in a diaphanous cloud, and floated airily before his mind's eye in a pleasing chaos of roses, peacocks, white ponies, and blue ribbons. He did not give the complacent wraith any name, but he took her for his heroine and grew quite fond of her, as well he might, for he gifted her with every gift and grace under the sun, and escorted her, unscathed, through trials which would have annihilated any mortal woman. Thanks to this inspiration, he got on swimmingly for a time, but gradually the work lost its charm, and he forgot to compose, while he sat musing, pen in hand, or roamed about the gay city to get some new ideas and refresh his mind, which seemed to be in a somewhat unsettled state that winter. He did not do much, but he thought a great deal and was conscious of a change of some sort going on in spite of himself. "It's genius simmering, perhaps. I'll let it simmer, and see what comes of it," he said, with a secret suspicion all the while that it wasn't genius, but something far more common. Whatever it was, it simmered to some purpose, for he grew more and more discontented with his desultory life, began to long for some real and earnest work to go at, soul and body, and finally came to the wise conclusion that everyone who loved music was not a composer. Returning from one of Mozart's grand operas, splendidly performed at the Royal Theatre, he looked over his own, played a few of the best parts, sat staring at the

• From Little Women (1868)

  stay, and let absence soften her sorrow. But her heart was very heavy, she longed to be at home, and every day looked wistfully across the lake, waiting for Laurie to come and comfort her. He did come very soon, for the same mail brought letters to them both, but he was in Germany, and it took some days to reach him. The moment he read it, he packed his knapsack, bade adieu to his fellow pedestrians, and was off to keep his promise, with a heart full of joy and sorrow, hope and suspense. He knew Vevay well, and as soon as the boat touched the little quay, he hurried along the shore to La Tour, where the Carrols were living en pension. The garcon was in despair that the whole family had gone to take a promenade on the lake, but no, the blonde mademoiselle might be in the chateau garden. If monsieur would give himself the pain of sitting down, a flash of time should present her. But monsieur could not wait even a 'flash of time', and in the middle of the speech departed to find mademoiselle himself. A pleasant old garden on the borders of the lovely lake, with chestnuts rustling overhead, ivy climbing everywhere, and the black shadow of the tower falling far across the sunny water. At one corner of the wide, low wall was a seat, and here Amy often came to read or work, or console herself with the beauty all about her. She was sitting here that day, leaning her head on her hand, with a homesick heart and heavy eyes, thinking of Beth and wondering why Laurie did not come. She did not hear him cross the courtyard beyond, nor see him pause in the archway that led from the subterranean path into the garden. He stood a minute looking at her with new eyes, seeing what no one had ever seen before, the tender side of Amy's character. Everything about her mutely suggested love and sorrow, the blotted letters in her lap, the black ribbon that tied up her hair, the womanly pain and patience in her face, even the little ebony cross at her throat seemed pathetic to Laurie, for he had given it to her, and she wore it as her only ornament. If he had any doubts about the reception she would give him, they were set at rest the minute she looked up and saw him, for dropping everything, she ran to him, exclaiming in a tone of unmistakable love and longing... "Oh, Laurie, Laurie, I knew you'd come to me!" I think everything was said and settled then, for as they stood together quite silent for a moment, with the dark head bent down protectingly over the light one, Amy felt that no one could comfort and sustain her so well as Laurie, and

• From Little Women (1868)

  Beth Frank asked for her, and was sorry to hear of her ill health. Fred laughed when I spoke of Jo, and sent his 'respectful compliments to the big hat'. Neither of them had forgotten Camp Laurence, or the fun we had there. What ages ago it seems, doesn't it? Aunt is tapping on the wall for the third time, so I must stop. I really feel like a dissipated London fine lady, writing here so late, with my room full of pretty things, and my head a jumble of parks, theaters, new gowns, and gallant creatures who say "Ah!" and twirl their blond mustaches with the true English lordliness. I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ever, your loving... AMY

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Turn us, O God of Hosts, show us Thy countenance, and we shall be whole. For whithersoever the soul of man turns itself, unless toward Thee, it is riveted upon sorrows, yea though it is riveted on things beautiful. And yet they, out of Thee, and out of the soul, were not, unless they were from Thee. They rise, and set; and by rising, they begin as it were to be; they grow, that they may be perfected; and perfected, they wax old and wither; and all grow not old, but all wither. So then when they rise and tend to be, the more quickly they grow that they may be, so much the more they haste not to be. This is the law of them. Thus much has Thou allotted them, because they are portions of things, which exist not all at once, but by passing away and succeeding, they together complete that universe, whereof they are portions. And even thus is our speech completed by signs giving forth a sound: but this again is not perfected unless one word pass away when it hath sounded its part, that another may succeed. Out of all these things let my soul praise Thee, O God, Creator of all; yet let not my soul be riveted unto these things with the glue of love, through the senses of the body. For they go whither they were to go, that they might not be; and they rend her with pestilent longings, because she longs to be, yet loves to repose in what she loves. But in these things is no place of repose; they abide not, they flee; and who can follow them with the senses of the flesh? yea, who can grasp them, when they are hard by? For the sense of the flesh is slow, because it is the sense of the flesh; and thereby is it bounded. It sufficeth for that it was made for; but it sufficeth not to stay things running their course from their appointed starting-place to the end appointed. For in Thy Word, by which they are created, they hear their decree, “hence and hitherto.” Be not foolish, O my soul, nor become deaf in the ear of thine heart with the tumult of thy folly. Hearken thou too.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  “It’s just your ego that doesn’t like the challenge and the difficulty of working for God,” he said. “If it was easy, there wouldn’t be any point to it. It’s the hard parts that make it a worthwhile fight. That way, we know we’re making a difference in the world and in the universe.” Like a good disciple, I shut up and ate my sandwich. By the mid-1990s Limori was spending hardly any time at all in Vancouver. She moved out of the house I had lived in with her and moved her base of operations from the city to Wolf’s Den. Matthew, her husband, was granted his wish of living at his resort full time. However, without his income from a job at a local cable company, Limori’s finances were strained, and for almost a year the meditation group pitched in and paid the mortgage on the resort each month. Limori divided her time between living at Wolf’s Den (in the palatial and luxurious two-storey suite that John and Brent added onto the resort specifically for her) and living for weeks or months at a time in rented homes in Hawaii or Arizona. She began to distance herself from the group of disciples she had collected in Vancouver and it felt like we had slid below the last rung on the group’s hierarchical ladder. During these years, I felt a nagging, persistent sense of longing and pining for Limori when she began to spend longer and longer stretches of time away from the Vancouver group. It was a paradoxical feeling because I was at once relieved that she was not around to chastise me or the others but at the same time sad at being rejected by my own spiritual teacher. Those of us in Vancouver were not allowed to call her or contact her in any way, where in years past she had almost always been available to us for telephone conversations about spiritual questions and challenges. For the next couple of years, she would occasionally grace us with her presence once every eight or ten months. Out of the blue she would show up at a Wednesday or Thursday night meditation circle and we would spend the evening hearing about her journeys to Europe or Hawaii or the southwestern US. She would fill us in on the energetic goings-on in the universe and why her work with Spirit mattered so much and how hard it was on her but how devoted she was to serving God; in this context, her being tired and worn out and staying up all night meditating and being constantly hit with energy were okay with her. On one of these grace-and-favour visits, after the uplifting euphoria of seeing our leader for the first time in a while had passed and we had heard about her recent exciting and entertaining exploits, the room went quiet and, from her position at the head of the circle, Limori looked around at each of us.