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.

Page 154 of 170 · 20 per page

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Situations in which we actually get a taste of what we crave, but not total fulfillment, are particularly likely to stay with or even obsess us. Longing reaches its zenith under conditions of partial or intermittent satisfaction. If expressions of interest and attraction are interspersed with signs of detachment—maybe the desired one pulls back, turns cold, or goes away for a while—the result can be a frenzy of desire. Anyone who has ever become involved with someone who already had a primary relationship knows how just an occasional crumb of interest or reciprocation acts as an aphrodisiac. Actual moments together take on special significance. ANTICIPATION: SHORT-TERM LONGINGLonging and anticipation are variations on the same theme; both draw energy from the gap between desire and the reality of the moment. The difference is that longing must usually overcome formidable barriers. Her lover lives in another town so they see each other only occasionally. His girlfriend is involved with someone else so he waits by the phone for calls that rarely come. With anticipation, the wait is not nearly so prolonged or painful because fulfillment seems relatively near. In a state of yearning you are intensely aware of the experience of being without, whereas anticipation is almost entirely focused on the goal of being together. Thirty-nine percent of The Group’s peak encounters contain references to desiring an absent or unavailable partner, or anticipating the encounter itself or some specific moment within the encounter. Far fewer—18 percent—mention longing or anticipation in their fantasies. For many people fantasy is an opportunity to use their imaginative abilities to guarantee gratification. Yearning enthusiasts, however, often prefer to build up their arousal gradually by visualizing an extended seduction or some other circuitous path to satisfaction. Overall, longing is significantly more common among women than among men, with lesbians the most likely of all to mention it. One reason the women report greater longing is that they are more likely to have romantic feelings toward their partners. While anticipation can be a component of either limerence or lust, serious longing is definitely associated with romance. In actual practice it’s virtually impossible to make a clear distinction between longing and anticipation. The dance of longing and anticipation is obvious in a story told by Frank, the only member of The Group who mentioned his wedding night as the setting for unforgettable sex. Because of Frank’s work, he and his fiancee had to be apart for nearly six months prior to their wedding, forcing them to make most of their plans by phone: We decided we would stay overnight in a hotel before our honeymoon. I requested just one thing—that she wear a garter belt. She laughed but admitted that she too had some special things in mind. The consummation of our wedding was on my mind constantly.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  It consists of engineering a “body” that seeks to satisfy some built-in, homeostasis-like regulatory parameters. The germ for this idea goes back to the pioneer roboticist Grey Walter. 10 The issue of feelings remains tricky, however. Usually, instead of feeling, roboticists build in toylike behaviors with fake smiles, cries, pouts, and so forth. The result is something like animated emoticons. We are talking about puppetry, really. The actions are not motivated by an internal state of the robot; they are simply programmed into it on the say-so of the designer. They may resemble emotions, in the sense that emotions are action programs, but they are not motivated emotions. We still fall for such robots easily, and we are perfectly capable of engaging them as if they were flesh-and-blood creatures. People grow up capable of imagining lives behind the toys and dolls of their early childhood and carry the residue of those identifications. We can easily slide into the world of puppets if the setting is right. In fact, I have never met a robot that I did not like, and they all “seemed” to like me. If the animations of robots are not emotions, they certainly are not feelings, feelings being, as we know, the mental experience of a body state, which really means subjective mental experiences. And here is when the problem worsens: to have mental experiences, we need minds and not just minds but conscious minds. To be conscious, to have subjective experiences, we badly need the two ingredients we described in chapter 9: an individual perspective of our own organism and individual feeling. Can we do this in robots? Well, we can in part. I believe we can build perspective in a robot, relatively easily, once we take the problem seriously. But to build feeling, on the other hand, we require a living body. A robot with homeostatic features would be a step in that direction, but the critical issue is the degree to which sketchy body phantoms and some simulation of body physiology could serve as substrates for anything like feeling, let alone human feeling. This is an open and important research question, and we need to investigate it. Assuming we would make progress in that direction, we might approach the possibility of feeling and, following feeling, of some semblance of humanlike intelligence—in such a context, I can see intuition arising out of Big Data treatments—and a possible entry into humanlike behaviors, complete with predicted risks, felt vulnerabilities, affective attachments, joys, lows, wisdom, the failures and glories of human judgment. It will not be difficult, even without feelings, for so-called humanlike robots to play and win many sorts of games, or to talk as well as HAL seemed to talk in 2001, or to serve as helpful human companions, although one shudders a bit at the prospect of a society that needs robots as companions. Are there not enough unemployed to fill those jobs after self-driving cars and trucks took away their livelihood?

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  I was sitting on a chair and across from me was Peter. . . Peter Schiff. We were looking at a book of drawings by Mary Bos. The dream was so vivid I can even remember some of the drawings. But that wasn’t all -- the dream went on. Peter’s eyes suddenly met mine, and I stared for a long time into those velvety brown eyes. Then he said very softly, “If I’d only known, I’d have come to you long ago!” I turned abruptly away, overcome by emotion. And then I felt a soft, oh-so-cool and gentle cheek against mine, and it felt so good, so good . . . At that point I woke up, still feeling his cheek against mine and his brown eyes staring deep into my heart, so deep that he could read how much I’d loved him and how much I still do. Again my eyes filled with tears, and I was sad because I’d lost him once more, and yet at the same time glad because I knew with certainty that Peter is still the only one for me. It’s funny, but I often have such vivid images in my dreams. One night I saw Grammy* [*Grammy is Anne’s grandmother on her father’s side, and Grandma her grandmother on her mother’s side.] so clearly that I could even make out her skin of soft, crinkly velvet. Another time Grandma appeared to me as a guardian angel. After that it was Hanneli, who still symbolizes to me the suffering of my friends as well as that of Jews in general, so that when I’m praying for her, I’m also praying for all the Jews and all those in need. And now Peter, my dearest Peter. I’ve never had such a clear mental image of him. I don’t need a photograph, I can see him oh so well. Yours, Anne FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1944 Dearest Kitty, I’m such an idiot. I forgot that I haven’t yet told you the story of my one true love. When I was a little girl, way back in kindergarten, I took a liking to Sally Kimmel. His father was gone, and he and his mother lived with an aunt. One of Sally’s cousins was a good-looking, slender, dark-haired boy named Appy, who later turned out to look like a movie idol and aroused more admiration than the short, comical, chubby Sally. For a long time we went everywhere together, but aside from that, my love was unrequited until Peter crossed my path. I had an out-and-out crush on him. He liked me too, and we were inseparable for one whole summer. I can still see us walking hand in hand through our neighborhood, Peter in a 177 white cotton suit and me in a short summer dress. At the end of the summer vacation he went to the seventh grade at the middle school, while I was in the sixth grade at the grammar school.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  After that evening my longing to see it again was even greater than my fear of burglars, a dark rat-infested house or robberies. I went downstairs all by myself and looked out the windows in the kitchen and private office. Many people think nature is beautiful, many people sleep from time to time under the starry sky, and many people in hospitals and prisons long for the day when they’ll be free to enjoy what nature has to offer. But few are as isolated and cut off as we are from dle joys of nature, which can be shared by rich and poor alike. It’s not just my imagination -- looking at dle sky, dle clouds, dle moon and dle stars really does make me feel calm and hopeful. It’s much better medicine than valerian or bromide. Nature makes me feel humble and ready to face every blow with courage! As luck would have it, I’m only able -- except for a few rare occasions-to view nature through dusty curtains tacked over dirt-caked windows; it takes dle pleasure out of looking. Nature is dle one thing for which dlere is no substitute! One of dle many questions that have often bodlered me is why women have been, and still are, thought to be so inferior to men. It’s easy to say it’s unfair, but that’s not enough for me; I’d really like to know the reason for this great injustice! Men presumably dominated women from the very beginning because of their greater physical strength; it’s men who earn a living, beget children and do as they please. . . Until recently, women silently went along willi this, which was stupid, since the longer it’s kept up, the more deeply entrenched it becomes. Fortunately, education, work and progress have opened women’s eyes. In many countries they’ve been granted equal rights; many people, mainly women, but also men, now realize how wrong it was to tolerate this state of affairs for so long. Modern women want the right to be completely independent! But that’s not all. Women should be respected as well! Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers? In the book Soldiers on the Home Front I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero ever does. And what’s her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside when she’s disfigured by birth, her children soon leave, her beauty is gone. Women, who struggle and suffer pain to ensure the con- tinuation of the human race, make much tougher and more courageous soldiers than all those big-mouthed freedom-fighting heroes put together!

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  It is one that we migh t come to partake in as well, as a personal vision; but i t can never b e come agai n an invoking of public ref ere nces, short of an almost unimaginable return some might say 'regression'-to a new age of faith. The hunger for a 'public poetry' has certainly been felt in the twentieth century, and very much in reaction to the gr eat modernists. 95 But this ha s required precisely a turning away from the metaphysical to everyday things and t h e common experienc e s of life, politics, and war, as in early A uden or in writers of the Left like Brecht. Perhaps the contrast can be seen most starkly if we think of h ow we can also call on individual intuitions in order to m a p a public domain of references. Linguistics may ma ke use o f our linguistic intuitions of grammat icality. To make these available usually requires a reflexive turn. I ask myself: Can you say 'she don't got a cent'? and I answer negatively. But there is no call to talk here of a 'personal vision'. What I am mapping is precisely a bit of t h e pu blicly available background, what we all lean on and count with while we communicate. By contrast, what Eliot or Pound or Proust invites me to has an ineradicably personal dimension. Richards is wrong to talk about the beliefs being i rrelevant. But there is a difference from the old days. It is no t ju st that they are more tentative than the old public creeds. It is also that what I call their personal index makes them a different kind of thing. We know that the poet, if he is serious, is pointing to something-God, the tradition- w hich he believes to be there f or all of us. But we also know that he can only give it to us refracted thro ugh h is own sensibility . We cannot just detach the nugget of transcendent truth; it is inseparabl y imbedded in the work-this is the continuing relevance of the R omantic doctrine o f the symbol. How can I formulate the epiph any which opens through The Waste Land? Going th rough the critical apparatus may facilitate the epi p ha ny, b u t doesn't yield a f ormulation of it. Well, I can write anot h er poem m ysel f , index it to my personal vision.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  24 The story of Julie and St.-Preux was inspiring because the y had attained to a nobility and purity of sen t iment in spite of the crossing of their lov e -or perhaps it was because this love was unfulfilled i n the normal wa y . Their love was great and exemplary, and this was partl y because it had called for a c e rtain heroism to live up to it. This is a heroism of renunciation, and it is fue l led b y the sense that life attains greatness this way, that one has lived on a b i gg er and fuller scale than would have been possible otherwise. Something li ke this, of course, is what inspires heroism at an y time; the difference was t ha t here it was not und y ing fame that moved the lovers but a certain nobility a nd p urit y of feeling. Love transmuted b y renunicat i on and suffering see ms to o ff er the wa y to th e highest in life, to an exaltation of sentiment which o rd in ary happiness cannot bring. "Rien n'es t hon que d'aimer", and "rien n ' e st vrai que de souffrir" ("nothing i s good but loving"; "nothing is true but su ffe rin g"); thes e twin slogans capture the animating vision of the cult of s e n sibi lity . 2 5 I t w as fatall y easy for this cult to slide from heroism to self-indulgence. The r enu nciation, the loss, instead of rousing us to self-transcendenc e, is s a v ou red in melanchol y . The age of sentiment was also one of melanchol y , w h ich w as also defined and propagated b y English writers, who w e re also t r a nsl at ed and had a great impact on the Continent. In this case, it was Y o u ng 's poem "Night Thoughts" and Gray's "Elegy Written in a Cou ntry C h u r ch y ard", which did most to shape the mood. But the t erm has already s h i fte d some what in meaning. It no longer bears the sense of an excess of one 296 · THE AFFIRMATION OF ORDINARY LIFE hu mour.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  I know crying would help, but I can’t cry. I’m restless. I walk from one room to another, breathe through the crack in the window frame, feel my heart beating as if to say, “Fulfill my longing at last. . .” I think spring is inside me. I feel spring awakening, I feel it in my entire body and soul. I have to force myself to act normally. I’m in a state of utter confusion, don’t know what to read, what to write, what to do. I only know that I’m longing for something. . . Yours, Anne 186 ANNE FRANK MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1944 Dearest Kitty, A lot has changed for me since Saturday. What’s happened is this: I was longing for something (and still am), but. . . a small, a very small, part of the problem has been resolved. On Sunday morning I noticed, to my great joy (I’ll be honest with you), that Peter kept looking at me. Not in the usual way. I don’t know, I can’t explain it, but I suddenly had the feeling he wasn’t as in love with Margot as I used to think. All day long I tried not to look at him too much, because whenever I did, I caught him looking at me and then -- well, it made me feel wonderful inside, and that’s not a feeling I should have too often. Sunday evening everyone, except Pim and me, was clustered around the radio, listening to the “Immortal Music of the German Masters.” Dussel kept twisting and turning the knobs, which annoyed Peter, and the others too. After restraining himself for half an hour, Peter asked somewhat irritably if he would stop fiddling with the radio. Dussel replied in his haughtiest tone, “Ich mach’ das schon!” [I’ll decide that.] Peter got angry and made an insolent remark. Mr. van Daan sided with him, and Dussel had to back down. That was it. The reason for the disagreement wasn’t particularly interesting in and of itself, but Peter has apparently taken the matter very much to heart, because this morning, when I was rummaging around in the crate of books in the attic, Peter came up and began telling me what had happened. I didn’t know anything about it, but Peter soon realized he’d found an attentive listener and started warming up to his subject. “Well, it’s like this,” he said. “I don’t usually talk much, since I know beforehand I’ll just be tongue-tied. I start stuttering and blushing and I twist my words around so much I finally have to stop, because I can’t find the right words. That’s what happened yesterday. I meant to say something entirely different, but once I started, I got all mixed up. It’s awful. I used to have a bad habit, and sometimes I wish I still did: whenever I was mad at someone, I’d beat them up instead of arguing with them.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  This seems to them to come close to formulating what they believe, or to saying what for them seems to be the spiritual source they can connect their lives with; but they are aware of their own uncertainties, of how far they are from being able to recognize a definitive formulation with ultimate confidence. There is alway something tentative in their adhesion, a nd they may see themselves, as, in a sense, seeking. They are on a 'quest', in A l asd air Macln tyre's apt phrase. 1 1 With these seekers , of course, we are ta ken beyond the gamut of t ra dit ionally av ailable frameworks. Not o nly J o t hey embrace these traditions t en tat ive ly , but they also often develop their own versions of them, o r id io sy ncra tic combinations of or borrowings from or semi-inventions within th em . An d this provides the context within whi ch the question of meaning has its plac e. To the extent that one sees the finding of a be lieva ble framework as the o b je ct of a q uest, to that exten t it becomes intelli gib le that the search might fa il. Th is might hap pen through perso na l inadequacy , but failu re might also c o m e fro m there bei ng no ul tima tely bel ieva bl e fr am ewo rk. Wh y sp eak of 18 • IDENTITY AND THE GO OD this in terms of a loss of meaning? Partly because a framework is that in vinue of which we make sense o f our lives spirit ually. Not to have a fram ework is to fall into a life which is spiritually senseless. The quest is thus always a quest for sense. But th e invocation of meaning also c ome s from our awar eness of ho w much the search involves articulation. We find the sense of life through articulating it. And moderns have become acutely aware of how much sense being there for us depends on our own powers o f expression. Discovering here depends on, is interwoven with, i nventing.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Every night, I promised myself that it would be the last night I drugged Dominic. But every night I had to do it, just in case. Should Theo return, I didn’t want there to be any impediments when he came swimming up. I would take him home and we would be entwined right away. I would do anything to stay with him. I would never think of leaving him again. Sometimes I would fall asleep on the rocks. As I drifted off I would imagine that he was watching me from somewhere, seeing if I was putting in my time, testing me. Perhaps it was the gods I didn’t think I believed in who were watching me. But this is how it is with the gods and other mythic creatures. You imagine them watching you. You almost feel it. And so I waited for him. Nothing meant anything without him, except the hope of his return. —One night I dreamt that Sappho came over to the rocks and sat with me. She looked like Chickenhorse, only it was Chickenhorse as a hot, butch lesbian: her thick thighs in ripped jeans, hair styled in a pompadour and dyed jet black. Sappho-Chickenhorse told me I was stupid to wait for Theo. She touched my sternum with her palm and said, “Look at yourself, all of this over an asshole fish-boy.” “But you were once the insane queen of unrequited love,” I said. “Shouldn’t you, of all people, understand?” “Just be careful you don’t drown,” she said. In my dream I closed my eyes. She kissed each of my eyelids. I felt turned on, like I wanted to rub against those thighs of hers in her jeans. When I opened my eyes again in my dream, Sappho had become Claire. “I’m sorry I can’t drown with you,” said Claire. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m really sorry, Lucy.” “Nobody is going to drown!” I said. “Go get your nails and toenails done instead. You can pretend you’re going on a date with David.” “Mani-pedi as the antidote to suicide,” she said. “It all makes so much sense now. But I just got them done. What do you do instead of kill yourself when your nails are already done?” “Maybe Le Pain Quotidien?” I said. “You should go get a Danish. But I need to stay by the water, just in case he surfaces.” “How long are you going to wait?” “It won’t be long now. I feel him watching.”

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  each want to do first when we’re able to go outside again. Margot and Mr. van Daan wish, above all else, to have a hot bath, filled to the brim, which they can lie in for more than half an hour. Mrs. van Daan would like a cake, Dussel can think of nothing but seeing his Charlotte, and Mother is dying for a cup of real coffee. Father would like to visit Mr. Voskuijl, Peter would go downtown, and as for me, I’d be so overjoyed I wouldn’t know where to begin. Most of all I long to have a home of our own, to be able to move around freely and have someone help me with my homework again, at last. In other words, to go back to school! Bep has offered to get us some fruit, at so-called bargain prices: grapes 2.50 guilders a pound, gooseberries 70 cents a pound, one peach 50 cents, melons 75 cents a pound. No wonder the papers write every evening in big, fat letters: “Keep Prices Down!” MONDAY, JULY 26, 1943 Dear Kitty, Yesterday was a very tumultuous day, and we’re still all wound up. Actually, you may wonder if there’s ever a day that passes without some kind of excitement. The first warning siren went off in the morning while we were at breakfast, but we paid no attention, because it only meant that the planes were crossing the coast. I had a terrible headache, so I lay down for an hour after breakfast and then went to the office at around two. At two-thirty Margot had finished her office work and was just gathering her things together when the sirens began wailing again. So she and I trooped back upstairs. None too soon, it seems, for less than five minutes later the guns were booming so loudly that we went and stood in the hall. The house shook and the bombs kept falling. I was clutching my “escape bag,” more because I wanted to have something to hold on to than because I wanted to run away. I know we can’t leave here, but if we had to, being seen on the streets

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  a penny, all bright and shiny. I can’t really describe it, but it’s lovely. I also have a Christmas present for Miep and Bep. For a whole month I’ve saved up the sugar I put on my hot cereal, and Mr. Kleiman has used it to have fondant made. The weather is drizzly and overcast, the stove stinks, and the food lies heavily on our stomachs, producing a variety of rumbles. The war is at an impasse, spirits are low. Yours, Anne FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1943 Dear Kitty, As I’ve written you many times before, moods have a tendency to affect us quite a bit here, and in my case it’s been getting worse lately. “Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betru’bt”* [* A famous line from Goethe: “On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.”] certainly applies to me. I’m “on top of the world” when I think of how fortunate we are and compare myself to other Jewish children, and “in the depths of despair” when, for example, Mrs. Kleiman comes by and talks about Jopie’s hockey club, canoe trips, school plays and afternoon teas with friends. I don’t think I’m jealous of Jopie, but I long to have a really good time for once and to laugh so hard it hurts. We’re stuck in this house like lepers, especially during winter and the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Actually, I shouldn’t even be writing this, since it makes me seem so ungrateful, but I can’t keep everything to myself, so I’ll repeat what I said at the beginning: “Paper is more patient than people.” Whenever someone comes in from outside, with the wind in their clothes and the cold on their cheeks, I feel like burying my head under the blankets to keep from thinking, “When will we be allowed to breathe fresh air again?” I can’t do that -- on the contrary, I have to hold my head up high and put a bold face on things, but the thoughts keep coming anyway. Not just once, but over and over.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  That night I lay in bed and cried my eyes out, all the i while making sure no one could hear me. The idea that I had to beg Peter for favors was simply revolting. But people will do almost anything to satisfy their longings; take me, for example, I’ve made up my mind to visit Peter more often and, somehow, get him to talk to me. You mustn’t think I’m in love with Peter, because I’m not. If the van Daans had had a daughter instead of a son, I’d have tried to make friends with her. This morning I woke up just before seven and immediately remembered what I’d been dreaming about. I was sitting on a chair and across from me was Peter. . . Peter Schiff. We were looking at a book of drawings by Mary Bos. The dream was so vivid I can even remember some of the drawings. But that wasn’t all -- the dream went on. Peter’s eyes suddenly met mine, and I stared for a long time into those velvety brown eyes. Then he said very softly, “If I’d only known, I’d have come to you long ago!” I turned abruptly away, overcome by emotion. And then I felt a soft, oh-so-cool and gentle cheek against mine, and it felt so good, so good . . . At that point I woke up, still feeling his cheek against mine and his brown eyes staring deep into my heart, so deep that he could read how much I’d loved him and how much I still do. Again my eyes filled with tears, and I was sad because I’d lost him once more, and yet at the same time glad because I knew with certainty that Peter is still the only one for me. It’s funny, but I often have such vivid images in my dreams. One night I saw Grammy* [*Grammy is Anne’s grandmother on her father’s side, and Grandma her grandmother on her mother’s side.] so clearly that I could even make out her skin of soft, crinkly velvet. Another time Grandma appeared to me as a guardian angel. After that it was Hanneli, who still symbolizes to me the suffering of my friends as well as that of Jews in general, so that when I’m praying for her, I’m also praying for all the Jews and all those in need. And now Peter, my dearest Peter. I’ve never had such a clear mental image of him. I don’t need a photograph, I can see him oh so well.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Believe me, if you’ve been shut up for a year and a half, it can get to be too much for you sometimes. But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem. I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I’m free, and yet I can’t let it show. just imagine what would happen if all eight of us were to feel sorry for ourselves or walk around with the discontent clearly visible on our faces. Where would that get us? I sometimes wonder if anyone will ever understand what I mean, if anyone will ever overlook my ingratitude and not worry about whether or not I’m Jewish and merely see me as a teenager badly in need of some good plain fun. I don’t know, and I wouldn’t be able to talk about it with anyone, since I’m sure I’d start to cry. Crying can bring relief, as long as you don’t cry alone. Despite all my theories and efforts, I miss -- every day and every hour of the day -- having a mother who understands me. That’s why with everything I do and write, I imagine the kind of mom I’d like to be to my children later on. The kind of mom who doesn’t take everything people say too seriously, but who does take me seriously. I find it difficult to describe what I mean, but the word’ ‘mom” says it all. Do you know what I’ve come up with? In order to give me the feeling of calling my mother something that sounds like “Mom,” I often call her” Momsy.” Sometimes I shorten it to “Moms”; an imperfect “Mom.” I wish I could honor her by removing the “s.” It’s a good thing she doesn’t realize this, since it would only make her unhappy. Well, that’s enough of that. My writing has raised me somewhat from “the depths of despair.” Yours, Anne It’s the day after Christmas, and I can’t help thinking about Pim and the story he told me this time last year. I didn’t understand the meaning of his words then as well as I do now. If only he’d bring it up again, I might be able to show him I understood what he meant! I think Pim told me because he, who knows the “intimate secrets” of so many others, needed to express his own feelings for once; Pim never talks about himself, and I don’t think Margot has any inkling of what he’s been through. Poor Pim, he can’t fool me into thinking he’s forgotten that girl. He never will.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  He’d pick me up on the way home, or I’d pick him up. Peter was the ideal boy: tall, good-looking and slender, with a serious, quiet and intelligent face. He had dark hair, beautiful brown eyes, ruddy cheeks and a nicely pointed nose. I was crazy about his smile, which made him look so boyish and mischievous. I’d gone away to the countryside during summer vacation, and when I came back, Peter was no longer at his old address; he’d moved and was living with a much older boy, who apparently told him I was just a kid, because Peter stopped seeing me. I loved him so much that I didn’t want to face the truth. I kept clinging to him until the day I finally realized that if I continued to chase after him, people would say I was boy-crazy. The years went by. Peter hung around with girls his own age and no longer bothered to say hello to me. I started school at the Jewish Lyceum, and several boys in my class were in love with me. I enjoyed it and felt honored by their attentions, but that was all. Later on, Hello had a terrible crush on me, but as I’ve already told you, I never fell in love again. There’s a saying: “Time heals all wounds.” That’s how it was with me. I told myself I’d forgotten Peter and no longer liked him in the least. But my memories of him were so strong that I had to admit to myself that the only reason I no longer liked him was that I was jealous of the other girls. This morning I realized that nothing has changed; on the contrary, as I’ve grown older and more mature, my love has grown along with me. I can understand now that Peter thought I was childish, and yet it still hurts to think he’d forgotten me completely. I saw his face so clearly; I knew for certain that no one but Peter could have stuck in my mind that way. I’ve been in an utter state of confusion today. When Father kissed me this morning, I wanted to shout, “Oh, if only you were Peter!” I’ve been thinking of him constantly, and all day long I’ve been repeating to myself, “Oh, Petel, my darling, darling Petel . ..” Where can I find help? I simply have to go on living and praying to God that, if we ever get out of here, Peter’s path will cross mine and he’ll gaze into my eyes, read the love in them and say, “Oh, Anne, if I’d only known, I’d have come to you long ago.” Once when Father and I were talking about sex, he said I was too young to understand that kind of desire. But I thought I did understand it, and now I’m sure I do. Nothing is as dear to me now as my darling Petel!

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

  PREFACEIt was the constant hope of Dr. Philip Schaff, the author of the History of the Christian Church, that he might live to finish the treatment of the Middle Ages, to which he had devoted one volume, covering the years 600–1050. He frequently said, during the last years of his life, "If I am able to accomplish this, my History of the Christian Church will be measurably complete and I will be satisfied then to stop." He entered upon the task and had completed his studies on the pontificates of Gregory VII. and Alexander III., when his pen was laid aside and death overtook him, Oct. 20, 1893. The two volumes found lying open on his study table, as he had left them the day before, Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Holy Dying and a volume of Hurter’s Life of Innocent III., showed the nature of his thoughts in his last hours. Dr. Schaff’s distinction as a writer on Church History dated from the year 1851 when his History of the Apostolic Church appeared, first in its original German form, Mercersburg, Pa., pp. xvi, 576, and Leipzig, 1853, and then in English translation, New York and Edinburgh, 1853, 1854. Before that time, he had shown his taste for historical studies in his tract on What is Church History? translated by Dr. John W. Nevin, Phila., 1846, pp. 128, and the address on the Principle of Protestantism, which he delivered at his inauguration as professor in the theological seminary at Mercersburg, 1844. This address was published in its German form and in an English translation by Dr. Nevin, Chambersburg, 1845. Dr. Schaff continued his publications in this department with the issue of his History of the Christian Church 1–600, in 2 volumes, N. Y., 1858–1867. In the meantime, his attention had been called to the subjects of biblical literature and exegesis, and his labors resulted in the publication of the American edition of Lange’s Commentary in 25 volumes and other works. In 1887 he issued his Creeds of Christendom in 3 volumes. Left free to devote himself to the continuation of his History, which he was inclined to regard as his chief literary work, he found it necessary, in order to keep abreast of the times and to present a fresh treatment, to begin his studies again at the very beginning and consequently the series, to which this volume belongs, is an independent work written afresh and differing in marked features from its predecessors. For example, the first volume, on the Apostolic age, devotes an extensive treatment to the authorship and dates of the Apostolic writings to which scarcely any space was given in the History of the Apostolic Church of 1851 and the History of the Apostolic Church of 1858–1867. The treatment was demanded by the new attitude of scholarship to the questions presented by the Apostolic age.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Longing also has a natural affiliation with romantic love. It’s difficult to imagine the experience of limerence without the preoccupation that fills the hours while the lovers are apart. What is this preoccupation if not fantasy? Romance novels, enormously popular among women, typically use delayed or interrupted fulfillment to heighten the titillation. Lusty sex acts occur against the backdrop of uncertainty, endless trials and tribulations—all of which make it exceedingly difficult for the lovers ever to get together. When the lovers finally embrace, share a passionate kiss, or make love, their joy is usually short-lived. Soon new obstacles intervene so that yearning can continue. The most extreme type of longing—falling head over heels in love with a person who seems to feel little or nothing in return—has been called “unilateral limerence” by sexologist John Money. As a rule such one-sided longing doesn’t endure, because the lover who receives no response eventually gives up and lets go, though usually not without considerable pain. Some folks, however, keep hoping for a very long time. Many people deliberately populate their favorite fantasies with characters they can never have. The imagery is of fulfillment, but the arousal springs from longing, as in Rachel’s simple fantasy: I have a thing for a guy who plays for the San Francisco Giants. I go to a lot of the games because just seeing him on the field or even hearing the announcer say his name makes me wet. When masturbating I pretend he’s my boyfriend and completely adores me. It’s so simple, really. We just make love and I feel very close to him. Whereas Rachel’s fantasy is the product of pure imagination, other experiences of longing are inspired by actual events that are unlikely to happen again. Many of The Group’s most compelling fantasies relive, typically with embellishments, wonderful past encounters with former lovers or steamy, once-only trysts with strangers. Some longing fantasies acquire their power from missed opportunities or might-have-been or almost-were experiences. Sammy, a gay man now approaching forty, continues to relish an encounter that never quite happened when he was just fifteen: I invited two buddies to stay overnight. I was extremely attracted to one of them who sat next to me in class, where for months we had touched knees. First we took a swim in our pool. When we changed clothes, I saw him nude. He was dark, physically mature, with a beautiful dick. Finally he was in my bed but, unfortunately, we weren’t alone. When he got up to turn off the light he had a big hard-on. I wanted it so much I was going out of my mind. We started touching a little, but I was worried about the other guy so I held back. Fuck! After he fell asleep I leaned over and kissed him on the lips. I was awake all night horny as hell. I still want him!

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

  He occupied the papal chair as Adrian IV., from 1154 to 1159, with great ability and energy. A beggar raised to the highest dignity in Christendom! The extremes of fortune met in this Englishman. Yet he felt happier in his poverty than in his power. He declared soon after his consecration that "the papal chair was full of thorns and the papal mantle full of holes and so heavy as to load down the strongest man." And after some experience in that high office, he said: "Is there a man in the world so miserable as a pope? I have found so much trouble in St. Peter’s chair that all the bitterness of my former life appears sweet in comparison."130 The Romans, under the lead of Arnold, requested him to resign all claim to temporal rule; but he refused, and after a bloody attack made by an Arnoldist upon one of the cardinals in the open street, he laid—for the first time in history—the interdict on the city. By this unbloody, yet awful and most effective, weapon, he enforced the submission of the people. He abolished the republican government, expelled Arnold and his adherents, and took possession of the Lateran. At this time, Frederick I., called Barbarossa (Redbeard) by the Italians from the color of his beard, one of the bravest, strongest, and most despotic of German emperors,—the sleeper in Kyffhäuser,131— made, with a powerful army, his first expedition to Italy to receive the iron crown of royalty from the Lombards and the golden crown of empire from the pope (1154).

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

  The last link in the chain of divine aeons, either too weak to keep its hold on the ideal world, or seized with a sinful passion for the embrace of the infinite abyss, falls as a spark of light into the dark chaos of matter, and imparts to it a germ of divine life, but in this bondage feels a painful longing after redemption, with which the whole world of aeons sympathizes. This weakest aeon is called by Valentine the lower Wisdom, or Achamoth,815 and marks the extreme point, where spirit must surrender itself to matter, where the infinite must enter into the finite, and thus form a basis for the real world. The myth of Achamoth is grounded in the thought, that the finite is incompatible with the absolute, yet in some sense demands it to account for itself. Here now comes in the third principle of the Gnostic speculation, namely, the world-maker, commonly called the Demiurge,816 termed by Basilides "Archon" or world-ruler, by the Ophites. "Jaldabaoth," or son of chaos. He is a creature of the fallen aeon, formed of physical material, and thus standing between God and Matter. He makes out of Matter the visible sensible world, and rules over it. He has his throne in the planetary heavens, and presides over time and over the sidereal spirits. Astrological influences were generally ascribed to him. He is the God of Judaism, the Jehovah, who imagines himself to be the supreme and only God. But in the further development of this idea the systems differ; the anti-Jewish Gnostics, Marcion and the Ophites, represent the Demiurge as an insolent being, resisting the purposes of God; while the Judaizing Gnostics, Basilides and Valentine, make him a restricted, unconscious instrument of God to prepare the way for redemption. 3. Christology and Soteriology. Redemption itself is the liberation of the light-spirit from the chains of dark Matter, and is effected by Christ, the most perfect aeon, who is the mediator of return from the sensible phenomenal world to the supersensuous ideal world, just as the Demiurge is the mediator of apostacy from the Pleroma to the Kenoma. This redeeming aeon, called by Valentine swthvr or jIhsou'" descends through the sphere of heaven, and assumes the ethereal appearance of a body; according to another view, unites himself with the man Jesus, or with the Jewish Messiah, at the baptism, and forsakes him again at the passion. At all events, the redeemer, however conceived in other respects, is allowed no actual contact with sinful matter. His human birth, his sufferings and death, are explained by Gnosticism after the manner of the Indian mythology, as a deceptive appearance, a transient vision, a spectral form, which he assumed only to reveal himself to the sensuous nature of man. Reduced to a clear philosophical definition, the Gnostic Christ is really nothing more than the ideal spirit of himself, as in the mythical gospel-theory of Strauss. The Holy Ghost is commonly conceived as a subordinate aeon.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  They have brief glimpses of Dreamtime in sleep or in moments of vision; it is timeless and “everywhen.” It forms a stable backdrop to ordinary life, which is constantly enervated by death, flux, and ceaseless change. When an Australian goes hunting, he models his behavior so closely on that of the First Hunter that he feels totally united with him, caught up in his more potent reality. Afterward, when he falls away from that primal richness, he fears that the domain of time will absorb him, and reduce him and everything that he does to nothingness. 6 This was also the experience of the people of antiquity. It was only when they imitated the gods in ritual and gave up the lonely, frail individuality of their secular lives that they truly existed. They fulfilled their humanity when they ceased to be simply themselves and repeated the gestures of others. 7 Human beings are profoundly artificial. 8 We constantly strive to improve on nature and approximate to an ideal. Even at the present time, when we have abandoned the perennial philosophy, people slavishly follow the dictates of fashion and even do violence to their faces and figures in order to reproduce the current standard of beauty. The cult of celebrity shows that we still revere models who epitomize “superhumanity.” People sometimes go to great lengths to see their idols, and feel an ecstatic enhancement of being in their presence. They imitate their dress and behavior. It seems that human beings naturally tend toward the archetypal and paradigmatic. The Axial sages developed a more authentic version of this spirituality and taught people to seek the ideal, archetypal self within. The Axial Age was not perfect. A major failing was its indifference to women. These spiritualities nearly all developed in an urban environment, dominated by military power and aggressive commercial activity, where women tended to lose the status they had enjoyed in a more rural economy. There are no female Axial sages, and even when women were allowed to take an active role in the new faith, they were usually sidelined. It was not that the Axial sages hated women; most of the time, they simply did not notice them. When they spoke about the “great” or “enlightened man,” they did not mean “men and women”—though most, if challenged, would probably have admitted that women were capable of this liberation too. Precisely because the question of women was so peripheral to the Axial Age, I found that any sustained discussion of this topic was distracting. Whenever I tried to address the issue, it seemed intrusive. I suspect that it deserves a study of its own.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  While the householder was defined by the social network, his dependents, and children, the renouncer was an individual, existing for and by himself. The new hero of the Axial Age was not a heroic warrior, proudly vaunting his martial prowess, but a monk dedicated to ahimsa, who was determined to discover the absolute by becoming aware of the core of his being. The renouncers were seeking yathabhuta, an “enlightenment” that was also an “awakening” to their authentic selves. 9 EMPIRE (c. 300 to 220 BCE ) A t the beginning of the third century, the Axial Age, which was coming to an end in the other regions, was still flourishing in China, but even here some of the original ideals were hardening. For generations, Wei and Qin had been the most powerful kingdoms in the region. In a desperate struggle for survival, the smaller states had veered in their support from one to the other, but people were becoming weary of the endless strife. Many longed for a ruler who was powerful enough to create a united Chinese empire, as in the days of Yao and Shun. There was an almost palpable longing for peace. The Chinese were not interested in the scientific, metaphysical, and logical questions that fascinated the Greeks. The political situation was so grave that such issues seemed trivial. Their priority was to bring back law and order, and to that end Chinese philosophers, moralists, and mystics concentrated on solving the problems of government. By this time, it was clear that a new approach was necessary. Change was accelerating at such a rate that people could see major differences occurring between one generation and the next. There was a growing conviction that if a new empire did emerge from the chaos of the Warring States period, it could not be run like the archaic empire of Yao and Shun—or even the early Zhou. In the larger, constantly expanding kingdoms, the princes no longer relied on the magical potency ( daode ) of their office. They were realists, and could see that the economy was the key to success. Victory would go to the ruler who had the largest territory, the greatest manpower, the most extensive resources, and the best grain reserves. By the end of the fourth century, the rulers had abandoned even the pretense of listening to Confucian and Mohist advisers. Instead they turned to men from the new merchant class, who shared their hard-nosed realism. The merchants depended upon calculation and the laws of finance; instead of contemplating the Way, they speculated on the desire for gain and luxury and thought in terms of money and written contracts. But another philosophical school was also coming to the fore. In one state after another, rulers were turning to the political scientists, the “men of method.” The Chinese historians referred to them collectively as the Fajia, often translated as “School of Law.”