Love

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 Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  I beg you to let me come in; I have a private matter to discuss with you.' Senzayemon led him to his room, and then Tamanosuke said to him: 'I am truly grateful for your devotion during my long illness. Forgive me for saying it frankly, but if you love me, humble as I am, I have come to be loved by you this evening, Senzayemon.' Senzayemon blushed with pleasure: 'My heart cannot express itself in words. I pray you to go and see it. It is in the shrine of the god Hatjiman, who is the god of war and of soldiers. I consecrated it there, my lover.' Tamanosuke went to the shrine, and asked the priest what was there. The priest said: 'Senzayemon gave me a box which contained his daily prayer for his friend's recovery.' Tamanosuke, with leave, opened the box and found in it a dagger of Sadamune and a fervent prayer for his recovery in a letter addressed to the god. In this manner he discovered that he owed his recovery to Senzayemon's prayer. Then he and Senzayemon became faithful lovers. Little by little this Story spread, and came to the ears of the Lord, who sentenced the two lovers to be confined in their own houses. They were both ready to die for their love, and did not at all fear death. They calmly awaited their severe punishment, and succeeded in finding a secret means of corresponding with each other. A year passed in this way. Then, on the ninth of March, they sent a petition to the Lord, in which they begged to be allowed an honourable death by Hara-kiri. They awaited their condemnation from moment to moment. But one day a messenger came from the Lord to Tamanosuke and ordered him to become a samurai instead of the page that he had been. Senzayemon was also pardoned. They were very grateful to this Lord, and decided to forgo their meetings until Tamanosuke should have reached the age of twenty-five. They no longer even spoke to each other when they met in the Street. They but continued to serve their Lord faithfully.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  Occasionally Mother, whom we seldom saw in the house, had us meet her at Louie's. It was a long dark tavern at the end of the bridge near our school, and was owned by two Syrian brothers. We used to come in the back door, and the sawdust, stale beer, steam and boiling meat made me feel as if I'd been eating mothballs. Mother had cut my hair in a bob like hers and straightened it, so my head felt skinned and the back of my neck so bare that I was ashamed to have anyone walk up behind me. Naturally, this kept me turning quickly as if I expected something to happen. At Louie's we were greeted by Mother's friends as “Bibbie's darling babies” and were given soft drinks and boiled shrimp. While we sat on the stiff wooden booths, Mother would dance alone in front of us to music from the See-burg. I loved her most at those times. She was like a pretty kite that floated just above my head. If I liked, I could pull it in to me by saying I had to go to the toilet or by starting a fight with Bailey. I never did either, but the power made me tender to her. The Syrian brothers vied for her attention as she sang the heavy blues that Bailey and I almost understood. They watched her, even when directing their conversation to other customers, and I knew they too were hypnotized by this beautiful lady who talked with her whole body and snapped her fingers louder than anyone in the whole world. We learned the Time Step at Louie's. It is from this basic step that most American Black dances are born. It is a series of taps, jumps and rests, and demands careful listening, feeling and coordination. We were brought before Mother's friends, there in the heavy saloon air, to show our artistry. Bailey learned easily, and has always been the better dancer. But I learned too. I approached the Time Step with the same determination to win that I had approached the time tables with. There was no Uncle Willie or sizzling pot-bellied stove, but there was Mother and her laughing friends, and they amounted to the same thing. We were applauded and given more soft drinks and more shrimp, but it was to be years later before I found the joy and freedom of dancing well.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  grievance. I will await you there.'Then, after greeting his parents, he retired to his room and wrote several farewell letters to his friends and relations. He also wrote a letter of reproach to Gonkuro, in which he said: 'I pledged my love to you for life, and was ready to defend that love with that life, against every obstacle. I am not afraid of this quarrel with Ibei. I am going to meet him this evening in the pine-tree-field of the god Teujin. If you think of our love years, you will not hesitate to come and die with me. I have much with which to reproach you and, if I cannot tell these things, I feel that I shall not die peacefully. Therefore I wish to tabulate them in this fare-well letter. 'The distance between your house and mine is too great. I have traversed that long road three hundred and twenty-seven times during the three years in which our love has lasted; and every evening I encountered some kind of obstacle or difficulty. I had to hide myself from vigilant people, from guards and watchmen. Often I had to disguise myself as a servant, as an adult with a long lantern. At other times I have travestied myself as a priest. It was not easy for me to perform such humiliating actions, although you may not think so very much of them. 'Last year, on the twentieth of November, my mother lingered in my room and I could not come. I was impatient to see you, for life is so uncertain that we do not know whether we shall live till the morrow, and if I could not see you on that night, perhaps I should never see you again. Therefore, in spite of my disordered dress and the late hour, I managed to come out and creep as far as your house. You heard, by the little noise I made, that I was under the window of your room. You were speaking to someone inside, and there was a light in your room. But, as soon as you heard my Step, you put out the light and Stopped talking. You were cruel to me then. I should like to know who was the person to whom you were talking on that evening. 'Last spring I wrote, without taking much trouble, the famous poem, "My sleeves are ever wet with tears, for my love is hopeless," on the back of a fan painted with flowers by the celebrated Uneme Kano. You gave me great pleasure by your compliment: " A lover in pain would easily pass the summer with this fan." And you also wrote underneath the poem: " He who inscribed this is waiting his lover." But you gave the fan to your servant Kitjisuke. "You had a lark which you bought from Jiubei the bird-seller. You loved it very much, and when I asked you to give it to me, you refused.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  love, I disobey you, Lord, and show myself ungrateful towards you. I do not know what to do. I have no idea. Lord, I pray you to kill me with your sword and free me from my dilemma.' The Lord asked him for the details of this Story, and Shyume gave him the papers written by Guzayemon, which the Lord read secretly in his room. Then he summoned Shyume and told him to return home and await his orders, until he should have weighed his decision. Shyume answered: 'My lover is in my house, and if you send me back I shall love him. Let me die here by Hara-kiri.' After a little thought the Lord sentenced Shyume to be confined in his own house, whereupon Shyume quickly returned home and made Guzayemon assume the dress of a true samurai, and gave him two swords. Shyume and Guzayemon then loved each other madly and passionately, expecting every minute to be condemned to death by command of their master. This ardent love, at the price of life itself, was daring and audacious. But after twenty days the Lord pardoned Shyume, and gave him twenty suits of man's clothing and much money, saying to him: 'Send your samurai back to Yedo.' Shyume was very grateful for his Lord's kindness and generosity. Without delaying until next day, he made ready for Guzayemon's departure. When he reached the Province of Yedo, Guzayemon sent back all Shyume's men who had accompanied him. Instead of going to Yedo, he climbed up the high mountain of Katsororaju, in the Province of Yamato, and there lived as a hermit, remaining on the mountain and seeing no one. He called himself Mugento, the priest of dream. He cut off his hair. He spent all his days watching the cool springs flow from the rocks beside his dwelling.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  For me, you are as princely a beauty as the Empress Seishi, or the celebrated poetess Komachi, or the young Yukihira* or the new-born Nari-hira. I cannot forget you even in my sleep; and when I awake I am excruciated. I have prayed the god Fuyisaki to have pity on my unhappy love. I wish to drown myself in the river Kikutji, to put an end to my pain. I am ready to sacrifice my life for one evening's love with you. One evening of love with you is more precious than a thousand years of life. I shall gladly do all that you command me. I would rather have half an hour's life than drag out mere miserable existence for a hundred years. From morning to evening, by day and by night, your face does not leave me, and I endure a thousand deaths for love of you. I am wretched. I am cursed by a cruel Karma.' But, my dear friend, I am blessed rather than cursed. He has read my letter and sent me such a kind answer. Oh, how tender and sympathetic he is! I am happy and contented; I am the happiest man under the sun. I cannot speak enough of his kindness, for he is truly good. That is all that I can say now. Presently, as soon as he finds an opportunity, he is coming to spend a whole evening with me. All that troubles me is that the day is not yet fixed. I know that this waiting for the day is an agony which all lovers have to endure; and I comfort myself by telling myself so. I wish I could show you this noble young man. His name is Aineme Okayima. When he comes to see me, we shall drink wine together and have a pleasant conversation by ourselves. I should like the night to last for ever, and that the dawn should never come to put an end to our meeting. This is all that I can tell you at present: there is nothing further. I hope to be calmer and more balanced after seeing him. Till then, farewell, dear comrade, From your far-distant friend.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen hesitated. Quite suddenly Angela was looking very ill, and her hands were like ice. ‘Swear you’ll telephone to me if you can’t get to sleep, then I’ll come back at once.’ ‘Yes, but don’t do that, will you, unless I ring up—I should hear you, of course, and that would wake me and start my head throbbing.’ Then as though impelled, in spite of herself, by the girl’s strange attraction, she lifted her face: ‘Kiss me . . . oh, God . . . Stephen!’ ‘I love you so much—so much—’ whispered Stephen. 2 It was past ten o’clock when she got back to Morton: ‘Has Angela Crossby rung up?’ she inquired of Puddle, who appeared to have been waiting in the hall. ‘No, she hasn’t!’ snapped Puddle, who was getting to the stage when she hated the mere name of Angela Crossby. Then she added: ‘You look like nothing on earth; in your place I’d go to bed at once, Stephen.’ ‘You go to bed, Puddle, if you’re tired—where’s Mother? ‘In her bath. For heaven’s sake do come to bed! I can’t bear to see you looking as you do these days.’ ‘I’m all right.’ ‘No, you’re not, you’re all wrong. Go and look at your face.’ ‘I don’t very much want to, it doesn’t attract me,’ smiled Stephen. So Puddle went angrily up to her room, leaving Stephen to sit with a book in the hall near the telephone bell, in case Angela should ring. And there, like the faithful creature she was, she must sit on all through the night, patiently waiting. But when the first tinges of dawn greyed the window and the panes of the semi-circular fanlight, she left her chair stiffly, to pace up and down, filled with a longing to be near this woman, if only to stand and keep watch in her garden—Snatching up a coat she went out to her car. 3 She left the motor at the gates of The Grange, and walked up the drive, taking care to tread softly. The air had an indefinable smell of dew and of very newly born morning. The tall, ornate Tudor chimneys of the house stood out gauntly against a brightening sky, and as Stephen crept into the small herb garden, one tentative bird had already begun singing—but his voice was still rather husky from sleep. She stood there and shivered in her heavy coat; the long night of vigil had devitalized her.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “I like how you taste,” I said. “I like tasting you in this state, no saltwater to cleanse your mouth. It’s so primal. I feel like I’m getting another part of you.” “You really do?” he asked. We kissed deeper, our tongues in each other’s mouths. I could feel his cock hard now against me. I pressed my body against his with pure want. I felt that I had a hole, not just my pussy itself but an existential hole, and that for the first time it was on the verge of being filled: the inertia of our mingled desire caulked it up. It was stuffed with anticipation. My anticipation of his cock was solid, its own entity, as though my desire were a second cock. He too seemed to exude complete want and devotion, which made me feel confident in my own wanting—as though, in his mirror, my lust was good and pure. He made me feel innocent and part of something bigger, like nothing had ever been my fault. I did not say “I love you,” or even whisper it, but somehow I felt that I was praying it into his mouth without speaking. I was saying it with my breath, my chest, the magnetism between our pelvises. It was a swimming into each other. I also felt that he had a hole, or holes, and in some strange way my cock—an existential one, really—was filling him. I felt that we were moving in and out of one another’s holes, nursing each other, symbiotic and magnetic. I felt the Earth rotating around us, or that we were the planet—spinning on its axis. In my head came a deep buzz of the Earth again and I didn’t know if I was actually humming out loud or if it was all inside me. This is how you exist in the world, I thought. This is how you are alive. “I want you so much,” he said. Under the blanket, so we would stay warm, he lifted my dress up over my head. I was naked except for my undies. He put his face between my small breasts, cradling and then sucking on them. He kissed and licked my stomach, then down the front of my underwear over my clit. He teased around my underwear, the crevices of my thighs, the crease where my lips met. Then, caressing my ass, he slid my underwear down and put his face between my thighs. He inhaled deeply like there was oxygen in there. “God, you smell so good,” he said. He peeled my underpants down my legs. “And your vagina is so gorgeous. I just want to put my face in it all the time and live there.” “You should,” I said nervously, and giggled.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  12 He Rids himself of his Foes with the Help of his hover E VERY YEAR THE TREES ARE COVERED WITH blossom as in the years before; but man cannot keep the blossom of his youth. The beauty of boys will vanish when they become men, and when the lock of hair is cut from their foreheads, and they are clothed in short-sleeved robes. The love of boys is, therefore, but a passing dream. Jinnosuke Kasuda, the second son of a courtier of the Lord of the Province of Lzumo, was a beautiful boy. He was an excellent swordsman and had a profound knowledge of classical literature; many men were attracted by his beauty. When they assembled round the shrine of Ooyashiro they spoke of him, and were agreed that there was no more beautiful boy in all the Provinces of Japan. But Jinnosuke had already plighted his troth to one of the Lord's courtiers, and his lover's name was Gonkuro Moriwaki, an excellent samurai of some twenty-eight years of age. He had fallen in love with Jinnosuke when the latter was only thirteen years old. He had first made the acquaintance of Dengoro, Jinnosuke's servant, and, to prevent people talking, had put his love-letter into the mouth of a great fish, and sent it thus to Dengoro. Next morning, when Dengoro was doing his master's hair and Jinnosuke seemed to be in a good humour, Dengoro gave him the letter and told him how much Gonkuro suffered for love of him. Without opening the letter, Jinnosuke rapidly wrote an answer to Gonkuro and said to his servant: 'It is very hard to wait when one is in love; take this letter at once to Gonkuro.''You are indeed worthy to be adored, master, 'said the servant, and ran to Gonkuro's house, to give him the letter, telling him that his master wished him well. Gonkuro, with tears of joy, read the letter, which said: 'Your sincere love fills me with gratitude. My servant has told me this morning that you are suffering because of me. I also am amorous of you. Let us be lovers from this day forth, without caring what people think.'That is how the two samurai began to be in love with each other, in the summer of Jinnosuke's fourteenth year. They kept their love a secret, and no one suspected it, although it lasted until the autumn of Jinnosuke's sixteenth year. But at that time an official samurai of small nobility, named Ibei Hanzawa, fell in love with Jinnosuke and sent him several love-letters by his servant, Suizayemon; all of which Jinnosuke returned without reading them. This exasperated Ibei, and he wrote Jinnosuke a furious letter: 'You have scorned my love simply because I am a samurai of low position. I am sure that you have a lover. Tell me who he is.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Jutaro, the druggist's son, had seen Itjikuro and fallen in love with him. He thought: 'My fair youth cannot last for ever, and I shall soon be a grown man. Many men love and admire me for my beauty, and I have received more than a hundred love letters; but I have not read a single one of them. People say that I have no heart. But none of these men had any allure for me. Only this elegant male has troubled me. If he could but return my love, I should love him all my life long. In truth I love him desperately. His manly beauty has made me lose my head. He has fascinated me.'His too ardent and youthful blood so inflamed him that his passion threw him to the ground. His eyes became set, and he seemed like a mad.'man. He rushed about, holding his long-cherished spaniel in his right hand, while he brandished a sword with the other. No one could go near him. At last, at the risk of her own life, his nurse managed to seize him. She consoled and cheered him: 'My dear young master, calm yourself! We can recall this traveller and arrange your love. I beg you to take command of yourself, dear master.'The young man then became a little calmer. His parents engaged a travelling priest to pray for his recovery. Hiusuke, the young man's father, had, when thirty-five years of age, married a rich merchant's daughter; but he had reached the age of sixty without having a child. Then he and his wife prayed Tenjin to grant them a child, and remained in prayer for seven days before the shrine of the god. On the evening of the seventh day they dreamed that a blossom fell from a plum tree into the wife's mouth, and that she became with child. They were very happy and grateful to the god Tenjin. Then Jutaro was born. He was hardly five years old when he began to write Chinese letters without ever having learned them. At thirteen he wrote a Story about a meeting between two young lovers who had to separate after a short time on a summer evening. He called the book: The Love of a Short Summer Evening. Such was his genius. Therefore his sudden illness caused great sorrow to his parents and friends. The priest's prayer had no great effect. Jutaro was in a continuous delirium, and grew weaker every day. His pulse became so faint that all hope of saving him was lost. His parents wove a fair white shroud and made ready a beautiful coffin for his burial; for they expected his death at any moment. But one day, suddenly, the young man raised his weary head and said in a weak voice to his relations: 'I am happy, for this man whom I love will pass along the stree tomorrow evening. Stop him, and bring him to me.'

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

  propitiation (iJlasmov") for the sins of believers and for the sins of the whole world.835 His blood cleanses from all the guilt and contamination of sin. He is (in the language of the Baptist) the Lamb of God that bears and takes away the sin of the world; and (in the unconscious prophecy of Caiaphas) he died for the people.836 He was priest and sacrifice in one person. And he continues his priestly functions, being our Advocate in Heaven and ready to forgive us when we sin and come to him in true repentance.837 This is the negative part of Christ’s work, the removal of the obstruction which separated us from God. The positive part consists in the revelation of the Father, and in the communication of eternal life, which includes eternal happiness. He is himself the Life and the Light of the world.838 He calls himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In him the true, the eternal life, which was from the beginning with the Father, appeared personally in human form. He came to communicate it to men. He is the bread of life from heaven, and feeds the believers everywhere spiritually without diminishing, as He fed the five thousand physically with five loaves. That miracle is continued in the mystical self-communication of Christ to his people. Whosoever believes in him has eternal life, which begins here in the new birth and will be completed in the resurrection of the body.839 Herein also the Apocalypse well agrees with the Gospel and Epistles of John. Christ is represented as the victor of the devil.840 He is the conquering Lion of the tribe of Judah, but also the suffering Lamb slain for us. The figure of the lamb, whether it be referred to the paschal lamb, or to the lamb in the Messianic passage of Isaiah 53:7, expresses the idea of atoning sacrifice which is fully realized in the death of Christ. He "washed" (or, according to another reading, he "loosed") "us from our sins by his blood;" he redeemed men "of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and made them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests." The countless multitude of the redeemed "washed their robes and made them white (bright and shining) in the blood of the Lamb." This implies both purification and sanctification; white garments being the symbols of holiness.841 Love was the motive which prompted him to give his life for his people.842 Great stress is laid on the resurrection, as in the Gospel, where he is called the Resurrection and the Life.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  After a little thought the Lord sentenced Shyume to be confined in his own house, whereupon Shyume quickly returned home and made Guzayemon assume the dress of a true samurai, and gave him two swords. Shyume and Guzayemon then loved each other madly and passionately, expecting every minute to be condemned to death by command of their master. This ardent love, at the price of life itself, was daring and audacious. But after twenty days the Lord pardoned Shyume, and gave him twenty suits of man's clothing and much money, saying to him: 'Send your samurai back to Yedo.' Shyume was very grateful for his Lord's kindness and generosity. Without delaying until next day, he made ready for Guzayemon's departure. When he reached the Province of Yedo, Guzayemon sent back all Shyume's men who had accompanied him. Instead of going to Yedo, he climbed up the high mountain of Katsororaju, in the Province of Yamato, and there lived as a hermit, remaining on the mountain and seeing no one. He called himself Mugento, the priest of dream. He cut off his hair. He spent all his days watching the cool springs flow from the rocks beside his dwelling. [image file=image_rsrc1KP.jpg] 9 An Actor loved his Patron, even as a Flint SellerTHERE WAS ONCE A CELEBRATED FEMALE character-actor named Sennojyo. He had made his first appearance on the Stage at the age of fourteen, and at forty-two years of age was Still so popular that people loved to see him portray feminine characters. His greatest success was in the drama called While going toward Kawashi to an assignation, which was performed for three years at Yedo. But one autumn an epidemic disease of the spinal marrow broke out in Yedo, and to this Sennojyo fell a victim. His back grew bent and deformed, and he altogether lost his grace of body. But he was gifted with high talent and intelligence, and did not lose his popularity because of his disease. Many employers even found it difficult to secure him for their comedies; for, when he was a little drunk, his cheeks became rosy, giving him such charm that many men fell in love with him. Several well-known priests lost their heads about him, and spent so much money to have him that they were obliged to sell the precious relics of their temples to gain an interview. Some of these were even so mad as to sell the holy trees of the sacred forests, for which they were driven from their temples and became beggars. Many clerks also spent their employers' money to see Sennojyo privately, and ruined their masters.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  I beg you to let me come in; I have a private matter to discuss with you.' Senzayemon led him to his room, and then Tamanosuke said to him: 'I am truly grateful for your devotion during my long illness. Forgive me for saying it frankly, but if you love me, humble as I am, I have come to be loved by you this evening, Senzayemon.' Senzayemon blushed with pleasure: 'My heart cannot express itself in words. I pray you to go and see it. It is in the shrine of the god Hatjiman, who is the god of war and of soldiers. I consecrated it there, my lover.' Tamanosuke went to the shrine, and asked the priest what was there. The priest said: 'Senzayemon gave me a box which contained his daily prayer for his friend's recovery.' Tamanosuke, with leave, opened the box and found in it a dagger of Sadamune and a fervent prayer for his recovery in a letter addressed to the god. In this manner he discovered that he owed his recovery to Senzayemon's prayer. Then he and Senzayemon became faithful lovers. Little by little this Story spread, and came to the ears of the Lord, who sentenced the two lovers to be confined in their own houses. They were both ready to die for their love, and did not at all fear death. They calmly awaited their severe punishment, and succeeded in finding a secret means of corresponding with each other. A year passed in this way. Then, on the ninth of March, they sent a petition to the Lord, in which they begged to be allowed an honourable death by Hara-kiri. They awaited their condemnation from moment to moment. But one day a messenger came from the Lord to Tamanosuke and ordered him to become a samurai instead of the page that he had been. Senzayemon was also pardoned. They were very grateful to this Lord, and decided to forgo their meetings until Tamanosuke should have reached the age of twenty-five. They no longer even spoke to each other when they met in the Street. They but continued to serve their Lord faithfully.

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

  Writings.—Anselm’s chief works in the departments of theology are his Monologium and Proslogium, which present proofs for God’s existence, and the Cur Deus homo, "Why God became Man," a treatise on the atonement. He also wrote on the Trinity against Roscellinus; on original sin, free will, the harmony of foreknowledge and foreordination, and the fall of the devil. To these theological treatises are to be added a number of writings of a more practical nature, homilies, meditations, and four hundred and twelve letters in which we see him in different relations, as a prelate of the Church, a pastor, as a teacher giving advice to pupils, and as a friend.1331 His correspondence shows him in his human relations. His meditations and prayers reveal the depth of his piety. His theological treatises betray the genius of his intellect. In extent they are far less voluminous than the works of Thomas Aquinas and other Schoolmen of the later period. Theology.—Anselm was one of those rare characters in whom lofty reason and childlike faith work together in perfect harmony. Love to God was the soul of his daily life and love to God is the burning centre of his theology. It was not doubt that led him to speculation, but enthusiasm for truth and devotion to God. His famous proposition, which Schleiermacher adopted as a motto for his own theology, is that faith precedes knowledge—fides praecedit intellectum. Things divine must be a matter of experience before they can be comprehended by the intellect. "He who does not believe," Anselm said, "has not felt, and he who has not felt, does not understand."1332 Christ must come to the intellect through the avenue of faith and not to faith through the avenue of intellect.1333 On the other hand, Anselm declared himself against blind belief, and calls it a sin of neglect when he who has faith, does not strive after knowledge.1334 These views, in which supernaturalism and rationalism are harmonized, form the working principle of the Anselmic theology. The two sources of knowledge are the Bible and the teaching of the Church which are in complete agreement with one another and are one with true philosophy.1335 Anselm had a profound veneration for the great African teacher, Augustine, and his agreement with him in spirit and method secured for him the titles "the second Augustine" and the, Tongue of Augustine." Anselm made two permanent contributions to theology, his argument for the existence of God and his theory of the atonement. The ontological argument, which he stated, constitutes an epoch in the history of the proofs for God’s existence. It was first laid clown in the Monologium or Soliloquy, which he called the example of meditation on the reasonableness of faith, but mixed with cosmological elements. Starting from the idea that goodness and truth must have an existence independent of concrete things, Anselm ascends from the conception of what is relatively good and great, to Him who is absolutely good and great.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  The death of Jesus is the expression of God’s love, as the famous verse in John 3:16 makes clear. For John, it is also the expression of Jesus’s own love: “He had always loved his own people in the world; now he loved them right through to the end” (13:1). And, with that, John introduces the powerful and tender scene in which Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. In between these two, we find the “good shepherd” discourse, where the mutual love between Jesus and the father leads directly to Jesus’s vocation to “lay down his life for the sheep” (10:15). Throughout, Jesus remains God’s anointed king, crowned as such by the pagans, however ironic the crown of thorns is (John 19:1–3). As such, he is the truly human being. When Pilate says “Here’s the man!” (19:5), we are surely to hear echoes of that primal Johannine moment, the Word becoming flesh as the climax of the new Genesis (1:14). But this Genesis, this new creation, is aimed at redemption; and the suffering Messiah, wearing the ironic royal robes, which acquire a second level of irony in John’s treatment, does for his people and the world what he had said all along he would do, as the shepherd giving his life for the sheep, as the seed sown in the ground to bear much fruit. The cross stands at the heart of John’s kingdom theology, which in this stunning passage is revealed as the heart of John’s redemption theology, the vision of the love of God revealed in saving action in the death of his Son, the Lamb, the Messiah. If the cross is central to John’s vision of the kingdom, it is equally true that the kingdom is central to the meaning he gives to the cross. Any attempt to separate out a Johannine redemption theology from the equally Johannine theology of God’s kingdom and the new creation is doomed to failure. As the trial scene winds slowly to its conclusion, more ironies emerge: the irony of the charge that Jesus “made himself the son of God” (19:7), which was of course what Caesar had done; the irony of Jesus’s acknowledgment of Pilate’s God-given authority over him (19:11); the ultimate irony of the chief priests declaring that they had “no king except Caesar” (19:15). Gradually, inch by inch, in a narrative heavy with ironic kingdom theology, we discover the theological “why” of the cross within the historical “how.” As we should have realized all along, the “lifting up” of Jesus on the cross is his exaltation as the kingdom-bringing “king of the Jews,” because the kingdom that is thus put into effect is the victory of God’s love. Kingdom and cross fully joined.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  He then returned to his Province and called together all his relatives, to ask them who had been the charitable person who had sent the dog to comfort him and his mother when they were in despair. But it was none of them; and Inosuke continued to search for his benefactor. One day, as he was walking in the quarter of the samurai, he saw the dog which had visited him sleeping in front of the door of a house. A passer-by told him that this was the house of Shibei Okasaki, one of the Lord's chief officers. Then Inosuke remembered that Shibei had at one time vowed an ardent love for him. Inosuke had not forgotten him, even when he was loved by his Lord, and he thought: 'I must never forget what he did for me during my long disgrace. I could not repay, even by giving my life for him. Should anything happen to him, I swear upon my honour as a samurai that I shall help him with my death.' That evening Inosuke sent for Shibei, and, when the latter arrived, thanked him with tears. After his mother had retired to her room, Inosuke and Shibei had a very pleasant and cordial conversation. Inosuke asked how the dog had known the house and the hole to come in by, and Shibei answered: 'When you were in this Province with your master, I could not restrain my love for you, and used to walk before your house nearly every night. But I dared not see you, because you were our Lord's favourite. I only Stood outside and tried to satisfy my burning love by the sight of you or the sound of your voice. My dog followed me every night, and thus he learned to know your house, and I was able to send him to help you.' Inosuke blushed with pleasure at Shibei's devotion, and confessed: 'It grieves me much that I was unable to return your love at that time; but my Lord loved me. Now I am free to love you; but I am no longer the pretty page I was when you cared for me so deeply. I am now a faded flower. But why regret the past? I have become a samurai, and am no longer a page; but I have the same heart for you. Love me, if you can feel the same ardency as before. I shall be happy to be loved by you.' And Inosuke put on his old page's dress with long sleeves, although it was not suitable for a grown man, for he wished to recall past days. They spent the night together in his room, and in their love murmurings Inosuke said to Shibei:

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  But another samurai loved Mondo. He was jealous of the two friends' love, and contrived all sorts of devices to calumniate them, and tried to separate them by the agency of treacherous persons. But one dark night the two lovers met and killed these persons. Then they fled in a boat and hid themselves for a long time, and finally came to Yedo. There they lived as Guards, concealing their true condition. Mondo was now sixty-three years old, and Hayemon sixty-six; and through all these years their hearts had not changed. They had never taken any interest in a woman. They had been genuine pederasts. Hayemon continued to consider Mondo as his young lover. He arranged his thin hair with his own hands in the Style of a page's hair, using much perfumed oil. Mondo's brow was like that of a woman, and he took great care of his person; he polished his nails with aromatic wood, and shaved himself carefully. There is no doubt that these two old men continued their amorous encounters up to an advanced age. Male love is essentially different from the ordinary love of a man and a woman; and that is why a Prince, even when he has married a beautiful Princess, cannot forget his pages. Woman is a creature of absolutely no importance; but sincere pederastic love is true love. Both of these men detested woman as a vile garden worm. They never associated with their neighbours, and when a near-by husband and wife quarrelled and Started breaking the crockery and the doors, these two old men did not try to reconcile them: on the contrary, they encouraged the husband, crying: 'Be brave, O man, and Strong! Kill her, beat her to death! Drive her from your house, and take a handsome man instead of her! 'They used to shake their fists at the woman, and thought the man feeble and lacking in courage. In the spring Mount Uyeno is thronged with visitors who come to see the cherry trees loaded with blossom, and at such time people drink excellent wines, and many get drunk. As the folk passed Hayemon's house, he used to distinguish the women's voices from the men's. When he heard men's voices, he ran out in the hope of seeing some beautiful youth: but when he heard women's voices, he shut his door and remained perfectly indifferent.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “Yes,” he had said. “Like deep inside your asshole.” I’d laughed. But this was romantic. It felt like a loss of virginity in some way, and completely opposite what had happened in the hotel bathroom with Garrett. For one thing I was lying on my back, not doggy-style. Also, Theo licked my asshole a lot first. I was scared, of course, that it wouldn’t taste very good: as much as I washed before I saw him. I was afraid but he softly licked and sucked it, making me come with his finger gently rubbing my clit. I kept coming on his fingers, when he also put one in my asshole and kissed me from my belly to my neck to my face. Then he kissed my mouth and forehead. His cock was so hard it pushed all the way out of his foreskin, already glistening, straining for me. I grabbed him and it was warm and pulsing. “Are you ready?” he asked, and I nodded. He nudged my cheeks apart and opened my asshole slowly. First he put the tip of his dick inside me while continuing to rub my clit gently with the hand he hadn’t used to stroke my cheeks and crack. Maybe he knew about urinary tract infections? Could mermaids get them too? I loved his dick moving slowly in and out of my ass, a new intimacy. I never imagined that anal sex could be loving. I never thought of it as an intimate act, one of trust, only a pornographic and brutal one. So I cried a lot, but not because it hurt. 45.I didn’t mention Dominic to Theo again. It was taking more and more pills per day to keep the dog relaxed and asleep, and I went to three different vets to get more prescriptions. In an odd way I had become a drug addict of sorts, like Claire after all—going from doctor to doctor to get the pills. Only I wasn’t getting high on the medication itself, but on the time and intimacy with Theo that it afforded me. “We travel a lot,” I heard myself say to the veterinarian. “I’m going to be touring through Europe and I can’t bear to leave him home with a sitter. He’s my child, basically. So I’ll need some for the plane ride and each of the train rides from city to city.” “How many cities?” she asked. “Ten?” I said. She raised an eyebrow. I had heard of addicts going from doctor to doctor to get pills as their tolerance for the drugs deepened. Anything involving addiction always escalated, never the other way around. I felt this to be true within myself, and that when and if I returned to Phoenix I would need a thousand lovers to ever take the place of how good it felt to be with Theo.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I was trying to ask her in a roundabout way if it was worth it. We felt the same nothingness, of that I was sure. But I wanted to see if she knew if we were going to be okay or not. Or, at least, if I was. I was asking life advice, couched in the language of suicide, from a friend in a mental hospital. This was the direction my life had taken. “So are you glad about everything? Like, everything that led you up to this point where you feel okay, maybe even good about being alive? Are you glad for that trajectory of your life?” “Yeah,” she said. “I feel strangely good about everything. Sure, no regrets. I regret nothing.” “I regret everything,” I said. “Lucy.” “I’m still fooling around with that swimmer,” I said. “More than fooling around, like, I’m completely, totally in love with him. But the thing is that he’s totally in love with me. I mean, it’s the most passionate, real, most spiritual experience I’ve ever had with someone. And yet, I’m not even totally sure if the whole thing even exists.” “What do you mean?” “Well, we don’t function well in the real world.” “The real world is rubbish.” “But we’re mostly relegated to a rock. We’re tied to a rock.” “Sounds like most marriages. At least ones with children.” “I just—I’m afraid it might kill me. I can’t tell if it’s a sickness or the best thing that ever happened to me.” “That’s brilliant!” “Tell me, was it definitely men who landed you in here?” She paused. “Yes, I suppose it was the men,” she said. “But really it was me.” 41.That afternoon I got my period. When I saw the blood, I wept. I wondered if that was why I had been feeling so anxious and afraid. I had cramps that felt like I was being stabbed in the uterus. Usually I enjoyed getting my period, the release of it—I always had. It made me feel connected to some primal goddess energy. But today I just felt heartsick. I had only five more weeks left with Theo and now the next week would be spent bloody, unsexed. What would we do together? I supposed we could just talk. I could put his cock in my mouth. He was waiting for me when I got to the rocks. He put his arms on the rock and his shiny body came shooting out of the water. He looked like he wanted to stand to greet me, to come running over. I imagined him standing, how or if that could ever happen. I would have to prop something up for him, almost like a frame or a podium. I wondered how much weight his tail could withstand. “Guess what?” “What?” he asked, kissing my cheek. “I have my period,” I said, dejected. “I know,” he said. “What do you mean you know?” I laughed.

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

  Contents. The three Pastoral Epistles, two to Timothy and one to Titus, form a group by themselves, and represent the last stage of the apostle’s life and labors, with his parting counsels to his beloved disciples and fellow-workers. They show us the transition of the apostolic church from primitive simplicity to a more definite system of doctrine and form of government. This is just what we might expect from the probable time of their composition after the first Roman captivity of Paul, and before the composition of the Apocalypse. They are addressed not to congregations, but to individuals, and hence more personal and confidential in their character. This fact helps us to understand many peculiarities. Timothy, the son of a heathen father and a Jewish mother, and Titus, a converted Greek) were among the dearest of Paul’s pupils.1195 They were, at the same time, his delegates and commissioners on special occasions, and appear under this official character in the Epistles, which, for this reason, bear the name "Pastoral." The Epistles contain Paul’s pastoral theology and his theory of church government. They give directions for founding, training, and governing churches, and for the proper treatment of individual members, old and young, widows and virgins, backsliders and heretics. They are rich in practical wisdom and full of encouragement, as every pastor knows. The Second Epistle to Timothy is more personal in its contents than the other two, and has the additional importance of concluding the autobiography of Paul. It is his last will and testament to all future ministers and soldiers of Christ. The Pauline Authorship. There never was a serious doubt as to the Pauline authorship of these Epistles till the nineteenth century, except among a few Gnostics in the second century. They were always reckoned among the Homologumena, as distinct from the seven Antilegomena, or disputed books of the New Testament. As far as external evidence is concerned, they stand on as firm a foundation as any other Epistle. They are quoted as canonical by Eusebius, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus. Reminiscences from them, in some cases with verbal agreement, are found in several of the Apostolic Fathers. They are included in the ancient MSS. and Versions, and in the list of the Muratorian canon. Marcion (about 140), it is true, excluded them from his canon of ten Pauline Epistles, but he excluded also the Gospels (except a mutilated Luke), the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse.1196 But there are certain internal difficulties which have induced a number of modern critics to assign them all, or at least First Timothy, to a post-Pauline or pseudo-Pauline writer, who either changed and adapted Pauline originals to a later state of the church, or fabricated the whole in the interest of Catholic orthodoxy. In either case, the writer is credited with the best intentions and must not be judged according to the modern standard of literary honesty and literary property.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Shyume looked at his pale, haggard face, and asked: 'Are you really willing to make me this present of your life?' The beggar Stretched out his neck to receive the mortal wound, saying: 'I am quite ready, Lord. Cut off my head.'Shyume raised his skirt, so as to be more free in his movement, and went up to the other, brandishing his sword. He Struck him with it, but it did not wound him at all; for it was quite without an edge. The beggar and the servant were astonished at this. But Shyume dismissed all his attendants and shut the gate of the garden. He was now alone with Guzayemon, whom he led into his apartment, saying: 'I recognise your face: you must have been a samurai.'But the beggar denied it. Shyume insisted: 'You are lying. I know that you love me passionately. Open your heart to me, and do not hide your thought. If you keep your secret now, when will you tell it; and to whom, if not to me? Or am I mistaken in thinking that you love me?' [image file=image_rsrc1KN.jpg] The beggar drew from his bosom a little packet wrapped in bamboo bark, and opened it. From it he took a purse of gold silk which he offered to Shyume, saying with tears: 'My heart is locked in that.'Shyume unfastened the purse, and took out sixty leaves of thin paper on which Guzayemon had written the Story of his love, from the first day that he saw Shyume near the shrine of the god Tudo, up to that last day when he had waited before the door. Shyume read five of the leaves, and then replaced them in the purse, putting the latter in his pocket. He summoned his servants and ordered them to guard Guzayemon. Next morning he went to the Lord and said: 'Lord, a man is madly in love with me, and I cannot find the cruelty to reject: him. But if I accept his love, I disobey you, Lord, and show myself ungrateful towards you. I do not know what to do. I have no idea. Lord, I pray you to kill me with your sword and free me from my dilemma.' The Lord asked him for the details of this Story, and Shyume gave him the papers written by Guzayemon, which the Lord read secretly in his room. Then he summoned Shyume and told him to return home and await his orders, until he should have weighed his decision. Shyume answered: 'My lover is in my house, and if you send me back I shall love him. Let me die here by Hara-kiri.'