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 The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Arthur-less, I was moronically ready for it, but somehow I deferred. I sensed he was relieved when I said, ‘Next week some time?’ ‘OK.’ He lifted his right hand a few inches off the bench in a strangely touching, almost secret wave. Two other hearty figures pushed past me, coming in red and sweaty from the gym. ‘How’re ya doin’, Phil boy,’ said one of them in the routine American disguise of some British queens. I went on into the gym, believing that some kind of agreement had been made, that it filled his thoughts now as it did mine. Then for a few minutes I made myself think about something else, concentrated on my exercises on the mat, stretching and limbering up. Because I was so easily moved by people, I had learned to distance myself, just in those moments when I felt them taking hold: I made myself regard them, and even more myself, with a careless, almost cynical detachment. But as I gathered, spread and folded up my body now, endeavouring to feel alive all over, ready and independent, I saw Phil again, in one of those odd coups d’oeil , typical not only of his hesitant mobile manner but of so much of gay life, where happiness can depend on the glance of a stranger, caught and returned. Aptly enough, I was lying on my back, with my legs in the air, wide apart. Between them I saw him pass the open gym door, his bag in his hand, his shirt-sleeves rolled up in tight bands around his biceps. He went by, but a second or two later stepped back again, and peeped into the gym. Our eyes met, I raised my head, he looked for a moment longer, and then, moved perhaps by the secrecy which characterised his doings, without smiling, turned and went off. As I sat up it was as if a fist squeezed my heart and cracked a tiny flask at its centre, saturating it with love. An hour or so later I found James in the shower. He held out his hands to me in a pathetic gesture; the fingertips were white and puckered. ‘A long time, eh?’ I commiserated. ‘There’s just been nothing, darling. I don’t know why I bother.’ ‘Nor, I confess, do I.’ James, in his maudlin way, was waiting around for something worth looking at to stroll in. ‘How long, as a matter of interest?’ He had no watch on. ‘It may be as much as half an hour.’ ‘You must be jolly clean, anyway.’ I pulled off my trunks, and noticed him peek, with the neutralised sexual interest that existed between us, at my dick. ‘Spotless.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He was a much finer swimmer than I, it should be said, but I was much bigger & could sometimes beat him as we thrashed round the bend together. At the end of our races he gasped & gave his dazzling smile and I lounged beside him in the water, or put my arm round his shoulders, saying ‘That was damned close’ but thinking inside ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ When we climbed out on to the bank I was fascinated by the way the water stood off him, leaving him no need to dry himself with a towel, and when he shook his head, the droplets flew away, leaving his black cushion of hair barely damp. Though his head hair was so thick, the rest of his body, though he had passed into manhood already, was virtually without hair, & on the frequent disinterested occasions I contrived to touch him I found his skin as smooth as a dream. It was the beginning of all this thing. In a way it was like my admiration for Strong, but now transformed by a stronger, even ethical power. I formed the impression that I was in the presence of a superior kind of person. Now this was a very strange impression to form. Here at Dekatil, surrounded by the radiant darkness of the Nuba, with not another white man for hundreds of miles, I am continuing to act on it. Does anyone else feel it, or understand? Did anyone then, at Winchester? It was the wildest apostasy. It was the greatest revelation. It affected one’s view of everything. It did not do so at first, it is true. It was something deeper than articulate thought—a twilight luxuriance of my own, a heretical fantasy. I did not even put up much of a fight when other men commented on our being together, & called him cruel, unthinking names. Perhaps I did not even want them to share the secret or to know how wrong they were. And the manners that were making us men kept the boys from insulting him to his face. Webster himself was scrupulously courteous, & considerately friendly to mild men who spoke to him. By a strange coincidence, the incursion of this black-skinned boy into my life was paralleled by the quartering of a goodish number of American soldiers at Winchester in the last year of the war, among them a squad of negroes. They excited a great deal of comment, appearing as they did in the profession which at that time we venerated above all others. One night in my last term I had gone on a secret escapade with some friends to the Willow Tree, & several of the soldiers were in the bar. They were noisy, but not I suppose dangerous or even unfriendly.

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

  I answer that, As stated above [3091](A[1]), the praise of the voice is necessary in order to arouse man’s devotion towards God. Wherefore whatever is useful in conducing to this result is becomingly adopted in the divine praises. Now it is evident that the human soul is moved in various ways according to various melodies of sound, as the Philosopher state (Polit. viii, 5), and also Boethius (De Musica, prologue). Hence the use of music in the divine praises is a salutary institution, that the souls of the faint-hearted may be the more incited to devotion. Wherefore Augustine say (Confess. x, 33): “I am inclined to approve of the usage of singing in the church, that so by the delight of the ears the faint-hearted may rise to the feeling of devotion”: and he says of himself (Confess. ix, 6): “I wept in Thy hymns and canticles, touched to the quick by the voices of Thy sweet-attuned Church.” Reply to Objection 1: The name of spiritual canticle may be given not only to those that are sung inwardly in spirit, but also to those that are sung outwardly with the lips, inasmuch as such like canticles arouse spiritual devotion. Reply to Objection 2: Jerome does not absolutely condemn singing, but reproves those who sing theatrically in church not in order to arouse devotion, but in order to show off, or to provoke pleasure. Hence Augustine says (Confess. x, 33): “When it befalls me to be more moved by the voice than by the words sung, I confess to have sinned penally, and then had rather not hear the singer.” Reply to Objection 3: To arouse men to devotion by teaching and preaching is a more excellent way than by singing. Wherefore deacons and prelates, whom it becomes to incite men’s minds towards God by means of preaching and teaching, ought not to be instant in singing, lest thereby they be withdrawn from greater things. Hence Gregory says (Regist. iv, ep. 44): “It is a most discreditable custom for those who have been raised to the diaconate to serve as choristers, for it behooves them to give their whole time to the duty of preaching and to taking charge of the alms.” Reply to Objection 4: As the Philosopher says (Polit. viii, 6), “Teaching should not be accompanied with a flute or any artificial instrument such as the harp or anything else of this kind: but only with such things as make good hearers.” For such like musical instruments move the soul to pleasure rather than create a good disposition within it. In the Old Testament instruments of this description were employed, both because the people were more coarse and carnal—so that they needed to be aroused by such instruments as also by earthly promises—and because these material instruments were figures of something else.

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

  Again. Whosoever loves a man, loves those whom he loves, and those who are his kindred. Now, men are loved by God, since He prepared for them a last end consisting in the enjoyment of Himself. Therefore as a man is a lover of God, so must he be a lover of his neighbour. Moreover. Since man by nature is a social animal, he needs assistance from other men in order to obtain his own end. Now this is most suitably done if men love one another mutually. Hence the law of God, which directs men to their last end, commands us to love one another. Again. In order to apply himself to divine things, man needs calm and peace. Now mutual love, more than aught else, removes the obstacles to peace. Seeing then that the divine law directs men to apply themselves to divine things, we must conclude that this same law leads men to love one another. Further. The divine law is offered to man in aid of the natural law. Now it is natural to all men to love one another: a proof of which is that a man, by a kind of natural instinct, comes to the assistance of anyone even unknown that is in need, for instance by warning him, should he have taken the wrong road, by helping him to rise, should he have fallen, and so forth: as though every man were intimate and friendly with his fellow-man. Therefore mutual love is prescribed to man by the divine law. Wherefore it is said (Jo. 15:12): This is My commandment that you love one another: and (1 Jo. 4:21): This commandment we have from God, that he who loveth God, love also his brother: and (Matth. 22:39) that the second commandment is, Thou shalt love thy neighbour. CHAPTER CXVIII THAT THE DIVINE LAW BINDS MEN TO THE TRUE FAITHFROM this it is clear that the divine law binds men to the true faith. For just as the beginning of material love is sight exercised through the material eye, so the beginning of spiritual love is the intellectual vision of a spiritual lovable object. Now, the vision of that spiritual lovable object which is God, is impossible to us in the present life except by faith, because it surpasses natural reason, and especially inasmuch as our happiness consists in the enjoyment thereof. Therefore we need to be brought to the true faith by the divine law. Again. The divine law directs man to perfect subjection to God. Now, as man is subject to God as to His will by loving Him, so is he subject to Him as to his intellect by believing in Him. Not indeed by believing anything false: since God, who is truth, cannot propose anything false to man; wherefore he that believes something false, believes not in God. Therefore the divine law directs man to the true faith.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: God is the principle of our being and government in a far more excellent manner than one’s father or country. Hence religion, which gives worship to God, is a distinct virtue from piety, which pays homage to our parents and country. But things relating to creatures are transferred to God as the summit of excellence and causality, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. i): wherefore, by way of excellence, piety designates the worship of God, even as God, by way of excellence, is called “Our Father.” Reply to Objection 3: Piety extends to our country in so far as the latter is for us a principle of being: but legal justice regards the good of our country, considered as the common good: wherefore legal justice has more of the character of a general virtue than piety has. Whether the duties of piety towards one’s parents should be omitted for the sake of religion?Objection 1: It seems that the duties of piety towards one’s parents should be omitted for the sake of religion. For Our Lord said (Lk. 14:26): “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” Hence it is said in praise of James and John (Mat. 4:22) that they left “their nets and father, and followed” Christ. Again it is said in praise of the Levites (Dt. 33:9): “Who hath said to his father, and to his mother: I do not know you; and to his brethren: I know you not; and their own children they have not known. These have kept Thy word.” Now a man who knows not his parents and other kinsmen, or who even hates them, must needs omit the duties of piety. Therefore the duties of piety should be omitted for the sake of religion. Objection 2: Further, it is written (Lk. 9:59,60) that in answer to him who said: “Suffer me first to go and bury my father,” Our Lord replied: “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou, and preach the kingdom of God.” Now the latter pertains to religion, while it is a duty of piety to bury one’s father. Therefore a duty of piety should be omitted for the sake of religion. Objection 3: Further, God is called “Our Father” by excellence. Now just as we worship our parents by paying them the duties of piety so do we worship God by religion. Therefore the duties of piety should be omitted for the sake of the worship of religion.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  It is not simply the relationship of op pressed to oppressor, of master to slave, nor is it motivated merely by hatred; it is also, literally and morally, a blood rela tionship, perhaps the most profound reality of the American experience, and we cannot begin to unlock it until we accept how very much it contains of the force and anguish and terror of love. �cgrocs arc Americans and their destiny is the country's destiny. They have no other experience besides their experi ence on this continent and it is an experience which cannot be rejected, which yet remains to be embraced. If, as I believe, no American Negro exists who does not have his private Bigger Thomas living in the skull, then what most significantly fails to be illuminated here is the paradoxical adjustment which is perpetually made, the Negro being compelled to ac cept the f . 1ct that this dark and dangerous and unloved stranger is part of himself forever. Only this recognition sets MANY THOUSANDS GONE 33 him in any wise fr ee and it is this, this necessary ability to contain and c,·en, in the most honorable sense of the word, to exploit the "nigger," which lends to �egro life its high element of the ironic and which causes the most well-meaning of their American critics to make such exhilarating errors when attempting to understand them. To present Bigger as a warn ing is simply to reinforce the American guilt and fear con cerning him, it is most forcefully to limit him to that previously mentioned social arena in which he has no human validity, it is simply to condemn him to death. For he has always been a warning, he represents the e\·il, the sin and suf fering which we are compelled to reject. It is useless to say to the courtroom in which this heathen sits on trial that he is their responsibility, their creation, and his crimes are theirs; and that they ought, therefore, to allow him to live, to make articulate to himself behind the walls of prison the meaning of his existence.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I conceive of God, in tact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others. Love docs not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a grow ing up. No one in the world-in the entire world-knows more-knows Americans better or, odd as this may sound, loves them more than the American Negro. This is because he has had to watch you, outwit you, deal with you, and bear IN SEARCH OF A MAJORITY 22I you, and sometimes even bleed and die with you, ever since we got here, that is, since both of us, black and white, got here-and this is a wedding. Whether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. What is happening to every Negro in the country at any time is also happening to you. There is no way around this. I am suggesting that these walls-these ar tificial walls-which have been up so long to protect us from something we fear, must come down. I think that what we really have to do is to create a country in which there arc no minorities-for the first time in the history of the world. The one thing that all Americans have in common is that they have no other identity apart fr om the identity which is being achieved on this continent. This is not the English necessity, or the Chinese necessity, or the French necessity, but they are born into a framework which allows them their identity. The necessity of Americans to achieve an identity is a historical and a present personal fact and this is the connection between you and me. This brings me back, in a way, to where I started. I said that we couldn't talk about minorities until we had talked about majorities, and I also said that majorities had nothing to do with numbers or with power, but with influence, with moral influence, and I want to suggest this: that the majority for which everyone is seeking which must reassess and release us from our past and deal with the present and create stan dards worthy of what a man may be-this majority is you. No one else can do it. The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in. PART TWO .. WITH EVERYTHING ON MY MIND 9.

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

  PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. See the mercy of God, that He thinks rather of man’s benefit than of His own honour; He loves concord in the faithful more than offerings at His altar; for so long as there are dissensions among the faithful, their gift is not looked upon, their prayer is not heard. For no one can be a true friend at the same time to two who are enemies to each other. In like manner, we do not keep our fealty to God, if we do not love His friends and hate His enemies. But such as was the offence, such should also be the reconciliation. If you have offended in thought, be reconciled in thought; if in words, be reconciled in words; if in deeds, in deeds be reconciled. For so it is in every sin, in whatsoever kind it was committed, in that kind is the penance done. HILARY. He bids us when peace with our fellow-men is restored, then to return to peace with God, passing from the love of men to the love of God; then go and offer thy gift. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) If this direction be taken literally, it might lead some to suppose that this ought indeed to be so done if our brother is present, for that no long time can be meant when we are bid to leave our offering there before the altar. For if he be absent, or possibly beyond sea, it is absurd to suppose that the offering must be left before the altar; to be offered after we have gone over land and sea to seek him. Wherefore we must embrace an inward, spiritual sense of the whole, if we would understand it without involving any absurdity. The gift which we offer to God, whether learning, or speech, or whatever it be, cannot be accepted of God unless it be supported by faith. If then we have in aught harmed a brother, we must go and be reconciled with him, not with the bodily feet, but in thoughts of the heart, when in humble contrition you may cast yourself at your brother’s feet in sight of Him whose offering you are about to offer. For thus in the same manner as though He were present, you may with unfeigned heart seek His forgiveness; and returning thence, that is, bringing back again your thoughts to what you had first begun to do, may make your offering. 5:25–2625. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

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

  Again. He who causes a thing to move, should lead that thing to the end: so that by the same nature, a thing is moved to its end, attains to that end and rests therein. Now every desire is a movement to a good: and it cannot be in a thing except it come from God, who is good in His essence, and the source of goodness: for every mover moves to its like. Therefore it belongs to God, according to His goodness, to bring to a fitting issue the reasonable desires which are expressed by means of one’s prayers. Besides. The nearer things are to their mover, the more effectively do they receive the mover’s impression: thus the things nearer to a fire are more heated thereby. Now intellectual substances are nearer to God than inanimate natural substances. Consequently the impression of the divine motion is more efficacious in intellectual substances than in other natural substances. Now natural bodies participate in the divine motion to this extent that they receive therefrom a natural appetite for the good, as well as the fulfilment of that appetite, which is realized when they attain to their respective ends. Much more therefore do intellectual substances attain to the fulfilment of their desires which are proffered to God in their prayers. Moreover. It is essential to friendship that the lover wish the desire of the beloved to be fulfilled, inasmuch as he seeks his good and perfection: hence it has been said that friends have but one will. Now we have proved that God loves His creature, and so much the more as it has a greater share of His goodness, which is the first and chief object of His love. Hence He wills the desires of the rational creature to be fulfilled, since of all creatures it participates most perfectly in the divine goodness. Now it is from His will that things derive their being, because He is the cause of things through His will, as was proved above. Therefore it belongs to God’s goodness to fulfil the rational creature’s desires, as laid before him in our prayers. Besides. The creature’s good flows from the divine goodness, in a kind of likeness thereto. Now it is seemingly a most praiseworthy trait in a man if he grant the prayers of those who ask aright; since for this reason is he said to be liberal, gentle, merciful and kind. Therefore it belongs in a special manner to the divine goodness to grant pious prayers. Wherefore it is said in the Psalm (144:19): He will do the will of them that fear Him, and He will hear their prayers and save them: and (Matth. 7:8) our Lord says: Every one that asketh receiveth: and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. And yet it is not unfitting that sometimes the petitions of those who pray be not granted by God.

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

  Again. The end of every, and especially the divine, law is to make men good. Now, man is said to be good because he has a good will, whereby he brings into act whatever good is in him. Also, a will is good through willing the good, and above all the greatest good, which is the end. Therefore the more his will wills this good, so much the better is the man. Now a man wills more that which he wills on account of love, than that which he wills on account of fear alone: for when he wills a thing only through fear, he is partly unwilling: as when a man, through fear, wills to cast his cargo overboard. Therefore above all the love of the Sovereign Good, namely God, makes men good, and is intended by the divine law above all else. Further. Man’s goodness results from virtue: since it is virtue that makes its possessor good. Hence the law intends to make men virtuous; and the precepts of the law are about acts of virtue. But a condition of virtue is that the virtuous act with both firmness and pleasure. Now, this is especially the effect of love: because through love we do a thing steadfastly and pleasurably. Therefore love of the good is the ultimate aim of the divine law. Besides. Lawgivers move those to whom the law is given by the command of the law which they promulgate. Now, in all things moved by a first mover, the more a thing participates in that movement, and the nearer it approaches to a likeness to that first mover, the more perfectly is it moved. Now God, the divine lawgiver, does all things on account of His love. Consequently he who tends to Him in that way, namely by loving Him, tends to Him in the most perfect manner. Now, every agent intends perfection in what he does. Therefore the end of all legislation is that man love God. Hence it is said (1 Tim. 1:5): The end of the commandment is charity: and (Matth. 22:37, 38) that the greatest and first commandment in the law is, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Hence too, the New Law, as being more perfect, is called the law of love, whereas the Old Law, as being less perfect, is called the law of fear. CHAPTER CXVII THAT WE ARE DIRECTED BY THE DIVINE LAW TO THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOURFROM this it follows that the divine law aims at the love of our neighbour. For there should be union of affection between those who have one common end. Now, men have one common last end, namely happiness, to which they are directed by God. Therefore men should be united together by mutual love.

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

  And whereas the highest perfection of human life is that man’s mind be occupied with God, and as these three are apparently the best dispositions to that occupation, it would seem that they rightly belong to the state of perfection; not as though they were themselves perfections, but because they are dispositions to perfection which consists in being busy about God. This is clearly indicated by the words of our Lord in counselling poverty, when he said: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all thou hast, and give to the poor, and follow me, as though he declared the perfection of life to consist in following him. They may also be described as the effects and signs of perfection. For when the mind is strongly affected with love and desire of a certain thing, the result is that it thinks less of other things. Wherefore if man’s mind be borne with love and desire towards divine things, wherein perfection clearly consists, the result is that he renounces all that may hinder his movement towards God, not only the care of possessions, and love of wife and children, but also love of himself. This is signified by the words of Scripture. For it is said (Cant. 8:7): If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing: and (Matth. 13:45, 46): The kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went his way, and sold all that he had, and bought it: and (Philip. 3:7, 8): The things that were gain to me.… I count … as dung, that I may gain Christ. Since then these three are dispositions to perfection, and the effects and signs of perfection, it is seemly that those who vow these three things should be said to be in the state of perfection. Now, the perfection to which the things in question dispose a man, consists in the mind being occupied with God. Wherefore those who make profession of them are called religious, as dedicating themselves and their possessions as a sacrifice to God: their possessions, by poverty; their body, by continence; their will, by obedience. For religion consists in the worship of God, as stated above. CHAPTER CXXXI CONCERNING THE ERROR OF THOSE WHO CONDEMN VOLUNTARY POVERTYSOME, in contradiction of the Gospel teaching, have condemned intentional poverty. The first of these was Vigilantius, who was followed by others, pretending to be teachers of the law, understanding neither the things they say, nor whereof they affirm. They based their contention on the following and similar arguments.

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

  Let’s look closely at the process of growing up. Children learn all kinds of lessons at their parents’ knees, from the time they are born to the time they leave home. There is no landscape more fascinating to the baby than the mother’s face. There is no more exciting image to the child than the frame that includes Mom and Dad kissing, fighting, conferring, frowning, crying, yelling, or hugging in the adjoining room. These thousand and one images are internalized and they form the template for the child’s view of how men and women treat each other, how parents and children communicate, how brothers and sisters get along. From day one, children watch their parents and absorb the minutiae of human interaction. They observe their parents as private persons (when the adult thinks no one is paying attention) and as public persons onstage outside the home. They listen carefully to what the parents say (although they often pretend not to hear) and they ponder what the parents fail to say. No scientist ever looked through a microscope more intently than the average child who observes her family day in and night out. And they make judgments from early on. Children as young as four years old tell me, “I want to be a daddy like my dad” or “I won’t be a mommy like my mommy.” They have powerful feelings of love, hate, envy, admiration, pity, respect, and disdain. This is the theater of our lives—our first and most important school for learning about ourselves and all others. From this we extrapolate the interactions of human society. The images of each family are imprinted on each child’s heart and mind, becoming the inner theater that shapes expectations, hopes, and fears. But over and beyond the child’s view of mother and father as individuals is the child’s view of the relationship between them—the nature of the relationship as a couple. Our scholarly literature is full of mother–child and, more recently, father–child experiments, but as every child could tell the professors, the child sees her parents as a twosome. She is intensely and passionately aware of their interaction. What could be more important or more enthralling? These complex images of parental interaction are central to the family theater and are of lasting importance to children of divorce and to children from intact families.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Her husband being as it were inchanted with these words and compelled by violence of her often embracing, wiping away her teares with his haire, did yeeld unto his wife. And when morning came, departed as hee was accustomed to doe. Now her sisters arrived on land, and never rested til they came to the rock, without visiting their parents, and leapt down rashly from the hill themselves. Then Zephyrus according to the divine commandment brought them down, although it were against his wil, and laid them in the vally without any harm: by and by they went into the palace to their sister without leave, and when they had eftsoone embraced their prey, and thanked her with flattering words for the treasure which she gave them, they said, O deare sister Psyches, know you that you are now no more a child, but a mother: O what great joy beare you unto us in your belly? What a comfort will it be unto all the house? How happy shall we be, that shall see this Infant nourished amongst so great plenty of Treasure? That if he be like his parents, as it is necessary he should, there is no doubt but a new cupid shall be borne. By this kinde of measures they went about to winne Psyches by little and little, but because they were wearie with travell, they sate them downe in chaires, and after that they had washed their bodies in baines they went into a parlour, where all kinde of meats were ready prepared. Psyches commanded one to play with his harpe, it was done. Then immediately others sung, others tuned their instruments, but no person was seene, by whose sweet harmony and modulation the sisters of Psyches were greatly delighted. Howbeit the wickednesse of these cursed women was nothing suppressed by the sweet noyse of these instruments, but they settled themselves to work their treasons against Psyches, demanding who was her husband, and of what Parentage. Then shee having forgotten by too much simplicity, what shee had spoken before of her husband, invented a new answer, and said that her husband was of a great province, a merchant, and a man of middle age, having his beard intersparsed with grey haires. Which when shee had spoken (because shee would have no further talke) she filled their laps with Gold and Silver, and bid Zephyrus to bear them away.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I left home-Harle m-in 194-2. I returned, in 19 4-6, to do, with a white photographer, one of several unpublished efforts; had planned to marry, then realized that I couldn't -or shouldn't, which comes to the same thing-threw my wed ding rings into the Hu dson River, and left New York for Paris, in 194-8. By this time, of course, I was mad, as mad as my dead father. If I had not gone mad, I could not have left. I starved in Paris for a while, but I learned something: for one thing, I fell in love. Or, more accurately, I realized, and accepted for the first time that love was not merely a general, human possibilit y, nor merely the disaster it had so often, by NO NAM E IN THE STREE T then, been for me-according to me-nor was it something that happened to other people, like death, nor was it merely a mortal danger: it was among my possibilities, for here it was, breathing and belching beside me, and it was the key to lif e. Not merely the key to my lif e, but to lif e itself. My falling in love is in no way the subject of this book, and yet honesty compels me to place it among the details, for I think-1 know-that my story would be a very different one if love had not forced me to attempt to deal with myself. It began to pry open for me the trap of color, for people do not fall in love according to their color-this may come as news to noble pioneers and eloquent astronauts, to say nothing of most of the representatives of most of the American states-and when lovers quarrel, as indeed they inevitably do, it is not the degree of their pigmentation that they are quarreling about, nor can lovers, on any level whatever, use color as a weapon. This means that one must accept one's nakedness. And nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked hu man being. In any case, the world changes then, and it changes forever. Because you love one human being, you see everyone else very differently than you saw them before-p erhaps I only mean to say that you begin to see-and you are both stronger and more vulnerable, both free and bound. Free, paradoxically, because, now, you have a home-your lover's arms. And bound: to that mystery, precisely, a bondage which li berates you into something of the glory and suffering of the world. I had come to Paris with no money and this meant that in those early years I lived mainly among les miserables-and, in Paris, les misembles arc Algerian.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Very young and worried, he seemed to fear my resentment, and his gestures towards me took on a nervous respect; I would go to the dining-room and read alone, and he would come in with a cup of tea and touch me on the arm. If I had not been so fiercely and sexually in love with him, these days would have been utterly intolerable. And even so there were spells of repugnance, both at him and at my own susceptibility. Sex took on an almost purgative quality, as if after hours of inertia and evasion we could burn off our unspoken fears in vehement, wordless activity. Sex came to justify his presence there, to confirm that we were not just two strangers trapped together by a fateful mistake. The immediate concern, the first night, had been to get him patched up. I lied to James on the phone, and felt the sudden sadness of complicity. I said that we had been fooling around in the kitchen and there had been an accident with a knife. He came over promptly in his car, and I went down to let him in. He adjusted with only slight awkwardness to his professional role, with a practical briskness which did not quite conceal his curiosity. Arthur was hanging about in my dressing-gown, apprehensive of a doctor; when I introduced them I assumed James would find him attractive, although the makeshift dressing on his cheek spoilt the general impression. It had to be stitched and there was an injection. I watched, out of the way, James’s absorption in the intimate, serious work, running through a long series of subcutaneous stitches and drawing the skin neatly together above. That way, he said, the scar would be smaller. Arthur shot me little tear-whelmed glances as it took place, and I looked on, firm and encouraging, as a parent might over some necessary ordeal of its child. I was touched, too, by James’s expertise, his deft, slender hands holding Arthur’s head, his intent application to a task that I could never perform for him. When it was done Arthur looked as if deservedly reproved, past the worst now, his face rueful and very swollen. James washed his hands and said, ‘I’ll have that whisky.’ As I poured it for him he shook his head disbelievingly. ‘Don’t do that again, Will,’ he recommended. ‘Bloody terrifies me.’ I was struck by the uncertainty of it all: he clearly thought we had had a fight and made his own interpretation of what was itself a lie.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were tr em bling. We have not stopped trembling yet, but if we had not loved each other none of us would have survived. And now you must su rvive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children's children. This innocent coun try set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. Let me spell out precisely what I mean by that, for the heart of the matter is here, and the root of my dispute with my country. You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. \Vherever you have turned, James, in your short time on this earth, you have been told where you could go and what you could do (and how you could do it) and where you could live and whom you could marry. I know your countrymen do not agree with me about this, and I hear them saying, "You exaggerate." They do not know Harlem, and I do. So do you. Take no one's word for anything, including mine-but trust your ex perience. Know whence you came. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhu manity and fear. Please try to be clear, dear James, through the storm which rages about your youthful head today, about the reality which lies behind the words ac ceptance and integration. There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and 29+ THE FIR E NE XT TIME accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a hist ory which they do not understand; and until they under stand it, they cannot be released from it.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  To be with God is really to be involved with some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you. I conceive of my own lite as a journey toward something I do not under stand, which in the going toward, makes me better. I conceive of God, in tact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others. Love docs not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a grow ing up. No one in the world-in the entire world-knows more-knows Americans better or, odd as this may sound, loves them more than the American Negro. This is because he has had to watch you, outwit you, deal with you, and bear IN SEARCH OF A MAJO RITY 22I you, and sometimes even bleed and die with you, ever since we got here, that is, since both of us, black and white, got here-and this is a wedding. Whether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. What is happening to every Negro in the country at any time is also happening to you. There is no way around this. I am suggesting that these walls-these ar tificial walls -wh ich have been up so long to protect us from something we fear, must come down. I think that what we really have to do is to create a country in which there arc no minorities-f or the first time in the history of the world. The one thing that all Americans have in common is that they have no other identity apart from the identity which is being achieved on this continent. This is not the English necessity, or the Chinese necessity, or the French necessity, but they are born into a framework which allows them their identity. The necessity of Americans to achieve an identity is a historical and a present personal fact and this is the connection between you and me. This brings me back, in a way, to where I started. I said that we couldn't talk about minorities until we had talked about majorities, and I also said that majorities had nothing to do with numbers or with power, but with influ ence, with moral influence, and I want to suggest this: that the majority for which everyone is seeking which must reassess and release us from our past and deal with the present and create stan dards worthy of what a man may be-this majority is you. No one else can do it. The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: Macrobius appears to have considered the two integral parts of justice, namely, “declining from evil,” to which “innocence” belongs, and “doing good,” to which the six others belong. Of these, two would seem to regard relations between equals, namely, “friendship” in the external conduct and “concord” internally; two regard our relations toward superiors, namely, “piety” to parents, and “religion” to God; while two regard our relations towards inferiors, namely, “condescension,” in so far as their good pleases us, and “humanity,” whereby we help them in their needs. For Isidore says (Etym. x) that a man is said to be “humane, through having a feeling of love and pity towards men: this gives its name to humanity whereby we uphold one another.” In this sense “friendship” is understood as directing our external conduct towards others, from which point of view the Philosopher treats of it in Ethic. iv, 6. “Friendship” may also be taken as regarding properly the affections, and as the Philosopher describes it in Ethic. viii and ix. In this sense three things pertain to friendship, namely, “benevolence” which is here called “affection”; “concord,” and “beneficence” which is here called “humanity.” These three, however, are omitted by Tully, because, as stated above, they have little of the nature of a due. Reply to Objection 3: “Obedience” is included in observance, which Tully mentions, because both reverential honor and obedience are due to persons who excel. “Faithfulness whereby a man’s acts agree with his words” [*Cicero, De Repub. iv, De Offic. i, 7], is contained in “truthfulness” as to the observance of one’s promises: yet “truthfulness” covers a wider ground, as we shall state further on ([2983]Q[109], AA[1],3). “Discipline” is not due as a necessary duty, because one is under no obligation to an inferior as such, although a superior may be under an obligation to watch over his inferiors, according to Mat. 24:45, “A faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath appointed over his family”: and for this reason it is omitted by Tully. It may, however, be included in humanity mentioned by Macrobius; and equity under {epieikeia} or under “friendship.”

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

  GREGORY. (Mor. xxii. 11.) Love to an enemy is then observed when we are not sorrowful at his success, or rejoice in his fall. We hate him whom we wish not to be bettered, and pursue with ill-wishes the prosperity of the man in whose fall we rejoice. Yet it may often happen that without any sacrifice of charity, the fall of an enemy may gladden us, and again his exaltation make us sorrowful without any suspicion of envy; when, namely, by his fall any deserving man is raised up, or by his success any undeservedly depressed. But herein a strict measure of discernment must be observed, lest in following out our own hates, we hide it from ourselves under the specious pretence of others’ benefit. We should balance how much we owe to the fall of the sinner, how much to the justice of the Judge. For when the Almighty has struck any hardened sinner, we must at once magnify His justice as Judge, and feel with the other’s suffering who perishes. GLOSS. (ord.) They who stand against the Church oppose her in three ways; with hate, with words, and with bodily tortures. The Church on the other hand loves them, as it is here, Love your enemies; does good to them, as it is, Do good to them that hate you; and prays for them, as it is, Pray for them that persecute you and accuse you falsely. JEROME. Many measuring the commandments of God by their own weakness, not by the strength of the saints, hold these commands for impossible, and say that it is virtue enough not to hate our enemies; but to love them is a command beyond human nature to obey. But it must be understood that Christ enjoins not impossibilities but perfection. Such was the temper of David towards Saul and Absalom; the Martyr Stephen also prayed for his enemies while they stoned him, and Paul wished himself anathema for the sake of his persecutors. (Rom. 9:3.) Jesus both taught and did the same, saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34.) AUGUSTINE. (Enchir. 73.) These indeed are examples of the perfect sons of God; yet to this should every believer aim, and seek by prayer to God, and struggles with himself to raise his human spirit to this temper. Yet this so great blessing is not given to all those multitudes which we believe are heard when they pray, Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  120 Lecture 18: Catullus and Horace love as a powerful bond, to denouncing her as utterly profl igate. This portrait of a young man’s progress from romantic love to bitter hatred makes it almost irresistible to ask, “Who was she?” In A.D. 158, Apuleius wrote that by Lesbia, Catullus meant Clodia. We know of three sisters by that name; the evidence is insuf fi cient to tell which one Catullus meant. The usual identi fi cation is Clodia Metelli, but this may be because we know more about her than about her sisters. Most scholars accept that Lesbia is a pseudonym for a genuine woman. The “Lesbia poems” laid the groundwork for a genre of Latin poetry, love elegy, in which the poet is in thrall to a cruel mistress ( domina). In the next generation, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid made love elegy one of the foremost genres of Latin poetry. Catullus’s Lesbia is the ultimate ancestor of Dante’s Beatrice, Petrarch’s Laura, and Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Catullus also wrote short poems on political subjects, friendship, and his love for his home, among other topics. His handling of Greek lyric meters and his use of short, self-contained poems infl uenced the greatest Latin lyric poet of all, Horace. Quintus Horatius Flaccus was born on December 8, 65 B.C., and died on November 27, 8 B.C. Horace included many biographical details in his poetry; in addition, Suetonius’s biography of Horace has survived. Horace was born in Venusia, where his father, a freedman, worked as an auctioneer. He received the education typical for an upper-class youth, fi rst in Rome, then in Athens. Horace’s family lost its possessions after Caesar’s assassination. Caesar’s death led to an open power struggle. Caesar’s friend Mark Antony joined forces with Caesar’s great-nephew and adopted son, Octavian, to fi ght against the assassins Brutus and Cassius. Horace’s family sided with Brutus; Horace joined Brutus’s army. After defeating Brutus and Cassius at Philippi The odes show an amazing facility with meter, word choice, and placement. They are, fundamentally, untranslatable, especially into a non-infl ected language such as English.