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 Decameron (1353)

  Federigo being thus come to extremity, it befell one day that Madam Giovanna's husband fell sick and seeing himself nigh upon death, made his will, wherein, being very rich, he left a son of his, now well grown, his heir, after which, having much loved Madam Giovanna, he substituted her to his heir, in case his son should die without lawful issue, and died. Madam Giovanna, being thus left a widow, betook herself that summer, as is the usance of our ladies, into the country with her son to an estate of hers very near that of Federigo; wherefore it befell that the lad made acquaintance with the latter and began to take delight in hawks and hounds, and having many a time seen his falcon flown and being strangely taken therewith, longed sore to have it, but dared not ask it of him, seeing it so dear to him. The thing standing thus, it came to pass that the lad fell sick, whereat his mother was sore concerned, as one who had none but him and loved him with all her might, and abode about him all day, comforting him without cease; and many a time she asked him if there were aught he desired, beseeching him tell it her, for an it might be gotten, she would contrive that he should have it. The lad, having heard these offers many times repeated, said, 'Mother mine, an you could procure me to have Federigo's falcon, methinketh I should soon be whole.' The lady hearing this, bethought herself awhile and began to consider how she should do. She knew that Federigo had long loved her and had never gotten of her so much as a glance of the eye; wherefore quoth she in herself, 'How shall I send or go to him to seek of him this falcon, which is, by all I hear, the best that ever flew and which, to boot, maintaineth him in the world? And how can I be so graceless as to offer to take this from a gentleman who hath none other pleasure left?' Perplexed with this thought and knowing not what to say, for all she was very certain of getting the bird, if she asked for it, she made no reply to her son, but abode silent. However, at last, the love of her son so got the better of her that she resolved in herself to satisfy him, come what might, and not to send, but to go herself for the falcon and fetch it to him. Accordingly she said to him, 'My son, take comfort and bethink thyself to grow well again, for I promise thee that the first thing I do to-morrow morning I will go for it and fetch it to thee.' The boy was rejoiced at this and showed some amendment that same day.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Everybody waved. The car went off. Connie looked back and saw Clifford sitting at the top of the steps in his house-chair. After all, he was her husband: Wragby was her home: circumstance had done it. Mrs. Chambers held the gate and wished her ladyship a happy holiday. The car slipped out of the dark spinney that masked the park, on to the highroad where the colliers were trailing home. Hilda turned to the Crosshill Road, that was not a main road, but ran to Mansfield. Connie put on goggles. They ran beside the railway, which was in a cutting below them. Then they crossed the cutting on a bridge. "That's the lane to the cottage!" said Connie. Hilda glanced at it impatiently. "It's a frightful pity we can't go straight off!" she said. "We could have been in Pall Mall by nine o'clock." "I'm sorry for your sake," said Connie, from behind her goggles. They were soon at Mansfield, that once-romantic, now utterly disheartening colliery town. Hilda stopped at the hotel named in the motorcar book, and took a room. The whole thing was utterly uninteresting, and she was almost too angry to talk. However, Connie _had_ to tell her something of the man's history. "_He! He!_ What name do you call him by? You only say _he_," said Hilda. "I've never called him by any name: nor he me: which is curious, when you come to think of it. Unless we say Lady Jane and John Thomas. But his name is Oliver Mellors." "And how would you like to be Mrs. Oliver Mellors, instead of Lady Chatterley?" "I'd love it." There was nothing to be done with Connie. And anyhow, if the man had been a lieutenant in the army in India for four or five years, he must be more or less presentable. Apparently he had character. Hilda began to relent a little. "But you'll be through with him in a while," she said, "and then you'll be ashamed of having been connected with him. One _can't_ mix up with the working people." "But you are such a socialist! You're always on the side of the working classes." "I may be on their side in a political crisis, but being on their side makes me know how impossible it is to mix one's life with theirs. Not out of snobbery, but just because the whole rhythm is different." Hilda had lived among the real political intellectuals, so she was disastrously unanswerable. The nondescript evening in the hotel dragged out, and at last they had a nondescript dinner. Then Connie slipped a few things into a little silk bag, and combed her hair once more. "After all, Hilda," she said, "love can be wonderful; when you feel you _live_, and are in the very middle of creation." It was almost like bragging on her part. "I suppose every mosquito feels the same," said Hilda. "Do you think it does? How nice for it!"

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Parker’s Commentary was morally stimulating, but it could not be of any help to one who had no faith in the prevalent Christian beliefs. Butler’s Analogy struck me to be a very profound and difficult book, which should be read four or five times to be understood properly. It seemed to me to be written with a view to converting atheists to theism. The arguments advanced in it regarding the existence of God were unnecessary for me, as I had then passed the stage of unbelief; but the arguments in proof of Jesus being the only incarnation of God and the mediator between God and man left me unmoved. But Mr. Coates was not the man easily to accept defeat. He had great affection for me. He saw, round my neck, the Vaishnava necklace of Tulasi-beads. He thought it to be superstition and was pained by it. ‘This superstition does not become you. Come, let me break the necklace.’ ‘No, you will not. It is a sacred gift from my mother.’ ‘But do you believe in it?’ ‘I do not know its mysterious significance. I do not think I should come to harm if I did not wear it. But I cannot, without sufficient reason, give up a necklace that she put round my neck out of love and in the conviction that it would be conducive to my welfare. When, with the passage of time, it wears away and breaks of its own accord. I shall have no desire to get a new one. But this necklace cannot be broken.’ Mr. Coates could not appreciate my argument, as he had no regard for my religion. He was looking forward to delivering me from the abyss of ignorance. He wanted to convince me that, no matter whether there was some truth in other religions, salvation was impossible for me unless I accepted Christianity which represented the truth, and that my sins would not be washed away except by the intercession of Jesus, and that all good works were useless. Just as he introduced me to several books, he introduced me to several friends whom he regarded as staunch Christians. One of these introductions was to a family which belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect. Many of the contacts for which Mr. Coates was responsible were good. Most struck me as being God fearing. But during my contact with this family, one of the Plymouth Brethren confronted me with an argument for which I was not prepared: ‘You cannot understand the beauty of our religion. From what you say it appears that you must be brooding over your transgressions every moment of your life, always mending them and atoning for them. How can this ceaseless cycle of action bring you redemption? You can never have peace. You admit that we are all sinners. Now look at the perfection of our belief. Our attempts at improvement and atonement are futile. And yet redemption we must have.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  It has always been thus with moments in which I yield to desire. It seemed to me that my going and standing against Omi on that log was a predestined fact, rather than merely an impulsive action. In later years, such actions as this misled me into thinking I was "a man of strong will." "Watch out! Watch out! You'll get licked," everyone shouted.Amid their cheers of derision I climbed up on one end of the log. While I was trying to get up, my feet began slipping, and again the air was full of noisy jeers. Omi greeted me with a clowning face. He played the fool with all his might and pretended to be slipping. Again, he would tease me by fluttering his gloved fingers at me. To my eyes those fingers were the sharp points of some dangerous weapon, about to run me through. The palms of our white-gloved hands met many times in stinging slaps, and each time I reeled under the force of the blow. It was obvious that he was deliberately holding back his strength, as though wanting to make sport of me to his heart's content, postponing what would otherwise have been my quick defeat. "Oh! I'm frightened—How strong you are!—I'm licked. I'm just about to fall—look at me!" He stuck out his tongue and pretended to fall. It was unbearably painful for me to see his clownish face, to see him unwittingly destroy his own beauty. Even though I was now gradually being forced back along the log, I could not keep from lowering my eyes. And just at that instant I was caught by a swoop of his right hand. In a reflex action to keep from falling, I clutched at the air with my right hand and, by some chance, managed to fasten onto the fingertips of his right hand. I grasped a vivid sensation of his fingers fitting closely inside the white gloves. For an instant he and I looked each other in the eye.It was truly only an instant. The clownish look had vanished, and, instead, his face was suffused with a strangely candid expression. An immaculate, fierce something, neither hostility nor hatred, was vibrating there like a bowstring. Or perhaps this was only my imagination. Perhaps it was nothing but the stark, empty look of the instant in which, pulled by the fingertips, he felt himself losing his balance. However that may have been, I knew intuitively and certainly that Omi had seen the way I looked at him in that instant, had felt the pulsating force that flowed like lightning between our fingertips, and had guessed my secret—that I was in love with him, with no one in the world but him.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  In one part of his mind he must have been grateful to me for not making a single inquiry about his letters in the snow, and I was fascinated by the painful efforts he was making to overcome this feeling of gratitude. "Humph! I hate wearing children's gloves," he said. "But even grownups wear wool gloves like these.”“Poor thing, I bet you don't even know how leather gloves feel. Here—" Abruptly he thrust his snow-drenched leather gloves against my cheeks. I dodged. A raw carnal feeling blazed up within me, branding my cheeks. I felt myself staring at him with crystal-clear eyes. . . . From that time on I was in love with Omi. For me this was the first love in my life. And, if such a blunt way of speaking be forgiven, it was clearly a love closely connected with desires of the flesh. I began looking forward impatiently to summer, or at least to summer's beginning. Surely, I thought, summer will bring with it an opportunity to see his naked body. Also, I cherished deeply within me a still more shamefaced desire. This was to see that "big thing" of his. On the switchboard of my memory two pairs of gloves have crossed wires—those leather gloves of Omi's and a pair of white ceremonial gloves. I never seem to be able to decide which memory might be real, which false. Perhaps the leather gloves were more in harmony with his coarse features. And yet again, precisely because of his coarse features, perhaps it was the white pair which became him more. Coarse features—even though I use the words, actually such a description is nothing more than that of the impression created by the ordinary face of one lone young man mixed in among boys. Unrivaled though his build was, in height he was by no means the tallest among us. The pretentious uniform our school required, resembling a naval officer's, could scarcely hang well on our still-immature bodies, and Omi alone filled his with a sensation of solid weight and a sort of sexuality. Surely I was not the only one who looked with envious and loving eyes at the muscles of his shoulders and chest, that sort of muscle which can be spied out even beneath a blue-serge uniform. Something like a secret feeling of superiority was always hovering about his face. Perhaps it was that sort of feeling which blazes higher and higher the more one's pride is hurt. It seemed that, for Omi, such misfortunes as failures in examinations and expulsions were the symbols of a frustrated will. The will to what? I imagined vaguely that it must be some purpose toward which his "evil genius" was driving him.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  The feeling was so glorious that she nearly lost her footing, but at the same moment, he took hold of her, drawing her even closer to him, so there was no danger of her going anywhere. His body was exceedingly warm. His lips were demanding and insistent. His arms clutched her tighter, causing their bodies to press closer together. The water fluttered and swelled around them. In the tumult of her first kiss, the ugly duckling forgot that she was ugly, and she returned his kiss with all the passion that she felt. She realized then that she was falling in love with him, and wondered if he guessed her feelings and, if so, what he felt. Just as she was dwelling on these thoughts, he drew his lips away from hers to search her eyes. He smiled at her uncertain expression, confessing that he loved her, too. Then he kissed her again, and again, and even then again! She clung to him, never wanting the kissing to stop. But suddenly his kisses grew more passionate, and his hands were touching her everywhere. She discovered that she loved the feeling she got from pressing her naked body up against his. She felt dizzy with happiness to have his strong hands and beautiful lips upon her skin, but the kissing was becoming more and more urgent and demanding, and his body was rigidly pressing against hers. She was totally unprepared for what was happening. What’s more, she could not help wondering if his declaration of love had a part in it. With a little cry, she pulled herself away from him. She knew he cared for her in some way, but could he really love her? She would not allow herself to be taken for granted, ugly or not! For good or for bad, I must know for certain what his intentions are respecting me, she thought, and if I am agreeable to them, whatever they may be. For a moment they both stood apart, and for an instant he seemed almost angry at her. But at length, he smiled. “I will turn and face the woods while you dress,” he said kindly. “But will you wait for me?” he asked. “Yes, I will wait for you,” she promised. “Well, if it isn’t our own dear, plain little sister!” all four sisters exclaimed cheerfully. The youngest of the five smiled warmly at her sisters. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “But how nice it is to see all of you again!” “I must say,” remarked the oldest sister to her younger sibling. “The years must have been good to you. I have truly never seen you looking better!”

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  It took her body a few minutes to recover from the shock of the day’s upheaval, but finally, she began to lose herself in the princess’s softness. Pretty soon the two were just as engrossed in each other as they had been that night by the stream. Unable to endure being only a spectator for another moment, the prince gently pushed his wife away from her lover and knelt between the goose girl’s legs. He stared into his wife’s face. “Touch her.” His wife reached down and touched the goose girl uncertainly with her fingers. The prince watched her fingers play along her opening, and he pressed against them gently, forcing her to be more intimate. He bent over to kiss his wife’s lips as he did so. With his lips still touching hers, he whispered, “Tell me what she feels like.” She shuddered as a myriad of overpowering emotions clamored within her. Seemingly of their own accord, her lips whispered the true response to his question. “Soft, wet,” and after a short pause, she added, “warm.” He pulled himself away from his wife so that he was once again facing the goose girl, but his eyes never left hers. The goose girl watched them both with interest, opening her legs wide and moaning lightly. He said to his wife, “Open her for me.” The maid felt a momentary pang of jealousy. But in the next instant she thought, What right have I to be jealous, when I have taken all of this and more from the princess already? Furthermore, how can I feel jealous for one that which I love? For she realized that she still loved the princess, and silently vowed that she would never betray her again. Without further delay, the maid readied the goose girl for her husband’s entry. She trembled under the influence of the many sensations mingling within her, and at length she was aware of her own throbbing need as she watched her husband slowly take the goose girl to mate. The goose girl moaned as she accepted from the prince the same pleasure he had given his wife so many times before. The prince watched his wife’s face as she watched him, and it enhanced his pleasure. The maid could not take her eyes from the image before her. When she saw the goose girl’s flushed face she understood perfectly the pleasure she was feeling. And at last she was aware of how the goose girl had suffered because of her. Without realizing her action, the maid reached out her hand and touched the goose girl’s face, running her finger across her lips. Her hand slowly moved down, tracing the curve of her jaw and lower still, to caress a soft breast.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  and “strict about a lot of things.” In fact, Watson Lafferty was a formidable disciplinarian who did not hesitate to beat the living tar out of his children or his wife, Claudine, to enforce his rules. Commonly, the children were present to witness the punishment when Watson hit Claudine—a reserved, submissive wife whom Dan describes as “a good woman and an excellent mother.” The children were also present when Watson clubbed the family dog to death with a baseball bat. Among Watson Lafferty’s more strongly held beliefs was a deep distrust of conventional medicine. When Dan’s oldest sister, Colleen, came down with acute appendicitis as a young girl, their father was adamant that she be treated at home with prayer and homeopathic remedies. Only after her appendix burst and death was imminent did he grudgingly take Colleen to the hospital. Watson ultimately died himself in 1983 after refusing medical treatment for advanced diabetes. Despite the fact that Watson was a violent bully, Dan loved his father intensely and admired him. To this day Dan considers him a superb role model. “I was blessed to be raised in a very special and happy family,” Dan insists. “We never wanted for anything. My parents truly loved and cared for each other.” Dan recalls that his dad often took his mom out dancing, and “it wasn’t unusual to hear my father ask my mother if he had told her lately that he loved her.” Once when Dan was attending the Provo temple with his family—with everyone dressed in white temple garments, and the women and men sitting on opposite sides of the hall—he remembers his father leaning over to ask him, sotto voce, “if I had ever seen anyone as beautiful as my mother” as she sat with the other women across the room. In the celestial glow of the temple’s sacred chambers, Dan remembers vividly, his mother looked “angelic and radiant.” According to Dan, his parents placed “their family at the very center of their life, along with the LDS Church.” The Laffertys belonged to a congregation in the nearby community of Spring Lake, says Dan, and worshiped at “the perfect picture-postcard church, by a lake, with just a few houses around. It was in that lake where I learned to swim and fish, and in the winter we had ice-skating parties with family and friends.” Young Dan was a model Latter-day Saint, virtuous and compliant, “zooming down the highway to heaven,” as he puts it. “I was a hundred-and-ten-percenter. I sang in the choir. I always paid my tithing; in fact, I always paid a little extra, just to make sure I made it into the highest

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Now I can't even leave off writing to you. "But a great deal of us is together, and we can but abide by it, and steer our courses to meet soon. John Thomas says good night to Lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart." *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. START: FULL LICENSE THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license. Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  "Since God hath so ordered it that I am to give a beginning to the present day's discourses, with my story, I am content, and therefore, lovesome ladies, seeing that much hath been said of the tricks played by women upon men, it is my pleasure to relate one played by a man upon a woman, not that I mean therein to blame that which the man did or to deny that it served the woman aright, nay, rather to commend the man and blame the woman and to show that men also know how to cozen those who put faith in them, even as themselves are cozened by those in whom they believe. Indeed, to speak more precisely, that whereof I have to tell should not be called cozenage; nay, it should rather be styled a just requital; for that, albeit a woman should still be virtuous and guard her chastity as her life nor on any account suffer herself be persuaded to sully it, yet, seeing that, by reason of our frailty, this is not always possible as fully as should be, I affirm that she who consenteth to her own dishonour for a price is worthy of the fire, whereas she who yieldeth for Love's sake, knowing his exceeding great puissance, meriteth forgiveness from a judge not too severe, even as, a few days agone, Filostrato showed it to have been observed towards Madam Filippa at Prato. There was, then, aforetime at Milan a German, by name Gulfardo, in the pay of the state, a stout fellow of his person and very loyal to those in whose service he engaged himself, which is seldom the case with Germans; and for that he was a very punctual repayer of such loans as were made him, he might always find many merchants ready to lend him any quantity of money at little usance. During his sojourn in Milan, he set his heart upon a very fair lady called Madam Ambruogia, the wife of a rich merchant, by name Guasparruolo Cagastraccio, who was much his acquaintance and friend, and loving her very discreetly, so that neither her husband nor any other suspected it, he sent one day to speak with her, praying her that it would please her vouchsafe him her favours and protesting that he, on his part, was ready to do whatsoever she should command him. The lady, after many parleys, came to this conclusion, that she was ready to do that which Gulfardo wished, provided two things should ensue thereof; one, that this should never be by him discovered to any and the other, that, as she had need of two hundred gold florins for some occasion of hers, he, who was a rich man, should give them to her; after which she would still be at his service.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She seemed to combine the strength of a man with the gentler and more subtle strength of a woman. And thinking of the crude young animal Roger, with his brusque, rather brutal appeal to the senses, she was filled with a kind of regretful shame, and she hated herself for what she had done, and for what she well knew she would do again, because of that urge to passion . Feeling humble, she groped for the girl’s kind hand; then she tried to speak lightly: ‘Would you always forgive this very miserable sinner, Stephen?’ Stephen said, not apprehending her meaning, ‘If our love is a sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours.’ They sat down close together. They were weary unto death, and Angela whispered: ‘Put your arms around me again—but gently, because I’m so tired. You’re a kind lover, Stephen—some times I think you’re almost too kind.’ And Stephen answered: ‘It’s not kindness that makes me unwilling to force you—I can’t conceive of that sort of love.’ Angela Crossby was silent. But now she was longing for the subtle easement of confession, so dear to the soul of woman. Her self-pity was augmented by her sense of wrong-doing—she was thoroughly unstrung, almost ill with self-pity—so that lacking the courage to confess the present, she let her thoughts dwell on the past. Stephen had always forborne to question, and therefore that past had never been discussed, but now Angela felt a great need to discuss it. She did not analyse her feelings; she only knew that she longed intensely to humble herself, to plead for compassion, to wring from the queer, strong, sensitive being who loved her, some hope of ultimate forgiveness. At that moment, as she lay there in Stephen’s arms, the girl assumed an enormous importance. It was strange, but the very fact of betrayal appeared to have strengthened her will to hold her, and Angela stirred, so that Stephen said softly: ‘Lie still—I thought you were fast asleep.’ And Angela answered: ‘No, I’m not asleep, dearest, I’ve been thinking. There are some things I ought to tell you. You’ve never asked me about my past life—why haven’t you, Stephen? ’ ‘Because,’ said Stephen, ‘I knew that some day you’d tell me.’ Then Angela began at the very beginning. She described a Colonial home in Virginia. A grave, grey house, with a columned entrance, and a garden that looked down on deep, running water, and that water had rather a beautiful name—it was called the Potomac River. Up the side of the house grew magnolia blossoms, and many old trees gave their shade to its garden. In summer the fire-flies lit lamps on those trees, shifting lamps that moved swiftly among the branches. And the hot summer darkness was splashed with lightning, and the hot summer air was heavy with sweetness.

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  being able to make arguments and proofs if such things resulted in bragging rather than in improvement to life? 3. Francis brought his experience of God, his way of life, and his prayerfulness to scripture. In a famous story, a scholar recognized that Francis’s way was better. 4. However, Francis never denounced learning and scholarship and, indeed, was quite supportive of one of his learned brothers, now known as St. Anthony of Padua. D. Francis recognized that many Christians were essentially “going through the motions,” and he wanted them to experience God’s forgiveness and love. 1. Francis’s preaching called people to repent rather than to understand doctrines. 2. Francis preached at least as much with his actions as with words; his earliest biographer said that he made a tongue of his body. 3. One dramatic way that Francis tried to bring the experience of God’s humility and love into the lives of “ordinary” Christians was when he brought an ox, ass, manger, and straw into a cave in Greccio for the celebration of Christmas. IV. Francis received the support of his bishop and the sanction of the pope and had thousands of brothers in his order by the time he died at age 44. Why was he so successful? A. Francis’s conversion was an ongoing process; there was no magic moment. 1. He became unhappy, despite his wealth and position in society. 2. He found consolation in prayer that he lacked in other facets of his life. 3. Francis tried to follow God’s call as best he could, even when he knew he did not understand it very well. 4. His experience with lepers was transformative, as he himself tells us in a rare autobiographical passage in his writings. 5. His humility restrained him, and he almost never criticized others with his words. B. Francis always learned from others and from experience. 1. He wished to be ruled, not to rule others, hence the name of his order, the Order of Friars Minor (Lesser Brothers). ©2007 The Teaching Company. 50 2. His openness is demonstrated by the fact that he brought back to Europe ideas he learned while in Egypt in the presence of the sultan Malik al-Kamil. C. Francis was open, virtually unable to deceive. 1. Pope Innocent III recognized this quality when he approved the order. 2. Francis’s rejection of special food after his conversion is an indication of his genuineness. 3. A story of Francis sewing equal patches on both the inside and the outside of his habit is emblematic of his transparency. V. Francis’s reception of the stigmata two years before his death shows his mystical union with God and his authentic Christ-likeness. A. The stigmatization is a gift that allowed Francis to experience the suffering of Christ on the cross in a unique way. B. The marks on Francis’s body are a seal of his authenticity from God and show the world that Francis in some real sense became what he loved.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Ay! Ay! 'asn't ter felt it?" he said dimly, but softly and surely. And she clung close to him, closer. He was so much more peaceful in love than she was, and she wanted him to reassure her. "You do love me!" she whispered, assertive. And his hands stroked her softly, as if she were a flower, without the quiver of desire, but with delicate nearness. And still there haunted her a restless necessity to get a grip on love. "Say you'll always love me!" she pleaded. "Ay!" he said, abstractedly. And she felt her questions driving him away from her. "Mustn't we get up?" he said at last. "No!" she said. But she could feel his consciousness straying, listening to the noises outside. "It'll be nearly dark," he said. And she heard the pressure of circumstance in his voice. She kissed him, with a woman's grief at yielding up her hour. He rose, and turned up the lantern, then began to pull on his clothes, quickly disappearing inside them. Then he stood there, above her, fastening his breeches and looking down at her with dark, wide eyes, his face a little flushed and his hair ruffled, curiously warm and still and beautiful in the dim light of the lantern, so beautiful, she would never tell him how beautiful. It made her want to cling fast to him, to hold him, for there was a warm, half-sleepy remoteness in his beauty that made her want to cry out and clutch him, to have him. She would never have him. So she lay on the blanket with curved, soft naked haunches, and he had no idea what she was thinking, but to him too she was beautiful, the soft, marvellous thing he could go into, beyond everything. "I love thee that I can go into thee," he said. "Do you like me?" she said, her heart beating. "It heals it all up, that I can go into thee. I love thee that tha opened to me. I love thee that I came into thee like that." He bent down and kissed her soft flank, rubbed his cheek against it, then covered it up. "And will you never leave me?" she said. "Dunna ask them things," he said. "But you do believe I love you?" she said. "Tha loved me just now, wider than iver tha thout tha would. But who knows what'll 'appen, once tha starts thinkin' about it!" "No, don't say those things!--And you don't really think that I wanted to make use of you, do you?" "How?" "To have a child--?" "Now anybody can 'ave any childt i' th'world," he said, as he sat down fastening on his leggings. "Ah no!" she cried. "You don't mean it?" "Eh well!" he said, looking at her under his brows. "This wor t' best."

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Meanwhile, Osbech's servant, Antiochus by name, in whose charge the lady had been left, seeing her so fair, forgot his plighted faith to his friend and master and became enamoured of her, for all he was a man in years. Urged by love and knowing her tongue (the which was mighty agreeable to her, as well as it might be to one whom it had behoved for some years live as she were deaf and dumb, for that she understood none neither was understanded of any) he began, in a few days, to be so familiar with her that, ere long, having no regard to their lord and master who was absent in the field, they passed from friendly commerce to amorous privacy, taking marvellous pleasure one of the other between the sheets. When they heard that Osbech was defeated and slain and that Bassano came carrying all before him, they took counsel together not to await him there and laying hands on great part of the things of most price that were there pertaining to Osbech, gat them privily to Rhodes, where they had not long abidden ere Antiochus sickened unto death. As chance would have it, there was then in lodging with him a merchant of Cyprus, who was much loved of him and his fast friend, and Antiochus, feeling himself draw to his end, bethought himself to leave him both his possessions and his beloved lady; wherefore, being now nigh upon death, he called them both to him and bespoke them thus, 'I feel myself, without a doubt, passing away, which grieveth me, for that never had I such delight in life as I presently have. Of one thing, indeed, I die most content, in that, since I must e'en die, I see myself die in the arms of those twain whom I love over all others that be in the world, to wit, in thine, dearest friend, and in those of this lady, whom I have loved more than mine own self, since first I knew her. True, it grieveth me to feel that, when I am dead, she will abide here a stranger, without aid or counsel; and it were yet more grievous to me, did I not know thee here, who wilt, I trust, have that same care of her, for the love of me, which thou wouldst have had of myself. Wherefore, I entreat thee, as most I may, if it come to pass that I die, that thou take my goods and her into thy charge and do with them and her that which thou deemest may be for the solacement of my soul. And thou, dearest lady, I prithee forget me not after my death, so I may vaunt me, in the other world, of being beloved here below of the fairest lady ever nature formed; of which two things an you will give me entire assurance, I shall depart without misgiving and comforted.'

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Ay! Ay! 'asn't ter felt it?" he said dimly, but softly and surely. And she clung close to him, closer. He was so much more peaceful in love than she was, and she wanted him to reassure her. "You do love me!" she whispered, assertive. And his hands stroked her softly, as if she were a flower, without the quiver of desire, but with delicate nearness. And still there haunted her a restless necessity to get a grip on love. "Say you'll always love me!" she pleaded. "Ay!" he said, abstractedly. And she felt her questions driving him away from her. "Mustn't we get up?" he said at last. "No!" she said. But she could feel his consciousness straying, listening to the noises outside. "It'll be nearly dark," he said. And she heard the pressure of circumstance in his voice. She kissed him, with a woman's grief at yielding up her hour. He rose, and turned up the lantern, then began to pull on his clothes, quickly disappearing inside them. Then he stood there, above her, fastening his breeches and looking down at her with dark, wide eyes, his face a little flushed and his hair ruffled, curiously warm and still and beautiful in the dim light of the lantern, so beautiful, she would never tell him how beautiful. It made her want to cling fast to him, to hold him, for there was a warm, half-sleepy remoteness in his beauty that made her want to cry out and clutch him, to have him. She would never have him. So she lay on the blanket with curved, soft naked haunches, and he had no idea what she was thinking, but to him too she was beautiful, the soft, marvellous thing he could go into, beyond everything. "I love thee that I can go into thee," he said. "Do you like me?" she said, her heart beating. "It heals it all up, that I can go into thee. I love thee that tha opened to me. I love thee that I came into thee like that." He bent down and kissed her soft flank, rubbed his cheek against it, then covered it up. "And will you never leave me?" she said. "Dunna ask them things," he said. "But you do believe I love you?" she said. "Tha loved me just now, wider than iver tha thout tha would. But who knows what'll 'appen, once tha starts thinkin' about it!" "No, don't say those things!--And you don't really think that I wanted to make use of you, do you?" "How?" "To have a child--?" "Now anybody can 'ave any childt i' th'world," he said, as he sat down fastening on his leggings. "Ah no!" she cried. "You don't mean it?" "Eh well!" he said, looking at her under his brows. "This wor t' best."

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  But even if there were no reciprocity, it could not be all unrelieved misery because there was active love on one side at least. I must say I was passionately fond of her. Even at school I used to think of her, and the thought of nightfall and our subsequent meeting was ever haunting me. Separation was unbearable. I used to keep her awake till late in the night with my idle talk. If with this devouring passion there had not been in me a burning attachment to duty, I should either have fallen a prey to disease and premature death, or have sunk into a burdensome existence. But the appointed tasks had to be gone through every morning, and lying to anyone was out of the question. It was this last thing that saved me from many a pitfall. I have already said that Kasturbai was illiterate. I was very anxious to teach her, but lustful love left me no time. For one thing the teaching had to be done against her will, and that too at night. I dared not meet her in the presence of the elders, much less talk to her. Kathiawad had then, and to a certain extent has even today, its own peculiar, useless and barbarous Purdah. Circumstances were thus unfavourable. I must therefore confess that most of my efforts to instruct Kasturbai in our youth were unsuccessful. And when I awoke from the sleep of lust, I had already launched forth into public life, which did not leave me much spare time. I failed likewise to instruct her through private tutors. As a result Kasturbai can now with difficulty write simple letters and understand simple Gujarati. I am sure that, had my love for her been absolutely untainted with lust, she would be a learned lady today; for I could than have conquered her dislike for studies. I know that nothing is impossible for pure love. I have mentioned one circumstance that more or less saved me from the disasters of lustful love. There is another worth noting. Numerous examples have convinced me that God ultimately saves him whose motive is pure. Along with the cruel custom of child marriages, Hindu society has another custom which to a certain extent diminishes the evils of the former. Parents do not allow young couples to stay long. The child-wife spends more than half her time at her father’s place. Such was the case with us. That is to say, during the first five years of our married life (from the age of 13 to 18), we could not have lived together longer than an aggregate period of three years. We would hardly have spent six months together, when there would be a call to my wife from her parents. Such calls were very unwelcome in those days, But they saved us both. At the age of eighteen I went to England, and this meant a long and healthy spell of separation.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “It was crazy, and I loved it. I agreed at once. Most days, I went to work just the way I always had, but at night I went back to her house and entered this fantasy world where I was her slave and slept at the foot of her bed. I helped her dress and undress, did her makeup, shopped and cooked for her. Occasionally, she would have insomnia, and I would give her backrubs or read to her. She liked Edna St. Vincent Millay. When it struck her fancy, she would find fault with something I had done and teach me another lesson. She only took me into the dungeon a couple of times, when she had a new girl who was going to be working for her. Those were all-day sessions. She had to show her assistant, who usually didn’t know anything about the scene, how to use everything in the room—the three-part bondage table and the horizontal rack, the vibrators and butt-plugs and dildoes, all this elaborate enema equipment, mummy suits, and whips and straps and paddles. She usually concluded the training session with a watersports fantasy that went with the cage. If that didn’t freak the new girl out completely, she had a job in her dungeon. “But most of the time, my instruction took place in her bedroom or the Victorian living room. She had eyebolts set in all the doorways, so I could be strung up in any room of the house. She had a sterling-silver hairbrush she used on me quite a lot. Let me tell you, once you’ve been fucked with a monogrammed silver hairbrush, rubber marital aids just don’t do it any more. She was very careful, very knowledgeable, and she made sure I always got off. Sometimes she stopped just short of pushing things to the point where she really enjoyed it because I couldn’t handle it. I think she never let herself go with me the way she did with the men she saw, whether they were clients or lovers. Women seemed too fragile or sensitive to her. I always had this sense that she was frustrated, couldn’t get enough from me, no matter how hard I tried.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Once she had gotten everybody on top of the Himalayas, Kay put her paraphernalia away and wrapped her legs around EZ, giving her a big thigh-hug, and played thoughtfully with her parti-colored hair. “Tyre, are those needles sterile?” Alex fretted. Tyre glanced at the timer light on the autoclave. “Jesus, yes, ‘Daddy,’ they’ve been cooking for hours.” “Well, take ’em out and let ’em cool, will you? I’m afraid to touch that damn machine. You put the rings in there, too?” “Whatever you had on the tray got sterilized, stud. I wasn’t the one who laid it out, remember?” “Oh, yeah, sorry, Tyre.” Roxanne pressed her face into Alex’s knee. Her eyes were shining. “Psst!” she said. Alex gave her a look. “I know you have to be brave for the both of us,” she said humbly. “I tell you I can take anything before it actually happens. I’m afraid of pain, so I struggle and call you bad names, and I lie. But I gave tonight everything I had, and I really do want to be your best girl. You’re always asking me to trust you, Alex. When I wear your rings, will you finally trust me?” Alex caressed her head, and took her gently by the hair. “You’re wonderful. And it’s been beautiful to watch you. I thought my heart would be ripped in two when I heard you scream, and knew it was somebody else who was making you suffer. But I’ve watched these women discover abilities that I didn’t know you had.” Roxanne shivered. “I wonder if I could really love any woman who held my leash and threatened to whip me.” “Well, at least we know you honestly do love to be abused,” Alex said. “You’re lucky you have somebody who will dish it out with a careful hand. Why do you think I want you pierced? I can’t run the risk of you forgetting me or trying to replace me. I want you wearing something that will prevent that. I meant it when I said I’m never going to let you go, Roxanne. But ownership enforced with a collar and a crop can be broken or mislaid. Even the marks you have now will heal and disappear. But these piercings are permanent.” “Oh … ” It was a whimper of sexual excitement. Roxanne’s hand strayed between her legs, and Alex laughed at her. She began to move spasmodically, crying again, begging subvocally for help and reassurance. “Rings,” Alex teased. “I am going to put my rings in your flesh. To see every time you dress and undress, to feel every time I put my hand on you. My rings.” Roxanne shuddered as if in the throes of orgasm, then ceased caressing herself. Alex held up a long, thick needle. “The points I’ll actually use are in the sterilizer,” she said. “But this is what they look like.” She gave it to her to play with.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  _L'amour avait passé par là_, as somebody puts it. But he was a man of experience himself, and let life take its course. As for the mother, a nervous invalid in the last few months of her life, she only wanted her girls to be "free," and to "fulfil themselves." She herself had never been able to be altogether herself: it had been denied her. Heaven knows why, for she was a woman who had her own income and her own way. She blamed her husband. But as a matter of fact, it was some old impression of authority on her own mind or soul that she could not get rid of. It had nothing to do with Sir Malcolm, who left his nervously hostile, high-spirited wife to rule her own roost, while he went his own way. So the girls were "free," and went back to Dresden, and their music, and the university and the young men. They loved their respective young men, and their respective young men loved them with all the passion of mental attraction. All the wonderful things the young men thought and expressed and wrote, they thought and expressed and wrote for the young women. Connie's young man was musical, Hilda's was technical. But they simply lived for their young women. In their minds and their mental excitements, that is. Somewhere else they were a little rebuffed, though they did not know it. It was obvious in them too that love had gone through them: that is, the physical experience. It is curious what a subtle but unmistakable transmutation it makes, both in the body of men and women: the woman more blooming, more subtly rounded, her young angularities softened, and her expression either anxious or triumphant: the man much quieter, more inward, the very shapes of his shoulders and his buttocks less assertive, more hesitant. In the actual sex-thrill within the body, the sisters nearly succumbed to the strange male power. But quickly they recovered themselves, took the sex-thrill as a sensation, and remained free. Whereas the men, in gratitude to the women for the sex experience, let their souls go out to her. And afterwards looked rather as if they had lost a shilling and found sixpence. Connie's man could be a bit sulky, and Hilda's a bit jeering. But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may. However, came the war, Hilda and Connie were rushed home again after having been home already in May, to their mother's funeral. Before Christmas of 1914 both their German young men were dead: whereupon the sisters wept, and loved the young men passionately, but underneath forgot them. They didn't exist any more.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Ay! Ay! 'asn't ter felt it?" he said dimly, but softly and surely. And she clung close to him, closer. He was so much more peaceful in love than she was, and she wanted him to reassure her. "You do love me!" she whispered, assertive. And his hands stroked her softly, as if she were a flower, without the quiver of desire, but with delicate nearness. And still there haunted her a restless necessity to get a grip on love. "Say you'll always love me!" she pleaded. "Ay!" he said, abstractedly. And she felt her questions driving him away from her. "Mustn't we get up?" he said at last. "No!" she said. But she could feel his consciousness straying, listening to the noises outside. "It'll be nearly dark," he said. And she heard the pressure of circumstance in his voice. She kissed him, with a woman's grief at yielding up her hour. He rose, and turned up the lantern, then began to pull on his clothes, quickly disappearing inside them. Then he stood there, above her, fastening his breeches and looking down at her with dark, wide eyes, his face a little flushed and his hair ruffled, curiously warm and still and beautiful in the dim light of the lantern, so beautiful, she would never tell him how beautiful. It made her want to cling fast to him, to hold him, for there was a warm, half-sleepy remoteness in his beauty that made her want to cry out and clutch him, to have him. She would never have him. So she lay on the blanket with curved, soft naked haunches, and he had no idea what she was thinking, but to him too she was beautiful, the soft, marvellous thing he could go into, beyond everything. "I love thee that I can go into thee," he said. "Do you like me?" she said, her heart beating. "It heals it all up, that I can go into thee. I love thee that tha opened to me. I love thee that I came into thee like that." He bent down and kissed her soft flank, rubbed his cheek against it, then covered it up. "And will you never leave me?" she said. "Dunna ask them things," he said. "But you do believe I love you?" she said. "Tha loved me just now, wider than iver tha thout tha would. But who knows what'll 'appen, once tha starts thinkin' about it!" "No, don't say those things!--And you don't really think that I wanted to make use of you, do you?" "How?" "To have a child--?" "Now anybody can 'ave any childt i' th'world," he said, as he sat down fastening on his leggings. "Ah no!" she cried. "You don't mean it?" "Eh well!" he said, looking at her under his brows. "This wor t' best."