Pride

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)

  Thus it was that Masetto, now an elderly and prosperous father who was spared the bother of feeding his children and the expense of their upbringing, returned to the place from which he had set out with an axe on his shoulder, having had the sense to employ his youth to good advantage. And this, he maintained, was the way that Christ treated anyone who set a pair of horns on His crown. SECOND STORYA groom makes love to King Agilulf’s wife. Agilulf finds out, keeps quiet about it, tracks down the culprit, and shears his hair. The shorn man shears all the others, thus avoiding an unpleasant fate. There were some parts of Filostrato’s tale that caused the ladies to blush, others that provoked their laughter, and as soon as it had come to an end, the queen requested Pampinea to take up the storytelling. She accordingly began as follows, laughing all over her face: Some people, having discovered or heard a thing of which they were better left in ignorance, are so foolishly anxious to publish the fact that sometimes, in censuring the inadvertent failings of others with the object of lessening their own dishonour, they increase it out of all proportion. And I now propose, fair ladies, to illustrate the truth of this assertion by describing a contrary state of affairs, wherein the wisdom of a mighty monarch was matched by the guile1 of a man whose social standing was possibly inferior to that of Masetto. When Agilulf2 became King of the Lombards, he followed the example set by his predecessors and chose the city of Pavia, in Lombardy, as the seat of his kingdom. He had meanwhile married Theodelinda, who was the beautiful widow of the former Lombard king, Authari, and although she was a very intelligent and virtuous woman, she once had a most unfortunate experience with a suitor of hers. For during a period when the affairs of Lombardy, owing to the wise and resolute rule of this King Agilulf, were relatively calm and prosperous, one of the Queen’s grooms, a man of exceedingly low birth, gifted out of all proportion to his very humble calling, who was as tall and handsome as the King himself, happened to fall hopelessly in love with his royal mistress.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, grinning, ‘so here you are, madam, still with a leg on each side of your horse—I’m going to tell Violet she’ll have to buck up. By the way, Philip, can Stephen come to tea on Monday, before Roger goes back to school? She can? Oh, splendid! And now where’s that brush? I think our young Stephen here, takes it.’ Strange it is, but unforgettable moments are often connected with very small happenings, happenings that assume fictitious proportions, especially when we are children. If Colonel Antrim had offered Stephen the crown of England on a red velvet cushion, it is doubtful whether her pride would have equalled the pride that she felt when the huntsman came forward and presented her with her first hunting trophy—the rather pathetic, bedraggled little brush, that had weathered so many hard miles. Just for an instant the child’s heart misgave her, as she looked at the soft, furry thing in her hand; but the joy of attainment was still hot upon her, and that incomparable feeling of elation that comes from the knowledge of personal courage, so that she forgot the woes of the fox in remembering the prowess of Stephen. Sir Philip fastened the brush to her saddle. ‘You rode well,’ he said briefly, then turned to the Master. But she knew that that day she had not failed him, for his eyes had been bright when they rested on hers; she had seen great love in those melancholy eyes, together with a curiously wistful expression of which her youth lacked understanding. And now many people smiled broadly at Stephen, patting her pony and calling him a flier. One old farmer remarked: ‘ ’E do be a good plucked un, and so be ‘is rider—beggin’ your pardon.’ At which Stephen must blush and grow slightly mendacious, pretending to give all the credit to the pony, pretending to feel very humble of spirit, which she knew she was far from feeling. ‘Come along!’ called Sir Philip, ‘No more to-day, Stephen, your poor little fellow’s had enough for one day.’ Which was true, since Collins was all of a tremble, what with excitement and straining short legs to keep up with vainglorious hunters. Whips touched hats: ‘Good-bye, Stephen, come out soon again—See you on Tuesday, Sir Philip, with the Croome.’ And the field settled down to the changing of horses, before drawing yet one more cover.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I did not take a lover at random, as many women do, but deliberately chose Guiscardo in preference to any other, only conceding my love to him after careful reflection; and through the patience and good judgement of us both, I have long been enjoying the gratification of my desires. It seems, however, that you prefer to accept a common fallacy rather than the truth, for you reproach me more bitterly, not for committing the crime of loving a man, but for consorting with a person of lowly rank, thus implying that if I had selected a nobleman for the purpose, you would not have had anything to worry about. You clearly fail to realize that in this respect, your strictures should be aimed, not at me, but at Fortune, who frequently raises the unworthy to positions of eminence and leaves the worthiest in low estate. ‘But leaving this aside, consider for a moment the principles of things, and you will see that we are all of one flesh and that our souls were created by a single Maker, who gave the same capacities and powers and faculties to each. We were all born equal, and still are, but merit first set us apart, and those who had more of it, and used it the most, acquired the name of nobles to distinguish them from the rest. Since then, this law has been obscured by a contrary practice, but nature and good manners ensure that its force still remains unimpaired; hence any man whose conduct is virtuous proclaims himself a noble, and those who call him by any other name are in error. ‘Consider each of your nobles in turn, compare their lives, their customs and their manners with those of Guiscardo, and if you judge the matter impartially, you will conclude that he alone is a patrician whilst all these nobles of yours are plebeians. Besides, it was not through hearsay that Guiscardo’s merit and virtues came to my notice, but through your good opinion of him, together with the evidence of my own eyes. For was it not you yourself who sang his praises more loudly than any, claiming for him all the qualities by which one measures a man’s excellence? Nor were you mistaken by any means, for unless my eyes have played me false, I have seen him practise the very virtues for which you commended him, in a manner more wonderful than your words could express. So that if I was deceived in my estimate of Guiscardo, it was you alone who deceived me.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Yet now even really nice women with hairpins often found their less orthodox sisters quite useful. It would be: ‘Miss Smith, do just start up my motor—the engine’s so cold I can’t get the thing going;’ or: ‘Miss Oliphant, do glance through these accounts, I’ve got such a rotten bad head for figures;’ or: ‘Miss Tring, may I borrow your British Warm? The office is simply arctic this morning!’ Not that those purely feminine women were less worthy of praise, perhaps they were more so, giving as they did of their best without stint—for they had no stigma to live down in the war, no need to defend their right to respect. They rallied to the call of their country superbly, and may it not be forgotten by England. But the others—since they too gave of their best, may they also not be forgotten. They might look a bit odd, indeed some of them did, and yet in the streets they were seldom stared at, though they strode a little, perhaps from shyness, or perhaps from a slightly self-conscious desire to show off, which is often the same thing as shyness. They were part of the universal convulsion and were being accepted as such, on their merits. And although their Sam Browne belts remained swordless, their hats and their caps without regimental badges, a battalion was formed in those terrible years that would never again be completely disbanded. War and death had given them a right to life, and life tasted sweet, very sweet to their palates. Later on would come bitterness, disillusion, but never again would such women submit to being driven back to their holes and corners. They had found themselves—thus the whirligig of war brings in its abrupt revenges. 5Time passed; the first year of hostilities became the second while Stephen still hoped, though no nearer to her ambition. Try as she might she could not get to the front; no work at the actual front seemed to be forthcoming for women. Brockett wrote wonderfully cheerful letters. In every letter was a neat little list telling Stephen what he wished her to send him; but the sweets he loved were getting quite scarce, they were no longer always so easy to come by. And now he was asking for Houbigant soap to be included in his tuck-box. ‘Don’t let it get near the coffee fondants or it may make them taste like it smells,’ he cautioned, ‘and do try to send me two bottles of hair-wash, “Eau Athénienne,” I used to buy it at Truefitt’s.’ He was on a perfectly damnable front, they had sent him to Mesopotamia.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  When I was about four years old I had become obsessed with drawing igloo houses. I drew them in chalk all over the slate walls of our garage. Along with them I drew babies wrapped tight in fur coverings. After I asked that question of the other children in the kindergarten classroom I had a sense of knowing that my path would most likely veer from everyone else’s. I understood in a flash, without words, that if I did not follow my path, I would suffer, even as I would suffer for following it. The latter suffering was preferable. I kept drawing, and kept the rest of my questions to myself. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] The next year, in first grade, my decision to color a ghost green instead of leaving it the off-white of newsprint set off a controversy in our small classroom. Students gathered around my desk to confront me. “A ghost can only be white,” they demanded. I was going to get in trouble and they were hanging close to see what would happen. “Have you ever seen a ghost?” I asked. I did not want to tell them that I had seen how a green ball of energy could give people pneumonia. This was a classroom of Weekly Readers, of letters and numbers in order from A to Z, one to twenty. It was Dick and Jane, Spot, Puff, and Sally from our readers. What I had seen did not fit into this kind of place. When the children ran to the teacher to report my coloring mistake, she told the children to sit down and get back to work. I thank her for that, now. I did not redo my coloring. I made note of how much it bothered my classmates that someone had gone “outside the lines.” I saw the eyes of the prisoners who had gone against the story of their captors. I also noted that though I was in a classroom of both native and white students, I was the only child who colored in the skin of my figures. I colored them orange, the closest color I could find in my box of eight crayons to capture the skin tones of my mother and father. It was in that same classroom I learned to read. The moment the letters became sounds and sounds became stories and poems I lit up, especially when I saw the rows and rows of books in the classroom and the library. Each book was its own matrix and contained a world you could carry in your hands. I read all of the books in the first-grade classroom, then started on the books in the second-grade classroom. When I was eight years old my mother gave me a copy of Louis Untermeyer’s Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry for my birthday. I loved poetry. It was singing on paper.

• From Trash (1988)

  Salesmen and truckers were always a high guess. Women who came with a group were low, while women alone were usually a fair twenty-five cents on a light lunch—if you were polite and brought them their coffee first. It was 1966, after all, and a hamburger was sixty-five cents. Tourists were more difficult. I learned that noisy kids meant a small tip, which seemed the highest injustice. Maybe it was a kind of defensive arrogance that made the parents of those kids leave so little, as if they were saying, “Just because little Kevin gave you a headache and poured ketchup on the floor doesn’t mean I owe you anything.” Early-morning tourists who asked first for tomato juice, lemon, and coffee were a bonus. They were almost surely leaving the Jamaica Inn just up the road, which had a terrible restaurant but served the strongest drinks in the county. If you talked softly you never got less than a dollar, and sometimes for nothing more than juice, coffee, and aspirin. I picked it up. In three weeks I started to really catch on and started making sucker bets like the old man who ordered egg salad. Before I even carried the water glass over, I snapped out my counter rag, turned all the way around, and said, “Five.” Then as I turned to the stove and the rack of menus, I mouthed, “Dollars.” Mama frowned while Mabel rolled her shoulders and said, “An’t we growing up fast!” I just smiled my heartbreaker’s smile and got the man his sandwich. When he left I snapped that five-dollar bill loudly five times before I put it in my apron pocket. “My mama didn’t raise no fool,” I told the other women, who laughed and slapped my behind like they were glad to see me cutting up. But Mama took me with her on her break. We walked up toward the Winn Dixie where she could get her cigarettes cheaper than in the drugstore. “How’d you know?” she asked. “ ’Cause that’s what he always leaves,” I told her. “What do you mean, always?” “Every Thursday evening when I close up.” I said it knowing she was going to be angry. “He leaves you a five-dollar bill every Thursday night?” Her voice sounded strange, not angry exactly but not at all pleased either. “Always,” I said, and I added, “And he pretty much always has egg salad.” Mama stopped to light her last cigarette. Then she just stood there for a moment, breathing deeply around the Pall Mall, and watching me while my face got redder and redder. “You think you can get along without it?” she asked finally. “Why?” I asked her. “I don’t think he’s going to stop.” “Because,” she said, dropping the cigarette and walking on, “you’re not working any more Thursday nights.”

• From Trash (1988)

  As I grew up my teachers warned me to clean up my language, and my lovers became impatient with the things I said. Sugar and honey, my teachers reminded me when I sprinkled my sentences with the vinegar of my mama’s rage—as if I was supposed to want to draw flies. And, “Oh honey,” my girlfriends would whisper, “do you have to talk that way?” I did, I did indeed. I smiled them my mama’s smile and played for them my mama’s words while they tightened up and pulled back, seeing me for someone they had not imagined before. They didn’t shout, they hissed; and even when they got angry, their language never quite rose up out of them the way my mama’s rage would fly. “Must you? Must you?” They begged me. And then, “For God’s sake!” “Sweet Jesus!” I’d shout back but they didn’t know enough to laugh. “Must you? Must you?” Hiss, hiss. “For God’s sake, do you have to end everything with ass? An anal obsession, that’s what you’ve got, a goddamn anal obsession!” “I do, I do,” I told them, “and you don’t even know how to say Goddamn. A woman who says Goddamn as soft as you do isn’t worth the price of a meal of shit!” Coarse, crude, rude words, and ruder gestures—Mama knew them all. You Assfucker, Get out of my Yard, to the cop who came to take the furniture. Shitsucking Bastard! To the man who put his hand under her skirt. Jesus shit a brick, every day of her life. Though she slapped me when I used them, my mama taught me the power of nasty words. Say Goddamn. Say anything but begin it with Jesus and end it with shit. Add that laugh, the one that disguises your broken heart. Oh, never show your broken heart! Make them think you don’t have one instead. “If people are going to kick you, don’t just lie there. Shout back at them.” “Yes, Mama.” Language then, and tone, and cadence. Make me mad, and I’ll curse you to the seventh generation in my mama’s voice. But you have to work to get me mad. I measure my anger against my mama’s rages and her insistence that most people aren’t even worth your time. “We are another people. Our like isn’t seen on the earth that often,” my mama told me, and I knew what she meant. I know the value of the hard asses of this world. And I am my mama’s daughter—tougher than kudzu, meaner than all the ass-kicking, bad-assed, cold-assed, saggy-assed fuckers I have ever known. But it’s true that sometimes I talk that way just to remember my mother, the survivor, the endurer, but the one who could not always keep quiet about it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But since you claim that they are all so compliant and that you are so clever, I am prepared, in order to convince you of my lady’s integrity, to place my head on the block if you ever persuade her to meet your wishes in this respect. And if you don’t succeed, all I want you to lose is a thousand gold florins.’ ‘Bernabò,’ replied Ambrogiuolo, who was warming to his subject, ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with your head, if I were to win. But if you really want to see proof of what I have been saying, you can put up five thousand florins of your own, which is less than you’d pay for a new head, against my thousand. And whereas you did not fix any term, I will undertake to go to Genoa and have my way with this lady of yours within three months from the day I leave Paris. By way of proof, I shall return with some of her most intimate possessions, and I shall furnish you with so many relevant particulars that you will be forced to admit the truth of it with your own lips. I make one condition, however, and that is that you promise me on your word of honour neither to come to Genoa during this period nor to give her any hint in your letters of what is afoot.’ Bernabò declared himself to be quite satisfied with these terms, and however much the other merchants present, knowing that the affair could have serious repercussions, tried to prevent it from going any further, the passions of the two men were so strongly aroused that, contrary to the wishes of the

• From The Decameron (1353)

  This new moral attitude, which reflects the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie and the decline of feudalism, and which incidentally foreshadows the spirit of the Renaissance, is seen over and over again in Boccaccio’s treatment of amatory material. We find it vigorously expressed, for instance, in the exciting and humorous tale (III, 2), pointedly set in the age of feudalism, of the groom at King Agilulf’s court who, having fallen deeply in love with Agilulf’s consort, cleverly achieves the gratification of his desires and returns unscathed to his normal, lowly duties. The story is really concerned with honour, and how it may best be preserved. All cats are grey in the dark, and the groom brings his desires to fruition by impersonating the king so as to gain admittance, at dead of night, to the lady’s bedchamber. But no sooner has he completed his amorous mission and departed the scene than the king himself turns up in the darkened room and enters his wife’s bed with the same object in view, only to discover from his wife’s solicitous concern for his health that someone has been there before him. It is at this point in the narrative that Boccaccio inserts the first of two revealing authorial asides. Throughout the story, the cleverness of the groom and the wisdom of the king are repeatedly stressed, and when Agilulf correctly deduces that his wife has been taken in by an outward resemblance to his own physique and manner, he wisely decides, since neither the queen nor anyone else appears to have noticed the deception, to keep his own counsel and beat a tactful retreat. Boccaccio, through his narrator Pampinea, comments as follows: Many a stupid man would have reacted differently, and exclaimed: ‘It was not I. Who was the man who was here? What happened? Who was it who came?’ But this would only have led to complications, upsetting the lady when she was blameless and sowing the seeds of a desire, on her part, to repeat the experience. And besides, by holding his tongue his honour remained unimpaired, whereas if he were to talk he would make himself look ridiculous.31

• From Trash (1988)

  I try for truth, and language. Sometimes if the language works, I let detail slide. But I am a writer, and I know my own weaknesses. In the end, the stories have to have their own truth and craft. Now for a word on “trash.” I originally claimed the label “trash” in self-defense. The phrase had been applied to me and to my family in crude and hateful ways. I took it on deliberately, as I had “dyke”—though I have to acknowledge that what I heard as a child was more often the phrase “white trash.” As an adult I saw all too clearly the look that would cross the face of any black woman in the room when that particular term was spoken. It was like a splash of cold water, and I saw the other side of the hatefulness in the words. It took me right back to being a girl and hearing the uncles I so admired spew racist bile and callous homophobic insults. Some phrases cannot be reclaimed. I gave that one up and took up the simpler honorific. By my twenties, that was what I heard most often anyway. Even rednecks get sensitized to insults, abandon some and cultivate others. I have not been called white trash in two decades, but only a couple years ago, I heard myself referred to as “that trash” in a motel corridor in the central valley in California. In 1988, I titled this short story collection Trash to confront the term and to claim it honorific. In 2002, Trash still suits me, even though I live over here in California among people who are almost postconscious. In Sonoma County it makes more sense to call myself a Zen redneck, or just a dyke mama. What it comes down to is that I use “trash” to raise the issue of who the term glorifies as well as who it disdains. There are not simple or direct answers on any of these questions, and it is far harder to be sure your audience understands the textured lay of what you are doing—specially if you are in Northern California rather than Louisiana, and in 2002 rather than 1988. And of course these days I feel like there is a nation of us—displaced southerners and children of the working class. We listen to Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, and k.d. lang. We devour paperback novels and tell evil mean stories, value stubbornness above patience and a sense of humor more than a college education. We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained. And let me promise you, you do not want to make us angry. Dorothy Allison Guerneville, California, 2002 Deciding to Live Preface to the First Edition T here was a day in my life when I decided to live.

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

  The German Bible of Luther was saluted with the greatest enthusiasm, and became the most powerful help to the Reformation. Duke George of Saxony, Duke William of Bavaria, and Archduke Ferdinand of Austria strictly prohibited the sale in their dominions, but could not stay the current. Hans Lufft at Wittenberg printed and sold in forty years (between 1534 and 1574) about a hundred thousand copies,—an enormous number for that age,—and these were read by millions. The number of copies from reprints is beyond estimate. Cochlaeus, the champion of Romanism, paid the translation the greatest compliment when he complained that "Luther’s New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity."441 The Romanists were forced in self-defense to issue rival translations. Such were made by Emser (1527), Dietenberger (1534), and Eck (1537), and accompanied with annotations. They are more correct in a number of passages, but slavishly conformed to the Vulgate, stiff and heavy, and they frequently copy the very language of Luther, so that he could say with truth, "The Papists steal my German of which they knew little before, and they do not thank me for it, but rather use it against me." These versions have long since gone out of use even in the Roman Church, while Luther’s still lives.442 NOTE. the pre-lutheran german bible. According to the latest investigations, fourteen printed editions of the whole Bible in the Middle High German dialect, and three in the Low German, have been identified. Panzer already knew fourteen; see his Gesch. der nürnbergischen Ausgaben der Bibel, Nürnberg, 1778, p. 74.

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

  Georg von Polenz was the chancellor and chief counselor of Albrecht (we may say his Bismarck on a small scale) in this work of transformation. He was about five years older than Luther, and survived him four years. He descended from an old noble family of Meissen in Saxony, studied law in Italy, and was for a while private secretary at the court of Pope Julius II. Then he served as a soldier under Maximilian I. He became acquainted with Margrave Albrecht at Padua, 1509, and joined the Teutonic Knights. In 1519 he was raised to the episcopal chair, and consecrated by the neighboring bishops of Ermland and Pomesania in the Dome of Königsberg. The receipt of the Roman curia for a tax of fourteen hundred and eighty-eight ducats is still extant in the archives of that city. The first years of his office were disturbed by war with Poland, for which he had to furnish men and means. During the absence of the Duke in Germany he took his place. In September, 1523, be became acquainted with Dr. Briesmann, and learned from him the biblical languages, the elements of theology, which he had never studied before, and the doctrines of Luther. In January, 1524, be already issued an order that baptism be celebrated in the vernacular tongue, and recommended the clergy to read diligently the Bible, and the writings of Luther, especially his book on Christian Liberty. This was the beginning of the Reformation in Prussia. We have from him three sermons, and three only, which he preached in favor of the change, at Christmas, 1523, and at Easter and Pentecost, 1524. He echoes in them the views of Briesmann. He declares, "I shall with the Divine will hold fast to the word of God and to the gospel, though I should lose body and life, goods and honor, and all I possess." He despised the authority of Pope Clement VII., who directed his legate, Campeggio, Dec. 1, 1524, to summon the bishop as a rebel and perjurer, to induce him to recant, or to depose him. In May, 1525, he resigned the secular part of his episcopal authority into the hands of the Duke, because it was not seemly and Christian for a bishop to have so much worldly glory and power. A few days afterwards be married, June 8, 1525, five days before Luther’s marriage. In the next year the Duke followed his example, and invited Luther to the wedding (June, 1526). This double marriage was a virtual dissolution of the order as a monastic institution. In 1546 Georg von Polenz resigned his episcopal supervision into the hands of Briesmann. He died in peace, April 28, 1550, seventy-two years old, and was buried in the cathedral of Königsberg, the first Protestant bishop and chancellor of the first Prussian Hohenzollern, standing with him on the bridge of two ages with his hand on the Bible and his eye firmly fixed upon the future.

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

  The canton of the Grisons or Graubünden208 was at the time of the Reformation an independent democratic republic in friendly alliance with the Swiss Confederacy, and continued independent till 1803, when it was incorporated as a canton. Its history had little influence upon other countries, but reflects the larger conflicts of Switzerland with some original features. Among these are the Romanic and Italian conquests of Protestantism, and the early recognition of the principle of religious liberty. Each congregation was allowed to choose between the two contending churches according to the will of the majority, and thus civil and religious war was prevented, at least during the sixteenth century.209 Graubünden is, in nature as well as in history, a Switzerland in miniature. It is situated in the extreme south-east of the republic, between Austria and Italy, and covers the principal part of the old Roman province of Rätia.210 It forms a wall between the north and the south, and yet combines both with a network of mountains and valleys from the regions of the eternal snow to the sunny plains of the vine, the fig, and the lemon. In territorial extent it is the largest canton, and equal to any in variety and beauty of scenery and healthy climate. It is the fatherland of the Rhine and the Inn. The Engadin is the highest inhabited valley of Switzerland, and unsurpassed for a combination of attractions for admirers of nature and seekers of health. It boasts of the healthiest climate with nine months of dry, bracing cold and three months of delightfully cool weather. The inhabitants are descended from three nationalities, speak three languages,—German, Italian, and Romansh (Romanic),—and preserve many peculiarities of earlier ages. The German language prevails in Coire, along the Rhine, and in the Prättigau, and is purer than in the other cantons. The Italian is spoken to the south of the Alps in the valleys of Poschiavo and Bregaglia (as also in the neighboring canton Ticino). The Romansh language is a remarkable relic of prehistoric times, an independent sister of the Italian, and is spoken in the Upper and Lower Engadin, the Münster valley, and the Oberland. It has a considerable literature, mostly religious, which attracts the attention of comparative philologists.211 The Grisonians (Graubündtner) are a sober, industrious, and heroic race, and have maintained their independence against the armies of Spain, Austria, and France. They have a natural need and inclination to emigrate to richer countries in pursuit of fortune, and to return again to their mountain homes. They are found in all the capitals of Europe and America as merchants, hotel keepers, confectioners, teachers, and soldiers.

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

  In view of this state of public opinion and the long tradition of Latin Christendom, we need not wonder that the marriage of the Reformers created the greatest sensation, and gave rise to the slander that sensual passion was one of the strongest motives of their rebellion against popery. Erasmus struck the keynote to this perversion of history, although he knew well enough that Luther and Oecolampadius were Protestants several years before they thought of marrying. Clerical marriage was a result, not a cause, of the Reformation, as clerical celibacy was neither the first nor the chief objection to the papal system.611 On a superficial view one might wish that the Reformers had remained true to their solemn promise, like the Jansenist bishops in the seventeenth century, and the clerical leaders of the Old Catholic secession in the nineteenth.612 But it was their mission to introduce by example as well as by precept, a new type of Christian morality, to restore and re-create clerical family life, and to secure the purity, peace, and happiness of innumerable homes. Far be it from us to depreciate the value of voluntary celibacy which is inspired by the love of God. The mysterious word of our Lord, Matt. 19:12, and the advice and example of Paul, 1 Cor. 7:7, 40, forbid it. We cheerfully admire the self-denial and devotion of martyrs, priests, missionaries, monks, nuns, and sisters of charity, who sacrificed all for Christ and their fellow-men. Protestantism, too, has produced not a few noble men and women who, without vows and without seeking or claiming extra merit, renounced the right of marriage from the purest motives.613 But according to God’s ordinance dating from the state of innocency, and sanctioned by Christ at the wedding feast at Cana, marriage is the rule for all classes of men, ministers as well as laymen. For ministers are men, and do not cease to be men by becoming ministers.

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

  Luther and Zwingli are by no means opposed to each other as orthodox and heretic; they were essentially agreed in all fundamental articles of the evangelical faith, as the Marburg Conference proved. The difference between them is only a little more Catholic orthodoxy and intolerance in Luther, and a little more Christian charity and liberality in Zwingli. This difference is characteristic of the Reformers and of the denominations which they represent. Luther had a sense of superiority, and claimed the credit of having begun the work of the Reformation. He supposed that the Swiss were indebted to him for what little knowledge they had of the gospel; while, in fact, they were as independent of him as the Swiss Republic was of the German Empire, and knew the gospel as well as he.913 But it would be great injustice to attribute his conduct to obstinacy and pride, or any selfish motive. It proceeded from his inmost conviction. He regarded the real presence as a fundamental article of faith, inseparably connected with the incarnation, the union of the two natures of Christ, and the mystical union of believers with his divine-human personality. He feared that the denial of this article would consistently lead to the rejection of all mysteries, and of Christianity itself. He deemed it, moreover, most dangerous and horrible to depart from what had been the consensus of the Christian Church for so many centuries. His piety was deeply rooted in the historic Catholic faith, and it cost him a great struggle to break loose from popery. In the progress of the eucharistic controversy, all his Catholic instincts and abhorrence of heresy were aroused and intensified. In his zeal he could not do justice to his opponents, or appreciate their position. His sentiments are shared by millions of pious and devout Lutherans to this day, whose conscience forbids them to commune with Christians of Reformed churches.914 We may lament their narrowness, but must.respect their conviction, as we do the conviction of the far larger number of Roman Catholics, who devoutly believe in the miracle of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass. In addition to Luther’s dogmatic standpoint we must take into account his ignorance of the true character of the Swiss, and their real doctrine. He had hardly heard of the Swiss Reformation when the controversy began. He did not even spell Zwingli’s name correctly (he always calls him "Zwingel"), and could not easily understand his Swiss dialect.915 He made a radical mistake by confounding him with Carlstadt and the fanatics. He charged him with reducing the Lord’s Supper to a common meal, and bread and wine to empty signs; and, although he found out his mistake at Marburg, he returned to it again in his last book, adding the additional charge of hypocrisy or apostasy. He treated him as a heathen, yea, worse than a heathen, as he treated Erasmus.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Arm in arm they passed out through the heavy swing doors and into Stephen’s waiting motor. Burton smiled above the white favour in his coat; the crowd, craning their necks, were also smiling. Arrived back at the house, Stephen, Mary, and Burton must drink the health of the bride and bridegroom. Then Pierre thanked his employer for all she had done in giving his daughter so splendid a wedding. But when that employer was no longer present, when Mary had followed her into the study, the baker’s wife lifted quizzical eyebrows. ‘ Quel type! On dirait plutôt un homme; ce n’est pas celle- là qui trouvera un mari!’ The guests laughed. ‘ Mais oui, elle est joliment bizarre’; and they started to make little jokes about Stephen. Pierre flushed as he leaped to Stephen’s defence. ‘ She is good, she is kind, and I greatly respect her and so does my wife — while as for our daughter, Adèle here has very much cause to be grateful. Moreover she gained the Croix de Guerre through serv- ing our wounded men in the trenches.’ The baker nodded. ‘ You are quite right, my friend — pre- cisely what I myself said this morning.’ But Stephen’s appearance was quickly forgotten in the jolli- fication of so much fine feasting — a feasting for which her money had paid, for which her thoughtfulness had provided. Jokes there were, but no longer directed at her — they were harmless, well meant if slightly broad jokes made at the expense of the bashful bridegroom. Then befrre «ven Pauline had realized the THE WELL OF LONELINESS 455 time, there was Burton strolling into the kitchen, and Adèle must rush off to change her dress, while Jean must change also, but in the pantry. Burton glanced at the clock. ‘ Faut dépêcher vous, ’urry, if you're going to catch that chemin de fer,’ he announced as one having authority. ‘It’s a goodish. way to the Guard de Lions’ 3

• From Trash (1988)

  Stories I began as a girl seem different to me when I read them now. It is almost as if I did not write them, as if that writer were another person—which of course she is. Twenty and twenty-five years ago when I first began to publish stories, I was a different person—not just younger but more girlish than it is easy for me to admit today. I grew up writing these stories. I made peace with my family. I forgave myself and some of the people I had held in such contempt—most of all those I loved. That forgiveness took place in large part through the writing of these stories, in a process of making peace with the violence of my childhood, in owning up to it and finding a way to talk about it that did not make me more ashamed of myself or those I loved. When I was considering the question of the new edition of the stories, I worried that the conversation in which they had originated was specific to its time. There is a way in which that is exactly so—though much less so and in different ways than I had imagined. I thought they would have grown boring to me, but they have not. Rereading them, I find myself once more sitting forward and grinding my teeth, or putting the book down and pacing a bit, or sometimes just laughing out loud. Yes, it is true that I wrote many of these stories out of my own need, satisfying myself rather than some editor or university professor. I did not at first expect to publish anywhere except in the small literary magazines where I worked as a volunteer editor, which is not a bad way to begin.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Anna wrote from Morton. She wrote to Puddle, but now Stephen took those letters and read them. The agent had enlisted and so had the bailiff. Old Mr. Percival, agent in Sir Philip’s lifetime, had come back to help with Morton. Jim the groom, who had stayed on under the coachman after Raftery’s death, THE WELL OF LONELINESS 305 was now talking of going; he wanted to get into the cavalry, of course, and Anna was using her influence for him. Six of the gardeners had joined up already, but Hopkins was past the pre- scribed age limit; he must do his small bit by looking after his grape vines — the grapes would be sent to the wounded in Lon- don. There were now no men-servants left in the house, and the home farm was short of a couple of hands. Anna wrote that she was proud of her people, and intended to pay those who had enlisted half wages. They would fight for England, but she could not help feeling that in a way they would be fighting for Morton. She had offered Morton to the Red Cross at once, and they had promised to send her convalescent cases. It was rather isolated for a hospital, it seemed, but would be just the place for convalescents. The Vicar was going as an army chaplain; Violet’s husband, Alec, had joined the Flying Corps; Roger Antrim was somewhere in France already; Colonel Antrim had a job at the barracks in Worcester. Came an angry scrawl from Jonathan Brockett, who had rushed back to England post-haste from the States: “Did you ever know anything quite so stupid as this war? It’s upset my apple-cart completely — can’t write jingo plays about St. George and the dragon, and I’m sick to death of “ Business as usual! ” Ain’t going to be no business, my dear, except killing, and blood always makes me feel faint.’ Then the postscript: * I’ve just been and gone and done it! Please send me tuck-boxes when I’m sitting in a trench; I like caramel creams and of course mixed biscuits.’ Yes, even Jonathan Brockett would go —it was fine in a way that he should have enlisted. Morton was pouring out its young men, who in their turn might pour out their life-blood for Morton. The agent, the bailiff, in training already. Jim the groom, inarticulate, rather stupid, but wanting to join the cavalry — Jim who had been at Morton since boyhood. The gardeners, kindly men smelling of soil, men of peace with a peaceful occupation; six of these gardeners had gone already, together with a couple of lads from the home farm. There were no men servants left in the house. It seemed that the 306 THE WELL OF LONELINESS old traditions still held, the traditions of England, the traditions of Morton.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘For the present day, dear friends, my reign is complete except for giving you another queen, who shall decide for herself how her time and ours should be spent in seemly pleasures on the morrow. And albeit some little time still appears to be left until nightfall, I believe this to be the most suitable hour at which to begin all the days that ensue, since preparations can thus be made for whatever the new queen considers appropriate with regard to the following day. For we are unlikely to make proper provision for the future unless some thought is devoted beforehand to the matter. And therefore, with due reverence to the One who gives life to all things, and with an eye to our common good, I decree that on this coming day the queen who will govern our realm shall be Filomena, a young lady of excellent judgement.’ Having spoken these words, she rose to her feet and removed her laurel garland, which she reverently placed upon Filomena; after which, first she herself, then all the other maidens, and the young men too, hailed Filomena as their queen and pledged themselves with good grace to her sovereignty. Filomena blushed a little for modesty on finding that she had been crowned as their queen. But recalling the words so recently uttered by Pampinea, and not wishing to appear obtuse, she plucked up courage, and first of all she confirmed the appointments made by Pampinea, and gave instructions as to what should be done for the following morning, as well as for supper that evening, due account being taken of the place in which they were staying. Then she began to address the company as follows: ‘Dearest companions, albeit Pampinea, more out of kindness of heart than for any merit of my own, has made me your queen, I do not intend, in shaping the manner in which we should comport ourselves, merely to follow my personal judgement, but rather to blend my judgement with yours. In order that you may know what I have in mind, and thus be at liberty to suggest additions or curtailments to my programme, I propose to expound it to you briefly. Unless I am mistaken, I would say that the formalities observed today by Pampinea were both laudable and pleasing. And so, until such time as we should find them wearisome, whether through constant repetition or for some other reason, I consider they ought to remain unaltered.

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

  shares with the Thuringian forest the honor of being the home of the Luther family. They were very poor, but honest, industrious and pious people from the lower and uncultivated ranks. Luther was never ashamed of his humble, rustic origin. "I am," he said with pride to Melanchthon, "a peasant’s son; my father, grandfather, all my ancestors were genuine peasants."113 His mother had to carry the wood from the forest, on her back, and father and mother, as he said, "worked their flesh off their bones," to bring up seven children (he had three younger brothers and three sisters). Afterward his father, as a miner, acquired some property, and left at his death 1250 guilders, a guilder being worth at that time about sixteen marks, or four dollars.114 Luther had a hard youth, without sunny memories, and was brought up under stern discipline. His mother chastised him, for stealing a paltry nut, till the blood came; and his father once flogged him so severely that he fled away and bore him a temporary grudge;115 but Luther recognized their good intentions, and cherished filial affection, although they knew not, as he said, to distinguish the ingenia to which education should be adapted. He was taught at home to pray to God and the saints, to revere the church and the priests, and was told frightful stories about the devil and witches which haunted his imagination all his life. In the school the discipline was equally severe, and the rod took the place of kindly admonition. He remembered to have been chastised no less than fifteen times in one single morning. But he had also better things to say. He learned the Catechism, i.e.: the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and several Latin and German hymns. He treasured in his memory the proverbial wisdom of the people and the legendary lore of Dietrich von Bern, of Eulenspiegel and Markolf. He received his elementary education in the schools of Mansfeld, Magdeburg, and Eisenach. Already in his fourteenth year he had to support himself by singing in the street. Frau Ursula Cotta, the wife of the wealthiest merchant at Eisenach, immortalized herself by the benevolent interest she took in the poor student. She invited him to her table "on account of his hearty singing and praying," and gave him the first impression of a lady of some education and refinement. She died, 1511, but he kept up an acquaintance with her sons and entertained one of them who studied at Wittenberg. From her he learned the word: "There is nothing dearer in this world than the love of woman."116 The hardships of Luther’s youth and the want of refined breeding show their effects in his writings and actions. They limited his influence among the higher and cultivated classes, but increased his power over the middle and lower classes. He was a man of the people and for the people.