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 Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Thanks to academic feminists, such as I soon became, and our promotion of previously ignored women authors, Anaïs gained a genuine self-confidence she had lacked. She was finally, and within her lifetime, recognized for what she had intuitively known from childhood: that she was the foremost diarist of the twentieth century. Her belated success proved to her that she had been right in sticking to the callings of her heart and soul, reaffirming her faith in women’s intuition and subjectivity; while I, at the same time, was being trained in grad school to accept only supportable, documented objectivity. Despite the many accusations from critics that a woman who published her diary had to be a narcissist, Anaïs, unlike most people who achieve fame, proved a better person for it. She became more centered, generous, and kind—and happier because she didn’t have to lie to her husbands as much. She now had money from her royalties to pay for her coast-to-coast flights, as well as a lecture agent who booked appearances for her alternately on either coast. What a relief for her to have this help with the trapeze! It was glorious to see Anaïs in these days of her fulfillment. Hugo made few demands on her because he was now completely dependent on her financially, while Rupert leapt to play the handsome young consort to her elegant priestess. She kept her friends “in the know” close, holding Chablis-and-cheese parties for us at the Silver Lake house. Anaïs would still panic when one or the other husband overheard something incriminating, and although I remained as tightlipped as a CIA agent, every time I traveled east to visit my godmother, Anaïs would phone to ban me from speaking about her to Lenore or seeing Hugo. After my failure to prevent Rupert’s middle-of-the-night phone call to Hugo years before, she never again entrusted me to guard her trapeze, which was fine with me as long as I remained her confidante. The responsibility of collecting Hugo’s mail and intercepting his calls fell to a ditzy pair of middle-aged women—“the twins”—friends of Renate who dressed alike and accepted little cash gifts for their services. I now had a different function in Anaïs’s life. Since I was getting my PhD in English literature at UCLA, my new assignment was to legitimize her published Diaries and novels within the university, for while the coeds of America celebrated her, the academic establishment still held her in contempt. Anaïs knew that her lasting literary reputation depended upon young feminist scholars, such as myself, teaching and writing about her work. I reveled in my reflected glory as Anaïs’s protégée and would have liked to tell everyone. However, Renate advised me to downplay the personal relationship, so I’d receive fewer difficult-to-answer questions and would be taken more seriously as an Anaïs Nin scholar.

• 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, 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 prescribed age limit; he must do his small bit by looking after his grape vines—the grapes would be sent to the wounded in London. 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 old traditions still held, the traditions of England, the traditions of Morton.

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

  On Oct. 11, he received the letter of safe-conduct; and on the next day he appeared before the papal legate, Cardinal Cajetan (Thomas de Vio of Gaëta), who represented the Pope at the German Diet, and was to obtain its consent to the imposition of a heavy tax for the war against the Turks. Cajetan was, like Prierias, a Dominican and zealous Thomist, a man of great learning and moral integrity, but fond of pomp and ostentation. He wrote a standard commentary on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas (which is frequently appended to the Summa); but in his later years, till his death (1534),—perhaps in consequence of his interview with Luther,—he devoted himself chiefly to the study of the Scriptures, and urged it upon his friends. He labored with the aid of Hebrew and Greek scholars to correct the Vulgate by a more faithful version, and advocated Jerome’s liberal views on questions of criticism and the Canon, and a sober grammatical exegesis against allegorical fancies, without, however, surrendering the Catholic principle of tradition. There was a great contrast between the Italian cardinal and the German monk, the shrewd diplomat and the frank scholar; the expounder and defender of mediaeval scholasticism, and the champion of modern biblical theology; the man of church authority, and the advocate of personal freedom. They had three interviews (Oct. 12, 13, 14). Cajetan treated Luther with condescending courtesy, and assured him of his friendship.201 But he demanded retraction of his errors, and absolute submission to the Pope. Luther resolutely refused, and declared that he could do nothing against his conscience ; that one must obey God rather than man ; that he had the Scripture on his side; that even Peter was once reproved by Paul for misconduct (Gal. 2:11), and that surely his successor was not infallible. Still be asked the cardinal to intercede with Leo X., that he might not harshly condemn him. Cajetan threatened him with excommunication, having already the papal mandate in his hand, and dismissed him with the words: "Revoke, or do not come again into my presence." He urged Staupitz to do his best to convert Luther, and said he was unwilling to dispute any further with that deep-eyed German beast filled with strange speculations."202 Under these circumstances, Luther, with the aid of friends who provided him with an escort, made his escape from Augsburg, through a small gate in the city-Wall, in the night of the 20th of October, on a hard-trotting hack, without pantaloons, boots, or spurs. He rode on the first day as far as the town of Monheim203 without stopping, and fell utterly exhausted upon the straw in a stable.204

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Never was rider more proud or more happy than Stephen, when first she and Raftery went a-hunting; and never was youngster more wise or courageous than Raftery proved himself at his fences; and never can Bellerophon have thrilled to more daring than did Stephen, astride of Raftery that day, with the wind in her face and a fire in her heart that made life a thing of glory. At the very beginning of the run the fox turned in the direction of Morton, actually crossing the big north paddock before turning once more and making for Upton. In the paddock was a mighty, upstanding hedge, a formidable place concealing timber, and what must they do, these two young creatures, but go straight at it and get safely over—those who saw Raftery fly that hedge could never afterwards doubt his valour. And when they got home there was Anna waiting to pat Raftery, because she could not resist him. Because, being Irish, her hands loved the feel of fine horseflesh under their delicate fingers—and because she did very much want to be tender to Stephen, and understanding. But as Stephen dismounted, bespattered and dishevelled, and yet with that perversive look of her father, the words that Anna had been planning to speak died away before they could get themselves spoken—she shrank back from the child; but the child was too overjoyed at that moment to perceive it. 4Happy days, splendid days of childish achievements; but they passed all too soon, giving place to the seasons, and there came the winter when Stephen was fourteen. On a January afternoon of bright sunshine, Mademoiselle Duphot sat dabbing her eyes; for Mademoiselle Duphot must leave her loved Stévenne, must give place to a rival who could teach Greek and Latin—she would go back to Paris, the poor Mademoiselle Duphot, and take care of her ageing Maman. Meanwhile, Stephen, very angular and lanky at fourteen, was standing before her father in his study. She stood still, but her glance kept straying to the window, to the sunshine that seemed to be beckoning through the window. She was dressed for riding in breeches and gaiters, and her thoughts were with Raftery. ‘Sit down,’ said Sir Philip, and his voice was so grave that her thoughts came back with a leap and a bound; ‘you and I have got to talk this thing out, Stephen.’ ‘What thing, Father?’ she faltered, sitting down abruptly. ‘Your idleness, my child. The time has now come when all play and no work will make a dull Stephen, unless we pull ourselves together.’ She rested her large, shapely hands on her knees and bent forward, searching his face intently. What she saw there was a quiet determination that spread from his lips to his eyes. She grew suddenly uneasy, like a youngster who objects to the rather unpleasant process of mouthing.

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

  The characteristic traits which Tacitus ascribes to the heathen Germans, contain already the germ of Protestantism. The love of personal freedom was as strong in them as the love of authority was in the Roman race. They considered it unworthy of the gods to confine them within walls, or to represent them by images; they preferred an inward spiritual worship which communes directly with the Deity, to an outward worship which appeals to the senses through forms and ceremonies, and throws visible media between the finite and the infinite mind. They resisted the aggression of heathen Rome, and they refused to submit to Christian Rome when it was forced upon them by Charlemagne. But Christianity as a religion was congenial to their instincts. They were finally Christianized, and even thoroughly Romanized by Boniface and his disciples. Yet they never felt quite at home under the rule of the papacy. The mediaeval conflict of the emperor with the pope kept up a political antagonism against foreign rule; the mysticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries nursed the love for a piety of less form and more heart, and undermined the prevailing mechanical legalism; dissatisfaction with the pope increased with his exactions and abuses, until at last, under the lead of a Saxon monk and priest, all the national forces combined against the anti-christian tyranny and shook it of forever. He carried with him the heart of Germany. No less than one hundred grievances against Roman misrule were brought before the Diet of Nürnberg in 1522.107 Erasmus says that when Luther published his Theses all the world applauded him.108 It is not impossible that all Germany would have embraced the Reformation if its force had not been weakened and its progress arrested by excesses and internal dissensions, which gave mighty aid to the Romanist reaction. Next to Germany, little Switzerland, Holland, Scandinavia, England and Scotland, inhabited by kindred races, were most active in completing that great act of emancipation from popery and inaugurating an era of freedom and independence.

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

  He preserved his king from disgrace, and secured his independence, but he was unable to secure for himself the papal sanction at all times, and the much coveted honor of the primacy of France which John VIII., in 876, gave to Ansegis, archbishop of Sens. One of the most important facts about these Hincmarian controversies is that in them for the first time the famous pseudo-Isidorian decretals1389 are quoted; and that by all parties. Whether Hincmar knew of their fraudulent character may well be questioned, for that he had little if any critical ability is proved by his belief in two literary forgeries, an apocryphal tale of the birth of the Virgin, and a homily upon her assumption,1390 attributed to Jerome. The fraud was exposed by Ratramnus. His use of the decretals was arbitrary. He quoted them when they would help him, as against the pope in contending for the liberty of the Frankish Church. He ignored them when they opposed his ideas, as in his struggle with his nephew, because in their original design they asserted the independence of bishops from their metropolitans. Hincmar was not only a valiant fighter, but also a faithful shepherd. He performed with efficiency all the usual duties of a bishop, such as holding councils, hearing complaints, settling difficulties, laying plans and carrying out improvements. He paid particular attention to education and the promotion of learning generally. He was himself a scholar and urged his clergy to do all in their power to build up the schools. He also gave many books to the libraries of the cathedral at Rheims and the monastery of St. Remi, and had many copied especially for them. His own writings enriched these collections. His attention to architecture was manifested in the stately cathedral of Rheims, begun by Ebo, but which he completed, and in the enlargement of the monastery of St. Remi. The career of this extraordinary man was troubled to its very end. In 881 he came in conflict with Louis the Third by absolutely refusing to consecrate one of the king’s favorites, Odoacer, bishop of Beauvais. Hincmar maintained that he was entirely unfit for the office, and as the Pope agreed with him Odoacer was excommunicated. In the early part of the following year the dreaded Normans made their appearance in the neighborhood of Rheims. Hincmar bethought himself of the precious relics of St. Remi and removed them for safety’s sake to Epernay when he himself fled thither. There he died, Dec. 21, 882. He was buried two days after at Rheims. Looking back upon Hincmar through the vista of ten centuries, he stands forth as the determined, irrepressible, tireless opponent of both royal and papal tyranny over the Church.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘My friends, since you still persist in wanting me to take a wife, I am prepared to do it, not because I have any desire to marry, but rather in order to gratify your wishes. You will recall the promise you gave me, that no matter whom I should choose, you would rest content and honour her as your lady. The time has now come when I want you to keep that promise, and for me to honour the promise I gave to you. I have found a girl after my own heart, in this very district, and a few days hence I intend to marry her and convey her to my house. See to it, therefore, that the wedding-feast lacks nothing in splendour, and consider how you may honourably receive her, so that all of us may call ourselves contented – I with you for keeping your promise, and you with me for keeping mine.’ As of one voice, the good folk joyously gave him their blessing, and said that whoever she happened to be, they would accept her as their lady and honour her as such in all respects. Then they all prepared to celebrate the wedding in a suitably grand and sumptuous manner, and Gualtieri did the same. A rich and splendid nuptial feast was arranged, to which he invited many of his friends, his kinsfolk, great nobles and other people of the locality; moreover he caused a quantity of fine, rich robes to be tailored to fit a girl whose figure appeared to match that of the young woman he intended to marry; and lastly he laid in a number of rings and ornamental belts, along with a precious and beautiful crown, and everything else that a bride could possibly need. Early on the morning of the day he had fixed for the nuptials, Gualtieri, his preparations now complete, mounted his horse together with all the people who had come to do him honour, and said: ‘Gentlemen, it is time for us to go and fetch the bride.’ He then set forth with the whole of the company in train, and eventually they came to the village and made their way to the house of the girl’s father, where they met her as she was returning with water from the fountain, making great haste so that she could go with other women to see Gualtieri’s bride arriving. As soon as Gualtieri caught sight of her, he called to her by her name, which was Griselda,3 and asked her where her father was, to which she blushingly replied: ‘My lord, he is at home.’ So Gualtieri dismounted, and having ordered everyone to wait for him outside, he went alone into the humble dwelling, where he found the girl’s father, whose name was Giannùcole, and said to him:

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  In her large, long, rather low-ceilinged study whose casement windows looked over the river, sat Stephen with her feet stretched out to the fire and her hands thrust into her jacket pockets. Her eyelids drooped, she was all but asleep although it was early afternoon. She had worked through the night, a deplorable habit and one of which Puddle quite rightly disapproved, but when the spirit of work was on her it was useless to argue with Stephen. Puddle looked up from her embroidery frame and pushed her spectacles on to her forehead the better to see the drowsy Stephen, for Puddle’s eyes had grown very long-sighted so that the room looked blurred through her glasses. She thought: ‘Yes, she’s changed a good deal in these two years—’ then she sighed half in sadness and half in contentment, ‘All the same she is making good,’ thought Puddle, remembering with a quick thrill of pride that the long-limbed creature who lounged by the fire had suddenly sprung into something like fame thanks to a fine first novel. Stephen yawned, and readjusting her spectacles Puddle resumed her wool-work. It was true that the two long years of exile had left their traces on Stephen’s face; it had grown much thinner and more determined, some might have said that the face had hardened, for the mouth was less ardent and much less gentle, and the lips now drooped at the corners. The strong rather massive line of the jaw looked aggressive these days by reason of its thinness. Faint furrows had come between the thick brows and faint shadows showed at times under the eyes; the eyes themselves were the eyes of a writer, always a little tired in expression. Her complexion was paler than it had been in the past, it had lost the look of wind and sunshine—the open-air look—and the fingers of the hand that slowly emerged from her jacket pocket were heavily stained with nicotine—she was now a voracious smoker. Her hair was quite short. In a mood of defiance she had suddenly walked off to the barber’s one morning and had made him crop it close like a man’s. And mightily did this fashion become her, for now the fine shape of her head was unmarred by the stiff clumpy plait in the nape of her neck. Released from the torment imposed upon it the thick auburn hair could breathe and wave freely, and Stephen had grown fond and proud of her hair—a hundred strokes must it have with the brush every night until it looked burnished. Sir Philip also had been proud of his hair in the days of his youthful manhood.

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

  The central fact in the work of Christ is the communication of the Gnosis to a small circle of the initiated, prompting and enabling them to strive with clear consciousness after the ideal world and the original unity. According to Valentine, the heavenly Soter brings Achamoth after innumerable sufferings into the Pleroma, and unites himself with her—the most glorious aeon with the Iowest—in an eternal spirit-marriage. With this, all disturbance in the heaven of aeons is allayed, and a blessed harmony and inexpressible delight are restored, in which all spiritual (pneumatic) men, or genuine Gnostics, share. Matter is at last entirely consumed by a fire breaking out from its dark bosom. 4. The Anthropology of the Gnostics corresponds with their theology. Man is a microcosm consisting of spirit, body, and soul reflecting the three principles, God, Matter, and Demiurge, though in very different degrees. There are three classes of men: the spiritual,817 in whom the divine element, a spark of light from the ideal world, predominates; the material,818 bodily, carnal, physical, in whom matter, the gross sensuous principle, rules; and the psychical,819 in whom the demiurgic, quasi-divine rules; principle, the mean between the two preceding, prevails. These three classes are frequently identified with the adherents of the three religions respectively; the spiritual with the Christians, the carnal with the heathens, the psychical with the Jews. But they also made the same distinction among the professors of any one religion, particularly among the Christians; and they regarded themselves as the genuine spiritual men in the full sense of the word; while they looked upon the great mass of Christians820 as only psychical, not able to rise from blind faith to true knowledge, too weak for the good, and too tender for the evil, longing for the divine, yet unable to attain it, and thus hovering between the Pleroma of the ideal world and the Kenoma of the sensual. Ingenious as this thought is, it is just the basis of that unchristian distinction of esoteric and exoteric religion, and that pride of knowledge, in which Gnosticism runs directly counter to the Christian virtues of humility and love. § 118. Ethics of Gnosticism. All the Gnostic heretics agree in disparaging the divinely created body, and over-rating the intellect. Beyond this, we perceive among them two opposite tendencies: a gloomy asceticism, and a frivolous antinomianism; both grounded in the dualistic principle, which falsely ascribes evil to matter, and traces nature to the devil. The two extremes frequently met, and the Nicolaitan maxim in regard to the abuse of the flesh821 was made to serve asceticism first, and then libertinism. The ascetic Gnostics, like Marcion, Saturninus, Tatian, and the Manichaeans were pessimists.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Only one of them, a Genoese called Bernabò Lomellin, took a different line, maintaining that he, on the contrary, was blessed with a wife who was possibly without equal in the whole of Italy, for not only was she endowed with all the qualities of the ideal woman, but she also possessed many of the accomplishments to be found in a knight or esquire. She was extremely good looking and still very young, she was lithe and lissom, and there was no womanly pursuit, such as silk embroidery and the like, in which she did not outshine all other members of her sex. Furthermore, he claimed it was impossible to find a page or servant who waited better or more efficiently at a gentleman’s table, for she was a paragon of intelligence and good manners, and the very soul of discretion. He then turned to her other accomplishments, praising her skill at horse-riding, falconry, reading, writing and book-keeping, at all of which she was superior to the average merchant. And finally, after a series of further eulogies, he came round to the subject they were discussing, stoutly maintaining that she was the most chaste and honest woman to be found anywhere on earth. Consequently, even if he stayed away for ten years or the rest of his life, he felt quite certain that she would never play fast and loose in another man’s company. Among the people present at this discussion, there was a young merchant from Piaccnza called Ambrogiuolo, who, on hearing the last of Bernabò’s laudatory assertions about his lady, began roaring with laughter and jokingly asked him whether it was the Emperor himself who had granted him this unique privilege. Faintly annoyed, Bernabò replied that this favour had been conceded to him, not by the Emperor, but by God, who was a little more powerful than the Emperor. Then Ambrogiuolo said: ‘Bernabò, I do not doubt for a moment that you believe what you say to be true. But as far as I can judge, you have not devoted much attention to the study of human nature. For if you had, you surely possess enough intelligence to have discovered certain things that would cause you to think twice before making such confident assertions. When the rest of us spoke so freely about our womenfolk, we were merely facing facts, and so as not to let you run away with the idea that we suppose our wives to be any different from yours, I would like to pursue this subject a little further with you.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Boccaccio’s exuberant wit boils over at this point into something very close to blasphemy, but his most telling line of defence against the lexically prudish, reminiscent in its imagery of a passage from Guinizzelli’s canzone beginning ‘Al cor gentil repara sempre Amore’ , is his statement that No corrupted mind ever construed a word wholesomely: and just as seemly words leave no impression on a mind that is corrupt, so words that are not so seemly cannot contaminate a mind that is well ordered, any more than mud contaminates the rays of the sun, or earthly filth the beauties of heaven. 19 Two other features of note in the Epilogue are the author’s final, ironic comment concerning the fiction that the work is intended only for ladies with time on their hands, and the explanation he supplies for the headings with which each of the stories is presented to the reader. As to the first, Boccaccio reminds those who complain of the excessive length of some of the tales that he had presented them from the outset ‘all’oziose e non all’altre’ , or to no ladies other than those who had nothing to do. If his readers have other ways of spending their time, he says, it would be foolish of them to waste it in reading his tales, no matter how briefly they were told. The mock dismissive tone is heightened still further by a reference to the major centres of learning in the ancient world (Athens) and modern world (Bologna and Paris) respectively. None of his fair readers, he asserts, will have studied in places of that kind, where reading-matter must of necessity be brief if students are to make good use of their time. Considering the overall tone of these authorial interventions, which is one of exuberant irony, this last assertion could be taken as the final token of an ever-present feature of the Decameron: its solid connection with the practical, everyday world of fourteenth-century bourgeois society, and its distrust of the intellectualism fostered by the academies, here expressed in the notion that academic scholarship concerns itself with the examination of minutiae to the exclusion of material that, whilst taking longer to produce its impact, might conceivably bring greater mental refreshment. And a further instance of this regard for the practical aspects of literary consumption is the explanation he offers for the headings to the stories. These, he says, are supplied specifically for the purpose of allowing the reader to select the stories that will please, and ignore the ones that are liable to ‘sting’: But whoever goes reading among these should leave alone the ones that sting and read the ones that please: so as not to deceive anyone, each bears the mark on its brow of what lies hidden in its bosom. 20 In the Epilogue, the author also reminds his readers of the circumstances in which the tales were supposed to have been told.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now it happened that a frivolous and scatterbrained young woman, whose name was Monna Lisetta da Ca’ Quirino, the wife of a great merchant who had sailed away to Flanders aboard one of his galleys, came to be confessed by this holy friar of ours accompanied by a number of other ladies. Being a Venetian, and therefore capable of talking the hind leg off a donkey, she had only got through a fraction of her business, kneeling all the time at his feet, when Friar Alberto demanded to know whether she had a lover. ‘What, Master Friar?’ she exclaimed, giving him a withering look. ‘Have you no eyes in your head? Does it seem to you that my charms are to be compared to those of these other women? I could have lovers to spare if I wanted them, but my charms are not at the service of every Tom, Dick or Harry who happens to fall in love with them. How often do you come across anyone as beautiful as I? Why, even if I were in Heaven itself, my charms would be thought exceptional.’ But this was only the beginning, and she droned on interminably, going into such raptures about this beauty of hers that it was painful to listen to her. Friar Alberto had sensed immediately that she was something of a half-wit, and realizing that she was ripe for the picking, he fell passionately in love with her there and then. This was hardly the moment, however, for whispering sweet nothings in her ear, and in order to show her how godly he was, he got up on to his high horse, reproached her for being vainglorious and made her listen to a great deal more of his balderdash. The lady retorted by calling him an ignoramus, and asserting that he was incapable of distinguishing one woman’s beauty from another’s. And since he did not want to irritate her unduly, Friar Alberto, having heard the rest of her confession, allowed her to proceed on her way with the others. After biding his time for a few days, he went with a trusted companion to call upon Monna Lisetta at her own house, and, having got her to take him into a room where nobody could see what he was doing, he threw himself on his knees before her, saying: ‘Madam, in God’s name I beseech you to forgive me for talking to you as I did on Sunday last, when you were telling me about your beauty. That same night, I was punished so severely for my insolence that I have been laid up in bed ever since, and was only able to rise again today for the first time.’ ‘Who was it who punished you, then?’ asked Lady Numskull.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  In the next sequence of events, the true test is made. Empowered and triumphant, he heads back down toward the village. His awareness has expanded. For the first time, he sees and describes the road and the dogs. Previously, these images were not available to him; they were constricted in a form of amnesia. He notices that he’s orienting his movements away from the attacking dogs and towards the electric pole. After experiencing the strength in his legs, Marius is no longer a prisoner of the immobility response. He now has a choice. The ecstatic trembling energy from the kill is transformed into the ability to run. This is just the beginning; he can run but cannot yet escape! I ask him to turn and face his attackers so he doesn’t fall back into immobility. This time he counter-attacks, at first with rage and then with the same triumph that he experienced in the previous sequence of killing and eviscerating the bear. The plan has succeeded. Marius is now victorious and no longer a victim of defeat. However, the renegotiation is still incomplete. In the next sequence, Marius orients himself toward the telephone pole and prepares to run. He had initiated this action years ago, but until this moment, he has not been able to execute it. With his new resources, he completes the escape by running away. This may not make sense in terms of linear time, because he has already killed his attackers. However, the sequence is completely logical to his instincts. He has now completed the immobility response that has been frozen in time since he was eight years old. A year later, I returned to Denmark and learned that Marius no longer suffered from the type of anxiety we had worked on. His renegotiation had resulted in lasting changes. Somatic Experiencing ® — Gradated Renegotiation There are a number of elements in this step-wise and “mythical” renegotiation of Marius’ childhood trauma. More than a thousand sessions have taught me that Marius’ experience was mythically rich not because he is aboriginal, but because it is universally true that the renegotiation of trauma is an inherently mythic-poetic-heroic journey. It is a journey that belongs to all of us because we are human animal s— even those of us who have never set foot outside of a city. The process of resolving trauma can move us beyond our social and cultural confinements toward a greater sense of universality. In contrast to Nancy’s sudden escape from the imaginary tiger, Marius’ renegotiation happened more gradually. Somatic Experiencing is a gentle step-by-step approach to the renegotiation of trauma. The felt sense is the vehicle used to contact and gradually mobilize the powerful forces bound in traumatic symptoms. It is akin to slowly peeling the layers of skin off an onion, carefully revealing the traumatized inner core. A technical understanding of the development of these principles is beyond the scope of this book.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘You have been good enough to honour my banquet with your presence, and I now intend to honour you in the Persian style by showing you the most precious thing I possess or am ever likely to possess. But before doing this, I would ask you to give me your opinion upon the problem that I am about to place before you. A certain person has in his house a good and most loyal servant, who suddenly falls seriously ill; the gentleman in question, without waiting for the ailing servant to breathe his last, has him thrown on to the street and takes no further interest in him; then a stranger comes along who, taking pity on the invalid, conveys him to his house, where, with much loving care and at much expense, he restores him to his former state of health. Now what I should like to know is whether, if the second gentleman keeps him and uses his services, the first has any reasonable ground for complaint or regret when he demands to have him back and is refused.’ Messer Gentile’s noble guests, having discussed the various pros and cons amongst themselves, all reached the same conclusion; and since Niccoluccio Caccianimico was a gifted and eloquent speaker, they left it to him to deliver their reply. Niccoluccio began by extolling the Persian custom, then said that he and his fellow guests were of the unanimous opinion that the first gentleman had no legal claim to the servant, because in the instance cited he had not only abandoned him but cast him away; and that on account of the good offices rendered by the second gentleman, it appeared he was entitled to regard the servant as his own, because in refusing to give him up, he was neither causing any trouble, nor offering any insult, nor doing any injury, to the first. All the others sitting round the tables (and there was many a worthy gentleman among them) chorused their approval of the answer Niccoluccio had given; and Messer Gentile, delighted with this reply and with the fact that it had come from Niccoluccio himself, affirmed that he too shared their opinion. Then he said: ‘The time has come for me to do you honour as I promised.’ And summoning two of his servants, he sent them to the lady, whom he had caused to be regally attired and adorned, requesting that she be pleased to come and gladden the gentlemen with her presence. Taking her bonny infant in her arms, she descended, accompanied by the two servants, to the hall, where at Messer Gentile’s bidding she sat down next to one of the gentlemen; and then he said: ‘Gentlemen, this is the jewel that I cherish above all others, and intend to treasure always. See for yourselves whether you think I have good cause.’

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

  The most important example of dogmatic influence in Luther’s version is the famous interpolation of the word alone in Rom. 3:28 (allein durch den Glauben), by which he intended to emphasize his solifidian doctrine of justification, on the plea that the German idiom required the insertion for the sake of clearness.464 But he thereby brought Paul into direct verbal conflict with James, who says (James 2:24), "by works a man is justified, and not only by faith" ("nicht durch den Glauben allein"). It is well known that Luther deemed it impossible to harmonize the two apostles in this article, and characterized the Epistle of James as an "epistle of straw," because it had no evangelical character ("keine evangelische Art"). He therefore insisted on this insertion in spite of all outcry against it. His defense is very characteristic. "If your papist," he says,465 "makes much useless fuss about the word sola, allein, tell him at once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so, and says: Papist and donkey are one thing; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. For we do not want to be pupils and followers of the Papists, but their masters and judges." Then he goes on in the style of foolish boasting against the Papists, imitating the language of St. Paul in dealing with his Judaizing opponents (2 Cor. 11:22 sqq.): "Are they doctors? so am I. Are they learned? so am I. Are they preachers? so am I. Are they theologians? so am I. Are they disputators? so am I. Are they philosophers? so am I. Are they the writers of books? so am I. And I shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets; which they can not. I can translate; which they can not .... Therefore the word allein shall remain in my New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys (Papstesel) should get furious and foolish, they shall not turn it out."466 The Protestant and anti-Romish character of Luther’s New Testament is undeniable in his prefaces, his discrimination between chief books and less important books, his change of the traditional order, and his unfavorable judgments on James, Hebrews, and Revelation.467 It is still more apparent in his marginal notes, especially on the Pauline Epistles, where he emphasizes throughout the difference between the law and the gospel, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone; and on the Apocalypse, where he finds the papacy in the beast from the abyss (Rev. 13), and in the Babylonian harlot (Rev. 17).468 The anti-papal explanation of the Apocalypse became for a long time almost traditional in Protestant commentaries.

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

  Luther was welcomed by his brethren with hymns of joy and prayer. He was clothed with a white woollen shirt, in honor of the pure Virgin, a black cowl and frock, tied by a leathern girdle. He assumed the most menial offices to subdue his pride: he swept the floor, begged bread through the streets, and submitted without a murmur to the ascetic severities. He said twenty-five Paternosters with the Ave Maria in each of the seven appointed hours of prayer. He was devoted to the Holy Virgin and even believed, with the Augustinians and Franciscans, in her immaculate conception, or freedom from hereditary sin—a doctrine denied by the Dominicans and not made an article of faith till the year 1854. He regularly confessed his sins to the priest at least once a week. At the same time a complete copy of the Latin Bible was put into his hands for study, as was enjoined by the new code of statutes drawn up by Staupitz. At the end of the year of probation Luther solemnly promised to live until death in poverty and chastity according to the rules of the holy father Augustin, to render obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin Mary, and to the prior of the monastery. He was sprinkled with holy water, as he lay prostrate on the ground in the form of a cross. He was greeted as an innocent child fresh from baptism, and assigned to a separate cell with table, bedstead, and chair.125 The two years which followed, he divided between pious exercises and theological studies. He read diligently the Scriptures, and the later schoolmen,—especially Gabriel Biel, whom he knew by heart, and William Occam, whom he esteemed on account of his subtle acuteness even above St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, without being affected by his sceptical tendency. He acknowledged the authority of Aristotle, whom he afterward denounced and disowned as "a damned heathen."126 He excited the admiration of his brethren by his ability in disputation on scholastic questions. His heart was not satisfied with brain work. His chief concern was to become a saint and to earn a place in heaven. "If ever," he said afterward, "a monk got to heaven by monkery, I would have gotten there." He observed the minutest details of discipline. No one surpassed him in prayer, fasting, night watches, self-mortification. He was already held up as a model of sanctity.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The Prologue, with its fictive explanation of the origins and the objectives of the Decameron , is marked by a tone of extreme self-assurance and, from a technical viewpoint, by a virtuoso display of several of the most admired procedures of medieval rhetoric, the so-called ars dictandi . The opening words conform to the widely accepted practice of beginning with a proverb, in this case that it is human to take pity on people in distress ( umana cosa è aver compassione degli afflitti ). A similar opening statement is found in the Fiammetta , 10 but in the earlier work it was much more elaborate and carried far less impact. Here it is pithy and direct, and rounded off by a rhetorical feature that occurs again and again in the Prologue, and partly accounts for its distinctive tone of high seriousness: the metrical sequence known as the cursus planus , consisting of a dactyl followed by a spondee (e.g. dégli afflítti ). Another rhetorical feature woven into the opening, and reminiscent of the initial sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere , is the nostalgic evocation of an all-consuming love. But whereas in Petrarch, and for that matter in the stilnovisti , where this poetic motif is most extensively explored and elaborated upon, the love is platonic or unrequited or both, in Boccaccio there is a strong suggestion of reciprocity. The reason it caused him so much suffering, he is careful to stress, was not the cruelty of his lady-love, but the immoderate passion engendered within his mind by a craving that was ill-restrained. 11 However, it is in the second ad lectorem passage, the Introduction to the Fourth Day, that the polemical intention of these authorial interventions (i.e. to establish the credentials of the genre in which Boccaccio was writing) can best be observed. It begins with a paragraph on Envy, which is likened to a fiery and impetuous wind whose effects, as the author disingenuously explains in an image borrowed from Dante, are normally felt in the highest of high places. Why then should the stories he has so far written, and which are already in circulation, have attracted so much hostile comment? After all, they are no more than novellette (‘little tales’) which bear no title and are written, not only in the Florentine vernacular and in prose, but in the most homely, unassuming style that anyone could imagine. Whatever the meaning of the phrase senza titolo (and it possibly connotes no more than ‘unpretentious’, though Boccaccio used the same phrase elsewhere to describe Ovid’s Amores , in order to indicate the discontinuity of its material), it is obvious that he is here adopting an extreme defensive posture and that heavy irony is his chosen weapon. For the tales of the first three days, already circulating, are written in a style that is elegant to a fault, and more than worthy of stylistic comparison to any vernacular prose works (including those of Dante) which had preceded them.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The first draft of the Genealogia , which was to become a standard work of reference on classical mythology for the next 500 years, was completed around 1360, and it was revised and enlarged at frequent intervals up to the year of the author’s death, as indeed were most of his other encyclopaedic Latin works and some of his earlier, vernacular writings. The Genealogia is in essence a compendium of the knowledge concerning the myths of the ancient classical world accumulated by Boccaccio during a lifetime of intensive study. Critical attention tends nowadays to be focused, however, upon the two concluding books (there were fifteen in all), where the author’s poetic creed, newly formulated in the wake of his discussions with Petrarch, is expounded with polemical vigour and intense inner conviction. In Book XIV, Boccaccio defends the art of poetry against its many detractors, asserting that it was a rare and precious accomplishment of an élite whose work was distinguished by Truth composed under a veil of Beauty. In a similar vein, he also describes the true poet’s distinctive quality as ‘a certain fervour for exquisitely discovering and saying, or writing, what you have discovered’ ( ‘fervor quidem exquisite inveniendi atque dicendi, seu scribendi, quod inveneris’ ). As for the art of storytelling, he stresses its didactic function by saying that narratives should ‘at one and the same reading instruct and entertain’ ( ‘fabulae… una et eadem lectione proficiunt et delectant’ ). In the concluding book (XV) Boccaccio proceeds to defend himself against those who have charged him with frivolity. There are echoes here of the Decameron , especially of his replies to his critics in the Introduction to the Fourth Day and in the Author’s Epilogue, but in the Genealogia strong emphasis is placed upon the poet’s moral and didactic function. The work ends with the significant claim, addressed to God, that poetry brings glory, not to its earthly creator, but to the name of the Lord: ‘Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo dat gloriam.’ Boccaccio’s conversations with Petrarch in Padua, in the spring of 1351, coincide more or less exactly with a change of direction as well as of emphasis in his literary interests. At that time, he was almost certainly working on the latter part of the Decameron . It would be hazardous to suggest that the edifying tales of the Tenth Day, culminating in the story of Griselda’s extraordinary forbearance (a story which Petrarch admired so greatly that he eventually translated it into Latin), were in any sense motivated by the older poet’s moralizing counsels. It is certainly true, however, that after completing the Decameron Boccaccio wrote no other substantial piece of imaginative literature, and that the major part of his subsequent output was composed, not in Italian, but in Latin.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  Under the direction of our visionary director, our company of intense, creative, and often troubled teenagers had become a professional-seeming troupe of dancers and actors with a unique, contemporary indigenous aesthetic. The comedian Jonathan Winters heard about us and was an enthusiastic supporter, and the dancer José Limón flew in from New York to witness our ceremonial dance plays. When the letters for permission to go on tour went to our parents, my stepfather denied permission. He gave no reason for his denial. Because of my stepfather’s strange behavior, school officials read his actions as abuse. Years later one of the staff members told me that the administration had begun steps to put me in the custody of the school. The director called my mother. She agreed to sign the release so I could go on the professional tour. For the first time since she had married our stepfather, she came through for me. My stepfather quit speaking to her, and didn’t speak to her for months. The tour remains a highlight of my life. We performed and gave workshops on the Swinomish Reservation in La Conner, Washington; we performed in the theater beneath the Space Needle in Seattle; we performed at Monica Charles’s reservation on the peninsula of Washington State, where we got to meet her uncle, who was the inspiration for Mowitch; then we drove to La Grande, Oregon, and put on workshops and performed. We were surprised when residents drove up beside us as we walked along the road in La Grande and threw rocks and yelled “Dirty Indians” at us. They told us to get out of town. They didn’t want Indians. Most of all I remember the troupe as a creative, coherent family. Each of us was young, with tremendous personal, familial, and historical dysfunctions and gifts. We pulled together to create groundbreaking art that inspired. After the tour, some of us left for college or headed to New York City to take drama workshops and look for acting jobs. One joined the army. Others headed back to the reservation to create art. I returned to the house of my stepfather, secretly pregnant by my Cherokee boyfriend and with no plans, no idea at all as to where I was going or how I was going to get there. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] When we parted ways after the tour, the baby’s father promised he’d send a bus ticket for me to Tahlequah, in Cherokee lands, where he was living with his mother and daughter. I made sure I was the first to the mailbox every afternoon to check for the ticket. I was four months pregnant. I was beginning to show and hid my stomach under large shirts. I could not snap or button my pants underneath. I told my mother that I was getting married, that my husband-to-be was sending for me. I was not yet eighteen years old.

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

  Conscience is the voice of God in man. It is his most sacred possession. No power can be allowed to stand between the gift and the giver. Even an erring conscience must be respected, and cannot be forced. The liberty of conscience was theoretically and practically asserted by the Christians of the ante-Nicene age, against Jewish and heathen persecution; but it was suppressed by the union of Church and State after Constantine the Great, and severe laws were enacted under his successors against every departure from the established creed of the orthodox imperial Church. These laws passed from the Roman to the German Empire, and were in full force all over Europe at the time when Luther raised his protest. Dissenters had no rights which Catholics were bound to respect; even a sacred promise given to a heretic might be broken without sin, and was broken by the Emperor Sigismund in the case of Hus.383 This tyranny was brought to an end by the indomitable courage of Luther. Liberty of conscience may, of course, be abused, like any other liberty, and may degenerate into heresy and licentiousness. The individual conscience and private judgment often do err, and they are more likely to err than a synod or council, which represents the combined wisdom of many. Luther himself was far from denying this fact, and stood open to correction and conviction by testimonies of Scripture and clear arguments. He heartily accepted all the doctrinal decisions of the first four oecumenical Councils, and had the deepest respect for the Apostles’ Creed on which his own Catechism is based. But he protested against the Council of Constance for condemning the opinions of Hus, which he thought were in accordance with the Scriptures. The Roman Church itself must admit the fallibility of Councils if the Vatican decree of papal infallibility is to stand; for more than one oecumenical council has denounced Pope Honorius as a heretic, and even Popes have confirmed the condemnation of their predecessor. Two conflicting infallibilities neutralize each other.384 Luther did not appeal to his conscience alone, but first and last to the Scripture as he understood it after the most earnest study. His conscience, as he said, was bound in the word of God, who cannot err. There, and there alone, he recognized infallibility. By recanting, he would have committed a grievous sin.