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 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “That's all there was to it.” When he finished, more triumphant stories rainbowed around the room riding the shoulders of laughter. By all accounts those storytellers, born Black and male before the turn of the twentieth century, should have been ground into useless dust. Instead they used their intelligence to pry open the door of rejection and not only became wealthy but got some revenge in the bargain. It wasn't possible for me to regard them as criminals or be anything but proud of their achievements. The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective. Stories of law violations are weighed on a different set of scales in the Black mind than in the white. Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don't rob more banks, embezzle more funds and employ graft in the unions. “We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance. It's all right if we do a little robbing now.” This belief appeals particularly to one who is unable to compete legally with his fellow citizens. My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drop s‘s from plurals and suffixes from past-tense verbs. We were alert to the gap separating the written word from the colloquial. We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with “That's not unusual.” But in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said, “It be's like that sometimes.”

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

  16 Recently a white woman from Texas, who would quickly describe herself as a liberal, asked me about my hometown. When I told her that in Stamps my grandmother had owned the only Negro general merchandise store since the turn of the century, she exclaimed, “Why, you were a debutante.” Ridiculous and even ludicrous. But Negro girls in small Southern towns, whether poverty-stricken or just munching along on a few of life's necessities, were given as extensive and irrelevant preparations for adulthood as rich white girls shown in magazines. Admittedly the training was not the same. While white girls learned to waltz and sit gracefully with a tea cup balanced on their knees, we were lagging behind, learning the mid-Victorian values with very little money to indulge them. (Come and see Edna Lomax spending the money she made picking cotton on five balls of ecru tatting thread. Her fingers are bound to snag the work and she'll have to repeat the stitches time and time again. But she knows that when she buys the thread.) We were required to embroider and I had trunkfuls of colored dishtowels, pillowcases, runners and handkerchiefs to my credit. I mastered the art of crocheting and tatting and there was a lifetime's supply of dainty doilies that would never be used in sacheted dresser drawers. It went without saying that all girls could iron and wash, but the finer touches around the home, like setting a table with real silver, baking roasts and cooking vegetables without meat, had to be learned elsewhere. Usually at the source of those habits. During my tenth year, a white woman's kitchen became my finishing school. Mrs. Viola Cullinan was a plump woman who lived in a three-bedroom house somewhere behind the post office. She was singularly unattractive until she smiled, and then the lines around her eyes and mouth which made her look perpetually dirty disappeared, and her face looked like the mask of an impish elf. She usually rested her smile until late afternoon when her women friends dropped in and Miss Glory, the cook, served them cold drinks on the closed-in porch. The exactness of her house was inhuman. This glass went here and only here. That cup had its place and it was an act of impudent rebellion to place it anywhere else. At twelve o'clock the table was set. At 12:15 Mrs. Cullinan sat down to dinner (whether her husband had arrived or not). At 12:16 Miss Glory brought out the food. It took me a week to learn the difference between a salad plate, a bread plate and a dessert plate. Mrs. Cullinan kept up the tradition of her wealthy parents. She was from Virginia. Miss Glory, who was a descendant of slaves that had worked for the Cullinans, told me her history. She had married beneath her (according to Miss Glory).

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

  In Arkansas, where we cured our own meat, we ate half-inch slabs of ham for breakfast, but in St. Louis we bought the paper-thin slices in a strange-smelling German store and ate them in sandwiches. If Grandmother never lost her German accent, she also never lost her taste for the thick black German Brot , which we bought unsliced. In Stamps, lettuce was used only to make a bed for potato salad or slaw, and peanuts were brought in raw from the field and roasted in the bottom of the oven on cold nights. The rich scents used to fill the house and we were always expected to eat too many. But that was a Stamps custom. In St. Louis, peanuts were bought in paper bags and mixed with jelly beans, which meant that we ate the salt and sugar together and I found them a delicious treat. The best thing the big town had to offer. When we enrolled in Toussaint L'Ouverture Grammar School, we were struck by the ignorance of our schoolmates and the rudeness of our teachers. Only the vastness of the building impressed us; not even the white school in Stamps was as large. The students, however, were shockingly backward. Bailey and I did arithmetic at a mature level because of our work in the Store, and we read well because in Stamps there wasn't anything else to do. We were moved up a grade because our teachers thought that we country children would make our classmates feel inferior—and we did. Bailey would not refrain from remarking on our classmates' lack of knowledge. At lunchtime in the large gray concrete playground, he would stand in the center of a crowd of big boys and ask, “Who was Napoleon Bonaparte?” “How many feet make a mile?” It was infighting, Bailey style . Any of the boys might have been able to beat him with their fists, but if they did, they'd just have had to do it again the next day, and Bailey never held a brief for fighting fair. He taught me that once I got into a fight I should “grab for the balls right away.” He never answered when I asked, “Suppose I'm fighting a girl?” We went to school there a full year, but all I remember hearing that I hadn't heard before was, “Making thousands of egg-shaped oughts will improve penmanship.” The teachers were more formal than those we knew in Stamps, and although they didn't whip their students with switches, they gave them licks in the palms of their hands with rulers. In Stamps teachers were much friendlier, but that was because they were imported from the Arkansas Negro colleges, and since we had no hotels or rooming houses in town, they had to live with private families.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Moses gave up earthly glory for the sake of the people of God. Christ gave up his glory for the sake of all humanity, and accepted scourging and shame and a terrible death. Moses in his day and generation shared in the sufferings of Christ, choosing the loyalty that led to suffering rather than the comfort which led to earthly glory. He knew that the prizes of earth were contemptible compared with the ultimate reward of God. (3) The day came when Moses, because of his intervention on behalf of his people, had to leave Egypt and go to Midian (Exodus 2:14–22). Because of the order in which it comes, that must be what verse 27 refers to. Some people have found difficulty here, because the Exodus narrative says that it was because Moses feared Pharaoh that he fled to Midian (Exodus 2:14), while Hebrews says that he went out not fearing the blazing wrath of the king. There is no real contradiction. It is simply that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews saw even more deeply into the story. For Moses to go to Midian was not an act of fear; it was an act of courage. It showed the courage of the man who has learned to wait. The Stoics were wise; they held that people should not throw their lives away by needlessly provoking the wrath of a tyrant. Seneca wrote: ‘The wise man will never provoke the wrath of mighty men; nay, he will turn aside from it, in just the same way as sailors in sailing will not deliberately court the danger of the storm.’ At that moment, Moses might have gone on – but his people were not ready. If he had gone on recklessly, he would simply have thrown his life away, and the deliverance from Egypt might never have happened. He was big enough and brave enough to wait until God said: ‘Now is the hour.’ Moffatt quotes a saying of the biblical scholar A. S. Peake: ‘The courage to abandon work on which one’s heart is set and accept inaction cheerfully as the will of God is of the rarest and highest kind and can be created and sustained only by the clearest spiritual vision.’ When our natural instincts say: ‘Go on,’ it takes a big and a brave person to wait. It is human to be afraid of missing the chance; but it is important to wait for the time of God – even when it seems like throwing a chance away.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  No one can evade the fact that, in the end, judgment comes. THE DANGER OF DRIFTING Hebrews 10:32–9 Remember the former days. Remember how, after you had been enlightened, you had to go through a hard struggle of suffering, partly because you yourselves were held up to insult and involved in affliction and partly because you had become partners with people whose life was like that. For you gave your sympathy to those in prison; you accepted the pillaging of your goods with joy; for you knew that you yourselves hold a possession which is better and which lasts. Do not throw away your confidence, for it is a confidence that has a great reward. You need fortitude so that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. For, in a short time, a very short time, ‘He who is to come will come and he will not delay. And my just man shall live by faith; but, if he shrinks back, my soul will not find pleasure in him.’ We are not men to shrink back from things and so to come to disaster, but we are men of a faith which will enable us to possess our souls. T HERE had been a time when those to whom this letter was written had experienced fierce opposition to their beliefs. When they had first become Christians, they had known persecution and plundering of their goods; and they had learned what it was to become involved with those who were under suspicion and unpopular. They had met that situation with gallantry and with honour; and now, when they were in danger of drifting away, the writer to the Hebrews reminds them of their former loyalty. It is a truth of life that, in many ways, it is easier to stand adversity than to stand prosperity. Comfort has ruined far more people than trouble ever did. The classic example is what happened to the armies of Hannibal. Hannibal of Carthage was the one general who had routed the Roman legions. But winter came, and the campaign had to be put on hold. Hannibal wintered his troops in Capua which he had captured, a city of luxury. And one winter in Capua did what the Roman legions had not succeeded in doing. The luxury so sapped the morale of the Carthaginian troops that, when the spring came and the campaign was resumed, they were unable to stand up to the Romans. Comfort had ruined them when struggle had only toughened them. That is often true of Christian life. It is often the case that people are able to meet the great hour of testing and of trial with honour; and yet they allow the times of plain sailing to sap their strength and weaken their faith. The appeal of the writer to the Hebrews is one that could be made to us all.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  But Jinnosuke answered icily: 'I have no need of your help. I am Strong enough to fight alone.'While they were thus becoming heated, Ibei Hanzawa arrived, seconded by sixteen samurai of very vulgar appearance. They meant to fight fiercely, with no thought for their lives. Jinnosuke killed two of them, while Gonkuro Struck down four. Seven others were seriously wounded, the rest fled in terror, and Ibei was killed in single combat. Gonkuro's servant, Hitjisuke, died defending his master. Gonkuro had a slight wound on the forehead, and Jinnosuke was also Stricken in the left shoulder. The two samurai remained conquerors. There was a little Buddhist temple called Yeianji quite close, to which Gonkuro and Jinnosuke walked, and there asked the priest to bury them, after they had killed themselves by Hara-kiri. But the priest dissuaded them, saying: 'You have both behaved very honourably in this duel. You ought first to report the matter to the Lord's advisers and inspectors; and you would do better to die publicly. Then your honour and glory will endure for ever.' He persuaded them to follow his advice, and they obeyed him. Then the priest hurried in person to the office of the police, and himself reported the matter. The Lord, through his inspector, ordered these young men to await their punishment. They were imprisoned and guarded during the night, and the Lord ordered their wounds to be tended. The accomplices of Ibeï were condemned to death; and the cowards who had fled were later found and executed. Jinnosuke had really broken the law by his action. But his father was a very loyal and devoted courtier; and also Jinnosuke had always done his duty faithfully. In the duel he had given proof of great courage and valour by fighting against so many assailants. The Lord thought that he deserved admiration rather than punishment. Therefore he was acquitted, and Gonkuro also obtained pardon. They were both ordered to leave their official service from the fifteenth of the month. The priest buried Ibei and his companions with considerable piety. When Jinnosuke was examined, it was seen that his left sleeve had been cut off, and that his robe was Stained with the blood which he had lost. But he did not specially suffer from his wounds, although he had more than twenty-seven of them on his body. He was greatly admired for his courage and endurance. [image file=image_rsrc1KV.jpg] 13 Love long ConcealedFOLLOWING A DISPUTE WITH THE counsellor of the Lord of the Province of Osumi, the samurai Jiuzayemon Fatjibana retired from official life. He lived very comfortably with his wife and son in a remote village. His son, Tamanosuke, was at that time fifteen years old, and so beautiful that people thought it a pity to leave him hidden in this remote village, and not to make him a well-known samurai in some large town.

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

  I approached the Time Step with the same determination to win that I had approached the time tables with. There was no Uncle Willie or sizzling pot-bellied stove, but there was Mother and her laughing friends, and they amounted to the same thing. We were applauded and given more soft drinks and more shrimp, but it was to be years later before I found the joy and freedom of dancing well. Mother's brothers, Uncles Tutti, Tom and Ira, were well-known young men about St. Louis. They all had city jobs, which I now understand to have been no mean feat for Negro men. Their jobs and their family set them apart, but they were best known for their unrelenting meanness. Grandfather had told them, “Bah Jesus, if you ever get in jail for stealing or some such foolishness, I'll let you rot. But if you're arrested for fighting, I'll sell the house, lock, stock and barrel, to get you out!” With that kind of encouragement, backed by explosive tempers, it was no wonder they became fearsome characters. Our youngest uncle, Billy, was not old enough to join in their didoes. One of their more flamboyant escapades has become a proud family legend.

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

  He looked up at her just before she caught him by the collar of his white jacket . “Stand up when you see a lady, you contemptuous scoundrel.” Her tongue had thinned and the words rolled off well enunciated. Enunciated and sharp like little claps of thunder. The dentist had no choice but to stand at R.O.T.C. attention. His head dropped after a minute and his voice was humble. “Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Henderson.” “You knave, do you think you acted like a gentleman, speaking to me like that in front of my granddaughter?” She didn't shake him, although she had the power. She simply held him upright . “No, ma'am, Mrs. Henderson.” “No, ma'am, Mrs. Henderson, what?” Then she did give him the tiniest of shakes, but because of her strength the action set his head and arms to shaking loose on the ends of his body. He stuttered much worse than Uncle Willie. “No, ma'am. Mrs. Henderson, I'm sorry.” With just an edge of her disgust showing, Momma slung him back in his dentist's chair. “Sorry is as sorry does, and you're about the sorriest dentist I ever laid my eyes on.” (She could afford to slip into the vernacular because she had such eloquent command of English.) “I didn't ask you to apologize in front of Marguerite, because I don't want her to know my power, but I order you, now and herewith. Leave Stamps by sundown.” “Mrs. Henderson, I can't get my equipment …”. He was shaking terribly now . “Now, that brings me to my second order. You will never again practice dentistry. Never! When you get settled in your next place, you will be a vegetarian caring for dogs with the mange, cats with the cholera and cows with the epizootic. Is that clear?” The saliva ran down his chin and his eyes filled with tears. “Yes, ma'am. Thank you for not killing me. Thank you, Mrs. Henderson.” Momma pulled herself back from being ten feet tall with eight-foot arms and said, “You're welcome for nothing, you varlet, I wouldn't waste a killing on the likes of you.” On her way out she waved her handkerchief at the nurse and turned her into a crocus sack of chicken feed . Momma looked tired when she came down the stairs, but who wouldn't be tired if they had gone through what she had. She came close to me and adjusted the towel under my jaw (I had forgotten the toothache; I only knew that she made her hands gentle in order not to awaken the pain). She took my hand. Her voice never changed. “Come on, Sister.” I reckoned we were going home where she would concoct a brew to eliminate the pain and maybe give me new teeth too. New teeth that would grow overnight out of my gums. She led me toward the drugstore, which was in the opposite direction from the Store.

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

  10 Grandmother Baxter was a quadroon or an octoroon, or in any case she was nearly white. She had been raised by a German family in Cairo, Illinois, and had come to St. Louis at the turn of the century to study nursing. While she was working at Homer G. Phillips Hospital she met and married Grandfather Baxter. She was white (having no features that could even loosely be called Negroid) and he was Black. While she spoke with a throaty German accent until her death, he had the choppy spouting speech of the West Indians. Their marriage was a happy one. Grandfather had a famous saying that caused great pride in his family: “Bah Jesus, I live for my wife, my children and my dog.” He took extreme care to prove that statement true by taking the word of his family even in the face of contradictory evidence. The Negro section of St. Louis in the mid-thirties had all the finesse of a gold-rush town. Prohibition, gambling and their related vocations were so obviously practiced that it was hard for me to believe that they were against the law. Bailey and I, as newcomers, were quickly told by our schoolmates who the men on the street corners were as we passed. I was sure that they had taken their names from Wild West Books (Hard-hitting Jimmy, Two Gun, Sweet Man, Poker Pete), and to prove me right, they hung around in front of saloons like unhorsed cowboys. We met the numbers runners, gamblers, lottery takers and whiskey salesmen not only in the loud streets but in our orderly living room as well. They were often there when we returned from school, sitting with hats in their hands, as we had done upon our arrival in the big city. They waited silently for Grandmother Baxter. Her white skin and the pince-nez that she dramatically took from her nose and let hang free on a chain pinned to her dress were factors that brought her a great deal of respect. Moreover, the reputation of her six mean children and the fact that she was a precinct captain compounded her power and gave her the leverage to deal with even the lowest crook without fear. She had pull with the police department, so the men in their flashy suits and fleshy scars sat with churchlike decorum and waited to ask favors from her. If Grandmother raised the heat off their gambling parlors, or said the word that reduced the bail of a friend waiting in jail, they knew what would be expected of them. Come election, they were to bring in the votes from their neighborhood. She most often got them leniency, and they always brought in the vote. St. Louis also introduced me to thin-sliced ham (I thought it a delicacy), jelly beans and peanuts mixed, lettuce on sandwich bread, Victrolas and family loyalty.

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

  With just an edge of her disgust showing, Momma slung him back in his dentist's chair. “Sorry is as sorry does, and you're about the sorriest dentist I ever laid my eyes on.” (She could afford to slip into the vernacular because she had such eloquent command of English.) “I didn't ask you to apologize in front of Marguerite, because I don't want her to know my power, but I order you, now and herewith. Leave Stamps by sundown.” “Mrs. Henderson, I can't get my equipment …”. He was shaking terribly now. “Now, that brings me to my second order. You will never again practice dentistry. Never! When you get settled in your next place, you will be a vegetarian caring for dogs with the mange, cats with the cholera and cows with the epizootic. Is that clear?” The saliva ran down his chin and his eyes filled with tears. “Yes, ma'am. Thank you for not killing me. Thank you, Mrs. Henderson.” Momma pulled herself back from being ten feet tall with eight-foot arms and said, “You're welcome for nothing, you varlet, I wouldn't waste a killing on the likes of you.” On her way out she waved her handkerchief at the nurse and turned her into a crocus sack of chicken feed. Momma looked tired when she came down the stairs, but who wouldn't be tired if they had gone through what she had. She came close to me and adjusted the towel under my jaw (I had forgotten the toothache; I only knew that she made her hands gentle in order not to awaken the pain). She took my hand. Her voice never changed. “Come on, Sister.” I reckoned we were going home where she would concoct a brew to eliminate the pain and maybe give me new teeth too. New teeth that would grow overnight out of my gums. She led me toward the drugstore, which was in the opposite direction from the Store. “I'm taking you to Dentist Baker in Texarkana.” I was glad after all that that I had bathed and put on Mum and Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder. It was a wonderful surprise. My toothache had quieted to solemn pain, Momma had obliterated the evil white man, and we were going on a trip to Texarkana, just the two of us. On the Greyhound she took an inside seat in the back, and I sat beside her. I was so proud of being her granddaughter and sure that some of her magic must have come down to me. She asked if I was scared. I only shook my head and leaned over on her cool brown upper arm. There was no chance that a dentist, especially a Negro dentist, would dare hurt me then. Not with Momma there. The trip was uneventful, except that she put her arm around me, which was very unusual for Momma to do.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  Result Octavian and Agrippa defeat Antony and Cleopatra off Cape Actium in northwestern Greece (31 BCE ). Finale Cleopatra and Antony commit suicide and Octavian acquires Egypt (29 BCE ). Rome had squandered the hundred-year aftermath of its Carthaginian triumphs in social conflict between the Optimates (the “haves” led by “haves”) and the Populares (the “have-nots” led by “haves”). The social unrest culminated in the decades of civil war from approximately 50 to 30 BCE . Finally, return for a moment to Octavian and Agrippa’s victory over Cleopatra and Antony at Actium. After he pursued them to their double suicide at Alexandria, Octavian erected a memorial Nicopolis, or Victory City, north of Cape Actium. But a special and separate victory monument was also erected with an altar and completed by 29 BCE . That special memorial included a row of thirty bronze attack rams captured from Antony’s defeated warships. Above them was a long inscription in which Octavian dedicated the memorial in the name of religion to Mars and Neptune in gratitude for the war he had fought and the victory he had won, and the subsequent peace. The result was, in lapidary Latin, PACE PARTA TERRA MARIQUE (“peace established on land and sea”). Already in 29 BCE , Roman imperial theology was structured around this quite clear and explicit sequence: religion, war, victory, peace, or, in briefest summary as mantra and motto: Peace Through Victory . There is, however, one striking aspect of that huge memorial. It was erected on the site of Octavian’s battle tent, “from which,” says that inscription, “he set forth to attack the enemy” that fateful morning of September 2, 31 BCE . Octavian’s bed had become sacred ground. Peace through victory was not so much established by Octavian as incarnated in Augustus. Civil war had not only threatened Rome’s survival, it had devastated the Mediterranean. (Notice, for example, that those three climactic battles were fought in Greece.) But now, war was over, peace was restored, the empire was safe, and Octavian would be decreed “Augustus” by the Senate in 27 BCE . The syllogism was set: only Gods give victory; but Augustus gave victory; therefore, Augustus was—a? or the?—God. Furthermore, Octavian-become-Caesar-become-Augustus was Rome’s redeemer from sin. The poet Horace pondered Rome’s civil wars and wondered, “Does some blind frenzy drive us on, or some stronger power, or fault [culpa ]”? Is Rome doomed by its original sin, by “the crime [scelus ] of a brother’s murder, ever since blameless Remus’s blood was spilt upon the ground, to be a curse upon posterity”? Were Romans “an impious generation, of stock accursed” [Epode 7]? Rome’s inaugural sin was repeated in the murder of Julius Caesar and the consequent fratricidal civil war. Once again, Horace asked: “Our children made fewer by their parents’ sins . . .

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

  “We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.” While echoes of the song shivered in the air, Henry Reed bowed his head, said “Thank you,” and returned to his place in the line. The tears that slipped down many faces were not wiped away in shame. We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls. I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race. Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales? If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness. It may be enough, however, to have it said that we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include preachers, musicians and blues singers). *“Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing”—words by James Weldon Johnson and music by J. Rosamond Johnson. Copyright by Edward B. Marks Music Corporation. Used by permission.24The Angel of the candy counter had found me out at last, and was exacting excruciating penance for all the stolen Milky Ways, Mounds, Mr. Goodbars and Hersheys with Almonds. I had two cavities that were rotten to the gums. The pain was beyond the bailiwick of crushed aspirins or oil of cloves. Only one thing could help me, so I prayed earnestly that I'd be allowed to sit under the house and have the building collapse on my left jaw. Since there was no Negro dentist in Stamps, nor doctor either, for that matter, Momma had dealt with previous toothaches by pulling them out (a string tied to the tooth with the other end lopped over her fist), pain killers and prayer. In this particular instance the medicine had proved ineffective; there wasn't enough enamel left to hook a string on, and the prayers were being ignored because the Balancing Angel was blocking their passage. I lived a few days and nights in blinding pain, not so much toying with as seriously considering the idea of jumping in the well, and Momma decided I had to be taken to a dentist. The nearest Negro dentist was in Texarkana, twenty-five miles away, and I was certain that I'd be dead long before we reached half the distance. Momma said we'd go to Dr. Lincoln, right in Stamps, and he'd take care of me. She said he owed her a favor.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  This is an idea to which the writer to the Hebrews returns again and again. For now, we set down only the fundamental basis of what he means. The Latin for a priest is pontifex , which means a bridge-builder . The priest is the person who builds a bridge between men and women and God. To do that, the priest must know both human nature and God, and must be able to speak to God for men and women and in turn to speak to them for God. Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is perfectly human and perfectly God; he can represent us to God and God to us. He is the one person through whom we come to God and God comes to us. Wherein does the superiority of Jesus over Moses lie? The picture in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews is this. He thinks of the world as God’s house and God’s family. We use the word house in a double sense. We use it in the sense of a building and also in the sense of a family. The Greeks used oikos in the same double sense. The world is God’s house, and we are God’s family. But he has already shown us the picture of Jesus as the creator of God’s universe. Now, Moses was only part of God’s universe, part of the house. But Jesus is the creator of the house, and the creator is bound to stand above the house itself. Moses did not create the law; he only passed it on to the people. Moses did not create the house; he only served in it. Moses did not speak of himself; all that he ever said was only a pointer to the greater things that Jesus Christ would some day say. In short, Moses was the servant ; but Jesus was the Son . Moses knew a little about God; Jesus was God. Therein lies the secret of his superiority. Now, the writer to the Hebrews uses another picture. True, the whole world is God’s house; but in a special sense the Church is God’s house, for in a special sense God brought it into being. That is a picture the New Testament loves (cf. 1 Peter 4:17; 1 Timothy 3:15; and especially 1 Peter 2:5). That building of the Church will stand and be indestructible only when every stone is firm; that is to say, when every member is strong in the proud and confident hope that he or she has in Jesus Christ.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  Looking at Jesus, we can say: ‘That is what God is like.’ What is more, the life and death of Jesus was an act of perfect obedience and, therefore, the only perfect sacrifice . All Scripture, at its deepest, declares that the only sacrifice God desires is obedience; and, in the life and death of Jesus, that is precisely the sacrifice that God received. Perfection cannot be improved upon. In Jesus, there is at one and the same time the perfect revelation of God and the perfect offering of obedience. Therefore, his sacrifice cannot and need not ever be made again. The priests must go on with their weary routine of animal sacrifice; but the sacrifice of Christ was made once and for all. (2) He stresses the exaltation of Jesus . It is with care that he chooses his words. The priests stand offering sacrifice; Christ sits at the right hand of God. Theirs is the position of a servant; his is the position of a monarch. Jesus is the King who has come home, his task accomplished and his victory won. There is a wholeness about the life of Jesus to which we perhaps ought to give more thought. His life is incomplete without his death; his death is incomplete without his resurrection; his resurrection is incomplete without his return to glory. It is the same Jesus who lived and died and rose again and is at the right hand of God. He is not simply a saint who lived a lovely life, not simply a martyr who died a heroic death, not simply a risen figure who returned to keep company with his friends. He is the Lord of glory. His life is like a panelled tapestry; to look at one panel is to see only a little bit of the story. The tapestry must be looked at as a whole before the full greatness is disclosed. (3) He stresses the final triumph of Jesus . He awaits the final overcoming of his enemies; in the end, there must come a universe in which he is supreme. How that will come is not ours to know; but it may be that this final overcoming will consist not in the extinction of his enemies but in their submission to his love. It is not so much the power but the love of God which must conquer in the end. Finally, as is his habit, the writer to the Hebrews clinches his argument with a quotation from Scripture.

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

  Bailey took it upon himself to answer every question, and from a corner of his lively imagination wove a tapestry of entertainment for them that I was sure was as foreign to him as it was to me. He, as usual, spoke precisely. “They have, in the North, buildings so high that for months, in the winter, you can't see the top floors.” “Tell the truth.” “They've got watermelons twice the size of a cow's head and sweeter than syrup.” I distinctly remember his intent face and the fascinated faces of his listeners. “And if you can count the watermelon's seeds, before it's cut open, you can win five zillion dollars and a new car.” Momma, knowing Bailey, warned, “Now Ju, be careful you don't slip up on a not true.” (Nice people didn't say “lie.”) “Everybody wears new clothes and have inside toilets. If you fall down in one of them, you get flushed away into the Mississippi River. Some people have iceboxes, only the proper name is Cold Spot or Frigidaire. The snow is so deep you can get buried right outside your door and people won't find you for a year. We made ice cream out of the snow.” That was the only fact that I could have supported. During the winter, we had collected a bowl of snow and poured Pet milk over it, and sprinkled it with sugar and called it ice cream. Momma beamed and Uncle Willie was proud when Bailey regaled the customers with our exploits. We were drawing cards for the Store and objects of the town's adoration. Our journey to magical places alone was a spot of color on the town's drab canvas, and our return made us even more the most enviable of people. High spots in Stamps were usually negative: droughts, floods, lynchings and deaths. Bailey played on the country folks' need for diversion. Just after our return he had taken to sarcasm, picked it up as one might pick up a stone, and put it snufflike under his lip. The double entendres, the two-pronged sentences, slid over his tongue to dart rapier-like into anything that happened to be in the way. Our customers, though, generally were so straight thinking and speaking that they were never hurt by his attacks. They didn't comprehend them. “Bailey Junior sound just like Big Bailey. Got a silver tongue. Just like his daddy.” “I hear tell they don't pick cotton up there. How the people live then?” Bailey said that the cotton up North was so tall, if ordinary people tried to pick it they'd have to get up on ladders, so the cotton farmers had their cotton picked by machines. For a while I was the only recipient of Bailey's kindness. It was not that he pitied me but that he felt we were in the same boat for different reasons, and that I could understand his frustration just as he could countenance my withdrawal.

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

  The dentist showed me the medicine and the needle before he deadened my gums, but if he hadn't I wouldn't have worried. Momma stood right behind him. Her arms were folded and she checked on everything he did. The teeth were extracted and she bought me an ice cream cone from the side window of a drug counter. The trip back to Stamps was quiet, except that I had to spit into a very small empty snuff can which she had gotten for me and it was difficult with the bus humping and jerking on our country roads. At home, I was given a warm salt solution, and when I washed out my mouth I showed Bailey the empty holes, where the clotted blood sat like filling in a pie crust. He said I was quite brave, and that was my cue to reveal our confrontation with the peckerwood dentist and Momma's incredible powers. I had to admit that I didn't hear the conversation, but what else could she have said than what I said she said? What else done? He agreed with my analysis in a lukewarm way and I happily (after all, I'd been sick) flounced into the Store. Momma was preparing our evening meal and Uncle Willie leaned on the door sill. She gave her version. “Dentist Lincoln got right uppity. Said he'd rather put his hand in a dog's mouth. And when I reminded him of the favor, he brushed it off like a piece of lint. Well, I sent Sister downstairs and went inside, I hadn't never been in his office before, but I found the door to where he takes out teeth, and him and the nurse was in there thick as thieves. I just stood there till he caught sight of me.” Crash bang the pots on the stove. “He jumped just like he was sitting on a pin. He said, ‘Annie, I done tole you, I ain't gonna mess around in no niggah's mouth.’ I said, ‘Somebody's got to do it then,’ and he said, ‘Take her to Texarkana to the colored dentist’ and that's when I said, ‘If you paid me my money I could afford to take her.’ He said, ‘It's all been paid.’ I tole him everything but the interest had been paid. He said, ‘ 'Twasn't no interest.’ I said, ‘ 'Tis now. I'll take ten dollars as payment in full.’ You know, Willie, it wasn't no right thing to do, 'cause I lent that money without thinking about it. “He tole that little snippity nurse of his'n to give me ten dollars and make me sign a ‘paid in full’ receipt. She gave it to me and I signed the papers. Even though by rights he was paid up before, I figger, he gonna be that kind of nasty, he gonna have to pay for it.” Momma and her son laughed and laughed over the white man's evilness and her retributive sin.

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

  After what seemed like one thousand and one nights of challenge the mountain began to level off and we started passing scattered lights on either side of the road. No matter what happened after that I had won. The car began to slow down as if it had been tamed and was going to give up without grace. I pumped even harder and we finally reached the guard's box. I pulled on the hand brake and came to a stop. There would be no need for me to speak to the guard since the motor was running, but I had to wait until he looked into the car and gave me the signal to continue. He was busy talking to people in a car facing the mountain I had just conquered. The light from his hut showed him bent from the waist with his upper torso completely swallowed by the mouth of the open window. I held the car in instant readiness for the next lap of our journey. When the guard unfolded himself and stood erect I was able to see he was not the same man of the morning's embarrassment. I was understandably taken aback at the discovery and when he saluted sharply and barked “Pasa” I released the brake, put both feet down and lifted them a bit too sharply. The car outran my intention. It leaped not only forward but left as well, and with a few angry spurts propelled itself onto the side of the car just pulling off. The crash of scraping metal was followed immediately by a volley of Spanish hurled at me from all directions. Again, strangely enough, fear was absent from my sensations. I wondered in this order: was I hurt, was anyone else hurt, would I go to jail, what were the Mexicans saying, and finally, had Dad awakened? I was able to answer the first and last concern promptly. Buoyed by the adrenaline that had flooded my brain as we careened down the mountainside, I had never felt better, and my father's snores cut through the cacophony of protestations outside my window. I got out of the car, intending to ask for the policías, but the guard beat me to the punch. He said a few words, which were strung together like beads, but one of them was policías. As the people in the other car fumbled out, I tried to recover my control and said loudly and too graciously, “Gracias, señor.” The family, some eight or more people of every age and size, walked around me, talking heatedly and sizing me up as if I might have been a statue in a city park and they were a flock of pigeons. One said “Joven,” meaning I was young. I tried to see which one was so intelligent. I would direct my conversation to him or her, but they shifted positions so quickly it was impossible to make the person out. Then another suggested “Borracho.” Well, certainly, I must have smelled like a tequila farm, since Dad had been breathing out the liquor in noisy respirations and I had kept the windows closed against the cold night air. It wasn't likely that I would explain that to these strangers even if I could. Which I couldn't. Someone got the idea to look into the car, and a scream brought us all up short. People—they seemed to be in the hundreds—crowded to the windows and more screams erupted. I thought for a minute that something awful might have happened. Maybe at the time of the crash … I, too, pushed to the window to see, but then I remembered the rhythmic snores, and coolly walked away. The guard must have thought he had a major crime on his hands. He made moves and sounds like “Watch her” or “Don't let her out of your sight.” The family came back, this time not as close but more menacing, and when I was able to sort out one coherent question, “Quién es?” I answered dryly and with all the detachment I could summon, “Mi padre.” Being a people of close family ties and weekly fiestas they suddenly understood the situation. I was a poor little girl thing who was caring for my drunken father, who had stayed too long at the fair. Pobrecita.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It was hard on the young, she had thought so herself, but some came through all right, though a few might go under. Nature was trying to do her bit; inverts were being born in increasing numbers, and after a while their numbers would tell, even with the fools who still ignored Nature. They must just bide their time—recognition was coming. But meanwhile they should all cultivate more pride, should learn to be proud of their isolation. She found little excuse for poor fools like Pat, and even less for drunkards like Wanda. As for those who were ashamed to declare themselves, lying low for the sake of a peaceful existence, she utterly despised such of them as had brains; they were traitors to themselves and their fellows, she insisted. For the sooner the world came to realize that fine brains very frequently went with inversion, the sooner it would have to withdraw its ban, and the sooner would cease this persecution. Persecution was always a hideous thing, breeding hideous thoughts—and such thoughts were dangerous. As for the women who had worked in the war, they had set an example to the next generation, and that in itself should be a reward. She had heard that in England many such women had taken to breeding dogs in the country. Well, why not? Dogs were very nice people to breed. ‘Plus je connais les hommes, plus j’aime les chiens.’ There were worse things than breeding dogs in the country. It was quite true that inverts were often religious, but church-going in them was a form of weakness; they must be a religion unto themselves if they felt that they really needed religion. As for blessings, they profited the churches no doubt, apart from which they were just superstition. But then of course she herself was a pagan, acknowledging only the god of beauty; and since the whole world was so ugly these days, she was only too thankful to let it ignore her. Perhaps that was lazy—she was rather lazy. She had never achieved all she might have with her writing. But humanity was divided into two separate classes, those who did things and those who looked on at their doings. Stephen was one of the kind that did things—under different conditions of environment and birth she might very well have become a reformer.

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

  In 1505, he was back in England, remaining there for three years. He then embraced an opportunity to travel in Italy with the two sons of Henry VII.’s Genoese physician, Battista Boerio. At Turin, he received the doctor’s degree, spent a number of months in Venice, turning out work for the Aldine presses, and visited Bologna, Rome and other cities. There is no indication in his correspondence that he was moved by the culture, art or natural scenery of Italy, nor does he make a single reference to the scenery of the Alps which he crossed. Expecting lucrative appointment from Henry VIII., Erasmus returned to England, 1509, remaining there five years. On his way, he wrote for diversion his Praise of Folly,—Encomium moriae,—a book which received its title from the fact that he was thinking of Sir Thomas More when its conception took form in his mind. The book was completed in More’s house and was illustrated with life-like pictures by Holbein.1081 During part of this sojourn in England, Erasmus was entered as "Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity" at Cambridge and taught Greek. The salary was 65 dollars a year, which Emerton calls "a respectable sum." He was on intimate terms with Colet, now dean of St. Paul’s, More, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, Archbishop Warham and other Englishmen. Lord Mountjoy provided him with an annuity and Archbishop Warham with the living of Aldington in 1411, which Erasmus retained for a while and then exchanged for an annuity of £20 from the archbishop.1082 From 1515–1521, he had his residence in different cities in the Lowlands, and it was at this time he secured complete dispensation from the monastic vow which had been granted in part by Julius II. some years earlier.1083 Erasmus’ fame now exceeded the fame of any other scholar in Europe. Wherever he went, he was received with great honors. Princes joined scholars and prelates in doing him homage. Melanchthon addressed to him a poem, "Erasmus the best and greatest," Erasmum optimum, maximum. His edition of the Greek New Testament appeared in 1516, and in 1518 his Colloquies, a collection of familiar relations of his experiences with men and things. When persecution broke out in the Netherlands after Leo’s issuance of his bull against Luther, Erasmus removed to Basel, where some of his works had already been printed on the Froben presses. At first be found the atmosphere of his new home congenial, and published one edition after the other of the Fathers,—Hilary 1523, Irenaeus 1526, Ambrose 1527, Augustine 1528, Epiphanius 1529, Chrysostom 1530. But when the city, under the influence of Oecolampadius, went Protestant and Erasmus was more closely pushed to take definite sides or was prodded with faithlessness to himself in not going with the Reformers, he withdrew to the Catholic town of Freiburg in Breisgau, 1529. The circulation of his Colloquies had been forbidden in France and burnt in Spain, and his writings were charged by the Sorbonne with containing 82 heretical teachings.

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

  By faith Abraham became the father of nations; by faith Moses became the liberator and legislator of Israel; by faith the Galilean fishermen became fishers of men; and by faith the noble army of martyrs endured tortures and triumphed in death; without faith in the risen Saviour the church could not have been founded. Faith is a saving power. It unites us to Christ. Whosoever believeth in Christ "hath eternal life." "We believe," said Peter at the Council of Jerusalem, "that we shall be saved through the grace of God," like the Gentiles who come to Christ by faith without the works and ceremonies of the law. "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved," was Paul’s answer to the question of the jailor: "What must I do to be saved?" Protestantism does by no means despise or neglect good works or favor antinomian license; it only subordinates them to faith, and measures their value by quality rather than quantity. They are not the condition, but the necessary evidence of justification; they are not the root, but the fruits of the tree. The same faith which justifies, does also sanctify. It is ever "working through love" (Gal. 5:6). Luther is often charged with indifference to good works, but very unjustly. His occasional unguarded utterances must be understood in connection with his whole teaching and character. "Faith" in his own forcible language which expresses his true view, "faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing and it is impossible that it should not do good without ceasing; it does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is put, it has done them already, and is always engaged in doing them; you may as well separate burning and shining from fire, as works from faith." The Lutheran doctrine of Christian freedom and justification by faith alone, like that of St. Paul on which it was based, was made the cloak of excesses by carnal men who wickedly reasoned, "Let us continue in sin that grace may abound" (Rom. 6:1), and who abused their "freedom for an occasion to the flesh" (Gal. 5:13). All such consequences the apostle cut off at the outset by an indignant "God forbid." The fact is undeniable, that the Reformation in Germany was accompanied and followed by antinomian tendencies and a degeneracy of public morals.