Remorse

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.

Page 14 of 30 · 20 per page

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  40 It’s possible that Cinelli was putting on an act. It’s also possible that Cinelli authentically felt remorse in the moment while he was testifying, but once he was out of prison, his old model of the world resurfaced, with his old predictions, creating his old self, and his remorse evaporated. Since there is no objective criterion for feelings of remorse, we will never know for sure. There is likewise no objective criterion for anger, sadness, fear, or any other emotion relevant to a trial. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy once said that juries must “know the heart and mind of the offender” in order for a defendant to have a fair trial. Emotions, however, have no consistent fingerprints in facial movements, body posture and gestures, or voice. Jurors and other perceivers make educated guesses about what those movements and sounds mean in emotional terms, but there is no objective accuracy. At best, we can measure whether jurors agree with one another in the emotions they perceive, but when the defendant and the jurors have different backgrounds, beliefs, or expectations, agreement is a poor substitute for accuracy. If a defendant’s demeanor cannot reveal emotion, then the legal system is left to grapple with a difficult question: under what circumstances can a trial be completely fair? 41 ... When jurors or judges see smugness in a defendant’s smile, or when they hear a witness’s quavering voice as fear, they are making a mental inference, employing their emotion concepts to guess that the action (smiling or quavering) was caused by a particular state of mind. Mental inference, you’ll remember, is how your brain gives meaning to other people’s actions through a cascade of predictions (chapter 6). 42 Mental inference is so pervasive and automatic, at least in cultures of the West, that we’re usually unaware of doing it. We believe that our senses provide an accurate and objective representation of the world, as if we had X-ray vision for deciphering another person’s behavior to discover his intent (“I can see right through you”). In these moments, we experience our perceptions of other people as an obvious property of them—a phenomenon we’ve called affective realism—rather than a combination of their actions and the concepts in our own brain. When someone is on trial for a crime, and liberty and life are at stake, there can be a gaping chasm between appearance and reality. Deep down we know this, but at the same time we are supremely confident that we can discern truth from fiction more accurately than the other schmucks in the room. And herein lies the problem in court. Jurors and judges are charged with an almost impossible task: to be a mind reader, or if you’d rather, a lie detector.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “The whole of his behaviour,” replied Elinor, “from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle.” “It is very true. My happiness never was his object.” “At present,” continued Elinor, “he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it?—Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed—he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself. But does it follow that had he married you, he would have been happy?—The inconveniences would have been different. He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always necessitous—always poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife.” “I have not a doubt of it,” said Marianne; “and I have nothing to regret—nothing but my own folly.” “Rather say your mother’s imprudence, my child,” said Mrs. Dashwood; “she must be answerable.” Marianne would not let her proceed;—and Elinor, satisfied that each felt their own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that might weaken her sister’s spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first subject, immediately continued, “One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the story—that all Willoughby’s difficulties have arisen from the first offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams. That crime has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present discontents.” Marianne assented most feelingly to the remark; and her mother was led by it to an enumeration of Colonel Brandon’s injuries and merits, warm as friendship and design could unitedly dictate. Her daughter did not look, however, as if much of it were heard by her. Elinor, according to her expectation, saw on the two or three following days, that Marianne did not continue to gain strength as she had done; but while her resolution was unsubdued, and she still tried to appear cheerful and easy, her sister could safely trust to the effect of time upon her health. Margaret returned, and the family were again all restored to each other, again quietly settled at the cottage; and if not pursuing their usual studies with quite so much vigour as when they first came to Barton, at least planning a vigorous prosecution of them in future.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  I took advantage of the pause to check my phone again. We were taking a break, that was how R. had left things, but though I tried not to think it I knew the break was final. For the past two weeks we hadn’t had any contact, stopping our Skype chats and emails, which had become essential to the structure of my day, even as they had also begun to seem like a trap, taking me away from writing, keeping me up too late. He never wanted to hang up, I’ll be so bored, he would say, I’ll be so lonely, and the next day I would struggle to make it through class. They had come to feel like a trap but without them I found the evenings intolerable, there was too much time for thinking, too much time for remorse. It wasn’t really true that we had no contact, we still looked at each other’s Facebook pages; the night before I had posted photos of the drive from Sofia to Sozopol, of our group beside the sea, probably that was what had spurred him to send, very early that morning, the message I had worried over all day. It was full of regret and self-recrimination, I’ve broken the best thing, he wrote, he didn’t know why he had done it, it was just the same thing again and again, he said, it’s like I hate my own happiness, which was a phrase I had repeated to myself all day. This had been the worst part about distance, the helplessness I felt when he was anxious or sad, as he often was, when nothing I could say would comfort him. Sex could comfort him, or just the presence of my body beside his, he wanted physical comfort, and it was terrible to think of him in his room alone. I know I can’t fix it, he said, I know it’s too late, we can’t go back, he spoke of it as if it were the distant past, and this made me angry, since what was the point of his message then, why had he sent it to me, why had he drawn me back to him, drawn me back but only so far. The priest had finished making his rounds, he had emptied one bottle and carried another that was half full, which he lifted to his mouth and drank from deeply, thirstily. He started singing as we walked on, following the road as it opened up, past the houses of the old town, into a kind of plaza beyond which a tree-lined avenue led up to the highway.

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

  POLAK TAKES THE PLUNGE It has always been my regret that, although I started the Settlement at Phoenix, I could stay there only for brief periods. My original idea had been gradually to retire from practice, go and live at the Settlement, earn my livelihood by manual work there, and find the joy of service in the fulfilment of Phoenix. But it was not to be. I have found by experience that man makes his plans to be often upset by God, but, at the same time where the ultimate goal is the search of truth, no matter how a man’s plans are frustrated, the issue is never injurious and often better than anticipated. The unexpected turn that Phoenix took and the unexpected happenings were certainly not injurious, though it is difficult to say that they were better than our original expectations. In order to enable every one of us to make a living by manual labour, we parcelled out the land round the press in pieces of three acres each. One of these fell to my lot. On all these plots we, much against our wish, built houses with corrugated iron. Our desire had been to have mud huts thatched with straw or small brick houses such as would become ordinary peasants, but it could not be. They would have been more expensive and would have meant more time, and everyone was eager to settle down as soon as possible. The editor was still Mansukhlal Naazar. He had not accepted the new scheme and was directing the paper from Durban where there was a branch office for #Indian Opinion# though we had paid compositors, the idea was for every members of the Settlement to learn type-setting, the easiest, if the most tedious, of the processes in a printing press. Those, therefore, who did not already know the work learnt it. I remained a dunce to the last. Maganlal Gandhi surpassed us all. Though he had never before worked in a press, he became an expert compositor and not only achieved great speed but, to my agreeable surprise,

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

  Reply to Objection 2: It is because fire is most painful, through its abundance of active force, that the name of fire is given to any torment if it be intense. Reply to Objection 2: The punishment of purgatory is not intended chiefly to torment but to cleanse: wherefore it should be inflicted by fire alone which is above all possessed of cleansing power. But the punishment of the damned is not directed to their cleansing. Consequently the comparison fails. Reply to Objection 3: The damned will pass from the most intense heat to the most intense cold without this giving them any respite: because they will suffer from external agencies, not by the transmutation of their body from its original natural disposition, and the contrary passion affording a respite by restoring an equable or moderate temperature, as happens now, but by a spiritual action, in the same way as sensible objects act on the senses being perceived by impressing the organ with their forms according to their spiritual and not their material being. Whether the worm of the damned is corporeal?Objection 1: It would seem that the worm by which the damned are tormented is corporeal. Because flesh cannot be tormented by a spiritual worm. Now the flesh of the damned will be tormented by a worm: “He will give fire and worms into their flesh” (Judith 16:21), and: “The vengeance on the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms” (Ecclus. 7:19). Therefore that worm will be corporeal. Objection 2: Further, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxi, 9): . . .” Both, namely fire and worm, will be the punishment of the body.” Therefore, etc. On the contrary, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xx, 22): “The unquenchable fire and the restless worm in the punishment of the damned are explained in various ways by different persons. Some refer both to the body, some, both to the soul: others refer the fire, in the literal sense, to the body, the worm to the soul metaphorically: and this seems the more probable.” I answer that, After the day of judgment, no animal or mixed body will remain in the renewed world except only the body of man, because the former are not directed to incorruption [*Cf.[5155] Q[91], A[5]], nor after that time will there be generation or corruption. Consequently the worm ascribed to the damned must be understood to be not of a corporeal but of a spiritual nature: and this is the remorse of conscience, which is called a worm because it originates from the corruption of sin, and torments the soul, as a corporeal worm born of corruption torments by gnawing. Reply to Objection 1: The very souls of the damned are called their flesh for as much as they were subject to the flesh. Or we may reply that the flesh will be tormented by the spiritual worm, according as the afflictions of the soul overflow into the body, both here and hereafter.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  This particular day, it was the bread that was lacking when I sat down for breakfast, so she asked me to go and fetch it at the baker’s oven, which was in the Street of the Sparrows, a blind alley fairly far from our home. As I was not very hungry, this unexpected chore annoyed me and I grumbled, pretended it was already too late, and made up my mind to go off without breakfasting. With the vast selfishness of a child, I guessed quite rightly that this would upset my mother and punish her for her forgetfulness. Finally, she lost her temper and, running short of other arguments, called upon heaven as a witness to curse me. But I was stubborn, slung my school satchel over my shoulder, and left the house. When I reached the end of the street, I heard her calling me, so I turned back with some ill will, dragging my feet, to receive from her my two pennies and an unexpected piece of bread crust. She had certainly borrowed it from Joulie, and this gesture made my vague remorse weigh all the more heavily on my conscience. The day had been spoiled for me, by my empty stomach and my confused conscience. I reached the old iron gate of the school, of course, too early. Birdie’s head, with his humble expression, his heavy eyelids that were always lowered, scarcely rose above a compact group of school children, while the other hucksters managed to attract only a few customers. One of them, a new trader, was giving us the old blarney to build up his trade. I noticed Saul as he detached himself from Birdie’s group: he was my rival and had thus come to be my first comrade. Our teacher in the first grade used to make us sit in the classroom by order of merit, so that Saul and I occupied the first row almost all year round. Comrades in the front row, we soon became friends by force of habit, though there was some irony to this as Saul was the son of a rich merchant in the covered bazaar, a fact that was each day more noticeable to me. Beneath his black apron that always seemed new, he wore fine cloth pants with mother-of-pearl buttons on the side, which had long aroused my curiosity: what could possibly be the use of buttons without any buttonholes? I had often made fun of them and Saul never knew what to answer. One day, as I repeated my taunts, he took on a superior manner: his mother had explained to him certain facts that he could not reveal to me. In spite of my exasperation and insistence, he absolutely refused to speak. In addition, he always smelled good, every day of the week, which impressed me very much.

• From The Wrestler: A Life of Passion and the Pursuit of Greatness (2016)

  If I could do it all over again, I would smile a little brighter and walk a little taller, because I would be a part of the oldest and greatest sport on earth. But the truth is...I can’t do it all over again. The time is gone and the regrets are plenty. But perhaps my regrets will lose their sting as I encourage current wrestlers to learn from my mistakes and take advantage of the time they have. If I could do it all over again, I would...and in a heartbeat. Don’t let my regrets be yours. This sport is just too great to not enjoy all that is available within it. As the famous Dan Gable has said, “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy.” ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Fessler is a writer, speaker, and the author of Faith and Wrestling and They’re Just Not Interested. He was a wrestler for many years and has served as a wrestling coach as well. Fessler lives in Minnesota with his wife and two children. He has a BA in Biblical and Theological Studies (Bethel University), and an MA in Communications (Concordia University – Saint Paul). Contact the author: Michael Fessler mrfess@hotmail.com Praise for Faith and Wrestling: How the Role of a Wrestler Mirrors the Christian Life The Bible tells us that believers are transformed by the renewing of their minds. Another way of putting this is ... taking into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. This means learning how to think of all of life, including sport, from a biblical perspective. Michael Fessler’s book is drenched in Christian worldview. Those who wrestle with its truths will be richer for it. I wish that I had been able to drink from its wisdom as a young man but am grateful to be able to do so as an old(er) one. – Jack Spates, MDiv Baptist Bible Seminary, and former Head Wrestling Coach at the University of Oklahoma

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The distinction between the middle class and the ghetto population continued within the camp. Of course, the soldiers made no distinctions and manhandled and degraded all the workers alike. But the men grinned when they saw a middle-class son arrive, caught in a raid or requested by name by the Germans, for they were sure he would not stay long. Nor were they wrong: as soon as he had been forgotten by the Germans, the middle-class boy went home in the convoys of the sick and the fathers of large families, or became a driver or nurse who, one day, on a trip to town, just disappeared. I found that the scouts, who slept apart, were also left outside all the little intrigues of the camp. Besides, the rejection was mutual. When they started confiding in me, they admitted they had invited me so as to avoid a disaster: the head of the camp had asked them to take one or two more men in their tent, but they had feared they would not be able to command the same cleanliness and discipline in the others. It was certainly too late now for me to indulge in remorse . All through the long monotonous days in the camp, I still tried to force the confidence of the men. Today, the spring that drove me is broken and I’m amazed at my decision to go to camp and at my naiveté, as though they were foreign to me. What innocence, what fervor, but also what self-sufficiency I must have had to believe I would be welcomed by the others merely because I had gone to them, full of faith and goodwill! In spite of the difficulties, I thought I was succeeding. The men, covered with lice, no longer fought disease. I discovered a barber among the workers. He had brought his tools with him, but he was called upon only on the eve of a day of leave. Together, we organized a little plot which would also be profitable for him. The following Sunday, rather ostentatiously, in the middle of the camp, I had my whole head shaved. After a few ironic comments, a few men followed my example when I explained that this would help protect me from lice. After that, the barber held his sessions every Sunday. I even became almost popular when I succeeded in obtaining an extra day of rest through a new system of rotation in our duties. A Jewish doctor had been specially appointed to the camps and came around once a week. We also had a permanent nurse, a former pharmacist who had no medical training. Only the more clever had managed so far to be reported sick. I persuaded the doctor, who pretended he was happy to speak at last to an intellectual, that it was necessary to grant a rest to those men who threatened to break down.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  But I was stubborn, slung my school satchel over my shoulder, and left the house. When I reached the end of the street, I heard her calling me, so I turned back with some ill will, dragging my feet, to receive from her my two pennies and an unexpected piece of bread crust. She had certainly borrowed it from Joulie, and this gesture made my vague remorse weigh all the more heavily on my conscience. The day had been spoiled for me, by my empty stomach and my confused conscience. I reached the old iron gate of the school, of course, too early. Birdie’s head, with his humble expression, his heavy eyelids that were always lowered, scarcely rose above a compact group of school children, while the other hucksters managed to attract only a few customers. One of them, a new trader, was giving us the old blarney to build up his trade. I noticed Saul as he detached himself from Birdie’s group: he was my rival and had thus come to be my first comrade. Our teacher in the first grade used to make us sit in the classroom by order of merit, so that Saul and I occupied the first row almost all year round. Comrades in the front row, we soon became friends by force of habit, though there was some irony to this as Saul was the son of a rich merchant in the covered bazaar, a fact that was each day more noticeable to me. Beneath his black apron that always seemed new, he wore fine cloth pants with mother- of-pearl buttons on the side, which had long aroused my curiosity: what could possibly be the use of buttons without any buttonholes? I had often made fun of them and Saul never knew what to answer. One day, as I repeated my taunts, he took on a superior manner: his mother had explained to him certain facts that he could not reveal to me. In spite of my exasperation and insistence, he absolutely refused to speak. In addition, he always smelled good, every day of the week, which impressed me very much. I went toward Saul, this particular morning, and greeted him. He smiled amiably, but seemed preoccupied. The news was indeed serious: one of the older boys, the elder of the Garsia brothers, claimed that the Nestlé firm had set the end of the month as the deadline for the set of pictures to be completed, and that a new album was being launched for the following month. Saul was furious for he would never be able to complete his set in time. I watched the whole excited crowd like a spectator who is not involved in what is happening on the race track.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  She pretended to be sick, sent for some worthy wo- men of the city to visit her, and they came the more willingly as they hoped to make her illness instrumental towards bringing her back from her vicious ways. To this end each of them addressed the best remonstrances she could to her, and the seemingly dying woman lis- tened to them with tears, confessed her sin, and played the part so well, that the whole company had pity on her, believing her tears and her repentance to be sin- cere. They tried to console the poor penitent, told her that God was not so terrible by a great deal as some indiscreet preachers represented him to be, and assured her He would never withhold his mercy from her ; and then they sent for a good man to hear her confession. Next day the priest of the parish came and administered to her the holy sacrament, which she received with so much devotion that all the good women of the town who were present were moved with tears, and praised the divine goodness for having had pity on the poor crea- ture. Afterwards, upon her feigning that she could no longer swallow food, the priest brought her extreme unction, which she received with many fine signs of de- votion ; for she could hardly speak, at least so it was believed. She lay a long while in the same state ; but at last the spectators imagined that she gradually lost her sight, her hearing, and her other senses, whereupon everybody began to cry, "Jesus! Lord! have mercy!" Night being now at hand, and the ladies having some way to go, they all retired. As they were leaving the bouse, word was brought them that she had just ex- 476 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE INovelbo. pired. They said a De profimdis for her, and went away. The priest asked the chanter where he would have her buried. He replied that she had expressed a wish to be buried in the cemetery, and that it would be ad- visable under the circumstances that the interment should take place by night. The unfortunate woman was laid out for burial by a servant, who took good care not to hurt her ; and then she was carried by torchlight to the grave which the chanter had caused to be dug. When the body was carried past the houses of those who had seen the deceased receive extreme unction, they all came out and accompanied her to the grave, where the priests and the women left her, but the chanter remained after them. The moment he saw that the company were far enough oft, he and his servant woman lifted the pretended dead woman out ot the grave more alive than ever, and took her back to his house, in which he kept her long concealed.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  There was just one problem: Dad wasn’t up for any of it. The debilitating treatments and side effects he was already experiencing were all he could handle. But he didn’t want to seem ungrateful or to let anyone down, so he’d act like he was interested in what we had to offer him. Then, when it came time to actually go to the acupuncturist or eat the carefully curated diet, he’d decline, saying, “Not right now.” At first, his rain checks didn’t faze me. But as they began to pile up, I realized that “not right now” was Dad’s way of saying he’d had enough. In reality, Mom was over capacity with his round-the-clock needs, too. Plus, she was experiencing her own fear, anxiety, and caregiver fatigue. But instead of pausing and honoring where they were at, my anxiety drove me to keep searching, trying, pushing. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when we met the nutritionist assigned to us at the local hospital where Dad got his follow-up treatments. “Wait, are you Kris Carr ? Who wrote all those books about cancer? Wow, OK, just do whatever she says, you’re in great hands!” This was the last thing either of my parents wanted to hear. It reminded me of my first Thanksgiving after going vegan as part of my cancer-fighting regimen. I couldn’t stop yammering about the benefits of a plant-based diet. As always, my parents were troupers. They even made a bunch of vegan dishes to share. All was well until an actual cooked turkey came out. Suddenly, the newbie vegan activist in me decided it was the perfect time to preach a sermon on the intersection of health, ethics, and the environment. Why my lecture fell flat was a mystery to me. “Love,” Dad said, “I know you’re passionate about this stuff, and we’re on board and even willing to try it ourselves—I mean, not all the way, but a lot. But if you want your message to resonate with people, you can’t pound them over the head. Ease up. You have to meet them where they are.” Translation: don’t be a dick and ruin Thanksgiving. He was right. Nobody wants to be told how to live—and they definitely don’t want to be forced to change. In fact, the only time you can change someone is when they’re in diapers. Yet there I was, wagging my finger about how superior my compassionate choices were, while failing to extend that same compassion to my family.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  In short, I brought my bag over to the scouts, and thus began a retreat which was to have important consequences. The distinction between the middle class and the ghetto population continued within the camp. Of course, the soldiers made no distinctions and manhandled and degraded all the workers alike. But the men grinned when they saw a middle-class son arrive, caught in a raid or requested by name by the Germans, for they were sure he would not stay long. Nor were they wrong: as soon as he had been forgotten by the Germans, the middle-class boy went home in the convoys of the sick and the fathers of large families, or became a driver or nurse who, one day, on a trip to town, just disappeared. I found that the scouts, who slept apart, were also left outside all the little intrigues of the camp. Besides, the rejection was mutual. When they started confiding in me, they admitted they had invited me so as to avoid a disaster: the head of the camp had asked them to take one or two more men in their tent, but they had feared they would not be able to command the same cleanliness and discipline in the others. It was certainly too late now for me to indulge in remorse. All through the long monotonous days in the camp, I still tried to force the confidence of the men. Today, the spring that drove me is broken and I’m amazed at my decision to go to camp and at my naiveté, as though they were foreign to me. What innocence, what fervor, but also what self-sufficiency I must have had to believe I would be welcomed by the others merely because I had gone to them, full of faith and goodwill! In spite of the difficulties, I thought I was succeeding. The men, covered with lice, no longer fought disease. I discovered a barber among the workers. He had brought his tools with him, but he was called upon only on the eve of a day of leave. Together, we organized a little plot which would also be profitable for him. The following Sunday, rather ostentatiously, in the middle of the camp, I had my whole head shaved. After a few ironic comments, a few men followed my example when I explained that this would help protect me from lice. After that, the barber held his sessions every Sunday.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  The outcome of these first historical chapters is that the essential purpose of Christianity was to transform human society into the kingdom of God by regenerating all human relations and reconstituting them in accordance with the will of God. The fourth chapter raises the question why the Christian Church has never undertaken to carry out this fundamental purpose of its existence. I have never met with any previous attempt to give a satisfactory historical explanation of this failure, and I regard this chapter as one of the most important in the book. The fifth chapter sets forth the conditions which constitute the present social crisis and which imperatively demand of Christianity that contribution of moral and religious power which it was destined to furnish. The sixth chapter points out that the Church, as such, has a stake in the social movement. The Church owns property, needs income, employs men, works on human material, and banks on its moral prestige. Its present efficiency and future standing are bound up for weal or woe with the social welfare of the people and with the outcome of the present struggle. The last chapter suggests what contributions Christianity can make and in what main directions the religious spirit should exert its force. In covering so vast a field of history and in touching on such a multitude of questions, error and incompleteness are certain, and the writer can claim only that he has tried to do honest work. Moreover, it is impossible to handle questions so vital to the economic, the social, and the moral standing of great and antagonistic classes of men, without jarring precious interests and convictions, and without giving men the choice between the bitterness of social repentance and the bitterness of moral resentment. I can frankly affirm that I have written with malice toward none and with charity for all. Even where I judge men to have done wrong, I find it easy to sympathize with them in the temptations which made the wrong almost inevitable, and in the points of view in which they intrench themselves to save their self-respect. I have tried—so far as erring human judgment permits—to lift the issues out of the plane of personal selfishness and hate, and to put them where the white light of the just and pitying spirit of Jesus can play upon them. If I have failed in that effort, it is my sin. If others in reading fail to respond in the same spirit, it is their sin. In a few years all our restless and angry hearts will be quiet in death, but those who come after us will live in the world which our sins have blighted or which our love of right has redeemed.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  When I think how little I foresaw at the time what was about to come and actually did come, how politically ignorant I was, I cannot understand why I still suffer such confused remorse, so much repressed self-criticism and dissatisfaction with myself. Perhaps because I might have acted more wisely, perhaps because the acute self-awareness that I have since contracted like a disease does not allow me now to recognize the young man that I was at that time. My whole conduct was based on impulse. I lived through that period like any mediocre imbecile, stunned by hunger and exhaustion, believing any piece of gossip and reacting exactly like all the others. Or is it simply that I feel indebted to my age for not having been carted off to hell or had my nails torn out of my fingers or lost a leg or an arm in a slave-labor camp? This is required by the times, whether one be the hangman or the victim. I don’t feel victimized enough, and it tortures my conscience. Historians today tell how, one afternoon, as the red and purple dusk lingered on, the big Junker planes of the Nazis started landing on El-Aouina Airfield. I did not see the aircraft, and nobody told me about it. I believe that I was reading my newspaper that evening, just as I am today. Later, I learned that a few wise people had left the country in time; the army, it seems, had arranged a train service for those wishing to join the Allied Forces. I never had any connections in the army and was living in the closed world of the Jewish artisans. But even if I had known of the Junkers’ landing, I would not have realized the necessity of escaping. In fact, I understood so little that I was convinced that, between the Jews, the Germans, and the French, it was all a matter of pride. When Pétain came to power in France, the new anti-Semitic laws were applied to us but with some delay. When the decrees were published, I was not so much struck by the material side of the catastrophe as disappointed and angry. It was the painful and astounding treason, vaguely expected but so brutally confirmed, of a civilization in which I had placed all my hopes and which I so ardently admired. With a crash, the reassuring idea that colonial Frenchmen and those from metropolitan France were not the same was now demolished. The whole of Europe had revealed its basic injustice. I was all the more hurt in my pride because I had been so uncautious in my complete surrender to my faith in Europe.

• From Chéri and The Last of Chéri (1920)

  “ It serves me right. At my age, one can’t afford to keep a lover six years. Six years! He has ruined all that was left of me. Those six years might have given me two or three quite pleasant little happinesses, instead of one profound regret. A liaison of six years is like following your husband out to the colonies: when you get back again nobody recognizes you and you’ve forgotten how to dress.” To relieve the strain, she rang for Rose, and together they went through the contents of the little cupboard where she kept her lace. Night fell, set the lamps blossoming into light, and called Rose back to the cares of the house. ' “To-morrow,” Lea said to herself, “I’ll order the motor and drive out to SpeleiefF’s stud-farm in Normandy. I’ll take old La Berche, if she wants to come: it will remind her of the past glories of her own carriages. And, upon my word, should the younger SpeleiefF cast an eye in my direction, I’m not saying I...” She carefully smiled a mysterious and provocative smile, to delude what ghosts there might be hovering round the dressing-table or 112, round the formidable bed, glimmering in the shadows. But she felt entirely frigid, and full of contempt for the pleasures other people found in love. She dined off grilled sole and pastries, and found the meal a recreation. She chose a dry champagne in place of the Bordeaux, and hummed as she left the table. Eleven o’clock caught her by surprise, still taking the measurements of the space between the windows in her bedroom, where she planned to replace the large looking-glasses with old painted panels of flowers and balustrades. She yawned, scratched her head, and rang for her maid to undress her. While Rose knelt to take off her silk stockings. Lea reviewed her achievements of the day already slipping into the pages of the past, and was as pleased with her performance as if she had polished off an imposition. Protected for the night against the dangers of idleness, she could look forward to so many hours of sleep, so many when she would lie awake. Under cover of night, the restless regain the privilege of yawning aloud or sighing, of cursing the milkman’s cart, the street-cleaners, and the early morning sparrows. During her preparations for the night, she thought over a number of mild projects that would never come into being.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “On Monday,” I replied, and her dear eyes grew sombre and her lips quivered. “You’ll write?” she asked, “please do, Frank! No matter what happens I shall never forget you: you’ve helped me, encouraged me more than I can say. Did I tell you, I’ve got a place in Crew’s bookstore? When I said I had learned to love books from you, he was glad and said ‘if you get to know them as well as he did, or half as well, you’ll be invaluable’; so you see, I am following in your footsteps, as you are following in Smith’s.” “If you knew how glad I am that I’ve really helped and not hurt you, Rose?” I said sadly, for Lily’s accusing voice was still in my ears. “You couldn’t hurt anyone,” she exclaimed, almost as if she divined my remorse, “you are so gentle and kind and understanding.” Her words were balm to me and she walked with me to the bridge where I told her she would hear from me on the morrow. I wanted to know what she would think of the books and cape. The last thing I saw of her was her hand raised as if in benediction. I kept the Sunday morning for Sommerfeld and my friend Will Thompson and the rest of the day for Sophy. Sommerfeld came to the office before nine and told me the firm owed me three thousand dollars: I didn’t wish to take it; could not believe he had meant to go halves with me but he insisted and paid me. “I don’t agree with your sudden determination,” he said, “perhaps because it was sudden; but I’ve no doubt you’ll do well at anything you take up. Let me hear from you now and again and if you ever need a friend, you know where to find me!” As we shook hands I realised that parting could be as painful as the tearing asunder of flesh. Will Thompson, I found, was eager to take over the hoardings and my position in Liberty Hall; he had brought his father with him and after much bargaining I conveyed everything I could, over to him for three thousand five hundred dollars, and so after four year’s work I had just the money I had had in Chicago four years earlier! I dined in the Eldridge House and then went back to the office to meet Sophy who was destined to surprise me more even than Lily or Rose: “I’m coming with you,” she announced coolly, “if you’re not ashamed to have me along; you goin’ Frisco,—so far anyway—” she pleaded divining my surprise and unwillingness. “Of course, I’ll be delighted,” I said, “but—” I simply could not refuse her. She gurgled with joy and drew out her purse: “I’ve four hundred dollars”, she said proudly, “and that’ll take this child a long way.”

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  [Lev 24:16 ; Num 14:6 ] 66 “What do you think?” They answered, “d He deserves to be put to death.” 67 Then they spat in His face and struck Him with their fists; and some slapped Him, [Is 50:6 ] 68 saying, “e Prophesy to us, You Christ (Messiah, Anointed); who was it that struck You?” Peter’s Denials 69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant-girl came up to him and said, “You too were with Jesus the Galilean.” [Mark 14:66–72 ; Luke 22:55–62 ; John 18:16–18 , 25–27 ] 70 But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you are talking about.” 71 And when he had gone out to the gateway, another servant-girl saw him and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.” 72 And again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.” 73 After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them too; for even your [Galilean] accent gives you away.” 74 Then he began to curse [that is, to invoke God’s judgment on himself] and swear [an oath], “I do not know the man!” And at that moment a rooster crowed. 75 And Peter remembered the [prophetic] words of Jesus, when He had said, “Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly [in repentance]. Matthew 27 Judas’ Remorse 1 W HEN IT was morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people (Sanhedrin, Jewish High Court) conferred together against Jesus, [plotting how] to put Him to death [since under Roman rule they had no power to execute anyone]; 2 so they bound Him, and led Him away and handed Him over to Pilate the governor [of Judea, who had the authority to condemn prisoners to death]. 3 When Judas, His betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was gripped with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, [Ex 21:32 ] 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They replied, “What is that to us? See to that yourself!” 5 And throwing the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary, he left; and went away and a hanged himself. 6 The chief priests, picking up the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put these in the treasury [of the temple], because it is the price of blood.” 7 So after consultation they used the money to buy the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers. 8 Therefore that piece of ground has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  his wife and mother-in-law, he was received by ihem both with the most contumelious reproaches, and that, unable to endure his shame and remorse, he died a few days after. That is not true. The battle of Pavia was fought on the 24th of February, 1525, and the Duke of Alen^on did not die until the nth of April, that is to say, more than a month after his arrival in Lyon. It appears from the testimony of an eye-witness, brought to light by the last editors of the Heptameron, that he was carried off by a pleurisy in five days, that he was comforted on his death-bed by his wife and her mother, that he spoke with profound re^et of the king's misfortune, but that nothing escaped his own lips or those of the two ladies to indicate the faintest idea on either side that he had not done his duty at Pavia. The first five years of Margaret's wedded life were passed in privacy in her duchy of Alengon, but from the date of her brother's accession to the throne, in January, 1515, her talents were employed with advantage in affairs of state. " Such was her discourse," says Brantome, "that the ambassadors who addressed her were extremely taken with it, and gave a high character of it to their countrvmen on their return, and by this she became a good assistant to the king her brother \ for they always waited on her after their principal audience, and frequently, when he had affairs of importance, he referred them entirely to her determination, she so well knowing how to engage and entertain them with her fine speeches, and being very artful and dexterous in pumping out their secrets : these qualifications the king would often say made her of great use to him in facilitating his affairs. So that I have heard there was an emulation between the two sisters who should serve her brother best ; the one — the Queen of Hungary — her brother the emperor, the other, her brother King Francis ; b ;t the former by war and force, th.: latter by the activity of her fine wit and complaisance. . . . During the imprison- ment of the king her brother, she was of great assistance to the regent her mother in governing the kingdom, keeping the princes and grandees quiet, and gaining upon the nobility ; XXIV MEMOIR OF MARGARET, for she was of very easy access, and won the hearts of al! people by the fine accomplishments she was mistress of." *

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  In one of the best towns of France after Paris there was a hospital richly endowed — that is to say, with a prioress and fifteen or sixteen nuns, and a prior with seven or eight monks, who lived opposite in another building. The latter performed service every day, and the nuns, contented themselves with saying their pater- nosters and the hours of Our Lady, because they had enough to do in attending the sick. One day there died a poor man, about whom all the nuns were assembled. After administering all the remedies for his bodily health, they sent for one of their monks to confess him. Then, seeing that he was sinking, they gave him extreme unc- tion, and shortly afterwards he lost his speech. But as Eishth day ] Q UEEN OF NA VARRE. 5 5 1 he was a long time dying, and it was thought he could still hear, each of the nuns busied herself in saying to him the best things she could. This continued so long that at last they grew tired, and, as it was night and late, they went to bed one after the other. One of the youngest alone remained to lay out the body, with a monk of whom she stood in more awe than of the prior or any other, on account of his great austerity both in life and in conversation. After these two had shouted three hours loud and long into the poor man's ear, they were sure he had breathed his last, and they laid him out. Whilst performing this last act of charity, the monk began to talk of the wretchedness of life and the blessed- ness of death ; and half the night was spent in this pious discourse. The poor girl listened with great attention, and gazed at him with tears in her eyes. This gave him so much pleasure that, whilst speaking of the life to come, he began to embrace her as if he would fain have carried her in his arms straightway to Paradise ; she listening to him always with the same rapt spirit, and not venturing to gainsay one whom she believed to be the most devout man in the convent. The wicked monk seeing this, and talking always of God, accomplished the work which the devil had suddenly put in their hearts (for previously there had been no question of this), as- suring her that a secret sin met with impunity before God ; that two persons who have no ties cannot sin in that way, provided no scandal comes of it, and to avoid any she was to be careful not to confess to anyone but himself. They separated at last, and as she passed through a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, she wished to offer her orison as usual; but when she came to utter the words Virgin Mary, she recollected that she had lost her vir- 552 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE Navel 72

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

  Reply to Objection 3: Penance regards every kind of sin in a way, but not each in the same way. Because Penance regards actual mortal sin properly and chiefly; properly, since, properly speaking, we are said to repent of what we have done of our own will; chiefly, since this sacrament was instituted chiefly for the blotting out of mortal sin. Penance regards venial sins, properly speaking indeed, in so far as they are committed of our own will, but this was not the chief purpose of its institution. But as to original sin, Penance regards it neither chiefly, since Baptism, and not Penance, is ordained against original sin, nor properly, because original sin is not done of our own will, except in so far as Adam’s will is looked upon as ours, in which sense the Apostle says (Rom. 5:12): “In whom all have sinned.” Nevertheless, Penance may be said to regard original sin, if we take it in a wide sense for any detestation of something past: in which sense Augustine uses the term in his book De Poenitentia (Serm. cccli). Whether the form of this sacrament is: “I absolve thee”?Objection 1: It would seem that the form of this sacrament is not: “I absolve thee.” Because the forms of the sacraments are received from Christ’s institution and the Church’s custom. But we do not read that Christ instituted this form. Nor is it in common use; in fact in certain absolutions which are given publicly in church (e.g. at Prime and Compline and on Maundy Thursday), absolution is given not in the indicative form by saying: “I absolve thee,” but In the deprecatory form, by saying: “May Almighty God have mercy on you,” or: “May Almighty God grant you absolution and forgiveness.” Therefore the form of this sacrament is not: “I absolve thee.” Objection 2: Further, Pope Leo says (Ep. cviii) that God’s forgiveness cannot be obtained without the priestly supplications: and he is speaking there of God’s forgiveness granted to the penitent. Therefore the form of this sacrament should be deprecatory. Objection 3: Further, to absolve from sin is the same as to remit sin. But God alone remits sin, for He alone cleanses man inwardly from sin, as Augustine says (Contra Donatist. v, 21). Therefore it seems that God alone absolves from sin. Therefore the priest should say not: “I absolve thee,” as neither does he say: “I remit thy sins.”