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.

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• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  This suggests another form of service. We are all conscious of having failed in some of our human rela- tions, giving indifference instead of sympathy, idleness instead of service, laying our burdens on others without lending a hand with theirs. Some have done little in the sum total of their life except to add to the weight on others, and monopolizing the opportunities which ought to have been shared by many. The future life offers a chance for reparation, not by way of kindness but of justice. Suppose that a stockholder has taken large dividends out of a mill-town, leaving only the bare minimum to the workers, and stripping their lives of what could humanize them. He followed the custom of his day, and the point of view of his social class hid the injustice from his conscience. But in the other world he sees things differently and becomes a belated convert to the social gospel. About him are the men and women whose souls he has starved. Would not justice demand that he remain on the lower levels of life with them until he was able to take upward with him all whom he had retarded? Suppose that a man sent a 238 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL child into life without accepting the duties of father- hood, breaking the spirit of a girl and her family, and leaving his child to be submerged in poverty and vice. Would it not be just and Christian to require that he serve the soul of his child until it is what it might have been.^ Such labour and expiation might well keep us busy for some part of eternity, and in doing it, relation- ships of love and service would be formed which would make us fit to live closer to the Source of Love. Of course some of the ideas I have ventured to put down are simply the play of personal fancy about a fascinating subject. There are only a few things which we can claim with any assurance, and these are not based on a single prediction, or on some passage, the origin or meaning of which may be disputed, but on the substance of the gospel of Christ. These are : that the love of God will go out forever to his children, and especially to the neediest, drawing them to him and, where necessary, saving them; that personality energized by God is ever growing; that the law of love and solidarity will be even more effective in heaven than on earth; and that sal- vation, growth, and solidarity are conditioned on inter- change of service.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  The medical profession is unsure why some people are more prone to addiction than others, but there are some factors that sex addicts tend to have in common. Many addicts were sexually abused as children, which leads them to construct unhealthy models for love and pleasure. They also tend to come from dysfunctional families. This can exacerbate a situation of sexual abuse, when the child has no family member to turn to for support. Sex addicts are more likely to exhibit addictive behavior in other areas of their lives, and may suffer from alcohol or drug addictions or eating disorders. They are also more likely to have addicts in their families, suggesting that addiction is not just an emotional struggle, but is influenced by genetic factors. Sex addiction is also believed to be associated with other mood and psychological disorders, such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression. Love addictsFemale addicts are termed “love addicts,” because they are not necessarily seeking the high of orgasm in their addictive behavior. Instead, they may seek the euphoria of romance or infatuation that surrounds new sexual encounters. Symptoms of love addiction are varied but may take the form of a merry-go-round of negative relationships—such as changing relationships and lovers frequently, controlling a lover through sex, and breaking off then returning to an abusive relationship. Love addicts also continue with their behavior despite negative consequences such as broken relationships, shame, remorse, fear, depression, or abuse. Dangerous sexual behaviorAnother damaging form of sexual activity is risky sexual behavior. Bondage and light spanking are quite normal sexual activities. The trouble starts when couples depend on pain as the main source of physical interaction every time they have sex. The regular practice of gagging a submissive partner or inflicting pain or abuse can be physically and emotionally dangerous. No sexual behaviour is unhealthy unless it becomes a “must” for gratification and gets in the way of intimacy. Communicate with your partner often and openly about your sexual desires. Don’t make sexual satisfaction available only through compulsive thrill-seeking. Getting helpMost addicts don’t realize they have a problem, so the first step is to accept their behavior as unhealthy, and then to seek the appropriate help to overcome their problem. Treatment can be complicated by the fact that avoiding sex is not a healthy way to manage sexual feelings either. Cognitive therapy and support groups, which offer online and group sessions, have great success in helping people overcome their addiction. Your doctor can refer you to a trained relationship or pyschosexual therapist, either with or without your partner, depending on your needs. You may also be prescribed psychotherapeutic drugs to help control your moods and obsessive behaviors. Healing from sex addiction is possible—many people have overcome addiction and created a happy and emotionally healthy sex life for themselves and their partners.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  Of course in actual life there is no case of complete Christian transformation. It takes an awakened and regenerated mind a long time to find itself intellectually and discover what life henceforth is to mean to him, and his capacity for putting into practice what he knows he wants to do, will be something like the capacity of an untrained hand to express artistic imaginations. But in some germinal and rudimentary form salvation must turn us from a life centred on ourselves toward a life going out toward God and men. God is the all-embracing source and exponent of the common life and good of PERSONAL SALVATION 99 mankind. When we submit to God, we submit to the supremacy of the common good. Salvation is the vol- untary socializing of the soul. Conversion has usually been conceived as a break with our own sinful past. But in many cases it is also a break with the sinful past of a social group. Suppose a boy has been joining in cruel or lustful actions because his gang regards such things as fine and manly. If later he breaks with such actions, he will not only have to wrestle with his own habits, but with the social attractiveness and influence of his little humanity. If a working man becomes an abstainer, he will find out that intolerance is not confined to the good. In primitive Christianity bap- tism stood for a conscious break with pagan society. This gave it a powerful spiritual reaction. Conversion is most valuable if it throws a revealing light not only across our own past, but across the social life of which we are part, and makes our repentance a vicarious sor- row for all. The prophets felt so about the sins of their nation. Jesus felt so about Jerusalem, and Paul about unbelieving Israel. We call our religious crisis conversion when we think of our own active break with old habits and asso- ciations and our turning to a new life. Paul introduced the forensic term ‘‘justification” into our religious vocab- ulary to express a changed legal status before God; his term “ adoption ” expresses the same change in terms de- rived from family life. We call the change “regenera- tion” when we think of it as an act of God within us, creating a new life. 100 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL

• From The Fermata (1994)

  It is a somewhat disorienting experience to be calmly winding telephone wire around the testicle-sack of a person who has just been in the process of mugging you. I taped their dicks up temporarily so that they wouldn’t annoy me by hanging in my way while I wound. (Two were uncircumcised.) When all three of them were fully secured to the stop sign, the three wires exiting the backs of their pants through holes I had snipped with wire cutters, I stood back a few paces, turned time on, and, with pathetic bravado, said, “Come and get me, you little fucks!” Startled, they sized up the situation for a second, then lunged after me and fell forward at once, swearing with pain. I loped off, feeling increasingly remorseful, not to mention relieved that I hadn’t in the first flush of my vengefulness cut off their balls altogether and dragged them to the emergency room; an option, I am ashamed to say, that I had briefly considered. (Can one bleed to death from castration? Probably. And it was doubtful they had medical insurance.) After that unsettling experience I spent an “afternoon” performing acts of lite altruism, wandering in the Fold through crummy neighborhoods collecting concealed handguns off anyone who looked under thirty, but the frisking was tiring and distasteful work, and I stopped after I had only forty-four weapons in my commandeered shopping cart, with the sense that I had done nothing of real value, and had possibly even destabilized a momentarily tranquil street scene. (Still under cover of the Fermata, I pushed the weapons into some newly poured cement at a construction site.) The Fermata 4 B UT—I DO LIKE TRANSCRIBING MICROCASSETTES. I MENTION this because only a few days after I wrote that very first sur le vif chunk about Joyce’s exuberant pubic hair, I was immersed in one of her tapes, dog-paddling along in the moonlit scum-less lily pond of her consciousness, my eyes fixed on the green letters that she called forth from my fingertips, when I glanced up to see her walking briskly toward me, wiggling a pen and looking to one side as if preoccupied. I made a move to take off my headphones, but she held up her palms, indicating that I should continue transcribing, evidently feeling a twinge of the guilt which considerate people often feel when they drop off an unusual amount of work for a temp to do in a short interval of time. Obedient, I kept on transcribing. “Subject indicated that high credit was in the low six figures,” etc. Joyce meanwhile wrote something on a scrap of paper and affixed it with one of the rubber bands from my rubber-band tray to the cassette and put it on top of my monitor. It said, “No rush, thanks.” I nodded, making my mouth into a downward U of conspiratorial assent. I didn’t tell her that I was typing her own earlier tape.

• From The Chronology of Water (2011)

  Undeterred, you find yourself calling the guard to get the fat woman some Tylenol as you listen to the Christian chick with a silk scarf and a screw loose self-narrating her experience with the guy from the hotel bar who she believed was there for the Jesus on Ice convention. All of this activity suddenly takes its psychosomatic toll on you and your morning after green puke bellied nasty kicks in and you realize with a kind of brick to the lower spine feeling that you have to take an enormous scotch shit. Which you take, of course, in front of everyone, like cons have to, no matter how much the outfit they are wearing costs, no matter how beautiful a martyr they make, no matter how pretty the letters Ph.D. look after your dumb ass Visiting Writer name, you still have to shit in the presence of a crowd. Weird, huh. You close your eyes. You breathe. You are not sorry yet for what you have done. You are simply an incarcerated woman. Remorse, she came later. Lemme throw it into reverse. Let me tell you who I hit. Collision as Metaphor THE PERSON I HIT IN MY HEAD-ON COLLISION WAS A 5’ tall brown skinned woman. In the moment, this did not upset me. In the moment, I was drunk as a monkey, and so the entire scene that night looked a little like things were in slow motion and smeared over with Vaseline. And at a tremendous distance from my heart and whatever it might have said. Addicts have a problem comprehending gravitas. Everything just looks blurry. My airbags deployed. Pow. If you have never had that experience, it’s quite something. It’s loud. Like gunshot loud. And everything smells like dynamite. If you were holding the steering wheel with both hands, your arms get heat and friction burns on the insides. Your head, because it didn’t hit the windshield, smashes face first into the Michelin Man surface of the airbag; then your head jets back and knocks your noggin against the headrest. Afterwards, you just sort of sit there and wait for the dust to settle and your brains to recollect themselves. It helps to close your eyes and wait for everything to stop moving. The person I hit in my head-on collision was a 5’ tall brown skinned woman who had no English.

• From The Chronology of Water (2011)

  When my mother died my father was stuck in Florida. Alone. With not much of his wits left. With major heart damage. With a lien on his house. Andy and I visited some nursing homes in Florida. I threw up. They were simply awful. Whoever I am, I could not leave him there. I couldn’t leave Hitler there. It simply wasn’t possible for me to purposefully kill him or torture him or neglect his body. Ironic. I don’t believe in god. I don’t particularly believe in the cult of sin and redemption. But I do believe in energy. What I hold my father most responsible for is for not facing his own darkness - not acknowledging it as his. I think that is a flaw a great many of us struggle with. Like in The Tempest when Prospero says about Caliban, “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” We all have to claim that which we have created. For me it’s a detachment that I have to watch out for every day of my life - else I become untethered from the ones I love, even from life. My father never acknowledged his capacity for cruelty. His uncontainable anger. His misplaced desires. Maybe I learned to forgive him from the language and poetics of Shakespeare. But forgiveness isn’t the best I have to give him. Even as a dead man, the best I have to give him is an acknowledgement that I came from him. And I did not kill myself. I am living beyond his life, his end and pulse. I am trying to put things into the world that alchemize the dark and turn it to something beautiful and smooth you can carry in your hand. A small mighty blue stone. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t fucked up in their life a time or two. Royally. I’m pretty sure that’s what keeps us connected to one another. Not so much the superhuman savior stories. It’s called being human. It’s the energy and matter. Words let us say that. Language! What a thunderous mercy, huh? Sexuality in The Chronology of Water is a multilayered, multidimensional aspect of your emotional life. From the beginning you had an attraction to both sexes and later as an young adult your sexuality became both a source of power and an expression of grief. It seems that as you discovered your writing talent and continued your education, finishing with a Ph.D. in English Literature, your sexuality also underwent transition. Was this your experience? And, while your sexual life may have been considered unconventional by some, you choice to marry men and ultimately become a family with Andy and Miles is more in line with society at large. How have you incorporated all these aspects into your adult life?

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  areas we have yet to surrender to Him. God cares about us and those around us. He knows that on our own, we won’t always make the best decisions. We were created to be with God, to follow Him, to learn from Him. Not to be independent mini-gods trying to run our lives on our own. How does God gently persuade us to yield our will to His? Often, He uses prayer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to God in prayer because I needed something, only to have Him point out some area of my life that wasn’t nearly as surrendered as I’d thought. When this happens, I instantly give the area to God in humility and maturity, and I move on, never to struggle again. Yeah, right. What I actually do, more often than not, is explain to God why He’s wrong and why my bitterness or selfishness or anxiety is justified. Of course, I don’t phrase it that way, but that’s what I’m doing. It never works. Sooner or later, God gets through to my heart and helps me see things His way. Deep down, I want to do what’s right, just like you do. I know that His way is going to be a lot better than mine. So even if my initial response is less than exemplary sometimes, I really do try to surrender my attitude or actions or plan to God. I do that through prayer. There is no formula to this prayer. The words aren’t the key. Your heart is. By the way, surrender doesn’t mean you no longer have any responsibility in an area. You can’t say, “I surrender my finances to God,” and then whip out your credit card and start charging everything “to the Kingdom.” Nor does surrender mean you stop having emotions about what He’s asking you to give up. In fact, surrendering is likely to stir up strong emotions indeed.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  The next line says, “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Debts doesn’t literally mean money owed us. It means anything someone has done to hurt or offend us. We talked about this earlier when we looked at prayers that are a waste of time. If we are full of bitterness or offense, God wants us to resolve that, not ignore it. Living in peace with our brothers and sisters is high on His priority list. If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we need God’s grace. We know where we’ve messed up, even if others don’t. That’s why we have the gospel. The word gospel literally means “good news,” and the good news is that God does not hold our failures, sins, mistakes, or weaknesses against us. He’s wiped the slate clean. Of course, after God wipes that slate clean, we often scribble all over it again. We covet, or hate, or lust, or lie, or lose our tempers in traffic, or yell at the dog, or drink decaffeinated coffee, or whatever. And God forgives that too. He doesn’t hold it against us. He doesn’t take a screenshot of our sin before deleting it just in case He needs to refer to it later. He forgives us. Wonderful, right? And then He asks us to treat others with that same love. Ouch. I’m a much happier recipient of forgiveness than I am a giver of it. But God doesn’t pull any punches in this area. He expects us to forgive those who sin against us. This isn’t so they get off the hook. It isn’t so they can continue to hurt others. It isn’t because you don’t matter, or because you deserved what they did to you. All of those ideas are completely false. (Again, see chapter 13. This topic is one that Christians sometimes get wrong, and that can lead to tolerating abusive situations.) Forgiveness is defined by psychologists as a conscious choice to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward someone who has hurt you, regardless of

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I did not care what became of my wretched body: and wanting life, spirits, or courage to oppose the least struggle, even that of the modesty of my sex, I suffered, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased; who proceeding insensibly from freedom to freedom, insinuating his hand between my handkerchief and bosom, which he handled at discretion: finding thus no repulse, and that every thing favoured, beyond expectation, the completion of his desires, he took me in his arms, and bore me, without life or motion, to the bed, on which laying me gently downed, and having me at what advantage he pleased, I did not so much as know what he was about, till recovering from a trance of lifeless insensibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and innocent of the least sensations of pleasure: a death-cold corpse could scarce have less life or sense in it. As soon as he had thus pacified a passion which had too little respected the condition I was in, he got off, and after recomposing the disorder of my clothes, employed himself with the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and madness at myself, with which I was seized, too late, I confess, for having suffered on that bed, the embraces of an utter stranger I tore my hair, wrung my hands, and beat my breast like a mad woman. But when my new master, for in that light I then viewed him, applied himself to appease me, as my whole rage was levelled at myself, no part of which I thought myself permitted to aim at him, I begged of him with more submission than anger, to leave me alone, that I might, at least, enjoy my affliction in quiet. This he positively refused, for fear, as he pretended, I should do myself a mischief. Violent passions seldom last long, and those of women least of any. A dead still calm succeeded this storm, which ended in a profuse shower of tears.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘Latterly, too, when I began to weary of her, I found this sort of abuse of the emotions so tiresome that I took to insulting her and laughing at her. One night I called her a tiresome hysterical Jewess. Bursting into those terrible hoarse sobs which I so often heard that even now in memory the thought of them (their richness, their melodious density) hurts me, she flung herself down on her own bed to lie, limbs loose and flaccid, played upon by the currents of her hysteria like jets from a hose. ‘Did this sort of thing happen so often or is it that my memory has multiplied it? Perhaps it was only once, and the echoes have misled me. At any rate I seem to hear so often the noise she made unstopping the bottle of sleeping tablets, and the small sound of the tablets falling into the glass. Even when I was dozing I would count, to see that she did not take too many. All this was much later, of course; in the early days I would ask her to come into my bed and self-conscious, sullen, cold, she would obey me. I was foolish enough to think that I could thaw her out and give her the physical peace upon which — I thought — mental peace must depend. I was wrong. There was some unresolved inner knot which she wished to untie and which was quite beyond my skill as a lover or a friend. Of course. Of course. I knew as much as could be known of the psychopathology of hysteria at that time. But there was some other quality which I thought I could detect behind all this. In a way she was not looking for life but for some integrating revelation which would give it point.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Her eyes had shone as she had asked it, for I had done her some sort of wonderful favour by not turning up that night, two years before. I had done her a wonderful favour - and done myself, it seemed to me now, the worst kind of disservice. I thought again of how I had spent that night, and the nights following it; I thought of all the lickerish pleasures of Felicity Place - all the suits, the dinners, the wine, the poses plastiques. I would have traded them all in, at that moment, for the chance to have been in Lilian’s place at that dull lecture, and had Florence’s hazel eyes upon me, fascinated! Chapter 14 T he morning after my birthday I slept late; and when I woke, and rang for Blake to bring me coffee, it was to find that Diana had gone out while I was slumbering. ‘Gone out?’ I said. ‘Gone where? Who with?’ Blake gave a curtsey, and said she didn’t know. I sat back against my pillow, and took the cup from her. ‘What was she wearing?’ I asked then. ‘She was wearing her green suit, miss, and had her bag with her.’ ‘Her bag. Then, she might have been going to the Cavendish Club. Didn’t she say, that she was going to her club? Didn’t she say when she’d be back?’ ‘Please miss, she didn’t say a thing. She never does say a thing like that, to me. You might ask Mrs Hooper ...’ I might; but Mrs Hooper had a way about her, of gazing at me as I lay in bed, that I didn’t quite care for. I said, ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’ Then, as Blake bent to sweep my hearth and set a fire there, I sighed. I thought of Diana’s rough kisses of the night before - of how they had stirred me, and sickened me, while my heart was still smarting after Kitty. I groaned; and when Blake looked up I said, in a half-hearted sort of way: ‘Don’t you get tired, Blake, of serving Mrs Lethaby?’ The question made her cheeks flush pink. She looked back to the hearth, then said, ‘I should get tired, miss, with any mistress.’ I answered that I supposed she would. Then, because it was novel to talk to her - and because Diana had gone out without waking me, and I was peevish and bored - I said: ‘So you don’t think Mrs Lethaby a hard one, then?’ She coloured again. ‘They are all hard, miss. Else, how would they be mistresses?’ ‘Well — but do you like it here? Do you like being a maid here?’ ‘I have a room to myself, which is more than most maids get. Besides,’ she stood, and wiped her hands on her apron, ‘Mrs Lethaby don’t half pay a decent wage.’

• From Less (2017)

  Second: a conference in Mexico City. It is the kind of event that for years, Less has refused: a symposium on Robert’s work. He and Robert split up a decade and a half ago, but once Robert became ill and unable to travel, the directors of literary festivals began to contact Less. Not as a novelist in his own right; rather, as a kind of witness. A Civil War widow, as Less thinks of it. These festivals want one last glimpse of the famous Russian River School of writers and artists, a 1970s bohemian world long receded over the horizon, and they will accept a reflected one. But Less has always refused. Not because it would diminish his own reputation—this is impossible, since Less feels almost subterranean in stature—but because it seems parasitic to make money off what was really Robert’s world. And this time, even the money isn’t enough. It’s not enough by half. But it neatly kills the five days between New York and the prize ceremony in Turin. Third: Turin. Less is dubious. He is supposedly up for a prestigioso award for a book recently translated into Italian. Which book? It took some searching to discover it is Dark Matter. A pang of love and regret; the name of an old amour on your cruise ship’s passenger list. Yes, we are happy to provide airfare from Mexico City to Turin; your driver will await —as glamorous a sentence as Less has ever read. He wonders who funds such European excesses, considers they are perhaps laundering ill-gotten gains, and finds, printed at the bottom of the invitation, the name of an Italian soap conglomerate. Laundering indeed. But it gets him to Europe. Fourth: the Wintersitzung at the Liberated University of Berlin—a five-week course “on a subject of Mr. Less’s choosing.” The letter is in German; the university is under the impression Arthur Less is fluent in German, and Arthur Less’s publisher, who recommended him, is also under this impression. So is Arthur Less. With God’s happiness, he writes back, I accept the pedestal of power, and sends it off with a flush of pleasure.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  This went on for the ten years Edith was in the cult. When Edith finally left the group, and after some time in therapy, she decided to try contacting Beth. Nervous and afraid that Beth would hang up on her, Edith dialed Beth's number and tentatively opened the conversation. She explained that she was no longer in the cult and that she regretted many of her past actions, in particular the way she had treated Beth. She asked if Beth would like to get together for lunch; Beth, with some caution, said yes. They met and talked for hours, reestablishing their connection. Beth was able to satisfactorily vent her feelings about the experience. It was important, although painful at times, for Edith to hear how her cult membership had affected Beth. This reconnection helped Edith's recovery process because she learned how others saw her during her time in the cult. The two remain good friends. Restructuring Relationships with Former Members of the Same CultMany people find that when they join a cult with friends or family, the quality of those relationships changes drastically. This is due to a combination of the required suppression of all unapproved feelings and the lack of time for positive interactions. In some cults, couples are deliberately separated, children taken away, and friendship networks broken up. This is one way for the cult to exert control and keep members loyal only to the leader-not to each other or anyone else. When people come out of these restricted environments, they may find that their relations with others have been stilted and damaged, sometimes irreparably. Not surprisingly, the postcult divorce rate is high. In part, this is because cult leaders arrange so many marriages. Some couples who met and married in a cult may look at each other after exiting and wonder who the other person is. For these and other reasons, postcult couples face many relationship challenges. Couples who manage to stay together do so with great effort, usually with the help of couples counseling and a lot of time focusing on communication and repair of the relationship. Several of the personal accounts in Chapters 14 and i6 speak to relationship issues concerning spouses, children, family membets, or friends. For parents, there may also be a need to reestablish relationships with children, who may have been in the cult with one or both parents, full- or parttime. Ginger Zyskowski, whose account is in Chapter 14, is a mother of three and a former member of the Divine Light Mission. She wrote the following about her relationship with her children:. When I finally got out of the group, I clung to my boys both physically and emotionally for fear of losing them again. They were all I had left of my original identity. The positive aspect of this was that we became a close-knit group, very concerned about one another. Being the best mom I could be was top priority.

• From Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (2004)

  One of these ecstatical saints, Louise de La Vallière, fled the sparkling court of Versailles for the sanctity of a convent at the age of twenty-nine. Louise, who for years had played lady’s maid dressing her replacement Madame de Montespan, told Louis that “after devoting her youth to him, all the rest of her life was not too long to devote to her salvation.”27 Before Louise left court, Madame de Maintenon, herself extremely devout, asked Louise if she had considered the bodily discomforts that awaited her among the Carmelites, the strictest convent of the day: clothing that itched and rubbed, long fasts, backbreaking work, extreme heat and cold. Nuns were forbidden to speak and were forced to sleep in hard beds shaped like coffins. “When I shall be suffering at the convent,” she replied, “I shall only have to remember what they made me suffer here, and all the pain will seem light to me.”28 She gestured across the room to Madame de Montespan, giggling and whispering in the king’s ear. The day Louise bade farewell to her friends at court, she threw herself at the feet of Queen Marie-Thérèse to beg forgiveness. “My crimes were public,” the penitent explained; “my repentance must be public, too.”29 The queen, who had detested her for many years, must have wished the respectful Louise could regain her former place and oust the nasty Montespan. But Louise, leaving her two surviving children to be raised at Versailles, set off in her ducal carriage to the convent, leaving the world behind her. “She has drunk the cup of humiliation to the dregs,” reported Madame de Sévigné.30 During the ceremony to become a novice, Louise had her lovely ash-blonde hair sheared off, though Madame de Sévigné noted gleefully that “she spared the two fine curls on her forehead!”31 Perhaps more embarrassing to Louise’s slender vanity was the loss of her specially made heels, one slightly higher than the other to make up for a short leg. Wearing the flat sandals prescribed in the convent would force Louise to walk with a pronounced limp. A year later the convent was packed with courtiers gathered to watch the unique spectacle of a royal mistress taking her final vows to become a nun, accepting her black veil from none other than the queen, who kissed and blessed her afterward. Invitations to the ceremony were hard to come by, and there was a great deal of jostling, pushing, and shoving to watch the show. One witness wrote, “She never looked more beautiful or more content. She should be happy if only because she no longer has to lace up Madame de Montespan’s stays.”32

• From Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (2004)

  This brush with the law effectively subdued the marquis. He remained in the exile prescribed for him in the south of France, managing his estates, farms, and vineyards, hunting, gaming, drinking, and carousing. But Louis had his spies keep a careful eye on him. The king heard rumors that he intended to claim Athénaïs’s numerous royal bastards as his own, born within their marriage, and carry all of them off to Spain, where even Louis’s long reach would not be able to dislodge them. In 1670, when the marquis was permitted to visit Paris, Louis wrote to his minister Colbert, “Monsieur de Montespan is a madman. Keep a close watch on him…in order to deprive him of any pretext for lingering on in Paris…. I know that he has threatened to see his wife…. Get him out of Paris as quickly as possible.”26 That same year, Athénaïs petitioned the courts to grant her a legal separation from her husband so that an abduction, or a claim to her children with the king, would be illegal. The court dragged its feet for four years despite, or perhaps because of, the king’s insistence on a speedy resolution. These moral arbiters were not impressed with the king’s profligate lifestyle. When in 1674 the decree did come through, it read, in part, that Madame de Montespan, “the high and mighty dame…does and shall continue to domicile separately from her husband…. he, furthermore, henceforward…[is] forbidden to frequent or haunt his lady.”27 History must chuckle over the twists and turns of fate. By 1680 Madame de Montespan had lost her position as king’s mistress but stubbornly remained at court. In 1691, at age fifty, she was banished from Versailles and languished at her estates in the country. Chastened by her long exile, the former royal mistress was persuaded by her confessor to “ask pardon of her husband and submit herself into his hands,” wrote the duc de Saint-Simon. “She wrote to him, by her own pen, in terms of total submission, offering to return to his roof if he deigned to receive her; and if not, to betake herself to whatever destination he should prescribe to her.”28 Madame de Montespan was as fortunate with her request as Madame de Pompadour would be a century later. The duc de Saint-Simon reported, “She got credit for the gesture without having to suffer the consequences. Monsieur de Montespan sent back word that he wanted neither to receive her under his roof nor to make any prescription to her; neither to hear from or of her ever again in his life.”29

• From Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (2004)

  Court physicians admonished Louis that his mistress was too young for him and suggested that an older woman might be better for his heart. But this was not a recommendation likely to win the king’s agreement. Meanwhile, some courtiers said they had never seen Louis in better health—he seemed younger and more energetic than he had been in years. But a few weeks before his death, the sixty-four-year-old monarch realized that even Jeanne was losing her ability to arouse him. He confided to his doctor, “I am growing old and it is time I reined in the horses.” The doctor immediately responded, “Sire, it is not a question of reining them in. It would be better they were taken out of harness.”25 The aging monarch, facing death and the divine judgment he knew could not be far off, sometimes suffered bitter pangs of remorse for his carnal sins and refused to see his mistress. But these twinges of conscience were soon replaced by other twinges, and Louis found himself once more in her shapely white arms. The king’s hot-blooded Bourbon temperament lasted, literally, until the moment of death. Even as his putrefying body was riddled with smallpox, Louis stretched forth a pus-ravaged hand to fumble his mistress’s enticing breasts. Perhaps Louis XV got his relentless libido from his predecessor, Louis XIV, who burdened his mistresses not only with his ravenous sexual needs but, worse, with his infinite fertility. Louise de La Vallière gave birth to four children in seven years. Her successor, the brilliant Athénaïs de Montespan, bore seven children in nine years. Dour Madame de Maintenon was past menopause when she secretly married Louis, but at the age of seventy-five she complained to her priest that the king insisted on sex every day, sometimes several times. The priest replied that as God had appointed her to keep the king from sinning, she must simply endure it. It was believed that a too frequent indulgence in sex gave men “gout, constipation, bad breath and a red nose,” all of which Louis suffered from, but not enough to curb his appetite.26 While sex between even the lustiest pair usually fizzled after a few years, Czar Alexander II (1818–1881) and his pretty brunette mistress Katia Dolguruky enjoyed a passionate sex life throughout a fifteen-year relationship that ended only with his death. Though profoundly stupid, Katia was thirty years younger than Alexander and adored lovemaking. In 1870 the czar wrote her, “What I felt within me you saw for yourself, just as I saw what was happening to you. That was why we clenched each other like hungry cats both in the morning and in the afternoon, and it was sweet to the verge of madness, so that even now I want to squeal for joy and I am still saturated in all my being.”27

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Now, however, I felt I could not let it from my sight. I ran a finger-nail around the edge of the article, then tore, slowly and neatly, where I had scored. The paper that was left over I did cast into the grate; but the slip of newsprint that bore Kitty and Walter’s wedding-portrait I held carefully, in the palm of my hand - as carefully as if it were a moth’s wing that might tarnish with too much fingering. After a moment’s thought I stepped to the looking-glass. There was a gap between the glass itself and the frame which held it, and into this I placed one edge of the piece of paper. Here it was held fast in space, and cut across my own reflection - unmissable, in that tiny room, from any vantage-point.Perhaps I was a little feverish; yet my head felt clearer than it had in a month and a half. I gazed at the photograph, and then at myself. I saw that I was wasted and grey, that my eyes were swollen and purpled with shadows. My hair, which I had loved before to keep so trim and sleek, was long and filthy; my lips were bitten almost to the blood; my frock was stained and rancid at the armpits. They, I thought - the smiling couple in the photograph - they had done this to me!But for the first time in all those long, miserable weeks, I thought, too, what a fool I had been, to let them.I turned my head away then and stepped to the door, and gave a shout for Mary. When she came running, breathless and a little nervous, I told her I wanted a bath, and soap, and towels. She looked at me rather strangely - I had never called for such a thing before - then she ran to the basement, and soon there came the thump of the tub upon the stairs as she hauled it up behind her, and the clatter of pans and kettles in the kitchen. Soon, too, Mrs Best emerged from her parlour, disturbed once again by the noise. When I explained my sudden longing to bathe she said, ‘Oh Miss Astley, now is that really wise?’, and looked pale and shaken. I believe she thought I intended to drown myself, or cut my wrists into the water.I did, of course, neither. Instead I sat for an hour in the steaming tub, gazing into the fireplace or at Kitty’s picture, gently massaging the life back into my aching limbs and joints with a piece of soap and flannel.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Jim turned. It was Deena, all grown up. His eyebrows shot up. The old urge to dive behind a bush kicked in, but instead he heard himself blurt, “Rosaleen’s my cousin—what are you doing here?” “I used to live across the street from Rosaleen, remember? We’re friends.” She walked around the couch and sat beside him, balancing her paper plate on her lap. They caught up—the usual—what are you doing now, where are you living, how long has it been, how time flies. The years had been hard on Deena, but now she had a steady job at the local transportation authority and was in a relationship, a good guy after a string of bad boyfriends. Jim told her about his divorce. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Then, “Before you leave, can I talk to you in private?” Jim felt his heart in his throat. “Sure,” he croaked. They moved to the front steps and sat side by side in the waning light. She lit a cigarette and politely blew the smoke away from him. After a moment, she said, “You know, I thought you didn’t like me. It hurt me, because I thought you were a really great guy and I liked you. I wasn’t stupid—all these guys would come along, all these older guys, who wanted one thing. I had guys hitting on me all the time. It bothered me. But I knew I could talk to you. You actually listened, you were a gentleman, and that’s what I wanted. I knew you were the one for me.” Jim was speechless. “You thought I didn’t like you?” he said eventually. “It was the opposite.” Deena turned and looked at him for a long time. Then she smiled and gently punched his arm. She took a long drag from her cigarette. “What could have been.” * * * I met Jim at Boston’s sprawling Massachusetts General Hospital on a crisp February day. Months of kicking himself after the barbecue at Rosaleen’s had spurred him to make an appointment. Jim easily could have continued on as he was—lost love, failed marriage, emerging from his home after a weekend to squint in the bright sun of yet another Monday morning. But after his conversation with Deena, he decided enough was enough. It was time for a change. When he told me the story, I asked Jim what he thought would have happened with Deena under different circumstances. He chuckled and gazed out the window. “If I had done the opposite all those years ago we might be coming up on our thirtieth anniversary. I want to feel less anxious so I can live my life,” he said. “Absolutely,” I said. “We’ll do that, but how about in a different order? You’ll feel less anxious by living your life.”

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  But In connection with this principle of liberty In there arose in the mind of the apostle, as doubtless also I the minds both of his converts and his critics, further question.' What is the essence of true religion? How in achieved? To men who had been wont to of i authoritatively defined for them in tarred < morality as consisting in obedience to the in these books, and of acceptance (kxl m upon such obedience and membership in th« uniting tie and of unity was a to the recorded in the it ww a of religion and morality if wa* no any book or any III question Paul in but the qtiti tion itself lie and li« *aj in effect* is not conformity to or ttt a to (Sod in the an an «f> in th«? *' 5*), tic » nm tiy but by in t1!** f»f ittil i in for (s1* *). lit* iittil f ; and a i h not a It twtl by the tif It n HIP the Itlt m Ititl tiwi il tif hut in It iti** of lite itf hi'i aii^i wt» m in tit It ii tiy Aitf |^ tion of the It i* n*it the wf » t« d toy iif 1ft thf* In Aitrl MI Kan 01 llf ami H tiit cam fet in llfi* r*f INTRODUCTION IxV The positions which he took were in the main not those that were generally accepted in his day or have been accepted since. He was not the first to announce them, but as held by him they were mainly the product of his own experience and think- ing. The writing of the Epistle to the Galatians was an epochal event in the history of religious thought. It is matter for profound regret that its vital contentions were so soon lost out of the consciousness of the Christian church. VI. GENUINENESS AND INTEGRITY. The question of the genuineness of Galatians is not easily detached from the larger questions, how Christianity arose, whether there was an apostle Paul who was a factor in its origin, and if so whether he wrote any letters at all It can not be settled by the comparison of this letter with some other letter which is accepted as certainly written by Paul. For there is no other letter which has any better claim to be regarded as his work than Galatians itself. But neither can it be best without reference to the other letters* As has been shown In considering its occasion, the letter itself discloses, largely Incidentally ancl without apparent effort or intention, a situation so complex^ so vital, so self-consistent, so psychologi- cally credible as to make it very improbable that it is a work of art cunningly framed to create the impression that a situa* tion which only in the writer's mind was an actual one» This fact Is a for believing that the letter is a product of the situation which it Yet the

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —Entonces, ¿por eso les ofreciste dejar que se quedaran contigo? ¿Porque no pensaste que realmente sucedería? —insiste—. Estoy de acuerdo con que se quede contigo. Ya es hora de que asumas una cierta responsabilidad con él. Es hora de que yo… Jesús. Me río entre dientes y sacudo la cabeza, poniéndome de pie. —No eres como me gusta comenzar mi día, Lin. Ya lo sabes. ¿Ahora qué quieres? Se queda callada por un momento, y luego escucho su voz suave volver a su tono burlón. —Oh, sabes lo que quiero. Y a pesar del desdén que ahora siento por ella, la sangre todavía corre a mi ingle, para mi disgusto. Nos divertimos un poco, después de todo. Hace tiempo. Y mi cuerpo lo recuerda. Además, no he tenido sexo en mucho tiempo. Pero no estoy lo suficientemente desesperado como para ser utilizado. No todavía, de todos modos. —¿Así que eso es todo? —Coloco el teléfono entre mi hombro y oreja mientras tomo el jean del banco al final de la cama y meto las piernas—. ¿Crees que voy a estar listo para ir contigo cada vez que rompes con un tipo, te emborrachas y quieres tener sexo? —¿Por qué no? —replica—. No importa quién entra en tu vida o sale de la mía, siempre hubo una cosa que hacíamos muy bien juntos, ¿verdad? —Claro, Lindsay. —No me molesto en esconder el sarcasmo de mi tono. —Bueno, no estás viendo a nadie, ¿verdad? —pregunta, pero ya sabe que no— . Y no es como si no hubiéramos saltado juntos a la cama a lo largo de los años para desahogarnos un poco de vez en cuando. No recuerdo que alguna vez no te haya gustado. —Sí. —Dejo escapar un profundo suspiro—. Se llama falta de opciones. La ciudad pequeña y todo eso. —Estúpido. Me río a mi pesar. Tengo que concedérselo. La mujer podía adaptarse a cualquier insulto. La verdad es que tiene razón. Después de la ruptura, cuando Cole tenía dos años, todavía nos vimos de vez en cuando, pero lo que dije también es verdad. El sexo era bueno, todavía tiene un gran cuerpo, y la cama era el único lugar en el que nunca nos odiamos, pero solo volvía porque era fácil. Todas las demás mujeres de este pueblo son hermanas o hijas de alguien, y puedes acostarte con ellas sin que esperen un anillo en algún momento. Y no estaba preparado para eso. No después del desastre de convertirme en padre a los diecinueve años. Si alguna vez dejo embarazada a otra mujer, será mi esposa, y mi esposa será alguien de quien no me cansaré. Y quiero más niños. Siempre he querido más. Pero a los treinta y ocho, dos años menos de los cuarenta, es probable que Cole sea mi único hijo ahora. Me estoy volviendo demasiado viejo para comenzar de nuevo.