Sadness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Decameron (1353)

  As soon as the tables were taken away, Filostrato, not to depart from the course holden of those who had been queens before him, commanded Lauretta to lead up a dance and sing a song. "My lord," answered she, "I know none of other folk's songs, nor have I in mind any of mine own which should best beseem so joyous a company; but, an you choose one of those which I have, I will willingly sing it." Quote the king, "Nothing of thine can be other than goodly and pleasing; wherefore sing us such as thou hast." Lauretta, then, with a sweet voice enough, but in a somewhat plaintive style, began thus, the other ladies answering: No maid disconsolate Hath cause as I, alack! Who sigh for love in vain, to mourn her fate. He who moves heaven and all the stars in air Made me for His delight Lovesome and sprightly, kind and debonair, E'en here below to give each lofty spright Some inkling of that fair That still in heaven abideth in His sight; But erring men's unright, Ill knowing me, my worth Accepted not, nay, with dispraise did bate. Erst was there one who held me dear and fain Took me, a youngling maid, Into his arms and thought and heart and brain, Caught fire at my sweet eyes; yea time, unstayed Of aught, that flits amain And lightly, all to wooing me he laid. I, courteous, nought gainsaid And held[208] him worthy me; But now, woe's me, of him I'm desolate. Then unto me there did himself present A youngling proud and haught, Renowning him for valorous and gent; He took and holds me and with erring thought[209] To jealousy is bent; Whence I, alack! nigh to despair am wrought, As knowing myself,--brought Into this world for good Of many an one,--engrossed of one sole mate. The luckless hour I curse, in very deed, When I, alas! said yea, Vesture to change,--so fair in that dusk wede I was and glad, whereas in this more gay A weary life I lead, Far less than erst held honest, welaway! Ah, dolorous bridal day, Would God I had been dead Or e'er I proved thee in such ill estate! O lover dear, with whom well pleased was I Whilere past all that be,-- Who now before Him sittest in the sky Who fashioned us,--have pity upon me Who cannot, though I die, Forget thee for another; cause me see The flame that kindled thee For me lives yet unquenched And my recall up thither[210] impetrate. [Footnote 208: Lit. made (_Di me il feci digno_).] [Footnote 209: _i.e._ false suspicion (_falso pensiero_).] [Footnote 210: _i.e._ to heaven (_e costa su m'impetra la tornata_).]

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady, hearing this, contained her tears, contrary to the nature of woman, though not without great unease, and answered, 'My lord, I ever knew my mean estate to be nowise sortable with your nobility, and for that which I have been with you I have still confessed myself indebted to you and to God, nor have I ever made nor held it mine, as given to me, but have still accounted it but as a loan. It pleaseth you to require it again and it must and doth please me to restore it to you. Here is your ring wherewith you espoused me; take it. You bid me carry away with me that dowry which I brought hither, which to do you will need no paymaster and I neither purse nor packhorse, for I have not forgotten that you had me naked, and if you account it seemly that this my body, wherein I have carried children begotten of you, be seen of all, I will begone naked; but I pray you, in requital of my maidenhead, which I brought hither and bear not hence with me, that it please you I may carry away at the least one sole shift over and above my dowry.' Gualtieri, who had more mind to weep than to otherwhat, natheless kept a stern countenance and said, 'So be it; carry away a shift.' As many as stood around besought him to give her a gown, so that she who had been thirteen years and more his wife should not be seen go forth of his house on such mean and shameful wise as it was to depart in her shift; but their prayers all went for nothing; wherefore the lady, having commended them to God, went forth his house in her shift, barefoot and nothing on her head, and returned to her father, followed by the tears and lamentations of all who saw her. Giannucolo, who had never been able to believe it true that Gualtieri should entertain his daughter to wife and went in daily expectation of this event, had kept her the clothes which she had put off the morning that Gualtieri had married her and now brought them to her; whereupon she donned them and addressed herself, as she had been wont to do, to the little offices of her father's house, enduring the cruel onslaught of hostile fortune with a stout heart.

• From Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (1939)

  Only the means for realizing them, the paths traced over our 'hodological space' have changed. If for example, I have just learned that I am ruined, I no longer dispose of the same means (a private car, etc.) to accomplish them. I shall have to substitute means new to me (taking the motor-bus, etc.), which is precisely what I do not want to do. My melancholy is a method of suppressing the obligation to look for these new ways, by transforming the present structure of the world, replacing it with a totally undifferentiated structure. What it comes to, in short, is that I make the world into an affectively neutral reality, a system which is, affectively, in complete equilibrium. Objects highly charged with affect are de-charged, brought down to affective zero, and therefore apprehended as perfectly equivalent and interchangeable. In other words, lacking both the ability and the will to carry out the projects I formerly entertained, I behave in such a manner that the universe requires nothing more from me. This one can do only by acting upon oneself, by 'lowering the flame of life to a pin-point' — and the noetic correlate of this attitude is what we call Bleakness: the universe is bleak; that is, of undifferentiated structure. At the same time, therefore, we naturally draw back into ourselves, we 'efface ourselves', and the noetic counterpart of that is the Refuge. The entire universe is bleak, and it is precisely in order to protect ourselves from its frightful, illimitable monotony that we make some place or other into a 'shelter'. That is the one differentiating factor in the absolute monotony of the world: a bleak wall, a little darkness to screen us from that bleak immensity. Active sadness can take many forms; but the one cited by Janet (of the psychasthenic who throws a fit of nerves because she does not want to make her confession) may be characterized as a refusal. It exemplifies above all a negative behaviour intended to deny the urgency of certain problems and to replace them by others. The patient wants to move Janet's feelings. This means that she wants to change his attitude of impassible expectancy into one of affectionate concern. She wants this and she makes use of her body to bring it about. At the same time, by putting herself into such a state that the confession would be impossible, she is renouncing that act as beyond her power. Now, and for as long as she is in tears and shaken with her sobbing, all possibility of speaking is taken from her. Here, then, the potentiality is not eliminated, the confession remains 'to be made'. But it has retreated beyond the reach of the patient, who can no longer will to make it, but only hope to do so one day.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Tuar evening the old house seemed curiously thoughtful and curiously sad after all the merry-making. David’s second white bow had come untied and was hanging in two limp ends from his collar. Pauline had gone to church to light candles; Pierre, together with Pauline’s niece who would take Adèle’s place, was preparing dinner. And the sadness of the house flowed out like a stream to mingle itself with the sadness in Stephen. Adèle and Jean, the simplicity of it . . . they loved, they married, and after a while they would care for each other all over again, renew- ing their youth and their love in their children. So orderly, placid and safe it seemed, this social scheme evolved from creation; this guarding of two young and ardent lives for the sake of the lives that might follow after. A fruitful and peaceful road it must be. The same road had been taken by those founders of Morton who had raised up children from father to son, from father to son until the advent of Stephen; and their blood was her blood — what they had found good in their day, seemed equally good to their descendant. Surely never was outlaw more law-abiding at heart, than this, the last of the Gordons. So now a great sadness took hold upon her, because she per- ceived both dignity and beauty in the coming together of Adéle and Jean, very simply and in accordance with custom. And this sadness mingling with that of the house, widened into a flood that compassed Mary and through her David, and they both went and sat very close to Stephen on the study divan. As the twilight gradually merged into dusk, these three must huddle even closer together — David with his head upon Mary’s lap, Mary with her head against Stephen’s shoulder. ‘CHAPTER 50 I TEPHEN ought to have gone to England that summer; at Morton there had been a change of agent, and once again cer- tain questions had arisen which required her careful personal attention. But time had not softened Anna’s attitude to Mary, and time had not lessened Stephen’s exasperation — the more so as Mary no longer hid the bitterness that she felt at this treatment. So Stephen tackled the business by writing a number of long and wearisome letters, unwilling to set foot again in the house where Mary Llewellyn would not be welcome. But as always the thought of England wounded, bringing with it the old familiar longing — homesick she would feel as she sat at her desk writing those wearisome business letters. For even as Jamie must crave for the grey, wind-swept street and the wind-swept uplands of Beedles, so Stephen must crave for the curving hills, for the long green hedges and pastures of Morton. Jamie openly wept when such moods were upon her, but the easement of tears was denied to Stephen.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And with that Anna had perforce to be content. Very silently Stephen now went about Morton, and her eyes looked bewildered and deeply unhappy. At night she would lie awake thinking of Martin, missing him, mourning him as though he were dead. But she could not accept this death without question, without feeling that she was in some way blameworthy. What was she, what manner of curious creature, to have been so repelled by a lover like Martin? Yet she had been repelled, and even her pity for the man could not wipe out that stronger feeling. She had driven him away because something within her was intolerant of that new aspect of Martin. Oh, but she mourned his good, honest friendship; he had taken that from her, the thing she most needed—but perhaps after all it had never existed except as a cloak for this other emotion. And then, lying there in the thickening darkness, she would shrink from what might be waiting in the future, for all that had just happened might happen again—there were other men in the world beside Martin. Fool, never to have visualized this thing before, never to have faced the possibility of it; now she understood her resentment of men when their voices grew soft and insinuating. Yes, and now she knew to the full the meaning of fear, and Martin it was, who had taught her its meaning—her friend— the man she had utterly trusted had pulled the scales from her eyes and revealed it. Fear, stark fear, and the shame of such fear—that was the legacy left her by Martin. And yet he had made her so happy at first, she had felt so contented, so natural with him; but that was because they had been like two men, companions, sharing each other’s interests. And at this thought her bitterness would all but flow over; it was cruel, it was cowardly of him to have deceived her, when all the time he had only been waiting for the chance to force this other thing on her. But what was she? Her thoughts slipping back to her childhood, would find many things in her past that perplexed her. She had never been quite like the other small children, she had always been lonely and discontented, she had always been trying to be some one else—that was why she had dressed herself up as young Nelson. Remembering those days she would think of her father, and would wonder if now, as then, he could help her. Supposing she should ask him to explain about Martin? Her father was wise, and had infinite patience—yet somehow she instinctively dreaded to ask him. Alone—it was terrible to feel so much alone—to feel oneself different from other people. At one time she had rather enjoyed this distinction—she had rather enjoyed dressing up as young Nelson. Yet had she enjoyed it? Or had it been done as some sort of inadequate, childish protest?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Had Emilia's story been much longer protracted, it is like the compassion had by the young ladies on the misfortunes of Madam Beritola would have brought them to tears; but, an end being now made thereof, it pleased the queen that Pamfilo should follow on with his story, and accordingly he, who was very obedient, began thus, "Uneath, charming ladies, is it for us to know that which is meet for us, for that, as may oftentimes have been seen, many, imagining that, were they but rich, they might avail to live without care and secure, have not only with prayers sought riches of God, but have diligently studied to acquire them, grudging no toil and no peril in the quest, and who,--whereas, before they became enriched, they loved their lives,--once having gotten their desire, have found folk to slay them, for greed of so ample an inheritance. Others of low estate, having, through a thousand perilous battles and the blood of their brethren and their friends, mounted to the summit of kingdoms, thinking in the royal estate to enjoy supreme felicity, without the innumerable cares and alarms whereof they see and feel it full, have learned, at the cost of their lives, that poison is drunken at royal tables in cups of gold. Many there be who have with most ardent appetite desired bodily strength and beauty and divers personal adornments and perceived not that they had desired ill till they found these very gifts a cause to them of death or dolorous life. In fine, not to speak particularly of all the objects of human desire, I dare say that there is not one which can, with entire assurance, be chosen by mortal men as secure from the vicissitudes of fortune; wherefore, an we would do aright, needs must we resign ourselves to take and possess that which is appointed us of Him who alone knoweth that which behoveth unto us and is able to give it to us. But for that, whereas men sin in desiring various things, you, gracious ladies, sin, above all, in one, to wit, in wishing to be fair,--insomuch that, not content with the charms vouchsafed you by nature, you still with marvellous art study to augment them,--it pleaseth me to recount to you how ill-fortunedly fair was a Saracen lady, whom it befell, for her beauty, to be in some four years' space nine times wedded anew.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  About the time America learned about the White House taping system. It was laced with some bad stuff. The commodity being traded was wives, the Janey Williamses of New Canaan. The payoff was supposed to be joy, but it was the cheapest approximation of exalted feeling. It was just a demonstration of options, nothing more. From her meditative position on the couch, in her unflattering slacks and Hush Puppies, Elena felt she could judge the motives of New Canaan, Connecticut. Because she had permitted her own options to dwindle. Time sputtered and flickered and consumed the comedy of her efforts. Elena read. She roused herself now and then. For dinner: Green Giant frozen peas in butter sauce, leftover stuffing, and leftover turkey. This parsimonious and homely table awaited her husband and daughter. It was monks who first taught the art of reading in silence. During the Dark Ages. Augustine, perhaps, was first. And silence was a tongue Elena understood. Silence was her idiom for support and caring. Silence was permissive and contemplative and nonconfrontational and there was melody to it. It was both earth and ether. When Paul hinted that he had been experimenting with drugs, Elena said nothing. When Wendy boasted of her first period, Elena said nothing. Later she placed on her daughter’s pillow the box of Kotex, with the instruction circular removed and placed carefully beside it. Silence suited the complexities of these passages—the initiation in yajé, and in the lunar calendar. If you were an American Indian, you went off into the bush and hallucinated on your own. And if you were a Druid girl, a marriage would be prepared for you, and this very effluent would be a condiment at your feast. We would drink your menstrual blood, and later, eat your placenta. Elena said nothing about this or other matters, and not just because she had found in this village of Republicans—Republicans all the way back to Garfield —that she couldn’t articulate her own opinions without appearing foolish, but because she came by this silence through experience. Her Irish forebears went from the kind of trash you eighty-sixed from a riverside saloon to the sorts of people who repealed the Volstead Act. They folded rags-to-riches fabrications so deeply into their recollections that they believed their own public relations. Or that at least was her father’s way. Her father had been a newspaperman, a publisher of cheap tabloid philosophies. He had worked his way through a Midwestern journalism school moonlighting as a soda jerk. He had hopped a freight train east. Started in the mail room. He had married his high-school sweetheart. The strain of bearing up under this tabloid myth led to the mute intolerance of her father’s household.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I quit the Exhibit visits. I received an email from Leigh asking if I’d like to get a bite to eat sometime, but I didn’t know what to write. One day sped past, then several, until I thought it would be more insulting if I wrote, at this late point, than if I didn’t respond at all. The note might have been lost in transit, or she’d written to the wrong Will Kendall. – While I still had Phoebe with me, hot in my arms, singing Ella Fitzgerald back to life as I washed the dishes, I knew what I was losing, and it ached as if she’d already gone. The expected rift came in late March. I was home; she planned to have gimlets with Julian at the Colonial. I’d heard his reproaches tolling from Phoebe’s earpiece when he called. I miss you, angel, he’d said. Bix misses you. He says no one’s asked for his house special in ages, and how could you be unkind to Bix? I was in the kitchen, fixing a salad. I sliced a red onion lengthwise, then into minute squares. I swept the last diced bits off the knife: piled amethysts, I thought, a geode. I had the idea I’d show it to Phoebe. I’d finished most of a bottle of wine. She was in the bedroom, door open, trying to zip up a dress. It was a black shift I liked, and I laughed as I said, I’m coming, I’ll help. She flinched at the sound, but she’d left the door open. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that I’d noticed she was changing. She backed up to the wall, bent elbows slanting above her head. No, I can do it, she said. Let me help, I insisted. I’ll zip the dress. I spun Phoebe to face the wall, lighthearted, but then I saw that, in the space where the knit dress gaped open, she had a back crisscrossed with welts, bruises. In spots, the skin had broken. Some of the marks had partially healed. Others looked fresh, a dull red. Phoebe, I said. What is this? She pulled away from me, flushing. Phoebe, please— It’s nothing. Who did this to you? She walked out of the room, and I followed. We sat at the kitchen table. I asked if I should call the police, if she was in pain. No. Phoebe, what happened? She’d tell me, she said. But first, I had to listen. They’d been holding group penances. In turn, they detailed how they’d failed God, then asked the others to help them with physical notes of what they’d resolved. One night, they sang to God while they knelt on uncooked rice grains, hands up until their arms collapsed. They fasted. The flesh is strong; the mind, frail. We believe with our bodies, she said.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  What I’d do without you, I don’t know, honey, she said. She laughed a little, rueful. The exhale rustled the line, and she almost sounded like her old self again. The mother I’d had used to bring kitchen-table bouquets from the garden: buttercups, dahlia. Goldenrod in armfuls, the paint-daub petals trailing, flickering, like tattered flags. Nose dusted with pollen, she sang Donizetti arias in phonetic Italian. When I was an infant, she waltzed me to bel canto until I slept. She’d been ill a long time; still, it wasn’t until last March, in my father’s absence, that she first had to be hospitalized. I returned home from a spring-break mission to Beijing, a trip I’d had planned for months, to find she’d moved into the living room, stationed on an airbed to avoid what she’d shared with him. He’d fled to Florida to live with a girlfriend we hadn’t known existed. I learned this from the note he left; my mother had stopped talking. The cut flowers had wilted. I changed the vases. When she did, at last, get up, she sat gazing into a compact. Once, as I watched, she brushed lipstick on the reflection. But when I was hired at Michelangelo’s, Paul, who owned the place, had indicated I might attain a future promotion. He could use a college kid like me to help snap the whip, like an assistant-managing type, he said. Since then, he hadn’t brought it up. I thought of what I’d spent these past couple of months on clothes. Oxford shirts, marlin-printed shorts. The white-soled boat shoes, out of season until spring. Ribbon belts. In thrift stores, online, in the attempt to look like what I claimed to be, I scavenged polo shirts in pink, azure, and apple-green, the bizarrely colorful regalia of the ruling class. I wore the polos layered; I ridged collars upright, like gills. Meanwhile, my mother bagged groceries in Carmenita. I deposited much of what I made in tips into my mother’s account, helping with basic necessities: rent, medical bills, but each week I still had a little extra, which, if I’d saved, I could have given at once, instead of asking that she wait. – Fifteen minutes before the gates opened at Michelangelo’s, I found Paul. I asked if he’d thought about the promotion he’d said was possible. He stood at the reservations pulpit, writing in his tight script on the back of a menu. Sure, I’ve thought about it, he said, not looking up. His gold pen scratched out a line. Is anything decided? I asked. The pen scraped. His belt-halved gut bulged out, grazing the zinc edge, like an animal about to lunge. It fit his look of menace: if provoked, his flesh might achieve its escape. I glanced past him, trying not to stare. In a torn baseball cap, a man slumped against the other side of the glass. It had started raining. Paul? What’s that? he said. Do I qualify for the job?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  THE SECOND STORY [Day the Fourth] FRA ALBERTO GIVETH A LADY TO BELIEVE THAT THE ANGEL GABRIEL IS ENAMOURED OF HER AND IN HIS SHAPE LIETH WITH HER SUNDRY TIMES; AFTER WHICH, FOR FEAR OF HER KINSMEN, HE CASTETH HIMSELF FORTH OF HER WINDOW INTO THE CANAL AND TAKETH REFUGE IN THE HOUSE OF A POOR MAN, WHO ON THE MORROW CARRIETH HIM, IN THE GUISE OF A WILD MAN OF THE WOODS, TO THE PIAZZA, WHERE, BEING RECOGNIZED, HE IS TAKEN BY HIS BRETHREN AND PUT IN PRISON The story told by Fiammetta had more than once brought the tears to the eyes of the ladies her companions; but, it being now finished, the king with a stern countenance said, "My life would seem to me a little price to give for half the delight that Guiscardo had with Ghismonda, nor should any of you ladies marvel thereat, seeing that every hour of my life I suffer a thousand deaths, nor for all that is a single particle of delight vouchsafed me. But, leaving be my affairs for the present, it is my pleasure that Pampinea follow on the order of the discourse with some story of woeful chances and fortunes in part like to mine own; which if she ensue like as Fiammetta hath begun, I shall doubtless begin to feel some dew fallen upon my fire." Pampinea, hearing the order laid upon her, more by her affection apprehended the mind of the ladies her companions than that of Filostrato by his words,[224] wherefore, being more disposed to give them some diversion than to content the king, farther than in the mere letter of his commandment, she bethought herself to tell a story, that should, without departing from the proposed theme, give occasion for laughter, and accordingly began as follows:

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  It was late, almost morning. I left the bed when a man behind the partition began yelling. I was still in the previous night’s clothes, though with ankle-length hospital socks covering my feet. Torn tights chafed my crotch. I walked the half-mile home, the sidewalk cold through thin fabric. Mica specks, like felled stars, prickled the stone. But most of it was filth. I avoided broken glass, ripped foil bags. Slicks of fresh dog shit. I picked each step through trash. The sun was rising. I hadn’t been allowed outside, when I was a child, without putting on sun lotion. My mother’s light, cool hands patted protective liquid on my face. She fastened a wide-brim hat beneath my chin, tying the ribbons in a firm knot, loops aligned. Such pains she’d taken, for the little I’d since become. 10.WILLI stayed the night with Phoebe. In the morning, I watched as she slept, netted in white sheets. Nostrils flared with each long inhale. Pearl studs glinted at slim earlobes. Minute, fish-scale veins patterned Phoebe’s eyelids in faint blue. The birthmark speckling a left clavicle, slight indents at both temples—from the start, I wanted Phoebe memorized. In the old-gold light of morning, I had the idea she might have been a wild sea-creature who’d washed onshore, luck’s gift, legs tucked like a mermaid’s tail. I learned to swim before I could walk, she’d said. But I was so involved with the piano, I went three years without using my own pool. It was still early, not quite six. I waited as long as I could; at last, I tried shaking Phoebe awake, but she rolled toward the wall. – I left Platt Hall as a drunk slouched past, the label on his bottle dissolving. I wished he’d solicit cash; in the mood I was in, spilling with goodwill, I’d have relished giving him something. If I’d been riding the bus, I’d have looked around to find a person who could use my seat. Instead, I thought to check my phone, and I saw I’d missed a call. I listened to the message my mother had left: the station-wagon engine had died. In the shop, she’d learned that fixing it would cost hundreds of dollars. While she could enlist a church friend to provide rides to and from work, they lived on opposite sides of town. She needed the engine fixed as soon as possible. When I knew she’d be up, I called. I don’t have the money, not yet, but I’ll figure it out, I promised.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She found him sitting with the Bible on his knees, peering crossly down at the Scriptures through his glasses. He had taken to reading the Scriptures aloud to himself—a melancholy occupation. He was at this now. As Stephen entered she could hear him mumbling from Revelation: ‘And the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.’ He looked up, and hastily twitched off his glasses: ‘Miss Stephen!’ ‘Sit still—stop where you are, Williams.’ But Williams had the arrogance of the humble. He was proud of the stern traditions of his service, and his pride forbade him to sit in her presence, in spite of their long and kind years of friendship. Yet when he spoke he must grumble a little, as though she were still the very small child who had swaggered round the stables rubbing her chin, imitating his every expression and gesture. ‘You didn’t ought to have no ’orses, Miss Stephen, the way you runs off and leaves them;’ he grumbled, ‘Raftery’s been off ’is feed these last days. I’ve been talkin’ to that Jim what you sets such store by! Impudent young blight, ’e answered me back like as though I’d no right to express me opinion. But I says to ’im: “You just wait, lad,” I says, “You wait until I gets ’old of Miss Stephen!” ’ For Williams could never keep clear of the stables, and could never refrain from nagging when he got there. Deposed he might be, but not yet defeated even by old age, as grooms knew to their cost. The tap of his heavy oak stick in the yard was enough to send Jim and his underling flying to hide curry-combs and brushes out of sight. Williams needed no glasses when it came to disorder. ‘Be this place ’ere a stable or be it a pigsty, I wonder?’ was now his habitual greeting. His wife came bustling in from the kitchen: ‘Sit down, Miss Stephen,’ and she dusted a chair. Stephen sat down and glanced at the Bible where it lay, still open, on the table. ‘Yes,’ said Williams dourly, as though she had spoken, ‘I’m reduced to readin’ about ’eavenly ’orses. A nice endin’ that for a man like me, what’s been in the service of Sir Philip Gordon, what’s ’ad ’is legs across the best ’unters as ever was seen in this county or any! And I don’t believe in them lion-headed beasts breathin’ fire and brimstone, it’s all agin nature. Whoever it was wrote them Revelations, can’t never have been inside of a stable. I don’t believe in no ’eavenly ’orses neither—there won’t be no ’orses in ’eaven; and a good thing too, judgin’ by the description.’ ‘I’m surprised at you, Arth-thur, bein’ so disrespectful to The Book!’ his wife reproached him gravely. ‘Well, it ain’t no encyclopaedee to the stable, and that’s a sure thing,’ grinned Williams.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He shut the door, and lit a tiny light in the hanging hurricane lamp. "One time we'll have a long time," he said. He put the blankets down carefully, one folded for her head. Then he sat down a moment on the stool, and drew her to him, holding her close with one arm, feeling for her body with his free hand. She heard the catch of his intaken breath as he found her. Under her frail petticoat she was naked. "Eh! what it is to touch thee!" he said, as his finger caressed the delicate, warm, secret skin of her waist and hips. He put his face down and rubbed his cheek against her belly and against her thighs again and again. And again she wondered a little over the sort of rapture it was to him. She did not understand the beauty he found in her, through touch upon her living secret body, almost the ecstasy of beauty. For passion alone is awake to it. And when passion is dead, or absent, then the magnificent throb of beauty is incomprehensible and even a little despicable; warm, live beauty of contact, so much deeper than the beauty of wisdom. She felt the glide of his cheek on her thighs and belly and buttocks, and the close brushing of his moustache and his soft thick hair, and her knees began to quiver. Far down in her she felt a new stirring, a new nakedness emerging. And she was half afraid. Half she wished he would not caress her so. He was encompassing her somehow. Yet she was waiting, waiting. And when he came into her, with an intensification of relief and consummation, that was pure peace to him, still she was waiting. She felt herself a little left out. And she knew, partly it was her own fault. She willed herself into this separateness. Now perhaps she was condemned to it. She lay still, feeling his motion within her, his deep-sunk intentness, the sudden quiver of him at the springing of his seed, then the slow-subsiding thrust. That thrust of the buttocks, surely it was a little ridiculous. If you were a woman, and apart in all the business, surely that thrusting of the man's buttocks was supremely ridiculous. Surely the man was intensely ridiculous in this posture and this act! But she lay still, without recoil. Even, when he had finished, she did not rouse herself to get a grip on her own satisfaction, as she had done with Michaelis; she lay still, and the tears slowly filled and ran from her eyes. He lay still, too. But he held her close and tried to cover her poor naked legs with his legs, to keep them warm. He lay on her with a close, undoubting warmth. "Are ter cold?" he asked, in a soft, small voice, as if she were close, so close. Whereas she was left out, distant. "No! But I must go," she said gently.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  15 “When he heard me screaming, he left his robe with me and ran outside [the house].” 16 So she left Joseph’s [outer] robe beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told her husband the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you brought among us, came to me to mock and insult me; 18 then as soon as I raised my voice and screamed, he left his robe with me and ran outside [the house].” Joseph Imprisoned 19 And when Joseph’s master heard the words of his wife, saying, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger burned. 20 So Joseph’s master took him and put him in the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined; so he was there in the prison. 21 But the LORD was with Joseph and extended lovingkindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the warden. 22 The warden committed to Joseph’s care (management) all the prisoners who were in the prison; so that whatever was done there, he was c in charge of it. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s care because the LORD was with him; whatever Joseph did, the LORD made to prosper. Genesis 40 Joseph Interprets a Dream 1 N OW SOME time later, the cupbearer (butler) and the baker for the king of Egypt offended their lord, Egypt’s king. 2 Pharaoh (a Sesostris II) was extremely angry with his two officials, the chief of the cupbearers and the chief of the bakers. 3 He put them in confinement in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard put Joseph in charge of them, and he served them; and they continued to be in custody for some time. 5 Then the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, both dreamed a dream in the same night, each man with his [own significant] dream and each dream with its [personal] interpretation. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning and looked at them, [he saw that] they were sad and depressed. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in confinement with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so down-hearted today?” 8 And they said to him, “We have [each] dreamed [distinct] dreams and there is no one to interpret them.” So Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell me [your dreams].” 9 So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream there was a grapevine in front of me; 10 and on the vine were three branches. Then as soon as it budded, its blossoms burst open, and its clusters produced ripe grapes [in rapid succession].

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Daniele was beautiful, tall and well-shapen, with a light round head of little, close-pale-blond curls, and a good-looking man's face, a little like a lion, and long-distance blue eyes. He was not effusive, loquacious, and bibulous like Giovanni. He was silent and he rowed with a strength and ease as if he were alone in the water. The ladies were ladies, remote from him. He did not even look at them. He looked ahead. He was a real man, a little angry when Giovanni drank too much wine and rowed awkwardly, with effusive shoves of the great oar. He was a man as Mellors was a man, unprostituted. Connie pitied the wife of the easily-overflowing Giovanni. But Daniele's wife would be one of those sweet Venetian women of the people whom one still sees, modest and flower-like in the back of that labyrinth of a town. Ah, how sad that man first prostitutes woman, then woman prostitutes man. Giovanni was pining to prostitute himself, dribbling like a dog, wanting to give himself to a woman. And for money! Connie looked at Venice far off, low and rose-coloured upon the water. Built of money, blossomed of money, and dead with money. The money-deadness! Money, money, money, prostitution and deadness. Yet Daniele was still a man capable of a man's free allegiance. He did not wear the gondolier's blouse: only the knitted blue jersey. He was a little wild, uncouth and proud. So he was hireling to the rather doggy Giovanni, who was hireling again of two women. So it is! When Jesus refused the devil's money, he left the devil like a Jewish banker, master of the whole situation. Connie would come home from the blazing light of the lagoon in a kind of stupor, to find letters from home. Clifford wrote regularly. He wrote very good letters: they might all have been printed in a book. And for this reason Connie found them not very interesting. She lived in the stupor of the light of the lagoon, the lapping saltiness of the water, the space, the emptiness, the nothingness: but health, health, complete stupor of health. It was gratifying, and she was lulled away in it, not caring for anything. Besides, she was pregnant. She knew now. So the stupor of sunlight and lagoon salt and sea-bathing and lying on shingle and finding shells and drifting away, away in a gondola was completed by the pregnancy inside her, another fulness of health, satisfying and stupefying. She had been at Venice a fortnight, and she was to stay another ten days or a fortnight. The sunshine blazed over any count of time, and the fulness of physical health made forgetfulness complete. She was in a sort of stupor of well-being. From which a letter of Clifford roused her.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  What about, ah, I said, but I hesitated. Damp spring wind blew in. I inhaled the lazy, bittersweet stink that lingered in her room from a hyacinth bouquet she’d let spoil in a vase. I’d thrown it out, but the rich hint of rot persisted. Is Liesl— No, Julian said she’ll be home. In St. Paul. I still didn’t know Liesl well; Phoebe had mentioned, though, that she’d also been directed to enroll in remedial classes. Then, in April, she’d filed a rape charge against the New York governor’s son, Neil Pugh. Details of the night had since become public: a full living room, the tall girl following him up the stairs. Not everyone believed Liesl. I knew Neil, a little. He’d joined Phi Epsilon in the spring, then dropped out. Neil, a sailing recruit, looked the part: disheveled, wind-blown, as if he’d always just strolled off a boat. Despite the Nantucket reds he affected, his ripped twilled shirts, he’d lived most of his life in San Francisco, in his divorced mother’s house. It was a short drive from Carmenita. I avoided him, as a result; despite the distance I kept, if not because of it, he’d invited me to several parties. Poor girl, I said. – Before long, Phoebe was taking me to the airport, and it was too late to shift course. We parted at the curb, brusque: we’d argued that morning. I called when I landed in Beijing. She apologized, so I did, as well, both each other’s old selves again, and while we talked about schedules, plotting phone dates, I could almost believe Phoebe to be within reach and not, as she was, divided from me by miles of land and sea. The job at the fund turned out to be more tiring than I’d expected. I worked long hours. Often, I had to cancel phone calls with Phoebe. The first time I stayed the night at the office, napping thirty minutes beneath a desk in the morning, colleagues hailed me as if I’d been admitted to an exclusive club. It surprised me, how much I liked the work. I could be confident in the finance demimonde, with its upstart cowboy strut, its practitioners bloated with the hubris of men—and it was all men—paid well at high-profile jobs. The hum of competence filled the office, like air-conditioning. I built intricate, mazelike financial models, reveling in the fiction of a predictable world. The models multiplied, breeding hypothetical yuan.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  18 “Behold, its blood was not brought into the Holy Place; you certainly should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary, just as I commanded.” 19 Then Aaron said to Moses, “This very day they have [obediently] presented their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD , but [such terrible things] as these have happened to me [and to them]; if I [and my sons] had eaten a sin offering today would it have been acceptable and pleasing in the sight of the LORD ?” [Hos 9:4 ] 20 When Moses heard that, he was satisfied. Leviticus 11 Laws about Animals for Food 1 T he LORD spoke again to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘Among all the animals which are on the earth, these are the animals which you may eat. [Mark 7:15–19 ] 3 ‘You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof [that is, a hoof split into two parts especially at its distal extremity] and chews the cud. 4 ‘Nevertheless, you are not to eat these, among those which chew the cud or divide the hoof: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not divide the hoof; it is [ceremonially] unclean to you. 5 ‘And the a shaphan, because it chews the cud but does not divide the hoof; it is unclean to you. 6 “And the hare, because it chews the cud but does not divide the hoof; it is unclean to you. 7 “And the swine, because it divides the hoof and makes a split hoof, but does not chew the cud; it is unclean to you. 8 “You shall not eat their meat nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you. 9 ‘These you may eat, whatever is in the water: whatever has fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, these you may eat; 10 but whatever does not have fins and scales in the seas and in the rivers, of all the teeming life in the waters, and of all the living creatures that are in the waters, they are [to be considered] detestable to you. [1 Cor 8:8–13 ] 11 ‘They shall be b hated things to you. You may not eat their meat; you shall detest their carcasses. 12 ‘Everything in the water that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you. Avoid the Unclean 13 ‘These you shall detest among the birds; they are not to be eaten, for they are c hated things: the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard, 14 the kite, every kind of falcon, 15 every kind of raven, 16 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, every species of hawk, 17 the little owl and the cormorant and the great owl, 18 the white owl, the pelican, the carrion vulture, 19 the stork, all kinds of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  Understanding the o ld testament 24 God said, “The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out and takes fruit from the Tree of Life also, and eats of it and lives forever?” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken. It is unlikely that the Israelites understood God here in a petty, jealous way. The words were not supposed to leave readers thinking that the man should have run from the Tree of Knowledge to the Tree of Life before God remembered it was there. Eating of the Tree of Knowledge has ended the special sort of life that was only supplied by breath from God, absent in the creation of the animals. Eating from the Tree of Life would perpetuate the other sort of living, physical life. God is worried that the man will live forever in the condition of toil and patriarchy, which would be a fate worse than death. Just as the naming of Eve and covering with skin are not the blessings they look like, the exclusion from the Tree of Life might not be the punishment looks like. Nevertheless, this is a bad ending. Verse 24 says, “He drove him out and settled him to the east of the Garden of Eden.” The word used there for “drove out” is garesh, which can also mean “divorce.” To be exiled from Eden is a divorce from God, a loss of fellowship with God. Questions to Consider Y Was the serpent right because everything he predicted came true? Y Cognitive science tells us naked people are more inclined to think about death and to remember they are animals, and that people reminded they are animals are more inclined to think about death. Does this help explain Adam and Eve’s knowledge that they were naked? Suggested Reading Meyers, Discovering Eve. ABRAHAM, THE FATHER OF THREE FAITHS LECTURE 5 Abraham—whom God calls to become the father of a new nation in the land of Canaan—is considered the spiritual father of three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For all three, his story illustrates what religious faith means, though there are some differences in how. Those differences underline some of the distinctions of the three modern faiths. Abraham’s Beginning The story of Abraham truly begins in chapter 12 of Genesis. At this point in the Old Testament, his name is given as Abram. Genesis 12:1 states that God said to Abraham, “‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great.’” 5

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I couldn’t find a way in. Out on the sidewalk, alone, I watched the crowds reveling inside. With Phoebe, the walls lifted. Invitations spilled out; warmth, life. I also pledged a fraternity, Phi Epsilon, when I heard about its influential alumni, the class portraits lined with well-known faces. I wasn’t eating enough, but at parties, in the Phi Epsilon house, alcohol was plentiful. I drank more. Still, I kept my grades high. I barely slept; I wanted every prize. I intended to outdo all these people I lied to imitate, the lotus-eaters who sprawled on the lawn. I finished the last final exam, an evening class, then I stumbled home. I fell in bed. I planned to celebrate with Phoebe at the Colonial, but instead, when I opened my eyes again, I saw that mild light filled the room. It was late morning. I’d slept through the night. I called Phoebe: she was on the train, going to the airport. I came by your suite when I didn’t hear from you, she said. If Julian hadn’t left for Berlin, I’d have recruited him to pick the lock. I kept calling. I heard your phone from out on the landing. I should have just let you sleep, but I wanted to see you— I spent most of the break in ice-piled Noxhurst, working extra shifts at the restaurant. In late fall, Paul had finally given me a promotion; I couldn’t have left during the holiday rush. I thought, too, that I should save a little cash while I had the time. I helped see Michelangelo’s through New Year’s Eve, an upheaval of white-peach Bellinis and smashed flutes, banderoles and tricolored spumoni (a Conti tradition, I heard Paul tell a table), then I flew home to Carmenita. It was the first trip back since I’d started school. I’d anticipated the pleasure I’d see on my mother’s face, but then, almost as soon as the plane landed, I wanted to leave again. Outlines softened, salt in liquid; I felt how easily I could dissolve into the life I’d left behind. Ripped flip-flops still held the stain of old footprints. She asked me to attend church. I said I couldn’t; I offered to drive, past the graffiti-blotched traffic signs I didn’t need to consult. I let her out, then left in a rush to evade old friends who, still God-wild, pitied me. Radio stations I’d left preset hadn’t changed. Last spring, while she was being held captive in the hospital, I avoided the house. Instead, I’d taken to driving around town at night to look in at people’s lives. Intact families sat in the blue wash of television light, tranquil, like drowned statues. I noticed, too, that she’d kept up the habit of red lipstick, the starlet’s hue my father used to like.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  For me, that is. I understand people find it useful, but, okay, let’s assume I wish my mother hadn’t died. It’s not worth examining. Julian says the most dispiriting words in the English language are “Red or white?” but, obviously, he’s wrong. What’s worse is “Last night, I dreamed,” and— She riffed like this until I stopped. If I tried again, insisting she find help, Phoebe’s smile widened. It lit the girl up. In a glade of light, she slipped away. It was an act; I knew that, but I suppose I let it happen. Even now, I’ll admit, if I recall these night fits, part of me wants to protest that this wasn’t Phoebe: that the girl I loved, for instance, during a childhood trip to Delphi, went jumping through its ruins. Since she hadn’t told me much else about it, I’d filled in the details until I might have been there, too, our earliest lives conjoined. On the crowded bus ride from Athens to Delphi, this Phoebe slept against my arm. The guide lectured into a microphone. It’s the omphalos, he said. The holiest site, navel of the Hellenic world. In time, the bus rolled to a halt. Phoebe stood in the white, hot wash of sun; she rubbed light-blind eyes. Despite the heat, I held Phoebe’s hand. I kept it in mine while we leaped the ancient stones, raising exuberant brumes of dust. – The day after the Cape Cod trip, as we left the apartment, I asked if I could attend the next Jejah meeting. Right, Phoebe said, with a laugh. I explained I wasn’t kidding. Pulling on a white pashmina, she looked at me through its soft folds. It was raining again. I held the umbrella for both of us. We walked to Latham Hall while I told Phoebe partial truths. I’ve noticed the effect it’s had on you, I said. You’ve spent so much time with this group. I want to know more about it. Since it’s important to you, I can’t help being curious. She kept her face tucked down, hidden in the cashmere pile, until, lifting her head, she said she’d give John Leal a call. We’d arrived at the Latham gate. She hesitated, phone in hand. I left Phoebe the umbrella, and I said I’d walk ahead. I waited in front of the dining hall, shielded from rain by the stone arcade. Croquet wickets littered the ground. That morning, I’d passed a group of old men in pastels and wan hats, batting mallets: alumni, I figured. But in the fog they’d been wraiths, sprung from time. Balls tocked, skinkling, through delicate arches. My head pulsed. I’d had too much to drink the previous evening. She was still on the phone. I watched as she talked. Hanging up, she came to tell me he’d apologized, but it wasn’t possible. The group just didn’t have the space.