Shame

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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, there appears to be a certain amount of deceit in flattery, since the flatterer says one thing, and thinks another: whereas the quarrelsome man is without deceit, for he contradicts openly. Now he that sins deceitfully is a viler man, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. vii, 6). Therefore flattery is a more grievous sin than quarreling. Objection 3: Further, shame is fear of what is vile, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 9). But a man is more ashamed to be a flatterer than a quarreler. Therefore quarreling is a less grievous sin than flattery. On the contrary, The more a sin is inconsistent with the spiritual state, the more it appears to be grievous. Now quarreling seems to be more inconsistent with the spiritual state: for it is written (1 Tim. 3:2,3) that it “behooveth a bishop to be . . . not quarrelsome”; and (2 Tim. 3:24): “The servant of the Lord must not wrangle.” Therefore quarreling seems to be a more grievous sin than flattery. I answer that, We can speak of each of these sins in two ways. In one way we may consider the species of either sin, and thus the more a vice is at variance with the opposite virtue the more grievous it is. Now the virtue of friendship has a greater tendency to please than to displease: and so the quarrelsome man, who exceeds in giving displeasure sins more grievously than the adulator or flatterer, who exceeds in giving pleasure. In another way we may consider them as regards certain external motives, and thus flattery sometimes more grievous, for instance when one intends by deception to acquire undue honor or gain: while sometimes quarreling is more grievous; for instance, when one intends either to deny the truth, or to hold up the speaker to contempt. Reply to Objection 1: Just as the flatterer may do harm by deceiving secretly, so the quarreler may do harm sometimes by assailing openly. Now, other things being equal, it is more grievous to harm a person openly, by violence as it were, than secretly. Wherefore robbery is a more grievous sin than theft, as stated above ([3237]Q[66], A[9]). Reply to Objection 2: In human acts, the more grievous is not always the more vile. For the comeliness of a man has its source in his reason: wherefore the sins of the flesh, whereby the flesh enslaves the reason, are viler, although spiritual sins are more grievous, since they proceed from greater contempt. In like manner, sins that are committed through deceit are viler, in so far as they seem to arise from a certain weakness, and from a certain falseness of the reason, although sins that are committed openly proceed sometimes from a greater contempt. Hence flattery, through being accompanied by deceit, seems to be a viler sin; while quarreling, through proceeding from greater contempt, is apparently more grievous.

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

  OF THE VICES OPPOSED TO PERSEVERANCE (TWO ARTICLES)We must now consider the vices opposed to perseverance; under which head there are two points of inquiry: (1) Of effeminacy; (2) Of pertinacity. Whether effeminacy* is opposed to perseverance? [*Mollities, literally ‘softness’]Objection 1: It seems that effeminacy is not opposed to perseverance. For a gloss on 1 Cor. 6:9,10, “Nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind,” expounds the text thus: “Effeminate—i.e. obscene, given to unnatural vice.” But this is opposed to chastity. Therefore effeminacy is not a vice opposed to perseverance. Objection 2: Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that “delicacy is a kind of effeminacy.” But to be delicate seems akin to intemperance. Therefore effeminacy is not opposed to perseverance but to temperance. Objection 3: Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that “the man who is fond of amusement is effeminate.” Now immoderate fondness of amusement is opposed to {eutrapelia}, which is the virtue about pleasures of play, as stated in Ethic. iv, 8. Therefore effeminacy is not opposed to perseverance. On the contrary, The Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that “the persevering man is opposed to the effeminate.” I answer that, As stated above ([3411]Q[137], AA[1],2), perseverance is deserving of praise because thereby a man does not forsake a good on account of long endurance of difficulties and toils: and it is directly opposed to this, seemingly, for a man to be ready to forsake a good on account of difficulties which he cannot endure. This is what we understand by effeminacy, because a thing is said to be “soft” if it readily yields to the touch. Now a thing is not declared to be soft through yielding to a heavy blow, for walls yield to the battering-ram. Wherefore a man is not said to be effeminate if he yields to heavy blows. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that “it is no wonder, if a person is overcome by strong and overwhelming pleasures or sorrows; but he is to be pardoned if he struggles against them.” Now it is evident that fear of danger is more impelling than the desire of pleasure: wherefore Tully says (De Offic. i) under the heading “True magnanimity consists of two things: It is inconsistent for one who is not cast down by fear, to be defeated by lust, or who has proved himself unbeaten by toil, to yield to pleasure.” Moreover, pleasure itself is a stronger motive of attraction than sorrow, for the lack of pleasure is a motive of withdrawal, since lack of pleasure is a pure privation. Wherefore, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. vii, 7), properly speaking an effeminate man is one who withdraws from good on account of sorrow caused by lack of pleasure, yielding as it were to a weak motion.

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

  GREGORY. (Hom. in Ev. xx. 8.) Observe, he says not merely fruits of repentance, but fruits meet for repentance. For he who has never fallen into things unlawful, is of right allowed the use of all things lawful; but if any hath fallen into sin, he ought so far to put away from him even things lawful, as far as he is conscious of having used unlawful things. It is left then to such man’s conscience to seek so much the greater gains of good works by repentance, the greater loss he has brought on himself by sin. The Jews who gloried in their race, would not own themselves sinners because they were Abraham’s seed. Say not among yourselves we are Abraham’s seed. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xi.) He does not forbid them to say they are his, but to trust in that, neglecting virtues of the soul. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. What avails noble birth to him whose life is disgraceful? Or, on the other hand, what hurt is a low origin to him who has the lustre of virtue? It is fitter that the parents of such a son should rejoice over him, than he over his parents. So do not you pride yourselves on having Abraham for your father, rather blush that you inherit his blood, but not his holiness. He who has no resemblance to his father is possibly the offspring of adultery. These words then only exclude boasting on account of birth. RABANUS. Because as a preacher of truth he wished to stir them up, to bring forth fruit meet for repentance, he invites them to humility, without which no one can repent. REMIGIUS. There is a tradition, that John preached at that place of the Jordan, where the twelve stones taken from the bed of the river had been set up by command of God. He might then be pointing to these, when he said, Of these stones. JEROME. He intimates God’s great power, who, as he made all things out of nothing, can make men out of the hardest stone. GLOSS. (ord.) It is faith’s first lesson to believe that God is able to do whatever He will. CHRYSOSTOM. That men should be made out of stones, is like Isaac coming from Sarah’s womb; Look into the rock, says Isaiah, whence ye were hewn. Reminding them thus of this prophecy, he shews that it is possible that the like might even now happen. RABANUS. Otherwise; the Gentiles may be meant who worshipped stones. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Stone is hard to work, but when wrought to some shape, it loses it not; so the Gentiles were hardly brought to the faith, but once brought they abide in it for ever. JEROME. These stones signify the Gentiles because of their hardness of heart. See Ezekiel, I will take away from you the heart of stone, and give you the heart of flesh. Stone is emblematic of hardness, flesh of softness.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  When we got into a particularly thick knot of yews, I caught his arm & we set to it. I knew he had to have me, which was very painful (after so long without anything of this kind) though over quickly. I was quite unaroused throughout, had had quite enough of it all by the time he was waxing melancholy and emotional, kind of victorious & guilt-laden at the same time. It was only afterwards—only now—I saw the beauty of it. We eventually found the others back where we’d started & ready to give us up & go home without us, which wd have been an intolerable price to pay for so little pleasure. Loud were the exclamations & I suppose widespread the obvious conjecture. Only Sandy actually said, as I climbed into the car where he had been resting all this while, ‘Poodlefaking with Chancey Brough, eh? You wicked little slut.’ Later, on the journey, though with Tim this time on the other side of me, Chancey, feeling all rejected, having chosen to ride in the front, Sandy said, his eyes closed & I had thought asleep, ‘So tell me about our bourgeois Priapus, Charlie,’ quite loudly, so that I had to tickle him & fight all the way back to College … It was the middle of the evening, and not too late, I thought, to ring Charles up. I was amused to see that there were two C. Nantwiches in the directory, and that mine did not choose to distinguish himself from his namesake in Excelsior Gardens, SE 13. The phone was answered at once by a brusque-sounding man, evidently Lewis’s replacement; I was relieved that Charles had found someone and felt ashamed of my self-centred neglect of the old boy. ‘I’ll see if his Lordship’s in,’ said the man, which struck me as an especially absurd formula in this case. Charles came on almost immediately. ‘Hello! Hello!’ he was going. He had evidently started talking before picking up the receiver. ‘Charles! It’s William … William Beckwith.’ ‘My dear. How frightfully pleasant to hear you. Are you reading my stuff?’ ‘I certainly am. I was just ringing to say how terrific I think it is.’ ‘Are you enjoying it, then?’ ‘I think it’s wonderful. I’ve just read about you and Chancey Brough in the woods near Witney.’ ‘Oh …?’

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Few Dutchmen, I should hazard, have ever been forced to find an answer to the exasperating ques tion as to whether or not they would let their sisters marry him. The black man exists for Europe almost entirely in the mind, in which cage he is, not surprisingly, a kind of arche typal Noble Savage, exotic, childlike, backward. Almost never has he leaped out of the image and into lif e, as so spectacularly happened in America-a country, it is sometimes useful to remember, which was settled by Europeans. The European image of the black man rests finally, one must say, on ignorance, and, however expedient this igno rance may be, it is sustained by the objective conditions; whereas the American image of the Negro has been created out of our terrible experience, and is sustained by an an guished inability to come to terms with that experience, or to conquer the guilty fear and shame which have been its quite inevitable and self -perpetuating legacy. This heritage deprives us entirely of the kind of racial innocence which one finds in Europe. Europeans can blacken their faces with cork because the black man as a human being has no reality in their lives. He is not one of them. But he is one of us-a nd from this reality there is no escape. Disastrously enough, this escape seems sometimes to be our most passionate wish. Mr. Ottley, who insists that our heritage is great, yet essays to place himself and us at a vast remove from all its more troubling aspects; which is to say that he docs not wish to deal with it in all its implications, and so achieves that flatness of tone which is popularly taken as evi dence of an unbiased mind. It is not, for example, enough to suggest that because "the bulk of blacks in Europe is abys mally poor," American Negroes are better off because some arc able to drive a Cadillac. The history of the Negro in Amer ica is a heavier weight than this celeb rated vehicle is able to carry. Both white and black in America, the one to evade his guilt and weight of responsibility, and the other to deny past humiliation and present trouble , make the same great error: THE NE GRO AT HOME AN D ABROAD 605 the reduction of black-white history in America to a kind of tableau of material progress. This is a mere fragment of the truth, moreover a fragment which, when isolated from its complex of causes (and effects), becomes nothing less than a distortion. Neither the bitterness of our battles nor the reality of our victories can be conveyed in such a formulation, nor can we hope in so inadequate a language to clarifY for Europe any of the complexities of American lif e.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  134 Lecture 21: Livy, Tacitus, Plutarch to be of less importance than the moral fi ber of her society. She urges her husband and father to decide what punishment is due the rapist. Lucretia’s suicide leads her husband and his friend Brutus to overthrow the royal house of the Tarquins and found a new form of government, the Roman Republic. Lucretia’s story is memorable, moving, and fi lled with dramatic speeches, but it also draws a strong parallel between individual vice and lack of control and a deranged form of society, and between individual courage and sacrifi ce and appropriate and rational government. Unlike Livy, Publius Cornelius Tacitus held public of fi ce and had taken direct part in the politics of his day. His work concentrated on recent events. Tacitus was born around A.D. 56 and died around A.D. 117 or 118. He held important public of fi ces in Rome and probably in the provinces. His fi rst published work (in A.D. 98) was an encomium of his father-in- law. Tacitus began writing after the death of Emperor Domitian in A.D. 96. Tacitus’s two greatest works, the Histories and the Annals, survive only incompletely, but enough remains to give us a good sense of Tacitus’s style, material, and subject matter. The Histories was published around A.D. 109. Originally, it contained 14 books, covering the years from A.D. 69 (the reign of the emperor Galba) to A.D. 96 (the death of Domitian). Only Books I–IV and the beginning of Book V have survived; the narrative ends in A.D. 70. The Annals was published around A.D. 116. It began with the death of Augustus in A.D. 14 and concluded with the suicide of Nero in A.D. 68. Of its 18 books, we have Books I-IV and XI-XV , covering portions of the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. In both works, Tacitus focuses on the virtues of the old Republic and the degeneracy of life and mores under the emperors. But he says that he writes sine ira et studio —without anger or partisanship. Unlike Livy and Tacitus, Plutarch was a Greek who lived in Greece all his life. However, his biographical writings focus as much on Romans as on Greeks, and he was a Roman citizen.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  And I want to make it clear to you that though I may have to say some rather difficult things here this afternoon, I want to make it understood that in the heart of the absolutely necessary accusation there is contained a plea. The plea was articulated by Jesus Christ himself , who said, "In sofar as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me." Now it would seem to me that the nature of the confron tation, the actual historical confrontation between the non white peoples of the world and the white peoples of the world, bcnvccn the Christian Church and those people outside the Christian Church who arc unable to conceive themselves as being equall y the sons of God, the nature of that confronta tion is involved with the nature of the experience which a black person represents vis-a-vis the Cross of Christ, and vis a-vis that enormous structure which is called the Church. Be cause I was born in a Christian culture, I never considered myself to be totally a free human being. In my own mind, and in fact, I was told by Christians what I could do and what I could become and what my lif e was worth. Now, this means that one's concept of human freedom is in a sense frozen or strangled at the root. This has to do, of course, with the fact that though he was born in Nazareth under a very hot sun, and though we know that he spent his lif e beneath that sun, the Christ I was presented with was presented to me with blue 749 750 OTH ER ES SAYS eyes and blond hair, and all the virtues to which I, as a black man, was expected to aspire had, by definition, to be white. This may seem a very simple thing and from some points of view it might even seem to be a desirable thing. But in fact what it did was make me very early, make us, the blacks, very early distrust our own experience and refuse, in effect, to ar ticulate that experience to the Christians who were our op pressors. That was a great loss for me, as a black man. I want to suggest that it was also a great loss for you, as white people. For example, in the church I grew up in, we sang a song that that man who was hung on a Roman cross between two thieves would have understood better than most church prel ates.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  It will, I think, mean that whatever’s going on between those two is all over. What you don’t know, and what Bill doesn’t know I know, is that he has already been inside for interfering with young boys.’ But these were the kind of real-life details that never shocked James: it was only on the fantasy level that one got to him. ‘He’ll be pretty scared about all this.’ ‘Well, you’re hardly going to shop him to the police, are you?’ ‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ I said with a rueful laugh, finishing my drink and getting up to splosh in another half-tumbler full. I walked over and hugged him from behind, resting my chin on his shoulder. ‘It’s like one of those frightful seventeenth-century epitaphs: I’ve had my Will, I’ve had my Fill, and now they’ve sent in my Bill. Or something like that.’ ‘Do you want something to eat?’ ‘I think I’ll just stick on the booze, actually. Darling, can I stay here tonight? I just don’t fancy going home—and I’m sure he’ll try and ring up and it will all be too appalling.’ ‘Yes, of course you can.’ I sensed his nervous pleasure at the certainty of companionship. He turned round in my arms and gave me a tight squeeze and a kiss on the blunted bridge of my nose. ‘There’s actually something in a way much more awful that I’ve just found out,’ I began, sliding off and taking to an armchair. ‘It all came up in old Nantwich’s papers, you know? He led me on a long way and then he sprang his journal on me for 1954, from which it emerged, in brief, that he’d been sent to gaol for six months for soliciting and I think conspiracy to commit indecent acts, I’m not sure about all that. As if that wasn’t hideous enough it turns out that the person behind it all—there was a whole sort of gay pogrom apparently—was my grandfather. When he was Director of Public Persecutions.’ James sank to the chair opposite me and looked at me intently. ‘Lord B,’ he said, quietly and calculatingly. ‘Lord B, as you say. Did you know anything about this? Of course it just fucks up absolutely everything, it’s soured everything. It seems Lord B, as he was yet to become, was so successful in cleaning up the perves that he was whisked off to the Upper House. His whole career was made by it.’ We held each other’s eye. ‘Of course it turns out that when Charles was in gaol he met up with Bill Hawkins, doing his aforementioned stretch for being in love with a kid. He was a kid himself at the time, needless to say. And there are all sorts of other connections with people I know.

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

  I answer that, There are two things in hypocrisy, lack of holiness, and simulation thereof. Accordingly if by a hypocrite we mean a person whose intention is directed to both the above, one, namely, who cares not to be holy but only to appear so, in which sense Sacred Scripture is wont to use the term, it is evident that hypocrisy is a mortal sin: for no one is entirely deprived of holiness save through mortal sin. But if by a hypocrite we mean one who intends to simulate holiness, which he lacks through mortal sin, then, although he is in mortal sin, whereby he is deprived of holiness, yet, in his case, the dissimulation itself is not always a mortal sin, but sometimes a venial sin. This will depend on the end in view; for if this be contrary to the love of God or of his neighbor, it will be a mortal sin: for instance if he were to simulate holiness in order to disseminate false doctrine, or that he may obtain ecclesiastical preferment, though unworthy, or that he may obtain any temporal good in which he fixes his end. If, however, the end intended be not contrary to charity, it will be a venial sin, as for instance when a man takes pleasure in the pretense itself: of such a man it is said in Ethic. iv, 7 that “he would seem to be vain rather than evil”; for the same applies to simulation as to a lie. It happens also sometimes that a man simulates the perfection of holiness which is not necessary for spiritual welfare. Simulation of this kind is neither a mortal sin always, nor is it always associated with mortal sin. This suffices for the Replies to the Objections. OF BOASTING (TWO ARTICLES)We must now consider boasting and irony, which are parts of lying according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 7). Under the first head, namely, boasting, there are two points of inquiry: (1) To which virtue is it opposed? (2) Whether it is a mortal sin? Whether boasting is opposed to the virtue of truth?Objection 1: It seems that boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth. For lying is opposed to truth. But it is possible to boast even without lying, as when a man makes a show of his own excellence. Thus it is written (Esther 1:3,4) that Assuerus “made a great feast . . . that he might show the riches of the glory” and “of his kingdom, and the greatness and boasting of his power.” Therefore boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  My soul looks back and wonders. For what this really means is that all of the American cate gories of male and female, straight or not, black or white, were shattered, thank heaven, very early in my lif e. Not without anguish, certainly; but once you have discerned the meaning of a label, it may seem to define you for others, but it does not have the power to define you to yourself. This prepared me for my lif e downtown, where I quickly discovered that my existence was the punch line of a dirty joke. The condition that is now called gay was then called queer. The operative word was faggot and, later, pussy, but those epithets really had nothing to do with the question of sexual preference: You were being told simply that you had no balls. I certainly had no desire to harm anyone, nor did I under stand how anyone could look at me and suppose me physically capable of ca using any harm. But boys and men chased me, saying I was a danger to their sisters. I was thrown out of cafeterias and rooming houses because I was "bad" for the neighborhood. The cops watched all this with a smile, never making the faintest motion to protect me or to disperse my attackers; in fact, I was even more afraid of the cops than I was of the popula ce. By the time I was I9, I was working in the Garment Center. I was getting on very badly at home and delayed going home after work as long as possible. At the end of the workday, I would wander east, to the 42nd Street Library. Sometimes, I would sit in Bryant Park-but I discovered that I could not sit there long. I fled, to the movies, and so discovered 42nd Street. Today that street is exactly what it was when I was an adolesce nt: It has simply become more blatant. There were no X-rated movies then, but there were, so to speak, X-rated audiences. For example, I went in complete innocence to the Apollo, on 42nd Street, because foreign films were shown there-The Lower Depths, Childhood of Maxim 820 OTH ER ES SAYS Gorky, La Rete Httmaine-and I walked out as untouched (by human hands) as I had been when I walked in. There were the stores, mainly on Sixth Avenue, that sold "girlie" maga zines. These magazines were usually to be found at the back of the store, and I don't so much remember them as I re member the silent men who stood there.

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

  I answer that, Things are ascribed to their direct causes rather than to those which merely occasion them. Now that which is on the part of the body is merely an occasional cause of incontinence; since it is owing to a bodily disposition that vehement passions can arise in the sensitive appetite which is a power of the organic body. Yet these passions, however vehement they be, are not the sufficient cause of incontinence, but are merely the occasion thereof, since, so long as the use of reason remains, man is always able to resist his passions. If, however, the passions gain such strength as to take away the use of reason altogether—as in the case of those who become insane through the vehemence of their passions—the essential conditions of continence or incontinence cease, because such people do not retain the judgment of reason, which the continent man follows and the incontinent forsakes. From this it follows that the direct cause of incontinence is on the part of the soul, which fails to resist a passion by the reason. This happens in two ways, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. vii, 7): first, when the soul yields to the passions, before the reason has given its counsel; and this is called “unbridled incontinence” or “impetuosity”: secondly, when a man does not stand to what has been counselled, through holding weakly to reason’s judgment; wherefore this kind of incontinence is called “weakness.” Hence it is manifest that incontinence pertains chiefly to the soul. Reply to Objection 1: The human soul is the form of the body, and has certain powers which make use of bodily organs. The operations of these organs conduce somewhat to those operations of the soul which are accomplished without bodily instruments, namely to the acts of the intellect and of the will, in so far as the intellect receives from the senses, and the will is urged by passions of the sensitive appetite. Accordingly, since woman, as regards the body, has a weak temperament, the result is that for the most part, whatever she holds to, she holds to it weakly; although in /rare cases the opposite occurs, according to Prov. 31:10, “Who shall find a valiant woman?” And since small and weak things “are accounted as though they were not” [*Aristotle, Phys. ii, 5] the Philosopher speaks of women as though they had not the firm judgment of reason, although the contrary happens in some women. Hence he states that “we do not describe women as being continent, because they are vacillating” through being unstable of reason, and “are easily led” so that they follow their passions readily.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  I felt exactly the same way I felt, just before this moment, or just after, when I was in the street, playing, and I saw an old, very black, and very drunk woman stumbling up the sidewalk, and I ran upstairs to make my mother come to the window and sec what I had found: You see? You see? She's z�;_qlier than you, Mama! She's uglie�-than me! Out of bewil derment, out of loyalty to my mother, probably, and also be cause I sensed something menacing and unhealthy (for me, certainly) in the face on the screen, I gave Davis's skin the dead-white greenish cast of something crawling from under a rock, but I was held, just the same, by the tense intelligence of the forehead, the disaster of the lips: and when she moved, she moved just like a nigger. Eventually, from a hospital bed, she murders someone, and Tracy takes the weight, to Sing Sing. In his arms, Davis cries and cries, and the movie ends. "What's going to happen to her now?" I asked Bill Miller. "\Vc don't know," said Bill, conveying to me, nevertheless, that she would probably never get over it, that people pay for what they do. I had not yet heard Bessie Smith's awhy they call this place the Sin�q Sin�q?/Come stand here by this mck pile, and listen to these hmmne1'S 1'ing," and it would be seven years before I would begin working for the railroad. It was to take a longer time than that before I would cry; a longer time than that bctc>rc I would cry in anyone's arms; and a long long long long time bctc>rc I would begin to realize what I myself was CHAPTER ONE doing with my enormous eyes-or vice versa. This had noth ing to with Davis, the actress, or with all those hang-ups I didn't yet know I had: I had discovered that my infirmity might not be my doom: my infirmity, or infirmities, might be forged into weapons. For, I was not only considered by my father to be ugly. I was considered by everyone to be "strange," including my poor mother, who didn't, however, beat me for it. Well, if I was "strange"-and I knew that I must be, otherwise people would not have treated me so strangely, and I would not have been so miserable-perhaps I could find a way to use my strangeness. A "strange" child, anyway, dimly and fearfully apprehends that the years are not likely to make him less strange. Therefore, if he wishes to live, he must calculate, and I knew that I had to live. I very much wanted my mother to be happy and to be proud of me, and I very much loved my brothers and my sisters, who, in a sense, were all I had. My father showed no favoritism, he did not beat me worse than the others because I was not his son.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  And, by an unforeseeable paradox, it was my career in the church that turned out, precisely, to be my gimmick. For when I tried to assess my capabilities, I realized that I had almost none. In order to achieve the life I wanted, I had been dealt, it seemed to me, the worst possible hand. I could not become a prizefighter-many of us tried but very few suc ceeded. I could not sing. I could not dance. I had been well conditioned by the world in which I grew up, so I did not yet dare take the idea of becoming a writer seriously. The only other possibility seemed to involve my becoming one of the sordid people on the Avenue, who were not really as sordid as I then imagined but who frightened me terribly, both be cause I did not want to live that life and because of what they made me feel. Everything inflamed me, and that was bad enough, but I myself had also become a source of fire and temptation. I had been far too well raised, alas, to suppose that any of the extremely explicit overtures made to me that summer, sometimes by boys and girls but also, more alarm ingly, by older men and women, had anything to do with my attractiveness. On the contrary, since the Harlem idea of se duction is, to put it mildly, blunt, whatever these people saw in me merely confirmed my sense of my depravity. It is certainly sad that the awakening of one's senses should lead to such a merciless judgment of oneself-to say nothing of the time and anguish one spends in the effort to arrive at any other-but it is also inevitable that a literal attempt to mortifY the flesh should be made among black people like 302 THE FIRE NEXT TIME those with whom I grew up. Negroes in this country-and �egroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other-are taught really to despise themselves from the mo ment their eyes open on the world. This world is white and they are black. White people hold the power, which means that they are superior to blacks (intrinsically, that is: God de creed it so), and the world has innumerable ways of making this difference known and fe lt and teared. Long before the Negro child perceives this difference, and even longer before he understands it, he has begun to react to it, he has begun to be controlled by it.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  This may, in itself, be considered a heavy, even an unforgivable crime, but since it is not so considered when involving other people, the unmarried or the poverty-stricken or the feeble, and since his existence did not always invoke that hysteria with which he now contends, we are safe in sug gesting that his present untouchability owes its moti\'e power to several other sources. Let me suggest that his present de basement and our obsession with him corresponds to the de basement of the relationship between the sexes; and that his ambiguous and terrible position in our society reflects the am biguities and terrors which time has deposited on that rela tionship as the sea piles seaweed and wreckage along the shore. For, after all, I take it that no one can be seriously disturbed about the birth-rate: when the race commits suicide it will not be in Sodom. Nor can we continue to shout unnatural when ever we arc confronted by a phenomenon as old as mankind, a phenomenon, moreover, which nature has maliciously re peated in all of her domain. Ifwc arc going to be natural then this is part of nature; if we refuse to accept this, then we have rejected nature and must find another criterion. Instantly the Deity springs to mind, in much the same 59 6 OTHER ESSAYS manner, I suspect, that he sprang into being on the cold, black day when we discovered that nature cared nothing for us. His advent, which alone had the power to save us fr om nature and ourselves, also created a self-awareness and, therefore, tensions and terrors and responsibilities with which we had not coped before. It marked the death of innocence; it set up the duality of good-and-evil; and now Sin and Redemption, those mighty bells, began that crying which will not cease until, by another act of creation, we transcend our old morality. Before we were banished fr om Eden and the curse was uttered, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman", the homosexual did not exist; nor, properly speaking, did the heterosexual. We were all in a state of nature. We are forced to consider this tension between God and nature and are thus confronted with the nature of God be cause He is man's most intense creation and it is not in the sight of nature that the homosexual is condemned, but in the sight of God. This argues a profound and dangerous failure of concept, since an incalculable number of the world's hu mans are thereby condemned to something less than life; and we may not, of course, do this without limiting ourselves.

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

  Whether reviling consists in words?Objection 1: It would seem that reviling does not consist in words. Reviling implies some injury inflicted on one’s neighbor, since it is a kind of injustice. But words seem to inflict no injury on one’s neighbor, either in his person, or in his belongings. Therefore reviling does not consist in words. Objection 2: Further, reviling seems to imply dishonor. But a man can be dishonored or slighted by deeds more than by words. Therefore it seems that reviling consists, not in words but in deeds. Objection 3: Further, a dishonor inflicted by words is called a railing or a taunt. But reviling seems to differ from railing or taunt. Therefore reviling does not consist in words. On the contrary, Nothing, save words, is perceived by the hearing. Now reviling is perceived by the hearing according to Jer. 20:10, “I heard reviling [Douay: ‘contumelies’] on every side.” Therefore reviling consists in words. I answer that, Reviling denotes the dishonoring of a person, and this happens in two ways: for since honor results from excellence, one person dishonors another, first, by depriving him of the excellence for which he is honored. This is done by sins of deed, whereof we have spoken above (Q[64], seqq.). Secondly, when a man publishes something against another’s honor, thus bringing it to the knowledge of the latter and of other men. This reviling properly so called, and is done I some kind of signs. Now, according to Augustine (De Doctr. Christ. ii, 3), “compared with words all other signs are very few, for words have obtained the chief place among men for the purpose of expressing whatever the mind conceives.” Hence reviling, properly speaking consists in words: wherefore, Isidore says (Etym. x) that a reviler [contumeliosus] “is hasty and bursts out [tumet] in injurious words.” Since, however, things are also signified by deeds, which on this account have the same significance as words, it follows that reviling in a wider sense extends also to deeds. Wherefore a gloss on Rom. 1:30, “contumelious, proud,” says: “The contumelious are those who by word or deed revile and shame others.” Reply to Objection 1: Our words, if we consider them in their essence, i.e. as audible sound injure no man, except perhaps by jarring of the ear, as when a person speaks too loud. But, considered as signs conveying something to the knowledge of others, they may do many kinds of harm. Such is the harm done to a man to the detriment of his honor, or of the respect due to him from others. Hence the reviling is greater if one man reproach another in the presence of many: and yet there may still be reviling if he reproach him by himself. in so far as the speaker acts unjustly against the respect due to the hearer.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: Jerome employs the term “simulation” in a broad sense for any kind of pretense. David’s change of countenance was a figurative pretense, as a gloss observes in commenting on the title of Ps. 33, “I will bless the Lord at all times.” There is no need to excuse Jehu’s dissimulation from sin or lie, because he was a wicked man, since he departed not from the idolatry of Jeroboam (4 Kings 10:29,31). And yet he is praised withal and received an earthly reward from God, not for his dissimulation, but for his zeal in destroying the worship of Baal. Reply to Objection 3: Some say that no one may pretend to be wicked, because no one pretends to be wicked by doing good deeds, and if he do evil deeds, he is evil. But this argument proves nothing. Because a man might pretend to be evil, by doing what is not evil in itself but has some appearance of evil: and nevertheless this dissimulation is evil, both because it is a lie, and because it gives scandal; and although he is wicked on this account, yet his wickedness is not the wickedness he simulates. And because dissimulation is evil in itself, its sinfulness is not derived from the thing simulated, whether this be good or evil. Reply to Objection 4: Just as a man lies when he signifies by word that which he is not, yet lies not when he refrains from saying what he is, for this is sometimes lawful; so also does a man dissemble, when by outward signs of deeds or things he signifies that which he is not, yet he dissembles not if he omits to signify what he is. Hence one may hide one’s sin without being guilty of dissimulation. It is thus that we must understand the saying of Jerome on the words of Isa. 3:9, that the “second remedy after shipwreck is to hide one’s sin,” lest, to wit, others be scandalized thereby. Whether hypocrisy is the same as dissimulation?Objection 1: It seems that hypocrisy is not the same as dissimulation. For dissimulation consists in lying by deeds. But there may be hypocrisy in showing outwardly what one does inwardly, according to Mat. 6:2, “When thou dost an alms-deed sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do.” Therefore hypocrisy is not the same as dissimulation. Objection 2: Further, Gregory says (Moral. xxxi, 7): “Some there are who wear the habit of holiness, yet are unable to attain the merit of perfection. We must by no means deem these to have joined the ranks of the hypocrites, since it is one thing to sin from weakness, and another to sin from malice.” Now those who wear the habit of holiness, without attaining the merit of perfection, are dissemblers, since the outward habit signifies works of perfection. Therefore dissimulation is not the same as hypocrisy.

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

  JEROME. Mystically interpreted; When we are smitten on the right cheek, He said not, offer to him thy left, but the other; for the righteous has not a left. That is, if a heretic has smitten us in disputation, and would wound us in a right hand doctrine, let him be met with another testimony from Scripture. AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) The other kind of injuries are those in which full restitution can be made, of which there are two kinds; one relates to money, the other to work; of the first of these it is He speaks when He continues, Whoso will sue thee for thy coat, let him have thy cloak likewise. As by the cheek are denoted such injuries of the wicked as admit of no restitution but revenge, so by this similitude of the garments is denoted such injury as admits restitution. And this, as the former, is rightly taken of preparation of the heart, not of the show of the outward action. And what is commanded respecting our garments, is to be observed in all things that by any right we call our own in worldly property. For if the command be expressed in these necessary articles of life, how much more does it hold in the case of superfluities and luxuries? And when He says, He who will sue thee, He clearly intends to include every thing for which it is possible that we should be sued. It may be made a question whether it is to be understood of slaves, for a Christian ought not to possess his slave on the same footing as his horse; though it might be that the horse was worth the more money. And if your slave have a milder master in you than he would have in him who seeks to take him from you, I do not know that he ought to be given up as lightly as your coat. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. For it were an unworthy thing that a believer should stand in his cause before an unbelieving judge. Or if one who is a believer, though (as he must be) a worldly man, though he should have reverenced you for the worthiness of the faith, sues you because the cause is a necessary one, you will lose the worthiness of Christ for the business of the world. Further, every lawsuit irritates the heart and excites bad thoughts; for when you see dishonesty or bribery employed against you, you hasten to support your own cause by like means, though originally you might have intended nothing of the sort. AUGUSTINE. (Enchir. 78.) The Lord here forbids his disciples to have lawsuits with others for worldly property. Yet as the Apostle allows such kind of causes to be decided between brethren, and before arbiters who are brethren, but utterly disallows them without the Church, it is manifest what is conceded to infirmity as pardonable.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  But this was not to be, for, as so of ten happens, my first real triumph turned out to be the herald of my first real defeat. There is very little point, I think, in regretti ng anything, and yet I do, nevertheless, rather regret that Richard and I had not become friends by this time, for it might have made a great deal of difference. We might at least have caught a glimpse of the diftcrence between my mind and his; and if we could have argued about it then, our qua rrel might not have been so painful later. But we had not become friends mainly, indeed, I suppose, because of this very difference, and also because I really was too young to be his friend and adored him too much and was too afraid of him. And this meant that when my first wintry exposure to the publishing world had resulted in the irreparable ruin -carried out by me-of my first novel, I scarcely knew how to f.1ce anyone, let alone Richard. I was too ashamed of myself and I was sure that he was ashamed of me, too. This was utter foolishness on my part, t(>r Richard knew tar more about first novels and fledg ling novelists than that; but I had been out for his approval. It simply had not occurred to me in those days that anyone could approve of me if I had tried fi>r something and failed. The yo ung think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, ALAS, POOR RICH ARD 255 banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did -which was to hide. I, nevertheless, did sec him a few days before he went to Paris in 1946. It was a strange meeting, melancholy in the way a theater is melancholy when the run of the play is ended and the cast and crew arc about to be dispersed. All the relation ships so laboriously created now no longer exist, seem never to have existed; and the fu ture looks gray and problematical indeed. Richard's apartment-by this time, he lived in the Vil lage, on Charles Street -seemed rather like that, dismantled, everything teetering on the edge of oblivion; people rushing in and out, friends, as I supposed, but alas, most of them were merely admirers; and Richard and I seemed really to be at the end of our rope, for he had done what he could for me, and it had not worked out, and now he was going away. It seemed to me that he was sailing into the most splendid of fu tures, for he was going, of all places! to France, and he had been invited there by the French government. But Richard did not seem, though he was jaun ty, to be overjoyed. There was a striking sobriety in his face that day.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Before the teacher came my father took me aside to ask wb_Y she was coming, what interest she could possibly ha,·e in our house, in a bov like me. I said I didn't know but I, too, sug gested that it . had something to do with education. And I understood that my father was waiting for me to say some thing-! didn't quite know what; perhaps that I wanted his protection against this teacher and her "edu cation." I said 68 NO TES OF A NA TIVE SON none of these things and the teacher came and we went out. It was clear, during the brief interview in our living room, that my father was agreeing very much against his will and that he would have refused permission if he had dared. The bet that he did not dare caused me to despise him: I had no way of knowing that he was facing in that living room a wholly unprecedented and frightening situation. Later, when my f:1ther had been laid off from his job, this woman became very important to us. She was really a very sweet and generous woman and went to a great deal of trou ble to be of help to us, particul arly during one awful winter. My mother called her by the highest name she knew: she said she was a "chris tian." My father could scarcely disagree but during the four or five year s of our relatively close association he never trusted her and was always trying to surprise in her open, Midwestern face the genuine, cunning ly hidden, and hideous motivation. In later years, particul arly when it began to be clear that this "education" of mine was going to lead me to perdition, he became more explicit and warned me that my white friends in high school were not really my friends and that I would see, when I was older, how white people would do anything to keep a Negro down. Some of them could be nice, he admitted, but none of them were to be trusted and most of them were not even nice . The best thing was to have as little to do with them as poss ible. I did not feel this way and I was cert ain, in my innocence, that I never would. Rut the year which preceded my father's death had made a great change in my life. I had been living in New Jersey, work ing in defense plants, working and living among southerners, white and black.

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

  Reply to Objection 3: As stated in the objection, shame regards the vileness of a sin; wherefore a man is not always more ashamed of a more grievous sin, but of a viler sin. Hence it is that a man is more ashamed of flattery than of quarreling, although quarreling is more grievous. OF LIBERALITY (SIX ARTICLES)We must now consider liberality and the opposite vices, namely, covetousness and prodigality. Concerning liberality there are six points of inquiry: (1) Whether liberality is a virtue? (2) What is its matter? (3) Of its act; (4) Whether it pertains thereto to give rather than to take? (5) Whether liberality is a part of justice? (6) Of its comparison with other virtues. Whether liberality is a virtue?Objection 1: It seems that liberality is not a virtue. For no virtue is contrary to a natural inclination. Now it is a natural inclination for one to provide for oneself more than for others: and yet it pertains to the liberal man to do the contrary, since, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 1), “it is the mark of a liberal man not to look to himself, so that he leaves for himself the lesser things.” Therefore liberality is not a virtue. Objection 2: Further, man sustains life by means of riches, and wealth contributes to happiness instrumentally, as stated in Ethic. i, 8. Since, then, every virtue is directed to happiness, it seems that the liberal man is not virtuous, for the Philosopher says of him (Ethic. iv, 1) that “he is inclined neither to receive nor to keep money, but to give it away.” Objection 3: Further, the virtues are connected with one another. But liberality does not seem to be connected with the other virtues: since many are virtuous who cannot be liberal, for they have nothing to give; and many give or spend liberally who are not virtuous otherwise. Therefore liberality is not a virtue. On the contrary, Ambrose says (De Offic. i) that “the Gospel contains many instances in which a just liberality is inculcated.” Now in the Gospel nothing is taught that does not pertain to virtue. Therefore liberality is a virtue. I answer that, As Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. ii, 19), “it belongs to virtue to use well the things that we can use ill.” Now we may use both well and ill, not only the things that are within us, such as the powers and the passions of the soul, but also those that are without, such as the things of this world that are granted us for our livelihood. Wherefore since it belongs to liberality to use these things well, it follows that liberality is a virtue.