Tenderness

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 Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel (1873)

  One Monday my mother received a note from him, to beg she would grant him a short interview on the following day, as he wished for her advice on a subject of much interest to him. Mamma’s reply begged him to come at eleven o’clock, when she would be happy to see him. He came, and was particularly neatly dressed. My mother had been very agitated all the morning, and looked flushed and nervous as the hour drew near; I really believe the old lady fancied it was for an idle avowal to herself that he was coming. Be that however as it may, the object of his visit turned out to be a proposal to Miss Evelyn, with an offer of marriage. He was ready to make such settlements upon her as could not but be satisfactory. He told my mother that before speaking to Miss Evelyn, whom he had loved from her first appearance in the parish, and whose quiet, modest character had daily made a deeper impression, he thought it only his duty to first break the subject to her, and to ask her permission for an interview with Miss Evelyn, and next, if he was acceptable to her, for leave to visit at our house, while courting his wished-for wife. He further stated that he had never ventured to hint the state of his feelings to Miss Evelyn, and prayed my mother to be the kind intermediary in opening the subject to her, and to beg as a favour that she would grant him an interview to state his case in person on the following day, so that he might learn his fate from her own lips. My mother, although probably inwardly a little disappointed, had the interest of Miss Evelyn too much at heart not to take up the matter warmly, and urged, with all the volubility elderly ladies can so well exercise, whenever the marriage of a younger friend is in question, all the benefit that would accrue to her from so advantageous a proposal. Miss Evelyn was really taken quite by surprise, and stammered out some vague expressions of wishing for time to consider. “Stuff and nonsense, my dear, remember your dependent position, and the advantages this match holds out to you. You must not think or talk of delay. He will be here tomorrow, and I hope his lover eloquence will soon decide the question in his favour.” Poor Miss Evelyn burst into tears and said it was so sudden, and she was so ill-prepared to take any decision. She would, however, think over it very seriously and in the morning be better able to give an answer. My mother seeing that she was much agitated by what she had told her, very kindly said— “Give the children a holiday this afternoon, and I advise you to keep your own room, and write to your widowed mother, to tell her of the offer, and to ask her advice how you should act.”

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  at the moment of my death, and asked me to sing this hymn in her honour. You heard it. When I had finished singing, it seemed that she placed a small grain of seed upon my tongue. ‘Wherefore I sing again, more clearly than before, in praise of Mary. Until this seed is taken from my tongue, I will sing ceaselessly. She has told me everything. “My little child,” she said, “I will come for you. When the seed is taken from your tongue, do not be alarmed. I will not forsake you.”’ The holy abbot then reached over to the boy, and took the seed from his tongue. Whereupon the child died peacefully. The abbot was so moved by this miracle that the salt tears ran down his cheek. He fell to the ground, upon his face, and did not stir. All of the monks then went down upon their knees, weeping and calling upon the blessed Virgin. Then they rose and with reverent hands took the child from his bier; they placed him in a tomb of marble, in the chapel of Our Lady. He lies there still, thanks be to God. Oh little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, you were also slain by the Jews. Your death, so short a time ago, is still fresh in our memory. Pray for us sinners now, and at the time of our death. May God have mercy on our souls. Pray for us, Mother of God, so that your grace may descend upon us. Amen. Heere is ended the Prioresses Tale Prologue to Sir Thopas Bihoold the murye wordes of the Hoost to Chaucer All of the company seemed grave, and reflective, at the end of the Prioress’s tale. But then the Host changed the mood by making a joke at my expense. He looked at me, and winked at the others. ‘What sort of man are you?’ he asked. ‘You look as if you are trying to catch a rabbit. All you ever do is stare down at the ground. Come closer to me. That’s better. Look up. Smile. Fellow pilgrims, this is a good man. You see the extent of his waist? It’s just like mine. He is a big boy. I am sure that some nice young woman would love to embrace him, plump though he is. Yet he is always abstracted. He is always miles away. Come on, man, tell us a funny story. The others have. Now it is your turn.’ ‘Host,’ I said, ‘don’t take this personally. But I don’t know any stories. I can’t tell any stories. All I can recall is an old rhyme that I learned in my childhood.’ ‘That will do,’ Harry Bailey replied. ‘From the expression on your face, I think it will be an interesting one.’

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way. If we are aware of the constant changes in our inner and outer environment, we can mobilize to manage them. But we can’t do this unless our watchtower, the MPFC, learns to observe what is going on inside us. This is why mindfulness practice, which strengthens the MPFC, is a cornerstone of recovery from trauma.[12] After I saw the wonderful movie March of the Penguins, I found myself thinking about some of my patients. The penguins are stoic and endearing, and it’s tragic to learn how, from time immemorial, they have trudged seventy miles inland from the sea, endured indescribable hardships to reach their breeding grounds, lost numerous viable eggs to exposure, and then, almost starving, dragged themselves back to the ocean. If penguins had our frontal lobes, they would have used their little flippers to build igloos, devised a better division of labor, and reorganized their food supplies. Many of my patients have survived trauma through tremendous courage and persistence, only to get into the same kinds of trouble over and over again. Trauma has shut down their inner compass and robbed them of the imagination they need to create something better. The neuroscience of selfhood and agency validates the kinds of somatic therapies that my friends Peter Levine[13] and Pat Ogden[14] have developed. I’ll discuss these and other sensorimotor approaches in more detail in part V, but in essence their aim is threefold: to draw out the sensory information that is blocked and frozen by trauma; to help patients befriend (rather than suppress) the energies released by that inner experience; to complete the self-preserving physical actions that were thwarted when they were trapped, restrained, or immobilized by terror. Our gut feelings signal what is safe, life sustaining, or threatening, even if we cannot quite explain why we feel a particular way. Our sensory interiority continuously sends us subtle messages about the needs of our organism. Gut feelings also help us to evaluate what is going on around us. They warn us that the guy who is approaching feels creepy, but they also convey that a room with western exposure surrounded by daylilies makes us feel serene. If you have a comfortable connection with your inner sensations—if you can trust them to give you accurate information—you will feel in charge of your body, your feelings, and your self. However, traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  However, she would have nothing to do with his proposals, and so he left her with his wife, bidding her to arrange for food to be brought, and, since the woman was all in rags, to let her have some of her own clothes to wear. But most important, she was to do all she could to bring her back to the ship. On being left alone with Beritola, Currado’s wife shed countless tears over the lady’s misfortunes, then she gave instructions for food and clothes to be brought, which she had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to accept. And finally, after a stream of entreaties, with Madonna Beritola asserting that on no account would she go to any place in which she was known, she persuaded her to accompany them to Lunigiana, bringing with her the doe and the two rocbucks. The doe had meanwhile, in fact, returned, and, to the no small astonishment of Currado’s wife, it had greeted Beritola with a display of affection. And so, once the weather had improved, Madonna Beritola embarked on the ship with Currado and his lady, taking with her the doe and the two roebucks, a circumstance which, since few people knew her real name, led to her being referred to as Cavriuola. 5 The winds were favourable, and they soon reached the mouth of the River Magra, where they left the ship and proceeded to Currado’s estates in the hills. After her arrival at the castle, Madonna Beritola, dressed in widow’s weeds, began to live a humble, secluded and obedient life as a maid of honour to Currado’s lady, at the same time continuing to treat her roebucks with affection and ensuring that they were properly fed. Meanwhile, the pirates who had unwittingly abandoned Madonna Beritola at Ponza and seized the ship on which she had been travelling, had arrived at Genoa with all their captives. When the spoils were divided between the owners of the galley, it turned out that Madonna Beritola’s nurse and the two children were assigned, along with a quantity of goods, to a certain Messer Guasparrino d’Oria, 6 who sent the woman and the two boys to his house with the intention of employing them as slaves on household duties. Being exceedingly distressed by the loss of her mistress and by the sorry state to which she saw herself and the two children reduced, the nurse wept over and over again. But she was a sensible and prudent woman despite her lowly station in life, and once she had realized that her tears were not going to help in freeing them all from slavery, she did all she could to comfort the children. Considering where they were, she thought it quite possible that the two boys would be molested if their identity were discovered.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  But by this time the prince’s endurance had reached its limit so he pulled himself up and pushed all of his hardness into Cinderella, and it felt better than it ever had before. Her opening had never been so soft and plump as it was after being pleasured, and he held her firmly against him as he moved inside her and tried desperately to hold on to the pleasure for as long as he could. He didn’t want it to ever end but he couldn’t stop it, either, as he rounded the corner into that exquisite release that passes almost as quickly as it comes. Afterward the prince held Cinderella for longer than he ever had before, trembling and groaning as he crushed her to him. It was she who stirred first and then he grudgingly moved away from her and began to dress. They dressed in silence, for she was quite sleepy by now, and he held her protectively in front of him for the remainder of the ride home. At the castle he lifted her down from his horse, carried her into their bed, and slipped off her soft little slippers. Then he crept into the bed next to her and they both drifted happily off to sleep. The following morning Cinderella woke up alone as usual (for she was not an early riser) but beside her she noticed a rose. This brought a smile to her lips but that suddenly froze as she recalled with astonishment the events of the night before. She wondered what her husband made of her strange behavior. She could recall no disapproving remarks from the prince but, then again, there hadn’t been much conversation. She remembered her misuse and teasing of him and wondered that it had resulted in such kind and tender ministrations from him. Cinderella continued to ponder the matter as she rose up from their bed, when there on the floor she spied the little pink slippers. She reached down and picked up one of the little shoes and a strange thrill ran up along her arm. She examined the delicate slipper. It was so pretty and soft that she could not stop herself from slipping it onto her foot, and all at once, she forgot everything but that strong desire to sample all that life had to offer. And once again she forgot about the castle and her husband, the prince.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of so sweet a member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was one of those mild, pliant characters, that if one does not entirely esteem, one can scarce help loving, which is not such a bad compensation neither. Owing all her weaknesses to good nature, and an indolent facility that kept her too much at the mercy of first impressions, she had just sense enough to know that she wanted leading strings, and thought herself so much obliged to any who would take the pains to think for her, and guide her, that with a very little management, she was capable of being made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been for occasion, or example, or had she not depended less upon herself than upon her circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards verified: for presently meeting with a match, that was ready cut and dry for her, with a neighbour’s son of her own rank, and a young man of sense and order, who took as the widow of one lost at sea (for so it seems one of her gallants, whose name she had made free with, really was), she naturally struck into all the duties of her domestic life, with as much simplicity of affection, with as much constancy and regularity, as if she had never swerved from a state of undebauched innocence from her youth. These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole’s cluck that she was left with only me, like a hen with one chicken; but though she was earnestly entreated and encouraged to recruit her crops, her growing infirmities, and, above all, the tortures, of a stubborn hip gout, which she found would yield to no remedy, determined her to break up her business, and retire with a decent pittance into the country, where I promised myself, nothing so sure, as my going down to live with her, as soon as I had seen a little more of life, and improved my small matters into a competency that would create in me an independence on the world: for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that essential in view.

• From The Enchanted April (1922)

  “I didn’t think it was at all delicious. I was miserable. And now, since I’ve been here, I simply stare at myself being miserable. As miserable as that. And about Mellersh.” “You mean he wasn’t worth it.” “Really—” said Mrs. Fisher. “No, I don’t. I mean I’ve suddenly got well.” Lady Caroline, slowly twisting the stem of her glass in her fingers, scrutinised the lit-up face opposite. “And now I’m well I find I can’t sit here and gloat all to myself. I can’t be happy, shutting him out. I must share. I understand exactly what the Blessed Damozel felt like.” “What was the Blessed Damozel?” asked Scrap. “Really—” said Mrs. Fisher; and with such emphasis this time that Lady Caroline turned to her. “Ought I to know?” she asked. “I don’t know any natural history. It sounds like a bird.” “It is a poem,” said Mrs. Fisher with extraordinary frost. “Oh,” said Scrap. “I’ll lend it to you,” said Mrs. Wilkins, over whose face laughter rippled. “No,” said Scrap. “And its author,” said Mrs. Fisher icily, “though not perhaps quite what one would have wished him to be, was frequently at my father’s table.” “What a bore for you,” said Scrap. “That’s what mother’s always doing—inviting authors. I hate authors. I wouldn’t mind them so much if they didn’t write books. Go on about Mellersh,” she said, turning to Mrs. Wilkins. “Really—” said Mrs. Fisher. “All those empty beds,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “What empty beds?” asked Scrap. “The ones in this house. Why, of course they each ought to have somebody happy inside them. Eight beds, and only four people. It’s dreadful, dreadful to be so greedy and keep everything just for oneself. I want Rose to ask her husband out too. You and Mrs. Fisher haven’t got husbands, but why not give some friend a glorious time?” Rose bit her lip. She turned red, she turned pale. If only Lotty would keep quiet, she thought. It was all very well to have suddenly become a saint and want to love everybody, but need she be so tactless? Rose felt that all her poor sore places were being danced on. If only Lotty would keep quiet . . . And Mrs. Fisher, with even greater frostiness than that with which she had received Lady Caroline’s ignorance of the Blessed Damozel, said, “There is only one unoccupied bedroom in this house.” “Only one?” echoed Mrs. Wilkins, astonished. “Then who are in all the others?” “We are,” said Mrs. Fisher. “But we’re not in all the bedrooms. There must be at least six. That leaves two over, and the owner told us there were eight beds—didn’t he Rose?”

• From Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (2019)

  The techniques we use are a bit like the type of brain surgery in which the patient remains awake throughout the procedure; as the surgeons operate, they keep checking in with the patient: Can you feel this? Can you say these words? Can you repeat this sentence? They’re constantly calibrating how close they are to sensitive regions of the brain, and if they hit one, they back off so as not to damage it. Therapists delve into a mind rather than a brain, and we can see from the subtlest gesture or expression if we’ve hit a nerve. But unlike neurosurgeons, we gravitate toward the sensitive area, pressing delicately on it, even if it makes the patient feel uncomfortable. That’s how we get to the deeper meaning of the story, and often at the core is some form of grief. But a lot of plot stands in between. A patient named Samantha came to therapy in her twenties to understand the story of her beloved father’s death. She’d been told as a child that he had died in a boating accident, but as an adult, she began to suspect that he had killed himself. Suicide often leaves the survivors with an unsolved mystery: Why? What could have been done to prevent this? Meanwhile, Samantha was always looking for problems in her relationships, searching for issues that would inevitably provide her with a reason to leave. In not wanting her boyfriends to be the enigma that her father was, she’d unwittingly re-create a story of abandonment—only in this version, she was the one doing the abandoning. She had control, but ended up alone. In therapy, she learned that the mystery she was trying to solve was larger than whether or not her father committed suicide. It was also the mystery of who her father was when he was alive—and who she became as a result of that. People want to be understood and to understand, but for most of us, our biggest problem is that we don’t know what our problem is. We keep stepping in the same puddle. Why do I do the very thing that will guarantee my own unhappiness over and over again? I cry and cry, wondering how it’s possible that I can cry so long. I wonder if I’ve become massively dehydrated. And still more tears appear. Before I know it, Wendell is patting his legs to indicate that our session is over. I take a breath and notice that I feel strangely calm now. Sobbing freely in Wendell’s office was like being wrapped in a blanket, warm and safe and separate from everything happening out there. I think about the Jack Kornfield quote again, the part about self-acceptance, but still I start to judge: Did I just pay somebody to watch me cry for forty-five minutes straight? Yes and no.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  22 Mass Eye Each spectral port, each human eye is shot through with a hole, and everything we know goes in there, where it feeds a blaze. In a flash the baby’s old... —Heather McHugh, “The Size of Spokane” Down in Texas, a botched cataract surgery has nearly blinded Mother, and I suggest she have the corneal transplant to repair it in Boston. Since Mr. Whitbread serves on New York Hospital’s board and likes to flex that helping muscle, Warren urges me to write him to find a doctor. I suspect (is this true?) Warren really fancies Mother’s presence will let him vanish further into work and daddy-hood. Still, I’m grateful when Mr. Whitbread right off cops for Mother an appointment with the pope’s own eye surgeon, who bumps Mother way up on the transplant list. That spring she comes to live in our dining room, waiting on a tissue match. I’ll help with my grandson, she says. I’ll look after him while you grade or write in your study. You’re blind, Mother. Not entirely. I mean, too blind to drive, but I can keep him away from sharp stuff. The first day she does babysit, but the second, Dev scampers into my study with Mother right behind, and do I want to go to the park? By the third day, Mother makes the most infuriating announcement: I don’t do kids. I sputter, You had four of them, Mother. Nobody helped me with mine. Bullshit. Daddy took me everywhere. She rolls her milky eyes toward the light fixture, saying, Here you go with that my sainted daddy shit. Your sister and I both wonder why he got a big pass for doing nothing whatsoever. Daddy never left us at the movies and didn’t pick us up. He never did anything whatsoever. He paid every bill. We lived in absolute squalor. He worked at an oil refinery, Mother. Did you fail to notice that? Ragging on Daddy is Mother’s de facto response to any complaint about our upbringing. She deftly pawns off her own failings on the desolation of her marriage. So she bitches that Daddy had been offered promotions but wouldn’t leave the union. And I counter that she’d been a Marxist when they married, and we dwindle into those niggling definitions until my fury boils over, and I lunge with the biggest weapon in my verbal sheath. I remind her that Daddy had never stood over me with a butcher knife. I say it with a forceful little puff of air so the fact lands in her like a curare dart. All talk exits the room. We face each other in this vacuumed-out bubble, and part of me knows it’s a pathetic fact that not trying to murder me was all he had to do to win the better-parent prize. Mother sucks her teeth and sits down on the low-lying futon we moved into the dining room for her.

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

  In the second place, prayer is efficacious and useful to obtain all that one desires: “All things whatsoever you ask when you pray, believe that you shall receive.” When our prayers are not heard, either we do not persevere in prayer, whereas “we ought always to pray, and not to faint,” or we do not ask for that which is more conducive to our salvation. “Our good Lord often does not give us what we wish,” says St. Augustine, “because it would really be what we do not wish for.” St. Paul gives us an example of this in that he thrice prayed that the sting of his flesh be removed from him, and his prayer was not heard. Thirdly, prayer is profitable because it makes us friends of God: “Let my prayer be directed as incense in Thy sight.” THE OPENING WORDS OF THE LORD’S PRAYER PREPARATION FOR THE PETITIONSOur FATHER.—Note here two things, namely, that God is our Father, and what we owe to Him because He is our Father. God is our Father by reason of our special creation, in that He created us in His image and likeness, and did not so create all inferior creatures: “Is not He thy Father, that made thee, and created thee?” Likewise God is our Father in that He governs us, yet treats us as masters, and not servants, as is the case with all other things. “For Thy providence, Father, governeth all things;” and “with great favor disposest of us.” God is our Father also by reason of adoption. To other creatures He has given but a small gift, but to us an heredity—indeed, “if sons, heirs also.” “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba (Father).” We owe God, our Father, four things. First, honor: “If then I be a Father, where is My honor?” Now, honor consists in three qualities. (1) It consists in giving praise to God: “The sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me.” This ought not merely come from the lips, but also from the heart, for: “This people draw near Me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify Me, but their heart is far from Me.” (2) Honor, again, consists in purity of body towards oneself: “Glorify and bear God in your body.” (3) Honor also consists in just estimate of one’s neighbor, for: “The king’s honor loveth judgment.”