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.

Page 18 of 145 · 20 per page

• From The City of God

  [390] On the service rendered to the Church by this definition, see Waterland's Works, v. 124. [391] Literally, a sacred action. [392] Ecclus. xxx. 24. [393] Rom. vi. 13. [394] Rom. xii. 1. [395] Rom. xii. 2. [396] Ps. lxxiii. 28. [397] Rom. xii. 3-6. Chapter 7. --Of the Love of the Holy Angels, Which Prompts Them to Desire that We Worship the One True God, and Not Themselves. It is very right that these blessed and immortal spirits, who inhabit celestial dwellings, and rejoice in the communications of their Creator's fullness, firm in His eternity, assured in His truth, holy by His grace, since they compassionately and tenderly regard us miserable mortals, and wish us to become immortal and happy, do not desire us to sacrifice to themselves, but to Him whose sacrifice they know themselves to be in common with us. For we and they together are the one city of God, to which it is said in the psalm, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God;" [398] the human part sojourning here below, the angelic aiding from above. For from that heavenly city, in which God's will is the intelligible and unchangeable law, from that heavenly council-chamber,--for they sit in counsel regarding us,--that holy Scripture, descended to us by the ministry of angels, in which it is written, "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed," [399] --this Scripture, this law, these precepts, have been confirmed by such miracles, that it is sufficiently evident to whom these immortal and blessed spirits, who desire us to be like themselves, wish us to sacrifice. [398] Ps. lxxxvii. 3. [399] Ex. xxii. 20.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  When Stephen’s relics arrived, Augustine had a shrine built for him,331 within earshot of the main church—or was an older shrine in the old Donatist basilica Augustine now claimed remade for a new tenant? Whatever the facts, the shrine carefully told the story of the new tenant in pictures: “There’s a wonderfully sweet picture there,” Augustine observes in almost the only place where we can see him noticing church architecture or decoration, “where you see Stephen being stoned, where you see Saul watching over the garments of the ones doing the stoning.”332 Four verses of text, presumably of scripture, were provided to accompany the pictures, but for once, Augustine told his flock they needed no book.333 “A little dust has brought together such a crowd,” he said one year on the feast day. “The ash lies hidden, the benefits from it are well known. Think, dear ones, what things god holds for us in the land of the living, who has given us such great things from the dust of the dead.”334 Stephen’s influence is in the air on that Easter Sunday, but Augustine begs off reading the miracle stories until the morrow: he is too exhausted with age, fasting, and the demands of the Easter liturgy. On Monday, he is still unready, but the congregation is chafing for stories. Finally, on Tuesday, we get the story, the full text of a “Pamphlet made by Paul for Bishop Augustine.” (It was the custom in those days to turn miracle into text by writing such a libellus, a pamphlet, for public reading and circulation. Sometimes it was hard to make a congregation remember the difference between canonical scripture and locally produced and exhilarating pamphlet.)

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  I, Alypius, most devotedly greet your holiness, and all those joined to you in the master. I hope you will treat this letter as if it came from me as well. Though I might have written one myself, I preferred to add my name to this one, so that the single page could testify to the unity of our hearts. And then his voice fades away, a voice that accompanied Augustine longer through his life than any other, from teaching days in Tagaste in the mid-370s until their last days, half a century later. Augustine we know so well, his best friend, so faintly. AUGUSTINE THE PRIVATE PERSON Was there an Augustine behind all these social façades, the ones that might have been and the ones that were? Rich, famous, socially successful, wielder of sacramental power in church and of a more ordinary power in his audience hall or in the courts of other powerful men, what did Augustine have left to himself? If we look for an unguarded, natural Augustine in his works, we will never find him. Do we catch glimpses? I notice the one who admits that he struggles to be high-minded and focus his mind on the things of his god, but his mind wanders at the curious sights of the world—a dog chasing a rabbit, a lizard catching flies, or a spider trapping them in its web—till he shakes his head and returns to his higher things. Privacy is a modern invention and depends on conditions of life and an understanding of selfhood that were inaccessible to ancient people. To be “noble” (nobilis) in classical Rome meant literally to be “known,” to be a figure under observation. Urban life centered on the activities and doings of the small elite group at the top of the social pyramid. The growth of cities and the emergence of a de facto bourgeoisie, people who could achieve wealth without achieving fully coordinate social standing, gave rise to the possibility of creating a disparity between social standing and visibility, which is the essence of privacy. Privacy is cherished when a shadow falls over areas of a person’s life that might otherwise be expected to be on more public display. The possibility of privacy begins for an elite, but (as we see in our own time) has the potential of reaching broadly in a mass society. And because privacy is a desirable good, its scope gradually expands for those who can manage it. But privacy and obscurity are not identical: in a way obscurity is privacy’s reverse, the mark of a shadow that covers more, rather than less, than the individual might want. Privacy expresses the ability to control what is known about oneself.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  A letter to a grieving girl gives us a snapshot of Augustine at work. She has lost a brother to death and is inconsolable, but she has sent Bishop Augustine the cloak that she had woven for her brother with her own hands and that he used to wear. “I’m putting it on to wear as I sit down to write to you,” replies Augustine,280 “for whatever solace it may bring.” The lived experience of a bishop in an African city in late antiquity brought him in contact with the diversity of human fates and wishes and left him many choices how to play his role. Augustine is such a virtuoso performer that the focus always zooms in on him, but we should pull it back to see him among his flock if we are to see him clearly. His touch was characteristic in the small things as well as the large. A sermon on swearing reveals him to have hesitated long whether to take up the theme at all, for fear of making people feel worse without being able to amend their bad habit, but Augustine is sure that they can break the habit in just three days and he has the method for them.281 He was quite sure he knew what his job was: —to chastise troublemakers, to comfort the faint of heart, to welcome the ailing, to refute those who argue, to watch out for the treacherous, to teach the ignorant, to arouse the passive ones, to calm down the boisterous ones, to rein in the arrogant, to pacify the quarrelsome, to set free the downtrodden, to support the good, to endure the evil, and to love everybody.282 That pastoral Augustine is hard to see unless we read his sermons with great patience. The role deserves some attention, for in its mix of the educational and the authoritative and in its vocabulary, it represents a reinvention of fatherhood. A similar transformation of role was making the teachers of late antiquity similar figures of prominence.283 But fathers in the natural state very often don’t teach very well. More successful, in late antiquity and after, are figures of Augustine’s sort, carrying displaced fatherly authority. Christianity had the effect in this world of creating social roles that went beyond the ordinary familial and local ones, not only liberating bearers of those roles from the tyranny of the home town but in other ways liberating church members from some at least of the tyranny and isolation of the family. Protestantism, it has been argued, reconnected fatherly and religious authority in early modern times and makes this late-antique relocation of paternity seem anomalous to us.284

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  If a modern reader would like to get the flavor of Augustine’s religion as his followers did, seeing and hearing him preaching in church week in and week out, those sermons on the Psalms are the best place to go to listen. His Psalms aren’t quite ours, though. He exceeds modern readers both in his literality and in his flights of fancy. Here’s how one of them, on Psalm 51 (52), begins: To the end: the understanding of David.233 When Doec the Idumite came and reported to Saul and said, David has come into the house of Abimelech. The words quoted are the titulus, the heading that Augustine found in his Latin manuscript. Since every word of scripture was inspired and informative, even these almost marginal words were no exception. When Augustine gave a sermon on this psalm, one day in perhaps 413, he made a point of having the relevant passage from Kings read first, and then he spent a third of his sermon on the rivalry between Saul and David. His point was not historical but allegorical and ethical. The audience was to get the point, a favorite one of Augustine, that David stood for Christ. (Those first words quoted above did not delay him every time they appeared, for similar words appear, hashed translations of the Hebrew, on many psalms. But Augustine took them as his warrant for seeing Christ wherever he saw David.) On this reading, Saul’s persecution of David is the persecution that led to Jesus’s death and David’s eventual ascent to his kingdom is Jesus’s resurrection. By implication, the same story is the hearer’s story, trial leading to redemption. Before Augustine begins reading the psalm proper, he knows what it means. Augustine knew he was taking his elaborate time, but he had his reasons: “This is a short psalm we’re going to talk about, but the header has some business in it. Bear with us while we untangle that, as best we can, with the master’s help. We shouldn’t pass over these things easily, for my brothers have been kind enough to arrange for what we say to be taken in not only by ears and hearts, but by pens as well, so we have to think not only about the audience here, but the readers as well.”234 Not to be missed here is the way the late-antique schoolmaster gets excited about difficulty as a signal of concealed meaning. Bad translation was an opportunity for interpretation, for there was no phrase so gnomic or inapt that it could not be made the subject of close study and ingenious exegesis.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Every Tuesday night, Dad greeted our guests at the front door and pointed them downstairs to our family room. He stayed upstairs to watch television, volume turned low out of respect. This continued through the years after Lory, Randy, and I had all married and moved away. A successful graphic designer by trade, Phil was the latest in a long succession of elders assigned to lead the study group. He and his wife, Grace, became Witnesses after their three children were born. They were first contacted by other Witnesses in the door-to-door ministry, and both responded to the message out of concern over what kind of world their children might inherit. Phil was well into his forties, but his well-toned, stocky build and jaunty personality gave him the air of a thirty-year-old. He kept fit by running five miles each day. Phil and Grace were two of the few Witnesses I knew with college degrees. They were well off, well traveled, and interesting, especially to my dad. There was a certain indescribable something about Phil that Dad couldn’t dismiss, and the feeling was mutual. When Dad learned that Phil had a daily addiction to ice cream, he made a point of having a fresh gallon at the ready each Tuesday. After the Bible study, everyone was invited upstairs to linger for dessert. Phil and Grace were usually the last to leave; he and my dad sat together at the kitchen table while the women chatted on the couch. Phil was just as interested in getting to know my father as a person as he was in teaching him anything about God. I suspect my father was undone by the genuine personal interest Phil showed, minus any agenda to convert him. One day he said, “Frank, no matter what happens—whether you ever study the Bible or not —we’ll always be friends.” And Dad knew that he meant it. “He’s not a bullshitter,” Dad said. Phil had come from the world and did not fear its influences the same way we Lifers did. Soon Mom and Dad were playing cards each weekend with Phil and Grace and dining out with them often. Throughout most of their marriage, my parents did not blend much of their social lives. Mom had rich friendships with women in the congregation, but relationships with other couples were rare because Dad was an unbeliever. I noticed a gentle felicity emerge between my parents as they basked in the joy of this new era. Phil never mistook Dad’s absence of scholarly accomplishments for a lack of intelligence.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The former courtier had just retired from the Elector’s service and was finding his feet in a new post as preacher at Altenburg, where he was facing bitter opposition from Catholics. Instead, Luther said, he would think of his friend and “love my Käthe through the same act as you” on the night that he calculated his friend would wed. 27 However, while Luther had no fear by now that he might be unable to “love” his wife, Spalatin, forced to live in a household with his mother-in-law with whom he did not get on, proved unable to have children for the first six years of the marriage, a failure that made him the butt of Catholic jokes. 28 — W HAT kind of relationship did Luther and Katharina von Bora have? There is something rather chilling in Luther’s insistence that Katharina always address him as “Mr. Doctor” and that she use the polite “you.” In the will he wrote in 1537, when he expected to die from an attack of stone, he wrote, “She served me not just as a wife, but even as a servant.” But since famulus was the word Luther used for his academic secretaries, men who went on to important careers in the Church, he may have meant this as a term of respect. 29 Nonetheless, the apparent distance and obsession with hierarchy is symptomatic of the contradictory mixture of warmth, jokiness, and a certain condescension, even cruelty in his interactions with others. 30 He could also be wittily earthy. Writing to Wenzeslaus Linck in Nuremberg shortly after his marriage, Luther punned that “I am bound and captured in chains [ Ketten ] / Käthe, and I lie on the Bora / bier [ Bahre ], as if dead to the world.” 31 But although he might have pretended to be a reluctant bridegroom, he evidently relished married life, remarking that “[m]an has strange thoughts the first year of marriage. When sitting at table he thinks, ‘Before I was alone; now there are two.’ Or in bed, when he wakes up, he sees a pair of pigtails lying beside him which he hadn’t seen there before.” 32 Katharina regularly became pregnant and gave birth every one to two years, suggesting that the couple enjoyed a full sexual life. Luther had none of the instinctive revulsion for the female body that characterized so many monks, perhaps because he had grown up with younger sisters. He would often joke about sex, even remarking that “pious Christ himself” had committed adultery three times—once with Mary Magdalen and once with the woman at the well, and once with the adulteress whom he let off so lightly. 33 This remark was extraordinary: One cannot imagine Huldrych Zwingli or John Calvin saying such a thing. But Luther loved to tease, especially those who considered themselves righteous. When it came to the proper roles of women and men, Luther was always inclined to turn to the Old Testament.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  He sits on the ground with his head hung down. His hair has come unpasted, the stiff strands flipping up like a car hood popped open. A few stray pine needles stick to one cheek. Looks like you been to a party tonight, brotha, the shaved-head guy says. I’m sorry, James is saying at random intervals. His hands cover his face as he busts out in backbreaking sobs. The bald guy pats his back, saying, That’s all right, honey, we all been there. A guy with a tear tattoo says, You’re in the right place, buddy. After a while, tear-tattoo asks me what James does for a living, and when I say lawyer , he says, Maybe I should get his card. Gerry fishes around in James’s coat pocket to drag out his car keys. Then the two bikers sling him up and shoulder him, spread-armed as if for crucifixion. They transport him up the church steps with the unwieldy shuffle of good bouncers. The bald guy asks if this is where we want him. When I say sure, they deposit him, aslant, onto the back pew. In corner chairs in the back kitchen, we find David and Jack bent over a can of pink cake frosting, each holding a tablespoon. David’s spoonful of icing has twin teeth marks raked through it like Jeep tracks in mud. Busted, David says. This was extra from the cupcakes, Jack explains. Gerry tells them about James’s fall off the wagon. Jack sits folded in half, hugging his knees as his forehead creases. With the toe of his shoe, he outlines the same linoleum tile over and over. David strokes his beard, saying, That is genuinely terrifying. Why’d he go out drinking? Gerry shakes his head, saying, Mood and happenstance don’t drive us to drink. Turning to Jack, he says, Explain it to the newcomers. He got drunk, Jack says, because he’s an alcoholic. We are given a daily reprieve based on our spiritual condition. Without spiritual help, the lure of the drink is too much for most of us. Is he quoting something? I ask David. It’s their book, he says. The once über-logical David tells me with aficionado’s conviction that at the halfway house where he’s a current resident—and Jack a former one—there’s a hard-core book study every Sunday. I should go. Riding back to Lexington in the backseat, I sit between passed-out, openmouthed James—his breath on the side window spreading and receding like a tide—and curly-headed Jack. I think with rue of Joan the Bone’s injunction to ask the first person I saw about my marriage. I’m still angling to prove what crazy bullshit her much vaunted surrender-to-the-group concept is. Whatever Jack’s brief spells of clarity, he rarely goes to a meeting without jabbering out something nutty. So I start whispering my tale of marital woe to Jack, who sits in the hunched posture of somebody tensing against a blow.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  τροφός, 6, and ἡ, (τρέφω) a feeder, rearer, Hom. only in Od, and always as fem. of a nurse, φίλη τροφὸς Ἐὐρύκλεια 2. 361, al.; so in Hdt. 2. 156., 6, 61, and often in Att.; of a mother, Soph. Aj. 849, O. Ὁ. 760.— The masc. was chiefly used in the form τροφεύς, Lob. Phryn. 316; but τροφός as masc. occurs in Eur. H. F. 45, El. 409, Plat. Polit. 268 A, B. 2. metaph., of a city, Συράκοσαι, ἀνδρῶν ἵππων τε δαιμόνιαι τροφοί Pind. P. 2.5; yn τε μητρί, φιλτάτῃ τροφῷ Aesch. Theb. τό ; αἵμαθ᾽ ἐκποθένθ᾽ ὑπὸ χθονὸς τροφοῦ Id. Cho. 66, cf. Soph. O. T. 1092 ; βήτηρ ἁπάντων γαῖα καὶ κοινὴ Tp. Menand. Monost. 617; νὺξ ἄστρων tp. Eur. El. 54; τὴν γεωργίαν τῶν ἄλλων τεχνῶν μητέρα καὶ Tp. Xen. Oec. 5, 17, cf. Plat. Polit. 267 Ὁ. 3. in neut. τὸ τροφόν, that which nourishes, food, Ib. 289 A. TI. Pass. a nursling, τροφοί " θρέμ- ματα (Meineke τροφαί), Hesych. τροφοφορέω, to bring one nourishment, maintain, sustain, LXX (Deut I. 31., 2 Macc. 7. 27), Act. Ap. 13. 18 (v. 1. ἐτροποφόρησε). τροφο-φόρος, ον, nourishing, τινός Eust. 773. 50, etc. tpopadys, es, (εἶδος) of nutritious nature, Arist. Probl. 3. 5, 6, Xenocr. Aq. 135 3 Tp. τῆς σαρκός Arist. Probl. Io. 22. 11. =rpogiwins ; Hesych. expl. σῦφαρ by τὸ ἐπὶ τοῦ γάλακτος Tp. Τροφώνιος, 6, the mythical builder of the first temple of Apollo at Delphi, h. Hom, Ap. 296 ; afterwards himself the possessor of a cele- brated oracle, Hdt. 1. 46., 8. 134, Pind. Fr. 26; καταβαίνων ὥσπερ ἐς Τροφωνίου (sc. ἄντρον) Ar. Nub. 508 :-—Zeds τροφ. Strab. 414, cf. 421. 11. Τροφώνεια, τά, his festival, Ο. 1. 1068, τ. 1; written Τροφώνια in Poll. 1. 37. 1584 τροχάδην [a], Adv. (τρέχων running in the course or race, formed like λογάδην, σποράδην, C. 1. 2647, Apollon. de Adv. 611. τροχάζω, (τροχός) to run like a wheel, to run along, run quickly, Hdt. 9 66, Xen. An. 7. 3, 46, etc. ; Tp. στάδια πλείω Ξωτάδου Philetaer. Arad. 1: 7. ἵπποις, of ἃ charioteer, Eur. Hel. 724; of a horse, Arist. H. A. 8. 24. 4: Tp. ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις Polyb. Io. 20, 2 :—Med. in Eust. Opusc. 245. 57.—The Verb was rejected by the Atticists, Lob. Phryn. 582. τροχαϊκός, 7, ὄν, trochaic, Schol. Ar., etc. Lob. Phryn. 39 prefers τροχαιϊκός. τροχαιο-ειδής, és, trochaic, Aristid. Mus. 1. 39; vulg. τροχαιειδής. τροχαιο-παιωνόπρωτοϑ, 6, a trochee and first paeon, Anecd. Oxon. 3. 307 :--τροχαιο-πυρρίχιος, 6, a trochee and pyrrhic, ΤΌ. 306. τροχαῖος, a, ov, (τρόχος) running, tripping quick, 680s Rhinthon ap.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  I tried growing it long for two years. It grew straight out on the sides and curly on top. My head looked like a floral model of a geodesic dome. My junior year in physics the kids called me “Bucky Head.” I retain my pissy-assed little mustache. A guy as generally hairy as I am should be able to grow hair on his upper lip, but I can’t. I covet Kuch’s hair—ponytailed or braided. Anyway, Carla and I didn’t talk very much back then. She was not impressed with my trophies when I took her down to the basement to show her where she’d be staying. For a while I thought she had tried to gross me out. She took off her clothes, turned on the shower, and started in. She had a nice body, but she seemed awfully top-heavy and she had stretch marks low on her stomach. Otto has them on his back and shoulders. Then she turned from the shower and sat down on the toilet and peed. I stood open-mouthed. I do that a lot. I’m a pretty fun person to surprise. When she reached for the toilet paper, I split for the other room. All the time she acted like I wasn’t even there. She was unobtrusive through Mom’s leaving. I think she spent those three days and nights at the New Pioneer. I finally decided she really probably hadn’t tried to gross me out. I don’t think she ever did anything to purposely offend anyone, including me. She worked like crazy keeping the basement clean; she split the dishwashing with me and cooked when Mom went out of town. She even bought food after she got her job. After her first words down at Dad’s old store—“Fuck you guys!”—Carla turned out to be pretty gracious. I felt a real gentleness all around her. Carla had one record and two prints with her when she came. She played the record low and often. It’s a classical record by Johann Pachelbel. Her favorite band on it is “Canon in D Major.” It’s a simple tune played by three violins and a continuo, whatever in hell that is. The prints are by a French painter named Henri Rousseau and are very colorful and have monkey faces peeking through a jungle inhabited by soft, naked women and creatures I’m not able to identify. Maybe they’re oozlings. Several times Carla told Dad she’d worn out her welcome and each time Dad told her she hadn’t. He even lent her the money for a minor operation she had to have. It was a hemorrhoid operation, which I thought was pretty strange for a young girl. But since then I’ve read that people of any age can have hemorrhoids. After reading in Pathology about some different types of hemorrhoids and “striae,” which are stretch marks, I began to wonder if maybe Carla hadn’t been pregnant.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  I didn’t want to lie, so I said I was thinking of the salmon on the Columbia when it was a river and how they’d leap the falls to swim upstream. She didn’t say anything. One of the next times we made love, by some miracle we came together. Recovering, we looked into each other’s eyes. “There they go,” Carla said, smiling. At first I didn’t get it—salmon and the Columbia were far from my mind. But in a second or two I did, and smiled back. “There they go,” I said. The phrase has since become ritual when our love is at its best. Half lost in reverie of the loves we’ve made and the love we’re making and just too tired to control myself, I come too soon. “I’m sorry.” I breathe. Carla’s hands pace softly the back of my neck. “There they go.” She sighs. XIVWe had a guest for breakfast, all right. And for the rest of Saturday and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And she is decent. I put her to the test right away, sprinting upstairs in my boxer shorts and whipping off a hundred quick pushups on the kitchen floor as she scrambled eggs. “You must be Louden,” she said, unperturbed. “I’m Carla,” I replied. “Louden’s a lot prettier and can do pushups to infinity.” “My name is Cindy,” she said. She’s built like a middle-distance runner. She says she skis a little, but I bet she skis a lot. She’s tan as a football. And she sure seems awful young for Dad. “Howdy, Cindy,” I said, puffing a bit somewhere in the nineties. I was bearing down hard on one hundred when she turned from the stove and hooked my arm with her foot. I fell square on my nose. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Cindy, gathering plates from the cupboard. She was definitely insincere. I laughed, figuring it a good move and a greeting commensurate with mine. I whipped off my last pushups as the blood dripped slow and steady. Turning, Cindy saw the blood. “Bloody nose?” she inquired. “Soaking up through the floor from the laundry room,” I replied. “I beat hell out of Dad’s girlfriends and stash ’em down there. They make quite a pile.” “I bet they do. How might one avoid such a fate?” she asked, dropping a paper towel to the floor. “Can’t be sure,” I said, wiping my nose and then the floor. “Perhaps time will tell.” “I imagine so. It tells everything else.” “Larry tells me you won’t be joining us for breakfast,” Cindy said, beginning to set the table. Larry is my dad. Lawrence Swain. No middle initial. “Dazz right, honey! Dazzz right!” I was imitating Elmo, smiling big and bright. “I don’t eat no regula’ foods. I just eats a few old raza blades and chews da concrete ofen da basement walls.” “I hope the house doesn’t fall down!” she yelled after me.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  10 Every other Wittenberg clergyman paid up without demur, but Luther was permitted to estimate the value of his properties himself, and the Elector paid the tax he owed. It is significant that in his letters from Coburg, Luther envisaged his son playing with Melanchthon’s and Jonas’s sons, or with the other children in the monastery—but not with those of the Wittenberg citizens. 11 His milieu consisted of those lodging with him, his acolytes and dependents, and the guests he invited to dinner. He called the members of the household—who would have numbered between forty and fifty people at any given time, including servants, lodgers, and visitors—his “Quirites,” a classical Latin term for Roman citizens. 12 A dig at the “Roman” Pope, it suggested that, unlike the papal court, his was a community of equals, despite the patriarchal structure he had in fact created. 13 Even so, he knew some townsfolk well. His close friendship with Lucas Cranach stretched back to his early days in Wittenberg. Hans Lufft the printer did business for him and occasionally acted as his business agent at the city court, although Luther sharply criticized him over his daughter’s wedding in 1538, famed for its extravagance when Lufft was in financial straits. 14 Peter Beskendorf, a barber and surgeon, was another longtime friend, and Luther acted as godparent to his grandchild. He also dedicated a brief treatise on prayer to him: “Just as a good barber has to concentrate his thoughts, mind and eyes exactly on the razor and the hair…for if he is wanting to chat a lot at the same time, or think or look at something else, he’ll probably cut someone’s mouth and nose or even slit their throat.” 15 When Beskendorf stabbed and killed his son-in-law at the dinner table in a fit of drunken stupidity only a few months later, Luther loyally interceded for him; Beskendorf was convicted only of manslaughter and exiled. 16 Among the town councilors, Luther was acquainted with the Krapp family, and he befriended Tilo Dhen, whose wife died in his arms; Ambrosius Reuter married the niece of Luther’s best friend, Hans Reinicke, thus providing a link between Wittenberg and Mansfeld. 17 As the university grew in size and as the town became more prosperous, more of the academics became town councilors, entwining the academic and political elites ever more tightly. The university, which had prospered so greatly through Luther’s fame, now dominated the town. Luther, who suffered from spiritual struggles all his life, seems to have been particularly adept at drawing to him those who were in mourning, or suffering from what we would today call depression, a staple topic of conversation at table. 18 He was, for example, very close to the Weller brothers, Peter and Hieronymus, both former students at Wittenberg, who visited often and stayed in Luther’s house when he was at Coburg Castle during the Augsburg Diet in 1530.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  κάτοικος, ὃ, απ inhabitant, Arist. Oec. 2. 34, 3, Polyb. 5. 65, Io, al.; πρὸς τοὺς ἐν Μαγνησίᾳ x. C. 1. 3454. I. 14, al., v. Bockh. p. 699 :—in Aesch. Ag. 1285, Ahrens suggests μέτοικος, foll. ‘by Herm. κατ-οικοφθορέω, to ruin utierly, τὴν πόλιν Plut. Alcib. 23. κατ-οικτείρω, to have mercy or compassion on, τινά Hdt.1.45., 4.167, al., Soph. O. T. 13, Eur. 445, etc. IT. intr. to feel or shew compassion, Hdt. 7.46; κατοικτείραντα ἐρωτᾶν to ask in compassion, Arist. Rhet. 2. 20, 6. κατ-οικτίζω, Ξεκατοικτείρω, Cc. acc. rel, Soph. O.C. 384, εἴς. ; Aaxts χιτῶνος ἔργον (i.e. χιτῶνα) οὐ κατοικτιεῖ Aesch, Supp. 903: —Med. to bewail oneself, utter lamentations, Hdt. 2.121, 3., 3.156, Aesch. Pr. 36; and prob. κατοικτίζει (for --ειϑ) should be restored in Eum. 121; so in aor. pass. Κατῳκτίσθην, Eur. 1. A. 686 ;—c. acc. rei, as in Act., Aesch. Pers. 1062. ΤΙ. Causal, to excite pity, phuara os κατοικπτίσαντά πως Soph. O. C. 1282. κατ-οίκτἴσις, ews, 77, compassion, Xen. Cyr. 6.1, 47. κατ-οιμώζω, to bewail, lament, Eur. Andr. 1159. kdt-owos, ov, drunken with wine, Eur. lon 553, Diod. 5. 26. κατ-οινόομαι, Pass. to be drunken, κατῳνωμένος Plat. Legg. 815 C κατ-οίομαι, to be conceited of oneself, LXX (Hab. 2.5), Philo 2. 652. κατοίσεται, v. sub καταφέρω. κατ-οἱστεύω, to shoot down with arrows, Byz. κατ-οίχομαν, Dep. to have gone down, of κατοιχόμενοι the departed, dead, Dem. 1073. I., 1391. 12, etc. κατ-οιωνίζομαι, Dep. to have an omen, Phalar. Ep. 138. κατ-οκλάζω, Ξε ὀκλάζω, Opp. C. 3. 473: in Med., Strab. 163. κατ-οκνέω, to shrink fr om doing or undertaking a task, c. inf., ὅπως .. μὴ κατοκνήσεις κτανεῖν Αἴγισθον Soph. El. 956; x. ὀρθοῦσθαι Hipp. Mochl. 852; «. γῆν περιιδεῖν τμηθεῖσαν Thuc. 2.18; μὴ κατόκνει .. πορεύεσθαι Isocr. 6 A ;—absol. to shrink back, Aesch. Pr. 67, Thuc. 2. 94, etc. II. c. acc. to neglect sluggishly, τι Isocr. 1210. κατοκωχή, 7, Att. for κατοχή, a possessing, possession, τῆς χώρας Anon. ap. Suid.; τῶν εἰρημένων Zeno ap. Clem. Al. 297. ΤΙ. a being possessed, possession (i. 6. inspiration), Θείᾳ μοίρᾳ καὶ κατοκωχῇ Plat. Ion 556 Ο; κατοκωχὴ ἀπὸ Μουσῶν Id. Phaedr. 245 A; cf. κατέ- xw 11. 10.—The corrupt forms κατακωχή, κατακώχιμος must be cor- rected, except perhaps in late writers; cf. ἀνοκωχή, συνοκωχή. κατοκώχιμος, 7, ον, held in possession, held as a pledge, χωρίον Isae. 2. 35 (ubi vulg. κατόχιμονν ; so, τὸ κατ. Hesych., Moer. 2. capable of being possessed by a feeling or passion, ὑπὸ κινήσεως Arist. Pol. 8. 7, 4; ἐκ τῆς ἀρετῆς Id. Eth. N. το. 9, 3; τῷ πάθει Id. H. A. 6. 18, 12 :— inclined, πρός τι Id. Pol. 2. 9, 8 :—absol. frantic, Luc. Jup. Trag. 30 (vulg. κατόχιμοϑ) :—v. sub κατοκωχή. , κατ-ολβίζω, to make happy, Epigr. in Lederlin praef. Poll. p. 16. κατ-ολϊγωρέω, to neglect utterly, τοῦ δικαίου Lys. 115. 30; ἀνδρός Longin. 13. 2.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  παρ-αὐυδάω, to address so as to console or encourage, μύθοις ἀγανοῖσι παραυδήσας Od. 15.53; μειλιχίοις ἐπέεσσι παραυδῶν τό. 279 ; μὴ ταῦτα παραύδα, χρῶτ᾽ ἀπονίπτεσθαι do not coax me thus, to wash, etc., 18. 178. II. c. acc. rei, to speak lightly of, make light of, μὴ δή μοι θάνατόν ye παραύδα τι. 487.—Never in Il. παραυλᾶκίζω, to move the boundaries, and Subst. -ἰστῆς, οὔ, 6, Eccl. παρ-αυλέω, to play the flute beside, or to play it ill, Poll. 4. 67. παρ-αύλια, τά, the parts adjoining the αὐλή, Hesych., Phot. map-avAila, to lie near, Sea date πέτρα... Maxpas Eur. lon 493: —Med., π. οἱ δορυφόροι τοῖς βασιλείοις Ath. 189 E. πάρ-αυλος, ον, (αὐλή) dwelling beside, π. οἰκίζειν τινά on the borders (of a land), Soph. O. C. 785; τίνος βοὴ π. ἐξέβη νάπους ; close at hand, Id. Aj. 892; ἔνθ᾽ ἡ π. πηλαμὺς χειμάζεται Id. Fr. 446. πάρ-αυλος, ov, (αὐλός) discordant, out of tune, μέλη Com. Anon. 10 a. παρ-αυξάνω, to increase by adding, Dion. H. de Comp. 15, Ptol. παρ-αύξησις, ἡ, enlargement, increase, τῆς σελήνης Diosc. 5. 159, etc.; κατὰ παραύξησιν by addition, Clem. Al. 457:—so Dind. for παραύξη in Philo 1. 359:—in pl. augmentations, παραυξήσεις φωνῶν Sext. Emp. M. 1. 126. παρ-αυξητικῶς, Adv. by increasing, Sext. Emp. M. 3. 42. παρ-αύξω, = παραυξάνω. Strab. 724, Sext. Emp. M. 6. 26. intr. to wax, Gemin. Astrol. 26 C. παρ-αύστηρος, ov, somewhat austere, αὐθέκαστος καὶ 7. Dicaearch, ὃ 8. πάραυτἄ, Adv. for παρ᾽ αὐτά (sc. τὰ mpaypatra),=TapavTixa or παρα- χρῆμα immediately, for the nonce, 7.5 ἡσθεὶς ὕστερον στένει διπλᾶ Eur. Fr. 1064, cf. Polyb. 24.5, 11; ἡ 7. χάρις Id. 38. 3, 11. 11. in like manner, Lat. perinde, Aesch. Ag. 737, Dem. 672. 5, Diod. 12. 20. 2. c. gen. at the same time as, 7. Tov θανεῖν Ep. Socr. 11.—Some editors write παρ᾽ αὐτά divisim. παραυτίκἄ, Adv. immediately, forthwith, straightway, Lat. illico, (cf. foreg.), Hdt. 2. 89., 6.35, Aesch. Supp. 767, etc.; ἢ καὶ π. ἢ χρόνῳ Eur. Fr. 275; also, τὸ 7. Hdt. 1. 19., 7. 137, etc.; also, ἐκς τοῦ π. Plut. Coriol. 20; ἐν τῷ m. Thuc, 2. 11, Plat. Phaedr. 240 B, etc. 2. with Sub- stantives, to express brief duration, “Αιδην τὸν 7. ἐκφυγεῖν present death, Eur. Alc. 13; 7 7. λαμπρότης momentary splendour, Thuc. 2. 64; 7 7. ἐλπίς Id. 8. 82; αἱ π. ἡδοναί Xen. Cyr. 1.5, 9., 8. 1,32; τὸ m. ἡδύ Plat. Phaedr. 239 A. παραυτόθεν, Adv., -- αὐτόθεν, cited from Arr. mapavTo0i, Αἀν. -- αὐτόθι, Tzetz. Antehom. 193. παρ-αυχενίζω, to bend the neck aside, cut the throat, Hesych., Phot. παρ-αυχένιος, 77, ov, hanging from the neck, φαρέτρη Anth. Plan. 253. παραύχησις, ews, 7, idle boasting, Eust. Opusc. 171. 66. παραφᾶγεϊῖν, inf. aor. 2 of παρεσθίω.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  φιλανθρωπία, 7, humanity, benevolence, or, in a lower sense, kindli- ness, courtesy, I. of men, Plat. Euthyphro 3 Ὁ, Xen. Cyr. 1. 4, I; opp. to σεμνότης, Isocr. Antid. § 141; to φθόνος, Dem. 507. 20; to ὠμότης, Id. 490. 7; joined with εὔνοια, πρᾳότης, Isocr. 105 D, 106 A; with χρηστότης, lambl. ap. Stob. 315. 52, etc.; pid. λόγων courtesy, Dem. 325. 93; so, φ. διὰ τῶν λόγων Polyb.; φ. προσάγειν τινί Id. 1. 81, 8; φ. εἴς or πρός τινα Ib. 79. 8 and 11; ὑπὸ φιλανθρωπίας Plat. Euthyphro 3D; μετὰ φ. Isocr. Antid. 1. ο. ; or merely φιλανθρωπίᾳ Xen. Ages. 1, 22:—also clemency, Id. Cyr. 7. 5, 73; liberal conduct, liberality, Id. Oec. 15, 9: the intercourse of lovers, v. 1. Aeschin. 24. 27: —in pl. acts of kindness, kindnesses, courtesies, Dem. 107. 17.» 796. 35 Polyb., etc. 2. of God, love to man, Ep. Tit. 3. 4, al. TI. of things, 7 τοῦ ὀνόματος gid. its humanity, kindliness, mildness, Dem. 748. 28; ἡ p. τῆς τέχνης, speaking’ of agriculture, Xen. Oec. 15, 9, cf. Aeschin. 30.14; ἐστερημένη πάσης φ.. of a desert country, Diod. 17. 50. tAavOpativos, —ivws, f. Il. for φιλάνθρωπος, -πως. φιλάνθρωπος, ov, loving mankind, humane, benevolent, and in lower sense, kind, courteous, Epich. 125 Ahr.; φ. καὶ φιλαθήναιος καὶ φιλό- gopos Isocr. 416; φ. καὶ φιλόπολις Id. 17 Ὁ ; δημοτικὸς καὶ φ. Xen. Mem. I. 2, 60; ψυχὴν φιλανθρωπότατος Id. Cyr. 1. 2, 1; φ. δὲ παύ- εσθαι τρόπου, of Prometheus, Aesch, Pr. 11, cf. 28 ; so, of animals that attach themselves to men, as of dogs, gentle, Xen. Cyn. 6, 25; of horses, Id. Eq. 2, 3 :--τὸ φιλάνθρωπον -- φιλανθρωπία, Plut. Cato Ma. 3, etc. ; 50, τὰ φιλάνθρωπα kindnesses, Polyb. 10. 38, 3., 12. 5, 3, etc. 2. of the gods, loving men, Plat. Symp. 189 D, Legg. 713 D, cf. Plut. Num. 4. ΤΙ. of things, zumane, humanising, γεωργία Xen. Occ. 10, 17; ψηφίσματα Id. Vect. 3,6 λόγοι Dem. 1102. 25; τρόπος, in Music, Plut. 2. 1135 Ὁ, etc.; of wines, generous, Id. Cleom. 13 (in Comp.), cf. 2. 680 B. IIT. Adv., φιλανθρώπως τινὶ χρῆσθαι Dem. 411. 10; φ. διακεῖσθαι πρός τινα Polyb. 1. 68, 13; φ. καὶ δημοτικῶς Dem. 707. 24; θεοφιλῶς καὶ φ. Isocr. 107 C, cf. Antid. § 140; Sup. φιλαν- θρωπότατα Dem. 760. 5. φιλάνθρωπος, 7, a name of the plant ἀπαρίνη, Diosc. 3. 104, Plin. ; called φιλανθρώπειος βοτάνη by Archig. ap. Galen. φιλάνωρ [ἃ], opos, 6, %, Dor. for φιλήνωρ, fond of one’s husband, | conjugal, τρόποι, στίβοι Aesch. Ag. 411, 836; πόθος Id, Pers. 135: --φιλήνωρ only in late Ep., Mus. 267, Coluth. 213. 11. fond of men, of dolphins, Brora Pind. Fr. 260. φίλαξ, Elean for δρῦς, Hesych. piddordos, ον, fond of singing or singers, Theocr. 28. 23; τέττιξ Anth. P. 9.3723 musical, κερικίς Ib. 6. 47: Sup. -ότατος Poéta ap. Dion. Chr. 1. 694.—Not oxyt. φιλαοιδός, v. Arcad. 86. |

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  συμμύστηΞ, ov, 6, one who is initiated with others, Phot. Bibl. 97. 20, Byz.: fem. σύμμυστις. ιδος, 7, Byz. 1461 πάντα μέμυκε Il. 24..420; mostly of the eyelids and lips, Plat. Phaedr. 251 B, Tim. 45 E; and of persons, κάτω συμμεμυκώς looking down with closed eyes, Id. Rep. 529 B (hence, ¢o be silent, Polyb. 31. 8, 8) :—but also of other openings, of the mouth of the uterus in pregnant women, Hipp. Aph. 1255, Arist. H. A. 7. 2, 4, al.; of pores, Plat. Phaedr. 251 B; of bivalve shell-fish, Epich. 23 Ahr., Arist. H. A. 4. 8, 32; of plants and flowers, Theophr., etc. συμμωραίνω, to be foolish together, Schol. Eur. Phoen. 394. σῦμός, Lacon. for θυμός, Ahrens Ὁ. Dor. p. 66. συμπᾶγή, és, joined together, compacted, ὅμοιον πρὸς ὅμοιον Plat. Tim. 45 C, cf. 46 B, 56 E. συμπᾶγία, ἡ, -- σύμπηξις, Stob. Ecl. 1.1100; cf. συμπηγία. συμπάθεια, 7, fellow-feeling, community of feeling, sympathy, Arist. Probl. 7. in tit., Polyb. 22. 11, 12, Stoic. ap. Plut. 2. 906 E, cf. 119 C, etc.; Tivos πρός τινα Geop. 2. in Music, used of chords which vibrate together, Theo Smyrn. 6. p. 80. 11. a legacy, Byz. συμπᾶθέω, to feel with or together, sympathise with, συμπαθεῖν δοκεῖ ἀλλήλοις ἡ ψυχὴ Kal τὸ σῶμα Arist. Physiogn. 4,1; ἔξ. κεφαλῇ τὰ μέσα Aretae. Cur. M. Diut. 1. 4. 2. c. dat. rei, to sympathise in, feel for, ἀτυχίαις Isocr. 64 B, cf. Plut. Cleom. 1, Ep. Hebr. 4. 15, etc. 3. absol. to feel sympathy, Plut. Timol. 14; ἐκ τοῦ παθεῖν γίγνωσκε καὶ TO συμπαθεῖν: καὶ σοὶ yap ἄλλος συμπαθήσεται παθών (where the fut. med. is used in act. sense) Philem. Incert. 51 b.—Cf. συμπάσχω. συμπᾶθής, és, affected by like feelings, sympathetic, οὐδεὶς ὁμαίμου συμπαθέστερος φίλος Plat. Com. Incert. 19; νεῦρα ἀλλήλοις o. Anth. P. 11. 352; 0. ἐστι ὃ ἀκροατὴς τῷ ἄδοντι Arist. Probl. 19. 40, cf. Pol. 8. 5,13; ἡ ψυχή Te καὶ τὸ σῶμα συμπαθῆ Id. Physiogn. 4, 2; absol., συμπαθέστατον Id. P. A. 2. 7, 19. 2. exciting sympathy, Dion. H. 2. 45. II. Adv. -Θῶς, sympathetically, ΤΏ σελήνῃ Strab. 173; σ. ἔχειν πρός Twa Joseph. A. J. 7.10, 5; συμπαθέστερον ἐρᾶσθαι Arist. Mirab. 163, cf. Plut. 2.3.C; συμπαθέστατα C. I. (add.) 2167 ἃ. συμπαθητέον, verb. Adj. one must sympathise, Theod. Stud. συμπᾶθητιάω, to feel disposed to sympathise, Nicet. 218 Ὁ. συμπᾶθητικός, 7, όν, -- συμπαθής, Eccl. συμπᾶθία, lon.—ty, 7, poet. for συμπάθεια, Anth. Plan. 143, Ο.1.3546.10. συμπᾶθοπρεπῶς, Adv. befitting a compassionate person, Theod. Stud. συμπαιᾶνίξζω, to sing the paean with another, τινί Dem. 380. 27: gener- ally, to shout out together, Polyb. 2. 29, 6. συμπαιγμός, ὃ, collusion, Peyron Pap. Gr. 1. p. 36. συμπαίγμων, ov, playing with; as Subst. a playfellow, Nicet. 146 B. συμπαιγνία, ἡ, -- συμπαιγμός, Gloss. συμπαιδάγωγέω, to bring up along with, Themist. 124 A, 225 A.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  τιθηνεία, Ion. --ίη, ἡ, -- τιθηνία, Opp. H. τ. 663. τιθηνεύω, =sq., Hesych., in Pass. c. generally, προσφιλῆ, 1553 γιθηνέω, to take care of, tend, nurse, Orph. H. 62. 15 :—Pass., Hipp. Art. 826. II. elsewhere in Med. (v. Schaf. Mel. p. 82), to nurse, suckle, παῖδα νεογνόν h. Hom. Cer. 142, cf. Theogn. 1231, Simon. 150, 173: to tend as nurse, Xen. Cyr. 8.5, 19. 2..to keep up, maintain, οὗ πότνιαι σεμνὰ τιθηνοῦνται τέλη θνατοῖσιν Soph. O.C. 1050 :—an aor. ἐτιθήνατο, as if from τιθαίνομαι, occurs in Luc. Trag. 94. τιθήνη, ἡ, (4/OA, θάω, with redupl. like τιθηνός) :—a nurse, Il. 6. 389, 467., 22.503; παῖς ἄτερ ὡς φίλας τιθήνας Soph. Ph. 704; Διίώνυσος θείαις ἀμφιπολῶν τ. 1d.O.C.680:—metaph., Aetna is called χιόνος τιθήνα, Pind. P. 1. 39; the earth ἡ τῆς γενέσεως 7., Plat. Tim. 52D, cf. 88 Ὁ, Arist. Top. 6. 2, 3; the dinner-table βίου τ., Timocl. “Hp. 2. 11: Ξε- μήτηρ, Coluth. 372. τιθήνημα, τό, a nursling, ῥόδα ἔαρος τ. Chaerem. ap. Ath, 608 E. τιθήνησις, 77, a nursing, Plat. Legg. 790 C, Theophr. C. P. 2. 1, 6. τιθηνητήρ, pos, 6,=TOnvds, Anth, P. 7. 241, Plan. 170 :—fem. τιθη- νήτειρα --τιθήνη, Anth. P. 9. 19, Plan. 296. τιθηνητήριος, a, ov, nursing, Anth. P. 9.1. τιθηνία, ἡ, -- τιθήνησις, Joseph. Macc. 16. τιθηνός, dv: (/OA, θάω, with redupl. like τι- θΘήνη) :—nursing, χθών Lyc. 1398; πόνων τιθηνοὺς ἀποδιδοῦσά σοι τροφάς repaying thee nurture for thy nursing labours, i.e. rewarding thee for thy trouble in nursing me, Eur. I. A. 1230. II. as Subst. τιθηνός, 6, one who nurses or brings up, a foster-father, tutor, Nic. Al. 31, Orph. H. το. 18, etc. ; and τιθηνός, ἡ, -- τιθήνη, Pind. Fr. 14. 7106s, 7), bv, --τιθασός, Arat. οὔο. τιθυμαλίς, (50s, ἡ, = τιθύμαλος, παράλιος, Diosc. 4. 165, cf. Hipp. 263. 38. τιθύμαλος [Vv], not so well τιθύμαλλος, 6, spurge, euphorbia, Cratin. Incert. 135, Ar. Eccl. 405: heterocl. pl. τιθύμαλα, Anth. P. 9. 217.— Many kinds are enumerated by Diosc. 4.165. Physicians used the juice or berries as a purgative or emetic. Τιθωνός, 6, Tithonus, brother of Priam, husband of Eos (Aurora), and father of Memnon, Hom., Hes., etc. :—metaph. of a decrepit old man, because,—as the tale went, Eos begged Zeus to grant immortality to Tithonus, but forgot to ask for eternal youth, Ar. Ach. 688: proverb. of great old age, ὑπὲρ τὸν Τιθωνὸν ζῆν Luc. D. Mort. 7. 1: Tithonus, as spouse of Eos, is prob. the dying day, M. Miiller Sc. of Lang. 2. p. 11. TUKTLKOS, 7, OV, of or for childbirth, τ. φάρμακον, a medicine used for women lying-in, Ar. Fr. 690.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Having lost the leather mittens Daddy had bought me at GI surplus—stiff leather with Korean script on the inside tag—I’d taken to wearing footwear. He said, This another fashion trend I’ve let slide by? Chronic mitten loser, I told him. My department collects strays, he said. Stop by my office tonight. We’ll see what we can find. But during the day, the prospect slid back and forth in my skull like a BB. Why did he want to see me at night? Leaving my library job, I faced sparse snow on the ground, scraped at by winds like straight razors. It was cold, you betcha. So I loped over to the science building, where the gleaming labs with black counters and curvy gas jets creeped me out. There was a warm amber light spilling from Walt’s doorway. I craned around the door, and he waved me through. In a green towel on his lap, he held a white lab rat, stretched on her side, taking sips of air while her fidgeting, thimble-sized offspring—pink as young rosebuds—were nursing. She’d given birth earlier, he said, and seemed to have some kind of infection. Can you hold her so I can maneuver this eyedropper? he said. I sat down in a side chair, and he eased the wriggling small weightlessness onto my lap . It was puzzling to me, his tenderness for that rat, since where I grew up, rats were target practice—nutria rats big as terriers with their bright orange enamel fangs. You went to the dump with a .22 or a pistol to pick them off. Doonie had given me a nutria rat skull one Valentine’s Day. She just had a rough time delivering today, Walt said. I was at home and kept thinking about her. Wondering how the babies were doing…. He fixed the eyedropper between her teeth and eased out a half drop, dabbing off her whiskers with a tissue. Then he idly ran his thumb along her muzzle. Watching that, I couldn’t live another instant without unloading into his care my whirling insides. My every woe came spilling out. No money to go home. No place to stay over Thanksgiving. A boy I liked, then didn’t, then did. Plus the four jobs I held down were eating me alive. Walt handed me one pink flounce of tissue after another. Worst of all, the only reason I’d come there was to write, but I’d refused to sign up for a lit class, being too ill read not to shame myself. At a freshman mixer early on, I heard kids hurling around like fastballs opinions about Russian novels it had taken me a week to figure out the characters in—I had to make a chart in back. They were talking Dostoyevsky’s blah-blah and the objective correlative of the doodad. They’d studied in Paris and Switzerland. The closest I’d come to speaking French was ordering boudain sausage from the take-out window of Boudreaux’s Fat Boy.

• From Lit: A Memoir (2009)

  Don’t be silly, he says. I doubt they’d care. Their room is in another wing, which includes—among other mysteries—Mr. Whitbread’s own dressing room, padlocked from the outside. Not even the maid is allowed to clean in there. Warren is lying on his back, and his face mesmerizes me—the patrician nose, Germanic jaw. Do they like me? I say. You want everybody to like you, he says. You don’t? I say. Only you, he says. And Tiger. Not Sammy? Sammy’s common, Warren says, referring to something his mother said about a cousin’s wife. I’m common, I say. I always fancied an affair with a scullery maid, he says. I’m propped on an elbow studying him. He fails to open his eyes, as he says, Aren’t you even a little sleepy? I’m pouting, I say. Can’t you hear me pouting with your eyes shut? He reaches up a hand to pinch my pouting mouth with two fingers. Okay, duck lips, he says, rolling over. My father thinks you’re smart and funny— both uncommon virtues. My mother thinks if you keep jogging, you’ll damage your female organs and fail to reproduce. Do they think I’m cute? He’s half blind. She wants to dress you in hot pink or lime green. Tell me they like me and I’ll sneak back to your sister’s room. As much as they like anybody, he says. Don’t worry about it, sweetie. The next morning I’m wide-eyed before dawn, half waiting for some Inquisitor to roust me from the ruffled covers of the type Little Bo Peep probably slept in. I bathe with French-milled soap and brush my short hair. In the library, I find a copy of Matthew Arnold’s poems autographed to some illegible forebear. I’m perusing when a voice from the stair causes Tiger Three to rise shakily on his ancient hips and trot out. Mr. Whitbread says, I fail to see why you couldn’t greet them when they arrived, for God’s sake. Once the front door has opened and shut, Tiger slinks back in and slumps at my feet. After a while I smell coffee and bacon, and a while later, I see a wizened, disheveled old woman balding under her black hairnet. Slippers slide her up the hall across from me to the wet bar. (I’d later find out she’s the cook.) She opens the fridge and draws out a carton of eggnog, pouring herself a small punch cup full. How sweet, I think, they keep eggnog in the summer. Then she unscrews the top of a bottle of dark rum and upends it with both hands. She takes two long draws, then shuffles off.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  προσεξελέγχω, to convict besides, τινὰ πεποιηκότα Dio C. 38. 43; ἑαυτόν, ὅτι... Id. 59. 2. προσεξελίσσω, to unrol besides: of soldiers, to wheel them half-round, Polyb. 6. 40, 13. προσεξεμέω, 10 spit out besides, Plut. 2. 524 A. προσεξεργάζομαι, Dep. to work out or accomplish besides, Dem. 550. 16, cf. Hipp. Acut. 395, Macho ap, Ath. 578 D, etc. :—pf. in act. sense, Polyb. 12. 11,8; but in pass. sense, Dem. 549. 19. προσεξερεθίζω, to irritate still more, Joseph. Vita 57. προσεξερείδομαυ, Pass. to support oneself by, ταῖς χερσί Polyb. 3.55, 4. προσεξετάζω, to examine or search into besides, Dem. 586. 23., 722. 23, Luc. Tyrann. 11 :—verb. Adj. -εξεταστέον, Byz. προσεξευμᾶρίζω, to make easy besides, πάντα τινί Eus. Laud. Const. 16. προσεξεύρεσις, ews, ἡ, an additional discovery, Plut. 2.1135 Ὁ. προσεξεύρημα, 76, =foreg., Eust. Opusc. 316. 67. προσεξευρίσκω, to find out or devise besides, Hipp. Vet. Med. Io, Ar. Eq. 1283, Isocr. 75 E, Polyb. 1. 68, Io. προσεξηγέομαι, Dep. to relate besides, LXX (2 Macc. 15.11). προσεξηπειρόω, to turn still more into dry land, Strab. 536. προσεξικμάζω, to draw out moisture besides, Plut. 2. 689 E. πρόσεξις, ἡ, (mpooéxw) attention, Plat. Rep. 407 B, Def. 413 Ὁ. προσεξίστημι, to disconcert still more, Plut. 2.128 E. προσεξυβρίζω, to insult besides, Heraclid. Alleg. 52. προσεξωθέω, to thrust out besides, Jo. Chrys. προσέοικα, pf. with pres. sense (no pres. προσείκω being in use), Att. inf. προσεικέναι Eur. Bacch. 1284, Ar. Eccl. 1161: Dor. plqpf. ποτῴκειν, Nossis in Anth. P. 6. 353 :—besides which we have a pass. form of pf., προσήιξαι (cf. ἤμετο in Hom.) in Eur. Alc. 1063. To be like, re- semble, λέοντι Eur. Bacch. 1. ο., cf. Plat. Prot. 331 Ὁ ; γεράνῳ Cratin. “Apx. 6; mp. ταῖς ἑταίραις τὸν τρόπον in habits, Ar. 1. ο.; σοὶ τὴν σιμό- τητα Plat. Theaet. 143 E; also, mp. twit κατά τι Arist. Η. Α. 6. γ, 2; εἴς τι Plut. Num. 10. II. to seem fit, τὰ μὴ προσεικότα things not fit and seemly, Soph. Ph. 903; so, ἔξωρα .. KovK ἐμοὶ προσεικότα Id. El. 618. III. to seem to do, c. inf., Dem. 505. 4. προσεοικότως, Adv. so as to resemble, Dio Chrys. 1. 402. προσεπαγγέλλομαι, Med. to promise besides, Diod. 3. 54., 19. 86. προσεπάγω, to bring besides, add, ὕβριν Polyb. 15. 25, 6; mp. τινί to make additions to it, Ath. 216 B, etc. προσεπαθρητέον, verb. Adj. ove must observe besides, Cyrill. προσεπαινέω, to praise besides, Aeschin. 49. 13, Dio C. 47. 13. προσεπαίρω, to raise besides, Clem. Al. 171:—metaph. fo elevate or encourage yet more, Arr. An. 4.5, Dio C. 48. 21. προσεπαιτέω, to demand besides, Eccl. προσεπαιτιάομαι, Dep. to accuse besides, Plut. C. Gracch. 6. προσεπαμύνω [Ὁ]. to assist besides, τινί Byz.