Yearning

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)

  Now we must consider how that can be. In every active principle the perfection of its power depends on some superior active principle: for a secondary agent acts by virtue of the power of the prime agent. So long then as the secondary agent remains under the power of the prime agent, it will act unfailingly: but it will fail in its action whenever it happens to swerve from the order of the prime agent, as appears in an instrument when it ceases to respond to the movement of the agent who uses it. Now it has been said above that in the order of moral actions principles go before volition, the apprehensive faculty and the object apprehended, which is the end in view. But since to everything movable there corresponds a proper motive power, not any and every apprehensive faculty is the due motive power of any and every appetite, but one apprehension is the proper motive of one appetite, another of another. As then the sensible apprehensive faculty is the proper motive power of the sensible appetite, so the proper motive power of the will is reason itself. Further, as reason can apprehend many sorts of good things and many ends of action; as moreover every power has its own proper end; the will also must have some object and end of action and prime motive, and that must be not any and every sort of good, but some definite good. Whenever then the will tends to act under the motive of an apprehension of reason representing to it its own proper good, a due action ensues. But when the will bursts out into action upon the apprehension of the sensible apprehensive faculty, or even upon the apprehension of reason itself, representing some other good than the proper good of the will, there ensues in the action of the will a moral fault. Therefore any faulty action in the will is preceded by a lack of due regard to reason and to the proper end of willing. I say a lack of due regard to reason,’ in such cases as when, upon some sudden aprehension of sense, the will tends to some good that is pleasant according to sense. I say a lack of due regard to the proper end of willing,’ in cases when the reason arrives by reasoning at some good, which is not either now or in this way good, and still the will tends to it as though it were its proper good. Now this lack of due regard is voluntary: for it is in the power of the will to will and not to will: it is likewise in its power to direct reason actually to consider or to cease from considering, or to consider this or that. Still this failure of due consideration is not a moral evil: for, consideration or no consideration, or whatever the consideration be on reason’s part, there is not sin until the will comes to tend to some undue end, which then is an act of will.—Thus it remains true that in moral as well as in physical actions, evil is not caused by good except accidentally.

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

  (c) High dignity better appears, when we know to what other high dignities it stands preferred. Thus a clown, knowing the king to be the chief man in the kingdom, but for the rest knowing only some of the lowest officials of the kingdom, with whom he has to do, does not know the king’s pre-eminence so well as another, who knows the dignity of all the princes of the realm. But we men know only some of the lowest of things that are. Though then we know that God is high above all beings, still we do not know the height of the Divine Majesty as the angels know it, who know the highest order of beings and God’s elevation above them all. CHAPTER L THAT THE DESIRE OF PURE INTELLIGENCES DOES NOT REST SATISFIED IN THE NATURAL KNOWLEDGE WHICH THEY HAVE OF GODEVERYTHING that is imperfect in any species desires to gain the perfection of that species. He who has an opinion about a thing, opinion being an imperfect knowledge of the thing, is thereby egged on to desire a scientific knowledge of the thing. But the aforesaid knowledge, which pure spirits have of God without knowing His substance fully, is an imperfect kind of knowledge. The main point in the knowledge of anything is to know precisely what it essentially is. Therefore this knowledge which pure spirits have of God does not set their natural desire to rest, but rather urges it on to see the divine substance. 2. The knowledge of effects kindles the desire of knowing the cause: this search after causes set men upon philosophising. Therefore the desire of knowing, naturally implanted in all intelligent beings, does not rest unless, after finding out the substances of things made, they come also [etiam, not etiamsi] to know the cause on which those substances depend. By the fact then of pure spirits knowing that God is the cause of all the substances which they see, the natural desire in them does not rest unless they come also to see the substance of God Himself. 4. Nothing finite can set to rest the desire of intelligence. Given any finite thing, intelligence always sets to work to apprehend something beyond it. But the height and power of every created substance is finite. Therefore the intelligence of a created spirit rests not in the knowledge of any created substances, however excellent, but tends still further in a natural desire to understand that substance which is of infinite height and excellence, namely, the divine substance (Chap.XLIII).

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

  3. Happiness excludes all misery. But deception and error is a great part of misery. Now in the knowledge of God by demonstration manifold error may be mingled, as is clear in the case of many who have found out some truths about God in that way, and further following their own ideas, in the failure of demonstration, have fallen into many sorts of error. And if any have found truth in the things of God so perfectly by the way of demonstration as that no error has entered their minds, such men certainly have been very few: a rarity of attainment which does not befit happiness, happiness being the common end of all. 4. Happiness consists in perfect activity. Now for the perfection of the activity of knowledge certainty is required: but the aforesaid knowledge has much of uncertainty. CHAPTER XL THAT HAPPINESS DOES NOT CONSIST IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BY FAITHHAPPINESS is the perfect activity of the human intellect (Chap.XXVI). But in the knowledge that is of faith, though there is high perfection on the part of the object so apprehended, there is great imperfection on the side of intellect, for intellect does not understand that to which it assents in believing. 2. Final happiness does not consist principally in any act of will (Chap.XXVI). But in the knowledge of faith the will has a leading part: for the understanding assents by faith to the things proposed to it, because it wills to do so, without being necessarily drawn by the direct evidence of truth. 3. He who believes, yields assent to things proposed to him by another, which himself he does not see: hence the knowledge of faith is more like hearing than seeing. Since then happiness consists in the highest knowledge of God, it cannot consist in the knowledge of faith. 4. Happiness being the last end, all natural desire is thereby appeased. But the knowledge of faith, far from appeasing desire, rather excites it, since every one desires to see that which he believes. CHAPTERS XLI-XLV CHAPTER XLVI

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  I did not see that in my way of looking at the profile of the young bus-driver there was something inevitable, suffocating, painful, oppressive, whereas it was with rather studied, artificial, and easily tired eyes that I regarded the anemic young lady. So long as I remained unaware of the difference in these two viewpoints, both of them lived together within me without bothering each other, without any conflict. For a boy of my age I seem to have been singularly uninterested in what is called "moral cleanliness" or, to use another phrase, to have been lacking the talent for "self-control." Even if I could explain this tact by saying that my excessively intense curiosity did not naturally dispose me toward an interest in morality, there would still remain the fact that this curiosity of mine both resembled the hopeless yearnings of a bedridden invalid for the outside world and was also somehow inextricably tangled up with a belief in the possibility of the impossible. It was this combination—one part unconscious belief, one part unconscious despair—that so quickened my desires that they appeared to be desperate ambitions. Even though still young, I did not know what it was to experience the clear-cut feeling of platonic love. Was this a misfortune? But what meaning could ordinary misfortune have for me? The vague uneasiness surrounding my sexual feelings had practically made the carnal world an obsession with me. My curiosity was actually purely intellectual, not far removed from the desire for knowledge, but I became skillful at convincing myself that it was carnal desire incarnate. What is more, I mastered the art of delusion until I could regard myself as a truly lewd-minded person. As a result I assumed the stylish airs of an adult, of a man of the world. I affected the attitude of being completely tired of women. Thus it was that I first became obsessed with the idea of the kiss. Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter. I can say so now. But at that time, in order to delude myself that this desire was animal passion, I had to undertake an elaborate disguise of my true self. The unconscious feeling of guilt resulting from this false pretense stubbornly insisted that I play a conscious and false role. But, it may well be asked, can a person be so completely false to his own nature? even for one moment? If the answer is no, then there is no way to explain the mysterious mental process by which we crave things we actually do not want at all, is there?

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  three times, willing myself to breathe each time. And then my body finally took over and I started breathing again involuntarily. “But when I started breathing, I felt awful again—really sick—where just a few seconds earlier I’d been feeling so good, floating around in the room.” Upon regaining consciousness, Brady was rushed to the hospital by his mother. After spending a night there he recovered fully, but his near-death experience made a profound impression that has remained with him, very vividly, ever since. As he floated high above his body in the throes of anaphylactic shock, God ceased to be an abstract concept. He had felt the presence of the Lord firsthand, and he yearned to recapture that overpowering sense of the divine in his Mormon faith. For several years before he met the Prophet Onias, Brady had been growing increasingly disaffected with the LDS Church. He was discouraged by the lack of religious passion among most of the Mormons he knew. Too many members of the church seemed to him to be merely going through the motions, treating it more as a social organization than as a means for spiritual enlightenment. Then, in the late 1970s, Brady met Kenyon Blackmore and entered into a business partnership with him, selling investments in tax shelters and other financial instruments that promised incredibly high returns to speculators. “Ken was really intriguing to me,” says Brady. “He knew more about Mormonism than anybody I’ve ever met, yet he said he wasn’t a Mormon. After I’d worked with him for six months or so, I sat him down and asked him to level with me: ‘How can you know all this stuff and not be a member of the LDS Church?’ So he took a deep breath and told me all about fundamentalism.” Blackmore turned out to be a Canadian-born polygamist. Although he wasn’t directly affiliated with the UEP or any other fundamentalist group, one of his first cousins was Winston Blackmore, who had recently maneuvered to become the leader of the polygamists in Bountiful, British Columbia, with whom Onias had once been friendly. Two of Onias’s daughters were in fact married to Winston Blackmore’s brothers—Kenyon Blackmore’s cousins. “Ken was my first exposure to Mormon Fundamentalism,” Brady continues. “The whole concept sort of blew me away: all these things that Joseph Smith had revealed, but had then been abandoned by the modern Church. I went home and

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Oh, well,’ sighed Williams, ‘I be gettin’ that old — and Raftery, ’°e do be comin’ eleven, but ’e don’t feel it yet in ’is limbs the way I does — me rheumatics ’as troubled me awful this winter.’ She stayed on a little while, comforting Williams, then made her way back to the house, very slowly. ‘ Poor Williams,’ she thought, ‘he is getting old, but thank the Lord nothing’s the matter with Raftery.’ The house lay full in a great slant of sunshine; it looked as though it was sunning its shoulders. Glancing up, she came eye to eye with the house, and she fancied that Morton was thinking about her, for its windows seemed to be beckoning, inviting: ‘Come home, come home, come inside quickly, Stephen!’ And as though they had spoken, she answered: < I’m coming,’ and she quickened her lagging steps to a run, in response to this most compassionate kindness. Yes, she actually ran through the heavy white doorway under the semi-circular fanlight, and on up the staircase that led from the hall in which hung the funny old portraits of Gordons — men long dead and gone but still wonder- fully living, since their thoughts had fashioned the comeliness of Morton; since their loves had made children from father to son — from father to son until the advent of Stephen. 116 THE WELL OF LONELINESS 2 Tuar evening she went to her father’s study, and when he looked up she thought she was expected. She said: ‘I want to talk to you, Father.’ And he answered: ‘I know — sit close to me, Stephen.’ He shaded his face with his long, thin hand, so that she could not see his expression, yet it seemed to her that he knew quite well why she had come to him in that study. Then she told him about Martin, told him all that had happened, omitting no detail, spar- ing him nothing. She openly mourned the friend who had failed her, and herself she mourned for failing the lover — and Sir Philip listened in absolute silence. After she had spoken for quite a long time, she at length found the courage to ask her question: ‘ Is there anything strange about me, Father, that I should have felt as I did about Martin? ’ It had come. It fell on his heart like a blow. The hand that was shading his pale face trembled, for he felt a great trembling take hold of his spirit. His spirit shrank back and cowered in his body, so that it dared not look out on Stephen. She was waiting, and now she was asking again: ‘ Father, is there anything strange about me? I remember when I was a little child — I was never quite like all the other children —’

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  attend was Ron, the eldest of the Lafferty offspring, who was six years older than Dan, and had always acted less like a sibling than a father figure to his brothers. Dan usually led the discussions, which inevitably described how the government had far exceeded its constitutionally mandated reach and was dangerously out of control. Buttressing his arguments by quoting scripture from The Book of Mormon, he patiently explained to his brothers that the government had no right to require American citizens to obtain any kind of license, or pay taxes, or submit to the oppressive burden of a Social Security number. “I had come to realize,” Dan says, “that a license was simply an agreement with the government to let them have control of your life. And I decided I didn’t want them to have control of my life. . . . I already had a basic right to enjoy all of the basic activities of a human being, without their permission.” Although Dan had not yet allied himself with any established fundamentalist church or prophet, his self-directed studies had transformed him into a de facto Mormon Fundamentalist—and an exceedingly ardent one. The impetus for most fundamentalist movements—whether Mormon, Catholic, Evangelical Christian, Muslim, or Jewish—is a yearning to return to the mythical order and perfection of the original church. Dan Lafferty was moved by this same desire. The more he studied historical Mormon documents, the more certain Dan became that the LDS Church had blundered off course around 1890, when then- president and prophet Wilford Woodruff was coerced into doing away with the doctrine of plural marriage by the godless government in Washington, D.C. The modern LDS Church, Dan had become convinced, was an elaborate fraud. Like fundamentalists in other faiths, he was intent on adhering unfailingly to God’s “true” commandments, as determined by a rigorously literal interpretation of his church’s earliest and most sacred texts. And he was no less intent on adhering to the “true” commandments of his country’s earliest and most sacred texts, as well. To Dan, such documents as the Book of Mormon, The Peace Maker, the United States Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence are all of a piece: they are holy scriptures that provide a direct link to the Almighty. The authority that flows from their divinely inspired sentences is absolute and immutable. And it is the duty of righteous men and women to conduct their lives according to a stringently literal reading of those sentences.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  I had a great deal of work left to do, though, so I snapped time off in order to have a few minutes of freedom to think about what I might do with Joyce if I switched off time in a big way. (I often do this: I Drop just to itemize all the neat things I could do if I did Drop right at that moment.) I could stay in the Fold for several years, mastering carpentry and other building trades, and construct an entire alternate city for her, a city with irregular spires and elevated walkways, where I would transport her, and then, turning time back on, I would wait in one of the deserted buildings I had built until she discovered me, and I would profess total bewilderment at how we had gotten there and why we had been left to fend for ourselves, and eventually she would get desperate and we would fuck sitting up at twilight, looking into each other’s eyes, in the middle of a cobblestone street, each cobble of which I had laid by hand. Or I could write her a short, immoderate, uncool letter telling her how wonderful it was to do her credit memos and how little I had expected to meet someone of her charm on this floor of the MassBank building, and how extremely glad I was that she liked my glasses, and I could paper-clip the note to the back of the papers I gave back to her. Or I could borrow her keys from her purse and go see what her apartment looked like. (I used to hang around cafés in Cambridge on Sundays, reading women’s handwritten poetry journals while in the Fold, but the surprising thing was how little you learned about what the women were actually like, what their manner was like, by reading their poetry journals—though their handwriting told you something. Eventually I found that a more dependable way to get an idea of a particular woman without actually talking to her was by hitting PAUSE , finding her address, and borrowing her keys to see how she lived.) Or I could put one of my special homemade editions of a pamphlet called Tales of French Love and Passion in a trash can just as Joyce was tossing something out, so that she would find it and perhaps read it. Or I could ask her out to dinner. That seemed the most reasonable thing to do.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She heard the curious satisfaction in his voice. She went upstairs to her bedroom. There she heard the loud-speaker begin to bellow, in an idiotically velveteen-genteel sort of voice, something about a series of street-cries, the very cream of genteel affectation imitating old criers. She pulled on her old violet-coloured mackintosh, and slipped out of the house at the side door. The drizzle of rain was like a veil over the world, mysterious, hushed, not cold. She got very warm as she hurried across the park. She had to open her light waterproof. The wood was silent, still and secret in the evening drizzle of rain, full of the mystery of eggs and half-open buds, half-unsheathed flowers. In the dimness of it all trees glistened naked and dark as if they had unclothed themselves, and the green things on earth seemed to hum with greenness. There was still no one at the clearing. The chicks had nearly all gone under the mother hens, only one or two lost adventurous ones still dibbed about in the dryness under the straw roof-shelter. And they were doubtful of themselves. So! He still had not been. He was staying away on purpose. Or perhaps something was wrong. Perhaps she could go to the cottage and see. But she was born to wait. She opened the hut with her key. It was all tidy, the corn put in the bin, the blankets folded on the shelf, the straw neat in a corner; a new bundle of straw. The hurricane lamp hung on a nail. The table and chair had been put back where she had lain. She sat down on a stool in the doorway. How still everything was! The fine rain blew very softly, filmily, but the wind made no noise. Nothing made any sound. The trees stood like powerful beings, dim, twilit, silent and alive. How alive everything was! Night was drawing near again; she would have to go. He was avoiding her. But suddenly he came striding into the clearing, in his black oilskin jacket like a chauffeur, shining with wet. He glanced quickly at the hut, half-saluted, then veered aside and went on to the coops. There he crouched in silence, looking carefully at everything, then carefully shutting the hens and chicks up safe against the night. At last he came slowly towards her. She still sat on her stool. He stood before her under the porch. "You come then," he said, using the intonation of the dialect. "Yes," she said, looking up at him. "You're late!" "Ay!" he replied, looking away into the wood. She rose slowly, drawing aside her stool. "Did you want to come in?" she asked. He looked down at her shrewdly. "Won't folks be thinkin' somethink, you comin' here every night?" he said. "Why?" She looked up at him, at a loss. "I said I'd come. Nobody knows." "They soon will, though," he replied. "An' what then?" She was at a loss for an answer.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  And because of my struggles against it, from the beginning my every fantasy was tinged with despair, strangely complete and in itself resembling passionate desire.One night from my bed I saw a shining city floating upon the expanse of darkness that surrounded me. It was strangely still, and yet overflowed with brilliance and mystery. I could plainly see a mystic brand that had been impressed upon the faces of the persons in that city. They were adults, returning home in dead of night, still retaining in speech or gesture traces of something like secret signs and countersigns, something smacking of Freemasonry. Moreover, in their faces there shone a glistening fatigue that made them shy of being looked at full in the face. As with those holiday masks that leave powdered silver on the fingertips when one touches them, it seemed that if I could but touch their faces, I might discover the color of the pigments with which the city of night had painted them. Presently Night raised a curtain directly before my eyes, revealing the stage on which Shokyokusai Tenkatsu performed her feats of magic. (She was then making one of her rare appearances at a theater in the Shinjuku district; although the staging of the magician Dante, whom I saw at the same theater some years later, was on a many times grander scale than hers, neither Dante nor even the Universal Exhibition of the Hagen-beck Circus amazed me so much as my first view of Tenkatsu.) She lounged indolently about the stage, her opulent body veiled in garments like those of the Great Harlot of the Apocalypse. On her arms were flashy bracelets, heaped with artificial stones; her make-up was as heavy as that of a female ballad-singer, with a coating of white powder extending even to the tips of her toenails; and she wore a trumpery costume that surrendered her person over to the kind of brazen luster given off only by shoddy merchandise. And yet, curiously enough, all this somehow achieved a melancholy harmony with her haughty air of self-importance, characteristic of conjurers and exiled noblemen alike, with her sort of somber charm, with her heroine-like bearing. The delicate grain of the shadow cast by these unharmonious elements produced its own surprising and unique illusion of harmony. I understood, though vaguely, that the desire "to become Tenkatsu" and "to become a streetcar operator" differed in essence. Their most marked dissimilarity was the fact that in the case of Tenkatsu the craving for that "tragic quality" was almost wholly lacking. In wishing to become Tenkatsu I did not have to taste that bitter mixture of longing and shame. And yet one day, trying hard to still my heartbeats, I stole into my mother's room and opened the drawers of her clothing chest. From among my mother's kimonos I dragged out the most gorgeous one, the one with the strongest colors.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  So Connie watched him fixedly. And the same solitary aloneness she had seen in him naked, she now saw in him clothed: solitary, and intent, like an animal that works alone, but also brooding, like a soul that recoils away, away from all human contact. Silently, patiently, he was recoiling away from her even now. It was the stillness, and the timeless sort of patience, in a man impatient and passionate, that touched Connie's womb. She saw it in his bent head, the quick, quiet hands, the crouching of his slender, sensitive loins; something patient and withdrawn. She felt his experience had been deeper and wider than her own; much deeper and wider, and perhaps more deadly. And this relieved her of herself; she felt almost irresponsible. So she sat in the doorway of the hut in a dream, utterly unaware of time and of particular circumstances. She was so drifted away that he glanced up at her quickly, and saw the utterly still, waiting look on her face. To him it was a look of waiting. And a little thin tongue of fire suddenly flickered in his loins, at the root of his back, and he groaned in spirit. He dreaded with a repulsion almost of death, any further close human contact. He wished above all things she would go away, and leave him to his own privacy. He dreaded her will, her female will, and her modern female insistency. And above all he dreaded her cool, upper-class impudence of having her own way. For after all he was only a hired man. He hated her presence there. Connie came to herself with sudden uneasiness. She rose. The afternoon was turning to evening, yet she could not go away. She went over to the man, who stood up at attention, his worn face stiff and blank, his eyes watching her. "It is so nice here, so restful," she said. "I have never been here before." "No?" "I think I shall come and sit here sometimes." "Yes!" "Do you lock the hut when you're not here?" "Yes, your Ladyship." "Do you think I could have a key too, so that I could sit here sometimes? Are there two keys?" "Not as Ah know on, ther' isna." He had lapsed into the vernacular. Connie hesitated; he was putting up an opposition. Was it his hut, after all? "Couldn't we get another key?" she asked in her soft voice, that underneath had the ring of a woman determined to get her way. "Another!" he said, glancing at her with a flash of anger, touched with derision. "Yes, a duplicate," she said, flushing. "'Appen Sir Clifford 'ud know," he said, putting her off. "Yes!" she said, "he might have another. Otherwise we could have one made from the one you have. It would only take a day or so, I suppose. You could spare your key for so long." "Ah canna tell yer, m' lady! Ah know nob'dy as ma'es keys round 'ere."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "No, you'd better come along in case she sticks. The engine isn't really strong enough for the uphill work." The man glanced round for his dog ... a thoughtful glance. The spaniel looked at him and faintly moved its tail. A little smile, mocking or teasing her, yet gentle, came into his eyes for a moment, then faded away, and his face was expressionless. They went fairly quickly down the slope, the man with his hand on the rail of the chair, steadying it. He looked like a free soldier rather than a servant. And something about him reminded Connie of Tommy Dukes. When they came to the hazel grove, Connie suddenly ran forward, and opened the gate into the park. As she stood holding it, the two men looked at her in passing, Clifford critically, the other man with a curious, cool wonder; impersonally wanting to see what she looked like. And she saw in his blue, impersonal eyes a look of suffering and detachment, yet a certain warmth. But why was he so aloof, apart? Clifford stopped the chair, once through the gate, and the man came quickly, courteously, to close it. "Why did you run to open?" asked Clifford in his quiet, calm voice, that showed he was displeased. "Mellors would have done it." "I thought you would go straight ahead," said Connie. "And leave you to run after us?" said Clifford. "Oh, well, I like to run sometimes!" Mellors took the chair again, looking perfectly unheeding, yet Connie felt he noted everything. As he pushed the chair up the steepish rise of the knoll in the park, he breathed rather quickly, through parted lips. He was rather frail really. Curiously full of vitality, but a little frail and quenched. Her woman's instinct sensed it. Connie fell back, let the chair go on. The day had greyed over: the small blue sky that had poised low on its circular rims of haze was closed in again, the lid was down, there was a raw coldness. It was going to snow. All grey, all grey! the world looked worn-out. The chair waited at the top of the pink path. Clifford looked round for Connie. "Not tired, are you?" he asked. "Oh no!" she said. But she was. A strange, weary yearning, a dissatisfaction had started in her. Clifford did not notice: those were not things he was aware of. But the stranger knew. To Connie, everything in her world and life seemed worn-out, and her dissatisfaction was older than the hills. They came to the house, and round to the back, where there were no steps. Clifford managed to swing himself over on to the low, wheeled house-chair; he was very strong and agile with his arms. Then Connie lifted the burden of his dead legs after him.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  But he would never put in an appearance until the last moment before class formation. Nevertheless, I could not imagine who else might have made the footprints, and judging by their large size, I was convinced they were his. Leaning out the window and straining my eyes, I saw the color of fresh black soil in the shoe tracks, making them seem somehow determined and powerful. An indescribable force drew me toward those shoe prints. I felt that I should like to throw myself head-first out of the window to bury my face in them. But, as usual, my sluggish motor nerves protected me from my sudden whim. Instead of diving out the window, I put my satchel on a desk and then scrambled slowly up onto the window sill. The hooks and eyes on the front of my uniform jacket had scarcely pressed against the stone window sill before they were at daggers' point with my frail ribs, producing a pain mixed with a sort of sorrowful sweetness. After I had jumped from the window onto the snow, the slight pain remained as a pleasant stimulus, filling me with a trembling emotion of adventure. I fitted my overshoes carefully into the footprints. The prints had looked quite large, but now I found they were almost the same size as mine. I had failed to take into account the fact that the person who had made them was probably wearing overshoes too, as was the vogue among us in those days. Now that the thought occurred to me, I decided the footprints were not large enough to be Omi's. And yet, despite my uneasy feeling that I would be disappointed in my immediate hope of finding Omi behind the science building, I was still somehow compelled by the idea of following after the black shoe-prints. Probably at this point I was no longer motivated solely by the hope of finding Omi, but instead, at the sight of the violated mystery, was seized with a mixed feeling of yearning and revenge toward the person who had come before me and left his footprints in the snow. Breathing hard, I began following the tracks. As though walking on steppingstones, I went moving my feet from footprint to footprint. The outlines of the prints revealed now glassy, coal-black earth, now dead turf, now soiled, packed snow, now paving stones. Suddenly I discovered that, without being aware of it, I had fallen into walking with long strides, exactly like Omi's. Following the tracks to the rear of the science building, I passed through the long shadow the building threw over the snow, and then continued on to the high ground overlooking the wide athletic field.

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

  At one end of the chamber there stood a series of wardrobes, each so large that it exceeded, in size, the entire bedroom she had formerly shared with all of her siblings back in her father’s cottage. The wardrobes were stocked with beautiful gowns of many styles and colors, all of which were made to fit her just so. She selected a nightgown that was finer than any item of clothing she had ever before possessed and, wondering how the rest of her family had fared, she settled into the comfortable bedding that had been prepared just for her. Her previous anxiety was for the most part gone now, but upon laying her head on the velvety pillow, she was overcome with a feeling of restlessness. Everything was so perfect and yet she felt a strange emptiness and longing. Was she homesick? No, for although she loved her family, she was of an age when the solitude of private rooms, with her own possessions, was more than welcome! Besides, she could remember feeling this way in her father’s cottage, too. Back then she had thought it was simply discontent, brought about by her passionate desire for nicer things, but here was the sensation again, stronger than ever, even among such incredible luxury and wealth. She still suffered with that same yearning, without knowing exactly what it was she wanted. Before she had time to consider this at any great length, the door to her bedchamber abruptly opened and closed, and she heard someone enter her room. She had extinguished the candle, and no moon or starlight could creep through the thick velvet curtains that covered the windows, so she was completely unable to observe who it was. She was not immediately alarmed, however, supposing that it was only the kindly servant woman, returning to tuck her in for the night or, perhaps, even, perceiving her unspoken and melancholy longing, the woman had duly fetched the vague thing and promptly brought it to her! For hadn’t the bear promised that her every wish would be immediately granted? But there was none of the servant’s silly chattering this time; no, not even an answer when the girl inquired, “Who is it, please?” She slowly sat up in the bed and instinctively turned her head toward the intruder, straining to detect the meaning of the soft shuffling sounds she now heard. As she stared into the blackness her eyes opened wider. Their sightless orbs darted back and forth in sudden terror. At length it occurred to her that the trespasser had undressed. Then she heard someone approach the bed. She was hardly able to breathe, she was so terrified, but she somehow managed to whisper, “Who is it?” Still the stranger said nothing. “Who is it?” she repeated, more frantically. “Is it you, Mr. Bear?” But even as she asked this, she realized it could not be so, for the bear did not wear clothes or shoes, as had this uninvited visitor.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “What time is it?” She squinted at the clock. “One-thirty.” “Not now, I don’t.” “Oh, did you miss an appointment?” “Nothing special.” I had guests coming in from out of town. Oh, well, they were grown men. Maybe the landlady would let them in. “Then let’s have some breakfast.” I demurred. “I’m a lousy cook.” “So go get a Sunday paper and I’ll cook. There’s a mom ‘n’ pop grocery in the next block.” She gave me her keys and sent me out the door. When I returned, the house smelled like bacon and eggs. We ate in near silence, trading sections of the paper and passing each other the toast and butter. When we finished, I began to stack the dishes, but she stopped me. “No, leave them,” she said. “I have to empty the dishwasher.” I stood in the middle of the kitchen with a dirty plate in my hand, not sure where to go or what to do. “I feel awkward,” I said, so softly I wasn’t sure she would hear me, and put the dish gently on the edge of the table. “Dammit, I’m out of cigarettes,” she complained, hunting through a drawer. “I’ll have to go out and get some.” I tried to picture myself doing these things with her—emptying a dishwasher, walking down to the store for cigarettes—and decided it was easier to pour myself another cup of coffee. When I turned around from the stove, she was sitting at the table again, so I sat beside her. She took my hand, turned it over, and slipped her finger under the leather bracelet. “I—uh—yes, I feel a little strained myself. Everything I want to say sounds like the understatement of the year. How shall I put it? I had a great time last night?” Did you? said her eyes. I paused a little, not wanting to sound too glib. “It was the best,” I shrugged. My voice was high and unconvincing. “It was the best ever,” I repeated firmly. “I guess that’s what makes today so difficult.” “Yeah. I hardly know you—I don’t know if you play piano, I don’t know what kind of business it is you run, I don’t know your shoe size—but I know you better than anyone else in the world.” I nodded. “Instant intimacy,” I said flippantly. I was shaking cold inside, getting ready to run scared. “So what do we do?” she asked me. “I’m tempted to either lock you in my closet or bounce you down the front steps. I hate to let go of something that was so good, but I’m afraid I’ll spoil it if I try to hang on. I’m afraid to try again, for fear it won’t be the same.”

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  It was not the passion that was new to her, it was the yearning adoration. She knew she had always feared it, for it left her helpless; she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would lose herself, become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a slave, like a savage woman. She must not become a slave. She feared her adoration, yet she would not at once fight against it. She knew she could fight it. She had a devil of self-will in her breast that could have fought the full soft heaving adoration of her womb and crushed it. She could even now do it, or she thought so, and she could then take up her passion with her own will. Ah yes, to be passionate like a Bacchante, like a Bacchanal fleeing through the woods, to call on Iacchos, the bright phallus that had no independent personality behind it, but was pure god-servant to the woman! The man, the individual, let him not dare intrude. He was but a temple-servant, the bearer and keeper of the bright phallus, her own. So, in the flux of new awakening, the old hard passion flamed in her for a time, and the man dwindled to a contemptible object, the mere phallus-bearer, to be torn to pieces when his service was performed. She felt the force of the Bacchae in her limbs and her body, the woman gleaming and rapid, beating down the male; but while she felt this, her heart was heavy. She did not want it, it was known and barren, birthless; the adoration was her treasure. It was so fathomless, so soft, so deep and so unknown. No, no, she would give up her hard bright female power; she was weary of it, stiffened with it; she would sink in the new bath of life, in the depths of her womb and her bowels that sang the voiceless song of adoration. It was early yet to begin to fear the man. "I walked over by Marehay, and I had tea with Mrs. Flint," she said to Clifford. "I wanted to see the baby. It's so adorable, with hair like red cobwebs. Such a dear! Mr. Flint had gone to market, so she and I and the baby had tea together. Did you wonder where I was?" "Well, I wondered, but I guessed you had dropped in somewhere to tea," said Clifford jealously. With a sort of second sight he sensed something new in her, something to him quite incomprehensible, but he ascribed it to the baby. He thought that all that ailed Connie was that she did not have a baby, automatically bring one forth, so to speak. "I saw you go across the park to the iron gate, my Lady," said Mrs. Bolton; "so I thought perhaps you'd called at the Rectory." "I nearly did, then I turned towards Marehay instead."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  It was not the passion that was new to her, it was the yearning adoration. She knew she had always feared it, for it left her helpless; she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would lose herself, become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a slave, like a savage woman. She must not become a slave. She feared her adoration, yet she would not at once fight against it. She knew she could fight it. She had a devil of self-will in her breast that could have fought the full soft heaving adoration of her womb and crushed it. She could even now do it, or she thought so, and she could then take up her passion with her own will. Ah yes, to be passionate like a Bacchante, like a Bacchanal fleeing through the woods, to call on Iacchos, the bright phallus that had no independent personality behind it, but was pure god-servant to the woman! The man, the individual, let him not dare intrude. He was but a temple-servant, the bearer and keeper of the bright phallus, her own. So, in the flux of new awakening, the old hard passion flamed in her for a time, and the man dwindled to a contemptible object, the mere phallus-bearer, to be torn to pieces when his service was performed. She felt the force of the Bacchae in her limbs and her body, the woman gleaming and rapid, beating down the male; but while she felt this, her heart was heavy. She did not want it, it was known and barren, birthless; the adoration was her treasure. It was so fathomless, so soft, so deep and so unknown. No, no, she would give up her hard bright female power; she was weary of it, stiffened with it; she would sink in the new bath of life, in the depths of her womb and her bowels that sang the voiceless song of adoration. It was early yet to begin to fear the man. "I walked over by Marehay, and I had tea with Mrs. Flint," she said to Clifford. "I wanted to see the baby. It's so adorable, with hair like red cobwebs. Such a dear! Mr. Flint had gone to market, so she and I and the baby had tea together. Did you wonder where I was?" "Well, I wondered, but I guessed you had dropped in somewhere to tea," said Clifford jealously. With a sort of second sight he sensed something new in her, something to him quite incomprehensible, but he ascribed it to the baby. He thought that all that ailed Connie was that she did not have a baby, automatically bring one forth, so to speak. "I saw you go across the park to the iron gate, my Lady," said Mrs. Bolton; "so I thought perhaps you'd called at the Rectory." "I nearly did, then I turned towards Marehay instead."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He looked up at her with the full glance that saw everything, registered everything. At the same time, the infant crying in the night was crying out of his breast to her in a way that affected her very womb. "It's awfully nice of you to think of me," he said laconically. "Why shouldn't I think of you?" she exclaimed with hardly breath to utter it. He gave the wry, quick hiss of a laugh. "Oh, in that way!... May I hold your hand for a minute?" he asked suddenly, fixing his eyes on her with almost hypnotic power, and sending out an appeal that affected her direct in the womb. She stared at him, dazed and transfixed, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands, and buried his face in her lap, remaining motionless. She was perfectly dim and dazed, looking down in a sort of amazement at the rather tender nape of his neck, feeling his face pressing her thighs. In all her burning dismay, she could not help putting her hand, with tenderness and compassion, on the defenceless nape of his neck, and he trembled with a deep shudder. Then he looked up at her with that awful appeal in his full, glowing eyes. She was utterly incapable of resisting it. From her breast flowed the answering, immense yearning over him; she must give him anything, anything. He was a curious and very gentle lover, very gentle with the woman, trembling uncontrollably, and yet at the same time detached, aware, aware of every sound outside. To her it meant nothing except that she gave herself to him. And at length he ceased to quiver any more, and lay quite still, quite still. Then, with dim, compassionate fingers, she stroked his head, that lay on her breast. When he rose, he kissed both her hands, then both her feet, in their suède slippers and in silence went away to the end of the room, where he stood with his back to her. There was silence for some minutes. Then he turned and came to her again as she sat in her old place by the fire. "And now, I suppose you'll hate me!" he said in a quiet, inevitable way. She looked up at him quickly. "Why should I?" she asked. "They mostly do," he said; then he caught himself up. "I mean ... a woman is supposed to." "This is the last moment when I ought to hate you," she said resentfully. "I know! I know! It should be so! You're _frightfully_ good to me...." he cried miserably. She wondered why he should be miserable. "Won't you sit down again?" she said. He glanced at the door.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Wherefore, so this may not betide, now that you have it in your power to succour me, bethink yourself and ere I die, be moved to pity on me, for that with you alone it resteth to make me the happiest or the most miserable man alive. I trust your courtesy will be such that you will not suffer me to receive death in guerdon of such and so great a love, but will with a glad response and full of favour quicken my fainting spirits, which flutter, all dismayed, in your presence.' Therewith he held his peace and heaving the deepest of sighs, followed up with sundry tears, proceeded to await the lady's answer. The latter,--whom the long court he had paid her, the joustings held and the serenades given in her honour and other like things done of him for the love of her had not availed to move,--was moved by the passionate speech of this most ardent lover and began to be sensible of that which she had never yet felt, to wit, what manner of thing love was; and albeit, in ensuance of the commandment laid upon her by her husband, she kept silence, she could not withal hinder sundry gentle sighs from discovering that which, in answer to Il Zima, she would gladly have made manifest. Il Zima, having waited awhile and seeing that no response ensued, was wondered and presently began to divine the husband's device; but yet, looking her in the face and observing certain flashes of her eyes towards him now and again and noting, moreover, the sighs which she suffered not to escape her bosom with all her strength, conceived fresh hope and heartened thereby, took new counsel[172] and proceeded to answer himself after the following fashion, she hearkening the while: 'Zima mine, this long time, in good sooth, have I perceived thy love for me to be most great and perfect, and now by thy words I know it yet better and am well pleased therewith, as indeed I should be. Algates, an I have seemed to thee harsh and cruel, I will not have thee believe that I have at heart been that which I have shown myself in countenance; nay, I have ever loved thee and held thee dear above all other men; but thus hath it behoved me do, both for fear of others and for the preserving of my fair fame. But now is the time at hand when I may show thee clearly that I love thee and guerdon thee of the love that thou hast borne and bearest me.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "No, you'd better come along in case she sticks. The engine isn't really strong enough for the uphill work." The man glanced round for his dog ... a thoughtful glance. The spaniel looked at him and faintly moved its tail. A little smile, mocking or teasing her, yet gentle, came into his eyes for a moment, then faded away, and his face was expressionless. They went fairly quickly down the slope, the man with his hand on the rail of the chair, steadying it. He looked like a free soldier rather than a servant. And something about him reminded Connie of Tommy Dukes. When they came to the hazel grove, Connie suddenly ran forward, and opened the gate into the park. As she stood holding it, the two men looked at her in passing, Clifford critically, the other man with a curious, cool wonder; impersonally wanting to see what she looked like. And she saw in his blue, impersonal eyes a look of suffering and detachment, yet a certain warmth. But why was he so aloof, apart? Clifford stopped the chair, once through the gate, and the man came quickly, courteously, to close it. "Why did you run to open?" asked Clifford in his quiet, calm voice, that showed he was displeased. "Mellors would have done it." "I thought you would go straight ahead," said Connie. "And leave you to run after us?" said Clifford. "Oh, well, I like to run sometimes!" Mellors took the chair again, looking perfectly unheeding, yet Connie felt he noted everything. As he pushed the chair up the steepish rise of the knoll in the park, he breathed rather quickly, through parted lips. He was rather frail really. Curiously full of vitality, but a little frail and quenched. Her woman's instinct sensed it. Connie fell back, let the chair go on. The day had greyed over: the small blue sky that had poised low on its circular rims of haze was closed in again, the lid was down, there was a raw coldness. It was going to snow. All grey, all grey! the world looked worn-out. The chair waited at the top of the pink path. Clifford looked round for Connie. "Not tired, are you?" he asked. "Oh no!" she said. But she was. A strange, weary yearning, a dissatisfaction had started in her. Clifford did not notice: those were not things he was aware of. But the stranger knew. To Connie, everything in her world and life seemed worn-out, and her dissatisfaction was older than the hills. They came to the house, and round to the back, where there were no steps. Clifford managed to swing himself over on to the low, wheeled house-chair; he was very strong and agile with his arms. Then Connie lifted the burden of his dead legs after him.