The death of her father and mother and the rich acres of and that had come down to her had set a train of suitors on her heels. For two years she saw suitors almost every evening. Except two they were all alike. They talked to her of passion and there was a strained eager quality in their voices and in their eyes when they looked at her. The two who were different were much unlike each other. One of them, a slender young man with white hands, the son of a jeweler in Winesburg, talked continually of virginity. When he was with her he was never off the subject. The other, a black-haired boy with large ears, said nothing at all but always managed to get her into the darkness, where he began to kiss her.For a time the tall dark girl thought she would marry the jeweler's son. For hours she sat in silence listening as he talked to her and then she began to be afraid of something. Beneath his talk of virginity she began to think there was a lust greater than in all the others. At times it seemed to her that as he talked he was holding her body in his hands. She imagined him turning it slowly about in the white hands and staring at it. At night she dreamed that he had bitten into her body and that his jaws were dripping. She had the dream three times, then she became in the family way to the one who said nothing at all but who in the moment of his passion actually did bite her shoulder so that for days the marks of his teeth showed.

Her room was warm and lightsome. A huge doll sat with her legs apart in the copious easy-chair beside the bed. He tried to bid his tongue speak that he might seem at ease, watching her as she undid her gown, noting the proud conscious movements of her perfumed head.As he stood silent in the middle of the room she came over to him and embraced him gaily and gravely. Her round arms held him firmly to her and he, seeing her face lifted to him in serious calm and feeling the warm calm rise and fall of her breast, all but burst into hysterical weeping. Tears of joy and relief shone in his delighted eyes and his lips parted though they would not speak.She passed her tinkling hand through his hair, calling him a little rascal.—Give me a kiss, she said.His lips would not bend to kiss her. He wanted to be held firmly in her arms, to be caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt that he had suddenly become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But his lips would not bend to kiss her.With a sudden movement she bowed his head and joined her lips to his and he read the meaning of her movements in her frank uplifted eyes. It was too much for him. He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odour.

He was the kind of young man whose handsome face has brought him plenty of success in the past and is now ever-ready for a new encounter, a fresh-experience, always eager to set off into the unknown territory of a little adventure, never taken by surprise because he has worked out everything in advance and is waiting to see what happens, a man who will never overlook any erotic opportunity, whose first glance probes every woman's sensuality, and explores it, without discriminating between his friend's wife and the parlour-maid who opens the door to him. Such men are described with a certain facile contempt as lady-killers, but the term has a nugget of truthful observation in it, for in fact all the passionate instincts of the chase are present in their ceaseless vigilance: the stalking of the prey, the excitement and mental cruelty of the kill. They are constantly on the alert, always ready and willing to follow the trail of an adventure to the very edge of the abyss. They are full of passion all the time, but it is the passion of a gambler rather than a lover, cold, calculating and dangerous. Some are so persistent that their whole lives, long after their youth is spent, are made an eternal adventure by this expectation. Each of their days is resolved into hundreds of small sensual experiences - a look exchanged in passing, a fleeting smile, knees brushing together as a couple sit opposite each other - and the year, in its own turn, dissolves into hundreds of such days in which sensuous experience is the constantly flowing, nourishing, inspiring source of life.

Evil is not just a theory of paradox, but an actual entity that exists only for itself. From its ether of manifestation that is garlanded in perpetual darkness, it not only influences and seeks the ruination and destruction of everything that resides in our universe, but rushes to embrace its own oblivion as well.To accomplish this, however, it must hide within the shroud of lies and deceit it spins to manipulate the weak-minded as well as those who choose to ally themselves with it for their own personal gain. For evil must rely on the self-serving interests of the arrogant, the lustful, the power-hungry, the hateful, and the greedy to feed and proliferate. This then becomes the condition of evil’s existence: the baneful ideologies of those who wantonly chose to ignore the needs and rights of others, inducing oppression, fear, pain, and even death throughout the cosmos. And by these means, evil seeks to supplant the balance of the universe with its perverse nature. And once all that was good has been extinguished by corruption or annihilation, evil will then turn upon and consume what remains: particularly its immoral servants who have assisted its purpose so well … along with itself. And within that terrible instant of unimaginable exploding quantum fury, it will burn brighter than a trillion galaxies to herald its moment of ultimate triumph. But a moment is all that it shall be. And a micro-second later when the last amber burns and flickers out to the demise of dissolving ash, evil will leave its legacy of a totally devoid universe as its everlasting monument to eternal death.

காமத்தை வெல்பவன் மட்டுமே அகங்காரத்தை வெல்லமுடியும். உலகம் மீது பரவி அதை மறைக்கும் அகங்காரத்தையும் வென்றவனாலேயே உலகை உண்மையில் அறியமுடியும். ’தன்னுடைய உண்மை’க்குப் பதிலாக ’உண்மை’யை அவனால்தான் அறிய முடியும். ஆகவேதான் காமத்தை வெல்லுதல் ஞானத்தின் முதலடியாக எல்லா மரபுகளிலும் சொல்லப்படுகிறது.

Mapenzi, kama ilivyo kwa vitu vyote hapa ulimwenguni, hayawezi kuwepo bila kujumuishwa na fizikia na kemia yake! Bila kemia hakuna mapenzi ya kudumu. Tamaa ya ngono kimsingi huanza pindi unapokutana na mtu. Tamaa hiyo huweza kukua na kuwa kitu kingine kadiri muda unavyokwenda lakini chanzo kinakuwepo toka siku ya kwanza mlipokutana. Kemikali inayosababisha tamaa ya ngono na hata kuikuza tamaa hiyo ni 'phenyl ethylamine' ('fino itholamine') au PEA ambayo ni kemikali ya mapenzi ndani ya ubongo. Husisimua watu na huongeza nguvu za kimwili (fizikia) na kihisia (kemia). Tamaa husababisha mtu azalishe PEA nyingi zaidi, kitu kinachosababisha kujisikia kizunguzungu (cha hisia za kimapenzi) na dalili zingine kama magoti kutetemeka, jasho kutoka viganjani na kutokutulia. Kemikali hii inapozalishwa kwa kiwango kikubwa, hutuma alamu ('signals') kutoka kwenye ubongo mpaka kwenye viungo vingine vya mwili na kutumika kama 'dopamine' au 'amphetamine' ambazo ni kemikali za ulevi ndani ya ubongo. Iwapo unajiuliza kwa nini wewe au mtu mwingine unavutiwa na mtu ambaye hamwendani kimapenzi, inaweza kuwa ni kwa sababu una kiwango kikubwa cha kemikali hizo kuliko mwenzako, kitu ambacho huzidi uwezo wa kutumia kichwa na kutoa maamuzi bora kulingana na akili ya kuzaliwa.Kwa jumla, mapenzi yote ya kweli uhitaji angalau kiwango kidogo cha PEA kwa wale wanaopendana. Cha msingi kukumbuka ni kwamba kemikali hizi huja kwa vituo, nikiwa simaanishi kwamba tamaa ya ngono hupotea pale mtu anapoelekea kwenye uhusiano wa kudumu. Lakini mambo hubadilika. Hatuwezi kuvumilia zile hisia kali kadiri tunavyozidi kusafiri kuelekea kwenye uhusiano wa kudumu na kwenye maisha ya pamoja yenye furaha. Katika uhusiano wenye afya hata hivyo matatizo hutokea hapa na pale. Chanzo cha Murphy na Debbie kupendana kilikuwa kemia zaidi kuliko fizikia. Kama hakuna kemia hakuna mapenzi.

verligen-Szene Êrec was biderbe unde guot, ritterlîche stuont sîn muot ê er wîp genaeme und hin heim kaeme: nû sô er heim komen ist, dô kêrte er allen sînen list an vrouwen Ênîten minne. sich vlizzen sîne sinne wie er alle sîne sache wante zuo gemache. sîn site er wandeln began. als er nie würde der man, alsô vertreip er den tac. des morgens er nider lac, daz er sîn wîp trûte unz daz man messe lûte. sô stuonden si ûf gelîche vil unmüezeclîche. ze handen si sich viengen, zer kappeln si giengen:dâ was ir tweln alsô lanc unz daz man messe gesanc. diz was sîn meistiu arbeit: sô was der imbîz bereit. swie schiere man die tische ûf zôch, mit sînem wîbe er dô vlôch ze bette von den liuten. dâ huop sich aber triuten. von danne enkam er aber nie unz er ze naht ze tische gie.(Erec war rechtschaffen und gut, sein Geist war ritterlich gewesen, bevor er eine Frau genommen hatte und nach Hause zurückgekehrt war. Nachdem er jetzt zu Hause ist, wendete er alle seine Gedanken an die Liebe Enites. Sein Verstand richtete sich nur darauf, wie er alles zu seiner Bequemlichkeit einrichten könne. Er änderte seine Gewohnheiten. Als sei er nie ein Mann geworden, so vertrieb er den Tag. Morgens legte er sich nieder, um seine Frau zu lieben, bis man zur Messe läutete. Dann standen sie beide eilig auf. Sie nahmen sich bei der Hand und gingen zur Kapelle; dort blieben sie gerade so lange wie man die Messe sang. Das war seine größte Mühe; dann war schon das Essen fertig. Sobald man die Tische hochgezogen hatte, eilte er mit seiner Frau von den Leuten weg ins Bett. Da ging die Liebe von neuem an. Von dort kam er nicht mehr weg, bis er zum Abendessen ging.)

The Marquis de V... - whose falsetto voice and little watery eyes I have always detested - was saying to me with a wicked smile: 'Then again, the master gymnast might break his neck at any moment. What he is doing now is very dangerous, my dear, and the pleasure you take in his performance is the little frisson that danger affords you. Wouldn't it be thrilling, if his sweaty hand failed to grip the bar? The velocity acquired by his rotation about the bar would break his spine quite cleanly, and perhaps a little of the cervical matter might spurt out as far as this! It would be most sensational, and you would have a rare emotion to add to the field of your experience - for you collect emotions, don't you? What a pretty stew of terrors that man in tights stirs up in us!'Admit that you almost wish that he will fall! Me too. Many others in the auditorium are in the same state of attention and anguish. That is the horrible instinct of a crowd confronted with a spectacle which awakens in it the ideas of lust and death. Those two agreeable companions always travel together! Take it from me that at the very same moment - see, the man is now holding on to the bar by his fingertips alone - at the very same moment, a good number of the women in these boxes are ardently lusting after that man, not so much for his beauty as for the danger he courts.'The voice subtly changed its tone, suddenly becoming more interested. 'You have singularly pale eyes this evening, my dear Freneuse. You ought to give up bromides and take valerian instead. You have a charming and curious soul, but you must take command of its changes. You are too ardently and too obviously covetous, this evening, of the death - or at least the fall - of that man.'I did not reply. The Marquis de V... was quite right. The madness of murder had taken hold of me again; the spectacle had me in its hallucinatory grip. Straitened by a penetrating and delirious anguish, I yearned for that man to fall.There are appalling depths of cruelty within me.

As for the vice of lust - aside from what it means for spiritual persons to fall into this vice, since my intent is to treat of the imperfections that have to be purged by means of the dark night - spiritual persons have numerous imperfections, many of which can be called spiritual lust, not because the lust is spiritual but because it proceeds from spiritual things. It happens frequently that in a person's spiritual exercises themselves, without the person being able to avoid it, impure movements will be experienced in the sensory part of the soul, and even sometimes when the spirit is deep in prayer or when receiving the sacraments of Penance or the Eucharist. These impure feelings arise from any of three causes outside one's control. First, they often proceed from the pleasure human nature finds in spiritual exercises. Since both the spiritual and the sensory part of the soul receive gratification from that refreshment, each part experiences delight according to its own nature and properties. The spirit, the superior part of the soul, experiences renewal and satisfaction in God; and the sense, the lower part, feels sensory gratification and delight because it is ignorant of how to get anything else, and hence takes whatever is nearest, which is the impure sensory satisfaction. It may happen that while a soul is with God in deep spiritual prayer, it will conversely passively experience sensual rebellions, movements, and acts in the senses, not without its own great displeasure. This frequently happens at the time of Communion. Since the soul receives joy and gladness in this act of love - for the Lord grants the grace and gives himself for this reason - the sensory part also takes its share, as we said, according to its mode. Since, after all, these two parts form one individual, each one usually shares according to its mode in what the other receives. As the Philosopher says: Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver. Because in the initial stages of the spiritual life, and even more advanced ones, the sensory part of the soul is imperfect, God's spirit is frequently received in this sensory part with this same imperfection. Once the sensory part is reformed through the purgation of the dark night, it no longer has these infirmities. Then the spiritual part of the soul, rather than the sensory part, receives God's Spirit, and the soul thus receives everything according to the mode of the Spirit.

நூற்றாண்டுகளாக மனிதனின் காமம் உடலில் இருந்து உள்ளத்துக்கு மாற்றப்பட்டுவிட்டது. மனிதன் அளவுக்கு காமத்தையே எண்ணிக்கொண்டிருக்கும் பிற உயிரினம் ஏதும் இருக்க முடியாது. உள்ளத்துக்கு எல்லை இல்லை. ஆகவே மானுடனின் காமத்துக்கும் எல்லையே இல்லை. அது அவனுக்குள் பெருகிப்பெருகிச் சென்றபடியே இருக்கும். உண்மையில் காமத்தை கட்டுப்படுத்துதல் என்ற செயலைவிட ஒரு சாதாரண மனிதனுக்குள் இருக்கும் இந்த காமம் பலமடங்கு செயற்கையானது.

இன்றைய மனிதனுக்கு காமம் பசியைப்போன்றதல்ல. நூற்றாண்டுகளாக மனிதனின் காமம் உடலில் இருந்து உள்ளத்துக்கு மாற்றப்பட்டுவிட்டது. மனிதன் அளவுக்கு காமத்தையே எண்ணிக்கொண்டிருக்கும் பிற உயிரினம் ஏதும் இருக்க முடியாது. உள்ளத்துக்கு எல்லை இல்லை. ஆகவே மானுடனின் காமத்துக்கும் எல்லையே இல்லை. அது அவனுக்குள் பெருகிப்பெருகிச் சென்றபடியே இருக்கும். உண்மையில் காமத்தை கட்டுப்படுத்துதல் என்ற செயலைவிட ஒரு சாதாரண மனிதனுக்குள் இருக்கும் இந்த காமம் பலமடங்கு செயற்கையானது