Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible – it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could.

A Confusion of Loves

1. A Confusion of Loves

“And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying….” (1 Thess 2: 8-10).
Holy Scripture offers us three great “definitions” of God: God is Supreme Being (I Am Who Am); God is Truth; and God is Love.
In previous articles I have extensively examined the first two of these self-definitions of God, and the war being conducted against them. We have seen that it is Thomistic philosophy and theology which are the great defenders of these concepts of God, and it is therefore against these that modernism and the “New Theology” rage most vehemently.
Invariably, this attempt to rid Catholic philosophy and theology of St. Thomas is done in the name of love. The “categories” of St. Thomas are seen as static, rigid, repressive of dynamic growth and evolution and, most of all, tyrannically suppressive of love – all this because they draw hard lines between God and man, light and darkness, truth and falsehood, good and evil, right and wrong, nature and grace, the state of sanctifying grace and mortal sin, and between Catholic and non-Catholic. Thomism, in other words, may be seen as the foundation of substantial Catholicism, being at the same time the first enemy of “fuzzy” Catholicism. With Thomism we know where we are. We know with absolute clarity what is within the circle of being, truth, and love, and we know what is without.
These “hard lines” of Thomistic scholasticism have, until very recently, been seen as something absolutely integral to Catholic life and faith. Being a Catholic has always been seen as a state which, because of our fallen nature, must be protected by a life lived (as much as is possible) separate from the world.
St. Paul is adamant in this regard:
“Bear not the yoke with unbelievers: For what participation
hath justice with injustice. Or what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?
Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: And I will receive you; and I will be a Father to you; and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor 6:15-16, 17-18).
It is this “separateness” that people like Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and Joseph Ratzinger found unbearable. And it is many of the “bastions” of distinctive Catholic doctrine and worship which these same people wished to see demolished in order to facilitate a descent into a loving relationship with the world.
A serious examination of St. Thomas’ teaching on love will clearly reveal how destructive and self-contradictory are these efforts of the “New Theology” to oppose love to the traditional faith. It will specifically show that the very descent into the world which these men hold up to us as a modern imitation of Christ is in fact a profound sin against the very people and institutions that they claim to love.
This analysis will also hopefully shed some light on the confusing content of Pope Benedict’s encyclical Deus caritas est.
The Anatomy of Human Love:
According to St. Thomas, “Love is the first movement of the will.” (ST I, Q.20, A..1). To love something or someone is “nothing else but to will good to the beloved.” (Ibid, A.2), whether this “beloved” be another or one’s own self. Love is therefore properly seen as an “appetite” for good.
Thomas distinguishes between three types of love: natural love, sentient love, and intellectual or rational love (I,II, Q..26, A..1). Natural love is simply the tendency of created things to maintain their being and existence, and all those things proper to this existence and activity. Natural love, according to St. Thomas, is dependent upon an “apprehension which is not in them, but in the Author of their nature…” Such “love” is obviously proper to things which have no subjectivity, and therefore no knowledge or awareness.
Sentient love, however, exists in a subject capable of apprehending or knowing, but this love “derives from necessity and not from free-will.” In irrational animals this lack of free will in the act of love is absolute, but in man it “has a certain share of liberty, in so far as it obeys reason.” At this stage (sentient love) we encounter the concupiscible power of love. It is very important to realize that this power is from God. In man, it is exercised in a good or evil manner depending on whether it is subject to right reason. Concupiscence is the passion called desire. It may be experienced in regard to either physical, or rational and spiritual objects.
We should also mention here that the word “concupiscence” is also used to denote the insubordination of passions to right reason. Thus we have the famous verse from St. John’s first epistle: “For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.” This refers not to the concupiscible power itself but to its exercise by our fallen nature in rebellion against reason.
Finally, intellectual love flows from an intellectual apprehension in the subject, and this is called the intellectual appetency or will. It is immensely important that we understand the connection between the two words used here to describe this love. Love, or will, is not something that can be separated from intellect. It is not something “over here” that can be separated, or opposed to, “intellect over there.” We can only love what we know. For this reason the will is called the intellectual appetency.
On the other hand, what we know is often dependent upon what we will (or love) to focus our intellect upon. We have all had the experience of trying to explain something really quite simple to someone, knowing that they have the intellectual ability to grasp it, and yet knowing that they are not really “seeing it.” And this despite the fact that they might even be able to repeat what we have told them. And, I am sure, we have all had the experience of doing it ourselves, even to the point of catching ourselves in the middle of a conversation, and trying to remedy this injustice to the other person by trying to really listen to what they are saying. Referring to the “hardness of heart” of the Jews, Jesus says, “Therefore do I speak to them in parable: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.” (Mt. 13:13. We might tend to think that Jesus’ parables are merely a way of depriving the people of the direct truth. But in reality, they were a means of trying to stimulate their hearts to really focus their minds on the truth. When Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son to the publicans and sinners, we can only imagine how much more this story drew their attention than would a mere recitation of the theological and moral truths involved. The story touched their hearts, and their hearts awakened their minds so that they could see and understand.
The intellect and will are thus two faculties of our soul, profoundly interrelated and interdependent. It is, therefore, a very serious error to oppose love and truth to one another. Just as they are ontologically united in the divine simplicity of God so, in our human nature, we are called upon to image God through the moral unity between our intellect and will. As St. Paul says, that which establishes true union with Christ is “faith (the intellectual virtue) that worketh by charity.” (Gal 5:6). Any love which contradicts a truth of Divine Faith is therefore an act of evil which is destructive to souls. Yet, even more, any love or “well-wishing” towards souls which does not spring forth from the deposit of divine faith is a work that is not founded in truth. It is bound to whither and die like a branch not connected to the tree. It is therefore an absolute absurdity for a man like von Balthasar to claim that those who cling to “tradition as the handing-on of ready made results” (a euphemism for defined doctrine), are “hollow shells” who are alienated from Christian love.
We find, therefore, that just as the “hard lines” of Thomistic cosmology and metaphysics are absolutely necessary in order to protect the realms of being and truth, so they are possibly even more necessary in defense of love. How, for instance, are we to know what is harmful to any one human person unless we believe that there is such a thing as human nature, the structure of which demands certain things for its health and well-being? And how are we to know that such a nature exists and is valid without believing in the concept of substantial being as unfolded to us in the teaching of St. Thomas? If present human reality is such that there is a profound need in human beings to be brought out of the darkness and up to the light and truth of Christ, then these hard lines of defined doctrine are absolutely necessary in order that love may do its job in this world.
On the other hand, if instead of possessing and believing in defined doctrines regarding the nature of both God and man, and structuring our approach to the people and cultures of the world so as to draw them out of error into the abundance of life and grace that can only be found in the Catholic Church, we instead descend to a world in which human beings are seen as essentially dynamic, moving, developing, evolving phenomena, with no stable and known nature, then love is truly the most tragic and confusing of things. Then, indeed, the lover descends into chaos, and has no home to offer to his beloved. He offers the milk of liberal sympathies and empathies to minds and hearts that are starving for real meat. He offers bread and physical well-being (good things in themselves) to peoples whose situation will only continue to worsen if they do not embrace the Kingship of Christ over both their individual and collective lives. It is only appropriate, therefore, that the usual response to such “love” is boredom and contempt. Nor do we need to look to mission lands for such contempt. We find it abundant in two generations of our own children catechized in accord with the principles of this “love”, and found to be departed from the Church as soon as they are able to elude parental authority. This is the great lesson of the Church’s experience in the West over the past 40 years: Love, indifferent to or contemptuous of Catholic truth, has finally looked into the mirror and seen the face of Hell.
God’s Love:
Human love is complicated. It is complicated because man has a twofold nature of flesh and spirit. It is complicated also by the fact that man’s nature is fallen, and that because of disorders in both flesh and spirit, man tends towards false love. And finally, it is complicated by the fact that man is simply not infinite, but one among many.
Out of these complexities arise the various forms of human love. One form of human love, for instance, seeks to possess the beloved. This is the love of passion, desire, yearning, and concupiscence. Another genuine form of human love seeks solely the well-being of the beloved. A third type of love takes the form of profound friendship. And finally, man can also be the recipient of a special grace from God by which he possesses that supernatural love (caritas) which is substantial friendship with God.
God’s love, on the other hand, while being infinite, is profoundly simple. Since, as we have seen, “love [the willing of good] is the first movement of the will”, and since God is infinite intellect and will, then God is infinite love. Further, “the will of God is one, since it is the very essence of God.” This oneness of love applies both to Himself and His creation. In regard to God's love of Himself, St. Thomas writes:
“An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one wills, and to the person for whom one wills it: since to love a person is to wish that person good. Hence, inasmuch as we love ourselves, we wish ourselves good; and so far as possible, union with that good. So love is called the unitive force, even in God, yet without implying composition; for the good that He wills for Himself, is no other than Himself, Who is good by His essence…” (I, Q.20, A.1).
And in regard to created things, St. Thomas quotes the book of Wisdom to the effect that “Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made.” And he proceeds to prove that unlike our love which responds to the goodness that is in things, God’s love is the cause of the existence of things because it “infuses and creates goodness.” (Ibid., A.2). Love, therefore, is at the center of all things, both human and Divine.
Having said this, however, we are also obligated to draw profound distinctions between human love and the Love of God. The most important of these is that God “loves without passion.” (Ibid. A.2). His love is one with His infinite “intellectual appetency” (Divine Will), which is not in any way subject to concupiscence, passion, desire, or yearning. All or any of these things to which human love is subject, would imply a lack in God, and also undermine His divine simplicity. The problem is that we think that love is profound to the extent that it is passionate. The fact is that God’s Love is infinitely more profound and mysterious because he has no passion (no personal need, desire, or yearning) and yet totally gives Himself to man.
This truth is bound to call forth protests from many a Catholic. After all, does not Holy Scripture attribute passion – such things as love, anger, yearning, jealousy – to God? Yes, it does, but only metaphorically. St. Thomas writes:
“When certain human passions are predicated of the Godhead metaphorically, this is done because of a likeness in the effect. Hence a thing that is in us a sign of some passion, is signified metaphorically in God under the name of that passion. Thus with us it is usual for an angry man to punish, so that punishment becomes an expression of anger. Therefore punishment itself is signified by the word anger, when anger is attributed to God.” (ST, I, Q.19, A.11).
We must not confuse God’s Nature with man, even when speaking of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In His humanity He really (and not just metaphorically) experiences these passions (with no disorder or sin involved). But it is erroneous and profoundly disruptive to Catholic truth to in any way attribute such passions to His Divine Nature which He shares in total unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Deus Caritas Est
It is therefore profoundly disturbing to read in the Pope’s encyclical, Deus caritas est, the following words:
“God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape.” (#9).
First, we must realize that the attributing of eros to God is incontestably an attribution of passion to the very Nature of God. The Pope further writes:
“God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation – the Logos, primordial reason – is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love.” (#10).
The Pope thus denies the premier distinction laid down by St. Thomas to the effect that God “loves without passion.” We must keep in mind that the attribution of passion to any being is to subject that being to yearning, desire, and need, and therefore to incompleteness and dependence. To say that God has passion has the effect of profoundly confusing the ontological distinction, absolutely central to Christianity, between the Creator and His creation.
It is extremely telling that the footnote to the Pope’s statement that God’s love “may certainly be called eros” refers us to Dionysius the Areopagite’s work on The Divine Names. Readers of my article on Eastern Orthodoxy )Part III) should immediately recognize Dionysius as being an integral source for the pantheism inherent in Eastern theology and mysticism, and also as the writer who fraudulently claimed to be a contemporary of the apostles, and to have witnessed the solar eclipse at the time of the Crucifixion.
He is now known to have been a syncretist between Christianity and neoplatonism, who wrote very close to the year 500 A.D. Part of his works are virtual verbatim passages from the neoplatonist Proclus. It should also be noted that this fraud was not known with certainty until the end of the 19th century, and that writers in the Middle Ages unanimously thought him to be of apostolic origins. For this reason, St. Thomas quotes him extensively, but always does so by transforming his writings into metaphors, or in such a way as to accord with true Catholic theology and philosophy. It is my firm belief that St. Thomas, had he known of the real neoplatonic and pantheistic orientation of Dionysius and his writings, would not have used him at all, except in a critical fashion.
Dionysius is of that school of Eastern theology which postulates that the Divine and Eternal Energies of God are in creation from the beginning, and that all of creation therefore naturally partakes of divinity. Orthodox writers even go so far as to call these “divine energies” the Holy Spirit. The way back to God, for Eastern Orthodoxy, therefore entails a process of gnosis by which this divinity is actualized. All life and passion partakes of this divinity and therefore needs only to be purified through asceticism and knowledge in order to lead man to his own “divinization.” The key concept which we must note here is that there is in all this confusion a continuity between divine love and human love. Man’s sanctification is not a question of grace and caritas being added to nature, but a realization of, and communion with, a divine presence united to creation from the beginning.
It would seem extremely revealing, therefore, that in an encyclical titled Deus caritas est, there is not one mention of caritas (charity) as being a divine grace gratuitously added to our nature, by which we come into friendship with God. There is not one mention of sanctifying grace, gratuitously added to our nature at baptism, and restored through confession, by which we become capable of the exercise of supernatural caritas. Never, therefore, does the Pope tell us that the greatest act of love which we can exercise towards any of our unconverted neighbors is to help bring them into the life of supernatural charity which comes through conversion to Christ and to His Church.
St. Thomas, on the other hand, offers us a profound passage integrating the teaching of Holy Scripture with absolutely sound Catholic theology:
“On the contrary, The Apostle says (Rom. v. 5): The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us.
I answer that, As stated above 9Q.23, A.1), charity is a friendship of man for God, founded upon the fellowship of everlasting happiness. Now this fellowship is in respect, not of natural, but of gratuitous gifts, for, according to Rom vi. 23, the grace of God is life everlasting: wherefore charity itself surpasses our natural faculties. Now that which surpasses the faculty of nature, cannot be natural or acquired by the natural powers, since a natural effect does not transcend its cause.
Therefore charity can be in us neither naturally, nor through acquisition by the natural powers, but by the infusion of the Holy Ghost, Who is the love of the Father and the Son, and the participation of Whom in us is created charity.” (ST, II-II, Q.24, A.2).
The salvation of every human being on this earth is therefore dependent on the gift of supernatural charity which is integral to sanctifying grace. And since the “normal” means of acquisition of sanctifying grace and supernatural caritas is through the sacrament of Baptism, and since Baptism for adults requires a personal assent to Christian faith, then the great impetus behind all love exercised towards non-Catholics should be to bring them to Catholic faith and baptism. This is the great mandate given by Christ to His apostles after the Resurrection: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” (Mark 16:16). It is therefore astounding that in a Papal encyclical on charity, the greater part of which is devoted to the obligation of love towards our neighbor, that this Gospel imperative is never quoted or discussed.
The “hard line” which must be drawn between God and man, between the supernatural and the natural, and between spiritual life and spiritual death as taught to us both by Christ in His teaching on faith and baptism, and also by St. Thomas in his writings on supernatural caritas, is the great sign of contradiction to proponents of the New Theology, and also to Eastern Orthodoxy. It is my conviction that Pope Benedict XVI’s teaching on love is reflective of this enmity.
It has been my contention throughout my articles on the War Against Being and the New Theology that this battle for the integrity of the supernatural always comes to rest in the Eucharist, and in the doctrine of Transubstantiation. It is here that the true nature of God’s divine invasion of our world meets head on the perverse claims of reductive secular science. Here, in the dogmatic distinction between substance and accidents, God claims and proves that all substantial reality is His creation out of nothing. For it is here that He changes bread and wine into His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, while secular science can only protest about the remaining accidents which it pathetically and wrongly embraces as substantial being.
But Transubstantiation is not just about philosophy. It is premierly about Love Incarnate. The Eucharist is the means by which we come to union with this Divine Love in Jesus Christ, and also to true union with our fellow man. The Eucharist is pure Jesus, with no adulteration or mixing with the world. And it is the dogma of Transubstantiation which is the protector of this purity.
It is only appropriate; therefore, that Luther’s rejection of Transubstantiation, and his attempt to unite Christ with the substance of bread in his doctrine of consubstantiation, should lead him into schism and loss of charity with both God and his fellow man.
Readers of my article on the Rosmini Rehabilitation (and its Addendum) may remember some of the evidence I presented from Cardinal Ratzinger’s writings which evidenced his apparent rejection of Transubstantiation, and his redefining of this word to be in accord with Luther’s doctrine of consubstantiation. To that evidence should be added the following statement, to be found in paragraph 13 of Deus caritas est:
“Jesus gave this act of oblation an enduring presence through his institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He anticipated his death, and resurrection by giving his disciples, in the bread and wine [emphasis mine], his very self, his body and blood as the new manna.” (cf. Jn 6:31-33).
I think it is incontestable that any other Pope going back at least to the Council of Trent would have intuitively and automatically avoided such a phrase, and would have instead said something like “under the accidents of bread and wine”, “under the appearance of bread and wine”, or under the species of bread and wine.” The same may be said of any Catholic with systematic training in his or her faith. The Pope’s choice of words can only be considered, therefore, as deliberate and calculated.
Nor can we attribute the phrase “in the bread and wine” to a bad translation. The Latin version of the encyclical renders this phrase as “in pane et vino.” This is the formula used by Luther.
An Appeal
It was the written opinion of Fr. Ratzinger, and still appears to be that of Pope Benedict XVI, that “to free itself from the constraining fetters of Roman Scholastic Theology represents a duty upon which, in my humble opinion, the possibility of the survival of Catholicism seems to depend.”
It was the written teaching of Pope St. Pius X that just the opposite is true – that the survival of Catholicism depends upon the metaphysical principles taught by the Angelic Doctor. As a conclusion to my writing on these matters, I would like to offer to Pope Benedict, and to all those who side with him in regard to the devaluation of the philosophy of St. Thomas, the following passages taken from Pius X’s Motu Proprio Doctoris Angelici, on the Study of Thomistic Philosophy in Catholic Schools:
“For just as the opinion of certain ancients is to be rejected which maintains that it makes no difference to the truth of the Faith what any man thinks about the nature of creation, provided his opinions on the nature of God be sound, because error with regard to the nature of creation begets a false knowledge of God; so the principles of philosophy laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas are to be religiously and inviolably observed, because they are the means of acquiring such a knowledge of creation as is most congruent with the Faith; of refuting all the errors of all the ages, and of enabling man to distinguish clearly what things are to be attributed to God and to God alone….”
“St. Thomas perfected and augmented still further by the almost angelic quality of his intellect all this superb patrimony of wisdom which he inherited from his predecessors and applied it to prepare, illustrate and protect sacred doctrine in the minds of men. Sound reason suggests that it would be foolish to neglect it and religion will not suffer it to be in any way attenuated. And rightly, because, if Catholic doctrine is once deprived of this strong bulwark, it is useless to seek the slightest assistance for its defense in a philosophy whose principles are either common to the errors of materialism, monism, pantheism, socialism and modernism, or certainly not opposed to such systems. The reason is that the capital theses in the philosophy of St Thomas are not to be placed in the category of opinions capable of being debated one way or another, but are to be considered as the foundations upon which the science of natural and divine things is based; if such principles are once removed or in any way impaired, it must necessarily follow that students of the sacred sciences will ultimately fail to perceive so much as the meaning of the words in which the dogmas of divine revelation are proposed by the magistracy of the Church.”
And after “ordering and commanding” that the Summa Theologica be the course of study in philosophy, Pope Pius X further declares;
“So also and not otherwise will theology recover its pristine glory and all sacred studies be restored to their order and value and the province of the intellect and reason flower again in a second spring.”
The spring spoken about by Pius X, rooted in a rebirth of Thomism, really did come and produce its flowers for several decades. On the other hand the “springtime” looked forward to by the New Theology, and rooted in a rejection of Thomistic cosmology and metaphysics, has blossomed into what Pope Benedict XVI has admitted to be a state of crisis and “filth” in the Church.
I would appeal to His Holiness to read the words of Pope St. Pius X, and understand the real cause of this crisis. There is no humility, no truth, no love, no holiness, and no Catholicism in any attempt to undermine or bypass the philosophy of St. Thomas as the foundation of all natural and supernatural science.
 Authored by: James Larson

A long time ago Cary Grant said, "I pretended to become a certain type of man on screen and I became that man in life.  I became Cary Grant . . . an athlete . . . a dream man . . . one who sails on yachts and gives expensive presents."  But the truth is that Cary Grant never completely became that person, and all his long life the women who have loved him have - perhaps - loved only an image, an image of the world's most attractive man, an image he himself created and one which has possibly destroyed his hope for love.

It was never anyone's fault . . . not his wives, not his ill-fated loves, not even his own miscalculations . . . it was only a mistake born first of intent and then later of habit.  They say, for example, that Dyan Cannon and Cary might still be together now if he had taken her out more often, if he had spent more time on her, if he had paid more attention to the things she needed and wanted.  But by the time he married Dyan a pattern of some fifty years of living had been established too solidly to break.

The blueprint for his heartbreaking love affairs started back in 1934 when he married a tall, beautiful, blonde actress named Virginia Cherrill.  He had fallen so hard for Virginia the first time he ever met her that he never, for a moment, considered that the love was wrong or that she wasn't the girl he should marry.  That first time- at a party he and fellow bachelor Randolph Scott gave at their beach house - he declared her to be "the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

With Cary the mere sight of Virginia kindled such an infatuation that he secured her phone number and began calling her the moment she left his party.  She didn't get back home, which she shared with her mother, for two hours, and then she learned he had called her every ten minutes during that time.

They made a date, and from that date on he practically never let Virginia out of his sight.  She had been married and divorced before, and she had always been tremendously popular all her life, but Cary's campaign was overwhelming.  Almost at once, she was as infatuated as he, but they did not marry for more than a year (a pattern he followed in all his marriages).  Then they stayed married only seven months, and even during that short time, they parted and reconciled, parted and reconciled.

Cary's explanation was, "We were married February 9th, 1934 at Caxton Hall, a London registry office, amid a flurry of photographers, newsmen and serio-comic adventures.  We separated seven months later.  I doubt if either of us was capable of relaxing sufficiently to trust the happiness we might have had.  My possessiveness and fear of losing Virginia brought about the very condition I feared: the loss of her."

Virginia was more specific.  She charged he drank excessively - that he became a different person once he was her husband - that he refused to pay her bills and ridiculed her acting.  On October 1st that year, they had their most violent quarrel.  Once again, Virginia went home to mother.  The distinguishing difference of that quarrel was that this time Cary couldn't get her on the telephone.

Virginia got her divorce, and went on to marry the Earl of Jersey . . . but Cary was depressed.  His career began to move quickly and successfully, yet Cary remained withdrawn.  When he did start dating again, it was another tall blonde beauty named Phyllis Brooks . . . but in the end they didn't marry.  He said he would never marry again, and for eight years he didn't.  Then at a party given by the Countess de Frasso in 1941 he met Barbara Hutton.

De Frasso was then the social leader of Hollywood, and Barbara Hutton, the fabulous heiress to the Woolworth dime-store chain, was her guest of honor.  Barbara's first husband had cost her over $2 million . . . her second husband, Count Reventlow, had also cost her a huge sum to divorce . . . and it was right after this second divorce that she met Cary.  Or more exactly, remet him.  They had met aboard a luxury liner one time crossing from England.

As with Virginia, when Cary was with Barbara Hutton he knew he was instantly in love.  She was different from the other girls he'd always fallen for . . . they had been gay, laughing types . . . Barbara was mostly solemn and Cary devoted himself to making her happy.

He was forever taking her dancing, and he protected her as she wished to be protected.  She drove with the curtains pulled down on her cars.  When they went to the movies or out nightclubbing Cary made it clear to theatre managers or headwaiters that the way was to be cleared for them.  They would separate on leaving night spots, exiting through kitchens or even windows when no other exits were available.  Once their romance began they saw one another continually.

His zest for life was particularly vivid during his courtship of Barbara.  He talked incessantly.  He loved to talk in Cockney dialect and sing ribald songs to his own piano accompaniment.  Barbara was amused, but she was naturally quiet.  They were married on July 8th, 1942 at Lake Arrowhead, Cary's buddy, Howard Hughes having flown them up there.  All Barbara's friends were delighted.  Of all her marriages, they felt this one had the best chance.  Cary signed a pre-marital agreement that he wanted no claim on her fortune.  His love was visibly very tender toward her.  He wanted only her love and happiness.

It lasted four years.  And they were four years of partings and reconciliations.  Once Barbara flew to San Francisco and announced there was no chance of their getting back together.  Cary had bought them a very beautiful house in Bel-Air, but by Barbara's standards it was simply a very little place.  She moved in with ten servants who had been with her for years, and most of whom spoke only French - which Cary didn't speak.  She threw money away like mad; and it drove Cary frantic that she ordered double sets of newspapers, his and hers in effect.  Waste, extravagance - both things that Cary was never able to tolerate.

But whenever she left him, he pursued her.  The time she went to San Francisco, he finally got her on the phone . . . "Go dancing with me just once," he begged.  She agreed and he drove up there furiously.  The next day they gave out a statement to the papers: "We are reconciled.  The truth of our misunderstanding and reunion is known only to us."  It was signed "Barbara and Cary Grant."

Still, their marriage could not work.  Barbara didn't like Hollywood and its gossip.   She was not interested in Cary's career.  When they finally agreed upon their divorce they never said a harsh world about one another.  Cary said "Barbara is a fine woman.  I blame myself entirely for the split-up with her.  People did not know her, the fine person underneath, because of the publicity about her money."

Barbara said, "Cary is a dear.  But he isn't interested in anything but his career and after all, when you are married to a man you must have something to talk about."

What Barbara did once she was free of Cary was to move to the Ritz in Paris - and proceed to one unhappy marriage after another without pausing very long between husbands. But Cary did not snap back so quickly.  He went into periods of dark silence and many times he passed his friends, at the studios or in cafes, without recognizing them.

Then he met Betsy Drake on shipboard.  She was tall and blonde, and wham, he knew he was in love again.  He knew in one glace she was THE one.

Betsy, except physically, was totally unlike Virginia, and completely different from Barbara.  She came from an excellent family, yet she wanted so much to be an actress, she had subsisted on almost no money.  She had been appearing in a play in London, which had just closed, and she was sailing back home again.

Cary took over.  He danced with her.  He talked to her.  When they returned to America, he did what he has never done for any other love (and particularly not for Dyan).  He sponsored her career.  He was under contract to RKO at that time and since he was even then on e of the top names at the box-office, he could get anything he asked.  So he asked RKO to put Betsy under contract, which they did.  He prophesized stardom for her and apparently he believed she would attain it.  He made her his leading lady in Every Girl Should Get Married, and then in Room For One More.  They even did a television show together.  But career-wise, they didn't click well together.  (Perhaps that's why he has never done anything to help Dyan in her career - in effect, he has seemed to hold it back.)

Again with Betsy, as with Virginia and Barbara and later Dyan, Cary had a long courtship of eighteen months before they finally married on Christmas day of 1949.  He had, by that time, moved into a very small house which he and Betsy now shared.  They also spent some time at a tiny place in Palm Springs which Cary used to refer to as "The Dump."

Betsy had many interests to which she could devote her time - she took up photography, and developed a curiosity about the occult and hypnotism.  When she stopped acting, she began writing.  She had, it seemed, adjusted to Cary's way of life.  But Hollywood still wondered.  And as time went by, Hollywood began to ask why no ever saw Betsy Grant.

Later, it was told that Betsy's secluded life was the way Cary wanted it to be . . . that he would put a sign on his den saying "Do Not Disturb," and that she ever violated that request, even though sometimes days would go by without her seeing him.  Betsy was able to do what no other woman he had known could do - devote so much of herself to his needs.  But finally the separation announcements and then the reconciliations were news items.  It was the exact same pattern as his past unhappy, unlucky love life.

And then, the inevitable divorce.  When Cary wrote his own memoirs he said, "My third wife was Betsy Drake.  We married in 1949 and were divorced 14 years later.  Betsy was good for me.  Without imposition or demand she patiently led me toward an appreciation for better books, better literature . . . I never clearly resolved why Betsy and I parted.  We lived together, not as easily and contentedly as some perhaps; yet it seemed to me as far as one marriage can be compared with any other, ours was comparatively happier than most.  I owe a lot to Betsy.

When anyone in Hollywood asked him directly about Betsy, Cary always called her "the dear wife who recently divorced me."  Betsy said nothing, but a blind man could have seen how crushed she was.

Cary didn't bounce back - but his depression wasn't as intense as it had been after the break-up of his first and second marriages.  And after seeing Dyan Cannon on a television show one night his romance with her began.  It started slowly at first, not like the other times - though Cary knew he loved her - and his courtship lasted a couple of years until, in July, 1965 he married her, a beautiful light-haired girl of 28.  Then, the joyous news of her pregnancy, and Cary's statement: "I think I've been searching for her all my life."  And his joy was complete when baby Jennifer was born - the baby he had waited through four marriages to have.

Nevertheless, despite his giving out many statements about having found himself able to understand and to give and receive love, the pattern of his fourth marriage is now emerging just like all his others.  

Practically speaking, few people have seen much of Dyan since she became Mrs. Grant.  They have gone out rarely, and almost always with his older friends.  They have traveled only a bit - to Bristol, England to visit his mother.  (In fact, they spent part of their honeymoon with the elderly Mrs. Leach - something which Virginia Cherrill found herself doing also.)

The house Cary rented for himself and his small family is a large mansion set well off the road.  It's a house difficult to find and surrounded by orange groves.  But it can be seen from the estates which are built high above it.  One morning some women neighbors, curious, as women have always been about Cary, peered down from the above estates and saw Mr. Grant out among the orange trees playing with his baby daughter.  As they watched, it became apparent that Dyan Grant was not at home . . . not that day, or the next, or even the day after that.

And then word that they had separated reached all the papers. And, as of this writing, they have not yet reconciled.  Yet the very fact that Dyan has been sending little Jennifer and her nurse to visit Cary shows she can't be feeling that harshly toward him.  And probably, she is still in love with him, as Betsy Drake says quite openly that she still is even after these years.

Maybe Dyan, like Betsy, and Barbara, and Virginia, is really only in love with the image of a man.  He is the dream man of such physical attractiveness, and suave manners - the man with the right thing for the right time - the man who tried in almost every way to become like his screen image.  Trouble is, an image is only screen-deep; a man must have depth.

Often called the most attractive man in the world, Cary Grant is continually asked how he maintains his impeccable good form.  He told a French interviewer that he eats little, stands straight, participates in sports, doesn't let the sun or the rain keep him from walking, works hard, has friends . . . and, "I never do the extra-ordinary.  I see, but never too much."

Is it a full-time job being the world's most attractive man?  And is it really too late to break the habits of a lifetime?  Maybe for a man without an incentive such change would be impossible.  But Dyan and Jennifer are very large incentive indeed . . . and perhaps Cary Grant will know it's time to give up the image for the man and devote his life to his two loves.

---

 Love Sex Magic:

             "Love Sex Magic" is a song recorded by American singer Ciara for her third studio album, Fantasy Ride (2009). Featuring fellow American recording artist Justin Timberlake, the song was written by Timberlake and his production team The Y's, as well as Ciara and Mike Elizondo. The Y's and Elizondo also produced the track. The song was released from Fantasy Ride as the lead single internationally, and was the second single from that album released in the United States.
The song reveals a complete departure from Ciara's previous style, neither a sensual ballad nor incorporating Crunk&B influences. It embraces a dance-pop sound, while including R&B and funk via a retro 70s-style guitar which is present in the piece. Many critics noted the similarities between the song and music on Timberlake's album FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006). Critics gave the song mixed reviews, complimenting the song's funk and retro feel and the chemistry present between Ciara and Timberlake. The song would later go on to be nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 52nd Grammy Awards.
"Love Sex Magic" peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Ciara's fifth top ten hit as a lead artist, her eighth including features, and her first since "Get Up" in 2006. Internationally, the song peaked within the top ten of the charts in Australia, Canada, France Germany, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The music video also exhibits a retro feel inspired by the Crazy Horse cabaret show, and features Timberlake, Ciara, and several different kinds of foreplay, as well as Ciara dancing. For its routines it was nominated for Best Choreography at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Ciara has performed the song on television a number of times, including on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and withTimberlake on Saturday Night Live.

Elizabeth's Story

Elizabeth's Story

by Jessica Knoll

They found her body.

Well, what was left of it.

The individuals who moved Bridget—and I say individuals, plural, because there is no way one person could have pulled this trick off—wrapped her in an old area rug, hauled her up the basement stairs, into the trunk of a car, then drove her 4.81 miles to Geneva on the Lake, the town's one lone luxury hotel where everyone knows I am a regular. However many notches there are on my bedpost, that's how many times I've reserved Room 14. So let's just say a lot.

Back to Bridget. The individuals who dumped her body in the hotel's gardens, which their brochure likens to the Gardens of Versailles (whoever wrote that clearly has not been to Versailles), weren't done yet. Oh no, that was just Act I. Act II was to set her on fire.

That old mangy rug they wrapped her in was like a delicious manmade fiber ice cream cone that the flames could just not stop licking. It took almost an hour to extinguish the fire, but not before it reaped significant damage on the hotel's property. Silver lining: at least it wasn't wedding season.

The individuals who did this didn't care about being discreet. They wanted Bridget's charred remains to be found. And in a place where I was a loyal customer, no less. It was obvious that whoever was behind this wanted to fan the air of suspicion around me. Sound paranoid? Well, I was.

It couldn't have been a coincidence that Bridget's body surfaced immediately following her sister's arrival in town. But Abby had shocked me the other night in my living room. The tears in her eyes, the confusion in her voice when I accused her of ruining me, her hug, which felt excruciatingly sad and desperate—it all seemed so genuine. Could it have been possible she'd never been out to get me? Could Bridget have been the ringleader all along? Made up the stuff about carrying out her sister's orders?

I didn't even have Campbell's number, so when Biz woke me up the morning the news reported that Bridget's body had been identified, so hysterical I dumped my glass of water out the window and filled it with a shot of vodka for her, I just showed up at his house.

Campbell opened the door before I could even knock. He was wearing work out clothes, his face an angry red, two half moon sweat stains ringing his underarms. He picked up the hem of his t-shirt and wiped his face, revealing a torso that might as well have been photoshopped. I tried not to stare.

"Isn't this your bedtime?" Campbell asked.

It was a little after seven in the morning. The question wasn't totally out of line. "I know you did it," I said as I brushed past him, making my way into the kitchen, where I could smell expensive coffee beans brewing. "What I just can't figure out is, why?"

I heard Campbell's sigh in the foyer, then the door closing shut behind him. His frame filled up the kitchen's entryway, and he reached up, clutching the archway's molding with one hand, his left foot in the other. He grimaced as he stretched out his quad.

"Remember that thing I said about never lying to you?" Campbell switched legs. "I wasn't being totally honest. But I reasoned that was okay, since you weren't either."

I couldn't look at him without thinking about being pinned to the bed by him, so I busied myself poking around in his cabinets looking for a coffee mug. I suddenly smelled him behind me—endorphin laced sweat mingled with the cool crispness of the outside, of fall's disintegrating leaves—and then his big arm blocked my peripheral view as he reached into a cupboard above my head. He retrieved a mug and poured me a steaming cup of coffee. I took a scalding sip and winced. "So be honest. Hit me. I can take it."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Campbell smirked. "You'd rather some guy knock you around than kiss you."

I groaned. "I'm not here to be psycho-analyzed. I'm here to find out what the fuck is going on. And I swear to God, if you don't tell me, I''ll"—

"You'll what?" Campbell folded his arms across his chest, his expression tickled pink. "Go to the cops? And tell them that you think I'm the one who moved the body of the girl you shoved down the stairs to her death? There was a second there you could have grabbed her and pulled her back, you know. But you made the decision not to."

I stopped breathing, and my voice was barely a whisper. "How do you know that?"

"Because I was there, Elizabeth."

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, feeling like I was in a bad nightmare, like I could start myself out of it if I tried hard enough. "You couldn't have been. Your car. I would have seen your car."

"I don't park my car in the driveway when I go to that house to sell coke to spoiled little Smithson brats."

I felt like I was in a horror movie. The moment the music swells and the pretty and spunky female lead realizes she's invited the murderer into her house and handed him a chef's knife to chop carrots for dinner. "I don't believe you," I said, even though I did. His beautiful house, the handsome wares that filled it, his high-maintenance silver Saab—none of which a detective's salary could buy. His clothes though, some small part of my brain reasoned, his clothes were sometimes bad. Those nights I ran into him at the townie bar, the time he interviewed me down at the station, he was in stiff, shitty Walmart jeans, polyester blend button downs. Other times, he looked like the subject of the off-duty page in the Wall Street Journal: all fine knit sweaters and perfectly tailored designer denim. Then I realized this dual style was purposeful—a ploy to keep his fellow officers from sniffing out his side hustle. If he dressed too well, all the local yokels would start to wonder. The level of premeditation that had to go into his deceit made me sway, like I was going to faint.

Campbell put his hands on my shoulders to steady me. "You have some choice words for my kind," I said, through gritted teeth. "But really, you're no better than the rest of us. You're turning a profit on those spoiled little Smithson brats."

"And why shouldn't I?" Campbell demanded, dropping his hands from my shoulders and starting to pace, like a tiger stalking his next meal. "This is my home!" he declared, impassioned. "You all roll up here in your shiny gas guzzlers, treating the rest of us like the gum on the bottom of your shoe. You ruin my life and the least I can get out of it is to make an extra buck."

I stared at him like I'd never seen him before in my life. "At least I'm honest with myself," I said. "Just admit you're a greedy, entitled piece of shit like the rest of us."

"You don't"—Campbell exhaled, angry. "You really don't understand."

"I don't understand!" I said. "I don't understand any of this! Why would you move her?"

Campbell stopped pacing. "That I didn't do. You have to believe me."

I laughed. "Sure. I'll take the local drug dealer's word. Why not?" I realized something then. "That's why you have to protect me. That's why you can't turn me in. Because if you do you have to admit why you were there in the first place."

Campbell stared at me, simmering with resentment. "That's part of it," he said.

I put my coffee mug on the counter and folded my arms across my chest, giving him a smug little smile. "What's the other part?"

Campbell swept his thumb over his lower lip, like he had cut his finger and was tasting blood. He smiled a little too. "You know the other part."

He stepped closer, hooking his thumb in the belt loop of my jeans, jerking me toward him. I went for his pants, but he just grabbed my hands and held them in place, like he was stopping me, even though I could feel how hard he was through his thin mesh shorts. "This will end," he said, dipping his head low and brushing his lips against mine, "badly."

I kissed him back, grinding my body into his. "Very badly," I agreed.

He backed me into the kitchen counter and I sucked in a sharp breath as the corner dug into that tender spot just above the tailbone. He didn't stop kissing me as he unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them off.

"I want you to remember this," he said, cupping me between my legs, making me sigh, "when you're fucking your perfect little husband someday."

And oh God, I would. I would remember everything. First, his head between my legs as he knelt down in front of me right there in the kitchen. Then later, the salty bite of his skin when I clamped my teeth down on a fold in his neck, the way he wrapped his arm around my waist, steadying me against him as he drove into me, like I might disappear if he didn't, leave him with no place to finish, no one to curse at as he came, as he realized what he had done—again—and just how powerless he was to deny me.

I went to clean up after, but Campbell said there was no soap in the downstairs bathroom and to use the one upstairs, off his bedroom.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, passing more photos of Campbell's family, his red haired sister and his worn looking mother, smiling in happier times. I padded down the hall and through the bedroom—the bedsheets thrashing in wild, unmade peaks—and into the bathroom. I was just about to sit down when I noticed he was out of toilet paper.

I checked in the cabinets below the sink, and, sure enough, there were extra rolls. I started to shut the door, before realizing there was what appeared to be a second, smaller door in the back of the cabinet,  slightly ajar.

I got down on my knees and reached inside, pulling the door all the way open, revealing a small cubby piled high with what looked like old, yellowed newspapers.

"What the..." I mumbled, crawling practically inside the cabinet to pull out a small stack.

In my head, I heard the crescendo of that horror movie music again as I realized how much Campbell was still keeping from me. Because who was on the front page of the Finger Lakes Daily but Campbell's pretty ginger sister. Her headline: Charges dropped in the Seneca Sorority Sister case.

Campbell hadn't lied about having a dead sister. But he had omitted the part where she had been the pledge who had drowned in Smithson's last known hazing incident gone awry, the reason all the sororities had been shut down. "You all roll up here in your shiny gas guzzlers, treating the rest of us like the gum on the bottom of your shoe. You ruin my life and the least I can get out of it is to make an extra buck," Campbell had said to me, not ten minutes ago.

He was getting something else out of it too: revenge fucking the girl who represents the enemy. I suddenly understood—Campbell wasn't obsessed with me because he was in love with me. He was obsessed with me because he hated me.

A love story.....

Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived; Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all repaired their boats and left.
Love wanted to persevere until the last possible moment. When the island was almost sinking, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said “Richness, can you take me with you?” Richness answered, “No, I can’t. There is a lot of silver in my boat. There is no place here for you.”
Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. “Vanity, please help me!” “I can’t help you Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat,” Vanity answered.
Sadness was close by so Love asked for help, “Sadness, let me go with you.” “Oh….Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself.”
Happiness passed by Love too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her!
Suddenly there was a voice, “Come Love, I will take you.” It was an elder. Love felt so blessed and overjoyed that he even forgot to ask the elder his name. When they arrived at dry land, the elder went his own way.
Love realizing how much he owed the elder, asked Knowledge, another elder. “Who helped me?” “It was Time,” Knowledge answered. “Time?” asked Love. “But why did Time help me?” Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and answered, “Because, only Time is capable of understanding how great Love is.”

Different loves

""Hm ek khel0ny ke tara thy Or wO us bachy ke tara....
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Jisy hmse peyar tu tha sirf khelny ke had tak....