How we cite our quotes: (Part.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Of course I never loved Priscilla in the way that I loved my mother. But I felt identified with her and vulnerable through her. I often felt ashamed of her. (1.9.2)
Throughout The Black Prince, Bradley Pearson's comments suggest that he associates many different kinds of feelings—not all of them pleasant—with various aspects of love. Just as he believes that his pity for Rachel Baffin is a form of love, so too are his feelings of shame and identification with his sister, Priscilla, part of his love for her.
Quote #5
Of course I was 'in love' with Christian when I married her, and I felt that I was lucky to get her. She was a showy pretty woman. […] Later, when I imagined I knew more about 'love', I decided that my feeling about Christian was 'just' overwhelming sexual attraction, plus a curious element of obsession. It was as if I had known Christian as a real woman in some previous incarnation, and were now reliving, perhaps as a punishment, some doomed perverted spiritual pattern. (1.10.2)
How does Bradley Pearson's sense that he and Christian had known each other in another life compare to the way that he imagines the connection between himself and Julian Baffin?
Quote #6
'All things work together for good for those who love God,' said Saint Paul. Possibly: but what is it to love God? I have never seen this happening. There is, my dear friend and mentor, some hard-won calm when we see the world very detailed and very close: as close and as vivid as the newly painted funnels of ships on a sunny evening. But the dark and the ugly is not washed away, this too is seen, and the horror of the world is part of the world. There is no triumph of good, and if there were it would not be a triumph of good. (1.12.4)
Although Bradley Pearson doesn't show much regard for the Christian God throughout The Black Prince, he does devote himself to two other divine beings: the one that he refers to as "the black Eros," and another that he doesn't name.