Word: awkwardness
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) was a Dutch parson's son. An unattractive, awkward, violent young man, he wanted to go into the Church, but was too modest. Instead he carried with him, first into the polite world of the art business, then into garrets, brothels and studios, the wild religious longings that never left him. His only friend was his younger brother Theo. Together, before they went out into the world, they swore "to strive all their lives only for good." Vincent's family was connected with the Dutch branch of Goupil et Cie., famous Paris...
...released him in care of a doctor, nearer Paris and Theo. But the doctor, an art connoisseur, enraged van Gogh by his cavalier treatment of artists whom his patient revered. One day he terrified the doctor by appearing with a revolver in his hand. But van Gogh only laughed awkwardly, went to his room and shot himself in the stomach. As he lay dying he said to Theo: "Did you ever know such an awkward and helpless fellow as me? I can't even manage to use a revolver properly...
...peaceful days before locomotives chuffed clear across the land, no one found it awkward that every sizeable town had it? own time, set by the local noon. Visitors who journeyed 40 or 50 mi. from home by horse & buggy usually remained at their destination long enough not to mind shifting their watches a few minutes. But as the railroad network grew, the time situation became grotesque. The railroads had no less than 49 different time systems. Some stations exhibited three clocks, one for eastbound trains, one for westbound trains, one for local time. Drummers covering southern New England carried watches...
...which they have needed for so long seems to have been placed graciously in their cassocked laps: the opportunity to utilize their hold on the provincial women for political purposes. What may be the Socialists' countermove to this strategem can hardly be predicted. To rescind the suffrage would be awkward; to abide by the electorate's dictums may be disastrous...
...club, struck upon the demonstration as an opportunity to disseminate peace propaganda without any reference to its consequences, either to the Liberal Club or to Harvard. The Liberal Club itself is a minority organization, and this bloc was a minority within a minority, but it would have been awkward to explain a deliberate affront to West Point away on these terms...