Word: brocken
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...Robert Brocken won both the 100-and 220-yard dashes...
...minor but respectable talents are not as successful in The Foolish Gentlewoman as in its predecessors. The novel begins promisingly enough. At Chipping Lodge on Chipping Hill, a pleasant, grassy spot eight miles from London, lives "sentimental, affectionate, uncritical Mrs. Brocken," together with mementos of her younger years and miscellaneous members of her family. Mrs. Brocken "had adored her husband and was very fond of her French peppermill. An old watering-can was dear to her because she remembered seeing the gardener use it on her mother's rose-beds, and a new alarm-clock, because...
Temporarily ensconced at Chipping Lodge is Mrs. Brocken's brother-in-law Simon, the sort of crabbed but basically kindhearted curmudgeon who has been a reliable fixture of English novels for several centuries. Simon is decidedly hostile to modern life: "I look back to 1912 as the highest point of civilization, from which we have been steadily retrogressing ever since." Together with some mildly romantic young folk, Mrs. Brocken and her brother-in-law manage to live in pleasant decorum, with each member of the household sensible enough to mind his own business and respect the others' peculiarities...
...then comes Tilly Cuff. An angular, screechy older cousin of Mrs. Brocken, this creature, "yellow as a plucked chicken," is a busybody who can "scent a private conversation as a cat scents fish." Her cheeks hideously rouged, her arms like drumsticks and her gown some 20 years behind the fashion, Tilly barges into the well-arranged life of Chipping Lodge to create havoc. Mrs. Brocken has invited her because she has a guilty recollection of having, in girlhood days, maliciously prevented Tilly from accepting the one marriage offer ever to come her way. Now, as recompense, quixotic Mrs. Brocken proposes...
...Henry Brocken, His Travels and Adventures (Wed. 9 p.m., NBC-Blue). Poet Walter De La Mare's story adapted for radio by Patrick Riddell, set to music by Dr. Armstrong Gibbs...