Word: ciphering
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...organization, purpose, and activities it resembled them. Thus at Harvard, the fortnightly meetings (until 1819) with their sociability and their discussions; the complex forms and ceremonies of initiation, taken over from the William and Mary chapter; the secrecy in which the meetings and laws were clothed, the use of cipher in official communications; all these are typical of the fraternities of the time. The ritual of initiation was pompous: in referring to meetings, it stated "everything transacted within this room is transacted Sub rosa, and detested is he that discloses it"; an oath had to be taken to "keep, hold...
...fortune on the stock exchange, then turned his attention to publishing. But his real hobby was women. He was married to a woman "whom he kept concealed on ocean liners," with whom he enjoyed sporadic interludes but to whom he was in no sense devoted. She was a cipher who only occasionally complicated his amorous arithmetic. Jo's steady mistress was Alice, who used to write poetry before he made her happy, and still did when he treated her, as he was fond of doing, like dirt. Jo was an introspective egoist and not much fun for those around...