Word: dourness
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Lang? The seventh son of a seventh son, dour, hawk-nosed Cosmo Gordon Lang, 72, was not raised in the church that he governs. His father was a Presbyterian preacher, the Very Rev. John Marshall Lang, Principal of Aberdeen University.* At University of Glasgow precocious Cosmo Gordon Lang won his M.A. degree at the age of 18 and a year later a valuable scholarship at swank Balliol College, Oxford. Always a politician, always ambitious, Student Lang was elected president of the Oxford Union over such potent undergraduates as Lord Curzon, Sir Edward Grey, Novelist Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins (The Prisoner...
...lying on its back") the sight depressed him. reminded him of "an old comb lacking half its teeth." Manhattanites struck him as "uncomfortable, nervous, harassed, brutal, sullen, dehumanized." The U. S. method of solving social problems roused his scorn: "Folks get drunk on alcohol? Easy: abolish alcohol. . . . Dour dramas corrupted Sweet Sixteen? Easy: censor the drama. Crazy communists upset bedtime story mood of bourgeois gentlemen? Easy: jail 'em and let the Supreme Court of the U. S. outlaw their nonsense." The press so disgusted him that he confined his reading to the sports page...
...four o'clock in the afternoon of April 4, 1814, Armand de Caulaincourt, Napoleon's dour, devoted Minister of Foreign Affairs, arrived at Essonnes, on the road to Paris. He carried the Emperor's abdication in favor of his son, and instructions for a project so audacious it had a good chance of succeeding. The Allied Armies had taken Paris four days prior. Headed by Talleyrand, a movement for the restoration of the Bourbons was gaining strength. Only Napoleon could visualize a plan of action in this "hour of his vast reverses." The situation...
...inquiring and unconventional mind in an environment where any unprecedented action created talk. She tormented the Vicar with her peace meetings and suffraget agitation as much as he tormented her with his prejudices, his temper, his complaints that she had ruined his career. Only her deep friendship for a dour Scottish spinster, whose plays became successful, saved her, and when they quarreled over votes-for-women Janet was completely broken. She tried to set fire to her husband's church, drove him out of his mind, worked in a settlement house until her early death...
...White House, the other headed in the opposite direction. One train was as gay as a showboat, full of confident political advisers, competent secretaries, pretty young women and Franklin Delano Roosevelt setting everyone a merry pace. The other train, by comparison, was grim and dour, filled with advisers troubled about where the money was coming from, aides worrying over campaign details that went askew, reporters grumping over their accommodations. Only man aboard the David Livingstone special whose morale was tiptop was Alfred Mossman Landon himself. Unsparing of his strength, resolute in his good cheer, confident of his election, the Republican...