Word: fainter
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Seringueiros & Garimpeiros. Last week's palace coup hardly rippled the crowds of Cariocas on Rio's lovely, white-sand beaches. The echo was even fainter to the great mass of Brazilians (some 75% illiterate) who crowd the sea coast and are scattered through the vast Brazilian interior. Seringueiros (rubber workers) in the flowered Amazon jungle, garimpeiros (diamond hungers) far to the west in the State of Goiaz, and gaúchos on the broad ranges of Rio Grande do Sul probably would not hear the news for days and weeks...
Phrases and concepts were borrowed from all over. The old League of Nations preamble was there with "international peace and security." The Kellogg Pact had its echoes. There were Lincoln's "scourge of war" and Pope Leo XIII's "dignity of man." And there were fainter, but recognizable, traces of the Kuomintang party platform and of the Soviet Constitution...
...loudest propaganda machine in history, the German radio, stumbled through its death-scene to musical accompaniment, finally died away piecemeal. Berlin began broadcasting in spasms, grew fainter & fainter, fell silent without a sign...
...lowered our seats and pulled down the hatches. Now our vision was limited by the slits of our periscopes. The noise of battle was fainter in our ears, but it was still perfectly audible. Sweat began to etch rivulets down dusty faces and clot in the stubble of three-day beards. With brows pressed against the rubber cushion above the periscope we watched the battle panorama unroll. The smell of cordite and the smell of dead bodies filtered through the vents and seemed to enter our pores...
...short note and pointed to the final paragraph. It was from an Ohio private to his wife: "It will be a different Christmas this year. The altar will be a fallen tree in this stinking jungle. All around there will be the stink of sweat, unwashed clothes and the fainter, sweeter smell of death. But as I kneel to pray I know you will be alongside me praying too, and that will make it a Happy Christmas, darling...