Word: humorless
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...humor and sensitivity. Evans plays an austere and reserved master of the Classics in an English public school--"the Himmel of the Lower Fifth," as he is characterized by the headmaster. The play concerns the gradual eliciting of his emotions toward himself, his work and his promiscuous wife. A humorless man, he had been unable, throughout his career, to maintain the delicate balance between discipline and affability--taking refuge in a severity which was lightened only by dry puns. The climax occurs when a member of his alienated Greek class presents him, on his retirement, with a copy of Browning...
Dickens' friends always shared his grief at such moments, adding their salt pints to his sea of tears. Crusty Thomas Carlyle and Irish Rebel Daniel O'Connell both tottered about, racked with sobs, when Little Nell's knell tolled. Humorless...
Like most Methodist ministers at the turn of the century, Virginia's young (36) James Cannon Jr. was dedicated to the defeat of the Demon Rum. Gaunt and black-bearded, humorless and generally disliked, he licked alcohol by legislation in his native state (1914), did as much as any man to bring prohibition to the U.S. Like many of his contemporaries who believed that morality could be legislated, he periodically struck out at lesser demons. Dancing, tobacco, Coca-Cola and even football ("neither manly nor Christian") felt his indignant lash. But in 1930, this paragon of virtue, by then...
...trim-looking little Armenian, Mikoyan is an exception to the run of humorless Bolsheviks. He is happy-go-lucky, and he can tell a story. He likes to hum a tune, dance, drink. (He promised the Soviet people he would produce a good beer...
Courts & Prisons. Rush may have had engaging qualities; his humorless autobiography fails to disclose them. Yet, visiting Europe, he called on great men who not only made him welcome but asked him to come again. Benjamin Franklin, then in London, took him to the court of George III, introduced him to his literary friends, and lent him money. Rush dined with Artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, Novelist Oliver Goldsmith ("He spoke with the Irish accent"), and crotchety Literary Czar Samuel Johnson, who reports Dr. Rush was rude to Goldsmith. Rush even got himself invited as a dinner guest of famed Political...