Word: humorlessness
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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...
...Faustus is the biography-in-progress of a fictitious German composer, Adrian Leverkühn, who was born in 1885 and died insane in 1940. The biography is being written during World War II by his lifelong friend, Serenus Zeitblom, a professor, a dedicated parlor humanist and a typically humorless academic product of pre-Hitler German Kultur. This combination of dates, musical genius and philosophical reflection gives Mann, as his old readers could easily guess, a chance to air his views on such Mannish concerns as the problem of the artist in society, the free play of mind v. regimented...
...campaigner, 54-year-old Dr. Núñez lacks Prio's easy geniality and glad hand with voters. Critics think him humorless, high-handed, reactionary. But he has promised not to undo any of the revolution's social legislation. For victory on June 1, he counts on three factors: 1) popular dissatisfaction over black markets, price profiteering, 100 unpunished political murders; 2) dissension inside the Prio camp; 3) Independent Candidate Eddy Chibas' ability to take votes away from Prio and thus to help the Nunez campaign...