Word: lief
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...women, and such "ideal" types as mild-mannered curates. Of the clergy in general he was shy and suspicious. He also disliked his fellow dramatist William Shakespeare, whose writing he considered "obscure." "What do you think of this passage?" he scornfully asked a Shakespearean enthusiast: " 'I would as lief be thrust through a quicket hedge as cry Pooh to a callow throstle.'" The enthusiast explained: "A great lover of feathered songsters, rather than disturb the little warbler, would prefer to go through a thorny hedge. But I can't for the moment recall the passage." Said Gilbert...
...Animal Kingdom. In San Francisco, Lief Croch tried to rid his apartment of mice by setting out crackers, spreading poison on every third one. The mice ate all the unpoisoned crackers, left all the others. Lief gathered them up despondently, fell to munching, soon went to the hospital. In New Britain, Conn., Eleanor Borg went up a tree after a stranded kitten, which presently scurried down by itself. It required firemen with ladders to get Eleanor down...
...painter's tastes were hearty: he liked healthy servant girls with ruddy skin and ample breasts. Said he: "Have you ever seen a society woman whose hands were worth painting? A woman's hands are lovely if they are accustomed to housework. I had just as lief paint the first old crock that comes along, just so long as she has a skin that takes the light." According to Mme. Renoir, all her husband asked of a cook was that she have the proper sort of skin. Said he: "A painter who has the feel for breasts...
...have not objected to simplifications but only to the use of simplifications in order to satisfy the lust for oneness by denying facts, experience and common sense. My objections rest on the observation that such ways of thinking produce confusion wherever they are applied and on the be lief that criticism has no privilege of confusing us." DeVoto was even more credible when he added: "Human patience is short...
Senator Norris sternly questioned the motives behind the King-Bridges proposal for an investigation. "I am just as anxious as any man on earth," he shouted, "to expose any evil, if there is an evil. .... In perfect fairness I would say to the Senator I would just as lief Willkie should be on the committee as the Senator from New Hampshire. ... He hates the TVA." Senator Norris had proposed an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. But to many Congressmen the idea of one group of Roosevelt appointees sitting in judgment on another looked, despite the sincerity of George Norris...