Word: mirth
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...burdens of history are balanced in the pages of Naipaul's many books and published daily on his mobile face. The muscles for consternation, annoyance, mirth, sadness, disappointment and disdain are well developed. A lifetime overcoming obscurity, asthma and anxiety among strangers in strange lands has taught him to expect the worst. His autobiographical writings toll with such gloomy remarks as "To see the possibility, the certainty, of ruin, even at the moment of creation: it was my temperament." To a visitor who has just blown through 10 1/2 time zones to arrive promptly for a meeting in Madras...
...President looked up, some of that gentle mirth tugging at his mouth even in this melancholy pause on his way out of power. "Who do I give this to?" he asked quietly. He held up his authentication card for the launching of nuclear missiles, the card that must be inserted into the "football" toted with tender care by an ever present military assistant to certify the command to strike at an enemy. Reagan had dutifully carried the card for eight years. Its unimportance at his parting was perhaps the most powerful statement of this singular leader's legacy. The world...
Despite the nervous mirth, the vote was thoroughly earnest. By a resounding count of 151 to 2, the U.N. deplored the U.S. refusal to grant a visa to Yasser Arafat so that he could address the General Assembly. The Arab- sponsored resolution gave Washington 24 hours to "reconsider and reverse" its decision. As expected, Secretary of State George Shultz, who made the decision in the first place, refused to yield, reasserting that Arafat, as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was an "accessory" to terrorism and consequently barred under American law from entering the U.S. Two days later the General...
Flote, however, takes a more benevolent view. He believes that religion should make people's lives easier, not harder, and proposes to bring mirth to the suffering masses. The priest forms Christ's Clowns--the play takes its name from the red noses they don--and sets off on his humorous crusade...
...letters offer a look at the private pains of a publicly triumphant life. Born during the Civil War, Wharton flourished until almost the beginning of World War II. She inherited considerable wealth and earned a great deal in addition by her writing; such novels as The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence were critical and commercial successes. She became so formidable a literary icon during the 1920s that F. Scott Fitzgerald, invited to meet her, drank more than was advisable to steady himself before his audience with the great lady...