Word: motif
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...Habaña filth was the predominant motif, with yellow fever the counterpoint, U. S. health officials scoured the city clean, but yellow fever persisted epidemically. Dr. Walter Reed came with his staff from Washington to investigate. On the hunch of an old Cuban physician, he experimented with mosquitoes, heretofore unsuspected and felt fairly assured that they were the carriers of the dread malady. But he needed proof and he found it when, after months of experiments, a virulent mosquito bit and infected one of the doctors on his staff. Another intrepid physician submitted himself to experimentation, was infected, died...
...sense of values in the next generation. If the Kiwanis and the Mystic Shrine have a certain cheapness, the Mercury has cheapness of another kind. The difference is one of kind not of quality or quantity. So he who smiles at the advertisement which uses Mr. Babbitt as its motif must remember that really that gentleman is not much nearer cultural damnation than the readers of the jade journal of the eccentric reputation...
...Virgin. The strange unplumbed affinity between religious exaltation and sex, which was the motif of Rain, has tempted another playwright. He is Arthur Corning White, who teaches English at Dartmouth, and his play has been trimmed and tuned to the theatre by Louis Bennison, an actor. Between them they have turned out a somewhat self-consciously sensational entertainment which has spots of fiery brilliance...
...respect only has the veteran vehicle been changed. In place of the fashionable figures of personified speed which adorn the radiator caps of modern automobiles, the new owner with a sense of the appropriate has chosen for his motif a large silver snail with a minature Rip Van Winkle astride his back...
...sins of a small-minded, small-town father and mother visited upon children of inherited sensitivity, constitute no original motif. The stupid marriage and wry resignation of the son, the wary adventures in friendship and moderately happy marriage of the daughter, are not particularly gripping developments. The validity of such a story depends on the extent to which the author can invest mediocre personalities with, not alone human naturalness, but significant human naturalness. By that token, these Surrys are only soso; just small-town folks with no claims on reserved seats in the grandstand for famed literary characters. But Miss...