Word: pagans
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Encouraged by George Murphy's successful bid for the Senate-which proved that the public does not hold an acting career against a budding politician-Reagan (rhymes with pagan) has already traveled 10,000 miles and made 150 speeches in his bid for the G.O.P. nomination. By sheer activity, he has thus made himself the front runner among four G.O.P. hopefuls-even though he is a staunch conservative in a state where Republicanism has traditionally tended toward the progressive side. Reagan's political reputation dates from the 1964 presidential campaign when-only four years after becoming a Democrat...
...passion sprang the witty, monomaniacally bawdy drama known as Restoration comedy. If Congreve was the age's greatest theatrical wit, Wycherley (1640-1715) may well have been its most vigorous social chronicler. He was a rake who later reformed, with all the zealotry that implies. In him, the pagan warred with the Puritan, the scandalizer with the sermonizer, and perhaps never more fiercely than in his most durable play, The Country Wife...
...Pagan Rights. As usual, there is considerable hand-wringing by purists and priests, who complain that the cash box has replaced the creche. But the fact remains that Christmas never completely belonged to the church. It began as a pagan festival, and it has slowly been changing back into one for the past half-century...
Long before the birth of Christ, Dec. 25 was celebrated in pagan societies as the day on which the sun began its yearly rebirth (astronomically they were only three days off). Peasants in northern Europe decorated their homes with evergreens as a tribute to nature's victory over the numbing winter, held lengthy feasts and processionals. The Romans celebrated' the entire winter solstice season to honor Saturn, the god of agriculture. During the Saturnalia everyone ate, drank and exchanged presents in one long bacchanal. When the Christian missionaries began to comb the countryside for converts, they found that...
...rumors were nonsensical?but reality also smacked of absurdity. In Central Park, a stroller looked up and for a magic moment imagined that the darkling towers beyond the trees were medieval ramparts. The murky streets looked like a blend of pagan ritual and July-Fourth celebration, as thousands groped about with matches, candles, flashlights, even makeshift torches of burning newspaper...