Word: parlous
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...century of fascinating contrasts. Literature nourished. Corneille, Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine turned out their masterpieces; Pascal wrote his Pensees, Descartes his Discourse on Method. Medicine, meanwhile, was in a parlous state. In one year, Louis XIII was bled 47 times, got 212 enemas. Louis XIV got the same kind of treatment, but, despite everything his physicians did, he survived for 77 years. By that time, he had done his full part to prepare the deluge...
Seldom in the 40 years of its history had the left-wing (but antiCommunist) New Republic (circ. 32,031) been in such parlous condition: its financial backing was gone (TIME, March 16) and it was running a deficit of $1,600 a week. Then the sun came out again. Last week Anne ("Nancy") Elaine Harrison, wife of the New Republic's publisher, fell heir to a third of the $35 million estate* left by her eccentric grandmother, Anita McCormick Elaine, International Harvester heiress, benefactress to the University of Chicago, Foundation for World Government and latter-day angel to such...
...time of small men, however parlous the time, the small men carry on, sometimes gamely. Last week France's durable Premier Joseph Laniel-whose government has lasted for almost seven months, longer than the average for the Fourth Republic-mounted the eight carpeted steps to the National Assembly's rostrum, put on gold-rimmed glasses and read a 45-minute speech. Purpose: to win a vote of confidence so that Laniel's government would stay alive and Laniel's Foreign Minister Georges Bidault could go to the Four-Power Conference in Berlin...
Bishop Wright does not deny that the world is in a parlous state, but the man of faith and education, he insists, remembers that it was ever thus. Recalling "the small print of his history books, he watches with serenity as once again the tyrants who would tame God's men . . . are in fact slowly but surely tamed by them, if not in themselves, at least in their descendancy...
Last week Versailles' future looked parlous indeed. The French government, weighed down with a record budget, has taken no steps to appropriate funds. So far, no U.S. millionaire has volunteered to go to the rescue. The most generous contribution toward the palace's rehabilitation to date: $600,000 from the state-controlled gambling casino at nearby Enghien...