Word: paroxysmic
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...bravely and show no sign of fear. While Father Ravoux was speaking to them old Tazoo broke out in a death wail in which one after another joined until the prison room was filled with a wild, unearthly plaint which was neither of despair nor grief but rather a paroxysm of savage passion, most impressive to witness and startling to hear. During the lulls in their death-song they would resume their pipes and with the exception of an occasional mutter or the rattling of their chains they sat motionless and impassive until one among the elder would break...
...horror! The noise had come from beneath him! In a paroxysm of fear Vag leaped upon the table. He had forgotten that these sounds were merely that old Harvard tradition, the Boylston Antique Chair Chorus, in which the chairs, aged to the resonance of violins, joined in horrid synphony. Alas, now he was beyond help and beyond reason. The noises were now growing to a terrible crescendo, now receding, beating about his throbbing temples, laughing, cackling, snarling, howling, roaring! They were after him! They were getting nearer! He stared about him with the terror of a cornered animal. Then...
Verdun, the eighth and climactic volume of Jules Romains' vast Men of Good Will (TIME, Jan. 8, 1940), was pure holocaust on the heroic scale. It was his attempt to show a nation, a continent, an age in the paroxysm of war. It was the heaviest piece of orchestration Romains' gigantic project had yet demanded...