Word: pompousity
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...William D'Alton Mann published Town Topics 30, 40 years ago, he made a straightforward if unpleasant practice of "borrowing" large sums from individuals who did not want unkind things printed about themselves in the gossip sheet. Return of the money customarily was not made or expected, but the pompous colonel had a peculiar means of repayment at his command each Tuesday night when the magazine was being made up. On those nights he presided noisily over the editorial rooms, his lawyer at his elbow, reading and initialing proofs of every item which had been set in type for that...
Fortnight ago President Hoover picked his first Geneva delegate?Senator Claude Augustus Swanson of Virginia, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. A neophyte at international conferences, a Big Navy advocate, Senator Swanson, with his stringy mustache, corded eyeglasses and rather pompous airs, accepted because he does not have to work for re-election until 1934. Thus starting at the bottom of his delegation, President Hoover last week worked backwards to the top, appointed three more members...
...their discussions; the complex forms and ceremonies of initiation, taken over from the William and Mary chapter; the secrecy in which the meetings and laws were clothed, the use of cipher in official communications; all these are typical of the fraternities of the time. The ritual of initiation was pompous: in referring to meetings, it stated "everything transacted within this room is transacted Sub rosa, and detested is he that discloses it"; an oath had to be taken to "keep, hold & preserve all secrets that pertain to your duty"; a special fraternity "grip" was employed; the symbolism of the name...
...sacrificial way, tenderly requiring them to wash behind the ears and eat their porridge. When they mature, it is found that her ministrations have spoiled them, or else that they have inherited unhappy characteristics from their father, a bootlegger but a bad provider. One of the sons becomes a pompous hack-painter, married to a sleek and dressy strumpet. Another is an enfeebled hypocrite, whining at his wife instead of beating her, given to opening letters addressed to other persons. The daughter is married to an envious and impoverished lout. The only good son (James Dunn) has ill fortune...
...with a noose at the end. This is perhaps a sound enough criticism of modern life, but unfortunately we are not content to belittle ourselves, we must go back and belittle our fathers. Washington was a cursing drunkard, Hamilton gadded about with far too many women, Jefferson was a pompous hypocrite. This is a bad business. The Vagabond likes to feel that there were giants upon the earth in the old days, and that, as like as not, there will be giants again. He is willing to accept great men for the service they rendered the country; it matters...