Word: pompousity
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...could credit what they beheld when they arrived? The island crawled, swarmed, bristled, writhed with life. The Thinkwells were received by a pompous gentleman with long chestnut whiskers. He was Albert Smith, Prime Minister, son of the original Miss Smith who, aged 99, still ruled the island. Now the islanders, after 70 years of segregated history, had attained an astonishing civilization which was almost an exact facsimile of that from which they had been marooned in 1851. Miss Smith, an extraordinary old woman, usually drunk, had come to believe that she was herself Queen Victoria. She called her palace Balmoral...
...behind a mask of erudite satire whenever he is the least suspicious that your attention is not riveted on something or some one other than himself. Or, being enormously proud of this mask, which is really most impressive, he puts it on just for the secret sport of being pompous...
...criticism of Signor Croce is not warmed by the appreciative apathy of a Matthew Arnold. Like that of the pompous old English bigot, his criticism is the God-given and incontrovertible judgment of the dogmatist. He approaches his task with a theory to expound, and deaf to all confuting evidence, he picks and chooses and maintains his position...
...onetime Foreign Minister of England: "My son-in-law, Oswald Mosley, wrote a letter to Prime Minister MacDonald stating that he intends joining the Independent Labor Party. This young man is the one who, a year ago, described a note written by me to Premier Poincaré as 'pompous', adding: 'All the ministers went to bed for a month, so arduous was the exertion of maintaining their dignity...
Russia. One of the first acts of Premier Macdonald was to give effect to his policy of ending "the pompous policy of standing aloof from Russia." James O'Grady, Labor M. P., was offered and accepted the post of British Ambassador to Russia. Official recognition of Russia, however, was held in abeyance pending agreement on the conditions of such recognition of the British Government and the acceptance by both Governments of each other's ambassadorial candidates...