Word: puritanism
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Matter of Taste. At Esquire, Sorel introduced another series known as "The Spokesman." One such was Charles de Gaulle, dressed as a Puritan and carrying a Bible and a blunderbuss; the French President had opposed state payments for contraceptives on the ground that they would be used for pleasure rather than health. Last May, in the Atlantic, Sorel unleashed "Sorel's Unfamiliar Quotations," in which bulbous characters are linked with punnish captions. Under a sullen, bleary Frank Sinatra: "Mia culpa...
...thus became President. Though Clay hotly denied Jacksonian charges that he had made a deal, he was soon appointed Secretary of State by Adams. Tempers ran so high that Clay fought a duel with John Randolph, who had publicly vilified the Clay-Adams alliance as "the combination of the Puritan and the blackleg...
...Riencourt takes that outdated boast with deadly seriousness. Something deep in the character of the Puritan (an "iron-hard, practical, sober fanatic dedicated to hard work") ideally equips Americans to play 20th century Romans. When Puritan qualities are combined with the "innate and relentless expansionism" of the frontiersman, it becomes clear that "it was just not in [Americans'] dynamic temper to become the peaceful Swiss of the Western Hemisphere." Yet Americans, De Riencourt insists, have been "fundamentally reluctant" imperialists. They have not really played the game of colonialism, which he defines as an ephemeral grab for pseudo empire...
...think so or couldn't care less. For there was John, in Pilgrim costume, at "17th Century Day," commemorating the founding of Ipswich in 1633. He read the introduction to a 30-minute pageant he wrote depicting the place as it was back when, noting that there the "Puritan flame burned brightest." Then he sat in with the Ipswich Recorder Society for a few rounds of Handel and Scarlatti. "This town has been kind to me, even indulgent," said Updike. "It's let me live as just another citizen...
Still, whether offering hall trees ("Money won't buy more stylish goods") or watches ("Almost given away"), Sears appealed to a buying public that was then largely rural and firmly bound by the Puritan ethic: waste was sinful, and so were fripperies. But it was also an epoch when ordinary folks were beginning to yearn for "nice things" and even a few luxuries-if they were cheap enough and guaranteed to be durable. It was an enjoyment simply to peruse the bargains offered in men's toupees and nerve pills, mowing machines and dog-powered churns, foot scrapers...