Word: solemn
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...wall was illegal, immoral and strangely revealing-illegal because it violated the Communists' solemn contracts to permit free movement throughout the city; immoral because it virtually jailed millions of innocent people; revealing because it advertised to all the world the failure of East Germany's Communist system, and the abject misery of a people who could only be kept within its borders by bullets, bayonets and barricades...
London's awesome St. Paul's Cathedral was the scene of a solemn occasion last week-the election of a new Bishop of London. Behind tight-shut gates covered by pink curtains gathered 18 members of the cathedral's Great Chapter, led by Dean Walter Matthews. With appropriate portentousness, the dean questioned the assemblage: Should the election be "by acclamation, by scrutiny or by compromise"? It was decided that it should be "by scrutiny," i.e., secret ballot. And that was odd, as Tweedledum might say, because the Bishop of Peterborough, Robert W. Stopford, had already been chosen...
...well aware," said President Kennedy midway through his solemn appeal for a stronger and more flexible U.S. military establishment, "that many American families will bear the burden of these requests; studies or careers will be interrupted; husbands and sons will be called away." Next day, in a message to Congress, the President was even more specific about who the active burden bearers will be: 250,000 men who, either for the first time or as recalled veterans, will be hustled into the uniforms of the U.S. armed forces...
...countless other crossroads communities of rural America before the war, the biggest night of the week used to be the night of the weekly band concert. Stores stayed open, and farmers finished their chores early to drive to town. In Newton's Military Park, the municipal bandsmen sat solemn and proud in high-buttoned navy-blue tunics, and filled the summer night with sound. The music may not have satisfied John Philip Sousa, but it was loud enough to compete with the moaning of the evening train. Always, it attracted more than a thousand spectators...
Stewart plays the heavy convincingly, but Director Ford is not satisfied with the melodrama that falls out of the over turned cliché, and he switches tracks again. For those still willing to string along, there is a fist fight somewhat less solemn than a Laurel and Hardy pie throwing, then a lynching in which no last-minute rescuer shows up. Director Ford's effort might be compared to the pastime of a successful gunfighter who, between important assassinations, lies on his back in a hotel room, drinks dark ale, and obliterates with his six-gun all the flies...