Word: sordidly
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Great writers have sometimes sought to paint the underworld. Not the most daring among them put upon canvas scenes more revolting or more despicable in the cold-blooded and sordid vices they display than several which the evidence in this case has depicted. The cynicism of most of the characters in the drama provokes laughter, but it is laughter of amazement and of scorn. There is something ludicrous in this naked parade of greed and of obscenity; and the predominant impression it leaves in minds not squeamish over common frailties is that of unmitigated repugnance and disgust...
...first is that Stevenson often wrote under the influence of drugs, the second that he was consistently an egotistic poseur. All his life he tried to be as different from other people as possible, not hesitating to pose even before his few intimates. In the face of the rather sordid "underworld" life which Stevenson led in his early years in Edinburgh and London. Mr. Steuart does not, like the more obsequious biographers, turn aside and shudder. He tells the plain facts, and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions...
...play will not interest the jaded theatregoer who is out for blood. Neither will it amuse the earnest seeker after incontinence, sordid or suave. It has, however, a quality of ease and atmospheric entertainment that commends it amiably to attention...
...bullets and bankers," the U. S. "dragooned" Mexico for U. S. oil interests, said Mr. Villard. "The blood of the 3,000 Haytians slain by our American marines, and of the 400 dead in Vera Cruz, mostly women and children, dishonors our good name, especially when involved with so sordid a business as debt collection...
...that Mallory and Irvine lost their lives this year, without the prospect of any material gain for either the climbers or the human race, he answered with a question: "Isn't it a goodish thing to run some risks, undergo some hardships for an ideal divorced from sordid considerations...