Word: stoicly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...altimeters, warning buzzers and political tutors, etc.: I am not impressed. I am an Air Force parachutist with ... a large unit, and we jump regularly from all types of aircraft . . . Leaping . . . with a full fieldpack, a rifle, extra equipment plus a large, 75-lb. general-purpose container, makes the stoic little Russian's feat appear rather tame by comparison. But . . . this big tough Russian murmuring "Eto Nichevo," as he [disen tangled himself from] his warning buzzers and portable political tutors after landing "near the white chalk cross," is what prompted me to write . . . All my friends here in Combat...
...Anglo-Stoic. Like his brothers, Ned was a dedicated ascetic. He never smoked, never touched liquor ("People are asses to drink such stuff"). Even of eating, he said: "To escape the humiliation of loading in food would bring one very near the angels." When Brother Frank was killed, Ned rebuked his parents for feeling the "need ... to go into mourning. I cannot see any cause at all- in any case to die for one's country is a sort of privilege." He even reproached his mother for expecting her sons to tell her how much they loved...
...just this Anglo-Stoic reticence which makes Ned's letters read more like those of an ardent, puttering professor than an inspired leader of men. Hundreds of his early letters contain nothing more exciting than the measurements, in feet and inches, of innumerable loopholes, embrasures and arches, plus detailed information about the price of milk and bread and the state of his bicycle ("34 punctures to date ... in 1,400 miles"). If Ned's letters were the only clue to his identity, readers would think that all he did in World War I was collect stamps...
With his subject and presentation, Thomas was bound to run against comparisons with Wilder's Our Town. The telling difference between the two plays is stylistic. Wilder took very real people taking a plain, often drab language. He enobled the New Englanders by showing their stoic but feeling response to disaster and death. Thomas has limited his action, and he must depend on speech for interpretation. As in a medieval morality play, his people are labeled and formularized, the baker is named Dai Bread, the trollop is Polly Garter. Many characters then become only undistinguished white keys upon which Thomas...
When the Secretary of Agriculture reorganizes his department, inauspicious bureaus like the Soil Conservation Service are supposed to adjust with stoic indifference. But in eighteen years of advising farmers how to make their lands more valuable, the Soil Service has developed a strong esprit de corps. Working with other federal bureaus, the Service has saved so many millions of acres that its attitude on erosion control has become almost fanatical. Thus its protest was understandably loud when Secretary Benson announced his new plan which will strip the Soil Service of most of its functions, and delegate conservation control...