Word: trivialities
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...dash even of dignified burlesque, but always perfectly plausible people in everyday situations. The money-box penalty for swearing has become a stock device in comedy, and the quarrel between husband and wife over expenses is age-old; but they are handled ingeniously enough here, plus a trivial affaire de coeur between two guests at a house-party, to make adequate substance for a four-act drama...
...success of the play. But there are infinite opportunities for unsuspected effects in acting, and the Jewett players as cast have "come across" with uncanny cleverness. Miss Willard as Dolly shows 100 percent improvement over her last year's powers. Each phrase and gesture counted; she was consistently trivial, consistently lovable, like Dulcy, in her ingenious sympathy for her friend and her naive discomfort over her bills. Mr. Clive was a bit slow in falling into the husband's character, but when he reached the famous quarrel scene he was at his best, and between them they held the audience...
...Shun the New England conscience!" is one of the ten rules for avoiding nervousness laid down by Dr. Austen Fox Riggs in the current number of "Mental Hygiene." The New England conscience, he says, is a form of egotism that makes a moral issue of every trivial thought or feeling. It takes the adventure out of life and puts in its place all manner of safety-first devices which warp the mind of the possessor...
...this trivial difference over phraseology, at least according to the Russian delegation, which has caused no end of trouble at Genoa. The Communist, who never admitted the right of private property in the first place, cannot understand how anyone can find anything extreme or unreasonable in "expropriation". When the other members of the family of nations demur, and refuse to allow their citizens in Russia to suffer by this piece of Bolshevik logic, M. Kakowsky and his colleagues assume the attitude of injured innocence...
Hidden behind this "trivial difference" over the status of private property is what is coming to be regarded as the new alignment of the Powers. France, England, and Italy are all nations firmly founded upon the fundamental security of private property. Behind all of them stands the tremendous shadow of Roman civilization. Russia, and to a certain extent Germany, never came under the sway of Rome and never became so wholly saturated with the traditions of private property. Napoleon's famous saying, "Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar", is being vindicated. Russian civilization, at least its representatives...