Word: witting
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...knowledge for his hobby. When a burst of shellfire killed Hulme on the Western Front in 1917, he was just 34, and had been successively a poet, philosopher, self-proclaimed political reactionary, militarist, and pet lion of his own literary salon. A huge, indolent man of lightning intelligence and wit who combined a Prussian officer's bearing with a contagious charm, Hulme was perhaps best described by his sculptor friend Jacob Epstein when he wrote: "He was capable of kicking a theory as well as a man downstairs...
Essentially, Sahl is an exceedingly safe comedian. He merely articulates what thousands of Americans (correctly or incorrectly) have thought before him (to wit: 1. Nixon is an evil man. 2. Kennedy is ambitious, but not as evil as Nixon. 3. The President of the United States, alas, is a fool.). His well-known remark "Are there any minority groups I haven't offended?" is cute but deceptive, for he's careful only to offend the minority groups which one can get away with offending. His entire viewpoint resembles, in fact, that of a slightly eccentric but avid supporter of Adlai...
...high point of the issue is Stephen Sandy's poetry. At his best, as in He Wins!, Sandy writes with clarity, wit, and technical virtuosity. He has improved a great deal since his last appearance in print, over a year ago. He has become much more concerned with the sound of his poetry, and he has learned to use allusion unpretentiously and forcefully. Ironically, he compares his seeker of "Success's own sweet cadillac" with the seeker after truth in Marvell's "Garden" ("where fruits are ranged by lusters on each tree") and with Frost's lonely traveler ("and thinks...
...playing safety in the National Football League requires almost as many athletic skills as winning the decathlon. Ideally, the safety man must have the speed of a sprinter to keep up with whippet-fast backs and ends as they break for passes. He must have the wit to diagnose plays in advance, the instinct to follow them as they unfold. He must have the strength and guts to hurl himself head-on at a 230-lb. fullback. And he must learn to live with the chilling reality that as the last line of defense, every time he makes a mistake...
...brilliant courtroom orator, nor a subtle legal beagle. But he could sense in an instant the secret weakness of a witness, knew every judge and most of the prosecuting attorneys like the back of his hand. And he exercised a mysterious power over juries. They instinctively liked his warmth and kindliness, were awed and charmed by his patrician bearing. They were also amazed by a memory artist who could quote whole pages of law he had not seen for years, and delighted by an impious wit who, in defense of a teen-aged boy accused of raping a woman...