Word: wretched
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...sitting, whether or not he wants to add the word simenon to his vocabulary. The scene is New York and New England, and Hero Steve Hogan has the same basic trouble as most Simenon heroes: life and the world have beaten him down into a confused, resentful wretch in whom something has to give. He has a pretty wife who works and of whom he is a little jealous, two kids away at camp in Maine, a dreary Madison Avenue job, a small house in the suburbs loaded down with mortgage. Weak on the inside and plodding on the outside...
...which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain . . . without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor." A patron, Johnson bitterly declared in the Dictionary, is "one who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery...
...diabolically clever villain, an "enemy of the people," insinuates himself into the party, dupes the honest comrades, rises higher and higher, and finally is given top responsibilities and honors. All the while he is conniving with other "enemies of the people," internal or external. But at last the crafty wretch is "unmasked," and the honest comrades, roused from their torpid illusions, take their vengeance...
...read agents, a New Yorker, presented a note to the teller at the 43rd St. Merchants' Trust Bank saying, "This is a stick-up. Pass over all your cash and no one will get hurt." The teller was indeed stuck-up--insufferably so. She hardly glanced at the poor wretch, but replied, "Well, you must have that O.K.ed by an officer." Then she left her cage, walked to a guard and gave the rascal in charge. After searching him, finding neither weapons nor money, the guards threw him out of the bank. "We thought he was a bum," they explained...
...Shakespear. Actually, no other plays are quite so unsuited to non-professional treatment, because the Bard's familiar plots cannot divert audience attention from the actors' shortcomings. Each viewer is sure that he can--or has--played the role to something near amateur perfection. And heaven help the wretch who falls below this often exaggerated standard...