Word: wretched
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...wrote about. To the late William Bolitho he was "the greatest and sincerest pessimist American literature has yet produced." An owl-eyed, saturnine man, given to one-word epigrams, he was once asked for his list of the ten most beautiful English words. His list: gangrene, flit, scram, mange, wretch, smoot, guzzle, McNaboe, blute, crene...
discouraged him. Turning to a coffeehouse, he was near to joining a sober looking man drinking a dish of chocolate, but a brawl suddenly broke out, and the sober looking man joined in to rescue a poor drunken wretch whom Sobersides addressed as "Dear Dick." The Vagabond bethought himself of Dean Swift, and would have visited that worthy, but his attire was so disarranged by a jar of slops flung from an upper window that he betook himself instead to Vauxhall, and rested in a quiet corner of the garden, seeing but unseen. This morning he will ascertain the views...
...sash-weight? The tabloids, who followed Judd Gray and Ruth Snyder until (and after) the current shot through them in Sing Sing's death house, explained the case as best they could: Ruth was "a dangerous woman," highly sexed, adamant in her purpose. Judd Gray was a spineless wretch whose infatuation was almost his excuse. The press paid little attention to the victim...
...Testa ment, Composer Berg has written music which critics unanimously pronounce the most powerful in any opera for years. Like his leading character it is neither lofty nor noble but it effectively describes Wozzeck, like the Wozzeck in Georg Buchner's play (TIME, March 16), as any downtrodden wretch tortured beyond endurance. A per fect ending is the epilog in which Marie's little son hears the news from children in the street, goes on unconcernedly riding his hobby-horse...
...mixture of good and evil. At one moment you laugh at his tears for his daughter and his ducats, but the sincere lament that follows immediately after for the loss of Leah's ring certainly arouses anything but scorn. Again, when Bassanio and Antoncate comedy, and Shylock a wretch who gets his just deserts, but he is not a stage villain of Gothic blackness. Instead, Mr. Moscovitz shows a fusion of contradictory emotions: gile and hate mixed with love and sincerety, a true Shakesperean character...