Word: graciousness
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...decision to televise the Gracious Speech had caused heartburn among Laborites. who feared that some of the Queen's prestige might rub off on the governing Tory Party. The pallid words that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's government put in the Queen's mouth about "My Ministers' " intentions on home building and foreign policy probably changed nobody's vote. But the occasion did set the Manchester Guardian to musing about the meaning of ceremony in a democracy: "The Imperial State Crown, the Cap of Maintenance, the Sword of State, the Heralds, the Lord Great Chamberlain...
Pope Pius XII was a gracious man who met the 20th century publicity attending his office with tolerance and sophistication. At his investiture in 1939, the flashbulbs of news photographers flared for the first time inside St. Peter's Basilica. During his reign, he must surely have learned of the longstanding system under which the Vatican press corps hired-and even bribed-tipsters (usually laymen) on the papal staff. When, a few years ago, the papal physician peddled pictures of his patient down on the floor doing pushups, the Pope-with a grace few men could have mustered-forgave...
Operation Serenity. Characteristically, Muñoz no sooner had Bootstrap going well four years ago than the poet in him came out. Was Puerto Rico turning materialist, losing its gracious leisure, abandoning its soul? Recalls a member of his staff: "He began talking about how industrialization was raising cities but destroying old values. He used to push a statue of Gandhi toward Moscoso while Moscoso was talking figures, rates, profits. One day Moscoso exploded: 'Stop shoving that statue at me! If I take it seriously, we will have no economic progress...
...Hold Aloof. Academy President Nesmeyanov seems the very model of the independent scholar and gracious host. But the academy's general secretary is a cop type named Topchiev, whose job it is to keep the "party character" alive within the academy. Through Topchiev, the party still belabors scientists with demands that they "must not hold aloof from the ideological struggle," and if deviating intellectuals no longer disappear from the face of the earth, they can still disappear from the pages of Vestnik. After accepting an invitation to The Netherlands recently. Physicist Landau asked if he might bring along...
...audience received Mlle. Boulanger with a standing ovation, which it repeated at the end of the concert; but Mlle. Boulanger, in a final gracious gesture, sat down at the piano, and refused to rise until the musicians rose to share the applause with...