Word: present-day
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...House of Tavelinck, by Holland's leading feminist and most popular novelist, is a long (738 pages), crowded, historical romance told against an 18th-Century background of the fight between the House of Orange and the Dutch democrats. Like many a present-day historical novel, this one is a tribute to the author's talents as a researcher rather than as a novelist; like her U. S. contemporaries, she lays history and romance in layers as neat as layer cake...
...Liberals, first novel by the able author of Revolution-1776, shows far fewer of these faults than some, but still needs a further purge. Author Preston has an attentive eye for present-day intellectuals' dilemmas, an attentive ear for their dialogue, considerable humor. But in pointing a solution, the best he can offer is a broken head...
...dance, a group of younger U. S. dancers decided that something ought to be done to bring it up to date. To these reformer-minded dancers, sex appeal, pretty costumes, toe technique were not enough. They wanted to express and depict serious things, to comment on present-day problems...
During the winter opera season, Manhattan's Metropolitan, like most large opera houses, presents six or seven operas a week. Such a pace would probably be impossible to keep up in any other branch of the present-day theatre. But a well-trained operatic cast can put an opera through its tricks with very little rehearsal, often manages to do so with none at all. Schooled in a standard series of movements and gestures for each role, a good average opera singer can be fitted into a production at a moment's notice, like a spare part...
After digging out the basin for a pond, the Stone Age people lined it with straw, then covered the straw with a layer of clay. This furnished the necessary insulation. Some present-day English builders are reputedly able to make successful dew ponds, but they generally use concrete instead of straw and clay. Moreover, after construction, these modern ponds have to be filled with water first in order to keep going. Whether the ponds of the ancients filled up by natural accumulation of water, starting from a dry basin, no one knows...