Word: priapic
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...their pitch-black, hidden tunnels, termites have survived from extreme antiquity. But they have paid a price. None of the colony's members-the blind, scurrying workers, the distorted soldiers, the priapic king and swollen queen-are more than dull automata, the helpless slaves of a strong, though invisible and despotic state...
...Quennell's liveliest figure is his least known one: John Wilkes. This squint-eyed, witty, opportunistic M.P. had immense charm, justly boasting that he could "talk away" his ugly face in half an hour. He led a dazzlingly licentious existence-swilling, wenching, dabbling in the "blasphemous and priapic" rites of the notorious Hell Fire Club. "Wilkes," said Lord Sandwich, "you will die of a pox or on the gallows." "That depends, my Lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress...
...midst of this stertorous and priapic life, in a house so crowded that travelers mistook it for an inn, Aretino cranked out an enormous mass of writing -plays, letters, parody horoscopes, obscene dialogues, an uninspired epic, religious tracts, florid and fulsome eulogies...
...none other than the stock Cabell hero, although figuring in a highly exotic environment. One would say, offhand, that the world of the Norse sagas is the last place to look for one of Mr. Cabell's latter-day Jurgens: middle-aged, disillusioned-but-invincibly-romantic, garrulous, priapic...