Word: ritual
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Christmas ritual of Poland, the first rising star of Christmas Eve is greeted with the glad kolenda (carol) Wsrod Nocnej Ciszy (In the Stillness of the Night). Then the family hastens to table and partakes of the great Christmas wafer, symbol of brotherly love and forgiveness. Another kolenda, Bracia, Patrzcie Jeno (Brothers, Look Ahead), asks a blessing on this rite (and on a plow concealed under the table, so that the land, too, may be blessed). At pasterka, or midnight mass, the swelling Gdy się Chrystus Rodzi (When Christ the Lord is Born) is sung, and the carolers take...
...recognize a human tragedy in a political battle, he seemed, not like a statesman who has lost, but like a man who had suffered some personal grief as real as the death of a friend. The inauguration ceremonies were over; the ex-President waited heavily through this last ritual of his office. With the train's first movement he turned quickly and went into his private car. His secretary, who feared that he was at the edge of collapse, thought that the train had started not a moment too soon...
...surprised to discover that he is a very able man and promptly conclude that he is badly maligned. He does not do the things that politicians are supposed to do: he cannot tell a joke, seldom even laughs at a good one and cannot go through the complicated ritual-throwing back the head, slapping the thigh-which immemorial tradition holds is the proper U. S. politician's response to a bad one. His handshake is no heartier than the usual political handshake deserves to be. To reporters who pry into his political plans he talks on & on-about...
...what if the incumbent should accept? There is no need for anxiety, said the detective: the ritual requires that the President be given the opportunity to refuse a third term; practical politics makes him refuse it. "The only man who could conceivably obtain a third term is one who convinced the country he did not want it. . . . The effort to get a third term would convince the country that the man must not have it; it would be ... using the power of his office to perpetuate himself in office. That would surely split his own party; it would certainly provide...
True to the ritual of the modern detective story, which holds that the sleuth must deprecate his most brilliant exploits upon solving the case, Detective Lippmann figuratively yawned: "It will be a dreary morning after, when at last he announces that he is not a candidate...