Traditionally, baseball punishes preening. In a society increasingly tolerant of exhibitionism, it is splendid when a hitter is knocked down because in his last at bat he lingered at the plate to admire his home run.
When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government fell in May 1940, the nation turned to Churchill. At last, his unique qualities were brought to bear on a supreme challenge, and with his unshakable optimism, his heroic vision, and above all, his splendid speeches, Churchill roused the spirit of the British people.
The capacity of man himself is only revealed when, under stress and responsibility, he breaks through his educational shell, and he may then be a splendid surprise to himself no less than to this teachers.
Thank the Lord for a mother who was a general as well as a Latter-day Saint; who realized that it was a remarkable and splendid thing to encourage a boy to do something besides perhaps milking cows if he was on a farm, if he had ambitions along athletic lines.
Let's face it - think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilizations, which in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth?
Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if you're not careful.
Early on I saw the plastic quality in colored people and had friends among them; and later was to work from colored models and friends, including Paul Robeson, whose splendid head I worked from in New York. I tried to draw Chinamen in their quarter, but the Chinese did not like being drawn and would immediately disappear when they spotted me.
The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation.
Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.
We of America are especially fitted to visualize and to understand the marvellous transformation of a wilderness into a land of splendid cities.
