Unit 4: Part 3 Vocabulary

Yes, I am quite aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fascination.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion—has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now—but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society.

They looked at each other in utter dejection.

Disheveled, her skirts askew, with reddened hands, she spoke in a loud voice, slopping water over the floors as she washed them.

Madame Forestier, profoundly moved, took Mathilde’s hands in her own.

They parted amicably, Annie keeping the one-room house and William taking most of the cash to carry himself to Oklahoma.

For the next few years, on balmy spring days, blistering summer noons, and cold, wet, and wintry middays, Annie never disappointed her customers, who could count on seeing the tall, brown-skin woman bent over her brazier, carefully turning the meat pies.

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction.

Clearly this woman has a discrepancy in her life and, to the extent that her materialistic ideals are central, she is probably dissatisfied.

Although no single study, to my knowledge, has yet simultaneously verified all the links in this cycle, empirical research does exist that supports each individual link.

Using a statistical technique called structural equation modeling, the investigators showed that by watching a great deal of television, materialistic individuals are exposed to images of wealth and beauty that make them dissatisfied with their current economic state. This dissatisfaction with the material realm of their lives “spills over” into their overall sense of satisfaction with their entire life.

The fact that Jewelry, weapons and domestic utensils are found in prehistoric burial sites is evidence that we have long considered possessions as part of the person, even after death.

Although we Americans think of ourselves as highly individualistic, aggregate, identity is important to us, as the willingness to preserve and restore symbols such as the Statue of Liberty shows.

Not surprisingly, the most important material possessions were dwellings, automobiles and favorite clothes—each a kind of second skin that embellishes the self we present to others.