… I've come to rely on a mental technique that I call powering through. … It's equivalent to brazening out an awkward social situation—accidentally squeezing the butt of a stranger wearing the same costume as your boyfriend at a Halloween party, say. Powering through or brazening out is almost always what I end up doing, but only after stifling my initial impulse to surrender or sink through the floor.

The beef of his paper was a long rant about government.

They gave away corn, not cash; and Cicero was made bishop, or overseer, of this public victualling.

[…] for even the undaunted faith and energy of the Chicagoese cannot greatly accelerate the processes of nature in making' trees, or robing their trunks with moss.