Weekend Words: Hush
Lest we forget scandals of Speakers past, this week Reuters reported that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert “has reached a deal with prosecutors and is expected to plead guilty to wrongdoing in a hush-money case, his lawyers told a federal judge in Chicago.”
Lest we forget scandals of Speakers past, this week Reuters reported that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert — the longest-serving Republican in that position — “has reached a deal with prosecutors and is expected to plead guilty to wrongdoing in a hush-money case, his lawyers told a federal judge in Chicago.”
The article, by Mary Wisniewski, continues:
Federal prosecutors allege he promised to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed individual from his hometown of Yorkville, Illinois, to conceal past misconduct.
The individual who was allegedly receiving hush money from Hastert has not surfaced publicly. But anonymous law enforcement officials have told several media outlets that Hastert was trying to cover up sexual abuse of a male decades ago when he worked as a high school teacher and wrestling coach.
Hastert has not been charged with any past misconduct. He was a teacher at Yorkville High School in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Hush, call no echo up in further proof
Of desolation! there’s a voice within
That weeps… as thou must sing… along, aloof.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnets from the Portuguese”
I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old-English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings, all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
—Charlotte Brontë
There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything —
Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.
—Sara Teasdale, “Central Park at Dusk”
Hush now, baby, baby, don’t you cry
Mama’s gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Mama won’t let anyone dirty get through
Mama’s gonna wait up till you get in
Mama will always find out where you’ve been
Mamma’s gonna keep baby healthy and clean
—Roger Waters, David Jon Gilmour, “Mother”
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.
—A.A. Milne, “Vespers”
Oh dear me — it’s too late to do anything but accept you and love you — but when you were quite a little boy, somebody ought to have said “hush” just once!
—Beatrice Stella Campbell
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
—Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”
If nobody said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth.
—A.P.Herbert
