"And what would have happened to the bolshy individualistic Englishman on which we base all our historical mythology?" It would have been a unique Catholicism though, not fervent like the Mediterranean kind, but not separatist like the Catholism of France which is the product of a guillotine-crazed Revolution and a secularising Enlightenment.
Now there is broad if not fervent support for the notion of Alan Johnson, the genial health secretary, leading Labour into the next election, which must be held by June 2010, if not for very long beyond it (see article).Moreover, the issue uppermost in voters' minds has changed, and this does not favour Mr Brown.
Strikingly, the problem wasn't just the things that they were saying, but what they weren't saying — that they weren't fervent enough advocates for the bishops' positions on issues like gay marriage and contraception.
"While not a fervent monarchist (or a fervent anything much), I have no particular objection to the monarchy," he has written, and anyone looking for anti-royalist swipes in his novella about the Queen's bibliomania, The Uncommon Reader, will be disappointed: it's a fable, not a work of realism, but she comes over sympathetically, much as in Stephen Frears's film The Queen.
The public mood is also one of grudging assent, if not exactly fervent support.
That is also the hope on Henman Hill, if not the fervent prayer.
Mr. Ghrewati, who is married and has a 3-year-old daughter, is not a fervent racer, he just keeps the birds as a hobby.
Opposition to the stadium is not as fervent or widespread as it was when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani sought to install the Yankees in a West Side home.
Mr. Mahoney, who lives in Hamilton and has spent his entire life in New Jersey, said his formative political years were during Ronald Reagan's presidency, but he is not a fervent partisan.
The three men issued a joint statement refuting the central thesis of the article, but, as with Wolff's book, many readers saw their private assumptions, if not most fervent hopes, confirmed.
"The profile of experienced Internet users is different because they're not as fervent in their Internet use, [which] explains why further growth in the broadband population is likely to slow down," Horrigan says.
