South Africa – its black population, in particular – desperately needed a figure of dignity to represent them.
"The minister thinks the decision to extol Che Guevara is correct," he responded, because Guevara, the theorist of the Cuban Revolution, "is a figure of dignity and global stature".
He is the book's most suggestively imagined character: a figure of dignity and courage, a traditional nationalist whose anti-British sentiments led him to sympathize with the Germans during World War II and eventually to lose his official post.
The CDU boss revelled in political combat; the head of state stood apart, a figure of decency, dignity and goodness.
Mark Burns was sensational as the bridegroom, a figure of extreme dignity and sensuality, in a lead cast completed by Ebony Haswell, Ms. Parson, Rejane Duarte, Christiane Cristo, Nicole Stoner, Kevin Thomas, Claudio Sandoval and Antonio Douthit.
Has there ever been a figure of greater dignity than the tall, slim, stony-faced figure of Madiba (the clan name by which he was often addressed), surrounded by the white generals who had fought so hard to destroy his cause, taking the salute at the presidential inauguration in May 1994?
And when riots tore at Detroit, Newark, Los Angeles and other cities, he walked the steamy night streets of Harlem and other black areas, tie askew, jacket flung over the shoulder, taller than anyone else, talking to people with only a detective at his side: a calm figure of civic dignity.
Resplendent in an opulent red gown trimmed with ribbon and lace and accessorized with two brooches and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, Sophia is both a breathtaking beauty and a figure of grave dignity (no way you'd guess that she'd had an illegitimate son).
She is a modern figure of quiet dignity, courageous resistance and true grace under pressure of biblical proportions.
In September 2008, Robert Fisk wrote in Britain's The Independent that Alhaj, who he had met walking with a steel crutch after his release, was a figure of both dignity and shame.
Arsenault cloaks this fascinating figure in the shroud of dignity that hides the interior lives of too many leading African-American women.
