At the same time, not all sacred images got so reverential a treatment: some turned up in dining rooms and offices; a splendid Tang-period marble bodhisattva, one of the show's centerpieces, once stood in a music room window.

When she saw that her words were getting through to the pained man she had shifted the conversation subtly again, to the reverential treatment Bruenor had shown the warhammer after Wulfgar's apparent demise.

At the time, they were unusual for their less than reverential treatment and for the assertion that the Civil War might have been avoided.

The church has long enjoyed reverential treatment from legislators, prosecutors, judges and sometimes the press.

Sunday's audience evidently found comfort in its familiarity and, indeed, in Mr. Shaham's reverential treatment.

For American viewers, accustomed to reverential treatment of their President, the way opposition members harry Mrs. Thatcher makes J. R. of "Dallas" seem like a pussycat.

Mr. Afanasyev, who is an outspoken anti-Stalinist, expresses deep admiration for Mr. Shatrov as a pioneer, but objects to the playwright's reverential treatment of Lenin.

To the evident satisfaction of millions of Japanese, the men accustomed to reverential treatment in this hierarchical society found themselves being grilled by a doggedly independent group of prosecutors.

This is not to say that the Japanese study of primatology is cruel - far from it - just that it does not feel that their subjects should be given reverential treatment.

It had the sort of edge that propelled Mr. Galliano to authority, and this collection, thankfully, had more edge than his rather reverential treatment of old couture in the two previous seasons.