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More "Formality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss McLeish, the stenographer and telephone operator; Throckinorton, the dairy-man; Scott, the stockman; John Butts, the handy-man; Melissa, Watson and Hughes. The four nurses escaped official announcement because they had been clever enough to anticipate the formality. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... for the occasion, but not such, or so placed, as to interfere with the camp of 'Abdul 'Azeez. However, the well-known emblems of the Shaikh's presence were observed—namely, his tent being placed at the west end of the line, and his spear at its entrance. Here took place the formality of returning his visit to us yesterday; and here, after coffee and pipes, our presents were produced and given. The travellers were collected in a very long black tent, together with Deab, his son and friends. A screen ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... home and venture on board Captain L—-n's vessel with her lover; for, though this counsellor, according to a very good picture of him drawn by a famous master, has more of the wanton roguish smiles of a boy in his countenance, than the formality, wisdom, and gravity of those counsellors whom thou hast perhaps seen in Westminster-hall; and never wore one of those ponderous perukes which are so essential to the knowledge, wisdom, and eloquence of those gentlemen; yet we are assured none of them ever equalled ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... ruler is possessed of supreme power and authority, and controls absolutely, without limitation or interference, all the powers of government. His word is law and requires not the sanction of the people. His commands are absolute and require not the formality of judicial procedure, and are not necessarily in conformity with existing laws. Implicit obedience to his commands, however arbitrary, may be demanded, and there is no appeal. These are, theoretically, the powers ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... great Transgression; but indeed, all the Unreformed among us, may justly be cry'd out upon, as having too much of an hand in letting of the Devils into our Borders; 'tis our Worldliness, our Formality, our Sensuality, and our Iniquity that has help'd this letting of the Devils in. O let us then at last, consider our ways. 'Tis a strange passage recorded by Mr. Clark in the Life of his Father, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... was well satisfied with the fact and manner of the American answer, and regarded the incident as closed, but that it could not agree with portions of Seward's argument and would answer these later. This was done on January 23, but the reply was mainly a mere formality and is of interest only as revealing a further shift in the opinion of the legal advisers, with emphasis on the question of what constitutes contraband[480]. Possibly the British Government was embarrassed by the fact that while ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... not be said that such directions are undevotional—for doubtless they were piously meant; but it must be said that they are inartistic (if the word may be allowed), at variance with the fitness of things and counter to the instinct of purity. Formality and informality are two things that cannot be mingled to advantage. There is place and time for each. The secret of the power of liturgical worship is wrapped up with the principle of order. A certain majesty lies in the movement which is without ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... kissed her. It was done in surprise and embarrassed formality. He knew, when the moment was past that his parents had perceived that Susannah needed more decorous training. He concurred in believing this to be desirable, for the manners that had surrounded him were very stiff. Yet the memory of the greeting remained with him, a thing to be wondered at while ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... which we had hoped to bring about seems no nearer its conclusion than when first he came. Of late I have watched him and I have watched Yvonne; they are certainly good friends, yet not even the frail barrier of formality appears overcome betwixt them, and I am beginning to fear that Andrea is not only lukewarm in this matter, but is forgetful of his uncle's wishes and selfishly indifferent to Monseigneur's projects and mine, which, as he well knows, are the reason of his sojourn at my chateau. ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... under my own eye nearly all the time; and sometimes, in emergencies, I even gave orders directly to the subordinate commanders, without the formality of sending them through the corps commander. Hence I have spoken of that corps with the same freedom as of my own Twenty-third; and I hope I have not failed to give, so far as the very restricted scope of my account would permit, full ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... Ireland" is the following description of an Irish fair held during the fourth century—long before the advent of St. Patrick and Christianity: "The people of Leinster every three years during the first week of August held the 'Fair of Carman.' Great ceremony and formality attended this event, the King of Leinster and his court officiating. Music formed a prominent part of the amusement. One day was set apart for recitation of poems and romantic tales, another for horse and chariot racing. In another part of the ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... those of the sacred messengers of the gods. These demands, showing that the plebeians did not seek political power, were agreed to, the Valerian laws were reaffirmed, and a solemn treaty was concluded, each party swearing for itself and its posterity, with all the formality of representatives of foreign nations. The two leaders of the commons, Caius Licinius and Lucius Albinius, were elected the first Tribunes of the People, as the new officers were called, with two diles to aid them. [Footnote: The duties of the diles were various, ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... one point. The girls did not treat Miss O'Day with that studied formality which is more galling than open neglect as they had on former occasions. Mary, in particular, was quite agreeable, and Nora ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... indeed, for some years before, Mr Hirple had been a member, but, from some secret and unexpressed understanding among us, he was never made a bailie; for he was not liked; having none of that furthy and jocose spirit so becoming in a magistrate of that degree, and to which the gifts of gravity and formality make but an unsubstantial substitute. He was, on the contrary, a queer and quistical man, of a small stature of body, with an outshot breast, the which, I am inclined to think, was one of the main causes of our never promoting ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... the room without the formality of knocking—a formality she had never observed where Cecilia was concerned. The afternoon post had just come, and she carried some letters ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... is at your service," said Cleggett, for he understood that she wished to dress for dinner. He conducted her, with a touch of formality, to his own room in the cabin, which he put at her disposal, ordering her steamer trunks to be placed in it. Then, taking with him some necessaries of his own, he withdrew to the forecastle to make ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... in the past, and his presentiments were not agreeable. It seemed like the fluctuations of a dream—as if the action begun by that loud bloated stranger were being carried on by this pale-eyed sickly looking piece of respectability, whose subdued tone and glib formality of speech were at this moment almost as repulsive to him as their remembered contrast. He answered, with a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... cannot pleasure him better than to deprehend him: yet he hears you not till the third knock, and then comes out very angry as interrupted. You find him in his slippers[71] and a pen in his ear, in which formality he was asleep. His table is spread wide with some classick folio, which is as constant to it as the carpet, and hath laid open in the same page this half year. His candle is always a longer sitter up than himself, and the boast[72] of his window at midnight. He walks ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... be, and there are, things which energetic modern minds would really wish, with the reasonable modification, to restore. Dr. Clifford would probably be glad to see again the great Puritan idealism that forced the Bible into an antique and almost frozen formality. Dr. Horton probably really regrets the old passion that excommunicated Rome. In the same way Mr. Belloc would really prefer the Middle Ages; as Lord Rosebery would prefer the Erastian oligarchy of the eighteenth century. The Dark Ages would probably be disputed (from widely ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... approved young man, that she might have a child by him, who might inherit the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On the other side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the wellfavoredness of her children, might, without formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise, as it were, from this plot of good ground, worthy and well-allied children for himself. And, indeed, Lycurgus was of a persuasion that children were not so much the property of their parents as of the whole commonwealth, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... friendships formed have been many and close. We formerly celebrated our annual meetings and invited men of note. Our guests included Generals Howard, Gibbons, and Miles, the LeContes, Edward Rowland Sill, and Luther Burbank. We enjoyed meeting celebrities, but our regular meetings, with no formality, proved on the whole more to our taste and celebrations were given up. When I think of the delight and benefit that I have derived from this association of clubbable men I feel moved to urge that similar groups be developed wherever even a very few ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... not at home to await his return. The gentleman, added the note, should present a receipt in the handwriting of the lady herself. All this seemed mighty mysterious, and Harry was above all astonished at the omission of the name and the formality of the receipt. He had thought little of this last when he heard it dropped in conversation; but reading it in cold blood, and taking it in connection with the other strange particulars, he became convinced that he ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... had read the surface signs of the murderous fury that altered his own visage to a mask set with a pair of blazing eyes. And suddenly, as he dropped to the ground beside her, his question had swept aside formality, leaving them on the very edge of an intimacy which she had accepted, unconsciously, with her ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... periodicals of that period, the materials for which were furnished by these men, it may be sufficient to state that the "NOTES AND QUERIES" is conceived in the exact spirit of those works. The chief difference, besides the usual subject-matter, consists in the greater formality and "stiffness" of those than of this; arising, however, of necessity out of the specific and rigid character of mathematical research in itself, and the more limited range of subjects that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... butler entered the hall with some degree of bustle: he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish on which was an enormous pig's head decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at the head of the table. The moment this pageant made its appearance the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclusion of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the squire, gave, with an air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... miss her and our little home. Really, I don't believe I will know how to act if I become the wife of the mayor of Los Angeles. I have grown to detest formality, dances and dinners and receptions and things. If there is one thing Reggie and I will quarrel about that will be it. He has always been invited everywhere and he enjoys the niceness ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... the note of intense personal expression—the so-called subjective element, prominent in Beethoven—had come to the fore. The time just prior to Haydn had been called the "Pig-tail period" (Zopf-Periode) in reference to the stiff and precise dress and manners which had their counterpart in formality of artistic expression. Only towards the end of his career do we feel that breath of freedom in life and art which was generated by the French Revolution (beginning in 1791) and by the many political and social changes of that stirring period. From Haydn on, much more attention should ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... Mademoiselle, of the solemn union between man and woman? In this sense, marriage is a sacrament. But sometimes, alas! it is almost a sacrilege. As for civil marriage, it is a formality. The importance given to it in our society is an idiotic thing which would have made the women of other times laugh. We owe this prejudice, like many others, to the bourgeois, to the mad performances of a lot of financiers which have been called the Revolution, and which seem admirable to those ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... awaiting trial. She was quite friendless. To the world, she was only a thief in duress. At the last, the trial was very short. Her lawyer was merely an unfledged practitioner assigned to her defense as a formality of the court. This novice in his profession was so grateful for the first recognition ever afforded him that he rather assisted than otherwise the District Attorney in the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... said Mr. Tibbetts; "an' now all this beastly formality is over we'll have a bottle to celebrate things." And a bottle ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... above all, clearly impressed on it, that Moretto had attained full intelligence of all the pictorial powers of white. In the clearness, the cleanliness, the hieratic distinction, of this earnest and deeply-felt composition, there is something "pre-Raphaelite"; as also in a certain liturgical formality in the grouping of the virgins—the [104] looks, "all one way," of the closely-ranged faces; while in the long folds of the drapery we may see something of the severe grace of early Tuscan sculpture—something of severity in the long, thin, emphatic shadows. For the light is ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... apple pies, pudding, etc.; then iced creams, jellies, etc.; then water-melons, musk-melons, apples, peaches, nuts. It was the most solemn dinner I ever was at. Not a health drank; scarce a word was said until the cloth was taken away. Then the President filling a glass of wine, with great formality drank to the health of every individual by name round the table. Everybody imitated him, charged glasses, and such a buzz of 'health, sir,' and 'health, madam,' and 'thank you, sir,' and 'thank you, madam,' never had I heard before.... The ladies sat a good while, and the bottles ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... pleasant. She thought her a stiff, solemn-looking, elderly woman, in widow's garb. The Lady Elizabeth received her royal guest with the lowest of courtesies, and taking her hand, conducted her with great formality to a state chair on the dais, the Lord Le Despenser standing, bare-headed, on ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... garden; a dozen drives here radiated from one another like the spokes of a wheel, and here four mighty avenues made a St. Andrew's cross in the very centre—but the area was so immense, and the stature of the trees so great, that nothing of this formality could be observed in the park itself. Not only were the oaks and beeches of large, and often of giant proportions, but the very ferns grew so tall that whole herds of fallow deer were hidden in it, and could only be traced by their sounds. There were red deer also, almost as numerous, ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... with a little bow, the Jew pressed the catch and discovered its contents. But the richness of the treasure thus disclosed did not seem to surprise him; and, indeed, he had more than once been introduced with no more formality to plunder of far greater value. Fitting a jeweller's glass to his eye, he took up one after another of the pieces and examined them under the lamplight. Presently he replaced the last, shut down the cover of the box, turned a thoughtful countenance to Lanyard, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... much difficulty in explaining to her the parliamentary formality of testing the validity of elections. She listened with only one ear, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... fond. Had it been so, goodness of heart, and gentleness of manners, great assiduity, and inviolable and modest love, would not of themselves have been supposed sufficient recommendations. He would not have been allowed the least share of preciseness or formality, although those defects might have been imputed to his reverence for the object of his passion; but in his character it was designed to show, that the same man could not be every thing; and to intimate to ladies, that in choosing companions for life, they should ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... bequest to his brother in the event of its not being carried out. Obviously, he had not entertained the possibility of this contingency at all. He assumed, as a matter of course, that the conditions of clause two would be fulfilled, and regarded the conditions themselves as a mere formality." ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... effected his purpose. He borrowed from different parties seven or eight guineas, and when the masters of merchant vessels came on board for their instructions, he desired them to be shown down into his cabin, where he received them with great formality and very nicely dressed. The guineas were spread upon the desk, so that they ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... him while he went his last errand, offering his services at saloons and wherever, as he thought, an opening offered. In fact, he thought but little about it any more. The whole thing had become an empty, hopeless formality with him. He knew at last that he was looking for the thing he would never find; that in a cityful where every man had his place he was a misfit with none. With his dull brain dimly conscious of that one idea, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... procession through the streets of Florence and Siena, mid music and the pealing of bells—had given the new impulse to painting which brought them immortal fame. They were the heralds of the time when poetry of sentiment, beauty of color, animation and individuality of form should replace Mediaeval formality and ugliness; a time when the spirit of art should be revived with an impulse prophetic of ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... in which the great world was flitting and flirting at the same hour in the closes of Hyde Park, and if the young fellows with these poor girls had not the distinction of the swells in the prouder parade they at least equalled them in their aberrations from formality. ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... shoulder in the fierce press, and there rang again in his ears the cheer with which the Guards greeted the act of valour by the performance of which the baronet won the Victoria Cross. There is a feeling deeper than a mere formality in the half-dozen words that pass between Sir William Codrington and the old soldier of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, to whom the gallant general showed the way up to the Russian front, through the shot-torn vineyards ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... shore of the river, breakfast was a function, luncheon a mild festivity, and dinner an affair of high state. Madame herself always appeared at dinner suitably clad, and, moreover, insisted upon evening clothes for her son. Once, years ago, he had protested at the formality. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... crimes, as to justify them, to fall upon others, and to blaspheme God, and commit a new Treason: For your having of counsel, this is the reason for allowing of counsel: When a man would plead any thing, because he would plead it in formality, counsel is allowed. But you must first say in what the matter shall be, and then you shall ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... my daughters do not discover that I have injured some more than vital organ, I shall call to proffer my thanks with the most immense formality. I shall get out of the carriage in the manner customary in respectable neighborhoods, not roll out at your feet. Afterward you will, I hope, come and dine with us. I am devoured by a desire to become more familiar ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Deacon Skinner was early at the Hartman place, stalking angrily up to the low, green house, and, striding into the kitchen without the formality of knocking, demanded fiercely, "What do you mean by plastering your fence all over with red rags? Your pasture fence? I'll sue you for damages! My bull has lost one horn and is all battered to pieces, the rails are splintered, and it's a wonder he didn't get loose. ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... has something touching in its grave reserve; toward his nephews he displays the fondness of a father. Yet even there something lies between them that lends to their whole intercourse something of considerate formality. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... became a roar, blind passion was changed into purposeful fury. Who were these white men to march so boldly into the presence of the King without even the formality of sending an envoy ahead? For the King of Bekwando, drunk or sober, was a stickler for etiquette. It pleased him to keep white men waiting. For days sometimes a visitor was kept waiting his pleasure, not altogether ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... borderland letters begin, whether the frontier is between acquaintanceship and friendship, or between friendship and love. For there are moments in life when if you can't say "My own Blessed," you can say nothing—omission is the substitute for the absolute. Only with her, formality was a flavouring of intimacy, a curious fragrance like a faint clinging of unseen pot-pourri. And so, for a long time after he had sent her his first endless, beginningless out-pouring, her letters had begun, "Dear Mr. ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... despised all religion which was not of the heart. The vain practices of the devotees,[1] the exterior strictness, which trusted to formality for salvation, had in him a mortal enemy. He cared little for fasting.[2] He preferred forgiveness to sacrifice.[3] The love of God, charity and mutual forgiveness, were his whole law.[4] Nothing ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... step and a high head he walked straight into Sir Robert's room, without even going through the formality of knocking, to find Mr. Champers-Haswell seated at the ebony desk by his partner's side examining some document through a reading-glass, which on his appearance, was folded over and presently thrust away into a drawer. It seemed, Alan ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... the emigrant as the high privilege to which he is admitted can or should permit. I do not propose any additional requirements to those which the law now demands; but the very simplicity and the want of unnecessary formality in our law have made fraudulent naturalization not infrequent, to the discredit and injury of all honest citizens, whether native or naturalized. Cases of this character are continually being brought to the notice of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... seemed to me," observed Septimius, "that it is not the prevailing mood, the most common one, that is to be trusted. This is habit, formality, the shallow covering which we close over what is real, and seldom suffer to be blown aside. But it is the snake-like doubt that thrusts out its head, which gives us a glimpse of reality. Surely such moments are a hundred times as real as the dull, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... consequently is too correct. This may not be understood-but the old Goths of Germany would have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober-sober that they might not be deficient in formality—drunk lest they ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... many doubts and disturbances arose within Chang Tao's mind. It was not in this manner that men of weight and dignity sought wives. Even if Shen Yi graciously overlooked the absence of polite formality, would not the romantic imagination of Melodious Vision be distressed when she learned that she had been approached with so indelicate an absence of ceremony? "Here, again," said Chang Tao's self-reproach accusingly, "you have, as usual, gone on in advance of both your feet and of ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... looks upon this institution as a good, as a protection by the Government, or as an imposition, a despotism whose excesses do more harm than the violence of the criminals. Communication between people is paralyzed, for they fear to be maltreated for trifling causes. More importance is attached to the formality of the law than to the basal principle of it,—the first symptom of incapacity in government. The heads of the organization consider it their first duty to make people salute them, either of their own will or by force, even in the darkness of night. In this, their inferior officers ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... that worthy gentleman was escorted with all due formality to the old Schmittheimer place in Clarendon Avenue. Recognizing the fact that first impressions are lasting, we determined that Mr. Black's first impressions of our purchase should be favorable. So we ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... formality long enough to present my most respectful compliments to Miss Corson, even walking right past you, Governor North, to do so!" explained Stewart, marching toward Lana, smiling ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... deliberation was in the Bureaux. The Assembly was divided into thirty groups or committees, of nearly forty members each, who met separately, the Assembly in the morning, the Bureaux in the evening. This plan ensured thorough and sincere discussion, for men spoke their genuine thoughts, where there was no formality, no reporter, no stranger in the gallery. The Bureaux were disliked and suspected by the excluded public. The electorate, experiencing for the first time the sensation of having deputies at work ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... presenting the supplications and remonstrances of the colonists, Gonzalo was appointed general of the army which was to defend him against the Inca. As is usual in such matters, these resolutions were all extended with much formality, to give a colour of regularity to their proceedings. The remonstrants then proceeded to levy an army, for the payment of which they took possession of the royal treasure, and availed themselves of the property belonging ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... of things, (that is, in the case of a divided kingdom,) by the law of nations,[30] Great Britain, like every other power, is free to take any part she pleases. She may decline, with more or less formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system; or she may recognize it as a government de facto, setting aside all discussion of its original legality, and considering the ancient monarchy ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Page 80. "The formality of laying hand over head on a man." A pun; but an old one. I remember, when Swan[16] made that pun first, he was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... moments, then rose abruptly and disappeared down the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the formality of ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... a great rushing to and fro in preparation. Men bowed to each other with burlesque dancing school formality, offered arms, or accepted them with bearlike coyness. We stood for a moment rather bewildered, not knowing precisely what ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... surrounded by a circle of friends. By this touch of domesticity a great appearance of truth and naturalness was given, though really the attitude was at first more difficult to maintain satisfactorily than any one wherein stricter formality should be observed. She gently began her subject, as if scarcely knowing whether a throng were near her or not, and, in her fear of seeming artificial, spoke too low. This defect, however, she soon corrected, and ultimately went on in a charmingly colloquial manner. What Ethelberta relied upon ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... yielded with more gusto than usual to the meal, and even said that if Florrie 'continued to shape' they would have hot toast again. Hot toast had long since been dropped from the menu, as an item too troublesome. As a rule the meals were taken hurriedly and negligently, like a religious formality which has lost its meaning but ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the all- grasping and all-risking ambition, which make men great in stirring times. His heart was a little cold, his temper cautious even to timidity, his manners decorous even to formality. He never exposed his fortunes or his fame to any risk which he could avoid. At one time he might, in all probability, have been Prime Minister. But the object of his wishes was the judicial bench. The situation of Chief ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... told, Mr. Secretary,' said the woman, in tremulous tones, 'that my papers were all right, and that your assent was a mere formality. I have three other sons in the service, and this boy ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... Somerset and Seymour, quarreled. Each was very ambitious, and very jealous of the other. Somerset, in addition to being appointed protector by the council, got a grant of power from the young king called a patent. This commission was executed with great formality, and was sealed with the great seal of state, and it made Somerset, in some measure independent of the other nobles whom King Henry had associated with him in the government. By this patent he was placed in supreme command of all the forces by land and sea. ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Council could be only a formality. The king, the young queen, the Grand-master, and the cardinal returned to it, taking with them the vanquished Catherine, who said no word except to approve the measures proposed by the Guises. In spite of a slight opposition from the Chancelier ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... became in time purely symbolic. The bride was delivered to the husband, who as a formality gave a few pieces of silver as payment; but the ceremony proves how completely the woman was regarded as the ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... with more than her ordinary gravity and formality: "I did not know where to send for him. He left London some days ago. Perhaps you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Scorpions were pleasingly devoid of formality, and untrammeled by parliamentary conventions. There were no minutes, and the only officer was a secretary who sent out postal cards each week, reminding the members of the time and place of the ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... its master's cane on the back of the unfortunate poodle, till she howled and growled again. Poodle perceived the meaning of these unkind chastisements, and instead of becoming sulky, showed every disposition to howl on the instant a false note was uttered, without waiting for the formality of a blow. By and by, a mere glance of Mr. S——'s eye was sufficient to make the animal howl to admiration. In the end, Poodle became so thoroughly acquainted with, and attentive to, false notes and other musical barbarisms, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... buildings was finally completed and dedicated with much formality. The city government ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... way to the Federal wounded again. While agreeably to her wishes there was no formality in her reception, it was evident that the poor fellows had now learned to regard ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... and as he became king only by a divine decree, he had publicly to express, at the moment of his elevation, his debt of gratitude to, and his boundless respect for, the deity, who had made him what he was. In this case, however, the protocol embodied something more than the traditional formality, and its hackneyed phrases borrowed a special meaning from the circumstances of the moment. Amon, who had been insulted and proscribed by Khuniatonu, had not fully recovered his prestige under the rule of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... we are likely to remain together for some time longer in fairly intimate association, each of us the sole companion of the other. Do you not think that, under the circumstances, we might as well drop the formality of 'Mr' and 'Miss?' My name is Richard; but my friends call me Dick, and I should be glad if ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of a marching platoon the two young men halted before the ladies. Yet there was nothing of stiff formality about either Prescott or Anstey. They stood before their friends, ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... pardon, Captain Courtney, but if we could get a couple of guns run out abaft on the main-deck, we could silence that fellow pretty quickly," he said, touching his hat with all due formality. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... evidently been used for meetings of directors or political caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and whittled armchairs and a single long deal table, on which were ink and pens. The men sat down around it with a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of formality, their bent brows and isolated looks showing little community of sentiment and scarcely an attempt to veil that individual selfishness that was prominent. Still less was there any essay of companionship or sympathy in the manner of Steptoe ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... With this formality his responsibility ceases, and the responsibility for the extraordinary act falls solely on the general who gives the order. The officers and agents charged with supplies are placed under the orders of the general in command ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... but every person in his employ carried one everywhere. No matter how trivial the purchase, the person who received a dollar of Brewster's money signed a receipt for the amount. Newsboys and bootblacks were the only beings who escaped the formality; tips to waiters, porters, cabbies, etc., were recorded and afterward put into a class by themselves. Receipts for the few dollars remaining in his possession were to be turned over on the morning of the 23d and the general report ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... tent, and every one entered who pleased. Mahmoud made Ricardo go in along with him, for being Hassan's slave his entrance was not opposed. Several Greek Christians and some Turks appeared as appellants, but all upon such trifling matters, that the cadi despatched most of them without the formality of written declarations, rejoinders, and replications. It is, in fact, the custom of the Turks that all causes, except those which relate to marriage, shall be immediately and summarily decided, rather by the rules of common sense ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at from 4 to 7 years of age. The act of circumcision, called "sig-i-at'," occurs privately without feasting or rite. The only formality is the payment of a few leaves of tobacco to the man who performs the operation. There are one or two old men in each ato who understand circumcision, but there is no cult ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... deposited as soon as possible. Should you receive a check for a considerable amount and have no convenient bank account, you should go to the bank on which the check is drawn and have the cashier certify it by stamping "Accepted" or "Certified" across the face over his signature. That formality makes the paper as good as money so long as the bank accepting it ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... ruler), what obliges is only the intellectual nature of him that is commanded, in that he recognizes the lawful authority of him that commands, and so far determines and modifies his general duty of obedience as to do an action immaterial in itself for the sake of the formality of yielding obedience to lawfully constituted authority. So, in like manner, a specific promise, in itself immaterial and not enjoined by natural justice, is to be kept for the sake of the formality of ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to have recourse to the true ones. In the intercourse between nations, we are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too much weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. We do not act much more wisely when we trust to the interests of men as guarantees of their engagements. The interests frequently tear to pieces the engagements; and the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... I suppose not, but what I said was of no consequence," I replied; then, wishing to make a fresh start, I added: "But I am so glad to hear you call me Smith. It makes it so much more pleasant and homelike to be treated without formality. It is very kind ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... and grammar, and numbered among his pupils Aulus Gellius. He and ARRUNTIUS CELSUS devoted their talents for the most part to subjects of archaic interest. Erudition of a certain kind had now become universal, and was discussed with all the formality and exuberance of public debate. The disputations of the mediaeval universities seem to have found their germ in these animated discussions on trivial subjects, such as are described in chapters of Gellius to which the reader has already ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... I like to see folks familiar and friendly. Familiarity is the life of company, while stiffness and formality give it a chill which is quite disagreeable ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... without delays, without even changing carriages (when you travel by express). More than that: a parcel deposited at a station will find its addressee anywhere, in Turkey or in Central Asia, without more formality needed for sending it than writing its destination on a bit ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... this it suddenly occurred to her that some legal steps ought probably to be taken in order that Little John might be secure against all demands. She went to Edward in alarm, and felt no peace again until he reported compliance with every necessary formality. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... his matter, which is sometimes valuable, by his manner, in which he carries a certain flaunting, flowery, figurative, flirting style of amicable condescension to the reader, to an excess more tantalising than the most starched and ridiculous formality of the age of James I. There is nothing so tormenting as the affectation of ease ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Hungary I grew to like and admire the Hungarians. Natural in manners, hospitable, polite, there is something in them that wins Americans. How different the open hospitality and friendliness in Budapest from the stern, cold formality of ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... "statute." I was "citified," Horace said; and "citified" with us here in the country is nearly the limit of invective, though not violent enough to discourage such a gift of sociability as his. The Scotch Preacher, the rarest, kindest man I know, called once or twice, wearing the air of formality which so ill becomes him. I saw nothing in him: it was my fault, not his, that I missed so many weeks of his friendship. Once in that time the Professor crossed my fields with his tin box slung from his shoulder; and the only feeling I had, born of crowded cities, was ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... materials. He blames the sculptors of the last age, who thought they were improving by borrowing from the ornamental, incompatible with its essential character. Contrasts, and the littlenesses of picturesque effects, are injurious to the formality its austere character requires. As in painting, so more particularly in sculpture, that imitation of nature which we call illusion, is in no respect its excellence, nor indeed its aim. Were it so, the Venus di Medici would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... indeed, even when the woman was in no sense culpable, they reserved to the man the right of undoing it at any time he wished, solely because that particular marriage did not suit his political interests. And the marriage could be dissolved by the most expeditious means, without formality—by a mere letter! Nor was that enough. Fearing that love might outweigh reason and calculation in the young, the law granted to the father the right to give notice of divorce to the daughter-in-law, instead of ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... could claim them. They had no ecclesiastical connections; they stood aloof from the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Herodians and Essenes. They attracted similar attention, gathered the same crowds, and protested against the same sins. Rearing the same standard, they summoned men from formality and hypocrisy to righteousness and reality. They incurred the same hatred on the part of the religious leaders of their nation, and suffered violent deaths—the one beneath the headsman's blade in the dungeons of ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Attila and Italia from some opera unknown to me, which Antonio and Piero performed with incomparable spirit. It was noticeable how, descending to the people, sung by them for love at sea, or on excursions to the villages round Mestre, these operatic reminiscences had lost something of their theatrical formality, and assumed instead the serious gravity, the quaint movement, and marked emphasis which belong to popular music in Northern and Central Italy. An antique character was communicated even to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... ago. My hopes seemed likely to end in smoke—my great coincidence to prove valueless. I was so convinced of this, that I started to go; then I remembered you, and remained. I even took a room, registering myself for the second time that day,—which formality over, I sat down in the office ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... comrades, being cut off from social sympathy, is a familiar form of group pressure. Ridicule and derision are a kind of evanescent ostracism, a temporary exclusion from the comradeship. There are many degrees in the lowering of the social temperature: coolness, formality of intercourse, averted looks, "cutting dead," "sending to Coventry," form a progressive series. Economic pressure is more and more a resort of modern groups. Loss of employment, trade, or professional practice brings many a rebel ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones[710], and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Mr. Robert Randall, the agent of the people to England, against the alien bill, and who was, therefore, one of the proscribed, out of his ample estates on the Niagara frontier, and out of his valuable mill privileges on the Ottawa, by the formality of law, so that he was left bankrupt and penniless, and died in sorrow. Indeed anything in the semblance of a liberal was in those days proscribed in a country possessed of the image and transcript ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... there is certainly none where the life of man is held so sacred as in the laws of China. A murder is never overlooked, except in the horrid practice of exposing infants: nor dares the Emperor himself, all-powerful as he is, to take away the life of the meanest subject, without the formality at least of a regular process, though, as will be seen in the case of the late prime minister of Kien-Long, the chance of escaping must be very slender, where he himself becomes the accuser. So tenaciously however ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... in a manner not quite so gracious. In passing, it is well to state that all of Addison's relations with women seem to have occupied a lofty plane of chivalry. His respect for the good name of woman was profound, and whether any woman ever broke through that fine reserve and exquisite formality is a question. He was intensely admired by women, of course, but it was from the other side of the drawing-room. He kept gush at bay, and never tempted ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... often kissed by my grandfather, William I"). Next Prince Henry goes to seek the blessing of General Waldersee; then he has himself blessed by his mother, and by his aunt, and later he will go and get blessed by his grandmother, Queen Victoria. Slowly and solemnly each act and formality is accomplished in accordance with the rites prescribed by William. The Imperial missionary, the sailor transformed into a sort of bishop, sets forth. The quest of the pirate-knight is to conquer all China, to become ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... About them were people of the world of which neither had before had any but a distant glimpse. They heard English, American, French, Italian. They saw men and women with that air which no one can define yet everyone knows on sight—the assurance without impertinence, the politeness without formality, the simplicity that is more complex than the most elaborate ornamentation of dress or speech or manner. Susan and Freddie lingered until the departure of the last couple—a plainly dressed man whose clothes on inspection revealed marvels of fineness and harmonious color; a quietly dressed woman ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... infelicitous distinction was Tretherick. He had been divorced from an excellent wife to marry this Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been divorced; but it was hinted that some previous experiences of hers in that legal formality had made it perhaps less novel, and probably less sacrificial. I would not have it inferred from this that she was deficient in sentiment, or devoid of its highest moral expression. Her intimate friend had written (on the occasion of her second divorce), "The cold world does not understand ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... official will not use his authority to establish moral standards." Furthermore, "in New York and most Northern and Western states, even the slight check of the occupation tax is absent and there is no formality to be observed in entering our profession by any person, no matter how unreliable, irresponsible, or incapable, and whatever ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... in. Harry greeted him with exceeding cordiality and a fine blush. Armorer explained that he had come to speak to him about the proposed street-car ordinances; he (Armorer) always liked to deal with principals and without formality; now, couldn't they come, representing the city and the company, to some satisfactory compromise? Thereupon he plunged into the statistics of the earnings and expenses of the road (with the aid of his note-book), and made the absolute necessity ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... The earnestness of the youngster had touched me. Beneath the formality and the "sirs" there was a real ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... your highness that my lord begs you to await him; for he will meet you here in a few minutes," replied Princess Amelia's maid of honor, with respectful formality. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... this prisoner—whose identity was not yet ascertained—pointed to clouds on the horizon in the event of Lucien's being examined, the more necessary did the interrogatory seem to Camusot. Even if this formality had not been required by the Code and by common practice, it was indispensable as bearing on the identification of the Abbe Carlos. There is in every walk of life the business conscience. In default of curiosity Camusot would have examined Lucien as he had examined ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... of Sir Walter's parents. The eager curiosity of the active-minded woman, whom "the honourable Mrs. Ogilvie" had been able to keep upright in her chair for life, but not to cure of the desire to unravel the little mysteries of which she had a passing glimpse; the grave formality of the husband, fretting under his wife's personal attention to a dishonoured man, and making her pay the penalty by dashing to pieces the cup which the king's evidence had used,—again, the visitor himself, perfectly conscious no doubt that the Hanoverian lawyer ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... that there is needed still a formality. The queen will not be admitted into the Tower without the king's written and ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... in addition to that the accused was not ashamed to convict himself out of his own mouth. The sentence upon a traitor as upon a mutinous soldier is unalterable. It is death! No doubt, gentlemen, we are unanimously agreed upon that, and the formality of the ballot is all that ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... gently, as he puffed at a little brier which he had substituted for the adorable cob on account of the formality of Sue's dance, which we could hear going on comfortably without us, beyond the privet hedge whose buds were just beginning to give forth a delicious tang, "Peter is a great, queer kind of sensitive ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... petition were reserved for one; and with him she now joined the name of his child. But how pray for the son without the mother? It was positively a struggle; for Theodora had a horror of mockery and formality; but the duty was too clear, the evil which made it distasteful, too evident, not to be battled with; she remembered that she ought to pray for all mankind, even those who had injured her, and, on these terms, she added her brother's wife. It ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interposed, "Miss Harlowe is evidently very much agitated over something, therefore do not waste time over useless formality. I knew you, my dear, from the picture I saw of you at Mrs. Gray's," she added, turning to Grace, with a winning smile, that caused the young girl to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... went through the formality of greeting Kate next morning when she came down to breakfast. He was evidently ill at ease, and turned away his eyes when she looked at him, though he glanced at her furtively from time to time. His father chatted with him upon ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a colored man, standing before his log-house in the evening of a day in June. His wife was the only listener to the monologue. He had been examining a paper which was sealed and stamped with official formality, and which had started him upon the train of thought he had pursued. The question he was trying in vain to answer was only the simplest and easiest of the thousand strange queries which freedom had so recently propounded ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... insisted upon seeing her safely home and as it was so logically the thing to do, she accepted his escort with what grace she could. Throughout the short walk, however, her manner toward him was one of cold formality, and although Phil was by no means an uninteresting conversationalist on occasion, his best efforts failed to break down ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... be perceived that journeying in the woods is, in some degree, a deranger of ceremony and formality; that it necessarily restricts us somewhat in our conventionalities. The only remedy is, to make ourselves amends by a double share when we return to the civilized walks ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... of the mast "Old Glory" floated to the stiff breeze, the ceremony of raising the colors having been complied with according to Girl Scout formality. Cleo, as acting captain, pulled the slender rope, while the girls stood at ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... pieces out of his mouth and presented them with great formality to Monsieur de Chavigny, saying that for that evening the entertainment was ended, but in three months it should be repeated, when Pistache would have learned a ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the general—Forgive, my lord, said I, the seeming formality of my behaviour in this parting scene: it is a very solemn one to me. You have expressed yourself of me, and to me, my lord, with more passion, (forgive me, I mean not to offend you,) than perhaps you will approve ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... Imlac, "with more and more frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his conversation; he was sublime without haughtiness, courteous without formality, and communicative without ostentation. I was at first, great Princess, of your opinion, thought him the happiest of mankind, and often congratulated him on the blessing that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with indifference but the praises of his condition, to which he always ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... no need for the formality of an oath. Simpler to search you! and more satisfactory. Draw up here in ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... of torches and the grotesque play of shadows between the grotto-like walls of an abandoned coal mine. About her too ranged in the spectral formality of masked faces and black rubber coats; of peaked hats with low turned brims, stood ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... venture went forward amazingly. His application for membership in the Insurance Broker's Exchange was rushed through by influential friends and he became, through this action, a full-fledged fire insurance broker. He did not need this formality, however, to qualify him as a solicitor in other insurance lines. There was a long list of free lances, where the only seal of approval was an ability to get the business. Automobile liability, ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... burnished metallic lustre in their brown pupils. Both sat respectfully erect, as if anxious to record the fact that the boat was not their own to take their ease in; and both were silently reserved, answering briefly to the consul's remarks as if to indicate the formality of their presence there. But a distant railway whistle startled them ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of the cardinals, who at long intervals voted for the interdiction of some hostile book, deeply regretting that they could not suppress them all; and finally came the Pope, approving and signing the decrees, which was a mere formality, for were not all books guilty? But what an extraordinary wretched Bastille of the past was that aged Index, that senile institution now sunk into second childhood. One realised that it must have been a formidable ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... apostolic benediction. Then he was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle, where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's admiration, he was received in stately formality by the president of the council—Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the nature of his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop of Clogher, and so the ceremony of ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Between captains they ought to exchange such services, and Ulysses Ferragut, who was awaiting his son in Naples (so Esteban told him), would not wish to waste time just because of some ridiculous, red tape formality. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and chivalry, as the noble and generous Mississippians, would disdain, and consequently refrain, from repealing or violating their plighted faith, it may be answered, that the faith of the State, solemnly and sacredly pledged by an act of the Legislature, with all the formality and solemnity of a constitutional law, is violated by the provisions of this very bill under consideration. The faith of the State is pledged to the holders of the bonds, by the original and subsequent acts incorporating the Planters' Bank, as solemnly as national ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... boys who were the other guests impressed him still more. They wore gloves when they arrived. They showed neither forwardness nor timidity, but greeted each other and their host with grown-up dignity and formality. They seemed to know what to do at every moment, and how to do it. Keith was accustomed to decent manners. Social intercourse in the parental circle was not without grace, but this was something different. At the time he ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... This formality being accomplished with great ceremony, the husband and wife breakfasted, and then separated till the hour of dinner, invariably ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had said so, came in Lady Darnford and Lady Jones to chide me, as they said, for not coming sooner. And before I could speak, came in my dear master. I ran to him. How dy'e Pamela? said he; and saluting me, with a little more formality than I could well bear.—I expected half a word from me, when I was so complaisant to your choice, would have determined you, and that you'd have been here to dinner;—and the rather, as I made my request a reasonable one, and what I thought would be agreeable to you. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... their way out on deck without waiting for the formality of a call; and, there happening to be no sail- trimming to attend to, and every prospect of a fine night, they made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit under the shelter of the ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... I hope you know me better. But how's it to be done? I thought of going up in front of the whole quay and making him chew his lie at the point of my dagger. Then I thought more formality was needed—a friend or two, a select venue, and careful leisure time for so ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... these successes of the north-eastern and southern gentry went strong support for Confucianism, and a reorganization of the Confucian examination system. As a rule, however, the examinations were circumvented as an unimportant formality; the various governors were ordered each to send annually to the capital three men with the required education, for whose quality they were held personally responsible; merchants and artisans ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... perfectly plain to anybody that he liked her. There was in his manner towards her a mixture of business formality and the deferential attitude ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... difficulty totter along, while attendants follow them bearing sumptuous drapery and other funeral gifts. The scene settles down into the 'Forensic Contest,' a fixed feature of every Greek Tragedy, in which the 'case' of the hero and the opposition to it are brought out with all the formality of a judicial process, the long rheses representing advocates' speeches, the stichomuthic dialogue suggesting cross-examination, and ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... turned into a curious old street, built quite in the Turkish fashion, and composed of rafters knocked carelessly together, and looking as if the first strong gust of wind would send them smack over the water into Hungary without the formality of a quarantine; but many of the shops were smartly garnished with clothes, haberdashery, and trinkets, mostly from Bohemia and Moravia; and in some I ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... having previously addressed me otherwise than by a bow and blushes; and he advanced to me with an air of one stubbornly performing a duty, like a raw soldier under fire. I laid down my carving; greeted him with a good deal of formality, such as I thought he would enjoy; and finding him to remain silent, branched off into narratives of my campaigns such as Goguelat himself might have scrupled to endorse. He visibly thawed and brightened; drew more near to where ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I allude was practised in my own case. The custom was this: when a child of the family reached the age of six, or eight, a young slave of the same age and sex, was given to him, or her, with some little formality, and from that moment the fortunes of the two were considered to be, within the limits of their respective pursuits and positions, as those of man and wife. It is true, divorces do occur, but it is only in cases of gross misconduct, and quite as often ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor-General. What it was when they did receive it I never learnt, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long message to the Assembly drawn and signed by Paris, reciting my paper, complaining of its want of formality, as a rudeness on my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if the Assembly would send out some person of candour to treat with them for that purpose, intimating thereby that ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... difference of the English and French character peeps out amusingly at this critical time of the day; when, oh! commend us to a Frenchman's vanity, however grotesque it may sometimes be, rather than to our own reserve, shyness, formality, or under whatever other name we please to designate, and seek to hide its unamiable synonym, pride. Vanity, always a free, is not seldom an agreeable talker; but pride is ever laconic; while the few words he utters ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... John," remarked Dr. Senior. There was a tinge of stateliness about him, bordering upon formality, which had kept me a little in awe of him all the journey through. His son ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... him to receive the letter and also to treat about the exchange of prisoners. Patterson landed at the Battery, and was conducted to Colonel Knox's quarters at the Kennedy House, without the usual formality of having his eyes blindfolded. Washington, "very handsomely dressed"[72] and making "a most elegant appearance," received him with his suite, and listened attentively while Patterson, interspersing his words at every other breath with "May it please ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... "I suppose so, for I only came down last week myself. I have asked about twenty people for a week or two; they all know each other, more or less, so there won't be much formality. We shall amuse ourselves with coaching and golf, and anything else we please; and of course there will be plenty of music ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... we ask for that with out mouth that we care not whether we have or no. Where is the man that pursues with all his might what but now he seemed to ask for with all his heart? Prayer is become a shell, a piece of formality, a very empty thing, as to the spirit and life of prayer at this day. I speak now of the prayers of the godly. I once met with a poor woman that, in the greatest of her distresses, told me she did use to rise in the night, in cold weather, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... Tombs, awaiting trial. She was quite friendless. To the world, she was only a thief in duress. At the last, the trial was very short. Her lawyer was merely an unfledged practitioner assigned to her defense as a formality of the court. This novice in his profession was so grateful for the first recognition ever afforded him that he rather assisted than otherwise the District Attorney in ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... it was alike his policy as well as his inclination—at all events to appear—to suppress; and accordingly the parallelogram, which, generally speaking, was at the point of congelation, sometimes and of its own accord froze into the formality of a court, and then all of a sudden appeared to recollect that the Prince was the President, and that the whole party had assembled to enjoy liberte, fraternite, and egalite. As I was observing the various phases that one after another presented themselves to view, the principal officer ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... severity of the customs? The line was already extended widely enough when, by a 'Senatus-consulte', it was still further widened. The Emperor, to whom all the Continent submitted, had recourse to no other formality for the purpose of annexing to the Empire the towns of Kehl, Cassel near Mayence, Wesel, and Flushing, with the territories depending ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... none of the formality that Ambrose was accustomed to at Beaulieu in the great refectory, where no one spoke, but one of the brethren read aloud some theological book from a stone pulpit in the wall. Here Brother Shoveller conversed without stint, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... halted for a rest on the heavy grade. Long and carefully the Irishman looked about him and then, turning suddenly upon the still silent driver, he gazed at him for a full minute before saying, with elaborate mock formality: "It may be, Sorr, that bein' ye are sich a hell av a conversationalist, ut wouldn't tax yer vocal powers beyand their shtrength av I should be so baould as to ax ye fwhat the divil ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... sometimes used in addressing people of the rural districts, implies neither the familiarity of {Du}, nor the formality of {Sie}. ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... the son not give an account of the sermon he had heard the Sabbath before. But much listening to sermons had bred in the young man the inattentive heart, even though the ear was doing its duty. Roderick accepted sermons and church-going good-naturedly, as a necessary, respectable formality of life. That it must have a bearing on all life or be utterly meaningless he did not realise. His plans for life had nothing to do with church, and the divine call fell upon ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the results of the sexual mistakes of men and women are the unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Of course, I know that there are well-meaning people who argue that motherhood is the supreme fact and that the formality of a marriage ceremony is merely a medievalism in our laws and customs; but the inexorable truth remains that our modern social system is centered around the home which is strictly regulated by church and state and public opinion.[7] Whatever may be the philosophical ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... like you. I did at first; you seemed so fresh and daisy-like amongst all this heavy Dutch formality. I'll tell you everything; and if you can't have the country, I'll see that you do have some fun. We'll go out together, and you must see my father. He's a fine, dashing officer; he ought to have had a good command given him. I say, Frank, he's ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... it, seemed to him perfect. He saw Edith as much as ever, and far less formally than before. She treated him with affectionate ease. She had admitted by her behaviour on the night he returned that she cared for him, and, for the moment, that was enough. A sort of general relaxation of formality, due to the waning of the season, and to people being too busy to bother, or already in thought away, seemed to give a greater freedom. Everyone seemed more natural, and more satisfied to follow their own inclinations and let other people ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... a religious reform should be permitted. Early in 1840 the government discovered the existence of a secret association, called the "Philorthodox," one object of which was to preserve unchanged all the formality and superstition which had crept into the Greek Church. It had both a civil and a military head, and was believed to be hostile to the existing government, and on the eve of attempting a religious revolution, by which all reform should be excluded. Several of the leaders were arrested; ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... your refusal might bring considerable trouble not only to you but also to all your traveling companions. We should never resist those who are the strongest. Assuredly your compliance with this order cannot involve any danger; no doubt you are wanted for some forgotten formality"— ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... finished artist of his time, not below Kean in his most energetic displays, and far above him in the refinement of his taste and the extent of his research—equaling Kemble in dignity, unfettered by his stiffness and formality." He says acutely of Kean that "when under the impulse of his genius he seemed to clutch the whole idea of the man, ... but if he missed the character in his first attempt at conception he never could recover it by study." Of Kean, if of any actor, we might have feared that his notices ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the ticket-taking. If all the wrath which is poured out on the heads of the railway directors during this formality could take effect, they would be among the most miserable and unfortunate of mortals. Arrived at Euston Station, we will say, by the last train from the north—some sleepy, some hungry, and all tired—the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... principal causes of a change of location—that made more prominent the fact that, though sentiment might desire to save the church, it could never again be a pleasant place of worship. After the letters were read familiar hymns were sung, and, without any formality, the older members and their former associates gave reminiscences of the early days ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... scientist about whom the whole world was talking! The most gifted investigator of the day; the most widely informed; of all men on the face of the globe, the best equipped, mentally, to explore the unknown! Without the slightest formality I grabbed his hand and shook it until he ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... messengers of the gods. These demands, showing that the plebeians did not seek political power, were agreed to, the Valerian laws were reaffirmed, and a solemn treaty was concluded, each party swearing for itself and its posterity, with all the formality of representatives of foreign nations. The two leaders of the commons, Caius Licinius and Lucius Albinius, were elected the first Tribunes of the People, as the new officers were called, with two diles to aid them. [Footnote: ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... hardly went through the formality of greeting Kate next morning when she came down to breakfast. He was evidently ill at ease, and turned away his eyes when she looked at him, though he glanced at her furtively from time to time. His father chatted with him upon City matters, but the young man's answers were brusque and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... surprising differences. The soldier is drilled to fight men when the occasion arises; the sailor is at war all his life with the sea. The character of the sailor—his resourcefulness and vigilance, his patience and stoicism, his dislike of formality—is put upon him by his age-long conflict with his old enemy. In seafaring men there is a temper of the sea, admired by all who have ever made acquaintance with it. Those who were privileged to watch the performance of our flying men in the war know that there is developed ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Wood when the deer are there. What an eye you must have, Mr Gordon, to have made it out by yourself at once; but then, after all, it only put you to sleep. I wonder whether the Rookery will put you to sleep. We go in this way, so as to escape the formality of the front door, and I'll introduce you to my ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... and, what is better, it prevents formality, and puts an end to the earlier stages of etiquette. We feel a sort of relationship, a clanship among us; and, indeed, for the most part, we are related, as Mr. Amherst prefers entertaining his family to any others,—it is so much easier to be unpleasant ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... her place at the feast, regardless of formality. She was looking out for herself, irrespective of King or Duchess. She believed that a dinner, like the grave, ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... land, and we should see who would get tired of it first. Accordingly, an anchor was carried forward to a spot some forty yards off, where the water was deeper; the greater part of the passengers were made to jump overboard, without even going through the formality of walking the plank; while the remainder manned the capstan-bars. The chain-cable tightened, the capstan creaked, and the paddles dashed round; but we did not stir an inch till the natives, who had been so unceremoniously turned overboard, began to apply the pressure ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... happened in speeches to do her majesty right, "for there is no such matter as flattery amongst you all," he had rather the air of paying fine compliments than of speaking what he really thought; "so that," adds he, "a man may read your formality in your countenance," whereas "it ought to be done familiarly and with an ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... alone stood her ground, for Athena gave her courage. When Odysseus saw her he wondered which would be the better, to throw himself at the feet of the maiden and beg her to give him some clothes and to show him the way to the city, or to speak to her with more formality. ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... year or two after the house was built Mrs. Polk had given magnificent entertainments, scattering her husband's dollars in a manner that made his thin nostrils twitch, and without the formality of his consent. Magdalena paused at a bend of the stair and tried to conjure up a brilliant throng in the dark hall below, the great doors of the parlours rolled back, the rooms flooded with the soft ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... her a book containing the Chronicles of Jerusalem and the Expedition of Godfrey of Boulogne, and praying that an order might be issued under the Privy Seal for the restoration of the said book. With much formality the petition was granted. But we might go back several hundred years prior to either of these dates, for the Abbess Eadburga not only transcribed books herself and kept several scholars for a similar purpose, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... bread vigorously for a minute. "Don't depend too much on Pop. He's—variable. And don't go around with a dollar in your pocket—unless you don't mind losing that dollar. There are men in this country who would willingly dispense with the formality of racing a horse in order to get ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... the few novelists of the day who know how to make conversation, how to individualize the speakers, how to exclude rabid realism without falling into literary formality.—N. Y. Tribune. ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells
... or other Clara J. omitted the formality of springing forward and greeting my relatives effusively, so she simply said, "You are very welcome, Aunt Eliza and ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... came to a standstill a little way from the track, and his rider let forth a stream of strange profanity. The girl shuddered and began to think a wild beast might be preferable to some men. However, these remarks seemed to be a mere formality. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... procedure. This was known as a court of "pie-powder," that is pied poudre, or dusty foot, so called, no doubt, from its readiness to hear the suits of merchants and wayfarers, as they were, without formality or delay. At this court a great variety of cases came up, such as disputes as to debts, failure to perform contracts of sale or purchase, false measurements, theft, assault, defamation, and misdemeanors of all kinds. Sometimes ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... still felt the shadow of that hovering apathy, and he knew I felt it, and was always breaking off to give me reasons for it. For one thing, he wasn't used to his new quarters—hated their bigness and formality; then the requests to show his things drove him mad. "The women—oh, the women!" he wailed, and interrupted himself to describe a heavy-footed German Princess who had marched past his treasures as if she ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... if you would tell me," he said, with some formality. "There are two or three people here to whom ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the Kachime beside a very moody, restless host. Yagorsha dispensed with the formality of going to bed, and seemed bent on doing what he could to keep other people awake. He sat monologuing under the seal lamp till the Boy longed to throw the dish of smouldering oil at his head. But strangely enough, when, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... served as a wharf, and landed his party. Rosabel led the way to the Hole in the Wall, and they soon disappeared in the deep ravine. The skipper would have been very glad to go with them, but he was not invited to do so; and without this formality he was unwilling to do that which might possibly be deemed an intrusion. Rosabel wondered that he did not come with them, and would have been glad of his company; but as she did not feel herself above the boatman, it did not occur to her ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... passing quietly ahead of the others, went directly to the gates, where they were hidden from those who occupied the enclosure with O-Tar. The Keeper of the Towers may have noticed them, but so occupied was he with the formality of presenting the victorious Chief to the jeddak that he paid ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you, Mr. Reynolds, on more than one occasion, to call me Ella, instead of using the formality which rather belongs to strangers in fashionable society than to those dwelling beneath the same roof, in the wilds of Kentucky?" responded the person addressed, in a tone of pique, while she raised her head and let her soft, dark eyes rest ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Repos was a long low-ceilinged apartment, panelled with black oak, and fitted up in a rich and sombre style that was yet very different from the dull, heavy formality that obtains among three-fourths of the dining-rooms in English country houses. Indeed, throughout the appointments and fittings of Bon Repos there was a touch of something Oriental grafted on to French taste, combined with a thorough knowledge ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... good natured and congratulatory. The aristocratic contingent was inclined to be a little formal, but polite and not unkindly. The aristocrats were more or less related to one another, and most of them were connected, closely or distantly, with the Bucknors. Their formality in greeting Judith might easily have been accounted for by the fact that Big Josh Bucknor had kept the ball rolling in regard to old Dick Buck's kinship with the family. From the moment Miss Ann Peyton had made the statement that the Bucks ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... there should be no visitors to-day; only a nephew and a foreign consul-general, just to break the formality of the meeting. Mr. Neuchatel placed Myra next to himself at the round table, and treated her with marked consideration—cordial but courteous, and easy, with a certain degree of deference. His wife, who piqued herself ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... necessary, in which event the assent of the City Commissary is necessary. This assent, however, entails no local inquiry corresponding to the inquiries of the Local Government Board, simply because the German States have no Local Government Board, and no use for them; the proceeding is almost a formality, intended to remind the communes that the State, though devolved upon them their wide powers of self-government, likes still to be consulted now and then, and it is arranged expeditiously through the post. For, strange as it ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... Hardly had I returned to my delightful apartment at the hotel, when a messenger arrived bearing a superbly engraved command from Jupiter to dine with himself and Juno en famille. It was a kind, courteous, and friendly note, utterly devoid of formality, and we were to spend the evening at cards. Jupiter had indicated in the afternoon that he would like to learn bridge, and, inasmuch as I never travel anywhere without a text-book upon that fascinating ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... encouraged to consult him respecting my future plans. Plans, indeed, I had none regularly formed; but Lord Y——, by his judicious suggestions, settled and directed my ideas without overpowering me by the formality of advice. My ambition was excited to deserve his friendship, and to accomplish his predictions. The profession of the law was that to which he advised me to turn my thoughts: he predicted, that, if for five years I would persevere in application to the necessary preparatory studies, I should afterwards ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... go to a third person. Sir Adam hesitated a moment, and then wrote the name of one of his sisters as the conditional legatee. His wife had plenty of money of her own, and besides, the will was a mere formality, drawn up and to be executed solely with a view to checking Lady Fan's enthusiasm. He did not sign it, but folded it smoothly and put it into his pocket. He also took his own pen, for he was particular in matters appertaining to the ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... admirable character is always misrepresented on the stage. Shakespeare never intended to exhibit him as a buffoon; for although it was natural that Hamlet—a young man of fire and genius, detesting formality, and disliking Polonius on political grounds, as imagining that he had assisted his uncle in his usurpation—should express himself satirically, yet this must not be taken as exactly the poet's conception of him. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... "Formality?" And the lady, who was of portly appearance and uncertain age, gazed from the speaker standing deferentially before her, to a man of size, weight and importance seated in a comfortable chair at her side. "What does ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... of the second was that Paragot went to London. Some legal formality, the establishment of identity or what not, necessitated his presence. I daresay he could have arranged matters through consuls and lawyers and such-like folk, but Paragot who was childishly simple in business matters obeyed the summons to London ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... inspection of men and barracks, which was performed with much precision and formality, and often in full dress uniform, gave us something by which we could mark the weeks, as they slipped along. There was no religious service of any kind, as Uncle Sam did not seem to think that the souls of us people in the outposts needed looking after. It would have afforded ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... almost to the bone with work, rested above her breast. She breathed between lips which had no colour. About her, sleeping, was a kind of beauty. And there came over the girl a queer rush of emotion. The sleeper seemed so apart from everything there, from all the formality and stiffness of the ward. To look at her swept away the languid, hollow feeling with which she had come in; it made her think of the tors at home, when the wind was blowing, and all was bare, and grand, and sometimes terrible. There ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... if, indeed, after laying the matter before the proper authorities, such a formality is deemed necessary," said the girl, with a scornful inflection that cut her ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Joys refin'd, sincere and great, I'd chuse too Friends, whose Company wou'd be A great Advance to my Felicity. Well born, of Humours suited to my own Discreet and Men as well as Books have known. Brave, Gen'rous, Witty, and exactly free From loose Behaviour, or Formality. Airy and Prudent, Merry, but not Light, Quick in discerning, and in Judging, Right; Secret they shou'd, be faithful to their Trust, In Reasoning Cool, Strong, Temperate and just. Obliging, Open, without Huffing, Brave; ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On the other side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the wellfavoredness of her children, might, without formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise, as it were, from this plot of good ground, worthy and well-allied children for himself. And, indeed, Lycurgus was of a persuasion that children ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... appeared to realize all at once that the time for formality had come. Pitching his cloak higher on his shoulders, he fastened his eyes on a hole in the tapestry behind the Etheling's chair and began monotonously to recite his lesson: "Rothgar, the son of Lodbrok, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... expeditions, &c. My father is in such a state about me, that I believe I could get his consent to anything, but I suppose it would not be fair, and I have said nothing to him as yet. On Monday we go to Leffingham, which, I hear, is formality itself. After that, more state visits, unless I can escape to Oxford. My father fancies me not well enough; but pray unite all the forces of the Terrace to impress that nothing else will do me any good. Dragging about in this dreary, heartless way is all that ails me, and reading ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of surrendering. Who ever heard of a vote being taken under such circumstances? They were flying before the superior and overwhelming force of the enemy, yet they were sufficiently calm and self-composed to get through with the republican formality of taking the vote of the company. The men then under the command of Captain Moomau, of Pendleton, were his own company and some fifty belonging to the company of Captain Hull, of Highland, who had become separated from the other portion of their ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... vaguely a project to seek out the man who owned those elephants and plead for some fashion of redress for painful injuries innocently sustained. Perhaps the show gentleman might incline a charitable ear upon hearing Red Hoss' story. Just how the sufferer would go about the formality of presenting himself to the consideration of the visiting dignitary he did not yet know. It was all nebulous and cloudy; a contingency to be shaped by circumstances as they might develop. Really sympathy was the balm Red Hoss ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... courts administer the law, as they understand it, with dignity and firmness.[13] There are no lawyers upon the reservations but a friend may appear for a party to an action, or one accused of an offense and the trials are conducted with much formality and the pleas are frequently shrewd and eloquent. Every Indian is an orator by nature, and the courts afford the best modern opportunities to ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson
... angrily as she glanced at the signature before reading the contents. It began in the formal Italian manner,—"Most gentle Princess,"—and it ended with an equally formal assurance of respectful devotion. But the matter of the letter showed little formality. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... opened and closed behind her as she slipped up-stairs, and her father, without the formality of leave-taking, quietly let *himselt ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... answered, with a deliberateness intended to accentuate unmistakable scorn. "I usually leave places the moment they begin to bore me." And looking Rafael squarely in the face she added, with freezing formality, after a pause: ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... And the Professor upsets himself in his own lecture, thus: "If the middle tub is contained in the big tub, and the little tub is contained in the middle tub, then the little tub is contained in the big tub." Hegel says: "Common sense in its reaction against such logical formality and artificiality turned away in disgust, and was of the opinion that it could do without such a science as logic." Most true, Philosopher Hegel, you have absurdities of your own on a gigantic scale, but you do well to reject the petty ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... seem that we should not distinguish several species of divination. Where the formality of sin is the same, there are not seemingly several species of sin. Now there is one formality of sin in all divinations, since they consist in entering into compact with the demons in order to know the future. Therefore there are ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... breakfast by formal invitation is given, the service is identical with that of dinner a la Russe, and the bill of fare similar, although less extended; but the pleasantest repasts are those where perfect service is secured without formality. ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... no sort of formality is required; but for receiving interest, or selling, it is necessary to produce a power of attorney. An established rule is, that the seller always retains his right to half a year's interest at the succeeding stated period ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... would be concluded more quickly, and to his own surprise he had repeatedly promised himself in a morning that he would to-day give Gwendolen the opportunity of accepting him, and had found in the evening that the necessary formality was still unaccomplished. This remarkable fact served to heighten his determination on another day. He had never admitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but—heaven help us all!—we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... brought you here?" he inquired.—He adopted the familiar tu. The formality of vous was out of the question to a woman ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... when they met she could have laughed and wept over his straightened sentences and his difficult manner, knowing how little significant they were. With his eyes upon her and his words offered to her intelligence, she found herself treating his shy formality as the convention it was, a kind of make-believe which she would politely and kindly play up to until he should happily forget it and they could enter upon simpler relations. She had to play up to it for a long time, but her love ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... of, Marcella? You must be perfectly blind not to see that he complies with every possible requisite! The Regents' inspection is bound to be only a brief formality. Be good enough to ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... in order of frequency, that slang was more emphatic, more exact, more concise, convenient, sounded pretty, relieved formality, was natural, manly, appropriate, etc. Only a very few thought it was vulgar, limited the vocabulary, led to or was a substitute for swearing, destroyed exactness, etc. This writer attempts a provisional classification of slang expressions under ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... thus so speedily enabled us to come to a just and honourable verdict, and it gives me pleasure to inform you that the defence you have made is one that cannot be gainsaid, and, therefore, with the exception of one slight formality, there is nothing more for us to do but to set you at liberty and ask pardon for the constraint we regret having put upon you, and further to request that you take oath that neither to wife nor child, father nor mother, sister nor brother, fire nor wind, will you reveal anything ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... order without the formality of dressing, and the commodore, spreading the paper on ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... with the complete lack of formality one accords an old friend, though we had met for the first time that day. His whole face was scowling now, as he answered me brusquely—indeed, almost curtly; and yet there was something attractive about him, something that aroused both trust and ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... felt like it. I find it one of the most contagious expressions in the language. The girls did not seem to know who I was or what I was. Not until the second day did the girl who stood next to me ask my name—a formality gone through within the first five minutes in any New York job. I answered Cornelia Parker. She got it Miss Parks, and formally introduced me around the table—"Margaret, meet Miss Parks—Miss White, Miss Parks." Also all very different from New ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... to be eating cold chunks of pork and dry bread, which each guest carved for himself with a clasp-knife. Infinitely superior was this delightfully natural, manly style of feeding, than all the rubbishy artificial formality of the decently appointed meals served at the Bunk, thought he scornfully. The only drawback to his sense of exhilarating pride was the fact that Geoff was not a witness of his emancipation ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... bustle: he was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an enormous pig's head decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at the head of the table. The moment this pageant made its appearance, the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclusion of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the Squire, gave, with an air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, the ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... prim and stately little lady, and I think she did not intend to shake hands; but I felt pretty certain that under her coating of formality, she was eager for a chance to rhapsodize. "Oh, what a lovely child!" I cried; and ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... upon me yet more than her beauty. I then, in return, assured her that I had not supposed any of the family had remained at home, when I strolled to this part of the mansion. I begged she would not regard me with the formality of a stranger; and insisted that, as she was the cousin of my relation, she was also mine. To this ingenious argument she answered with so much good sense, and at the same time, so much gentleness ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... at the next Salisbury assizes, and, being acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pomeroy, was found guilty of manslaughter. He pleaded his clergy, went through the formality of being branded in the hand with a cold iron, and was discharged on payment of his fees. He lived to be the fifth Viscount Dunborough, a man neither much worse nor much better than his neighbours; and dying at a moderate age—in his bed, of gout in the stomach—escaped the misfortune ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... producing that instantaneous impression of harmony which is one of the secrets of effectiveness in carving. This is greatly owing to the constant change of plane demanded by an imitative treatment, as well as the want of formality in its background. The lack of restful monotony in this respect creates confusion in the lights, making a closer inspection necessary in order to discern the beauty of the work. Now the human imagination loves surprises, and never wholly forgives the ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... all possible care to make the apartments and situation of Cecilia commodious and pleasant, and to banish by her kindness and animation the gloom and formality which her mansion inspired. Nor were her efforts ungratefully received; Cecilia, charmed by every mark of attention from a woman she so highly admired, returned her solicitude by encreasing affection, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and without the formality of publication or proclamation, the women had agreed to meet on the day after the funeral for the purpose of discussing what was best to be done with the boy Fred. From the moment that Mrs. Davis had ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... deviation was advisable. Now at Beauvais and at Bourges the exact, proportions have been abandoned. For instance, at Bourges, to be exact, each of the two side aisles should have been half the width of the nave. But the architect was perhaps afraid of the great span, perhaps he dreaded too great formality, and he made the aisle next to the nave about 2 ft. 3 in. less than the width it ought to have had, if in exact proportion. The outer aisle was given almost, but not quite, the ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... substantial municipality in any continent that fancy or information might recommend. He could secure forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could despatch his servant to the neighboring office of a bank for such supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their religion, language, or customs, bearing ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... are thus cry'd out upon, there are persons yet Clear from the great Transgression; but indeed, all the Unreformed among us, may justly be cry'd out upon, as having too much of an hand in letting of the Devils into our Borders; 'tis our Worldliness, our Formality, our Sensuality, and our Iniquity that has help'd this letting of the Devils in. O let us then at last, consider our ways. 'Tis a strange passage recorded by Mr. Clark in the Life of his Father, That the People of his Parish, refusing to be Reclaimed from their Sabbath ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... the introduction he had hoped for. Fortunately he still had some sheets of Beagle and Company notepaper, with the engraved lettering and Office of the General Manager embossed thereon. He was in some doubt as to the proper formality and style of address in communicating with a Bishop: was it "Very Reverend," or "Right Reverend"? and which of these indicated a superior grade of reverendability? But he decided that a masculine frankness would not ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... the hostess brought out her police register for me to enter my name, nationality, age, profession, destination, etc. I had no doubt that my acquaintance of the night before had reminded her of this little formality in order that he might afterwards see what I had written. All innkeepers in France are liable to a fine if they do not make every traveller who passes the night with them leave this record of himself for inspection, but the formality is much more often omitted than observed. I have not been able ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... asleep and by the morning light, seem much younger even than they are? partly because the air and the light sleep of dawn bring a fresher bloom to the cheek, and partly, because the careless negligence and the graceful postures exclusively appropriated to youth, are forbidden by custom and formality through the day, and developing themselves unconsciously in sleep, they strike the eye like the ease and freedom of childhood itself. There, as I looked upon Isora's tranquil and most youthful beauty, over which circled and breathed an ineffable innocence,—even ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... introductions. The excitement of Mrs. Robbins precluded any such formality. All talked just as if they had ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... banks, for the most part, steep and irregular. It is here, accordingly, that the French gardening appears in all its genuine deformity; and that its straight walks and endless fountains display a degree of formality and art, destructive of the peculiar beauty by which the scene is distinguished. These gardens, however, were the favourite and private walks of the Emperor;—it was here that he meditated those schemes of ambition which were destined to shake the established thrones of Europe;—it was ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... eagerly accepted by the treacherous Mustafa; hostages were exchanged; Turkish vessels, as stipulated, entered the port of Famagousta, and took on board all those who wished to leave the island; nothing remained but the formality of delivering the keys of the city ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... close at hand. Mounting him bareback, I galloped after the mule herd, which had been stampeded. I supposed that I would be the first man on the scene. But I found I was mistaken. The Pawnee scouts, unlike regular soldiers, had not waited for the formality of orders from their officers. Jumping their ponies bareback and putting ropes in the animals' mouths, they had hurried to the place from which the shots came and got ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... our own, except in the one important difference, that they had necessarily much less glass than our modern gardens can command. In the flower-garden the grand leading principle was uniformity and formality carried out into very minute details. "The garden is best to be square," was Lord Bacon's rule; "the form that men like in general is a square, though roundness be forma perfectissima," was Lawson's rule; and this ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... thus, the Counsellor, who was present, had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered, as if the chief trial to be made were of men's memories. 'You have talked prettily, for a stranger,' said he, 'having heard of many things among us which you have ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... the triumph of Dame Deborah, or rather of Dame Nature, on this occasion, had more important effects than the former had ventured to anticipate; for Mrs. Christian, though she received with all formality the formal visits of the governante and her charge, seemed thenceforth so pettish with the issue of her remonstrance, upon the enormity of her niece dancing to a little fiddle, that she appeared to give up interference in her affairs, and left ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... of fact, it is impossible to teach without attention. A person may hold class—go through the formality of a class exercise—but he can really teach only him who attends. The first big, outstanding thought with reference to attention is that we should secure it, not so much in the interest of order, important as it is in that connection, ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... country house, and there was none of the stateliness and ceremony here which characterised the Governor's Palace at Irkutsk. Nor was I sorry for it, for in this land of hunger and long distances man can well dispense with formality and etiquette. We sat down over a score to lunch, including half a dozen ladies, one, at least, of whom was young and attractive, and as daintily gowned as though she had just returned from a drive in the Bois de Boulogne. But Madame V—— the bride of a Government ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... and his fan or umbrella answering all purposes of protection from the sun. A mandarin, on the contrary, wears in the ball of his cap his badge of office, and the time even when he changes his winter for his summer hat is regulated by the Board of Rites. The poor coolie is troubled by no such formality, and wears a great umbrella-like head covering, that he perches on a little bamboo tower, six inches above his crown, tying down the whole concern by a string that passes behind his ears. When at leisure, he wears his long cue trailing to his feet; when busy, it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Jacques, as he was bound to do; but the examination had been, as it always is, a mere formality, and ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... of the fact of their courtship, Calvin and Hannah were permitted to sit undisturbed in the formality of the parlor. The rest of the family congregated with complete normality in the kitchen. The parlor was an uncomfortable chamber with uncomfortable elaborate chairs in orange plush upholstery, a narrow sofa, an organ of highly varnished lightwood ornamented with scrolled fretwork, ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with formality, with a certainly stilted, "learned by rote" manner, very different from his usual ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... it is evident, that formality is a term of general import. It implies, that in religious exercises of all kinds the outward and [the] inward man are at diametrical variance."—Chapman's Sermons ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... familiar. "What did you find in the Bay?" she would ask, as she shook hands with Captain Price; and he would answer as to one who understood: "It was piling up a bit from the sou'west;" or "smooth enough to skate on," as the case might be. Then, without further formality, he would return to his papers, and Arthur Price would hand over his work to the third mate and wash his hands before coming up to make himself agreeable. He always had more to say about the trip than his father, and he was prone to translate the weather into shore ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... resolution with iron force, and received her son, when the day after his return he rode over, with freezing formality. But with all that, she was none the less deeply displeased when he called and came to dinner and left ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... stocky, in striking contrast to the President, he is a man of commanding appearance, and gives one the impression of a born leader of men. He enters with quick military precision and salutes with studied formality the President as his superior officer. The President answers his salute, ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... room. Is it to be a bedroom merely, or a combination of bedroom and boudoir? Is it to be a formal reception-room, or a living-room? Is it to be a family library, or a man's study? If it is a small flat, do you aim at absolute comfort, artistically achieved, or do you aim at formality at the expense ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... efficiency infused into our churches by his ministrations—for his rebukes, exposures and denunciations of sin, in and out of the Church; for holding up Christ at all times, as the only hope of lost sinners; for tearing away the mask of a heartless formality in the profession and practice of religion; for the thousands of all classes and ages in the forests and prairies of Texas, where he has pitched his great gospel tent, and in the cities of Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, St. Louis, and in the ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... letter, as of the previous one, was unmistakably cold, but Parson Jack read nothing more in it than professional formality. On the Wednesday, however, when he reached Plymouth, he presented himself at Messrs. Cudmore's office, and was admitted to see the head of the firm, the manner of his reception began to ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... so free from formality charmed them at first, then appeared stupid to them, for the author effaces his work while displaying in ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... and his contemporaries, that they were able to reckon up, in all the principal churches, the succession of bishops from the first. (Adv. Haeres. 1. iii. c. 3.) I remark these particulars concerning Irenaeus with more formality than usual, because the testimony which this writer affords to the historical books of the New Testament, to their authority, and to the titles which they bear, is express, positive, and exclusive. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... therefore, he was put in irons, and preparations were made to execute him on the next day; for, from what he had heard, the Governor considered that this pirate was no better than a wild beast, and that he should be put to death without even the formality of ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... impulsive Bruno, who is just of an age to go away to a city school. Next comes his sister Mea, whose fault is that she is too submissive and confiding. Kurt, the second boy, is the most enterprising and humorous of the family; whereas, Lippo, another boy, is the soul of obedience and formality. Most original of all is Maezli, probably not over six, as she is too young to ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... partially quake-wrecked gas works, I found some pieces of timber out of which I constructed a sort of framework for a large A tent. I borrowed a hatchet from another refugee, a stranger in adversity. The disaster had broken down the barriers of formality and we all lent a willing hand each to the other. I secured some spare rope and got up my framework. This was covered to windward with some Indian blankets sewn together by those we were trying to make comfortable. Under that ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... his horse—which looked fresh. He had already noticed that Pete's gun hung well down and handy, and assumed correctly that it was not worn for ornament. The Spider knew that the drink was a mere formality—that the stranger was not a drinking man in the ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... bond of friendship. It had been tested in the struggles of public life, and cemented by many interchanges of confidence in their private relations. Lord Sydney, however, appears upon some occasion to have forgotten, in his official capacity as Secretary of State, the formality with which the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland should have been addressed, and to have lapsed, perhaps unconsciously, into that familiar tone which, no doubt, sat more easily upon him in writing to his friend, ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... get to know people," said Mr Rubb. "That's what makes me like these sort of places so much. There's no stiffness and formality, and all that kind of thing. Now in London, you don't know your next neighbour, though you and he have lived there ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... an artist overcame any timidity she might have been supposed to possess, and, waiving the formality of an invitation, she began, to Frowenfeld's consternation, to sing, in ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
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