"Affectation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to enter into the disputes with the directors, which preceded the return of the governor-general to Europe. He was charged with lavishness of living, with the affectation of being the director of the directors, with extravagance in the erection of the palace at Calcutta, and with equal extravagance in the establishment of the Indian college. But these charges have long since been forgotten; they speedily vanished; investigation ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... by what lay nearest him. "One must first thoroughly enter into life, before the affairs of the world can seize upon us!" said he. "With the greater number of those who in their early youth occupy themselves with politics, it is merely affectation. It is with them like the boy who forces himself to smoke tobacco so as to appear older than he really is." Beyond his own country, France was the only land which really interested Otto. Here Napoleon ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... no willing victim of a fascination, which had audaciously deranged his carefully mapped campaign of life; that he would have set his heel on his own insurgent heart, had it been possible; and she honored him for the stern integrity that forbade his affectation of a warmth of feeling which she was now conscious she ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... subject give no hope of effecting that. Some poor palliative is probably all we shall obtain. The Marquis de la Fayette goes hand in hand with me in all these transactions, and is an invaluable auxiliary to me. I hope it will not be imputed either to partiality or affectation, my naming this gentleman so often in my despatches. Were I not to do it, it would be a suppression of truth, and the taking to myself the whole merit where he has ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... was seen, And Ceres edg'd her fields between, And on each hill-top mounted high, Her sickle wav'd in extasy; Till Ross, thy charms all hearts confess'd, Thy peaceful walks, thy hours of rest And contemplation. Here the mind, With all its luggage left behind, Dame Affectation's leaden wares, Spleen, envy, pride, life's thousand cares, Feels all its dormant fires revive, And sees "the Man of Ross" alive; And hears the Twick'nham Bard again, To KYRL'S high virtues lift his strain; Whose own hand cloth'd this far-fam'd hill With rev'rend elms, that shade ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... told him exactly the truth, and explained what we were trying to do in Frankfort. I dare say I looked honest and rather stupid. He asked when I set out; in what direction I came; questioning me with a great affectation of indifference; wanted to know if I had met many persons, and I told him quite truthfully I met no one but the man I understood was a forester; ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... of this association (which calls itself the 'Society for Pure English') are of course well aware of the danger of affectation, which constitutes the chief objection to any conscious reform of language. They are fully on their guard against this; and they think that the scheme of activity which they propose must prevent their being suspected of foolish interference ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 1 (Oct 1919) • Society for Pure English
... of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of some one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of presumed superiority and affectation of "knowing the whole thing," browbeat and ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want of that wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is possible. Of public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any shape; and yet ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Mr. Lincoln signed this most important state paper was thoroughly in keeping with his nature. He hated all shams and show and pretense, and being absolutely without affectation of any kind, it would never have occurred to him to pose for effect while signing the Emancipation Proclamation or any other paper. He never thought of himself as a President to be set up before a multitude and admired, but ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... he continued, "are to answer three purposes, since there are no less than three causes from which the silence of young ladies may proceed: sorrow, affectation, and stupidity." ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... the altered mood of their host; for it was merely the reflection of his sullen gravity that had eclipsed their own vivacity. The instant, therefore, that he led the way, the hall began to resound with jest and laughter. The poet, with some humiliation, which he endeavored to conceal beneath an affectation of wounded dignity, commenced rolling up his manuscript, not before a splash of wine from a carelessly filled flagon had soiled the fair-written characters. More flasks were placed upon the table by ready and obedient hands—and from that moment ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... regards little else than the latter; but I, a very ignorant young girl, may be permitted to follow the dictates of my fancy, and the capricious guidance of my imagination; at least there shall be neither pretension nor affectation. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... live thing in her breast. He was commanding someone to "catch that dog and tie it up, for it was bewitched, and did not know him or anyone," then the sound of a dog being dragged away, whining feebly, and then the door opened. First Ishmael came in with an affectation of swaggering boldness, but looking like a man suffering from the effects of a long debauch. About his eyes were great black rings, and in them was a stare of sleeplessness. He carried a double-barrelled ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... ardour degenerated into mannerism, and he acquired habits and tricks of arrangement and style, among which figured his favourite upturned heads, that in the end were ill drawn, and, like every other affectation, became wearisome. In the process of falling off as an artist, when mere manual dexterity took the place of earnest devotion and honest pains, Perugino had a large studio where many pupils executed his commissions, and where, working for gain instead of excellence in art, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... affectation of indifference, Morris proposed a game of pitch-and-toss. To what will not the diplomatist condescend! It was John's favourite game; indeed his only game—he had found all the rest too intellectual—and he played it with equal skill and good fortune. To Morris himself, on the other hand, the whole ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... usual horror of the egotistical, he flatly declined to give. "I will not venture on a psychological self-portraiture," he writes, "fearing—and I believe with sufficient reason—to be betrayed into affectation, dissimulation or some other alluring shape of lying. I believe that all autobiographical sketches are the result of mere vanity—not excepting those of St. Augustine and Rousseau—falsehood in the mask and mantle of truth. Half ashamed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... tendencies—and their effect upon the servile tribe of imitators, the reviewer observes: 'The study of German became an epidemic about the time that CARLYLE broke out; the two disorders aggravated each other, and ran through all the stages incident to literary affectation, until they assumed their worst form, and common sense breathed its last, as the 'Orphic Sayings' came; those most unmeaning and witless effusions—we cannot say of the brain, for the smallest modicum of brains would ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... be transported with mirth, or dejected with sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate; seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without affectation. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... truest and most exquisite class; every circumstance is adorned with that species of imagination, which enlists itself under the banners of delicacy and sentiment. A work of sentiment, as it is called, is too often another name for a work of affectation. He that should imagine that the sentiments of this book are affected, would indeed be entitled ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... a girl of my limited experience to speak of this. I hear so much of the good sense of the nation, that I dare not say aught against its society, and it would be affectation for me to pretend to commend it; but as for your females, judging by my own poor means, they strike me as being singularly well cultivated and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... amusement of the family thus assembled, an old glee-man sung to a harp, which had but four strings, a long and apparently interminable legend, upon some religious subject, which was rendered almost unintelligible to Eveline, by the extreme and complicated affectation of the poet, who, in order to indulge in the alliteration which was accounted one great ornament of Saxon poetry, had sacrificed sense to sound, and used words in the most forced and remote sense, provided they could be compelled into his service. There was also all the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Green, "is now virtually extinct, he is killed by war. As soon as he gets anywhere near a trench, he drops his cloak of affectation, and becomes a reasonable human being—always excepting, of course, certain young subalterns ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... no writer of the present day who excels A. S. Roe, in his particular line of fiction. He is distinguished by his fidelity to nature, his freedom from affectation, his sympathy with the interests of everyday existence and his depth and sincerity of feeling. His stories appeal to the heart and strengthen ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... entire week, Father Walsh acting as ambassador between them and the Viceroy; at length, in spite of all politic considerations, they unanimously rejected the servile doctrine of the "Remonstrance," substituting instead a declaration of their own dictation. Ormond now cast off all affectation of liberality; Primate O'Reilly was sent back to his banishment, the other prelates and clergy were driven back to their hiding-places, or into exile abroad, and the wise, experienced, high-spirited duke, did not hesitate to avail himself of "the Popish plot" mania, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... expression: for the features are not irregular; and, but for its bilious colour, the face could scarcely be termed ill-looking. The eyes do not squint; and the thin lips appear making a constant effort to look smiling and saint-like. Perhaps it is this outward affectation of the saintly character— belying, as it evidently does, the spirit within, that produces the unfavourable impression. In earlier youth, the face may have been better favoured; but a career, spent in the exercise ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... perversity—not upon their parts who employ them now in their acquired senses, but on theirs from whom little by little they received their deflection, and were warped from their original rectitude. A 'prude' is now a woman with an over-done affectation of a modesty which she does not really feel, and betraying the absence of the substance by this over-preciseness and niceness about the shadow. Goodness must have gone strangely out of fashion, the corruption of manners must have been ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... lyrics certainly does occur. Virgil imitated Theocritus, and the freshness of the Greek Idyll became the convention of the Roman Eclogue. When such conscious imitation takes place, it is perfectly obvious. There is no mistaking the affectation of an urban lyrist, whose lovers masquerade as shepherds in ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... other men, but he will have all the strength and felicity with which nature has endowed him. More than that he cannot attain, and he will fall very short of it in snatching at the grace which is another's. Do what he will, he cannot escape from the infirmities of his own mind: the affectation, arrogance, ostentation, hesitation, native in the man will taint his style, no matter how closely he may copy the manner of another. For evil and for good, LE ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... kneeling, mallet in hand, and supporting his favourite work. There is a touching simplicity in this union of the artist and his labours, made in these instances all the more impressive by its utter want of pretension. There is no affectation—no studied artistic or classical portraying; we have simply the man and his work before us, appealing by their dumb native eloquence to that homage and love, which are their due by ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... the client, 'there is no want of blood; Royal in origin, if it comes to that. To the House of Bourbon I have no objection, in itself, that would be idle affectation.' ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... studied it all for years; it was sordid and crowded and cheap, perhaps, but it was honest and happy, too, and it was real. There was no affectation here, even the premature spring hats, and the rouge, and the high heels were an ingenuous bid for just a little notice, just a little admiration, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... Falkland," she said, eagerly, "this is not affectation. I am very tired; but rather than prevent your amusement, I will endeavour to go on." "Nonsense, child," said Lady Margaret, "you do seem tired. Mrs. Dalton and Falkland shall go to the rock, and I will stay here with you." This proposition, however, Lady Emily (who ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be practicable to reduce the height of some of the smaller apartments, but it is usually much more convenient to keep the ceilings of the main rooms of uniform height, even if this does upset the 'correct proportion' which critics attempt in vain to establish. To make ceilings very low seems an affectation of humility or of antiquity not justified by common sense. In the polar regions, where the sun never reaches an altitude above twenty-three degrees, low rooms and short windows would be entirely satisfactory. In the torrid zone, where it is not safe to build more than one story for fear of ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... the Bloater, with a knowing smile, the knowingness of which consisted chiefly in the corners of the mouth being turned down instead of up. This peculiarity, be it carefully observed, was natural to the Bloater, who scorned every species of affectation. Many of his young friends and admirers were wont to imitate this smile. If they could have seen the inconceivably idiotic expressions of their countenances when they tried it, they would never have ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... fingers and conducted her with all the airs and graces of the olden time through the crowd assembled in the church. At length, preceded by the beadle in full costume, she approached the place where we were standing. The graceful simplicity of her manners formed an admirable contrast to the affectation of the old chevalier. With a low courtsey, and with a smile which united the sweetest expression to the most perfect modesty, she presented her purse to each of us in our turn. I was no longer at the happy age when the heart is carried away by every sweet glance; but I own that, for the moment, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... corrupting the public judgment for half a century, and require a twenty years war, campaign after campaign, in order to dethrone the usurper and re-establish the legitimate taste. But that a downright simpleness, under the affectation of simplicity, prosaic words in feeble metre, silly thoughts in childish phrases, and a preference of mean, degrading, or at best trivial associations and characters, should succeed in forming a school of imitators, a company of almost religious admirers, and this too ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... five dollars vanished in as many minutes. Oppressed by consuming anxiety he could scarcely breathe in the close, stale air. Em gambled with an affectation of careless indifference; she asked in an off-hand manner for cards; paid her losses with a loud laugh. Jake invariably gave one rapid glance at his hand, and then threw it down upon the table without separating his discard. Mr. Ottinger, it was plain, was superstitious—he edged ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... hand, you must carefully shun the affectation of bombastic diction—it is lamentable to see a preelucidated theme rendered semidiaphonous, by the elimination of simple expression, to make room for the conglomeration of pondrous periods, and to exhibit the phonocamptic coxcombry of some pedant, who mistakes ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... and bringing down the Sister upon them, so awkward to have her in the drawing-room in that dress, but Sisters always thrust themselves into families. She hoped she had shown my Lady that she was not to be overawed by a title— such affectation, not using it! No consideration for her; the servants regularly spoilt, both of them; Martha a vulgar insolent creature, and Sibby disgustingly familiar and slovenly, no good at all, not even to keep Theodore out of the way. At which Theodore, knowing no more than ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Vices of Style opposed to the Sublime: Affectation, Bombast, False Sentiment, Frigid Conceits. The cause ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... exceedingly well—clear, methodical, and argumentative; but his eloquence, like himself, is not so graceful as it is upon the whole manly; and there is a little tendency to verbosity in his language, as there is to corpulency in his figure; but nothing turgid, while it is entirely free from affectation. The character of respectable is very legibly impressed, in everything about the mind and manner of his lordship. I should, now that I have seen and heard him, be astonished to hear such a man represented ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... gambling; we just play for small amounts," exclaimed Chad, eagerly, forgetting his affectation, and speaking just like anybody. "All the fellows do it; why, I've played cards and drunk liquor since I was twelve years ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... was the last learned schoolmaster who was professedly an amateur of the rod; and in that profession there was more of humour and affectation than of reality, for with all his habitual affectation and his occasional brutality, Parr was a good-natured, generous, warm-hearted man; there was a coarse husk and a hard shell, like the cocoa-nut, but the core was filled with the milk ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... the perfection of honesty and integrity, without the slightest affectation of interest or artificiality of manner, and it was this fresh complexity of her character that utterly baffled me. I could not determine whether, or ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... and preservation of such classics as had survived the destructive era known as the Dark Ages. Denied a name of his own, he adopted a Latin one to his liking, thus from necessity setting a fashion his imitators followed from affectation. When approached in the days of his fame by the Sanseverini with proposals to recognise him as a kinsman, he answered with a proud and laconic refusal.[5] The Academy, formed of super-men infected with pagan ideals, contemptuous of scholastic ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... study to the ordering of one's outward movements: for Ambrose says (De Offic. i, 18): "A becoming gait is one that reflects the carriage of authority, has the tread of gravity, and the foot-print of tranquillity: yet so that there be neither study nor affectation, but natural and artless movement." Therefore seemingly there is no virtue about the style of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... youthful and innocent vanities with the slow paralysis of mere pride. Posing means that one is still fresh enough to enjoy the good opinion of one's fellows. On the other hand, the true cynic has not enough truth in him to attempt affectation; he has never even seen the truth, far less tried to imitate it. Now we might very well take the type of Mr. Chester on the one hand, and of Sim Tappertit on the other, as marking the issue, the conflict, and the victory which really ushered in the nineteenth century. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... by many feet with little thought of those who lay below. Even from that refuge his bones have been driven forth, but his name remains in the corner of the Hall of the Great Council, where—with a certain dramatic affectation—the painter-historians have painted a black veil across the vacant place. "This is the place of Marino Falieri, beheaded for his crimes," is all the record left of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of gallantry and polite accomplishments, he was acceptable to women of society. The same tongue that bullied from the bench, when witnesses were perverse or counsel unruly, could flatter with such melodious affectation of sincerity, that he was known as a most delightful companion. As a musical connoisseur he spoke with authority; as a teller of good stories he had no equal in town. Even those who detested him did not venture ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... which we do not find that especial note of tragic style, concise and pointed and tipped as it were with fire, which usually makes it impossible for the dullest reader to mistake the peculiar presence, the original tone or accent, of John Webster. If the epithet unique had not such a tang of German affectation in it, it would be perhaps the aptest of all adjectives to denote the genius or define the manner of this great poet. But in this tragedy, though whatever is said is well said and whatever is done well done, we miss that sense of positive and ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... spite of sighing and groaning, and hard fare and hard work, Clarendon is getting better very fast, and some of the sailors, who at first laughed at his affectation, are beginning to have a profound respect for him, and he in his turn seems to look much more benevolently upon mankind in general, and to be able to interest himself in the rough characters around him. I think he cut the greatest figure washing out his red-flannel shirt yesterday, and ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... Hosmer and Therese had met alone since his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full consciousness of what lay in the other's mind. Therese felt that however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... curious details respecting savage tribes and distant lands rarely visited by learned or worldly travellers. Unfortunately, such books are, for the most part, written in a style at once so wearisome and so full of religious affectation, that only a particular class of readers can digest them. The volumes before us—though recalling by their origin, and certain peculiar views of the writer, the class of works we have described—are very superior both in form and matter. We doubt if any publications, at once so diverting ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... do not understand; profess that which they were never, at any time of their life, taught. Their method of handling a text is altogether unique and extraordinary. Their remarks concerning Divine things are even puerile. Their very citations of Scripture are incorrect. Their cool affectation of superiority of knowledge, their claim to intellectual power, would be laughable, were the subject less solemn and important. Speculations so feeble that they sound like the cries of an infant in the dark, are insinuated to be the sublime views of a bold and original ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... our Saviour's conduct, either in his treatment of the religion of his country, or in the formation of his own institution. In both he displayed the soundness and moderation of his judgment. He censured an overstrained scrupulousness, or perhaps an affectation of scrupulousness, about the Sabbath: but how did he censure it? not by contemning or decrying the institution itself, but by declaring that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath;" that is to say, that the Sabbath was to be ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... lingering here and there in a tentative affectation of interest; but though the men greeted him pleasantly no one asked him to dine. Doubtless they were all engaged, these men who could afford to pay for their dinners, who did not have to hunt for invitations ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... jovial character, exactly like his photographs. He has certainly accomplished wonders, and done excellent service in his peculiar style of warfare. He is a good and gallant soldier, though he sometimes incurs ridicule by his harmless affectation and peculiarities. The other day he rode through a Virginian town, his horse covered with garlands of roses. He also departs considerably from the severe simplicity of dress adopted by other Confederate generals; but no one can deny that he is the right man in the right ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... without conceding greatness to him. But he was a great man, unlike others, cast in a mould of his own. Without the least affectation of unconventionality, and indeed under a formal appearance, he was profoundly unconventional. His tastes, whether in literature, in art, in the choice of society, in the choice of his way of life, were utterly his own, unaffected by any standard but that ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream we have of late observed to flow from many, we shall, in a few years, be fain to learn Latin to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility in either". Milton, both in his verse and prose, has carried this affectation to such a degree, as not only to be frequently beyond a meer English apprehension, but even beyond that of an ordinary proficient in the learned languages. Yet, so far were these innovations from being considered ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... third century, strongly condemns their vanity and ambition; and though perhaps his ascetic temperament prompted him to indulge somewhat in the language of exaggeration, the testimony of so respectable a witness cannot be rejected as untrue. "We," says he, "proceed so far in the affectation of pomp and state, as to outdo even bad rulers among the pagans; and, like the emperors, surround ourselves with a guard that we may be feared and made difficult of access, particularly to the poor. And in many of our so-called Churches, especially in the large towns, may ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... increased this predisposition in her favor. She must have known that she was very attractive, for few girls reach her age without attaining such knowledge; but her observer, and in a certain sense her critic, could not detect the faintest trace of affectation or self-consciousness. Her manner, her words, and even their accent seemed unstudied, unpracticed, and unmodelled after any received type. Her glance was peculiarly open and direct, and from the first she gave Graham the feeling that she was one who might be trusted absolutely. That she had tact ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... CRAVEN (with military affectation). It's very kind of you to try to keep up my spirits by making light of it, Charteris. But I shall be ready when my time comes. I'm a soldier. (A sob from Julia.) ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... should say, unbattered, up the mounting wave. Besides these ladies had none of the colonel's remainder of juvenile English sense of the manly, his adolescent's intolerance of the eccentric, suspicion and contempt of any supposed affectation, which was not ostentatiously, stalkingly practised to subdue the sex. And you cannot wield a baton without looking affected. And at one of the Colonel's Clubs in town, only five years back, an English musical composer, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... works, of no great reputation, certainly, for genius, but which were useful in their way, and manifested scholarship. It is very seldom that a man of mere letters is qualified for public life; and yet there is an affectation, in all governments, most especially in those which care little for literature in general, of considering some professions of respect for it necessary to their own characters. Andrea Barrofaldi had been inducted ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Wollmarkt, rioted soberly for a few days there, and then carried most of the proceeds home, hunted as often as possible, helped his friends, punished his children, read his Bible, said his prayers, and was genuinely astonished when his wife had the affectation to die of a broken heart. I cannot pretend to explain this conduct. She ought, of course, to have been happy in the possession of so good a man; but good men are sometimes oppressive, and to have one in the house with ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... wear a shirt-front at all? But to take a costume of which the only conceivable cause or advantage is that it is a sort of uniform, and then not wear it in the uniform way—this is to be neither a Bohemian nor a gentleman. It is a foolish affectation, I think, in an English officer of the Life Guards never to wear his uniform if he can help it. But it would be more foolish still if he showed himself about town in a scarlet coat and a Jaeger breast-plate. It is the custom nowadays to have Ritual Commissions and Ritual Reports ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... their sides as if by a rope, their hands at the pit of their stomachs, and both those hands, as heavy as a housemaid's, sawing the poor horse with curb and snaffle at once, while the whole body breathes pretension and affectation, and seems to say, "Look at me; I am on horseback! Be startled at that—as I am! and I have had lessons from a riding-master. He has taught me how a lady should ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... saw her at a court-ball at this period thus describes her: "She was imperial in every look and action. The dignified and stately step so well suited to her station, and with her perfectly natural, would have seemed affectation in another. She did not seem remarkably tall, except in comparison with others. Her voice possessed a refinement peculiar to ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... amusing; yet there is underneath his affectation of the frivolous vice of the time, which might be euphemistically called "exaggerated chivalry, a fundamental morality which one does not find in that class of systematic rou['e]s" who were astonished at the virtue of the ladies ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... also in characters of caprice and affectation, from the high-bred Lady Fanciful to the vulgar Mrs. Heidelberg; in country girls, romps, hoydens and dowdies, superannuated beauties, viragos and humourists; she had an inimitable talent in ridiculing the extravagant action and impertinent ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... Chateaubriand, expressive of his little sympathy for the individual (a silence so much resented by this proud vindictive poet, and for which he revenged himself in different ways), was not caused solely by the radical antagonism existing between their two natures. Assuredly, the literary affectation, the want of sincerity, the theatrical and declamatory nature of Chateaubriand's soul, who was positively ill with insatiable pride, innate and incurable ennui, all this could little assimilate with the simplicity, sincerity, passionate tenderness and devotion ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... let me caution you against the foolish affectation which some girls practice in order to attract the attention of young men. In their company be natural in your manners, open and friendly and ready to converse on general subjects; not appearing to expect that every one who pays you the ordinary courtesies of society is going to ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... into the other, and should be executed without any affectation. The law of opposition should be observed here; for example: In the ascending movement of the arm the hand falls from the wrist; when the arm descends, the ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... finish our evening as piously as we have begun it." But no sooner were they out of sight of the palace than they hurried to the scenes of dissipation, all endeavouring, in the debauchery and excesses so natural to them, to forget their unnatural affectation ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and populous beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example of the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple dictates of reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have scorned the affectation of Diogenes, as ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... newspapers of those days makes it clear that a good many men were of the opinion that more simplicity in dress would indeed make women "fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever." The Essex Journal of Massachusetts of the late eighteenth century, commenting upon the follies common to "females"—vanity, affectation, talkativeness, etc.,—adds the following remarks on dress: "Too great delight in dress and finery by the expense of time and money which they occasion in some instances to a degree beyond all bounds of decency and common sense, tends naturally ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... first page to the last; and it is difficult to conceive of any reader, be he young or old, who would not be the better for its vivid portraiture and bracing atmosphere. There is a breeziness about it calculated to stir the better life in the most sluggish; and without pretence or affectation it rings out its warnings, no less than its notes of cheer, clear and rousing as ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... brewed for the purpose of being drunk after the lady or goodwife's safe delivery. The ken-no has a more ancient source, and perhaps the custom may he derived from the secret rites of the Bona Dea. A large and rich cheese was made by the women of the family, with great affectation of secrecy, for the refreshment of the gossips who were to attend at the canny minute This was the ken-no, so called because its existence was secret (that is, presumed to be so) from all the males of the family, but especially from ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... in another; and, as is almost sure to be the case with bad harmonists, the local colour hardly felt anywhere. All German work is apt to be out of harmony, in consequence of its too frequent conditions of affectation, and its wilful refusals of fact; as well as by reason of a feverish kind of excitement, which dwells violently on particular points, and makes all the lines of thought in the picture to stand on end, as it were, like a cat's fur electrified; while good work is always as quiet as a couchant ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of their own work, and by the constant dwelling of their eyes upon exaggerations, their sensibility to that of the natural forms. So that we find the majority of painters divided between the two evil extremes of insufficiency and affectation, and only a few of the greatest men capable of making gradation constant and yet extended over enormous spaces and within degrees of narrow difference, as in the body of a ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... not confine herself to mere sighs and exclamations, but pronounced several criticisms on his acting, which were as remarkable for sound judgment as for womanly penetration. Mikhalevich mentioned music; she sat down to the piano without affectation, and played with precision several of Chopin's mazurkas, which were then only just coming into fashion. Dinner time came. Lavretsky would have gone away, but they made him stop, and the General treated him at table with excellent Lafitte, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... from themselves; and thus they were once more able to converse with one another, without having that sense of violent self-restraint which had thus far afflicted them. Brooke was able to be lively, without any affectation of too extravagant gayety, and Talbot was ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... for sentiment is a luxury. We can not dispense with money, because money is a necessity. It gives me, therefore, great pleasure to hear that the choice of my son has evinced the good sense which, I may say without affectation, I hope he has inherited, and has justified the pains and expense which I have been at in his education. My son, I congratulate you. ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... 'What affectation!' said the shirt-collar. And then they were taken out of the wash-tub, starched, and hung on a chair in the sun to dry, and then laid on the ironing-board. Then ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Delarayne's occasional affectation of valetudinarian peevishness, alleged ill-health as a fact. As a rule it was the prelude to the request for a favour on a grand scale, and being a man of very great wealth, and therefore somewhat tight-fisted, he was always rendered unusually solemn by ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... a girl that he doesn't love her after such an acquaintance as I have had with Guss Mildmay? I have tried to do so, but I couldn't do it. There are men, I believe, hard enough even for that; and things are changed now, and the affectation of chivalry has gone bye. Women ask men to marry them, and the men laugh ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... ov worldly ways, An too mich affectation; They work i'th' vinyard a few days, Then ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... fresh of thought, so free from all affectation, so gentle and winning in all her ways, and, sooth to say, so happy in the admiration of Philibert, which she was very conscious of now. It darted from his eyes at every look, although no word of it had yet passed his lips. The radiance of her spirits flashed like sunbeams through ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... things; amass sound knowledge; avoid all affectation; write all topics which interest ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... their hands; and the poet says that one book in particular, A Select Collection of English Songs, was his vade mecum. He pored over them, driving his cart or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender, or sublime from affectation or fustian. 'I am convinced,' he adds, 'I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... saw that if, "I wish you would go back to the one in which I told you of papa and me calling at Mr. Lemuel's house, and I wish, dear Keith, you would burn it. I am sure it was very cruel and unjust. One often makes the mistake of thinking people affected when there is no affectation about them. And if a man has injured his health and made an invalid of himself, through his intense and constant devotion to his work, surely that is not anything to be laughed at? Whatever Mr. Lemuel may be, he is, at all ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... leave Harrow I know not; that depends on her nod; I like it very well. The master Dr. Drury, is the most amiable clergyman I ever knew; he unites the Gentleman with the Scholar, without affectation or pedantry, what little I have learnt I owe to him alone, nor is it his fault that it was not more. I shall always remember his instructions with Gratitude, and cherish a hope that it may one day be in my power to repay ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... homely Yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He talks ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's confidence by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really magical—the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a light even beyond the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... eleven mortal hours detailing the facts to you. What did he tell you the conspiracy consisted of? He made a long statement, and when he came to the end, he told you to go back to the beginning, find out the conspiracy, and what it consisted of. I say, gentlemen of the jury, without tire least affectation, if any gentleman could have found out evidence of a conspiracy, it would have been found by the attorney-general." Mr. O'Connell proceeded at great length to defend the means of his agitation, and then proceeded to vindicate its object—the repeal of the union. On the latter subject he remarked:—"I ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... affected to be a good deal flustered by the event which had just taken place, but after a number of certain graceful attitudes, assumed without the slightest appearance of affectation, she recovered her calmness, and proceeded with the business in hand. That business was soon terminated, so far as the full and entire acceptance of Mr. Marlow's proposal went, and immediately after the conclusion of breakfast, Sir Philip Hastings ordered his horses to depart. Mrs. Hazleton ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... forever,—and leave him swinging in the winds of the Fool's Paradise. It is with great pain that I ever speak with severity of the works of living masters, especially when, like Mr. Lee's, they are well-intentioned, simple, free from affectation or imitation, and evidently painted with constant reference to nature. But I believe that these qualities will always secure him that admiration which he deserves—that there will be many unsophisticated and honest minds always ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... his private cabin, previous to being ushered into the gun-room, where the midshipmen's mess was held— and of which Mr Skrimmage filled the important post of caterer. "Mrs Skrimmage, my dear," said Seymour's conductor, "allow me to introduce to you Mr Seymour." The lady courtesied with great affectation, and an air of condescension, and requested our hero to take a chair—soon after which Mr Skrimmage commenced—"It is the custom, my dear sir, in this ship, for every gentleman who joins the midshipmen's berth to put down one guinea as ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... uncompromising vulgarity is really not very objectionable; it is rather refreshing, indeed, for it is simple, and, in that respect, rare. Vulgarity allied to pretension and the affectation of fine manners is the only real vulgarity, and is an intolerable thing. The plain rusticity, or even coarseness, of what are called the lower classes, is infinitely preferable to the assumption of gentility of those a little above them in the social ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... nobody loved him, and he begged his daughters to forget him, and when he died to bury him in a plain, deal coffin without ceremony, or to send his body to Harkov to the dissecting theatre. He felt that every line he wrote reeked of malice and affectation, but he could not stop, and ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... This feminine affectation, of course, has gradually taken on the force of a fixed habit, and so it has got a certain support, by a familiar process of self-delusion, in reality. The civilized woman inherits that habit as she inherits her cunning. She is born half convinced ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... pen-sketch of O'Connell is by Mitchel, who says, "besides superhuman and subterhuman passions, yet withal, a boundless fund of masterly affectation and consummate histrionism, hating and loving heartily, outrageous in his merriment and passionate in his lamentation, he had the power to make other men hate or love, laugh or weep, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... to presume that in the midst of all this pomp and affectation of grief, the hatchment of the deceased nobleman would be displayed as much, and continued as long, as possible by the widow? May we not reasonably believe that these ladies would vie with each other in these displays of the insignia of mourning, until, by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... attired in what resembled the uniform of an officer of the navy, stepped into the middle of the arena, and with the affectation of good breeding characteristic of the class, said, "Ladies and gentlemen: I have the honor to announce that John Brinton, the most extraordinary and celebrated tamer of lions in the world, will appear before you in his remarkable performance, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... he was by no means deficient in intelligence. The courage displayed in his taming exercises (which he gravely attributed to his recent conversion), a solemn and mystical style of speech, and a hypocritical affectation of austerity, had given him a species of influence over the people he visited in his travels. Long before his conversion, as may well be supposed, Morok had been familiar with the habits of wild beasts. In fact born in the north ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... not admire? With what delight these sturdy children play, And joyful rustics at the close of day; Sport follows labour; on this even space Will soon commence the wrestling and the race; Then will the village-maidens leave their home, And to the dance with buoyant spirits come; No affectation in their looks is seen, Nor know they what disguise aud flattery mean; Nor aught to move an envious pang they see, Easy their service, and their love is free; Hence early springs that love, it long endures, And life's ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... the First; he was deprived of office, was accused of taking part in the Jacobite conspiracy, and was committed to the Tower. There was, however, no evidence against him, and he resumed his political career. His eloquence is described by Speaker Onslow as "strong, full, and without affectation, arising chiefly from his clearness, propriety, and argumentation; in the method of which last, by a sort of induction almost peculiar to himself, he had a force beyond any man I ever heard in public debates." Lord Hervey, who can be trusted not to overdo the praise ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... what was the most beautiful statue in Rome, replied, "That of Pasquin." This reply the sensible Milizia taxes with affectation,—saying, that, although an artist may discover in the work some marks of good design, it is now too maimed to pass for a beautiful statue. Possibly Bernini was thinking of his own works ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Medici?—she of the diminutive head and the gilded hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. Give me the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help—pity me!—I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... then, I love you better now than ever, 155 And best (look at me while I speak to you)— Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth, This mask, this simulated ignorance, This affectation of simplicity, Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours 160 May not now be looked over—look it down! Great? Let it be great; but the joys it brought, Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it Speak not! The past, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... people were upon them, and she was thankful that she had married a man whose self-possession, at any rate, she could rely on. Majendie's manner was perfect. He avoided both the bridegroom's offensive assiduity and his no less offensive affectation of indifference. It had occurred to him that, in the circumstances, Anne might find it peculiarly disagreeable to be ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... after his solemn farewell to Evelyn, retreated again to his own room, where he remained till his post-horses arrived. Then, descending into the drawing-room, he was pleased to find neither Aubrey nor Evelyn there. He knew that much affectation would be thrown away upon Mr. and Mrs. Merton; he thanked them for their hospitality, with grave and brief cordiality, and then turned to Caroline, who stood apart by ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make something out of it now," retorted Stoner, who was sharp enough to see through Mallalieu's affectation of scorn. "Just you realize the importance of what I'm saying. I tell you once again—I ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... I obtained a full view of the reverend gentleman's features in full daylight they seemed less mysterious, less sinister than in the half-light of midnight. He looked a grave, earnest, sober-living man, with that slight affectation of the Church which one finds more in the rural districts than in cities, for the black clerical straw hat and the clerical drawl seem always to go together. It is strange that the village curate is always more affected in his ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... persons have no good intentions. Other men speak most offensively of their greatest benefactors. There are some people whom it is safer to affront than to serve, since by their dislike they seek to give the impression of being under no obligation. One ought to accept without fastidious affectation, and without cringing humility; for if a man shows small care at the time of bestowal, when every newly-conferred benefit should please, what will he do when the first glow of pleasure ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... all soft Charms agree, Enchanting Humour pow'rful Wit; Beauty from Affectation free, And for Eternal Empire fit: Where-e'er she goes, Love waits her Eyes, The Women Envy, Men adore; Tho' did she less the Triumph Prize, She wou'd deserve ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... twiddle—vigorous crescendo—TUM. This is unusual! A stranger? A new piece for La Belle Dame Sans Merci? Her wonted reckless dash deserts her. She is, as it were, exploring a new region, and advances with mischievous coyness, with an affectation of a faltering heart, with hesitating steps. My imagination is stimulated by these dripping notes. I see her, as it were, on an uneven pavement; here the flags are set on end, there fungi have tilted them, a sharp turning of the page may reveal heaven ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... his sleeping apartment, agonized by pains of body and anxiety of mind. Here he found Henbane Dwining, on whom it was his hard fate to depend for consolation in both respects. The physician, with his affectation of extreme humility, hoped he saw his exalted patient merry ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... triumphantly. "And all to make two minutes grow where one grew before?" Dede queried, at the same time laughing heartily at his affectation of mystery. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... without this they could not get thin enough; then, good heavens! how difficult it seems, and how ugly it is! As if this could give them any pleasure! For some of them it seems as if it were day-labour, and as if it were a frenzy to others; and for a third, a kind of affectation; nay, I must go my ways, for I shall become mad or splenetic if I look any longer on ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat violent, perhaps. His "Rebecca" most pleasing; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of attitude and needless singularity of costume. "Raphael and Michael Angelo" is as clever a picture as can be—clever is just the word—the groups and drawing excellent, the coloring pleasantly bright and gaudy; and the French students study it incessantly; ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the youth, smiling and laying his arm in rather an affected manner upon the speaker's shoulder, as he crossed his legs and again posed himself with his left hand upon his sword hilt. But there was no affectation in the tone of the thanks expressed; in fact, there was a peculiar quiver in his voice and a slight huskiness of which he was self-conscious, and he ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn |
