"Perfunctoriness" Quotes from Famous Books
... feeling of perfunctoriness in her twitter of talk. It went no further than that, however; he had no chagrin or repugnance or anger at the thin duplicity, not even at her complacent confidence in his stupidity and infatuation. For to count on his ... — The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... spirit. He mildly wards off the reproach, sheltering himself behind his defender, the "lady in green," who afterwards proves to be herself that type of womanly and wifely fidelity unto death, the true and brave Alcestis. And even in the body of the poem one is struck by a certain perfunctoriness, not to say flippancy, in the way in which its moral is reproduced. The wrathful invective against the various classical followers of Lamech, the maker of tents, wears no aspect of deep moral indignation; and it is not precisely the voice of a repentant sinner which concludes the pathetic story of ... — Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward |