"Formality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for the Socrates of Xenophon. Thenceforth the most noted statesmen and scholars professed the Stoic philosophy—among others Stilo and Quintus Scaevola, the founders of scientific philology and of scientific jurisprudence. The scholastic formality of system, which thenceforth prevails at least externally in these professional sciences and is especially associated with a fanciful, charade-like, insipid method of etymologizing, descends from the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of a sea running high, and the buffeting of a great storm, saved the lives of the crew, and rendered full salvage. While on the island, a visit should be paid to the Anglo-American Cable Company's Station, care being taken beforehand to go through the formality of applying to the Managing Director (26, Old Bond-street, London, E.C.) for an order. Every facility is extended by ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... the middle of October, Lucia was seated at breakfast and frowning over a note she had just received. It began without any formality and was written ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... of the letter took place, the occasion being made one of much ceremony. The commodore landed with due formality, through a line of Japanese boats, and with a following of three hundred and twenty officers and sailors from the fleet. Passing through a large body of soldiers, behind whom stood a crowd of spectators, the building prepared for the reception was reached. It was a temporary structure, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... heated family atmosphere. A mist of undiscussed views hung about the house, out of which flashed now and then a sharp speech, a bitter sigh. He had been at the house a good deal in a thoroughly informal manner. The Hitchcocks rarely entertained in the "new" way, for Mrs. Hitchcock had a terror of formality. A dinner, as she understood it, meant a gathering of a few old friends, much hearty food served in unpretentious abundance, and a very little bad wine. The type of these entertainments had improved lately under Miss Hitchcock's influence, but it remained essentially ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... her so ceremonious; never had she appeared so observant of his demeanor during the social formality. Overcome with astonishment at what he heard, he bowed stiffly, but submissively. The autocrat watched him with severe eyes, and only when his salute was accomplished did the muscles of her visage again relax. Mechanically, he turned to bow in the same way to ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... and animation oh board the vessel. People from countries widely separated mingled with each other and chatted with the greatest freedom on every subject of human interest. Acquaintances were made without the formality of an introduction, and it was not long before the two adventurers ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... broke out another way. Some provinces have tried their experiment, as we have tried ours; and theirs has succeeded. They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, without the bustle of a revolution or the formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit consent have done the business in an instant. So well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore—the account is among the fragments on your table—tells you that the new institution is infinitely better obeyed than the ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... formality of asking Mrs. Chapin's permission to do anything, and she did not care for the moral support of numbers. She was never sleepy, she said, pointing significantly to her brass samovar, and she could work best alone in her own room. She held aloof, too, from the discussions about ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... Melton a little dubiously. "My own private hunch, though, is that Judge Lynch will invite them to a little necktie party. They've lived a heap sight too long already, and there won't be much formality wasted on them. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... talking 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 not been able to consider well; but I will ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... 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 which custom ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Sir Thomas appeared to breathe easier; he deliberately tore the cablegram into small bits, then tossed the fragments into a wastepaper basket before waving his caller to a chair. He still remained very cold, very forceful, although his stiff formality had vanished. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... send the woman to Paris to-night and have him hanged as a spy in this prison yard without further formality or trial..." replied Chauvelin firmly; "so either way, you see, Citizen," he added in a whisper, "the Scarlet Pimpernel is done for.... But I think that ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at the door and lifted her down from Silk's back without the formality of asking her leave. He pulled the latchstring, and led her in. Beside the rude stone fireplace wood and kindling were piled in readiness for use. Bill kicked the door shut, dropped on his knees, and started the fire. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... her as common as man. She was glib, pert, mundane, her mind a chatter-mill; a creature of fur, paint, hair, and absurdly young. The clink of coins was her most favorable accompaniment; and her giving of self was a sort of disrobing formality. The men who pursued her were forward and solicitous. There was something of sacrilege about it all. The minds and souls of real women—such were not matters for American story; and yet the Americans wrote with dangerous facility. Bedient, who worshipped ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... insignificant chorus. He next took up a calumet, filled with a mixture of tobacco and bear-berry leaves, and holding its stem by the middle, in a horizontal position, over the hot stones, turned it slowly in a circular manner, following the course of the sun. Its mouth-piece being then with much formality, held for a few seconds to the face of Kepoochikawn, it was next presented to the earth, having been previously turned a second time over the hot stones; and afterwards, with equal ceremony, pointed in succession to the four quarters of the sky; then drawing a few whiffs from the calumet ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... established upon a secure and permanent basis. The declaration of the independence of Brazil under His Imperial Majesty will at once tranquillise the public mind, and give opportunity to the worthy and patriotic inhabitants to proceed afterwards with a due formality and deliberation to take the oaths, and elect their provisional government. To-morrow, therefore—being the earliest possible day—it maybe well that the said declaration shall be made taking every necessary ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Dolores, raising her eyebrows, as if surprised. "He seems a very harmless young man. I don't think he will eat me. And he is English,—and I like English people. And he is intelligent,—his conversation amuses me. And he has nice easy, impetuous manners,—so different from the formality and restraint of Austrian young men. What ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... efforts rewarded. Yet in this world there is no light without shadow; no pleasure without its alloy. In imagination, Master Wilkyns had thought of himself conducting the prisoner in triumph into the streets of Oxford, the hero of the hour. The sour formality of the law condemned him to ill-merited disappointment. Garret had been taken beyond the liberties of the city; it was necessary, therefore, to commit him to the county gaol, and he was sent to Ilchester. "Master Wilkyns offered himself to be bound to the said justice in three hundred pounds to ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... whether he or she came as a petitioner or a penitent, the justices, clerk, sheriff, and other officials represented the presence of power and authority as colonial Virginia knew it. But it was a presence in which men stood on little ceremony or formality with each other. Except in unusual circumstances all were likely to be laymen, for in colonial Virginia there was little formal education in the professions and, at most, one might have attended lectures at the College of William & Mary or a school in England. If the gentlemen justices were widely ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... from the land, or at least that measures would be adopted for the purpose of forcing Henry to a restitution of their rights. So fully established were they in this opinion, that, as we have just seen, some of them took possession of their ancient inheritances without the tedious formality of awaiting a fresh grant ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... drift of his spirit, setting boldly away from conventions and formalities, has been manifested with delightful results. He has always seemed to be alive with the specific vitality of the person represented. He has never seemed a wooden puppet of the stage, bound in by formality and straining after a vague ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... death into the general beauty of the self-sacrificing character which would not utter the word by which the adverse judgment of the world might have been reversed in a moment. While, at this day, she is regarded as the cause of her husband's sins, by her coldness, formality, and what not,—fidelity and love to her memory absolutely require, not fresh disclosures of a private character, but a new presentment of the evidence long ago given to the world by herself and by her husband's very partial biographer. This is what I have done, after thirty years ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... he sent heralds into Greece to summon the country to surrender to him. This is a common formality when an army is about to attack either a town, a castle, or a kingdom. Xerxes's heralds crossed the AEgean Sea, and made their demands, in Xerxes's name, upon the Greek authorities. As might have ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... now to drop the formality?" he asked. And at the question a lightning vision came to her of the scene on the hillside, so vividly ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... an easy attitude, I waited for the denouement. It was a terrible position too. That child-angel! I would have laid down my life for her, but I had to stand idle, and see her rush to fling her life away. And all because I had not happened to have the mere formality of ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... promised Savior to whom its ceremonies pointed, and to learn to be holy, as the God of that temple was holy. They hoped that the holiness of the place would screen them in the indulgence of pride, formality, and wickedness. The temple of the Lord, instead of the Lord of the temple, was the object of their veneration. But the doom went forth. "Therefore for your sakes shall Zion be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... no reason for the omission of capitals at the beginning of such sentences; but, rather, an obvious reason for their use. Our grammarians frequently manufacture a parcel of puerile examples, and, with the formality of apparent quotation, throw them together in the following manner: "He is above disguise;" "we serve under a good master;" "he rules over a willing people;" "we should do nothing beneath our character."—Murray's Gram., p. 118. These sentences, and all others so related, should, unquestionably, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... embarrassed and aware of his teasing smile. But Drina, always impressed by formality, said: "Uncle Philip isn't Eileen's uncle. People who are not relations say ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... formality we'll take the precaution of making sure you haven't any weapons that might go off and injure you—or anybody else. Jack, may I trouble you to look in my cabin for a pair of handcuffs—middle right hand drawer of my ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... to me how this regulation conduces to the end in view? According to the natural view of things, the applicant should state the whole of his wishes to one clerk on one paper; you make him say it to five clerks on five papers." Or, again, "Does it not appear to you, Sir, that the reason of this formality is extinct? When we were building wood ships, it was quite right to have such precautions against fire; but now that we are building iron ships," etc., etc. If a junior clerk asked these questions, he ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... powdered perukes, preferred a horse's back to the motion of a lumbering coach, but during the winter season their wives and daughters, in the shining stuffs, the pointed bodices, the elaborate head-dress of Europe, visited Government House and their neighbours with all the formality of London or Bath. After the first of March the planters wore white linen; the turbaned black women were busy among the stones of the rivers with voluminous wardrobes ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Absolutism, pomp, formality, and, let it be added, a sense of personal responsibility for retainers—all characteristics of feudalism—marked the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company from the beginning. The adventurers were not merely merchants and traders; they were courtiers and princes as well. Rupert, ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... will be emphasised by bringing it nearer to its source. From the idea of travesty, a derived one, we must go back to the original idea, that of a mechanism superposed upon life. Already, the stiff and starched formality of any ceremonial suggests to us an image of this kind. For, as soon as we forget the serious object of a solemnity or a ceremony, those taking part in it give us the impression of puppets in motion. Their ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... insults were choking me, struggling in my convulsed throat, in which even my breath was arrested. The wretch! Turned into a mere machine by professional habits, he only came to a deathbed to accomplish a perfunctory formality; he knew nothing; his science was a lie, since he could not at a glance distinguish life from death—and now ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... entered on the work of simplifying the forms of pleading earlier than England, but has not carried it so far. Demurrers have not been abandoned, and in some states little has been done except to replace one system of formality by another hardly less rigid. The general plan has been to codify the laws of pleading by statute. In a few states they have proceeded more nearly in accordance with the principles of the English Judicatare Act, and left details to be worked ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... was Fairy's way, plain and sweet, without formality. And the dinner that followed was just a happy family dinner. Fairy's face was so glowing with content, and Gene's attitude was so tender, and so ludicrously proud, that the twins at last were convinced that this was ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... months in the 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
... with due ceremony at the hour mentioned, was a great success. Roger, fresh shaved, and quite recovered from the shock of Von Minden's visit, played host with just enough formality to delight Felicia. Charley was deeply interested in the plans for the Sun Plant. It was the first time Roger had explained his general scheme of solar heating to her and he was surprised ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... up 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
... secretary of state to King William. His outward regularity of life, his appearance of religion, and seeming zeal for the Church, as they are an effect, so they are the excuse for that stiffness and formality with which his nature[39] is fraught. His adust complexion disposeth him to rigour[40] and severity, which his admirers palliate with the name of zeal. No man had ever a sincerer countenance, or more truly representing his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... their children to treat their brothers and sisters with little or no respect; this is one great cause of inharmony in many homes. Some parents think that to have their children pay too much attention to the rules of politeness, is apt to make them too formal. Better a little formality than ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 9, March 1, 1914 • Various
... formality," said the detective; and when Burwell still protested the man in uniform remarked: "You'd better come quietly, monsieur; you ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... 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 ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... showed us his horticultural arrangements with no little pride. His house is situated in the midst of gardens, adorned with fountains and reservoirs, and he informed us that upon one aqueduct alone he had expended 30,000 pounds. The garden was in its infancy, and, notwithstanding the great formality with which it was laid out, bid fair to do credit to Jung's taste and industry. In one direction the gardens extend to the river side, where he has built some handsome baths, not far distant from which, and at one corner of his grounds, stands ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... from the very full accounts of these grand dinners, as described in the diaries of the {76} guests, they must have been stiff affairs. These people probably wrote the truth when they said, "glad it is over," "great formality," "my duty to submit to it," "scarcely a word was said," "there was a dead silence." No doubt there was much good food to eat and choice wine to drink, but the formal manners of the times were emphasized by awe of ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... she possibly endure it? How was she to answer his questions how was she to vindicate her faith when the mere tone of his voice seemed to paralyze her heart? He was indeed treating her with the cold formality of an opponent, but never for a single instant could she forget that he was her father the being she loved best in the ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... tell me nothing," replied the doctor, with a sudden formality in his manner, which showed that his forbearance was at last failing him. "Before she was composed enough to think of the letter, her husband had asked for it, and had caused it to be locked up in his desk. She knows that he has since, time after time, tried to ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... infrequent meetings 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 power when books were rare and the Church had tribunals ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of himself, and the expectation of a revolution in the government. There were no persons he was more severe against than jugglers and astrologers; end as soon as any one of them was informed against, he put him to death without the formality of a trial. He was enraged against them, because, after his proclamation by which he commanded all astrologers to quit home, and Italy also, before the calends [the first] of October, a bill was immediately posted ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... suppose he is having in the foregoing descriptions examples of the style of ceremonials most in fashion at the Greek court. Had formality been intended, the affair would have been the subject of painstaking consideration at a meeting of officials in the imperial residence, and every point within foresight arranged; after which the revolution of the earth might have quickened, and darkness been unnaturally precipitated, ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... implicite, by compact, band and obligation (a desperate, a fearful case) to satisfy thy lust, or to be revenged of thine enemies, thou didst never pray, come to church, hear, read, or do any divine duties with any devotion, but for formality and fashion's sake, with a kind of reluctance, 'twas troublesome and painful to thee to perform any such thing, praeter voluntatem, against thy will. Thou never mad'st any conscience of lying, swearing, bearing false witness, murder, adultery, bribery, oppression, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... formality and order is put aside and the battle really begins. At this stage of the proceedings the rule is that no fewer than two of the protagonists must be roaring at the same time, of which one must be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... approaches with jealous care. Yet it may not be improper to take this occasion for observing, that we are now and then apt to draw too unfavourable conclusions from unpleasant appearances, which may perhaps be chiefly or altogether owing to gross or confused conceptions, or to a disgusting formality of demeanor, or to indeterminate, low, or improperly familiar expressions. The mode and language, in which a vulgar man will express himself on the subject of Religion, will probably be vulgar, and it is difficult for people of literature and refinement not to be unreasonably shocked ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... presently, however, very serious, as she set the table. There was little formality of service. Just ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... going through. It won't be official until the sixteenth of May, when the Premix stockholders meet, but that's just a formality. It's all cut and dried and in the bag now. Better let me pick you up a little Premix; there's still some lying around. You'll make a little ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... end is twofold: perfect and imperfect. Perfect knowledge of the end, is that whereby not only is that known which is the end and the good, but also the universal formality of the end and the good; and such knowledge belongs to the rational nature alone. On the other hand, imperfect knowledge is that by which the end and the good are known in the particular. Such knowledge is in irrational animals: whose appetitive powers do not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... I lived a lifetime. Hugh Blair courted me as the other girls in Newbridge were courted. He took me out driving and came to see me in the evenings, which we spent for the most part in the garden. I did not like the stately gloom and formality of our old Meredith parlor, and Hugh never seemed to feel at ease there. His broad shoulders and hearty laughter were oddly out of place among our faded, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Some formality or other, connected with his passports, had made it necessary for Colonel Nevil to call on the prefect. This gentleman, who, like most of his colleagues, found his life very dull, had been delighted to hear of the ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... angry at us," the man replied. "He knows you love him, Anna. He will not be frightened by a formality, pure and simple— by a marriage /in extremis,"/ he added emphatically, smiling as though to ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... could, and the whole of the late rioters began to adopt the appearance of a set of decent persons, who, having been surprised into intoxication, endeavoured to disguise their condition by assuming a double portion of formality of behaviour. In the interim the Prince, having made a hasty reform in his dress, was lighted to the door by the only sober man of the company, but, in his progress thither, had well nigh stumbled over the sleeping bulk of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... became the centre of attraction at table, and so thrilled her audience by a spirited recital of her adventures at the Villa Carlotta that the other man cried, "Bravo!" from his side table, without waiting for the formality of an introduction. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... which sufferers from tedious colloquies are impelled to make, and which perhaps indicate the frequent boredom of the King. But others are evidently messages transmitted from Whitehall to the Chancellor. In all alike there is a singular lack of formality, or even of orderliness, and they might have passed between business colleagues, who were on terms of close intimacy and easy familiarity. Clarendon's tone is almost uniformly brusque and off-hand, and he must have tried the King's patience terribly by the infamous illegibility of ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... meet you," said Sim, after the fashion of his extremest social formality. And then, in a burst of welcome, "How'd ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... fashion. He 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 ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... days of the merry monarch it began to revive, and advanced more, or less, in all the succeeding reigns. The celebrated Beau Nash, who was, for a long time, M.C. at Bath, may be considered the founder of modern ball-room dancing; which, however, has been divested of much of its cold formality, and improved in various other respects since the time of that singular person. It is, nevertheless, a matter of regret, that the graceful and stately Minuet has been entirely abandoned in favour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... volunteers," MacKay began, with grave formality, "I had not intended to break in upon your conversation, which I found very instructive, but as Claverhouse" (and it was characteristic of his nation that MacKay should call Graham by the name of his estate) "has asked me straightly to speak, I would first apologize for my ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... hence the enormous amount of eighteenth-century writing devoted to transient affairs, to politics, fashions, gossip. Moreover, as the club leaders set the fashion in manners or dress, in the correct way of taking snuff or of wearing wigs and ruffles, so the literary leaders emphasized formality or correctness of style, and to write prose like Addison, or verse like Pope, became the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... religion was lost, and the generality lived and worshipped God after their own wills, and not after the will of God, nor the mind of Christ, which stood in the works and fruits of the Holy Spirit; so that which these pressed, was not notion, but experience; not formality, but godliness; as being sensible in themselves, through the work of God's righteous judgments, that without holiness no man shall ever see ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... breakfast alone in the pretty dining-room below, and at once started to town. His first thought was that he would go to the bank, but he decided otherwise. He shrank from the formality of greeting the employees in his present frame of mind. No, he would simply see Marie at once and face the inevitable. The earliness of the hour—it was only nine o'clock—would make no difference with her. ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... who had preceded them. The men and women of her own standing seconded her, but the younger ones were not to be drawn into high-heartedness; and an observer might have had before him the somewhat strange spectacle of old age gay, gentle, unobservant of any stiff formality, and of youth preoccupied and grave, and, instead of being refined in manners, pedantic. "The younger frequenters of Mme. Lebrun's salon," says Mme. Ancelot, "were strangers to the world into which they found themselves raised; those who surrounded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... hereditary in the Hapsburg [Footnote: The House of Austria is often so called from the Castle of Hapsburg in Switzerland, the cradle of the family.] family, the Electors, although never failing to go through the formality of an election, almost always choosing one of the members ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... of the Indians, whose silence and attitude of respect excited the admiration of the Portuguese. On the 1st of May a large cross and a padrao were erected on the shore, and Cabral formally took possession of the country in the name of the King of Portugal. His first care after this formality was accomplished was to despatch Gaspard de Lemos to Lisbon, to announce the discovery of this rich and fertile country. Lemos took with him the narrative of the expedition written by Pedro Vaz de Caminha, and an important astronomical document, the work of Master Joao, in which was doubtless ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... 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 of payment, so that ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... instant Mr. Rylands was shocked at this unwonted exposure. He had never seen his wife in evening-dress before. It was true they were alone, and in their own sitting-room, but the room was still invested with that formality and publicity which seemed to accent this indiscretion. The simple-minded frontier man's mind went back to Jane, to the hired man, to the expressman, the stranger, all of whom might have ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... twenty-eight to this gentleman. Kindly receipt the bill, Mr. Gott, if you please. A mere formality, of course, but it is well to be exact. Thank you, sir. And ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... well-bred manners or of cultivated manners. Well-bred manners come from habit and association, and though always pleasant may be nothing more than a superficial varnish; while cultivated manners imply a certain amount of self-restraint. No man was ever more free from formality or affectation. He was neither condescending to inferiors nor would he yield ground to those who considered themselves above him, but met all people on the broad equality of self-respect. He was always most respected where society was ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... toil was over, WAKOMETKLA, motioning me to follow him, led the way into an adjoining apartment, and pointing to a rude couch of skins, indicated that it was to be my resting place for the night. Wearied by my unaccustomed labor, I threw myself down without the formality of undressing, and was soon buried in deep and ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... fussy old thing!" said Fritz impatiently trying to shrug his shoulders. He had had the honour of one interview with Madaleine's distinguished patroness, and did not crave for another; for, she had a good deal of that old-fashioned, starched formality which the German nobility affect, mixed up with a fidgety, condescending, patronising manner which much annoyed the generous-minded young fellow. He burned with indignation all the time the visit of the old lady to him ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... right hon. gentleman's Constitution would have broken down in its first session, and that we should have then been forced to concede grudgingly and in a hurry the full measure of responsible government which, with all due formality, and without any precipitancy, the Letters Patent issued last week have now conferred. But even the right hon. gentleman himself did not intend his Constitution to be a permanent settlement. He intended it to be a transition, and a brief transition; and in the correspondence which ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... that will say nothing but Tiendro cuydado, will, to the generality, preserve more Respect; an Engine that will speak but sometimes, at the same time that it will draw the Raillery of the Few who judge well, it will create Respect in the ill-judging Generality. Formality is sufficiently revenged upon the World for being so unreasonably laughed at; it is destroyed it is true, but it hath the spiteful Satisfaction of seeing every thing ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... ranks; the masques falling flat on their faces, the sorcerers kneeling with their heads and bodies humbly bowed down, and the magicians, who stood highest in importance, only kneeling. After this they all went through the formality of denying God and the Saints. Then they had a diabolical service in burlesque of that of the church, at which the Evil One served as priest in a violet chasuble; the elevation of the demon host was announced by a wooden ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... 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 in ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of meeting. Burke he met that night for the first time, and on his entrance, Johnson, 'with humorous formality, gave me a charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of the club.' That charge we can believe Forster to be right in suspecting to be a caution against publishing abroad the proceedings and the talk ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... the idea of a more universal object, namely, truth and being. Thus it is evident, that, although the form is the same, yet it is not the principle of existence and of understanding according to the same formality. On this account it does not follow that in the angel "to be" is the same ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... plain when we object the scandal of conformity; for many ignorant and superstitious persons are, by the ceremonies, confirmed (expertus loquor) in their error and superstition; so that now they even settle themselves upon the old dregs of popish superstition and formality, from which they were not well purged. Others are made to practise the ceremonies with a doubting and disallowing conscience, and to say with Naaman, "In this the Lord be merciful unto us if we err:" ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... extraordinary exertion of climbing two flights of stairs, Elfie at last appeared, gorgeously gowned in the extreme style affected by ladies who contract alliances with wealthy gentlemen without the formality of going through a marriage ceremony. Her dress, of the latest fashion and the richest material, with dangling gold handbag and chatelaine, contrasted strangely with Laura's shabbiness and the general dinginess ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... satisfactory, the result being that the honest property were really impressed with a belief, that to evince Christian fortitude under suffering and punishment was the best means of cleansing themselves of the sins they were born to. This formality was misnamed Christianity—it was! And through the force of this one sermon the Elder became indolent; and indolence led him to its natural yoke-fellow-intemperance. His indulgent mood, such as we have described him enjoying ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Buren's single message as governor exhibited a knowledge of conditions and needs that must rank it among the ablest state-papers in the archives of the capitol. Unlike some of his predecessors, with their sentences of stilted formality, he wrote easily and with vigour. His message, however, was marred by the insincerity which shows the politician. He approved canals, but, by cunningly advising "the utmost prudence" in taking up new enterprises, he coolly disparaged ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... met it metaphorically with open arms, as one welcomes an old friend, and, under its gentle influence, tossed aside twenty years and made decorous, but desperate, love to Miss Mullett. And then, to continue the pleasant formality of the occasion, the ladies withdrew to the parlor, and Wade and the Doctor smoked two very stout and very black cigars and sipped two tiny ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... England! and how well adapted to express the feelings of the mind, humbled, and penitentially exercised, yet exalted in hope at the throne of a covenant God in Christ Jesus. When the prayers are prayed, and not merely read in the cold formality of office, instead of wearying the mind by repetition, how often are they the means of arresting our wandering thoughts, and awakening a devotional feeling! This effect, I trust, was produced in our minds, as we ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... the moderation with which the emperor received the opposition, and often the rebukes, of individuals in public as well as in private. These stories are not without their importance, as showing how little formality there was in the tone of addressing the master of the Roman world, and how entirely different the ideas of the nation were, with regard to the position occupied by the Caesar and his family from those with which ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... sentiment, and principles. He advanced with his times in a patriotic devotion to democracy and equality, but he seems to have always kept, together with great simplicity of character, the impression of early teaching and associations, and something of old-time stateliness and formality. His youth, like his age, was very sober, modest, and discreet. The ties which united him to his family were strong; and he loved his mother, who long survived his father, with the reverent affection of the past generation. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... cried Muriel Harding. "Let's call ourselves the Invincibles. You certainly can play basketball, Miss Dean. How lucky in you to come to Sanford just when we need you. By the way, 'Miss Dean' is too formal. Please let us call you Marjorie. You can call us by our first names. What's the use of so much formality among team-mates?" ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... of the contrast between the Queen's life, with its formality and crowded households, and its retinues and solemn pageantry and this empty little New England farm-house on a long hillside that sloped eastward. It was so funny to hear the Queen discussed and to find her a familiar personage, ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... contemporary poet. But Chapman had produced no conspicuously 'great verse' till he began his translation of Homer in 1598; and although he appended in 1610 to a complete edition of his translation a sonnet to Southampton, it was couched in the coldest terms of formality, and it was one of a series of sixteen sonnets each addressed to a distinguished nobleman with whom the writer implies that he had no previous relations. {135} Drayton, Ben Jonson, and Marston have also ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... his conscience the Secretary of State believed it right or reasonable to make war for such a cause. Villeroy replied by asking "whether even admitting the negative, the Ambassador thought it were wisely done for such a trifle, for a formality, to plunge into extremities and to turn all Christendom upside down." Pecquius, not considering honour a trifle or a formality, said that "for nothing in the world would his Highness the Archduke descend to a cowardly action or to anything that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Inca. It was he who, having heard certain particulars concerning me, sought me out, satisfied himself and his colleague that I fulfilled in my person all the conditions referred to in a certain prophecy, and brought me hither without even going through the preliminary formality of asking my consent. It was he who, when he presented me before you all here in the temple, convinced you all, with two or three exceptions, of whom Huanacocha was one, that I was the re-incarnated Manco ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... 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 from ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... the father in defiance to the old priest; but that was the very last method his Lordship himself approved, as marriage must inevitably have followed Lord Elmwood's consent: besides, though a Peer, Lord Margrave was unused to rank with Peers; and even the formality of an interview with one of his equals, carried along with it a terror, or at least a fatigue, to a rustic Baron. Others of his companions advised seduction; but happily the Viscount possessed ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... about an hour returned. The table in the court room was covered with bottles, newspapers, and novels, and the court passed its time during trial in discussing these. This was very well if the trial was, as they said, a mere matter of formality; but if it was a trial in earnest, on which depended issues of life or death, it ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... served soup, and the rancher set the example by "piling in" without formality. Eight hours in the open air between meals is a powerful deterrent of table small-talk. Then followed a huge joint of beef, from which Y.D. cut generous slices with swift and dexterous strokes of a great knife, and the Chinese boy added the vegetables from ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... to the least ornate buildings—a charm to which the Gothic architecture owes half its beauty. Jessamine, roses, wooodbine, ivy, trained up the angles and between the windows. Altogether the house had that air of HOME which had been wanting to the regal formality of Moutfort Court. One of the windows, raised above the ground by a short winding stair, stood open. Lights had just been brought into the room within, and Lionel's eye was caught by the gleam. Lady Montfort turned up the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fearing lest the people should grow contentious. Yet even so it was impossible to suppress wrong-doing; for which reason they employed justice as a preventive, administration to bring things into line, external formality to secure respect, good faith as an abiding principle, and kindness in actual treatment. They appointed certain ranks and emoluments with a view to encouraging their officers to follow the course thus sketched out for them, and they fixed certain ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... there was an inartistic formality about the whole establishment. His sense of this was at first but a feeling—a vague impression that grew upon him without his quite knowing why. He soon discovered, however, that everything was arranged squarely, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the usual formality of the meeting, and the chief, having commanded silence, went ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... to the prostrate one once more. She put her hand in his, and he held it fast for an instant, and, in spite of his mother's gaze, it was an appreciable instant longer than formality called for. ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... must here again be repeated that it is the reality, and not the form or the permanence of the marriage union, which is its essential and valuable part. It is not the legal or religious formality which sanctifies marriage, it is the reality of the marriage which sanctifies the form. Fielding has satirized in Nightingale, Tom Jones's friend, the shallow-brained view of connubial society which ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... slightly parted in a smile of welcome, felt, notwithstanding her apparent composure, a strange disturbance of outlook and senses as Prince Shan was ushered into her flower-bedecked little sitting room that afternoon. The unusual formality of his entrance seemed somehow to suit the man and his manner. He bowed low as soon as he had crossed the threshold and bowed again over her fingers as she rose ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were the pleasant evenings at home. When the day's work was over, friends looked in to have a fireside crack—sometimes scientific men, sometimes artists, often both. They were all made welcome. There was no formality about their visits. Had they been formal, there would have been comparatively little pleasure. The visitor came in with his "Good e'en", and seated himself. The family went on with their work as before. The girls ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... said De la Riviere, rising with great formality, "what may I do to serve you? Will you join our party?" He motioned ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of Jesus had to deal with their prisoner according to the formality of the Roman law. They brought him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, accusing him of "perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king."[22] The governor duly examined Jesus, but, ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... History stripped of philosophy becomes simply a lifeless heap of useless materials, without either inward unity, right purpose, or worthy result; while philosophy severed from history results in a disturbed existence of different sects, allied to formality." ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... her with magisterial formality, or even politely, she would have been embarrassed, in spite of a certain boldness of her dark eyes and an ever present consciousness of her power. It is possible that his own ease and that of his companion was part of their instinctive good nature and perception. ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... "I thought I had ordered him a new pair of trousers." Meanwhile no other convict was to be seen—"Eh bien," said the Resident, "ou sont vos prisonniers?" "Monsieur le Resident," replied the gaoler, saluting with soldierly formality, "comme c'est jour de fete, je les ai laisse aller a la chasse." They were all upon the mountains hunting goats! Presently we came to the quarters of the women, likewise deserted—"Ou sont vos bonnes femmes?" asked the Resident; and the gaoler cheerfully responded: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... why does it work? Because it is the most effective of all available antidotes to the alarms and terrors of passion. Monogamy, in brief, kills passion—and passion is the most dangerous of all the surviving enemies to what we call civilization, which is based upon order, decorum, restraint, formality, industry, regimentation. The civilized man—the ideal civilized man—is simply one who never sacrifices the common security to his private passions. He reaches perfection when he even ceases to love passionately—when he reduces the most ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... to be silent. Perhaps the Kaffirs, whose minds she could read as an open book, taught her this; or perhaps it was one of the best gifts to her of old Menzi's "Spirit," into whose care he passed her with so much formality. ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard |
