"Flummery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... material betterment of my kind. I was nothing if not interested in human well-being, material progress, mortal ills and remedies. Approaching Sylvia's position and outlook from this level then, I thrust my way through what I impatiently dismissed as the "flummery"; by which I meant the poetry, the picturesqueness, the sacrosanct glamour surrounding his Reverence and St. Jude's; and found, or thought I found, that Sylvia's religion was at worst a selfish gratification of the senses of the individual worshipper, and at best a devout and pious ministration ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... offence, sir," I said, "and I apologize for my flummery, but when I saw you coming up the hill, looking so gloomy and disconsolate on this bright day, as though you disapproved of God's world, the question slipped out before I ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... arter, Bet?" he said, as gruffly as he could manage to speak. "You don't bring honeyed words like them 'ere into this house for nothing. Tell out what you wants, and don't talk flummery." ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... captain, passengers, and first mate had risen, the ladies were allowed to approach their dinner, which had been cooked on shore, and was now placed on the table. It consisted of a couple of roast dogs, several dishes of small fish, and a white mixture called pooah, of the consistency of flummery. ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... not a Roman Catholic, and those two Travises laughed a little offensively, and said they guessed he was so, as much as a nigger was anything; and the Papists were welcome to his black carcase, only they would not be charged for any flummery. "I won't be made a fool of about a nigger," one said. And then, I was so glad, Mr. Audley begged to know when the funeral would be, and said he would go anywhere to do honour ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a big party of us at the Clackmannans' Scotch place, Blairbinkie, when all these fearful things began to happen—and now where are we all? The Flummery boys and ever so many more of the party are at the front with their regiments. The Duke of Clackmannan is at the head of the Clackmannan Yeomanry. Norty's gone off to help take care of the East coast, and it's lucky to have him helping to protect it and keep ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... my suitors," said Patty, complacently. "They're awful ground worshippers, the whole lot of them! But so long as they don't worship me, they may adore the ground as much as they like. Now, you people must excuse me, for I'm going to get into that flummery bridesmaid's frock,—and I can tell you, though it looks so simple, it's ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... "Flummery!" observed the cynic, "I had a selfish motive: I wished to appear generous—I wished to be praised—I wished to attach you to my service, in order to employ you, when the time came, in ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... some decent elector gets his head broken in the spree, you will plaster him up, or sew him up, as may be necessary. Up to the day of election you will not show yourself, and only put in your appearance when they come to fetch you with music and flags and all that flummery, and beg you to come and kindly accept the mandate, which the chairman of the party is dying to hand over to you. Then at the banquet you offer a toast to his Majesty the King, and afterward you will accept of the torchlight serenade, which your voters will give you, and perhaps speak a few ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... at them, half-feeling the flummery petals against the palm of her hand. Fraulein seemed cancelled. There was no need to feel self-conscious. She was not thinking of any of them. Miriam found herself looking at high grey stone basins with ornamental stems like wine-glasses and large square fluted pedestals, filled with geraniums and ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... serenely certain of a comfortable future. There was no too modern uneasiness about it, no trifling, gim-crack furniture constructed to catch the eye and the angles of any one venturing to seek repose upon it, no unmeaning rubbish of ornaments or hectic flummery of second-rate pictures. Above the high oaken mantel-piece was a little pure bust in marble of the Prophet when a small boy. To right and left were pretty miniatures in golden frames of the Prophet's delightfully numerous grandmothers. Here might be seen Mrs. Prothero, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... old Littlecherry," the Doctor began again quite suddenly, "that's his speciality—folklore, occultism, all that flummery. If you knocked at his door with the original Sleeping Beauty on your arm he'd only fuss round her with cushions and hope that she'd had a good night. Found a seed once—chipped it out of an old fossil, and grew it in a pot in ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... Lucilius' attacks seem less ill-natured and more justly humorous from being always directed against the vicious and demoralised. Occasionally he indulges in such uncomplimentary expressions as "There is no flummery-maker equal to you," while some are hailed with "Long life to you, glutton, gormandizer, and belly-god." He might truly say in his metaphorical language, "I seize his beak and smash his lips, Zopyrus' fashion, and knock out ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... anything about your marriage," he said. "A bit of church flummery. Use your brains, Sylvia. You know that couldn't make ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... no adventitious aid in the narration to thrill through the hearts of others. So, to avoid yarn—spinning, I shall evaporate my early Logs, and blow off as much of the froth as I can, in order to present the residuum free of flummery to the reader—just to give him a taste here and there, as it were, of the sort of animal I was ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott |
