"Formality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... favor amongst State counselors—counselors in office, even amongst privy counselors. Nowadays, in fact, gymnastics have become a positive science. As for these duties of our office, these examinations, all this formality—you yourself, you will remember, touched upon the topic just now, batuchka—these examinations, and so forth, sometimes perplex the magistrate much more than the man under suspicion. You said as much just ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... 23rd Prairial, year XII., by which the whole system of burials is still regulated, establishes, in the most unequivocal manner, the right of all persons to be interred on their own property. You have only to obtain a permit from the prefecture of the Seine-et-Oise, and then, without further formality, you can remove the remains of Madame Marie-Gaston to the mausoleum you propose to erect in ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... it is I who am mad, and you prove to me that passion blinds the most well-meaning. I appreciate your calm reasoning. It is then understood that to-morrow you will be irrevocably promised to M. Franz d'Epinay, not only by that theatrical formality invented to heighten the effect of a comedy called the signature of the contract, but ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and had no prepared statutes, 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 ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... Luxembourg, or fearful of the talents of Louvois and Colbert, or suspicious of the influence of Racine and Fenelon, also led him to degrade his nobility by menial offices, and institute in his court a burdensome formality. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... contingencies, summoning them to change their religion and to acknowledge the supremacy of Spain. Not one word of this did the natives understand and to it they responded with a volley of poisoned arrows. The Spanish considered this paper a most {11} valuable document, and always went through the formality of having the publication of it attested by ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a Master-Card, meaning a Gift to the Querist. Influenced by like suit, is figured a personal Ornament or convenience. By a Heart, a Gift is to be made. By Club, it comes with formality and after debate, and considering for some time, or for special circumstances. By a Spade, a Disappointment to another dear to you, ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... "Only a little formality," said Nick. "As you do not wish to appear in court, we desire to take your sworn testimony ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... Anthony Trollope, Dixon, Lord Houghton, Lemon, Esquiros (of the Revue des Deux Mondes), and Sala are to be called upon to speak; the last, for the newspaper press. All the Liverpool notabilities are to muster. And Manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due formality. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... row along the same cornice, the temples of Girgenti, originally at least six in number, were not so disposed that any of their architectural lines should be exactly parallel. The Greeks disliked formality; the carefully calculated asymmetreia in the disposition of their groups of buildings secured variety of effect as well as a broken surface for the display of light and shadow. This is very noticeable on the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... would need to do so now. His trunk and bags were full; he had the cigars made into a nice package, to be carried handily, and on his arrival at the North German Lloyd docks stood waiting among his things for the formality of Customs examination, his friends ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... this graceful familiarity better than all the formality in the world. The truth of history in Julius Caesar is very ably worked up with dramatic effect. The councils of generals, the doubtful turns of battles, are represented to the life. The death of Brutus is worthy of him—it has the dignity of the Roman senator with the firmness ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... speak English easily ten years ago. And, now henceforth, when we are alone, let there be no formality. You are an English gentleman. I have always tried to ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... called restitution of conjugal rights, then the speaker points to what has been justly described as the next great step in the improvement of society. If it means that we do wrong to invest with the most marked, serious, and unmistakable formality an act that brings human beings into existence, with uncounted results both to such beings themselves and to others who are equally irresponsible for their appearance in the world, then the position is recklessly immoral, and it is, moreover, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... affairs, on entering the Presidency, was to make the minister of France understand that the government of the United States was to be treated with due formality and respect. His second was to examine the whole mass of foreign correspondence collected in the State Department of the confederation, and he did this, as has been said, pencil in hand, making notes and abstracts as he went. It was well worth doing, for he learned ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... which read like fairy stories to this generation, the courtships of those days were too leisurely to be very interesting. Ten-year engagements did not seem to be unusual, and it was not considered a social mistake if a man suddenly disappeared for four or five years, without the formality of mentioning his destination to the young woman who expected ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... 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 ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... at what your correspondent says about "Note Books," I think the following hint may be useful to others, as it has been to myself. Many persons never get so far as the formality of a common-place book, and do not like to write in their books. Let them follow my plan. The envelope maker will procure them any number of little slips of white paper, with a touch of isinglass at each of the four corners. Let the note be written on one of these, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... unexpectedly interrupted, or appealed to by the aforesaid chatterer, or any one else, he readily answered, though certainly with a somewhat frigid courtesy. It was impossible for any one, of the least powers of observation, to fail of detecting in Mr. Smith, though beneath a reserve and formality not very easy to penetrate, a kind of scrupulous antique courtliness, suggesting to you a resuscitated gentleman of the school of Addison, particularly in his intercourse with ladies. He was caution personified,—never saying any thing that required retraction or modification: and though ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... the Spanish attitude, that the years were given not to the arts of peace but to those of war; that leisure was scanty, intrigue unceasing, and the austerity of life was made greater by the strong and merciless grip of the Church. Formality and superstition marched hand in hand in a court whose ruler, if we may judge by his portraits, had forgotten how to smile. Then again, the atmosphere of the Madrid court, for all its dulness and secrecy and unhealthy ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan
... was a flare of torches and the grotesque play of shadows between the grotto-like walls of an abandoned coal mine. About her too ranged in the spectral formality of masked faces and black rubber coats; of peaked hats with low turned brims, stood ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... keep to the severest formality or he knew he would never be able to play his part until the end.—"I regret my passion just now. The situation seemed peculiar as I came in. I understand there was nothing for me to have been angry about,—please forgive me. Rest ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... was a colored man, standing before his log-house in the evening of a day in June. His wife was the only listener to the monologue. He had been examining a paper which was sealed and stamped with official formality, and which had started him upon the train of thought he had pursued. The question he was trying in vain to answer was only the simplest and easiest of the thousand strange queries which freedom had so recently propounded ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... human side is neglected. The narrative moves like some stately ceremonial in which emotion and incident would be out of place until it reaches the strange deathbed, spread between the flowering trees, and Ananda introduces with the formality of a court chamberlain the Malla householders who have come to pay their last respects and bow down at the feet of the dying teacher. The scenes described are like stained glass windows; the Lord preaching in the centre, sinners repenting and saints listening, all in harmonious colours and studied ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... According to due formality, the Disinherited Knight was to be considered as leader of the one body, while Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who had been rated as having done second-best in the preceding day, was named first champion of the other band. Those who had ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of the parties divorcing themselves was prevalent, and the courts were called upon to ratify the act, just to give the matter respectability. Below a certain stratum in society, the formality of legal marriage and divorce was waived entirely, just as it is largely, now, among our colored population in the South. During the French Revolution, the same custom largely obtained in France. And about the year One Hundred ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... for there is such a thing as being too systematic. There are men and women, for instance, who put away things so carefully that they can never find them again. It is too much like the "red tape" formality at Washington, and Mr. Dickens' "Circumlocution Office,"—all theory ...
— The Art of Money Getting - or, Golden Rules for Making Money • P. T. Barnum
... with the drafting of the first Reform Bill. An experience of five years in the cabinet with Grey and Palmerston, and of two years as ambassador at St. Petersburg, marked him out as a politician and diplomatist of the first rank. A certain stateliness and formality of character appears, however, to have made him many enemies in England, and they did not scruple to gratify their dislike or jealousy during his mission to Canada. Their enmity is echoed in a trivial paragraph in The ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... have we, mere Assemblymen, to have an opinion on any matter? Why should we, who were sent here by the people for the sake of convenience and formality, have any independence in our thought? What right have we to do anything but listen in awe and reverence to the words of wisdom that drop from the tongues of Governor James N. Gillett and ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... lordship happened in speeches to do her majesty right, "for there is no such matter as flattery amongst you all," he had rather the air of paying fine compliments than of speaking what he really thought; "so that," adds he, "a man may read your formality in your countenance," whereas "it ought to be done familiarly and with an air ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... all those Governments have to surrender almost as much of their sovereignty as the constituent sovereign States which make up the United States of America have surrendered to the Federal Government; if their unification is to be anything more than a formality, they will have to delegate a control of their inter-State relations to an extent for which few minds are prepared ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... required." This assertion of the extraordinary nature of the occasion separated the incident from the impressment grievance, with which Madison sought to join it; but what is more instructively noticeable is the contrast between this extreme formality, represented as requisite, and the wholly informal, and as it proved unreal, withdrawal by Napoleon of his Decrees, which the Administration of Madison at a later day maintained to be sufficient for ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... pure or impure, is not with her the final question. Not how much chaff is in you; but whether you have any wheat. Pure? I might say to many a man: Yes, you are pure; pure enough; but you are chaff,—insincere hypothesis, hearsay, formality; you never were in contact with the great heart of the Universe at all; you are properly neither pure nor impure; you are nothing, Nature has ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... formality. You see that is what I have to do in all cases like this, but you can tell your story ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining with me the other day, when I, with great formality, produced my whigmeleerie cup, and told them that it had been a family-piece among the descendants of William Wallace, This roused such an enthusiasm, that they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and by-and-by, never did your great ancestor lay a Southron more completely to rest ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... need a pair of console tables and mirrors, some chairs, Oriental rugs, a tall clock if one wishes, and, if the hall is very large and calls for more furniture, there are many other interesting pieces to choose from. A hall should be treated with a certain amount of formality, and the greater the house, the greater the amount; but it also should have an air of hospitality, of impersonal welcome, which makes one wish to enter the rooms beyond where the ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... man, he had formed to himself a notion of royal authority which regarded men as simply the servile instruments of despotic will, and was outraged by every symptom of liberty. Born in Spain, and educated under the iron discipline of the monks, he demanded of others the same gloomy formality and reserve as marked his own character. The cheerful merriment of his Flemish subjects was as uncongenial to his disposition and temper as their privileges were offensive to his imperious will. He spoke no other language but the Spanish, endured none ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and study them with advantage, to the better understanding of the existing poem or picture; but no more write or paint another, than by discovering laws of vegetation they can make a tree to grow. And therefore, wheresoever we find the system and formality of rules much dwelt upon, and spoken of as anything else than a help for children, there we may be sure that noble art is not even understood, far less reached. And thus it was with all the common and public mind in the fifteenth ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... but a certain formality, for they both felt the importance of the proceeding, and were a little ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... court-house, hitched and blanketed his horse, and passing around the building, now dark and deserted, reached the entrance to the jail. In the office he found Conklin at his desk. The sheriff was rather laboriously engaged in making the entry in his ledger of North's committal to his charge, a formality which, out of consideration for his prisoner's feelings, he had dispensed with at the time ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... back to her father." Pecquius asked whether in 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 would sully ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... (ostentation) 822. manners, breeding &c. (politeness) 894; air, demeanor &c. (appearance) 448; savoir faire[Fr]; gentlemanliness[obs3], gentility, decorum, propriety, biensance[Fr]; conventions of society; Mrs. Grundy; punctilio; form, formality; etiquette, point of etiquette; dress &c. 225. custom &c. 613; mode, vogue, go; rage &c. (desire) 865; prevailing taste; fad, trend, bandwagon, furore[obs3], thing, in thing, craze, chic, last word. man of fashion, woman of fashion, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... The French poacher must not be judged by the same ethics as the English poacher. Generally speaking, game is not preserved in France. There are extensive tracts everywhere where anybody can shoot, provided that he has satisfied the license formality and observes the regulations with regard to the seasons. The poacher is a man who thinks it waste of money to pay for a gun-license, and a waste of opportunities to respect the breeding season. If ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... a matter of "great pith or moment," but it shows how pleasantly he could acknowledge a civility. The turn of the sentences smacks of the formality of the time. They sound a little labored, perhaps, to modern ears, but they were graceful according to the standard of his day, and they have a gentle courtesy which can never be ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... gave them the privilege of sitting up later than usual, and enjoying a more quiet and pleasant evening than was possible in the noisy rooms. Boys and master were soon quite at home with each other, and in this way Mr. Rose had an opportunity of instilling many a useful warning without the formality of regular ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... about her, but her frightened fawn air was gone; she was in her home, had found her place, and held it with a simple dignity of her own, quite ready to ripen into all the matronly authority, without the severe formality, of ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... student a vaster quarry of books to draw upon, together with wider elbow-room and completer accommodations. But the Library of Congress is still more liberal, for it admits all the world without even the formality of applying for a ticket; and it substitutes for the impressiveness of simplicity the allurements of splendour. It is impossible to conceive a more brilliant spectacle than this Rotunda when it is lighted at night by nearly fifteen-hundred incandescent lamps. Nor is ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... resemblance to theatrical representation. The king sitting as in a gallery, the great men raised as actors on a stage, and the vulgar below in a pit gazing at the show. The king, on my presentation, interrupted the dull formality of my interpreter, bidding me welcome to the brother of the king my master. I then delivered a translation of the king's letter, and then my commission, on both of which he looked curiously; and afterwards on my presents, which were well received. He asked some questions; and, with a seeming ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... tedious succession of technical proceedings, mocking justice by their very assumption of formality, it would be needless to refer. Solemnly, however, and by an authority which it was fatal to resist, Galileo was called on to renounce a truth which his whole life had been consecrated to reveal and to maintain, "The motion through ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... manner of the American answer, and regarded the incident as closed, but that it could not agree with portions of Seward's argument and would answer these later. This was done on January 23, but the reply was mainly a mere formality and is of interest only as revealing a further shift in the opinion of the legal advisers, with emphasis on the question of what constitutes contraband[480]. Possibly the British Government was embarrassed by the fact that while ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... The formality of movements, of voices, governed and checked the unbounded emotions of my wonder. The two ladies sank, with a rustle of starch and stiff silks, in answer to my profound bow. I had just enough control ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... called days of Gala, and all the friends or relations of the lady, whose saint it is, are obliged to appear in their best clothes, and all their jewels. The mistress of the house takes no particular notice of any body, nor returns any body's visit; and, whoever pleases, may go, without the formality of being presented. The company are entertained with ice in several forms, winter and summer; afterwards they divide into several parties of ombre, piquet, or conversation, all games of hazard ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... D.D., gathering together his belongings, as the train whistled for the village, fancied that he could visualize with a fair accuracy the gentleman who had written, "You will be met at the station." Eben Tollman used, in his correspondence, a stilted formality which conjured up the portrait of one somewhat staid ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... own lecture, thus: "If the middle tub is contained in the big tub, and the little tub is contained in the middle tub, then the little tub is contained in the big tub." Hegel says: "Common sense in its reaction against such logical formality and artificiality turned away in disgust, and was of the opinion that it could do without such a science as logic." Most true, Philosopher Hegel, you have absurdities of your own on a gigantic scale, but you do well to reject the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... how much he liked Gail. Too much. So he spoke with great formality. The radar had tried to detect and range on something that wasn't there. The nearest accurate statement would be that the radar had detected something just before it became something the radar could detect, which did not begin ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... as the small wits of Rubbleford call him, in allusion to his sleek and solemn appearance, his respectable manner, his clerical cravat, and his speckless black garments, is placing the cake and cowslip wine on the dining-table, with as much formality and precision as if his master expected an archbishop to lunch, instead of a clown's wife and a little child of ten years old. It is quite a sight to see Vance retiring and looking at the general effect of each knife and fork as he lays it down; ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... letters. The one is, that there is in some of them, as our freedom increased, an agreeable vein of humour and pleasantry, which shows how easy religion sat upon him, and how far he was from placing any part of it in a gloomy melancholy, or stiff formality. The other is, that he frequently refers to domestic circumstances, such as the illness or recovery of my children, &c., which I am surprised how a man of his extensive and important business could so distinctly bear upon his mind. But his memory was good, and ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... Wolf favored a reversal. Be, who thoroughly understood the case, warmly argued also in favor of a reversal, and in glowing terms pictured the court scene and the misunderstanding of the jury. Nikitin, who, as usual, stood for severity and for strict formality, was against it. The whole case, then, depended on Skovorodnikoff's vote. And his vote was thrown against a reversal, principally for the reason that Nekhludoff's determination to marry the girl on moral grounds was ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... was shelter. After prowling around the partially quake-wrecked gas works, I found some pieces of timber out of which I constructed a sort of framework for a large A tent. I borrowed a hatchet from another refugee, a stranger in adversity. The disaster had broken down the barriers of formality and we all lent a willing hand each to the other. I secured some spare rope and got up my framework. This was covered to windward with some Indian blankets sewn together by those we were trying ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... In Tahiti things are not so strictly ordered; when Ori and I "made brothers," both our families sat with us at table, yet only he and I, who had eaten with intention, were supposed to be affected by the ceremony. For the adoption of an infant I believe no formality to be required; the child is handed over by the natural parents, and grows up to inherit the estates of the adoptive. Presents are doubtless exchanged, as at all junctures of island life, social or international; but I never heard of any banquet—the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the formality or the ceremony, but I like the amusement and the gaiety, and should ask with much more reason how can you like to spend your time studying parchments and reading the doings of those old Romans, when ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... a dingy ruinous place. A couple of covered waggens were in the court, their horses were littered under a shed hard by, and lounging about the place were some men and a pair of sergeants in the Prussian uniform, who both touched their hats to my friend the Captain. This customary formality struck me as nothing extraordinary, but the aspect of the inn had something exceedingly chilling and forbidding in it, and I observed the men shut to the great yard-gates as soon as we were entered. Parties of French horsemen, the Captain said, were about ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me for my passports and did so without going through the customary formality of showing his police card. I demanded as a matter of routine that he do this and began to draw out of my pocket the large envelope in which I keep all my documents in order to take out my Eagle-stamped German courier's ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... the privileged creditors and the unsecured creditors, or when the concordat is specially dishonest, and the bankrupt is in need of a deceptive majority. But in the case of a failure when all has been given up, the meeting is a mere formality. Pillerault went to each creditor, one after the other, and asked him to give his proxy to his attorney. Every creditor, except du Tillet, sincerely pitied Cesar, after striking him down. Each knew that his conduct was scrupulously ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... literature; 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 ambition of aspiring ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... 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 degrades the reality of marriage to exalt the form. Nightingale has the greatest ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... reason or other Clara J. omitted the formality of springing forward and greeting my relatives effusively, so she simply said, "You are very welcome, Aunt ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... sometimes valuable, by his manner, in which he carries a certain flaunting, flowery, figurative, flirting style of amicable condescension to the reader, to an excess more tantalising than the most starched and ridiculous formality of the age of James I. There is nothing so tormenting as the affectation of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... could answer both Frankie's anxiety and the painful ordeal of sitting still were terminated by the loud peal at the bell announcing Charley's arrival, and Frankie, without troubling to observe the usual formality of looking out of the window to see if it was a runaway ring, had clattered half-way downstairs before he heard his mother calling him to come back for the halfpenny; then he clattered up again and then down again at such a rate and with so much noise as ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... prior, "I would have spared you this unwelcome formality had it been possible, but my duty must be done. I will ask you to be our conductor throughout the house, and will crave permission to post my servants hither and thither about the passages as seems to me best, and to take such steps as shall appear needful for proving ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... him. 'I have promised,' he said, with a formality that smacked of insolence, 'to offer you what I believe is ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... accosted me in a familiar manner, and, offering me his hand, said,—'I am an enemy to English etiquette, especially out of England; and I always make my own acquaintance without waiting for the formality of an introduction. If you have nothing to do, and are disposed for another ramble, I shall be glad of your company.' There was that irresistible attraction in his manner, of which those who have had the good fortune to be admitted into his intimacy can alone have felt the power in his moments of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... "with more and more frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his conversation: he was sublime without haughtiness, courteous without formality, and communicative without ostentation. I was, at first, great princess, of your opinion; thought him the happiest of mankind; and often congratulated him on the blessing that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with indifference but the praises of his condition, to which he always ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... seek the blessing of General Waldersee; then he has himself blessed by his mother, and by his aunt, and later he will go and get blessed by his grandmother, Queen Victoria. Slowly and solemnly each act and formality is accomplished in accordance with the rites prescribed by William. The Imperial missionary, the sailor transformed into a sort of bishop, sets forth. The quest of the pirate-knight is to conquer all China, to become its emperor, to fall upon it, inspired by the God of battles. What ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... said Dorothy and Elsie in one voice, raising their right hands. It was a formality which had to be gone through many times when they played at being conspirators; their words and ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... no sort of formality is required; but for receiving interest, or selling, it is necessary to produce a power of attorney. An established rule is, that the seller always retains his right to half a year's interest at the succeeding stated ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... points, he examined both shins delicately by the sense of touch, and carefully tested the capacities of his neck-muscles to move his head in a wonted manner. Then he responded somewhat gruffly: "'Lo!" "Where you been?" Sam said eagerly, his formality vanishing. ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... cochere of the inn of the Black Boar. Of the ostler who hastened forward to take their reins Monsieur de Garnache inquired if the Marquis de Condillac were lodged there. He was answered in the affirmative, and he got down at once from his horse. Indeed, but for the formality of the thing, he might have spared himself the question, for lounging about the courtyard were a score of stalwart weather-tanned fellows, whose air and accoutrements proclaimed them soldiers. It required little ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... from the people of the State, inaugurating civil war, a proceeding which he followed up directly afterwards by proclaiming Virginia a member of the Confederacy, and thus carrying the State at once out of the Union, without awaiting the formality ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... power and efficiency infused into our churches by his ministrations—for his rebukes, exposures and denunciations of sin, in and out of the Church; for holding up Christ at all times, as the only hope of lost sinners; for tearing away the mask of a heartless formality in the profession and practice of religion; for the thousands of all classes and ages in the forests and prairies of Texas, where he has pitched his great gospel tent, and in the cities of Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Mobile, Memphis, Louisville, ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... cunning, this relationship will gradually make us full masters of their destinies. It is desirable, that the Israelites refrain from keeping concubines of our holy faith and rather select Christian girls for the part. The substitution of the simple formality of a contract before some civil power for the church ceremony is of the greatest importance to us, because on this condition Christian women will overflow our camp.—If gold is the first power on this earth, then the second ...
— The History of a Lie - 'The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion' • Herman Bernstein
... resumed with some formality, and as if he could hardly bring himself to utter the words,—"I ought to add that in 1854 the American, Captain Kane, in the brig Advance, went still farther north, and that his lieutenant, Morton, journeying over the ice, hoisted the United States flag ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... sunup. As Pete drank, The Spider sized 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 Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... should pay a certain outward respect to the image of the Emperor which was supposed to stand in every temple, just as a picture of the President of the United States is apt to hang in an American Post Office. But this was a formality without any deeper meaning. Generally speaking everybody could honour, revere and adore whatever gods he pleased, and as a result, Rome was filled with all sorts of queer little temples and synagogues, dedicated to ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... it may be gathered that between our Fortunate Youth and the Princess some genial sun had melted the icy barriers of formality. He had known her for eighteen months, ever since she had bought Chetwood Park and settled down as the great personage of the countryside. He had met her many times, both in London and in Morebury; he had dined in state at her house; he had shot her partridges; he had danced ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of the Coffee House were convinced—as the result of the high dues and constantly increasing formality and discipline in the social clubs in New York—that there was need here for a moderate-priced eating and meeting place, which should be run in the simplest possible way and with the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... made, then a certain Sum, shall be lodged out of the Prizes before taken, to prosecute the said Appeal: And it shall likewise be lawful for the Owner or Agent of the said Privateer to discharge any Capture that may be made during his said Cruize, without the formality of a Prosecution, in order that all unnecessary Charges may as much ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... only controlled his subjects' purses; he had a terrible authority over their persons as well. He could issue orders for the arrest and arbitrary imprisonment of any one he pleased. Without trial or formality of any sort, a person might be cast into a dungeon for an indefinite period, until the king happened to remember him again or was reminded of him by the poor man's friends. These notorious orders of arrest were called lettres de cachet, i.e., sealed letters. They ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... Sunday, at twelve o'clock, and advised him to bring one of his friends with him. (My name was mentioned in parenthesis). She promised on her side to invite Shatov, as the brother of Darya Pavlovna. "You can obtain a final answer from her: will that be enough for you? Is this the formality you were so ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... took the pieces out of his mouth and presented them with great formality to Monsieur de Chavigny, saying that for that evening the entertainment was ended, but in three months it should be repeated, when Pistache would have learned a few ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Mis' M'ree," she exclaimed, without the formality of prefacing her remarks, "I wants to know whut's de mattah wif Brothah Simon—what mek him ac' de way ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... fence and made for a negro hut, while several hounds from the plantation house followed hard on my track. I managed, by some tall running, to come in a few feet ahead, and bolted into the shanty without warning or formality, slamming the door behind me to keep out the dogs. A great stupid negro was standing before the fire, his hands and face buried in fresh pork and hoe-cake, which he was making poor work at eating. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... his 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. In ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... in front of the throne, the bride approaches the emperor, and with a curtsy invites his majesty to take part in the dance, and is conducted around the room by him, the bridegroom going through the same formality with the empress. As soon as these first three rounds are concluded, the twelve ministers hand over their wax torches to twelve pages of honor, each lad being of noble birth, and the bridegroom then similarly invites the remaining princesses of the blood, two at a time, leading one with ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Duration; but on her removal to the Hall which is within a walk from our House, they became both more frequent and longer. This as you may suppose could not be pleasing to Mrs Diana who is a professed enemy to everything which is not directed by Decorum and Formality, or which bears the least resemblance to Ease and Good-breeding. Nay so great was her aversion to her Nephews behaviour that I have often heard her give such hints of it before his face that had not Henry at such times been engaged in conversation with Eloisa, they must have ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... intend putting the room. Is it to be a bedroom merely, or a combination of bedroom and boudoir? Is it to be a formal reception-room, or a living-room? Is it to be a family library, or a man's study? If it is a small flat, do you aim at absolute comfort, artistically achieved, or do you aim at formality at the ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... remarks were uttered with a propriety and sweetness that won upon me yet more than her beauty. I then, in return, assured her that I had not supposed any of the family had remained at home, when I strolled to this part of the mansion. I begged she would not regard me with the formality of a stranger; and insisted that, as she was the cousin of my relation, she was also mine. To this ingenious argument she answered with so much good sense, and at the same time, so much gentleness and artlessness, that I thought I could have listened ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... followed, rather to my surprise, by the young Count, whose responsibility for myself had ended, I imagined, on "delivering the goods." My surprise was of short duration, for once in the car the young Uhlan dropped all the formality he had displayed on the platform and addressed the elder officer as "papa." This, then, was old General von Boden, of whom the Major had spoken, Aide-de-Camp to the Kaiser and formerly ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... filled high political stations, and who possessed ripe experience, wisdom, dignity, and weight of character. John Tyler was elected president, and the "Peace Congress," as the organization styled itself, sat with great formality in the old Presbyterian Church, which had been converted into a hall attached to Willard's Hotel. A long series of resolutions was discussed and adopted, but they were not of as much value as the paper on which ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... irregularities," said the elder Cruger, whose diplomatic training had made him something of a stickler for formality and precedent. "There will be time enough for that when ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... This formality being accomplished with great ceremony, the husband and wife breakfasted, and then separated till the hour of dinner, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Halloran; she is engaged this morning," returned the mother, with as much distance and formality as ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... of salute used at the telephone she was surprised, and not pleased; but I told her I had given order for it: that henceforth and forever the telephone must always be invoked with that reverent formality, in perpetual honor and remembrance of my lost friend and her small namesake. This was not true. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thinking of, Marcella? You must be perfectly blind not to see that he complies with every possible requisite! The Regents' inspection is bound to be only a brief formality. Be good enough to unbar ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... customary to make disposition of feudal possessions without first gaining the emperor's consent. As it was a foregone conclusion that he would never give his consent to this arrangement, Matilda thought best to dispense with that formality. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... had somewhat disturbed the usual formality of the meeting, and the chief, having commanded silence, went on ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... Felidae spend a large portion of their time in characteristic gambols; the adults, however, acquire a grave and dignified demeanour, only the female playing on occasions with her offspring; but this she always does with a certain formality of manner, as if the relaxation were indulged in not spontaneously, but for the sake of the young and as being a necessary part of their education. Some writer has described the lion's assumption ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... already seeing his candidate. As political boss of his party, he had little regard for such a formality as being announced to any person on whom he might call—so he had ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... and fifty years of Graham's falling asleep, his Council had thrown off its disguises and ruled openly, supreme in his name. Elections had become a cheerful formality, a septennial folly, an ancient unmeaning custom; a social Parliament as ineffectual as the convocation of the Established Church in Victorian times assembled now and then; and a legitimate King of England, disinherited, drunken and witless, played foolishly in a second-rate music-hall. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... occasions the President, in his private character, might honor with his presence." The President might invite to his house in small parties what official characters or citizens of distinction he pleased, but this invitation should always be given without formality. The President should hold levees to receive "visits of compliment," and two days a week might not be too many for this purpose. The idea running through Adams's advice was that in his private character ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... there anything you wish to tell me?" They had never used the familiar "thee" and "thou" the one to the other, for at the time of their marriage an absurd whim of fashion had ordained on the part of French wives and husbands a return to eighteenth-century formality, and Claire had chosen, in that ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... great care not to disclose to the white ladies where I had been. I could not however refrain from making comparisons, which in no wise redounded to the advantage of the white assemble. As soon as I entered I found a state of formality.[232] ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and landlord of the "Half-way House," had just gone through the formality of closing his house for the night, hanging dangerously out of the window in the vain attempt to subdue a rebellious shutter that had evidently entered into conspiracy with the invaders, and, shutting a door as against a sheriff's posse, was going to bed—i. e., to read himself ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... women by an Austrian general led to that officer being thrashed in the streets of London by Barclay and Perkins' draymen. And as for the third power, the Prussians, it seems clear that they have treated Belgian women in a style compared with which flogging might be called an official formality. But, as I say, something much deeper than any such recrimination lies behind the use of the word on either side. When the German Emperor complains of our allying ourselves with a barbaric and half-oriental power he is not (I ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... all family affairs had been exhausted. This is a formality. One must not rush to the heart of his news or he will mortally offend ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... Council could be only a formality. The king, the young queen, the Grand-master, and the cardinal returned to it, taking with them the vanquished Catherine, who said no word except to approve the measures proposed by the Guises. In spite ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... waltz which she had learned to dance from Lady Blythebury herself and which was only just coming into vogue in England, was to be one of the greatest features of the evening. There would be no foolish formality, Lady Blythebury had assured her. The masks would preclude that. Altogether the whole entertainment promised to be of so entrancing a nature that she had permitted herself to look forward to it with considerable pleasure. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... circumstances, was to dispense with the formality of a bow, and to shake hands. Mrs. Vimpany met this friendly advance with a suavity of action, not often seen in these days of movement without ceremony. She was a tall slim woman, of a certain age. ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Georgie caught a glimpse, when the knocker was answered (Mrs Quantock did not have a bell at all), through the open door of the hall, of Mrs Quantock standing in the middle of the lawn on one leg. Naturally, therefore, he ran out into the garden without any further formality. She looked like a little round fat stork, whose legs had not grown, but who preserved the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... brightened by the delightful glimpse of a child's cherubic face looking at her from a distant doorway. It was an instantaneous vision, gone as soon as seen; but its effect was to rob the pillared spaces of the wonderful hallway of some of their chill, and to modify in some slight degree the formality of a service which demanded three men to usher her into a small reception-room not twenty feet from the ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... and his fan or umbrella answering all purposes of protection from the sun. A mandarin, on the contrary, wears in the ball of his cap his badge of office, and the time even when he changes his winter for his summer hat is regulated by the Board of Rites. The poor coolie is troubled by no such formality, and wears a great umbrella-like head covering, that he perches on a little bamboo tower, six inches above his crown, tying down the whole concern by a string that passes behind his ears. When at leisure, he wears his long ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... right after Wayne," said Captain Buxton; and with no further formality Mr. Billings, in a perfunctory sort of way, wheeled his men to the right by fours, broke into column of twos, and closed ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... The household was more like that of an English country house, and there was none of the stateliness and ceremony here which characterised the Governor's Palace at Irkutsk. Nor was I sorry for it, for in this land of hunger and long distances man can well dispense with formality and etiquette. We sat down over a score to lunch, including half a dozen ladies, one, at least, of whom was young and attractive, and as daintily gowned as though she had just returned from a drive in the Bois de Boulogne. But Madame V—— the bride of a Government official had arrived here ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... a semicircle facing the landing-stage escalators; everybody was staring in embarrassed curiosity, those behind craning over the shoulders of those in front. The ladies had drawn up their shawls in frigid formality; many had even covered their heads. There were four news-service cars hovering above; whatever was going on was getting a planetwide screen showing. The Karvall guardsmen were trying to get through; their sergeant was saying, over and over, "Please, ladies and gentlemen; ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... there has been but one government in this country since April, 1865, and as friends you and I have often agreed to differ as to how many there were before then. That government has a law compelling people like you and me to go through a formality, which I have done, and you and your friends have refused to do each time it has been suggested to you. I have raised no point until now, having my reasons, which were mainly that it would make less trouble ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... States 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 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... discourse upon Greek poetry seem arid and a dissertation upon Italian painting colorless—if it were possible to conceive Grenville as wasting time or thought on such trifles—added no grace to the exposition of a fiscal measure or charm to the formality of a phalanx of figures. He was gloomy, dogged, domineering, and small-minded. His nearest approach to a high passion was his worship of economy; his nearest approach to a splendid virtue was his stubborn independence. He abandoned Pitt for Bute because he detested Pitt's prodigal policy, but ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 glasses ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ordered before a board of surgeons that morning. Just as a formality he was to go before a ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... excellent effect in fictitious description. Much may also be gained by a lively display of a modern fete, such as we have daily recorded in that part of a newspaper entitled the Mirror of Fashion, if we contrast these, or either of them, with the splendid formality of an entertainment given Sixty Years Since; and thus it will be readily seen how much the painter of antique or of fashionable manners gains over him who delineates ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... with a shrug of infinite disdain. "Do you think I would have hindered you from jumping into the lake, if I had wished to get it? Do you think that suicides are not mine already?—mine by their own act, without the formality of a bargain?—Your soul!" repeated the Prince of Darkness, with a sneer; "I don't want it, I assure you: at least not to-day—I feel sure of it whenever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... peace had been signed, no serious effort was made to restrain the non-commissioned officers and men of the Loyalist regiments from taking "French leave," and a good many of them left the service without the formality of a discharge. Those who did so were of course marked on the roll as deserters; they remained, for the most part, in the States, and eventually returned to their former places of abode. Others of the troops were formally discharged at New York. As a consequence ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... he was bound to do; but the examination had been, as it always is, a mere formality, and ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... figure, conformation, cast, mould, tournure; formula, ritual; formality, ceremonial, conventionality; symmetry; image, phantom; mould, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of Illinois, commissioned the wife of Lieut. Reynolds of the 17th, as Major, for service in the field, the document being made out with due formality, having attached to it the great seal of State. President Lincoln, more liberal than the Secretary of War, himself promoted the wife of another Illinois officer, named Gates, to a majorship, for service in the hospital and bravery on ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and here,' said the vicar, 'and the witnesses here and here. Thank you very much. I am sure that I wish you every happiness. I need not detain you by any further formality.' ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... when a person was introduced to Mr. Wild's office, it was first hinted to him that a crown must be deposited by way of fee for his advice; when this was complied with a large book was brought out; then the loser was examined with much formality, as to the time, place, and manner that the goods became missing; and then the person was dismissed with a promise of careful enquiries being made, and of hearing more concerning them in a day or two. When this was adjusted, the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... follow them bearing sumptuous drapery and other funeral gifts. The scene settles down into the 'Forensic Contest,' a fixed feature of every Greek Tragedy, in which the 'case' of the hero and the opposition to it are brought out with all the formality of a judicial process, the long rheses representing advocates' speeches, the stichomuthic dialogue suggesting cross-examination, and ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... spacious and its interiors had a fine formality about them. The staircase, fireplace and chandeliers were handsome, and there was at the rear a charming oval room, the heavy mahogany doors of which were curved to conform to the shape of the walls. To tear down such a house was sacrilege—also it was a sacrilege hard to commit, for some of the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... formal challenge to Sanin is the only scene in the novel marked by. genuine humour, and is also the only scene where we are in complete sympathy with the hero. One of the delegates has all the stiff courtesy and ridiculous formality which he regards as entirely consistent with his errand; the other is a big, blundering fellow, who has previously announced himself as a disciple of Tolstoi. To Sanin's philosophy of life, duelling is as absurd as religion, morality, or ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... from Roger Moreland, who, if you remember, was a witness against you at the trial, that Whyte and Rosanna Moore had come out to Sydney in the JOHN ELDER about a year ago as Mr. and Mrs. Whyte. I need hardly say that they did not think it needful to go through the formality of marriage, as such a tie might have been found inconvenient on some future occasion. Moreland knew nothing about Rosanna Moore, and advised me to give up the search, as, coming from a city like London, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... to the emigrant as the high privilege to which he is admitted can or should permit. I do not propose any additional requirements to those which the law now demands; but the very simplicity and the want of unnecessary formality in our law have made fraudulent naturalization not infrequent, to the discredit and injury of all honest citizens, whether native or naturalized. Cases of this character are continually being brought to the notice of the Government by our representatives ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... separation of families, and yet neither brothers nor sisters are provided for. In order that relatives who are provided for may be reunited, those still in foreign lands must be sent for to join the immigrant here. What formality is necessary to constitute this prerequisite, and how are the facts of relationship and that the relative is sent for to be established? Are the illiterate relatives of immigrants who have come here under prior laws entitled to the advantage of these exceptions? A husband ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... Weeks and Myers by judicial order from the Board of Directors. That would leave the opposition a majority of the board. Then Thompson was to call a meeting and assume control of the books. That done, the battle would be decided, and the election a mere formality. Thompson was badly rattled, for he hadn't a grain of sand in his composition, but in the end he conquered his fears and agreed to play the part Porter ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... oppose the will of Rome," interrupted Publius with dry formality, "but, if you venture on it, Rome, by me, will withdraw her friendship. I stand here in the name of the Senate, whose purpose it is to uphold the treaty which snatched this country from the Syrians, and by which you and your brother pledged yourselves to divide the realm of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... driven into Iemon. He was so frightened that he even nodded assent to her last words. The gentle voice of O'Iwa added—"Iwa is ugly; perhaps annoys by the tale. Leave the affair to her and to the enemy. To Iemon she is bound for two existences. Deign to drop all formality; call her Iwa, and condescend to regard her with affection." And Iemon covenanted with himself so to do. The present should compensate for the past. But in the days which followed O'Iwa sat on him ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... nearing the island of Marken, the little yellow cheese had been presented with all due formality to one of the sailors who had been specially kind in the matter of securing good seats for Mr. King's party, Polly and Phronsie having held a whispered conference in a retired nook, to come out of ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... me for calling you Mara. I am beyond any affectation of formality with you, and you know there is no lack ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... things we Irish have got to learn. An' they make life seem so much bigger an' grander by bein' considerate an' civil an' soft-spoken to each other. We've let the brutality of all the years that have gone before eat into us, and we have thrown off all the charm and formality of life, and in their place adopted a rough and crude manner to each other that does not come really from our hearts, but from the ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... all times as were those of the sacred messengers of the gods. These demands, showing that the plebeians did not seek political power, were agreed to, the Valerian laws were reaffirmed, and a solemn treaty was concluded, each party swearing for itself and its posterity, with all the formality of representatives of foreign nations. The two leaders of the commons, Caius Licinius and Lucius Albinius, were elected the first Tribunes of the People, as the new officers were called, with two diles to aid them. ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... office of Minister of Marine. From the neglect to repair the ships—which were left in the same wretched condition as when they returned from Peru and Mexico—the Independencia was alone seaworthy; and was sent to sea by Zenteno without even the formality of transmitting the requisite ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... hardly control he opened a second bottle, dispensed with the formality of a glass, and set the neck to his lips, repeating the operation until it was empty, when he tossed it out of the window to be shattered against a rock, after which he sank again into ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... sold. The Colonial, foreign, and other bonds payable to the bearer, which have been pre- viously described, are purchasable through a broker or banker, and handed over without any transfer or other formality. Bonds of this description should be left in the safe custody of a banker, who would cut off and collect the interest coupons attached, ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.
... asked the driver, wild-eyed, white-faced; and when my brother told him it would if he turned to the left, he whipped up at once without the formality of thanks. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... a standstill a little way from the track, and his rider let forth a stream of strange profanity. The girl shuddered and began to think a wild beast might be preferable to some men. However, these remarks seemed to be a mere formality. He paused ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... them. The task was no light one, even for a stronger man, but he persevered in it with a new-found energy until he had changed the whole aspect of the room. It looked larger, wider, and less crowded; its hard practical, workhouse-like formality had disappeared. He had paused to survey it, panting still with his unusual exertion, when a voice ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he is so disposed will then give the necessary instructions and an aide-de-camp will send a "chit," as they call a note over here, inviting the traveler to call at an hour named. There is a great deal of formality in official and social life. The ceremonies and etiquette are modeled upon those of the royal palaces in England, and the governor of each province, as well as the viceroy of India in ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... eyes with surprise; here was this annoying formality again, which Gifford's fault-finding seemed to have banished. "Let you write?" she said impatiently. "Why, you know I depended on your writing, Giff, and you must tell me everything you can think of. What's the good of having a friend in Lockhaven, ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... his daughter's flight with Shelley, he expressed his just resentment by refusing to accept Shelley's cheque for a thousand pounds unless it were made payable to a third party, unless he could have the money without the formality of an acceptance. Like the great lords of Picardy, who had the "right of credit" from their loyal subjects, Godwin claimed his dues from every chance acquaintance. Crabb Robinson introduced him one evening ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... of these cases the property was to go to a third person. Sir Adam hesitated a moment, and then wrote the name of one of his sisters as the conditional legatee. His wife had plenty of money of her own, and besides, the will was a mere formality, drawn up and to be executed solely with a view to checking Lady Fan's enthusiasm. He did not sign it, but folded it smoothly and put it into his pocket. He also took his own pen, for he was particular in ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... serve to show what kind of man this early missionary was, and the deep interest then felt in the education and civilization of the aborigines. The formality with which the clerical harness was put on in the historic Old South Church, is strikingly in contrast with the way the missionary to the Indians is ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell |
