"Perfunctorily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... far oftener than anything he attempts perfunctorily; and even if the editor thinks it will not take, and feels obliged to return it for that reason, he will return it with a real regret, with the honor and affection which we cannot help feeling for any one who has done a piece of good work, and with the will and the hope to get something ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... their transports grew less fiery, and their affections less fixed. Archer got a bit bored. He was decent about it, though, and when Arabella cuddled beside him he would more or less perfunctorily embrace her. But when he forgot, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... by mingling—at first perfunctorily—in the gayety of the Confederate capital that Jack lost the melancholy in which the tragedy at Rosedale had clothed his spirits. At worst, the calamity was over; he had been a guiltless vengeance in the punishment of Wesley's treason. So he took bond in hope of ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the car? Here?" Bud sent a seeking look into the depths of the garage. He knew every car in there. "What is there in it for me?" he added perfunctorily, because he would have gone just for sake of getting a free ride rather than stay ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... middle-aged man, strongly built, with slightly grey hair. For some unknown reason I imagined him to be a Major in a cavalry regiment, no doubt attached to the Staff, and when, after rubbing his eyes, he at length opened the window, I apologized perfunctorily for having disturbed him, adding that I was acting on Captain Laycock's suggestion in coming there. In my heart I hoped he would leave me to the undisturbed perusal of the literature which I saw on a large centre ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... front of the house. This man took no notice of him as he passed, but before he had reached Praed Street, he glanced around, and saw that he was following him. He followed him to Spring Street post-office; he was in his rear when Lauriston reached the pawnshop. Idly and perfunctorily as the man seemed to be strolling about, Lauriston was sure that he was shadowing him—and he told Melky of the fact when Melky admitted him to the shop by the ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... of these duties it is, in my opinion, difficult to exaggerate the influence for good which a Churchwarden may exercise in the parish in which his lot is cast. Of course it is possible to perform the duties perfunctorily, or to let them slide altogether; but if his heart is really in his work, if he is anxious to do all in his power that the ecclesiastical machinery in the parish should work smoothly, I will undertake ...
— Churchwardens' Manual - their duties, powers, rights, and privilages • George Henry
... constantly execrated for being an atheist (he occasionally still is by some hardy fools) made God a more integral part of his system than did any one else in the whole history of philosophy. Spinoza did not do occasional reverence to God; he did not, in lightly passing, perfunctorily bow to Him; God is the veritable beginning and end ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... said no more; and listened perfunctorily while Mr. Direck tried to indicate the feeling in New England towards the Irish Question and the many difficult propositions an American politician has to face in that respect. And when Mr. Britling took up the thread of speech again it ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... governor. There is an essential difference between a war governor and a governor in time of war. One is enthusiastic, resourceful, with ability to organise victory by filling languishing patriotism with new and noble inspiration—the other simply performs his duty, sometimes respectably, sometimes only perfunctorily. George Clinton illustrated, in his own person, the difference between a great war governor and a governor in time of war. If he failed to win renown on the battlefield, his ability to inspire the people with ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Schiller, he was treated by Schlegel with urbane condescension as a gifted playwright who had tried to imitate Shakspere and met with but limited success. The early plays were dismissed with a mere cry of pain, and the later ones were discussed very briefly and perfunctorily with ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... and perfunctorily, as he helped her down the stairs of the cave-dwellers' rock-house. Mary had a vague idea that he meant to interest her in a "sad case," as he had done once or twice before, when he thought she needed to be "taken out of herself." She expected to hear a tale of some poor girl ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... plausible story that you told Day, but you knew the boy wouldn't be particular over trifles. All he cared about was the cloud upon his honesty. You figured that the package would be returned, perfunctorily examined for identification, and immediately sent on board the steamer. How much picrate or dynamite does it take to knock out the biggest steamship afloat? You could get enough of the stuff in a box of this ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... ferry boats? I cannot include those persons who journey on them night and morning perfunctorily. These persons keep their noses in their papers or sit snugly in the cabin. If the market is up, they can hardly be conscious even that they are crossing a river. Nor do I entirely blame them. If ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... on this little elevation, she bowed to him and sometimes ventured a remark or two. He did not seem over-anxious to talk but he met her troubled face with calm and unvarying, though somewhat absent-minded courtesy. He replied to her questions perfunctorily, told her whom he served, betraying, however, in turn, no inquisitiveness concerning her. For him she was just some one who came and went, and incidentally interfered with his study of ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Carlyle's statement shows envious criticism as well as a prejudice in favor of his brother Scotchman. It was made in 1838, since when opinion has raised Gibbon to the top, for he actually lives while Hume is read perfunctorily, if at all. Moreover among the three—Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle—whose works are literature as well as history, modern criticism has no hesitation in awarding ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... that happened in Mr. Landover's cabin, but even so, I am ready and willing to do anything in my power to ease the pain you are suffering." She spoke calmly, dispassionately, almost perfunctorily. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... sheltered that, even in March and November, when the wind sings aloft on the ridges, the smoke mounts straight from its chimneys and the trees drip as steadily as though they were clocks and marked the seconds perfunctorily, with no real interest in the lapse of time. For the house, with its round-shouldered Jacobean gables, its stone-cropped roof, lichen-spotted plaster, and ill-kept yew hedge, has an air of resignation to decay, well-bred but spiritless, ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... attention and delight, and have returned to it again and again.... I am quite sure that it is the most finished and artistic of all your books and one of the most subtle and graceful things in all our modern fiction." And Charles Eliot Norton's letter from Shady Hill, the letter of one who never praised perfunctorily or ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... comes into open competition with it in the bosom of the American Jew. Nowhere is the struggle between the old and the new generations so intense as in the home of the Orthodox Jew. His descendant is clean-shaven and no longer observes (or observes only perfunctorily or with many a gross inconsistency) the dietary and household laws. He is a free spender and luxurious in his habits as compared with his economical, ascetic forefathers. He marries late and the birth rate drops with most astonishing rapidity, so that in one generation the children of parents who ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... men arose, once, twice, three times, to do their best for her, she fell to pieces at last, a Humpty-Dumpty that all the king's horses and all the king's men could never reweld into one;—and the place she should have filled in history as Unifier of Europe was only filled perfunctorily and for a time; and her great duty was never rightly done. Hinc lacrimae aetatum—hence the darkness and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... So Mike laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five pounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode off on his ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... Rajah Partab Singh kisses the footprints of Jirad Sahib, and entreats that she and her son may sit down under his shadow," he said perfunctorily, evidently repeating what had been taught him. "Jirad Sahib knows that I am Rajah now? He will make them give me a real sword, will ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... took on an air as if he knew a great deal but was under obligations not to tell. Yes, yes, he said rather perfunctorily, he had heard that some one had said that Nothafft was running a pretty questionable domestic establishment; that he had a rather unsavoury past; and that there was some talk ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... "'Evening, Ross," he greeted perfunctorily. "Pretty good talk, wasn't it?" Without waiting for a reply he went on, "Suppose you're not hankering for a drive back to town to-night? I'll see that"—a swift nod toward the departing group—"he gets ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Sir Amyas knelt perfunctorily, as if impatient of it; and rose up again at once without waiting for the signal. Mary lifted her fingers a little as a sign ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... nice to policemen. Not to meddle with politics, because it is vulgar. To vote perfunctorily. To 'let George do it' when there are reforms to be brought about. To keep your hat on when the flag goes by because otherwise you will attract attention. To find fault without being able to offer remedies. To ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... wondered why Joseph should seem so disheartened and why he should murmur so perfunctorily that he could not remember his dream. But if he had forgotten it, why trouble him further? If we are to forget anything it were well that we should choose our dreams; at which piece of incredulity his ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... there a second or two, Wickersham an inch or more taller and inches narrower in shoulder and girth of chest. Perfunctorily they nodded, each to the other, and ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... trunks released more than his personal belongings; intermingled were possessions that had been his wife's and his boy's. As he unpacked, memories peopled those perfunctorily luxurious lodgings of the transient with melancholy ghosts as sweet and sad ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... expressionless idol of flesh and blood. The previous incumbent of that office had been an old man, impotent and senseless of late years through age and disease. The chieftains and braves had consulted in council before him, and perfunctorily submitted their decisions, like offerings, to his unresponsive shrine. In the same way, all material events—expeditions, trophies, industries—were supposed to pass before the dull, impassive eyes of ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... the round Ramsden staggered on to the terrace, tripping over his feet, and handed Wilberforce back in good condition. Eunice, who had just reached the chapter where the hero decides to give up all for love, thanked him perfunctorily without looking up from her book; and so ended the first spasm of Ramsden Waters's ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Raymonde?" she asked perfunctorily. "A fountain pen, did you say? For the exams. I suppose your mother has sent it. There are two letters for Aveline and one for Morvyth. You may take them to them, and tell Daphne I want ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... his own series of the 'Months'—which he had planned among these hills, and had carried out perfunctorily and vulgarly, in the city, far from the freshness and infinity of Nature. All the faults of his designs appeared to him, and the poverty of their execution. But he was only exultant, not depressed. Now that he could judge himself, now that his brain had begun to ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... kisses it, animation and all, caressing the rich black hair with a hand that seems thoughtful. A hand can. Then she makes a little effort to shake off something that draws her away, and comes back rather perfunctorily to her daughter's sphere of interest and the ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... seed seech a hard case.... Poor beggar.... I've got an old singlet.... Will that be of any use to you?... Take it, matey...." Those friendly murmurs filled the forecastle. He pawed around with his naked foot, gathering the things in a heap and looked about for more. Unemotional Archie perfunctorily contributed to the pile an old cloth cap with the peak torn off. Old Singleton, lost in the serene regions of fiction, read on unheeding. Charley, pitiless with the wisdom of youth, squeaked:—"If you want ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... Roger nodded at her perfunctorily, preoccupied with the necessities of the moment. "Now, have I got my pipe?"—slapping his pockets to ascertain. To miss his customary pipe as he trotted leisurely home after the day's hunting was unthinkable. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... leader. Some critics in their ignorance were inclined to impute false motives to him; but in time, the cloud of suspicion rolled away and his action in that crisis was not laid up against him. The election of Cleveland relieved him of seeming perfunctorily to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... resolving to clear out from Sue's too respectable lodging immediately. On reaching the place and going upstairs she found that all was quiet in the children's room, and called to the landlady in timorous tones to please bring up the tea-kettle and something for their breakfast. This was perfunctorily done, and producing a couple of eggs which she had brought with her she put them into the boiling kettle, and summoned Jude to watch them for the youngsters, while she went to call them, it being now about ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... obedience to his garrison commander Paulus tried to decide to go back to Rome. Greece called to him insistently. Confused and exhausted, he joined perfunctorily in the loud applause that closed the comedy, and in the speeches of gratitude and farewell to ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... woman following him more and more slowly, the light in her eyes dying with each successive buttoning. In fact, she did not enter into the shadow at all, and Mr. Middleton stepped back a bit when he threw his arms about her and pressed her to his bosom. Perfunctorily and coldly did she yield to his embrace, but whatever ardor was lacking on her part, was compensated for by Mr. Middleton, who clasped her with exceeding tightness and showered kisses upon her pouting lips until she pushed him from her, exclaiming ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... of the picture. It contains the idea which may later become the finished work. In your sketches you gather effects and suggestions of possibilities, of all kinds. You do not work long over a sketch, nor do you work perfunctorily. You do not make it because you ought to, but because you see something in nature which charms you; or because you have found an idea you wish ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... attentive though they were, were not once sympathetic. Vaguely they had felt that here was something which other men—more educated—would possibly consider eloquent. They applauded vociferously but perfunctorily, in ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... keep' wait," he muttered, as she rose brightly to meet him; and she seemed pleased that he came at all—but George was used to girls' looking radiant when he danced with them, and she had little effect upon him. He danced with her perfunctorily, thinking the while of Mr. Eugene Morgan and his daughter. Strangely enough, his thoughts dwelt more upon the father than the daughter, though George could not possibly have given a reason—even to ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... down," he said with a strong English accent. "I'll have to see your passport if you will be so good." She took it from the bag she carried, and he glanced at it perfunctorily. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... and with many misgivings he introduced Mr. Stevens to his brother Jack and to Mr. Creamer. The prospective organizers of the Marsh Pulp Company were already in solemn conclave on the porch, with the single exception of Princeman, who was on the lawn talking most perfunctorily with Miss Josephine. That young lady, with wickedness of the deepest sort in her soul, was doing her best to entice Mr. Princeman into forgetting the important meeting, but as soon as Princeman saw the gathering hosts he gently but firmly tore himself away, very much to her surprise and indignation. ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... her and which should be performed at any cost. She was not usually talkative, and she had few observations to make this morning. As she nibbled the hot biscuit, upon which she had daintily spread a bit of butter, she allowed her glance to rove perfunctorily over the three plates beyond her own. She asked Wrinkle if his coffee was strong enough, and the gap in the black bonnet if the mush was too lumpy. From the bonnet came a mumbling content with the yellow ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... said composedly, rising to her feet. "I ain't going to have tales flying all over the desert about the ructions stirred up the night I danced for the benefit of the flood sufferers. Shake hands, you two," imperiously. "Go on, do what I tell you. That's right," as the two men perfunctorily shook hands. "Bob don't mean a thing, Mr. Hanson. It's just his temper, and there ain't going to be any wine, because I'm going home, but—" and here she smiled into his eyes—"you can walk a piece of the way with me, if you want to. Come on, mother ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... I would not venture to touch upon. It is proverbial that Archidiaconal functions are Eleusinian in their mysteriousness. No one, except an Archdeacon, pretends to know what the duties of an Archdeacon are, so no one can say whether these duties are performed perfunctorily and inadequately, or scrupulously and successfully. We know that Archdeacons sometimes preach, and that is about all we know. I know an Archdeacon in India who can preach a good sermon—I have heard him preach it many a time, once on a benefit night for the Additional ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... Klings, and with the sweepers attached to a temple, with whom he talked at the gate. We interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall closing a blind alley an immensely corpulent Italian, who, the ex-sergeant-major remarked to me perfunctorily, had "killed another man last year." Thereupon he addressed him as "Antonio" and "Old Buck," though that bloated carcase, apparently more than half filling the sort of cell wherein it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye. Familiar and never unbending, the sergeant chucked—absolutely ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... arme Baronesse," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... matutinal cafe-au-lait cast searching glances as they passed, to see if among the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And at one alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior perfunctorily turned over the scraps with ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... to introduce the merit system. But even then neither the politicians nor the public, nor the Commission itself, took the matter very seriously. The Commission was in the habit of carrying on its functions perfunctorily and unobtrusively. But nothing could be perfunctory where Roosevelt was. He would never permit things to be done—or left undone unobtrusively, when what was needed was to obtrude the matter forcibly on the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... the Democrats perfunctorily nominated Donnelly. It was the best they could do, and Donnelly had nothing to learn. And so the fight was on. Donnelly went everywhere; so did Warrington. If Donnelly spoke in the German district, Warrington ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... Stevenson's books as real breathing, living women. They are natural, they are possible, they have life and interest; all the rest are more or less lay figures put in because a heroine is necessary—the more's the pity evidently from the author's point of view!—and drawn somewhat perfunctorily by their creator, with but a limited knowledge of the virtues, the faults, the failings, and, above all, the 'little ways,' which go to make ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... But they merely saluted, perfunctorily, and took seats at the table nearest the door on their left, diagonally the whole space of the room from us. Agathemer and I returned their salute as precisely as we could imitate it, thankful that they had saluted, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... skirt as she disappeared within the little room partitioned off at the rear and knew that she had gone to fling herself down upon her bed. He looked after her as though he still half hoped she were coming back if only to say a belated 'good night.' Then he and Longstreet made coffee and drank it perfunctorily. After breakfast Carr left, saying that he would ride over to have a look at the new camp, and would drop in again some ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... our own else anarchic and troubled spirits. For all honest attempts to make the will of God our wills, the one secret of success is confident and continual appeal to Him. A man must have gone a very little way, very superficially and perfunctorily, on the path of seeking to make himself what he ought to be, unless he has found out that he cannot do it, and unless he has found out that there is only one way to do it, and that is to go to God and say, 'O Lord! I am baffled and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the night that Gaston left her, passed and the dull monotony of the daily tasks performed perfunctorily with no charm of another's approbation and sharing, lost the power ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... promised point to what seemed to him to be a whole geographical meridian—went slowly. To relieve it, he took a book from the table, and in a desultory manner turned the leaves. While thus perfunctorily engaged, he heard the clicking of an opening door, and then the sound of voices: of Madame Jolicoeur's voice, and of a man's voice—which latter, coming nearer, he recognized beyond all doubting as the voice of the Major ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... go out?" asked the man himself perfunctorily, as from the depths of a settled despair. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... silently aware, had produced in her tortured mind an exasperated rebellion against the opinions of her neighbours, who were unable to see anything beyond their own comfort. She knew that she had so much the worst of it; that even attending perfunctorily to another's human necessity was not so hard a task as to be there day after day in the company of a pain which never ceased, and beneath whose increasing shadow the world had ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... before this holy man. He gave her his blessing perfunctorily, and muttered some words ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... from Suez to El-'Akabah, probably one of the oldest in this world, has been traversed perfunctorily by Burckhardt and by Beke. It still wants a detailed survey, and even hieroglyphic inscriptions may be expected. Beke's map marks Hawwit ("ruins") near one of his nighting-places, but apparently the remains were ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... Poor souls. Let them! Amigo mio, I have a life. I have to think, gage, act, concentrate. And when I want time of my own, Shane, I have it. The housewife with her frowsy duties, being kissed perfunctorily on the mat, the man who wears a stilted mask to the world, and before her—lets go.... Ugh! And the mondaine with her boredom ... the hatred in wide houses.... Oh, I know. Sometimes I think it's so wonderful, ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... perfunctorily: "Of course you must go—will you go back to Rome? I shall be so glad to think you are doing ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... perfunctorily, more to please his son than anything else. But, after a second glance, he became deeply interested and began to ask questions. After half an hour's study ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... is old-fashioned; if one may say it of a French farce, it is Victorian. Apart from a few topical allusions worked in rather perfunctorily there is scarcely anything said or done that might not have been said or done in the 'eighties. But for a certain type of Englishman there is a perennial attraction in feeling that at any moment the proprieties may be outraged. That they never actually are outraged does not seem very greatly to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... expected. For the past two months he had been seen every evening wherever there was high-class revel in Memphis. But he had laughed perfunctorily and lapsed into preoccupation when none spoke to him, and his song had a sorry note in it, however happy the theme. But these were things apparent only to those that saw deeper ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... seizing and hiding the wand is carried out perfunctorily. During a recent dance the girl's uncle took the wand but simply carried it to the grandmother's house, intending to take it to the mountains later. However, the stick remained with the grandmother, ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... grave and formal, even a little stiff. The Marchesino paid Vere two or three compliments, and she inquired perfunctorily after his health, and expressed ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... said Douglas, with cold disgust, perfunctorily veiled by a conventional air of sympathy. "But if she is irreclaimable, why not ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... nineteen is unable to read a simple Latin or Greek book with ease, or to express a simple series of thoughts without atrocious blunders: he has learnt from his classics neither accuracy nor love of beauty and truth'—it is obvious that, for the average boy, the system of perfunctorily prepared set-books and dashed-off unseens is a failure. The experience of every teacher who is also an examiner, and who has had to deal with public schoolboys, will confirm this; but during twenty-five years' teaching and examining of boys in almost every stage, Ihave ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... for three interminable years such a stream of tragedy has flowed through a hospital, it would be easy for surgeons and nurses to treat mutilation and death perfunctorily. They don't. They show no emotion. They are even cheerful; but their strained faces tell the story and their hands ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... &c., they have done very well in their several kinds and methods; yet that which one omits, another may haply see; that which one contracts, another may enlarge. To conclude with [893]Scribanius, "that which they had neglected, or perfunctorily handled, we may more thoroughly examine; that which is obscurely delivered in them, may be perspicuously dilated and amplified by us:" and so made more familiar and easy for every man's capacity, and the common good, which is the chief end ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... her perfunctorily and was about to turn away, but the avidity of her face reminded him that he had a standard to live up to. He produced another five-franc piece and was pursued to the gate by the stridency ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... table did not tend to revise this verdict. It was passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Bollinger's menu, and by the members of the club in the emission of tentative platitudes which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton |
