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adjective
Formal  adj.  
1.
Belonging to the form, shape, frame, external appearance, or organization of a thing.
2.
Belonging to the constitution of a thing, as distinguished from the matter composing it; having the power of making a thing what it is; constituent; essential; pertaining to or depending on the forms, so called, of the human intellect. "Of (the sounds represented by) letters, the material part is breath and voice; the formal is constituted by the motion and figure of the organs of speech."
3.
Done in due form, or with solemnity; according to regular method; not incidental, sudden or irregular; express; as, he gave his formal consent. "His obscure funeral... No noble rite nor formal ostentation."
4.
Devoted to, or done in accordance with, forms or rules; punctilious; regular; orderly; methodical; of a prescribed form; exact; prim; stiff; ceremonious; as, a man formal in his dress, his gait, his conversation. "A cold-looking, formal garden, cut into angles and rhomboids." "She took off the formal cap that confined her hair."
5.
Having the form or appearance without the substance or essence; external; as, formal duty; formal worship; formal courtesy, etc.
6.
Dependent in form; conventional. "Still in constraint your suffering sex remains, Or bound in formal or in real chains."
7.
Sound; normal. (Obs.) "To make of him a formal man again."
Formal cause. See under Cause.
Synonyms: Precise; punctilious; stiff; starched; affected; ritual; ceremonial; external; outward. Formal, Ceremonious. When applied to things, these words usually denote a mere accordance with the rules of form or ceremony; as, to make a formal call; to take a ceremonious leave. When applied to a person or his manners, they are used in a bad sense; a person being called formal who shapes himself too much by some pattern or set form, and ceremonious when he lays too much stress on the conventional laws of social intercourse. Formal manners render a man stiff or ridiculous; a ceremonious carriage puts a stop to the ease and freedom of social intercourse.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Formal" Quotes from Famous Books



... Horatio Farrell as guardian ad litem for the defendant during these proceedings," Judge Priest had stated a few minutes earlier, using the formal and grammatical language he reserved ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb

... find everything comfortable," said Mrs. Doddery, with a formal air, which seemed to say, "and whether you do or do ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... A somewhat formal letter from his cousin the Bishop of Lostford, who had never been cordial to him since his engagement to Magdalen had been broken off. The Bishop pointed out certain grave abuses connected with house property ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... daughter Filomena. Sir Hercules arrived in time to save her from this untoward fate, for he was so much charmed by Filomena's grace and beauty, that at the end of three days' courtship he made her a formal offer of marriage, which was accepted by her no less joyfully than by her father, who perceived in an English son-in-law a rich and unfailing source of revenue. After an unostentatious marriage, at which the English ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... the strong hand of the United States must reach forth to pluck out the Spaniard from the land he ravaged. And when a number of Senators and Representatives in Congress made journeys to Cuba, and returning, described in formal addresses at the Capitol the scenes of starvation and misery, this ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... point in the nineteenth century the sermon was the sole reason for churchgoing amongst a vast body of religious people. The liturgy was a formal preliminary, which, like the Royal proclamation in a court of assize, had to be got through before the real interest began; and on reaching home the question was simply: Who preached, and how did he handle his subject? Even had an archbishop officiated in the service proper nobody would have cared ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... at the very head and top of formal and fashionable people. As far as ever I knew them, and I knew them very well at one time, they were all form, and ceremony, and outside show, in whatever they did, until they were far, very far advanced in years, ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... will needs request A short account of all the Muse-possess'd, That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times, Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes; Without more preface, writ in formal length, To speak the undertaker's want of strength, I'll try to make their several beauties known, And show their verses' worth, though ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... abdication and Donald's accession to the presidency of the Tyee Lumber Company. The Dreamerie was not sufficiently large for his purpose, however, for he planned to entertain all of his subjects at a dinner and make formal announcement of the change. So he gave a barbecue in a grove of maples on the edge of the town. His people received in silence the little speech he made them, for they were loath to lose The Laird. They knew him, while Donald they had not known ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... to open the gates of dreamland, where she could hold converse with a world peopled by heroes, and live a life apart from the prosaic everyday existence which surrounded her in a modern American town. Shakespeare was the teacher who replaced the "school marm," with her dull and formal lessons. Her quick perceptive mind grasped his great and noble thoughts, which gave a vigor and robustness to her mental growth. Since those days she has assimilated rather than acquired knowledge, and there are ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... unearth Allain, Buquet and especially d'Ache, but none of them appeared. We cannot deal with this third journey in detail, as Licquet has kept the threads of the play secret, but from half-confidences made to Real, we may infer that he bought the concurrence of Langelley and Chauvel on formal promises of immunity from punishment; they consented to serve the detective and betray Allain, and they were on the point of delivering him up when "fear of the Gendarme Mallet caused everything to fail." Licquet ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... variations on a French air, and dedicated them to Beethoven. He greatly desired to present them in person to the master he adored, but was too shy to go alone. Diabelli, the publisher, finally went with him. Beethoven was courteous but formal, pushing paper and pencil toward his guest, as he was totally deaf. Schubert was too shy to write a single word. However he produced his Variations. Beethoven seemed pleased with the dedication, and looked through the music. Soon he found something in it he did ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... there was no need for a formal introduction. "I have been telling Freda how surprised I was at ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose

... Valerio de Ledesma and Manuel Martinez first established the mission of the River of Butuan. That same year, there not being as yet any division into bishoprics, the Manila ecclesiastical cabildo (as the see was vacant), gave Mindanao into the formal possession of the Society of Jesus, an act that was confirmed by Francisco Tello, as viceroyal patron. Later, the question of the jurisdiction about Lake Malanao was argued in court between the Jesuits and Recollects, and was decided in favor of the former by Juan Nino de Tabora, a sentence ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... there as well as anywhere else. The fact that a tree is put in a place that is not ploughed doesn't mean that it is beyond all care. My point is that with care we can get trees in fence rows without tillage and that, in addition to Dr. Deming's formal and carefully cultivated plot, there is about every farm a place where a man can stick a few trees and give them such care as can be given ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... be at home again. After the cold, formal, loveless life at her aunt's, she appreciated her own humble home ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum

... guidance, she turned; helplessly and piteously, first to Mrs. Poyntz, and then yet more imploringly to me, because a woman of that character is never quite satisfied without the advice of a man; and where an intimacy more familiar than that of his formal visits is once established with a physician, confidence in him grows fearless and rapid, as the natural result of sympathy concentrated on an object of anxiety in common between himself and the home which opens its sacred recess to his observant but tender eye. Thus Mrs. Ashleigh ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... more iconoclastic than any of the Christian or the Mohammedan denominations in the sense that it opposes the acceptance of the petrified idea of Deity, so conventional and formal that it carries no inner conviction of the believers. Faith dies out whenever one comes to stick to one's fixed and immutable idea of Deity, and to deceive oneself, taking bigotry for genuine faith. Faith must be living and growing, and the living ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... such action could be taken. Never dreaming that he would actually oppose their plan, Susan expected this would be taken care of; but when she convened her woman's rights convention in New York in May 1866, simultaneously with that of the American Antislavery Society, she found to her dismay that no formal notice of the proposed union had been given to the members of the antislavery group and therefore there was no way for them to vote their organization into an Equal Rights Association. Not to be sidetracked, she then asked the woman's rights convention to broaden its platform to include rights ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... to be the case in a great measure, and not in our own country only, for those who know Italy tell us that the fine old gardens there, dating back to the days of the Medici, are being despoiled of ilex and made formal and straight. Is all the world ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... family portraits and knick-knacks, each with an association of its own. It was such a room as would be dear to all old-fashioned, home-loving people—unlike a room of the present, from which every memento of parents and grand-parents would be banished in favour of strictly modern or antique formal furniture. In this room, the things of Peter's father mingled with those of Peter's boyhood and young manhood. This was done in order that the influence of his familiar belongings might be felt by the people of the play. When his niece stood with her hand on his chair; when ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco

... cheeks. She served the meal in silence, and ate nothing, but that was not remarkable. For the cook there is little appeal in the meat that she has tended from its moist and bloody entrance in the butcher's paper, through the basting or broiling stage to its formal appearance on the platter. She saw that Al and her father were served. Then she went back to the kitchen, and the thud of her iron was heard as she deftly fluted the ruffles of the crepe blouse. Floss appeared ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... prayer seemed laid on every heart for them; and again the following evening nineteen young men met to pray still for this village. Last evening eighteen Christians of various denominations met in a cottage at this said village. There was no formal address, but after earnest prayer, one of the brethren felt this passage laid solemnly on his heart, 'To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.' Then some converted stone-diggers pleaded for a blessing. The answer of four ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe

... . . . Doctor Saunderson, and I think he will not wish to keep his horse standing in the snow, so unless you will stay all night, as it's going to drift. . . . Then perhaps it would be better. . . . Can I assist you in packing?" How formal it all sounded, and he allowed the Rabbi to go upstairs alone, with the result that various things of the old man's are in Carmichael's house ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... drawing-room, the best bedroom, Mrs. Liddell's, and the children's rooms. The examination was swiftly accomplished. Then the sedate lawyer returned to the dining-room and began to put on his right-hand glove. "I presume," he said—"it is a mere, formal question—I presume there is no claim or lien upon your goods ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... suppressed anger the old jurist unfolded the crumpled paper, which Jean had recovered, and pointed out the telegraphic report that told how another high official of the President's official family had disgraced himself, his profession and the administration by the formal declaration that he accepted the historic Griggs infamy as a correct ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily deviated into error, were admitted to the communion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed; without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and Spain, of Italy and Greece, for ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... victim for the end proposed. By the laying on of his hands, he presented it to God as his offering to make atonement for his soul, and God accepted it as such. From the very nature of the offering, this act of presentation contained an acknowledgment of guilt that needed expiation, but there was no formal transfer of his sins to the victim, as in the case of the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... aside for the brocade that has been already mentioned, and which had once before wrought so great and magical an effect in her appearance. Nor was this all. Accustomed to see the ladies of the garrison in the formal, gala attire of the day, and familiar with the more critical niceties of these matters, the girl had managed to complete her dress in a way to leave nothing strikingly defective in its details, or even to betray an ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... faithful in his turn, he set to work again with true "Balzacian fury." But now a new element had entered into his life: his marriage to Mme. Hanska, although still far distant, and dependent upon chance, was at least a settled question, and he left St. Petersburg taking her formal promise with him. Consequently, whatever the hardships of his existence, his periods of poverty and toil, he was now sustained by the hope of realising a union that had been so long desired, and he strove towards it with all his tenacious energy, as towards a supreme goal. For the next ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... scholarly poets of our day, and is certainly conspicuous for the liberality of his views. As long as he was in Perugia, it is well known that he received the officers of the Italian garrison and any government officials of rank who chanced to be present in the city, not merely now and then, or in a formal way, but constantly and with a cordiality which showed how much he appreciated their conversation. It may be doubted whether in our country an acknowledged leader of a political minority would either choose or dare to associate openly with persons having an ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... and one with us, is in the announcing of names at the door; a, custom which I think a good one, saving a vast deal of the breath we always expend in company, by asking "Who is that? and that?" Then, too, people can fall into conversation without a formal presentation, the presumption being that nobody is invited with whom, it is not proper that you should converse. The functionary who performed the announcing was a fine, stalwart man, in full Highland costume, the duke being the head of ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe

... course to make acquaintance with all the diplomatic corps. I knew all the ambassadors and most of the ministers, but there were some representatives of the smaller powers and South American Republics with whom I had never come in contact. Again I paid a formal official visit to the Marechale de MacMahon as soon as the ministry was announced. She was perfectly polite and correct, but one felt at once she hadn't the slightest sympathy for anything Republican, and we never got to know each ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... liking for this style of picture, which was rather too formal for his taste. It is noticeable that, in the few instances where he painted it, he took the suggestion, as here, from some previous work. Thus his Madonna of St. Anthony, also in the National Gallery (loaned by the King of Naples), was based upon an old picture by Bernardino di ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... have chilled and frightened her as this stiff and formal, yet cool acceptance of the position did. She feared it meant that all was over between them in a way she had never thought possible. But still she hoped to coax him round. She dreaded the next hour, the day of reckoning, as it were, but did ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... Madame de Ruth. Soon the girl felt as though she had known her for years. After a few minutes' conversation the two ladies left the formal living-room, and passed up a broad wooden stair to a room on the first floor, where Wilhelmine found her few belongings already set down. It was a pretty room for those days, though we should now consider it but insufficiently ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... still considered to be nexus. It follows, therefore, that the same term described the Conveyance by which the right of property was transmitted, and the personal obligation of the debtor for the unpaid purchase-money. We may still go forward, and picture to ourselves a proceeding wholly formal, in which nothing is handed over and nothing paid; we are brought at once to a transaction indicative of much higher commercial activity, ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... it is little wonder that the education of the masses is surely and rapidly gravitating from the classical to the utilitarian, from the formal to the vocational. The world's work must be done, and as those whose stewardship is the soil are compelled to render a combined physical and mental service in order to discharge their social obligations, they are entitled to education in harmony with the tasks awaiting them, to the ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst

... the hated Democrats and Jacobins. Declaring the treaties of 1778 to be abrogated, Congress authorized naval reprisals, voted money and a loan, and so began what was called a "quasi-war," since neither side made a formal declaration. Adams, riding on the crest of a brief wave of popularity, declared in a message to Congress that he would never send another Minister to France without receiving assurances that he would ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... the business: we were visited by many persons of the Court, some upon business, and others upon compliment, which is more formal than pleasant, for they are not generally a cheerful people. About February the King intended to go into the field and lead his army himself: during this resolution my husband prepared himself to wait on his Majesty, which cost him much, these kind of expenses in that place being scarce and very ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... by whom this is written. Do not seek to know—now or ever. It is only from behind the veil of your ignorance of my identity that I can ever write to you fully and freely as I wish to write—can say what I wish to say in words denied to a formal and conventional expression of sympathy. Dear lady, let me say to you thus what is ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... formal examination was taken, at which the sub-governor Reichmann presided. I was accused as a traitor to my country; but I obstinately denied my handwriting. Proofs or witnesses there were none, and in answer to the principal charge, I said, "I was no criminal, but a man calumniated, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... now paid me the compliment of saying that he would be happy to include me in this select assemblage who, under a state which he called PANTISOCRACY, were, he hoped, to regenerate the whole complexion of society; and that, not by establishing formal laws, but by excluding all the little deteriorating passions; injustice, "wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking," and thereby setting an example of ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... was short and formal. The Spaniard welcomed the Englishmen, and hoped that the peace would not be broken. Captain Drake echoed his hopes. The commandant offered presents of fruit, wine, and fresh meat; the skipper accepted and requited the kindness in suitable fashion. A few ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... be inferred that the younger Ferguson had not as yet been told the Waverley secret—which to any of that house could never have been any mystery. Probably this, or some similar occasion soon afterwards, led to his formal initiation; for during the many subsequent years that the veil was kept on, I used to admire the tact with which, when in their topmost high-jinks humor, both "Captain John" and "The Auld Captain" eschewed any the most distant allusion ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... its excitements—whether she was curious to see how he would carry his new office,—there it was. But then the eye shadows grew deep and dark. She drew back a little, not giving her hand; making instead a somewhat formal courtesy. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... observer's parapet, they paused a moment and faced each other in closer speech. This interchange of words, though brief in measure of time, lasted long enough to add a vivid strand to Mrs. Ansell's thickening skein; then, on a gesture of the lady's, and without signs of formal leave-taking, the young man struck into a path which regained the entrance avenue, while his companion, quickening her pace, crossed the grass terrace and mounted the wide stone steps ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... arriving at a village where a child had been born a few hours before, I was flatly refused hospitality, some Sakais preferring to accompany me a long way off and there erect a hut for my use on the formal understanding that I should not for any motive whatever attempt to approach the settlement. Had I not kept to this condition I should probably have ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... her hands primly, and held up her bonneted head in the darkness, like some decorous and formal caller who might expect at any moment to hear the soft, heavy step of the host upon the creaking stair and his voice in the room. She sat ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... After a time Miss Lavinia was eased back on her pile of pillows and might have dropped off to sleep, but she insisted on having her best company cap arranged on her hair and a lavender shawl put around her shoulders and thus in state take a formal leave of the departing guest—alone. And it was fully a half hour before Everett came out of her room, and Rose Mary saw him slip a tiny pocket testament which had always lain on Miss Lavinia's table into his inside breast pocket, and his face was serious almost to the point ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... therefore choose a more favorable hour. Besides, your highness, you must betake yourself to the grand reception-hall, where the whole court is already assembled, and now only awaits the king to go in formal procession for the young queen, and conduct her to the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... afterward over and over again, because I might not answer them. She had written out of kindly sympathy when the news of our trouble first reached her, and that was all; while I felt I could not write a mere formal note of thanks—and more than this was out of the question now. Nevertheless, I was thankful for her good wishes, and then I stood silent under the starlight, staring down the misty coulee and thinking of Cousin Alice as mechanically I stripped the envelope from ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... upon our rebellious brethren. Among our regular officers you meet the classmates and old companions in arms of the rebels, and hear of little traits and peculiarities that only intimate acquaintances can relate. Civilians who had known General Lee at Washington, have spoken of him as very formal, and rather pompous in his manner, giving the impression that he was a man of more show and pretence than abilities. We learned here, however, that, in Texas, or California, where he was for a long time before he took his high position on Scott's staff, he was famous for marching his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... time also submitted to a formal dismission; and had the mortification to reflect, that he was bestowing upon the object of his affections, the tenderest proof of his regard, by absenting himself ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... possibly, to promoting respect for law by making the statutes so conform to public sentiment that none will fall into disesteem and disuse, it has been advocated that there be a formal recognition of sex in the penal code, by making a difference in the punishment of men and of women for the same crimes and misdemeanors. The argument is that if women were "provided" with milder punishment juries ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... reward that their friend had just received, he replied in a loud voice, so as to be heard by Felicite, who was sitting a little way off, that "men like Rougon were an ornament to the Legion of Honour." The bookseller joined in the chorus; he had that morning received a formal assurance that the custom of the college would be restored to him. As for Sicardot, he at first felt somewhat annoyed to find himself no longer the only one of the set who was decorated. According to ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... been given above, with its hall and court lighted from within, and made private from the passing crowds in the street. In the country there is no need of such an arrangement. Moreover there are no formal receptions to necessitate the hall, and there are ample gardens to make the peristyle superfluous. Here the walls of the house may break forth into large and open windows, while all around may run pillared verandahs. Built in any variety of ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... have been of no greater interest than the other five, and yet, something intangible about it caused her to pause for a moment before inserting the point of the knife beneath the flap of the envelope. It was a large envelope, square, formal-looking. The address upon it was typewritten. Unlike the majority of the other letters, forwarded from the studio, it bore the street and number of the apartment house in which she lived. The envelope was postmarked New York, and was sealed with a splotch ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... met since the Landing. Joan had paid her formal visit, had lunched at Government House, and was now on intimate terms with the new people. Also, Lady Bridget had found her way to ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... The squires familiarly formal, and My lords and ladies proudly condescending; The very servants puzzling how to hand Their plates—without it might be too much bending From their high places by the sideboard's stand— Yet, like their masters, fearful of offending. For ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... constantly crowded, but there seems to be more of bustle than of business. The town is certainly picturesque, notwithstanding the houses are very little more than a century old, and the streets are formal and comparatively wide. Indeed it should seem that the houses were built expressly for Noblemen and Gentlemen, although they are inhabited by tradesmen, mechanics, and artizans, in apparently very indifferent circumstances. I scarcely ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... to me. How grand over war and hate were the thoughts of peace and love! And yet every foot of this beautiful land must be bought with a price. No matter where the great blame lies, nor who sinned first in getting formal possession, the real occupation is won only by sacrifice. And I was confronted with my part of the offering. Strange thoughts come in such an hour. Sitting there in the twilight, I asked myself why I should want to live; ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... body of Moses. But the practice of burning was also of great antiquity, and of no slender extent. For (not to derive the same from Hercules) noble descriptions there are hereof in the Grecian funerals of Homer, in the formal obsequies of Patroclus and Achilles; and somewhat elder in the Theban war, and solemn combustion of Meneceus, and Archemorus, contemporary unto Jair the eighth judge of Israel. Confirmable also among the Trojans, from the funeral pyre of Hector, burnt before the gates of Troy: and the ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... full of weeds, we may be pretty sure the inhabitants are idle, thriftless, perhaps intemperate. So a clear eye, a firm step, an open countenance, tell of a pure, good soul within. For example, a man of cold exterior or of formal manner may often have a warm heart under it all; a man of rough manners may have kindly feelings that he cannot express. We are often long in the company of men before we really know them, and then the discovery of what they are ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... Herbert's suit, and since his death there had been a slight coolness between the two families, and the girls had seen much less of each other than in earlier days; their intercourse being confined to an occasional exchange of formal calls, except when they met at the house of some common acquaintance or friend. Still they were mutually attached, and of late had resumed much of their old warmth ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... a meeting at a Working Women's Club in Westminster. He had spoken, and I had spoken too. I don't know what papa would have said, if he had known, but I had. A formal resolution had been proposed, and I had seconded it,—in perhaps a couple of hundred words; but that would have been quite enough for papa to have regarded me as an Abandoned Wretch,—papa always puts those sort of words into capitals. Papa regards a speechifying woman as a thing ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... Adam was formal, cold and uncompromising, while Frank paid no more attention to his sister than if she were a hired servant in the house. Only the girl's firm determination, awakened womanhood, patience and Christian fortitude enabled her to accept her lot. But in spite of ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright

... burying-ground behind the meeting-house. He was not, to be sure, esteemed by all, especially the women, to be so great a man as the Reverend Jabez Jaynes, A.M., who, by virtue of his sacred office and academical honors, took formal precedence of every mere layman in the parish. But with this notable exception, Doctor Bugbee was the peer of every other dignitary, whether civil, military, or ecclesiastical, within ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... fifty-six times fifty sentences are about one-third conjunctions, about one-third adverbs or relative and interrogative pronouns, while in the case of the remaining third there is what the grammarians call an asyndeton—no formal grammatical connexion at all. But in the writers of the N.T. nearly two-thirds of the connecting links are conjunctions. It follows that in order to make the style of a translation true idiomatic English many of these conjunctions ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth

... was far too proud to refer to it. All Lois knew, therefore, was that there was trouble and she was there to help tide it over, and she meant, if she could, to make it up. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wentworth was very kind, if formal, to her, and the children, delighted to get rid of the former governess, whom they insisted in describing as an "old cat," were ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... squander in the streets. You can dine in Paris for twenty-five sous a day, and I will get you your breakfast with mine every day. I will furnish your rooms and pay for such teaching as you may think necessary. You shall give me formal acknowledgment for the money I may lay out for you, and when you are rich you shall repay me all. But if you do not work, I shall not regard myself as in any way pledged to you, and I shall leave you ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... came in with a soft bass note from time to time. No instrument, you know; just an unaccompanied murmur no louder than an Aeolian harp; and it sounded infinitely sweet and plaintive and—what shall I say?—weak—attenuated—faint—'pale' you might almost say—in that formal, rather old-fashioned salon, with that great clear oval mirror throwing back the still flames of the candles in the sconces on the walls. Outside the wind had now fallen completely; all was very quiet; and suddenly in a voice not much louder than a sigh, Carroll's companion ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... effect on the mind of Tayian, but still he could not bring himself to give his formal consent to any act of hostility against Vang Khan. So the other chieftains held a council among themselves to consider what they should do. They resolved to take upon themselves the responsibility ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... 7.—Here is a precious job. I have a formal remonstrance from these critical persons, Ballantyne and Cadell, against the last volume of Count Robert, which is within a sheet of being finished. I suspect their opinion will be found to coincide with that of the public; at least it ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... disputants, of inquiring the truth from living witnesses, and of copying their representations from the life; and, therefore, they preserve a multitude of particular incidents, which are forgotten in a short time, or omitted in formal relations, and which are yet to be considered as sparks of truth, which, when united, may afford light in some of the darkest scenes of state, as, we doubt not, will be sufficiently proved in the course of this miscellany; and which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... the western borders of Columbus lived a cousin Padgett in such a country place as had long been the talk of the entire family connection. Cousin Padgett was a mighty man in the city, and his wife and daughters had unheard-of advantages. He had kept up a formal but very pleasant intercourse with grandma's branch; and when he learned at the State Fair, the year previous, her son Tip's design to cast their future lots in the West, he said he should take it very ill if they did not spend the first night of their journey with him. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... dressed herself in a yellow dress, which, however, did not make her look any younger. She had one caller. It was the Grasshopper, who was clad in his major's uniform. He came along the Garden walk that led to the Crocus in a very formal fashion, taking step with great precision, for he went exactly the same distance at each spring, and halted the same length of time between the jumps. The last spring—for he had calculated it exactly—landed him by the Crocus. The Crocus, ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... promenades, with fountains and statues, prolong themselves along the quays once dedicated to commerce; ball-rooms and theaters rise upon the dust of desecrated chapels, and thrust into darkness the humility of domestic life. And when the formal street, in all its pride of perfumery and confectionery, has successfully consumed its way through wrecks of historical monuments, and consummated its symmetry in the ruin of all that once prompted a reflection, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... self-government. More than once, the Philistines called our attention to the fact that the new dumas and zemstvos elected on the basis of universal suffrage, were incomparably more democratic than the Soviets and were more suited to represent the population. However, this formal democratic criterion is devoid of serious content in a revolutionary epoch. The significance of the Revolution lies in the rapid changing of the judgment of the masses, in the fact that new and ever new strata of population ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... quiet, natural manner, always the presiding spirit of general comfort and general friendship. Even the rigid laws of country punctilio relaxed before her unaffected cheerfulness and irresistible good-nature. She always contrived—nobody ever knew how—to lure the most formal people into forgetting their formality, and becoming natural for the rest of the day. Even a heavy-headed, lumbering, silent country squire was not too much for her. She managed to make him feel at his ease, when no one else would undertake ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... societies of which I have knowledge. They are connected with the American by no formal affiliation. The only intercourse between them and it, is, that which springs up spontaneously among those of every land who sympathize with Humanity in her conflicts ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... woman there was Mrs. Anthony Hope—copper coloured hair, masses, with a wreath of gardenias—green eyes—and a long neck, very beautiful figure. The speakers were Barrie, Lord Tennyson, Comyns Carr, A. E. W. Mason, Mrs. Craigie (who acquitted herself wonderfully) and Mrs. Flora Annie Steel. After the formal dinner was a reception at which everyone was very friendly. It is wonderful the way in which they all accept Gilbert, and one well-known man told me he was the biggest man present. Anyhow there was the feeling of brotherhood and fellowship in the wielding of "the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... students display perfect unanimity, for they have absolute faith in democracy. But with their customary scrupulousness, their dread of pharisaism, they admit that Switzerland is still far from being a true democracy. "To-day democracy is purely formal; in our own time the principle of true democracy ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... consider for one moment the aspect not only of formal law but of the whole community, and of what is called "public opinion" towards this section ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... be confessed that Miss Belinda suffered many pangs of anxiety in looking forward to her young kinswoman's first appearance in society. A tea at Lady Theobald's house constituted formal presentation to the Slowbridge world. Each young lady within the pale of genteel society, having arrived at years of discretion, on returning home from boarding-school, was invited to tea at Oldclough Hall. During an entire evening she was the ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... A formal procession now issued from the farmhouse. Kjersti marched at the front, carrying the big iron-bound cow collar to which the deep-toned bell was fastened; next came the head milkmaid, followed by the under-milkmaid; then the girls who ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud

... Greek drama there were no formal divisions into scenes and acts; there were no means, therefore, of allowing for the necessary lapse of time between one part of the dialogue and another, and unity of time in a strict sense was, of course, impossible. To overcome that difficulty of accounting ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... Terry's fight down the river. McLean, painfully wounded, but very quiet and plucky, had been re-established in his old quarters at "Bedlam." Dr. Bayard, after one or two somewhat formal visits, had relinquished the entire charge of the case to his assistant; so that Dr. Weeks was now the medical and surgical attendant of both the young officers in the north hall, while his senior continued assiduously ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... Nance's feelings for Mr. Archer was admiration as for a superior being; and with this, his treatment, consciously or not, accorded happily. When he forgot her, she took the blame upon herself. His formal politeness was so exquisite that this essential brutality stood excused. His compliments, besides, were always grave and rational; he would offer reason for his praise, convict her of merit, and thus disarm suspicion. Nay, and the very hours when he forgot and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... fragments of sentences—he very much liked conversation. During the many years in which he was a member of "The Club" he was one of its most assiduous frequenters, and his loss was acknowledged by a formal resolution. His talk was generally grave, but every now and then was lit up by dry humour. The late Lord Arthur Russell once said to him, after he had been buying some property in southern England: "So you ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... are allusions to the languages spoken, with reference to the families to which the tribes belong. No formal classification ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... A very full and formal treaty of peace and amity was now concluded between the two sovereigns; for Guthrum was styled in the treaty a king, and was to hold, in the dominions assigned him to the eastward of Alfred's realm, an independent jurisdiction. He agreed, however, ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... action upon which he had entered. In addition to the hostile measures already adopted, a special messenger was sent to Philip IV. to inform him that, unless he immediately recognized the supremacy of the French court, and made a formal apology for the insult offered the French minister, war would ensue. The Spanish king, unwilling, for so trivial a cause, to involve the two nations in a bloody conflict, very magnanimously yielded to the requirements demanded by the hot blood and wounded pride of his son-in-law. ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... days of imprisonment he seems to have been burdened with the administration of churches. It was out of such multifarious activities that the theology of Paul was born, and therein lies its value. No interpretation is likely to bring the separate deliverances into anything like formal, logical consistency. Very likely Paul was of a markedly logical frame of mind, but he did not attempt to rid his message of contradictions in detail. The unity and consistency are found in the fundamental ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell

... a definition it would be this: Classical composers are those of the first rank (to this extent we yield to the ancient Roman conception) who have developed music to the highest pitch of perfection on its formal side and, in obedience to generally accepted laws, preferring aesthetic beauty, pure and simple, over emotional content, or, at any rate, refusing to sacrifice form to characteristic expression. Romantic composers are those who ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... In a formal council Agamemnon is therefore asked to relinquish his captive, but violently declares that he will do so only in case he receives Achilles' slave. This insolent claim so infuriates the young hero that he is ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... that a formal compact was concluded between Dubois and the musician, which granted the violinist considerable emoluments, but bound him and his family by oath to maintain the most absolute secrecy concerning the child's origin. Moreover, Massi himself knew nothing about the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... wine, beer, Americans and bottles of water. The audience is rough and ready; hats and caps are worn habitually; pipes are diligently smoked—cigars are rare. Women are seldom seen here, except upon the stage, where they sit in a semicircle in a somewhat formal manner, each holding a bouquet in her lap carefully wrapped round with white paper, each wearing flowers in her elaborately coiffe hair and in the folds of her silken skirts, and each with arms and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... young Spenser, which they pillaged and destroyed; murdered his servants, drove off his cattle, and burned his houses.[**] They thence proceeded to commit like devastations on the estates of Spenser the father, whose character they had hitherto seemed to respect. And having drawn and signed a formal association among themselves,[***] they marched to London with all their forces, stationed themselves in the neighborhood of that city, and demanded of the king the banishment ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... two great souls respected the independence of each other too much to intrude. "Mr. Hawthorne once broke through his hermit usage, and honored Miss Ellen Emerson, the friend of his daughter Una, with a formal call on a Sunday evening. It was the only time, I think, that he ever came to the house except when persuaded to come in for a few moments on the rare occasions when he walked with my father. On this occasion he did not ask for either Mr. or Mrs. Emerson, but announced that his call ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy



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