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More "Formality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, "the fellow knows that he is already as good as dead, and so in his bravado he dares affront you. He has been convicted of spying by the Austrians. He is still a spy. It is unnecessary to repeat the formality of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... premises. The Constitution makes them the agents of the people. The Legislature of the State of Kentucky, well understanding and appreciating the only true method in which constitutional amendments should be proposed, with all the formality of a legislative act approved by the Executive of that State, has applied to Congress for the call of a convention for proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and has requested ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... he did not possess even rudimentary honesty is shown by the fact that he prevented his letter of resignation from being received by the City Council. This manner of resignation is not and never has been with the Socialists a mere formality. It is a vital, necessary thing, and should be insisted upon at all times and in all places. No man should go on the ticket unless he has signed the resignation, and no man, unless he is a scoundrel, will sign it unless he intends to live up ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... 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 the circle ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... presentee, through the presbytery, what is designated a "call", subscribed by members of the parish congregation. This call is simply an invitation to the office of their pastor. It arose in the disorders of the seventeenth century; but in practice it is generally admitted to have sunk into a mere formality throughout the eighteenth century; and the very position which it holds in the succession of steps, not usually coming forward until after the presentation has been notified, (supposing that it comes forward at all,) compels us to regard it in that light. Apparently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... and it never occurred to him that he 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 ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... sometimes as it should, and sometimes the contrary. Most frequently, even nowadays (1889), it is of no efficiency whatever. Three-quarters of the municipal councils, for three-fourths of their business, hold sessions only to give signatures. Their pretended deliberations are simply a parade formality; the incentive and direction continue to come from without, and from above; under the third Republic, as under the Restoration and the first Empire, it is always the central State which governs the local society; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of meeting. Burke he met that night for the first time, and on his entrance, Johnson, 'with humorous formality, gave me a charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of the club.' That charge we can believe Forster to be right in suspecting to be a caution against publishing abroad the proceedings and ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... make expeditions, &c. My father is in such a state about me, that I believe I could get his consent to anything, but I suppose it would not be fair, and I have said nothing to him as yet. On Monday we go to Leffingham, which, I hear, is formality itself. After that, more state visits, unless I can escape to Oxford. My father fancies me not well enough; but pray unite all the forces of the Terrace to impress that nothing else will do me any good. Dragging about in this dreary, heartless way is all that ails me, and reading for my degree ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was so calm that Miss Lucilla could not do otherwise than reply in the same vein of commonplace formality. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... again through her mind. At length she came to Mr. Stoutenburgh's gate, and Faith's foot paused. Light shone through the muslin curtains; and as her step neared the front door the broken sounds of voices and laughter came unwelcomely through. A most unnecessary formality her knock was, but one of the children came to the door and ushered her at once into the tea-room, where the family were waiting for their late tea. Mrs. Stoutenburgh—looking very pretty in her light summer dress—was half reclining on the sofa, professing ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... that journeying in the woods is, in some degree, a deranger of ceremony and formality; that it necessarily restricts us somewhat in our conventionalities. The only remedy is, to make ourselves amends by a double share when we return to ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... was the building, 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, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... afternoon Mrs. Merriman and Mrs. Highcamp had made their "party call." Edna felt that they might have dispensed with the formality. They had also come to invite her to play vingt-et-un one evening at Mrs. Merriman's. She was asked to go early, to dinner, and Mr. Merriman or Mr. Arobin would take her home. Edna accepted in a half-hearted way. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... sight as possible, "undo those cords. They are cutting into the flesh. Messieurs, pardon my overzealous servants. Indeed, we have much to fear from strangers. Though you may mean no wrong to us, yet formality requires that you satisfy our Privy Council of your honesty in coming to our remote country at this particular time. Let us go at once, that you may the speedier be relieved ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... 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 worship of Egyptian ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... would ask, as she shook hands with Captain Price; and he would answer as to one who understood: "It was piling up a bit from the sou'west;" or "smooth enough to skate on," as the case might be. Then, without further formality, he would return to his papers, and Arthur Price would hand over his work to the third mate and wash his hands before coming up to make himself agreeable. He always had more to say about the trip than his father, and he was prone to translate the weather into shore speech. Minnie ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... dock: his good looks, his blue eyes, his air of breeding, his well-cut clothes, appealed to their sensibilities, and if they had been given the opportunity they would have acquitted him without the formality of a trial as far "too nice a boy" ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... and formality of his appearance is partly occasioned by the braces which he very judiciously purchased of Martin Van Butchell, and partly by the pride of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... day, and the final details were concluded for the building of the Empire. Frank Sanger came in as a partner; thus the builders were Al Hayman, Frank Sanger, and William Harris. Without the formality of a contract they turned it over to Charles Frohman with the injunction that he could do with it ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... asked: "Aren't your feet wet, too?" and, after frank inspection of a stout-shod sole, she had answered cheerfully: "No—luckily I had on my new boots," he began to feel that human intercourse would still be tolerable if it were always as free from formality. ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... The stiff formality and the ridiculous solemnity of the old Puritan times still linger about these secluded New England hamlets. But each winter a huge Christmas tree is set up in the church of the village I have mentioned, and loaded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... soft hazel eyes seemed to turn on him in silence, and say, forgive me all this. Then, at those sweet looks, love and forgiveness poured out of his eyes. And then hers sought the ground. And this was generally followed by a certain mixture of stiffness, timidity and formality too ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... can do nothing for you. Now I will confess to you the whole truth—a truth I had not the heart to tell you before. That woman is already my wife; I have married her by civil contract; and the ceremony that is about to be performed presently is a mere formality. Sophia, forgive me if you ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... the tutor, in which I said that I expected him to keep his agreement, and in accordance with it I should ride out that day. I then left the note at the house, saddled the animal myself, and rode a long distance. From that time our relations were those of constrained formality, which on the whole I much preferred. My tutor assumed an air of injured innocence, and treated me with a clumsy imitation of politeness which was intended to wound me, but which I found extremely convenient, as the greater the distance between us the less ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... enough, somehow.... You see, my father recently decided to appoint me trustee of all his property. It happens to give me a good deal of power over Therese when he dies, or rather not so much power, in actual fact, as knowledge of her movements. She knows it to be a pure formality. I should never interfere with her, but—she hates the idea. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... soon. Before this, His Excellency managed to juggle Mr. Robert Randall, the agent of the people to England, against the alien bill, and who was, therefore, one of the proscribed, out of his ample estates on the Niagara frontier, and out of his valuable mill privileges on the Ottawa, by the formality of law, so that he was left bankrupt and penniless, and died in sorrow. Indeed anything in the semblance of a liberal was in those days proscribed in a country possessed of the image and transcript ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... "But the Trappists must have notice, it is a simple formality, for with a word from me, you will be received at once, but wait at least until I have sent this word; I will post it this evening, so have no ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently is too correct. This may not be understood,—but the old Goths of Germany would have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober—sober that they might not be deficient in formality—drunk lest they should ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... it; he is Emperor in petto; one of these mornings he will be so in the sun; nothing more is wanting than a trivial formality, the mere consecration and crowning of his false oath at Notre-Dame. After that we shall have fine doings. Expect an imperial spectacle. Expect caprices, surprises, stupefying, bewildering things, the most unexpected combinations of words, the most fearless cacophony? Expect ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... mean time, however, he sent heralds into Greece to summon the country to surrender to him. This is a common formality when an army is about to attack either a town, a castle, or a kingdom. Xerxes's heralds crossed the AEgean Sea, and made their demands, in Xerxes's name, upon the Greek authorities. As might have been expected, the embassage was fruitless; and the heralds returned, bringing with them, from ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... but after a second she gave him her fingers. "It is pleasant to be able to speak to one's neighbors," she admitted with a hint of formality that in some way pleased ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... it for perhaps a second longer than was absolutely necessary. Then he sat down and inquired after her health and Stirling's, at which Ida, who could not help it, laughed. She did not like effusiveness, but this conventional formality seemed to her singularly out of place, until she remembered that she had once or twice already found the matter-of-fact quietness with which the man made his appearance and went away again almost disconcerting. If this had been the result of affectation it would have been provocative, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... becoming as big a savage as any in the island. A blue shark adorned his forehead; a broad bar, of the same colour, traversed his face. The tabooing was a less ornamental but more decidedly useful formality, for by it his person was declared sacred and inviolable. Typee and his medical friend had a strong prejudice against cerulean sharks and the like embellishments; but if these could be dispensed with, they felt no disinclination to form part of Pomaree's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... riveted the attention of his hearers; Burnet, who made a great display of historical learning; Wharton, whose lively and familiar style of speaking, acquired in the House of Commons, sometimes shocked the formality of the Lords; and Monmouth, who had always carried the liberty of debate to the verge of licentiousness, and who now never opened his lips without inflicting a wound on the feelings of some adversary. A very few nobles of great weight, Devonshire, Dorset, Pembroke and Ormond, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... One day, on the point of engaging in a decisive battle, Moussaben- Nossair, first governor of Mussulman Africa, was praying, according to usage, at the head of the troops; and he omitted the invocation of the name of the Khalif, a respectful formality indispensable on the occasion. One of his officers, persuaded that it was a mere slip on Moussa's part, made a point of admonishing him. "Know thou," said Moussa, "that we are in such a position and at such an hour that no other ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... relief, the cloth was taken away; but even when we came to the wine after dinner, the cold formality of my host continued unabated, and I began to fear that he had taken an insurmountable dislike to me, and that I should lose all the advantages of his protection and assistance: advantages which rose considerably in my estimation, when I apprehended I was upon ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... to say, but his client's manner seemed designed to create a barrier of formality between them. He hesitated, unwilling to leave, yet finding it exceedingly difficult to say the things which were in his mind. He temporized by referring back to matters already discussed, solely for the purpose ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... formality in his tone and manner, which disagreeably surprised her. He seemed to have made his reply as a mere concession to politeness, while he was thinking of something else which really ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... at us," the man replied. "He knows you love him, Anna. He will not be frightened by a formality, pure and simple— by a marriage /in extremis,"/ he added emphatically, smiling ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... boy debated whether to spend his scant change here or at the muster. In New England, Christmas was not observed; it was hardly known, in fact, Thanksgiving taking its place, proclaimed with the utmost formality by the Governor some ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... for Kolberg to enter the army anew as a junior lieutenant. That, however, meant his transference to another garrison, for in this one there was no room for him. Before he could start his career afresh in a beautiful city by the Rhine, Kolberg had to comply with one other little formality, and that took him to a fortress where he had to undergo confinement of an easy description, and lasting only for a couple of months, because he had been guilty of "participation in a duel with deadly weapons," as his ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Provinces; that they were a party in the dispute; that the persons arrested were members of the States of Holland, and were arrested in the Province of Holland, where the States-General had no jurisdiction. The fourteenth Chapter exposes the want of formality in the proceedings from the time of their arrest to the nomination of their judges. The fifteenth Chapter points out the want of formality in the nomination of the judges: and proves the extravagancy of making it a crime in them to maintain ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... established a senate of twelve students, a consul, and other officers, who were made responsible for the government of the school. These constituted a court of which he was president. Offenders were brought before the tribunal and tried with great formality and dignity. This body sentenced the culprit to such punishment as his guilt merited, the master reserving to himself the right of being a court of final appeal. Besides the officers above named, there were others who ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... time I put my foot in the ring with a professional I was no more than a canned lobster. I dunno how it was—I seemed to lose heart. I guess I got too much imagination. There was a formality and publicness about it that kind of weakened my nerve. I never won a fight in the ring. Light-weights and all kinds of scrubs used to sign up with my manager and then walk up and tap me on the wrist and see me fall. The minute I seen the crowd and a lot of gents in evening clothes ...
— Options • O. Henry
... advanced to the Spaniard, assuring him of his sympathies, and offering to render whatever assistance might be in his power. To which the Spaniard returned for the present but grave and ceremonious acknowledgments, his national formality dusked by the saturnine ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... of this most significant drama was enacted on Saturday morning in the Wilmington Circuit Court-room. There was nothing in the cold formality of the proceedings to indicate that here was the denouement of a serio-comedy in which greed and ambition had clashed in a battle for millions; nor in the amiable indifference of the men who got within the enclosed space below the judge's desk to suggest the murderous passions and fierce hatreds ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the Viceroy was naturally the chief objective point of all foreigners and especially of officials upon their arrival in port. Occasions frequently occurred when Mr. Gouverneur was compelled to go through the formality of requesting an interview with this high official. These audiences were always promptly granted and were conducted with a great amount of pomp and ceremony very dear to the inhabitants of "far Cathay," but exceedingly tiresome to others. Some distance from us, and in another ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... door opened into a large room without the formality of an entry or hall. In one corner of the apartment stood a bed. At one side was a large fireplace, in which half a dozen sticks of green wood were hissing and sizzling in a vain attempt to make ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... a racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One could intelligibly ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the investigations into the private affairs of water-rats and others, made by her companions, she and Peter Callaghan had exchanged greetings. He and Christian had fallen into talk, with the absence of formality that is, perhaps, peculiar to intercourse between his class and hers. He leant upon his scythe, and discoursed seriously and courteously. He wore a soft, slouched black hat, that did not wholly conceal his thick and curly hair, in which there was scarcely a grey strand, though he was, as ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... and ferment the same so as to make it resemble wine. Nay, they who dwell upon the bank of the Rhine deal in wine. Their food is very simple; wild fruit, fresh venison, or coagulated milk. They banish hunger without formality, without curious dressing and curious fare. In extinguishing thirst, they use not equal temperance. If you will but humour their excess in drinking, and supply them with as much as they covet, it will be no less easy to vanquish them by ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... the formality of pretending, when Percy launched out on this delicate subject, not to know what ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... up Mrs. Hardy. Quite unconsciously—being on her dignity and feeling, besides, very important—she spoke more slowly than was usual, and with more than a trace of her aunt's formality. ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... and the commander of the battery sat in their saddles, looking at each other in silence. There was no more to say; apparently too much had already been said. Then the superior officer nodded coldly and turned his horse to ride away. The artillerist saluted slowly, gravely, and with extreme formality. One acquainted with the niceties of military etiquette would have said that by his manner he attested a sense of the rebuke that he had incurred. It is one of the important uses of civility to ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... vociferous notes, complaining again and again of the severe punishment "poor Will" might expect. The cabin was now close at hand. Frank could see that the door was ajar, as though inviting the passerby to enter without the formality of knocking. ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... 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 ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... its spiritual glory. It was honored by the presence of the Son of God, who is the brightness of the Father's glory. In the third message, "in the four and twentieth day of the ninth month," the prophet in a sort of parable, rebukes the people for their heartless formality, which, like the touch of a dead body, defiles all their offerings and services, yet promises them God's blessing upon their repentance. Chap. 2:10-19. The last message, which was delivered on the same day, is wholly occupied with ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... pert, mundane, her mind a chatter-mill; a creature of fur, paint, hair, and absurdly young. The clink of coins was her most favorable accompaniment; and her giving of self was a sort of disrobing formality. The men who pursued her were forward and solicitous. There was something of sacrilege about it all. The minds and souls of real women—such were not matters for American story; and yet the Americans ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... boat was 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
... you did, George; I have always thought most highly of her. She is, it is true, a little reserved in manner, but that I am sure comes wholly from a certain restraint, imposed upon her by her husband's formality of character. I say I am sure of this, for there have been occasions when I have seen her exhibit a warmth of address, as different from her general demeanor, as light ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... first came to the front as a public man, and it was impossible not to be interested, edified, and oftentimes amused by the intelligence, point, and smartness of his speech. At the same time there was—especially in the earlier days of his public career—a certain setness and formality of style that suggested the idea that his speeches were anything but the inspiration of the moment, but had been made beforehand, and were being reeled off. Indeed, many of those who knew him well maintained that his speeches were at this time the result of painstaking study, care, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... of time or formality," returned Yorke, with a smile, as a remembrance of his first meeting with Betty occurred to him, "and that I do truly and honestly love her you have my honorable assurance. Do you give me your permission ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... of my colleague and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse that should justify formality of registration. The contents increased my wonder; for this ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit so long its Father, chiefly arising out of applications made to him by Collegians for small sums of money. To these he responded with the greatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; always first writing to appoint a time at which the applicant might wait upon him in his room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast accumulation of documents, and accompanying his donation (for he said in every such case, 'it is a donation, not a loan') with a great deal of good counsel: ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Majesty," said Belvane, jumping up. She gave him a deep curtsey and threw in a bewitching smile on the top of it; formality or friendliness, he could take his choice. "Prince Udo of Araby, your Majesty." She looked shyly at him and ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... alone, but as the one woman among all that lot of cowboys—it was too much for her to endure. Finally, as a compromise, Florence agreed to invite only the people of the Box R Ranch to the first event. So the invitations for a certain day, composed with fitting formality, were sent, and in due ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... their several ranks; the masques falling flat on their faces, the sorcerers kneeling with their heads and bodies humbly bowed down, and the magicians, who stood highest in importance, only kneeling. After this they all went through the formality of denying God and the Saints. Then they had a diabolical service in burlesque of that of the church, at which the Evil One served as priest in a violet chasuble; the elevation of the demon host was announced ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Brauer. Well, he had told Brauer to hold it until Friday. There was still another day. He hated to go around and ask any further favors of his contemptible ex-partner, and he hoped he wouldn't have to request another postponement to the formality of putting the Brauer check through. Of course he had had no business making out a check for funds not in hand. But under the circumstances... What in hell was he worrying for? Everything would come out all right. What could Brauer do about it, anyway? As a matter of fact, he figured that under ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... members of that house, and which had accidentally been divulged, excited surprise by the note of general hostility which they struck, while the share of the Palatinate and of Brandenburg in the election was treated in them as a formality which could be dispensed with ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... "I come from——." A may then say, "Where are you going to?", and B will reply to this. Then B may put similar questions to A, and will be similarly answered. These questions are not necessarily asked because the questioner is really anxious for information, but are in the nature of a formality,—the equivalent of our "How do you do?" The system of asking and answering these questions, though well recognised as a social form, is not in practice strictly adhered to. Also A, on coming to a village and finding B there, and wishing to salute him, will call him ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... though worthy of universal adoption, is in this country only followed by the purists in politeness. The requisitions of etiquette, if they should be obeyed at all, should be obeyed fully. This decent formality prevents acquaintance from being too distant, while, at the same time, it preserves the "familiar" from becoming "vulgar." They ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... own fancy, so that these humble dwellings remind the contemplative spectator of a production of Nature, and may (using a strong expression) rather be said to have grown than to have been erected—to have risen, by an instinct of their own, out of the native rock—so little is there in them of formality, such is their ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... is, skipper," said Mr. Tibbetts; "an' now all this beastly formality is over we'll have a bottle to celebrate things." And a bottle ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... forlorn chance of linking up the Princess with the crime. Now it had failed, he intended to try other measures. He dismissed Wills and the women with a nod of caution not to speak of the formality they had witnessed, and at a nod from him a uniformed inspector stood up by the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... band and obligation (a desperate, a fearful case) to satisfy thy lust, or to be revenged of thine enemies, thou didst never pray, come to church, hear, read, or do any divine duties with any devotion, but for formality and fashion's sake, with a kind of reluctance, 'twas troublesome and painful to thee to perform any such thing, praeter voluntatem, against thy will. Thou never mad'st any conscience of lying, swearing, bearing false ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... those elephants and plead for some fashion of redress for painful injuries innocently sustained. Perhaps the show gentleman might incline a charitable ear upon hearing Red Hoss' story. Just how the sufferer would go about the formality of presenting himself to the consideration of the visiting dignitary he did not yet know. It was all nebulous and cloudy; a contingency to be shaped by circumstances as they might develop. Really sympathy was the ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... always called her 'Miss Ida,' in an absurdly formal way, but ever since she had arrived at Oxley Paddox he had dropped the 'Miss,' and had never failed to spend two or three hours alone with her every day. Though his manner had not changed much, and he treated her with a sort of queer formality, much as he would have behaved if she had been twenty years old instead of nine, she had been growing more and more sure that he loved her and would give her anything in the world she asked for, ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... make themselves completely at home. With a pen upon which the ink had been dry for many a day the young man inscribed his name on a thin and dirty register—"Philip Woodward, Clinton, Georgia;" whereupon the squire, with unnecessary and laborious formality, assigned Mr. Woodward to ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... call 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 no business ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... following day, after proclaiming James King of England with all due formality and with the sound of trumpet, Mr. Forster attending the ceremony in disguise, the troops marched to Morpeth, their numbers increasing as they went. At Felton Bridge, they were joined by seventy horse, composed of gentlemen from the borders; and by the time they ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... direction. Nausicaa alone stood her ground, for Athena gave her courage. When Odysseus saw her he wondered which would be the better, to throw himself at the feet of the maiden and beg her to give him some clothes and to show him the way to the city, or to speak to her with more formality. ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... understanding and enjoying them, but I imagine there are thousands of housewives who would prefer a good serial to bring romance into their lives. I don't object to a commercial world in which competitors go through the formality of pretending to be scrupulously fair in talking about each others' products, but I must admit I missed the good old American slapdash advertising which yelled, Buy my deodorant or youll stink; wash your mouth with my antiseptic or youll lose your job; brush your teeth with my ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Francis, in despair, took suddenly the resolution of resigning his crown, with all its rights and prerogatives, to his son, the Dauphin, determining rather to end his days in prison than to purchase his freedom by concessions unworthy of a king. The deed for this purpose he signed with legal formality in Madrid, empowering his sister to carry it into France, that it might be registered in all the parliaments of the kingdom; and, at the same time, intimating his intention to the Emperor, he desired him to name the place of his confinement, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... here 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
... naturally stay together if they were not induced to separate. The denominations have good Christians in them, but there are many members who do not have an experimental knowledge of grace and these have led many churches into worldliness and formality." ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... still writing as admirably as ever when he died at eighty-four. We cannot dismiss this singular, varied, and fascinating American better than by quoting the letter which George Washington wrote to him in September, 1789. It has the dignity and formality of the eighteenth century, but it is warm with tested friendship and it glows with deep human feeling: "If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... among them believes himself superior to the law, "as formerly a Conde,[3245]" and he becomes king on a small scale, self-constituted, an autocratic justiciary and avenger of wrongs, a supporter of patriots and the scourge of aristocrats, the disposer of lives and property, and, without delay or formality, taking it upon himself to complete the Revolution on the spot in every town he passes through.—He is not to be hindered in all this by his officers. "Having created his chiefs, they are of no more account ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... she had been simply Stella to Harold Hazlewood. The addition of Ballantyne was significant. It replaced friendliness with formality. ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... a Divine message. If we look upon it entirely as the first, and require our clergymen to finish it with their utmost care and learning, for our better delight whether of ear or intellect, we shall necessarily be led to expect much formality and stateliness in its delivery, and to think that all is not well if the pulpit have not a golden fringe round it, and a goodly cushion in front of it, and if the sermon be not fairly written ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... key, insisted that the covenant was our only defence against malignant men, and evil counsellors, Arminians and Jesuits, and that if this godly bond was trampled on, the nation would be overrun with popery and formality. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... his trial at the next Salisbury assizes, and, being acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pomeroy, was found guilty of manslaughter. He pleaded his clergy, went through the formality of being branded in the hand with a cold iron, and was discharged on payment of his fees. He lived to be the fifth Viscount Dunborough, a man neither much worse nor much better than his neighbours; and dying at a moderate ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... an injustice!" He added, with an air of formality, "I have come to make my dinner call. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... embarrassed, which encouraged me a little, and yet I felt more diffidence on this occasion than in my effort at Mr. Crittenden's lunch, where, indeed, I was perfectly self-possessed. But here, there being less formality, and more of a conversational character in what was said, my usual diffidence could not so well be kept in abeyance. However, I did not break down to an intolerable extent, and, winding up my eloquence as briefly as possible, we had a social talk. Their whole stay could ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... good a woman as ever lived, and, in her way, was as kind and affable as was the King. She had a quaint humour about her, too, which frequently exhibited itself, in spite of the somewhat painful formality of the usual court circle. As an example—Sir Harry had had a present of bottled green peas made to him the previous year, and, looking on them as a great rarity, he had kept them to be placed on the table before his royal guests. As he knew more ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... his ethereal auxiliaries, and, 'rising on the wings of the tempest, to seize upon the artillery of heaven, and direct its fiercest thunders against the heads of his adversaries.' The scene became insupportable; and the House rose without the formality of adjournment, the members rushing from their ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... Britain. He gave the same explanation to the Prince Regent, at a private audience, who replied by an assurance of his disposition to continue to promote the harmony between the two nations which was required by the interests of both. There was no formality in the discourse on either side, and the generalities of mutual assurance were much alike, and estimated at their real value. In reply to the inquiries of the Prince, the names of the members of Mr. Monroe's cabinet were mentioned. He was not ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... volunteers," MacKay began, with grave formality, "I had not intended to break in upon your conversation, which I found very instructive, but as Claverhouse" (and it was characteristic of his nation that MacKay should call Graham by the name of his estate) "has asked ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... being known, better than it could make itself known in dialogue and action in which he should bear a part. And of the hundreds of English plays opening with an explanation or narrative of foregone matters, there is none where the formality is concealed by a more ingenious artifice than is used in this scene. The spectator is fore-possessed with Timon's character, and (in the outline the Poet is proceeding to give) with a suspicion that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... of them under twenty, only one unmarried, none of them avowedly interested in either of the two officers slowly approaching. No one of them, however, neglected a sweeping glance at her draperies or some slight readjustment of pose or petticoat. Possibly the formality would have been equally observed had ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... pokyshenie na ubiistvo (attempt to murder) were pronounced. Things looked very black indeed. We had the prospect of being detained for days and weeks in the miserable place, till the insatiable demon of official formality had ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... full of anxiety that it superinduced a manner of confidence which was a death-blow to all formality. Mr. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... off without further formality. An instant afterward we saw her in the clasp of Millard once again. We watched during the number and encore; then Kennedy called ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... not like to hear him say "Mr." After he knew of my friendship with his daughter he had called me Malcolm Ross; and this obvious return to formality not only pained, but filled me with apprehension. It must be something about Margaret. I thought of her as "Margaret" and not as "Miss Trelawny", now that there was danger of losing her. I know now what I felt then: that I was determined to fight for her rather than lose her. I came back, unconsciously ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... much more used than was formerly the case. The system of the Army is to make a charge of 6s. 6d. for attending a confinement, which, if paid, is generally collected in instalments of 3d. or 6d. a week. Often, however, it is not paid, and the charge remains a mere formality. She added that many of these poor people are most improvident, and make no provision whatsoever for these events, even if they can afford to do so. The result is that the Army has to lend them ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... that putting these formulas into Alexandrines gives them a stiffness and formality appropriate to ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... members of the dub were present, she would lay aside the formality of the presiding member, and, assuming the familiar manner of addressing us, pour forth her lofty ideals for women, unconsciously testifying that the secret spring of her actions was her love for her own sex. Though the words were always spoken with gentle calmness, ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... borrowed one.[A] But in the Gertrude of Wyoming "we perceive a softness coming over the heart of the author, and the scales and crust of formality that fence in his couplets and give them a somewhat glittering and rigid appearance, fall off," and he has succeeded in engrafting the wild and more expansive interest of the romantic school of poetry on classic ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... (1711-12), and the English plenipotentiaries arrived on the 15th. The ministers of the different potentates conferred and conferred; but the peace advanced so slowly that speedier methods were found necessary, and Bolingbroke was sent to Paris to adjust differences with less formality. Prior either accompanied him or followed him, and after his departure had the appointments and authority of an ambassador, though no public character. By some mistake of the queen's orders the court of France had been disgusted, ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... kings and courts. Prom the existing reality they dare not draw, for nothing is less suitable for tragedy than a court and a court life. Wherever, therefore, they do not paint an ideal kingdom, with the manners of some remote age, they invariably fall into stiffness and formality, which are much more fatal to boldness of character, and to depth of pathos, than the monotonous and equable relations ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... himself, and the expectation of a revolution in the government. There were no persons he was more severe against than jugglers and astrologers; end as soon as any one of them was informed against, he put him to death without the formality of a trial. He was enraged against them, because, after his proclamation by which he commanded all astrologers to quit home, and Italy also, before the calends [the first] of October, a bill was immediately posted ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the foreman, when the officer, at last, had securely locked them in, "shall we go through the formality of a ballot? If the case were a less serious one, we might have rendered a verdict in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... feather decked the brow of the chief; which with his nose, was tinged with yellow ochre. Having presented the boy to me, he next advanced with much formality towards the camp, having Tackijally on his right, the boy walking between, and rather in advance of both, each having ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... perfectly dark. "Well, such is the rule, however," she resumed. "I had, therefore, to appear to possess a power of usefulness of some kind or other, and I proposed to travel for the order, and I was placed on the list of affiliated travelers. You understand it was a formality, by means of which I received my pension, which was very ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at him in astonishment, placed his hands against the seams of his trousers and replied with perfect formality: ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... small open spaces between 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 ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and evident proofs that, outside her own preferences and choices, a wise purpose had been at work with her and for her. So it all appeared more natural every day, and while she knew that the excitement and formality of the first very uncomfortable day or two had proved her freedom of choice, it seemed the more impossible that she should have shirked this great commission and trust for ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of the serfs, would lead backward to the stagnant hours of medieval Russia. Then there were no German words to disfigure the Russian language! Then there were no German divisions of rank among the officials to strangle life by their formality. No, none of these, nor the disturbing importations of Peter; in Aksakoff's variation of the gospel, the Russians are the "beyond men" and need them not. Thus before Peter's reign all was Slavophilic!—a religion of the simple Christian gospel, a church considering itself the only true ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... was absurd enough—when we were within a few minutes' walk of each other—that Oscar should prefer the cold formality of a letter, to the friendly ease of a personal interview. Why could he not have called, and spoken to me? We should have made it up together far more comfortably in that way—and in half the time. At any rate, I determined to go to Browndown, and be good friends again, viva-voce, with this ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... next morning Mercedes came flying excitedly down the path to the Catt cottage, and, without the formality of knocking, burst into the kitchen where the two girls were busy washing up the ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... aside, and with extreme formality presented Miss Fisher to the lady of Chickaree. Kitty touched hands,—and paused, forgetting to take her own away. The young 'unwonted' face was certainly a novelty to her. And ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... said, triumphantly, "what more could you ask? Here are two solid, plump chestnuts, with only a false, empty form of shell between them. And here, like the solid nuts, are two people entitled to each other's acquaintance, with only the false formality of an introduction, like the empty shell, keeping them apart. Since no mutual friend is present to introduce us, has not Nature taken upon herself the office through this chestnut burr? But perhaps I should further Nature's efforts ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... gravity in English; upon this he betrayed great impatience at his harangue having been lost upon us, and supposing that we could, at all events, read, he called to his secretary, and began to dictate a letter. The secretary sat down before him with all due formality, and having rubbed his cake of ink upon a stone, drawn forth his pen, and arranged a long roll of paper upon his knee, began the writing, which was at length completed, partly from the directions of the Chief, and partly from his own ideas, as well as ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... there, and this is April. You will need your horses in your farming operations. You had better take them and your men out of here. You can do no good by staying. This fight is a formality pure and simple, a preliminary to the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... him, but turned and entered Phoebe's room without the formality of knocking. As she opened the door, there was a sharp clatter, as of ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... hands. His word must act, and not we. And why so? you will ask. Because I do not hold men's hearts in my hand, as the potter holds the clay. We have a right to speak: we have not the right to act. Let us preach; the rest belongs unto God. Were I to employ force, what should I gain? Grimace, formality, apings, human ordinances, and hypocrisy.... But there would be no sincerity of heart, nor faith, nor charity. Where these three are wanting, all is wanting, and I would not give a pear-stalk for such a result.... God does more by His word alone than you and I and all the world by ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... she fancied that there was generally a passing expression of pleasure on her husband's face at her rebellion. More frequently, she was glad to escape the slow, long torture, and she would rise, and go through the formality of shaking hands with each person and bidding each "good-night" ere she left the room. "Fisher manners," Madame would whisper impatiently to Marion. "I cannot teach her a decent effacement of her personality." For this little ceremony always ended in Archie's escorting ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... mind on the journey with the sentry. His thoughts winged from Lonegan at Warsaw, to The States' office and home, as if carrying the message of his own end.... Boylan might finally break out with the details.... The personal part ended suddenly, like an essential formality, leaving him a sorrow for Boylan and his mother especially. His full faculties now ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... procedures contained in the bags and pokes of the law-suitors? To the very same use, quoth Bridlegoose, that they serve your other worships. They are behooveful unto me, and serve my turn in three things very exquisite, requisite, and authentical. First, for formality sake, the omission whereof, that it maketh all, whatever is done, to be of no force nor value, is excellently well proved, by Spec. 1. tit. de instr. edit. et tit. de rescript. praesent. Besides ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... though taken a little by surprise at the dignity and formality of the captain, touched their hands civilly to each other, and smiled. Eve, not a little amused at the scene, watched the whole procedure; and then she too detected the sweet melancholy of the one expression ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... for Sydney to do but to respond in the same gracious strain; but he was certainly more reserved than usual in his speech, and behaved with an almost exaggerated amount of respect and formality. After the first two or three sentences he noticed that her eyes began to look abstractedly away from him, and that she answered one of his remarks at random. And while he was wondering, with some irritation, what this change might mean, she drew back into a bow window, and ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sped away. That evening, while Hal and Chester stood beside General Joffre, back again in his headquarters, an orderly rushed into the tent, and forgetting the formality of a salute in his haste, went up to the general and thrust a paper into ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... the gravity with which they bowed, and the difference in it: his the simple formality of his class, Laura's a repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he looked, although any Bond Street tailor would have impeached his waistcoat, and one shabby glove had manifestly never been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first words seemed to show a slight unbending. "Won't ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... ——by my habit,] That is, by his herald's coat. The person of a herald being inviolable, was distinguished in those times of formality by a peculiar dress, which is likewise yet worn on ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... centre. At one period, when pudding was part of the dinner, it was served first. Thus an old-time saying is explained, which always seemed rather meaningless, "I came early—in pudding-time." There was considerable formality in portioning out the food, especially in carving, which was regarded as much more than a polite accomplishment, even as an art. I have seen a list of sixty or seventy different terms in carving to be applied with exactness to different fish, fowl, ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... smallest parts or most trivial hues which bear a part in the great impression made by the reality. The difference between the drawing of the architect and artist[13] ought never to be, as it now commonly is, the difference between lifeless formality and witless license; it ought to be between giving the mere lines and measures of a building, and giving those lines and measures with the impression and soul of it besides. All artists should be ashamed of themselves when they find they have not the power of being true; ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... odious to him as it had once been delightful. His Satan, as he calls the most active of the enemies who had thus ruined his paradise, planned new operations against him, by trying, on the grounds of some neglected formality, to oust him from his fellowship. 'Here,' cries Pattison, 'was a new abyss opened beneath my feet! My bare livelihood, for I had nothing except my fellowship to live upon, was threatened; it seemed not unlikely ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... will be required to be given up before all or any portion of the property can be 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.
... lie, it is certainly denied to none. The humblest shop clerk or artisan—even the dray-driver—may thus make obeisance to the proudest and daintiest damsel who treads the trottoirs of Natchitoches. It gives no right of converse, nor the slightest claim to acquaintanceship. A mere formality of politeness; and to presume carrying it further would not only be deemed a rudeness, but ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... down upon them from above. Val Dor and Floran, passing quietly ahead of the others, went directly to the gates, where they were hidden from those who occupied the enclosure with O-Tar. The Keeper of the Towers may have noticed them, but so occupied was he with the formality of presenting the victorious Chief to the jeddak that he paid no ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... an upright member of society, a sincere friend, a benevolent neighbour, and an intelligent companion. In the performance of his religious duties he was regular and exemplary. Desirious of excelling in conversation, he was prone to evince an undue formality of expression. His poetry, occasionally deficient in power, is uniformly distinguished for ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... all right, but the Mardens' marriage is still bigamous; they have been living all this time in what would be regarded in the eyes of Heaven (and, still worse, the county of Bucks) as sin. However, a trifling formality at a registry-office can rectify this and nobody need be any the wiser. This at least is Marden's attitude, always free from any suspicion of complexity. But his wife (if that is the word for her), being of a more subtle nature, determines ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Babu took the bridegroom and bride with the box of ornaments to his own home, while Rashbehari Babu remained behind at Jogesh's to receive the cash. On mentioning this little formality he was assured that the sum of Rs. 1,001 had been duly counted out to his nephew; so he took his leave. When he reached home, he discovered the dirty trick that had been played by Jogesh. Amarendra stoutly denied having received any cash; ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... changes during the centuries of the Palace's history, changes largely from one kind of formality to another, judging from the plans of them at various times. As I have said that the majority of visitors enter the Palace precincts by way of the Western Trophy Gate, and as such visitors would naturally reach the grounds by the eastern entrance beyond the cloistered ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... guests, in pursuance of the aforesaid invitation, they shall permit the entrance of such foreign soldiers into the United States, with their personal baggage, uniforms, arms, and equipments, without payment of customs duties thereon, and without other formality than such as may be necessary to insure the reexportation of said uniforms, baggage, arms, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... kris was stolen from him, and suspicion fastened upon one of his slave-debtors named Talib. The man was innocent of the theft, but his protestations were not believed, and he was forthwith consigned to the Pen-jara or local gaol. The tedious formality of a trial was dispensed with, and nothing in the nature of the sifting of evidence was considered necessary. The stolen kris was the property of a Prince. That was enough; and Talib went to gaol forthwith, the Raja issuing ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... house is situated in the midst of gardens, adorned with fountains and reservoirs, and he informed us that upon one aqueduct alone he had expended 30,000 pounds. The garden was in its infancy, and, notwithstanding the great formality with which it was laid out, bid fair to do credit to Jung's taste and industry. In one direction the gardens extend to the river side, where he has built some handsome baths, not far distant from which, and at one corner of his grounds, stands a four-turreted ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... Had he meant to detain us, his movements, his words, could not have been more deliberate. How I had longed to hear again the Spanish language spoken by Spaniards in Spain, yet how little was I able to appreciate the fulfilment of my long-cherished wish! At last, however, every formality was complied with, and ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the world, has quite spoiled his matter, which is 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
... place themselves under the care of the asylum, may enter it without any other formality than a compliance with such conditions as may be agreed upon between themselves and the superintendent. The price of admission varies according to location of rooms and attention required. Persons differ so widely in their circumstances ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... 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 ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... it, that Moretto had attained full intelligence of all the pictorial powers of white. In the clearness, the cleanliness, the hieratic distinction, of this earnest and deeply-felt composition, there is something "pre-Raphaelite"; as also in a certain liturgical formality in the grouping of the virgins—the [104] looks, "all one way," of the closely-ranged faces; while in the long folds of the drapery we may see something of the severe grace of early Tuscan sculpture—something of severity in the long, thin, emphatic shadows. For the light is high, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... ought to be burned as a sorcerer, the king ordered his officers to restore him the four hundred ounces of gold which he had been obliged to pay. The register, the attorneys, and bailiffs, went to his house with great formality, to carry him back his four hundred ounces. They only retained three hundred and ninety-eight of them to defray the expenses of justice; and their ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Herc!" Formality vanished. "With you to astrogate us, we may have a chance. But how'd you make it? I'd've sworn a flying saucer couldn't've got down from the Top in the time ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... officers went here and there. They were sent from pillar to post, from one aged General to another, and at eleven o'clock on the day when Bourget was taken, after the troops had been driven out of it, the artillery, every formality having been gone through, was on its way to the village. It is pleasant, whilst one is cut off from the outer world, to be reminded by these little traits of one's native land, its ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... shall we not be merry? A Greek would say that it was always darkest before Eos leaves the couch of Tithonus,[75] and who knows that our Helios is not soon to dawn and be a long, long time ere his setting? I feel like throwing formality to the winds, crying 'Iacchos evoe,' and dancing like a bacchanal, and ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... the same.—Useful observations on general life. Severe censures of the Harlowe family, for their pride, formality, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... or giving them, in the phrase of his country, "a sloan." He was hurried off amid the laughter of the audience, but the indecorous scene which had taken place contributed to the abolition of the office of Dempster. The sentence is now read over by the clerk of court, and the formality of ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shadowy recollections of some tender admonition addressed to him by dear womanly lips in boyhood, which now, on a sudden, flames into the semblance of a Divine summons. Then comes the sermon, from the text, "My son, give me thine heart." There is no repulsive formality, no array of logical presentment to arouse antagonism of thought, but only inglowing enthusiasm, that transfuses the Scriptural appeal, and illuminates it with winning illustration. Reuben sees that the evangelist ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... such precision of speech and a certain formality of manner, but he knew it to be the result of a military training, and it did not decrease ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I like to see folks familiar and friendly. Familiarity is the life of company, while stiffness and formality give it a chill which is quite disagreeable to me," ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... gentlemen volunteers," MacKay began, with grave formality, "I had not intended to break in upon your conversation, which I found very instructive, but as Claverhouse" (and it was characteristic of his nation that MacKay should call Graham by the name of his estate) ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... its appearance of solidity and wealth, and, differing from all others in the door being ajar, I lingered before it last night with some inclination to enter. Then the procession which accompanied you came along. I heard your address to your friends, and wondered what the formality was about. After the door was closed I accosted one of those who escorted you, and learned your name, business, ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... with the utmost kindliness and a graceful touch of formality, and requested permission to examine the exquisite set of ivory chessmen presented to the Admiral at Bombay. They are a superb work of art, all the pieces being mounted on elephants, camels, and horses, elegantly carved. Having bestowed his ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... the wreck, and despite of a sea running high, and the buffeting of a great storm, saved the lives of the crew, and rendered full salvage. While on the island, a visit should be paid to the Anglo-American Cable Company's Station, care being taken beforehand to go through the formality of applying to the Managing Director (26, Old Bond-street, London, E.C.) for an order. Every facility is extended by the courteous ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... Behan, who was, if the truth be owned, a very easy-going peace officer indeed, bade his prisoner depart. He did not know—and Goodrich did not know—that on this occasion the bailing out of John Ringo was going to be something more than a mere formality. ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... time purely symbolic. The bride was delivered to the husband, who as a formality gave a few pieces of silver as payment; but the ceremony proves how completely the woman was regarded as ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... that is to say, with the most circumstantial details regarding position, occupations and all the externals of life. He did not therefore enter into explanations about things of which I was ignorant and we at once began to talk without any formality. ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... get in, then mounted himself, 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 tutor to ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... the promise she had wrung from her brother, for any amount of badinage would be better than this depressing formality. She took her seat, not daring to look at the obnoxious guest; and the family noticed with surprise that they had never seen the little maiden so quenched and abashed before. But George good- naturedly tried ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... Solicitor-General. What it was when they did receive it I never learnt, for they did not communicate it to me, but sent a long message to the Assembly drawn and signed by Paris, reciting my paper, complaining of its want of formality, as a rudeness on my part, and giving a flimsy justification of their conduct, adding that they should be willing to accommodate matters if the Assembly would send out some person of candour to treat with ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... him from falling into excesses of nature worship. He took from nature its rich, subtle, elaborate forms, but his aim was always to work them into a whole that should have the thrilling simplicity and formality of an idea; to combine prodigious realism with prodigious simplification. Memories of Caravaggio's portentous achievements haunted him. Forms of a breathing, living reality emerged from darkness, built themselves up into compositions ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... never fails to attract attention by the peculiar beauty of its outlines, the regular subdivision of its branches, its fair proportions and equal balance without any disagreeable formality. Nothing can exceed the gracefulness of its pinnate foliage, hanging loosely from its equally divergent spray, easy of motion, but not fluttering, and always harmonizing in its tints with the season of the year. Notwithstanding ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Jack went to Long Island, and the farm was bought, and the deed brought to Edith, who, with much formality, presented it to the boy, and that young gentleman showed his appreciation of it by trying to eat it. It would have seemed a pretty incident to Jack, if he had not been absorbed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... objection to such a farewell formality—which was all that it was to him—and as he passed them he kissed them in succession where they stood, saying "Goodbye" to each as he did so. When they reached the door Tess femininely glanced back to discern the effect of that kiss of charity; there was no ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... wrote doggerel rhymes, and was the Swift of our association. Thus we had also our Popes and Goldsmiths and Addisons, and a blue-stocking lady, whose drawing-room we frequented, who corresponded about nothing with all the world, and wrote letters with the stiffness and formality of a printed book, was cried up as another Mrs. Montagu. I was, by common consent, the juvenile prodigy, the poetical youth, the great genius, the pride and hope of the village, through whom it was to become one day as celebrated ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... he or she came as a petitioner or a penitent, the justices, clerk, sheriff, and other officials represented the presence of power and authority as colonial Virginia knew it. But it was a presence in which men stood on little ceremony or formality with each other. Except in unusual circumstances all were likely to be laymen, for in colonial Virginia there was little formal education in the professions and, at most, one might have attended lectures at the College of William & Mary or a school in England. If the gentlemen ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... of course, sir, always be glad to see Spiller in our study. He would always find a cheery welcome waiting there for him. There is no formality between ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... condemn and blot out this tender passion of the soul from the list of a poet's themes. Then must we shut our eyes and harden our hearts against that passion which sways our whole existence, and quite become mere creatures of hypocrisy and formality, and accuse Milton ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... inland dignity. Scituate has a quaintness, a casualness, the indescribable air of a land's-end spot. The fine houses in Scituate are refreshingly free from pretension; the winds that have twisted the trees into Rackham-like grotesques have blown away falsity and formality. ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... before, now became perfectly clear and evident proofs that, outside her own preferences and choices, a wise purpose had been at work with her and for her. So it all appeared more natural every day, and while she knew that the excitement and formality of the first very uncomfortable day or two had proved her freedom of choice, it seemed the more impossible that she should have shirked this great commission and trust for ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Certainly it appeared as if the hand of intelligent destiny must have been in it somewhere. No mere blind luck could have driven him half a mile into the country to the one spot in all Hunston—impossibly unlikely as it was—where he could become acquainted with Uncle Elbert's daughter without the formality of ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... accepted without making the slightest investigation. A bank agreed to take care of the shipments and the whole transaction was quickly concluded. The American grabbed the papers in the case (and I might add without the formality of having them examined by a third party) and left France immensely impressed with the ease and swiftness with which business could be transacted with ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... of men and barracks, which was performed with much precision and formality, and often in full dress uniform, gave us something by which we could mark the weeks, as they slipped along. There was no religious service of any kind, as Uncle Sam did not seem to think that the souls of us people in the outposts needed ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... the things Henry delighted to do, for, endowed with the easiest manners, and able in a moment to exchange the formality of the Louvre for the freedom of the camp, he could give to such cheap favours their full value. He consented on the instant, therefore; and turning our horses into a by-road, we sauntered down it with no greater attendance than a couple ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... In times of danger formality drops from us. During those long hours, when the next moment might have brough death, this old man and I were together; and when at last the cold dawn came, and the disabled steamer slowly ploughed through the angry ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... room, still arguing with Mr. Delamere. "It's a mere formality, sir," he was saying suavely, "accompanied by a mental reservation. We know the facts; but this must be done to justify us, in the eyes of the mob, in calling them off before they accomplish ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Tenth—They allow the husband to imprison her at his pleasure within his own house, the court sustaining him in this coercion until the wife "submits herself to her husband's will." Eleventh—They allow the husband while the common property is in his possession, "without even the formality of a legal complaint, the taking of an oath or the filing of a bond for the good faith of his action," to advertise his wife through the public press as a deserter and to forbid her credit. Twelfth—They deny the widow the right of inheritance in the common property that they give the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... 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 door ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... disappeared. Hale plunged his face in a basin of cold water, soaked his hair and, as he was mopping his face with a towel, there was a ponderous tread on the porch, the door opened without the formality of a knock, and Devil Judd Tolliver, with his hat on and belted with two huge pistols, stepped stooping within. His eyes, red with anger and loss of sleep, were glaring, and his heavy moustache and beard showed the twitching of ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... entered on the minutes, and a committee of two or three appointed to inquire into his character, and report to the next regular communication. The following is the form of a petition used by a candidate; but a worthy candidate will not be rejected for the want of formality ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... thought that formality unnecessary, and was able, at small expense, to convince the concierge of it. We went alone up the stairs and crept very quietly along the passage toward the door of M. Peyrot. But our shoes made some noise on the flags; had he been listening, he might have heard us as easily as we heard him. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... papers and other procedures contained in the bags and pokes of the law-suitors? To the very same use, quoth Bridlegoose, that they serve your other worships. They are behooveful unto me, and serve my turn in three things very exquisite, requisite, and authentical. First, for formality sake, the omission whereof, that it maketh all, whatever is done, to be of no force nor value, is excellently well proved, by Spec. 1. tit. de instr. edit. et tit. de rescript. praesent. Besides that, it is not unknown to you, who have had many more experiments ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... room?" Occasionally, Sophy refused to notice this covert order, and she fancied that there was generally a passing expression of pleasure on her husband's face at her rebellion. More frequently, she was glad to escape the slow, long torture, and she would rise, and go through the formality of shaking hands with each person and bidding each "good-night" ere she left the room. "Fisher manners," Madame would whisper impatiently to Marion. "I cannot teach her a decent effacement of her personality." For this little ceremony always ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... Mr. Bolt with a world of unction. "I come from a part of the country where formality is unknown and where a minister—a minister of the gospel—enters into the hearts and the homes of men and of women by the ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... was talking thus, the Counsellor, who was present, had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered, as if the chief trial to be made were of men's memories. 'You have talked prettily, for a stranger,' said he, 'having heard of many things among us which you have ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... forces shows itself plainly in his attitude which vacillates between the stiffest formality ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... her eyes and saw before her the idol of her secret worship, knowing him by his portrait at Lone. She paled and flushed, while her father, with old-fashioned formality, was saying: ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... Sutton joined the party without further formality. They didn't look so bad, either, so I saw my crooked work had done some good. Lon quit singing almost at once and walked good and his eyes didn't wabble, and he looked kind of desperate and respectable, and Ben was ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... receipt. Had he meant to detain us, his movements, his words, could not have been more deliberate. How I had longed to hear again the Spanish language spoken by Spaniards in Spain, yet how little was I able to appreciate the fulfilment of my long-cherished wish! At last, however, every formality was complied with, and we ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... radiant with health, happiness, and the light from within that is kindled by a good conscience and a loving heart. He came up to Ryfe with a merry greeting on his lips, but stopped short, marking the gravity of that gentleman's face and the unusual formality of his bow. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... 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. ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... was reading a commission authorizing the court to hear and determine treasons, and while this formality was proceeding Ralph was taking note of his judges. One of them was a stout, rubicund person advanced in years. Ralph at once recognized him as a lawyer who had submitted to the Parliament six years before. The other judge was a man of austere countenance, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... Court, all spectators were excluded, except the owners and counsel of the slaves concerned. No other colored person was allowed to enter the jail, and a strong guard of soldiers was kept always on duty around the building. Under these general arrangements the trials proceeded with elaborate formality, though with some variations from ordinary usage,—as was, indeed, required ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... men, or your prison, Williams," replied Strong. "I'll accept the command as a formality but appoint you my chief aid. Carry on and do anything necessary ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones, and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a Charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... annoyed when Jack explained with earnestness that he would prefer to fight with fists only, for he was a man who had a profound respect for the duello, which he considered ought to be conducted with all due formality and dignity; but finally burst into a fit of hearty laughter at the absurdity—as he regarded it—of two men attempting to settle a serious quarrel by pommelling each other like a brace of schoolboys. He admitted that, if Jack chose to insist upon fists as weapons, he would be strictly ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... "Formality?" And the lady, who was of portly appearance and uncertain age, gazed from the speaker standing deferentially before her, to a man of size, weight and importance seated in a comfortable chair at her side. "What ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... more than I can express, having been the cause of annoying you, Herr Professor," he said at length with stiff formality. "But I should like to repeat, once more, that my only object in coming here was to speak to you about last night. I felt dissatisfied with myself ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the room without the formality of knocking—a formality she had never observed where Cecilia was concerned. The afternoon post had just come, and she carried ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... time, after a few weeks, when he felt as if he could not stand this any longer. Hitherto he had been a free and independent agent. The approaching annual stockholder's meeting which hitherto had been a one-man affair and a formality, his father doing all the voting, would be now a combination of voters, his brother presiding, his sisters very likely represented by their husbands, and he not there at all. It was going to be a great come-down, but as ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... was solemnly read in the fore-room one afternoon; then the inventory had to be taken. That, on account of the amount of property, was quite an undertaking; but it was carried out with the greatest formality and precision. ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... roof, we have lived for years, without either sympathy or confidence, can scarcely, if at all, regret the rupture of a tie which had long ceased to be anything better than an irksome and galling formality. I do not desire to attribute to you the smallest blame. There was an incompatibility, not of temper but of feelings, which made us strangers though calling one another man and wife. Upon this fact I rest my own justification; ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... shore of the river, breakfast was a function, luncheon a mild festivity, and dinner an affair of high state. Madame herself always appeared at dinner suitably clad, and, moreover, insisted upon evening clothes for her son. Once, years ago, he had protested at the formality. ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... whole question of an inquiry into his sanity," objected Keyork. "We come back to the starting-point. We must settle all this before we go to him. A lunatic asylum is not a club in this country. There is a great deal of formality connected with getting into it, and a great deal more connected with getting out. Now, I could not get a keeper for Kafka without going to the physician in charge and making a statement, and demanding an examination, and all the rest of it. And Israel Kafka ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... only a necessary formality, Miss Innes," he replied. "Unless a crime is committed in the open, the inquest does nothing beyond getting evidence from witnesses while events are still in their minds. The police step in later. You and I both know how many important things never transpired. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... which he took no pains to read, beyond gathering its general effect that the Victor Film-art Company had the full right to use any photographs of him that its agents might that day have obtained. What engrossed him to the exclusion of this legal formality was the item that he would now be paid seven dollars and fifty cents for his day's work—and once he had been forced to toil half a week for this sum! Emerging from the stage into the sunlight he encountered the Montague ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... was not unexpected. He had adopted the expedient as a forlorn chance of linking up the Princess with the crime. Now it had failed, he intended to try other measures. He dismissed Wills and the women with a nod of caution not to speak of the formality they had witnessed, and at a nod from him a uniformed inspector stood up by the high ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... his manner of living. He does not dissipate, neither does he drink strong drink. He is a ready informant. Having heard that only information of slavery was wanted, he volunteered information without any formality or urging on the part ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the Son of God, who is the brightness of the Father's glory. In the third message, "in the four and twentieth day of the ninth month," the prophet in a sort of parable, rebukes the people for their heartless formality, which, like the touch of a dead body, defiles all their offerings and services, yet promises them God's blessing upon their repentance. Chap. 2:10-19. The last message, which was delivered on the same day, is wholly occupied with the future. Amid commotions and overturnings God will ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... more formality. Through it all, MacMaine stood at rigid attention, flexing his calf muscles occasionally to keep the blood flowing in his legs. He had no desire to disgrace himself by passing out in front ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... find that I must have other manners than those in my home. I can't meet men as frankly and freely. I can't laugh with them and talk with them as I would over a cup of tea at my own little table. If you and I had met, for example, in the office, I should have put up a barrier of formality between us, and I should have said, "Good-morning" when I met you and "Good-night" when I left you, and it would have taken us months to know as much about each other as you and I knew after a ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... word must act, and not we. And why so? you will ask. Because I do not hold men's hearts in my hand, as the potter holds the clay. We have a right to speak: we have not the right to act. Let us preach; the rest belongs unto God. Were I to employ force, what should I gain? Grimace, formality, apings, human ordinances, and hypocrisy.... But there would be no sincerity of heart, nor faith, nor charity. Where these three are wanting, all is wanting, and I would not give a pear-stalk for such a result.... God does more by His word alone than you and I and all the world ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... a very prim and stately little lady, and I think she did not intend to shake hands; but I felt pretty certain that under her coating of formality, she was eager for a chance to rhapsodize. "Oh, what a lovely child!" I cried; and ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... home life there at Riverby from a new angle, as one must often do, get a short distance away to get a clear perspective of a place. And it being my first time away from home Father wrote more frequently, and he dropped the formality of his earlier letters. ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... at my closet door. "So, my dear love," says he, "how do you?" folding his kind arms about me, and saluting me with ardour. "Whenever I have been but a few hours from you, my impatience to see my beloved, will not permit me to stand upon the formality of a message to know how you are engaged; but I break in upon you, even in my riding-dress, as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... began Patty, smiling, "that's the wrong tone. We're going to make this girlie feel homelike and comfortable and omit all formality. We're going to call her by her first name, and we're going to treat her as one of ourselves. Now you just revise that little speech of 'We dine ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... watched with a beating heart to see Stuart bear himself like the man she knew him to be, in spite of all the pomp and ceremony to which he was such a stranger. She had been half angry, all the way through the preparations, that Aunt Olivia had insisted on every last detail of formality and ostentation—or so it had seemed to her, as unaccustomed as Stuart himself to the great church wedding with its long processional, its show of bridesmaids and flower girls, its ranks of ushers, its elaborate music, its pair of distinguished ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... urge, after the former's visits to Miss Prue or Mrs. Norris, places to which she was seldom asked herself, except with great formality once a year perhaps; for the early and life- long friendship these families had extended to Sara's own mother was not so freely bestowed upon her successor. "But, Sairay, think! You say Mis' Jedge Peters from Weskisset was there; kain't you tell what she wore? Was it black silk, or green ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the bride. When Genji went to the Sadaijin's he was always his favorite associate; they were together in their studies and in their sports, and accompanied each other everywhere. And so all stiffness and formality were dispensed with, and they did not scruple to reveal their ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the bank a strange thing occurred. The fatal omission was made on an acceptance of Blydenstein & Co., a great banking firm in London. The discount clerk noticed the omission of the date of acceptance, but this being a mere formality, he thought it a clerical error on the part of the bookkeeper of Blydenstein & Co. He made no report of the matter, and it was discounted along with the other eighteen, which were put away in the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the only safe way out. The husband if left alone, will be ashamed of the situation his lack of self-control has created, the lover spirit will conquer the brute. He will regret the pain he has caused; he will want to forget and be forgiven quickly though he may not go through the formality of an apology. A formal apology and reconciliation will, in his judgment, dignify the episode and make a mountain out of a molehill. The wife will be wise to so regard it though it is an injustice to her. The husband will not underestimate the importance ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... the cabinet; and though many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burned as a sorcerer, the king ordered his officers to restore him the four hundred ounces of gold which he had been obliged to pay. The register, the attorneys, and bailiffs, went to his house with great formality, to carry him back his four hundred ounces. They only retained three hundred and ninety-eight of them to defray the expenses of justice; and ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... any appearance of refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality, and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always some modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ought ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... never sat down to make a regular calculation of what he had lost by stopping his news paper; but it required no formality of pencil and paper to arrive at this. A difference of thirty cents on each bushel, made, for a thousand bushels, the important sum of three hundred dollars, and this fact ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... this letter to get rid of him, and not with any intention of having the order contained in it executed. Besides, we must consider he has sent no express with a patent; and without that the order is of no force. And since a king like your majesty was never deposed without that formality, any other man as well as Noor ad Deen might come with a forged letter: let who will bring such a letter as this, it ought not to be put in execution. Your majesty may depend upon it, that is never done; and I will take upon ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... to report to the O.C. "Camp 2," to whose company I am accordingly attached while here. My duty is to hang about his lines and take an interest in what the men are doing up to noon. This is a mere formality so that the authorities might know where to find us should we be wanted. To-day I came straight away and went to a mosque near by, where I was refused admittance unless I removed my boots, which I did not care to do, although I was assured ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... After having done with the Duke of Yorke, I to Hales's, where there was nothing found to be done more to my picture, but the musique, which now pleases me mightily, it being painted true. Thence home, and after dinner to Gresham College, where a great deal of do and formality in choosing of the Council and Officers. I had three votes to be of the Council, who am but a stranger, nor expected any. So my Lord Bruncker being confirmed President I home, where I find to my great ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... alone in her boudoir. It was yet early in the evening, but, feeling little inclined to remain in the society of her family, who assembled, with all due formality, in the drawing room on "at home" evenings, and most of their evenings were spent at home now, she had withdrawn, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... keep his wife and daughters laughing for two or three hours every day. His notions of law, government, and trade are surprisingly clear and just. His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at once above him and below him. Zeal would have made him a prodigy; formality and bigotry would have made him a bishop; but he could neither rise to the duties of his order, nor stoop ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Solomin's wife now. They married over a year ago. It was merely for the sake of formality at first, but now they say she really is ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... friends to dine here to-morrow? Zara's call will be a sufficient opening formality; and you yourself have been long enough with us now to know that any of your friends will be welcome here. We might have a pleasant little party, especially if you add Mr. and Mrs. Challoner and their daughters to the list. And I ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... took the hand of the Princess and covered it with kisses. Then, with graceful gallantry and solemn seriousness, as if they had been in the midst of a grand courtly assemblage, he conducted her to the divan. There she seated herself, and he bowed before her with all the formality and obsequiousness of a courtier as he took ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... are much more used than was formerly the case. The system of the Army is to make a charge of 6s. 6d. for attending a confinement, which, if paid, is generally collected in instalments of 3d. or 6d. a week. Often, however, it is not paid, and the charge remains a mere formality. She added that many of these poor people are most improvident, and make no provision whatsoever for these events, even if they can afford to do so. The result is that the Army has to lend them baby ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... you?" The little formality comes easier to the doctor's shyness as it figures, this time, quotation-wise. It is a repeat of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... More than this, the Bailli of Rouen was not allowed to condemn any prisoner at all during the month that intervened between the "insinuation of the privilege" and the actual ceremony of the pardon; the "insinuation" being the technical word for the annual formality by which the legal authorities were informed that the Chapter would inquire into the various prisons of the town, and proceed to make their choice before Ascension. In one case a prisoner condemned to death ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... circumcised at from 4 to 7 years of age. The act of circumcision, called "sig-i-at'," occurs privately without feasting or rite. The only formality is the payment of a few leaves of tobacco to the man who performs the operation. There are one or two old men in each ato who understand circumcision, but there is no cult for its ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... walls the old Blake portraits still presided, and he found, for the first time, an artless humour in the formality of the ancestral attitude—in the splendid pose which they had handed down like an heirloom through the centuries. Among them he saw the comely, high-coloured features of that gallant cynic, Bolivar, the man who had stamped his beauty upon threegenerations, and his gaze lingered with a gentle ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Christian, and given to superstitious practices to a greater degree than any other Indians in Mexico. Our Catholic curas in their villages are there only for the name of the thing, and as a matter of formality. The business of the worthy padres among them must be a perfect sinecure. I fancy I understand what the fellow meant, well enough. Whenever a Zapoteque woman is about to add one to the number of their community, the expectant father of the child assembles all his relations ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... step and a high head he walked straight into Sir Robert's room, without even going through the formality of knocking, to find Mr. Champers-Haswell seated at the ebony desk by his partner's side examining some document through a reading-glass, which on his appearance, was folded over and presently thrust away into a drawer. It seemed, Alan ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... my dear Madam, 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, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... packet shot once and again through her mind. At length she came to Mr. Stoutenburgh's gate, and Faith's foot paused. Light shone through the muslin curtains; and as her step neared the front door the broken sounds of voices and laughter came unwelcomely through. A most unnecessary formality her knock was, but one of the children came to the door and ushered her at once into the tea-room, where the family were waiting for their late tea. Mrs. Stoutenburgh—looking very pretty in her light summer dress—was half reclining on the sofa, professing that she was tired to death, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... decide matters by specific ordinance, 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, ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the results of the sexual mistakes of men and women are the unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Of course, I know that there are well-meaning people who argue that motherhood is the supreme fact and that the formality of a marriage ceremony is merely a medievalism in our laws and customs; but the inexorable truth remains that our modern social system is centered around the home which is strictly regulated by church and ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... everything was ready for the important ceremony. Beside the main gate of the stockade two companies of patriots under Bowman and McCarty were drawn up as guards, while the British garrison filed out and was taken in charge. This bit of formality ended, Governor Hamilton, attended by some of his officers, went back into the fort ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... There was a professional formality about his tone which pulled her up short. Like all impulsive people she was chilled by a lack of responsiveness. Her impulse in visiting him had hoped for an interest equalling her own. She reflected now that she should have remembered that ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... before beginning war a herald should be sent to declare it at the frontier of the enemy. When Rome wished to make war on Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had his kingdom on the other side of the Adriatic, they were much embarrassed to execute this formality. They hit on the following: a subject of Pyrrhus, perhaps a deserter, bought a field in Rome; they then assumed that this territory had become territory of Epirus, and the herald threw his javelin on this land and made his solemn declaration. Like all other ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... who employed him were obliged, after eight months' probation, to dismiss him from their service. He was unable to pass his examination as priest. At the age of twenty-five he was ordained by the Bishop of Castro, without that formality. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the manner of a Jewish ephod. It invested him with a dignity of presence such as ordinary garments would not have suggested. This, combined with the unexpectedly pacific tone of his address (its somewhat fantastic formality suiting well with that of his appearance), was not without effect on Balder. He gave ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this, and such a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon, so unlike the usual style of give-and-take invitations, and dinners of formality and display, that Anne felt her spirits not likely to be benefited by an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers. "These would have been all my friends," was her thought; and she had to struggle against a ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... possess even rudimentary honesty is shown by the fact that he prevented his letter of resignation from being received by the City Council. This manner of resignation is not and never has been with the Socialists a mere formality. It is a vital, necessary thing, and should be insisted upon at all times and in all places. No man should go on the ticket unless he has signed the resignation, and no man, unless he is a scoundrel, will sign it unless he intends to live ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... thank Captain Wharton," said the surgeon, proceeding coolly to arrange his amputating instruments, with a formality that made the colonel's blood run cold. "Where are you hurt, sir? What! is it then this scratch in your shoulder? In what manner might you have ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... world outside will be be better because of his having lived in it. O, that every boy and girl might rightly appreciate the vast difference between manners of the soul and manners of the head,—manners of the heart and manners of the outward appearance! One is Christian religion, the other is cold formality. One means the salvation of souls; the other is but vanity ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... down on the mossy parapet of the little one-arched bridge that spans the brawling mountain-stream." On that Indian-summer day when Irving was buried, no object of the familiar landscape, through which, without formality, and in quiet grief, so many of the renowned and the humble followed his remains from the village-church to the rural graveyard, wore so pensive a fitness to the eye as the simple bridge over Sleepy-Hollow Creek, near to which Ichabod Crane encountered the headless horseman,—not only as typical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... no comment on the scene and was apparently not unused to such spectacles. Occasionally he bent over, the better to observe the results of the surgeon's work, but he ventured no comment and indulged in no recriminations. His slight but erect figure was military now in its formality. His face was not handsome, but the straight eyes showed fearless. The brow was strong, the nose straight and firm. Once he removed his "wideawake" hat and passed a hand through the heavy tangle of his reddish hair. The face was that ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... "for your prompt and comprehensive replies, which have thus so speedily enabled us to come to a just and honourable verdict, and it gives me pleasure to inform you that the defence you have made is one that cannot be gainsaid, and, therefore, with the exception of one slight formality, there is nothing more for us to do but to set you at liberty and ask pardon for the constraint we regret having put upon you, and further to request that you take oath that neither to wife nor child, father nor mother, sister nor ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... Englishman who may be repulsive in his out-of-door intercourse or spirally inclined in his dealings, is generally tender and truthful in his home. There only is he seen to the best advantage. When the day's work is over and the welcome shelter of his domestic roof is attained, he husks off his formality with his great-coat and appears to his family and his friends in a character unknown to the outer world. The quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of an English fireside must be felt to be appreciated. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... had seen him; but she saw that the tears were streaming down his cheeks as he passed her, and she expressed no surprise that he had left the Cottage without going through the formality of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright ...
— Copyright Basics • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... [Footnote 3230: The formality which this indicates will be understood by those familiar with the use of the pronoun thou in France, denoting intimacy and freedom from restraint in contrast ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of the building having been laid to-day, which brought the masonry to the height of one hundred and two feet six inches, the lintel of the light-room door, being the finishing-stone of the exterior walls, was laid with due formality by the writer, who, at the same time, pronounced the following benediction: "May the Great Architect of the Universe, under whose blessing this perilous work has prospered, preserve it as a guide to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the sentimental side, but that evening he launched out as a raconteur, and was gay and brilliant. Even Mr. Janes was awakened to sporadic laughter at the dinner-table, where they sat by preconcerted arrangement without the formality of evening-dress, and fared admirably from the hors d'oeuvres to the coffee—a flawless meal. And dinner being over, they drove away under a noble moon to the railway-station, and bowled back ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... knows that he is already as good as dead, and so in his bravado he dares affront you. He has been convicted of spying by the Austrians. He is still a spy. It is unnecessary to repeat the formality of a trial." ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it. The number of the colonists who assembled round him occasionally, was from 50 to 60; on more public festive occasions they exceeded 300, and I may add, that on both, the scene differed not in the slightest degree from that of similar parties in this country, save that there was less of formality in the interchange of friendly communications between the visitors. Except also in giving a tone to society, and setting an irreproachable example to the community, the officers of the Government are exceedingly retired, their salaries are too limited to enable them to follow the example ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality, and reserve; yet, perhaps, the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant[11]. There must, however, have been always some modes of gaiety preferable to others, and a writer ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... might have combined their forces against that frail tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor's "Life of Christ" and greet me with the same open brow, the same kind formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the man almost to a decade. He had begun life, under his mother's influence, as an admirer of Junius, but on maturer knowledge had transferred his admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be punctilious ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the work of simplifying the forms of pleading earlier than England, but has not carried it so far. Demurrers have not been abandoned, and in some states little has been done except to replace one system of formality by another hardly less rigid. The general plan has been to codify the laws of pleading by statute. In a few states they have proceeded more nearly in accordance with the principles of the English Judicatare Act, and left details to be worked out by the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... masques falling flat on their faces, the sorcerers kneeling with their heads and bodies humbly bowed down, and the magicians, who stood highest in importance, only kneeling. After this they all went through the formality of denying God and the Saints. Then they had a diabolical service in burlesque of that of the church, at which the Evil One served as priest in a violet chasuble; the elevation of the demon host ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... composition grand, and his pencil delicate. He finished his works with exact neatness, and he was particularly excellent in his Madonnas, though he encumbered them with heavy draperies. He surpassed all the painters of his own country, yet he did not avoid their defects—such as dryness and formality of outline, the want of a just degradation of the tints, an expression without agreeableness, and draperies broad in the folds, but stiff in the forms. He was no observer of the propriety of costume, and ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... Dione. l. 47. There is an antient gem representing Venus rising out of the ocean supported by two Tritons. From the formality of the design it would appear to be of great antiquity before the introduction of fine taste into the world. It is probable that this beautiful allegory was originally an hieroglyphic picture (before the invention of letters) descriptive ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... in real Labrador style. Every one from far and near was present, quite without the formality of an invitation. It would, indeed, be an ill omen for the future if any one were omitted through the miscarriage of an invitation. So the danger is averted by the grapevine telegraph, which simply signals the event ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... shared by mademoiselle. Rougane set himself to pacify and reassure them. The section would put the matter in order. They would most certainly be accorded a permit. What possible reason could there be for refusing them? A mere formality, after all! ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... courts administer the law, as they understand it, with dignity and firmness.[13] There are no lawyers upon the reservations but a friend may appear for a party to an action, or one accused of an offense and the trials are conducted with much formality and the pleas are frequently shrewd and eloquent. Every Indian is an orator by nature, and the courts afford the best modern opportunities ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson
... rope made of strips of hide. This his brothers cut to prevent him from descending.[119] They then oblige the ladies to swear not to betray them, the taking of the oath being accompanied by the eating of earth.[120] The same formality is observed in another story in which an oath of a like kind ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... force for accomplishing deeds shared in by the community at large. Passion is, in the first instance, the subjective and therefore the formal side of energy, will, and activity—leaving the object or aim still undetermined. And there is a similar relation of formality to reality in merely individual conviction, individual views, individual conscience. It is always a question of essential importance—what is the purport of my conviction, what the object of my passion—in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... planned that we should all pair off, each lady having her cavalier, as she said, in the good old-fashioned way. She planned very ably, as we had one of the pleasantest evenings imaginable, without any stiffness or formality or being forced to make a toil of enjoyment, in the customary manner of most fashionable reunions: we were not "fashionable," thank goodness. But we had "a good time" of it, as young America says, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... up her line from the first as governess, dropping her friend's Christian name, and causing her pupils to address herself as Miss Ogilvie, a formality which was evidently approved by Mrs. Robert Brownlow, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the instant contrast of this 'tasteless water of souls' with formal thought as we 'come to,' that leaves in the patient an astonishment that the awful mystery of Life is at last but a homely and a common thing, and that aside from mere formality the majestic and the absurd are of equal dignity. The astonishment is aggravated as at a thing of course, missed by sanity in overstepping, as in too foreign a search, or with too eager an attention: as in finding one's spectacles on one's ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... interest: he would still perhaps have a more difficult task than any of the former, in teaching his citizens the command of appetite, and an indifference to pleasure, as well as a contempt of pain; in teaching them to maintain in the field the formality of uniform precautions, and as much to avoid being themselves surprised, as they endeavour to ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... and Royal Government, and there was no cause why a conflict should arise between us, so long as we were not in a condition of war with France. In any case, he hoped that we would not begin hostilities without the formality of a previous declaration of war. He does not intend to recall ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... architecture from the much gabled and not unpicturesque structures of mediaeval times to the modern brown-stone front, he pilots me outside the fortifications again, points up the Appenweir road, and after the never neglected formality of touching his cap and extending his ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... 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 your ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... and it was wonderful what a number of counter accidents occurred constantly, to retard the course of things. One luckless wight contrived to upset the gravy; and then gravy had to be got up de novo, with due care and formality, Aunt Chloe watching and stirring with dogged precision, answering shortly, to all suggestions of haste, that she "warn't a going to have raw gravy on the table, to help nobody's catchings." One tumbled down with the water, and had to go to the spring for more; and another precipitated ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... M.A. to see whether he was fit. Of this old ceremony a bare fragment still remains in the custom that a candidate's name has to be entered in a book at the Vice-Chancellor's house before noon on the day preceding the degree-giving; but this formality now is usually performed for a man by his college Dean, or even by ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... expects to be talked to about teeth. It ought to have been an equally simple thing to speak to Ascher about the future of a company in which we were both interested. Yet I hesitated. There was something in his manner, a grave formality, which kept me miles away from him. I thanked him for the promise of the letter of credit and then sat silent for ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... history of cricket, a man was out leg-before-wicket, Scott was so out to Tony's second ball. It was hardly worth appealing for such a certainty. Still, the formality had to ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... in the afternoon, after a hot and dusty ride of more than eight hours. The distance is only a hundred and sixty odd miles, I believe; but with some bright exceptions, Southern railroads, like Southern men, seem to be under the climate, and schedule time is more or less a formality. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... matter of much formality and sometimes intolerable slowness for a provincial force to get in touch on a matter of urgency. Now it is merely a question of ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Without the formality of a knock he opened the door and entered. As he appeared in the doorway there was silence for a moment, then such a bedlam of shouts and laughter burst forth that every one on the ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... president; and were just seated, when a ballet-dancer of Drury-lane entered. As he was a Frenchman, it became a question of national politeness: and Dicky chestered him to his dexter! and, as was befitting, condescended to address him. "I am proud, sir," said Suett, with the formality of Black Rod himself, "to do the honours of my country to the representative of a nation which held my master Garrick in peculiar respect. He was a great actor, sir; a wonderful man! Your Lekain, or any other Cain, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... as Albion old Was wont to boast—as if a glutton's tray Were something very glorious to behold. But 't was a public feast and public day,— Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold, Great plenty, much formality, small cheer, And every body out of their ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... decoction of the leaves of the YAUPON, prinus glaber, and is of an exciting, and if taken freely, an intoxicating effect. It is prepared with much formality, and is considered as a sacred beverage, used only by the Chiefs, the War Captains, and Priests ("beloved men") on special occasions, particularly on going to war and making treaties. For an account of its preparation and use, see LAWSON'S Carolina, p. 90; BERNARD ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... formerly celebrated our annual meetings and invited men of note. Our guests included Generals Howard, Gibbons, and Miles, the LeContes, Edward Rowland Sill, and Luther Burbank. We enjoyed meeting celebrities, but our regular meetings, with no formality, proved on the whole more to our taste and celebrations were given up. When I think of the delight and benefit that I have derived from this association of clubbable men I feel moved to urge that similar groups be developed wherever even a very ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... down to the chambers in the Temple where his name as a practising barrister was painted upon the lintel of the door. This was a matter of formality. Numberless barristers do it every day; numberless ones of them find the same as he did—nothing to be done. He had long since overcome the depression which such an announcement had used to bring with it. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... 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, ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
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