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More "Perfunctorily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... So Mike laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five pounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode off ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face. He was so pleased with the idea that he smiled, keeping perfunctorily his eyes ahead; and when he happened to glance back he saw the white streak of the wake drawn as straight by the ship's keel upon the sea as the black line drawn by the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... asked perfunctorily, and he gave me a queer look out of the corners of those wicked eyes, repeating in an ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... he searched his pockets perfunctorily—"I haven't my pipe with me." His cigarette case met his searching fingers, but somehow ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... critics in their ignorance were inclined to impute false motives to him; but in time, the cloud of suspicion rolled away and his action in that crisis was not laid up against him. The election of Cleveland relieved him of seeming perfunctorily to uphold Blaine. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... by the tower in a moment, answering the director's signal perfunctorily. Southward now, on the 110th East Meridian, without deviating from the ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... perfunctorily. "A fountain pen, did you say? For the exams. I suppose your mother has sent it. There are two letters for Aveline and one for Morvyth. You may take them to them, and tell Daphne I ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Not to meddle with politics, because it is vulgar. To vote perfunctorily. To 'let George do it' when there are reforms to be brought about. To keep your hat on when the flag goes by because otherwise you will attract attention. To find fault without being able to offer remedies. To keep in debt because life here ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platform stood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous, least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too, I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party's virtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the hour" and ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... of the night that Gaston left her, passed and the dull monotony of the daily tasks performed perfunctorily with no charm of another's approbation and sharing, lost the power of holding ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... 'The public schoolboy at nineteen is unable to read a simple Latin or Greek book with ease, or to express a simple series of thoughts without atrocious blunders: he has learnt from his classics neither accuracy nor love of beauty and truth'—it is obvious that, for the average boy, the system of perfunctorily prepared set-books and dashed-off unseens is a failure. The experience of every teacher who is also an examiner, and who has had to deal with public schoolboys, will confirm this; but during twenty-five ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... you this morning?" Rachael asked perfunctorily, with her quick glance moving from the books on the table to the wood fire burning lazily behind brass firedogs. Everything was in perfect order, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of them—stalked into the room, each one being formally, but perfunctorily announced by the butler, and each one flushing painfully in return for the attention. There was Delia, the cook, and Christine, her assistant; Swanson, the furnace man; Lockhart, the chauffeur, and Boyles, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... of men had to do upon the knoll ten miles from the Bar L-M was done perfunctorily and in gloom. Little by little, man by man, they drew away from Hume, leaving him standing alone. They looked at his horse, by long odds the finest animal they had seen this day, and from Endymion they looked to his master. Now and then a quick glance went ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... hand to be a lawyer, and the one on his left an officer of court, perhaps a prosecuting attorney. Presently this fellow pounded upon the table and stood up as if to address a court-room. Certainly he silenced that hallful of people. Then he perfunctorily and briefly stated that certain women had been arrested upon suspicion of being sealed wives of Mormon polygamists, and were to be herewith tried by a judge of the United States Court. Shefford felt how the impressive words affected that silent hall ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... knees before this holy man. He gave her his blessing perfunctorily, and muttered some words of the exorcism ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... elbowed each other on entering or leaving, and exchanged friendly polite greetings; the women quizzing the new hats, little hoods of plush or large Rembranesque hats in which the delicate Parisian faces were lost as under the roof of a cabriolet. The liveried lackeys perfunctorily glanced at the cards of admission that the holders hardly took the trouble to present. One was seated at a table mechanically handing out catalogues. Through the open door of the Club's Theatre could be seen gold frames suspended from the walls, terra ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... heartily, and Joyce joined in with a merry peal. Even Lucy and Nate helped the chorus, though somewhat perfunctorily, not knowing just what they ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a step and bowed perfunctorily and rather disdainfully to that very disdainful but now dumbfounded officer. Pitt, who watched the scene from the quarter-deck rail, tells us that his lordship was as grave as a parson at a hanging. But I suspect this ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... to disregard constitutional provisions is also manifest in the vast amount of special legislation enacted despite constitutional prohibitions of such legislation. There are also numerous instances where legislatures while perfunctorily heeding the letter of the constitution consciously violate its spirit and evade its requirements. In many states there is a constitutional provision that no legislative act shall become effective until after a specified time has elapsed from its enactment ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... but in another, colder tone. The rest of the story he told perfunctorily, omitting all mention of the fight on the flagstaff tower and telling no more than was needful of the last adventure of the rapids. Either he or Dick had changed. Having begun, he persevered, but now without hope to make ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... series of the 'Months'—which he had planned among these hills, and had carried out perfunctorily and vulgarly, in the city, far from the freshness and infinity of Nature. All the faults of his designs appeared to him, and the poverty of their execution. But he was only exultant, not depressed. Now ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for the matutinal cafe-au-lait cast searching glances as they passed, to see if among the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And at one alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... greeted perfunctorily. "Pretty good talk, wasn't it?" Without waiting for a reply he went on, "Suppose you're not hankering for a drive back to town to-night? I'll see that"—a swift nod toward the departing group—"he gets back home, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Hand them over. [She puts them into his hands]. If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweler, I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat. [He perfunctorily thrusts them into his pockets, unconsciously decorating himself with the protruding ends ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... idol of flesh and blood. The previous incumbent of that office had been an old man, impotent and senseless of late years through age and disease. The chieftains and braves had consulted in council before him, and perfunctorily submitted their decisions, like offerings, to his unresponsive shrine. In the same way, all material events—expeditions, trophies, industries—were supposed to pass before the dull, impassive eyes of the ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... long-past fashion, lands alone. It is he whom ballads call the Flying Dutchman. Seven years have passed since he last touched land. His opportunity has returned, to reach out for salvation. He comes ashore wearily, perfunctorily, without hope, or doubt but that the ocean will soon be receiving him back for continued desperate wanderings. "Your cruelty, proud ocean," he apostrophises it, "is variable, but my torment eternal! The salvation which I seek on land, never shall I find it. To you, floods of the boundless ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... The orchestra had perfunctorily ground out the overture to "Der Freischuetz," the baritone had stentorianly emitted "Dio Possente," the soprano was working her way through the closing measures of the mad scene from "Lucia," and Diotti was number four on the program. The conductor stood beside his ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... behalf of these, with my usual piece of smuggled lead pencil, I soon began to indite and submit to the officers of the institution, letters in which I described the cruel practices which came under my notice. My reports were perfunctorily accepted and at once forgotten or ignored. Yet these letters, so far as they related to overt acts witnessed, were lucid and should have been convincing. Furthermore, my allegations were frequently corroborated by bruises ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... met on this little elevation, she bowed to him and sometimes ventured a remark or two. He did not seem over-anxious to talk but he met her troubled face with calm and unvarying, though somewhat absent-minded courtesy. He replied to her questions perfunctorily, told her whom he served, betraying, however, in turn, no inquisitiveness concerning her. For him she was just some one who came and went, and incidentally interfered with ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... forgot your rheumatism," Bud apologized perfunctorily, his face going red at the epithet. Marian, coming toward him with a plate of biscuits, looked him full in the eyes and turned her glance to her husband's back while her lips curled in the bitterest, the most scornful smile Bud had ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... in his pocket. A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... as that of any Caesar. King Alexander, without experience or character, weak, frivolous and plastic, obediently signed every decree presented to him. When recourse to the Legislature was thought necessary, the Chamber perfunctorily passed every Bill submitted to it. The newspapers were tolerated as long as they refrained from ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... you know," he answered quietly, and hitched nearer to her along the bench to make room for a new-comer who was thrusting in beside him. He turned perfunctorily to see who it might be. It ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... reasons that I have already given that I am not managing to express my personal feeling about Roosevelt. Yet he is the last man of whom I want to write perfunctorily or even ceremoniously. Therefore, for the time I shall bring my recollections of him to a close by merely noting ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... merely saluted, perfunctorily, and took seats at the table nearest the door on their left, diagonally the whole space of the room from us. Agathemer and I returned their salute as precisely as we could imitate it, thankful that they had saluted, so as to let us see what the couriers' salute was, for we had ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... said one passenger. She held up her dollar bill, indignantly, to dismiss him. He lifted his hat, perfunctorily, and swept a bow. ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... of uncertainties, one definite fact remained—a train was to leave in half an hour, which we must take. So we hurried back to the boat, made our declaration, had our boxes examined perfunctorily and passed, bought our tickets, saw our baggage transferred, tipped a dozen people, more or less, and finally were shut into a compartment two minutes before ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... lodging at a wayside tavern by a song, or a tune on his fiddle. Thus he had drifted musically for years through the Canadian backwoods, until homeless old age had overtaken him. Four years before he had spent a summer at Big Malcolm's, helping perfunctorily in the harvest fields, working little and singing much, and when the first hard frost had set the forest aflame he had gathered his poor, scant bundle of clothes into his carpet-bag preparatory to taking the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... difference. He had become strangely hard. Once when a poor woman came, and begged him, out of charity, to save the life of her only child, he bluntly refused. And when I implored him myself to help her, he did his work perfunctorily. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... sat tense and silent. Why not? There was nothing to do. Jepson ran the mine and everything about it, and Rimrock attended to the rest. All she had to do was to keep track of the records and act as secretary to the Board of Directors. They never met now, except perfunctorily, to give Rimrock more money to spend. He came in as she sat there, dashing past her for some papers, and was dashing out when she spoke ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... Because they were your goods, and the men of the Mounted have yet to suspect you. The inspection was perfunctorily made. And as for the manifest—I did not say it was your whiskey. I said, 'whiskey from your storehouse.' It was Lapierre's whiskey. And he succeeded in running it in by the boldest, and at the same time the cleverest and ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening. It must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away. You may count him dead already, Sir John." He paused. "A merciful, painless end," he added, and sighed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave, for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life. "Of the other four," he continued, "Blair is dead; the ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... pathetically at a loss to know how the deuce one contrived that sort of thing. It was a woman's job. Mrs Olliver, now, could have fixed it all up in a twinkling; while he—poor clumsy fool!—could only sit there smoking and racking his brain, while his eyes perfunctorily scanned the columns ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... Haydn's immense work that the present generation knows are two or three symphonies, rarely and perfunctorily performed. This is the same as saying that we do not know him at all. No musician was ever more prolific or showed a greater wealth of imagination. When we examine this mine of jewels, we are astonished to find at every step a gem which we would have attributed ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... notice a stained-glass window in a church while a funeral was in progress. It was the side-light of grace on affliction involuntarily comprehended, from long training, by the exterior faculties. Carroll even said, half perfunctorily: ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... strongly built, with slightly grey hair. For some unknown reason I imagined him to be a Major in a cavalry regiment, no doubt attached to the Staff, and when, after rubbing his eyes, he at length opened the window, I apologized perfunctorily for having disturbed him, adding that I was acting on Captain Laycock's suggestion in coming there. In my heart I hoped he would leave me to the undisturbed perusal of the literature which I saw ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... it. Every step of that road sown with ploughshares and live coals He was to tread, with bleeding, blistered, slow, unshrinking feet. And He trod it. He accomplished it; hurrying over none of the sorrow, perfunctorily doing none of the tasks. And after the weary moments had ticked themselves away, and the six hours of agony, when the minutes were as drops of blood falling slowly to the ground, were passed, He inverted the cup, and it was empty, and He said 'It is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... occasion Cleopatra followed in her wake, and pretending to be in search of a book, lingered in her mother's company longer than was her wont after the morning meal. Book after book was taken down from the shelves, perfunctorily examined and returned to its place. Once or twice the girl looked towards her mother, possibly in the hope that the elder woman would provide the opening to the subject that was uppermost in both their minds. At last ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... roofs of Paris rose, back of that line which this imperious mind had decreed should not be passed by the dwellings of Paris, which must not come too near this temple of luxury, nor disturb the king while he enjoyed himself—back of the perfunctorily loyal guards of the Household, there reached the ragged, shapeless masses of the people of Paris and of France, waiting, smiling, as some animal licking its chops in expectation of some satisfying thing. They were waiting for news of the death of this shrunken man, this creature once so full of ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Burton, possessed "in a high degree that art of telling a tale which is far more captivating than culture or scholarship." Sir R. Burton (see Vol. XIX) summed up what may be definitely believed of the Nights in the following conclusion: The framework of the book is purely Persian perfunctorily Arabised, the archetype being the Hazar Afsanah. The oldest tales may date from the reign of Al-Mansur, in the eighth century; others belong to the tenth century; and the latest may be ascribed to the sixteenth. The work assumed its ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... from your room is to go over the hole by the window?" she asked perfunctorily, being half-way through the hall ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... he kindly corrected, and seating himself at his desk he examined the minor transfers perfunctorily and ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... good ship Nonsuch and all who are to sail in her!" And she said it not perfunctorily, but from her heart; for the lives and fortunes of the two who were nearest and dearest to her in the whole world were irrevocably ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... paper at the sheriff. He took it perfunctorily. "That's all right, old woman, but it hasn't got anything to do with my business here. I'm after your stuff on a warrant." He gave back the paper and started for the stairs ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... point will need no further hint. If he continues as he has begun, he will be surprised to find how soon he will be able to instruct, on one subject at least, the college graduate, unless that graduate has happily continued as a fad what he once perfunctorily acquired. ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... the Roma Municipal League had just finished dictating his morning's letters and was leaning back in his half-turned swivel chair. At another desk his secretary worked perfunctorily, awaiting ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, he delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... right, following a beckoning fan, and Flora, dallying with her anticipation, reasoned that now they must circle the room before they should face him—the interesting apparition. It was a pilgrimage of which he on the other side was performing his half. Perfunctorily talking from group to group, conscious now and again of the lagging Clara or Harry, she could nevertheless keep a sly eye on the stranger's equal progress. The flash of jet, and the voluble, substantial shoulders ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... committee is arriving." He pointed. Half a dozen tall, short-necked Yill were entering through a side door. The leading Yill hesitated as another stepped in his path. He raised a fist, and the other moved aside, touching the top of his head perfunctorily with both hands. The group started across the room toward the Terrestrials. Retief watched as a slender alien came forward and spoke passable ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... Schiller, he was treated by Schlegel with urbane condescension as a gifted playwright who had tried to imitate Shakspere and met with but limited success. The early plays were dismissed with a mere cry of pain, and the later ones were discussed very briefly and perfunctorily with respect ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of No. 10, Middleton street, in the white sunlight between the shadows of the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant ticca-gharry. The driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce squatted beneath the horse's nose and fed it perfunctorily with hay from a bundle tied under the vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in pots ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, shutting out the garden, where heavy scents stood in the sun and mynas chattered on the drive. The air ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... to her feet. "I ain't going to have tales flying all over the desert about the ructions stirred up the night I danced for the benefit of the flood sufferers. Shake hands, you two," imperiously. "Go on, do what I tell you. That's right," as the two men perfunctorily shook hands. "Bob don't mean a thing, Mr. Hanson. It's just his temper, and there ain't going to be any wine, because I'm going home, but—" and here she smiled into his eyes—"you can walk a piece of the way with me, if you want to. Come on, mother ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... Creek, Provo, and Springville he went; through Spanish Fork, Payson, Salt Creek, and Fillmore. He stopped to preach at each place, but he did it perfunctorily, and with shame for himself in his secret heart. Some impalpable essence of spirituality was gone from himself and from the people. He felt himself wickedly agreeing with a pessimistic elder at Fillmore, who remarked: "I tell you what, Brother Rae, it seems like when the ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... drawing more closely the bonds that bound them together, it really seemed to relax such as did exist. She became colder, withdrew more into herself, shrank from his clumsy amiabilities, and kept the door of her heart resolutely shut against all intrusion. She went through her household duties perfunctorily, as might a slave for a ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... murmured perfunctorily, rising to shake hands with Miss Letchworth, whom she had always disliked as being one of those people who are jocund in the morning. Then, as Yelverton proceeded to provide food for the unfortunate jocund one (who was really as inclined to matutinal depression as any of her betters, but considered ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... not been asleep. Prone on his back, hat pulled over his upper face, he had been lying motionless there, for the best part of an hour. Now, stretching, he got to his feet in leisurely fashion, brushed perfunctorily at his rumpled clothes, and turned his steps toward the double line of plumy Australian pines which bordered the lane between hotel grounds ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... by his fire, dozing gently. He did not notice her at all. He roused himself for the doctor's perfunctorily cheerful farewell. It was then that he noted Felicia's coat ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... Clyde agreed perfunctorily. But, looking into the steady, fearless eyes of the pictured girl, she felt a vague, incomprehensible hostility. Kitty Wade glanced at her quickly, detecting the strained note. Clyde felt the glance, and inwardly resented it. Kitty ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... be touched by the Spirit of the Master, and through him touch them. This work cannot be done perfunctorily or professionally. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... had introduced her as Julia, carelessly, as though of course Archie knew the rest of it. The whole business was as utterly unreal as anything could be. The Governor asked perfunctorily about her drive into town, and whether it had been hot in the country. Dinner was announced immediately and they sat down at a round table whose centerpiece of sweet peas brought a coolness ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Singh kisses the footprints of Jirad Sahib, and entreats that she and her son may sit down under his shadow," he said perfunctorily, evidently repeating what had been taught him. "Jirad Sahib knows that I am Rajah now? He will make them give me a real ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... said perfunctorily. She was trying to hear what her cousin was saying to Filippo, and wishing she could amuse him as well. They passed through the wide hall of the hotel and went up in the lift. The Marvels' private sitting-room was on the second floor. They were much too rich to condescend to the ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... from its promised point to what seemed to him to be a whole geographical meridian—went slowly. To relieve it, he took a book from the table, and in a desultory manner turned the leaves. While thus perfunctorily engaged, he heard the clicking of an opening door, and then the sound of voices: of Madame Jolicoeur's voice, and of a man's voice—which latter, coming nearer, he recognized beyond all doubting as the voice of the Major Gontard. Of other ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... this moment, said something to the uniformed policeman who sat near the center of the room. The other glanced perfunctorily in De Launay's direction and nodded, and the man stepped out ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... said the visitor perfunctorily. The child began to squall, and kicked her father in the stomach. Stephen regarded her quietly. "You tried to hurt me," he said. "Hurting doesn't count. Trying to hurt counts. Go and clean your tongue yourself. Get off my knee." Tears of another sort came into her eyes, but she obeyed ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... is used sporadically and perfunctorily on the far upper Agsan, but I have never seen it anywhere else among Manbos.[29] It is used for shooting small birds, chickens, and mice. It is made of an internode of a variety of bamboo[30] about 1.2 meters long ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... responsibilities—neglect the duty of putting their whole soul into the immediate and concrete business which furnishes them with a living; and the rest, the immense majority, perform their task perfunctorily, merely for the sake of nominally complying with their duty—para cumplir, a terribly immoral phrase—in order to get themselves out of a difficulty, to get the job done, to qualify for their wages without earning them, whether these ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... say, the only minds Monsieur de Grandville reached with this argument were those of the public prosecutor and the judges. The jury listened perfunctorily; the audience, usually so favorable to prisoners, were convinced of their guilt. In a court of justice the sentiments of the crowd do unquestionably weigh upon the judges and the jury, and vice versa. Seeing this condition of the minds about him, which could be felt if not defined, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... beating in his effort to hear the voices of the birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next, and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... from Suez to El-'Akabah, probably one of the oldest in this world, has been traversed perfunctorily by Burckhardt and by Beke. It still wants a detailed survey, and even hieroglyphic inscriptions may be expected. Beke's map marks Hawwit ("ruins") near one of his nighting-places, but apparently ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... grew less fiery, and their affections less fixed. Archer got a bit bored. He was decent about it, though, and when Arabella cuddled beside him he would more or less perfunctorily embrace her. But when ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... Mr. Prohack perfunctorily denied this, but it was true. His relief that the wedding lay behind instead of in front of him was immense, and his spirits rose even higher than they had been when he first woke up. He loathed all ceremonies, and the prospect of ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... In the course of the day, however, his corns had been trodden on so many times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on this the second night after his arrival. He knelt next Charlotte and said the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily that she should know for certain that he was doing it maliciously, but so perfunctorily as to make her uncertain whether he might be malicious or not, and when he had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... David who helped her choose the shades, who insisted on a spray of his favourite lilies of the valley being inserted. How he had praised her skill and made his little jokes over her industry! But the screen would never be used by him now, and the stitches were put in perfunctorily and with ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the sheriff. He took it perfunctorily. "That's all right, old woman, but it hasn't got anything to do with my business here. I'm after your stuff on a warrant." He gave back the paper and started for the stairs ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... turned away. Again and again Jacques Sennier had been called. He had returned with Annie Meredith, to whom he had made the gift of a splendid role. They shook hands before the audience, not perfunctorily, but as if they loved one another, were bound together, comrades in the beautiful. He—Heath—had stood upright again, had gone on applauding with the rest. But his thoughts had then all been on himself. "If all this were for me! If I should ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... object of destroying the Russian Fleet, which had characteristically annihilated the Turkish Fleet in the harbour of Sinope. We did not do much in the Black Sea beyond running the Tiger on shore, where her crew were captured by the Muscovites. We bombarded Odessa perfunctorily, and precisely in that portion of the city where our shot and shell could do the least harm. We did not destroy the Russian Fleet, for the sufficing reason that the Russian Commander-in-Chief sank all his three-deckers full fathom five ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... saluted, perfunctorily, and took seats at the table nearest the door on their left, diagonally the whole space of the room from us. Agathemer and I returned their salute as precisely as we could imitate it, thankful that they had saluted, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... grave and formal, even a little stiff. The Marchesino paid Vere two or three compliments, and she inquired perfunctorily after his health, and expressed ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... arriving." He pointed. Half a dozen tall, short-necked Yill were entering through a side door. The leading Yill hesitated as another stepped in his path. He raised a fist, and the other moved aside, touching the top of his head perfunctorily with both hands. The group started across the room toward the Terrestrials. Retief watched as a slender alien came forward and spoke passable Terran in a ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... prone to disregard constitutional provisions is also manifest in the vast amount of special legislation enacted despite constitutional prohibitions of such legislation. There are also numerous instances where legislatures while perfunctorily heeding the letter of the constitution consciously violate its spirit and evade its requirements. In many states there is a constitutional provision that no legislative act shall become effective until after a specified time has elapsed from its enactment "except in cases ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... table, and the faint rattle of dishes, while the canvas walls glowed from the lights within like great fire-flies hidden in the grass. The foreman, finishing his meal, appeared at the door of the mess tent, and, pausing to accustom his eyes to the gloom, peered perfunctorily towards the creek. The watchman detached himself from the shadow, moving out into plain sight, and the boss turned back. The two men below were now working on the sluices which lay close under the bank and were ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... workshops, harbouring facilities, and testing grounds at the latter point had undergone complete remodelling, while tools of the latest type had been provided to facilitate the rapid construction and overhaul of the monster Zeppelin dirigibles. Nothing had been left to chance; not an item was perfunctorily completed. The whole organisation was perfect, both in equipment and operation. Each of the above stations possessed provision for an aerial Dreadnought as well as one or more aerial cruisers, in addition to ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... the day's outing was gone for me also, and we were a silent pair as we wandered in and out through the sandy beaches. Dicky conscientiously, but perfunctorily, pointed out to me all the things which he thought I would find interesting, and in which, under any other circumstances, I should ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... of Rajah Partab Singh kisses the footprints of Jirad Sahib, and entreats that she and her son may sit down under his shadow," he said perfunctorily, evidently repeating what had been taught him. "Jirad Sahib knows that I am Rajah now? He will make them give me a real sword, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... further hint. If he continues as he has begun, he will be surprised to find how soon he will be able to instruct, on one subject at least, the college graduate, unless that graduate has happily continued as a fad what he once perfunctorily acquired. ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... be drunk, driver," said one passenger. She held up her dollar bill, indignantly, to dismiss him. He lifted his hat, perfunctorily, and ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... I'm afraid—" he searched his pockets perfunctorily—"I haven't my pipe with me." His cigarette case met his searching fingers, but somehow ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... touching upon Confession would be to omit one of its most essential features. Nightly self-examination must be performed, and that not perfunctorily, but with real intention of repentance and strictness of living. Self-examination is nothing more nor less than spiritual account-keeping; without it the man has no real idea of how the business of ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... How trivial it was, after all. The men and women she had calmly and even gratefully accepted as types were nothing more than marionettes, which the author behind the booth manipulated not badly but perfunctorily. The diction was exquisite; there was style; but now as she read there was lacking the one thing that stood for life, blood. It did not pulsate in the veins of these people. Until now she had not recognized this fact, and she was half-way through the book. She even took the trouble ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... glanced through the note perfunctorily, then some part of it riveted his notice, and he read the rest avidly. Like Vandersee's letter, it was brief and comprehensive. It authorized Little to supersede Gordon at the trading station, if in his opinion the situation ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... them."[69] Carlyle's statement shows envious criticism as well as a prejudice in favor of his brother Scotchman. It was made in 1838, since when opinion has raised Gibbon to the top, for he actually lives while Hume is read perfunctorily, if at all. Moreover among the three—Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle—whose works are literature as well as history, modern criticism has no hesitation in ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... you will die—" she began; but Pete, irritated by argument and the burning wind that droned through the canon, put an end to it all by dropping the saddle and taking her swiftly in his arms. He kissed her—rather perfunctorily. "My little ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... incognito, my dear Smart," he said, extending his gloved hand, which I took perforce. "Sub rosa, you might say," he went on with a wry smile. "A stupid, unchivalric empire has designs upon me, perfunctorily perhaps, but it's just as well not to stir up the monkeys, as you Americans ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... happened in Mr. Landover's cabin, but even so, I am ready and willing to do anything in my power to ease the pain you are suffering." She spoke calmly, dispassionately, almost perfunctorily. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... and silent. Why not? There was nothing to do. Jepson ran the mine and everything about it, and Rimrock attended to the rest. All she had to do was to keep track of the records and act as secretary to the Board of Directors. They never met now, except perfunctorily, to give Rimrock more money to spend. He came in as she sat there, dashing past her for some papers, and was dashing out ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... in a moment, answering the director's signal perfunctorily. Southward now, on the 110th East Meridian, without deviating from the straight ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... heard anything extraordinary in the ordinary way of seeing or hearing. Only I was dead sure that he was there with the same old entreaty. Afterwards I lighted a pipe, went above, talked to the skipper's wife, read, investigated my boy's and also my dog's welfare rather perfunctorily, settled down to saying an evening Office, made an end more or less of that, just as night came on, and then again took time to think over things. I remembered that he would have possibly got my letter, the letter which announced my sailing ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... by the end of 1869 there were in Minnesota thirty-seven active Granges. In the spring of 1869 Kelley went East and, after visiting the thriving Grange in Fredonia, he made his report at Washington to the members of the National Grange, who listened perfunctorily, passed a few laws, and relapsed into indifference after this first regular ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... cordiality.] How do you do, everybody? So sorry I wasn't here when you came. I hope Lily made proper excuses for me. [She goes from one to the other of the four latest comers with "So glad you came," etc. They reply formally and perfunctorily. MARTHA finally finds a seat on the couch between EMILY and ESTHER.] I hope Lily—but I see you've ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... he arrived last night—and this morning he's not yet down," said the girl, perfunctorily, as though she only answered the question with her lips, without attaching any real meaning to it. Then her mother's aspect, which on her entrance she had scarcely noticed, struck her with a ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dailies," with their scrappy local news, patent insides, and servile partisan opinions. Still, he began to find in a considerable number of these papers, even those emanating from remote county seats, a certain raciness and independence. This newspaper reading, which Dan had begun perfunctorily, soon interested him. It was thus, he saw, that Bassett kept in touch with state affairs. Sporadic temperance movements, squabbles over local improvements, rows in school boards, and like matters were not beneath Bassett's notice. He discussed these incidents and conditions with Harwood, who ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... whither he fled. Simeon Wright's cattle, on their way to the high country, filed past. The cowboys listened to the news with interest, and a delight which they did not attempt to conceal. They denied having seen the fugitive. The sheriff questioned them perfunctorily. He knew the breed. George Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... only minds Monsieur de Grandville reached with this argument were those of the public prosecutor and the judges. The jury listened perfunctorily; the audience, usually so favorable to prisoners, were convinced of their guilt. In a court of justice the sentiments of the crowd do unquestionably weigh upon the judges and the jury, and vice versa. Seeing this condition of the minds about him, which could be felt if not defined, the counsel ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... He saluted her perfunctorily and was about to turn away, but the avidity of her face reminded him that he had a standard to live up to. He produced another five-franc piece and was pursued to the gate by the stridency of ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... end of the round Ramsden staggered on to the terrace, tripping over his feet, and handed Wilberforce back in good condition. Eunice, who had just reached the chapter where the hero decides to give up all for love, thanked him perfunctorily without looking up from her book; and so ended the first spasm ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... great men arose, once, twice, three times, to do their best for her, she fell to pieces at last, a Humpty-Dumpty that all the king's horses and all the king's men could never reweld into one;—and the place she should have filled in history as Unifier of Europe was only filled perfunctorily and for a time; and her great duty was never rightly done. Hinc lacrimae aetatum—hence the darkness and miseries of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... been asleep. Prone on his back, hat pulled over his upper face, he had been lying motionless there, for the best part of an hour. Now, stretching, he got to his feet in leisurely fashion, brushed perfunctorily at his rumpled clothes, and turned his steps toward the double line of plumy Australian pines which bordered the lane ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... came ambling into the coulee, rapped perfunctorily upon the door-casing, and entered the kitchen as one who feels perfectly at home, and sure of his welcome; as was not unfitting, considering the fact that he had "chored around" for Val during the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... to meet the Bellamys' friend, and Harriet saw that it pleased him, for some inscrutable reason, to continue his ridiculous conversation with the flattered Ward, and to accept names and greetings absently, in an aside, as it were, smiling perfunctorily and briefly at the eager girls and women, and returning immediately to his concerned and passionate undertones ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... she said perfunctorily, at his start of recognition and delight. Gaga's face changed completely. From one of gloom, his expression became one of joy. "I didn't notice the time. I was working there alone— Miss Summers had gone. I was finishing something. I didn't know ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... sad," said Douglas, with cold disgust, perfunctorily veiled by a conventional air of sympathy. "But if she is irreclaimable, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... know how the deuce one contrived that sort of thing. It was a woman's job. Mrs Olliver, now, could have fixed it all up in a twinkling; while he—poor clumsy fool!—could only sit there smoking and racking his brain, while his eyes perfunctorily scanned the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... about his part of the task of slaughter coolly, leisurely, almost perfunctorily. His training in the Regular Army was against the likelihood of his displaying zeal in anything. He instituted certain measures, and let things take their course. That course was a rapid transition from bad to worse, but it was still in ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... of the lawn were glimpses of flowers, and behind her clear-tinted frock was the yellow house laced over with green. A column of thick smoke rose from a manufactory close behind the house, but the trees mitigated it. He played perfunctorily, uninterested in the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... to go with my tail between my legs and apologize to Sir Edward Grey and to do myself that shame and to do my very best to keep his confidence—against these unnecessary odds. The only way to be safe is to do the job perfunctorily, to answer the questions the Department sends and to do nothing on your own account. That's the reason so many of our men do their jobs in that way—or one reason and a strong one. We can never have an alert and energetic and powerful service until men can trust the Department and until they can ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... was the atmosphere between them, it was some time before they found a real freedom of speech. The openings, the gambits, which were to lead them to the very heart of the game, were at first masked and hesitating. They talked a little—perfunctorily—about the dale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into the broad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought the laugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign of slander was over, and that the battle, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Belgian had written a beautiful poem and sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the time and you said—you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem to have much point.'" Vivie did remember having glanced very perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed unobjectionable piffle. She hadn't cared two straws whether he accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly indifferent. Now she took it up and still read it through ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... eliminated from the old prospector. Two months of fruitless scratching gravel when he had expected to walk without special delay to the great legendary deposit, had taken the sparkle of hope from the blue eyes, and he glanced perfunctorily at the walls of that which had ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... himself as a middle-aged man, strongly built, with slightly grey hair. For some unknown reason I imagined him to be a Major in a cavalry regiment, no doubt attached to the Staff, and when, after rubbing his eyes, he at length opened the window, I apologized perfunctorily for having disturbed him, adding that I was acting on Captain Laycock's suggestion in coming there. In my heart I hoped he would leave me to the undisturbed perusal of the literature which I saw on a large centre table. He showed, however, no signs of taking his departure, and ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus was drawn up to the gates of the school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit each other, as French horses always did in those days. The driver swore at them perfunctorily. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... of seizing and hiding the wand is carried out perfunctorily. During a recent dance the girl's uncle took the wand but simply carried it to the grandmother's house, intending to take it to the mountains later. However, the stick remained with the grandmother, who was somewhat concerned about it. It ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... been that last of his letters—a despairing cry from Chanctonbury, written when she was Nevile's shadow, and he hers. She felt stabbed to the heart to remember how perfunctorily she had read that. How did it go? What had he said? She could not recall the words, but their sense beat upon her. Oh, he had set her too high! He had called her Artemis—the chaste, the bright. Artemis the Bright had been one of his names ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... slipping on his knees and wetting the strange excrescence about his middle, which was his tucked-up waterproof. But the crossing was at length achieved, and on a patch of sea-pinks he dried himself perfunctorily and hastily put on his garments. Old Bill, who seemed to be regardless of wind or water, squatted beside him and whistled ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... far oftener than anything he attempts perfunctorily; and even if the editor thinks it will not take, and feels obliged to return it for that reason, he will return it with a real regret, with the honor and affection which we cannot help feeling for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... half soldier, in charge of a small special force of mounted men engaged for the purpose of patrol. He had nothing to do with the selection of them; that business was attended to perfunctorily by a man very high up in departmental service, who considered Cunningham a nuisance. He was a gentleman who did not know Mahommed Gunga; another thing he did not know was the comfortable feel of work well done; so he was more than pleased when Mahommed Gunga dropped ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... silent member of the Committee of Public Safety, Carnot, who brought on the crisis. Affecting an exclusive concern for the conduct of the war and perfunctorily {217} signing all that related to internal affairs, he was secretly restive and anxious to escape from the horrible situation. Prompted by some of his colleagues, he ordered, on the 24th of July, that ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... second or two, Wickersham an inch or more taller and inches narrower in shoulder and girth of chest. Perfunctorily they nodded, each to the other, and ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... a war governor and a governor in time of war. One is enthusiastic, resourceful, with ability to organise victory by filling languishing patriotism with new and noble inspiration—the other simply performs his duty, sometimes respectably, sometimes only perfunctorily. George Clinton illustrated, in his own person, the difference between a great war governor and a governor in time of war. If he failed to win renown on the battlefield, his ability to inspire the people with confidence, and to bring glory out of threatened failure and success out of apparent ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the corner, a shabby, coarse little man, roused her from a fevered dream. He asked a few questions perfunctorily, turned the small face to the light a moment, and cynically ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five pounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode off on ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... lap, his mind racing in many different directions at once. Hector was off at the phone, getting the latest information from the meditechs. Odal had expressed his regrets perfunctorily, and then left for the Kerak Embassy, under a heavy escort of his own plainclothes guards. The government of the Acquataine Cluster was quite literally falling apart, with no man willing to assume responsibility ... and thereby expose himself. One hour after the duel, Kanus' troops had landed ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... on an indictment by a secret tribunal, where ex parte testimony was alone received, and the voice of defence could not be heard? The law infers that the keen instinct of self-preservation will force the accused to secure the strongest possible legal defenders; and failing in this, the law perfunctorily assigns counsel to present testimony in defence. Do the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... return. He had given up trying to explain to the Italian the idiomatic style of old Broadway. He got up and brushed his flannels perfunctorily. "Well, I suppose I've got to dress for supper," resentfully. He still called it supper; and, as in the matter of the silk hat, his wife no longer strove to correct him. The evening meal had always been supper, and so it would remain until that time when he would cease to look forward ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... lodging immediately. On reaching the place and going upstairs she found that all was quiet in the children's room, and called to the landlady in timorous tones to please bring up the tea-kettle and something for their breakfast. This was perfunctorily done, and producing a couple of eggs which she had brought with her she put them into the boiling kettle, and summoned Jude to watch them for the youngsters, while she went to call them, it being now about half-past ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... before this holy man. He gave her his blessing perfunctorily, and muttered some words of the exorcism ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... plan perfunctorily, more to please his son than anything else. But, after a second glance, he became deeply interested and began to ask questions. After half an hour's study ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... took on an air as if he knew a great deal but was under obligations not to tell. Yes, yes, he said rather perfunctorily, he had heard that some one had said that Nothafft was running a pretty questionable domestic establishment; that he had a rather unsavoury past; and that there was some talk about his neglecting ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... I noticed a difference. He had become strangely hard. Once when a poor woman came, and begged him, out of charity, to save the life of her only child, he bluntly refused. And when I implored him myself to help her, he did his work perfunctorily. ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... Laramie listened perfunctorily, his eyes moving part of the time over the room. "Speak for yourself. Harry," he intervened at this juncture. "I know exactly nothing about who took anybody's steers, nor that any ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... policemen. Not to meddle with politics, because it is vulgar. To vote perfunctorily. To 'let George do it' when there are reforms to be brought about. To keep your hat on when the flag goes by because otherwise you will attract attention. To find fault without being able to offer remedies. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... a long time to know the real cause of her sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting in his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of the household had retired. He did not get to bed till one o'clock. Before he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first rather timidly performed, ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... revival in no more striking feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... relating to matters of business or of the world. All he was good for was: to take advantage of the friendships enjoyed by his grandfather in days of old, to present himself at the Board of Revenue to perfunctorily sign his name and to draw the allowance and rations; while the rest of his affairs he, needless to say, left his partners and old servants of the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and silently aware, had produced in her tortured mind an exasperated rebellion against the opinions of her neighbours, who were unable to see anything beyond their own comfort. She knew that she had so much the worst of it; that even attending perfunctorily to another's human necessity was not so hard a task as to be there day after day in the company of a pain which never ceased, and beneath whose increasing shadow the world had ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... instinct sufficiently developed to like reading about a young man who picks up Gainsboroughs for a tenner, or unearths lost masterpieces of TURNER on a clue supplied by an old letter. The young man in question was Hugh Limner, and in his off moments he fulfilled perfunctorily the duties of hero of the story. But I can't help thinking that Mr. M. MCD. BODKIN, his creator, liked him best as an expert. Certainly I myself did. Hugh, as I say, found his buried Turner on the authority of an autograph letter from the artist, which in its ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... touched life too closely and too often to attain to that flawless beauty to which it seems to aspire. He lacked the precision of form which is the mark of the consummate artist; he was sometimes tentative and ambiguous, often careless; the structure of some of his finest works was perfunctorily thrown together; the envelope of his thought—his language—was by no means faultless, his verse often coming near to prose, and his prose sometimes aping the rhythm of verse. In fact, it is not surprising that to the rigid classicists of the eighteenth century this Colossus had feet of clay. But, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... been on his way to a chair when suddenly caught and immobilized by one of those hazards which do notoriously occur—the victim never remembers how—in drawing-rooms. Hands in pockets, he looked aimlessly about, smiling perfunctorily, and wondering where he should settle or whether he should remain where he was. In the deep embrasure of the large east bow-window Lois was lounging. She beckoned to him, not with her hand but with a brief, bright smile—she smiled rarely—and with a lifting of the chin. He responded alertly ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... found them all heart could wish for. No effeminate straps about these! but toe-clamps to tighten with a key and a projecting heel lock to insert in a metal socket in the boot's heel. This was the piece de resistance of the stocking. Bobby felt perfunctorily along the outside to assure himself that the usual two oranges and the dollar in the toe were in place; then returned to gloat over his skates. He wanted to use them that very day; but realized the ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... horde of them—stalked into the room, each one being formally, but perfunctorily announced by the butler, and each one flushing painfully in return for the attention. There was Delia, the cook, and Christine, her assistant; Swanson, the furnace man; Lockhart, the chauffeur, and Boyles, the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
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