"Formal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the body of Moses. But the practice of burning was also of great antiquity, and of no slender extent. For (not to derive the same from Hercules) noble descriptions there are hereof in the Grecian funerals of Homer, in the formal obsequies of Patroclus and Achilles; and somewhat elder in the Theban war, and solemn combustion of Meneceus, and Archemorus, contemporary unto Jair the eighth judge of Israel. Confirmable also among the Trojans, from the funeral pyre ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... think that she perceived, the covert designs of her friend than her sensitive delicacy recoiled from doing anything that might seem like aiding or abetting such a scheme. She constrained herself to assume a cold and formal manner, so unnatural to her that Isidore, as men are apt enough to do, grew vexed and annoyed at a treatment which he knew was undeserved, and soon began to think there was more affectation about Mademoiselle Lacroix than he had at first imagined. Then he, too, suddenly discovered from ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... Restoration, it was again secularized under the Third Republic in order to admit the burial of Victor Hugo. The building itself, a vast bare barn of the pseudo-classical type, very cold and formal, is worthy of notice merely on account of its immense size and its historic position; but it may be visited to this day with pleasure, not only for some noble modern paintings, but also for the sake of the reminiscences of Ste. Genevive which it still contains. The ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... was enacted, which made all men, black or white, equal in political rights—as they were always equal in the sight of God—Mrs. Mott has made it her business to visit every colored church in Philadelphia. This we may regard as the formal closing of fifty years of work in behalf of a race which she has seen raised from a position of abject servitude, to one higher than that of a monarch's throne. But though she may have ended this Anti-slavery work, which is but the ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... had treasures of easy-going tolerance for those who were amusing or useful to her, and in the noisy rush of whose existence the still small voice of detraction was slow to make itself heard. But Judy, though she must have been apprised of Miss Bart's return, had not even recognized it by the formal note of condolence which her friend's bereavement demanded. Any advance on Lily's side might have been perilous: there was nothing to do but to trust to the happy chance of an accidental meeting, and Lily knew that, even so late ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... aspens at the next curve. She had seen him; there could be no doubt of that. She had recognized him; more, Houston felt sure that she had mounted her horse that she might better be able to pass him and greet him with a formal nod instead of a more friendly acknowledgment. And this was the girl who, an afternoon before, had sat beside him on the worn old bench at the side of Ba'tiste's cabin and picked thorns from the palm of his hand,—thorns from the stems of wild roses which she had brought him! The enigma was too ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... tut! what do you mean by growing up in this ridiculous manner, child?" Miss Carr pecked the girl's cheek with a formal kiss, and turned to hold out both hands to Mr Bertrand. "Austin! how good to see you again. This is a pleasure—a real pleasure." There was no doubting the sincerity of the tone, which was one of most affectionate welcome, and the plain old face beneath the white cap ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the colonies there existed a formal ceremony of betrothal called in Plymouth a pre-contract. This semi-binding ceremony had hardly a favorable influence upon the morals of the times. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the year 1820, were divided into classes (as he has himself divided them in the Liber Studiorum), no preponderance could be assigned to one class over another. There is architecture, including a large number of formal "gentlemen's seats," I suppose drawings commissioned by the owners; then lowland pastoral scenery of every kind, including nearly all farming operations,—ploughing, harrowing, hedging and ditching, felling trees, sheep-washing, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... propositions, since the true aspect of native literature may thus be disclosed. The Revolution, which so filled Webster's eyes, was unquestionably a great historic event by reason of its connection with the formal institution of a new nation; but the roots of our national life were not then planted. They run back to the first settlements and the first charters and agreements; nor is the genesis of the nation to be found there; sharp as are the beginnings of our history on ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... this had been sufficient to have let me known what he is gone about, without the formal Addition of ...
— The City Bride (1696) - Or The Merry Cuckold • Joseph Harris
... administration, it had risen not unworthily to its immense responsibilities. But the time had come for the final step. The Company disappeared and the Crown assumed full and sole responsibility for the government and administration of India. The change was in effect more formal than real. The Governor-General came to be known as the Viceroy, and the Secretary of State in Council took the place of the old President of the Board of Control. But the system remained as before one of paternal despotism ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... of hand; and now I wait a formal answer, nothing more. Guido dare not decline. No, by the saints, He'd send Ravenna's virgins here in droves, To buy a ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... Persians one meets with having blue eyes. He appears to regard it as quite an understood thing that I am going to remain over night with him, and proceeds at once to make the necessary arrangements for my accommodation, without going to the trouble of extending a formal invitation. He also wins my eternal esteem by discouraging, as far as Persian politeness and civility will admit, the intrusion of the inevitable self-sufficients who presume on their "eminent respectability" as loafers, in contradistinction to the half-naked ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... he admitted. "She's a perfectly wonderful person, isn't she? Let's get out of this Victorian environment," he added, looking around the huge apartment with its formal arrangement of furniture and its atmosphere of prim but faded elegance. "We'll go into the smaller room and tell Brookes to bring us some cocktails and cigarettes. Chalmers won't expect to be received formally, and Mademoiselle ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Here are no clumsy pillars, nor urns, nor sarcophagi, no, nor even crosses. Flowers are utterly unknown, and garlands tabooed. But the arrangement of the pollarded limes, which both surround and intersect the square, is, as it ought to be in such a place, at once formal and appropriate, casting each of the gravel-walks into a pleasant shade, while between them all lies open. With respect, again, to the graves, these are distinguished from the general level of the ground only ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... the Colonel's the best we can do. I'm out of it. This is my formal withdrawal. Hand it to Robbins—you know him, of course. It tells him what I want done. My votes go to Ramsay on the next ballot. I look to you to see that it's played square. Give the Colonel ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... consolation in seeing that those mercenary views of which she had once been led to accuse him, were farthest from his thoughts, and that whatever was the state of his mind, she had no artifice to apprehend, nor design to guard against. All therefore that remained was to imitate his example, be civil and formal, shun all interviews that were not public, and decline all discourse but what good breeding ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... I wrote; but that seemed too familiar, whereas "Dear Sir" from one schoolfellow to another was too formal. So I attempted my explanation in ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... successful. The attainder of Reginald Pole, who had been appointed by the Pope to receive the submission of the realm, was reversed; and the Legate entered London by the river with his cross gleaming from the prow of his barge. He was solemnly welcomed in full Parliament. The two Houses decided by a formal vote to return to the obedience of the Papal See; on the assurance of Pole in the Pope's name that holders of Church lands should not be disturbed in their possession the statutes abolishing Papal jurisdiction in England were ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... number of such plows made in our country, not because it is economic so to make them, but because we could get them in no other way. In so far as is possible, we shall have to make ourselves self-supporting, so as somehow or other to get along even if the blockade, formal or perhaps willy-nilly (imposed by the inability of the West to supply us), compels us to postpone cooperation with the rest of Europe. Every day of such postponement is one in which the resources of Europe are not being used in the most efficient manner to supply the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... Declaration with joy. It was but a formal recognition of a state of things which had long existed, but it put an end to all those temporizing hopes of reconciliation which had clogged the military action of the country. On July 9, he caused it ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... declared war against Serbia, July 28, 1914. During the few days intervening between the dispatch of the ultimatum to Serbia and the formal declaration of war, Serbia and Russia, seeing the inevitable, had commenced to mobilize their armies. On the last day of July, Germany as Austria's ally, issued an ultimatum with a twelve hour limit demanding that Russia ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... often desired to give her in marriage, but she would none of it. She vowed she would never marry till she found a man who could vanquish her in every trial; him she would wed and none else. And when her father saw how resolute she was, he gave a formal consent in their fashion, that she should marry whom she list and when she list. The lady was so tall and muscular, so stout and shapely withal, that she was almost like a giantess. She had distributed ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... brush her hair and to help her dress. She was also to answer the bell, wait on the table if need be, and do any other errand which her mistress might indicate. Mrs. Bracebridge seemed a little hard and formal to her prospective servant, but for all that Jennie admired the dash and go and the obvious ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... States to maintain a position of the most absolute and impartial friendship toward all. You will thereupon, in the name of the President of the United States, tender to His Excellency the President of the Mexican Republic a formal invitation to send two commissioners to the congress, provided with such powers and instructions on behalf of their Government as will enable them to consider the questions brought before that body within the limit of submission contemplated by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... and paper, and armed with labels. But Maggie has neither sentiment nor imagination. Jelly to her is an institution, not an inspiration. It is subject to certain rules and rites, of which not the least is the formal interment ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... said Lopez, "I understand. In short, it amounts to this, that one day of such intercourse, so free, so unconventional, is equal to a whole year, or even a whole lifetime, of the formal ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... the candidate was taken to the river and very thoroughly scrubbed, that all the white blood might be washed out of him. His face was painted in the most approved style of Indian taste, when he was led to the council lodge and addressed by the chief in a long and formal speech, in which he expatiates upon the honor conferred upon the adopted son, and upon the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... glanced at something of the sort when he said that old Beauchamp was a hard man even for a lawyer. I will condense the story from the more diffuse conversational narrative, interrupted by question and remark on the part of Alec, and give it the shape of formal history. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... he thought. "Occasions of meeting shall not be wanting. Will it not be necessary to hold frequent interviews with Monsieur Lacheneur in effecting a formal transfer of Sairmeuse? I will win him over to my side. With the daughter my course is plain. Profiting by my unfortunate experience, I will, in the future, be as timid as I have been bold; and she will be hard to please if she is not flattered ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... The formal proceedings took their legal course; and upon and after a certain day Lord Lick-my-loof might have been seen from not a few of the windows of the castle, walking the fields to the north and east, and giving ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... think of me," she said in trepidation, "and how can I do such a thing as to steal into a woman's house to a dinner in this way! Besides, I am not dressed for a formal occasion." ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... Argumentation" by Baker and Huntington, is another excellent book, not treating of formal logic, but discussing the general principles which should govern the preparation of a paper or argument, the principles of evidence, and the logical fallacies in reasoning. It is recommended to readers. This book is, or has been, used in the course in English at ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... extending beyond the lives of the guilty parties, whereas the Constitution of the United States declares that "no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." True, there seems to be no formal attainder in this case; still, I think the greater punishment can not be constitutionally inflicted in a different form for the same offense. With great respect I am constrained to say I think this feature of the act is unconstitutional. It would not be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... satisfied with nothing less than a formal presentation; and that the ceremony might be gone through without delay, the car was directed towards the Condamine. As they neared the street of the Hotel Pension Beau Soleil, a cab came ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Jersey suburb. Josephine and Julia should come to visit her, they should have little frocks that would befit the pretty nieces of Mrs. Ward Carter; they should have a taste of polo games and country clubs, and in a winter or two Josephine's first formal dance should be ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... expensive cigar on the desk, saying, "Have a cigar." I thanked him and said I did not smoke, to which he responded, "Put it in your pocket." He then added, "Take another; put both in your pocket." This I accordingly did. Having thus shown at the outset the necessary formal courtesy, my visitor, an old and valued friend, proceeded to explain that a nephew of his had enlisted in the Marine Corps, but had been absent without leave, and was threatened with dishonorable discharge on the ground of desertion. My ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... flustered, being got up for the occasion, with ribbons in evidence and smiles ready for production on the instant. When the west door opened, and the awaited hero entered, pale but well groomed, using his cane in such fashion that he could carry himself erectly, Elizabeth greeted him with formal courtesy. Though her manner had the repose necessary to conceal her sweet agitation, an observant person might have noticed a deference, a kind of meekness, that was new in her demeanor towards men. Peyton, whose mien (though not ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... little more than a week he was established in the comfortable dwelling-house there, with Walter Osgood; Philip Van Schaick, and Peter Schuyler, companions who were soon persuaded to leave the somewhat formal circles of the city for a few days of adventure in the country. They had arrived late in the night, and wearied by fifteen hours' confinement on board a small sloop, the visitors slept late the next morning, while Edward ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... Hayes withdrew the Federal troops from the South, it marked the formal restoration of that local self-government which is a vital principle of the American Union. Of slower, deeper growth, has been the spirit of mutual good-will and confidence, with the free concession to each member of its individual life. Numberless delicate cords have ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... instances of barbarity, and affords more light into the affairs of the English and Dutch, as well as respecting the manners and customs of the Javanese and other inhabitants of Bantam, than if the author had dressed up a more formal relation, in the usual way of travellers: From the minute particulars respecting the Javanese and Chinese, contained in the last sections, the reader will be able to collect a far better notion of the genius of these people, than from the description of the country inserted in the first; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... For one so patient and good, he had a very large vial of indignation, and on occasion poured it out right heartily over all injustice and cruelty. On no heads was it ever discharged more freely than on these Transvaal Boers. He made a formal representation of his losses both to the Cape and Home authorities, but never received a farthing of compensation. The subsequent history of the Transvaal Republic will convince many that Livingstone was not far from the truth in his estimate of the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... studio on the first floor happened to be open. Hitherto, beyond the usual formal salutations, when by chance we met upon the stairs, I had exchanged but few words with my eccentric landlord; but remembering his kindly face, the desire came upon me to tell him my good fortune. I felt sure his eyes would lighten with delight. By ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... sent for him. "Sergeant, I am sorry to say that I hear from the sergeant-major that you were drunk last night, and that you have several times been the worse for liquor. It is not a formal complaint, but I thought it better to talk to you. You have always been a very steady man, and I should be sorry in the extreme if any thing should happen which would cause you to be brought before the colonel. I have no doubt this affair has troubled you greatly, and that it is ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... We may surmise that she would have spared herself some of this trouble had she known the real name of her visitor. Then, as she came slowly down the stairs, she reflected how she would receive him. He had stayed away from her, and she would be cold to him—cold and formal as she had been on the railway platform. She knew well how to play that part. Yes, it was his turn now to show some eagerness of friendship, if there was ever to be anything more than friendship between them. But she changed all this as she put her hand upon ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... idea at present of asking you to constitute St. Agnes' a parish and therefore the question of consecration does not arise. I regret to say that Bishop Crawshay thoroughly disapproved of our services and ritual, and I think he may have felt unwilling to commit himself to endorsing them by the formal grant of a new licence. May I hear from you at your convenience, and may I respectfully add that your lordship has the ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Boz's exquisite account of the interview; Sykes's farewell to the dog; and the Jew,—the dreadful Jew—that Cruikshank drew! What a fine touching picture of melancholy desolation is that of Sykes and the dog! The poor cur is not too well drawn, the landscape is stiff and formal; but in this case the faults, if faults they be, of execution rather add to than diminish the effect of the picture: it has a strange, wild, dreary, broken -hearted look; we fancy we see the landscape as it must have appeared to Sykes, when ghastly ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deadness to the spirit and the interests of Christianity with zeal for dogma. He never flinched in formal orthodoxy, and the measures which he took for riveting the chains of superstition on the people were calculated with the military firmness of a Napoleon. It was he who established the censure of the press, by which printers were obliged, under ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... expectancy with which Chicago looks for a new sensation, Brooks had been almost forgotten by the public. His confession had robbed his trial of that uncertainty which means excitement, and there now remained but a formal ceremony, the appointment of his time to die. The newspapers no longer paid especial attention to him, and such neglect depresses a murderer, for notoriety is his last intoxicant. It seemed that an unwarranted length ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... extraordinary reward for their care and labor, particularizing nothing, but asking for whatever was best for men. Accordingly, Apollo signified to them that he would bestow it on them in three days, and on the third day at daybreak they were found dead. And so they say that this was a formal decision pronounced by that God to whom the rest of the deities have assigned the province of divining with an accuracy superior to that ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... violins, under the king's command, had shrilled their chorus, as had been their wont for years while the master dined. This morning the cordon of drums and hautboys had pealed their high and martial music. Useless. The one or the other music fell upon ears too dull to hear. The formal tribute to the central soul for a time continued of its own inertia; for a time royalty had still its worship; yet the custom was but a lagging one. The musicians grimaced and made what discord they liked, openly, insolently, scorning this weak and withered figure on the silken ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... At the close of a month's deliberation they resolved to reserve judgment on the original question, and to confine themselves for the present to revenging the insult to the pope by "my Lord of Canterbury." Both the king and the archbishop had disobeyed a formal inhibition. On the 12th of July, the pope issued a brief, declaring Cranmer's judgment to have been illegal, the English process to have been null and void, and the king, by his disobedience, to have incurred, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... so unfortunate as to awaken the admiration of a young man of unbalanced mind who was living under the same roof. He paid her attentions which were courteously but firmly declined. He wrote her letters which were at first acknowledged in the most formal way, and finally ignored. No woman could have been more circumspect and dignified. The young man preserved copies of his own letters, introduced the two or three brief and formal notes which he had received in reply, made a story of the incident, stole the photograph of the woman, enclosed his own ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims, preaching down a ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... that neither Verrazano nor Gomez had found a passage through the straits which were then, and for a long time afterwards, supposed to lie somewhere in the northern regions of America and to lead to China and India. Francis was not able to send Verrazano on another voyage, to take formal possession of the new lands, as he was engaged in that conflict with Charles which led to his defeat at the battle of Pavia and his being made subsequently a prisoner. Spain appears to have attached no importance to the discovery by Gomez, since it did not ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... aligned with the propertied classes. On the part of the capitalists there was no unity of organization in the sense of selected leaders or committees. It was not necessary. A stronger bond than that of formal organization drove them into acting in conscious unison—namely, the immediate peril involved to their property interests. Apprehension soon gave way to grim decision. This formidable labor movement had to be broken and ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... give one more instance. The words, and garb, and customs of that sect of Christians called Quakers may be formal enough; founded, no doubt, as in the former case, upon a mistaken interpretation of a passage in the Bible. But they are at least harmless; and have long been associated with the simplicity, and benevolence, and Christian humbleness of this body of Christians—the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... led into the peristyle, the second of the two main sections of a Roman house. It was a spacious court, open to the sky and inclosed by a colonnade or portico. This delightful spot, rather than the formal atrium, served as the center of family life. About it were grouped the bedchambers, bathrooms, dining rooms, kitchen, and other apartments of a comfortable mansion. Still other rooms occupied the upper stories ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... judicial decisions, and traditions; the written part of the constitution consists of the Constitution Act of 29 March 1867, which created a federation of four provinces, and the Constitution Act of 17 April 1982, which transferred formal control over the constitution from Britain to Canada, and added a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Furious he rode, where late he ran, Lashing and spurring his tame hobby; Turned to a formal puritan, 550 A solemn and unsexual man,— He ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... that Paul escaped the discouragements hitherto presented to marriageable men by dowagers and young girls. Madame Evangelista began by asking him to formal dinners on various occasions. The Pink of Fashion would not, of course, miss festivities to which none but the most distinguished young men of the town were bidden. In spite of the coldness that Paul ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... Availing himself of the king's absence in the Holy Land, his brother John, Earl of Moreton, anxious to acquire the co-operation of the city of London in his traitorous designs upon the crown, convened a general assembly of the citizens, and confirmed their ancient rights and privileges by a formal deed or charter. It was then, for the first time, that the commonalty of the city was regularly and officially recognized as a corporate body. The distinctive rights of a town corporation were the election of a council presided ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... might take refuge from the storms which seemed to be gathering. While his thoughts were thus employed, he learned that the Auditorship of the Exchequer had suddenly become vacant. The Auditorship was held for life. The duties were formal and easy. The gains were uncertain; for they rose and fell with the public expenditure; but they could hardly, in time of peace, and under the most economical administration, be less than four thousand pounds a year, and were likely, in ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... drawing-room without formal announcement, to find her seated on a low sofa, barricaded with piles of cotton frocks and pinafores, which had suffered maltreatment at the hands of that arch-destroyer of clothes ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... would you have?" cried Ole, whose calm spirit was ruffled with unusual violence at the thought of the hated Durward being actually within his reach. "For my part I conceive that you are justified in taking him up on suspicion, trying him in a formal way (just to save appearances) on suspicion, and hanging him at once on suspicion. Quite time enough to inquire into the matter after the villain is comfortably sewed up in a hammock with a thirty-pound shot at his ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the quantity, quality, or situation of things; as, great and small, white and black, wise and foolish, eastern and western. These last terms are adjectives; and those which denote motion or its privation, are either verbs or participles, according to their formal meaning; that is, according to their manner of attribution. See Hermes, p. 95. Verbs commonly say or affirm something of their subjects; as, "The babe wept." Participles suggest the action or attribute without affirmation; as, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely formal. ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... replied the artist, with a somewhat formal bow—after which both men relapsed into silence, and continued to ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... by his formal words, and fetched writing materials. As he wrote out the certificate, she went into the next room. When she returned, Sommers got up and crossed toward her, impelled by an irresistible desire ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... acute phase in 1749, when both the rival claimants took action to assert their sovereignty. The Governor of Canada sent an envoy, Celoron de Blainville, with soldiers, to take formal possession of the Ohio for the King of France. In the same year the English organized in Virginia the Ohio Company for the colonization of the same country; and summoned Christopher Gist, explorer, trader, and guide, from his home on the Yadkin ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... words had made some impression, for that evening when she rose from the supper table to bid him a formal good-night, he very ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... should go would be: "Anywhere, all is beautiful, only let it be toward the Lido." While both the poet and his sister were scrupulously prompt in returning all calls of ceremony, they were glad to evade formal visits so far as possible; and the absolute freedom with which their hostess surrounded them was grateful beyond words. "The thought deeply impressed me," said Mrs. Bronson, "that one who had lifted so many souls above the mere necessity for living in a troublesome ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... met with them on one occasion, and had received a formal introduction to them; but since then had not ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... more formal, more business-like, than anything that had gone before. To go to see the woman whom you think of most in the world, that is a vague thing which other engagements may push aside; but an invitation to go ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... invoked on special occasions, such as fighting or fishing or any other matter of importance; and since the spirits whom they invoke are always those of their own kindred they are presumed to be friendly to the petitioners. The objects for which formal prayers are addressed to the souls of ancestors appear to be always temporal benefits, such as victory over enemies and plenty of food; prayers for the promotion of moral virtue are seemingly unknown. For example, if a woman laboured hard ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... tell you how comic it appears to me that I have to transact Weimar business with F. D. I have a good mind to tell HIM that he had better leave my opera alone. Weimar has lost all its charm for me since I have to meet so formal a person before I can get at you and the Grand Duke. You are a very tedious ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... the British Government was plainly untenable. The treaty of 1782 was only the formal declaration of certain facts consequent upon the termination of the Revolutionary war. That treaty recognized three conditions as fully established: I. The independence of the thirteen Colonies. II. The territorial limits of the United States. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... horrible part to play while he walked the length of the formal garden with her, and found a pathway leading out of it, and led her out ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... a subject that deserves a great deal of consideration. It is an old formal name for what has been often an antiquated mechanical exercise. A great deal more trouble is expended now on the manner of questioning and "hearing" the lessons; but even yet it may be done too formally, as a mere function, or in a way that kills the ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... ordinary offences committed by ordinary criminals were ruthlessly punished, and to some extent suppressed. But, under the best Asiatic Governments, great men and their dependants have usually been able to do pretty much what they pleased. The English Government has the merit of refusing to give formal recognition to difference of rank in criminals, and of often trying to punish influential offenders, though seldom succeeding in the attempt. From time to time a conspicuous example, like that of the Nawab Shams-ud-din, is made, and a few such ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... men and women who give arbitrary commands may get from their assistants formal obedience, but they never get hearty and intelligent cooperation. Indeed, it is no doubt because we still cling to the traditions of earlier times, when personal loyalty and military types of virtue were so prominent in the minds of men, that we are so slow ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... Godfrey Cass standing at the door and her own arrival there. Happily, the Squire came out too and gave a loud greeting to her father, so that, somehow, under cover of this noise she seemed to find concealment for her confusion and neglect of any suitably formal behaviour, while she was being lifted from the pillion by strong arms which seemed to find her ridiculously small and light. And there was the best reason for hastening into the house at once, since ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... American privateers gave them not a little business. In order to secure uniformity of decision in matters so directly affecting our foreign relations, the Continental Congress claimed the right to exercise appellate functions, through a standing committee of its members, and in 1780 organized a formal court for the purpose, styled "The Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture." Three judges were appointed and provided with a register and seal. They held terms at Hartford, New York, Philadelphia and Richmond during the next six years. On an average about ten cases were ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... readers understand that the West Highland White Terriers are not White Aberdeens, not a new invention, but have a most respectable ancestry of their own. I add the formal list of points, but this is the work of show bench experts—and it will be seen from what I have written that I do not agree with them on certain particulars. There should be feather to a fair degree on the tail, but if experts will not allow it, put rosin on your hands and pull the hair out—and ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... neither profit from the will nor litigation in consequence of its unusual provisions; Gilson, although frequently "flush," had been a man whom assessors and tax collectors were well satisfied to lose no money by. But a careless and merely formal search among his papers revealed title deeds to valuable estates in the East and certificates of deposit for incredible sums in banks less severely scrupulous than that of Mr. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... in my "smoking," though under ordinary circumstances I should have considered this rather formal, but I was glad I did, for she appeared in full evening tenue. She wore a violet gown, and across her forehead a black satin bandeau with a Z in diamonds upon it. It must have cost two thousand marks, and I wondered with a dull kind of jealousy ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... city of Canton and the first pagoda on the bank of the river, there is a continued series of similar quarries, which appear not to have been worked for many years. The regular and formal manner in which the stones have been cut away, exhibiting lengthened streets of houses with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams; the smoothness and perfect perpendicularity of the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... at least one consequence likely to result from the study of this art and the attempt to practise it, which would alone be a sufficient reason for urging it earnestly. I mean, its probable effect in breaking up the constrained, cold, formal, scholastic mode of address, which follows the student from his college duties, and keeps him from immediate contact with the hearts of his fellow men. This would be effected by his learning to speak ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... splendid and public recognition of his new rank was yet to be made, by the formal act of coronation, which, therefore, Napoleon determined should take place with circumstances of solemnity, which had been beyond the reach of any temporal prince, however powerful, for many ages. His policy was often marked by a wish to revive, imitate, and connect his own ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... it for anything," she said. "I have always wanted to manage someone's wedding and I am certainly not going to let anyone else manage mine. I don't care a bit whether it is the proper thing or not. This isn't going to be a formal affair; I won't have it so. Uncle Shad, if you want to say 'Jumpin' fire' when Crawford drops the ring, as he is almost sure to ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... possible for any one to occupy that position under existing circumstances. With the Queen in prison and absolutely cut off from all communication with her friends, it is out of the question for me to carry anything like formal credentials. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... of the globe a number of self-governing colonies, founded and peopled by men of Irish and English blood. In each of these the United Kingdom is represented by a Governor whose whole duty consists in being seen on formal occasions, but never heard in counsel or rebuke. The only other connecting links are those of law and finance. The Privy Council acts as a Court of Appeal in certain causes, and Colonial Governments borrow money in the London market. These communities ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... heart quickly yieldeth to prayer, yea, prompteth to it, puts an edge and fire into it. We never are backward to prayer until our heart has lost its tenderness; though then it grows cold, flat, and formal, and so carnal to and in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... scenes of life and action become only so many dead words, like the shell of the chrysalis after the butterfly has left its shroud. Without the power of imagination, the history of Washington's winter at Valley Forge becomes a mere formal recital, and you can never get a view of the snow-covered tents, the wind-swept landscape, the tracks in the snow marked by the telltale drops of blood, or the form of the heartbroken commander as he kneels in the silent wood to pray for ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... Fighter comeing to see him, in NEWGATE, there past some pleasant Raillery between them; and after Mr. Figg was gone, Sheppard declared he had a Mind to send him a formal Challenge to Fight him at all the Weapons in the strong Room; and that let the Consequence be what it would, he should call at Mr. Figg's House in his way to Execution, and drink a merry Glass with him by ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe
... he was taken thither on July 18, immediately after his arrest. On the 20th, after Cobham's formal accusation, he was evidently more strictly confined, and it must have been immediately after receiving news of this charge that he attempted to commit suicide. He would be told of Cobham's words, in all ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... in A.D. 260, the Church was once more restored to peace. Gallienus, though a person of worthless character, was the first Emperor who protected the Christians by a formal edict of toleration. He commanded that they should not only be permitted to profess their religion unmolested, but that they should again be put in possession of their cemeteries [303:1] and of all other property, either in houses or lands, of which they had been ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... period when it came into his father's possession. "The house," he says, "stands in one corner of a high-walled garden of about three quarters of an acre, that part of the garden which faced the house was divided into long, narrow, formal flower-beds. Five large trees, whose ages bespoke their acquaintance with Hogarth, showed his love of the beautiful as well as the useful, a mulberry, walnut, apricot, double-blossomed cherry, and a hawthorn: the last of these was a great favorite with my father, from its ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... create for itself a richer environment; but it was also, in its deeper significance, a reaching out of the human spirit after a more ideal type of religion and ethics than it could find in the official churchmanship and the formal morality of the time. Mr. Leslie Stephen[3] points out the connection between the three currents of tendency known as sentimentalism, romanticism, and naturalism. He explains, to be sure, that the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... my passage. Monday we have a prayer-meeting, and on Tuesday we go to Plymouth. I am doubting whether I ought to go to Bradford again or not. My nerves are in such a state that I have to make every possible exertion to keep them quiet. It will only increase my agitation to take a formal leave ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... strange coincidence!" remarked the professor glowing with pleasure. His boyish smile offset the formal style that might have bothered the girls. His dark eyes were small and twinkling and he was so very nearsighted that it was necessary for him to look intently in order to ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... were supreme and the institutions solid; but in a half-consolidated monarchy, attacked from within and without by dissolvent influences as is Italy at present, he was a cause of weakness to good government. And Rudin assured me when I went to pay the formal visit of congratulation on his accession to power, that the King had said that he was in the position of the young Emperor of Germany when he threw off the yoke of Bismarck—he was tired of Crispi's strong hand. The King later denied the statement in an ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... amounts to consummate art. He is always at the boarding-house, and if his remarks sometimes shoot over the heads of his auditors, this is only because he intends that they should. The first ten or fifteen pages of the "Autocrat" are written in such a cold, formal and pedantic manner that the wonder is that Lowell should have published it. After that the style suddenly changes and the Doctor becomes himself. It is like a convention call which ends in a ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... the nature of Truth has been discussed. A formal truth may be as sinful as a lie, and a lie may be as meritorious as a Truth. Hence, the ascertainment ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Boland had first met on a basis that could scarcely have been more formal. The young man, early in his business career, had been his father's collector. Part of his duties had consisted of collecting the rents of a large number of workmen's cottages which the elder Boland owned at Millville. The Welcomes occupied one of these cottages. As Tom Welcome not infrequently ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... so. The lad is all but a beggar, and full of idle, dreaming fooleries. Who knows what mischief might not come of it in the future?" So he was wise in his generation, and would not have the door unbarred, except upon rare and formal occasions, which seemed to have neither warmth nor mirth in them to the two children, who had been accustomed so long to a daily gleeful, careless, happy interchange of greeting, speech, and pastime, with no other watcher of their sports or auditor of their fancies than ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... sturdy Cumbrian feet up the inn stairs to view the pitiful remains of another human being, botched by Nature in the flesh, no less lamentably than Melrose in the spirit. The legal inquiry into Brand's flight and death was short and mostly formal; but the actual evidence—as compared with current gossip—of his luckless mother, now left sonless and husbandless, and as to the relations of the family with Faversham, hastened the melting process in the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... from her boudoir, which Paul Barr with a brace of sighs assisted me to put on. I bade good evening to them all. Mr. Spence made me a low but formal bow. I could see his lip tremble. The instant after, as with Paul Barr at my side I began to descend the stairs, a hurried step behind told me that the master was coming also. I went down to my carriage with one on either hand, the artist-poet pouring out a flood of words which I scarcely ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... the seraglio for the continuance of their power. The policy of the Porte is to flatter and load with honours those whom she cannot ruin, and to wait for some lucky accident by which she may regain her power; but, above all, to avoid a formal rupture, which would only serve to expose her own weakness and to familiarize the Pashas and their subjects with the ideas of rebellion. The Pashas of Damascus and of Akka continue to be dutiful subjects of the Grand Signior in appearance; and they even send ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... especially in regard to Mrs. Lincoln. I do not think so; at least I have been prompted by the purest motive. Mrs. Lincoln, by her own acts, forced herself into notoriety. She stepped beyond the formal lines which hedge about a private life, and invited public criticism. The people have judged her harshly, and no woman was ever more traduced in the public prints of the country. The people knew nothing of the secret history of her transactions, ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... in with a soft bass note from time to time. No instrument, you know; just an unaccompanied murmur no louder than an Aeolian harp; and it sounded infinitely sweet and plaintive and—what shall I say?—weak—attenuated—faint—'pale' you might almost say—in that formal, rather old-fashioned salon, with that great clear oval mirror throwing back the still flames of the candles in the sconces on the walls. Outside the wind had now fallen completely; all was very quiet; and suddenly in a voice not much louder than a sigh, Carroll's companion was singing ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions |
