"Informality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Stratford, who succeeded the poet in the occupancy of New Place; and on September 9, 1608, the Stratford Register records the burial of his mother, "Mayry Shaxspere, wydowe." His younger daughter, Judith, married Thomas Quiney on February 10, 1616, with such haste and informality as led to the imposition of a fine by the ecclesiastical court at Worcester. In the previous month Shakespeare had a draft of his will drawn up by Francis Collins, a solicitor of Warwick, and after certain changes ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... Lambert dropped in with the wire which had already been reported to Larry and which the company with the same informality already mentioned had asked him to deliver. Doctor Holiday was tempted to read it but refrained. Surely the boy ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... the opposite sex. Mr. Hamlin, although her guardian, was perhaps too young to understand and appreciate this. To this inexperience she must also attribute the indiscretion of his calling during school hours and without preliminary warning. She trusted, however, that this informality could be overlooked after consultation with Madame Bance, but in the mean time, perhaps for half an hour, she must withdraw Miss Brown and return with her to the class. Mr. Hamlin could wait in this public room, reserved especially for visitors, until they returned. Or, if he cared to accompany ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... decision is confirmed; perhaps it is reversed; in either case, I have lost a second day and exhausted more patience than I can conveniently spare. And something even worse may happen, as I know by experience. Once during a case of mine there was some little informality—someone inadvertently opened the door of the consulting-room when the decision was being written, or some other little incident of the sort occurred, and the rascally pettifogger complained to the Supreme Court of Revision, which ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... height of the season, after a week's tramp on two flannel shirts and a change of socks, we should be glad to get into fresh clothes before showing ourselves in civilized society. Our bags were waiting for us in the post-office: we could see them through the grating. But some informality—I have never been able to understand what it was—had occurred at Constance. The suspicion of the Swiss postal authorities had been aroused, and special instructions had been sent that the bags were to be delivered up only to their ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... call on the governess, prostrate on the couch in her sitting-room. The informality of the family relationship had, during her long service, been extended to include the Englishwoman, who in her turn found nothing incongruous in the small and kindly services of the little Prince. So Hedwig ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and bright ribbons made a pleasant place of the lawn, with its background of shining water. The tennis court, at one side of the house, was one of the favorite gathering spots; there were one or two boats out on the lake. The pleasant informality of the whole affair ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... your daughter could not come," Edith told him for the second time. "I'm afraid she objects to our American informality." ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... so. No historian a thousand years hence could show from that instrument that a single slave was ever held under it.' ... 'Slavery now appeals to arms because Freedom, in her slow but steady progress, has left no informality—no flaw—which can be seized on to reverse the decision she has gained in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... more to themselves—withdraw into their studies, or hive in their clubs. They tell me that the delightful informality and freedom of the old life is gone. Ask the old Washington residents whether the coming in of rich people with leisure hasn't demoralized society, or stiffened it, and made it impossible after the old sort. It is as easy here now as anywhere else to get ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was novel; who before had ever weighed the pros and cons when extended this privilege? Then, the next moment, the blue eyes lost some of their mirth; perhaps his manner made her feel the frank informality she had unconsciously been guilty of; she ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... taken place with the consent of the superior officers of the regiment sitting officially as a council of honour, and that the encounter has been conducted in accordance with the requirements of the law. Any informality is most severely visited. The regimental council takes charge of the officer's reputation, and if it declares that there need be no meeting, honour is satisfied. In private life any individual may appeal to the decision of a court of honour ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... to margin up his trades. The shares he had bought outright went to cover the shortage in those he had bought on a twenty per cent margin. Loans were called later, and marginal accounts wiped out with appalling informality. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... his hat and stick, and as we started out of his door he began: "You'll be a little surprised at the informality, perhaps, but I'm glad you take it so easily. It makes it easier for me to explain that I'm almost domesticated at the Bentley homestead; I come and go very much as if it were my ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... are brought into the circle. When introductions are necessary, they are made with studied informality. And then the author hears the hostess say to a big, energetic woman, who is among the arrivals, "Oh, dear Miss Jones, I have heard so much about your perfectly splendid work down there among the horrid poor! ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... decided that Mr. Grenville should be proposed to succeed him. On all accounts, it was indispensable to hasten this arrangement, as the functions of the Commons were unavoidably suspended in the interim. A serious obstacle arose from the informality of the proceeding, the sanction of the royal approbation being necessary, according to custom, upon the nomination of a new Speaker. The elastic character of the Constitution, however, although not providing direct ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... very much resembles the morning breakfast of the French country-house in the variety of foods. This repast always is most attractive to an American because of its informality, and the viands are enticing. This morning breakfast of the Parisian is really like a little dinner, and that is what we wish to serve to meet all the varied obligations that are to be wiped out by an artistic and choice return entertainment, whether it be called luncheon ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... realized that our hostess meant to pay her, as well as Milly, a great compliment; for those "other women" of whom the princess spoke were important socially, and charming in themselves. What she had called a "small, informal dinner" would be made up of twenty-two guests; and the informality would consist in the innovation of having ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of an eye the trappers sprang to their feet, and cocking their rifles stood perfectly motionless, scowling at the savages, who were completely taken by surprise at the unusual suddenness and informality of such a declaration of war. Not a man moved, for, unlike white men, they seldom risk their lives in open fight; and as they looked at the formidable row of muzzles that waited but a word to send instant death ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... August would have seen the Sumter again under way but for some informality in the paymaster's vouchers, which had to be rectified; and during the delay thus occasioned, H.M. ship Cadmus entered the harbour, and the Sumter's departure was postponed with the object of communicating with her. Accordingly, a lieutenant was sent on board the new arrival, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... senoritas on their way to church. The girls walked rather stiffly in their tight shoes; but as soon as mass was over, shoes and stockings came off, and the villagers relaxed into the bliss of informality. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... checked, and the ingenuity of the lawyers who were employed as stewards of each manor was exercised in striving to restore to the landowners that customary labour whose loss was now severely felt. Manumissions and exemptions which had passed without question were cancelled on grounds of informality, and labour services from which they held themselves freed by redemption were again demanded from the villeins. The attempt was the more galling that the cause had to be pleaded in the manor-court itself, and to be decided ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... except under the authority of the statute or common law, and no such authority can be shown to justify the commitment and imprisonment complained of. I am further of opinion that, even supposing the House to possess such authority, still the informality of the proceedings in the present case has been such as to vitiate them ab initio, and to render null and void everything that has been done under the colour of ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... awaited when anticipated by the sentence of God." [593:3] The sanction of the people should have been obtained before the ordination; but, as persecution now raged, it is suggested that it would have been inconvenient to lay the matter before them; and Cyprian argues that the informality was pardonable, inasmuch as the Almighty himself had given His suffrage in favour of the new lector; for Aurelius, though only a youth, had nobly submitted to the torture rather ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Speaker. Nobody, indeed, took much notice of either of these two dignitaries; and they appeared perfectly reconciled to their position. You would not often find orators and audience understand one another more thoroughly; the easy freedom of the whole concern was quite festive in its informality. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... will be the Baroness von Meyer to-morrow. I have anticipated all your objections. The rabbi that is to marry you is a Pole. He will not understand your reply, and the young baron has magnanimously consented to overlook any little informality of which your folly may be the cause; for he likes money, and is too good a Jew not to aid me in rescuing my heiress from disgrace. You see that your poor little struggles will all be in vain. Resign yourself, then, and accept the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... informality of the meal, the constant faultfinding of the hostess, made it something of a trial. Lorelei was not sorry when it was over and Lilas took her to look at ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... thought, the professor resolved to cast aside convention, and to make Chichester's acquaintance without any introduction; indeed, with the maximum of informality. ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... man then said, "you must excuse the informality with which I receive you, and the disorder reigning ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... investigation of the case, to ascertain whether Marie's marriage was valid. To his delight he found there was a flaw in the marriage and an informality in the manumission. He then determined to invalidate Marie's claim, and divide the inheritance among Leroy's white relations. In a short time strangers, distant relatives of her husband, became frequent visitors at the plantation, and ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... A jolly informality made up for Austin's shortcoming; Gerald and his pretty bride were the centres of delighted curiosity from the Minster twins and the Innis girls and Evelyn Cardwell—all her intimates. And the younger Draymores, the Grays, Lawns, and Craigs were there in force—gay, noisy, unembarrassed ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... advantage of my propinquity. We were near neighbors, as the pleonasm has it, both when I lived on Berkeley Street and after I had built my own house on Concord Avenue; and I suppose he found my youthful informality convenient. He always asked me to dinner when his old friend Greene came to visit him, and then we had an Italian time together, with more or less repetition in our talk, of what we had said before of Italian poetry and Italian character. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Roman Catholics, set up an agitation, and soon the Durham Letter was in everybody's mouth. De Quincey, of course, writes from his own peculiar philosophic point of view; and when he somewhat sarcastically alludes to the informality of addressing such a letter to the Bishop of Durham, and not to one or other of the Archbishops, he was either ignorant of, or of set purpose ignored, the exceptionally intimate relations in which Lord John had for many years stood to Dr. Maltby, such relations as might well have been accepted ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... resource left, in my constitutional audacity. Hitherto it had served me well, and I now resolved to make it avail me to the end. Besides, after the correspondence which had passed between us, what act of mere informality could I commit, within bounds, that ought to be regarded as indecorous by Madame Lalande? Since the affair of the letter, I had been in the habit of watching her house, and thus discovered that, about twilight, it was her custom to promenade, attended only by a negro ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... home early, delighted with a dinner that, as Wayne Adams remarked, "really stood for something to eat, not just things passed to you, or put down in dabs before you," and delighted with the pleasant informality of sitting down in daylight, were enthusiastic in their praise of Mrs. Burgoyne. ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... around outside, feeling left out of things. He sat on the porch with Sally while the moon rose over the desert and stars shone down. Inside, matters of high importance were being battled over with the informality and heat with which practical men get things settled. But Joe wasn't in on it. He said annoyedly, "You'd think my father'd have something to say to me, in all this mess! After all, I have been—well, I have been places! But all ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... in there," said the guard with good-natured informality. I rapped at the inner door, and heard the well-known voice of General Forrest bidding me ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... she liked, but longer than most women would have felt at liberty to do. And besides speaking loudly and boldly, she looked loudly and boldly; and she employed a determined smile which seemed to say, "I'm old enough to do as I please." Her brusque informality was expected to carry itself off—and much else besides. "Of course I simply can't be half so intrepid as I seem!" it said. "Everybody about us understands that, and I must ask your recognition too for ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... some informality or error in the late Mr. Elmslie's will, left the future of Ada's life entirely at her mother's disposal. The consequence was the immediate ratification of the marriage engagement to which my father had so steadily ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... to the jurisdiction of the admiralty court. They are denominated colourable, or fair, according to the informality, or justice, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Agelastes press his brow against the hem of the Emperor's garment, and great seemed his anxiety to find such words as might intimate his dissent from his sovereign, yet save him from the informality ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... an engagement. Spicca, who did not know the real cause of the duel, and was indeed somewhat surprised to learn that Giovanni had quarrelled with a Zouave, made no attempt to force an immediate meeting, but begged leave to retire and consult with his principal, an informality which was of course agreed to by the other side. In five minutes he returned, stating that he accepted the provisions proposed, and that he should expect twenty-four hours' notice when Gouache ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... for travelling, becomingly if with a sobriety that went oddly with her cultivated beaute du diable, and wore besides a habit of preoccupation which, one was left to assume, excused the informality of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... graceful. Go into the fields and forests and take lessons from Nature, the one gardener who makes no mistakes. Her shrubs are seldom regular in outline, but they are beautiful, all the same, and graceful, every one of them, with a grace that is the result of informality and naturalness. Therefore never prune a shrub unless it really needs it, and let the need be determined by something more than mere lack of uniformity in its development. Much of the charm of Nature's workmanship is the result of irregularity ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... kitchen. He apologized for the informality of his hotel service: visitors were so infrequent. But the good quality of his food would make up ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... hour, in keeping with military punctuality, whether of generals or of curtains of fire, a man with iron-gray hair, clear, kindly eyes, and an unmistakably strong chin, came out of his office and welcomed the guests with simple informality. He seemed to have left business entirely behind when he left his desk. You knew him at once for the type of well-preserved British officer who never neglects to keep himself physically fit. It amounts to a talent with British officers ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... It seemed hardly half an hour from breakfast until train time. The charming informality with which the actor and his sister treated her made Evelyn feel as though she had known them for a very long time. In the enjoyment of the moment she quite forgot the real reason of her journey to New York, and it was only when Miss Southard invited her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... he must have risen to about his height of unceremonious informality at a Peace dinner in London when he sat next to the plenipotentiary from ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... with the witnesses, and are judged by a tribunal in Paris, or by the Collective Court of the departments. At the third stage they are brought before a bench of twelve councillors, and in case of any error or informality the prisoner committed for trial at the Assizes may appeal for protection to the Supreme court. The jury do not know what a slap in the face they give to popular authority, to administrative and judicial functionaries, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... as shall do away all the mischiefs, doubts, and inconveniences (both to the governors and the governed) arising from the variety of tenures, rights, and claims in all cases of landed property and feudal jurisdiction in India, from the informality, invalidity, and instability of all engagements in so divided and unsettled a state of society, and from the unavoidable anarchy and confusion of different laws, religions, and prejudices, moral, civil, and political, all jumbled together in one unnatural and discordant ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to Washington, bearing with him the exchange copy of said convention. It appears that the exchange of ratifications did not take place until the 16th day of October, twenty days after the period fixed by the convention itself for that purpose. This informality, which it would seem was occasioned by the absence from Berlin of the plenipotentiary from Hesse and by the time necessarily required for the preparation of the document, has been waived by the representative of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... which she was greatly pleased. She proved herself a good sport. With true Bohemianism, she joined in luncheon on the ferryboat, eating ripe strawberries from the original package, using her fingers and enjoying the informality. She fitted every occasion with dignity or humor. In the pulpit at our church she preached a ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... was the Royal Court of King Louis Philippe prided itself on its simplicity and informality; garcons, bourgeois waiters, ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... with infinite gentleness of tone and manner, "you have forgotten to present your friend to me, and I cannot be so impolite as to leave him standing outside my own gate. I am Miss Masters, Mr. Moulton. Pray excuse the informality, and come in ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... in which the sales of cotton did not cover the charges, but left a small bill to be paid by the owner. Frequently, cotton that had been innocently purchased and sent to market was seized by Government officials, on account of some alleged informality, and placed in the public warehouses. The owner could get no hearing until he made liberal presents of a pecuniary ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... mother,—who at a subsequent period left no stone unturned to prove its nullity. The religious ceremony, which Catholicism considers as the indissoluble tie, had not yet been performed, and Mme. Dupin hoped to prove some informality in the civil rite. In this, however, she did not succeed, and after long resistance, and ill-concealed displeasure, she concluded by acknowledging the unwelcome alliance. It was the little Aurore herself whose unconscious hand severed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... headquarters, and one by one the vanguard of engineers, surveyors, speculators and coalmen drifted in. The wings of progress began to sprout, but the new town-constable soon tendered his resignation with informality and violence. He had arrested a Falin, whose companions straightway took him from custody and set him free. Straightway the constable threw his pistol and badge ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... circumstances which caused the loss of its liberties for a period of thirteen years (1285-1298) were these. The king's justiciars were sitting at the Tower, where the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of the city had been summoned to attend. Owing to some informality in the summons, Gregory de Rokesley, the Mayor, declined to attend in his official capacity, but formally "deposed himself" at the Church of All Hallows Barking—the limit of the city jurisdiction— by handing the city's seal to Stephen Aswy ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... are handsomely ribbed or pleated; they are arranged in two or three rays in each flower, and irregularly disposed; the florets, being well apart, not only seem to give the bloom body, but also an artistic informality and lightness. The florets of the disk are chocolate colour, whence issue twirled filamentary forms, which impart to the centre of flower the appearance of being netted with a golden thread. The scaly involucre is formed of numerous small members of a dark olive-green ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... difficulty found shelter for the night, they proceeded on the following morning in a boat to Ramsay; but here it was found that, owing to some informality, the people who had possession of the house refused to give it up, and the wanderers were obliged to take refuge in an inn. The next thing was to pursue, and recover the lost goods; but some weeks elapsed before an opportunity of doing so could be found; and at length, when ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... give them the information, and probably before it was possible that the list of witnesses could have been made out. The trial, however, proceeded, subject to the decision of the fifteen judges upon the question, thus raised upon the supposed informality, which nothing but the anxious mercy of the crown had introduced into the proceedings; and the parties were found guilty of the offence laid to their charge. In the ensuing term, all other business was, for a time, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Friday last, as I have recorded, the cases came on of the twenty-six publicans charged. Between February 4th, when the offences were committed, and the 17th of February, one of these publicans had died, one had fled to America, and there proved to be an informality in the summons issued against a third. Twenty-three only were put upon their trial. As I have stated, one was acquitted and the others were found guilty, and sentenced to be imprisoned. In accordance with his promise made to Father White, Colonel Turner offered to relieve them ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... which is really more compatible with a refined frugality than with an unbridled luxury. If every a-la-carte restaurant, in the hotels and out of them, could be replaced by tea-rooms, and for the elaborate lunches and dinners of private life the informality and simplicity of the afternoon tea were substituted, we should all be healthier, wealthier, and wiser; and I should not be obliged to protract this contention for the superior cheapness of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... for the lack of a better reception, as if he, and not Christopher, were responsible for the informality ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... titles involves, not merely avoidance of exaggerated and misleading statement, but complete harmony in tone and spirit between title and article. When the story is familiar and colloquial in style, the title should reflect that informality. When the article makes a serious appeal, the title should be dignified. A good title, in a word, is true to the spirit as ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... been mellowed in England, and who may be truely said to unite the Baron and the Barrister, was one of the Counsel for Mr. Topham. He displayed much learning and ingenuity upon the general question; which, however, was not decided, as the Court granted an arrest chiefly on the informality of the indictment. No man has a higher reverence for the law of England than I have; but, with all deference I cannot help thinking, that prosecution by indictment, if a defendant is never to be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... violently, but laughed good-humoredly. Chichester adjusted himself at once to this unexpected informality, and allowed himself to become ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... community of fifty thousand has its group of the cultured who have heretofore studied and imitated things done in the big cities. Some of these coteries will in exceptional cases become creative and begin to express their habitation and name. The Intimate Photoplay is capable of that delicacy and that informality which should characterize ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... wasn't that I meant," she said. "But there's a little more informality about it than ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to the dining-room, he found Johnson waiting there with his wife and two of his comely daughters. They were presented to the new guest with due informality, and then the landlord went out upon the front porch to ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... The informality of the exclamation seemed to make them at once something more than ordinary acquaintances. They told Charles Osmond of their encounter in the afternoon, and in a very few minutes Brian, hardly knowing whether ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... felt, whenever she thought of it, that she was in duty bound to clamber back, at least part of the way, to her dignity, however pleasant it was, personally, down below in the denser atmosphere of informality. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... attempt to commit a stupendous fraud; and after visiting the locality ("a village with six houses, including stores, and without a tavern") and satisfying himself of the impossibility of such a vote from such a place, Governor Walker rejected the whole return from Oxford precinct for informality, and gave certificates of election to the free-State candidates elected as appeared by the other regular returns. A similar paper from McGee County with more than 1200 names was treated in like manner. Judge Cato issued his writ ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... Denslows and the other good people who constitute the best element in society in that part of the city where Alice and I and our interesting family have been living in rented quarters for the last six years. This informality of which I am so fond has often grieved and offended Alice. It is that gentle lady's opinion that a man at my time of life should have too much dignity to make a practice of "bolting into people's houses" (I quote her words exactly) when I know as well as ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... the fair postmistress,—a conversation at times impeded by bashfulness or timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often to vague smiling,—he resignedly made way for the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by the informality of rustic tact, great good-humor, and infinite patience, and would have been amusing had it not always been terribly in earnest and at times touching. For it was peculiar to the place and the epoch, and indeed implied the ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... resort of all the finer sort of afternoon tea-drinkers, who find themselves the observed of observers of all nationalities; there is music and dress, and there are titles of every degree, with as much informality as people choose, if they go to look, or as much state if they go to be looked at; these things are much less cumbrously contrived than with us. The other hotel, I have the somewhat unauthorized fancy, is rather more addicted to very elect dinner-parties and suppers. ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... that I might wish to attach myself to the French army, did me the favor to take preliminary steps for securing the necessary authority. He went so far as to broach the subject to the French Minister of War, but in view of the informality of the request, and an unmistakable unwillingness to grant it being manifested, Mr. Washburn pursued the matter no further. I did not learn of this kindly interest in my behalf till after the capitulation of Paris, when Mr. Washburn told me what he had done of his own motion. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... inquired this person, with agreeable informality. She was a good-looking large girl, with red hair and bright cheeks. She leaned against the door-post and polished her finger-nails with a little brush. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Lincoln's plurality was therefore 494,567; and it would have been swelled to over half a million had not the votes of the soldiers of Vermont, Kansas, and Minnesota arrived too late to be counted, and had not those of Wisconsin been rejected for an informality. Thus were the dreary predictions of the midsummer so handsomely confuted that men refused to believe that they had ever been ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... a certain informality. No Balkan aeroplane was to adventure into the air until the search was concluded, and meanwhile the fleets of the world government would soar and circle in the sky. The towns were to be placarded with offers of reward to any one who would help ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... the ground that he had an engagement with Billy Cheever. Mrs. Masterman pardoned him with a gracious inclination of the head that made her diamond ear-rings sparkle. No one in the room could be unaware that she disapproved of Claude's informality. Not only did it shock her personal delicacy to dine with men who concealed their shirt-bosoms under the waistcoats they had worn all day, but it contravened the aims by which during her entire married life she had endeavored ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... breaking in upon a flirtation which threatened to last too long, now bringing stray wallflowers into the middle of some hospitable group, and never for an instant forgetting to keep a watchful eye over any stranger who might chance to be among her guests. There was an attractive informality about these evenings, when one was at liberty to appear in a street gown, or an evening costume, and where the little supper was so simple as merely to be a pleasant break in the midst of the dancing, but not to suggest ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... said Lord Crosland. "You wouldn't let an informality of that kind stand in your way. But Miss Vane? How did you persuade her? I should have thought it ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... was a matter of but little concern to Mrs. Flanagan; and Caesar would have been sadly scandalized at witnessing the informality with which various dishes, each bearing a wonderful resemblance to the others, were placed before so many gentlemen of consideration. In taking their places at the board, the strictest attention was paid to precedency; for, notwithstanding the freedom of manners which prevailed ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... had noiselessly left the room during the music. She was followed by a bewitching little girl of about ten with another tray, who remained to serve while the old woman shuffled slowly away. Arlee was struck by the informality of the service; the servants appeared to be underfoot like rugs; they came and went at ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... CROOK LISTS DANCERS' NAMES | | | |The modern dance craze has brought a lot of | |informality into a heretofore very proper Chicago. | | | |Women whose husbands work during the daytime have | |considered it not at all improper to flock to the | |afternoon the dansants in many downtown cafes, there| |to fox-trot ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... eleventh year of the Punic war, Marcus Marcellus, for the fifth time, reckoning in the consulate in which he did not act in consequence of an informality in his creation, and Titus Quinctius Crispinus entered upon the office of consuls. To both the consuls the province of Italy was decreed, with both the consular armies of the former year; (the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... discussing the grave issues of life and death, settling the problems of literature. Notwithstanding his more youthful appearance, my seniority in age was but slight. Gradually "Bob," as all his friends called him with affectionate informality, was given opportunities to advance himself, under the kindly yet firm guidance of the managing editor, Mr. Bradford Merrill. That gentleman appreciated the distinct gifts of his young protege, journalistic and literary, and he fostered them wisely and well. ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the salesman held out a soft lead pencil. The moment the other man involuntarily obeyed the suggestion by accepting the tendered pencil, he was started on the purely muscular process of pronouncing his approval of the proposition likewise tendered for his acceptance. The informality of the off-hand request that he "pencil his O.K." kept him from being scared off. He did not feel that he had yet committed himself fully. Probably, with characteristic timidity, he would have shied from signing a formal contract at that moment. But he hesitated only slightly before ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... in time to retrieve his character, a circumstance which gave no little satisfaction to Katherine, who occasionally annoyed her worthy husband on the subject of the informality ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ecclesiastical concerns; these, he says, are subject to the sovereign power of each State. In the following chapters, he descends into the particular charges against him; defending himself against all the crimes and irregularities of which he was accused, and shewing the informality of the judicial proceedings by which he and his companions in ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... the dance is tending more and more to become a simple and unpretentious function. The elaborate decorations and fashionable conventions that attended the minuet and quadrille of several decades ago have given way to a jolly informality which makes the dance so delightful and popular a ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... a repast, half breakfast, half luncheon, being laid out upon it. Everybody helped themselves, with much chattering and laughter, and there was a pleasant sense of haste and excitement, and a charming informality about the proceedings, which made the Shadonake Hunt breakfast, which Tom Esterworth had been prevailed upon by his niece's entreaties to allow, ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... from Madam Bowker," he explained to Craig, humbly conscious of his own disarray and toiler's unkemptness. "She would be greatly obliged if you will give her a few minutes of your time. She begs you to excuse the informality. She has sent me in her carriage, and it will be a great satisfaction to her if you will ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... may take no direct action on the penalty inflicted, but may simply refer the case back to the subordinate for a new trial. In this case, the proceedings on the trial will be commenced de novo, if the reference has been made on the ground of any informality or illegality in the previous trial. But if the case is referred back, not for a new trial, but for further consideration, on the ground that the punishment was inadequate—either too severe, or not sufficiently so—in this ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... shoot Mr. Memminger cheerfully. He will not pay them their salaries, on some trivial informality in the certificates; and while they are fighting and bleeding in his defense, their wives and children are threatened to be turned out of doors by the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... don't mean to tell me that, on account of this little informality, you will keep us prisoners on ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... atrocious malefactor, or to have been ordered to make the journey on foot, like his countryman, Prince Sanguzsko. At last they reached Omsk, the head-quarters of Prince Gortchakoff, then governor-general of Western Siberia. By some informality in the mode of his transportation, the interpretation of Piotrowski's sentence depended solely on this man: he might be sent to work in one of the government manufactories, or to the mines, the last, worst dread of a Siberian exile. While awaiting the decision he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... as they said," said Clarence gently. "She elected to make her home with her aunt, Mrs. McClosky, who is the wife of the manager of this theatre, and she adopted the profession a month ago. As it now appears that there was some informality in the old articles of guardianship, Mrs. Peyton would have been powerless to prevent her from doing either, even if ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... neither slept nor read; her eyes widened at the faintest sound of the summer night; her heart thumped madly when the curtains whispered at the window, or the wicker chairs gave the faintest creak. It had not been only for Richard that the midnight hour of responsibility and informality ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... acquire no development. On the other hand it obtained a wide field of action after the presidents were changed annually; and the fact was now by no means void of practical importance, that, if the consul in deciding a process committed a legal informality, his successor could institute a fresh ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... His Dartmouth College eulogy of Webster in 1853 shows him at his best. The Anti-Slavery orators, on the other hand, had the advantage of a specific moral issue in which they led the attack. Wendell Phillips was the most polished, the most consummate in his air of informality, and his example did much to puncture the American tradition of high-flown oratory. He was an expert in virulent denunciation, passionately unfair beneath his mask of conversational decorum, an aristocratic demagogue. He is still distrusted and hated by the Brahmin ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... follow the adversaries at the heels whithersoever they go, finding them out in all the lurking-places of their elaborate subterfuges, and conflicting with them wheresoever they pitch, until not only all their blows be awarded, but themselves also all derouted, therefore, perceiving the informality of the Formalists to be such that sometimes they plead for the controverted ceremonies as necessary, sometimes as expedient, sometimes as lawful, and sometimes as indifferent, I resolve to follow the trace, and to evince, by force of reason, that there ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... not the destroyer of poor Tom—you have not been; he has not yet suffered; there was an informality, which has induced them ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "You pardon the informality?" she said; and her smile was like light in the room. "I could not come to call on Peggy, or on Peggy's Margaret, with my bonnet on. And it is a great wall to climb!" she added, wistfully. "I don't know when I have enjoyed myself so; there is ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... Alison, in the Chamber of Peers eighty-nine voted "the address to the Duke of Orleans to accept the throne, while ten voted against it." But there was great informality in all these hurried proceedings. "We will not," writes Lamartine, "enter into the details of these gradual approaches to the throne during the five days which preceded the election of one who had no title, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... day converted into a Sabbath. But such means as the state of feeling seemed to require were faithfully used. Professor Shurtleff was never happier than when engaged in conversation with inquirers, or in conducting meetings for conference and prayer. The informality and freedom of these meetings made them attractive. They were probably quite as useful as the more regular ministrations of the pulpit. The speaker can say that he never visited a more solemn place than the old district school-house—which stood where ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... a gathering of sportsmen was, naturally, an affair of delightful informality. There was a certain swopping of reminiscences of the King, who had also visited the club, and a certain dry attitude of awe in the President, who, in speaking of the honours the Prince had accepted just before leaving England, said that though the members of the Studley Club felt competent to ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... counsel for Riel, raised the old issue as to informality of the trial before the Stipendiary Magistrate at Regina, and contended that the magistrate was incompetent to try ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... over for a moment and found that she rather wanted to go. But a certain resentment that had been slowly accumulating in her mind for some days past began to leak out first, before she consented to overlook Olga's informality. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... as to the respective merits of the Rangers and Dumbarton, who were to play their tie over again, in consequence of some informality, and after draining Jack's bottle, were accompanied to the door with solemn injunctions not to kick up ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... first conducted to the prisons of the Luxembourg. The gaoler, on some plea of informality, refused to receive him. The terrible prisoner was next taken to the Mairie, where he remained among joyful friends from eight in the evening until eleven. Meanwhile the old insurrectionary methods of the nights of June and of August in '92, of May and of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... assurance to make one's self at home here where informality seemed to be the rule, and before Hermia and the Countess came down Markham found himself on easy terms with the group he had joined. Mrs. Renshaw's appraisal and patronizing air dismayed him less than the china blue eyes of Phyllis Van Vorst which ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... asserted she had found refuge. The police were employed; advertisements were issued, concealing names, but sufficiently clear to be intelligible to Louise if they came under her eye, and to the effect that if any informality in our marriage existed, she was implored for her own sake to remove it by a second ceremonial—answer to be addressed to the avoue. No answer came; the police had hitherto failed of discovering her, but were sanguine ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... meant to leave early, but it was as easy to stay as to go; besides, he felt the stirring of a curiosity to see what the closing hour of such an occasion might be like. Everything, thus far, had been most seemly, most decorous, full of a pleasant informality and a friendly, trustful goodwill; but the crucial point, he had read, always came about supper-time, after which the rout ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... you, Mr. Larcher," he said, conventionally; then, with a change to informality, "I'm rather mystified to know why Mr. Rogers, or any editor, for that matter, should offer work to me. I never had any offered ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... contretemps and disappointments notwithstanding, he was impressed by the entity of the studio. It had made a desirable picture in his mind: the romantic paraphernalia, the etchings, the canvases, the lights and shadows, the informality, the warm odours of the lamp and of the Pilsener, the dazzling white of the tablecloth, the quick, positive tones of Buckingham Smith, who had always to be convincing not only others but himself that he was a ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... the lion's paw. Alarmed, but not cowed, the viceroy sent the prisoners in fetters to the consulate, instead of replacing them on board their ship; nor did he vouchsafe a word of courtesy or apology. Parkes, too fiery to overlook such contemptuous informality, sent them back, much as a football is kicked from one to another; and the viceroy, incensed beyond measure, ordered their heads to be chopped off ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... manner, he proceeded to make excuses and entreat pardon for the suddenness, informality, and presumption of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... convention of 1832, but by some informality, or a want of credentials, was not permitted to sit as full member!—Saul ejected from among the prophets!—Yet he was heard on the subject of rights, and the doctrine of "our rights," as well as the first colored convention, are due to the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... chairs and couches enough for solid comfort. There were more cheerful pictures, the Maxfield Parrishes Phyllis had wanted, over the green-papered walls. There was a fire here also. The room had no more period than a girl's sentence, but there was a bright air of welcomeness and informality that was winning. An old-fashioned half-table against the wall was covered with a great many picknicky things to eat. Another table had more things, mostly to eat with, on it. And there were the De Guenthers and Phyllis. ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... [305] Compare the informality of Protestantism, where the "meek lover of the good," alone with his God, visits the sick, etc., for their own sakes, with the elaborate "business" that goes on in Catholic devotion, and carries with it the social excitement of all more complex ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... District Attorney opened for the prosecution; and then the examination of witnesses commenced. Foot by foot and inch by inch was the ground contested by Rust's counsel. Exceptions to testimony were taken, points of law raised, and every informality or technicality, which afforded a loop-hole for objection, was taken advantage of. The day dragged heavily on, and Rust grew weary. The constant stir about him; the hum of voices, occasionally hushed into silence at the cry of the officer, or the tap of the judge on his ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... much modified in my mother and not at all noticeable in my father; with an odd nasal alteration of the burr our Scotch-Irish ancestors had brought with them across the seas. For instance, he always called my father Mr. Par-r-ret. He had an admiration and respect for him that seemed to forbid the informality of "Matthew." It was shared by others of my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the priestly company the coincidence of the repeal, the informality of an act of parliament receiving the royal assent before the close of a session, were further causes of admiration. They embarked; and the Italians, who had never seen a tidal river, discovered, miracle of miracles, that they were ascending from the sea, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... wisdom of the archbishop, who was particularly extolled for his delicacy in defeating this maneuver without any scandal to the aristocracy, or public stigma on the name of De Rupelmonde, and without any departure from pastoral gentleness, by adroitly seizing upon an informality, and turning it to beneficial account, with as much authority as ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... something that time!' he observed joyfully; and we slunk away to get our hats, the best of friends. A note for Augustus Beckford, requesting his presence at Waterloo Station at ten minutes past twelve on the following morning, I left with the butler. There was a certain informality about my methods which I doubt if Mr Abney would have approved, but I felt that I could ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... to entertain a few of the fellows who had been in camp with him, his hospitable sister planned a jolly supper party which undoubtedly owed its success to its "homeiness." Certainly its friendly informality accomplished much more than any large outlay in money could have done. There were to be half a dozen boys, so five other girls were invited to make an equal ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... the reminiscent humour faded from his eyes and mouth as he remembered what his aunt had said of this young girl; and, halting in his tracks, he recalled what she herself had said; that the harmless liberties another girl might venture to take with informality, armoured in an assurance above common convention, she could not venture. And now he knew why.... She had expected him to learn that she was an adopted daughter; in the light of his new knowledge he understood ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... crushing of one brave little Quakeress. Miss Crandall was arrested, and imprisoned in a cell from which a murderer had just gone to the gallows. Her case was tried in August, 1833. One jury failed to agree. Another found her guilty. The case was appealed, and proceedings quashed on the ground of an informality, the higher court thus evading the question raised as to the constitutionality of the law. An attempt to burn Miss Crandall's house followed, and on the night of Sept. 9, 1834, it was made untenantable under the assaults of ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... Miss Ingate were at once on terms of cordial informality; but the Americans seemed to be a little diffident before the companion. Their voices, at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise of their first glances. "Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!" The slightest insistence, no more, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... scored her for the risk she had taken, alternately reproaching, arguing, bullying, pleading, after the fashion of men. And, still shaken by the peril she had so wilfully sought, he asked her not to do it again, for his sake—an informal request that she accepted with equal informality and a ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... the officers under Braggism. It had to go through every officer's hands, from corporal up, before it was forwarded to the next officer of higher grade, and so it passed through every officer's hands. He felt it his sworn and bound duty to find some informality in it, and it was brought back for correction according to his notions, you see. Well, after getting the corporal's consent and approval, it goes up to the sergeant. It ain't right! Some informality, perhaps, in the wording and spelling. Then the lieutenants had ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... Address to all English Protestants in the present Army." For this he was tried and sentenced to be pilloried in three places, pay a fine, and be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. An attempt was also made to degrade him from his orders, but this failed through an informality. After the Revolution ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the Seagrave house Geraldine found a grateful retreat from the inspiring glare and confused racket of her first winter; ample time for rest, reverie, and reflection, with only a few intimates to break her meditations, only informality to reckon with, and plenty of leisure ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... green-room for the singers and their friends; here they chat at the little tables between their songs—since there is no stage—and through this anteroom both audience and singers pass into the little hall. There is the informality of one of our own "smokers" about the ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... informality the feriae Latinae were held a second time (instauratae), really, Cicero implies, in order to bar some additional days for public business, and prevent legislation, as later on the election of Pompey and Crassus ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with the Constitution. This is shown, as will be proved hereafter, by reference to the laws passed by the State, and such was the decision on this very point by the highest judicial tribunal of Mississippi, in 1842 and 1853. But let us suppose that there was some technical legal informality as to the law, would that justify the repudiation of these bonds? The Legislature had passed laws in 1837 and 1838 authorizing the issue and sale of these bonds, those acts had been all signed and approved by the Governor of the State, the bonds had been signed by the Governor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... their card upon the mantel, so placed that all who came near might read in fashionable script: "The Crosby Twins." Having made this concession to the conventionalities, he lapsed at once into an agreeable informality that amused the Colonel ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... decided that four only should occupy the vehicle, Miss Moorhouse and Fanny Warricombe to be the two ladies. Godwin regretted Sidwell's omission, but the friendly informality of the arrangement delighted him. When the carriage rolled softly from the gravelled drive, Buckland holding the reins, he felt an animation such as no event had ever produced in him. No longer did he calculate ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... where they left the train the tension of the situation was slightly lessened. A plump little woman, with a round pink face, keen, very direct blue eyes, and live gray hair, deftly tooled a fat pony up to the asphalt, and greeted them with cheerful informality. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... divined further that, having instructed ignorance, she must now allay timidity. She must represent the coming function as a mere bagatelle for simplicity and informality. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... Then took place the usual scene of a court levee, as described in Chapter X., with the specialty, in this instance, that the son of the chief executioner—one of the highest officers of state—was led off for execution, for some omission or informality in his ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... published in February 1643-4, appeared, as the first had done, without licence or registration, and indeed with no more distinct imprint at the foot of the title-page than "London, Imprinted in the yeare 1664"; but, to make up for this informality, it contained Milton's dedication to the Parliament and the Assembly signed with his name. It was as if he said, "I do break your Ordinance for Printing, but I let you know who I am that do so." Since ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... deputy of the High Bailiff, to be a cunning, sly, intriguing fellow; and it was therefore certain that I should have to watch their motions narrowly, being quite sure in my own mind that they would take advantage of any little informality to close the election—a step, or their part, which I was determined, if ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... whether civil or criminal, has been decided in the Regular Tribunals, there is no possibility of appeal in the strict sense of the term, but an application may be made for a revision of the case on the ground of technical informality. To use the French terms, there cannot be appel, but there may be cassation. If there has been any omission or transgression of essential legal formalities, or if the Court has overstepped the bounds of its legal authority, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... advantages of self-government. Even fortunes supposed to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret dependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection: fashion sulked in its country houses, or came to town incognito, general entertainments were discountenanced, and informality and short dinners became ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... informality," observed Colonel Arran, carefully tracing out each separate grape in the horn ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... general idea of the power of this work, which continued with unflagging interest to the last, allow me to cite two or three instances of conversion. One, a man who had shot and killed three notorious burglars, was tried for legal informality and acquitted on the ground of the public weal. This was two years ago, and the people who knew and understood him well, said that he had enjoyed no peace of mind since. Notwithstanding all, he was, and is, a man of power and commanding influence, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... informal convention was held in the Philadelphia State House for nominating Federalist candidates for the legislature. The practice spread to many Pennsylvania counties and to other States, and soon this informality of self-appointed delegates gave way to delegates appointed according to accepted rules. When the legislative caucus as a means for nominating state officers fell into disrepute, state nominating conventions took its place. In 1812 one ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... appeal. Carl was one of the three chosen. The report soon flew around, how, in Weber's august presence, the Amerikaner had stood with his hands in his pockets—even sat for a few moments on the edge of Weber's desk. The two Germans, posed like ramrods, expected to see such informality shoved out bodily. Instead, when they took their leave, the Herr Professor had actually patted the Amerikaner on the shoulder, and said he guessed he would give ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... his name, isn't it? Tell him I'll be honoured if he will pardon the informality of the invitation and give me the pleasure of his society from nine to ten. That's ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... asked myself whether it was wise ever to interfere with the established routine of duties even from the kindest of motives. My action might have made me appear eccentric. Goodness only knew how that absurdly whiskered mate would "account" for my conduct, and what the whole ship thought of that informality of their new captain. I was ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... of the room. He was an inharmonious note in its staid preciseness. Moreover, it was evident from the frank friendliness of his dark, gray eyes that he was perniciously of that type who frolic through a frosty, first-citizen aura of informality and give and accept friendship as a matter ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... acquired a passion for dictating, for arranging, and setting in order. The crooked seams which she had just pinned straight gave her a satisfaction that almost counteracted her annoyance at the informality ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... Buddenbrook, is twice married, first to an unscrupulous speculator in Luebeck, the second time to a Munich dealer in hops, Aloysius Permaneder, who rescues her from the disgraceful position of a divorced woman. This deliriously portrayed beer-reeking philistine, whose informality and whose wild oaths horrify the prim Luebeckers no less than his good-hearted naivete amuses them, marries Tonie Buddenbrook, retires from business on the strength of her dowry, and as an owner of real estate and a gentleman of leisure passes the rest of his life in drinking beer morning ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... directions are undevotional—for doubtless they were piously meant; but it must be said that they are inartistic (if the word may be allowed), at variance with the fitness of things and counter to the instinct of purity. Formality and informality are two things that cannot be mingled to advantage. There is place and time for each. The secret of the power of liturgical worship is wrapped up with the principle of order. A certain majesty lies in the movement which is without break. On the other hand the charm ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... as a decision: the excesses of the Contra-Remonstrants are particularised in the ninth: the tenth and eleventh justify the province of Holland in relation to the raising a new militia, which were called Attendants. The informality of his arrest is displayed in the thirteenth Chapter; Grotius there shews that he and the others arrested at the same time had only executed the orders of their Superiors and Sovereigns; that those who arrested ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... from the hostess by the same means. One maid serves the table in a better class, and two maids in a class still better; it is only when you reach people of very decided form that you find a man in a black coat behind your chair; Mrs. Makely, mindful of the informality of her dinner ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... still be required to take cognisance of any informality in the nomination paper or papers. Beyond that, this decision relieves him ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... forwarded," said Lord Cochrane in a letter to Earl Grey, written on the 23rd of December, "I have erred in judgment only; and it would be hard indeed should redress not be accorded by reason of an informality in the mode of my application. I have since been advised that my petition ought to have been forwarded through the First Lord of the Admiralty, whom I have therefore solicited to present another petition, the same in effect, but more brief, and in the regular form. When his Majesty ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... danced to death. Of course I had planned to make a dignified debut under my own roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood, silver and mahogany, as a widow should, but duty called me to de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu dance at the little town hotel. And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never do ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... informality of a woman's emotion—whether of grief or of joy, whether of pleasure or of pain—she rocked down her head to her knees, while through her fingers poured the scalding tears. Mrs. Willoughby had ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... undersigned ask to be excused for any informality in their address, and they hope and humbly pray that the President will accept the occasion here presented, and take early and effectual means to inform and reassure the whites, and to relieve them from possible misjudgment on the part of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Saturninus, as we have seen, had overridden this custom, and the only way in which the Senate could maintain its old privileges would have been either by proclaiming a justitium, as it did on that occasion, or by picking out some technical informality in the passing of the plebiscitum, had not Sulla thus made its previous authorisation absolutely indispensable. [Sidenote: Curtailment of the tribunes' prerogative.] The tribunes, being deprived of the power of proposing a measure at will to the Comitia Tributa, would also lose ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... the yachting party, which included also two young men, and two of the owner's age, besides Josephine's aunt. This chaperon was a motherly soul, and, in sheer kindliness of heart did much to make the situation easy. The informality of the party, too, was a tremendous advantage to the young man, though he never guessed it. On the contrary, he accepted things as they were enthusiastically, with never a thought of dismay. In flannels loaned him by the largest guest, which fitted too snugly, he presented an appearance ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily |
