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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Formal" Quotes from Famous Books



... termed this theory formal idealism, to distinguish it from material idealism, which doubts or denies the existence of external things. To avoid ambiguity, it seems advisable in many cases to employ this term instead of that mentioned in ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... the more important events of the last year in our foreign relations, which it is my duty to do as charged with their conduct and because diplomatic affairs are not of a nature to make it appropriate that the Secretary of State make a formal annual report, I desire to touch upon some of the essentials to the safe management of the foreign relations of the United States and to endeavor, also, to define clearly certain concrete policies ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft

... fruits of faith rather than stems of exhortation or which they were required to develop fruit of their own. Much good fruit was eventually produced, but more through her example, her spring-like influence, than from any formal instruction. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... application of steam as a first mover. His observations, obscurely exhibited in his "Century of Inventions," were successively wrought out by the meditations of others, and an incident, to which one can hardly make a formal reference without a risible emotion, terminated in the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... Berliners at the opera-house, that is, she had shown herself to them for the last time. While the prima donna was singing her most enchanting melodies, the travelling carriage of Ulrica drove to the door. The king wished to spare himself the agony of a formal parting, and had ordered that she should enter her carriage at the close of the opera, and depart, without ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... they could be admitted. Mr. Oscar Underwood, son of Senator-elect Underwood, is organizing means to alleviate the distress among his countrymen and countrywomen in Paris. He has also asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to extend the time allowed for Americans to obtain formal permission to remain in France, and his request ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... The disdain of the middle class, who had been embittered against such demonstrations by the profligacy displayed during the days of the British occupation, soon began to make itself felt. That it was the first official or formal function of the new republic mattered little. A precedent was about to be established. There was to be a continuation of the shameful extravagance which they had been compelled to witness during ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... commonly spoken by men of the priestly class, and other educated persons. By the Sanskrit proper to an [ordinary] man, alluded to in the second passage, may perhaps be understood not a language in which words different from Sanskrit were used, but the employment of formal and elaborate diction." MUIR'S Sanskrit Texts, Part II. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... out, lighting his calabash pipe. He wore a tweed cap now in place of the formal derby, but he was otherwise attired as on the previous evening, in the blue coal and vivid waistcoat, the inferior trousers, and the undesirable shoes. As they went down the street under shading elms the dog, Frank, capered at the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... an epistle which pretty clearly gives him the option of a declaration in form or a rupture. For a Sensible man, it must be confessed, the Marquis does not get out of the difficulty too well. She has slipped into her father's formal note the highly Sensible postscript, "Vous dire de m'oublier? Ah! Jamais. On m'a force de l'ecrire; rien ne peut m'obliger a le penser ni le desirer." Apparently it was not leap-year, for the Marquis replied in a letter nearly as bad as Willoughby's celebrated epistle ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... Petrograd commented on May 27, on the statement of the Bulgarian Premier Radoslavoff published in Vienna, that Bulgaria cannot engage to intervene without a formal treaty, a policy, it believes, that says but one thing, namely: "You Russians tricked us Bulgarians once; you shall not trick us again." This attitude of Bulgaria shows, the Novoye Vremya thinks, "how thick-headed and insensate its people are." The Birjevaja Viedomosti, a standpat ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in, dissipated, returned; were again dissipated, returned again; and it was a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against inclination—perhaps against reason.... I could wish Cleanthes' argument could be so analysed as to be rendered quite formal and regular. The propensity of the mind towards it—unless that propensity were as strong and universal as that to believe in our senses and experience—will still, I am afraid, be esteemed a suspicious ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... the fine weather on the Thames (after I have put away these things), and shall return to our inn—not far hence—to sup, at eight o'clock. Supper is our principal meal; we rarely spoil our days by the ceremonial of a formal dinner. Will you do us the favour to sup with us? Our host has a wonderful whiskey, which when raw is Glenlivat, but refined into toddy is nectar. Bring your pipe, and let us hear John ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... probable that towards the close he was approaching nearer to formal Christianity than he knew. We are told that he "does not reverence the Bible or Christian Theology in themselves, but for the beautiful spirituality which faintly breathes through them like a vague wind blowing through ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... before I would harm her, believe me!" Two pairs of masculine eyes turned at the opening of the door, and both men were looking into the eager face of Tessibel. The Professor did not come forward to meet her; his manner was stiff and formal. For a moment even the student's last words left her mind, and Daddy ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... long before for the races. I did not choose to betray my ignorance to a woman, but I privately asked the head porter what races those were which were limiting our proposed sojourn, and I am now afraid he had some difficulty in keeping a head porter's conventional respect for a formal superior in answering that we had arrived on the eve of Doncaster Week. Then I said, "Oh yes," and affected the knowledge of Doncaster Week which I resolved to acquire by staying somewhere in York ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells

... interest of humanity, and upon the firm purpose of the United 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 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... invocations, received the two letters. She had gone to the post-office on her way to the school, on the chance of there being a note from Geoffrey. Poor woman, his letters were the one bright thing in her life. From motives of prudence they were written in the usual semi-formal style, but she was quick to read between the lines, and, moreover, they came ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... I could arrive at the Dulbahanta frontier, and begged a gun at parting as Judge's fee for his settlement of the Abban question, and as an earnest that he would bring the five ponies which I wanted. We then got under way, and travelled westward, bidding Rhut Tug adieu, but every one was stiff and formal. Sumunter had not confessed contrition, and I had not committed myself to saying that I would hush the matter up, assuring him that in duty as a public officer I could not, that I was bound to report every circumstance, though privately I promised ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... died, like Severus, at York. With their arrival the persecution promptly ceased;[332] for Helena, at least, was an ardent Christian, and her husband well-affected to the Faith. Yet, on his death, he was, like his predecessors, proclaimed Divus; the last formal bestowal of that title being thus, like the first,[333] specially connected with Britain. Constantius was buried, according to Nennius,[334] at Segontium, wherever that may have been; and Constantine, though ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... During the formal welcome that the young Naba, resplendent in his magnificent bejewelled robes of state and surrounded by his sages and officers, accorded us at the great palace-gate, now fully restored, Liola held back, hiding herself. Not ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... expediting the close of the slave-trade; the measure which he had in view being the punishment of slave-dealing States by a general exclusion of their exports. Against this Spain and Portugal made a formal protest, treating the threat as almost equivalent to one of war. The project dropped, and the Minister of England had to content himself with obtaining from the Congress a solemn condemnation of the slave-trade, as contrary to the principles of civilisation and ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... partly because lights were sometimes scarce, and partly because, after the work of a long summer day, both great and small were too tired to enjoy protracted reading; and it must be confessed that, at times, morning and evening devotions were both brief and formal. They were not so to-night, however; for they were led by Mr Craig, the book-man, a cheerful and earnest Christian, to whom, it was easily seen, God's worship was no mere form, but a most blessed reality. Indeed, so lengthened was the exercise to-night that the little ones ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson

... delineating the effigies of their divine teacher, by a rigid formulary, with which they combined corresponding directions for the drawing of the human figure in connection with sacred subjects. In the relics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, we find "that the same formal outline, the same attitudes and postures of the body, the same conventional modes of representing the different parts, were adhered to at the latest, as at the earliest periods. No improvements were admitted; no attempts to copy nature or to give an air of action to the limbs. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... figure of a person beloved becomes horribly transformed; and it has a particular interest as [115] expressing that fear of death and of the dead informing all primitive ancestor-worship. The whole pathos and weirdness of the myth, the vague monstrosity of the fancies, the formal use of terms of endearment in the moment of uttermost loathing and fear,—all impress one as unmistakably Japanese. Several other myths scarcely less remarkable are to be found in the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi; but they are ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... surprised at the spontaneity of their mutual caress,—it came quite naturally. "It was so new—so fresh!" said Julian afterwards. And from that eventful moment, he had installed himself more or less at the Manor, under Cicely's orders. He wrote letters for her, answered telegrams, drew up a formal list of 'Callers' and 'Enquiries,' kept accounts, went errands for the two trained nurses who were in day and night attendance on the unconscious invalid upstairs, and made himself generally useful and reliable. But his 'fantastic' notions were the same as ever. He would not, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... when he sat at his typewriter in the White House, preparing the speech he was to deliver at Hodgensville, Kentucky, in connection with the formal acceptance of the Lincoln Memorial, built over the log cabin birthplace of Lincoln. When he completed this speech, which I consider one of his most notable public addresses—perhaps in literary form, his best— he turned to me ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... he reached another island to the southeast. He sailed along the coast until evening, when he saw yet another island in the distance to the south-west; and he therefore lay-to for the night. At dawn the next morning he landed on the island and took formal possession of it, naming it Santa Maria de la Concepcion, which is the Rum Cay of the modern charts. As the wind chopped round and he found himself on a lee-shore he did not stay there, but sailed again before night. Two of the unhappy ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... to his lady love, as he eyed himself intently in the glass while performing the critical operation, "I'll just sound the old gentleman after dinner—one can do that sort of thing better over one's wine, perhaps, than at any other time: looks less formal too," added he, giving the cravat a knowing crease at the side; "and if it doesn't seem to take, one can just pass it off as if it was done for somebody else—some young gentleman ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... fisheries, and large oil deposits - Angola will need to continue reforming government policies and to reduce corruption. The government has made little progress on reforms recommended by the IMF such as promoting greater transparency in government spending and continues to be without a formal monitoring agreement with the institution. Corruption, especially in the extractive sectors, is a major challenge ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... affection which she cannot find here,—Mrs. George Swinton, and two young strangers: one, a son of my old friend Dr. Stoddart of the Times, a well-mannered and intelligent youth, the other that unnatural character, a tame Irishman, resembling a formal Englishman. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... to meet you," he said, without formal greeting. Instantly she detected a change in his manner towards her; it was as easy as if he were speaking ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... She was surprised that Ditmar should seem to belittle it. Siddons was a new type in her experience. She could understand and to a certain extent maliciously enjoy Ditmar's growing exasperation with him; he had a formal, precise manner of talking, as though he spent most of his time presenting cases in committees: and in warding off Ditmar's objections he was forever indulging in such maddening phrases as, "Before we come to that, let me say a word just here." Ditmar hated words. His outbursts, his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... make. But it was by no means so in her intercourse with the rest of the world. She had ideas and opinions of her own, and she had her own way of making them known, or of defending them when attacked. There was not much opportunity for seeing this during brief formal visits, but now and then Graeme got a glimpse that greatly amused her. The quiet self-possession with which she met condescending advances, and accepted or declined compliments, the serene air with which she ignored or rebuked ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... to the incidental indications of the shifting of opinion. In one sense this sort of evidence means more than the formal literature. Yet its fragmentary character at best precludes putting any great ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... I wrote to Lane to the effect that he would be very welcome, which was perfectly true; but I was somewhat exercised in my mind regarding Lady Barthrop's garden-party, although, when her card of invitation reached me, I replied at once with a formal acceptance. Sir George Barthrop's house, Deene Place, was quite one of the show places of the district, and the baronet and his lady were very prominent people indeed in that part of ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... relief of the guilty soul, they prescribed in this life fasts and penances, and in the future a transmigration through animals for purification. At death, the merits of the soul were ascertained by a formal trial before Osiris in the shadowy region of Amenti—the under world—in presence of the four genii of that realm, and of forty-two assessors. To this judgment the shade was conducted by Horus, who carried him past Cerberus, a hippopotamus, the gaunt ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... ever likely to render them—would probably make for greater order and dignity in the impending discussion, besides relieving them of the sense of self-distrust which her presence always mysteriously produced. Mrs. Ballinger therefore restricted herself to a formal murmur of regret, and the other members were just grouping themselves comfortably about Osric Dane when the latter, to their dismay, started up from the sofa on ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... to find that he had not, as he feared, been prosing; but would rather not be considered in the formal light of a preacher; he preferred being still received in that of the equal and genial companion. To which end, throwing still more of sociability into his manner, he again reverted to the unfortunate man. Take the very worst view of that case; admit ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... the contrary with great warmth, and was preparing a formal argument to prove that an ignorant man is a fool; but the Chevalier de Grammont, who was thoroughly acquainted with Matta saw very clearly that he would send the logician to the devil before he should arrive at the conclusion of his syllogism: for which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... are wonderfully good, but you are sometimes sort of formal.... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go to the door, open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening," said Lise, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... not seem to have designed Mrs. Morton for frying doughnuts. She was very sensitive to heat and had little taste for cooking. She had laid aside her silks and laces on coming to the ranch, but the poise and dignity that come from years of gentle living were still hers. Her formal manner always seemed a trifle out of place in the old farm kitchen. On this particular morning she ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... his opinion? Was it courageous to stand in awe of anybody? Alice closed her lips proudly and began to be defiant. Then a reminiscence, which had never before failed to rouse indignation in her, made her laugh. She recalled the scandalous spectacle of Lucian's formal perpendicularity overbalanced and doubled up into Mrs. Hoskyn's gilded arm-chair in illustration of the prize-fighter's theory of effort defeating itself. After all, what was that caressing touch of ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... New York, and interview with Mr. Fenwick, fully assured Mr. Markland, and he entered into a formal agreement to invest the sum of forty thousand dollars in the proposed scheme: ten thousand dollars to be paid down at once, and the balance at short dates. He remained away two days, and then returned to make immediate arrangements for producing the money. The ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... essentially a middle-class movement of the employing farmers in the South and West, was counted upon as 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

... Desatir," Mirza Gholan Rezah was saying, "that purity is of two kinds, the real and the formal. 'The real consists in not binding the heart to evil: the formal in cleansing away what appears evil to the view.' The ultimate spirit, that inner flame from the treasure-house of flames, is not affected by the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... Art Is Logical.—Yet it is just in this way that commonly event succeeds event in the daily life of every one. It is only in the great passionate crises of existence that event treads upon event in uninterrupted sequence of causation. And here is the main formal difference between life as it actually happens and life as it is artistically represented in history, biography, and fiction. In every art there are two steps; first, the selection of essentials, and secondly, the arrangement of these essentials according to a pattern. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... candles and still refuses all modern light. The Spanish Jews had a more ancient snoga, but it was within a stone's throw of the "Duke's Place" edifice. Decorum was not a feature of synagogue worship in those days, nor was the Almighty yet conceived as the holder of formal receptions once a week. Worshippers did not pray with bated breath, as if afraid that the deity would overhear them. They were at ease in Zion. They passed the snuff-boxes and remarks about the weather. The opportunities ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... In newspaper offices you belong at once or you never belong; and to belong is to have your name sheared to as few syllables as possible. You are formal only to the city editor, the managing ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... The day's excitement was over, and the next case was inquired for. Not quite over, however, yet, the excitement, and the audience crowded in again. For the next case proved to be the arraignment of Richard Hare the younger. A formal proceeding merely, in pursuance of the verdict of the coroner's inquest. No evidence was offered against him, and the judge ordered him to be discharged. Richard, poor, ill-used, baited Richard was a free ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... his injunction, the captain Imbaut with 400 lances. The Duke of Valentinais on the frontier of Tuscany received a copy of the treaty signed between the republic and the King of France, a treaty in which the king engaged to help his ally against any enemy whatsoever, and at the same moment the formal prohibition from Louis to advance any further. Caesar also learned that beside the 400 lances with the captain Imbaut, which were on the road to Florence, Louis XII had as soon as he reached Asti sent off to Parma Louis de la Trimouille ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... uninhabited islands came under Australian authority in 1931; formal administration began two years later. Ashmore Reef supports a rich and diverse avian and marine habitat; in 1983 it became a National Nature Reserve. Recent geological explorations have indicated promising ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to become aware of them. With his eye fixed upon them like a statue, he came across the room, and, sitting down near them with formal politeness, observed, "Was you ever to the battle of Antietam?" This sent them beyond the limit; and they rocked their heads on the table and wept as ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister

... girl of his choice by a mere accident. He had chanced to be seated on her right hand at a formal dinner-party in town. Very little had passed between them then, but later, through the medium of his host, he had sought her out, and called upon her. Within a week he had asked her to be his wife. And Nan Everard, impulsive, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

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

... has made so famous.—'Come, do not be childish, my angel,' said I, trying to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a little prudish and indignant mein.—'Marry him, you have my permission,' said I, replying to this gesture by using the formal vous instead of tu. 'Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'—'But,' cried she, falling at my knees, 'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world but you; you may demand any proofs you ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... with caressing words, whose meaning I felt, though I could not have translated them into English, until the boy, wide awake, laughed with his father and us all and was ready to be again rolled up beside his sleeping brothers. I have said also that the Seminole are frank. Formal or hypocritical courtesy does not characterize them. One of my party wished to accompany Ka-tca-la-ni ("Yellow Tiger") on a hunt. He wished to see how the Indian would find, approach, and capture his game. "Me go hunt with you, ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley

... his cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother, an English peer, but resident in the north of Ireland, where he had vast possessions. It was a family otherwise little calculated to dissipate the reserve and gloom of a depressed and melancholy youth; puritanical, severe and formal in their manners, their relaxations a Bible Society, or a meeting for the conversion of the Jews. But Lady Katherine was beautiful, and all were kind to one to whom kindness was strange, and the soft pathos of whose solitary ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... formal enough, and at times he pretended to be glad that it was. How could it be otherwise? And why should he interpret her interest in him in other terms than those in which it was written? She had a warm heart—that he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... and here is the proof," Jarwin shook the parchment, "one million to you, Lord Garvington, and one million to your wife. Listen, if you please," and the solicitor read the document in a formal manner which left no doubt as to the truth of his amazing news. When he finished the lucky couple looked at one another scarcely able to speak. It was Agnes who recovered ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... at Eaux Bonnes. The dome of the sky is of unspecked blue. The departing diligence for Laruns has just rolled away down the road, and now a landau with four horses, and a victoria with two, stand before the Hotel des Princes. A formal contract, wisely yet ludicrously minute in detail, bristling with discomforting provisos for contingencies, and copied out in the usual painstaking French handwriting, has been discussed and gravely signed. We are to be conveyed to Cauterets as the first day's ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... they had reached the door of the boarding-house, and 'Manda Grier let herself in with her latch-key. "Won't you walk in, Mr. Barker?" she said in formal ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... written out her speech and had sewn the pages together in a blue cover. Now in a clear serious voice, she read its formal flowery sentences telling of the weekly meetings of "this now despised little band" which had awakened women to ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... from the angle of the Place de la Pucelle, the Palais de Justice remained in its gray antiquity, and the Norman houses still lifted their fantastic ridges of gable along the busy quay (now fronted by as formal a range of hotels and offices as that of the West Cliff of Brighton). All was at unity with itself, and the city lay under its guarding hills, one labyrinth of delight, its gray and fretted towers, misty in their magnificence of height, letting the sky like blue enamel through the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... His jokes, the circulating medium of Congress, were as helpful to the cause, as Jay's conscience or Adams' fire; they restored good humor, and relieved the tedium of delay, but were out of place in formal, exact and authoritative papers."—Parton's Franklin, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... have examined the publication "The Great Round World". It seems to me to be admirable in its design and also in its execution. It abandons the formal style of the newspaper in the narration of events, substituting instead a style that is at once conversational and free. I commend it to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 36, July 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... (35) Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba (excluded from formal participation since 1962), Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... after their charges and the people were not to "disparage" their ministers without "sufficient proofe." Payment of the minister's salary was to be insured and there were regulations against "swearinge and drunkennes." A formal order was passed that March 22, the date of the massacre of two years before, be "solemnized as [a] hollidaye." In matters of church conformity the action was specific, "That there be an uniformitie in our Church as neere as may be, to the canons in Englande both in [substance] ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch

... Englishman," for being "fine, polished," etc. To say a man is "polished" here is to give him a very bad name. He accuses him also of holding views subversive of all morality. In spite of all this, I thought he might possess a map, and I induced Mrs. C. to walk over with me. She intended it as a formal morning call, but she wore the inevitable sun-bonnet, and had her dress tied up as when washing. It was not till I reached the gate that I remembered that I was in my Hawaiian riding dress, and that I still ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... lords, I hope it will be no disadvantage to me my not summing up my evidence like a lawyer. I think I have made it plainly appear that there never was any formal quarrel or malice between Mr Montford and me. I have also made appear the reason why we stayed so long in the street, which was for Mr Hill to speak with Mrs Bracegirdle and ask her pardon, and I stayed with ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... her hand from him hurriedly, made a curious formal gesture of farewell, and crossed the road to the gate without looking back. There was one idea in his head, to get to his room and lock the door and throw himself face down on the bed. The idea amused some distant part of his mind. That had been what he had ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos

... the Dee country-seats, though not the most interesting as to architecture. The former, like many Italian houses, has its park open to the public, and is an exception to the jealously-guarded places in most parts of England, but its avenues, rather formal though very magnificent, are approached by lodges. The Wrexham avenue leads to a farmhouse called Belgrave, and here is the christening-point of the new, fashionable London of society, of novelists and of contractors. Another like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... genius, which, especially considering the hare-brained element in him, might easily have been frittered away or devoted to worthless ends, to such fruitful account, and stamped it with so grand an impress of personal magnanimity and fortitude. Sir Walter's father reminds one in not a few of the formal and rather martinetish traits which are related of him, of the father of Goethe, "a formal man, with strong ideas of strait-laced education, passionately orderly (he thought a good book nothing without a good binding), ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... circumstances, may or may not be important; in a certain sense even they may or may not be false. The habitual liar may be a very honest fellow, and live truly with his wife and friends; while another man who never told a formal falsehood in his life may yet be himself one lie—heart and face, from top to bottom. This is the kind of lie which poisons intimacy. And, vice versa, veracity to sentiment, truth in a relation, truth ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... emotions to be expressed; that it may be broken or cut with a varying or direct sound, and that it serves for the actor the purpose of color to the painter, from which to draw variations. Take the simplest illustration. The formal pronunciation of A-h is 'Ah,' of O-h, 'Oh,' but you cannot stereotype the expression of emotion like this. These exclamations are words of one syllable, but the speaker who is sounding the gamut of human feeling ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... day following the accident to the biplane. After a brief consultation with Mr. Vardon, and a calling together of his faculty members, Colonel Masterly had made formal announcement that a course in aviation would be open at Kentfield for those who ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis

... looked very suspiciously at the letters—one had his own armorial bearings displayed in red wax—and the formal direction was at a glance detected to be that of his aunt Catharine—Catharine's missives were never agreeable—she had a rent charge on the property for a couple of thousands; and, like Moses and Son, her system was "quick returns," and the interest was consequently expected ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... into the text of a play, although they impeded the progress of the action. Jacques reined a comedy to a standstill while he discoursed at length upon the seven ages of man. Soliloquies were common, and formal dialogues prevailed. By convention, all characters, regardless of their education or station in life, were considered capable of talking not only verse, but poetry. The untutored sea-captain in Twelfth ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... beings whose help can be 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 in childbirth, she was thought to ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... and civil troubles, had great weaknesses and deep-seated corruption in mind and character. Nevertheless the revulsion against the treaty of Troyes was real and serious, even in the very heart of the party attached to the Duke of Burgundy. He was obliged to lay upon several of his servants formal injunctions to swear to this peace, which seemed to them treason. He had great difficulty in winning John of Luxembourg and his brother Louis, Bishop of Therouenne, over to it. "It is your will," said they; "we will take this oath; but if we do, we will keep it to the hour of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... formal and occasional addresses and speeches, which will be found to be of a remarkably wide range, are followed by his state papers, such as the instructions to the American delegates to the Second Hague Peace Conference and other ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... gives their smile to the barren rocks and bleak mountains of Britannia's isle, while for Italy, rich in the unexhausted stores of nature, proud Oppression in her valleys reigns, and tyranny usurps her happy plains. Addison's were formal raptures, and he knew them to be so, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... employed building an igloo to be used as a magnetic observatory. On the afternoon of the 30th, the magnetician invited every one to a tea-party in the igloo to celebrate the opening. He had the place very nicely decorated with flags, and after the reception and the formal inspection of the instruments, we were served with quite a good tea. The outside temperature was -33 degrees F. and it was not much higher inside the igloo. As a result, no one extended his visit beyond the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... towards obsequiousness on the one hand and condescension on the other, for neither of which, however, was his friend Herbert an object. His eye was keen, and his forehead good, but his carriage inclined to the pompous, and his speech to the formal, ornate, and prolix. The shape of his mouth was honest, but the closure of the lips indicated self-importance. The greeting between them was simple and genuine, and ere they parted, Bayly had promised ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... associations took alarm also, and the initiative steps to silence the women, and to deprive them of the right to vote in the business meetings, were soon taken. This action culminated in a division in the Anti-Slavery Association. In the annual meeting in May, 1840, a formal vote was taken on the appointment of Abby Kelly on a business committee and was sustained by over one hundred majority in favor of woman's right to take part in the proceedings of the Society. Pending ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... lawyer may handle himself, underneath his calm exterior he is ready to fight, bite, scratch, shoot, kill, slash, but always he must do so under the rules of the game, never hitting below the belt. What the battle is about is the issue, the result is called the verdict, or the decision, and the formal statement of the court as to the result ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... a formal annunciation of the death of Mr. Adams, in a message from the House of Representatives, Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, arose and delivered a feeling address, on the life and services of the deceased patriot. The ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... for a passport, and the inevitable unpleasantness of being suspected by every policeman and detective about the government buildings of being a wild-eyed dynamiter recently arrived from America with the fell purpose of blowing up the place. On Tuesday I make a formal descent on the Chinese Embassy, to seek information regarding the possibility of making a serpentine trail through the Flowery Kingdom via Upper Burmah to Hong-Kong or Shanghai. Here I learn from Dr. McCarty, the interpreter at the Embassy, as from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... duly sat, and in a most formal manner Kaiser Bill was tried and convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and of traitorously destroying the American flag, and was sentenced to be shot at sunrise ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey

... strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth; and then the justice; In fair, round belly, with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances, And so, he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon; With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... time enough to vanish. And, with that, a touch of masculine softness, a sort of regard for appearances surviving his degradation: "You might behave decently at the last, Eliza." But there was no softness in the sallow face under the gala effect of powdered hair, its formal calmness gone, the dark-ringed eyes glaring at him with a sort of hunger. "No! No! If it is as you say then not a day, not an hour, not a moment." She stuck to it, very determined that there should be no more of that boy and girl philandering since the object of ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... I will go up and have a talk with them," suggested Mr. Bellmore. "Meanwhile Dave can ride and get some of your men, Mr. Carson. We'll need help if it comes to a fight, though I hope it won't. We'll make a formal protest first. Hurry, Dave, every minute may mean a ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... profession, pretended to take up the subject, but in a few hours dropped it, with polite compliments to myself, in 1842. The American Medical Association, in 1878, refused to entertain the subject because I could not coincide with them in my sentiments, and accept their code of bigotry. There was no formal action of the Association, but my friend, Prof. Gross, then recognized as the Nestor of the profession, and holding the highest position of authority, informed me semi-officially, very courteously, that none of my discoveries could ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various

... words that it was a great surprise, an immense honour, a huge compliment, but so sudden that she would be grateful to both himself and the Prince if nothing more need be said about it for a week or two—nothing, at least, till formal negotiations had been opened. "I saw him yesterday for the first time," she pleaded, "so ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... hardly to have been brought up; he grew up in the nursery among his young sisters, at school among the rude boys, without any affectionate guidance, without imbibing any religious or social tradition. If he received any formal training or correction, he instantly rejected it inwardly, set it down as unjust and absurd, and turned instead to sailing paper boats, to reading romances or to writing them, or to watching with delight the magic of chemical experiments. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... hand. There were little touches of formal courtesy in him so contrasted with what she had seen of him in action, so at variance with the childishly gaudy clothes he wore, that it ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... This note demanded formal assurances that the allied troops should under no circumstances be disarmed and interned, but should be granted full freedom of movement, together with such facilities as had already been promised. Greece was only required to live up to her previous promises; she need not abandon ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... earliest times. In the rainy season the whole site is flooded, and only the upper stories are habitable. Cock-fighting seems to be the chief amusement. We breakfasted with the governor, a portly gentleman who kept a little dry-goods store. His excellency, without waiting for a formal introduction, and with a cordiality and courtesy almost confined to the Latin nations, received us into his own house, and honored us with a seat at his private table, spread with the choicest viands of his kingdom, serving them himself with a grace to which ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... engagingly naive in this compliment that Sylvia found it impossible to be formal. She smiled and slipped ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... Scholarships was now approaching. As I have said, this one opportunity only was given to Sizars (Pensioners having always two opportunities and sometimes three), and it is necessary to be a Scholar in order to be competent to be a candidate for a Fellowship. On Apr. 10th I addressed my formal Latin letter to the Seniors. There were 13 vacancies and 37 candidates. The election took place on Apr. 18th, 1822. I was by much the first (which I hardly expected) and was complimented by the Master and others. Wrote ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... to sit down to the evening meal, when a servant of Mr. Warmore arrived with a note, requesting the pleasure of Mr. Gordon's company to dinner that evening. It was not a simple formal invitation, but was so urgent that the young man could not refuse. He returned word through the servant that he accepted with pleasure the invitation and ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... pretty, but too formal; I should have been better pleased had it consisted less of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... he interrupted; "there is no necessity for that—no necessity at all. Strictly speaking, of course, you are still a prisoner, but for the present it will perhaps be best to avoid any formal proceedings. I understand that both Lord Lammersfield and Mr. Casement consider it advisable to keep the whole matter as quiet as possible, at all events until the return of the Prime Minister. After that we must decide what steps it will ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... books and writes in cipher: "I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years; but it was the justest censure that was in Parliament these two hundred years." He meant thereby, that while personally innocent of corruption, the sentence would end gift-giving to judges. His formal confession to Parliament is a justification of every act complained of, for he relieves it, while acknowledging it, of those details ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... If there had been no atomic bombs to bring together most of the directing intelligence of the world to that hasty conference at Brissago, there would still have been, extended over great areas and a considerable space of time perhaps, a less formal conference of responsible and understanding people upon the perplexities of this world-wide opposition. If the work of Holsten had been spread over centuries and imparted to the world by imperceptible degrees, it would nevertheless have made it necessary for men ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... all this you must not suppose there is any personal compliment. It is merely intended as a mark of good will towards the first representative of the Spanish monarchy who brings from the mother-country the formal acknowledgment ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... duel required that the stones be straight; the relationship required that they be circular; but as the men were horsemen, it seems as if the stones ought to have been arranged squarely, though this rule, it is true, was not formal, as it was applied only to those whose party had triumphed. O good Olaues Magnus! You must have liked Monte-Pulciano exceeding well! And how many draughts of it did it take for you to acquire all ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... ground, hospitable and cheerful, where the stranger guest and the old friend meet; where the children play, where the entire household are free to come and go without formality. The furniture it contains is for use and comfort. It is never out of order, because it is subject to no formal rules. At the left of the hall is the real family home, more secluded and more significant of your own taste and feeling. Instead of many separate apartments for general family use, here are drawing-room, sitting-room, library and parlor, all in one. This is the domestic sanctuary, the ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner

... could spare the time, and have a pipe and a bit of supper with him—such unheard-of hospitality that Millet went home quite persuaded that the old man was, as he expressed it to his wife, 'going off his chump;' so that it was quite a relief to meet him two days later at the choir practice as formal and distant in his manners ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... of no answer, and the writer of which it was intended to punish as an example to others. In fine we could not make it right in any way. He forbade Vander Donck the council and also our meetings, and gave us formal notice to that effect, and yet would not release him from his oath. Then to avoid the proper mode of proof, he issued a proclamation declaring that no testimony or other act should be valid unless it were written by the secretary, who is ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

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

... was very languid at first and a little formal, thawing effectively as she drew Jerry out. You see she had a little the advantage in ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... the Theodicy contained a fourth appendix under this title. It presented in scholastic Latin a formal summary of the positive doctrine expressed by the French treatise. It satisfied the academic requirements of its day, but would not, presumably, be of interest to many modern readers, and is ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... river-head of three separate societies still existing, University, Oriel, and Brasenose. Brasenose claims his palace, Oriel his church, and University his school or academy. Of these, Brasenose College is still called in its formal style ' the King's Hall,' which is the name by which Alfred himself, in his laws, calls his palace; and it has its present singular name from a corruption of brasinium, or brasin-huse, as having been originally located in ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... of the ode enters Clytemnestra. She makes a formal announcement to the chorus of the fall of Troy; describes the course of the signal-fire from beacon to beacon as it sped, and pictures in imagination the scenes even then taking place in the doomed city. On her withdrawal the chorus break ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... Besides Scott's formal reviews, we find cited as evidence of his extreme amiability his letters, his journal, and the remarks he made to friends in moments of enthusiasm. These do indeed contain some sweeping statements, but in ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... and Nature Stories" has been made with care. Many of the world's famous stories are collected here, and wherever possible they are in the original language. The nature stories, about flowers and trees, birds and insects, are not formal, but are planned to give the child direct contact with nature and to assist the good habit of direct ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... voice, which held a curious note of finality, of failure. For the first time, while he spoke, she let her eyes rest frankly upon him, and there came to her, as she did so, a vivid realization of the emptiness and aimlessness of his life. He looked handsomer than ever; he looked stately and formal and impressive; but he looked old—though he was only forty-five—he looked old and ineffectual and acquiescent. The fighting strength, such as it was, had gone out of him, and the stamp of failure was on him, from his high, pale, intellectual forehead, where the fine brown hair ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... you. Perhaps, I had better go home after what has happened? I will call to-morrow, and see if I can be of any use to Miss Agnes. I am very sorry for her.' She stole away, with her formal curtsey, her noiseless step, and her obstinate resolution to take the gloomiest view of ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... consciousness of sin, joyful surrender of self to loving and grateful submission to God's will, are all connected with or flow from that act of trust in Him. And if you are trusting in Him, in anything more than the mere formal, dead way in which multitudes of nominal Christians in all our congregations are doing so, your trust will produce all these various fruits of righteousness, and lowliness, and joyful service. 'Faith' or 'trust' ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... great treat to hear a working-man who has the power of utterance deliver a speech in a straightforward and unrhetorical way. There is always a pith and vigour about such deliverances quite unattainable in a formal harangue. The magnates of the little Fife villages are specially notorious for their gift of the gab: when Bailie M'Scales or Provost Cleaver gets up to speak, no one has any ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... society might be at first a voluntary act (which in many cases it undoubtedly was), its continuance is under a permanent, standing covenant, co-existing with the society; and it attaches upon every individual of that society, without any formal act of his own. This is warranted by the general practice, arising out of the general sense of mankind. Men without their choice derive benefits from that association; without their choice they are subjected to duties ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... work. I think, however, that much might be done to discourage those obscure and unsatisfactory definitions of which you so justly complain, by WRITING DOWN the practice. Let the better disposed naturalists combine to make a formal protest against all vague, loose, and inadequate definitions of (supposed) new species. Let a committee (say of the British Association) be appointed to prepare a sort of CLASS LIST of the various modern works ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... Herr Ritter obeyed the signal. I felt his great liberal heart heaving,—thump, thump, under the lapel of the old rusty coat; but I breathed my spirit into his face, and he said no more as he turned away than just a formal "Buon giorno, Signora." "Silence is best," ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... College," says Burton, "was not pleasant. I had grown a splendid moustache, which was the envy of all the boys abroad, and which all the advice of Drs. Ogle and Greenhill failed to make me remove. I declined to be shaved until formal orders were issued by the authorities of the college. For I had already formed strong ideas upon the Shaven Age of England, when her history, with some brilliant exceptions, such as Marlborough, Wellington and Nelson, was at its meanest." An undergraduate who laughed at him he ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... your servant," said she, in answer to the constrained formal bow with which he saluted her on her entrance. "Why, it's so long since I've seen you that you may be a grandfather for ought ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... overwhelming sense of sonship, and crying through our hearts, "Abba, Father." The natural attitude of our hearts towards God is not that of sons. We may call Him Father with our lips, as when for example we repeat in a formal way, the prayer that Jesus taught us, "Our Father, which art in heaven," but there is no real sense that He is our Father. Our calling Him so is mere words. We do not really trust Him. We do not love to come into His presence; we do not love to look up into His face with a sense ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey

... the feeling, too, that somehow the class lists did not represent the relative scholarship of the Jew and herself. He knew more German than she. It was this feeling that prompted her to write him a note which brought an answer in formal and ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... of letter-obedience, a formal obedience to the vision you have. In one's own estimation, there may seem to be a knowledge of what is right, and a self-satisfied doing of it. There may be a painstaking attention to the forms of obedience, and a self-righteous content in doing the required things. Is this the ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... four hundred seventy years before Christ that Socrates was born. He never wrote a book, never made a formal address, held no public office, wrote no letters, yet his words have come down to us sharp, vivid and crystalline. His face, form and features are to us familiar—his goggle eyes, bald head, snub nose and bow-legs! The habit of his life—his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... that I made was that a messenger should at once be despatched to Wambe, whose kraal was two days' journey from where I was, telling him that I proposed to come and pay my respects to him in a few days, and to ask his formal permission to shoot in his country. Also I intimated that I was prepared to present him with 'hongo,' that is, blackmail, and that I hoped to do a little trade with him in ivory, of which I heard he had ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... obligation to Mr. Carr, our Minister at the Porte, for personal protection as American citizens. He acted with decision whenever their rights were invaded. In the repeated efforts made to remove them from the country, his reply to the formal demands of the Porte was, that he had power to protect the missionaries as American citizens, but not to remove them; and furthermore, that while papal missionaries from France and Italy were permitted to reside in Turkey, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... course of a session the entire membership of the Chamber is divided by lot into eleven other bureaus of equal size. These bureaus meet from time to time separately to examine the credentials of members, to give formal consideration to bills which have not yet been referred to a committee, and, most important of all, to select one of their number to serve on each of the committees of the Chamber. In the case of very important committees, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... will have the courage to fly in the President's face and warn you. I, however, do not belong to the town, and, thanks to this obliging young man, I shall soon be going back to Paris; so I can inform you that Chesnel's successor has made formal proposals for Mlle. Claire Blandureau's hand on behalf of young du Ronceret, who is to have fifty thousand crowns from his parents. As for Fabien, he has made up his mind to receive a call to the bar, so as to gain an appointment ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... good tea," put in my father; and I found that meal awaiting us all, and very hearty and cosy it looked after the formal ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn

... for strength and activity was a greater protection to him than his inoffensive good-nature. But the loud admiration of Offutt gave them umbrage. It led to dispute, contradictions, and finally to a formal banter to a wrestling-match. Lincoln was greatly averse to all this "wooling and pulling," as he called it. But Offutt's indiscretion had made it necessary for him to show his mettle. Jack Armstrong, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... programme is long enough for to-day, Ken," said The Mackhai dryly. "You will excuse me, Mr Blande," he continued, with formal politeness; "I have some ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... no formal correctness about Ashley's habitual speech. He kept, as a rule, to the idiom of the mess, giving it distinction by his ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... were many Westerns. Among the common people religion was almost extinct, and assuredly no new morality or sentiment, such as Positivists now promise, had taken its place. Sometimes the rustic thought for himself, and scepticism took formal possession of his mind; but as we see from one of Cowper's letters, it was a coarse scepticism which desired to be buried with its hounds. Ignorance and brutality reigned in the cottage. Drunkenness reigned in palace and cottage alike. Gambling, cock-fighting, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... do not wish the piano! As you all know, this is the last lesson of the season until next October. Tomorrow is our special afternoon; beginning three o'clock, we dance the cotillon. But this afternoon comes the test of mannerss. You must see if each know how to make a little formal call like a grown-up people in good societies. You have had good, perfect instruction; let us see if we know how to perform like societies ladies and gentlemen ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... abdicate. The abbot Bartholomew of Grotta Ferrata urged him to the step, but he unblushingly sold the papacy for money like a piece of merchandise. In exchange for a considerable income, that is to say, for the revenue of "Peter's pence" from England, he made over his papal dignities by a formal contract to John Gratianus, a rich archpriest of the Church of St. John at the Latin gate, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

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

... particularly when they got localized in England—where before they had been but a roaming people on account of their struggles with the Britons—the necessity of greater organization probably became obvious to them at once, and the Witenagemot readily assumed a somewhat more formal form; and that resulted in representation. For we are talking of early England; that is, of the eastern half of what is now England, the Saxon part; obviously you couldn't put all the members even of East Anglia in one hall or in one field to discuss laws, so they invented representation. ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... of the lamented death of Zachary Taylor, late President of the United States, I shall no longer occupy the chair of the Senate, and I have thought that a formal communication to the Senate to that effect, through your Secretary, might enable you the more promptly to proceed to the choice ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... no reply, but turned towards the door, without even making an attempt to return the grave and formal bow that Sir Francis Varney made as be saw him about to quit the apartment; for Henry saw that his pale features were lighted up with a sarcastic smile, most disagreeable to look upon as well as irritating ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... troops reached Washington more quickly than later ones. At noon of the 11th Mr. Lincoln answered it with hearty congratulations and thanks. This was quickly followed by a congratulatory message from Halleck accompanied by formal orders. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iii. p. 555.] These last only recapitulated the points in Burnside's further operations and administration which were the simplest deductions from the situation. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... the Virgin receiving the Annunciation from the angel, on one side, and Christ with Cleophas and Luke on the other, all the figures the size of life. In this work he departed more decidedly from the dry and formal manner of his instructors, giving more life and movement to the draperies, vestments and other accessories, and rendering all more flexible and natural than was common to the manner of those Greeks whose work were full of hard lines and sharp angles as well in mosaic as in painting. And this rude ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... suitors, let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has; but in the morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal notice to depart, and feast at one another's houses, turn and turn about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father's house ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... her to be rather silly, and she refused seriously to consider that it could have any rave consequences for Dick. His continued absence made her anxious. But if he should come to be taken, surely his punishment would be merely a formal matter; at the worst he might be sent home, which would a very good thing, for after all the climate of the Peninsula had never quite ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... a slim, well-clad gentleman with a pointed and slightly effeminate grey beard, unimpeachable gloves, and formal but agreeable manners. He was the type of the over-civilized, as Professor Chadd was of the uncivilized pedant. His formality and agreeableness did him some credit under the circumstances. He had a vast experience of books and a considerable experience ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... Bruce to write the big local news story of the day himself, a feature that had proved a stimulant to his paper's circulation and prestige. To-morrow was to be one of the proudest days of Westville's history, for to-morrow was the formal opening of the city's greatest municipal enterprise, its thoroughly modern water-works; and it was an extensive and vivid account of the next day's programme that the editor was pounding so rapidly out of his machine for that afternoon's issue of the Express. Now and then, as ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... offender without any preliminaries whatever. Yet it turned out that, in acting thus, he did the best possible thing for Columbus's subsequent treatment. There is no doubt that had he proceeded slowly, with a fair and formal inquiry into all the complaints against the Admiral, it would have been clearly shown that, from the very beginning, everything had gone wrong in the colony. The Indians, once friendly, were now bitter against the Spaniards. The colonists were a bad ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley

... Sulphites, but how intensely bromidic were his writings! One yawns to think of them. As for Lewis Carroll, in his classic nonsense, so sulphitic as often to be accused by Bromides of having a secret meaning, his private life was that of a Bromide. Read his biography and learn the terrors of his formal, set entertainments to the little girls whom he patronized! They knew what to expect of him, and he never, however agreeably, disappointed them. No, unfortunately a Sulphite does not always produce sulphitic art. How many ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess



Words linked to "Formal" :   nonrepresentational, semi-formal, logical, buckram, formal garden, nominal, formalwear, starchy, white-tie, masquerade ball, evening gown, dance, literary, black-tie, prescribed, stately, evening dress, fine arts, formality, full-dress, ceremonial, form-only, formalness, titular, formal semantics, cotilion, gown, courtly, cotillion, schematic



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