"Perfunctory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more of it—more whining explanations artfully tinctured with abuse, more terse commands to depart, the whole concluding with scraping footsteps, diminuendo, and another perfunctory, rattle of the knob as the bobby, having shoo'd the putative evil-doer off, assured himself that no damage had actually been done. Then he, too, departed, satisfied and self-righteous, leaving a badly frightened but very grateful amateur ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... the "Oxford Sausage" and his "Triumph of Isis," had an academic flavor. These we may pass over, as foreign to our present inquiries. So, too, with most of his annual laureate odes, "On his Majesty's Birthday," etc. Yet even these official and rather perfunctory performances testify to his fondness for what Scott calls "the memorials of our forefathers' piety or splendor." Thus, in the birthday odes for 1787-88, and the New Year ode for 1787, he pays a tribute to the ancient minstrels and to early laureates ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... into the room after his guests, muttering an unintelligible apology. He shook hands with them with an abstracted air and failed to recall Wargrave's name. At table he asked Frank a few perfunctory questions and then wandered off into his inevitable subject, entomology, but finding him ignorant of and uninterested in it he engaged in a desultory conversation with Raymond. He soon tired of this and for the most part ate his dinner in silence. He never addressed ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... hereditary character of the membership, upon the meagerness of (p. 103) attendance at the sittings and the small interest displayed by a majority of the members, and upon the hurried and frequently perfunctory nature of the consideration which is accorded public measures. Fundamentally, however, the tremendous attack which has been levelled against the Lords has had as its impetus the conviction of large masses of ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... for me—it's a long time. It would be a pity there shouldn't be something to show for it." They sat down and she asked him about his sisters, with other enquiries of a somewhat perfunctory kind. He answered her questions as if they interested him, and in a few moments she saw—or believed she saw—that he would press with less of his whole weight than of yore. Time had breathed upon his heart and, without chilling it, given it a relieved sense of having taken the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... found it out of the question to think it over carefully. How could he, when, within himself, he knew that his feeling for the profession laid down before him by ancestral tradition and by his mother's constant urgings: that his feeling for the ministry was a perfunctory affection, a wholly different matter from the passionate desire that throbbed within him at the thought of giving up his life to scientific study. To preach ancient beliefs that no human power could ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... their epitaphs, and the sculptors' chisels making the commonplaces of fulsome commendation permanent on their tombs! What vanity to their nicer ears must be the sonorous and declamatory orator's breath! Let us not offend them so. They will take it for the insult of perfunctory honor, not for the sympathy it assumes to be. Nothing but good of the dead, do you say? Nothing but truth of the dead, we answer. Do not disturb their bones; let them rest easy at last, is the commentary on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the family as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some visitation of ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... turns to a game. At Hapton, Musgrave chatted away about his neighbours, his boys' club, his new organ, his bishop, his work. I used to think him rather a proser; how I blessed his prosing now! I took long walks with him; he asked a few perfunctory questions about my books, but otherwise he was quite content to prattle on, like a little brook, about all that was in his mind, and he was more than content if I asked an occasional question or assented courteously. Then we had some good talks about the rural ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... supported by a white pillar, over which the carpet passes. Of these accessories every thread is most delicately and carefully painted; no slovenly washes of meretricious colour where He is to be served, before whom all things are open; no perfunctory sparing of toil in serving Him who has given us all that is best. On his right hand kneels the Virgin Mother in adoration, her very face a magnificat—praise, lowliness, confidence; next to her, Joseph, telling by his looks the wonderful story, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... enough! I tell you what, Loo, it's worth living up here just for the inspiration." Even while boyishly exhaling this enthusiasm he was also divesting himself of certain bundles whose contents seemed to imply that he had brought his dinner with him,—the youthful Mrs. Harcourt setting the table in a perfunctory, listless way that contrasted oddly with her ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... latest guest with a first glow of pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome like the specious smile of a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected gleams from the decayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a couch and two chairs, a foot-wide cheap pier glass between the two windows, from one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... day a bishop. Hugh was soon after this ordained priest, and was distinguished for the great fervour of his behaviour in celebrating the Mass "as if he handled a visible Lord Saviour"—a touching devoutness which never left him, and which contrasted strikingly with the perfunctory, careless or bored ways of other priests. He injured his health by over-abstinence, one effect of which was to cause him to grow fat, Nature thus revenging herself by fortifying his frame against ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... nation arrives year by year, can be estimated by its building. In the new order, little is being built. Apart from certain perfunctory garden-cities, which are being erected for the principle of the thing, to meet the needs of a few thousand favoured households, and which perhaps will never be finished, we will for decades have to content ourselves with new ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... a warm golden evening, fit for October, and I was watching (with regret) a lot of little black pigs being turned out of my garden, when the postman handed to me, with a perfunctory haste which doubtless masked his emotion, the Declaration of Futurism. If you ask me what Futurism is, I cannot tell you; even the Futurists themselves seem a little doubtful; perhaps they are waiting for the future ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... a good deal in a perfunctory manner, but inwardly he was somewhat elated. "Her emotions must have been excited more than I supposed," he thought. "That is ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... pleasurably for them both. They were fond of one another. The barrier slowly rising between them was not yet cemented by lack of affection on either side, but rather by lack of belief in the other's affection. Helen imagined Thorpe's interest in her becoming daily more perfunctory. Thorpe fancied his sister cold, unreasoning, and ungrateful. As yet this was but the vague dust of a cloud. They could not forget that, but for each other, they were alone in the world. Thorpe delayed his ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... something which comes of being out of the rut, and imagines it to be the prick of conscience, the still, small voice that is urging him ever to righteousness. If the digression is unusual enough, the drag of habit will be heavy enough to cause the unreasoning victim to return and perform the perfunctory thing. "Now, bless me," says such a mind, "I have done my duty," when, as a matter of fact, it has merely done its old, unbreakable trick ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... people who demand excellence. Perhaps it would be unfair to judge the opera by a performance of "Parsifal," that heavily over-dressed story of sentimental religiosity and pedestrian symbolism, but it was done in the most slatternly perfunctory style. The theatre was crowded. But it was a strangely mixed crowd. In lonely grandeur in one of the boxes were three Englishmen in evening dress. In the fifth row of the stalls was a servant-girl who kept asking her neighbours the time in the midst ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... children, their bright hair, even their voices, were subdued. Fanny, apparently, hadn't moved; the light at her shoulder was reflected in the cut steel buckles of her slippers; she had slight but graceful ankles. He recognized this, drawing a sheaf of reports from his brief- case; but, after a perfunctory glance, he dropped them beside him on ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... provision for my wife and family.' Although Lord John was sixty, and burdened with the cares of State, if not with the cares of office, he cheerfully accepted the task. Though it must be admitted that he performed some parts of it in rather a perfunctory manner, the eight volumes which appeared between 1853 and 1856 of the 'Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore' represent a severe tax upon friendship, as well as no ordinary labour on the part of a man who was always more or less immersed ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... agreed that she did look shy, one might almost say frightened to death. Mrs. West rushed through the second verse of the song, bowed breathlessly, and ran down the steps of the stage and back to the refuge of the balcony, while the audience applauded with perfunctory politeness and called clamorously to the musicians ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... romances, though it does not always rise above commonplaceness, escapes the perfunctory quality of hack writing by virtue of his keen interest in the subject. He continued to like this prosaic kind of literary task even while he was writing novels with the most wonderful facility. We may judge not only by the fact that he continued to write reviews ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... the long, shining beach and children played about the sanded stretch. And, though there were soldiers in sight, one always expects soldiers in European countries. No one asked to see the passports we had brought with us, and the customs officers gave our hand baggage the most perfunctory of examinations. Hardly five minutes had elapsed after our landing before we were steaming away on our train through a landscape which, to judge by its appearance, might have known only peace, and naught but peace, for ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... commented Quin sadly. "Our Poor Law, like so many excellent institutions, is mostly run on a wrong basis. Huge sums of money are expended in procuring homes for homeless children, and the last thing that seems to be considered is the suitability of the home. Applications are accepted in a perfunctory, business-like way by guardians and others - and perhaps an inspector takes a casual glance round; but the moral aspect of the whole matter, as to character and habits, is mostly left to chance. We, who are on the spot, often have to rescue ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... packets that, on being unfolded, proved to have all the air of permits, laissez-passers, and police cards. Two nondescript photographs, which might have represented almost any one, adorned them, and of these our sergeant made a perfunctory survey. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... their springing apart and so ready the mind to believe what the heart denied, that it was almost conceivable that he had not seen. There was not even a pause, and through the perfunctory greetings of these two men of strangest relation, Lilly found herself somehow back at her desk, little prickles out all over her body and particularly against her face, like the bite of sleet, something like this ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... literature; he makes perfunctory obeisance to it. The truth is that Browning is expressed by his defects. He would not be Robert Browning without them. In the technical part of his art, as well as in his spirit, Browning represents a reaction ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... hours he gave it up, and returned home dispirited and furious. Walker and Appleby had taken much less time to appreciate the uselessness of the search, and had returned an hour ago from a perfunctory walk round one ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... bows," said Gerrard, with a perfunctory smile. "You don't think me altogether a coward, Bob? There is something evil about the atmosphere of this place. I felt it as I rode in at ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... drawer of the desk, opened it and thrust it toward the waiting lawyer, who, however, shook his head in refusal, and continued to move about the room rather restlessly. Demarest paid no attention to the other's invitation to a seat, but the courtesy was perfunctory on Gilder's part, and he hardly perceived the perturbation of his caller, for he was occupied in selecting and lighting a cigar with the care of a connoisseur. Finally, he spoke again, and now there was an infinite contentment in ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... proposition which they are urging. I have insisted, at the risk of seeming repetitious, on the need of considering the audience whose minds are to be won over; for what persuasiveness can mean apart from specific persons to persuade I cannot conceive. Much of the perfunctory emptiness of the textbooks when they get to this part of the subject comes from neglecting this very practical and obvious side of making an argument. The difficulty it raises for arguments written in class work is just as obvious; more ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... Terence, and went down on one knee beside the body to make a perfunctory examination. Then he looked up at ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... misapprehension of the duties of this body, and such misapprehension assumes various and opposing forms. Some appear to think that the librarian is responsible for all that is done in the library and that his board is a perfunctory body. Others seem to believe that the board is the direct administrative head of the library, in all of its working details and that the librarian is its executive in the limited sense of doing only those things that he is told to do. Unfortunately there are libraries that are operated ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... chiefly taken up with descriptions of the regular sights and "objects of interest," which we often feel to be rather perfunctory and a little in the style of the traditional tourist's diary. They abound in charming touches, and every reader of Transformation will remember the delightful colouring of the numerous pages in that ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... deciding ballot New York's part in the convention proved perfunctory. Beyond the sound of its music and the tread of its marchers neither applause nor good will encouraged its candidate. Reformers regarded Conkling as the antithesis of Bristow, supporters of Morton ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... criminal trial puts his grip on every juryman's ear So must every herald of Gospel-truth demand and command a hearing, cost what it may: but that hearing he never will secure while he addresses an audience in a cold, formal, perfunctory manner. Certainly the great apostle at Ephesus aimed at the emotions and the conscience as well as the reason of his hearers when he "ceased not to warn them night and day with tears." I cannot impress it too strongly on ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... the Mother-Superior, though, certainly, since the Colonel's visit of the previous day, the Mother had seemed strangely preoccupied and sad.... Her good-night kiss, invariably so warm and tender, had been the merest brush of lips against the girl's soft cheek; her good-morning had been even more perfunctory; her eyes, those great maternal radiances, turned their light elsewhere. Unloved and neglected, the Convent's spoiled darling hugged her abandonment, weaving a very pretty, ineffably silly romance, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... toward dimness dimmer than that of the great hall, in the direction of that wing where rooms had been assigned him. A little rustle of pleased anticipation ran through the petticoats of the room. Interest ceased to be perfunctory and became genuine. This was more fun than doctrine, after all. Who wouldn't be gratified at the chance of meeting an astral body—at least in a crowd? Alone, in a dark room, at midnight, ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... decay. At one time, no doubt, the house had formed a nest for the petite amie of some rich Parisian, but now the owner of the property was only too glad to sell it at any price, and without asking any but the most perfunctory questions of the man who had offered to buy. In the solitude of the ruined villa, Matheson had been pursuing his scientific research at such times as he could snatch from his financial business. He had been ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... sir," said Jack, rising, "and, sir, I wish a word with you." Here, however, remembering myself and Bentley, he introduced us—though in a very perfunctory fashion, to be sure. ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... daughter, and caresses had seldom passed between him and his children. His duties as a family man had always been perfunctory. He was tingling now from the surprise of Jewel's action, the feeling of the little gingham clad arms about his neck, the touch of the rose-leaf skin as she swept his cheek and ear in ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... was deep in conversation with Monsieur Jesen—the friend of mademoiselle's friend. He glanced up, but his greeting was almost perfunctory. Kendricks looked keenly at the man who was leaning back in his padded seat. The eyes of Monsieur Jesen were a little more bloodshot now. He had spilt wine down the front of his waistcoat, cigar ash upon his coat-sleeve. He was by no means an inviting person ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but not everybody's; each of them rouses enthusiasm, but not everybody's; in each case a part of the attention, interest, and enthusiasm is a matter of habit and custom, and another part of it is official and perfunctory. Cup Day, and Cup Day only, commands an attention, an interest, and an enthusiasm which are universal—and spontaneous, not perfunctory. Cup Day is supreme it has no rival. I can call to mind no specialized annual day, in any country, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... butler, an Englishman of over forty, heavily built, soft-moving, with ruddy, smooth-shaven cheeks and prematurely gray hair. But now from his face the look of perfunctory politeness had fallen; the subdued voice had changed to a snarl that carried with it the ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... BENNETT'S new novel, The Roll Call (HUTCHINSON), is a continuation of the Clayhanger series to the extent that its hero, George Cannon, is the stepson of Edwin, who himself makes a perfunctory appearance at the close of the tale. The scene is, however, now London, where we watch George winning fame and fortune, quite in the masterful Five-Towns manner, as an architect. The change is, I think, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... Uncle Remus allowed 'Tildy to remain in the cabin, the little boy was not particularly interested in preventing the perfunctory abuse which the old man might feel disposed to bestow upon the complacent girl. The truth is, the child's mind was occupied with the episode in the story of Mr. Benjamin Ram which treats of the style in which this romantic old wag put Mr. and Mrs. Wolf to flight by playing a tune upon his fiddle. ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... given place to other and more material ideals. From the first its practitioners have been artists rather than poets, have possessed, that is to say, the constructive rather than the creative, the organizing rather than the imaginative temperament, but they have rarely been perfunctory and never common. French painting in its preference of truth to beauty, of intelligence to the beatific vision, of form to color, in a word, has nevertheless, and perhaps a fortiori, always been the expression of ideas. These ideas almost ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... or as good, use of our Sundays as we might do. There is a medium between the rigid Sabbatarianism of our ancestors and the absolute waste of the day of rest in mere pleasure and frivolity. All the world is deploring the secularizing of Sunday. Not only is churchgoing perfunctory or absent, but in all ranks of life there is a disposition to make it a day of rest and amusement—sometimes the amusement rather than the rest. Sunday, the Sabbath, as Alex McLaren pointed out to me, is not a day taken ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... left the table, he was, for a moment, relieved. But only for a moment. Judge Baker drew his chair beside Paul's, and, taking his cigar from his lips, said, with a perfunctory laugh:— ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... great deal to say about London, as London appears to the observer who does n't fear the accusation of cynicism, during the high-pressure time—from April to July—of its peculiarities. He flashed his faculty of making the fanciful real and the real fanciful over the perfunctory pleasures and desperate exertions of so many of his compatriots, among whom there were evidently not a few types for which he had little love. London bored him, and he made capital sport of it; his only allusion, ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... nothing was said as to the weather except that it was warm—a self-evident proposition. The weather is not a fruitful topic in Egypt. After a little time some officials came in with a whole pile of papers for signature, and we took the opportunity to terminate our mutual discomfort, the pasha with a perfunctory grin shaking hands with everybody, at the same time ordering some of his own cavasses to join ours as a special bodyguard to clear the way for us through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Constitution to which his life had bound him. He was by no means inclined to flatter the House of Lords, or to exempt them from blame for much that he thought mischievous. They had neglected their business, their discharge of their functions had been careless and perfunctory, their meetings had been short, and their intervention in public affairs scanty, "while the other House sat, and drew the eyes of the kingdom upon them, as the only vigilant people for their good." Clarendon's constitutional ideals might be mistaken; but he was under no mistake as to the process ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... be the only customer at that hour, I selected a table by the window for distraction. Tom had taken my order; the other waiters, including Tournelli, were absent, with the exception of a solitary German, who, in the interlude of perfunctory trifling with the casters, gazed at me with that abstracted irresponsibility which one waiter assumes towards another's customer. Even the proprietor had deserted his desk at the counter. It seemed to be a favorable opportunity to ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... awkward enough situation, but neither the girl nor the young man was heavy-witted. Doris rose slowly, languidly, it seemed, and though aware that her eyes must betray her, turned and greeted Bullard in cool, even tones. The two men exchanged perfunctory nods. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... of the day she repaired to the puppies and fed them, but came away when this perfunctory ceremony was accomplished; and she was glad enough to have a governess bring them up. She made no quarrel with Em'ly, and the two understood each other perfectly. I have never seen among animals any arrangement so civilized and so perverted. It made Em'ly perfectly happy. To ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... at the fort before them, waiting with Dick outside the locked door leading to the ancient passages below. They said nothing beyond the most perfunctory greetings, but, each taking a kerosene lantern, passed through the door in single file, Tom leading, and locked the door after them. That was all that the fort guards ever ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... King went in, found his hat, and told Mrs. Gaynor good-night. She was glad that he was going, and he knew it though she made the obvious perfunctory remark. Gloria saw and came ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Jimmie crossed and kissed her. She kissed him back—a perfunctory kiss. Maggie had never paused to think the matter out, but for some reason she felt little real affection for her father, though of course she admired his astuteness. Perhaps her unconscious lack of love was due in part to the fact that she had never lived with him. Ever since ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... a little. My influence is peculiar; it sometimes comes out a long time afterwards!" This speech, on Verena's part, was evidently perfunctory, and the grandeur of her self-reference jocular; she was much more serious when she went on quickly, "Do you mean to say Miss ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... Haugians advanced in worldly affairs, and lost in spiritual life, a superficial piety, proceeding from them and from their movement, crept into society, both in town and country—a sort of perfunctory formalism, ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... had been a man of more robust fiber, he would have returned his portfolio to Mr. Wilson as early as 1916, for the President was writing notes to the belligerents and did not, even as a perfunctory courtesy, consult his Secretary of State; he made it only too patent he did not consider his advice worth asking. Mr. Lansing was too fond of his official prominence to surrender it easily, and that is another curious thing about the man. Somewhat vain, holding himself in much higher estimation ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... well as a pleasure for me to keep up my acquaintance with persons worth knowing; and, while many of the visits thus made were perfunctory and tedious, some were especially gratifying. My rule was, after office hours in the afternoon, to get into the open sledge; to make my visits; and as a result, of course, to see and hear a vast deal of frivolity and futility, but, from time ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... order to make sure of an uninterrupted supply of food and raw materials. The act would be justified as necessary to national existence. Great Britain in alliance with Japan would be in no position to protest in anything but the most perfunctory way. The guarantee of such abstinence would be for Japan the next best thing to open naval and financial support. Without the guarantee they would not dare the seizure of Chinese ports. In recent years diplomatists have ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... conversion seems to have been during the period that she resided with her mother and sister in Dublin. To the earnest man of God whose ministry they attended, the preparation of the younger members of his flock for admission to the Lord's Supper was no perfunctory task. He introduced her, with others of his candidates, to one of his helpers as "anxious inquirers." So shy and reserved was Agnes that she said but little, yet this lady remarked of her:—"In the class her intense appetite ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... could work got out their needlework, and began to perform their allotted tasks in a very perfunctory manner. Grannie's fingers quite longed and ached for something to do. She was sent for presently to see the doctor, who examined her hand, said it would never be of any use again, ordered a simple liniment, and dismissed her. ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... become the custom of sending wedding presents that it is perhaps necessary to remind those who really desire to do the correct thing, that a perfunctory service, or gift, or courtesy has no intrinsic value, and the omission of it would often be far ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he reached up, took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... he was superstitious, and repeated to himself the cabalistic formula: "Losin's seekin's, findin's keepin's"—presumed to be of great efficacy in such cases—with religious fervor. He had laboriously reached the end of the veranda when he noticed the open window of Louise's room, and stopped as a perfunctory duty to look in. And then Richelieu Sharpe stood for an instant utterly confounded and aghast at this crowning proof of the absolute infamy ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... a sudden hemorrhage that attacked Martel brought the prison doctor to his side. He shook his head after an examination. There was no hope. It was a matter of days only, perhaps of hours. He was heartless and perfunctory. What did it matter? The ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... conversed, rather painfully, for perhaps an hour. They had tea. All the effort to talk was made by Sanchia, who broached the children— Philippa's three, Vicky's one—and got nothing but perfunctory enthusiasm in reply. Mrs. Percival was far too sincerely interested in herself to care for children. The sons-in-law proved a better subject. Here she could point a moral inwards. She extolled them highly—never was woman so blessed in her daughters' ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... After all, it was the simplest of matters to fire even the biggest of guns. I had but to pull a lever. All morning I had been watching men do that. I knew it was but a perfunctory act. But I could not feel that! I was thrilled and excited as I had never been in ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... a perfunctory manner, points out the kind of 1st class carriage we have to travel in. It is not inviting, and we get back to the river, and make a jotting of our steamer and the shore against the evening sky, and the bullock-carts slowly stirring the dust into a golden haze.... Then ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... stint &c. (begrudge) 819; put on short allowance. do insufficiently &c. adv.; scotch the snake. Adj. insufficient, inadequate; too little &c. 32; not enough &c. 639; unequal to; incompetent &c. (impotent) 158; "weighed in the balance and found wanting"; perfunctory &c. (neglect) 460; deficient &c. (incomplete) 53; wanting, &c. v.; imperfect &c. 651; ill-furnished, ill-provided, ill- stored, ill-off. slack, at a low ebb; empty, vacant, bare; short of, out of, destitute of, devoid of, bereft of &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... and pray to their gods by the way, but would have them go out from their houses direct, with their minds set upon the duty, and so Numa, in like manner, wished that his citizens should neither see nor hear any religious service in a perfunctory and inattentive manner, but, laying aside all other occupations, should apply their minds to religion as to a most serious business; and that the streets should be free from all noises and cries that accompany manual labor, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... in?" he said, in a perfunctory sort of way; and then, without waiting for any reply, went on—"I've no engagement to-night, so I thought I would look in here first, and ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... mal-contrivance, to prevent a regular and minute investigation, to introduce confusion and contest, to puzzle, perplex, and obumbrate; to teaze, fatigue, and disgust the inquirers, that the examination might be hurried over in a superficial and perfunctory manner; and the ministry, from this anarchy and confusion of materials, half explored and undigested, derive a general parliamentary approbation, to which they might appeal from the accusations of the people. A select committee would have probably examined ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the Rhone to think of playing tricks elsewhere. Accordingly, I started for the station in a spirit which, for a tourist who sometimes had prided himself on his unfailing supply of sentiment, was shockingly perfunctory. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... same perfunctory way: "You have been very kind; uncle has depended on you so much. Your advice and help have been everything ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... pictures of great allied leaders which excited a mild interest and drew some perfunctory applause. Then came the tragic comedy of John Bull's experiences as an immigrant, when just as the interest began to deepen, the machine blew up, and the pictures were ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... intensification of labour during the shorter hours, does not leave the women competent and free for the proper ordering of home life. Home work is consciously slighted as secondary in importance and inferior, because it brings no wages, and if not neglected is performed in a perfunctory manner, which robs it of its grace and value. This narrowing of the home into a place of hurried meals and sleep is on the whole the worst injury modern industry has inflicted on our lives, and it is difficult to see how it can ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... moment they waited until, as before, the voice of the adjutant was heard, clear and commanding, above the clamor. Then came the publications, a perfunctory order or two, and then the colonel put forth a hand, pushed open the door, and while Mrs. Graham and Bud, trembling with excitement, clung to each other's arms, and the rest of the group instinctively closed about them, Hazzard turned ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... from his fourteenth year onward he was permitted to roam almost at will over the whole expanse of literature. He composed little beyond his school exercises, which themselves bear signs of having been written in a perfunctory manner. At this period he had evidently no heart in anything but his reading. Before leaving Shelford for Aspenden he had already invoked the epic muse for ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... came in answer to this call of his love, he flew around, at some height above the tree, in a circle of thirty or forty feet diameter, apparently to search out any enemy who might be annoying her. If he saw a bird, he drove him off, though in a perfunctory manner, as if it were done merely in deference to his lady's wishes, and not from any suspicion or jealousy. On these occasions, too, he came quite near me, stood fearless and calm, and studied me most sharply, doubtless to see if my intentions were innocent. Of course ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... believed that surveys should be established in all of the States and Territories. There is work enough for all, and the establishment of local surveys would greatly assist the general work prosecuted under the auspices of the government, and prevent it from falling into perfunctory channels. Its vigor and health will doubtless be promoted by ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... to giggle like children at the entrance of the foreigner and never took their eyes off us. Later, individual monks came running round the shrines, beating a gong as though to call the attention of the deity, and shouting a few words of perfunctory praise or prayer. Irreverence more complete I have not seen even in Italy, nor beggary more shameless. Such is the latter end of the gospel of Buddha in China. It seems better that he should sit deserted in his Indian caves than be dishonoured by ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... years has seen sons and daughters succeed fathers and mothers. More than nineteen hundred children have passed through her hands. With what pride she showed us the copy-books, and pointed out some particularly good compositions. Hers was no perfunctory task; a mother could not have displayed greater interest in her children. The number of pupils varies from one hundred and ten to one hundred and thirty, a little less than half of them being Catholics. ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... believe he meant to be gone more than a day or two. Then came his note, written at the Patroons' Club—very brief, curiously stilted and formal, with a strange tone of finality through it, as though he were taking perfunctory leave of people who had come temporarily into his life, and as though the chances were agreeably even of his ever ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... you're laughing at," he muttered, and, turning, found that the other couple had rejoined them. As if the matter had been privately agreed upon, the couples separated once more, Katharine and Denham passing out of the house without more than a perfunctory glance round them. Denham obeyed what seemed to be Katharine's wish in thus making haste. Some change had come over her. He connected it with her laughter, and her few words in private with Rodney; he felt that she had become unfriendly to him. She talked, but her ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... guest outside to the car; but Paula evidenced her intention of remaining in the house. Graham started over to her to murmur perfunctory regrets and good-by. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... the general had seemed so self-assured that— Well, they'd almost forgotten about him until some ambitious clerk, trying to balance at least part of the budget, had discovered a monthly expenditure to an obscure base in the southwest totalling some millions of dollars. Perfunctory checking had brought out the fact that "Smiley" Webb had been drawing this money every month, and hadn't as much as mailed in ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... been coldly indifferent to many things commonly counted chief matters of life. One of these was religion; another was woman. His punctuality at church at the head of Rosemont's cadets was so obviously perfunctory as to be without a stain of hypocrisy. Yet he never vaunted his scepticism, but only let it exhale from him in interrogative insinuations that the premises and maxims of religion were refuted by the outcome of the war. To woman his heart was as hard, cold, and polished ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... evening paper, which her uncle thought that Mr. Upton would like to see. That was how the girl addressed the boy, and the style always made him feel, and wish to seem, something of a man. But his present effort in that direction was sadly perfunctory: he almost ejected little Miss Platts in his eagerness to shut the door on her ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... Preparatory or of the Public School. Four of the six—the dramatic, the artistic, the musical, and the constructive—are entirely or almost entirely neglected. Music and Handwork[27] are "extras" (a fatally significant word); the teaching of Drawing is, as a rule, quite perfunctory; and Acting is not a recognised part of the school curriculum. The truth is that marks are not given for these "subjects"—for in the eyes of the schoolmaster they are all "subjects"—in any entrance or scholarship examination, and that therefore ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... England were not indeed by any means a body of men wanting in personal morality, or even in religious feeling, but they had as little or no religious activity because they had little or no religious zeal. They performed perfunctorily their perfunctory duties; and that, as a ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... stiffly and gave her hostess a perfunctory peck on her cheek. "We left Cousin Betty Throckmorton's this morning," she said with a toss of the ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... The perfunctory "Hello! Yes" was followed by a swift change of countenance, a surprised little cry, then,—in quite another tone—"Oh, it's you, Jock! I wasn't expecting ... No, not too busy to talk to you, you young chump! Go on." A ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... possible, by reasoning with her and appealing to her better nature. There was, therefore, but one thing for her mother to do in order to preserve her own dignity, and that was to ignore Beth. Accordingly, when the perfunctory lessons were over in the morning, Beth had her day to herself. She began it generally by practising for at least an hour by the church-clock, and after that she had a variety of pursuits which she preferred to follow alone if Sammy were at school, because then ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... introduction, she put down her beer from which she had been somewhat thirstily drinking and received Hanson with a perfunctory bow and a brief mechanical smile. "Think of settling here?" she ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... in her boots," she thought confusedly. "I shall be late for coffee." She gave her perfunctory knock, and turned the door-handle. But the door ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... actor; he possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland marked the sunrise of his genius—a time no less noble, in its freshness and promise, than the later glory of the noontide—and there was in his performance nothing ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... silence, during which Mrs. Ballinger, with a perfunctory hand, rearranged the skilfully grouped literature at which her distinguished guest had not so much as glanced; then Miss Van Vluyck tartly pronounced: "Well, I can't say that I consider Osric Dane's departure ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... Ibex sat at a long table in his sanctum paying some perfunctory attentions to a huge pile of letters which had come in by the afternoon mail. Most of them he threw on one side for his "sub," a few he opened himself and tossed into a basket for further attention later on. It was a task which he never entered upon with ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... toss more wood upon the fire, leaned back for a while, holding his glass to the light of the flames, and turned to me again with his cool, perfunctory smile. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... attacked in the House privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennett showed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile the Conservative papers talked the usual employers' political economy; and the Liberal papers, whose support of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of no particular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they were glad to get, and went in strongly ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... character but versatility of mind which caused him to undertake many things that having commenced he afterwards abandoned, and the probability is that as soon as he saw exactly how he could solve any difficulty which presented itself, he put on one side the merely perfunctory execution of such ...
— Leonardo da Vinci • Maurice W. Brockwell |
