"Stilted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... best, or third. To be 'Commended' was an honour she had ceased to hope for. She had written and re-written, and altered and corrected, until all the freshness and originality were gone, and the whole was becoming stiff and stilted, and she was incapable of seeing whether she was ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... a visiting princess to see and welcome her; yet this punctiliousness was not neglect, but Arab courtesy; and Ben Raana had talked to her of the world in general and Paris in particular, in French, which, though somewhat stilted and guttural, was curiously Parisian in wording and expression. He was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, scarcely darker in colour than many Frenchmen of the Midi, and marvellously dignified, with his long black beard, his great, sad eyes whose overhanging line of ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... no brass band or military guard at his heels, and unostentatiously taking his seat by the side of the meanest citizen in a public conveyance; while this is the case, there still lingers in American men-of-war all the stilted etiquette and childish parade of the old-fashioned Spanish court of Madrid. Indeed, so far as the things that meet the eye are concerned, an American Commodore is by far a greater man than the President ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... is yet typical where the newer ideas, as so well grasped by Mr. Washington, are not accepted? In a class in English composition two boys, among others, had placed their written work upon the board, one having written upon 'Honor' in the most stilted language, with various historical references which meant nothing to himself or to his classmates—the whole paragraph evidently being drawn from some outside source; the other wrote upon 'My Trade—Blacksmithing'—and ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... whom—well known in England and America—Frederica Bremer, whose novels portrayed the home life of the middle class, Emelie Carlen, who idealized the fishermen and sea-faring folk of the West Coast, and Sophie von Knorring, who gave rather stilted descriptions of life in aristocratic circles. All three were very productive, and their novels count by dozens. Yet they failed to sustain the reputations their first works had won ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... single message as governor exhibited a knowledge of conditions and needs that must rank it among the ablest state-papers in the archives of the capitol. Unlike some of his predecessors, with their sentences of stilted formality, he wrote easily and with vigour. His message, however, was marred by the insincerity which shows the politician. He approved canals, but, by cunningly advising "the utmost prudence" in taking up new enterprises, he coolly disparaged the Chenango project; he shrewdly recommended ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Herring and eighty percent of the American people," said he in stilted, pompous tones, "is that our friend Herring unwisely voices his protest, while the others merely think—and consider it the part ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... come, it was a bitter disappointment. It was stilted and commonplace. Netty regretted that her mother felt it necessary to absent herself from home, and she was very wretched because father was still far from well, although recovering slowly. He was in the hands of Dora Dundas, who had volunteered to nurse him; ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... not see the sign upon the gate?" he demanded angrily, in curiously stilted English. "Did you not see that trespassers are forbidden? You must go away at once! You will be prosecuted! You will be ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... himself to sleep, demanding powers of self-control and development which the child does not possess. There is no doubt that our development of charity methods has reached this pseudo-scientific and stilted stage. We have learned to condemn unthinking, ill-regulated kind-heartedness, and we take great pride in mere repression much as the stern parent tells the visitor below how admirably he is rearing the child, who is hysterically ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... suppress her fear, she walked, not sideways as always, but erect, her chest thrown out, which gave her figure a droll, stilted air of importance. Her shoes made a knocking sound on the ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... colloquial, never stilted or affected, marked at times by an energy and incisiveness which betrayed earnest thought and intense feeling. She aimed to impress the truth, not her style, and therefore aimed at plainness and directness. Her hard common sense, of which her books reveal a goodly ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... 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 stilted English. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... unreadable, and many of the blemishes in Byron's poetry are inseparable from the romantic style; they are to be found in Scott's metrical tales, which have much redundancy and some weak versification; while his chiefs and warriors often talk a stilted chivalrous language which would now be discarded as theatrical. Byron's personages have the high tragic accent and costume; yet one must admit that they have also a fierce vitality; and as for the crimes and passions of his Turkish pashas and Greek ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... lost its shaft, but as there is no trace of bases for these missing shafts on the central circle they probably never existed. All the other nave windows are mere slits; and above them runs a rich corbel table of slightly stilted arches with their edges covered with ball ornament resting on projecting corbels. In the apse the five windows are tall and narrow with square heads, and the corbel table of a form common in Portugal but rare elsewhere, where each ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... and enjoying nature which belonged to few in his sophisticated age; it is unfortunate he should have spent his working hours in rendering the fruit of country rambles freshly observed into a cold and stilted diction. It suited the eighteenth century reader well, for not understanding nature herself he was naturally obliged ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... sometimes supply without extra charge; and now, half-awed, half-contemptuous, but wholly interested, he looked out upon the ordered English landscape wrapped in its Sunday peace, while I watched the wonder grow upon his face. Why were the cars so short and stilted? Why had every other freight-car a tarpaulin drawn over it? What wages would an engineer get now? Where was the swarming population of England he had read so much about? What was the rank of all those men on tricycles along the roads? When were we due at Plymouth ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... inclined to lack the broad outlook of one who is interested in many things; he acquires a jargon of his own; his mind runs in the narrow channel to which that jargon corresponds; the language he uses becomes stilted and dead. There is no tonic in the truths he tries to proclaim, no relevance to the rest of knowledge. In other words, what he has to say may be scientifically valuable, but he fails to convey it ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... chasm which her coquetry had already bridged, he paid her the quick, reckless, boyish compliment she invited—a little flowery, perhaps, possibly a trifle stilted, but very Southern; and she shrugged like a spoiled court beauty, nose uptilted, and swept him with a glance ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... death-bed moments of the girl he has ruined, the scene has a great moving power. Allowing for differences of taste and time, the vogue of the Novel in Richardson's day can easily be understood, and through all the stiffness, the stilted effect of manner and speech, and the stifling conventions of the entourage, a sweet and charming young woman in very piteous distress emerges to live in affectionate memory. After all, no poor ideal of womanhood is pictured in Clarissa. She is one of the heroines who are unforgettable, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... not hesitate any longer. The Chief Factor went to Mr. Archibald Clavering Gunter and the Home Publishing Company, and they made a very large sale of it. I never cared for the book however; it seemed stilted and amateurish, though some of its descriptions and some of its dialogues were, I think, as good as I can do; so, eventually, in the middle nineties, I asked Mr. Gunter to sell me back the rights in the book and give me control of it. This he did. I thereupon withdrew it from ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that so many stories which are supposedly designed for children, make use of big and stilted words, complicated ideas, and tedious, long-winded explanations. Mother can read them so quickly by herself and then preserve the pith and point of them in her own manner of recounting. There is practically no limit to ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... to all invitations, there came only polite, stilted little letters of regret, in the children's round script. "Mother would d'rather we shouldn't go to a sin-gul party until we are young ladies!" Ellen would say cheerfully, if cross-examined on the subject, leaving it to the more tactful Joanna to add, ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... had been presented, some one told Miss Fenler that Mrs. Marvin wished to see her, and what had begun in a stilted manner, became ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... his work Cavalcanti shows many of the stilted mannerisms which were common to the troubadours; but such expressions as "to her, every virtue bows," and "the mind of man cannot soar so high, nor is it sufficiently purified by divine grace to understand and appreciate all her perfections," point the way toward a greater sincerity. His ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... were all smoking and exchanging compliments in the high-flown, stilted Samoan style, there entered the house a strapping young warrior, carrying a wickerwork cage, in which were two of the rare and famous Manu Mea (red-bird) of Samoa—the Didunculus or tooth-billed pigeon. These were the property of the young chief commanding ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... impossible not to admire the poem, though it is stilted and not to the present taste. The description of Britain as it now is and as it ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... you would be." Mazie, grown suddenly a bit stiff and stilted, was obviously trying to be very polite and "grown up." "There must be an awful lot to do here. Mother says she don't see ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... dashing haughty Tybalt of a brother; a wicked poor cousin, a pretty maid, and a fierce buccaneer. These people might pass three hours very well on the stage, and interest the audience hugely; but the author fails in filling up the outlines. His language is absurdly stilted, frequently careless; the reader or spectator hears a number of loud speeches, but scarce a dozen lines that seem to belong ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me, sir, to express my gratitude—" and so on through the stilted compliment of the day. Assurances from both sides over at last, and the chaise discharged, the one walked briskly down the unpaved street toward the Eagle, and the other entered quietly the bare and business-like room from whose window, last February, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... vividness of Webster's, the oratorical character of Macaulay's, the ruggedness of Carlyle's, the poetical beauty of Emerson's, the humor of Irving's, and the brilliancy of Holmes's—the last lines from whom are purposely stilted, as we ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... New York and London in his queer stilted way. He had been a fireman on board ship, a teacher of jiujitsu, a juggler, a quack dentist, Heaven knows what else. Driven by the conscientious inquisitiveness of his race, he had endured hardships, contempt and rough treatment with the smiling patience inculcated in the Japanese ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... her favourite's delinquency, it was not to be in his well-known handwriting and accompanied by his penitent tears and written caresses, but to be laid before her with all the formality of parchment and sealingwax, in the stilted diplomatic jargon of those "highly-mighty, very learned, wise, and very foreseeing gentlemen, my lords the States-General." Nothing could have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... feverish impatience till the agony drew to an end, and the heroine died amid the sobs of ten thousand readers. Yet the story had power, and the central figure of Clarissa was impressive in its pathos and tragedy. The novel would still be readable if it were stripped of the stilted conversations and sentimental gush in which Richardson delighted; but that would leave precious little ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... of Henry as the civilized brother I shall never forget. There was something in him to which the perfect style of the D'Orsay period appealed, and he spoke the stilted language with as much truth as he wore the cravat and the tight-waisted full-breasted coats. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... stilted, legal kind of letter like the last. Tell me about yourself—your feelings, your conditions. We are old friends—friends long before Bridget came either into my life or yours. You can trust me. If you do not want me to repeat to Bridget anything you may tell ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... probably very just. Although her husband had many qualifications for writing prose fiction—insight into and appreciation of character, combined with much tragic force and a real gift for description—there is reason to think that he would have been stilted and artificial in dialogue, and altogether wanting in lightness of hand. Crabbe acquiesced in his wife's decision, and the novels were cremated without a murmur. A somewhat similar fate attended a set of Tales in Verse which, in the year 1799, Crabbe was about to offer to ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... Despite the stilted style and absurdly pompous descriptions, with an occasional terrible breakdown, Charlie's love of Nature, and especially of the animal creation, seems to have been most genuine. He speaks of "the wide ocean which when angry roars and clashes over the beach, but when calm crabs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... Janey, as she shot a sudden mischievous glance from the corners of her downcast eyes; "but I reckon he'll think more of me, ef he thinks I's goin' to die. I am not very happy," she resumed, in the same stilted tone as before; "an' las' night you came to me in a dream, an' tol' me you was dead. I done specks he'll cry like everything, when he reads dat," she interpolated, with a nod of triumph. "Sometimes I reckon we sha'n' never see each other no mo'; but you mus' never forget your ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... comic servant, who is meant to be vulgar and ridiculous, ever condescends to use colloquial speech. Even in moments of extreme peril the heroines are very choice in their diction. Dialogue in Mrs. Radcliffe's world is as stilted and unnatural as that of prim, old-fashioned school books. In her earliest novel she uses very little conversation, clearly finding the indirect form of narrative easier. Sometimes, in the more highly wrought passages of description, she slips unawares into ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... picture, and said, "I have just done it." Apelles replied, "Without your telling me, I should know it was painted quickly; I only wonder you haven't painted more such in the time." As then (for I now return from my digression), I advise to avoid stilted and bombastic language, so again do I urge to avoid a finical and petty style of speech; for tall talk is unpopular, and petty language makes no impression. And as the body ought to be not only sound ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the formal style and stilted language of the notes, and were amazed at the information that they were to make a longer ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students in Yale College, and heartily entered into by those of several other institutions. Its objects are clearly stilted in the well-written Prospectus and Introduction. They are briefly these:—"To record the history, promote the intellectual improvement, elevate the moral aims, liberalize the views, and unite the sympathies of Academical, Collegiate, and Professional ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... not my fault if you have had teachers of taste so rococo as to bid you find masterpieces in the tiresome stilted tragedies of Corneille and Racine. Poetry of a court, not of a people, one simple novel, one simple stanza that probes the hidden recesses of the human heart, reveals the sores of this wretched social state, denounces ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Pitt was essentially an actor, dramatic in the Cabinet, in the House, in his very office. He transacted business with his clerks in full dress. His letters to his family, genuine as his love for them was, are stilted and unnatural in tone. It was easy for the wits of his day to jest at his affectation, his pompous gait, the dramatic appearance which he made on great debates with his limbs swathed in flannel and his crutch by his side. Early in life Walpole sneered at him for bringing into the House ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... the starting-point of a speculative theory, in his mind, that the late marquis had been a very amiable foreigner, with an inclination to take life easily and a sense that it was difficult for the husband of the stilted little lady by the fire to do so. But if he had taken little comfort in his wife he had taken much in his two younger children, who were after his own heart, while Madame de Bellegarde had paired ...
— The American • Henry James
... were conscious of a pleasant surprise. Against the simplicity and pathos of the old ballad Buononcini's stilted artificialities sounded tame and monotonous. When Lavinia finished applause filled the room. She had to ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... read Meredith—the novels, I mean. One of Our Conquerors, he vowed, was the finest thing ever written. He scoffed at me for liking Diana and Richard Feverel better, because they were easier. And now, nothing's bad enough for Meredith's 'stilted nonsense'—'characters without a spark of life in them'—'horrible mannerisms'—you should hear him. Except the poems—ah, except the poems! He daren't touch them. I say—do you know the 'Hymn to Colour'?" The girl's ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stilted to his ears, even while he pressed the little white hand that she put out blindly towards him. He was not sorry for his pledge; he felt that he could have done no less; but Sydney's proud, earnest face flashed before him, and his memory saw it soften ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... unsolved in itself; for he that wants judgment in the liberty of his fancy may as well shew the want of it in its confinement." [Footnote: Preface to Four New Plays: ib. 498.] Besides, he adds in effect on the next page, so far from "confining the fancy" rhyme is apt to lead to turgid and stilted writing. ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... of lace—goodness! Who are you?" asked the girl, her stilted, saleslady manner changing to amazement with ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... pedestal. [ref] escalate (increase) 35, 102, 194. take up, drag up, fish up; dredge. stand up, rise up, get up, jump up; spring to one's feet; hold oneself, hold one's head up; drawn oneself up to his full height. Adj. elevated &c. v.; stilted, attollent[obs3], rampant. Adv. on stilts, on the shoulders of, on one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... but they were by no means universally so, for a form frequently found is one in which the spring of the arch does not take place from the abacus, or upper member of the capital, but at some distance above it and when it assumes this form it is called a "stilted" arch, suggested by some authorities to have been unintentional and the result of imperfect construction or planning. ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... text was most excellent, and in this respect his operas have served as models in the traditions of the French stage from that time until now. As a musician, however, he was clever rather than deep, and the music is often monotonous and rather stilted. Nevertheless, his operas held the stage for many years after the death of their author, and occasional revivals have taken place at intervals, even after the advance in taste and musical knowledge had effectually quenched their ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... Wordsworth; in The Rape of the Lock no less than in Peter Bell. Indeed the whole history of the mock-heroic, and the work of Tassoni, Boileau, and Pope, the three chief masters in that kind, was a reassertion of sincerity and nature against the stilted conventions of the late literary epic. The Iliad is the story of a quarrel. What do men really quarrel about? Is there any more distinctive mark of human quarrels than the eternal triviality of the immediate ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... address more than one epistle of sympathy—nearest and dearest to the deceased. Usually one letter is sufficient, but sometimes it may occur that you feel that you should also write to others. Make it as natural as possible. Avoid all stilted phrases and studied efforts at consolation. A few words is all that is necessary. If you have been on intimate terms with the family wire them your sympathy, and write a week ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... Mr. Gilmore by the same post as will take this, and have just told him the bare truth. What else could I tell him? I have said something horribly stilted about esteem and friendship, which I would have left out, only that my letter seemed to be heartless without it. He has been to me as good as a man could be; but was it my fault that I could not love him? If you knew how I tried,—how ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... pretty," murmured Lysbeth, through whose bewildered brain the stilted and meaningless words buzzed like bees in an empty hive, "though I am sure I cannot guess how you find the heart in such times as these to write poetry to fine ladies whom you ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Jesuit order,[213] against his father's passionate entreaties, for he was heir of a princely house; and when a year later the father died, he took the loss as a "particular attention" to himself on God's part, and wrote letters of stilted good advice, as from a spiritual superior, to his grieving mother. He soon became so good a monk that if any one asked him the number of his brothers and sisters, he had to reflect and count them over before replying. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... it is not a matter of opinion as to whether Mr. Crockett is worthy of the stilted encomium which has mopped and mowed about him. It is not a matter of opinion as to whether Mr. Crockett has or has not rivalled Sir Walter. It is a matter of absolute fact, about which no two men who are even moderately ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... the ground. He stooped down and examined her, and stood up again. Then he eyed the company of travellers with a hard cold eye, and spoke deliberately and in a low voice. His manner of speech was somewhat stilted and precise, and scarcely what might have ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... It was all very stilted, almost melodramatic, but my father was so much in earnest that I readily gave the promise he asked. With a look of relief he took a package from his pocket and handed ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... feared for his safety every moment, and at the same time to give them a clear idea of his life. Without boasting, modestly and naturally, he describes the adventures of an aviator in the great World War. It could well serve as a guide to those who are studying aviation. Although he has avoided the stilted tone of the school-master, still his accomplishments as a knight of the air must fascinate any who know aviation. For the aviators as well as their machines have accomplished wonders. They are rightly called the eyes of the army—these ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... blinded himself in these vain, silly vaporings, the result of a false training and the reading of stilted romances. The thought of studying the girl's character, of doing and being in some degree what would be agreeable to her, never occurred to him. That kind of good sense rarely does occur to the egotistical, who often fairly exasperate those whom they would ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... great composer Gluck, whose genius was destined to have such a profound influence on French music, came to Paris with his "Iphigenie en Aulide," by invitation of the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette, who had formerly been his musical pupil. The stiff and stilted works of Sully and Rameau had thus far ruled the French stage without any competition, except from the Italian operettas performed by the company of Les Bouffons, and the new school of French operatic comedy developed into form by the lively genius of Gretry. When ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... I dare to hope that—" I began in stilted gallantry, cut short by her opening eyes and smile. "Of course I like you, Mr. Renault. Can you not see that? It's a pity if you can not, as all the others tease me so about ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... later Emperors, by seizing the power of the State, had taken away the inspiration that comes from a love of freedom and had thus deprived the rhetorical art of practical value. The work of the schools then became highly stilted and artificial in character, and oratory then came to be cultivated largely as a fine art. [26] Men educated in these schools came to boast that they could speak with equal effectiveness on either side of any question, and ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... and yet owned a villa and $25,000 a year income. However that may be, it was a brilliant match for the son of the slaughter-house inspector, and the wedding took place in the palace of a cardinal, the Archbishop of Bologna. As one poet wrote, in stilted Latin: ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... youth, when he was persuaded to write "Oliver Twist" in a hurry, he fell far below his own standard. I have lately read the book after many years, and while I find nearly all the comic parts admirable, some of the serious portions strike me as being so curiously stilted and bad that I can hardly bring myself to believe that Dickens touched them. An affectionate student of his books can almost always account for the bad patches in Dickens by collating the novels with the letters ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... laugh by his amusing talk, kept his blue devils at bay, sent him first copies of his books, and sympathised with his views on political matters. M. de Hanski was also much flattered by Balzac's friendship for his wife, and would finish a polite and stilted epistle by saying that he need trouble Balzac no more, as he knows his wife is at the same time writing him one of her long chattering letters. Even when, by sad mischance, two of Balzac's love-letters fell into M. de Hanski's hands, and the great writer was forced to stoop to the pretence ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... it was not a "social movement" in itself. This, however, is anticipating the future, whereas the following paper on "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" should have a chance to speak for itself. It is perhaps too late in the day to express regret for its stilted title. ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... Georgian London? What better companion could he have had in his scheme of investigation than Mr. Thomas Jones, recently come up from the West Country? For a vision of Corinthian London could he have done better than take up Conan Doyle's "Rodney Stone," with its vivid pictures of the stilted eccentrics who hovered about the Prince-Regent, the coffee-houses thronged with England's warriors of the land and sea, and the haunts of the hard-faced ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... of her own charms, but frankly delighted with her success. She was still dressed in the ridiculous hoops and panniers pertaining to her part, and the powdered peruke hid the charm of her own hair; the costume gave a certain stilted air to her unaffected personality, which, by this very sense of contrast, was ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... finger," says Miss Priscilla, addressing Monica, "of which he was very proud. He was at this time about fifty-three, but used to pose as a man of thirty-nine. One evening showing the ring to your mother, then quite a girl, he said to her, in his stilted way, 'This jewel has been in our family for fifty years.' 'Ah! did you buy it, Mr. Fitzgerald?' asks your mother, in her sweet innocent way. Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Miss Priscilla, "you should have seen ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... "I can not describe her any other way. She may strike you as a bit staccato and stilted sometimes; but it is natural to ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... This radical defect in the plan is not counterbalanced by any felicity in the execution. Many of the incidents are more than improbable, they are impossible. The style, likewise, is labored, and the conversations combine the two undesirable peculiarities of being both stilted and dull. The characters, female or male, are in no case successfully drawn. The inferior ones, introduced to amuse, serve only to depress the reader. The hero in the course of the tale does several absurd things; but he ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... nave, and wandered about for a few moments, noting the timbered roof, the remains of old frescoes on the walls; the tomb of a knight who lay still and stiff, his head resting on his hand. I read an epitaph or two, with the faint cry of love and grief echoing through the stilted phraseology of the tomb, and then I went back to ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... externals," he thought, "the provincial air that one might expect, although her ideas are not only provincial, but prim, obtained, no doubt, from some goody-good books that she has read in the remote region wherein she has developed so remarkably. She has some stilted ideal of womanhood which she is seeking to attain, and the more unnatural the ideal, the more attractive, no doubt, it ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... space was a flat sandy stretch, ending in a reedy marsh at the water's edge. The line of cultivation ended far to the south and north of it, though the soil was as arable as any bordering the Nile. A great number of marsh geese and a few stilted waders flew up or plunged into the water with discordant cries and flapping of wings as the presence of the young men disturbed the solitude. The sedge was wind-mown, and there were numberless prints ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... down her name for election to the Royal Academy. Her portrait of herself created such a sensation that her election became assured. She had to paint the usual formal tableau de reception, and chose Allegory, painting her "La Paix ramenant l'Abondance," which, though a somewhat stilted affair such as Academies demand, is full of charm—and is still to be seen at the Louvre. She was received into the Academy on the last day of May in 1783 in her twenty-eighth year, and thenceforward had the valuable privilege of the right to ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... considering the cheap literature which floods the English and American publics week by week and month by month. I am afraid that, when at home in Chelsea, where even the idlers read Swinburne and Lord de Tabley, I had grown accustomed to the stilted point of view, calling novelettes "trashy" and beneath an intellectual man's consideration. Well, since this particular trash forms the staple brain food in the Mercantile Marine, I must needs look into ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... affluent in "duplicates," my plan being to get a large card and then cover it with specimens of the shell, in serried ranks. I also called literature to my aid, and produced several little books containing labored descriptions of my collection, couched, so far as possible, in the stilted and formal phraseology of the conchological works to which I had access, but with occasional outbursts after a style of my own. Here is a chapter from one of them; a pen-and-ink portrait of the shell is prefixed to ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... manner wherein excellence differs from mediocrity. Yet Hadria was glad to notice some equally indefinable lack, corresponding perhaps to the gap in his consciousness that Lady Engleton had come upon in their discussions on the general principles of art. What was it? A certain stilted, unreal quality? Scarcely. Words refused to fit themselves to the evasive form. Something that suggested the term "second class," though whether it were the manner or the substance that was responsible for the impression, was difficult ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... unusually considerate of Ronnie to curb the glowing words he must have longed to pour forth. The very effort of that curbing, had reduced him to a somewhat stilted adjective. ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... straight up all over his head, and a haughtiness in his voice, in all his movements, in his every attitude which plainly showed the esteem in which he held himself. They were people who had a strict etiquette for everything, and whose feelings seemed always stilted, like their words. ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... a bit of revelation, and as he had so repeatedly impressed on me that the things were mine by right of discovery, I wrote rather a pointed note to him mentioning that he seemed to have been making rather free with my property. Promptly came back a stilted letter beginning, "Doctor Coppinger regrets" and so on, and with it the English translation of the wax-upon-talc MSS. He "quite admitted" my claim, and "trusted that the profits of publication would be a sufficient reimbursement for ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... inconsequence of fancy they were peculiarly unfitted for the practice of a profession which requires drudgery to attain a mastery of its subtle requirements and a preternatural gravity in the application of its stilted jargon to the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... obvious purpose of surpassing them; in which attempt they succeed as much as a hollow hyperbole would in competition with a most fervent truth. Every tragical common-place is worried out to the last gasp; all is phrase; and even the most common remark is forced and stilted. A total poverty of sentiment is dressed out with wit and acuteness. There is fancy in them, or at least a phantom of it; for they contain an example of the misapplication of every mental faculty. The authors have found out ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... to fit the exuberance of Lavington's public personality into his host's contracted frame and manner. Mr. Lavington, to whom Faxon's case had been rapidly explained by young Rainer, had welcomed him with a sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matched his narrow face, his stiff hand, the whiff of scent on his evening handkerchief. "Make yourself at home—at home!" he had repeated, in a tone that suggested, on his own part, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... very erect, speaking with formality, with a certainly stilted, "learned by rote" manner, very different from his usual ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Mother,' 'The Lame Lover,'—such names as that she was aware would be useless now. 'Mary Jane Walker,' if she could be very simple, would do, or 'Blanche De Veau,' if she were able to maintain throughout a somewhat high-stilted style of feminine rapture. But as she considered that she could best deal with rapid action and strange coincidences, she thought that something more startling and descriptive would better suit her purpose. After an hour's thought a name did occur to her, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... how enjoyable the stage might be, cleared of all its traditionary nonsense, stilted language, stilted behavior, all the rubbish of false sentiment, false dress, and the manners of times that were both artificial and immoral, and filled with living characters, who speak the thought of to-day, with the wit and culture that are current to-day. I've seen private theatricals, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... literary pretensions. The most elaborate and the best known of them is his Farewell Address, issued on his retirement from the presidency in 1796. In the composition of this he was assisted by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. It is wise in substance and dignified, though somewhat stilted in expression. The correspondence of John Adams, second President of the United States, and his Diary, kept from 1755-85, should also be mentioned as important sources for a ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... If we consider the manner in which these lords and ladies spent their time at court, filling idle hours with compliment, love-making, veiled jibe and swift retort; if we read our Euphues again, renewing our acquaintance with its absurdly elaborated and stilted style, its tireless winding of sentences round a topic without any advance in thought, its affectation of philosophy and classical learning; if we remember that to speak euphuistically was a coveted and studiously cultivated accomplishment, and that to pun, to utter caustic jests, to let fall neat ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... so humane, so full of a brave delight in life, was the power that, mastering every gloomy obstacle of circumstance, broke into the stilted literary world of 1742; and Murphy's Irish rhetoric is not too warm when he talks of this sunrise of Fielding's greatness "when his genius broke forth at once, with an effulgence superior to all the rays of light it had before emitted, like the sun ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... gives us the reverse side of the medal. Like the authors we have mentioned, he too writes of the evil days which he himself has passed through, as of a horrid nightmare from which he has just awakened; but from his letters, artificial and stilted as they are in some respects, we learn that there were still to be found those who had not bowed the ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... description you gave of his appearance;—a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... discourse full of precedents, quotations, classic scenes, and historic allusions, sometimes savoring of schoolboy recitations, sophomoric and declamatory, stilted and grotesque. Yet he is in the list of wonderful men. Others thought and he was led to fancy some resemblance in his feature and person to Edmund Burke, which the portrait of Mr. Burke might actually suggest; but this resemblance ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... avoid the repetition of the same word. To find four different terms for nearly the same idea "difference," "odds," "distinction," and "contrariety," involves considerable painstaking. While it is true that the term "euphuism" has come to be applied to any stilted, antithetical style that pays more attention to the manner of expressing a thought than to its worth, we should remember that English prose style has advanced because some writers, like Lyly, emphasized the importance of artistic form. Shakespeare occasionally employs ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... in the ballroom, Lady Blakeney now took up her stand on the exquisitely decorated landing, ready to greet her guests. She had a smile and a pleasant word for all, as, in a constant stream, the elite of London fashionable society began to file past her, exchanging the elaborate greetings which the stilted mode of the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to converse with her—in a stilted, incorrect way—on all but the most abstract of subjects. It was a fine language. I liked it, as I liked everything else about Zyobor. The upper earth seemed far away and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... perhaps suggested the extreme of accuracy in speech. But as has already been said, any degree of overnicety, of pedantic elegance, of stilted correctness, is especially irritating to a sensitive ear. Excessive biting off of syllables, flipping of the tongue, showing of the teeth, twisting of the lips, is carrying excellence to a fault. The inactive jaw, tongue, and lips must be made mobile, and in the working away of clumsiness and slovenliness ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... written by the kindly editor, and full of wholesome advice, cut like a surgeon's knife in some desperate case when it is a question whether the patient can endure the heroic treatment necessary. Haldane's stilted and unnatural tales had been projected into being by such fiery and violent means that they might almost be termed volcanic in their origin; but the fused mass which was the result, resembled scoria or cinders rather than ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... short, that appeared during that sudden outburst of first vigorous growth might bring delight into her solitary life, but not flexibility of mind or body. She stood strong and straight like some forest tree, lightning-blasted but still erect. Her dignity became a stilted manner, her social supremacy led her into affectation and sentimental over-refinements; she queened it with her foibles, after the usual fashion of those who allow their ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... anew the translator has endeavored to retain the characteristics of the style of the early chap-book versions, while evading the pompous, stilted language and Johnsonian phraseology so fashionable when ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... wherever sarcasm is required, the same depth of feeling, wherever feeling is called for, the same refusal to make a parade of feeling even where it is shown. Never trivial, never vulgar, never feeble, never stilted, never diffuse, Lockhart is one of the very best recent specimens of that class of writers of all work, which since Dryden's time has continually increased, is increasing, and does not seem likely to diminish. The growth may or may not be matter for ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... proclaim Nought of women but the shame? Quit, oh, quit, at least awhile, Perdita's too luscious smile; Wanton Worsley, stilted Daly, Heroines of each blackguard alley; Better sure record in story Such as shine their sex's glory! Herald! haste, with me proclaim Those of literary fame. Hannah More's pathetic pen, Painting high th' impassion'd ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... again lapse into sentiment, and he made himself fairly agreeable, in his somewhat stilted fashion. Ida accepted his attention with a charming unconsciousness; but she was perfectly conscious of Urania's vexation, and that gave a zest to ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Swedenborg Universe, I am yet confirmed in my madness by the scope and satisfaction I find in a conversation once or twice in five years, if so often; and so we find or pick what we call our proper path, though it be only from stone to stone, or from island to island, in a very rude, stilted, and violent fashion. With such solitariness and frigidities, you may judge I was glad to see Clough here, with whom I had established some kind of robust working-friendship, and who had some great permanent ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... such officers were indicted while they continued to obey their paroles, and such was the logic of his argument and the force of his character that those indictments were soon after quashed. So that he penned no idle platitude; he fashioned no stilted epigrams; he spoke the earnest convictions of an honest heart when he said, "Let us have peace." [Applause.] He never tired of giving unstinted praise to worthy subordinates for the work they did. Like ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... that sounded stilted," he returned. "I explained myself poorly. It is not easy for ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... it, guided ever by Fifanti's lady. And whatever we read by way of divergence, ever and anon we would come back to the stilted, ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... been familiar to the entire theatre-going public, including the poorer and less educated spectators who sat farthest from the actors. Since most of the audience was grouped above the stage and at a considerable distance, the actors, in order not to appear dwarfed, were obliged to walk on stilted boots. A performer so accoutred could not move impetuously or enact a scene of violence; and this practical limitation is sufficient to account for the measured and majestic movement of Greek tragedy, and the convention ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... the American school, a tendency to pose and be self-conscious, to smirk even, if the word may be permitted, especially when advancing to the footlights to receive a full measure of applause, were fatal to such sentiment as even so stilted a play could be made to yield. It was but too evident that Parthenia was at all times more concerned with the fall of her drapery than with the effect of her speeches, and that gesture, action, intonation—everything which constitutes a living individuality ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... appears that besides the composed and formal dignity of phrase which alone the public knows in published state papers and official correspondence, there is also an official language of wrath and retort not at all artificial or stilted, but quite homelike and human in ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... is the end, and because, by the events foregone, the mind is prepared for it. But these men will have nothing but fifth acts; and seem to skip, as unworthy, all the circumstances leading to them. This, however, is part of the scheme—the bloated, unnatural, stilted, spouting, sham sublime, that our teachers have believed and tried to pass off as real, and which your humble servant and other antihumbuggists should heartily, according to the strength that is in them, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the residents here "Transcendentalists." You may judge from the name that they must be either very good or very bad people, but they represent people of education who are a little "high stilted" in their religious views, and do not take in all the wonderful Mosaic traditions. At least, this is as near as I can explain it to you. It is the fashion to call every one who has any independent notions a Transcendentalist, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... not even give utterance to the ideas that did, not infrequently, act on his brain, nor hardly to the human tenderness which was his normal attitude towards mankind. But he did go on writing fresh ones, stilted and commonplace as they were. Mental activity was less of a burden to him than bodily activity, and he had kept himself up to that part of what he thought to ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... notwithstanding the ingenious measures he had resorted to in order to acquire more information about her, when suddenly the murmur of a human voice attracted his attention. He heard whispers, the complaining tones of a woman's voice mingled with entreaties, smothered laughter, sighs, and half-stilted exclamations of surprise; but above them all, the woman's voice prevailed. Saint-Aignan stopped to look about him; he perceived from the greatest surprise that the voices proceeded, not from the ground, but from the branches of the trees. As he glided along under the covered walk, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seen the tragedians and comedians you speak of, at least if the former are men in heavy stilted shoes, and clothes all picked out with gold bands; they have absurd head- pieces with vast open mouths, from inside which comes an enormous voice, while they take great strides which it seems to me must be dangerous in those shoes. I think there was a festival to Dionysus ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... hang a man," argued Hall, "because he doesn't live in accordance with our stilted notions. Professor Young says that the girl is a genius—that she has a beautiful voice. I promised that if he took up—a contribution for the family that I would ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... words were ridiculously stilted, John turned with a song on his lips and skipped across to the home porch swing, where his mother found him a moment later, and made him come in ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Catholic auspices; some of its dialogue was in |144| the Tyrolese patois and racy and humorous, other parts, and particularly the speeches of Mary and Joseph—out of respect for these holy personages—had been rewritten in the eighteenth century in a very stilted and undramatic style. Some simple shepherd plays are said to be still presented in the ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... execution in this particular is, for Titian, curiously small and wanting in breadth. Especially the projecting rock, with its fringe of half-bare shrubs profiled against the sky, recalls the backgrounds of the Scuola del Santo frescoes. The noble type and the stilted attitude of the St. Joseph suggest the St. Mark of the Salute. The frank note of bright scarlet in the jacket of the thick-set young shepherd, who calls up rather the downrightness of Palma than the idyllic charm of Giorgione, is to be found again in the Salute ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... of the cases of flesh and blood, with the masterly pathos of designed simplicity. And Weyburn was Cuper's Matey Weyburn still in his loathing of artifice to raise emotion, loathing of the affected, the stilted, the trumpet of speech—always excepting school-exercises in the tongues, the unmasking of a Catiline, the address of a General, Athenian or other, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and pride. At the conclusion of this song the measure changes to a march, and the chorus turn to welcome the triumphant king. Agamemnon enters, and behind him the veiled and silent figure of a woman. After greeting the gods of his House, the King, in brief and stilted phrase, acknowledges the loyalty of the chorus, but hints at much that is amiss which it must be his first charge to set right. Hereupon enters Clytemnestra, and in a speech of rhetorical exaggeration tells of ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... high, stilted voice, and as she sat primly in the straight-backed old chair, knitting away at nothing, she presented a funny, attractive ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... play do the boys and girls like, and in what sort do we like to see them take part? It should be a play, surely, in which the dialogue is simple and natural, not stilted and artificial; one that seems like a bit of real life, and yet has plenty of fancy and imagination in it; one that suggests and helps to perpetuate some of the happy and wholesome customs of Christmas; above all, one that is pervaded by the Christmas spirit. I hope that this play ...
— The Christmas Dinner • Shepherd Knapp
... world. As fortune would have it, too, the House was full when he spoke, and a great deal of interest was attached to the Bill that was being discussed. That was why he was so disappointed that his language, especially during the first few minutes, was so poor and stilted. He imagined, too, that he had been listened to respectfully, and even cordially, because it was his maiden speech. As a matter of fact, however, Paul had made a great impression. Something of his history was known, and his striking appearance told in his favour. Indeed, it was remarked ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... Merrill's house, the three girls and the one young man were seated around the fire, and their talk, Merrill as it had begun, was becoming minute by minute more stilted. This was largely the fault of Susan, who would not be happy until she had taken Jane upstairs and left Mr. Worthington and Cynthia together. This matter had been arranged between the sisters before supper. Susan found her opening at last, and upbraided Jane for her unfinished theme; Jane, having ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a dear!" Norah said. "I adore her stilted little expressions, such as 'busy with my needle or pen,' instead of sewing or writing, and with it all she is at heart ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... of his elaborate courtesy and his purposely stilted phrasing, the Sepoy said: "If the sapphire was argument, this was certainly conviction. The moral barrier which could withstand the assault of the first, must, unquestionably, have yielded to the insidious attack ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... who could deliver his judgment in this stilted style of pompous word-building, in such circumstances as were then existing, would have required a powdered footman in spotless plush to precede him out of a house on fire. I must confess to a little misgiving as to the authenticity of this ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... second begins with a vowel, as in eats apples, not at all, an ox, etc. On the other hand, too evident an effort to secure the proper enunciation of the sound elements should be avoided, since a stilted mode of ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... valuable ornament for songs and lyric poetry generally; but from poetry which is actually to be acted on the English stage it takes away the most indispensable of all qualities, the natural, life-like tone of real speech. Notice this in the difference between the two extracts below. Observe how stilted and artificial the first one seems; and see how the second combines the melody and dignity of poetry with the simple ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... possibly enjoy a luncheon-no matter how carefully the menu has been prepared, no matter how delightful the environment—if there are awkward lapses in the conversation; if there are moments of painful, embarrassing silence; or if the conversation is stilted, affected ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... at all, let us just point out the chief claims of the above pleasing piece of composition. In the first place, it is perfectly stilted and unnatural; the dialogue and the sentiments being artfully arranged, so as to be as strong and majestic as possible. Our dear Cat is but a poor illiterate country wench, who has come from cutting her husband's throat; and yet, see! she talks and ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... acting, a most important point is the study of elocution; and in elocution one great difficulty is the use of sufficient force to be generally heard without being unnaturally loud, and without acquiring a stilted delivery. The advice of the old actors was that you should always pitch your voice so as to be heard by the back row of the gallery—no easy task to accomplish without offending the ears of the front of the orchestra. And ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... roses—old-fashioned damask roses, streaked with red and white—which, for the sake of a Court Beauty, there besieged with her father, he carried to the house; falling, however, struck by a chance bullet, or shot perhaps by one of his own party. A few of the young Officer's verses, written in the stilted fashion of the time, and almost unreadable now, have been preserved. The lady's portrait hangs in the white drawing room at Bligh; a simpering, faded figure, with ringlets and drop-pearls, and a dress of ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... for my stilted aseptic advice and it occurred to me, suddenly, that perhaps there are many things yet undreamed of ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... who were near enough to observe the visitors closely soon began to look upon Richard and Nathan as a couple of quaint, harmless, exceedingly well-bred old gentlemen, rather provincial in appearance and a little stilted in their manners, who, before the evening was over, would, perhaps, become tired of the gayety, ask to be excused, and betake themselves to bed. All of which would be an eminently proper proceeding in view of their extreme age and general infirmities, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is the general word for that which is less than the whole: as, the whole is equal to the sum of all its parts.... Portion is often used in a stilted way where part would be simpler and better; portion has always some suggestion of allotment or assignment: as, this is my portion; a portion of Scripture. 'Father, give me the portion of ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler |
