"Affectation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... line to the last—from his premises to his conclusion, the speaker travels with a swift, unerring directness that no logician has ever excelled. His argument is complete and is presented without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details ...A single simple sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken days of labour to verify, and that must have cost the author months of investigation ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... of a lower class, would here have told against him. He knew when to abstain, and carried the art of deception far enough to be able to lay aside the appearance of hypocrisy. He had described all the circumstances without affectation, and if this unexpected accusation was wholly unproved, it yet rested on a possible fact, and did not appear absolutely incredible. The magistrate went through it all again, and made him repeat every detail, without being ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... cut away the ground under their feet; and the Reformers of the sixteenth century fell into the same snare before they were aware of it. We wonder at the eccentricities of the priesthood, at the conceit of the hereditary nobility, at the affectation of majestic stateliness inherent in royalty. But the pedantic display of learning, the disregard of the real wants of the people, the contempt of all knowledge which does not wear the academic garb, show ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... with which he shattered the world she had built up for herself so laboriously to enable her to endure her hard life, the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... affection. The turn for humour, which displayed itself by fits, was broad, and of a low, and sometimes practical character. Something there was in his disposition congenial to that of his countrymen; a contempt of folly, a hatred of affectation, and a dislike of ceremony, which, joined to the strong intrinsic qualities of sense and courage, made him in many respects not an unfit representative of the democracy ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... bare feet, and I noticed even in children such a wide separation of the big toe from the rest as to convey the perhaps erroneous impression that it is of unusual size. The men are singularly wide at the hips, and walk with a laughably swaggering gait, which is certainly not affectation, but is produced by a sufficient anatomical cause. I never saw such ugly, thick-set, rigid bodies, such uniformly short necks, such sloping shoulders, such flat faces and flatter noses, such wide, heavy, thick-lipped mouths, such projecting cheek bones, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Affectation! Affectation! It is the nauseating disease of the day! If a thinking man, a sincere philanthropist, takes into consideration the condition of the working classes and endeavors to lay bare their ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... done with white muslin," said Rachel, rousing from her reverie. "It is an affectation of girlish simplicity not becoming ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with an assumption of bravery that she probably felt to be a sham all the while. "I believe it is my turn now. Dear me, how heavy that thunder is! Try and amuse yourselves, good people, while I 'follow in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor'!" and with an affectation of gaiety that was a little transparent, she obeyed the summons of the black girl who at that moment made her appearance again outside the curtain, and followed ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... observance serves him merely as a new channel wherein to proclaim his pride. Certes, in obedience to the Priests, or rather let us say in obedience to the High Priestess, he paces the common foot-path in company with the common folk, uncrowned and simply clad,—but what avails this affectation of meekness? All know him for the King—all make servile way for him,—all flatter him! ... and his progress to the Temple resembles as much a triumphal procession as though he were mounted in his ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... their knees and bend the face to the earth, and this ceremony they repeat two or three times. Surely we may differ here with the sentiment of Montaigne, and confess this ceremony to be ridiculous. It arises from their national affectation. They substitute ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... spiritual admonisher, to the true purport and bearing of his question," said Sir Roger, with a mighty affectation of sagacity. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... And she was mistaken, he never was interested in the house! He could not understand what had put that idea in her head! Unless it was this ridiculous, shady stranger in the guise of an uncle whom they had got there. It was like his affectation! ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... when one class of the society is necessarily degraded in this respect, no compensation were made by the superior elevation and purity of the other. Not only essential purity of conduct, but the utmost purity of manners, and I will add, though it may incur the formidable charge of affectation or prudery,—a greater severity of decorum than is required elsewhere, is necessary among us. Always should be strenuously resisted the attempts which have been sometimes made to introduce among us the freedom of foreign European, and especially ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Scotland. I suspect the song as a whole is lost—the more to be regretted for its sweet simplicity and melodious wail (so far as judged in the fragments), which in a modern song would be viewed as weakness or affectation. Indeed, the modes of thought and feeling that belong to what is called advanced civilisation are impatient of these things except as rude relics of yet untutored minds; and the pleasure with which they are accepted ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... colonel adjusted his eye-glass, not that he expected to see more clearly by doing so, but because habit had long since turned an affectation into a movement wholly mechanical. "Well, who can blame him? Gad! if I were ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... his savage guardian gazing contemplatively at the distant prospect. Martin's heart beat audibly as he rose and walked with an affectation of carelessness to the edge of the cliff. As he gazed down, a feeling of horror seized him; he gasped for breath, and almost fainted. Then the idea of perpetual slavery flashed across his mind, and the thought of freedom and home nerved him. He clenched his hands, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... CANT, affectation of thinking, believing, and feeling what one in his heart and reality does not, of which there are two degrees, insincere and sincere; insincere when one cants knowing it, and sincere when one cants without knowing it, the latter being of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the purpose of being drunk after the lady or goodwife's safe delivery. The ken-no has a more ancient source, and perhaps the custom may he derived from the secret rites of the Bona Dea. A large and rich cheese was made by the women of the family, with great affectation of secrecy, for the refreshment of the gossips who were to attend at the canny minute This was the ken-no, so called because its existence was secret (that is, presumed to be so) from all the males of the family, but especially from the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the Institute, and his affectation in putting at the head of his proclamation his title of member of that learned body before that of General-in-Chief, I omitted to state what value he really attached to that title. The truth is that; when young and ambitious, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... few sentimentalities," he coldly averred. "I have loved but one person in my whole life. Why then should I be expected to mourn over a niece who did not care enough for me to invite me to her wedding? It would be an affectation unworthy the man who has at last come to fill his rightful position in this community as the owner of the great Moore estate. For great it shall be," he emphatically continued. "In three years you will not know the house over yonder. Despite ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... in the first named volumes (considering the Italy and Poems as one book) I believe to be as skillful and tender as any hand work, of the kind, ever done; they are also wholly free from affectation of overwrought fineness, on the one side, and from hasty or cheap expediencies on the other; and they were produced, under the direction and influence of a gentleman and a scholar. Multitudes of works, imitative of these, and far more attractive, have been produced since; but none of any sterling ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... feet with little thought of those who lay below. Even from that refuge his bones have been driven forth, but his name remains in the corner of the Hall of the Great Council, where—with a certain dramatic affectation—the painter-historians have painted a black veil across the vacant place. "This is the place of Marino Falieri, beheaded for his crimes," is all the record ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... However, on communicating his own conjectures concerning this man of nice honour, Edward consented to permit Frank to act in his behalf. Frank observes that our men of fashion seem agreed to overlook a portion of insolence from these gamblers, under the affectation of despising them, which the tamest of the fine gentlemen among them would scarcely brook from ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... not pretend to be positive. There was a primness, not to say stiffness, in his carriage—a degree of measured, and, if I may so express it, of rectangular precision, attending his every movement, which, observed in a more diminutive figure, would have had the least little savor in the world, of affectation, pomposity or constraint, but which noticed in a gentleman of his undoubted dimensions, was readily placed to the account of reserve, hauteur—of a commendable sense, in short, of what is due to the dignity ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... far the greater proportion of this book consists of such thoughts as these; and that these are what are called its beauties; these are what young poets try more and more daily to invent—conceits, false analogies. Be it remembered, that the affectation of such conceits has always marked the decay and approaching death of a reigning school of poetry; that when, for instance, the primeval forest of the Elizabethan poets dwindled down into a barren scrub of Vaughans, and Cowleys, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... any kind of bodily exercises. And that I gave over the study of rhetoric and poetry, and of elegant neat language. That I did not use to walk about the house in my long robe, nor to do any such things. Moreover I learned of him to write letters without any affectation, or curiosity; such as that was, which by him was written to my mother from Sinuessa: and to be easy and ready to be reconciled, and well pleased again with them that had offended me, as soon as any of them would be content to seek unto me again. To read with ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Under one pretext or another—such as the weight or heat of the dishes— not one of the French dishes arrived upon the table; all were upset; while the Spanish dishes, on the contrary, were served without any accident. The affectation and air of chagrin, to say the least of it, of the ladies of the palace, were too visible not to be perceived. But the King and Queen were wise enough to appear not to notice this; and Madame des Ursins, much astonished, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... table, and opened their lunches. A joyous confusion of talk rose above the clinking of spoons and plates, as the heavy cups of steaming tea were passed and the sugar- bowl went the rounds; there was no milk, and no girl at Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's thought lemon in tea anything but a wretched affectation. Girls who had been too pale before gained a sudden burning color, they had been sitting still and were hungry, now they ate too fast. Without exception the Front Office girls suffered from agonies of indigestion, and most of them grew used to a dull headache that came ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... The Prince ate buttered toast and drank tea with a bland affectation of enjoyment. They rose ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... despair not seldom rise to the terrific, and he has a marvellous power of painting natural scenery, and of bringing out in detail the beauty and picturesqueness of scenes at first sight uninteresting, or even uninviting. He is absolutely free from affectation or sentimentality, and may be regarded as one of the greatest masters of the realistic in our literature. With these merits he has certain faults, too great minuteness in his pictures, too frequent dwelling upon the sordid and depraved aspects of character, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... about to establish episcopacy among them at their expense, for Archbishop Secker and other English churchmen were anxious to introduce bishops into America. A more sentimental, though an efficient cause of irritation also existed in the affectation of superiority adopted by Englishmen towards their colonial fellow-subjects. The stamp tax brought their discontent to a head, and gave the party hostile to government an opportunity for stirring up opposition. During the year unwisely allowed by Grenville for considering ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... primly. "You must really allow me to withdraw." To the young man's astonishment, she seized her parasol, and, with a youthful affectation of dignity, glided from the summer-house and ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... that you did," answered Jessie, with an affectation of cherubic simplicity. "You do, dear; don't you? . . . There, don't get angry, darling; I couldn't flare up all of a sudden in the face of that poor little creature; he looked so ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... voice proceeded from the mouth of Monsieur St. Gille, that gentleman appeared absolutely mute while he was exercising this talent; nor could the author perceive any change whatever in his countenance. He observed, however, at this first visit, that Monsieur St. Gille contrived, but without any affectation, to present only the profile of his face to him, while he ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... IT would appear like affectation to offer an apology for any scenes or passages omitted or added, in this play, different from the original: its reception has given me confidence to suppose what I have done is right; for Kotzebue's "Child of Love" in Germany, was never more attractive than "Lovers' Vows" ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald
... made Harrietta sick. She, whose very art was that of pretending, hated pretense, affectation, "coy stuff." This was, perhaps, unfortunate. Your Fatigued Financier prefers the comedy form in which a spade is not only called a spade but a slab of iron for digging up dirt. Harrietta never even pretended to have a cough on an opening ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the contrary, like most men whose physical energy is unimpaired, I am constitutionally fearless, and in moments of danger and excitement have never found myself wanting; still it would be affectation to deny that the prospect of a sudden and violent death, thus unexpectedly forced upon me, impressed my mind with a vague sensation of terror, mingled with regret for the past, and sorrow for the future. To be thus cut ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... he ejaculated, turning colour. And his suddenly awakened apprehensions swept aside the affectation that hitherto had marked his speech ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... will be the lovers," proposed Cleo. "Come along, darling," and she twined her arm around the shoulders of her friend, in sincere affection, if in pretended affectation. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... become meditative, abstracted, and taciturn. These, and especially the last, are the peculiar characteristics of the Indian; his taciturnity, indeed, amounts to austerity, sometimes impressing the observer with the idea of affectation. The dispersion, which must have been the effect of unlimited choice in lands—the mode of life pursued by those who depended upon the chase for subsistence—the gradual estrangement produced among the separate tribes, by the necessity of wide hunting-grounds—the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... seeing the French so serious and intent on matters of beauty, fancy it to be mere affectation. To be serious on a barrel of flour, or a bushel of potatoes, we can well understand; but to be equally earnest in the adorning of a room or the "composition" of a bouquet seems ridiculous. But did not He who made the appetite for food make also that for beauty? and while the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... not make her afraid of her duties, nor need you increase the burden laid upon her by nature. When you explain her duties speak plainly and pleasantly; do not let her suppose that the performance of these duties is a dismal thing—away with every affectation of disgust or pride. Every thought which we desire to arouse should find its expression in our pupils, their catechism of conduct should be as brief and plain as their catechism of religion, but it need not ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... them each a bow, courtly enough, but there was no smile—not even an affectation of cordiality. Sir Bale, however, was chatty, and did not seem to care much what he said, or what people thought of him; and there was a suspicion of sarcasm in what he said that the rustic literality of good Mrs. Bedel did ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... for the features are not irregular; and, but for its bilious colour, the face could scarcely be termed ill-looking. The eyes do not squint; and the thin lips appear making a constant effort to look smiling and saint-like. Perhaps it is this outward affectation of the saintly character— belying, as it evidently does, the spirit within, that produces the unfavourable impression. In earlier youth, the face may have been better favoured; but a career, spent in the exercise of evil passions, has left more ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... monopolizing the conversation with an account of two days spent with Bismarck in a Prussian country-house, during the triumphant days of the winter which followed on Sadowa. The story was brilliantly told, and of some political importance. But it was disfigured by arrogance and affectation, and Ashe's eyes began to dance a little. Cliffe meanwhile could not forget that he was in the presence of a rival and an official, could not refrain after a while from a note of challenge here and there. The conversation ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dramatist and novelist, born in Paris; was a man of subtle wit, and his writings reveal it as well as an affectation of style named Marivaudage after him; his fame rests on his novels rather than ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... that so often avowed regard to him, pulled my heart two ways.—I wanted to consider with myself for a few moments: I was desirous to clear the conduct that I was to shew on this trying occasion, as well of precipitance as of affectation; and my cousin Reeves just then coming in for something she wanted, I took the opportunity to walk to the other end of the room; and while a short complimental discourse passed between them, 'Harriet Byron,' said I to myself, 'be ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... Whately she was positively freezing in her coldness. Troubled and inwardly enraged, he was yet more than ever determined to carry out his purpose. His orders to his men were given sharply and sternly, and his mood was so fierce that there was no longer any affectation or assumption on his part. The girl's heart fluttered with nameless fears, but she had the strength of will to maintain the cold, impassive demeanor she had resolved upon. She felt that it would be useless to make further effort ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... to jelly with the act of fear,/Stand dumb] [W: th' effect of] Here is an affectation of subtilty without accuracy. Fear is every day considered as an agent. Fear laid hold on him; fear drove him away. If it were proper to be rigorous in examining trifles, it might be replied, that Shakespeare would write more erroneously, if he wrote by the direction ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... came up to say farewell, and he shook her hand with boyish affectation of the true British indifference, which at that time it was the correct thing for Englishmen ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... handsome, engaging fellow, with a gift for talk, a breezy manner, a stylish presence, and an elegant accent. And seated beside himself at dinner he would discover that he was a pretentious bore, that his talk was windy commonplace, his breezy manner an offence, his fine accent an unpleasant affectation. He would say that he would never want to see that fellow again. And, realising that that was Mr. Sutherland Bangs as he appears to the world, he would return home as humble and abject as Mr. Tom Lofty in The Good-Natured Man was when his imposture was found out. ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... already saluted Mr. Hawes with grave politeness, though without any affectation of good-will, came slowly up, and sinking his voice to a whisper in presence of death said in pitiful accents, "Poor child! he was always sickly. Six weeks ago I feared we should lose him, but he seemed to get ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of a sort which enables you to infer that it was "we" that suffered the mentioned injury, but if you should carry the language to a court you would not be able to prove that it necessarily meant that. "We" are Mrs. Eddy; a funny little affectation. She replaced it later with the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... beautiful Venus?—the Venus of the Medici?—she of the diminutive head and the gilded hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. Give me the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help—pity me!—I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates who said that the statuary ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... they could not possibly be new to him, who had been so much engaged in the wars on the frontiers of Tartary;" though the chances are, that he had never before seen a firelock: with such ridiculous affectation of superiority, and contempt for other nations, does the unconquerable pride of this people inspire them. It seems, indeed, to be laid down as a general principle, never to be caught in the admiration of any thing brought among them by foreigners. Whenever ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... pistol-shooting. He attached as much importance to this exercise as Lord Byron did in his later days. Then, at three o'clock he came home, admired on horseback by the grisettes and the ladies who happened to be at their windows. After an affectation of study or business, which seemed to engage him till four, he dressed to dine out, spent the evening in the drawing-rooms of the aristocracy of Besancon playing whist, and went home to bed at eleven. No life could be more above board, more prudent, or more irreproachable, for he punctually ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... finds that so much attention is paid to sexual things. It is not the actual accounts of sexual things in the Bible which constitute the danger, but the contrast between the plain speaking of the Bible in these matters, and the general affectation of secrecy outside its pages. An additional point of importance is the fact that in the Bible sexual topics are handled in a way which is by no means always delicate. I may recall the frequency with which the idea of the whore is employed for purposes of comparison; and I may ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... such populous centres bonnets decorated the heads of the fair sex. Amid these advances in the art of dress Lincoln was a laggard, being usually one of the worst attired men of the neighborhood; not from affectation, but from a natural indifference to such matters. The sketch is likely to become classical in American history of the appearance which he presented with his scant pair of trousers, "hitched" by a single suspender over his shirt, and so short as to expose, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... and full, his enamelled shoes adorned with silver buckles. His present repose and decorum contrasted strangely with the fanciful display at his first introduction. Madame Chalice approved instantly, for though the costume was, in itself, an affectation, previous to the time by a generation, it was in the picture, was sedately refined. She welcomed him in the salon where many another distinguished man had been entertained—from Frontenac, and Vaudreuil, down to Sir Guy Carleton. The Manor had belonged to her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... suddenly dropped his mannerisms, his affectation of thinking of a thousand and one things at once, and was a simple and very charming person of no particular age, position, or period—just a human being who wanted for a little to be at his ease. He took Clara by the arm, and, ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... and there they sat, ankle-deep in cards. No attempt at breakfast now—no affectation of making a toilet, or airing the room. The atmosphere was hot, to be sure, but it well became such a hell. There they sat, in total, in positive forgetfulness of everything but the hot game they were hunting down. There was not a man in the room, except Tom Cogit, who could have ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... only affectation," said his lady, in a consolatory tone. "I am afraid poor Joe did live with a very odd set of people- artists, and all that kind of thing. I am sure I don't blame her, poor thing! But she is worse to manage than any child, because you can't bid her mind ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her companions entered the dressing-room, it was made clear to them that the doom had fallen. In a chair in the corner, all her pretence and affectation swept away in a flood of tears, sat the unhappy Duchess, the center of a group of girls anxious to console but limited in their ideas of consolation to an occasional pat on the back and an offer ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Constance: "I do forgive, and I don't quarrel; but my opinion, my contempt, remain the same, or are rather more disdainful than ever. These people are not worth losing the luxury we all experience in expressing contempt. I continue, therefore, but quietly and without affectation, to indulge that luxury. Besides, I own to you, my dear Mrs. Trevor, I do think that the mere insolence of titles must fairly and thoroughly be put down, if we sincerely wish to render society agreeable; and where can we find a better example ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... churlish Athenian philosopher, who snarled at men systematically, but showed his cynicism to be mere affectation, when Timon attacked him with his own ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... his doctrines of sobriety and simplicity made no impression whatever. Their tastes lay in an entirely different direction. For now, in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, there set in, with an extreme and sudden violence, a fashion for every kind of literary contortion, affectation and trick. The value of a poet was measured by his capacity for turning a somersault in verse—for constructing ingenious word-puzzles with which to express exaggerated sentiments; and no prose-writer was worth looking at who could not drag a complicated, ramifying simile through half a ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... those young noblemen," said Mr Eglantine; "nothing but pleasure from morning till night; no affectation neither—no HOTURE; but ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... same with our friend Botticelli. Scarce a dozen years ago, it was almost an affectation to pretend you admired him. It is no affectation now. Hundreds of assorted young women from the Abyss of Bayswater may rise any morning here in sacred Florence and stand genuinely enchanted before the Adoration of the Kings, or the Venus who floats on her floating ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... monstrous as the truth, that she did not hesitate to comply. She was profoundly awed by the horrors of the scene through which she was passing, the raging billows of the Gulf, as seen from so small a craft, producing a deep impression on her; still a lingering of her most inveterate affectation was to be found in her air and language, which presented a strange medley of besetting weakness, and ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... nothing poetic in the nature of Mrs. Quiverful. She was neither a Medea nor a Constance. When angry, she spoke out her anger in plain words, and in a tone which might have been modulated with advantage; but she did so, at any rate, without affectation. Now, without knowing it, she rose to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Canalis, cut short in his role of injured love by Modeste's quick perceptions, wished to appear courteous; he laid aside his pretensions, gave no further specimens of his oratory, and became, what all men of intellect can be when they renounce affectation, perfectly charming. He talked finances with Gobenheim, and war with the colonel, Germany with Madame Mignon, and housekeeping with Madame Latournelle,—endeavoring to bias them all in favor of La Briere. The Duc d'Herouville ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... even more youthful than mine. So when next day at tiffin he bent his head toward me and said that he had met my late Captain last evening, adding in an undertone: "He's very sorry you left. He had never had a mate that suited him so well," I answered him earnestly, without any affectation, that I certainly hadn't been so comfortable in any ship or with any commander in all my ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... tobacco smoke from Mills' pipe drove between my head and the head of Mr. Blunt, who, strange to say, yawned slightly. It seemed to me an obvious affectation on the part of that man of perfect manners, and, moreover, suffering ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... performance began at six o'clock, and I had had nothing to eat since noon. It lasted till eleven o'clock, and one might imagine that, after all this emotional excitement, I must have been ravenously hungry. So I was; but without the slightest affectation, I was horrified at the mere thought of indulging in such a coarse act as eating after enjoying such ravishing music. So I hurried back to the hotel, eager to get into my room and indulge in a long fit of weeping; and not a wink did I sleep that night, the ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... sonnets in a letter to Cottle [November, 1797] is much to the same effect:—'I sent to the Monthly Magazine (1797) three mock Sonnets in ridicule of my own Poems, and Charles Lloyd's and Lamb's, etc., etc., exposing that affectation of unaffectedness, of jumping and misplaced accent in common-place epithets, flat lines forced into poetry by italics (signifying how well and mouthishly the author would read them), puny pathos, etc., etc. The instances were almost all taken from myself and Lloyd and Lamb. I signed them "Nehemiah ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... introduced into the acquaintance of genteel life, than he threw aside all his former habits, and longed to distinguish himself as a most accomplished young gentleman. He was now, in turn, sickened and disgusted with fashionable affectation; and his mind, at leisure for fresh impressions, was ready to catch at the first new object which occurred. The idea, therefore, which presented itself to his mind, as soon as he opened his eyes, was that of being an Arabian horseman. Nothing, he imagined, could equal the pleasure ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... likely to have laughed than to appear confused, for I certainly never hoped to impose upon Lord Byron in a case of the kind; and from the manner in which he uniformly expressed himself, I knew his opinion was entirely formed, and that any disclamations of mine would only have savoured of affectation. I do not mean to insinuate that the incident did not happen, but only that it could hardly have occurred exactly under the circumstances narrated, without my recollecting something positive on the subject. In another part of the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... attitude and expression, but too austere and mannered as religious conceptions: nor can we wonder if the predilection for the treatment of mere form led his followers and imitators into every species of exaggeration and affectation. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the same artist who painted a Leda, or a Psyche, or a Venus one day, painted for the same patron a Virgin of Mercy, or a "Mater Purissima" on the morrow. Here, the votary told his beads, and recited his Aves, before the ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... give them time to get to know each other a little better, mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of reluctance; to which the ancestress rejoined: "Know each other? Fiddlesticks! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off the wine. Marry them before Lent; I may catch pneumonia any winter ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... reputed Oxford model of "He that hath yaws to yaw, let him yaw." Singing is but glorified speech, it is not a thing apart, neither is there one language of the speaker and another of the vocalist. This distortion may be due to affectation or to ignorance, but in either case we could well do without it. In cases where the actual production of the voice is mechanically stiff, rigid, and therefore distorted, it is not likely that we can secure a free and flexible musical elocution. ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... coxcombry of club-houses, it is well; promote the building of more like them. But if they never taught you any thing, and never made you happier as you passed beneath them, do not think they have any mysterious goodness of occult sublimity. Have done with the wretched affectation, the futile barbarism, of pretending to enjoy; for, as surely as you know that the meadow grass, meshed with fairy rings, is better than the wood pavement cut into hexagons; and as surely as you know the fresh ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the undertaking progressed. Income from the land as the result of agricultural operations was not absolutely necessary. This acknowledgment does not imply the possession of, or any disrespect for, "the cumbersome luggage of riches," nor any affectation; but rather an accommodating and frugal disposition—the capacity to turn to account the excellent moral that poor Mr Micawber lamented his inability to obey. Profit from the sale of produce and poultry would have supplied additional ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... of our master's career there fit very well the two portraits in which he appears, painted by himself, on the confines of old age, vigorous and ardent still, fully conscious, moreover, though without affectation, of pre-eminent genius and supreme artistic rank. The portraits referred to are those very similar ones, both of them undoubtedly originals, which are respectively in the Berlin Gallery and the Painters' Gallery of the Uffizi. It ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... characteristic. Culture and knowledge we may fairly claim, no doubt, but the imaginative sense of beauty is o rare among us that its possession is a peculiarity good form would suppress. It is a pose, an affectation, it is unmanly—it is not English. We are too strong to thrill. And that one so near and dear to me, so honoured and so deeply loved, should prove herself to my new standard thus typically English, while it came as sharpest pain, ought not, I suppose, to have caused me the surprise it ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... but he frequently delights the imagination, and sometimes strikes it with flashes of the highest sublime. We had another poet of the age of Charles I., extremely admired by all his contemporaries, in whose works there is still more affectation of wit, a greater redundancy of imagination, a worse taste, and less judgment; but he touched the heart more, and had finer feelings than Waller. I ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... them into life and action. Indeed, any one in the habit of observing the world, may have occasionally noticed, that even within the range of his own acquaintances, there has been many a quiet and apparently diffident girl, without pretence or affectation of any kind, who when some unexpected and stunning blow has fallen either upon herself or upon some one within the circle of her affections, has manifested a spirit so resolute or a devotion so heroic, that she has at once constituted herself the lofty example whom all admire and endeavor ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... Sonship, except that claim was false. We vainly search the record for even an intimation that inquiry was made or suggested as to the grounds upon which Jesus based His exalted claims. The action of the high priest in rending his garments was a dramatic affectation of pious horror at the blasphemy with which his ears had been assailed. It was expressly forbidden in the law that the high priest rend his clothes;[1264] but from extra-scriptural writings we learn that the rending of garments as an attestation of most grievous guilt, such as ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... He had recognized the handwriting in a moment. He had no time to ridicule or even to think of Mabyn's school-girl affectation of secresy: he had at once rushed off to the place of appointment, and that by a short cut of which she had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... that it was an affectation in her, or a lure to draw him after her, as it would have been in any other woman. The little red-haired nurse would have known how to turn the earth and the moon to her own purposes and his. But all the time he ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... could keep up with such a rapid procession; these, especially the women, would get terribly blown, and would straggle back into the rear; many were fairly “beaten off.” I never observed any appearance of mourning in the mourners: the pace was too severe for any solemn affectation of grief. ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... idea of being alone with Giovanni for a quarter of an hour was delightful, but somehow it did not seem altogether fitting for her to be wandering over the castle with him. On the other hand, to refuse would seem almost an affectation: she was not in Rome, where her every movement was a subject for remark; moreover, she was not only a married woman, but a widow, and she had known Giovanni for years—it would ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the shyest, sweetest grace of reserve; turned away to her fruit, quite naturally; there was no shadow of affectation, nor even of consciousness. But her eyes did not look up again; and Mr. Knowlton's eyes had ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... and bang" through it to the delight of fond relatives and the amazement and pity of severe culture. Not that we should have consideration for all that passes for severe culture and exquisite sensitiveness among musical dilettanti. In no field of art is there so much affectation, assumption and charlatanry as in music. Some years ago a musician in New York of considerable reputation refused to play on a friend's piano because, as he said, it was a little out of tune and his ear was excruciated by the slightest discord. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... and hopeless condition grew so comical when I reflected that it was only affectation, that I could not help laughing, loud and long. "Dear gossip," I called to her, "pray don't give yourself so much unnecessary trouble! You might know I wouldn't hurt you or your nest for the world, you ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the prodigal richness of the tresses had disappeared, the arrangement was still striking from its grace. That rare quality pervaded the being of this lady, and it was impossible not to be struck with her carriage as she advanced to greet her guest; free from all affectation and yet full of movement and gestures, which might have been ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Quixotic and unguarded in speaking thus to you; but it would be affectation to say I did not perceive De Burgh's very natural motive. There is much about him that is attractive to women, apart from his exceptional fortune and position; but I doubt if he could make a woman like you happy. If the ease and luxury ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... must be," mused Miss Bording. "I read something like that in the papers, myself. Just to think of it! Every bit of steel in that collection has been used by you in your trade. What a strange affectation you military men have in calling your profession a trade! But, Captain Leadbury, tell me of your cousin, who disappeared two days after your arrival, and why you shaved your moustache which the papers described you ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... of anything on earth. He despised their whole-hearted passion for sports at an age when he was beginning to be interested in less wholesome and far more complex absorptions.... He despised their straight, clean affections and quarrels and their tortuous sense of humour; the affectation that led them to take cold baths instead of hot ones: their shy, rather knightly mental attitude towards their sisters and ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... represented of race and name, and the stately history of men, but the power one professed to call base and sordid—mere money? She felt a sudden impatience at herself for having said she was tired of it. That was a folly which took upon itself the aspect of an affectation. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the sturdy plainsman, Bob McLeod the cripple, Dr. Watson, Darley Roberts, or even How Landor the Indian, one finds the same foundation stones of character,—repression, virility, firmness of purpose, an abhorrence of artificiality or affectation,—love of Nature and of Nature's works rather than things man-made. And these were unquestionably the pronounced traits of Will Lillibridge's personality. Markedly reserved, silent, forceful, he was seldom found in the places where men congregate, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... singularity, profuseness, and gaudiness. Be not too early in the fashion, nor too late. Decency is half way between affectation and neglect. The body is the shell of the soul, apparel is the husk of that shell; the husk often tells you what ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... energy of prose which he has not somewhere exemplified; as often in his letters as in his essays; and always with something final about it. He is never more himself than when he says, briefly: 'Sentiment came in with Sterne, and was a child he had by Affectation'; but then he is also never more himself than when he expands and develops, as in this rendering of the hisses which damned ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... in life learnt the lesson that only those who possess are happy, she endeavours to assure herself against misery by transferring to herself the wealth of those who fall under her influence, or aspire to her affections. She apes what she conceives to be the manners of good society by a languid affectation of refinement and a supercilious drawl, yet she has been known to clothe herself in objurgations as in a tea-gown, and to repel with scurrility the advances of those who are not moneyed. She earns a certain popularity by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... of Sterne—that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy: for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters of Trim and the two Shandies[1] are most individual and delightful. Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Percy's house in Holborn, and his wife was guarded. A priest named Roberts was taken in the house. Mrs Martha Percy appears to have been a fitting mate for a conspirator. She put on an affectation of the sublimest innocence. How should she know anything? she who lived so quietly, and was entirely occupied in teaching her own and other children. As to her husband, she had not seen him since Midsummer. He was attendant on my Lord of Northumberland, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... spell of evident sincerity. We discount them as belonging to the euphuism of a certain epoch, and are rather surprised than otherwise that they should not be more apparent. The real and serious defect of Goliardic literature is not affectation, but something very different, which I shall try to indicate in the last Section of this treatise. Venus and Helen, Liber and Lyaeus, are but the current coin of poetic diction common to the whole student class. These Olympian deities merge without a note of discord into the dim background ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various |
