"Informality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blood has been mellowed in England, and who may be truely said to unite the Baron and the Barrister, was one of the Counsel for Mr. Topham. He displayed much learning and ingenuity upon the general question; which, however, was not decided, as the Court granted an arrest chiefly on the informality of the indictment. No man has a higher reverence for the law of England than I have; but, with all deference I cannot help thinking, that prosecution by indictment, if a defendant is never to be allowed to justify, must often be very oppressive, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... A jolly informality made up for Austin's shortcoming; Gerald and his pretty bride were the centres of delighted curiosity from the Minster twins and the Innis girls and Evelyn Cardwell—all her intimates. And the younger Draymores, the Grays, Lawns, and Craigs were there in force—gay, noisy, unembarrassed ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Telephone invitations should be sent only to those with whom the utmost intimacy exists, and who will pardon the informality. ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... having instructed ignorance, she must now allay timidity. She must represent the coming function as a mere bagatelle for simplicity and informality. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... mother,—who at a subsequent period left no stone unturned to prove its nullity. The religious ceremony, which Catholicism considers as the indissoluble tie, had not yet been performed, and Mme. Dupin hoped to prove some informality in the civil rite. In this, however, she did not succeed, and after long resistance, and ill-concealed displeasure, she concluded by acknowledging the unwelcome alliance. It was the little Aurore herself whose unconscious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... stood by to watch the senoritas on their way to church. The girls walked rather stiffly in their tight shoes; but as soon as mass was over, shoes and stockings came off, and the villagers relaxed into the bliss of informality. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... slept nor read; her eyes widened at the faintest sound of the summer night; her heart thumped madly when the curtains whispered at the window, or the wicker chairs gave the faintest creak. It had not been only for Richard that the midnight hour of responsibility and informality ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... visiting girl be danced to death. Of course I had planned to make a dignified debut under my own roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood, silver and mahogany, as a widow should, but duty called me to de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu dance at the little town hotel. And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... engagingly, "about this country. What, for instance, must one do, must one be, to—to be—well, to be accepted as a native!" He said this much as one feeling his way among a people new to him, as if, conscious of the informal nature of their meeting, he would ease that informality, yet did ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... and Cairy came up to the house from their afternoon ride, they found Vickers playing croquet with Miss Betterton and the two little girls, who in his society were approaching something like informality in their ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... admiralty by sec. 53 (1) of the Naval Discipline Act 1866, except in the case of a death sentence, which can only be remitted by the crown. All cases where the prisoner has pleaded guilty are examined in the admiralty, and if in any case there is any reason to think that there has been any informality or that the prisoner has not understood the effect of his plea, such case is submitted to the judge advocate of the fleet for his opinion. The judge advocate of the fleet receives no fees but is remunerated by a salary of L. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... awaited when anticipated by the sentence of God." [593:3] The sanction of the people should have been obtained before the ordination; but, as persecution now raged, it is suggested that it would have been inconvenient to lay the matter before them; and Cyprian argues that the informality was pardonable, inasmuch as the Almighty himself had given His suffrage in favour of the new lector; for Aurelius, though only a youth, had nobly submitted to the torture rather ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... involves, not merely avoidance of exaggerated and misleading statement, but complete harmony in tone and spirit between title and article. When the story is familiar and colloquial in style, the title should reflect that informality. When the article makes a serious appeal, the title should be dignified. A good title, in a word, is true to the spirit as well ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... trial from the historical and personal points of view, it is interesting as showing the methods in which an important trial was conducted at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The most remarkable feature of the trial itself in the eyes of a modern reader, beyond its extreme informality, is that Raleigh was condemned on the statement of a confederate, who spoke under extreme pressure, with every inducement to exculpate himself at Raleigh's expense, and whom Raleigh never had a chance of ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... finding them out in all the lurking-places of their elaborate subterfuges, and conflicting with them wheresoever they pitch, until not only all their blows be awarded, but themselves also all derouted, therefore, perceiving the informality of the Formalists to be such that sometimes they plead for the controverted ceremonies as necessary, sometimes as expedient, sometimes as lawful, and sometimes as indifferent, I resolve to follow the trace, and to evince, by force of reason, that there is none of all those respects ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... forests and take lessons from Nature, the one gardener who makes no mistakes. Her shrubs are seldom regular in outline, but they are beautiful, all the same, and graceful, every one of them, with a grace that is the result of informality and naturalness. Therefore never prune a shrub unless it really needs it, and let the need be determined by something more than mere lack of uniformity in its development. Much of the charm of Nature's workmanship ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... he had an engagement with Billy Cheever. Mrs. Masterman pardoned him with a gracious inclination of the head that made her diamond ear-rings sparkle. No one in the room could be unaware that she disapproved of Claude's informality. Not only did it shock her personal delicacy to dine with men who concealed their shirt-bosoms under the waistcoats they had worn all day, but it contravened the aims by which during her entire married life she had ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... throne, and begged me to sit by his side. Then took place the usual scene of a court levee, as described in Chapter X., with the specialty, in this instance, that the son of the chief executioner—one of the highest officers of state—was led off for execution, for some omission or informality in his n'yanzigs, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... informality of a woman's emotion—whether of grief or of joy, whether of pleasure or of pain—she rocked down her head to her knees, while through her fingers poured the scalding tears. Mrs. Willoughby had ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... fortress for three years, provided that the duel has taken place with the consent of the superior officers of the regiment sitting officially as a council of honour, and that the encounter has been conducted in accordance with the requirements of the law. Any informality is most severely visited. The regimental council takes charge of the officer's reputation, and if it declares that there need be no meeting, honour is satisfied. In private life any individual may appeal ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... arrives from the hostess by the same means. One maid serves the table in a better class, and two maids in a class still better; it is only when you reach people of very decided form that you find a man in a black coat behind your chair; Mrs. Makely, mindful of the informality of her dinner in everything, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... conversation with the fair postmistress,—a conversation at times impeded by bashfulness or timidity, on his part solely, or restricted often to vague smiling,—he resignedly made way for the next. It was a formal levee, mitigated by the informality of rustic tact, great good-humor, and infinite patience, and would have been amusing had it not always been terribly in earnest and at times touching. For it was peculiar to the place and the epoch, and indeed implied the whole history ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... be true!" she exclaimed, gazing happily from one girl to another, as the seven of them lounged about the living-room, three on the broad couch and the rest distributed impartially between the floor and the window-seat. Such complete informality had never seemed permissible in the sedate Clyde mansion; but somehow these surroundings seemed to invite one to be as comfortable and unconventional ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... had yet a resource left, in my constitutional audacity. Hitherto it had served me well, and I now resolved to make it avail me to the end. Besides, after the correspondence which had passed between us, what act of mere informality could I commit, within bounds, that ought to be regarded as indecorous by Madame Lalande? Since the affair of the letter, I had been in the habit of watching her house, and thus discovered that, about twilight, it was her custom to promenade, attended only by a negro in livery, in a public ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... District Attorney opened for the prosecution; and then the examination of witnesses commenced. Foot by foot and inch by inch was the ground contested by Rust's counsel. Exceptions to testimony were taken, points of law raised, and every informality or technicality, which afforded a loop-hole for objection, was taken advantage of. The day dragged heavily on, and Rust grew weary. The constant stir about him; the hum of voices, occasionally hushed into silence at the cry of the officer, or the tap of the judge on his desk; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... two flannel shirts and a change of socks, we should be glad to get into fresh clothes before showing ourselves in civilized society. Our bags were waiting for us in the post-office: we could see them through the grating. But some informality—I have never been able to understand what it was—had occurred at Constance. The suspicion of the Swiss postal authorities had been aroused, and special instructions had been sent that the bags were to be delivered up only to ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... doubts, and inconveniences (both to the governors and the governed) arising from the variety of tenures, rights, and claims in all cases of landed property and feudal jurisdiction in India, from the informality, invalidity, and instability of all engagements in so divided and unsettled a state of society, and from the unavoidable anarchy and confusion of different laws, religions, and prejudices, moral, civil, and political, all jumbled together in ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fortunes supposed to be independent of the market either betrayed a secret dependence on it, or suffered from a sympathetic affection: fashion sulked in its country houses, or came to town incognito, general entertainments were discountenanced, and informality and short dinners became ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... good-humoredly. Chichester adjusted himself at once to this unexpected informality, and allowed himself to become involved ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... some informality or error in the late Mr. Elmslie's will, left the future of Ada's life entirely at her mother's disposal. The consequence was the immediate ratification of the marriage engagement to which my father had so steadily refused his consent. As soon as the fact was publicly announced, ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... "too stiff and wrinkly. Is that you, Felice? Prepare my bath, please. Do you dine at seven at Clifftop, Mrs. Kinsolving? So kind of you to run in for a chat before dinner! I love those little touches of informality with a guest. They give such a home flavour to a visit. So sorry; I must be dressing. I am so indolent I always postpone it until the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... ascertain where Louise was, and what and who was the relation with whom she asserted she had found refuge. The police were employed; advertisements were issued, concealing names, but sufficiently clear to be intelligible to Louise if they came under her eye, and to the effect that if any informality in our marriage existed, she was implored for her own sake to remove it by a second ceremonial—answer to be addressed to the avoue. No answer came; the police had hitherto failed of discovering her, but were sanguine ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... indeed, took much notice of either of these two dignitaries; and they appeared perfectly reconciled to their position. You would not often find orators and audience understand one another more thoroughly; the easy freedom of the whole concern was quite festive in its informality. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... much resembles the morning breakfast of the French country-house in the variety of foods. This repast always is most attractive to an American because of its informality, and the viands are enticing. This morning breakfast of the Parisian is really like a little dinner, and that is what we wish to serve to meet all the varied obligations that are to be wiped out by an ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... with agreeable informality. She was a good-looking large girl, with red hair and bright cheeks. She leaned against the door-post and polished her finger-nails with a little brush. Her ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... left their card upon the mantel, so placed that all who came near might read in fashionable script: "The Crosby Twins." Having made this concession to the conventionalities, he lapsed at once into an agreeable informality that ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... forward we were chosen friends, confiding our ambitions to each other, discussing the grave issues of life and death, settling the problems of literature. Notwithstanding his more youthful appearance, my seniority in age was but slight. Gradually "Bob," as all his friends called him with affectionate informality, was given opportunities to advance himself, under the kindly yet firm guidance of the managing editor, Mr. Bradford Merrill. That gentleman appreciated the distinct gifts of his young protege, journalistic and literary, and ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... their friends, and to the friends of the dead she sent full accounts of the last hours of their lost ones. The discharged men, and many of those who were on record unjustly as deserters, through some informality in their papers, often found great difficulty in obtaining their pay, and sometimes could not ascertain satisfactorily how much was due them, in consequence of errors on the part of the regimental or company officers. Miss Bradley was indefatigable in her efforts to secure ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... reflexed at their edges, and are handsomely ribbed or pleated; they are arranged in two or three rays in each flower, and irregularly disposed; the florets, being well apart, not only seem to give the bloom body, but also an artistic informality and lightness. The florets of the disk are chocolate colour, whence issue twirled filamentary forms, which impart to the centre of flower the appearance of being netted with a golden thread. The scaly involucre is formed of numerous small members of a dark olive-green ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... the ceremony had been performed exactly in accordance with rule. If not, it must be done again. Sometimes fifty or a hundred victims were killed before the priestly etiquette was contented. Sometimes magistrates must resign because the college of augurs suspected some informality in the ceremonies of their election. Laws were annulled and judicial proceedings revoked for the same reason. If the augurs declared the signs unfavorable, a public meeting must be adjourned and no business done. A single mistake in the form of a prayer would make it ineffectual. If ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... he did so of his own accord. He said: "I say, those Parachikka Chlorates have gone an awful smash! You're a nice one, Master Lupin. How much do you lose?" Lupin, to my utter astonishment, said: "Oh! I had nothing in them. There was some informality in my application—I forgot to enclose the cheque or something, and I didn't get any. The Guv. loses 18 pounds." I said: "I quite understood you were in it, or nothing would have induced me to speculate." Lupin replied: "Well, it can't be helped; ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... gloom of the Seagrave house Geraldine found a grateful retreat from the inspiring glare and confused racket of her first winter; ample time for rest, reverie, and reflection, with only a few intimates to break her meditations, only informality to reckon with, and plenty of leisure to plan for ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... umbrella man!" The informality of the exclamation seemed to make them at once something more than ordinary acquaintances. They told Charles Osmond of their encounter in the afternoon, and in a very few minutes Brian, hardly knowing whether he was not in some strange dream, found himself sitting ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... eye the trappers sprang to their feet, and cocking their rifles stood perfectly motionless, scowling at the savages, who were completely taken by surprise at the unusual suddenness and informality of such a declaration of war. Not a man moved, for, unlike white men, they seldom risk their lives in open fight; and as they looked at the formidable row of muzzles that waited but a word to send instant death into their midst, they felt that ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... bright ribbons made a pleasant place of the lawn, with its background of shining water. The tennis court, at one side of the house, was one of the favorite gathering spots; there were one or two boats out on the lake. The pleasant informality of the whole affair proved ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... come. She laughed ever so slightly; the experience was novel; who before had ever weighed the pros and cons when extended this privilege? Then, the next moment, the blue eyes lost some of their mirth; perhaps his manner made her feel the frank informality she had unconsciously been guilty of; she regarded him ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... entertainment depends on its being well done, it is advisable to relieve the ladies in charge during the afternoon. This, however, like every other feature of the entertainment, should be arranged beforehand. The charm of an afternoon reception lies in its apparent informality, but every detail should be considered in advance and all contingencies provided for. The debutante, and especially her mother, should be relieved from all such responsibilities before the guests begin ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... paper). Why don't you read it all?——"We are prepared, nevertheless, to waive this informality, and a cheque for the full amount of twenty-five thousand pounds, payable to his order, will be forwarded ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 24, 1892 • Various |
