"Perfunctorily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Clyde agreed perfunctorily. But, looking into the steady, fearless eyes of the pictured girl, she felt a vague, incomprehensible hostility. Kitty Wade glanced at her quickly, detecting the strained note. Clyde felt the glance, and inwardly resented it. Kitty Wade's eyes were ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... did not tend to revise this verdict. It was passed by Osric Dane in the silent deglutition of Mrs. Bollinger's menu, and by the members of the club in the emission of tentative platitudes which their guest seemed to swallow as perfunctorily as the successive ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... to be late—but we've had an awful rush to-day,' he said, as he perfunctorily shook hands. 'There was some big fighting on the Somme, the night before last, and the casualty trains have been coming in all day. I'm only able to get ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said with a strong English accent. "I'll have to see your passport if you will be so good." She took it from the bag she carried, and he glanced at it perfunctorily. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... resumed, but in another, colder tone. The rest of the story he told perfunctorily, omitting all mention of the fight on the flagstaff tower and telling no more than was needful of the last adventure of the rapids. Either he or Dick had changed. Having begun, he persevered, but now without hope ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... temporarily eliminated from the old prospector. Two months of fruitless scratching gravel when he had expected to walk without special delay to the great legendary deposit, had taken the sparkle of hope from the blue eyes, and he glanced perfunctorily at the walls of that which had once ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... they have done very well in their several kinds and methods; yet that which one omits, another may haply see; that which one contracts, another may enlarge. To conclude with [893]Scribanius, "that which they had neglected, or perfunctorily handled, we may more thoroughly examine; that which is obscurely delivered in them, may be perspicuously dilated and amplified by us:" and so made more familiar and easy for every man's capacity, and the common good, which is the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... middle-aged man, strongly built, with slightly grey hair. For some unknown reason I imagined him to be a Major in a cavalry regiment, no doubt attached to the Staff, and when, after rubbing his eyes, he at length opened the window, I apologized perfunctorily for having disturbed him, adding that I was acting on Captain Laycock's suggestion in coming there. In my heart I hoped he would leave me to the undisturbed perusal of the literature which I saw on a large ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... she asked perfunctorily. "A fountain pen, did you say? For the exams. I suppose your mother has sent it. There are two letters for Aveline and one for Morvyth. You may take them to them, and tell Daphne I want to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... followed to this point will need no further hint. If he continues as he has begun, he will be surprised to find how soon he will be able to instruct, on one subject at least, the college graduate, unless that graduate has happily continued as a fad what he once perfunctorily acquired. ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... temptation is often great. The head and the heart—voyez, vous, Monsieur—they pull in contrary directions." And she slipped the book back into a pigeon-hole as if the touch of it was distasteful. She glanced perfunctorily at the cheque he handed to her, then closer, and the colour rose again ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... of the Roma Municipal League had just finished dictating his morning's letters and was leaning back in his half-turned swivel chair. At another desk his secretary worked perfunctorily, ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... Again and again Jacques Sennier had been called. He had returned with Annie Meredith, to whom he had made the gift of a splendid role. They shook hands before the audience, not perfunctorily, but as if they loved one another, were bound together, comrades in the beautiful. He—Heath—had stood upright again, had gone on applauding with the rest. But his thoughts had then all been on himself. "If all this were for me! If I should ever have such ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... condescension as a gifted playwright who had tried to imitate Shakspere and met with but limited success. The early plays were dismissed with a mere cry of pain, and the later ones were discussed very briefly and perfunctorily with respect ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... prescribed for village choice by the educational authority at Whitehall. About twenty "students," ranging from sixteen to nineteen years old, were—no, not puzzling over it: they were "putting in time" as perfunctorily as they dared, making the lesson an excuse for being present together in a warmed and lighted room. When I went in it was near the close of the evening; new matter was being entered upon, apparently as an introduction to the next week's lesson. ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... was while all were passionately intent upon the pleasing and snake-like progress of their uncle that a young girl in furs, ascending the stairs two at a time, peeped perfunctorily into the nursery as she passed the hallway—and ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... of the American Jew. Nowhere is the struggle between the old and the new generations so intense as in the home of the Orthodox Jew. His descendant is clean-shaven and no longer observes (or observes only perfunctorily or with many a gross inconsistency) the dietary and household laws. He is a free spender and luxurious in his habits as compared with his economical, ascetic forefathers. He marries late and the birth rate drops with ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... and ate for a time in silence. Mrs. Forbes paid little attention to what was being said. She moved about perfunctorily, with an air of preoccupation. She had a more serious trouble now than the care and intrusion of the belongings of Lawrence and Harry Evringham, a worry that for days and nights had not ceased to gnaw at ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... and bowed perfunctorily and rather disdainfully to that very disdainful but now dumbfounded officer. Pitt, who watched the scene from the quarter-deck rail, tells us that his lordship was as grave as a parson at a hanging. But I suspect this gravity for a mask ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... very plainly indeed, as she puts up her face to be kissed with all its animation on it. She kisses it, animation and all, caressing the rich black hair with a hand that seems thoughtful. A hand can. Then she makes a little effort to shake off something that draws her away, and comes back rather perfunctorily to her daughter's sphere of interest and the life ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... Sir Amyas knelt perfunctorily, as if impatient of it; and rose up again at once without waiting for the signal. Mary lifted her fingers a little as a sign to ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... he murmured perfunctorily. "Are you—do you find yourself becoming at all interested in the people about here? Of course it is easy to see you come to ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the past two months he had been seen every evening wherever there was high-class revel in Memphis. But he had laughed perfunctorily and lapsed into preoccupation when none spoke to him, and his song had a sorry note in it, however happy the theme. But these were things apparent only to those that saw ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... rustled sharply. ". . . . A calm that lasted more than twenty minutes," she read perfunctorily; and the next words her thoughtless eyes caught, on the top of another page, were: "see you and the children again. . . ." She had a movement of impatience. He was always thinking of coming home. He had never had such a good salary before. ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... start was made, and great men arose, once, twice, three times, to do their best for her, she fell to pieces at last, a Humpty-Dumpty that all the king's horses and all the king's men could never reweld into one;—and the place she should have filled in history as Unifier of Europe was only filled perfunctorily and for a time; and her great duty was never rightly done. Hinc lacrimae aetatum—hence the darkness and miseries of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... behalf of these, with my usual piece of smuggled lead pencil, I soon began to indite and submit to the officers of the institution, letters in which I described the cruel practices which came under my notice. My reports were perfunctorily accepted and at once forgotten or ignored. Yet these letters, so far as they related to overt acts witnessed, were lucid and should have been convincing. Furthermore, my allegations were frequently corroborated by bruises on the ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... perfunctorily ground out the overture to "Der Freischuetz," the baritone had stentorianly emitted "Dio Possente," the soprano was working her way through the closing measures of the mad scene from "Lucia," and Diotti was number four on the program. ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... following a beckoning fan, and Flora, dallying with her anticipation, reasoned that now they must circle the room before they should face him—the interesting apparition. It was a pilgrimage of which he on the other side was performing his half. Perfunctorily talking from group to group, conscious now and again of the lagging Clara or Harry, she could nevertheless keep a sly eye on the stranger's equal progress. The flash of jet, and the voluble, substantial shoulders of the lady so profusely introducing him, were an assurance of ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... silent member of the Committee of Public Safety, Carnot, who brought on the crisis. Affecting an exclusive concern for the conduct of the war and perfunctorily {217} signing all that related to internal affairs, he was secretly restive and anxious to escape from the horrible situation. Prompted by some of his colleagues, he ordered, on the 24th of July, that the Paris national guard artillery should go to the front. This was taking the decisive arm ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... is proverbial that Archidiaconal functions are Eleusinian in their mysteriousness. No one, except an Archdeacon, pretends to know what the duties of an Archdeacon are, so no one can say whether these duties are performed perfunctorily and inadequately, or scrupulously and successfully. We know that Archdeacons sometimes preach, and that is about all we know. I know an Archdeacon in India who can preach a good sermon—I have heard him preach it many a time, once ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... sufficiently developed to like reading about a young man who picks up Gainsboroughs for a tenner, or unearths lost masterpieces of TURNER on a clue supplied by an old letter. The young man in question was Hugh Limner, and in his off moments he fulfilled perfunctorily the duties of hero of the story. But I can't help thinking that Mr. M. MCD. BODKIN, his creator, liked him best as an expert. Certainly I myself did. Hugh, as I say, found his buried Turner on the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... germ of the picture. It contains the idea which may later become the finished work. In your sketches you gather effects and suggestions of possibilities, of all kinds. You do not work long over a sketch, nor do you work perfunctorily. You do not make it because you ought to, but because you see something in nature which charms you; or because you have found an idea you wish to make a ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... was being said. To see in the dim distance the white, pontifical figures moving gravely through the ritual, to hear the low tones, enthralled and stirred him; but he shrank from entering the sacristy, with its loud-voiced priests describing perfunctorily the relics: that was a disillusionment not ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... theory of descent with modification as distinctly as any writer usually claims any theory; but it will probably save the reader trouble in the end if I bring together a good many, though not, probably, all (for I much disliked the task, and discharged it perfunctorily), of the passages in the "Origin of Species" in which the theory of descent with modification in its widest sense is claimed expressly or by implication. I shall quote from the original edition, which, it should be remembered, consisted of the very unusually large number of four thousand ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... his death constantly execrated for being an atheist (he occasionally still is by some hardy fools) made God a more integral part of his system than did any one else in the whole history of philosophy. Spinoza did not do occasional reverence to God; he did not, in lightly passing, perfunctorily bow to Him; God is the veritable beginning and end of all ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... snapped under Kerry's foot with the report of a toy pistol. He swore perfunctorily, and gazed greedily at the cave-opening just ahead. He was a bungling woodsman at best; and now, stalking that greatest of all big game, man, the blood drummed in his ears and his heart seemed to ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... to say that they had done exactly nothing. Lacking some compelling duty, they may have read several hours mechanically, neither studying what was said, making notes, nor reflecting on the value and accuracy of it. Such papers as they signed, they had glanced over perfunctorily. If any subordinate approached them with some small matter, they reacted by trying to get rid of him as quickly as possible. When they entered the company of their fellow officers, they partook of it as little as they could, not bothering to ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... passive. The Great Chief of the Minyo tribe was simply an expressionless idol of flesh and blood. The previous incumbent of that office had been an old man, impotent and senseless of late years through age and disease. The chieftains and braves had consulted in council before him, and perfunctorily submitted their decisions, like offerings, to his unresponsive shrine. In the same way, all material events—expeditions, trophies, industries—were supposed to pass before the dull, impassive eyes of the great ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... Does it matter about the men?" she asked perfunctorily. She did not feel that she ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the Democrats perfunctorily nominated Donnelly. It was the best they could do, and Donnelly had nothing to learn. And so the fight was on. Donnelly went everywhere; so did Warrington. If Donnelly spoke in the German district, Warrington spoke to the Italians and in their native tongue. Warrington soon learned how to shake hands ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... been asleep. Prone on his back, hat pulled over his upper face, he had been lying motionless there, for the best part of an hour. Now, stretching, he got to his feet in leisurely fashion, brushed perfunctorily at his rumpled clothes, and turned his steps toward the double line of plumy Australian pines which bordered the lane ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the Faith Healer by a little stream, eating bread and honey, and, like an ancient woodlander drinking from a horn—relics of his rank imposture. He made no resistance. They tried him formally, if perfunctorily; he admitted his imposture, and begged for his life. Then they stripped him naked, tied a bit of canvas round his waist, fastened him to a tree, and were about to complete his punishment when Tim Denton burst ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Maria crossed herself perfunctorily and mumbled a few prayers. Doubtless the Senora was like all the English, a heretic, and therefore, according to the comfortable tenets of the Roman faith, eternally damned, but a little prayer would do no harm, and would be counted to herself as ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... Outwardly—perfunctorily—Sir James's aspect while she was speaking answered to hers. If she was pleased, he was pleased too. He congratulated her; he entered into her schemes for Miss Merton's amusement. Really, all the time, the man's aspect was singularly grave, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... instantly extorted from him—amid all his dazedness—the corresponding "Good-by." When he turned and saw it was Mr. Glamorys who had come in, his heart leapt wildly at the nearness of his escape. As he passed this masked ruffian, he nodded perfunctorily and received a cordial smile. Yes, he was handsome and fascinating enough externally, this ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Slade pointed out the cattle. They were scattered a little, as though perfunctorily guarded, but still massed enough to make the task of rounding them up comparatively simple to the big group of men ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... perfunctorily, and took seats at the table nearest the door on their left, diagonally the whole space of the room from us. Agathemer and I returned their salute as precisely as we could imitate it, thankful that they ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... he answered perfunctorily. And the two words were clipped from history even as they were spoken, by a cry that rang from the group of people. Tod Winthrop ought to have been in bed. It was six-thirty, and he was four years ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... sporadically and perfunctorily on the far upper Agsan, but I have never seen it anywhere else among Manbos.[29] It is used for shooting small birds, chickens, and mice. It is made of an internode of a variety of bamboo[30] about 1.2 meters long and 12.5 millimeters ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... them."[69] Carlyle's statement shows envious criticism as well as a prejudice in favor of his brother Scotchman. It was made in 1838, since when opinion has raised Gibbon to the top, for he actually lives while Hume is read perfunctorily, if at all. Moreover among the three—Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle—whose works are literature as well as history, modern criticism has no hesitation in awarding the palm ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... rug from your room is to go over the hole by the window?" she asked perfunctorily, being half-way through the ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... with their backs to the full-blown turnips. Silvestro turns them round and they are stupefied to see that the miracle has been performed. They are all three converted and insist on being baptized instantly. Silvestro performs the ceremony, somewhat perfunctorily, and promises to cure the emperor. They shout, "Evviva Silvestro!" and dance for ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... she murmured perfunctorily, rising to shake hands with Miss Letchworth, whom she had always disliked as being one of those people who are jocund in the morning. Then, as Yelverton proceeded to provide food for the unfortunate jocund one ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... wait," he muttered, as she rose brightly to meet him; and she seemed pleased that he came at all—but George was used to girls' looking radiant when he danced with them, and she had little effect upon him. He danced with her perfunctorily, thinking the while of Mr. Eugene Morgan and his daughter. Strangely enough, his thoughts dwelt more upon the father than the daughter, though George could not possibly have given a reason—even to himself—for ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... partitioned off at the rear and knew that she had gone to fling herself down upon her bed. He looked after her as though he still half hoped she were coming back if only to say a belated 'good night.' Then he and Longstreet made coffee and drank it perfunctorily. After breakfast Carr left, saying that he would ride over to have a look at the new camp, and would drop in again some ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... slain once for all in me, as I am sure it was in scores of others, by the way it was taught; for the instruction was confided to the ordinary form-master, who doled out his questions from a text-book perfunctorily used and probably heartily despised by a man brought up on strict classical or mathematical lines. Our manufacturer is brought up in a school of this kind, and it would be a miracle if he emerged from it with any respect for science. Things have ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... ordinary single floor type, characteristic of these islands, with a row of horse-boxes and a loft for the storage of hay and other impedimenta above. The horse-boxes measured ten feet square and had only been cleaned out perfunctorily. The raw manure was still clinging to the walls, while the stalls were wet from the straw which had been recently removed. Indeed in some stalls it had not ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... kindly corrected, and seating himself at his desk he examined the minor transfers perfunctorily and ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... is arriving." He pointed. Half a dozen tall, short-necked Yill were entering through a side door. The leading Yill hesitated as another stepped in his path. He raised a fist, and the other moved aside, touching the top of his head perfunctorily with both hands. The group started across the room toward the Terrestrials. Retief watched as a slender alien came forward and spoke passable ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... and Springville he went; through Spanish Fork, Payson, Salt Creek, and Fillmore. He stopped to preach at each place, but he did it perfunctorily, and with shame for himself in his secret heart. Some impalpable essence of spirituality was gone from himself and from the people. He felt himself wickedly agreeing with a pessimistic elder at Fillmore, who remarked: ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... on his way to a chair when suddenly caught and immobilized by one of those hazards which do notoriously occur—the victim never remembers how—in drawing-rooms. Hands in pockets, he looked aimlessly about, smiling perfunctorily, and wondering where he should settle or whether he should remain where he was. In the deep embrasure of the large east bow-window Lois was lounging. She beckoned to him, not with her hand but with a brief, bright smile—she ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... likelihoods. More than forty years ago, in San Francisco, the office staff adjourned, upon conclusion of its work at two o'clock in the morning, to a great bowling establishment where there were twelve alleys. I was invited, rather perfunctorily, and as a matter of etiquette—by which I mean that I was invited politely, but not urgently. But when I diffidently declined, with thanks, and explained that I knew nothing about the game, those lively young ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... the difference in the administration of the agencies. While the same duties are devolved upon all, the disposition of the agents and the manner of their contact with the Indians have much to do with their condition and welfare. The agent who perfunctorily performs his duty and slothfully neglects all opportunity to advance their moral and physical improvement and fails to inspire them with a desire for better things will accomplish nothing in the direction of their civilization, while he who feels the burden of an important trust ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... reasons,—because it is "the thing" to go to college, or for "the life." But it is reassuring to find that the reactions of "the life" upon them always quicken them to a deeper respect for intellectual values. The "academic" holds first place in the Wellesley life, not perfunctorily but vitally. The students themselves are swift to recognize and rebuke, usually in the "Free Press" or the "Parliament of Fools", of the College News, any signs of intellectual indifference or laxity. Wellesley, like Harvard ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... her?" asked De Chauxville perfunctorily, not as a man who expects an answer or intends to believe that which he ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Mr. Stanton?" Tom asked. "We are Scouts," he added, as the gentleman nodded perfunctorily, "and we came from Bridgeboro. We're on our way to camp. Last night we got caught in ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... in and out, to be sure, but each time they emerged they were scrutinized carefully, and when they went in they had to exhibit their passes to a man on guard at the single entrance; and the passes were not scrutinized perfunctorily, either. ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... from its promised point to what seemed to him to be a whole geographical meridian—went slowly. To relieve it, he took a book from the table, and in a desultory manner turned the leaves. While thus perfunctorily engaged, he heard the clicking of an opening door, and then the sound of voices: of Madame Jolicoeur's voice, and of a man's voice—which latter, coming nearer, he recognized beyond all doubting as the ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... favourite lilies of the valley being inserted. How he had praised her skill and made his little jokes over her industry! But the screen would never be used by him now, and the stitches were put in perfunctorily ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... answered quietly, and hitched nearer to her along the bench to make room for a new-comer who was thrusting in beside him. He turned perfunctorily to see who it might ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... note. There were men surrounded by women and children, and there were others by twos and threes and singly who looked enviously at these little groups of the reunited, men who moved haltingly on their way to the city above, perfunctorily greeted, perfunctorily handshaken, and perfunctorily smiled ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... misgivings he introduced Mr. Stevens to his brother Jack and to Mr. Creamer. The prospective organizers of the Marsh Pulp Company were already in solemn conclave on the porch, with the single exception of Princeman, who was on the lawn talking most perfunctorily with Miss Josephine. That young lady, with wickedness of the deepest sort in her soul, was doing her best to entice Mr. Princeman into forgetting the important meeting, but as soon as Princeman saw the gathering hosts ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... her perfunctorily and was about to turn away, but the avidity of her face reminded him that he had a standard to live up to. He produced another five-franc piece and was pursued to the gate by the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... and Joyce joined in with a merry peal. Even Lucy and Nate helped the chorus, though somewhat perfunctorily, not knowing just ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... with the mystery, and baffled by it, searched again perfunctorily. Uncle Dick hunted hither and yon with feverish activity, at first confidently, then doubtfully, finally in despair. He, in his turn, could find no further clue. He gave over his efforts eventually, and stood silent beside the marshal, staring bewilderedly. About the ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... of the menace of coming disaster. True, the courtiers were scarcely assiduous in the visiting of the Landhofmeisterin, but they dared not absent themselves entirely, for they were uncertain as to her fate, and they feared both her revenge and her reputed witchcraft. So they repaired perfunctorily to La Favorite, and though her Excellency refused to receive visitors, still she was informed of the courtiers' visits. Thus the old life seemed to be unaltered, and the Landhofmeisterin forgot her anxiety in a measure, yet a deep melancholy ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... minds Monsieur de Grandville reached with this argument were those of the public prosecutor and the judges. The jury listened perfunctorily; the audience, usually so favorable to prisoners, were convinced of their guilt. In a court of justice the sentiments of the crowd do unquestionably weigh upon the judges and the jury, and vice versa. Seeing this condition of the minds ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... took perfunctorily the spoon that Molly was holding out to her, which she forgot to lift to her lips even after it was freighted with ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... been so much fighting about religion," said Genestas, "God must have built up the system very perfunctorily. Should not a divine institution impress men at once by the truth that ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Wright's cattle, on their way to the high country, filed past. The cowboys listened to the news with interest, and a delight which they did not attempt to conceal. They denied having seen the fugitive. The sheriff questioned them perfunctorily. He knew the breed. George Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... and have returned to it again and again.... I am quite sure that it is the most finished and artistic of all your books and one of the most subtle and graceful things in all our modern fiction." And Charles Eliot Norton's letter from Shady Hill, the letter of one who never praised perfunctorily or insincerely, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... disgusted, very embarrassed, obeyed, putting his arms around his wife and kissing her neither too perfunctorily nor very long. She was a pretty young thing of a woman, perhaps twenty years old, with an exceedingly childish, girlish face and a slender-waisted, generously moulded body of fully a ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... for three interminable years such a stream of tragedy has flowed through a hospital, it would be easy for surgeons and nurses to treat mutilation and death perfunctorily. They don't. They show no emotion. They are even cheerful; but their strained faces tell the story and their hands ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... cordiality.] How do you do, everybody? So sorry I wasn't here when you came. I hope Lily made proper excuses for me. [She goes from one to the other of the four latest comers with "So glad you came," etc. They reply formally and perfunctorily. MARTHA finally finds a seat on the couch between EMILY and ESTHER.] I hope Lily—but I see you've all ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... his part of the task of slaughter coolly, leisurely, almost perfunctorily. His training in the Regular Army was against the likelihood of his displaying zeal in anything. He instituted certain measures, and let things take their course. That course was a rapid transition from bad ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... consulted, to be sure, in regard to the final arrangements, but the meetings had taken place in her own apartment, many blocks distant from the house in lower Fifth Avenue. The afternoon before she had received Redmond Wrandall and Leslie, his son. She had not sent for them. They came perfunctorily and not through any sense of obligation. These two at least knew that sympathy was not what she wanted, but peace. Twice during the two trying days, Leslie had come to ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... four, the earth still trembling with the incessant concussions of the guns, the French scrambled out of their trenches and went forward. But no sudden blast of lead and iron challenged their temerity. A few shells, but all from field pieces, fired perfunctorily as it were, fell near them and occasionally among them. It looked as if Fritz wasn't ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Mrs. Markham in. a perfunctorily kind manner and offered her a chair, which she took gratefully. She sat for a quarter of an hour almost without moving, leaning against the back of the high chair. At last the child began to get restless and troublesome, and she spent half an hour helping him amuse himself ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... meal or a night's lodging at a wayside tavern by a song, or a tune on his fiddle. Thus he had drifted musically for years through the Canadian backwoods, until homeless old age had overtaken him. Four years before he had spent a summer at Big Malcolm's, helping perfunctorily in the harvest fields, working little and singing much, and when the first hard frost had set the forest aflame he had gathered his poor, scant bundle of clothes into his carpet-bag preparatory to ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... to the States-General that there was but little to hope for from Great Britain or France. France, governed by Concini and by Spain, was sure to do her best to traverse the designs of the Republic, and, while perfunctorily and grudgingly complying with the letter of the Hall treaty, was secretly neutralizing by intrigue the slender military aid which de la Chatre was to bring to Prince Maurice. The close alliance of France and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in lap, his mind racing in many different directions at once. Hector was off at the phone, getting the latest information from the meditechs. Odal had expressed his regrets perfunctorily, and then left for the Kerak Embassy, under a heavy escort of his own plainclothes guards. The government of the Acquataine Cluster was quite literally falling apart, with no man willing to assume responsibility ... and thereby expose himself. One hour after the duel, Kanus' troops had landed ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... his fire, dozing gently. He did not notice her at all. He roused himself for the doctor's perfunctorily cheerful farewell. It was then that he noted Felicia's coat ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... baldly and contradiction would be easy. The reformer might point to phrases like "human welfare" which appear in his writings. And yet the point stands, I believe. The emphasis which directs his thinking bears most heavily upon the mechanics of life—only perfunctorily upon the ability of the men who ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the unpunctuality of others. He was fully attired, hob-nailed shoes, leggings, leather coat and cap, gloves, scarf round his throat and all—and he behaved as if there was not a minute to lose. He had barely time to shake perfunctorily the hand Thorpe offered him, and utter an absent-minded ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... had not disturbed him. He had no more thought of this middle-aged, harsh-featured New Jersey farmer's daughter than he had of one of the dining-chairs. Gordon sat humped upon himself, as he sat nowadays, a marked stoop of age was becoming visible in his broad shoulders, and he ate perfunctorily without a word. James, after a number of futile attempts to talk to Clemency, subsided himself into bewildered silence, and ate with very little appetite. There were chops and potatoes and peas, and apple-pie, for luncheon. When it came to the pie Emma served Clemency ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... Partab Singh kisses the footprints of Jirad Sahib, and entreats that she and her son may sit down under his shadow," he said perfunctorily, evidently repeating what had been taught him. "Jirad Sahib knows that I am Rajah now? He will make them give me a ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... his hands. And before she was aware, she had told him all things. These matters were not altogether new to Sir Julian, for Lord Cedric had discoursed at length upon them, but the nucleus he sought was found, and he listened perfunctorily to all else, feasting his eyes upon her face and listening only to ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... This left Mrs. Hurstwood in the mood to extend the perfunctory greetings of some who knew her into short conversations, and the short conversations of friends into long ones. It was from one who meant but to greet her perfunctorily that this ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... he greeted perfunctorily. "Pretty good talk, wasn't it?" Without waiting for a reply he went on, "Suppose you're not hankering for a drive back to town to-night? I'll see that"—a swift nod toward the departing group—"he gets back home, if ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... I said perfunctorily, "Do you?" And we remained gazing at each other. The uniform paleness of her complexion was not that of an anaemic girl. It had a transparent vitality and at that particular moment the faintest possible rosy tinge, the merest suspicion of colour; an ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... route, from Suez to El-'Akabah, probably one of the oldest in this world, has been traversed perfunctorily by Burckhardt and by Beke. It still wants a detailed survey, and even hieroglyphic inscriptions may be expected. Beke's map marks Hawawit ("ruins") near one of his nighting-places, but apparently the remains ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... Nonsuch and all who are to sail in her!" And she said it not perfunctorily, but from her heart; for the lives and fortunes of the two who were nearest and dearest to her in the whole world were irrevocably bound up ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... that learning is to be had from the original authors, and not from any quotations, or accounts in other books, for men gather with divers views, and, according to their several capacities, often perfunctorily, and almost always imperfectly: and through such slight reading, a student may know somewhat, but not judge of either author or subject. He used to say an old author could not be unprofitable; for although ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... I should now come from the elders to the youth, or from the civil constitution of this government to the military, but that I judge this the fittest place whereinto, by the way, to insert the government of the city though for the present but perfunctorily. ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... this morning?" Rachael asked perfunctorily, with her quick glance moving from the books on the table to the wood fire burning lazily behind brass firedogs. Everything was in perfect order, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... must be understood historically; just as logic, metaphysic, analytic, organon, etc., can only be apprehended and understood historically. Now it is, perhaps, not to be denied, that even now a majority of educated readers either perfunctorily repeat the first sentence of the Fourth Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word," or believe that something lies buried therein that is beyond the depth of ordinary men. This, of course, is partially true, and it cannot be ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... exhilaration of the night that Gaston left her, passed and the dull monotony of the daily tasks performed perfunctorily with no charm of another's approbation and sharing, lost the power ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... "The Way of the World."' So I made my debut in a noisy part and have since played no role more effectively than that of the small boy with the big bell. Incidentally, I had to clean the lamps and fetch small beer to the leading lady, which duties were perfunctorily performed. My art, however, I threw into the bell," concluded the manager with ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... wanted to meet the Bellamys' friend, and Harriet saw that it pleased him, for some inscrutable reason, to continue his ridiculous conversation with the flattered Ward, and to accept names and greetings absently, in an aside, as it were, smiling perfunctorily and briefly at the eager girls and women, and returning immediately to his concerned and passionate undertones with ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... upon her—he did not ask such questions. He did not seem to have the least interest in her family, her history, or the object of her journey. He asked where she was going, a conventional question, perfunctorily put. His remarks all seemed somewhat conventional. Even these she had sometimes to evade and direct into other channels; and naturally a conversation, conducted solely with the idea of concealing her affairs, did not prosper. ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... in nearly the certainty of non-fulfilment that I made my first attempts at rearing carnivorous larvae with a quarry which did not conform with the customary regimen. For conscience' sake, more or less perfunctorily, I endeavoured to achieve something that seemed to me bound to end in pitiful failure. Only the Bembex-wasps, which are plentiful in the sand of the neighbouring hills, might still afford me, without too prolonged ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... meaning, I got my eyes down to my canvas and began to peck at it perfunctorily, when a snapping of twigs underfoot and a swishing of branches in the thicket warned me of a second intruder, not approaching by the path, but forcing a way toward it through the underbrush, and very briskly too, judging by ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... say that on the whole the impression made on me by the poet on that occasion (always with the notable exception of his recital of his own poetry) was a pleasant one. There was something in the manner in which he almost perfunctorily, as it seemed, uttered his long monologue, that suggested the idea of the performance of a part got up to order, and repeated without much modification as often as lion-hunters, duly authorised for the sport in those ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... facilities, and testing grounds at the latter point had undergone complete remodelling, while tools of the latest type had been provided to facilitate the rapid construction and overhaul of the monster Zeppelin dirigibles. Nothing had been left to chance; not an item was perfunctorily completed. The whole organisation was perfect, both in equipment and operation. Each of the above stations possessed provision for an aerial Dreadnought as well as one or more aerial cruisers, in ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... sufficiently they settled down behind the old rail fence, on the opposite side to the one from which their foes had been driven. A few shot perfunctorily at distant marks. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... in a moment, answering the director's signal perfunctorily. Southward now, on the 110th East Meridian, without deviating from the ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... people, store-keepers, attentive though they were, were not once sympathetic. Vaguely they had felt that here was something which other men—more educated—would possibly consider eloquent. They applauded vociferously but perfunctorily, in ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... by any means a body of men wanting in personal morality, or even in religious feeling, but they had as little or no religious activity because they had little or no religious zeal. They performed perfunctorily their perfunctory duties; and that, as a rule, was ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... their transports grew less fiery, and their affections less fixed. Archer got a bit bored. He was decent about it, though, and when Arabella cuddled beside him he would more or less perfunctorily embrace her. But when he ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... said, perfunctorily. "You would think so. It's amusing. However, being perfectly neutral and friendly to you both, I have consented to deliver his message to you. Say that I am humouring an invalid if you like. He wants you to know that this affair is by no means at an end. He intends to send ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... there a second or two, Wickersham an inch or more taller and inches narrower in shoulder and girth of chest. Perfunctorily they nodded, each to the other, and wheeled ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... relieved applause. The bosom of his stiff white shirt might have been a trifle soiled, the diamond glistening therein, palpably false, and the lapels of his full-dress coat, distressingly shiny, but to John and Louise, he seemed a very prince of successful entertainers. He bowed perfunctorily, issued a few words of admonition to the boisterous element in the audience, and disappeared ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... some champion athlete; finally, I stuck the spare clothes, with the rest of my riches, among the branches of a coolibah, out of the way of the wild pigs. The next moment, I was in the saddle, and Cleopatra, after perfunctorily illustrating Demosthenes' three rules of oratory:—the first, Action; the second, ditto, the third, ibid.—turned obediently toward the river, and was soon breasting the cool current, while, with one arm across the saddle, I ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... own series of the 'Months'—which he had planned among these hills, and had carried out perfunctorily and vulgarly, in the city, far from the freshness and infinity of Nature. All the faults of his designs appeared to him, and the poverty of their execution. But he was only exultant, not depressed. Now that he could judge himself, now that his brain had begun to react once more, with ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five pounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... a handsome name to her,' Twemlow remarked perfunctorily, rising and leaving Hannah alone at ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... finished off and furnished slap-up style, you bet! with a Chinese cook, and a Biddy, and a Mexican vaquero to look after his horse—but he won't have no mother to housekeep! That is," he corrected himself perfunctorily, turning to his companion, "you've never spoke o' your mother, so I reckon you're about fixed up ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... bedroom was placed at my service, the welcome afforded me was cordial and unembarrassed, the food good and plentiful. My host, my hostess; his grown daughters, strapping lassies; his young hopefuls, misbehaving at a meal or perfunctorily employed upon their school-books: all that I found in that house, beyond the speech and a few exotic dishes on the table, would have been familiar ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all pleasure in the day's outing was gone for me also, and we were a silent pair as we wandered in and out through the sandy beaches. Dicky conscientiously, but perfunctorily, pointed out to me all the things which he thought I would find interesting, and in which, under any other ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... his pocket. A cat, on its way back from lunch, paused beside him in order to use his leg as a serviette. George tickled it under the ear abstractedly. He was always courteous to cats, but today he went through the movements perfunctorily and without enthusiasm. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... are, but you can always spare an hour or two for the work of a friend. My Love well Lost, in three volumes, is on its way to you. I wish you to review it in all the periodicals with which you are connected. Last time I wrote a novel, my nephew reviewed it, very perfunctorily, in the Pandrosium; this time I want only to be reviewed by my friends." He was kicking on the sofa, and apparently trying to commit suicide with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... your rheumatism," Bud apologized perfunctorily, his face going red at the epithet. Marian, coming toward him with a plate of biscuits, looked him full in the eyes and turned her glance to her husband's back while her lips curled in the bitterest, the most scornful smile Bud had ever seen on a woman's face. ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... in Mr. Landover's cabin, but even so, I am ready and willing to do anything in my power to ease the pain you are suffering." She spoke calmly, dispassionately, almost perfunctorily. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... search there, while he and Hawkins went into the house. Lone guessed that the two felt the need of a private conference after their visit to the Quirt, but he could see no way to slip unobserved to the house and eavesdrop, so he looked perfunctorily through all the sheds and around the depleted haystacks,—wherever a person could find a hiding place. He was letting himself down through the manhole in the stable loft when Swan's voice, lowered almost to a whisper, ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... ignorance were inclined to impute false motives to him; but in time, the cloud of suspicion rolled away and his action in that crisis was not laid up against him. The election of Cleveland relieved him of seeming perfunctorily to uphold Blaine. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Captain Whalley perfunctorily did not see why a lord of the right sort should not do as well as anyone else. But this was not ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... down, realizing perhaps for the first time that she was exquisitely beautiful; beautiful always, but more so now in the pathos of her helplessness. Somewhat perfunctorily, because in his ignorance of women he thought that it would please her, and also because vaguely something human and elemental had suddenly roused his pulses, he relinquished his nonchalant attitude, and came ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... first be touched by the Spirit of the Master, and through him touch them. This work cannot be done perfunctorily or professionally. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... arme Baronesse," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... arguments, now somewhat perfunctorily given, the bolt against the Government had been shot with all of Roebuck's accustomed "vigour" of utterance[1089]. Here was direct attack; that it was a futile one early became evident in the debate. Lord ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... drunk, driver," said one passenger. She held up her dollar bill, indignantly, to dismiss him. He lifted his hat, perfunctorily, and swept ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... go out?" asked the man himself perfunctorily, as from the depths of a settled despair. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder toward ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... hesitated before complying. "Well," he said perfunctorily, "you have gone into something that ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... in return. He had given up trying to explain to the Italian the idiomatic style of old Broadway. He got up and brushed his flannels perfunctorily. "Well, I suppose I've got to dress for supper," resentfully. He still called it supper; and, as in the matter of the silk hat, his wife no longer strove to correct him. The evening meal had always been supper, ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... immediate guard, at this moment, said something to the uniformed policeman who sat near the center of the room. The other glanced perfunctorily in De Launay's direction and nodded, and the man stepped out ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... difficult to conceive of a person more obviously up in the air than Philip at this moment. He went through his office duties intelligently and perfunctorily, but his heart was not in the work, and reason as he would his career did not seem to be that way. He was lured too strongly by that siren, the ever-alluring woman who sits upon the rocks and sings so deliciously to youth of the sweets of authorship. He who listens once to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... deuce one contrived that sort of thing. It was a woman's job. Mrs Olliver, now, could have fixed it all up in a twinkling; while he—poor clumsy fool!—could only sit there smoking and racking his brain, while his eyes perfunctorily scanned the columns ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... letter which he would read for the thirtieth time. When Judith had made him take the great armchair, and Miss Lucy had rung for Julius and a glass of wine, and Unity had trimmed the light, and Molly replenished the fire, he read, and as in these days no one ever read anything perfunctorily, the reading was more telling than an actor could have made it. In places Cousin William himself and his hearers laughed, and in places reader and listener brushed hand across eyes. "Your loving son," he read, and folded the sheets carefully, for they were becoming a ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... a long time to know the real cause of her sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting in his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of the household had retired. He did not get to bed till one o'clock. Before he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first rather timidly performed, and then louder. Nobody answered it, and the person knocked ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... he said perfunctorily. "You would think so. It's amusing. However, being perfectly neutral and friendly to you both, I have consented to deliver his message. Say that I am humouring an invalid if you like. He says that this affair is by no means at an end. He intends to send you his seconds ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... bowed to him and sometimes ventured a remark or two. He did not seem over-anxious to talk but he met her troubled face with calm and unvarying, though somewhat absent-minded courtesy. He replied to her questions perfunctorily, told her whom he served, betraying, however, in turn, no inquisitiveness concerning her. For him she was just some one who came and went, and incidentally interfered with his study of ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham |
