"Perfunctorily" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... I'm late," she said perfunctorily, at his start of recognition and delight. Gaga's face changed completely. From one of gloom, his expression became one of joy. "I didn't notice the time. I was working there alone— Miss Summers had gone. I was finishing something. I didn't ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... out?" asked the man himself perfunctorily, as from the depths of a settled despair. He pointed a thumb over his ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... room is to go over the hole by the window?" she asked perfunctorily, being half-way through the hall at ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... keep' 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 ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... not? There was nothing to do. Jepson ran the mine and everything about it, and Rimrock attended to the rest. All she had to do was to keep track of the records and act as secretary to the Board of Directors. They never met now, except perfunctorily, to give Rimrock more money to spend. He came in as she sat there, dashing past her for some papers, and was dashing out when she spoke ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... 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 to make ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... my dear Smart," he said, extending his gloved hand, which I took perforce. "Sub rosa, you might say," he went on with a wry smile. "A stupid, unchivalric empire has designs upon me, perfunctorily perhaps, but it's just as well not to stir up the monkeys, as you ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 is ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the five pounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode off on ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Rajah 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 real sword, will ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... had celebrated 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 ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... 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
... truth, was his by inheritance, and in which he had been nourished. There could be nothing better as regards "consolation in public calamities," except a chapter of some not more human, but of some truly divine book, in which the hand of God should be everywhere visible, not perfunctorily, as with Montaigne, but actually and lovingly present. In fact, the consolation Montaigne gives himself and others is perhaps as lofty and beautiful as human consolation without ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... literary. The men who listened to him, ranchers, country 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
... 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 centre table. He showed, however, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... down," he 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
... not 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 between hotel ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... note perfunctorily, then some part of it riveted his notice, and he read the rest avidly. Like Vandersee's letter, it was brief and comprehensive. It authorized Little to supersede Gordon at the trading station, if in his opinion the situation seemed to warrant ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Baronesse," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... brought up the meals and water, laid the tables and emptied the slops; but, while thus engaged, he never made any remark, and when spoken to replied in monosyllables. The ground floor front was let to a third-rate Hebraic music-hall artiste, who perfunctorily attended his place of business. The second and third floors, and most of the top rooms, were let to good-looking young women, who were presumed to belong to the theatrical profession. If they were correctly described, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... no more; and listened perfunctorily while Mr. Direck tried to indicate the feeling in New England towards the Irish Question and the many difficult propositions an American politician has to face in that respect. And when Mr. Britling took up the thread ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Bible on the table, other books stood on a shelf. A comfortable 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... therefore such that we are by no means always able or willing to furnish it. Not able, because the need for practical decisions hurries us into that rapid inference from a minimum of perception to a minimum of associated experience which we call "recognising things," and thus out of the presence of the perfunctorily dealt with shapes. Not willing, because our nervous condition may be unable for the strain of shape perception; and our emotional bias (what we call our interest) may be favourable to some incompatible kind of activity. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... old-fashioned; if one may say it of a French farce, it is Victorian. Apart from a few topical allusions worked in rather perfunctorily there is scarcely anything said or done that might not have been said or done in the 'eighties. But for a certain type of Englishman there is a perennial attraction in feeling that at any moment the proprieties may be outraged. That they never actually are outraged does not seem very greatly to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... anything extraordinary in the ordinary way of seeing or hearing. Only I was dead sure that he was there with the same old entreaty. Afterwards I lighted a pipe, went above, talked to the skipper's wife, read, investigated my boy's and also my dog's welfare rather perfunctorily, settled down to saying an evening Office, made an end more or less of that, just as night came on, and then again took time to think over things. I remembered that he would have possibly got my letter, the letter which announced my sailing in this ship of the Archangel Line, just about the ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... But they merely saluted, 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
... turned away. 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 an hour ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... Douglas, with cold disgust, perfunctorily veiled by a conventional air of sympathy. "But if she is irreclaimable, why ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... 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 ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... should still linger in a body with that hole in it. He is bleeding inwardly, and his pulse is steadily weakening. It must continue so until imperceptibly he passes away. You may count him dead already, Sir John." He paused. "A merciful, painless end," he added, and sighed perfunctorily, his pale shaven face decently grave, for all that such scenes as these were commonplaces in his life. "Of the other four," he continued, "Blair is dead; the other three should ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... all sorts of miserable motives, to the actors in 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 ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... 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 ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil |
