"Affectation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to these German, Russian, and Hindu philosophers, Oswald enjoys talking with Claude Leslie. This rich American has none of that reputed affectation of some western aristocrats. His manners are frank, without any suggestion of pretense. Having the entree of Gotham select circles, Claude sailed on an extended tour of the world. He had visited at leisure nearly every port and important city of earth. With a quick sense of the remarkable ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... that a transient expression of malignant exultation crossed the Landgrave's countenance at this moment. But, if that were so, it was banished as suddenly; and, in the next instant, the prince arose with a leisurely motion; and, with a very successful affectation (if such it were) of extreme tranquillity, he moved forwards to one of the ante- rooms, in which, as it now appeared, some person was ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... cordial eyes? Ah, me! that night there was one gentle thing, Who like a dove, with its scarce-feather'd wing, Flutter'd at the approach of thy quaint swaggering! There's wont to be, at conscious times like these, An affectation of a bright-eyed ease— A crispy-cheekiness, if so I dare Describe the swaling of a jaunty air; And thus, when swirling from the waltz's wheel, You craved my hand to grace the next quadrille. That smiling voice, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... not help forming some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies in my mind a flaw in the understanding.... A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for other people's. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people of sense and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... hunter, steady and brave as he was in peril, was a prudent man, and not at all disposed to be reckless. He knew that an Indian bullet could kill him, as well as another man, and he had none of that affectation of courage which so often belies the boaster ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... with pleasure into old books, and listen to authors who speak small and clear, as if in a private conversation. Truly this is so with Charles of Orleans. We are pleased to find a small man without the buskin, and obvious sentiments stated without affectation. If the sentiments are obvious, there is all the more chance we may have experienced the like. As we turn over the leaves, we may find ourselves in sympathy with some one or other of these staid joys and smiling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by a conscious aim to entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation, sentimentality, and exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most original writing is The Child's Garden of Verses. His touch is light and his thought is clear and lucid. Across the Plains is written in his most straightforward and ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... 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
... intrude; that is, our party certainly has not," continued the young lady, pulling the tight gloves, and smoothing the plump, almost bursting fingers, with an affectation ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... has and does not apologize for it. He does not begin by saying, "I know you are used to having better things than this but I suppose you can stand it for one meal." He simply ushers his guest into the dining room as cordially and with as little affectation as if he were the paying teller of the Smithville bank. No one need ever apologize when he has done or given ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... consequence of a disappointment in love, but of course I did not know that, nor that she was crazed at all. I thought her brilliant and original, and I liked her very much. In the light of coming events, it would be affectation were I to pretend that she did not feel a similar partiality ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... Hathaway's sympathetic acceptance of their courtesies, nor was there the least affectation in it. Thoroughly enjoying his fellowmen, even in their foibles, they found him irresistibly attractive. "I lived here seven years ago," he said, smiling, to ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... were left alone together, the latter resumed the subject of her children, and gave Booth a particular narrative of all that had passed at his lordship's, which he, though something had certainly disconcerted him, affected to receive with all the pleasure he could; and this affectation, however aukwardly he acted his part, passed very well on Amelia; for she could not well conceive a displeasure of which she had not the least hint of any cause, and indeed at a time when, from his reconciliation with James, she imagined her ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... The charge of affectation in their Weltschmerz would be an entirely baseless one, both in the case of Hoelderlin and Lenau. But this difference is readily discovered in the impressions made upon us by their writings, namely that Hoelderlin's Weltschmerz is absolutely naive and unconscious, while that of Lenau is at all times ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... he was received with all the honour due to a favourite servant of the King's household; but while he was at dinner, the Earl, who suspected his errand, caused his prisoner to be led forth and beheaded. After dinner, Sir Patrick presented the King's letter to the Earl, who received it with great affectation of reverence; "and took him by the hand, and led him forth to the green, where the gentleman was lying dead, and showed him the manner, and said, 'Sir Patrick, you are come a little too late; yonder is your sister's son ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... subsequent roars we got a little more accustomed to the shaking of the boards under our feet. But the first time at such close quarters, with only a shaky wooden roof between us and "old Yellow Hair," was no joke, and we all behaved naturally and without pose or affectation, and ran for safety, or rather climbed ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... stating that Adam and Eve, in 'Paradise Lost,' were too much like married people. He has furnished many a text for Coleridge to preach upon. There was no fuss or cant about him; nor were his sweets or sours ever diluted with one particle of affectation." ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... allow I have cause; but I do not know that his Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings. He has certainly matched Milton on his own ground. Some part of the language is bold, and may shock one class of readers, whose line will be adopted by others out of affectation or envy. But then they must condemn the 'Paradise Lost,' if they have a mind to be consistent. The fiend-like reasoning and bold blasphemy of the fiend and of his pupil lead exactly to the point which was to be expected,—the commission ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... 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 ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the devil lurks, Thou juggler's hat, laid with a sudden hand Upon a throne, an army, or a nation— When thou wert lifted all had disappeared. I hated thee for the salutes I gave thee, For thy simplicity—mere affectation— Thy insolent joy, thou piece of common beaver Amid the glittering diadems of gold; For staying firmly on his haughty head When I sought flattering epithets to please thee. Conqueror, new, acclaimed, I hated thee! I hate thee now, old, conquered ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... the exile of Carnot. The manner in which he now signed his orders and proclamations—Member of the Institute, General in Chief of the Army of the East—showed his determination to banish from the life of France that affectation of boorish ignorance by which the Terrorists had rendered themselves ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... or, at least, none that was not so subordinate to his public career that there was little in it either significant or attractive. There is, in this respect, a marked contrast between his correspondence and that of Jefferson. There was, possibly, a little affectation in Jefferson's frequent assertions of his intense desire for the quiet of the country and the tranquillity of home, and of his distaste for the turmoils and anxieties of public office. But he was certainly fond of country life, with the leisure to potter about among his ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... sight of his visitors he showed an emotion he vainly endeavoured to repress, under an affectation of self control. He greeted Sir Nicholas kindly, but embraced his fair son, while tears he could not repress streamed ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... 1665 he set forth for the Society's Committee for Improving the Language an exhaustive catalogue of the forces tending to the corruption of the English tongue. Those, he declared, are "victories, plantations, frontiers, staples of commerce, pedantry of schools, affectation of travellers, translations, fancy and style of court, vernility and mincing of citizens, pulpits, political remonstrances, theatres, shops, &c." There follows Evelyn's careful formulation of the problems facing those who would refine the language ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... spite of his restoration of worship and the orthodox reaction in the official Augustan poetry, but rather at about the beginning of the second century. The enthusiasm of the Augustan Age for the good old times was never much more than affectation. It quickly evaporated when the promised millennium was not forthcoming, and was replaced by a reserve which developed into cynicism—but, be it understood, in the upper circles of the capital only. In the empire at large the development took its natural tranquil course, unaffected by the manner ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... I was attached by the purest friendship and most perfect esteem; I depended upon a real return on their part, and a doubt of their sincerity never entered my mind; yet this friendship was more tormenting than agreeable to me, by their obstinate perseverance and even by their affectation, in opposing my taste, inclinations and manner of living; and this to such a degree, that the moment I seemed to desire a thing which interested myself only, and depended not upon them, they immediately joined their efforts to oblige me to renounce ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... point out the limits within which no such bearings obtain. Now, from what has just been said, it will be apparent that I am not going to minimise the change which has been wrought. On the contrary, I believe it is only stupidity or affectation which can deny that the change in question is more deep and broad than any single previous change in the whole history of human thought. It is a fundamental, a cosmical, a world-transforming change. Nevertheless, in my opinion, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... is a surprising page in the history of music it is the persistent affectation of classing Berlioz and Wagner together. They had nothing in common save their great love of art and their distrust of established forms. Berlioz abhorred enharmonic modulations, dissonances resolved indefinitely one after another, continuous melody and all current ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... in the stocks, loutish farmer's boys, had been already undergoing the punishment for about an hour. Their backs were bent so that their bodies resembled the letter U laid on its side, and their arms were strained as if they were pulling out of the sockets. All attempted bravado, all affectation of stoical indifference, all sense even of embarrassment, had evidently been merged in the demoralization of intense physical discomfort, and the manner in which they lolled their heads, first on one side and then on the other, was eloquent of abject ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... at the speaker, and replied, in the same tone of grave affectation: "Courteous sir! the approbation of an ecclesiastic so eminent as I take you to be, from the modesty with which you conceal your greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy of my English friends; ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... young friends remember that he had gone to his execution calm, courteous, and amusing, his mustache trimmed, his face close-shaved, his nails clean and polished. They had often, he knew, laughed at him for his pretensions, and his affectation of mysterious knowledge, and all his little vanities and superiorities, but they would remember him for the very real nerve and courage that he was showing, and knew that he was showing. The old gentleman took pleasure in thinking that although he was about to fail in affairs, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... of a story," said Sir Raffle. Johnny being quite content with the upshot of the negotiations accepted this gentle rebuke in silence, and withdrew. On the next day he appeared again at the office in his ordinary costume, and an idea crossed Sir Raffle's brain that he had been partly "done" by the affectation of a costume. "I'll be even with him some day yet," ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... hospitality. They are very fond of all gentlemen and ladies who take a real interest in them, who understand them, and like them. To such people they are even more honest than they are to one another. But it must be a real aficion, not a merely amateur affectation of kindness. Owing to their entire ignorance of ordinary house and home life, they are like children in many respects, though so shrewd in others. Among the Welsh Gipsies, who are the most unsophisticated and the most purely Romany, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... proceedings began by a sort of solemn affectation of having merely met there for the ordinary business of the day, which to Horace just then seemed childish in the extreme; it was resolved that "items 1 to 4 on the agenda need not be discussed," which brought ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... disgrace him? I would tie him up to a post in St. Paul's Churchyard, and hire a bellman to stand on a chair beside him and tell the story of what he has done every half-hour. Why, sir, he would have taken in St. Dunstan with his pretended hesitation to say anything to your disadvantage, and the affectation of pain with which he hinted that you had confessed your guilt to him. The scoundrel, the rascal, the hypocrite! When I think what his work has done, that you were disgraced at school, and sent wandering for three years—not that that has done ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... or fatiguing a faculty meeting might be, he always preserved an attitude in which dignity, decorum, and grace were united. He was a very well built man, with rounded body and limbs, and seemed without the slightest affectation of effort to sit or stand or walk just as a gentleman should. He was never in a hurry, and all his gestures were easy and significant. He was always an agreeable companion. There was a good deal of bonhomie and pleasantry in his conversation. He was not ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... who came sauntering along the pavement, looking at the shop-windows, at the passers-by, at the preparations for the market, with quick eyes and an interest which conveyed the impression of his superiority to it all better than any affectation of languid indifference. His glances seemed to say, "And this is a country town—a market—these are farmers—people live here all their lives!" But when he saw Sissy Langton he came forward eagerly. And perhaps it was just as well that he was at hand to be her squire through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... ready to fall down and worship the golden emblem of themselves. And yet she is pug-nosed, freckle-faced, and red-headed; insolent to her equals, coarsely familiar with her inferiors; her vulgarity is without wit, her affectation is devoid of elegance or grace; ignorant and stupid, the meanest kitchen wench would suffer by a comparison with her. In striking contrast with this ludicrous specimen of degraded aristocracy, there were several young ladies ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... it. The poco-curante style is so very common just now that one gets rather tired of it. I do not like the affectation at all, but I dislike the reality still more. I believe it is a reality with Major Keene. I can not fancy him betraying any unrestrained excitement, however strong the passion that moved him might be. You have never known him do so, now? ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... 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 ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... offerings? Religion, says this judicious author,(526) is placed between two rocks, that are equally dangerous to man, and injurious to the deity, I mean impiety and superstition. The one, from an affectation of free-thinking, believes nothing; and the other, from a blind weakness, believes all things. Impiety, to rid itself of a terror which galls it, denies the very existence of the gods: whilst superstition, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... virtue. Though they thus humbly addressed him, his friends advised him not to pardon these turbulent and ill-conditioned men, but to yield them to the desires of his soldiers, and utterly root out of the commonwealth the ambitious affectation of popularity, a disease as pestilent and pernicious as the passion for tyranny itself. Dion endeavored to satisfy them, telling them that other generals exercised and trained themselves for the most part in the practices of war and arms; but that he had long ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... than the fashion of modern drapery. You yourself are well aware of all its defects, and have often ridiculed them in my hearing. I shall only mention one particular of dress essential to the fashion in this country, which seems to me to carry human affectation to the very farthest verge of folly and extravagance; that is, the manner in which the faces of the ladies are primed and painted. When the Indian chiefs were in England every body ridiculed their preposterous method of painting their cheeks and eye-lids; but this ridicule ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... this time," said the Warden, with an affectation of gruffness, as he stepped forward. "It is not in the power of man to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... heard much which we would have wished her not to have heard—she had been a member of that wild, ultra-fine, coarse, scandalous society: but as we find saints in strange company sometimes, so the cordial, faithful, generous woman remained with only a slight coating of affectation and worldliness, thirst for praise, desire ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... I obtained a full view of the reverend gentleman's features in full daylight they seemed less mysterious, less sinister than in the half-light of midnight. He looked a grave, earnest, sober-living man, with that slight affectation of the Church which one finds more in the rural districts than in cities, for the black clerical straw hat and the clerical drawl seem always to go together. It is strange that the village curate is always more affected ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... chignons in huge bows, smooth and shining as boot-polish, and the little tea-service on the floor, the landscape seen through the verandah, the pagoda perched among the clouds; and over all the same affectation everywhere, in every detail. Even the woman's melancholy voice, still to be heard behind the paper partition, was so evidently the way they should sing, these musicians I had so often seen painted in amazing colors on rice-paper, half closing their dreamy eyes in the midst of impossibly ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... but without affectation. "Yes, I reckon that's a good deal how it is. It ain't easy, Mrs. Halsey—I hope in your thoughts when judgin' of me you'll always remember that it ain't ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... most beautiful woman in the world," said Orsino. There was something in the boy's unaffected admiration of his mother which contrasted pleasantly with his youthful affectation of cynicism and indifference. His handsome face lighted up a little, and ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... imperfect; yet our Drayton might not inaptly be termed the English Theocritus. If not so distinctly superior to every other English pastoral poet as Theocritus was to every other Greek, he yet stands in the front rank. He is utterly free from affectation, the great vice of pastoral poetry; his love of the country is sincere; his perception of natural phenomena exquisite; his shepherds and shepherdesses real swains and lasses; he has happily varied ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... for it was merely the reflection of his sullen gravity that had eclipsed their own vivacity. The instant, therefore, that he led the way, the hall began to resound with jest and laughter. The poet, with some humiliation, which he endeavored to conceal beneath an affectation of wounded dignity, commenced rolling up his manuscript, not before a splash of wine from a carelessly filled flagon had soiled the fair-written characters. More flasks were placed upon the table by ready and obedient hands—and from that moment the real ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... their ancestors. They are owners of valuable real estate, much of which is located in the very heart of the city. The incomes derived from such property are large and certain. They are frequently persons of cultivation, and were it not for their affectation of superiority, would, as a class, be decidedly clever people, even if many of them are stupid. They make an effort to have their surroundings as clumsy and as old-fashioned as possible, as a mark of their Dutch descent. They sport crests and coats of arms such as the simple old Dutchmen of New ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... with his superiors in the excise. The poetry which Burns wrote, not in dialect, but in the classical English, is in the stilted manner of his century, and his prose correspondence betrays his lack of culture by his constant lapse into rhetorical affectation and fine writing. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... passages, but it is exaggeration as essential to the circumstances and the characters as Lear's insane language is to his madness, or Othello's turbid tide of figures to his jealousy. The hero—an enthusiast—speaks always in enthusiastic terms; but of extravagance we find little, and of absurdity or affectation none. Diffusion there is, but it is often the beautiful diffusion of one who dallies with beloved thoughts, and will not let them go till they have told him all that is in their heart. And ever and anon we meet with strong single lines and separate sentences, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... all that was highest in Cyril's character, and he worshipped her with an unconcealed adoration that, from any man less high- minded, would have appeared affectation, and which she accepted with the sweet content that Artemis might have accorded to the ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... sorrowfully out-at-elbows; nay, far worse, many of them have become mere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or Spirit any longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive their trade; and the mask still glares on you with its glass-eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life,—some generation-and-half after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, and in unnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewith to reappear, and bless us, or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Beverdale was not a rich man, that like most men of old family he was not a slave to class prejudice; indeed, the consul had seen very few noblemen off the stage or out of the pages of a novel who were. So he said, with a slight affectation of authority, that there was as little doubt of the young lady's wealth as there was ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... dignity, which is permissible in royalty, has been absurdly affected by certain "dames" in Anglo-Egypt who are quite the reverse of queenly; and who degrade "dignity" to the vulgarest affectation. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... motions graceful. Take particular care of your manner and address, when you present yourself in company. Let them be respectful without meanness, easy without too much familiarity, genteel without affectation, and insinuating without any ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... genuine article, no affluence of starch, no snow-drift of white-linen decency, will furnish any substitute. If one has it, he will retain it, whether he stand on his head or his heels. Nothing is really undignified but affectation or conceit; and for the total extinction and annihilation of every vestige of these, there are few things so effectual as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... quickly, exquisitely dressed, and courteous, with the beautiful old manner they cannot teach us now. After the first words, my grandfather said, with a superb affectation of seriousness, "The merciful man is merciful to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... him leave to sit if he had a mind—and of free will he leaves my premises void and redd at Whitsunday. I suspect the house is not in good order, but we shall get it brushed up a little. Without affectation I consider myself the obliged party in this matter—or at any rate it is a mutual benefit, and you shall have grass for a cow, and so forth—whatever you want. I am sure when you are so near I shall find some literary labor for ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... is pure affectation, the whole of it: which often goes a longer way than open boasting. She is up to all manner of tricks: that is why we could never ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... gazing at Redbud. He could not understand. Then his glance questioned Miss Fanny, who sat with a prim and demure affectation of stateliness, on the opposite side of the room. There was ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... for the fascination of his manners, and his host and hostess were charmed with him. He was unusually well informed, eloquent in speech, familiar with all social arts, and could mask the deepest designs with the most artless affectation of simplicity. All the secrets of American political movements were familiar to him, and he conversed fluently of the prospects of war with Spain, the ease with which the Mexicans might throw off their foreign yoke, and the possibilities of splendid pecuniary results from land speculations within ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... me a little while ... [With a touch of affectation.] You know about the frightful death of my first boy. You were near enough to watch it. You know also what my state of mind was.—One doesn't believe it at first, but—time does heal!... And, after all, I have cause to be grateful now, since it seems that my dearest wish is ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... 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. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was in every respect the young Frenchman, as he has been moulded by the Revolution of 1830; his mind infatuated with politics, respectful of his own hopes, and concealing them under an affectation of gravity, very envious of successful men, making sententiousness do the duty of witty rejoinders—the gems of the French language—with a high sense of importance, and mistaking arrogance ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Dolus latet in generalibus, and Arthur Young in not the only public economist who has warned his readers against the deceitfulness of round numbers. I think, on the contrary, that vastly more error has been produced by the affectation of precision in cases where ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... commanding all at once. She bade Cassandra put her creatures in the charge of a groom, and come to them for a week or so. They would go and hear some music together. Cassandra's dislike of rational society, she said, was an affectation fast hardening into a prejudice, which would, in the long run, isolate her from all interesting people and pursuits. She was finishing the sheet when the sound she was anticipating all the time actually struck upon her ears. She jumped up hastily, and slammed ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... opposed to trenchant white in another; and, as is almost sure to be the case with bad harmonists, the local color hardly felt anywhere. All German work is apt to be out of harmony, in consequence of its too frequent conditions of affectation, and its willful refusals of fact; as well as by reason of a feverish kind of excitement, which dwells violently on particular points, and makes all the lines of thought in the picture to stand on end, as it were, like a cat's fur electrified; while good work is always as quiet as a couchant ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... more delighted because it was so spontaneous, and there was not the least affectation about it. During these days no one had even suggested that she should make music, or be anything except the 'daughter of Lord Creedmore's old friend.' But now, apparently, she had sat down to the piano to ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... little sympathy with other people's woes unless these found an echo in his own, and the callousness which he so often displayed was not entirely the affectation it was thought by his friends or even by his enemies. Great in so many things, there were circumstances when he could show himself unutterably small, and he seldom practised consistency. Frank by nature, he was an adept at dissimulation when he thought that his personal interest required it. But ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... most harm to the nobility of the language is not this passing fashion with which people are soon disgusted, not the solecisms of fashionable people into which good authors do not fall, but the affectation of mediocre authors in speaking of serious things in a conversational style. Everything conspires to corrupt a language that is rather widely diffused; authors who spoil the style by affectation; those who write to foreign countries, and who almost always mingle foreign expressions with their natural ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... affectation. "I don't expect I can, Albert," he said. "I'd like to if I could, but the way it looks now, you tell her I wouldn't be much surprised maybe I was startin' in with typhoid fever or pretty near anything at all. You tell her I'm pretty near as disappointed ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... the Hill" was the celebration of the poetry of London as distinct from the poetry of the country. This sentiment or affectation was, of course, not uncommon in the twentieth century, nor was it, although sometimes exaggerated, and sometimes artificial, by any means without a great truth at its root, for there is one respect in which a town must be more poetical than ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... 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, of artificiality, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... his probation Bras-Coupe would have slipped the entanglements of bondage, though as yet he felt them only as one feels a spider's web across the face, had not the master, according to a little affectation of the times, promoted him to be his game-keeper. Many a day did these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismal swamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer and bear and wildcat; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... take the life of elocution to lie in the strength of the lungs, it is no wonder the actor, whose end is applause, should be also tempted, at this easy rate, to excite it. Shall I go a little farther? and allow that this extreme is more pardonable than its opposite error? I mean that dangerous affectation of the monotone, or solemn sameness of pronunciation, which to my ear is insupportable; for of all faults that so frequently pass upon the vulgar, that of flatness will have the fewest admirers. That this is an error of ancient standing seems evident by what Hamlet says, in his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... said he, curling himself into a long chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel's languor after a hot parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, asked: "I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... mystery and afterward on earlier memories of Fisher's life and the way in which he was led to study such problems as those of Prince Michael. Horne Fisher was fifteen years older; his thin hair had faded to frontal baldness, and his long, thin hands dropped less with affectation and more with fatigue. And he told the story of the Irish adventure of his youth, because it recorded the first occasion on which he had ever come in contact with crime, or discovered how darkly and how terribly crime can be entangled ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... pale delicate man, with the whining nervous way of expressing himself, was really a sculptor; but as similar peculiarities in Schnorr did not prevent me from recognising him as a marvellous painter, this helped me to make friends with Rietschel, as he was quite free from affectation, and had a warm sympathetic soul that drew me ever closer to him. I also remember hearing from him a very enthusiastic appreciation of my personality as a conductor. In spite, however, of being fellow- members of our versatile art club, we never attained a footing ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... ultimate, and completed expediency for nothing. Principle is only another name for a proposition stating the terms of one of these larger expediencies. When principle is held in contempt, or banished to the far dreamland of the philosopher and the student, with an affectation of reverence that in a materialist generation is in truth the most overweening kind of contempt, this only means that men are thinking much of the interests of to-day, and little of the more ample interests of the many days ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... "And all to make two minutes grow where one grew before?" Dede queried, at the same time laughing heartily at his affectation of mystery. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... appearance of haughtiness, self-esteem, condescension, intolerance of inferiors, or a desire for personal glory will at once raise barriers of dislike. On the other hand, modesty should never be carried so far as to become affectation; that attitude is equally despicable. Personal unobtrusiveness should exist without being conspicuous. The arguer should always take the attitude that the cause he is upholding is greater ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... words and things; amass sound knowledge; avoid all affectation; write all topics which interest you.—F. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... man to read it. There was an absence, too, of all attempt at feminine self-glorification which he did not analyse but thoroughly appreciated. There was no fussy amplification of hair, no made-up smiles, no affectation either in her good humour or her anger, no attempt at effect in her gait, in her speech, or her looks. She seemed to him to be one who had something within her on which she could feed independently of the grosser details of the world to which it was her duty to lend her hand. ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... constitutional government, and truths of every description which it behoved her to learn." The records of the time show plainly that Lord Melbourne, the eccentric head of William IV's last Whig Administration, was not generally credited with either the will or the ability to play so lofty a part. His affectation of a lazy, trifling, indifferent manner, his often-quoted remonstrance to impetuous would-be reformers, "Can't you let it alone?" had earned for him some angry disapproval, and caused him to be regarded as the embodiment of the detested laissez-faire principle. But under his mask of nonchalance ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... of it, my lord," interrupted Damake; "and perhaps, ashamed of not knowing it, he feigned it to be a secret. It is the habit of men to cover their ignorance by an affectation ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... but had been habitually composed to one intense expression of dissatisfaction with all about him. Like the Dutchman he looked away from the company towards the fire, and appeared to take no interest in any thing which went on: but this in him was mere affectation. The Dutchman, as a child could see, was most sincerely indifferent to every thing but the festoons of smoke which formed about him; nor ever seemed to suffer in his peace of mind except when this aerial drapery was rent or too much attenuated: then indeed he puffed with a perceptible agitation, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... should always agree with the majority, and never cause ourselves to be stared at. Extremes shock, and a wise man should do with his clothes as with his speech; avoid too much affectation, and without being in too great a hurry, follow whatever change custom introduces. I do not think that we should act like those people who always exaggerate the fashion, and who are annoyed that another should go further than themselves ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... incidents gathered round the incident of the purchase of the flat iron as to make it no longer important enough to appear upon the title page. It would, however, be dishonest to change the name of a tale which is reprinted from a Magazine; and I can only apologise for an appearance of affectation in ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... these qualities, he apparently united much of that craft and spirit of artifice which, according to all history, sacred as well as profane, it was not deemed sinful in patriarch or philosopher to indulge. Where he could not win his object by reason, he could stoop to attain it by the affectation of madness. And this quality of craft was necessary perhaps, in that age, to accomplish the full utilities of his career. However he might feign or dissimulate, the end before him was invariably excellent and patriotic; and the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unconscious affectation of being wiser than other people, assisted by living in a place where there are the usual complement of dull people, and where her father's situation prevents him from associating only with those whom he would prefer,' said ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than you, nor quicker and cleverer in an emergency. Perhaps not so good. If you'd hesitated one moment I mightn't have been here to criticise. But, just big, simple boys, not an ounce of affectation between them. Of course, they are not ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... indeed if elegancy of style proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream we have of late observed to flow from many, we shall, in a few years, be fain to learn Latin to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility in either". Milton, both in his verse and prose, has carried this affectation to such a degree, as not only to be frequently beyond a meer English apprehension, but even beyond that of an ordinary proficient in the learned languages. Yet, so far were these innovations from being considered as prejudicial, that one of the most admired writers of our days, Dr. Johnson, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... when, the Liberal cabinet having withdrawn, Maximilian once more turned to the reactionary party and called to power the clericals, he retained the above-mentioned Frenchmen in their departments. This affectation of confidence only added ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... wonder did the Athenians genuinely like these poets, and how far was the applause which was lavished upon them due to fashion or affectation? How far, in fact, did admiration for the orthodox tragedians take that place among the Athenians which going to ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... was said about Ireland, that it would have been an affectation in me to have talked about it; besides this, I had no opportunity of ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Rod, a French writer, and told me Tolstoy liked him. The other day I happened to read a novel of his and flung up my hands in amazement. He is equivalent to our Matchtet, only a little more intelligent. There is a terrible deal of affectation, dreariness, straining after originality, and as little of anything artistic as there was salt in that porridge we cooked in the evening at Bogimovo. In the preface this Rod regrets that he was in the past a "naturalist," ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously excelled in. This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but I should be ungrateful to nature, and to a form to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to suppress, through an affectation of modesty, the ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... great talents, conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen, among the long list I have encountered. Simple and full of humor, and exceedingly ready at repartee; and all this without the least affectation of the blue-stocking. The general strain of her writing relates to the foibles and oddities of mankind, and no one has drawn them with greater breadth of comic humor or effect. Her scenes often resemble the style of our best ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... ceremony by the epithet Shughl el banat, or "girls' work," and pique themselves upon downrightness of manner,—a favourite mask, by the by, for savage cunning to assume. But they are equally free from affectation, shyness, and vulgarity; and, after all, no manners are ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... affected by his surroundings. And it is he, in consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his writings—where it conceivably might be just predetermined affectation—but in his personality. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... church crammed, by twice as many people as used to be: and to my great joy find Mr. Frampton in the pulpit; so to my great joy I hear him preach, and I think the best sermon, for goodness and oratory, without affectation or study, that ever I heard in my life. The truth is, he preaches the most like an apostle that ever I heard man; and it was much the best time that ever I spent in my life at church. His text, Ecclesiastes xi., verse 8th—the words, "But ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... who have a sort of craze for the unusual, whose taste in art and living is distorted and bizarre. You know what I mean, don't you—black drawing-rooms, futurist wall-papers, opium dens and a cocaine box! It's to some extent affectation, of course, but it's a ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... He relapsed into an affectation of thoughtfulness. Trent watched him curiously. He knew quite well that his partner was dissembling, but he scarcely saw to what end. Monty's eyes, moving round the grass-bound hut, stopped at Trent's knapsack which hung from the central pole. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... affectation of style nor artistic taste that has led me to adhere as far as possible to the tone of the period and to prefer archaic forms of language whenever I thought they would be intelligible, it is because ideas are changed when words are changed and because one ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... of a book is rare; but good judges of a voice are numberless. Adding this attraction of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank powers of converse—an innocent sweetness of manner free from all conventional affectation—and to the fresh novelty of a genius which inspired the young with enthusiast and beguiled the old to indulgence, it was no wonder that Isaura became a celebrity ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... commanding phrase, but one or two must suffice. It is a delight to read his published correspondence, because of this power of strong and luminous utterance, which he wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there is no affectation or cant, but an engaging candor and straightforwardness which bespeak a true man, considering the time when they were written. What clarity of political vision there is in such passages ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that they have an original air, which has no resemblance of any foregoing writer, that the versification and sentiments have a cast peculiar to themselves, which no man can imitate with success, because what was nature in Savage would in another be affectation. It must be confessed that his descriptions are striking, his images animated, his fictions justly imagined, and his allegories artfully pursued; that his diction is elevated, though sometimes forced, and his numbers sonorous ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... an artist, notwithstanding all his affectation and outcries; he is not an artist. Il me fait l'effet of an old woman shrieking after immortality and striving to beat down some fragment of it with a broom. Once it was a duet, now it is a solo. They wrote novels, history, plays, they collected ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... genial soul, this young man, and wholly free of affectation. It seemed to Carrie he was as yet only overcoming the last traces of the bashfulness of youth. He did not seem apt at conversation, but he had the merit of being well dressed and wholly courageous. Carrie felt as if it were not going to be hard to ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... mostly affectation as their strength is only coarseness?" she asked eagerly, wondering as she spoke, what her words meant and why she should have chosen these out of the whole English language. "Isn't it truth, after all," she added, with the same excited emphasis, "that we need in ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... fortune was considerable, he made an offer of marriage to the brother-in-law, who thought the match advantageous, and communicated on the subject with Felicite's mother, Madame Alcazar, at Paris. After a time Peytel went to Paris, to press his suit, and was accepted. There seems to have been no affectation of love on his side; and some little repugnance on the part of the lady, who yielded, however, to the wishes of her parents, and was married. The parties began to quarrel on the very day of the marriage, and continued their disputes almost to the close ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... meditations of a profound philosophy; if a brilliant imagination, a discerning intellect, a sound judgment, an indefatigable capacity, and vigorous energy of application, vivified with an ease and rapidity of elocution, copious without redundance, and select without affectation; if all these, united with a sportive vein of humor, an inoffensive temper, and an angelic purity of heart;—if all these, in their combination, are the qualities suitable for an Attorney-General of the United States, in him they ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... have told you that your father was a great friend of mine," he said. "You really have a claim on me." In spite of the fact that the Congressional Directory gave him sixty years, he looked anything but fatherly. Although there never was the slightest affectation of youth in his dress or manner, he suggested threescore years as little. So strong was his individuality that Betty could not imagine him having been at any time other than he was now. He was Senator North, that ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Mrs. Lowe had nothing of her brother's ease of manner; indeed, she entertained a covert scorn for it. "Daniel can be dreadful smooth an' fine when he sets out," she sometimes remarked to her daughter. The lawyer's suave manner seemed to her downrightness to border upon affectation. She, however, had a certain respect for it as the probable outcome of ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... necessity of describing those situations to which he must of course be confined, in his low estate, but also find entertainment in viewing those parts of life, where the humours and passions are undisguised by affectation, ceremony, or education; and the whimsical peculiarities of disposition appear as nature has implanted them. But I believe I need not trouble myself in vindicating a practice authorized by the best writers in this way, some of whom ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... expression; low, if it be not such utterance, even though consummate in obedience to the finest rules of all Art-science. There can be no other way. The life is in the man, and not in the stone; and no affectation of vitality can atone for the absence of that soul which should have been breathed into existence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... permission, but she said it was an affectation of mine, for how could I care for a somber old prince whom I had ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and his actions harmonised, almost without exception, strictly with his sentiments; for one of his most striking and instructive characteristics was the remarkable fearlessness which he displayed no less in his actual conduct than in his habits of thought. Affectation was far from him; thorough genuineness was stamped upon all he did, showing unmistakably that it came direct from the man himself. In fact it might be said, with special significance, that his inner and his outer life—the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... in most common use for manuscripts is what is known as letter. The sheets in any case should be of uniform size. Avoid all eccentricity and affectation in the preparation of your manuscript, or "copy," as printers call it. The more matter-of-fact and businesslike it ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... continued the doctor, "I was obliged to alter what I had to say from time to time, keeping her but a short time to one subject, to which, however, I would return later, giving the matter a new appearance and disguising it a little. She spoke little and well, with no sign of learning and no affectation, always, mistress of herself, always composed and saying just what she intended to say. No one would have supposed from her face or from her conversation that she was so wicked as she must have been, judging by her public avowal of the parricide. It is surprising, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... attention yet, but everything moves past me. I sit in the gallery looking on. If Nikolai the carpenter had been observant, he would have seen my fingers closing and opening again, my absurdity augmented by affectation and grimacing. Fortunately he was a child. In the end I left it all behind me, and took my proper seat. My address ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... of another disputation with Colet, at a repast, probably in the hall of Magdalen College, where Wolsey, too, was perhaps present. To his fellow-poet, Erasmus writes as a poet, loosely and with some affectation. It was a meal such as he liked, and afterwards frequently pictured in his Colloquies: cultured company, good food, moderate drinking, noble conversation. Colet presided. On his right hand sat the prior Charnock of St. Mary's College, where Erasmus ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the other hand, blames the book in no measured terms. "There is a strange affectation," says the bishop, "in some people of explaining away all particular affection, and representing the whole life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. Hence arise that surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old, Hobbes, the author of 'Reflexions ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... it off with a certain air, the whole entrance would have seemed decidedly stagey, but The Corner, as it was, found much to wonder at and little to criticize. And in the West grown men are as shrewd judges of affectation as children ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... into the bottom of the boat, and then looked up at the sky, with an affectation of cunning, while the rest of the crew smiled as though they were in possession of the secret. Sanford said no more, and joined the bowman in studying the aspect of the sky. Ole was in the boat to act as guide and interpreter, ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is the world's most popular story of adventure, told in simple and direct, but seemingly artless, prose. Of all the prose writers since Swift's time, few have equaled him and still fewer surpassed him in simplicity, flexibility, directness, and lack of affectation. The essays of Steele and Addison constitute a landmark. No preceding English prose shows so much grace of style, delicate humor, and power of awakening and retaining interest as do the Sir Roger ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... 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 lady wondered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... to a point where it becomes affectation. This happened in some cases where I thought I was going to have some pleasure of the simplicity, but found at last that the simplicity was a pose. Sometimes there was a great air of being untrammelled. But there ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... concentrated: he would listen for a great length of time, without speaking, and then would break silence by some light and jocular remark, that was too much at variance with his former manner, not to be affectation. But of the war, and of his father, he seldom spoke and always from ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... never saw in human head orbs so large, of so intense a black, and of such sparkling lustre. His manners, too, were then admirable; easy without negligence, and respectful, as the guest at a royal table, without a shadow of servility. He also was wholly free from that affectation of epigram, which tempts a man who cannot help knowing that his good things are recorded. He laughed, and listened, and rambled through the common topics of the day, with all the evidence of one enjoying the moment, and glad to contribute to its enjoyment; and yet, in all this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... however, been other generals of genius as brilliant, of courage and endurance hardly less distinguished. How many men have ever displayed the perfect simplicity of nature, the utter absence of vanity or affectation, which belongs to the truest and purest greatness, in triumph or in defeat, as General Lee has done? When Commander-in-Chief of the Southern armies, he moved from point to point, as duty required, with less parade than a European general ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... 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
... be, hers is a nobler conception than that which the majority of adults voice. Very properly, one does not care to make one's deepest feelings public; but if such subjects as love and motherhood can not be discussed naturally and without affectation, they ought to be left alone. If intelligent men and women will set the example, this attitude of mind will spread, and cultured families at least will rid themselves of such deplorable habits as that of plaguing children, not yet out of the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... grimaces, and made dumb signs. Minerva bade him lay aside that affectation and begin; but he only shook his wise head and remained silent. Thereupon Minerva commanded him to speak immediately, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... twisted upwards in betyar fashion, flowing curly locks gathered up into a top-knot, black flashing eyes, and a bold expressive mouth, slight of build, but muscular and supple. His dress was rustic, but simple almost to affectation; you would not have found a seal on his white bulging shirt, search as you might, and he wore his cap, with a tuft of meadow-sweet in it, as gallantly ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... grass forced itself upon the animal natures of men; but that of the sublimer features of scenery had no place in minds whose chief powers had been repressed by the formalisms of the age. And although in the second-rate writers continually, and in the first-rate ones occasionally, you find an affectation of interest in mountains, clouds, and forests, yet whenever they write from their heart, you will find an utter absence of feeling respecting anything beyond gardens and grass. Examine, for instance, the novels of Smollett, Fielding, and Sterne, the comedies of Moliere, and the writings of Johnson ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... of his confession was like having an abscess lanced. In his weakness, in his complete abandonment of affectation, he had never been ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... it would be an affectation to thank you,' Father Oliver answered. And Father O'Grady spoke of the miles ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... between a monk and a crusader, a knight-errant of love and letters, and the moral code for him did not apply. An argument can be made for his chivalric tendencies, and his pretense for learning had its place, for affectation is better than indifference. The roistering ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... a more steadfast order than I was once perfectly aware of. Few girls would have done as you have done—would have beheld the glare, and glitter, and dazzling display of London with dispositions so unchanged, heart so uncontaminated. I see no affectation in your letters, no trifling, no frivolous contempt of plain, and weak admiration of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... much this feeling is noble when it is justified by the strength of its cause, by so much it is ignoble when there is not cause enough for it; and beyond all other ignobleness is the mere affectation of it, in hardness of heart. Simply bad writing may almost always, as above noticed, be known by its adoption of these fanciful metaphorical expressions as a sort of current coin; yet there is even a worse, at least a more harmful ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... unstained character although not of rank, belonging probably to one of the Latin communities of Campania, and a soldier in the first Punic war.(28) In thorough contrast to the language of Livius, that of Naevius is easy and clear, free from all stiffness and affectation, and seems even in tragedy to avoid pathos as it were on purpose; his verses, in spite of the not unfrequent -hiatus- and various other licences afterwards disallowed, have a smooth and graceful flow.(29) ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the custom of the Free Kirk minister to go far afield of a summer evening, and to hold informal services in distant parts of the parish. This was the joy of the day to him, who was really very young and hated all conventionalities even unto affectation. He was never weary of complaining that he had to wear a gown, which was continually falling back and being hitched over with impatient motions, and the bands, which he could never tie, and were, he explained to a horrified beadle in Muirtown, an invention of Satan to disturb the preacher's ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... affectation of this prelude, and slightly frowned. Diana was watching; she always watched. "Why should you wish to call upon me?" was the frank demand. "Do not think me rude, please; but I am scarcely in a position ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... it may seem affectation to tell you how occupied I have been; but I am so distracted with business that I have only just found time for this short letter, and that has been stolen from the most urgent engagements. I have already described to you Pompey's first public speech—it did not please the poor, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... when studied, are sure to reveal the simplicity and sincerity not only of Bryant's love for nature, but of his character as a man. They show the freedom from affectation that marks alike his writings and his everyday life. He followed almost sternly his high ideals both of moral right and literary correctness, and this has made him seem somewhat cold and formal. But probably all who can read most ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... in Washington to bid good-bye, cheerily and simply telling how his doctors had condemned him to Arizona for his lungs. All three friends knew that they were nearing the end, and that if it were not the one it would be the other; but the affectation of readiness for death is a stage role, and stoicism is a stupid resource, though the only one. Non doles, Paete! One is ashamed of it ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... gaucherie of manner would betray an uneasy consciousness of his not being quite at ease among those scions of aristocracy, who occupy benches originally intended for the virtual representatives of the people. Mr. Hunt, on the whole, bore himself well; and, by a total absence of affectation, of either tone or manner—that surest test of the gentleman, at least of Nature's forming—disappointed his audience of their ready smiles at demagogue vulgarity. But once, and that for a moment, did his self-possession ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... a benevolent disposition, and the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner, and the idea of living conformably to nature; and gravity without affectation, and to look carefully after the interests of friends, and to tolerate ignorant persons and those who form opinions without consideration: he had the power of readily accommodating himself to all, so that intercourse with him was more agreeable than any flattery; and at the same time ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... at dinner, had an opportunity of displaying her generosity. They were busy making havoc of the manner of a distinguished person who was much talked of at that time, and whom they had all chanced to meet. Now Nan ordinarily was very intolerant of affectation; but had she not promised to be ten times kinder to everybody? So she struck in in defence of ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... that it was of his lost son that Robert came to speak. Heaven grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry affectation of a vain man, rather than the utter heartlessness which Robert thought it. He bowed across his finger-tips at his visitor. The trial had begun, and Junius Brutus ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... manhood with factitious sentimentality instead of a hearty human sympathy; how many are not satisfied with having the fastest horses and the "crackest" carriages, and an unlimited wardrobe, and a weak affectation and puerile ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation. But though it arises from one spring only, when we consider the infinite streams into which this one branches, we shall presently cease to admire at the copious field it affords to an observer. Now, affectation proceeds from one of these ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... he observed 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, staggered ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... flame answered the question. He is made to do the things that humanity is the happier for! I can't do such things myself, but when I see a young man of genius standing helpless and hopeless for want of capital, I feel—and it 's no affectation of humility, I assure you—as if it would give at least a reflected usefulness to my own life to offer ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... speech, look, action, humour, all are just, But then, her age and figure give disgust. Are foibles, then, and graces of the mind, In real life, to size or age confined? Do spirits flow, and is good-breeding placed In any set circumference of waist? As we grow old, doth affectation cease, Or gives not age new vigour to caprice? 830 If in originals these things appear, Why should we bar them in the copy here? The nice punctilio-mongers of this age, The grand minute reformers of the stage, Slaves to propriety of every kind, Some standard measure for each part should ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... proved that Appleyard finally ate his words, and he concludes that 'although Dudley was innocent of a direct association with the crime, the unhappy lady was sacrificed to his ambition. Dudley himself. . . used private means, notwithstanding his affectation of sincerity, to prevent the search from being pressed inconveniently far'—that is, 'if Appleyard spoke the truth.' But Appleyard denied that he had spoken the truth, a fact ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... This feminine affectation, of course, has gradually taken on the force of a fixed habit, and so it has got a certain support, by a familiar process of self-delusion, in reality. The civilized woman inherits that habit as she inherits her cunning. She is born ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... The white trousers, blue coat, and yellow waistcoat—and more especially that cock of the hat—indicate, as surely as inanimate objects can, that Chalk Farm and not the parish church, is their destination. The girl colours up, and puts out her hand with a very awkward affectation of indifference. He gives it a gallant squeeze, and away they walk, arm in arm, the girl just looking back towards her 'place' with an air of conscious self-importance, and nodding to her fellow-servant who has gone up to the two-pair-of- stairs ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... future), which may furnish matter for surprise and laughter in a more enlightened age, and which may cause the writers, if they live long enough, to realize a feeling of shame for the wilful ignorance or affectation of ignorance displayed, we cannot overlook the very serious fact that the educational leadership of our country is in the hands of men of whom a large proportion are destitute of the very foundation of the sentiment of religion, while another large portion are so utterly regardless ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... Oratorian who wrote his Life, "had a particular dislike of affectation both in himself and others, in speaking, in dressing, or ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Self-Affectation sways his little Sense; Nought but Himself he Loves, and Ignorance. By fatal Chance, if such a Man you Wed, Better, Melissa, thou had'st Dy'd a Maid: Ev'n such a Lover, were a Plague too great; From such a Husband, Guard me, ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous |
