Activity

his supercilious pose

his ideas were expressed in brief sententious phrases

who comes to attend you and supply your want, stolidly, pleasantly, or with an independent air

Madame Grandet had no completed the woollen sleeves she was knitting, and that for want of them she caught a chill. He is never afraid of bathos.

To say that a painting is like a story is a pedestrian utterance, not altogether untrue, but uninspired, though that hardly stops people from making such invidious and unwarranted comparisons.