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"There's a stodginess about afternoon calling that affects even the nicest people. It's the most tiresome institution there is." "Then why do it?" he suggested, with a smile. She shook her head severely. "Don't be immoral, Bertie! You're trying to tempt me from my duty." "Never!" he declared earnestly. "Oh, but you are; and I am not sure that you are not neglecting your own as well.
"When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at times," was his point of view, "to be born 'the Head of the House' was a weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private denunciatory interviews with one's parents and governors it was brought up against one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and not going to church.
But the tradition of dreariness, of stodginess, of dull, dense, literal prose, has so sealed people's eyes that they've ended by thinking the most natural of all things the most perverse. Why so keep up the dreariness, in our poor little day? No one can tell me why, and almost every one calls me names for simply asking the question. But I go on, for I believe one can do a little good by it.
Its insolent stodginess has only a surface resemblance to a fluid; yet it is a comfort on snowy mornings, and our wanderers took to it kindly. Lewis had laid himself out to be merry, and several grinning faces peered from the bunks with kindly welcome as he took his seat on a rickety fish-box. The skipper asked, "Shall the steward fetch your bread in here, sir? You can't manage ours." "All right.
When he had won the prize he received it back from her with a bow, taking off his hat. As his own name occurred more frequently than usual, he began to get rather self-conscious. He looked round the ring of faces, and translated their stodginess as self-consciousness dictated. Perhaps it would be as well to carry it off as a jest?
Then, my boy, when you look stolid you won't be romantic. You'll be stodgy, my boy. That's what you'll be!" Of all words in the dictionary there is surely none worse than this one. The suggestions of stodginess are appalling, including, even at best, hints of overweight, general uninterestingness, and a disposition to sit at home in smoking-jacket and slippers after one's evening meal.
He laughed grimly, the utter stodginess and stupidity of humanity EN MASSE had of late struck him very forcibly, and he found every excuse for the so-called incapacity of Governments, seeing the kind of folk they are called upon to govern.
The acclamation a glorious past with an admonition to the future fell upon the smug complacency of the present, the heroic mingled with the jocose, the fantastic with the burlesque, romanticism found its counterpart, and all this was achieved through a flood of genuine melody in which stodginess played no part, while charm was abundant in every turn and tune.
What is popularly regarded as respectability is oft-times in reality if the truth were known merely stodginess and stupidity. I am compelled to admit that in my early days, before I had formed my affiliation with Gottlieb, I had different ambitions, although they were none the less worldly. Then I wanted to be a judge because I supposed a judge was the king-pin of the profession.
I've a family now and family obligations. Don't be so sure yet that I'm on my way overseas. There is a way around every situation if you look for it hard enough. My place is here now. Home! My daughter goes home!" She could see in profile the heavy jaw clamp upward, and more and more that wooden stodginess became terrible to her.
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