"Sedate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... favourable to the Doctor—all bore testimony to his benevolence and piety; and Mrs. Glibbans expressed, in very loquacious terms, her satisfaction at the neglect to which prelacy was consigned. The only person who seemed to be affected by other than the most sedate feelings on the occasion was the Rev. Mr. Snodgrass, who was observed to smile in a very unbecoming manner at some parts of the Doctor's account of his reception at St. Paul's. Indeed, it was apparently with the utmost difficulty that the young clergyman could restrain himself from giving liberty ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... to have been thought of when it was designed, and yet the facade of the old building seems to bear the same relation to the building itself as the face of an old man bears to his body, and that face is full of character, as are the faces of some men—sombre, sedate, serious, almost sinister in aspect. This old face, too, seemed full of apertures, through which unceasing and sleepless espionage could be kept up on the good citizens of the good City of Paris. Doors, and especially ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... importunity very calmly for some time, suddenly turned round, and with the most serious face thus addressed them—'I have often heard of the sovereignty of the people; I suppose your highnesses are in Court mourning,' We can well imagine the effect of this sedate speech ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... fled, Driven by a Parent's unrelenting frown, Hope from his spirit chas'd each anxious dread, While on his brow he bound the poplar crown; In rich libation pour'd the generous wine, Then bath'd his temples in the juice divine; And thus, with gladden'd eye, and air sedate, Address'd the drooping ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... degrees of fluency they debated the questions of the day; they read essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass, was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools. Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear on ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... teeth, and grooming. High spirits and a little wildness are rather desirable than otherwise, if both are young. Men who have had many horses or many wives and have grown old with both, have a slight inclination toward sedate ways and ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... to the grand-stand they found the next box to theirs, which had hitherto been empty, occupied by a sedate party of foreigners. Miss Mangles had come to the races, not because she cared for sport, but because she had very wisely argued in her mind that one cannot set about to elevate human nature without a knowledge of those depths ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... possessed. This deriving all its supposed value from impenetrable secrecy, and Ludloe's admonitions tending powerfully to impress me with the necessity of wariness and circumspection in my general intercourse with mankind, I had gradually fallen into sedate, reserved, mysterious, and unsociable habits. My heart ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... smiled upon us," he said, with a certain sedate pomposity which, like the black crest on his head, might be ludicrous in itself, but seemed fitting enough in him. "I speak for my people who are in camp upon the island. We have been upon strange rivers, and over mountains where the very name of Frenchman is ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... in many strange tongues. Here was a pure Spaniard, with a red sash round his waist, and a velvet cap, round as a cartwheel, on his head, with a boatful of vegetables and early fruit. There was a grave and sedate Moor, in green turban and white flowing robes, with an assortment of gold-braided slippers and large brass trays. Next a Maltese milk-seller, in scanty garments, nothing but short canvas trousers and a shirt, who had come ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... and gray; their expression is intent and meditative, rather searching than soft, rather thoughtful than genial. When he parts his lips in a smile, his physiognomy is agreeable—not that it is frank or cheerful even then, but you feel the influence of a certain sedate charm, suggestive, whether truly or delusively, of a considerate, perhaps a kind nature, of feelings that may wear well at home—patient, forbearing, possibly faithful feelings. He is still young—not more than thirty; his stature is tall, his figure slender. His manner of speaking ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... uncle, he joined a lodge of Masons called the "Acacia." At this time few Filipinos in Spain had joined the institution, and those were mostly men much more mature than himself. Thus he met leaders of Spanish national life who were men of state affairs and much more sedate, men with broader views and more settled opinions than the irresponsible class with whom his school companions were accustomed to associate. A distinction must be made between the Masonry of this time and the much more popular institution in which Filipinos later figured so largely when Professor ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... location to the former Bunhill residence of the great epic poet. But modern Fleet Street exists to-day as the street of journalists and journalism, from the humble penny-a-liner and his product to the more sedate and verbose political paragrapher whose ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... to know how it was that a sedate Captain of Foot, a studious and rather solitary bachelor of eight or nine and twenty years of age, who did not care very much for the jollities which his comrades engaged in, and was never known to lose his heart in any garrison-town—should ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... cruel, uncompromising clearness of the Californian atmosphere. There was the straight Main Street with its new brick block of "stores," ending abruptly against a tangled bluff; there was the ruthless clearing in the sedate pines where the hideous spire of the new church imitated the soaring of the solemn shafts it had displaced with almost irreligious mockery. Yet this foreground was Cissy's world—her life, her sole girlish experience. ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... book, and explaining it. He, silly urchin, tired of lesson, His learning lays no mighty stress on, But seems to hear not what he hears; Thrusting his fingers in his ears, Like Obstinate, that perverse funny one, In honest parable of Bunyan. His working Sister, more sedate, Listens; but in a kind of state, The painter meant for steadiness; But has a tinge of sullenness; And, at first sight, she seems to brook As ill her needle, as he his book. This is the Picture. For the Frame— 'Tis not ill-suited to the same; Oak-carved, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... that primitive day. The sedate Rivington, for so many years the Tory organ, was in no humor, we may suppose, to chronicle the minor events of the occasion, even if he had not considered them beneath the dignity of his vocation. He says nothing ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... very speedy and sedate, as though I were some rack-rape that they did well to be feared of alone at night; and so came at last to the village green, where a great dance was a-foot, with torches, and a wandering fiddler to set the tune; and ale ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... critically, "otherwise I would recommend a ride in the Park, before it gets too hot. There is a new cob in the stable that you will just love, but he is rather lively, and you had better content yourself for the present with some more sedate exercise than he is likely to give you. He is apt to try and jump out of his skin when the flies tease him. The Park is rather jolly for ...
— When William Came • Saki
... suppose it does make a difference," said the eccentric man. "Yes, my wife thought I'd look better, and more sedate, with a beard, so I grew one to please her. But I don't like it. A beard is too warm this kind of weather; eh, Tom?" And Mr. Damon waved his hand to the young inventor and his father, who stood in the low windows of the library. ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... recognize an old acquaintance in this excited, sunburnt boy, you surely can call the name of the tall, broad-shouldered, sober-looking youth, who stands at his side. Three months in the saddle have not changed Frank Nelson a great deal, only he is a little more robust, and, perhaps, more sedate. He has lost none of his love of excitement, and he is quite as interested in what is going on before him as Archie; but he stands with his hands in his pockets, looking as dignified as a judge. It would be a wonder if they ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... Club tramped the streets till midnight, with flaming torches, rousing the enthusiasm of the people with their shouts and campaign songs; and wherever Blake appeared upon the platform he was greeted by an uproar, and even when he appeared by daylight, when men's spirits are more sedate, his progress through the streets was ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the king, he was perfectly enchanted with his bride. He was himself, as has already been said, of a very sedate and quiet turn of mind; amiable and gentle in disposition; devout, fond of retirement, and interested only in such occupations and pleasures as are consistent with a life of tranquillity and repose. Margaret was as different as possible from ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... seek satisfaction along the trail left by vice. Louise-Angelique was admirably adapted for her way of life; not that her features wore an expression of shameless effrontery, or that the words that passed her lips bore habitual testimony to the disorders of her existence, but that under a calm and sedate demeanour there lurked a secret and indefinable charm. Many other women possessed more regular features, but none of them had a greater power of seduction. We must add that she owed that power entirely to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... eyed Mr. Graham with stolid thoroughness. "I think she must. He doesn't look at all like that. But my husband used to say that the sedate middle-aged-looking ones were often the worst, so perhaps she ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... day Aronffy was completely changed. The good-humored, spirited young fellow became suddenly a quiet, serious, sedate man, who would never join us in any amusement. He avoided the world, and I remarked that in the world he did his best to ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... was to all outward seeming amply fulfilled. As a matron she would have been notable in any company, by reason of her sedate beauty, and the dignity of her presence. But her manner suggested to me that her life had certainly not brought content to Cynthia; and I gathered from her brother Ernest that the radiant brightness of nature which had characterised ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... emotion stirred in me, some thrill, some not quite forgotten pulse. It seemed Alison come back from the grave. Love did not reawaken, for youth's fervor was gone out of me, yet presently I fell a-dreaming over my Madeira on long winter evenings,—sedate and tranquil dreams of this new Alison flitting about Ingilby, making the splendid, desolate place into a home. Am old man's fancies, Harry,—fancies bred of my loneliness, for I am lonely nowadays. But ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... in Milton. But the strength of his mind overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect had power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits do not seem to have been high, but they were singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps stern; but it was a temper which no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... morning, off started poor Daffy-down-dilly, and began his rambles about the world, with only some bread and cheese for his breakfast, and very little pocket money to pay his expenses. But he had gone only a short distance, when he overtook a man of grave and sedate appearance, who was trudging along the ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... with scarlet satin embroidered with a monogram in gilt, had defied the bienseance of fashionable canine and feline etiquette, by flying at somebody's sedate, snowy Maltese cat, whose collar of silver bells jangled out of tune, as the combatants rolled on the velvet carpet, swept like a cyclone through the reception room, fled up the corridor. Two pretty children, gay as paroquets, in their cardinal plush cloaks, ran to the piano and began ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Sonetchka to my mind, and wondering what she would look like when I met her. Somehow I imagined that, after her two years' sojourn abroad, she would look very tall, with a beautiful waist, and, though sedate and imposing, extremely attractive. Somehow, also, my imagination refused to picture her with her face disfigured with scars, but, on the contrary, since I had read somewhere of a lover who remained true to his adored one in spite of her disfigurement with smallpox, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... like hours. Yawns interrupted almost every sentence and much mutual prodding and sharp reproaches were necessary to keep their heavy eyes open. They were too sleepy to care whether the sun rose in the usual sedate way or pirouetted up chasing a star. In fact, they forgot all about the expected sunrise. They wanted just two ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... a bewitching smile that displays a row of—of "pearls!" The vision is about sixteen years of age, and answers to the romantic name of Flora Macdonald. It is sister to that stalwart Hector who first showed Mr Sudberry how to fish; and stately, sedate, and beautiful does it appear, as, leaning on its brother's arm, it ascends the hill towards the White House, where extensive preparations are being ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... erected at White House, where twenty men worked day and night, turning out hundreds of pine boxes. I had, occasion, in one of my visits to the depot, to repair to the tent of one of the embalmers. He was a sedate, grave person, and when I saw him, standing over the nude, hard corpse, he reminded me of the implacable vulture, looking into the eyes of Prometheus. His battery and tube were pulsing, like one's heart and lungs, and the subject was being drained at the neck. I compared ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... them, as they started, with an old shoe in her hand, which she delivered with such good (or bad) effect that it hit the horse on the ear, and made it shy. Happily, it was a sedate old quadruped, not given to giddy ways, and ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... Speranza will not forget that first meal in the home of his grandparents. It was so strange, so different from any other meal he had ever eaten. The food was good and there was an abundance of it, but the surroundings were so queer. Instead of the well-ordered and sedate school meal, here all the eatables from fish to pie were put upon the table at the same time and the servant—or housekeeper, which to his mind were one and the same—sat down, not only to eat with the family, but to take at least an equal part in the conversation. And the conversation ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... many narrow channels amongst the wooded islets, and paddled vigorously over the black and sleepy backwaters towards Sambir. Her canoe brushed the water-palms, skirted the short spaces of muddy bank where sedate alligators looked at her with lazy unconcern, and, just as darkness was setting in, shot out into the broad junction of the two main branches of the river, where the brig was already at anchor with sails ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... sir," said he with the book, "how comes it that a young gentleman like you, a sedate student at the first appearance, should dabble in stocks and that ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... kind of the van der Luydens—they've sent their man over from Skuytercliff to meet us," Archer exclaimed, as a sedate person out of livery approached them and relieved the maid of ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... remarkably handsome, and now distinguishedly fashionable milliner, and dignified-looking lady presided. Nothing indiscreet or unseemly was ever permitted. The rule, perhaps, might be a little too grave, and the manner of the young ladies too sedate; but they were innocent and good; and they had their recreations, for Mrs. Fisher look them out, turn and turn about, upon a Sunday, in her carriage, and the others walked with the two superintendents—persons carefully selected ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... group sedate, I see Great Franklin muse where Truth had locked her stores, Holding within his steady hand the key That opened ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... and not far from the offices of the periodicals where occasionally I dispose of an article or two. The building is at the end of a cul-de-sac. The alley is well paved and clean, and lined chiefly with the backs of sedate and institutional-looking buildings. There is a stable in it. My own house is dignified with the title of "Chambers." I feel as if one day the honour must prove too much for it, and it will swell with pride—and fall asunder. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... slight scar, as of a sabre cut. The whole character of this portrait is widely different from that in the earlier one. Not a trace of the fire, the animation, which were so striking in the physiognomy of the youth of twenty, is discoverable in the calm, sedate, stately, yet somewhat stern expression, which seems immovably spread over the paler hue and the more prominent features of the man of about four or five and thirty. Yet, upon the whole, the face ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Becker hoping, by this means, to found a new colony which might afterwards flourish under the name of New Switzerland. The mission to Europe was formally confided to Frank and Ernest, the two most sedate of the family. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... formed the completest of possible contrasts to Dornell as they stood confronting each other in the best parlour of the Bristol tavern. The Squire, hot-tempered, gouty, impulsive, generous, reckless; the younger man, pale, tall, sedate, self-possessed—a man of the world, fully bearing out at least one couplet in his epitaph, still extant in King's-Hintock church, which places in the inventory of his ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... the "Class-Book" of '61 observes: "Any one will at once perceive that no one was to blame but the calf, who lost his presence of mind." All this humor, however, was rather elementary; for the most part life was sufficiently sedate, and the pranks ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... man in that respect we had seen; for, though not very tall, he was very unwieldy, and almost shapeless with corpulence. He seemed to be about forty years of age, had straight hair, and his features differed a good deal from those of the bulk of his people. I found him to be a sedate, sensible man. He viewed the ship, and the several new objects, with uncommon attention, and asked many pertinent questions, one of which was, What could induce us to visit these islands? After he had satisfied his curiosity ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... along the corridor and out into the gallery beyond. Yes, there was the marble staircase, and below was the great, bright hall; but in this disguise she could pass O'Reilly if he had assembled half the detectives in New York. So she tripped down the stairs, sedate, unhurried as the care-free girl whose cloak she had borrowed. Arrived in the hall, she knew her way out, and could hardly subdue the triumph in her voice as she said "Taxi, please," ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in his veins, Tom Mirabell begot him, that rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to.' This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well-bred Fine Gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... and sedate, Or ought to be, that's certain; But sometimes, owing to the state Of human passions, or to fate, It is a scene of fierce debate And wrath; but ere it is too late I'll stop, and ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the leafless thicket Close beside my garden gate, Where, so light, from post to wicket, Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate: Who, with meekly folded wing, Comes to sun himself ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... was to be given at Court. It was to be an entertainment of a peculiar nature. The lively genius of Madame Carolina, wearied of the commonplace effect generally produced by this species of amusement, in which usually a stray Turk and a wandering Pole looked sedate and singular among crowds of Spanish girls, Swiss peasants, and gentlemen in uniforms, had invented something novel. Her idea was ingenious. To use her own sublime phrase, she determined that the party should represent "an age!" Great difficulty was experienced in fixing upon the century ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Sedate and steady, Calm, quick, and ready, They boldly enter, and make no din. Where'er such trifles As Snider rifles And bright six-shooters are stored within. The Queen's round towers Can't baulk their powers, Off go the weapons by sea and shore, To where the Cork men And smart New York men ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... sedate musicians in the orchestra, totally engrossed by minims and crotchets, are an admirable contrast to ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... again. Believe me, I am and have been above everything too—too—much of a Parisian, too much accustomed to turning night into day, for the sedate life of marriage. I have been too much accustomed to go behind the scenes of theaters, to various clubs, to a thousand other forms of dissipation; and you know a man cannot change all at once,—it takes time. Marriage seeks to change us all too suddenly. It ought to give us time to get accustomed ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... A close observer would have detected traces of weeping about her wrinkled eyelids; and the twinge of her lips was expressive of cruel anguish, heroically endured. Still, she was not severe, nor even too sedate; and the few friends who visited her were often really astonished at her wit. Besides, she was one of those women who have no history, and who find happiness in what others would call duty. Her life could be summed up in a single sentence: ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... pictures, the broad hall, fine old stairway with carved balustrades, and foreign wall-paper supposed to have been hung in honor of the approaching marriage of Dorothy to John Hancock, are still preserved in their original place. Of the Quincy family, whose sedate jest it was that the estate descended from 'Siah to 'Siah, so frequent was the name "Josiah," the best known is perhaps the Josiah Quincy who was Mayor of Boston for six years and president of Harvard for sixteen. The ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... burned much, metaphorically speaking, besides his soutane. He was less pale, less lank, less wobegone than formerly, and went more briskly. He had lost the air of crack-brained disorder which had distinguished him, and was smart, sedate, and stooped less. Only the odd sparkle remained in his eyes, and bore witness to the same nervous, eager ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... be so very easy, Mrs. Kenerley," said Roger. "My word for it, these are wilful and prankish girls. I've known Miss Fairfield for years, and she's capable of any mischief. Miss Galbraith, now, is more sedate." ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... was auburn, his eyes dark, and his complexion clear and sanguine. He was considerably robust, and took delight in practising gymnastics; he desired fame, not less for feats of running and leaping, than in the sedate pursuits of literature. His premature death was the subject of general lamentation; in the "Lord of the Isles," Scott introduced the following stanza in tribute to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... king, "but still My joints are something [2] stiff or so. My lord, and shall we pass the bill I mention'd half an hour ago?" The chancellor, sedate and vain, In courteous words return'd reply: But dallied with his golden chain, And, smiling, put ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... work. It was the last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way, the boon should be met with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have received some ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... dazzling by theatrical displays of splendor; Henry arrogant, ostentatious, vain, and Charles silent, inscrutable, cold-blooded, and false, whispering to Woolsey that he might make him pope at the next election. From that moment the powerful influence of the Cardinal was used for this sedate youth, this wise youth, who saw that the fitting place for him (Woolsey) was the chair of ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... mother of four children, and having lost two of these, her husband, her father and mother, she had known, though only twenty-seven, most of the vital experiences that life can give. Perhaps it was well, for thereby she was better fitted to be the mate of a man sober and sedate in disposition and created by Nature to ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... after so many years, another Scottish doctor, not in Madras, but in Edinburgh, has proved, by just such experiments as Dr. Nicholson shrank from, that an "aged and previously sedate horse" may, by gradual inoculation with cobra poison, be rendered so thoroughly proof against it that a dose which would suffice to kill ten ordinary horses only imparts "increased vigour and liveliness" to it. Further, Dr. Fraser has ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip some of the private phrases, if we were willing; then he went on and read the bulk of it—a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards and messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... waltz round the room, but she was afraid of disturbing the occupant of the office below. Gradually she sobered down, and by the time Jack Cameron returned she was quite sedate. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... costume, one must be careful to choose only what is /individually/ becoming. It must be in perfect harmony with one's personality. To assume a character that is in every way opposed to one's own character is unwise and ungratifying. A sedate, quiet young miss should not choose a Folly Costume. Nor should a jolly, vivacious young lady elect to emulate Martha Washington, And furthermore, a character must not be merely dressed—it must be lived. The successful costume ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... which they passed. Her agitation possessed her overwhelmingly. She felt exhausted, unnerved, very curiously ashamed. It was good to have so princely a lover, but his tempestuous wooing was altogether too much for her. She wondered how Rose, the sedate and composed beauty, would have met those wild gusts of passion. They would not have disconcerted her; nothing ever did. She would probably have endured all with a smile. No form of adoration could come amiss with her. She did not fancy that Rose's heart was capable of beating at more than the usual ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... a somber looking throng, as was ever the case in Puritan Boston, where the hats, cloaks and doublets of the people were made of dark, coarse materials, not designed to flatter the lust of the eye. The visages suited the garments, wearing a sedate or severe expression, whether the cast of the features above the broad white collars were broad and ruddy, or pale and hollow-cheeked. There was a touch of the fanatic in many of these countenances, as of men to whom God was a living presence in all their affairs and thoughts, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... hijos." We kept away right and left, to look at the miracle;—and there lay the canoe, rumbling and splashing, with her crew walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, and as naked as the day they were born, and the old Don himself so staid and so sedate and drawley as he was a minute before, now all alive, shouting "Tira diablitos, tira!" flourishing a small paddle, with which he steered, about his head like a wheel, and dancing and jumping about in his seat, as if his bottom had been a haggis ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... comets represented a single regular denizen of our system, returning once in thirty-seven years along an orbit of such extreme eccentricity that its movement might be described as one of precipitation towards and rapid escape from the sun, rather than of sedate circulation ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... of the old and the young, all calm and all devout, seated before the tent of the preacher, in the sunny hours of June, listening to his eloquence, or partaking of the mystic bread and wine; but in these our latter days, when discipline is relaxed, along with the sedate and the pious come swarms of the idle and the profligate, whom no eloquence can edify and no solemn rite affect. On these, and such as these, the poet has poured his satire; and since this desirable reprehension the Holy Fairs, east as well as west, have become ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Nature's wide domains The sacred charm of SYMPATHY restrains! Uncheck'd desires from appetite commence, And pure reflection yields to selfish sense! —Blest is the Sage, who learn'd in Nature's laws With nice distinction marks effect and cause; Who views the insatiate Grave with eye sedate, Nor fears thy voice, inexorable ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... did not know: he was not aware that when he reached the sleeping town a pale gray was lightening the eastern skies. He went to the house of the postmaster and hurriedly aroused him. Mr. Keith began to think that the ordinarily sedate Mr. Roscorla ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... from seven to fourteen, because of the advantage they will then have to master foreign languages, and to form their tongue to the true pronunciation; as well as that they will be more easily directed by their tutors or governors. Or else he proposes that more sedate time of life, when the gentleman is able to travel without a tutor, and to make his own observations; and when he is thoroughly acquainted with the laws and fashions, the natural and moral advantages and defects of his own country; by which means, as Mr. Locke wisely observes, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... of Sophie that she had selected from among all the dashing wooers; at her heels, Walter Trumwell, simple and sedate, who was horrified by her pranks and shocked by her use of slang, but who adored her with the devotion of a frightened puppy. Their engagement had been long announced. It was only in its high-handed abruptness that ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... round the handkerchief again)—"beware of traps, hen roosts, bacon and eggs; always walk upon your hind legs." Pigling Bland, who was a sedate little pig, looked solemnly at his mother, a tear trickled down ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... justice, was usually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard by the parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of the squire's urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale's ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... How would Lady Clare, with her glossy satin coat, her slender legs that pirouetted so daintily over the ground, and her exquisite head, which she carried so proudly—how would she look and what kind of figure would she cut among the shaggy, stunted, sedate-looking nags of the Sognefiord district? But the captain, though what he said was irrefutable, had to suspend all argument when he saw how utterly wretched Erik became at the mere thought of losing Lady Clare. So he took his chances; and, after having ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Lady Mary, and the maid Halcott, a sedate personage of forty summers, had all been instructed by the doctor that Lady Maulevrier was to be kept profoundly quiet. She must not talk much, since speech was likely to be a painful effort with her for some little time; she must not be ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... like Time in Maitre Guedron's song and every year the garden grew a little lovelier and every year Felicia grew a little more sedate and every year Piqueur and the Major grew "too old." Until Piqueur no longer left his fireside and as for the Major—well, there came a day when the Major fell prostrate by the staircase and lay for a long time breathing very hard. That was a terrifying time until Bele ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... in black array Veiling her Rizpah-misery, to the gate Comes, and with gold and moving speech sedate Buys down the thing aloft, and bears away Snatch'd from the withering wind and ravens' prey: And as a mother's eyes, joy-soften'd, shed Tears o'er her young child's head, Golden and sweet, from evil saved; so she O'er this, sad-smilingly, Mangled and gray, unwarm'd by human ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... ride; short it must have been, since it was but four or five miles from home, but it seemed long to me then. There was great elation of spirits on my part, and no particular excitement; but a very sedate pace on the part of our old horse, to whose swinging gait a monotonous creaking of the old-fashioned chaise kept up a steady response, not unharmonious, as it was connected in my mind with the idea of progress. I remember the wonders of the way, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... guessed that Ernest was not the chosen friend of the more sedate and well-conducted youths then studying at Roughborough. Some of the less desirable boys used to go to public-houses and drink more beer than was good for them; Ernest's inner self can hardly have told him to ally himself to these young gentlemen, but he did ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... throughout the Philippines. The quadrilles of Europe are succeeded by the dances of India, and while the young people execute the fandango, the bolero, the cachucha, or the lascivious movements of the bayaderes, the enterprising half-breed, the indolent Spaniard, and the sedate Chinese, retire to the gaming saloons, to try their fortune at cards and dice. The passion for play is carried to such an extent, that the traders lose or gain in one night sums of 50,000 piasters (L10,000 sterling). The half-breeds, Indians, and Chinese, have also ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... and her costume repelled Germain at the first glance. She had a forward, self-satisfied air, and her mob-cap trimmed with a triple row of lace, her silk apron, and her black lace fichu were decidedly not in harmony with the idea he had conceived of a sedate, serious-minded widow. ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others, too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily sedate, and the naivete of his youthful egotism was so obvious, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Sedley bromidic. So we might follow the line of cleavage between the two groups in Art, Religion and Politics. Compare, for instance, President Roosevelt with his predecessor in office—the Unexpected versus the sedate Thermometer of Public Opinion. Compare Bernard Shaw with Marie Corelli—one would swear that their very brains were differently colored! Their epigrams and platitudes are merely the symptoms of different methods of thought. One ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... assailed. I was one of them. There were two parties, who had each their "society." Maginn and a surgeon named Gosnell were the leaders of one: they were, for the most part, wild and reckless men of talent. The other society was conducted by the more sedate and studious. Gosnell wrote the ottava rima entitled "Daniel O'Rourke," which passed through three or four numbers of "Blackwood": he died not long afterwards in London, one of the many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... highly disapproved by my modest countrywomen. Thus, in some were inserted glasses like watch crystals, adapted to the form and size of the female bosom. But, to do the Lunar ladies justice, I understood that these dresses were condemned by the sedate part of the sex, and were worn only by the young and thoughtless, who were vain of their forms. I observed too, that instead of decorating their heads with flowers, like the ladies of our earth, they taxed the animal world for a correspondent ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... slender, but well-shaped and muscular. His features were regular and symmetrical, his eyes of a light blue color, and his whole countenance, in its quiet state, was grave, placid, and benignant. When alone, or not engaged in conversation, he appeared sedate and thoughtful; but when his attention was excited, his eye kindled quickly, and his face beamed with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and sedate as is our Upper House, but simplicity itself—no gilded throne, no Lord Chancellor in wig and gown, no offensive officialism. It looks like a huge auction room, the auctioneer being the deputy President standing at a table ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... seems to have moved about too much. Possibly the hilarious state of his mind unduly affected his usually sedate body. At all events, from whatever cause, he chanced to tumble off the edge of the building, and fell on the rocks below, at the very feet of the amazed Teddy Maroon, who happened to be at work there at ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... has not yet ousted the Turk from Serbia, and the bite from our wheel banged off the revolutions of our sedate passing. Trsternik's church—modern but good taste—gleamed like a jewel in the sun against the dark hills. On either hand were maize fields with stalks as tall as a man, their feathery tops veiling the intense green of the herbage ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... these fruits of iniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who was so high up in the world that he could demand a dowry. And now Fan was a grandmother, with fixed ideas and habits, and a son in the house, and various grandchildren scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and disillusioned dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it she had taught her ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... ribbon. Accompanying her was a pretty maid of honor dressed as a milk maid with a pail in her hand and a three-legged stool under her arm. The Count d'Artois, gay, handsome, debonair, met them and held them in conversation, then the grave, sedate Monsieur, as the elder of the two brothers of King Louis XVI was styled, approached, and with him was our own Benjamin ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... light of day, Twice two hundred in loose array; With a good round dozen of bards to lead them And their wives all waving their hands to speed them, While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state, With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate. It wasn't his place to fight or tramp; When the warriors went he stayed in camp; But still from his chair he harped them on Till the very last of the host had gone, Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head And, leaving ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... gradually filling with later arrivals; it was the most favored restaurant in London, and, despite the radiant costumes of the women, its atmosphere remained sedate and restful. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... morning as heart-whole and free as a girl's—interrupted the ranchman's disparaging comments on his fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she understood the universal devotion of ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... realize it's only ten days to half-term? Oh, do, for goodness' sake, look less like a statue of melancholy! Do you know, child, that you're getting permanent wrinkles along that forehead of yours, and it makes you more like fifty than fifteen. You're too sedate. That's what's the matter with you, Lorna Carson! It's a fault that ought to be overcome. Copy Delia and me. We know how to enjoy ourselves. There—my lecture is over and now let's talk ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... more surprised by the sight of Sir Tancred. She had given the matter little thought, but had supposed that she would find Tinker's father a sedate man of some fifty summers. When she found him a young man of thirty, and exceedingly handsome and distinguished at that, she was invaded by no slight doubt as to the wisdom of indulging the spirit of whim which ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... three thousand feet and more above the sea—upon which we looked down between cliff and woodland as through a funnel, and upon the roofs and whitewashed walls of fishing-villages on the edge of the blue—lived slow, sedate folks, who called their dogs off us and stared upon us as portents and gave us goat's-milk and bread, refusing the coins we proffered. The inhabitants of this Cape (I have since learned) are a race apart in Corsica; slow, peaceable, without politics and almost ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... It was like headlong, impulsive Nan to make a resolve like this, and never stop to realize that it was only the exaggeration of herself that proved objectionable; that it would be as impossible for her to be sedate and silent and serious as for a dashing dandelion ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... older than most of them, and yet in some ways younger than any, and his remarkable youthfulness of manner and exuberance of spirits sometimes made him appear foolish to Jane, whose sense of humour was of a more sedate kind. But of the absolute perfection of his outward appearance, there was no question; and Jane looked at him now, much as his own mother might have looked, with honest admiration in ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... opinions, and gave a thrust here and a thrust there in behalf of socialists, communists, and all sorts of irregular characters. Since that time his radical, revolutionary sympathies have had time to cool, and in each succeeding volume he has appeared more sedate, conservative, bourgeois.[25] In a later volume of poems this transformation is half symbolically indicated in the title, "Tempered Melodies." Nor is it to be denied that his melodies have gained in beauty by this process of tempering. There is a wider range of ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... in small drops, that remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men's rough coats. The peasants looked at "the master," waiting for him to speak, and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This confused silence was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward, who considered himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian remarkably well. This strong, over-fed man, and Nekhludoff himself, presented a striking contrast to ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Huntington, a walk that went for miles beneath overarching green trees, the sunlight sifting down like a shower of gold in the dim wood aisles. The wild mountain stream merged into the quiet Westfield river that flowed placidly through little sunny meadows and rippled in a sedate way here and there over stones as became the dignity of a river. Small white farmhouses, set about with golden lilies and deep crimson peonies, here and there looked out on the road. But his mind was intent on the wonderful experiences ahead of him; ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... High Cliff House or its outbuildings were a horse, a pig, and a dozen hens and two roosters. Captain Obed bought the horse at Mrs. Barnes' request, a docile animal of a sedate age. A second-hand buggy and a second-hand "open wagon" he also bought. The pig and hens Thankful bought herself in Trumet. She positively would not consent to the pig's occupying the sty beneath the woodshed and adjoining the potato cellar, so a new ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... arrival in his native city, he had visited his friends, and disposed of his daughter, he called upon Madame X—, she presented to him her choice for Mrs. St. Leger, in the person of Miss Arethusa Toothaker, the eldest, tallest, most sedate young ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... Another sedate Boston dame wished "The School of Venus," to which he reprovingly answered that he had best give her instead "The School of Virtue." Another, to whom he gave a sad setting off (more than hinting at a painted face, though she were a Puritan), ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... that faced the river was known from one end of the state to the other, not only for its age, but for its hospitality. The Gloames, whether wild or sedate, had always been famous for the warmth of their hearts. The blood was blue and the hearts were true, is what the world said of the Gloames. The years had made but little change in the seat of the Gloames. The mansion, ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... the persecuted one fled blindly through the bayberry and beachplum bushes. But Brown was not anxious about the dog. What caused him to shout and then break into a run was the sight of Joshua, the old horse, galloping at top speed along the road to the south. Even his sedate and ancient calm had not been proof against the apparition which burst from the kitchen. In his fright he had broken his halter rope and managed—a miracle, considering his age—to leap the pasture fence ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the dignified congratulations of his own world of sedate old nobles and stately women. But Nechutes was younger and well beloved by youthful Memphis, so on the night of the fifth day, the house of Senci was aglow and in her banquet-room there was much young revel ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... In vain did curious looks explore her to detect the delight such a stroke of fortune would have given to themselves. Faulty, but great of soul, and on her guard against the piercing eyes of her own sex, she sat sedate, and received her change of fortune with every appearance of cool composure and exalted indifference; and as for her dreamy eyes, they seemed thinking of heaven, or something almost as many miles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... himself, at any rate to his ship, there is no use in recording the other events of the passage out. It was an ordinary passage, the crew was an ordinary crew, the weather was of the usual kind. The black mate's quiet, sedate method of going to work had given a sober tone to the life of the ship. Even in gales of wind everything went on ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... side of the river were highly satisfied and jovial. Laughter and jokes were heard on all sides. The captain and the head of the village entered the mud hut to regale themselves. Lukashka, vainly striving to impart a sedate expression to his merry face, sat down with his elbows on his knees beside Olenin and whittled away at ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... was tall and fair, like her father, rather sedate, with not quite the sparkle of Susie, two years her junior, the counterpart of the little mother whom she had never seen. And both were erect and bright-eyed as only American girls seem to know completely how to be; visibly healthy, ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... larger species of tern, or sea-swallow; the "parson," so called for his sombre appearance and sedate manner, was a kind of sable gull about the size of an English crow. His colour, however, was not black, but a dusky brownish black, as if the reverend gentleman's coat had got rusty from wear. These birds had ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... have in this country—yes, and one of the most satisfactory, too. To its climate California is indebted for being the most extravagantly beautiful spot I've seen on this continent. It isn't just beautiful in spots—it is beautiful all over; it isn't beautiful in a sedate, reserved way—there is a prodigal, riotous, ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... Are scattered and doze in graceful shade; And hazed cornfields beyond the glade, Undulating and dazzling sight, Seem quivering for predestined flight To worlds of unrevealed delight. In lustrous sheen, their stately looks Sedate as parsons reading books, Flock grey-billed, see-saw-gaited rooks Strutting; or when they wings assume Pluck the warm air with fingered plume, Labouring, anxious if weight and size Make flight most hazardous or wise! Nelly we sauntered on and on By hedgerows, brightly overhung And sprinkled ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... very pretty girl, with those quiet, sedate manners which often develop later in life into genuine self-respect and real depth of character. Fools do not admire her; they accuse her of being "heavy." But she can do without fools; she has a fine, strongly built figure, an upright carriage, a large and broad forehead, a firm chin, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... sometimes into worms, or maggots. If one should think such insects useless, let him consider that what makes a part of the great spectacle of the universe, and contributes to its variety, is not altogether useless to sedate and contemplative men. What can be more noble, and more magnificent, than that great number of commonwealths of living creatures so well governed, and every species of which has a different frame from the other? ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... talk of that?" asked Lola, with interest. Ana was now sixteen, and was nearly as heavy as her mother, and much more sedate. In true Mexican fashion the look of youth had left her betimes, and her swarthy plumpness had early hardened and settled to a look of maturity to which future ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... health, and explained to her at some length the most approved method of curing a cold, in case that were the cause. In striking contrast to the sober looks of the others—for Younker himself was a man who seldom exhibited other than a sedate expression—was the general appearance and manner of Isaac. He seemed exceedingly exhilarated in spirits, yet kept his eyes down, and appeared at times very absent minded. Whatever his thoughts were, it was evident they were pleasing ones; for he would smile to himself, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... excepting Helen. He did not like the trouble of spelling, and was in the habit of guessing at every word he did not know; and on his very composedly calling old Joe the gardener, 'the old gander,' Anne burst into an irrepressible giggle, and Helen, sedate as she was, could not help following her example. They had just composed themselves, when Edward made another blunder, which set them off again, and Elizabeth, who when alone with the children, could bear anything with becoming ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... muddy brogans, but even so they were smallish and shapely. His garments were coarse, but there were no tatters anywhere. He wore a wide Campeachy hat. His brown hair was too long, but it was fine. His eyes, too, were brown, and, between brief moments of alertness, sedate. Sun and wind had darkened his face, and his pale brown beard curled meagre and untrimmed on a cheek and chin that in forty years ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable |
