"Staid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... staid New England lover and his shy sweetheart anxiously and solemnly searching for many hours through the great leather-bound family Bible for a specially appropriate text, turning over the leaves and slowing scanning the pages, skipping over tedious Leviticus and ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... a few bitter tears; but she also had been practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... wonderful system this old British system, George. It's staid and stable and yet it has a place for new men. We come up and take our places. It's almost expected. We take a hand. That's where our Democracy differs from America. Over there a man succeeds; all he gets is money. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... him bits of broken meat, And scattered crusts, and crumbs, to eat; And kept him there for her commands To pare potatoes, and scour pans, To wash the kettles and sweep the room; And she beat him dreadfully with the broom; And he staid as long as he could stay, And again, in ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... of knowledge perfectly fresh; and I notice in him that, instead of growing more staid and commonplace in his style as he increased in years, he grew more vigorous, until he actually slid into the excess of gaudy redundancy. I am sorry that his prose ever became Asiatic in its splendour; but even that fact shows how steadfast effort may prevent a man from ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... extraordinary, and which tallied so strangely with the footprints which had frightened Shah Pursund Khan twelve years ago. I was still absorbed in reflections of no very gay colour, when one of the attendants warned me that if I staid all day amongst the "dead people," there would not be sufficient oil to feed the torches, and we should be unable to visit the Ice Caves. I was immediately roused, and proceeded onwards with the party through several low arches ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... an engineer in the White Star Line, before settling down to his father's manufacturing business in Belfast. Like so many ardent Loyalists in Ulster, he came of Liberal stock. He was for years honorary Secretary of the Reform Club in Belfast. The more staid members of this highly respectable establishment were not a little startled and perplexed when it was brought to their attention in 1907 that advertisements in the name of one "Hugh Matthews," giving ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... had another room as large as this that he staid in most of his time when he was at home—his writin'-desk wuz in that room. But he was not here much of the time, only to ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... It maketh the foolish wise and driveth away devils, and without stint furnisheth its possessor with everything that is lovely and desirable." The tutor said, "Though, to all seeming, thou art a man of staid and steadfast judgment, yet thy words prove thee to be boastful beyond measure. Time would fail me to tell thee the full tale of the costly and precious gems and pearls that I have seen. But gems, with such power as thou tellest of, I never saw nor ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... to think of her staid bones beside the phantom creature this prince had called up to ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... strike amaine her sayle, according to the will of the saide worshipfull Iohn Keele, and Dauid Fillie master, the said ship was brought backe again vnto the present port of Malta, according to the order of the reuerend generall of the said gallies: and in being there maister Inquisitor staid it by authoritie of the holy office, and in that behalfe by the holinesse of our Lord pope Gregorie the thirteenth, in the end was licenced to depart on her voyage. They therefore the said worshipfull Iohn Keele and Dauid Fillie, in the name and behalfe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... idlenesses. Bruhl rose at six in the morning, the only instance of activity in his career. But he was obliged to attend the king before nine, after having read the letters of the morning. With the king he staid until the hour of mass, which was at eleven. From mass he went to the Countess Moyensha, where he remained till twelve. From her house he adjourned to dinner with the king, or to his own house, where he was surrounded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... more than all others rent the Covenanting church, so dear to the descendants of the old Whigs, was close at hand. All was forgotten for the hour in the strange resemblance which exists between one strain of the character of the staid Scotch, and a vein in the nature of the impulsive French, two nations that used to be trusty allies. There is, indeed, a bond to unite "Caledonia stern and wild" and "the sunny land of France;" a weft of passionate ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... you as a staid, middle-aged man," she said, with a delicious little laugh, then added in low soft tones, "I'm so very pleased to ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... is in this way that it eloquently expresses itself. They were not lost upon the Webber family. The winning youngster found marvellous favor in the eyes of the mother; the tortoise-shell cat, albeit the most staid and demure of her kind, gave indubitable signs of approbation of his visits, the tea-kettle seemed to sing out a cheering note of welcome at his approach, and if the sly glances of the daughter might be rightly read, as she sat bridling ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... at home. New York is improved, as the word goes, wonderfully. You will return to a strange city; you will not recognize many of your acquaintances among the old buildings; brand-new buildings, stores, and houses are taking the place of the good, staid, modest houses of the early settlers. Improvement is all the rage, and houses and churchyards must be overthrown and upturned whenever the Corporation plough is set to work for the widening of a narrow, or the making ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... after that adventure. Again, while studying the narrative of how Mark edited an agricultural paper in a country district, a person with any sense of humour is scarcely a responsible being. He is quite unfit (so doth he revel in laughter uncontrollable) for the society of staid people, and he ought to be ejected from club libraries, where his shouts waken the bald-headed sleepers of these retreats. It is one example of what we have tried to urge, that "Mark's way" is not nearly so acceptable in "The Innocents Abroad," especially ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... knowing his people, and having other things to ask about. What tongue or speech had the respectable, the staid Miranda King in common with the scared waif? To that she answered that she could not tell him; but that it was certain they could understand each other. How? "By looks," she said, and added scornfully, "she's ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... face, appeared, bringing a pair of red and a pair of blue mittens for her Dolly and Polly. Poor Mrs. Blake did have a hard time, for she stood all day in a great store that she might earn bread for the poor children who staid at home and took care of one another. Her heart was very heavy that night, because it was the first Christmas she had ever known without gifts and festivity of some sort. But Petkin, the youngest child, had been ill, times were very hard, the little ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... to our journey. The day after we descended the crater, we started for the half-way house on our return. It was a dreary, rainy morning, but cleared up soon, though no sun was visible. The roads were dryer, and we young people cantered off, leaving the more staid portion of the party behind; and reached our resting-place two hours or more before the others, and before our native men too. We were hungry, but our calabashes of food were far behind us, so we fell to decorating the house, in order to occupy our time. It ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... cannot be one colour of the mind, another of the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the wit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown and deflowered. Do we not see, if the mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon an effeminate person, his very gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... you what? The youth was going To make an end of all his wooing; The parson for him staid: Yet by his leave (for all his haste), He did not so much wish all past, (Perchance) as did ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... to kindlier themes; it is pleasant to think of the legitimate rejoicings and kindnesses in which the most staid of us may indulge. Far be it from me to emulate the crabbed person who proposed to form a "Society for the Abolition of Christmas." The event to be commemorated is by far the greatest in the history of our planet; all others become hardly ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... villas send Their modish guests to statelier fare, And PHYLLIS, neat, is helped to tend By that staid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... father's house, and broke through all his good advice: nay, I was coining into the very middle station, or upper degree of low life, which my father advised me to before; and which, if I resolved to go on with, I might as well have staid at home, and never have fatigued myself in the world, as I had done: and I used often to say to myself, I could have done this as well in England, among my friends, as have gone five thousand miles off to do it among strangers and savages, in a wilderness, and at such a distance as never to hear ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... more properly named the "serpent-eater," and naturalists have given it the title Gypogeranus, or "crane-vulture." It is sometimes also called "the messenger," from the staid solemn manner of its walk, as ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and Earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much then, after two or three years that they have well laid their grounds, but to ride out in companies, with prudent and staid guides to all the quarters of the land, learning and observing all places of strength, all commodities of building, and of soil for towns and tillage, harbours and ports for trade; sometimes taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what they can in the practical knowledge ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... which seemed to be relied upon by the District Attorney as establishing the alleged larceny were—that I had come to Washington, and staid from Monday to Saturday, without any ostensible business, when I had sailed away with seventy-six slaves on board, concealed under the hatches, and the hatches battened down; and that when pursued and overtaken the slaves were found on board with ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... at the same time. The draft came off that fall and I left for Winchester to escape it. I tried to pretend I was from Maryland, and therefore exempt, but as I was too well known it would not work. I did nothing after I returned to Winchester, and staid there till Christmas. The town was then occupied by Union troops. About the last of Jan. 1863, I visited Baltimore and tried to get a situation; I remained in Baltimore about two months, doing nothing. I stopped at Mann's Hotel, that is, I got my meals there, as I wanted them. I stopped part ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... say. It might have been worse, if I had staid at college a year or two longer, or if I had been elevated to a place in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... pensioners of Morpheus' train. But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy! Hail, divinest Melancholy! Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended. Yet thou art higher far descended: Thee bright-haired ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... the people who might make the best use of it." She was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubt of everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance of everything. Professor and Madame La Rue, in actual life devotedly faithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationships sanctioned by the practice of free love. It was perhaps with this recollection in her mind that she suggested, "Don't you suppose it will be like the institution of marriage, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... is still a young man, being little more than 50, and Hetty is now a staid little lady. There are days when she looks surprisingly young and blooming. Why should Theo and I have been so ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... believed it was not; and yet he felt as if it were. There was something preposterous, he thought, in a man nearly forty years of age being in love with a girl of twenty. He had gone on reasoning through all the days of his manhood on the idea of a staid, noble-minded wife, grave and sedate, the fit companion in experience of her husband. He had spoken with admiration of reticent characters, full of self-control and dignity; and he hoped—he trusted, that all this time he had not been allowing ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... chaplain to the nuns there, a man of angelic purity, of sane and sober judgement and no common learning, accompanied me as far as Coblenz. At Coblenz Matthias, Chancellor to the Bishop, swept us off to his house—he is a young man but of staid manners, and has an accurate knowledge of Latin, besides being a skilled lawyer. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... who had slain a young friend of his, and living, as he does, a great deal with young men of pleasure, and good old sober family people, he is loved by them both and has as welcome a place made for him at a roaring bachelor's supper at the "Cafe Anglais," as at a staid dowager's dinner-table in the Faubourg St. Honore. Such pleasant old boys are very profitable acquaintances, let me tell you; and lucky is the young man who has one or two such friends ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ended the exclamation with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May, mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young while we ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... gone to dinner till rather late, and my company having staid with me till just now, I have not been able to return an answer to your Grace's very obliging letter as soon as I otherwise should have done. It also prevented my being able to profit of the honour you proposed to me ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... relations who had so lately been on a level with her. Pamela made no answer; but her husband, taking up her cause, severely reprimanded his aunt for her behaviour to his wife: he told her, if it had been earlier in the evening she should not have staid a moment longer in her house; that he was convinced, if this young woman could be proved her sister, she would readily embrace her as such, and he himself would do the same. He then desired the ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... compliments; you are staid for: ere you've supp'd, You shall hear from me. My coach, knaves! for my nephew: Tomorrow ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... forms. He does not thrill, but he exalts us. His genius is impetuous, exuberant, majestic; and a heavenly fire gleams through all his creations. He transports us into a holier and higher world than our own; everything around us breathes of force and solemn beauty. The looks of his heroes may be more staid than those of men, the movements of their minds may be slower and more calculated; but we yield to the potency of their endowments, and the loveliness of the scene which they animate. The enchantments of the poet are strong enough to silence our scepticism; we forbear to inquire ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... in rain and wind, O'er hills, thro' vallies roam, When wiser folk would lag behind, And Spaniels staid at home? ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... vnto his mother. For he was determined the next day, (as it is abouesaid) to set vp a flag of defiance against all the countreis of the West, which he would haue vs in no case to know. Wherefore returning, we staid some few dayes with his mother, and so returned backe again vnto him. With whom we continued for the space of one whole moneth in such extreme hunger and thirst, that we could scarce hold life and soule ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... ten chillun but ah can't member but two uv mah sisters and one uv mah bruthes. We staid wid de Newtons till we wuz set free and I nuss fuh de Newtons aftuh we wuz set free. De Newtons wuz awful good ter me and dey wuz good tuh mah ma too. Ah slept up in de big house wid de Newtons. Ah nevah ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... voice; "I've come over t' stop with you to-night; Dad's away again; Mandy Ford staid with me last night, but she had to go home this evenin'." The big fellow at the woodpile drove his ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... fought till night without doing any harm, as all their arrows fell short, and they durst not come near for fear of the cross-bows and great guns. At length they retired, and the Spaniards having staid nine days resolved to return to St Domingo and Porto Rico, endeavouring to discover some islands by the way of which they had received accounts from the Indians. Ponce accordingly set sail on his return on the 14th of June, and sailed among islands till the 21st, when he arrived at the small ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... of all this pageantry, the beautiful, but afflicted Duchess of Lorraine made her approach to the throne. She was dressed in black, and closely veiled; for duennas of the most staid and severe aspect, and six beautiful demoiselles, formed her female attendants. She was guarded by several very ancient, withered, and grayheaded cavaliers; and her train was borne by one of the most deformed ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... can be revived; you can queen it there as the Herons of old used to queen it. And everybody will be proud and delighted to see you doing it! As for me, I am ashamed to say that I have almost lost my head over the business, and have behaved like a—well, anything but like a staid ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the northern capital from Dublin you are apt to experience a kind of chill, akin to that felt by the boy of easy-going parents who, visiting the house of a staid and sober uncle, said to his little cousins, "At home we can fight with pillows, and let off crackers in the kitchen, and ride on the poker and tongs across the dining-room tables, and shy oranges at the chimney ornaments, and cut the sofas and pull out the stuffing, but here we get no fun ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... might not, on the one hand, bear too hard upon my friends, nor on the other hand forget the house of thraldom, after I had staid with them some six or seven weeks (from the time called Easter to the time called Whitsuntide) I took my leave of them to depart home, intending to walk to Wycombe in one day, and from thence home ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of sober and staid Persons: for as the Knight is the best Master in the World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him: by this means his Domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Betters, should give her a civil Salute, she should curtsy and be humble, nevertheless. Her innocent forsooths, yess, and't please yous, and she would do her Endeavour, moved the good old Lady to take her out of the Hands of a Country Bumpkin her Brother, and hire her for her own Maid. I staid till I saw them all marched out to take Coach; the brother loaded with a great Cheese, he prevailed upon her to take for her Civilities to [his] Sister. This poor Creatures Fate is not far off that of hers whom I spoke of above, and it is not to be doubted, but after she has been long enough a Prey ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... had the same feeling sometimes, Mr. Baxter. I am not always the staid respectable matron which I appear to you to be. Sometimes I—(She looks absently at the watch on her wrist.) ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... of her invisible presence blessing their betrothal. This was a good deal for Richard Markham to say, for he was not given to poetry, or sentiment, or imagery, but Ethelyn's face and Ethelyn's eyes had played strange antics with the staid, matter-of-fact man of Western Iowa, and stirred his blood as it had never been stirred before. He did fancy his angel-sister was there; but when he said so to Ethelyn she started with a shiver, and asked to ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... not fail to write as often as anything does occurr worth sending, if you think the accountt I give not troublesome. Dr. Adams, Dr. Rudston, and Delaune have promis'd to write this post: we remembred you both before and after your letters came w^{th} S^r John Matthews, who staid here 3 nights this weeke. Our militia is gone home cloath'd in Blew coates but many coxcombs of this city have refused to pay their quota towards the buying of them, railing against my L^d Abington, who has smooth'd the mob by giving ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... that they were starved by their long watching in the cold, and stood in need of refreshments. It was determined therefore to make a halt. Two men staid by the prisoner, whilst the rest collected wood and soon succeeded in lighting a prodigious fire upon the spacious area before the main entrance into the Abbey. Round this the party collected: a hamper of smuggled claret, which they had fortunately intercepted on its ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... replied Arthur; "in the first place, Mowno was an uncommonly good-natured sort of a savage; then he had a very pretty, persuasive little wife, and he had not yet been long enough married, to have entirely merged the zeal and devotion of the lover, in the easy indifference, and staid authority of the husband; but ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... flourishing mining camp without mishap or adventure. Canyon City at that time was a typical mining camp. There were congregated every known character, race, profession and creed. Under a rough exterior the lawyer, doctor, minister, the rude western frontiersman and the staid and sober farmer, worked side by side. There was no distinction of dress among that restless, surging, throbbing throng of humanity, drawn thither by the all-absorbing motive—the glittering dust that lay hidden beneath the gravel and sands of the streams and along the ravines. ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... staid, too,—a dear little austerity of a dress;—it's just as much you as that way of doing your hair is. Don't imagine that I would commit such a solecism as to dress you frivolously. Look; will you put this ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... or twenty little groups of men in the square, which was lighted by a flare of oil suspended over a cadger's cart. Now and again a staid young woman passed through the square with a basket on her arm, and if she had lingered long enough to give them time, some of the idlers would have addressed her, As it was, they gazed after her, and then grinned to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... pleasure in being in this family. Bristol is the largest meeting we have in our Society in England, and to me it was a very trying one on the First-day morning. I was much cast down after meeting; but we staid over the Monthly Meeting on Third-day, which afforded me relief of mind, and I left with as much comfort as I ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... has—but, seriously, think not that I staid from idle motives. Poor Agnes has found shelter in Corbey abbey; but the prince and the avenging knights, march in full force ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... just the same variations in primitive as in civilized communities. In every primitive society is to be found the flighty, the staid, the energetic, the indolent, the cheerful, the morose, the even-, the hot-tempered, the unthinking, the philosophical individual. At the same time, the average differences between different primitive peoples are as striking as those between the average German ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... "the temptation is not to be laughed at. Just imagine real dimples speared in," with a finger poked in Maud Leslie's cheek, "and long silky lashes tangles in one's violet gaze——" This was too much even for staid juniors and the race that followed almost justified Shirley's much criticised romp. With this difference: Wellington Hall was now out of the shadows made by the swaying stream of laughing students darting in and ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... only Elsie and myself, but also sundry friends, drawn thither by our praise of the beauty of the land and the fineness of the air. There were the brilliant M. W. C., learned in all philosophical lore, and with feeling and imagination sufficient to furnish out half a dozen poets; the staid but energetic M. T., whose portrait in our gallery occupies, a conspicuous place in the small niche devoted to model women; the gay and witty A. I., whose blue eyes imperil so many hearts, but whose frank, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was Mrs. Trollope, a portly lady, of any age between thirty and forty, staid and sedate, as became her character, and attentive to her 'thees' and 'thous,' which lent their cloak for plain speaking, of which she was not chary. She frequently admonished her daughters—perhaps adopted for the evening—against the vanities by which they were encompassed on every ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... but the essence of the canals and the flavours of the Rialto, after the jingling of bells and brawls of the gondoliers, imagine how agreeable it was to scent the perfume of clover, to tread a springing herbage, and listen in silence to the showers pattering amongst the leaves. I staid so long amidst the vines, that it grew late before we rowed by the Mira, a village of palaces, whose courts and gardens, as magnificent as statues, terraces, and vases can make them, compose a grand, though far ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... the table, and from a broken cup drank a few swallows of tolerable coffee. As for the edibles, 'twas the same old story,—corn bread and maple molasses, fried pork and onions. I staid there perhaps fifteen minutes, and learned from my hostess that Webster was, previous to the war 'a right smart village,' but that the male inhabitants had mostly joined the rebel army, then at Phillippi. She, different from most women I met in Virginia, expressed ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... molten gold in the light of the rising sun, and the hoar-frost upon the twigs of the leafless trees changing to glittering diamonds. The colt, sleek and plump, was champing his bit and shaking his head in his impatience to be off. Jenny was staid and sober, but when Robert said, "Now, lad and lady," the colt pranced a few steps, then settled to a steady trot, learning a lesson ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Staid old Mother Earth herself has in the hoary past repeatedly changed the configurations of her continents and oceans by great ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... little houses through The twists of the street, as our hamlets do, For no good reason, so far as I know, Save that chance has arranged it so. It's a quaint old ramshackle moss-grown place, Keeping its staid accustomed pace; Not moved at all by the rush and flurry, The mad tempestuous windy hurry Of the big world tossing in rage and riot, While the village holds to ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... late; that string in your bill, Would have fastened it firmly and strong; But see, there it goes, rolling over the hill! Oh, you staid a ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... not quite so formidable an affair as it used to be to go to Angus Dhu's house now, and Shenac and her brother often found themselves there on summer evenings. But at home, as elsewhere, Shenac Dhu was quiet and staid, and not at all like the merry Shenac of ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... by the more wealthy class of citizens. Here Reginald, throwing himself from his horse, assisted Wuzeer Singh to reach the small loophole, through which he could communicate with those within. After a few words had been exchanged, the gates were opened and the party entered. A staid-looking citizen, with several younger men, received them; and though they treated the rajah with marked respect, they did not otherwise show that they knew who he was. The old man only addressed him as sahib, and ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... certain scandalous woman had followed her son to the island. She understood it, and she forgave her. A youth as attractive as her Jaime! But with her dresses and her habits the young woman disturbed the tranquil customs of the city; the staid families became indignant, and, Dona Purificacion, making use of intermediaries, came to an understanding with her, giving her money on the condition that she should leave the island. At other vacation times the scandal was even greater. Jaime, who had gone to Son Febrer ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Billy Sparks. Ain't he handsome? Jist take a look at them eyes. And he's smart, too—smart as Uncle Charlie, purty nigh. Onct his mother-in-law come t' see 'em and staid a long time and was awful cross and Uncle Billy got tired of it and took and put a wad of cotton in her ear trumpet so she couldn't hear a thing, and she thought she was goin' plumb deef and left that day fer home to see her doctor. ...
— The Fotygraft Album - Shown to the New Neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters Aged Eleven • Frank Wing
... Garth, just tell me, and I will do it." Then awakening suddenly to the consciousness of what she had said, she sat up in the darkness and scolded herself furiously. "Oh, you middle-aged donkey! You call yourself staid and sensible, and a little flattery from a boy of whom you are fond turns your head completely. Come to your senses at once; or leave Overdene by the first ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Alfonso entering, but alone, Closed the oration of the trusty maid: She loitered, and he told her to be gone, An order somewhat sullenly obeyed; However, present remedy was none, And no great good seemed answered if she staid: Regarding both with slow and sidelong view, She snuffed the candle, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... landlady, in his slow, staid way, 'I have brought ye a little money that ye may buy any small things the lass may want; it is all I can spare the now; I will call in the morning and see how ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... now.* The Lord notified us that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were going to be destroyed, and for us to leave. We did so, and the Smiths were killed a few days after we started. Since that, I have had no connection with any of the people who staid and built up to themselves churches; and chose to themselves leaders such as they chose, and then ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries mark a rather barren period in the religious and cultural life of Denmark. The spiritual ferment of the Reformation had subsided into a staid and uniform Lutheran orthodoxy. Jesper Brochman, a bishop of Sjaelland and the most famous theologian of that age, praised king Christian IV for "the zeal with which from the beginning of his reign he had exerted himself to make all his subjects ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... Blois rather late; we had intended to have staid there only the night, but as it was too late to see the town, and the following morning was showery, we remained there the whole day, and very pleasantly passed the afternoon in walking over the town, and informing ourselves of its curiosities. The situation of Blois is as agreeable as that of all ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... he walked slowly from the shop. The moment he was gone, the business of the place, without a word of remark on any side concerning what had passed, began again and went on as before. People came and went, some more eager and outward, some more staid and inward, but all contented and cheerful. At length a bell somewhere rang sweet and shrill, and after that no one entered the place, and what was in progress began to be led to a decorous conclusion. In three or four minutes the floor was empty, and the people also of the shop had gone, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... together on religion. Casaubon ardently desired a reunion of the Protestants with the Roman Catholics[64]: and would have set about it, had he staid longer in France, as he informed Descordes, who repeated it to Grotius. He greatly respected the opinions of the ancient church[65], and was persuaded its sentiments were more sound than those of the Ministers of Charenton. Grotius and he had imparted their thoughts ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... dear old harum-scarum Daisy she always was, in spite of the efforts of her Lord Chesterfield of a husband to reform her," thought Judith, fondly, as her old schoolmate, catching sight of her at the window, waved her parasol so wildly that the staid old ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... The very staid-looking maid, Harris by name, who accompanied them, could scarcely keep pace with the Vivian girls. They ran, they shouted, they laughed. When they were about half-way to the Mileses' farm they came to a piece of common which ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... said the oldest boy, mischievously; for Gardener was only to be away five minutes, and he had staid a full hour. Also, when he fumbled in his pocket for the children's lunch—to stop their tongues, perhaps—he found it was ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... very satisfying in a case of emergency to have with us some one so old and staid and full of authority as my father, who set the example to us lads of hurrying close up to the cliff right at the head where the caverns ran in, and the rain-like water streamed down from the ferns and saxifrages to form ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... visits, and at twelve I called at the coffeehouse for a letter from MD; so the man said he had given it to Patrick; then I went to the Court of Requests and Treasury to find Mr Harley, and after some time spent in mutual reproaches, I promised to dine with him; I staid there till seven, then called at Sterne's and Leigh's to talk about your box, and to have it sent by Smyth. Sterne says he has been making inquiries, and will set things right as soon as possible. I suppose it lies at Chester, at least I hope so, and only wants ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... produced, a string of a dozen or so of ladies, in their full war paint, were decorously going through the monotonous evolutions of a popular dance, waving their arms about, gesticulating, and at the same time lingering, as it were, over the ground, and comporting themselves in that staid, yet fitfully lively way, which seems to be the general style of Eastern dancing. They were attired most picturesquely, and evidently in their very fullest ball costume, so that we were fortunate in hitting upon such a good opportunity of seeing ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... Even the staid New York Times, which had until now stayed out of UFO controversy, broke down and ran an editorial entitled, "Those Flying Saucers—Are ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... reminded me so much of home I would not let them shoot it; we left it there to be devoured by wolves, or die of hunger, or be killed by some one else. [May 15—32d day] We renewed our journey, when about noon it commenced to rain we turned down to the right, & encamped, it continuing rainy, we staid till next day; here was a small stream full of little fishes, which if we had had a small sceine, we might have caught any amount; but we had not so much as a fish hook, which we had ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... divine was brought up in New England by a staid old aunt, who never let him go anywhere except to church, Sunday school and prayer meeting. When quite a lad she let him go to New York City to visit a cousin. That cousin took him to see Barnum's circus. It was ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... no such staid diplomat as you, Herbert. I have not yet learned to be calm and indifferent when one whom I have for years imagined dead, or gone to ruin, suddenly ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... could at times "unbend and play the fool" as well as less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out, and a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of "an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid in its gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had been passing among the members while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. Beauclerc himself could not have repressed his disposition for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a right to presume ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of the romance about it taken away by modern observers. The staid appearance of the animal, with the intellectual aspect contributed by the enormous cranial development, combined with its undoubted docility and aptitude for comprehending signs, have led to exaggerated ideas of its intelligence, which probably does ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... till the close of day, Here all a grateful homage pay, For here she plays her harmless wiles, And scatters her endearing smiles; Here no proud rivals intervene, And all, though glowing, is serene. Here, since she first her visit paid, Still has the sweet enchantress staid, And never met a single slight, Or spread ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... face were widely different from those on which Paul gazed with such delight. He was not, seemingly, above five-and-forty, but his forehead was knit into many a line and furrow; and in his eyes the light, though searching, was more sober and staid than became his years. A disagreeable expression played about the mouth; and the shape of the face, which was long and thin, considerably detracted from the prepossessing effect of a handsome aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark, manly, though sallow complexion. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... somebody was coming; and sure enough, here comes you. You see, Mrs. Jenkins was here to take tea with me to-night, and beside the baby, why her little Jack and Sally and Bill and Susan would come, because, they said, pap wasn't at home, and they would starve if they staid there. And here, sure enough, come they did, before Mrs. Jenkins had fairly pulled off her bonnet; and stay they would, though she boxed 'em well; but they didn't mind that, and I told her Christmas come but once a year, and as it ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... this must be a lunatic who stood laughing aloud at a white donkey in the placid beech-woods. I was sure, by her face, that she had already recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself for the worst. And so, to reassure her, I uncovered and besought her, after a very staid fashion, to put me on my way to Great Missenden. Her voice trembled a little, to be sure, but I think her mind was set at rest; and she told me, very explicitly, to follow the path until I came to the end of the wood, and then I should see the village below me in the bottom of the valley. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... SIR:—Mrs. Path, Nickens and Woodson did not see Bibb on his first visit, in 1837, when he staid with Job Dundy, but were subsequently told of it by Bibb. They first saw him in May, 1838. Mrs. Path remembers this date because it was the month in which she removed from Broadway to Harrison street, and Bibb assisted her to remove. Mrs. Path's garden adjoined Dundy's back yard. While engaged in ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... this Winter, at Berlin and elsewhere, may be figured: but here is one little speck, also from the Archives, which is worth saving. Princess Ulrique is in her twenty-third year, Princess Amelia in her twentieth; beautiful clever creatures, both; Ulrique the more staid of the two. "Never saw so gay a Carnival," said everybody; and in the height of it, with all manner of gayeties going on,—think where the dainty ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... would not go with you again for the world. I am so much better Off here. I wish you would be a good boy, and leave off your Bad ways; for I am sure, as every one says, I don't know what would have become of me if I had staid with you. Mr. [the Mr. half scratched out] the gentleman I am with, says if you turn out Properly, he will be a friend to you, Too; but he advises you to go, like a Good boy, to Arthur Beaufort, and ask his pardon for the past, and then Arthur ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Gentlemen, whose allegiance was given to a staid and stately town on the Patapsco, quite glowed ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... approach; he rode among the enemy's ranks, and bore down all before him. Say, goddess, whom he slew first and whom he slew last! First, Gondibert advanced against him, clad in heavy armour and mounted on a staid sober gelding, not so famed for his speed as his docility in kneeling whenever his rider would mount or alight. He had made a vow to Pallas that he would never leave the field till he had spoiled Homer of his armour: madman, who had never once seen the wearer, nor understood his strength! ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... convoyed her, with the utmost pains of wood and heather craft, to Ladykirk, where she had been received by Miss Aline with such quiet rejoicings as the staid little gentlewoman ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... wont, thy sovereignty adorn With woman's gentleness, yet firm and staid; So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn Be changed for one whose ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... was meagre, but serious. There was music; and the door being left at jar, as we call it, I watched the wretched servant who staid in the antichamber, and found that he was listening in ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... alms was about moving after, when the auburn-haired gentleman staid him: "Don't be frightened, you; but I want to see those coins. Yes, yes; good silver, good silver. There, take them again, and while you are about it, go bandage the rest of yourself behind something. D'ye hear? Consider yourself, wholly, the ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... how it is carried through as to whether it is perilous or not. I could have told Sterling there is apt to be more danger in a deal in which one makes thirty-five to forty million dollars without turning a hair, than in furnishing staid advice from an office-chair for a fixed ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... O, the circus parade! It lays all the politics back in the shade, And the merchants forget that they've got any trade, While many remember they've never been paid As they rushed out to look at the circus parade; And preachers who used to be terribly staid Yell just like boys at the circus parade. Every one's there, both the mistress and maid, All looking on at ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... of they,' 'er says. 'The little 'uzzies ought to be at 'awm look'n' aafter the chicken, 'staid of gallivantin' about ahl bai thursalves. Yure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... shoulders and chest, but stooping a good deal, and limping heavily in one leg. He walked slowly, leaning upon a silver-headed stick, and his sober suit of black, with silk stockings of the same hue, looked strangely staid among the brilliant uniforms which surrounded him. But in spite of his plain dress there was an expression of great authority upon his shrewd face, and every one drew back with bows and salutes as he moved across ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of his own planting. But Mr. J. H. Round, in his singularly able article on "The Origin of the Mayoralty of London," contributed to the "Archaeological Journal," shows conclusively that this institution, now the aegis of all that is staid, stable, and respectable, was the offspring of the spirit of revolt which spread like a contagion from Italy to France, Germany, and the Low Countries, and thence to ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies. God's causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon. It is not the violent and anarchical whom we have to fear in the war for human progress, but the slow, the staid, the respectable; and the danger of these lies in their real skepticism. Though it would abhor articulately confessing that God does nothing, it virtually means so by refusing to share manifest opportunities for ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... death, Mr. Nelson was a deputy to the triennial meetings of every General Convention, and became the principal spokesman in the House of Deputies. This body is not always as decorous and staid in its deliberations as the House of Bishops, but Mr. Nelson at all times commanded a respectful hearing among the deputies. He came to be one of the leaders who, as a veteran church-paper correspondent put it, "could read the signs of the times." His opinions carried ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... how much money's been spent, Yet no one's been found to say which way he went! Here's a fortnight and more has gone by, and we've tried Every plan we could hit on—and had him well cried '|Missing|!! Stolen or Strayed, Lost or Mislaid, |A Gentleman|;—middle-aged, sober and staid; Stoops slightly;—and when he left home was arrayed In a sad-colored suit, somewhat dingy and frayed; Had spectacles on with a tortoise-shell rim, And a hat rather low crowned, and broad in the brim. Whoe'er shall bear, Or send him with care, (Right side uppermost) home; or shall ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... exciting in that of Fallkill, nor anything novel in the attentions of the well-bred young gentlemen one met in it. It must have worn a different aspect to Ruth, for she entered into its pleasures at first with curiosity, and then with interest and finally with a kind of staid abandon that no one would have deemed possible for her. Parties, picnics, rowing-matches, moonlight strolls, nutting expeditions in the October woods,—Alice declared that it was a whirl of dissipation. The fondness ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... what deep murmurs, through time's silent stealth, Doth thy transparent, cool and watry wealth Here flowing fall, And chide and call, As if his liquid, loose Retinue staid Lingring, and were of ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the ship with four pounds of fresh pork per man each day, it made no apparent scarcity; beside salting some thousand weight, and a prodigious number of goats, fowls, and other things. Could we have made it convenient to have staid another week, some cows were promised to have been sent us from a neighbouring island. Capt. Cook had left with them a horse and mare, a cow with calf, and a bull; but, from some mistake, they killed a horse instead of one of the cows, and found it very tough, disagreeable eating, by which means ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... the Leinster allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire and sword from Dublin to the border town of Gowran. This seems to have been the last of his notable exploits in arms. He died on the 20th of November, 876, and is lamented by the Bards as "a generous, wise, staid man." These praises belong—if at all deserved—to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... little bit self-engrossed. Mother would think it natural, and make excuses for us, even if we were carried away by our new importance; and God is kinder and more forgiving than mother. Perhaps, when one is quite old and staid, it is easy to sit through a service and never think of self; but it is difficult when one is young. I used to be miserable because every time I had a new hat or dress, or anything that was fresh, I couldn't ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... without being such, was conscious of a handsome person, as meant to convey more than the courtesy of an hostess. Nor do I take it upon me to say that the little wild mountaineer would have welcomed any staid old gentleman advanced in life, the Baron of Bradwardine, for example, with the cheerful pains which she bestowed upon Edward's accommodation. She seemed eager to place him by the meal which she had so sedulously arranged, and to which she now added a few bunches of cranberries, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott |
