"Stale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bullying, brawling, champion of the Church, Vain as a parrot screaming on her perch; And like that parrot screaming out by rote, The same stale, flat, unprofitable note; Still interrupting all debate With one eternal cry of "Church and State!" With all the High Tory's ignorance increased, By all the arrogance that makes the priest; One who declares upon his solemn word The Voluntary system is absurd; ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... brother and Grace were sitting on the stoop of the boarding-house. On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were the other boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers. The air of the cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose exhalations of rotting fruit, the gases of an open subway, the smoke of passing taxicabs. But between the street and the hall bedroom, with its odors of a gas-stove and a ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... Harvey, as applied to Greene, in his "Four Letters and Certain Sonnets, 1592," the year when Nash's "Summer's Last Will and Testament" was performed: "They wrong him much with their epitaphs and solemn devices, that entitle him not at the least the second Toy of London, the stale ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... of his nature and to reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways of a young society. He is there to explain himself, voluble, with a glossary for his own artless slang. But his colonialism is only provincialism very articulate. The new air does but make old decadences seem more stale; the young soil does but set into fresh conditions the ready-made, the uncostly, the refuse feeling of a race decivilising. American fancy played long this pattering part of youth. The New-Englander ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... come on as an organ-grinder, sing a song in broken English, then as a policeman, or a young swell about town. Give me plenty of opportunity, that's the great thing—opportunity to be really funny, I mean. We don't want any of the old stale tricks." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... when canned. No time should be lost in handling the fish after being caught. Putrefaction starts rapidly, and the fish must be handled promptly. The sooner it is canned after being taken from lake, stream or ocean, the better. Never attempt to can any fish that is stale. ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... Stale bread, pilot-bread, dried corn-cakes, and crumbs, soaked a few minutes in water, or better still in milk, and fried, are ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... trainer of other amateurs. His instructions are accompanied with full diagrams showing the approved blows and guards. He also gives full directions for training for condition without danger of going stale from overtraining. It is essentially ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... was no object, and at last they solved the problem. At first Tom backed up to the jug and held it, though clumsily, for Sam to drink, and then the youngest Rover did the same for his brother. The water was warm and somewhat stale, yet both could remember nothing which had ever tasted sweeter to them. They drank about half of what the jug contained, then set the rest carefully away ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... translation, which, I fear, tells disappointingly little about the mammoth, giving no measurements nor any description of his appearance. The earlier part, too, about the distribution of the elephant family, is doubtless also stale news to you. ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... what is more important still, real intervals of travelling. I shall send you to a particular place for a particular purpose, and you will have to write about it on lines which I shall indicate. The danger of this sort of life is that of getting stale. That's why I don't want you to see too much of each other. And last of all," he said, rather gravely, "you must do what I tell you to do. There must be no mistake about that—but with all the apparent discipline of it, I believe you will find it ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... him, nor custom stale His infinite variety; other men cloy The appetites they feed; but he makes hungry Where most ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... I could I nould believe your tales and fables stale and trite, Irksome as twice-sung tune that tires the dulled ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... something!" he exclaimed. "It may be stale news, and it may be something for the future, but it's worth trying. I wonder I didn't think of ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... all things new. Through eternity, new joys, new knowledge, new progress, new likeness, new service will be ours— and not one leaf shall ever wither in the amaranthine crown, nor 'the cup of blessing' ever become empty or flat and stale. Eternity will be but a continual renewal and a progressive increase of ever fresh and ever familiar treasures. The new and the old ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... salutarily to raise the temper, cultivate caloric, and deepen convictions previously held; he must exchange criticisms and discuss standards with others, else he will be eternally making discoveries that are stale and unprofitable to the rest of the world; he will seek to reach men's souls through channels long dammed up, and his achievements will be marred by naive triteness ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... floating isle, tost on ill fortune's waves, Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves; Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand; Thou fix'd of old, be now the moving land! Although the metaphor be worn and stale, Betwixt a state, and vessel under sail; Let me suppose thee for a ship a while, And thus address thee in the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... well, but a small room, circular, with little rivulets of stale water running down the granite walls. The ceiling closed low over his head, and the only source of light came from the single doorway opening into a ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... the woods and then kept on going until we reached a big city where there was a brewery, but they had set fire to the whole city before they left. We got some beer and wine just the same. It was a little stale, but it was fine. The Huns' warehouses were all fixed for the winter and the boys got cigars and cigarettes, but I was a little too late ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... pretensions of the Americans. The moon served as a pretext for a thousand stale puns and a score of ballads, in which bad taste contested the palm with ignorance. But as formerly the French paid before singing, so now they paid after having had their laugh, and they subscribed for ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... notice that the dishonest are generally pleasing. No, you can't have the table. It would hide a lot of you. I want to talk to you, Helen. Have one of these stale buns. What a meal for you! We've got to ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... it is to start a piece of work, either intellectual or muscular, feeling stale—or oold, as an Adirondack guide once put it to me. And everybody knows what it is to "warm up" to his job. The process of warming up gets particularly striking in the phenomenon known as "second wind." On usual occasions we make a practice of ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... the days of "Posa" and "Werther" and Wieland; "his heart was never more susceptible to what is good," and "his bosom never swelled with nobler thoughts," he says in one of his letters. Then he goes on to describe the "flat, stale, and unprofitable" surroundings in the midst of which he was confined. "Round about me here it is icy cold, as in Nova Zembla, whilst I am burning and being consumed by the fiery breath within me," he says in another place. The violence of his inner conflict, of his heart-torture and unhappiness, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... What was there left for him? As regards any triumphs which the future might bring in connection with his work, he was, as Mac the stage-door keeper had said, "blarzy". Any success he might have would be but a stale repetition of other successes which he had achieved. He would go on working, of course, but—. The ringing of the telephone bell across the room jerked him back to the present. He got up with a muttered malediction. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Some ladies were buying stamps as Susy dashed through the shop on her way to the family rooms at the back. Mrs. Hopkins was selling stationery to a couple of boys; she looked up as her daughter entered. Susy went into the parlor, where tea was laid on the table. It consisted of a stale loaf, some indifferent butter, and a little jam. The tea, in a pewter teapot, was weak; the milk was sky-blue, and the jug that ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... visible to the dullest apprehension. The once national sport of horse-racing is being degraded to a trade in which it is difficult to perceive anything either sportive or national. The old pretence about the improvement of the breed of horses has become a delusion, too stale for jesting.' ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... and stale, but Phineas was not in the mood to be particular. He ate like one famished, and drained the pitcher ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... they are boys, hurry along in pairs, with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white trousers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day's dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks' doors; but a consciousness of their own importance and the receipt of seven shillings a-week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight, comes to their aid, and they ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... shadows of the dark landing the dog came slowly and warily, ready to turn and slink off if he met no welcome, but Tode was in the mood when even a strange dog was better than his own company. He fed the half-starved creature with some stale sandwiches, and then talked to him and tried to teach him some tricks until to his own surprise he heard the city clocks striking nine, and the long, lonely evening he had dreaded ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... gray light of a winter dawn mingled with the dull flare of the hanging-lamp increasing the ghastliness of his appearance, sat Michael Gregoriev, in the stale bitterness of a night-old rage and mortification. On the floor, in an unceremonious heap, lay his heavily embroidered coat, with its medals still upon it. In its stead the Prince had wrapped himself in a worn robe of old brocade, fur-lined. Heavy felt slippers shod ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a postchaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking! It ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... he was late. He took three long steps, collided with a sodden old gentleman who was just arising from a bench—and then was standing very still, looking about him as in a daze, unconscious of the mutter of apology which, together with an odor of stale beer, was fermenting beneath his nose. The old gentleman, pursuing a ray of sun, slipped on to a farther bench. But Charles-Norton still stood there, gazing about him in a sort of mild astonishment, as if, while he was not looking, the scene about him had been transformed ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... attack. Everything that is usually said against a new departure in literature or art was said against the Revizor. It was not original. It was improbable, impossible, coarse, vulgar; lacked plot. It turned on a stale anecdote that everybody knew. It was a rank farce. The characters were mere caricatures. "What sort of a town was it that did not ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... detaining the fair reader too long, enter into a wholesome dissertation here on the manner of friendship established in those institutions, and the noble feeling of selfishness which they are likely to encourage in the male race? I put out of the question the stale topics of complaint, such as leaving home, encouraging gormandising and luxurious habits, etc.; but look also at the dealings of club-men with one another. Look at the rush for the evening paper! See how Shiverton orders a fire in the dog-days, and Swettenham ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is austere and haughty and cannot abide familiarity. Once his family were his sole thought, but now he goes about thinking of his fish-hooks all the time. And his wealth makes everybody cringing and obsequious to him. Formerly nobody laughed at his jokes, they being always stale and far-fetched and poor, and destitute of the one element that can really justify a joke—the element of humour; but now everybody laughs and cackles at these dismal things, and if any fails to do it my father is deeply displeased, and shows it. Formerly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... blows at night all you have is your little hall bedroom in a rooming house that smells of stale smoke and cabbage. There's no place to go except the streets—but you've just got to go somewhere, to break loose and have a little fun,—even though you're so tired you want to throw yourself on the bed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... perhaps, but he's got the god of war in um. Adjetant Wallis, it's a —— long time between dhrinks, as I think ye was sayin', an' with rayson. See if ye can't confiscate a canteen of whiskee somewhere in the camp. Bedad, if I can't buy it I'll stale it. We're goin' to fight to-morry, an' it may be it's the last chance we'll have for a dhrink, unless there's more lik'r now in the other worrld than ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... a mind that is filled with negative, discordant or inharmonious thoughts, I am separating myself from the full expression of the Divine within me. I am the bucket of water going stale on a human island; but, when I make my spirit at one with the Father by harmonious thinking, by love, kindness, good will, fellowship and co-operation, I am not only maintaining all of my original properties, but I am in correspondence with the ...
— The Silence • David V. Bush
... intention of its own, insisted for him; but that was all. It was difficult to guess his age—whether he were a young man who looked old or an old man who looked young; it seemed to prove nothing, as against other things, that he was bald and, as might have been said, slightly stale, or, more delicately perhaps, dry: there was such a fine little fidget of preoccupied life in him, and his eyes, at moments—though it was an appearance they could suddenly lose—were as candid and clear as those of a pleasant boy. Very ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... werkes{;} speke for ham alle. [&] freine hweonene he cume. [&] hwuch hird ha leade. fearlac{65} hire ontswere. Ich nat nawt e time{;} for ha ne seide hit me nawt. ah eau{er} loki hwenne. for hire wune is to cumen bi stale ferliche [&] unmundlunge hwen me least wene. of hire hird [/] ...
— Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250 - Part I: Texts • Various
... had to get through was dying. It was going to be quicker than the way they had of dying in Davos, but it mightn't be quick enough; it might drive him out of his last fight, back to an inconceivable stale world. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... thoroughly cooled before being put into box or jar. If not, the steam will cause them to mold quickly. Crusts and pieces of stale bread should be dried in a slow oven, rolled into fine crumbs on a board, and put away for croquettes, cutlets or anything that is breaded. Pieces of stale bread can be used for toast, griddle- cakes and puddings and for dressing for poultry and other ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... the great pillared house the tall young son wandered aimlessly about after his father's abrupt departure. In the house there was little to interest him; the books were old and stale, the local newspaper flat, and the women had retired with headaches and sewing. He tried a nap, but it was too warm. So he sauntered out into the fields, complaining disconsolately, "Good Lord! how ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a dingy bar-room, with saw-dust strewn upon the floor, and the odor of stale beer and tobacco-smoke in the air—here suddenly the boy sprang forward, with a cry: "Father!" And a man who sat with bowed head in a corner gave a start, and lifted a white face and stared at him. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and staggered ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... a hateful twinkle of the eyes. "So you're out for a spree," he continued, winking in a knowing way. "Won't you walk into the back-parlor while I get them?" And he showed them into a dingy horrid room behind the house, stale with smoke, and begrimed ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... When Kate was gone they would begin to call her "Miss" sometimes. Somehow she did not care to look ahead. The present seemed enough. She had so wrapped her thoughts in her sister's new life that her own seemed flat and stale ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... was a flavor of stale tobacco smoke in the room this morning when I entered, and ashes on the carpet. I KNOW that young Mr. Alexander has abandoned the pernicious habit. See that it does not ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... Speaking about this, some said, Well enough—he has become quite incompetent of late. Getting stale, probably. Unable to discover the obvious, losing his keenness. Ten years in the Far East about does for one. But with Lawson, the situation was different. He had become so tired of boundary lines, of perpetual swaying back and forth from one side to the other, without conviction. Geographical and ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... doctor called in the forenoon and found his patient easier. Later in the day Mary said to Susan that as her master had taken physic, he would require more gruel, but as there was still some left, she need not make it fresh "as she was ironing." Susan replied that the gruel was stale, being then four days old, and, further, that having herself tasted it, she felt very ill, upon which facts Mary made no comment. She thoughtfully warned the cook, however, that if Susan ate more of the gruel "she might do ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... and examined it to find how much it had been cut. He issued them slips, which they added as part of the contributions. "Good work—you, too, Gordon. Best week in the territory for a couple of months. I guess the citizens like you, the way they treat you." He laughed at his stale joke, and Gordon was willing to laugh with him. The credit on the dope had paid for most of the contributions. For once, he had money to show ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... cirumstance too well known to many farmers. Those who wish to consult the remedies recommended against this, may refer to The Annals of Agriculture, and most other books on the subject. It is usual with farmers to mix the Wheat with stale urine or brine, and to dry it by sifting it with slaked lime, which has the effect of causing it to vegetate quickly, and to prevent the attacks of many insects when the seed is first put into the ground. This is considered as productive of great benefit to the ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... he accepted so many rules and manners and turns in order to free himself of the necessity of making free and full and spontaneous movements. With Reger, creation becomes routine. His works are stereotyped; stale terribly quickly. There are moments when one wonders whether he understood at all what creation is. For certainly, three-quarters of his compositions seem written out of no inner necessity, bring no liberation ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... fingers; and afterward fried the already over-roasted meat with onions, garlic, red pepper, and oil, which is always rancid in Portugal, from the custom of never pressing the olives until they are stale. ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... to fresh vigour by the influence of Savonarola. In spite of the wearisome visions and allegories from which she recoiled in disgust when they came as stale repetitions from other lips than his, her strong affinity for his passionate sympathy and the splendour of his aims had lost none of its power. His burning indignation against the abuses and oppression that made the daily story of the Church and of States ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... views thrown upon the screen, Lilly sang from a dark stage into the warm musk and stale linen-smelling theater, a ballad as slow and sweet as taffy ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Annunziata, although it possesses not a few drawbacks, can be made both amusing and instructive; we can even find something attractive in the quality of the local atmosphere, which suggests at one and the same time sunshine, garlic, incense, stale fish and wood smoke; it is the pungent but characteristic aroma of the South, filled "with spicy odours Time can never mar." And what truly charming pictures do the family groups present in the wide archways giving on the untidy courts within, full ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... was long and black and the air was stale and thick with the stench of rodents. Stanton stood still, trying to probe the luminescent gloom that the goggles he wore brought to his eyes. The tunnel stretched out before him—on and on. Around him was the smell of viciousness and death. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... one another to live furthest from a station, to have no chimneys visible on the most distant horizon, to depend on tradesmen who only called once a week from cities so distant that fresh-baked loaves grew stale before delivery. "Rival ruralists would quarrel about which had the most completely inconvenient postal service; and there were many jealous heartburnings if one friend found out any uncomfortable situation which the other friend had ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... issued out of their silk prisons full fledged moths. But those who cultivate them to-day are in sore need. They have masses and indulgences to sell; they have big bills to pay. But whether left to grow their wings or not, their solitude is that of a cocoon larva, narrow, stale, unprofitable to the world. While that of a philosopher, a Thoreau, for instance, might be called Nature's filter; and one, issuing therefrom benefited in every sense, morally, physically, spiritually, can be said to have ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... its dirty cushions and half-smoked hookahs, smelt abominably of stale tobacco. In one corner lay a huge and shapeless woman clad in greenish gauzes, and decked, brow, nose, ear, neck, wrist, arm, waist, and ankle with heavy native jewellery. When she turned it was like ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... him; he was rather fat: the excitement of his talk with the little lady had made his forehead shine; when he smiled his drooping moustache could not hide a row of blackened, broken teeth. He smelt of stale tobacco, as though he carried old pipes in every pocket. He ate quickly and noisily, his eyes on his ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... the luncheon was finished the party returned to the Exposition. There was such a dense crowd in the galleries, it seemed impossible to penetrate it. An odor of perspiring humanity, a stale smell of old gowns and coats, made an atmosphere at once heavy and sickening. No one looked at the pictures any more, but at faces and toilets, seeking out well-known persons; and at times came a great jostling of the crowd as it was forced to give way before the high double ladder of the varnishers, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... wine-shop the driver had promised us. Here was a roof anyhow, so we entered, hoping for supper and beds in the wayside inn. All our host could produce was a very good bottle of Servian "black" wine and some coarse bread of the country, so stale that we could hardly break it. This wine, which is almost as black as ink, comes from Negotin, lower down the Danube, and is rather a celebrated vintage ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... cocoa-nut with a hole bored in it, containing at least a pint of clear, sweet- tasting water. This is erroneously termed by us "Milk," but it only becomes thick and milky when the cocoa-nut is very stale, in which condition it is never ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Fred stoically endured such as refused to be silenced by their brusque non-committalism. Benny, at first welcoming everything with the enthusiasm he would accord to a circus, soon sniffed his disdain, as at a show that had gone stale. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... close, two of the occupants of the leading boat reclined beneath a small awning and watched in silence the western splendor of the waning day,—that wonderful spectacle which is never twice the same and whose incomparable glories never grow stale by repetition. The elder of the two was Madam Rothsay, whose placid face indexed the kindly nature that could not refuse the pleadings of a loved one, even when they were for the undertaking of so wild an ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... made in the thatch, the spirit of revolt took hold of Rosemary McClean again. The stuffy, narrow quarters—the insolent, doubled, unexplained, but very obvious, guard that lounged outside—the sense of rank injustice and helplessness—the weird feeling of impending horror added onto stale-grown ghastliness—youth, chafing at the lack ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... with an education does not always make an editor. Many of our editors grow discouraged over their failure to arouse a support to their journals, blaming the race for non-appreciation, when the fault lies with themselves. Do they give their readers news? If a local sheet, they deal in stale generalities. If a general sheet, they confine themselves to ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... out of them. One of the foreign officers on Lord Roberts' staff, in a criticism in one of his own papers, has written that the English infantry, more than any he knows, has the knack of fighting and marching and keeping on at it, day after day, without getting stale or suffering from any reaction. The fact is, our Tommies go into a fight with much the same indifferent good-humour that they do everything else with. Towards the end of each day's march the soldiers ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... was a done man, but he went on. When he was going through a wood further on, two men came out to him, one from each side of the road, and they took hold of the bridle of the horse and led it on between them. They were old stale men with frieze clothes on them, and the old fashions. When they came out of the wood he found people as if there was a fair on the road, with the people buying and selling and they not living people at all. The old men ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... should always be new and fresh in our affection, which is always recent and new in its operation and efficacy toward us. Other news how great or good soever, suppose they were able to fill the hearts of all in a nation with joy, yet they grow stale, they lose their virtue within few days. What footsteps or remainder is of all the triumphs and trophies of nations, of all their solemnities for their victorious success at home and abroad? These great news, which once were the subject of the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... a lonely year. My occupation was gone and I began to fear that I had outlived my usefulness. Life seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable. Betty's weekly letters were all that lent it any savor. They were spicy and piquant enough. Betty was discovered to have unsuspected talents in the epistolary line. At first she was dolefully homesick, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he took his walks in the deserted arcades of the empty Trocadero Palace, back of which he lived; went to the Theatre Francais, where he saw the great success of the day, and was startled that "an undramatic bagatelle with threadbare scenery, stale intrigues and superannuated theatrical tricks, could be playing on the foremost stage of the world;" saw at the Palais de l'Industrie the triennial exhibition of art works, "the creme de la creme of three salons, and found not one work of ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... times When all this fret and tumult that we hear Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... we 're ca'd a wee before The stale "three score an' ten," When Joy keeks kindly at your door, Aye bid her welcome ben. About yon blissfu' bowers above Let doubtfu' mortals speir; Sae weel ken we that "heaven is love," Since love ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... her eyes wandered over all the great wide room into its shadowy corners, and it was as if the frost of winter settled on her young heart. The old man hung up his coat and hat behind the door, and, opening the press, brought therefrom the half of a stale loaf, a plate on which reposed a microscopic portion of highly-coloured butter, and a scrap of cheese wrapped in paper. These he laid on the bare table, where the dust ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... see the play "Bartholomew-fair," with puppets. and it is an excellent play; the more I see it, the more I love the wit of it; only the business of abusing the Puritans begins to grow stale and of no use, they being the people that at last will be found the wisest. This night Knipp tells us that there is a Spanish woman lately come over that pretends to sing as well as Mrs. Knight; [A celebrated singer and favourite ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... another man were smiling at him. White light poured down from a cluster of globes. Somewhere in the ship engines purred with the hum of power. The air was fresh and pure, making him realize how foul and stale the air of the prison ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... tricks are very good of their kind, but how about those idle boasts of changing rivers into oceans and mice into elephants? Did you not say that you came from the land of dreams? These tricks you have done are stale and shopworn. Have you nothing new with which to regale my ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... before I go. Come; don't move till I have done." And as he spoke to her he went on tugging at the bone, and swallowing the lumps of stale bread. He had already finished the bowl of milk. "And, now," said he, "tell me who ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... playing leaned forward, pipes or cigarettes in their mouths, their stomachs pressed against the table, their eyes narrowed and excited. The air was a stench of stale smoke; the silence between ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... almost impossible to drive a nail properly if it was started wrong, and the skillful workman will draw it out and start it over again. But such a blunder in lecturing cannot be remedied—at least for that occasion. A stale or confused beginning haunts and depresses the mind of the speaker and makes his best work impossible. It also destroys the confidence of the audience, so that what comes later is likely to ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... particular, Samuel Weller and Mrs. Gamp, of which I say no more. I am pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... spend the night. He wanted to look the wind and weather straight in the face, there in the glacial air, in the gloom under the pale sheen of the arc-lights fastened to the mast. He shuddered at the thought of a night in the oppressive confines of his cabin, with the closed port-hole and the hot, stale air. But that alone was not the reason which kept him chained to the deck. It was the urge, in case of danger, to be near Ingigerd Hahlstroem. And when he seated himself near the smoke-stack, with his back against the heated wall, his hat drawn ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... nevertheless, most fitted for the convivial role of host, and no part that he played in his varied repertoire afforded such opportunity for the nice display of his unusual talents. History hath sneered at his rhymes as flat, stale and unprofitable; upon the bloody field he had been defeated and subsequently imprisoned; clever in diplomacy, the sagacity of his opponent, Charles, had in truth overmatched him; yet as the ostentatious Boniface, in grand bib and tucker, prodigal in joviality ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... have a clean wholesome odor, characteristic of their particular class. The odor of decomposition can be readily detected; stale and ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... of three hundred feet long, fifty broad, and eight deep; which, being well pitched, to prevent leaking, was placed on the floor along the wall in an outer room of the palace. It had a cock near the bottom to let out the water, when it began to grow stale; and two servants could easily fill it in half-an-hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion, as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought themselves well entertained with my skill and agility. Sometimes ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... and it has been told by Lockhart in one of those capital passages of English literature on which it is folly to attempt to improve or even to comment, and which, a hundred times quoted, can never be stale. Sir Walter Scott died at Abbotsford on September 21, 1832, and was buried four days later at Dryburgh, a post-mortem examination having disclosed ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... pride that makes thee swell As big as thou dost blown-up veal; Nor all thy tricks and sleights to cheat, And sell thy carrion for good meat; Not all thy magic to repair 750 Decay'd old age in tough lean ware; Make nat'ral appear thy work, And stop the gangrene in stale pork; Not all that force that makes thee proud, Because by bullock ne'er withstood; 755 Though arm'd with all thy cleavers, knives, And axes made to hew down lives, Shall save or help thee to evade The hand of Justice, or this blade, Which I, her sword-bearer, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... gullery. Nay, perhaps he would be of King Seleucus' opinion, that he who knew the weight of a sceptre would not stoop to pick it up, if he saw it lying before him, so great and painful are the duties incumbent upon a good king.—[Plutarch, If a Sage should Meddle with Affairs of Stale, c. 12.]—Assuredly it can be no easy task to rule others, when we find it so hard a matter to govern ourselves; and as to dominion, that seems so charming, the frailty of human judgment and the difficulty ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... collar; breakfast in dress clothes; a wet house-dog, over-affectionate; the other fellow's tooth-brush; an echo of "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"; the damp, musty smell of an empty house; stale beer; a mangy fur coat; Katzenjammer; false teeth; the criticism of Hamilton Wright Mabie; boiled cabbage; a cocktail after dinner; an old cigar butt; ... the kiss of Evelyn after ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... and then all that was under me would be swept away. I descended into the muffled saloon, which was a little box enclosing light and warmth partially submerged in the waters. There it smelt of hot engine-oil and stale clothes. I got used to the murmuring transit of something which swept our outer walls in immense bounds, and the flying grind of the propeller, and the bang-clang of the rudder when it was struck . . . and must have gone to ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... the stimulus to the trees the next season. It is a good plan to apply the stable manure on the top of this plowed ground early in the winter. Fall plowing gives a better opportunity for rotting the sod and exposes to the winter action of the elements the soil, which is usually stale and inactive after lying so long unturned. In the spring the regular treatment with springtooth and spiketooth harrows should be followed as ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... of medium size, and in colour a dark purple. The rind is very thin, and when broken the pulp dissolves in the mouth immediately. Although Dr. M. has just commenced his vineyard, he has made several casks of wine this year, which is now in a stale of fermentation. I tasted here, for the first time, aguardiente, or brandy distilled from the Californian grape. Its flavour is not unpleasant, and age, I do not doubt, would render it equal to the brandies of France. Large quantities of ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven! Oh! times In which the meagre, stale forbidding ways Of custom, law and statute, took at once The attraction of a country ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... and unkempt appearance. The atmosphere of the sitting-room was stuffy and redolent of stale tobacco smoke. Wrayson's first action was ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the interior of the smoker, which, except for two or three dozing commuters and a noisy euchre-party, had been empty of everything but the fumes and stale odors of tobacco, and found it swarming with visions, the eidolons of everything he remembered from his past life. Whatever had once strongly impressed itself upon his nerves was reported there again as instantly as he thought of it. It was largely a whirling ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... about his lane, occurring prominently in its night scenery, as a dark figure, or one of two, against the moonlight. He saw also the working of city commerce, from endless warehouse, towering over Thames, to the back shop in the lane, with its stale herrings—highly interesting these last; one of his father's best friends, whom he often afterwards visited affectionately at Bristol, being a fishmonger and glue-boiler; which gives us a friendly turn ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... victorious over some undeserved misfortune and of taking possession of a home to which he had some ancient right, was the tone given to Harry's settlement at Yoden, and for a long time he felt compelled to honor it, even after it had become stale and tedious. For it pleased his mother, and she did many unconsidered things to encourage it. For instance, she gave a formal dinner at Hatton Hall to which she invited all the county families and wealthy manufacturers within ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... come to us so late, and so suspiciously, that observations on them would certainly be stale, and possibly wide of their actual state. From their general aspect, however, I collect that your Majesty's interposition in them has been disinterested and generous, and having in view only the general good of the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... misery as when the human animal eschews all cleanliness to wallow in filth. And matters were made worse by the smell from a small, improvised market—the emanations of the rotting fruit, cooked and sour vegetables, and stale fried fish which a few poor women had set out on the ground amidst a throng of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... through her time. Hugging this melody of Marcia. Through the knife-edged nervous evenings in the theater. Bawlings. Purple lips with loose muscles crawling under the rouge. Fetidness of scent on stale bodies. Round faces that could hook into the look of vultures when the smell of success became as the smell of red meat. All the petty soiled vanities, like the disordered boudoir of a cocotte. The perpetual stink of perfume. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... it, which lasted far into the spring, and once or twice we got aboard this great raft and tracked across it, with as much awe and enthusiasm as ever Kane had felt in his arctic explorations. In all, we became intimate friends with the lake idea, new to us then, but never to grow stale; and our good fortune favored us during after-life with many lovely lakes and ponds, including such gems as Rydal, Walden, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne |
