"Placidly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said the Japanese leader placidly, "we shipwreck sailors, nothing to do with that ship at all. This man tell story about boat—we not know anything of that boat. Our boat sunk on rocks, away ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... chicken quite finished (including two beady black paint eyes) Chet was momentarily at a loss. Miss Kate had not told him to stop painting when the chicken was completed. Miss Kate was at the other end of the sunny garden walk, bending over a wheel-chair. So Chet went on painting, placidly. One by one, with meticulous nicety, he painted all his finger nails a bright and cheery yellow. Then he did the whole of his left thumb, and was starting on the second joint of the index finger when Miss Kate ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... been here, and—? She shook her head suddenly with a quick, emphatic gesture of dissent. The door was still locked, she could see the key on the inside; and, besides, as a theory, it wasn't logical. They wouldn't have taken her revolver and left her placidly asleep! ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... remained unperturbed by such fanciful problems; and that was Mrs. Lombard, who, at Wyant's entrance, raised a placidly wrinkled brow from her knitting. The morning was mild, and her chair had been wheeled into a bar of sunshine near the window, so that she made a cheerful spot of prose in the poetic gloom ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... very placidly; "on the contrary I was just thinking it must be heaven. And I am tolerably certain," I commented further, in my soul, "that you are one of the ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... suppose the shopkeeper doesn't know what has caused so great a gathering," Chris Gore said, placidly, and added, with a meaning look at Hardy, "If I had taken any part in raising that warning I should be careful to keep ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... of the visitors first, and with a start which nearly upset the tea table, came running forward to meet them; while her aunt, Mrs. Eustace, followed more placidly. Nannie was a big wholesome outdoor girl of a purely American type. She waited for no greetings; ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... city. It has standardized all the beauty out of life. It is one big railroad station—with all the people taking tickets for the best cemeteries," Dr. Yavitch said placidly. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... downstairs, and stood in the doorway for a few minutes, looking about her. The house was very still; nothing seemed to be stirring, or even awake, except herself. She peeped into the parlor, and saw Cousin Wealthy placidly sleeping in her easy-chair. At her feet, on a round hassock, lay Dr. Johnson, also sleeping soundly. "It is the enchanted palace," said Hildegarde to herself; "only the princess has grown old in the hundred years,—but so prettily ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... of the wall, he again filled his pipe and began to smoke placidly, scanning with a seaman's eye the various vessels lying ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... fall in order to listen; and the young warrior was so drowsed with the sweetness, that languor crept through all his senses, and he slept. Armida came from out a thicket and looked on him. She had resolved that he should perish. But when she saw how placidly he breathed, and what an intimation of beautiful eyes there was in his very eyelids, she hung over ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Old Man of the Coast, Who placidly sat on a post; But when it was cold, He relinquished his hold, And called for some ...
— Book of Nonsense • Edward Lear
... he awoke, it was in that odd, serene way that sometimes occurs. We open our eyes, we know not why, quite placidly, and are on the instant wide awake. He had had a nap of some duration this time, for his candle-flame was fluttering and flaring, in articulo, in the silver socket. But the fire was still bright and cheery; so he popped the extinguisher on the socket, and almost at the same time ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... easy, although there were several notable engagements, for Heloise to become secretary to Gisela Doering. She never dared admit that she received a generous monthly cheque for her services, but Gisela was a favorite with the old lady (always sitting placidly in her chair, with her hands in her lap, a faint ironic smile on her still pretty face), and as her literary style was extolled by her exacting daughters (Frau von Erkel never read even a German newspaper, but subscribed for Le Figaro), and as she knew Gisela to be ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... conditions to look beyond them. It's people like him who are pouring water on the fires as they are lit, because fires are such bad form, and might burn up their precious chattels if allowed to get out of hand. Take life placidly; don't get excited, it's so vulgar; that's their religion. They've neither enthusiasm nor imagination in them. And ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... I understand it," beamed Ferrers placidly, "the whole trouble is caused by the loss of some seven hundred dollars that the Overton chap ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... time Jim Schuyler's motor had been waiting. It was strange to go out into the sunshine and see the smart chauffeur in his place, placidly reading ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I was too deeply angered to listen placidly to Sarah's vows of undying affection. My nerves were irritated by her fulsome adulation; indeed, I could not bear the sight of her nor yet the sound of her voice. You may imagine how thankful I was when ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was riding some distance ahead of the battalion, his little escort close beside, and Ralph was giving Buford a resting spell, and placidly ambling alongside the doctor. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... help her out, but, regaining control of her risibles, continued to eat and drink placidly, allowing her companion ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... do that, uncle. He grew thoroughly disgusted with what he saw over yonder, yesterday," placidly ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... beneath the shock the fearful earth hath grown! Reeling beneath the mighty plunge, it sighs with ceaseless moan; Now rush thy waves, with frenzy wild, in foam of dazzling white, Now, placidly they ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... thinly populated, and spreading pine-forests bound the horizon. The Cossacks—the wild men of Toula, who reaped the laurels of the rearguard fighting—were all along the road. D'Arragon frequently came upon a picket—as often as not the men were placidly sitting on a frozen corpse, as on a seat—and stopped to say a ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... the earth moving round the sun—he himself the while stupidly stock-still—let them believe it who like; is not he now placidly sailing through the turquoise sea? Below, the earth is unfolding all her freshened meadows, bravely pied with rainbow flowers. There is a very small soft wind, that comes in honeyed puffs and little sighs, that wags the lilac-heads, and the long droop of the laburnum-blooms. The grass is so wet—so ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... skirted from time to time, and so nearly that, as Mrs. Dollond remarked, it was like driving along the sands. Rainham identified spots for them as the prospect widened, naming sea-girt Mortola with its snug chateau, Mentone lying placidly with its two bays in the westering sun, and, now and again, notorious peaks of the Alpes Maritimes which bounded the horizon beyond. At the frontier bridge of St. Louis, where they alighted to meet the requirements of the Douane, even Mrs. Dollond's frivolity was changed into ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... house. They went round to the front door, because the back door belonged to another family. At the door, as they set down their pails again before mounting the stairs, Nettie smiled at her mother very placidly, and said— ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... Mrs. Elliott, and went on with her sewing, rocking back and forth placidly in her favorite chair. If the latter had been a woman who talked less and observed more, she would have noticed how drawn and furrowed her old friend's rosy, peaceful face had grown, how much repression ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... terrified at its new surroundings, and it was a little painful to find that it wanted to rush downstairs again at once, in spite of Ruth's fondest caresses. It was Mr Lorimer who came to her help, and succeeded at last in soothing its fears and coaxing it to drink some milk, after which it settled down placidly with her in the big chair and began its usual song of contentment. She examined it carefully with a grave face, and then ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... possible that the young Spaniard sang the serenade impersonally, as much to the elderly duenna who slumbered placidly on the other side of the fireplace as to his lovely young hostess. But his eyes told another story. They strayed continuously toward that slim, gracious figure sitting in the fireglow with a piece of ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... his power, a man of the very first rank, should have been content—even placidly content—to exercise it within a range by no means narrow, but plainly circumscribed, is certainly witness of limitation. "Delacroix is an eagle, I am only a skylark," he remarked once, with his characteristic ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... oars within a few strokes of her. She was floating as placidly as though she were in the harbour of San Francisco; the green water showed in her shadow, and in the green water waved the tropic weeds that were growing from her copper. Her paint was blistered and burnt absolutely ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the action to the word, and appeared suddenly before the lovers. He was not at all disconcerted at the effect his entrance produced upon them, and remarked placidly, "I could not find the sheriff's letter, but I assure you that Widow Rouleau's matter shall be speedily ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... looked placidly out at the lawn and, resting his shoulder on the head of the sofa, rubbed his chin with his hand. It was a trick he had when he was thinking deeply, and what the signora said made him think. Was it not ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was said until the pair reached the street and rejoined Basset and his little band of armed men, who stood placidly facing a crowd of nearly a hundred men principally composed of the more lawless and ruffianly element which is to be found in the lower ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... table Pierre was absolutely determined to go off. The cordial and simple meal, the sight of that family, which had been rendered so happy by Guillaume's return, and of that young woman who smiled so placidly at life, had brought him keen suffering, though why he could not tell. However, it all irritated him beyond endurance; and he therefore again pretended that he had a number of things to see to in Paris. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... now had sat with his knees cowering in by the fireplace, wheeled about, and with great difficulty of body shifted the same round to the corner of a table where I was sitting, and first stationing one thigh over the other, which is his sedentary mood, and placidly fixing his benevolent face right against mine, waited my observations. At that moment it came strongly into my mind, that I had got Uncle Toby before me, he looked so kind and so good." The letter, printed in full in other ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the second of June I came upon my first pair of young doves, two charming little creatures, sitting placidly side by side. Grave, indeed, and very much grown-up looked these drab-coated little folk, silent and motionless, returning my gaze with an innocent openness that, it seemed to me, must disarm their most bitter enemy. When I came upon such a pair, as I frequently did, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... promote his own re-election, but he appears to have done singularly little. At the beginning of 1864, when the end of the war seemed near, and the election of a Republican probable, he may well have thought that he would be the Republican candidate, but he had faced the possible choice of Chase very placidly, and of Grant he said, "If he takes Richmond let him have the Presidency." It was another matter when the war again seemed likely to drag on and a Democratic President might come in before the end of it. An editor who visited the over-burdened President in August told him that he needed some weeks ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... groove merely changed its direction. It was still the same groove and well oiled. It was a groove that bridged the Atlantic with uneventfulness, so that the ship was not a ship in the midst of the sea, but a capacious, many-corridored hotel that moved swiftly and placidly, crushing the waves into submission with its colossal bulk until the sea was a mill-pond, monotonous with quietude. And at the other side the groove continued on over the land—a well-disposed, respectable groove ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... most foolishly happy as they sat there on the bench, this man whose dim eyes ought to have been waiting placidly for the ship of death to appear above the horizon, and this young girl who imagined that she knew all about life and the world. When I say that they were foolishly happy, I of course mean that they were most wisely happy. Each of them, being gifted with common sense, and with a certain imperviousness ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... had never liked the idea of going back to it; and since Cronshaw's death he had remained in the little room, sleeping on a fold-up bed, into which he had first moved in order to make his friend comfortable. The baby was sleeping placidly. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... replied, looking up vacantly, "do what you think proper," and turned again to Mrs. Mackintosh, who proceeded placidly with her theme. ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... dat," continued Uncle Remus, folding his hands placidly in his lap, with the air of one who has performed a pleasant duty,—"long time atter dat, Brer Rabbit come up wid Brer Fox en Brer Wolf, en he git behime a stump, Brer ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... at the adjutant's door, and Strong shuffled forth in the moonlight and joined other dark forms over at head-quarters. The sentries were calling the midnight hour without, and the doctor was snoring placidly within. It was barely ten minutes before Strong came back, in one of his hurries, and Harris hailed for ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... park, and, entering the house, found his mother placidly knitting on a settee in ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... I did not. I felt very much amused. I recognized a slight manifestation of a grand principle. It was a straw showing how a current sets, but for which Britain would not be the country it is. I took my seat in another carriage, and placidly read my "Times." There was one lady in that carriage. I think she inferred, from the smiles which occasionally for the first few miles overspread my countenance without apparent cause, that my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... chapters about our life at Belfield, and perhaps of all I have to tell nothing would be so well worth telling. Belfield is a quiet place on the shore of Long Island Sound, placidly sleeping through the summers and autumns beneath the shadows of its immemorial trees. We went to school on the hill: below us was our ancient church built in far-off colonial times, and connected with many a story of Revolutionary times, to which we used to listen greedily: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... every moment. When Jinny realised this, which she did suddenly, she forgot all about her silk dress and her new boots, and ran frantically towards the water's edge, screaming with all her might; and at last John heard, and began to walk placidly towards the spot where he had originally crossed. The mud banks were out of sight now, and a broad belt of water was spreading rapidly on the other side. It was advancing rapidly also at his rear; soon the stretch of shore, half sand, half mud, ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus's heart ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... were at the seashore learning to sail boats and to play tennis, Peter Erwin came to his own. Nearly every evening after dinner, while the light was still lingering under the shade trees of the street, and Aunt Mary still placidly sewing in the wicker chair on the lawn, and Uncle Tom making the tour of flowers with his watering pot, the gate would slam, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a bang, went off to the new rector to knock two years off the age which his daughter kept for purposes of matrimony. The rector, grieved at such duplicity in one so young, met him more than half way, and he came out from him smiling placidly, until his attention was attracted by a young man on the other side of the road, who was regarding him ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... said, placidly, in his large voice of Northern command. He had some pity in his heart ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the girl placidly, "you won't. You have no horse and no horsewhip, but you have been drinking. Go from me, sir! Some one else ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Dr. Price greeted him placidly. "Always the same question! I've been here only a few minutes, and I've already told Strawn that I shall probably be unable to fix the hour of death with any ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... publications, having come across his name as a publisher in the course of my study at the British Museum. On the counter was a copy of the National Reformer, and, attracted by the title, I bought it. I read it placidly in the omnibus on my way to Victoria Station, and found it excellent, and was sent into convulsions of inward merriment when, glancing up, I saw an old gentleman gazing at me, with horror speaking from every line of his countenance. To see a young woman, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... between the two parts of the house, and surveyed the party. Mrs. Barclay sat on the step outside, looking over the plain of waters, with her head in her hand. Mrs. Armadale was in a rocking-chair, just within the door, placidly knitting. Mr. and Mrs. Lenox, somewhat further back, seemed not to know just what to do with themselves; and Madge, holding a little aloof, met her sister's eye with an expression of despair and doubt. Outside, at the foot of the steps, where Mrs. ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... and clumps of timber, and merging into a far line of low, scrub-grown hills. Then outside, and to the stables—a massive red brick pile, creeper-covered, where Monarch and Garryowen, and Bosun, and the buggy ponies, looked placidly from their loose boxes, and asked for—and got—apples from Jim's pockets. Tommy even made her way up the steep ladder to the loft that ran the whole length of the stables—big enough for the men's yearly dance, but just now crammed with fragrant ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... ever, partly because he had drawn all eyes and a fair share of sniggering and tongues thrust in the cheek upon his account; but most because he knew he had been trapped into losing a good place. For, as he mounted the narrow stair cut between old houses steep as rocks, he turned and saw Zoppa placidly smoking his pipe in the very spot he had held, squatted on the fountain-rim with his green umbrella between his knees. He was beaming through his spectacles, in a fatherly, indulgent sort of way, upon the shouting people; following the race too, like one who had paid for his box. Maso, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... reached camp there sat the half-breed placidly mending a blanket, with the bored air of one upon whom time hangs heavily. He looked up as Endicott ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... trees enclosed within their walls. Beyond the gardens rose the fine old-fashioned houses of the Mall, big Georgian houses that looked in front across the roadway at the line of elm-trees that bordered the canal. The green waters of the canal, winding placidly through its green channel, with the elm-trees reflected greenly in its green depths, had a suggestion ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... not till they had descended the straggling, tree-shaded street—along which the infrequent street-lamps threw little more light that that which came from the windows shining placidly out on lawns—and had emerged on the embankment bordering the Charles, that the events of the evening began for Davenant to weave themselves in with that indefinable desire that had led him back to Boston. He could not have said in ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... at work upon the 6th Symphony of Beethoven, placidly overcoming its difficulties, stopping now and then to polish up some delicate point, and taking things in an easy and rather indifferent manner. In the midst of it entered at the side door a young woman ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... the sacrifice made by the Thugs after a successful crime, and roomal the handkerchief with which they strangled their victims. All this was information culled from Colonel Meadow Taylor's book by the accomplished detective. "Well," said Hurd, smoking placidly, "what have you to say, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... at capture. On another occasion, he fell into the canal before our house, and terrified us by going under twice before the arrival of the old gondolier, who called out to him "Petta! petta!" (Wait! wait!) as he placidly pushed his boat to the spot. Developing other disagreeable traits, Beppi was finally driven into exile, from which he nevertheless furtively ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... remonstances, he was unpacked, rubbed dry, and returned to his own bed, where he slept placidly till nine o'clock. The next day fresh applications of wet cloths to the stomach, and in the evening one of the doctor's myrmidons arrived from Malvern. The doctor gave him ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of its stillness the repose she sought. The boats gathered around the spot. With every implement that could be of service the melancholy search began. Long intervals of fearful silence ensued, but at length, towards midnight, the sweet face of the dead girl was raised more placidly to the stars than ever it had been ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... flew by; as summer had melted into autumn so autumn had given place to winter. Life in the brick house had gone on more placidly of late, for Rebecca was honestly trying to be more careful in the performance of her tasks and duties as well as more quiet in her plays, and she was slowly learning the power of the soft answer in turning ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... some grave Etrurian citizen, wrapped in his mantle of Tyrrhenian purple, his straight-nosed wife at his side, with serpent bracelet and enamelled brooch, and a hopeful family clustering playfully at their knees, looked placidly on, while slaves were baiting and butchering each other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... untracked forests beyond. On his left a great cleft cut the earth, an eleven hundred yard valley, in the middle of which ran a river, sweeping into sight up there round the bend from the deep green of the bush—running placidly enough until it struck the foaming rapids above the trestle—then smoothing into quiet current and swinging back through the chasm to disappear into ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... he is happier than the human inhabitants of the village, the field labourers and shepherds who have been out toiling since the early hours, and are now busy in their own gardens and allotments or placidly smoking their pipes at their ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... long-suffering under this series of somewhat peremptory questions. He replied very placidly, "I am afraid I have but a superficial outside acquaintance with the secrets, the unfathomable mysteries, of music. I can no more conceive of the working ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... could not have found a more placidly happy and contented hound in England than the Lady Desdemona; and there were very few days on which she did not meet Finn, either at Nuthill or ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... the time of sunrise in Ceyce, the White City, placidly beautiful capital of Maccadon, the University World of ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... cattle ticks.—Unfortunately many cattle owners who have always been accustomed to see both ticks and ticky cattle on their farms are not inclined to attach much importance to these parasites, and, as a rule, through lack of appreciation of their damaging effects, placidly consider them as of little consequence. That ticks may be detrimental to their hosts in several ways has probably not suggested itself to these stockmen, who are most vitally affected, and it therefore seems necessary to emphasize ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... she had, for a flush rose on Daisy's poor pale cheeks, and her face was strangely grave. She did not answer the question, either; only as the flush passed away she looked placidly up and said, "I am not in ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hadn't come along just then," she said placidly, as she covered him decently with his coat, "you'd have been drownded. Took a cramp, ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... were twinkling merrily, but high up in the heavens the moon shone with a brilliant radiance that totally eclipsed all lesser lights. The night was very still, very beautiful, but the silence and the beauty failed to bring peace to the mother's heart. She looked up into the heavens. How placidly cold the moon looked back at her, the same moon that was probably shedding its beams upon her boy at that moment and could tell her where he was if it could but speak. Why, oh why, could those beams not speak and tell her what they saw; why could they not ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... characters respectable can ill spare the credit which it derives from a man, not indeed conspicuous for talents or knowledge, but honest even in his errors, respectable in every relation of life, rationally pious, steadily and placidly brave. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the naked sword The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held; His vigilant intense regard was poured 15 Upon the creature placidly unquelled, Whose front was set at level gaze which took No heed of aught, ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... ducklings swimming after their mothers: they were quite fearless, and would dash to the water's edge where one was standing and pick up nothing with the greatest eagnerness and swallow it with delight. The mother duck swam placidly close to her brood and clucked in a low voice all kinds of warnings and advice and reproof to the little ones. Mary Makebelieve thought it was very clever of the little ducklings to be able to swim so well. She loved them, and when nobody was looking she used to cluck at them like their mother, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... think, dear," said Lady Caroline, placidly. "Your father wants you to ride with him this afternoon, so I shall have the pleasure of Miss Colwyn's society in ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... placidly serene. The turn of this department comes after a heavy gale has damaged the submarine nets, chains and buoys. The torpedo officers and their "parties" are discussing the best way of moving four of these steel monsters from a neighbouring depot ship to a new "Q" boat with ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... in outhouses, the beggar snoozing placidly in a stout blouse, the philosopher shivering in tatters, Maimon saw his degradation more lucidly than ever. They had now turned their steps towards Poland, every day bringing Maimon nearer to the redeeming influence ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Mrs. Frank Garrison's features could say that she was a pretty woman. No one who looked merely at the general effect when she was out for conquest could deny it. Colonel Armstrong, placidly observant as usual, was quick to note the glances that shot between the cousins on the rear seat as the little lady came blithely alongside. He knew her, and saw that they were beginning to be as wise as he, for the smiles with which they greeted her were but wintry reflections of those ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... "I suppose," she said placidly. "Though it would depend on what you wanted out of life. Here in Dubbinville I think we're a ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... delight them, there the pungent and spicy fragrance of the southernwood would be doubly grateful to the nostrils. Little Missy sat down delightedly to nibble the caraway-seed, and her mother seeing her so quietly and absorbingly occupied, at once fell contentedly and placidly asleep in her corner of the pew. But five heads of caraway, though each contain many score of seeds, and the whole number be slowly nibbled and eaten one seed at a time, will not last through the child's eternity of a long doctrinal sermon; and when the umbels were all devoured, the young ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... more did no good; pony cantered on, and I saw we were making straight for the river. I knew that I must stop him; I threw so much good-will into the handling of my reins that, to my joy, the pony paused, let himself be turned about placidly, and took up his leisurely walk again. But now I was in a hurry, wanting to be dismounted before anybody should come; and I was a little triumphant, having kept my seat and turned my horse. Moreover, the walk was not good after that stirring ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... went on Ruth placidly, "I asked him what sort of children he thought we were likely ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... set out to explore one of these minor streams in your canoe, you have no intention of epoch-making discoveries, or thrilling and world-famous adventures. You float placidly down the long stillwaters, and make your way patiently through the tangle of fallen trees that block the stream, and run the smaller falls, and carry your boat around the larger ones, with no loftier ambition than to reach a good camp-ground before dark and to pass the intervening hours ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... monotonous dreariness of a tempestuous voyage. The highlands and valleys, as we sailed up, had a verdant woody appearance, and were interspersed with rural and chateau scenery; herds of cattle remarkable for length of horn, and snow-white sheep, were grazing placidly in the lowlands. The country, as far as I could judge, seemed in a high state of culture, and the farms, to use an expression of the celebrated Washington Irving's, when describing, I think, a farm-yard view in England, appeared "redolent of pigs, poultry, and sundry other good things ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... religion of the Christ is another. Christianity is a river into which has flowed thousands upon thousands of streams, springs, brooks and rills, as well as the sewage of the cities. In the main it traces to pagan Rome, united with the cool, rapid-running Rhone of classic Greece. But the waters of placidly flowing Judaism, paralleling it, have always seeped through, and the fact that more than half of all Christianity prays to a Jewess, and that both Jesus and Paul were Jews, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... world to know. That a girl student should mistake "Launcelot Gobbo" for King Arthur's knight is not a matter of surprise to one who remembers how three young men, graduates of the oldest and proudest colleges in the land, placidly confessed ignorance of "Petruchio." Shakespeare, after all, belongs to "the realms of gold." The higher education, as now understood, permits the student to escape him, and to escape the Bible as well. As a consequence of these exemptions, a bachelor of arts may be, and often ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... quarter, seemed to suggest, as the most prudent course under the circumstances, a return to the port they had just left. The mate, after many uneasy glances to windward, turned to his superior officer, who was sitting by the companion placidly smoking, and proposed this. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... what you have to do with it!" said Sylvia, placidly. "And I have waited to tell you that I hope you will never interrupt me again when I am engaged in entertaining a ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire. ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... spectator. The baker stands in his door; the colonel with his three medals goes by to the CAFE at night; the troops drum and trumpet and man the ramparts as bold as so many lions. It would task language to say how placidly you behold all this. In a place where you have taken some root you are provoked out of your indifference; you have a hand in the game—your friends are fighting with the army. But in a strange town, not small ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... has robbed me of my wallet, with fifteen dollars in it, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake I was going to give Aunt Farnsworth!' exclaimed she, placidly. Stout folks bear disasters calmly. Luckily, she had two or three dollars in her satchel, which she had received from the ticket master when she purchased her ticket, so she was not entirely bankrupt. Some of the passengers attempted to sympathize with her, but they found it a thankless ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... an insinuation, my lord," said Joan, placidly, "it is a charge. I bring it against the King's chief minister ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... have much preferred to be allowed to withdraw of his own accord rather than remain to be beaten. But his friends had all opposed the idea as cowardly, and he had given in to them. He now took his defeat very placidly, and even joined in the laughter which greeted ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... Kittie, as placidly as though nothing was disturbing the serenity of her sister, "you see, my dear, how ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... wind-harp swinging in an abbey door. She surrenders to the will of her husband and neither frets nor questions nor walks with discontent. I suppose she has a will of her own, packed somewhere away in that benignant big body of hers, but she never obtrudes it. She placidly awaits her time, as the bosom of the prairie awaits its harvesting. And I've been wondering if that really isn't the best type of woman for married life, the autumnally contented and pensively quiet woman who can remain unruffled by man ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... they strive to push their abdomen and their ovipositor as far forward as possible, at the risk of rumpling their wings and cocking them towards their heads. The care of the person is neglected amid this serious business. Placidly, with their red eyes turned outwards, they form a continuous cordon. Here and there, at intervals, the rank is broken; layers leave their posts, come and walk about upon the snake, what time their ovaries ripen for another emission, and then hurry back, slip into ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... calmly and placidly. I prevailed on Dr Johnson to read aloud Ogden's sixth sermon on prayer, which he did with a distinct expression, and pleasing solemnity. He praised my favourite preacher, his elegant language, and remarkable acuteness; and said, he fought infidels ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... great Cuff's favourite flower everywhere; blooming in his garden, clustering over his door, looking in at his windows. Far from the crimes and the mysteries of the great city, the illustrious thief-taker was placidly living out the last Sybarite years of his life, smothered ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... be all right," said Hilda confidently and joyously. She was sure that the excursion to London had appealed to her mother's latent love of the unexpected, and that her faculty for accepting placidly whatever fate offered would prevent her from resisting the pressure that Sarah Gailey and Mr. Cannon ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the cooking pots, rushed to Birnier's side, gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bakuma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... circumlocution broke to her the news of the promised invasion and the suggested panacea. Finding that Mrs. Jessop took the matter on the whole amiably, he felt considerably relieved in mind, and began placidly to smoke his pipe over the Times. The leading article was stupid, soporific, the tobacco soothing, the fire hot; he was just hovering in delicious languor upon the very borders of dreamland when a knock at the door roused him abruptly. Of course, he ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... foreigners are!' Mrs. Murray said to me placidly as we drove away; 'but I am glad, my dear Margaret, that you have a voice worth training. It is a great thing to be able to amuse oneself with music and give pleasure to one's ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... at me again, and sank down, overcome, on a rock opposite me. Eg-Anteouen was still smoking placidly at the mouth of the cave. We could see the red circle of his pipe glowing in ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... and those of the cows who had not settled the question of mastery fought now a battle that was to be decisive for the whole summer. Soon, however, everything became quiet again, and in a couple of hours all of the animals, even the worst combatants, were grazing placidly side by side. ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... The grey mare ambled placidly on up the main Ypres road undisturbed by his philosophy. The dead of her kind were already forgotten, and the nose-bag on the saddle would be all the better for emptying. On each side of the road were gun positions, ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... sir,' said the lawyer, placidly, 'I do not seek for a moment to excuse my son's conduct, except to remind you that at a certain period of life romance counts for something. I believe many young ladies are like the young lady in the play—I ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... more in estimation by being contemplated in the absence of this poem than of any other single performance he has left us. Loftier flights he certainly has made, but in these he remained but a short while on the wing, and effort is too often perceptible; here the motion is easy, gentle, placidly undulating. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... rose, but, instead of complying, turned short and sprang, an open knife in his hand; my uncle Jervas stepped lightly aside, his long arm shot out, and the bull-necked man went down heavily; he was in the act of rising when my uncle set his foot upon the man's knife-hand, placidly crushed and crushed it until he roared, until the gripping fingers relaxed their hold, whereupon my uncle kicked the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... to speak of waist-measures to middle-aged persons like your mother and the colonel," she said placidly. "You like it ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... adventurers sat on their mattress raft in the midst of the wide ocean, with never a ship to be seen; the long sea-swell rolled placidly over the place where their ship had been. They sat huddled together in silence around the Churchwarden, too ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... right in recalling Mr. Kneebreeches so soon, Sister Tabitha," remarked Miss Grizzel, uneasily, when Griselda had left the room. But Miss Tabitha was busy counting her stitches, and did not give full attention to Miss Grizzel's observation, so she just repeated placidly, "Oh yes, Sister Grizzel, you may be sure you have done ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... great deal, in answer to his questions, about her past life, and what she told him was often disconcerting. The protective tenderness he had felt for her from the first was troubled by his realisation of the books she had placidly read—under Tante's guidance—the people whose queer relationships she placidly took for granted as in no need of condonation. When he intimated to her that he disapproved of such contacts and customs, she looked at ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... later Bartley and his stout companion were seated on the veranda of the hotel, gazing out across the mesas. They were both comfortable, and quite content to watch the folk go past, out there in the heat. Bartley wondered if the title "Senator" were a nickname, or if the portly gentleman placidly smoking his cigar and gazing into space ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... preen themselves; the strain upon them to maintain prices, if no less than for three months past, was not notably greater; the crisis would pass, I and my exposures would be forgotten, the routine of reaping the harvests and leaving only the gleanings for the sowers would soon be placidly resumed. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... was real and life was earnest. When the floor was strewn with playthings his habit had been to stand amid the wreckage and smile, whereupon Joanna would fly and restore everything to its accustomed place. After the passing of Joanna, Mother Carey sat placidly in her chair in the nursery and Peter stood ankle deep among ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fond of their pets; even when these last belonged to an inferior order of creation. Couthon would fondle his spaniel while he was signing a sheaf of death-warrants; and the Prophet, who could contemplate placidly a dozen cities in flames, and watch human hecatombs falling under the sword of Omar or Ali, cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than disturb a favorite cat ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... parting shot. Dick, lying on his back and staring up at a knot in the woodwork over his bunk, received it placidly. Probably he did not hear. His brow was corrugated in a frown, as though he were working out a sum or puzzling over some problem. The doctor closed the door softly, and some minutes later paid a visit to Mr Markham, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... very cordial welcome awaited Diana in the gaudily-furnished drawing-room over the toyshop. She found her father sleeping placidly in his easy-chair, while a young man, who was a stranger to her, sat at a table near the window writing letters. It was a dull November day—a very dreary day on which to find one's self thrown suddenly on a still drearier world; and in the Westminster-bridge-road the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... island where the convicts had met their death, the hunters could not repress a shudder of horror. Around it lay the repulsive-looking crocodiles, placidly sleeping on the water, and amongst them floated a man's straw hat. It was all that remained ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... into the stream. A second more and the trout was gone, leaving only a thin line of red to mark his passing. Angel and I ran forward to protect The Seraph if need be from the consequences of his hardy act; but the old man was smiling placidly. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... was that he expected, Mr John Welton never told from that day to this, so it cannot be recorded here, but, after stating the fact, he crossed his arms on his broad chest, and, leaning against the stern of his vessel, gazed placidly along the deck, as if he were taking a complacent survey of the vast domain over which ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... positive and thorough appreciation of the content of anything; for feeling the substance and not merely the surface of experience. "Content" ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased; placidly, perhaps, but still positively pleased. Being contented with bread and cheese ought not to mean not caring what you eat. It ought to mean caring for bread and cheese; handling and enjoying the cubic ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... there were two men just outside the stockade, one of them waving a white cloth, the other, no less a person than Silver himself, standing placidly by. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do; for I have now pitched my tent under a Cypress-tree; the Tomb is now my inexpugnable Fortress, ever close by the gate of which I look upon the hostile armaments, and pains and penalties of tyrannous Life placidly enough, and listen to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep for and never help; and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely in the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with your ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... himself along by sheer force of muscle, after the plebeian fashion of the crow, for instance, but progresses by a kind of royal indirection that puzzles the eye. Even on a windy winter day he rides the vast aerial billows as placidly as ever, rising and falling as he comes up toward you, carving his way through the resisting currents by a slight oscillation to the right and left, but never once beating ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... Window. From the footpath at the bottom he could look through the trees up to the bare crest of the rock. The gate through the high fence was padlocked, and contained a sign with the curt warning: "No Trespass." On the opposite side of the wide strip of meadow-land, in which cattle grazed placidly, he could see the abandoned house where Alix Crown was born,—a colourless, weather-beaten, two-storey frame building with faded green window shutters and a high-pitched roof blackened by rain and rot. Every shutter was closed; an atmosphere of utter ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... it," he said, placidly. "I went to a Doctor last week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before many days passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from over-exposure and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I've done my work now, and I don't care ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shone gold across the broad rolling lands, so that the hedges and the poplar-rows cast long blue shadows over the fields. The man, with a guardian on either side of him who cast nervous glances to the right and to the left, came placidly, eyes straight in front of him, out of the dark interior of the dressing-station. He was a small man with moustaches and small, good-natured lips puffed into an o-shape. At the car he ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... parlor, where little girls labored with: "And one and two, three and one and two, three," occasionally coming out to look at the clock to see if the hour was any nearer being up than it was five minutes ago. They also shone in sitting-rooms, where boys looked fiercely at "X2 2Xyy2," mothers placidly darned stockings, and fathers, Weekly Examiner in hand, patiently struggled to disengage from "boiler-plate" and bogus news about people snatched from the jaws of death by the timely use of Dr. McKinnon's Healing Extract of Timothy and Red-top, items of real news, such as who was ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... nature," however, claimed her dues, and one by one, officers and privates at late hours betook themselves to their blankets. The stars, undisturbed by struggles on this little planet, were gazed at by many a wakeful eye. Those same stars will look down as placidly upon the future faithful historian, whose duty it will be to place first in the list of cold, costly military mistakes, the blunder of the day after the battle ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... been formed a comely person, In the court of Caridwen I have done penance; Though little I was seen, placidly received, I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led; I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause, And by law without speech I have been liberated By a smiling black old hag, when irritated ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... The more I think of it the more terrible the thing becomes from every aspect. Who could have thought that I, only a few days ago placidly drifting down the stream of life, should be jerked into such a maelstrom of difficulties? I must, however, try to think calmly. As Dr. Johnson has said, 'One of the principal themes of moral instruction is ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... save where the gleams of the fire painted them a dull red, and nude, save for a narrow strip of coarse bark cloth twisted round their loins, lay on their stomachs with their chins propped upon their elbows, or squatted on their hams, smoking placidly. A curious group to look upon we must have been could any one have seen us: I, the European, the white man, belonging to one of the most civilised races in the Old World; the Malays, civilised too, but ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... have gone through life unloving and unloved. Of his death she thought not at all. It was what he would have chosen, painless and quick, a fall from his horse within sight of his own house. So her mother found her, calm and very beautiful, placidly ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... was left of April passed quickly. Life went on placidly enough at Harlowe House, although Grace found few idle moments. With the first of June she began a detailed report of her year's work to be presented to the faculty and to Mrs. Gray. This report had not been required of her. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... equally unaware of the amazed satisfaction of his employer. He went his way with naive and unconscious pleasure. It did not take long for his enemies to find a fulcrum for their chagrin. One evening, after closing, when he sat in the dressing room, with his feet in the usual tub of hot water, placidly reviewing the day's excitements and smoking his pipe, the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... noticed her when I came in, the original of the snapshot, sitting placidly in a corner darning socks. I must say the photograph had done her less than justice, for though she was undoubtedly commonlooking and sloppy, with heavy breasts and coarse red cheeks and unconcealedly dyed hair, there was ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... The policeman was placidly watching the scene, but concluding at last that something unusual was happening he came up and went into the house. A few minutes after he came out alone and walked measuredly on toward the ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... creature be lifted by the middle on a stick, its liquid contents are instantly separated, forming distended, high-pressure blobs at each end of the empty, flabby shrunken skin. Though it suffers this experiment placidly, being incapable of the feeblest resistance, it has the primordial gift of care of itself. Twists purposely made to test its degree of intelligence are artfullystraightened out, and the eagerness and hurry with ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the fence. By making the best time he could, he reached the opposite corner, and was nibbling the midrib of a young corn blade and placidly viewing the landscape ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... agonising conflict. "Poor heart," murmured she, in a deep and stifled tone, "what will become of thee!" She paused some moments, and at length, struggling to assume more composure, desired in a calmer voice that some one would read to her. Throughout the remainder of the evening she continued placidly and even cheerfully attentive to the person who read, observing that, should she recover, she designed to commence a long work, upon which she would bestow great pains and time. "Most of her writings," she added, "had been ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... views underwent various modifications, like all hasty yet candid judgments. She took Mr. Kendal into favour when she found him placidly submitting to Miss Meadows's showers of words, in order to prevent her gaining access to ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge |
