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Sedate   Listen
adjective
Sedate  adj.  Undisturbed by passion or caprice; calm; tranquil; serene; not passionate or giddy; composed; staid; as, a sedate soul, mind, or temper. "Disputation carries away the mind from that calm and sedate temper which is so necessary to contemplate truth." "Whatsoever we feel and know Too sedate for outward show."
Synonyms: Settled; composed; calm; quiet; tranquil; still; serene; unruffled; undisturbed; contemplative; sober; serious.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sedate" Quotes from Famous Books



... 16. THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... and herself. Finally Katherine agreed that Betty might "wiggle the tea-ball" provided that she—Katherine—should be allowed two pieces of lemon in every cup; and the three lively damsels settled down into a sedate group of tea-drinkers. ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... the leafless thicket Close beside my garden gate, Where, so light, from post to picket Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate; Who, with meekly folded wing, Comes ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... window-ledge at home;—the rounded back and neatly ordered tail, the immaculate fore-paws peering sedately below the snowy chest, the squeezed-up eyes which so resolutely shut off a bleak and (so to say) unenlightened world. That is pensiveness, sedate chastened melancholy; but it is soothing, it speaks a philosophy, and a certain balancing of pleasures and pains. In San Lorenzo cloister, when I looked in one hot noon seeking a refuge from the glare ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... hillside road the white-tented wagon moved slowly, Bearing the mother and children, while onward before them the father Trudged with his gun on his arm, and the faithful house-dog beside him, Grave and sedate, as if knowing the sorrowful thoughts of ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... Here, three thousand feet and more above the sea—upon which we looked down between cliff and woodland as through a funnel, and upon the roofs and whitewashed walls of fishing-villages on the edge of the blue—lived slow, sedate folks, who called their dogs off us and stared upon us as portents and gave us goat's-milk and bread, refusing the coins we proffered. The inhabitants of this Cape (I have since learned) are a race apart in Corsica; slow, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... of that?" asked Lola, with interest. Ana was now sixteen, and was nearly as heavy as her mother, and much more sedate. In true Mexican fashion the look of youth had left her betimes, and her swarthy plumpness had early hardened and settled to a look of maturity to which future years could ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... sentiers of asphalt, the rock-bound caverns, the huge iron bridges spanning little muddy lakes, the whole, crowded, cockneyfied place." In that way jaundiced happiness lies. But the soul of Central Park is not for you. Once upon a time there was a Central Park. The approaches to it were along sedate avenues or by restful side streets. When the Park was reached there were donkeys to ride, and donkey-boys, highly amusing in their cynicism and worldly knowledge, in attendance. The "rock-work" caverns were in fancy of an ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... M——; that in truth it was easy to see that there was, in the affair, more of imprudence and folly than of malice; but that still it was the second time I had been brought as a culprit under his cognisance; and that he had hoped I should have become more sedate, after the experience of two or ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost

... could bring him to the very spot or whistle him the very tunes; but he was busy, and wondered so sedate a man as myself could cherish ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... enthusiasm for my country had prepared her for the impression which the waxen mind of the dreamy invalid received deeply; and so, aided by the emotional blood of youth, she gave me place in her imagination, probing me still curiously, as I remembered, at a season when her sedate mind was attaining to joint deliberations with the impulsive ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... experience which came, if not precisely to Captain Johns himself, at any rate to his ship, there is no use in recording the other events of the passage out. It was an ordinary passage, the crew was an ordinary crew, the weather was of the usual kind. The black mate's quiet, sedate method of going to work had given a sober tone to the life of the ship. Even in gales of wind everything ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... Its flight is swift, but very short. When launching itself from the lofty height on which it is perched, it flies obliquely downwards, uttering at the same time a plaintive, whistling sound. It is more sedate in its habits than its brethren, nor does it seem to partake of their joyous spirit. The head and neck of the male are black, with a line running along the centre. The long beard is white, and round the neck and back of the head is a broad band of white. The ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... rather fiercely, and looked into the face of my old friend and fellow-student, Jervis, behind whom, regarding us with a sedate smile, stood my former teacher, Dr. John Thorndyke. Both men greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be very flattering, for Thorndyke was quite a great personage, and even Jervis was several ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... little noticed, yet so far from insignificant, where was she? Could it be that the Contessa had left her behind, or that Lucy had objected to her, or that she was ill, or that—Jock did not know what to think. The company was a strange one. Those sedate, political friends of Sir Tom found themselves with a little dismay in the society of the lady who wrote for what she called the Press, and the gentlemen from the clubs. One of the guests was the young Marquis Montjoie, who had quite lately come into his title and the world. He had ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... Mr. Graham with stolid thoroughness. "I think she must. He doesn't look at all like that. But my husband used to say that the sedate middle-aged-looking ones were often the worst, so perhaps she may have thought ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose

... hour, in private interview with the commander-in-chief. Finally, they came out together. General Lee in his plain uniform, with that sedate dignity of bearing which made the gray old cavalier so superb. I had the honor to receive his salute, and to press his hand, and then I set out with ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... sedate young man I have ever seen;—but his sedateness is temper'd with a sweetness inexpressible;—a certain mildness in the features;—a mildness which, in the countenance of that great commander I saw at ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... in the greater events of the day—the boisterous games on the smooth lawn, the picnic dinner under the trees, the beautiful music made by the lame girl and the little songbird of Italy; the destruction of the sham fort built by the dignified doctor and sedate young minister; the row on the river in the late afternoon; the gorgeous beauty of the place when the lanterns were lighted at dusk; and, fitting climax of that wonderful day, the brilliant display of fireworks which Jud set ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... trade, in partnership with his brother, Mr. Peter Garrick; they hired vaults in Durham Yard, for the purpose of carrying on the business. The union between the brothers was of no long date. Peter was calm, sedate, and methodical; David was gay, volatile, impetuous, and perhaps not so confined to regularity as his partner could have wished. To prevent the continuance of fruitless and daily altercation, by the interposition ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... little more tea. No? Then some sugar or lemon, just to freshen up a bit what you have. How handsome Marcia and Wilfred look standing together, she is so dark and he is so fair. He is a dear fellow and so steady and sedate. I love him like a son, and I consider his ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... the pages, for once giving way to nature, kept bursting—my men chuckled in sudden gusts—while even the women, holding their mouths for fear of detection, responded—and we all laughed together. Then a sedate old dame rose from the squatting mass, ordered the virgins to right-about, and marched them off, showing their still more naked reverses. I now obtained permission for the Wakungu to call upon me, and fancied I only required my interpreters ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... one game of which Farmer Green's sheep never seemed to tire. They called it "Follow My Leader." And even the oldest members of the flock played it every day. Though they had grand-children—many of them—and were quite solemn and sedate, they still continued to run anywhere whenever somebody happened to ...
— The Tale of Snowball Lamb • Arthur Bailey

... the young ladies of the wealthy districts of New York, consists of a comfortable blouse worn over knickerbocker trousers. Clad in this comfortable attire, the belles come to breakfast, nor do they subsequently change their dress during the morning if they intend remaining indoors. If a sedate or fastidious caller is announced, a beautiful tea-gown, which is at hand, is slipped into, and the young lady is appropriately clad to suit even conventional requirements. The bicycle and lawn tennis costumes now becoming so popular also exercise ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various

... steep rock, and a pair of large and handsome kingfishers,[1] pursuing their graceful avocations by a roadside pool—their white breasts, ruddy flanks, and gleaming blue backs giving a welcome note of colour to the sedate and misty grey ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... than a century and a half, feelings hardly compatible with temperate examination will not be stirred up in many minds by the name of Darien. In truth that name is associated with calamities so cruel that the recollection of them may not unnaturally disturb the equipoise even of a fair and sedate mind. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... gentle reader, with so commonplace an incident. Let her act on serenely until that glorious night in April 1713, when, back at Drury Lane, under the triumvirate of Cibber, Wilks and Dogget, she helps to make sedate Addison's equally sedate ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... daily reports, &c., and to take the chief responsibility of the whole. Catherine was quite friendly to me; and I was happy in the thought that there was now one at least who would stand by me, should any difficulties occur. How much I was mistaken in the human heart! This pious, sedate woman, towards whom my heart yearned with friendship, was my greatest enemy; though I did not know it until after ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... suddenly turned round, and with the most serious face thus addressed them—'I have often heard of the sovereignty of the people; I suppose your highnesses are in Court mourning,' We can well imagine the effect of this sedate speech on ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... love, perhaps, mingled with pity. She did not assume an air of superiority over him, but endeavored to encourage him, to lead him forward, to inspire him with confidence and hope, and to make him feel his own strength and value. She was herself of a sedate and thoughtful character, and with all her intellectual superiority, she was characterized by that feminine gentleness of spirit, that disposition to follow and to yield rather than to govern, that desire to be led and to be loved rather than to lead and be admired, which constitute ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... regarded Amy Mathewson, his long-time associate, with renewed wonder, and presently found himself addressing her from an entirely new point of view. This fair girl with the graceful head and the glowing blue eyes could not possibly be the sedate young woman who was accustomed to hand him instruments and sutures, ligate arteries, and attend to various minor matters from the other side of his operating-table. He wondered why he had never before ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond

... in that familiar, paternal and slightly contemptuous tone which sedate men assume when talking with women of loose morals, calling her: "my dear child," treating her from the height of his social position, his unquestionable honesty. He went straight to the core ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... national caution, was rather skeptical as to Tom's news, and did not suffer himself to become enthusiastic or excited. Tom had hard work to accommodate his impatient steps to the measured pace of his more sedate companion. When at length they reached the spot they found Russell no ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... Ambrose says (De Offic. i, 18) that "from these things," i.e. the outward movements, "the man that lies hidden in our hearts is esteemed to be either frivolous, or boastful, or impure, or on the other hand sedate, steady, pure, and free from blemish." It is moreover from our outward movements that other men form their judgment about us, according to Ecclus. 19:26, "A man is known by his look, and a wise man, when thou meetest him, is known by his ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... farmyard "most all cut to pieces," as Ruth said, when Doris stepped from the hall doorway and, glancing about, finally discovered Pete in the far corner of the veranda—deeply absorbed in searching for the hind leg of a noble horse to which little Ruth had insisted upon attaching the sedate and ignoble hind quarters of a maternal cow. So intent were they upon their game that neither of them saw Doris as she moved toward them, nodding brightly to many convalescents ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... the old gentleman. However, being Ruth Kenway, she would not have shown this in any way to ruffle his feelings; for, despite her own youth, Ruth had mothered her three orphaned sisters for so long that she was more sedate and thoughtful than most girls ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... the Senate and consult with the Senator from our district, and ascertain whether he entertained the same views of necessary appliances for legislation, as did my friends of the Second and Third Houses. Our Senator was a very sedate man, who had a reputation for honesty and piety, equalled only by that of Jones himself. I explained my business, showed him my bill, and he read it carefully through. On handing it back to me, he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... required his absence, and begged Captain Cook to await his return. He had not been gone long when a large sailing-canoe arrived, in which was a person named Poulaho, and whom the natives on board affirmed to be the real King of Tongataboo and of all the neighbouring islands. He was a sensible, sedate man, enormously fat, and about forty years of age. He was, of course, invited into the cabin, but his attendants observed that that could not be. On this the captain sent Omai to say that he would give directions that no one should approach the part of the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... these fruits of iniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who was so high up in the world that he could demand a dowry. And now Fan was a grandmother, with fixed ideas and habits, and a son in the house, and various grandchildren scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and disillusioned dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it she had taught her owners above ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... be found in the city—longshoremen, railroad hands, stevedores, tramps, thugs, thieves, pimps, rounders, detectives, and the like. He was very vain, considered himself handsome, a "killer" with the ladies. Married, and with two children and a sedate young wife, he still had his mistress, who changed from year to year, and his intermediate girls. His clothes were altogether noteworthy, but it was his pride to eschew jewelry, except for one enormous ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... of your ingenuous tricks. Perhaps it would be well if I were equally sensible, but there is no help for it. I like bright, happy people, and I think when youth vents itself, old age is more sedate ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... corrected Carolyn, with a modest catch in her breath. She was a quiet, sedate girl, with brown eyes and hair. Her eyes were shy, and her ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... by the spirit of an ancient Greek—felt no inclination to fight for the dead or the living body of his foe; and the whole party of plunderers were speedily in the saddle and on the retreat, with the exception of the more sedate personage on the bank. He, indeed, was more slow to mount, calling the man who had been knocked down "The Knight of the Bloody Nose" as he passed him; and then with a light laugh springing into the saddle, he followed the rest at ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... as I look back upon it, is to me a mystery. While I always possessed a keen sense of the ludicrous, and a hearty appreciation of fun of all sorts, there was a sedate side of my nature that demonstrated itself to the older members of the family, and of which they often spoke. For half days, or whole days, at a time I remember sitting on a small footstool beside an ordinary ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... years ago, Was moving home at two, sedate and slow, Old, and fatigued with pleading at the bar, And grumbling that he lived away so far, When suddenly he chanced his eye to drop On a spruce personage in a barber's shop, Who in the shopman's absence lounged ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... stereotyped conventional standard of fashionable life she had never yielded allegiance; and now stood a social free-thinker. For a season she allowed herself to be whirled on by the current of dinners, parties, and picnics; but soon her sedate, contemplative temperament revolted from the irksome round, and gradually she outlined and pursued a different course, giving to her gay companions just what ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... the certificate of this deposit; and even then said, in his old tone—how far it was from his expectation, that by any such anticipation of his approaching decease, he could at all depress the spirits of men so steady and sedate, whom, for his own part, he would much rather regard in the light of laughing than of weeping heirs; to which remark one only of the whole number, namely, Mr. Harprecht, inspector of police, replied as a cool ironist to a bitter one—'that the total amount of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... the writer—then a gallant staff-officer; now a grave, sedate and semi-bald counsellor—had lately returned from European capitals; and he was, of course, in envied possession of brilliant uniform and equipment. At a certain ball, his glittering blind-spurs became entangled in the flowing train ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... over a wretched wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge. The cat, a magnificently long-furred, fluffy animal, the envy of all portresses, presided there like the mistress of the house, grave and sedate, and without anxieties. On the top of an excellent Viennese piano he sat majestically, and cast upon the countess, as she entered, that coldly gracious look which a woman, surprised by the beauty of another ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... ground, when his sportive companions hop in turn over his expectant head. They then pirouette, turn somersaults, and go through various exercises with the skill of gymnasts. Their sportive proclivities seem to have no bounds; and being true humorists, they preserve through their gambols a ridiculously sedate appearance. Popular accounts of the nidification of these birds are frequently untrue. We are told that they build their cone-shaped nests of mud, sticks, and grass in shallow water, in colonies, and that their nests, BEING PLACED ON RAFTS of buoyant material, float about in the bayous, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... cheerfully, with her hat rather awry and her cheeks flushed with excitement and hope. Just now, when the Frau Professor had gone, the prospect of a music pupil meant everything. An American child, too! Fond as Harmony was of children, the sedate and dignified youngsters who walked the parks daily with a governess, or sat with folded hands and fixed eyes through hours of heavy music at the opera, rather daunted her. They were never alone, those Austrian ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... peculiar manifestation of the effects of this vicious practice. The victim is observed to become transformed, by degrees, from a romping, laughing child, full of hilarity and frolic, to a sober and very sedate little—Christian, the friends think, and they are highly gratified with the piety of the child. Little do they suspect the real cause of the solemn face; not the slightest suspicion have they of the foul orgies practiced ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... Queenie, a small, sedate maiden of five, a miniature of Theo in face, stood silent in the doorway for a few seconds, wistfully piecing out the possible meaning of her tall sister's bewildered grief. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell

... cried out, "but it's a big one!" and he rushed along the shore, jumping over all impediments; shrieking out in his eagerness in a manner which would have made a sedate Indian fancy that he had gone out ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... drawn sword while the horse was in full gallop over rough and difficult ground, and, clutching the mane, again vaulting into the saddle with the ability of a monkey, without once checking the speed. The fact of being on horseback had suddenly altered the character of these Arabs; from a sedate and proud bearing, they had become the wildest examples of the most savage disciples of Nimrod. Excited by enthusiasm, they shook their naked blades aloft till the steel trembled in their grasp, and away they dashed over rocks, through thorny bush, across ravines, up and down steep inclinations, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... kind of the van der Luydens—they've sent their man over from Skuytercliff to meet us," Archer exclaimed, as a sedate person out of livery approached them and relieved the maid ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... them; and so are all inadequate. But MIXED MODES and RELATIONS, being archetypes without patterns, and so having nothing to represent but themselves, cannot but be adequate, everything being so to itself. He that at first put together the idea of danger perceived, absence of disorder from fear, sedate consideration of what was justly to be done, and executing that without disturbance, or being deterred by the danger of it, had certainly in his mind that complex idea made up of that combination: and intending it to be nothing else but what is, nor to have in it any other simple ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... says Miss Wynter, staring hard at the professor. It is occurring to her that this grave sedate man with his glasses could never have been younger. He must always have been older than the gay, handsome, debonnaire father, who had been so dear ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... like all heroic tasks, his labours draw towards apotheosis, and in the light of victory himself shall disappear. For another advance has been effected. Our tame stars are to come out in future, not one by one, but all in a body and at once. A sedate electrician somewhere in a back office touches a spring - and behold! from one end to another of the city, from east to west, from the Alexandra to the Crystal Palace, there is light! FIAT LUX, says the sedate electrician. What a spectacle, on ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... had been to King's College two years we find in the faded and yellow old letter-book an item written by the father to the effect that: "Our Johnny is doing well at College. He seems sedate and intent on gaining knowledge; but rather inclines to ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... occasion, however, was done with a promptitude, and in a fashion, that was not usual in one of his sedate nature. Fortunately, none but men remained on the ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... blissful days Miss Tarlingford and I were seldom separated. Her sister, a pale, sedate maiden, of amiable appearance, and her brother, a small, rude boy, of intrusive habits and unguarded speech, I consented to undergo, for the sake of conventional necessity. To the mother of the Tarlingfords additional respect seemed due, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... passed and repassed, or sought the obscurity of the mangoes or the acacias. One heard the sibilance of kisses, the laughter, and the banter, the half-serious blows and scoldings of the vahines who repelled over-bold sailors. In an hour the sedate and the older took leave; the governor and the procureur turned into the Cercle Militaire for whist or ecarte and a glass of wine, the carriages withdrew, and the band's airs and manner of playing took on a new freedom and abandon. A polka was begun, and couples danced upon the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... course I wouldn't do anything like that," agreed the sedate Kitty. "But we'll have lots of fun with that tree-house; I'm going to sit up there and ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... his first afternoon in Berkeley. He was on the top of a step-ladder, helping put up an awning for our sorority dance that evening, uttering his proverbial joyous banter to any one who came along, be it the man with the cakes, the sedate house-mother, fellow awning-hangers, or the girls ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... after all, like a series of brilliant puns. More important merits than this must, no doubt, be attributed to Max Mueller; but, after all, so wayward is he and so whimsical, such a lover of paradox and of digression, that he must perpetually exasperate that sedate race of men whom Philology is supposed to have peculiarly chosen for its own. In this second series of Lectures, especially, "we have been at a great feast of languages, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... he's part of the picture, and a very pleasant part, and it will be very nice to have him meet me and drive me opulently to Hetty Hills' sedate boarding-house. Aunt Lyddy is so rejoiced to have me there with some one from the village that I couldn't refuse, but I suspect it will be a section of the ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... lead the New York Republican Machine. "We have got to save the country," he said, " save the constitution, save our liberty. We are in danger of monarchy. The country must be saved!!" The Roosevelt cousin thought that he spoke "without fervor to a listless, sedate, and very polite audience. It was made all the more preposterous by the fact that a very ancient colored gentleman stood back of Barnes, and whenever Barnes paused, would point to the crowd and feebly begin clapping his hands. They would then slowly and very politely take up the applause, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... the maid Halcott, a sedate personage of forty summers, had all been instructed by the doctor that Lady Maulevrier was to be kept profoundly quiet. She must not talk much, since speech was likely to be a painful effort with her for some little time; she must not be talked to much by anyone, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... in his work. It was the last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious chemical complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... of these things one morning quite alone. Anna heard me when I was most sedate with manifest pleasure, and she smiled mournfully when the thread of my argument was entangled by a vagary of the imagination. I felt at my heart's core what a blessing such a mentor would be, and how fortunate would be my lot could I succeed ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... instantaneous tenderness into the exchange of looks that would have been worse than uninteresting to you or me. But the next moment she brightened up, pressed herself close to him, and caught step. They had not owned each other long enough to have settled into sedate possession, though they sometimes thought they had done so. There was still a tingling ecstasy in one another's touch and glance that prevented them from quite behaving themselves ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... informed him of my arrival, and returned immediately with the answer that his master would see me after a while, and that in the mean time I was to await his pleasure where I then was. The servant was a grave and sedate looking Englishman, between 50 and 60 years of age, and informed me that he had known Colonel Tarleton from his earliest youth, having lived for many years in the family of his father, a worthy clergyman, at whose ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... A sedate-looking gentleman, about forty-five years of age, stepped into the boat, and in a few seconds I was in the stream, shooting the bridge with ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... slavery. It has never been supposed that gaiety and goodness are opposed. And so they grow up little merry naked things, sprawling in the dust of the gardens, sleeping in the sun with their arms round the village dogs, very sedate, very humorous, very rarely crying. Boys and girls when they are babies grow up together, but with the schooldays comes a division. All the boys go to school at the monastery without the walls, and there learn in noisy fashion their arithmetic, letters, and other useful ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... "Yes," and that Mrs. Crull should see her in five minutes. That lady then assisted him into the carriage, and kissed him on the forehead in a motherly way, which would have astonished the sedate family coachman, if he had not been entirely used ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... outwardly at least, matters seemed to have relapsed into their ordinary routine, just as some usually placid stream, after being swollen and agitated for a while by a sudden storm of wind and rain, subsides once more into its customary channel. The marquis, indeed, might seem somewhat more sedate and more taciturn than was his wont, and the marchioness possibly suffered herself to be looked upon by her female friends as very much to be pitied for some mysterious cause of anxiety she could not divulge for all the world. Madame ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... were produced. He who reads them with this view will, perhaps, be of opinion that the spirit manifested in the two compositions is rather equal in degree than like in character; that the courage of Montrose was more turbulent, that of Argyle more calm and sedate. If, on the one hand, it is to be regretted that we have not more memorials left of passages so interesting, and that even of those which we do possess, a great part is obscured by time, it must be confessed, on the other, that we have quite enough ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... recalling the old Sonetchka to my mind, and wondering what she would look like when I met her. Somehow I imagined that, after her two years' sojourn abroad, she would look very tall, with a beautiful waist, and, though sedate and imposing, extremely attractive. Somehow, also, my imagination refused to picture her with her face disfigured with scars, but, on the contrary, since I had read somewhere of a lover who remained true to his adored one in spite of her disfigurement ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... leader uses the proper approach; and before old Deacon Hasbrook knows it, he and his good wife, neither of whom have played in nigh on to thirty-five years, will be laughing and frisking about with the rest in a way that you would have said impossible if you had known this sedate dignitary for the past ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper

... too old, too sedate," Lute insisted. "She's only sixteen, and she can outrun nine colts out of ten. Only she never cuts up. She's too steady, and you don't approve of her—no, don't deny it, sir. I know. And I know also that she ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... And a quiet, steady, calm, respectable kind of river the Usk is—not of the high aristocratic appearance of the Wye, with wild outbursts of youthful petulance softened immediately into grace and elegance—but a sedate individual, like a retired citizen, well to do in the world, and glad to jog on as uninterruptedly as he can. The grounds of Oakfield slope down to the water—and beautiful grounds they are—a line of rich meadows, shaded with stately trees, and divided ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... very lively and pretty, only too much of it. You should not smile so often; and I am tired of your pretty surprise, your playful upbraidings, and the raps of your fan. I want more repose of feature, Little Handsome. Now, what a contrast you and sedate Miss Etty present! Ah, very good! I am glad you have given up following Little Ugly out of the room the moment we rise from table. You sit down to your tiny basket, and demurely take out something that passes for work. I don't see you ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various

... I perceive that the men learn less laboriously than whites that "double, double, toil and trouble," which is the elementary vexation of the drill-master,—that they more rarely mistake their left for their right,—and are more grave and sedate while under instruction. The extremes of jollity and sobriety, being greater with them, are less liable to be intermingled; these companies can be driven with a looser rein than my former one, for they restrain themselves; but the moment they are dismissed from drill, every tongue is relaxed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... the dignity of a minuet. Right in the midst of the solemn affair some mischievous fellow gave a squeak and a big jump; and away they all went hurry-skurry, for all the world like a lot of boys turned loose for recess. In a minute they were back again, quiet and sedate, and solemn as bull-frogs. Were they chasing and chastising the mischief-maker, or was it only the overflow of abundant spirits as the top of a kettle blows off when ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... into one of the many narrow channels amongst the wooded islets, and paddled vigorously over the black and sleepy backwaters towards Sambir. Her canoe brushed the water-palms, skirted the short spaces of muddy bank where sedate alligators looked at her with lazy unconcern, and, just as darkness was setting in, shot out into the broad junction of the two main branches of the river, where the brig was already at anchor with sails furled, yards ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... daughters—belonged to one of the oldest and best known New York families. The house was in keeping with its inmates. It closely resembled an old-fashioned house in Curzon Street. As I drove up to the steps a butler and a groom of the chambers, both sedate with years and exhaling an atmosphere of long family service, threw open tall doors, and admitted me to the sober world within. The room in which the guests were assembled seemed to be lined with books. On the tables were half the literary reviews of Europe. My hostess and ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... both excitable and mischievous and loved romping,—and because each was a novelty to the other—mother and son quickly formed a new friendship. From the more sedate and discipline-enforcing Lad, the youngster turned eagerly to chum-ship with this flighty gold-white stranger. And Lady, for similar reason, seemed to find ten times as much congeniality and fun in romping with Wolf as in playing with the ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... this thing also. What faculty of caution the boy possessed was not as yet developed; he left the care for consequences to the sedate lady in the stern, and forgetting his quest of the Missouri shore, lay in the path of the steam-boat and howled unmusically, and marred the peace of the placid morning by shouting concerning a runaway slave and a fabulous reward that was offered for ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... the stately simplicity of the Spartan mien could not but impose upon the imagination of the other Greeks, and obtain the credit for correspondent qualities which did not always exist beneath that lofty exterior. To lively nations, affected by externals, there was much in that sedate majesty of demeanour; to gallant nations, much in that heroic valour; to superstitious nations, much in that proverbial regard to religious rites, which characterized the Spartan race. Declaimers on luxury admired their simplicity—the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... gore, in arms renown'd Was he, nor less with Wisdom's olive crown'd. Quick was his thought and ready was his hand, His power accomplish'd what his reason plann'd; He seem'd, with eagle eye and eagle wing, Sudden on his predestined game to spring. But he that follow'd next with step sedate Drew round his foe the viewless snare of fate; While, with consummate art, he kept at bay The raging foe, and conquer'd by delay. Another Fabius join'd the stoic pair, The Pauli and Marcelli famed in war; With them the victor in the friendly strife, Whose public virtue quench'd ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... great West, to "put her through." When I last saw our traveler, he was getting his luggage through the custom-house, still undecided whether to push on that night at eleven o'clock. But I forgot all about him and his hurry when, shortly after, we sat at the table-d'hote at the hotel, and the sedate Germans lit their cigars, some of them before they had finished eating, and sat smoking as if there were plenty of leisure for everything in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... to any other world," answered Gouache, simply. "I never went into society till I came to Rome. I think it is at once brilliant and sedate—it has a magnificent air of historical antiquity, and it is ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... he walked he did not know: he was not aware that when he reached the sleeping town a pale gray was lightening the eastern skies. He went to the house of the postmaster and hurriedly aroused him. Mr. Keith began to think that the ordinarily sedate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... these for his closing words; but just there, straight away before his sight and almost at the farthest door, a man rose slowly from his seat and regarded him steadily with a kind, bronzed, sedate face, and the sermon, as if by a sign of command, was ended. While the Credo was being chanted he was still there; but when, a moment after its close, the eye of Pere Jerome returned in that direction, his ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... drunk off what was first distributed to them than they put forward their leathern drinking-cups to ask for more. The old chief having helped himself, gave some to his followers. Then their eyes began to glitter; the calm, sedate bearing of the Indian was thrown off; they talked rapidly and vehemently, and laughed loudly, and their fingers began to play with the handles of their tomahawks and scalping-knives in a way that made my blood run cold. The red-skins, when they take a captive for ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... nature and name of the public department to which he was attached had done something to recommend him to Miss Stanbury. Ecclesiastical records were things greatly to be reverenced in her eyes, and she felt that a gentleman who handled them and dealt with them would probably be sedate, gentlemanlike, and conservative. Brooke Burgess, when she had last seen him, was just about to enter upon the duties of the office. Then there had come offence, and she had in truth known nothing ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... curious looks explore her to detect the delight such a stroke of fortune would have given to themselves. Faulty, but great of soul, and on her guard against the piercing eyes of her own sex, she sat sedate, and received her change of fortune with every appearance of cool composure and exalted indifference; and as for her dreamy eyes, they seemed thinking of heaven, or something almost as many miles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... look pleased with yourself!" Vanderborn, who is sedate in the ordinary, cries, "It's not me yet, you see! Here I am!" With a mad gesticulation he serves me a thump ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... arranged according to the fancies of its mistress,—even to the Major's sword and the twin doves. Esther, a stout middle-aged dame, and stanch Congregationalist, recommended by the good women of the parish, is installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As gardener, groom, (a sedate pony and square-topped chaise forming part of the establishment,) factotum, in short,—there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who has his quarters in an airy loft ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... by theatrical displays of splendor; Henry arrogant, ostentatious, vain, and Charles silent, inscrutable, cold-blooded, and false, whispering to Woolsey that he might make him pope at the next election. From that moment the powerful influence of the Cardinal was used for this sedate youth, this wise youth, who saw that the fitting place for him (Woolsey) was the ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... nature grave, sedate, earnest, thoughtful. Emma was equally earnest—more so perhaps—but she was light-hearted (not light headed, observe) and volatile. The result was mutual attraction. Let philosophers account for the mutual attraction of these qualities as they best may, we simply record the fact. History records ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... distance and the horizon reconciles the azure of the sky with the greenness of a landscape. Its less powerful discord is yellow, which needs to be similarly resolved by a purple-red, or its principles. In tone, green is cool or warm, sedate or gay, either as it inclines to blue or to yellow; yet in its general effects it is cool, calm, temperate, and refreshing. Having little power in reflecting light, it is a retiring colour, and readily subdued by distance: for the same reason, it ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... going myself if it hadn't been for you, Will. I never shall forget that," said Jimmy, whom intense satisfaction rendered rather more sedate than ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... lamp was burning in the fo'c'sle of the schooner Greyhound, by the light of which a middle-aged seaman of sedate appearance sat crocheting an antimacassar. Two other men were snoring with deep content in their bunks, while a small, bright-eyed boy sat up in ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... of life that his soul was greedy for it all. To Mike these scenes were all familiar; his attitude towards them was one of quiet indifference, and he regarded Jim's rapture with the amused tolerance a sedate, elderly gentleman feels for the enthusiasm of ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... etching. "Boyhood:" those who delight in the easy, every-day, every-hour play of boyhood, will enjoy this plate. A boy is, with a peacock's feather, tickling a child asleep in the arms of a grave old lady—so sedate have we seen grimalkin look whilst encouraging her kitten, lightly and coquettishly, to play with a ball of cotton. "The Beach" is a well-sketched coast scene, and shows Mr Townsend to have an eye ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... therefore, for the meeting with pistols on the following morning; and the combatants proceeded to the spot fixed on, some five or six miles, I think, from the Baths. Plowden, who, as a sedate business man was less intimate with the generality of the young men at the Baths, was accompanied only by his second; his adversary was attended by a whole cohort of acquaintances—really far more after the fashion of a party going to a picnic, or some other party of pleasure, than in the ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... The leader of one of these singular parties was the venerable Niccolo Poussin! The air of antiquity which breathed over all his works seemed to have infected even his person and his features; and his cold, sedate, and passionless countenance, his measured pace and sober deportment, spoke that phlegmatic temperament and regulated feeling, which had led him to study monuments rather than men, and to declare that the result of all his ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... walks about the outskirts of Nikolaev. He did not read as he thought it would send the blood to his head; every spring he used to drink a special decoction because he was afraid of being too full-blooded. Putting on his uniform and carefully brushing himself Kuzma Vassilyevitch strolled with a sedate step alongside the fences of orchards, often stopped, admired the beauties of nature, gathered flowers as souvenirs and found a certain pleasure in doing so; but he felt acute pleasure only when he happened to meet ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... Norris's domestic life, she carried herself strictly and insisted upon keeping her house as respectable as can reasonably be expected in a large city. That is, everyone in it was quiet, was of steady and sedate habit, was backed by references. Not until Sperry had thoroughly qualified as a responsible person did Mrs. Norris accept his assurances as to the Spensers and consent to receive them. Downtown the apartment houses that admit persons of loose character are usually more expensive because that ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... England, and the law, appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. I went up to my bedroom to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted apartment (which was over the archway leading to the Inn, I remember), and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of Traddles, or on any such daring youth. I came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal, and the orderly ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... could not formulate a suitable answer. He felt the force of the suggestions, but he would not associate crime with the sedate gentleman who was the object of these suspicions. He simply could not think of anything disreputable in connection with Daisy's father, and it seemed almost as bad to invent an offense for the character in his novel whose photograph he had thus ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... determination was in Polly's dark eyes. They were big lovely eyes that looked at you wistfully from under arched brows. They seldom laughed or twinkled and the nose that kept them company was equally sedate, being purely aquiline, but a mouth with dimpled corners upset the scheme entirely, while ripples of golden brown hair completed the picture of a healthy, happy youngster—not radiantly beautiful but what people ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... you are like the scavenger beetle, and think of yourself only. You have not the heart of a chief; why don't you kill your own beef? You must have a stone in your chest, and no heart at all, indeed!" Tuba Mokoro producing no impression on the transformed chief, one of the men, the most sedate of the party, who seldom spoke, took up the matter, and tried the lion in another strain. In his slow quiet way he expostulated with him on the impropriety of such conduct to strangers, who had never ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... various degrees of fluency they debated the questions of the day; they read essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass, was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools. Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... the drops sparkled in the misty light against the background of the otherwise darkened room. It pleased my imagination to watch the effect produced by a little more or a little less opening of the shutters,—a nonsensical morning play-spell, which quite enlivened me for the sedate occupations of the day. It was, however, not imagination now which whispered to me that there was something else to look at beside the jet of water and the shadowy play of light. Stooping down upon the fountain-brink, absorbed in contemplating the gold-fish swimming below, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... "when Mr. George comes home." Mrs. Mountain is constantly on the whimper when George's name is mentioned, and Harry's face wears a look of the most ghastly alarm; but his mother's is invariably grave and sedate. She makes more blunders at piquet and backgammon than you would expect from her; and the servants find her awake and dressed, however early they may rise. She has prayed Mr. Dempster to come back ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the left the lonely Brook met her ambitious sister. She was violent no more; but sober and sedate; calm as the evening sky reflected from ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... look at them. The Cossacks on the Russian side of the river were highly satisfied and jovial. Laughter and jokes were heard on all sides. The captain and the head of the village entered the mud hut to regale themselves. Lukashka, vainly striving to impart a sedate expression to his merry face, sat down with his elbows on his knees beside Olenin and whittled ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... away like Time in Maitre Guedron's song and every year the garden grew a little lovelier and every year Felicia grew a little more sedate and every year Piqueur and the Major grew "too old." Until Piqueur no longer left his fireside and as for the Major—well, there came a day when the Major fell prostrate by the staircase and lay for a long time breathing very hard. That was a terrifying time until ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke

... a sedate company of cows entering the pasture single file through an aperture made by letting down the bars. Behind them walked a boy of about his own size, flourishing a stout hickory stick. The cows went directly to the spring from which Paul had already ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... can accomplish the apparently impossible, and hence the orchestra was duly selected and engaged by the indulgent father from the members of the Court Band. To his delight—yet nowise to his embarrassment—Felix found himself in command of a company of sedate and experienced musicians, ready to follow the lead of his baton when it pleased him to take his place at the music-desk. Everything was now furnished for the performance, but the sense of completeness was not yet satisfied. There must be a better judge than the composer himself present to pass ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham

... a young squaw. Her white doeskin dress was as clean as snow, barbarically splendid with cut fringes and work of bead and porcupine quills. Her mien was sedate, and she swayed to her horse lightly and flexibly as a boy, holding aloft a lance edged with a flutter of feathers, and bearing a round shield of painted skins. Beside her rode the old chief, his blanket falling away from his withered body, his ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... to Josephine a letter of common friendliness upon the occasion of her husband's death, and had received in return a brief sedate note that might, indeed, have been written by the ancient lady whom the quaint Italian handwriting learned in the country convent had at first figured to his imagination. He knew from this letter that Josephine did not suppose that blame attached to O'Shea. She spoke of her husband's death as ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... merrily as we went past them. They waved their hands up the stream as if urging us to go ahead and say they were coming. The one reclining was a venerable personage, with a thin beard fringing a sedate visage, into which he drew long whiffs and comfort from a ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... which elapsed before the due arrival of official permission for X. to leave the jungle, it might have been observed that he was changed. The hitherto sedate individual became fussy and worried, and members of The Community agreed that he was "journey-proud"—a happy expression used by one of the neighbouring Malay potentates when wishing to describe his ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser

... equipment of the High Cliff House or its outbuildings were a horse, a pig, and a dozen hens and two roosters. Captain Obed bought the horse at Mrs. Barnes' request, a docile animal of a sedate age. A second-hand buggy and a second-hand "open wagon" he also bought. The pig and hens Thankful bought herself in Trumet. She positively would not consent to the pig's occupying the sty beneath ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... in black array Veiling her Rizpah-misery, to the gate Comes, and with gold and moving speech sedate Buys down the thing aloft, and bears away Snatch'd from the withering wind and ravens' prey: And as a mother's eyes, joy-soften'd, shed Tears o'er her young child's head, Golden and sweet, from evil saved; so she O'er this, sad-smilingly, Mangled and gray, unwarm'd by human breath, Clasping death's ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... "Mother would like to have a little less noise if they could favor her, as she had company below." Then the three sat down on the floor, and Jenny and Charlie planned a midnight attack upon the tin boiler. Amy, who was more sedate and cautious, advised them to desist; but 'twas just the exploit for Jenny's frolicsome, mischievous temperament. Charlie was to take a pillow-case, and creep softly under the bed, and fill it from the supposed contents of the mysterious boiler, while Jenny stood at the ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... friend his meeting with Paulette, and when the hour for the concert is arrived, Pitou accompanied him. The musician, however, was, perhaps, the more sedate. He has gone with little expectation; his interest ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... through the Presbytery became incarnate in the clerk, who was one of the most finished specimens of his class in the Scottish Kirk. His sedate appearance, bald, polished head, fringed with pure white hair, shrewd face, with neatly cut side whiskers, his suggestion of unerring accuracy and inexhaustible memory, his attitude for exposition,—holding ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... out into the gallery beyond. Yes, there was the marble staircase, and below was the great, bright hall; but in this disguise she could pass O'Reilly if he had assembled half the detectives in New York. So she tripped down the stairs, sedate, unhurried as the care-free girl whose cloak she had borrowed. Arrived in the hall, she knew her way out, and could hardly subdue the triumph in her voice as she said "Taxi, please," to an ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free: Strong to consume small troubles; to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... citizen's son, of a competency of learning, and a person of more years, and by that means had greater experience than what Mr. Binning, who was in a manner but of yesterday, could be supposed to have.——But to this it was replied, That Mr. Binning was such a pregnant scholar, so wise and sedate, as to be above all the follies and vanities of youth, and what was wanting in years was made up sufficiently by his more than ordinary and singular endowments. Whereupon a member of the faculty, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... childish yourself and extremely ridiculous, and so are all philosophers; and when a sedate man like myself lets himself in for a quarter of an hour's talk with such fools, it is merely for the sake of amusement and to while away the time. I have more important matters to look to now; ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer

... of the Syrians?" inquired Simon, whose quiet, sedate manner formed a strong contrast to that of the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... that the archbishop was a saintly man—as was said by the auditor who went to arrest him, as has been previously stated. The holy archbishop was much given to prayer and meditation, and inclined to silence; he was modest and sedate in his actions; and he was very watchful in whatever he did that all should be ordered by the divine law—continually keeping in mind the account that he must render to God of his ministry, a consideration which frequently shines out through his letters and other documents pertaining to the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... in Department Thirteen, Judge Murphy presided, sedate and serene, But couldn't quite specify, legal and straight, The cursedest rascal ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... "This," remarked the sedate observer beside me, "is a bookworm,—one of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is abolished, I do not see what is to become of the poor fellow. ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... should be couch'd extreamly close; in Epick Poetry the Circumstances should be somewhat less closely heap'd together; and that Pastoral requires 'em the most diffuse of any; being of a Nature extreamly calm and sedate. ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney

... said," spoke Mr. Preston gravely. He was much more sedate and composed than one would have supposed after his sensational entrance into the room. "I am very glad to meet you, Tom Swift, and I hope we can do business together. Now, if you have a few minutes to spare, I'll tell you all I know ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... were present the bishop himself and Mrs Pendle, who sat close beside his chair; also Miss Whichello, fluttered and anxious, in juxtaposition with Dr Graham; and Gabriel, who had placed himself near Baltic the sedate and solemn-faced. When all were assembled, the bishop lost no time in speaking of the business which had brought them together. He related in detail the imposture of Jentham, the murder by Mosk, who since had taken his own life, and the revelation of Miss Whichello, ending ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... genius and virtue in huts, than was dreamt of in the world's philosophy. They love him for his truthful pictures of the poor. Not there are seen slaves sullenly labouring, or madly leaping in their chains; but in nature's bondage, content with their toil, sedate in their sufferings, in their recreations full of mirth—are seen Free Men. The portraiture, upon the whole, is felt by us—and they know it—to demand at times pity as a due; but challenges always respect, and more than respect, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... picture was barbaric. It might have been some painter's dream of the Favourite in a harem. It was not what one would expect to find in a sedate Swiss hotel. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... sirrah, wish to know how it was that a sedate Captain of Foot, a studious and rather solitary bachelor of eight or nine and twenty years of age, who did not care very much for the jollities which his comrades engaged in, and was never known to lose his heart in any garrison-town—should you wish to know why such a man had so prodigious ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... had been listening attentively, suddenly chuckled, as if he had seen a joke. Septimus's gaze conveyed sedate reproof. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... offer, and she always found him, like Old Plod, ready to drop everything for her, and well he might. "No matter how devoted he has been, he can never plume himself on any magnanimity," I said to myself. "She probably finds him a trifle formal and sedate, and rather lacking in ideality, just as Old Plod is very stolid till she appears; but then he is safe and strong, and very kind to a friendless girl, who might well shrink from the vicissitudes of her lot, and would naturally be attracted by the protection and position which he could ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... gay and rollicking: the real sailors we have met have been, some of them, the most worthy and single-minded of men, but they have appeared sedate rather than gay, and ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome

... long street—it may be called long in such a short town—was entirely empty. No one came out of the doors, no one looked out of the windows. It was with no small joy that I saw a man, at last, in a shop, in whose window hung a paper of pins, a red handkerchief, and two tea cans, a solitary, sedate apprentice, who leaned over the counter and looked out through the open house door. He certainly wrote that evening in his journal, if he kept one; 'To-day a traveller went through the town; the dear God may know him, I do not!' The apprentice's face appeared to me to say all that, and he had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... with them, was first recognized by his old friend, Sally Fairthorn, whose voice of salutation was so loud and cheery, as to cause two or three sedate old "women-friends" to turn their heads in grave astonishment. Mother Fairthorn, with her bright, round face, followed, and then—serene and strong in her gentle, symmetrical loveliness—Martha ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor

... was a man of thirty, and rather sedate in his appearance and manner; there was enough in his six feet one to have made two of the round and rubicund little Major. And yet it seemed to him quite proper that the other should address him so. He was back in his ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair

... the greater the fun. And this was the opinion of all except the stout hostess, who looked on at the scene with a distressed countenance from behind a mighty pile of dirty plates. The musicians were spectators who whistled in a band the air of the bourree, which is enough to make the most sedate Canon who ever sat in a stall dance, or at least to remember with charity the promptings ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... The sedate gentlemen who were lounging about, waiting for the prearranged times when they are privileged to drive from the first tee, must have identified me as the typical American from the manner in which I hastened from one room to another. I explored the locker rooms, the cafes, reception hall, library, ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... but the vanity of this world," moaned a sedate matron; "but woe for my dear pet Aphides, with their six hundred thousand children, who will be dead before ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... who rallied Lucy on her sedate behaviour, and the profound curtseys she made to her partner, instead of the pirouette which she performed with Humphrey, his arm round her waist, and her little feet twinkling under the short skirt of her stiff brocade, like birds ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... be guessed that Ernest was not the chosen friend of the more sedate and well-conducted youths then studying at Roughborough. Some of the less desirable boys used to go to public-houses and drink more beer than was good for them; Ernest's inner self can hardly have told him to ally himself to these young gentlemen, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... refused refreshment or rest, explained. As he did so, it came out that she knew little or nothing of Elsie's activities, and he launched into glowing descriptions. And the further he went, the more she marvelled. She couldn't understand how Elsie had become the sedate, dutiful girl he portrayed unless some great blow had fallen upon her. Then she recollected what ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... father, who had been put in charge of the party by Mrs. Nipson, had his hands full to keep them in any sort of order. He was a timid old gentleman, and, as Rose suggested, his expression resembled that of a sedate hen who suddenly finds herself responsible for the conduct of a ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge



Words linked to "Sedate" :   tranquillize, sedation, serious, mesmerize, sedative, decorous, grave, calm, hypnotise, sober, mesmerise, tranquilize



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