"Staid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too late; that string in your bill, Would have fastened it firmly and strong; But see, there it goes, rolling over the hill! Oh, you staid ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the Thermoscope in the Air was at 8-7/8 inches; being put into a somewhat large evaporating glass, fill'd with water, it fell (after it staid a pretty while, and had been agitated in the liquor) to 8. inches: then about half the Salt, or less, that had been used twice before, and felt much less cold than the water, being put in and stirr'd about, the tincted Spirit subsided with a visible progress, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... presumptuous familiarity. They called him "Little Corporal,"—"Corporal of the Violet,"—said they wanted to see him, and that he must come to the window. He looked out twice during the half-hour I staid there, had on the little cocked hat which has become historical, smiled and nodded good-naturedly, and seemed to consider that something was due from him to the "many-headed" at that particular time. Such condescension was not expected or given in his palmy days, but he felt now his dependence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... girls,—the flowers of good, staid, sensible families,—not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat of wild, high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and truly taught and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, to understand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... item completes this tabulation. The aborigine of America, the Indian, has left "his mark" across and through this Nation. He never, in any true sense, owned this continent. He hunted and fought across it. He swept by, like gusts of winter wind. He staid here, he did not live here. Possession implies more than occupancy; it implies improvement, industry, habitations, cities, destiny, as worked out by sweat of toil. But this American Indian, who, in honor, never possessed the territory, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... He staid with us that winter, and very merry and happy he seemed to us at first;—looking back upon it now, I should call it, not happiness, but excitement;—but as the winter passed on, even we children saw that all was not right with him. He gradually withdrew himself from the constant whirl of society ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone—her stockings cut from her feet—while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... interrupted by the President telling him, that whatever the place might have been, there he should have staid to the end of his time, and must be punished for returning to Paris. "But," continued the delinquent, "the vile little hole to which I was exiled contained no society whatever, the inhabitants were merely a set of illiterate beings, and how could any enlightened ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Harry staid a little too long with his love—a little longer, at least, than had been computed, and, in consequence, met Theodore Burton in the Crescent as he was leaving it. This meeting could hardly be made without ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... for your caution, but I have already been to Petersburg. Staid with General Grant an hour and a half and returned here. It is certain now that Richmond is in our hands, and I think I will go there to-morrow. I will take care ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... nearly vertical granite rocks. The ascent requires 2 days, 6 or 8 guides are required, and each guide is paid 100 francs ($20.00). It was ascended by two natives, Jacques Belmat and Dr. Packard, August 8, 1786, at 6 a.m. They staid up 30 minutes, with the thermometer at 14 degrees below the freezing point. The provisions froze in their pockets; their faces were frost-bitten, lips swollen, and their sight much weakened, but they soon recovered on their descent. De Saussure records in his ascent August 2, 1760, that the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... of punishment from the dominus gregis and the violent disapproval of a fickle, tempestuous and withal exacting public. Polybius[68] relates that the visit of a troupe of Greek actors to Rome was a failure because of their over-staid deportment, until, learning the desires of the volatile Italians, they improvised a vastly more vivid pantomime depicting a mock battle, with huge success. Assuredly the early Roman comedian must have ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... got into difficulties?" she burst out with an expression of frightened distress. "He always had plenty. Dolly!—tell me!—what do you know about it? what is it? How could he get into difficulties! Oh, if we had staid at home! Dolly, how is it possible? We have always had plenty—money running like water—all my life; and now, how could your father have got ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... the table by saying it again a minute or two afterwards, in utter unconsciousness that you had said it just before? Or, if I may so far flatter myself as to fancy my reader a fair daughter of the house instead of the staid house father—has it never happened to you, Miss, while executing a brilliant performance on the piano, to have been so entirely engrossed by an animated flirtation carried on simultaneously, that, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... waited on and attended, that they scarcely knew how to help themselves, much less how to work for others. The consequence of which was, they gave so little satisfaction to their employers, that they staid but a little time in a place, and from so frequently changing, no family, who wished to be well settled, would admit them, as they thought it impossible they could be good servants whom no one thought worthy ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... they moved slowly westward to a place called Twii (Santo Domingo), where some of them are said to still reside. The next halt was at Kaiwika (Laguna) where it is said some families still remain, and they staid also a short time at Aikoka (Acoma); but none of them remained at that place. From the latter place they went to Siki (Zui), where they remained a long time and left a number of their people there, who are now called Aiyhokwi by the Zui. They finally reached Tusayan by way of Awatubi. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... my Book[843], of which I beg to know your father's judgement, and yours; and I have now staid long enough to watch its progress into the world. It has, you see, no patrons, and, I think, has yet had no opponents, except the criticks of the coffee-house, whose outcries are soon dispersed into ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... have been the first to admit that, socially speaking, his present situation was not the equal of the positions he had held. There was none of the staid dignity about his present employer which was inborn in men like Lord Tipperary or Lord Bannister, and which Sir Herbert Marcobrunner, with the easy assimilative faculty of his race, had very successfully acquired. Below middle height, thick-set and powerfully built, with ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... consolation and encouragement, similar to those which I had heard uttered from the pulpit by my good and venerable friend, but I was debarred from this privilege. At length, one day being in conversation with one of my labourers, a staid and serious man, I spoke to him of the matter which lay heavy upon my mind; whereupon, looking me wistfully in the face, he said, "Master, the want of religious instruction in my church was what drove me to the Methodists." "The ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Did I really understand myself? Anyhow, I felt horribly abashed while she was speaking. I felt I had been conducting myself in an unfledged girlish fashion, and that Ruth, with her staid common sense, ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... throw back all this clamor, with the added notes of slamming doors and shouted numbers and epic struggles between angry drivers and determined policemen; sometimes he would extend his smoking stroll far enough to skirt the edge of all this Babel. Then, towards midnight, long after all staid and sensible people were abed, the flood would roll back, faster yet under the quiet moon, louder yet through the frosty air. But he never met the Circassian beauty, and he would have found "l'Africaine," for example, both tedious and unreasonable. To him each of these publics was new, and ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... beginning of this book, the first Pekingese were brought over in 1860, after the occupation of Pekin by the Allies. The first black ones came here in 1896, and now in 1914 there are thousands of these wholly alluring and adorable and masterful little big-hearted creatures in England, turning staid men and women into ecstatic worshippers and making children lyrical with cries of appreciation. The book before me is the finest monument yet raised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... (Professor Andover—dignified, staid and circumscribed; a misogynist if there ever was one) took huge delight in accentuating the satire of his character's advice to the bevy of school ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... never, neither have an answer nor dinner, unless you use me with a more staid respect, and stay your ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... the card-room of the Rag and Bobtail, at the bow-window of the Jeunesse Doree. Tall and pompous, with a portly frame and a puffy clean-shaven face which peered over an abnormally high collar and old-fashioned linen cravat, he stood as a very type and emblem of staid middle-aged respectability. The major's hat was always of the glossiest, the major's coat was without a wrinkle, and, in short, from the summit of the major's bald head to his bulbous finger-tips and his gouty toes, there was not a flaw which the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... patient, true, untiring friend? How often have I sat in the long winter evenings feeling such society in its cricket-voice, that raising my eyes from my book and looking gratefully towards it, the face reddened by the glow of the shining fire has seemed to relax from its staid expression and to regard me kindly! how often in the summer twilight, when my thoughts have wandered back to a melancholy past, have its regular whisperings recalled them to the calm and peaceful present! how often in the dead tranquillity ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... and stopped there, switching his legs absently with the stalk of a horseweed. He was in his shirtsleeves—a respectable, snuffy old figure; evidently a man deliberate in words and thoughts and actions. There was something about him suggestive of an old staid sheep that had been engaged in a clandestine transaction and was afraid of being ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... extend their perigrinations towards the woods, browsing with delight on the sweet young buds of the birch tree. At this season it is, for obvious reasons, desirable that the "milky mothers" should not stray far from home—many "a staid brow'd matron" has disappeared in the spring, and, after her summer rambles in the woods, returned in the "fall" with her full-grown calf by her side, but many a good cow has gone and been seen no more, but as a white ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... "made under the law," is meant his circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand. I staid at home all the afternoon, looking over my accounts; then went with my wife to my father's, and in going observed the great posts which the City have set up at the Conduit in Fleet-street. Supt at my father's, where in came Mrs. The. Turner—[Theophila Turner, daughter of Sergeant John and Jane ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... highest preservation. The play comes off next Wednesday night, the 25th. What would I give to see you in the front row of the centre box, your spectacles gleaming not unlike those of my dear friend Pickwick, your face radiant with as broad a grin as a staid professor may indulge in, and your very coat, waistcoat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take together when the performance was over! I would give something (not so much, but still a good round ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... brightness of a bridal party. There were knights and baronets, great and small; some wore an insignia, but nothing else to distinguish them from the very vulgar. And, too, there was Sir William Busey, a good diner-out, and always ready to do such noble deeds. All stiff and staid, sallied up and down Sir James Muke, affecting to feel much annoyed because vulgar citizens would not regard him in the same distinguished light in which he contemplated himself. Indeed, were Sir James's manners taken in evidence of his distinguished position, the ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... rest the body and the mind, 1350 Which now thou art deny'd to keep, And cure thy labour'd corpse with sleep. The Knight, who heard the words, explain'd, As meant to him, this reprimand, Because the character did hit 1355 Point-blank upon his case so fit; Believ'd it was some drolling spright, That staid upon the guard that night, And one of those h' had seen, and felt The drubs he had so freely dealt; 1360 When, after a short pause and groan, The doleful ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... expect. The encampment which preceded the commencement of academic studies was very wearisome and uninteresting. When the 28th of August came—the date for breaking up camp and going into barracks—I felt as though I had been at West Point always, and that if I staid to graduation, I would have to remain always. I did not take hold of my studies with avidity, in fact I rarely ever read over a lesson the second time during my entire cadetship. I could not sit in my room doing nothing. There is a fine library connected with the Academy from which cadets can get ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... portentous quantity to last a voyage. Smart young cadets, who never wear the same collar twice, and sport white shirts and soiled souls in seamen's missions, are the Mate's aversion. He has severe censures for "gallivantin'" and "dressin' for show." He approves of my own staid habits of life, after the fashion of those elderly folk who admire in others what they so sadly lacked in their own spring-time. He forgets that perhaps even I have trembled with rage because there was a spot on my collar, that ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... compliance gained him confidence enough to be trusted without security, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; nor that it made him think himself secure, for, at that dissolution of government which followed the death of Oliver, he returned into France, where he resumed his former station, and staid till the restoration[11]. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... I might not, on the one hand, bear too hard upon my friends, nor on the other hand forget the house of thraldom, after I had staid with them some six or seven weeks (from the time called Easter to the time called Whitsuntide) I took my leave of them to depart home, intending to walk to Wycombe in one day, and ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... history is much wanted. This will appear obvious, if we examine the places we know, with the histories that treat of them. Many an author has become a cripple, by historically travelling through all England, who might have made a tolerable figure, had he staid at home. The subject is too copious for one performance, or even the life of one man. The design of history is knowledge: but, if simply to tell a tale, be all the duty of an historian, he has no irksome task ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... all this, we noticed a movement among the more staid warriors. A consultation was ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... be really afraid. I didn't until a fellow came up to me at the club and asked me if I had seen the detectives. Fear is a terrible thing, Rodney; there is nothing so demoralising as fear. You know my staid old club of black mahogany and low ceilings, where half a dozen men sit dining and talking about hunting and two-year-olds. There is a man in that club who has asked me for the last ten years what ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... you since—of how I wore black for you, thinking you were killed in the war, till I heard that you had deserted. I took off that mourning quick, I can tell you! I thought you were fighting on the wrong side; yet if you had a good reason for being there, you should have staid and fought so long as there was breath in you. And if I was to tell them here that you haven't a particle of right to wear that blue suit that looks like a uniform, and that you were no more 'captain' of anything than I am—well, I guess Lorena Jane wouldn't ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... of it was that Flossy, done up in a cloak twice too large for her, went off looking like the martyr that she was, and Eurie and Ruth staid in their room and laughed over the ridiculousness of Flossy Shipley going out in the night and the rain, in a lavender cashmere, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... him. There are no such immense, vacantly yawning chasms, as that would be, between our fleshly estate and the Godhead. Nature takes no such enormous jumps. Her scaling advance is by staid and normal steps. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the newspapers brought a new sensation to a startled city. Two important pieces of news furnished excitement enough to arouse even the staid and respectable old Atlas. People gathered in knots on street corners to discuss them. The air was breezy with excitement. The street corners were blocked with gathering knots of indignant citizens, eager crowds gathered in front of newspaper bulletin ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... to buy all of the newspapers of the United States the next morning, he might have discovered that his beer-hunting exploit was being perused by some two score millions of people, and had served as a text for editorials in half the staid and solemn ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... its tastes—averse therefore to uproar, and to all those given to change. Its propensities are to meditation and contemplative tranquillity, for which reason it has ever been held in reverence by nations of a similar staid and composed disposition, and has been the favourite companion and constant friend of grave philosophers and thoughtful students. By the ancient Egyptians cats were held in the highest esteem; and we learn from Diodorus Siculus, their 'lives and safeties' were tendered more dearly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... ground. Then said the man, Pray to God to pardon thy sin, for thou art never like to be seen alive any longer. So she and her Tub twirled round, and round, till they sunk about three yards into the Earth, and then for a while staid. Then she called for help again, thinking, as she said, that she should stay there. Now the man though greatly amazed, did begin to think which way to help her, but immediately a great stone which appeared in the Earth, fell ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of sober and staid Persons: for as the Knight is the best Master in the World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him: by this means his Domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much then, but to ride out in companies with prudent and well-staid guides, to all quarters of the land,' etc. Many other passages might be quoted, in which the poet breaks through the groundwork of prose, as it were, by natural fecundity and a genial, unrestrained sense of delight. To suppose that a poet is not easily accessible to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to the people and made a discourse in vindication of those of the Religion that it was no Principle of theirs attempts on the persons of King[s] butt only loyalty and obedience. This ended hee went away; hee staid about an hour in all, and immediately as soon as he was gone, they went to their worke and gave him eleven blows with a barre and laid him on the wheele. He was two houres dying. All about Monsr Daillie I heard from his own mouth for I went to wait on him because it was reported hee had said ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... put by Cicero, or whoever was the author of the rhetorical treatise inscribed to Herennius[n]. There was a law, that those who in a storm forsook the ship should forfeit all property therein; and the ship and lading should belong entirely to those who staid in it. In a dangerous tempest all the mariners forsook the ship, except only one sick passenger, who by reason of his disease was unable to get out and escape. By chance the ship came safe to port. The sick man kept possession and claimed ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... of the performance, the same buzzing hum of converse rises from the assemblage which you hear in the Opera corridors and lobbies. A glance at the audience will enlighten you as to their character. They represent the staid respectability of the middle class. The dresses of the ladies are often rich, seldom brilliant, and there is little sparkle of jewellery. You very frequently perceive family parties, under the care of a grave pater familias and his staid and stately ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... might lead you to think that he was of Jewish descent. His eyes were not each of the same colour: one was hazel, the other had specks of grey in the iris, mingled as we see red spots in the bloodstone. His step was plantigrade, which made his walk slow and peculiar, adding to the staid appearance of his figure. ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... and glad old lady Aunt Susan was when the two stepped off the train, and how vividly Frank recalled one year ago when he and Albert met Alice at this same cheerless depot with its one small waiting-room and adjoining shed! The same staid horse was hitched outside, and as he bundled his two charges into the sleigh and officiously took the reins, while Aunt Susan lamented because she had not known he was coming, "so's to hev suthin' fit to eat in the house," he felt he ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... weeks, to escape the cruel treatment of the overseer. It is common for them to make preparations, by secreting a mortar, a hatchet, some cooking utensils, and whatever things they can get that will enable them to live while they are in the woods or swamps. Harry staid about three months, and lived by robbing the rice grounds, and by such other means as came in his way. The slaves generally know where the runaway is secreted, and visit him at night and on Sundays. On the return of his master, some of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Bloodgood's Hotel; Mr. Wheeler went to dinner; Mr. Wheeler had told me in Washington to have nothing to say to colored persons, and if any of them spoke to me, to say I was a free woman traveling with a minister; we staid at Bloodgood's till 5 o'clock; Mr. Wheeler kept his eye on me all the time except when he was at dinner; he left his dinner to come and see if I was safe, and then went back again; while he was at dinner, I saw a colored ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... keep in perfect condition. Over-exertion, however, is avoided. Cricket Judaism is played according to the rules of the game, and the players are quite comfortable in their flannels. The established synagogue of Mulberry Street is as staid and sober as the Church of England, the liberalism preached in Berkeley Street as gentle and unscandalizing as the nonconformity of the City Temple, and the orthodoxy of the United Synagogue as innocuously papish as the last ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Marcy who seemed born for a politician. A staid old Federalist teacher sent him away from school at fourteen years of age, because of his love for Jeffersonian principles and his fondness for argument. The early years of this Massachusetts lad seem to have been strangely varied and vexed. He was the leader of a band of noisy, roguish boys who ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... account whatever of itself, Mr. Goodchild concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A place dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras mahogany, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself, and to show the visitor, in the depth of its grain, through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... northern huskies and the wild wolves mix together sometimes to fight, and sometimes in good fellowship. Once I had a wolf follow my komatik for two days, and at night when we stopped and turned our dogs loose the wolf joined them and staid the night with them only to slink out of rifle shot with the ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... his death, Mr. Nelson was a deputy to the triennial meetings of every General Convention, and became the principal spokesman in the House of Deputies. This body is not always as decorous and staid in its deliberations as the House of Bishops, but Mr. Nelson at all times commanded a respectful hearing among the deputies. He came to be one of the leaders who, as a veteran church-paper correspondent put it, "could read the signs of the times." ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... of the oldest—was once the county seat, until Hudson captured the prize. With what scorn must the staid Dutchmen have looked on the hustling Yankees who almost built the greatest city of ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... with an expectation of success more than to end his days with honour and a good conscience, which obliged him to continue his endeavours, not despairing that God would, in due time, avenge his own cause. Yet he owned, that those who staid with him must expect and resolve either to die for a good cause, or, which is worse, to live as miserable in the maintaining it as the violence of insulting rebels could make them." The treaty terminated without ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... are sober and staid of soul, Working beneath the law, Settled amid our father's dust, Seeing the hills they saw. All things fixed and determinate, Chiselled and squared by rule; Is it mortal guile once in a while To try and ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... of a well-known New York banker; and the fact that we had some mutual acquaintances was accepted as all-sufficing credentials for my respectability. We had happened to fix on the same hotel at our destination; and in the evening, after dinner, I met in the corridor the staid and severe-looking gouvernante, who saluted me with "Oh, Mr. Muirhead, I have such a headache! Would you mind going out with my little girl while she makes some purchases?" I was a little taken aback at first; but a moment's reflection ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... no absent face to love That you must live alone? If faith did fade, if friends betrayed, And turned, and staid resolves you'd made, Ah, still 'tis pleasant to be laid Where ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... land of Utopia, he discovered the statue of a man erected on an open plain, which had this inscription on the pedestal: "On May-day in the morning, when the sun rises, I shall have a Head of Gold." As it was now the latter end of April, he staid to see this wonderful change; and, in the mean time, inquiring of a poor shepherd what was the reason of the statue being erected there, and with that inscription, he was informed, that it was set up many years ago by an Arabian philosopher, who travelled all the world ...
— The Story of the White Mouse • Unknown
... shone with such friendly zeal, that the four submitted at once, sure that the kind soul was pleasing herself in serving them, and finding something very attractive in the place, the people, and their own position. Abel, a staid farmer of forty, obeyed his mother's order regarding the "men folks;" and Phebe, a buxom girl of sixteen, led Sylvia to her own room, eagerly offering ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... They tried faithfully to do their duty by her, but they were not used to children, and she was a very hard child to manage. A whole legion of mischievous spirits seemed to dwell in her at times, and she became in a small and comparatively innocent way, the scandal of the staid Puritan neighborhood in which she lived. Yet, withal, she was so affectionate, and seemed to be actuated by so little real malice in any of her pranks, that people could not help having a sort of liking for the child, ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the parade in front of the Fort. Some of the aristocracy of the place were out also, staid middle-aged men with powdered queues and velvet coats, elegant ladies in crimson silk petticoats and skirts drawn back, the train fastened up with a ribbon or chain which they carried on their arms as they minced ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... moment it was over the wall and running through the crowd, who caught it up and began to yell out the name of the familiar object of attire, staid elderly men holding their sides and laughing, boys shrieking with delight and pointing under the van at the two pairs of huge pillar-like legs with the loose skin hanging about them like some specimen of giant frieze, till, as the van moved on, ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... always going where there's no need of it," he said to a companion, as he saw the last of the regiment disappear into the woods on the mountain side. "He could have staid back here with us just as well as not, instead of trudging off through the heat over these devilish roads, and probably get into a scrape for which no one ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... sharply, but ended the exclamation with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May, mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young while ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... into the hands of the people who might make the best use of it." She was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubt of everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance of everything. Professor and Madame La Rue, in actual life devotedly faithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationships sanctioned by the practice of free love. It was perhaps with this recollection in her mind that she suggested, "Don't you suppose it will be like the institution of marriage, very, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... good girl, and believed that if there was no rival, she still had a regard for me at the bottom of her heart; and how I liked her all the better for her coy, maiden airs: and I received the assurance over and over that there was no one else; and that Sarah (they all knew) never staid five minutes with any other lodger, while with me she would stay by the hour together, in spite of all her father could say to her (what were her motives, was best known to herself!) and while we were talking of her, she came bounding into the room, ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... I fear. They staid in hope the damaged Cabriole Might, with the dawn of day, have such repairs, As ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... form of impertinence. But the enthusiasm bestowed on splendid instances of energy in certain circles, to which after all such energy is a reproach, is superficial, and not being genuine is sure not to last long. Some people said that Jacqueline's staid manners were put on for effect, and that she was only attempting to play a difficult part to which she was not suited; others blamed her for not being up to concert-pitch in matters of social interest. The first time she felt the pang of exclusion was at Madame d'Avrigny's, who was at the ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... when he had heard of them, that we were come vnto him, commanded that we should return, vnto his mother. For he was determined the next day, (as it is abouesaid) to set vp a flag of defiance against all the countreis of the West, which he would haue vs in no case to know. Wherefore returning, we staid some few dayes with his mother, and so returned backe again vnto him. With whom we continued for the space of one whole moneth in such extreme hunger and thirst, that we could scarce hold life and soule together. For the prouision allowed vs for foure dayes, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... workers slept until about ten o'clock. Then the staid and married people dressed themselves in their best clothes and, after duly scolding the young folks for their indifference to church, went to hear mass. When they returned from church, they ate pirogs, the Russian national pastry, and again lay down to sleep ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose that Benson had seen: a somewhat different operation from the plucking of the Spring one: very innocent! Our staid elderly sister has paler blood, and has, or thinks she has, a reason or two about the roots. She is not all instinct. "For this high cause, and for that I know men, and know him to be the flower of men, I give myself to him!" She makes that lofty inward exclamation while the hand ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Henry's kindness. He even tried to bring himself to consider the offer seriously and carefully, but it was no use. He could not conceive himself as likely to be either useful or happy amid the hustling commercialism of the Manchester streets or the staid proprieties of ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... added to the English Prayer Book at the Restoration, and commonly attributed to Sanderson, "that staid and well weighed man," as Hammond called him, there occurs a sentence which, both on account of its embodying in a few words the whole philosophy of liturgical revision and because of a certain practical bearing presently to be ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... 1796, Thomas Coutts, Pitt's banker, wrote to him: "Mr. Dent, Mr. Hoare, Mr. Snow, Mr. Gosling, Mr. Drummond, and myself met today, and have each subscribed L50,000.... I shall leave town tomorrow, having staid solely to do any service in my power in forwarding this business, which I sincerely wish and hope may be the means of procuring peace on fair and honourable terms. P.S.—We have subscribed L10,000 in your name, and shall take care to make the payments" ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... monarch chastised the Leinster allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire and sword from Dublin to the border town of Gowran. This seems to have been the last of his notable exploits in arms. He died on the 20th of November, 876, and is lamented by the Bards as "a generous, wise, staid man." These praises belong—if at all deserved—to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... themselves in some wild sea place! No, no: the only way to give the arrangement any shade of propriety, will be to be elderly, infuse as much vinegar as possible into my countenance, wear my spectacles, and walk at a staid pace up and down the parade, while my two sons disport themselves on ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heard of, who takes practical charge of his titular church. But here in the country he's out-of-doors all the blessed day, hand in hand with Emilia. He's as young as she is, I believe. They play together like children—and make—me feel as staid and solemn and grown-up as one of ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... some social superiority, and he became something of a snob, in his dogged fashion, with a passion for outward refinement in the household, mad when anything clumsy or gross occurred. Later, when his three children were growing up, and he seemed a staid, almost middle-aged man, he turned after strange women, and became a silent, inscrutable follower of forbidden pleasure, neglecting his indignant bourgeois wife ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... where fierce Beauregard O'erwhelmed us with numbers and pressed us so hard, Till our veteran supporters came up to our aid And the tide of defeat and disaster was staid— Where like grain-sheaves the slaughtered were piled on the plain And the brave rebel Johnston went down with the slain? Lo—torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder, The Old Flag is waving there prouder ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... We staid here till the 4th, to refresh, and Mr Banks improved the time in making the complete circuit of the island, and visiting the most remarkable places upon it. At one o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th of May, we weighed and stood out of the road, in company with the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... of citizens. Here Reginald, throwing himself from his horse, assisted Wuzeer Singh to reach the small loophole, through which he could communicate with those within. After a few words had been exchanged, the gates were opened and the party entered. A staid-looking citizen, with several younger men, received them; and though they treated the rajah with marked respect, they did not otherwise show that they knew who he was. The old man only addressed him as sahib, and ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... beyond the measure of anything intrinsically humorous in it, and he staid watching the exertions of the heated truckman and two silk-capped, sarcastic-faced freight-men, till the piano was well on the platform. He was so intent upon it that his interest seemed to communicate itself to a young ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... Court and resumed old habits. Dined with Walter and Jane at Mrs. Jobson's. When we returned were astonished at the news of ——'s death, and the manner of it; a quieter, more inoffensive, mild, and staid mind I never knew. He was free from all these sinkings of the imagination which render those who are liable to them the victims of occasional low spirits. All belonging to this gifted, as it is called, but often ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... in railroad shares in the years 1845-6. Projects involving the investment of L500,000,000 were set on foot in a very little while; the contagion of purchasing spread to all the provincial towns; the traditionally staid and sober Englishman got as mad as a March hare about them; Mr. Murdle reigned triumphant; and, in the end, the nation had to pay for its delirium with another season of panic, misery, and ruin. Yet during all this excitement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... spoke with the force of a logical climax. "He'd done rented a house down below though, an' was a-fixin' ter move. He staid one day too late. Jesse Purvy hired ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... exceedingly amused by the people, who insisted on addressing the senior of the party as "Miss," and thought them a young girl and her brothers under the charge of Mrs. Acton. She, though really not a year older than her friend, looked like a worn and staid matron by her side, and was by no means disposed to scramble barefoot over slippery seaweed, or to take impromptu a part in the grand defence of the sand and shingle edition ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... still being made at Greencastle Ind., and the wires between Cincinnati and that staid old Methodist town, were ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... got some brandy, and between them they managed to make him swallow a little. He began to recover. They bathed his wound, and did for it what they could with scissors and plaster, then carried him to his own room, and got him to bed. Donal sat down by him, and staid. His patient was restless and wandering all the night, but towards morning fell into a sound sleep, and was still asleep when the housekeeper came ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... the last three years, and that his indoor occupations had given his broad square shoulders a kind of slouch, and kept his colouring as pink and white as that of his sisters. Like Wilmet, he had something staid and responsible about him, that, even more than his fringe of light brown whiskers, gave the appearance of full-grown manhood; so that the first impression of all the newcomers was how completely he had left the boy behind him, making it an effort of memory to believe him only nineteen and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was coming down, or when she was going away, or when we wanted to walk in the garden, I sent the girl on some errand. I have sent her as far as Orleans to get rid of her for twenty-four hours. The rest of the time we staid up ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... that we don't take as long to fix up a town hereaway as you do in the old country," remarked Hunky Ben, as old Jacob Crossley ambled up on the staid creature which we have already ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... return. Unluckily for the poor wretch, the very self-sacrifice he had made brought about the precise condition of things which he was desirous to avoid. It is possible that, had the acquaintance between them continued on the same staid footing, it would have followed the lot of most acquaintanceships of the kind—other circumstances and other scenes might have wiped out the memory of all but common civilities between them, and Sylvia might never have discovered that she had for the chaplain ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Syria. What a clear eye he has, and what a pleasant face! He too has borne much for his Master. In 1865, when he left the Greek Church, he was living with his brother in Beirut. His brother turned him out of the house at night, with neither bed nor clothing. He came to my house and staid with me some time. He said it was hard to be driven out by his brother and mother, but he could bear anything for Christ's sake. Said he, "I can bear cursing and beating and the loss of property. But my mother ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... to those her subjects who were of noble birth that she showed herself thus verie gracious, but also to the poorest sort. How manie nose gaies did her grace receive at poore women's hands? How oftentimes staid she her chariot, when she saw anie simple bodie offer to speake to her grace? A branch of rosemarie given her grace with a supplication about Fleetbridge, was seene in her chariot till her grace came to Westminster, not without the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... labour I would chuse; And could sustain this paradise to lose: The bliss, but not the place: Here, could I say, Heaven's winged messenger did pass the day; Under this pine the glorious angel staid: Then, show my wondering progeny the shade. In woods and lawns, where-e'er thou didst appear, Each place some monument of thee should bear. I, with green turfs, would grateful altars raise, And heaven, with gums, and ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... go; not in carriage and livery, but walked the pleasant half mile that lay between them; the exercise of which gave us all activity and good spirits. Jocelyn was right glad to see us, and Patty, his staid and sober wife, with whom we had romped many an innocent hour in our childhood days, was quite as glad as he. But they looked a little surprised that such "great folks" as their new neighbors, should drop in so unceremoniously, and into their common "keeping ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... within an oak's broad shade, Lost in delightful talk, We rested from our walk. Beyond the shadow, large and staid, Cows chewed with drowsy eye Their cud complacently: Elegant deer walked o'er the glade, Or stood with wide bright eyes Gazing a short surprise; And up the ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... happened to possess such a thing when Betty and Hugh were coming to stay, my doorstep would never have been cleaned. For once I was glad that I depended on the services of a very small boy, who thinks he cleans it. Staid and level-headed as were my maids, they answered no bells that morning, which was perhaps natural, as I believe none ring up to the nursery. Of course they had to be interested in ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... they came to a mountain brook, and here the Pupil insisted on trying his luck. The Stranger was a little tired and hungry, and so was quite willing to sit down for a time and eat something from his bag. The Pupil ran off to find some bait, and he staid away so long that the Stranger had quite finished his meal before he returned. He came back at last, however, in ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... had been extravagant in her expenditure on clothes and had run herself short for necessary expenses, there was nothing criminal in that! Foolish it might be, but a fellow-girl would understand that, after being staid and sensible for a long, long time, it was a blessed relief to the feminine mind to have a little spell of recklessness for a change. Cecil had only to say, "I've run myself horribly short. Can you pay up till I get my screw?" and the whole matter would have been settled in a trice. ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
