"Placidly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flat to find Mike still out. Mike had repaired to the Gaiety earlier in the evening to refresh his mind after the labours of the day. When he returned, Psmith was sitting in an armchair with his feet on the mantelpiece, musing placidly on Life. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... said placidly. "Everything is quite safe. We were so thankful for those men of the Surete. We had been afraid before, as I told the citizen Representative, and my man and I could not rest for anxiety. It was only after they came that we dared ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... orderly; the operators placidly pursuing their labours, working out their calculations, or watching the tell-tale spot of light on the scale, and all looking up in silent surprise at the sudden hubbub round their door. It was a false alarm, caused by the steady dripping of a shower-bath on its metal bottom! ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mrs. Ellis found her sitting beside him as she had so often done during his illness, on that same chair which was too high for her, her feet dangling, and her little hands folded in her lap, gazing at him with a face as placidly set, save for ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... they had descended the straggling, tree-shaded street—along which the infrequent street-lamps threw little more light that that which came from the windows shining placidly out on lawns—and had emerged on the embankment bordering the Charles, that the events of the evening began for Davenant to weave themselves in with that indefinable desire that had led him back to Boston. He could not ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... to shy at his own shadow this was heroic treatment. But it was successful. In a month you could not have startled Calico with a pound of dynamite. He would placidly munch his oats within three feet of the spot where a stake-gang swung the heavy sledges in staccato time. He cared no more for flapping canvas than for the wagging of a mule's ears. As for noises, when one has associated with a steam calliope ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... it was in that odd, serene way that sometimes occurs. We open our eyes, we know not why, quite placidly, and are on the instant wide awake. He had had a nap of some duration this time, for his candle-flame was fluttering and flaring, in articulo, in the silver socket. But the fire was still bright and cheery; so he popped the extinguisher on the socket, and almost at the same time ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... received me in silence and with sullen looks, and my dear brother's portrait ornamented most of the windows—which was an ironical sort of greeting to the King. I was quite glad that he had been spared the unpleasant sight. He was a man of quick temper, and perhaps he would not have taken it so placidly ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... chalk-drawn line from the grass-grown battlefields to the pale old buildings of King's College. The street had been called in honour of a duke of Gloucester. It was now "Main" Street, and nothing more, though it was still wide and white and placidly impressed by the slow passage of Kingsborough feet. Beyond the court-house the breeze blew across the green, which was ablaze with buttercups. Beneath the warm wind the yellow heads assumed the effect of a brilliant tangle, spreading over the unploughed common, running ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... is in a bad temper, isn't she?" asked Betty placidly. "I don't take any notice of her." Then with some slight interest, "What did she ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... body claiming to possess the highest ideals in the world, yet actually cherishing an entirely barbaric theory. There is probably not a Catholic lawyer in the world who does not reject the old idea of punishment as barbaric, yet he placidly believes that God retains it. That is why we find a Catholic archbishop like Carr putting forth so revolting an idea of the war, while Protestant preachers as a rule shrink from mentioning God in connection with it. These things make it impossible for one to understand how non-Christians can say, ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... do this, while in deep woe she sighed for loneliness, and would gladly have exchanged her crowded rooms for dark forest depths, or a drear, night-enshadowed heath. But she became gay. She could not keep in the medium, nor be, as was usual with her, placidly content. Every one remarked her exhilaration of spirits; as all actions appear graceful in the eye of rank, her guests surrounded her applaudingly, although there was a sharpness in her laugh, and ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... old master remained placidly at home. They had no fears. At the appointed date—only a week more now—the two would come back, as they had promised, to begin the long, tranquil life of art and happiness. There were to be great pictures! Kano chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together, as he sat in his ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... condition, buzzed round and settled on your nose, ears, neck, eyelids and forehead, stinging you for all they were worth. Swarms of bees—a dwarf kind, with body in yellow and black stripes; fortunately these did not sting—also placidly roamed upon every available patch of skin with a provoking tickling. A great number of them settled along the edges of the eyelids, attracted by the sheen of the retina of the eye, into which they gazed with great interest. Others, more inquisitive, would explore the inside ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... and his eyes twinkled when Natalie bent that searching look upon Barry. He noted with a grin her tender little touches at the skipper's couch and settled himself complacently in expectation of similar attention. His eyes closed, and he folded his hands placidly over his chest as Natalie stepped to his side, and then he peeped slyly at her, ready to give her some characteristically ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... had, as long as he had any recollection, been sufficient. The father witnessed the ordinance unmoved. Lucy went through the ordeal bravely, and when she came out from the dressing room where the sisters had helped her, he kissed her placidly ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... there are in this world to know. That a girl student should mistake "Launcelot Gobbo" for King Arthur's knight is not a matter of surprise to one who remembers how three young men, graduates of the oldest and proudest colleges in the land, placidly confessed ignorance of "Petruchio." Shakespeare, after all, belongs to "the realms of gold." The higher education, as now understood, permits the student to escape him, and to escape the Bible as well. As a consequence of these exemptions, a bachelor ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... deep woody layer also that had been cut by the carver's knife. It must have been cut while the tree was very young, for the bark had very much expanded, and the letters were now more than a foot in length. We stood contemplating the rude verse. In the distance the sun was placidly reflecting the last golden rays, every thing was fresh and green, not a sound was heard. It must have been on such another lovely eve that the two lovers had plighted their faith together, and commemorated ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... have been formed a comely person, In the court of Caridwen I have done penance; Though little I was seen, placidly received, I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led; I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause, And by law without speech I have been liberated By a smiling black old hag, when irritated Dreadful her claim when pursued: I have fled with vigour, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... observed Mrs. Ross placidly at this point, for she had been too busy counting her stitches to concern herself with the strife of words, 'Geraldine only mentioned that as a fact: she remarked that Mrs. Blake was a very prepossessing person, that she had rather an uncommon ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a way. A new set of muscles came into play, and he swam placidly for two or three hundred yards. Then he turned over on his back and floated as far again. Now, as he floated, he found time to take thought. He saw that the sun was still shining brilliantly overhead, and the forest grew in a dense green wall to the ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... So, placidly and happily, the days drifted by, till March was nearly gone; and then, sudden and staggering as a shell from a masked battery, there fell the blow that was destined to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... "What—hell?" Caroline inquired placidly. "No, I s'pose not. Nor damn nor devil, either. But, of course, I know 'em. Those are the only three I know. I guess they're about the worst, though," she added with pardonable pride. "My cousin, the ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... young man, dines with a rich genius, et cetera. Yet—and it cannot be minced—he and gentility with regard to many things are at strange divergency; he shrinks from many things at which gentility placidly hums a tune, or approvingly simpers, and does some things at which gentility positively shrinks. He will not run into debt for clothes or lodgings, which he might do without any scandal to gentility; he will not receive money from Francis Ardry, and go to Brighton with the sister ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... all white wainscot and crimson wall-paper, a perfect gem of colour after the black, empty darkness in which I had been groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as well as I could make out, to an attentive child upon her knee, while an old woman sat placidly dozing over the fire. You may be sure I was not behindhand with a story for myself—a good old story after the manner of G.P.R. James and the village melodramas, with a wicked squire, and poachers, and an attorney, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man in citizen's clothing, who had keen eyes, and who was riding a motor-cycle, rounded the corner and puffed placidly along near the two. He appeared to be looking at the numbers on the other side of the street, but he heard every word that they said as they caught sight of the disappearing carriage and hurried after it. ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... of silence the Sultana offered me some buyo, or betel-nut, to chew, and on my refusing it, placidly put a large hunk into her own mouth, and chewed it until the red juice stained her lips as if she ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... Plato had probably obtained it. He justified it, handily enough, from his doctrine of Ideas, but scarcely derived it thence. The triumph of Aristotle destroyed his justification, but the parent stream flowed on placidly, undisturbed ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... death, the feeling that nothing can matter in the world now, has kept me from caring or asserting myself in any way. I feel numb. I seem to be a person listening from some gallery when they all speak around me, and that the Ambrosine who answers placidly is an automaton ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... a good glass for us to look into. Those Catharine-wheel republics, always in revolution while the powder lasts, and sure to burn the fingers of whoever attempts intervention, have also their great men, as placidly ignored by us as our own by jealous Europe. The following passage from the life of Don Simon Bolivar might allay many motus animorum, if rightly pondered. Bolivar, then a youth, was travelling in Italy, and his biographer tells us that "near Castiglione he was present at the grand review ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... solution. He rubbed his forehead wearily. It was strange how so little a thing as the union of a spermatozoon and an ovum could produce so much trouble. He looked across the office at Copper placidly filing case cards. She wasn't worrying. With sublime faith, she was sure that he would find the answer, the one that would solve everything. He shuddered. The only logical solution was abortion—and that was unthinkable! He would not murder his child—nor ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... her be, Mr. Bob," advised Mrs. Wiggs, placidly, as she spread her salad on a piece of bread. "She'll git to holdin' her breath ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... her son Theodore and her daughter Ethel, was driven directly to Mercy Hospital and took charge of her husband as soon as she had greeted him. She was quite composed on her arrival and placidly directed affairs all through. As a result of her presence, the colonel's visiting list was materially cut down, he devoted less time to reading telegrams, and discussed ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... O.W. (placidly).—"Exactly, boys. Your remarks are terse, and to the point. Only, as I am going to show you a trick or two on woodcraft this afternoon, you can afford to wait a little. Now, quit smoking, and get out your hatchets; ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... reached Danesford, he found it a very quiet, sleepy little village, with a gleaming river flowing through it placidly, and such respectable houses and small clean cottages as put to shame the dwellings at Botfield. So early was it yet, that the village children were only just going to school; and the biggest boy turned back with Stephen to the gate ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... villain has robbed me of my wallet, with fifteen dollars in it, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake I was going to give Aunt Farnsworth!' exclaimed she, placidly. Stout folks bear disasters calmly. Luckily, she had two or three dollars in her satchel, which she had received from the ticket master when she purchased her ticket, so she was not entirely bankrupt. Some of the passengers attempted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... gesticulating wildly. Inside the tent crouched Bakuma. Towards Birnier advanced Bakahenzie and the warriors, whose dilated eyes and spears in their hands betokened that Bakahenzie had stirred their deepest feelings of terror and murder. Birnier smoked placidly, neither stirring nor permitting a sign of their presence to ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... grow handsomer; at least that's what has happened to you, though you were pretty too of old," Gabriel placidly argued. "I go to the theatre to look at your head; it gives me the greatest pleasure. I take up anything of that sort as soon as I find it. One never knows how ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... The General very placidly listened to the old termagant, and merely remarked, "It was too cold to go out of the house just then; he guessed ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... alarmed, my good friend," said I, placidly and smiling. "A man of your bone need not fear a pigmy like me. I shall scarcely be able to dethrone you in your own castle, with an army of hostlers, tapsters, and cooks at your beck. You shall still be master here, provided you use your influence ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... she said placidly, ignoring her husband's very obvious mental disarray,—"just in time for a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... which they knew nothing, and therefore hated; and at a boy nearer their own size and years, whom their father called William. Both boys refused fruit and cereal, rudely demanding cake and ice cream. Margaret Winslow looked at her brother in despair. He placidly ate his breakfast, remarking that the cook was a treasure. As he left the table Mr. Minturn laid the papers before his sister, indicating the paragraphs he had read, then calling for his car he took the tutor and the boys and left for his office. He ordered them ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... calmly and placidly. I prevailed on Dr Johnson to read aloud Ogden's sixth sermon on prayer, which he did with a distinct expression, and pleasing solemnity. He praised my favourite preacher, his elegant language, and remarkable acuteness; and said, he fought infidels ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Cameron, formerly of Johnstown. He invited us into his sanctum, where we had a pleasant chat about our native hills, Scotch affiliations, the bench and bar of New York, and the Wisconsin laws for women. The Judge, having maintained a happy bachelor state, looked placidly on the aggressive movements of the sex, as his domestic felicity would be no way affected, whether woman was voted ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... with a brilliant radiance that totally eclipsed all lesser lights. The night was very still, very beautiful, but the silence and the beauty failed to bring peace to the mother's heart. She looked up into the heavens. How placidly cold the moon looked back at her, the same moon that was probably shedding its beams upon her boy at that moment and could tell her where he was if it could but speak. Why, oh why, could those beams not speak and tell her what they ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... I shall be very happy." He crossed to where Lady Alice still sat placidly at work, and made his adieux in a low tone, holding her hand for a moment longer than mere acquaintanceship warranted, and having exchanged good-nights, left the room, ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... LADY UTTERWORD [placidly]. A good deal of my hair is quite genuine. The Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty guineas for this [touching her forehead] under the impression that it was a transformation; but it is ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... get over it," interposed Dr. Dean placidly. "It's an illness,—like typhoid,—we must do all we can to keep down the temperature of the patient, and we ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... nothing happened; the evening and the night followed, placidly and uneventfully. Monday came, a cloudless, lovely day; Monday confirmed the captain's assertion that the marriage was a certainty. Toward ten o'clock, the clerk, ascending the church steps quoted the old proverb to the pew-opener, meeting him under the porch: ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... be drawn, nodded placidly through the clouds of smoke that enwrapped him. The Vicar hurried away, accompanied, however, furtively to the door, even to the gate of the drive, by Mrs. Roughsedge, who had questions ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an umbrella, but Mr. Weston offered me the benefit of his, and I could not have refused it more than I did without offending him,' replied I, smiling placidly; for my inward happiness made that amusing, which would have wounded ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... this, and presently the group moved off, loitering across the flat, untenanted fields. Manson was in the rear, decapitating daisies with his heavy oak stick. A few minutes later Clark looked up and saw the chief constable's bulk filling the doorway. He waited placidly. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Sam smiled placidly, and said he had had hard work to get stones enough to fill the skiff. "I put them in," he explained, "and then I sculled out in mid-stream, and scuttled her. I had to swim ashore. It was night, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the clerk Lablache re-settled himself and went on smoking placidly. The minutes ticked slowly away. An occasional groan from the long-suffering basket chair, and the wreathing clouds of smoke were the only appreciable indication of life in that little room. By-and-by the great ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... alley of box—which no long time before had been clipped and dressed. A final turn brought us into a cul de sac; and there we were, in a kind of small arbour carpeted with turf, and so perfectly hedged in as to afford no exit save by the entrance. Here the dog placidly stood and wagged its tail, looking up ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... up to this had kept her eyes on the ledge of the witness-box, began to take courage. She lifted them towards the Coroner and, encountering his placidly benevolent ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... think," said Psmith placidly, "we may look forward to a very pleasant evening. Shall we ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... capture. On another occasion, he fell into the canal before our house, and terrified us by going under twice before the arrival of the old gondolier, who called out to him "Petta! petta!" (Wait! wait!) as he placidly pushed his boat to the spot. Developing other disagreeable traits, Beppi was finally driven into exile, from which he nevertheless furtively ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... movement for obsequiousness and humility, ignoring the terrible root from which these delicate flowers spring; the root of patience; with its tentacles ever twining and twisting through the eastern mind, causing the very old to die placidly with a smile on their shrivelled lips, and the young to envisage plague, pestilence, and famine with a mere lifting of the shoulder. Patience! the card which India does not hold up her sleeve in the game of life she is playing; the dull-coloured drab little ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... gown they are going to give you at Oxford," said the Picture, smiling placidly. "The one Aunt Lucy was telling me about. Why do they give you a gown?" she asked. "It seems such ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... accounts for his breeding," she answered placidly; and left me marvelling at the happy remoteness of ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... it very placidly. "I shouldn't have gone if she HAD asked me. That is I think I shouldn't; and I'm glad I hadn't to make up my mind. It would have been a very difficult question. I shouldn't have liked to turn away from her, and yet I shouldn't have been ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... agreed placidly; "she is a fine worker. Vrouw Van Heigen is full of her praises; such a cook—she has twenty new dishes, and everything is done quickly, one cannot tell how; it is like having a magician in the house, so she says. Ah, there is Herr Van de Greutz's ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... little girl between three and four. She had been placidly nursing a doll in the middle of the road, and seemed perfectly oblivious ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... fringed with poplar and cottonwood and occasional dark green splashes of spruce. Beyond the bed of the Y.D., beyond the foothills that looked down upon it, hung the mountains themselves, their giant crests pitched like mighty tents drowsing placidly between earth and heaven. Now their four o'clock veil of blue-purple mist lay filmed about their shoulders, but later they would stand out in bold silhouette cutting into the twilight sky. Everywhere was the soft smell of new-mown hay; everywhere ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... I was, when I reached home, with the large warm drops of the storm's beginning, I stopped in the sitting-room a moment before going to my room. The smell of ironing scented the house, but Mrs. Libby was resting placidly in the rocking-chair, her feet on a cushioned stool. She was eating some peaches, tearing them apart from the stone with strong, juice-dropping fingers, and dipping them in a saucer of coarse sugar before she ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... slumber; a feeble light still glimmered in Madame's apartment, which looked out upon the square, and the soft rays from the expiring lamp seemed to be the image of the calm sleep of a young girl, hardly yet sensible of life's anxieties, and in whom the flame of existence sinks placidly as sleep steals over ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is," she assented placidly. "I'm glad we don't have to go through it again, Freddie; though you're only eighty-two, and with a girl like Julia Atwater around nobody ought to ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... a surprise to her to find life placidly proceeding here in this strange apartment in Geary Street, as if all the world had not stopped moving and commenced again. The persons she met called her "Mrs. Bannister" with no visible thrill. Nobody seemed surprised when she and the big actor quietly went into their room at night ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... dynamite, blasted away all opposition. He was in thorough mastery of the situation. The waves of the sea were now calm, the fierce winds had abated, there was a great rift in the dark clouds. The ship of state was sailing placidly on the bosom of the erstwhile troubled sea, and Belton was ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... but lonesome and dampish. Ghosts and toadstools is apt to locate in houses of that sort," placidly responded the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the professor's good house, to have delightful walks arm in arm with Jan under the trees in the Baan or round the Singels, parting under the stars with many a lingering word and promise to meet again. It was during one of those very partings that the professor suddenly became aware, as he walked placidly home, of the change that had ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the floral cross and ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... too, will have a companion,' resumed Mr. Pickwick, 'a lively one, who'll teach him, I'll be bound, more tricks in a week than he would ever learn in a year.' And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly. ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... into the breakfast-room dressed still in buckskin and moccasins, and though the grease had been taken out of her hair it was still combed flat. Mrs. Armour had tried to influence her through Mackenzie, but to no purpose. She was placidly stubborn. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... meanwhile, on a garden seat under the calm but misty sky, sat Luckworth Crewe and Beatrice French. Crewe smoked a cigar placidly; Beatrice was laying before him the suggestion of her great commercial scheme, already ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... his name," remarked Mrs. Valentine, placidly shifting a wrinkle-plaster from one place to another. "You wouldn't object if I had alluded to young Benham or young Wadsworth. You show by your very excitement how disagreeable his name is to your ears. It isn't a question of argument; ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... They literally covered the trees in hundreds; and their heavy nests, like those of the swan, constructed of large sticks, forming great platforms, were sustained by the horizontal branches. Each nest contained three eggs, rather larger than those of a goose; and the male bird stood placidly beside the female as ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... rope over her horns, and away she goes, kicking up mud and water into my face in her flight, while I, losing my balance, tumble forward into the marsh. I pick myself up, and, full of wrath, behold her placidly chewing her cud on the other side, with the meekest air imaginable, as who should say, "I hope you are not hurt, sir." I dash through swamp and bog furiously, resolving to carry all by a coup de main. Then follows a miscellaneous season of dodging, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Clarissa was hysterical, Sam Winnington was as sulky as a bear. If this treatment were to be regarded as a foreshadowing of what the behaviour of the authorities at Fairfax would prove, then the actors in the little drama might shake in their shoes. But Will Locke placidly stood the storm they had brewed, only remembering in years to come some words which Dulcie did not retain for a sun-down. Dulcie was now affronted and hurt, now steady as a stepping-stone and erect ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... the dogs but the stream flowed placidly on. There was nothing for it, but to take off her shoes and stockings a second time, and wade. By the time she had laced them, she remembered having heard Frank say that the creek was very winding here and kept doubling back on its tracks. She was ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... as now, surveying with glowing face the even green carpet stretching out before him. In such moments he found his compensation for all he had gone through since he arrived in Wyoming, and he smiled pityingly as he thought of the people at The Colonial, rocking placidly on the veranda. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... said the minister, placidly. 'Right, because it comes from his heart—right, too, as I believe, in point of fact. Else there is many a young cockerel that will stand upon a dunghill and crow about his father, by way of making his own plumage ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... parting shot. Dick, lying on his back and staring up at a knot in the woodwork over his bunk, received it placidly. Probably he did not hear. His brow was corrugated in a frown, as though he were working out a sum or puzzling over some problem. The doctor closed the door softly, and some minutes later paid a visit to ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... seemed wholly acceptable to Tavender. He mused upon it placidly for a time, with his reverend head pillowed askew against the corner of the chair. Then he let his cigar drop, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... forecastle he had supper, a good night's rest and breakfast, and was sitting placidly with a pipe, fancying all was over and the game up for good with that ship, when one of the sailors grumbled out an oath at him, with a "What are you doing there?" and "Do you call that hiding, anyway?" There was need of no more: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my heart of hearts I had to admit that Herwegh judged Gothe's poem objectively more correctly than I did, as I always felt depressed by a kind of moral bondage, to which Herwegh, if he had ever experienced it at all, submitted placidly, owing to his peculiar relations with his strong-minded wife. When the time came to an end, and I realised that I had not much to hope for from the treatment, we returned to Zurich. This was about the middle of August, and I now ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... primitive was aroused in Dick by this time, the battle lust that dwells, placidly through life, perhaps, in every man, but which breaks loose in a torrent when once unleashed. He leaped after the retreating man, seized him by the collar, and gave a wrench that tore coat, collar, and tie from the man's throat. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... Addison was listening, smoking out of his long pipe, and smiling very placidly. "What would you have?" says he. "In our polished days, and according to the rules of art, 'tis impossible that the Muse should depict tortures or begrime her hands with the horrors of war. These are indicated rather than described; ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... In the late summer, placidly wasting her days on the sands with the two boys, a new experience befell Rachael. She had hoped, at about the time of Jimmy's third birthday, to present him and his little brother with a sister. Now the hope vanished, and Rachael, awed and sad, set aside a tiny chamber in her heart for the dream, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... her quarter, seemed to suggest, as the most prudent course under the circumstances, a return to the port they had just left. The mate, after many uneasy glances to windward, turned to his superior officer, who was sitting by the companion placidly smoking, and proposed this. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... the deck with vague uneasiness, disquieted by the unexpected situation. Forty feet away sat the sailing-master's wife still placidly knitting at her pale blue shawl, the perfect portrait of secure propriety. The sight of her there was ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the other men, he determined to walk until ready for sleep. He went down to the river and followed the path through the woods. There was no moon, but the stars sprinkled their cold light upon the pretty belt of water flowing placidly past wood and ruin, between green masses of overhanging rocks or sloping banks tangled with tree and shrub, leaping occasionally over stones with the harsh notes of an angry scold, to recover its equanimity the moment the way ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... same," interposed the lady, taking up her knitting and resuming operations below the table, gazing placidly all the while at her friends like some consummate conjuror, "for Ralph will be ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... of firelight, and beheld Nig standing with a bandaged paw, placidly eating softened biscuit out of the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... conducted, that presently, looking over a stone wall, he could see an outpost of five or six soldiers lying round their camp-fire, while in front a sentinel paced backward and forward, regarding the heavens and whistling Nancy Dawson as placidly as if he were a hundred miles from any ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... three raps for yes, one for no, two for doubt, and lo, a going concern was established. It is interesting to note that mysterious noises had been about a century before heard in the family of the Wesleys in Epworth Rectory, England. These noises came to be accepted quite placidly as an aspect of the interesting domestic life of the Wesleys. It has usually been supposed that Hattie Wesley knew more about it than she cared to tell and, as far as the illustrious founders of Methodism were concerned, ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... beside him. And I hope it was not many days after my departure that Mexique went free. Somehow I feel that he went free ... and if I am right, I will only say about Mexique's freedom what I have heard him slowly and placidly say many times concerning not only the troubles which were common property to us all but his own ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... Daniels placidly. "I cannot cope with these rogues. I must go and join my daughter and get our dresses to our lodgings; thankful if we succeed so far. In about an hour, will you not call, when we will resume our conversation which I wish to have, and with practical ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... cheerful but solemn duties of the day; the glad voices of bright-faced boys and girls, eager to get on their Sunday clothes; the busy stirring about of each tucked-up matron, washing, and combing, and pinning her joyous little ones; and the contented father now dressed, placidly smoking his after-breakfast pipe, looking upon their little cares, and their struggles for precedence in being decked out with their humble finery; now rebuking an elder boy for his impatience and want of consideration in not allowing his juniors ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... gone she went into the sitting-room; the couch had been drawn near the fire and Marcus's easy chair was pushed back, and there in the warmth and firelight, with an old plaid thrown over him, the forlorn wanderer lay sleeping as placidly as ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of her husband and neither frets nor questions nor walks with discontent. I suppose she has a will of her own, packed somewhere away in that benignant big body of hers, but she never obtrudes it. She placidly awaits her time, as the bosom of the prairie awaits its harvesting. And I've been wondering if that really isn't the best type of woman for married life, the autumnally contented and pensively quiet woman who can remain unruffled by man and ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... questions and exclamations called forth by this startling announcement, and incredulous glances were addressed to the psychic; but Seraphine offered no enlightenment. She merely rocked placidly in her chair. ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... when the statue stepped from its pedestal and came to supper with him. You may deny the divinity of Jesus; you may doubt whether he ever existed; you may reject Christianity for Judaism, Mahometanism, Shintoism, or Fire Worship; and the iconolaters, placidly contemptuous, will only classify you as a freethinker or a heathen. But if you venture to wonder how Christ would have looked if he had shaved and had his hair cut, or what size in shoes he took, or whether he swore when he stood ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... with a volley of sarcasm and personalities, amid which he stood, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth, placidly surveying us and the situation. At length, when a pause in the tempest of words gave him an opportunity of speaking, he said, in his softest and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... in fact, keep just one perfect sample, and let all the rest placidly drift back to nothingness? Or, better, why not take all the goodness that there is in all the men and women that ever were and melt it all down into ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... another place he says, "I have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned;" and Miss Reynolds relates that "One day at her own table he spoke so very roughly to her, that every one present was surprised that she could bear it so placidly; and on the ladies withdrawing, I expressed great astonishment that Dr. Johnson should speak so harshly to her, but to this she said no more than 'Oh, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Bolton's, Mr. Hector took me to his house, where we found Johnson sitting placidly at tea with his first love; who, though now advanced in years, was a genteel ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... with which Lady Fulda's name is associated," he answered. "But tell me," he exclaimed, catching sight of Evadne placidly sleeping in the high-backed chair, with her hat in her hand held up so as to conceal the lower part of her face; "Are visions about? Is that one that I see there before me? If I were Faust, I should love such a Marguerite. I wish she would let her hat drop. I want to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... display of Hot Rod and its taut-cable, and realized with a sickening sense of unreality that no jet action on Hot Rod could have caused it to lead the station in this northerly direction; and that instead it was placidly trailing behind. It was now farther south of the Space Lab than its original position; but their orbit had ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... the presence of the farmer, seated placidly in the tonneau of the car with the rooster on his lap, Grace would have been terrified at her predicament. But his large, friendly bulk, his heavy shoulders, his big hands and honest face were immensely comforting to her. He resisted all the importunities of the ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... answered Dick, placidly. "Wait till young Ebeneezer and Rebecca get more accustomed to their surroundings, and then you'll have a Fourth of July every day, with Christmas, Thanksgiving, and St. Patrick's Day thrown in. Willie is the ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... far from guessing it—an entirely exceptional ally. Lady Horton, too, was favourably disposed towards him. A foolish, worldly woman, who never probed beneath life's surface, nor indeed dreamed that anything existed in life beyond that to which her five senses testified, she was content placidly to contemplate the advantages that must accrue to ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... surroundings, and it was a little painful to find that it wanted to rush downstairs again at once, in spite of Ruth's fondest caresses. It was Mr Lorimer who came to her help, and succeeded at last in soothing its fears and coaxing it to drink some milk, after which it settled down placidly with her in the big chair and began its usual song of contentment. She examined it carefully with a grave face, and then ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... submit, her mother placidly impervious to coaxings, tears, and storms, had finally compromised the matter to the satisfaction of herself and of her own close chosen friend, Aileen Lawton. She accompanied her mother with outward ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... is superior, though somewhat like that of the whitethroat; some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting very placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from morning to night. He affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... Miss Vance placidly, "that you can find one of the usual hotels built for rich Americans in the town. We avoid them. We search out the inns du pays to see as far behind the scenes as we can. I don't care to go to those huge houses with mobs of Chicagoans and New Yorkers; ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... and trees, the sunshine soaks down into every corner—genially, languorously warm. All Burghersdorp basks. You see half-a-dozen yoke of bullocks with a waggon, standing placidly in the street, too lazy even to swish their tails against the flies; pass by an hour later, and they are still there, and the black man lounging by the leaders has hardly shifted one leg; pass by at evening, and they have moved on three hundred yards, ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... the moment I was too deeply angered to listen placidly to Sarah's vows of undying affection. My nerves were irritated by her fulsome adulation; indeed, I could not bear the sight of her nor yet the sound of her voice. You may imagine how thankful I was when the chaise came at last to a halt outside the humble little hostelry where I had engaged the room ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... wholly unknown, he might look on with perfect composure, and considerable amusement, because he could attend, like the boy in the fair, either to the general mass, to isolated groups, or to individual things. He would in that case attend to no more than he was able to understand; and would placidly allow the other parts of the scene to pass without any particular attention. But the imperative injunction here supposed,—this pressure from without,—this artificial and unnatural demand upon him,—entirely alters the case. If ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall |
