"Sedate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of incurring the censure of a mere English critic." The translator ought to endeavor to "copy him in all the variations of his style, and the different modulations of his numbers; to preserve, in the more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the more sedate or narrative, a plainness and solemnity; in the speeches a fullness and perspicuity; in the sentences a shortness and gravity: not to neglect even the little figures and turns on the words, nor sometimes the very cast of the periods; neither ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... with much ridicule at the Court of Charles the Second, being satirized particularly by the libertine poets Etherege and Sedley, the fulsome praise of men of considerable intellect was lavished upon her, and even the sedate and usually truthful Evelyn, after a lengthy enumeration of the great women of history, flattered her with the assurance that all of those summed up together only divided between them what she retained in one! A curious story is told of her appearance with ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... the boat, whence his father with the rest had been bringing up her lading. Who could have recognised in the energetic, high-spirited backwoodsman Philip had become, the refined and somewhat sedate and stiff young student of a year ago. By-the-bye, the kitchen of which he spoke was a lean-to of birch-bark, under which a camp stove had been placed; near it was a shed prepared for the reception of the stores, among which Peter proposed to take ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... significance of which had just dawned on him, Joe turned his eyes again to his companion. It was a sweet face he saw; one that was sedate, but had a promise of innumerable smiles. The blue eyes could not long hide flashes of merriment. The girl turned, and the two young people looked at each other. Her eyes softened with a woman's gentleness as they rested upon him, for, broad of shoulder, and lithe ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... time, and as Mowat looked at him in expectation of hearing more, it struck him that the deepened bronze on his chief's face, and the slight motion of his shoulders, indicated suppressed laughter. But the Orkney-man was much too sedate a character to express undue ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... that morning, anybody who knew Jack Ogden would have had to look at him twice, he had been so quiet and sedate; but the old, self-confident look gradually ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... in the greenest corner of England.' You can feel the ground shake and see the volcano tower above you at that word 'tremendous neighbourhood.' Something of the same double reference to the original and acquired meanings of a word is to be found in such a phrase as 'sedate electrician,' for one who in a back office wields all the lights of a city; or in that description of one drawing near to death, who is spoken of as groping already with his hands 'on ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... to interest him in the sedate, bearded Captain Jonathan Wellsby of the Plymouth Adventure, in the crew of hearty British tars who feared neither man nor devil, in the battery of nine-pounders, the stands of boarding-pikes, and the triced hammock nettings ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... out of the latticed windows of which bright eyes look down upon the passengers. Whenever there is a piece of wall not otherwise occupied in this compact and busy city, you see depicted, in gaudy colours, elephants rushing along with dislocated joints in hot pursuit of sedate parrots, or brilliant peacocks looking with calm composure upon camels going express, who must inevitably crush them in their headlong career, but the vain birds, apparently taken up with admiration of their own tails, are blind to the impending danger, thereby reading a good lesson both to the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... he began to give public readings, and discovered that he was capable of higher and more effective work. It was in fact his versatility that made him the most accomplished and the most popular author-entertainer in America. Before he went into journalism the more sedate of his family connections were in constant fear lest he should adopt the profession of the actor, and he held it over them as a good-natured threat. On one occasion, failing to get a coveted appropriation from the executor of the estate, he said calmly to the ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... without saying that this is a romantic conception, wholly incompatible with the eighteenth century belief that poetry is produced by the action of the intelligence, aided by good taste. Think of the mad poet, William Blake, assuring his sedate contemporaries, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... Thielky, the queen's wardrobe woman, and the comfort of my life in the absence of Mrs. Schwellenberg, for she is the real acting person, though I am the apparent one : and she is also a very good sort of woman,-plain, sensible, clear-headed, mild-mannered, sedate, and steady. I found her in this journey of infinite service, for she not only did almost every thing for the queen, but made it her business to supply also the place of maid to me, as much as ever I would ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... to him, madam, as gently as possible," replied this sedate and oily gentleman; "for, if made acquainted with it too suddenly, the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in filling his pipe. The lady tripped on to the next claim with a sedate "Good-night" to the men on No. 0. She thought the momentary trouble past, and never turned to see how the Kentuckian, waiting till she should be out of earshot, came round in front of Austin with a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... left the last house which belonged to the village, she saw a young man coming out of the woods at a little distance before her. She recognized him, immediately, as a young man whom she called Albert, who had often been employed by Mrs. Bell, at work about the farm and garden. Albert was a very sedate and industrious young man, of frank and open and manly countenance, and of an erect and athletic form. Mary Erskine liked Albert very well, and yet the first impulse was, when she saw him coming, to cross over to the other side of the road, and thus pass him at a little ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... little figure, sedate and mouselike, of middle age and, to the village, of a quiet, sober way of thought. But, known only to Merton, her real life was one of terrific adventure, involving crime of the most atrocious sort, and contact not only with the great and good, but with loathsome denizens of the underworld who ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... horses. The squaws each threw an emancipated, sinewy leg across a pony's back and followed Alchise's fluttering shirt up the mountain. Kut-le stood holding the bridle of a sedate little horse on which he had fastened a ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps sedate, Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks great, Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages,—all ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with superiority, could not resist this prime opportunity to make an impression, so went on with the romp as familiar to her as a more sedate method of locomotion, and finally the cow's gyrations carried her out of sight, leaving Sylvia alone and happy under the ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... apparently impossible, and hence the orchestra was duly selected and engaged by the indulgent father from the members of the Court Band. To his delight—yet nowise to his embarrassment—Felix found himself in command of a company of sedate and experienced musicians, ready to follow the lead of his baton when it pleased him to take his place at the music-desk. Everything was now furnished for the performance, but the sense of completeness was not yet satisfied. There must be ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... of moderation, The beauty also of our conversation. Temperance will our affections moderate, And keep us from being inordinate In our embraces, or in our salutes Of what we have, also in our pursuits Of more, and in a sedate settlement Of mind, will make's in all states be content. Nor want we here an argument to prove That who, inordinate is, in his love Of worldly things, doth better things defy, And slight salvation for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... still fond of Cupido, though not very intimate with him. In all the sedate, conservative world around him, the barber seemed the only person really worth while talking with. Cupido was almost an artist. In winter he would go to Valencia to hear the operas praised by the newspapers, and in one ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... paysanos, dexa mi lugar, mis hijos."[12] We kept away right and left, to look at the miracle; and there lay the canoe, rumbling and splashing, with her crew walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, and as naked as the day they were born, and the old Don himself, so staid and sedate, and drawley as he was a minute before, now all alive, shouting, "Tira, diablitos, tira,"[13] flourishing a small paddle, with which he steered, about his head like a wheel, and dancing and jumping about in his seat, as if his bottom had been a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... tinged with a general color of age, the boy had only seen friends worthy of respect. All of those about him, with the exception of the Chevalier, had example of venerable age, were elderly men and women, sedate of manner, decorous and sententious of speech. He had been petted by those women in gray gowns and embroidered mittens described by Blondet. The antiquated splendors of his father's house were as little ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... High Cliff House or its outbuildings were a horse, a pig, and a dozen hens and two roosters. Captain Obed bought the horse at Mrs. Barnes' request, a docile animal of a sedate age. A second-hand buggy and a second-hand "open wagon" he also bought. The pig and hens Thankful bought herself in Trumet. She positively would not consent to the pig's occupying the sty beneath the woodshed and adjoining the potato cellar, so a new ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a secret conversation, known only to himself and his sister. The Queen had asked for this, as a test of Swedenborg's veracity; and she became pale with astonishment when every minute particular of her interview with her brother was reported to her. Swedenborg was a sedate man, apparently devoid of any wish to excite a sensation, engrossed in scientific pursuits, and remarkable for the orderly habits of his mind. The intelligent and enlightened German, Nicolai, in the later years of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... five, brightened me up, and as Mr. Wheeler had by this time sent in all my books and papers, I settled down to three hours' hard work. The worthy Governor, a tall sedate man, did not like the titles of some of my books, and inquired whether I really wanted them for my defence. I replied that I did. "Then," said he to the chief warder, "they may all be brought up, but you must take care they don't get about." At half-past eight, according to the rules, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... in the mists of youth I seem to see them walking home together after the Sunday morning preaching, arm in arm and full of a sedate joy; turning in between the tubbed box-trees at Lovett's Court, loitering for a moment to gaze out over the smooth harbor and nod to the stragglers of the congregation before they entered the big green door flanked by ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... awfully kind of the van der Luydens—they've sent their man over from Skuytercliff to meet us," Archer exclaimed, as a sedate person out of livery approached them and relieved ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... little of the fierceness with which the vortices of passion rage in the more purely animal natures. This beginning he knew well would end in a wild paroxysm of rearing and plunging. He had more than once tried the exorcism of patience, sitting sedate upon her back until she chose to move; but on these occasions the tempest that followed had been of the very worst description; so that he had concluded it better to bring on the crisis, thereby sure at least to save time; ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks. Distracted hens in coops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate agriculturists. The chimney-corner and once-blazing hearth was now filled with inverted beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs; while out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had carefully shaped with his spade were torn by the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... the girlish charm would fade; She knew the rapture would abate; That years would follow when the maid, Merged in the matron, and sedate With change, and sitting in ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but the scene within was anything but devotional. A reel or fling of some sort was in progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinning to the tune. For a moment Henchard could not help laughing. Then he perceived the immense admiration for the Scotchman that revealed itself in the women's faces; ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... years, as he made his first appearance before an English audience in 1826. It was fortunate, perhaps, for De Beriot that such was the case, as it is more than probable that, after the dazzling and electric displays of the Geneose player, the more sedate and simple style which then characterized De Beriot would have failed to please. As it was, he was most cordially admired, and was generally recognized by English connoisseurs, as well as by the general public, as one of the most accomplished players who had ever visited England. The pecuniary ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... have one last fling at the old free buccaneering life before settling down to the more sedate and respectable calling of an officer in the French King's navy, de Grammont sailed off with a party of 180 desperadoes, but was never heard ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the service, he stood and looked at himself in the glass, experiencing a demoralizing and unworthy excitement. He was every bit as handsome as Comrade Stankewitz! When he walked down the street would the girls giggle, and turn to look at him, as they did at the sedate and proper Comrade Emil? So the meshes of Militarism were being woven about the ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... a little money over and above these things," proceeded Miss Peel in her sedate voice. "I am not rich, but I'll allow you— yes, I'll manage to allow you two shillings a week. That will be for pocket-money, you ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... plaintive cadence that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his blessing, good, sedate old man, who swung the rope so gently to the time of his meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the heritors, or whoever may be concerned with such affairs in France, who had left these sweet old bells to gladden the afternoon, and not held meetings, and made collections, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their sedate way across a great plain of grass, stretching without a break from the avenue up to a belt of palms, before which they stopped, swayed a moment, grunting ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... than at home; one consequence of which was, that, as would-be-clever Miss Malliver phrased it, the house was very much B. Wyldered. Nor was that the first house the little lady had bewildered, for she was indeed an importation from a new colony rather startling to sedate old England. Her father, a younger son, had unexpectedly succeeded to the family-property, a few miles from Mortgrange. He was supposed to have made a fortune in New Zealand, where Barbara was born and brought up. They had been home nearly two years, and she was almost eighteen. Absurd ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... debate, is not only mortifying, but it renders one almost hopeless of the permanence of our Government if this is to be the example set by one of the Houses of Congress, that which claims to be more sedate and deliberate, if it proposes in this light and perfunctory way to deal with questions of this grave nature and import. Sir, there is no time at present for that preparation which such a subject demands at the hands of any sensible man, mindful of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... had gone, she wondered about her—whether she was dark or fair, tall or small, vivacious or reserved, flirtatious or sedate, rich or poor—and whether they loved each other—or whether it was he, alone, who loved—or whether he had not permitted himself to be carried so ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... stern Putnam, seamed with many a scar, The veteran honours of an earlier war; Undaunted Stirling, dreadful to his foes, And Gates and Sullivan to vengeance rose; While brave McDougall, steady and sedate, Stretched the nerved arm to ope the ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... swiftly and rather fiercely, and looked into the face of my old friend and fellow-student, Jervis, behind whom, regarding us with a sedate smile, stood my former teacher, Dr. John Thorndyke. Both men greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be very flattering, for Thorndyke was quite a great personage, and even Jervis was several years my ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... callow and awkward ways of a young giraffe, but, though only a three-year-old, he was sedate as an old maid and had the dignity of a churchwarden. His behaviour was an ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... fact, that this plan is only RECOMMENDED, not imposed, yet let it be remembered that it is neither recommended to BLIND approbation, nor to BLIND reprobation; but to that sedate and candid consideration which the magnitude and importance of the subject demand, and which it certainly ought to receive. But this (as was remarked in the foregoing number of this paper) is more to be wished ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... first came a young squaw. Her white doeskin dress was as clean as snow, barbarically splendid with cut fringes and work of bead and porcupine quills. Her mien was sedate, and she swayed to her horse lightly and flexibly as a boy, holding aloft a lance edged with a flutter of feathers, and bearing a round shield of painted skins. Beside her rode the old chief, his blanket falling away from ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... that Sanin was simply astonished; her face even wore at times that sedate expression which children sometimes have when they are very ... very ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... heart, stirred and awoke and thrilled. To-night, with a vague sense of guilt which made the escapade but the more electric, while his daughter had imagined that he was getting himself sedately into his long-tailed, sedate nightgown, he was beaming warmly upon the highly entertained group of ranch hands down in the men's bunk-house, whither, by the way, he had ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... passed, and, ere our work is done, we must entreat our readers to visit with us, once again, the old Isle of Shepey. The thoughtless, good-tempered, dissipated, extravagant, ungrateful, unprincipled Charles, had been called by the sedate, thinking, and moral people of England to reign over them. But with English whim, or English wisdom, we have at present nought to do; we leave abler and stronger heads to determine, when reviewing the page of history, whether we are or are not a most change-loving ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Calcutta, a sensible and material difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... laws, literature, political inclinations, and homestead names. Those early emigrants, though refugees from oppressive misrule, loved England notwithstanding. Of her they dreamed, to her they clung, from her they imported sedate and musical names for their new homes this side the sea. New England was the special bailiwick for such sowing, though Virginia partakes of this seed and harvest. The rich old English names, having in them so much history and memory,—how good to see them on our soil! Those early colonists were ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one could picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from the corner house with the ivy walls—distinct, sedate—passing under the old doorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine muslin folds and frills with hooped silk skirts, indeed, but slight and graceful in her quick advance, with ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... somersaults, and go through various exercises with the skill of gymnasts. Their sportive proclivities seem to have no bounds; and being true humorists, they preserve through their gambols a ridiculously sedate appearance. Popular accounts of the nidification of these birds are frequently untrue. We are told that they build their cone-shaped nests of mud, sticks, and grass in shallow water, in colonies, and that their nests, BEING PLACED ON ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... lakes, the whole, crowded, cockneyfied place." In that way jaundiced happiness lies. But the soul of Central Park is not for you. Once upon a time there was a Central Park. The approaches to it were along sedate avenues or by restful side streets. When the Park was reached there were donkeys to ride, and donkey-boys, highly amusing in their cynicism and worldly knowledge, in attendance. The "rock-work" caverns were in ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... as soon as he reached the Maidan. As they had no riding-breeches, their trousers soon rucked up, exhibiting ample expanses of bare legs; they had no notion of riding, but managed to stick on somehow by clinging to pommel and mane, banging here into a sedate Judge of the High Court, with an apologetic "Sorry, sir, but this swine of a pony won't steer;" barging there into a pompous Anglo-Indian official, as they yelled to their ponies, "Easy now, dogs-body, or you'll unship us ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... pronounced "a darling." But Jess was no less pleased with her little animal, a bright bay with a white star on its forehead. For the boys similar animals had been provided, while Miss Prescott's mount was a rather raw-boned gray of sedate appearance. In her youth Miss Prescott had done a good deal of horseback riding, and the manner in which she sat her mount showed that she had not forgotten her horsemanship. Mr. Bell and his brother bestrode rather heavier animals than the rest of the party, ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... retreat, by the formidable phalanx of bayonets within, and the weight of fire from the platform and the buildings. Morgan, brave to temerity, stormed and raged; Hendricks, Steele, Nichols, Humphreys, equally brave, were sedate, though under a tremendous fire. The platform, which was within our view, was evacuated by the accuracy of our fire, and few persons dared venture there again. Now it was, that the necessity of occupancy of the houses, on our side of the barrier, became apparent. Orders ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... look of what Dr. Harrison might have called "compound interest"; but assured him at the same time with sedate earnestness that the one she ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... there being "fixed up" with old black silk waistcoats and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old mashed beaver hats, which have been carefully wetted to make them shine. On the other are ranged the women, the front benches holding the sedate old "maumas," with gaudy yellow and red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff high turbans, and others folded a la Lady Washington over their bosoms; behind them sit the young women in white ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... indignation, the other enveloped in a cloud of sullen resistance. Just then there came a soft knock at the door, and Sarah peeped in with a coquettish air, which at no other time in her existence had been visible in the sedate demeanour of Mrs Hadwin's favourite handmaid. The stranger lodger was "a gentleman," notwithstanding his shabbiness, and he was a very civil-spoken gentleman, without a bit of pride; and Sarah was still a woman, though she was plain and a housemaid. "Please, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... truly, my mother was not a very sedate maiden. I have heard many a tale of her wild days. Pardon me, but I do not think you are judging Miss Fairleigh with your usual benevolence and charity. I know she is a very gay, fun-loving girl, but I believe she has a warm, true heart. ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... spoken, if, just then, the ray had not revealed the great painting, so that he forgot all about it, and when at last he turned, they were gone. But my father had come back to America, had sat down quietly in his elder brother's house, among the hills where I am to live, and was thought to be a sedate young man and a good match, till a freak took him that he must go back and find that girl in Italy. How to do it, with no clue but an amber rosary? But do it he did, stationing himself against a pillar in that identical church and watching the worshippers, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... is not that age calls maudlinly to youth, as the poets would have it; it is that age is no match for youth, especially when age is male and youth is female. The case of the late Henrik Ibsen was typical. At forty Ibsen was a sedate family man, and it is doubtful that he ever so much as glanced at a woman; all his thoughts were upon the composition of "The League of Youth," his first social drama. At fifty he was almost as preoccupied; "A Doll's House" was then hatching. But at sixty, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... one day enter it, the sword of make-believe in my hand, the cap of courage on my head, 'when you are a big boy', said the oracle of Mary Grace. For the present, we had to content ourselves with being an unadventurous couple—a little woman, bent half-double, and a preternaturally sedate small boy—as we walked very slowly, side by side, conversing on terms of high familiarity, in which Biblical and colloquial phrases were quaintly jumbled, through the sticky red mud of the Pavor lanes with Barton as a bourne ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... was a studious sedate boy who took no pleasure in the sports and adventures of his aquatic brother. But Paul's glowing descriptions of the pleasures of plunging and paddling in the cool, clear river, at last induced Michael to join in the watery gambols. One warm afternoon he accompanied his brother ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... boy—Helen's boy, with Helen's nature strong in him, only the more sensible of his deficiencies as well as his responsibilities—humble, self-distrustful, and full of doubts and fears. Ten years seemed to have passed over his head since morning, changing him from a boy into a sedate, thoughtful man. ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... ribbon. Accompanying her was a pretty maid of honor dressed as a milk maid with a pail in her hand and a three-legged stool under her arm. The Count d'Artois, gay, handsome, debonair, met them and held them in conversation, then the grave, sedate Monsieur, as the elder of the two brothers of King Louis XVI was styled, approached, and with him was our own Benjamin Franklin, ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... in the power of a fearless and sedate manner. Methought that, as anger was the food of anger, it must unavoidably subside in a contest with equability. This opinion was intuitive, rather than the product of experience, and perhaps ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... could make no "silence in the hills;" for the Pamet, as I saw it, is far too sedate a stream ever to be caught "babbling." It has only some three miles to run, and seems to know perfectly well that ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... later period," says Lord Mahon, "state that the very few who ever had access to him found him sedate and calm, and almost cheerful, until any mention was made of politics, when he started, trembled violently from head to foot, and abruptly broke off the conversation. During many months there is no trace in his correspondence of ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, Destroying others, by himself destroyed. Most strength the moving principle requires; Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, Formed but to check, deliberate, and advise. Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh; Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie: That sees immediate good by present sense; Reason, the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng. At ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... pipe had spread upon the ceiling and over a wretched wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge. The cat, a magnificently long-furred, fluffy animal, the envy of all portresses, presided there like the mistress of the house, grave and sedate, and without anxieties. On the top of an excellent Viennese piano he sat majestically, and cast upon the countess, as she entered, that coldly gracious look which a woman, surprised by the beauty of another woman, might have given. He did not move, and merely waved ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... told of conspiring schoolboys whose heads had been turned toward a career of crime. A well-born youth who had essayed the role of Robin Hood near Strassburg and was hanged there in October, 1783, confessed suspiciously that he had been brought to his fate by the reading of bad books. The sedate authorities of Leipzig forbade the further performance of the play in their city because they had observed a sudden increase of burglary and petit larceny. An edition of 1782, which the publisher, possibly without Schiller's knowledge, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... Mr. Sartoris, who, taking Jim's advice, had followed at a more sedate pace, this was soon done; and Sylla, having rectified her toilette as far as circumstances permitted, was once more in the saddle. That she presented a rather dilapidated and woebegone appearance, nobody could be more conscious than herself; but, as a woman always does under such affliction, she ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... at all times gentle and kind. Eric's constant attentions she received with an almost humble gratitude, and Reinhard thought at whiles that the gay, cheerful child of bygone days had given promise of a somewhat less sedate womanhood. ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... quarrelsome lot, eager to do business, gesticulating wildly, and jabbering loudly in many strange tongues. Here was a pure Spaniard, with a red sash round his waist, and a velvet cap, round as a cartwheel, on his head, with a boatful of vegetables and early fruit. There was a grave and sedate Moor, in green turban and white flowing robes, with an assortment of gold-braided slippers and large brass trays. Next a Maltese milk-seller, in scanty garments, nothing but short canvas trousers and a shirt, who had come with cans full of goats'-milk from the herds he kept on the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... superintendence of one Betsey, and that little Clem was sleeping 'like a picture,' she sat down to tea, which had awaited her arrival, on a little table. It was a very neat little bar, with the usual display of bottles and glasses; a sedate clock, right to the minute (it was half-past five); everything in its place, and everything furbished and polished up to ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... scattered and doze in graceful shade; And hazed cornfields beyond the glade, Undulating and dazzling sight, Seem quivering for predestined flight To worlds of unrevealed delight. In lustrous sheen, their stately looks Sedate as parsons reading books, Flock grey-billed, see-saw-gaited rooks Strutting; or when they wings assume Pluck the warm air with fingered plume, Labouring, anxious if weight and size Make flight most hazardous or wise! Nelly we sauntered on ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... six miles of this stimulating pace had a blighting effect on the wild Hibernian spirits of the pony, with the result that he and his rider ambled at a most sedate gait into the space where the row-boats were waiting their passengers for Ross Castle, and where the remaining members of the party were expected to meet. The remaining members of the party, for obvious reasons, were not yet there; and the long delay before their arrival gave Aunt Nancy time ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... other dresses I saw, which I am satisfied would be highly disapproved by my modest countrywomen. Thus, in some were inserted glasses like watch crystals, adapted to the form and size of the female bosom. But, to do the Lunar ladies justice, I understood that these dresses were condemned by the sedate part of the sex, and were worn only by the young and thoughtless, who were vain of their forms. I observed too, that instead of decorating their heads with flowers, like the ladies of our earth, they taxed the ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... verses," corrected Carolyn, with a modest catch in her breath. She was a quiet, sedate girl, with brown eyes and hair. Her eyes were shy, and ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... with which his sallies were received might be considered any proof. A little aloof from this party, but within hearing, stood a youth of about seventeen, of whom nothing was remarkable, but that his countenance wore a very sedate and determined expression. He seemed struggling with a determination not to indulge a strong propensity to laugh; but, though pretending to be occupied with a book, his features at length gave way at some irresistible ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... of course, had followed the young lady to learn where she lived, passed the house the next day, the sedatest looking man on the sedate block. Presently a maid came from the house, gave him a beckoning nod, and hurried on round the corner. There she slipped him a note, saying as she walked on, "I was to give you ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... was Bonaparte's brother Louis, a young man of serious and sedate disposition, more of a scholar than a warrior, more a man of science than fit for the council-chamber and the drawing-room. His was a reserved, quiet, somewhat timid character, which, notwithstanding its apparent gentleness, developed an inflexible determination and energy at the right, ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... simply said good-night to his excited chaplains and was soon in the sweetest slumber. Except that he said Amen in his sleep a few more times than usual, and more earnestly, they saw no trace of neural tremours about his sedate carriage. He seems to have been well aware of the gravity of the struggle, for he had already announced at Lincoln that he would have to go abroad. He had gathered his children at the Mass, where he added the priestly blessing from the law of Moses,{13} had commended ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... is a grave and serious personage, walks with dignity round the circle assembled to see him, and appears much absorbed in reflection. Bianco is young and giddy, but full of talent when he chooses to apply it. Owing to his more sedate disposition, however, Fido is called upon to act the principal part of the exhibition. A word is dictated to him from the Greek, Latin, Italian, German, French, or English language, and selected from a vocabulary where fifty words in each tongue ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Bourgeois, who hated compliments to himself. "If those who have do not give, how can you get from those who have not? You may lay some of it to the account of Pierre too,—he was in Acadia, you know, Governor." A flash of honest pride passed over the usually sedate features of the Bourgeois at the mention of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... '98 when two men and one team saved four acres of hay by working all night—"with lanterns, I jing"—much talk of how she goes on, "she" being the hay, and no end of observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, and excesses of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, half hidden by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... many good qualities, and capable of strong attachments. He was a native of Lake Victoria, and had probably taken an active part in the conflicts between the natives and overlanders in that populous part of the Murray river. He had somewhat sedate habits, was restless, and exceedingly fond of the FAIR sex. He was a perfect politician in his way, and of essential service to us. I am quite sure, that so long as he remained with the party, he would have sacrificed his life rather than an individual ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... disguise, resumed her natural grace and beauty, made known her true name and character, and traveled in ease and safety to Paris. The excitement and the intoxicating joy which Henrietta experienced when she got her darling child once more in her arms, can be imagined, perhaps, even by the most sedate American mother; but the wild and frantic violence of her expressions of it, none but those who are conversant with the French character and ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... his conception in simile and metaphor. The highest act of the mind of man, is to possess itself with tranquillity in imminent danger, and to have its thoughts so free, as to act at that time without perplexity. The ancient poets have compared this sedate courage to a rock that remains immovable amidst the rage of winds and waves; but that is too stupid and inanimate a similitude, and could do no credit to the hero. At other times they are all of them wonderfully obliged to a Lybian lion, which may give indeed very agreeable terrors ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... unchastity first before the pontifical college, and then, when it sought to hush up the matter, before an extraordinary court instituted by special decree of the people, and were all condemned to death. Such scandals, it is true, sedate people could not approve; but there was no objection to men finding positive religion to be a folly in their familiar circle; the augurs might, when one saw another performing his functions, smile in each other's face without detriment to their religious duties. We learn ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the air of Washington and felt almost homesick. The stateliness of the city, its sedate and quiescent air after the turmoil of New York, impressed him profoundly. Everywhere its diplomatic associations made themselves felt. Congress was in session, and the faces of the men whom he met continually ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Another sedate Boston dame wished "The School of Venus," to which he reprovingly answered that he had best give her instead "The School of Virtue." Another, to whom he gave a sad setting off (more than hinting at a painted face, though she were a Puritan), wanted ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... laughed off and everybody seemed to be on the best of terms with everybody else. I looked at this bevy of girls, each attractive in her way, and I became aware of the fact that I was not in the least tempted to flirt with them. "I am a well-behaved, sedate man now, and all because I am engaged," I congratulated myself. "There is only one woman in the world for me, and that is Fanny, my Fanny, the girl that is going to be my wife in a few ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... seemed more like two boys of opposite natures rolled into one, than just one ordinary boy. When quite a little chap, he would at one time be as full of noise, action, and enterprise as the captain of an ocean steamer in a gale, and at another time be as sedate, thoughtful, and absentminded as the ancient philosopher who made himself famous by walking into ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... day; they read essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass, was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools. Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear on the card of the firm which profited by ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... is kept up by the performers. In one direction, a conjurer is seen exhibiting his feats of manual dexterity, surrounded by a motley gaping crowd;—in another, a story-teller exercises the risible faculties of the sedate Turk, as well as of the merry laughter-loving Greek. A string of Armenian women approach, walking two and two with slow solemn steps, and followed by a slave carrying a basket of refreshments. Behind these come a party of gaily ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... grave, and there came an instantaneous tenderness into the exchange of looks that would have been worse than uninteresting to you or me. But the next moment she brightened up, pressed herself close to him, and caught step. They had not owned each other long enough to have settled into sedate possession, though they sometimes thought they had done so. There was still a tingling ecstasy in one another's touch and glance that prevented them from quite behaving themselves when ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... morning as heart-whole and free as a girl's—interrupted the ranchman's disparaging comments on his fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she understood the universal devotion of all to their ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... Chamberlain has become such a leading light in Parliament, his speeches have taken a much more solid, sedate, and serious tone than they had in his early Birmingham days. They have become considerably more weighty—perhaps some of his unfriendly critics would say more heavy—than they were in bygone times. Without being open to the charge ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... videlicit an M.D., is a sedate-looking personage; he listens calmly to the story of your ailments; if your eye and skin be yellow, he shrewdly remarks that you have the jaundice; he feels your pulse, writes two or three unintelligible lines ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... a somber looking throng, as was ever the case in Puritan Boston, where the hats, cloaks and doublets of the people were made of dark, coarse materials, not designed to flatter the lust of the eye. The visages suited the garments, wearing a sedate or severe expression, whether the cast of the features above the broad white collars were broad and ruddy, or pale and hollow-cheeked. There was a touch of the fanatic in many of these countenances, as of men to whom God was a living presence in all their affairs and thoughts, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the long hillside road the white-tented wagon moved slowly, Bearing the mother and children, while onward before them the father Trudged with his gun on his arm, and the faithful house-dog beside him, Grave and sedate, as if knowing the ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... this glimpse of a mere child on a fast young man about town—or I should not have been amused. For there were times when I myself thought quite seriously of Leah Gibson, and what she might be in the long future! She looked a year or two older than she really was, being very tall and extremely sedate. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a remarkable contrast to the sedate upholstery. He had a mop of brown hair upon a large and well-shaped head, a broad face with rugged, striking features, very bright blue eyes, a dashing cavalier mustache, and a most engaging smile. His clothes were light of hue and very loose, his figure was of medium height and strongly built, ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... were they thus. Of bright, cheerful mornings, they took slow, tottering rambles in the woods; nodding over grotesque walking- sticks, of the Chimpanzee's handiwork. For sedate Rozoko was a dilletante-arborist: an amateur in canes. Indeed, canes at last became his hobby. For half daft with age, sometimes he straddled his good staff and gently rode abroad, to take the salubrious evening air; deeming ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the commencement of the concluding week of the Home Rule Bill in the House. There was no private business on the Monday, and accordingly for nearly a quarter of an hour—it seemed infinitely longer to the little group of members present—the House sat in sedate and solemn silence. Then commenced questions, and in a moment half-a-dozen members were buzzing with gnat-like pertinacity about the impassive figure of the Postmaster-General. Mr. Arnold Morley was continually on his legs. For instance, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... profoundly shaken. Sedate Boston gave more generously than ever before to militant finances. And when the "Prison Special" arrived a few days later a Boston theatre was filled to overflowing with a crowd eager to hear more about their local heroines, and to cheer them ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... talk of that?" asked Lola, with interest. Ana was now sixteen, and was nearly as heavy as her mother, and much more sedate. In true Mexican fashion the look of youth had left her betimes, and her swarthy plumpness had early hardened and settled to a look of maturity to which future ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... together Burns regarded Amy Mathewson, his long-time associate, with renewed wonder, and presently found himself addressing her from an entirely new point of view. This fair girl with the graceful head and the glowing blue eyes could not possibly be the sedate young woman who was accustomed to hand him instruments and sutures, ligate arteries, and attend to various minor matters from the other side of his operating-table. He wondered why he had never before noticed how much ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... carpets, cushioned seats, and an expensive paraphernalia. Many Senators and Representatives who had been initiated at their respective homes were regular attendants, and there was no lack of candidates, until a sedate citizen, enraged by the disclosure of his domestic infidelity, denounced the whole affair as a ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... lip playing uncertainly over her white teeth; it would stay still—no, it would withdraw a little way in a smile; then it would flutter down again; and so it wavered like a butterfly in a tender desire to be pleased and smiling, and yet to be also sedate and composed; to show him that she did not want compliments, and yet that she was not so cold as to wish to repress any genuine feeling he ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... is the straightest woman I ever saw, and the most precise. I never shall forget how scared I was when Steve took me up to see her that first time. I put on all my plainest things, did my hair in a meek knob, and tried to act like a sober, sedate young woman. Steve would laugh at me and say I looked like a pretty nun, so I couldn't be as proper as I wished. Mrs. Mac was very kind, of course, but her eye was so sharp I felt as if she saw right through me, and knew that I'd pinned on my bonnet ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... look at the tulips and lilacs. It was horrid to feel so stuffy on such a perfect day. How long to Whitsuntide? That was to be heavenly—if James didn't get inspired by the dark! Something would have to be prepared for that. In her eyes, sedate though they were, there lurked a gleam: the beacon-fire of a woman beleaguered. Certainly Jimmy Urquhart liked her. He had said that she liked him. Well, and so she did. Very ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... us at vantage still, Our sumptuous indigence, O barren mound, thy plenties fill! We fool and prate; Thou art silent and sedate. To myriad kinds and times one sense The constant mountain doth dispense; Shedding on all its snows and leaves, One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. Thou seest, O watchman tall, Our towns and races grow and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the Athenians was a man in the meridian of manhood, of a calm, sedate, but somewhat haughty aspect; the other was in the full bloom of youth, of lofty stature, and with a certain majesty of bearing; down his shoulders flowed a profusion of long curled hair, divided in the ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... amusing as ever, and invented fun for her as if he had never heard the name of bank, and, finally, he did not complain of the arrangement, of which Susan highly approved, that she should be Harry's companion, and Joanna should belong to Mrs. Jardine. Joanna was so sedate, and, although she was not a business-woman like Lilias (how Susan would boast of the ground she had gained when she wrote and amazed Lilias!) she was used to associating with older people, and could suit herself to their ways ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of Cho-sen life are the children. One might almost say that in Cho-sen you very seldom see a boy, for boyhood is done away with, and from childhood you spring at once to the sedate existence of a married man. Astonishing as this may sound, it is nevertheless true. The free life of a child comes to an end generally when he is about eight or nine years of age. At ten he is a married man, but only, as we shall see later, nominally. For the present, however, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... the household band completed his studies, and decided to accept a naval appointment, the consternation and grief which the announcement produced at the homestead, proved how essential the presence of the half-brother had become to the happiness of the sedate stolid Enoch, and equable unselfish Jane. But the desire to travel subordinated all other sentiments in Ulpian's nature, and he eagerly embarked for a cruise, from which he was recalled by tidings of the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... back upon it, is to me a mystery. While I always possessed a keen sense of the ludicrous, and a hearty appreciation of fun of all sorts, there was a sedate side of my nature that demonstrated itself to the older members of the family, and of which they often spoke. For half days, or whole days, at a time I remember sitting on a small footstool beside an ordinary chair on which lay open "Scott's Commentaries on the Bible." I not only read ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... deliberate insult," but, as the historian of the incident in the "Class-Book" of '61 observes: "Any one will at once perceive that no one was to blame but the calf, who lost his presence of mind." All this humor, however, was rather elementary; for the most part life was sufficiently sedate, and the pranks ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... Charles-Norton's blankets; the one on the left wall was empty. In spite of this empty bunk, which at times yawned with an air of vague reproach, the cabin, with its wide fireplace, in the center of which a rotund kettle hung, with its neatly strung and stacked provisions, had a certain coziness, a sober, sedate expression of ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... home late from Rouvre. About nine o'clock he was sitting in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom he was making plans for Desire's future. Desire had become very sedate since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau, who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they must find him a wife,—some poor girl belonging to an old and ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac |
