"Staid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prettiest dancing girls that ever could be found,— Them girls' feet was like rubber balls and they never staid ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... the main road, and to Hamilton's surprise he found the two staid gentlemen regarding it when the party came up. They were regarding it from a high bank behind the wall—a bank which commanded a view of the road. One of them observed the camera and said something in a low tone to the other; then the speaker walked down ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... them bow the knee to Robespierre. Vivier has 'scap'd me. Curse his coward heart— This fate-fraught tube of Justice in my hand, I rush'd into the hall. He mark'd mine eye, That beam'd its patriot anger, and flash'd full With death-denouncing meaning. 'Mid the throng He mingled. I pursued—but staid my hand, Lest haply I might shed ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... in battle slept out of doors Many a frozen night, and merrily Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores: "At Mrs. Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," said he, "I slept." None knew which bush. Above the town, Beyond "The Drover," a hundred spot the down In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps More sound ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... nobler sons of Temperance and Truth! I see attendant Ariels circling there, Light-hearted Innocence, and Prudence fair, Sweet Chastity, young Hope, and Reason bright, And modest Love, in heaven's own hues bedight, Staid Diligence, and Health, and holy Grace, And gentle Happiness with smiling face,— All, all are there; and Sorrow speeds away, And Melancholy flees the sons of day; Dull Care is gladden'd with reflected light, And wounded Sin flies sickening at ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... at your unkind delay; You've staid so long, that at each little noise The wind but makes, she asks if you ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... it in his ears. When he is in England, he does nothing but abuse the Boroughmongers, and laugh at the whole system: when he is in America, he grows impatient of freedom and a republic. If he had staid there a little longer, he would have become a loyal and a loving subject of his Majesty King George IV. He lampooned the French Revolution when it was hailed as the dawn of liberty by millions: by the time it was brought into almost universal ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and Earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much then, after two or three years that they have well laid their grounds, but to ride out in companies, with prudent and staid guides to all the quarters of the land, learning and observing all places of strength, all commodities of building, and of soil for towns and tillage, harbours and ports for trade; sometimes taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what they ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... Sure I've staid too long: [Coming forward. The clock has struck, and I may lose my proselyte. Speak, [Seeing Jaffier,] who ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... was growing more uproarious and more unlike the staid career of life in such a palace. Scandal was at the door, with what a fatal following she dreaded to conceive; and at the same time among the voices that now began to summon her by name, she recognised the Chancellor's. He or another, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... north of the road we had traveled. The major appealed to me to do something for his rescue. I had no cavalry to send in pursuit, but knowing that there was always an understanding between these guerrillas and their friends who staid at home, I sent for three or four of the principal men of Florence (among them a Mr. Foster, who had once been a Senator in Congress), explained to them the capture of young Taylor and his comrade, and demanded their immediate restoration. They, of course, remonstrated, denied ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... you staid thus long? Young Crackby and his friend are newly up And have bin with us. My sister has had The modest bout with them: 'tis such a wench. Are you a sleepe? why doe you not looke up? ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... was splendidly clear, the moon bright as day, and Staple and I with our cigars staid on deck to scrape acquaintance with the pilot and the small, seedy Frenchman who officiated at the calliope. He was an original in his way—"the Professor"—his head like a bullet, garnished with hair of the most wiry blackness, cut close as the scissors could hold it, looking like the most ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... ag'in to git Bushie. Come out to de fiel' whar I was plowin', he did; staid a good smart bit, settin' on de fence, waitin' fur de dinner-horn to blow, when he was to ride ol' Corny home. He's shorely laid down on de grass in de fence-corner an' went to sleep. But I'll go an' ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... to the University with a great fund of general reading, and habits of constant application. My uncle, who, having no children of his own, began to be ambitious for me, formed great expectations of my career at Oxford. I staid there three years, and did nothing! I did not gain a single prize, nor did I attempt anything above the ordinary degree. The fact is, that nothing seemed to me worth the labour of success. I conversed ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flail slay fray nail bait frail vain mail gray clay paid dray bray main wail pray raise saint stray snail faint staid away paint faith train gayly spray chain plain maid stain strain waist braid drain grain praise strait twain claim sway sprain ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... throat and vanishing beneath the trim bodice of blue homespun, and its reddish-brown skirt bordered with black. The knitted woolen mitts and the dainty cap showing her hair, which generally was hidden, made her seem almost like a princess to Gretel, while Master Hans grew staid ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... seeker of pleasure and sensation, drifting from one type of amusement to the other in an intricately mixed cooperation and rivalry with members of her set. She followed every fad that infests staid old Boston, from the esoteric to the erotic. She became an accomplished dancer, ran her own car, followed the races, went to art exhibitions, subscribed to courses of lectures of which she would attend the first, dabbled in new religions, became ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... sharply, but ended the exclamation with a saucy laugh and said instead, "Yes, truly as thou sayest, my May, mine eyes ache with gazing upon nothingness and my tongue aches with speaking naught but wisdom. It is out of nature for young maids to be as staid as their elders, and methinks I do not care to be. Let us be young while we have ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... shouts and the lively sound of fife and drum, and bearing banners of all sizes and shapes, on which Southern independence was proclaimed and the last dollar and man pledged to the cause. The women were out as enthusiastically as the men; staid matrons and ardent maids springing upon the cars, pinning blue cockades on the lapels of the new soldiers' coats, and singing the war-songs already in vogue, the favorite "Dixie" and the "Bonnie Blue Flag," in whose chorus the harsh voices of ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... taking her back to Ireland on a visit to his people. The result had been unfortunate. She was unconquerably provincial, entirely democratic, as uncultured as her native columbine. Moreover, her temper was of the whirlwind variety. The staid life of the old country, with its well-ordered distinctions of class and rutted conventions, did not suit her at all. At traditions which she could not understand the young wife scoffed openly. Before she left, veiled ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... the first Pekingese were brought over in 1860, after the occupation of Pekin by the Allies. The first black ones came here in 1896, and now in 1914 there are thousands of these wholly alluring and adorable and masterful little big-hearted creatures in England, turning staid men and women into ecstatic worshippers and making children lyrical with cries of appreciation. The book before me is the finest monument yet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... pages through feelings of sympathy for the author, or influenced by curiosity, may gain the impression that the people of Brownsville were not as staid as the exacting proprieties of society demanded, it must be pointed out that there was not a bar-room in the town. The two bakeries, William Chatland and Josie Lawton, sold ale by the glass. Every tavern sold whisky by the drink from a demi-john, jug or bottle that was kept locked up. The landlord ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... advanced my hand to his head-stall to reverse the reins over his head, he shied back as if in great alarm, and it required some minutes before he would permit me to closely approach. The reason of this conduct in so staid and proper-minded an animal is obvious. In handling the adder some of the smell attached to its body must have adhered to ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... engaged. She knew that girls got into "trouble" by being careless on these matters, but what that trouble was, or what led to it, she did not know. She and Sally innocently believed that some mysterious cloud enveloped even the most staid and upright girl at the touch of a man's arm, so that of subsequent events she lost all consciousness. A girl might attract a man by words and smiles to the point of wishing to marry her, but she must never permit the slightest liberties, she must indeed assume, to the very ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... Money was plenty—easy made, And thou wert, aye, a canine blade. Patrick Delaney home has gone From earthly toil, and he was one Of those who in the distant past, His lot in Upper Town had cast. James Elder, a majestic Scot! On whom of old it was my lot To look with veneration's eye. Kept Bytown's staid academy; And here I dwell with fond delight, And view again with memory's sight The stately teacher in his chair, King of the throng assembled there. Now Allan Cameron comes to view, And William Stubbs, there he is too. Wellington Wright, too, I behold, And wild Jack Adamson, the bold. ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... began reflectively, "presents to me to-day the most interesting aspect it has assumed since history began. True, the age is one of great mental confusion. Quite as true, startling discoveries and astounding inventions have so upset our staid old mediaeval views that the world is hurriedly crowding them out, together with its God. Doctrines for which our fathers bled and burned are to-day lightly tossed upon the ash heap. The searchlight is turned never so mercilessly upon the founder ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the furies driv me. I wasn't myself. It was another fellow that woman married: the true man staid with you, and here he is, just the same as ever, if you would only believe it—but you won't, ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... arm in a long walk, or canter beside him all the morning on her well trained pony, there came a change over the course of his quiet household little startling. Visitors began to throng the hall; not those staid personages who had hitherto been wont to gather round the warm hearth in winter, or the sheltered piazza in the hot days of summer, and with feet upreared on mantel-piece or bannister, discuss the affairs of state, and the price of crops; new editions of these respected individuals ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... fashionable woman, she would have been esteemed a model of devotion to the duties of a wife and a mother, for she paid a personal attention to her household, and had actually taught all her children the Lord's prayer, the creed, and the ten commandments. She attended church twice every Sunday, and only staid at home from the evening lectures, that the domestics might have the opportunity of going (which, by the way, they never did) in her stead. Feminine, well-mannered, rich, pretty, of a very positive social condition, and naturally kind-hearted and ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... over the offer, and wondering what her prim and staid Aunt Betty would think of it, when Frau Deichenberg entered the dressing-room. The Frau had been on the stage looking after several of the Herr's proteges, and was highly elated over the showing ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... downcast eyes he walked slowly from the shop. The moment he was gone, the business of the place, without a word of remark on any side concerning what had passed, began again and went on as before. People came and went, some more eager and outward, some more staid and inward, but all contented and cheerful. At length a bell somewhere rang sweet and shrill, and after that no one entered the place, and what was in progress began to be led to a decorous conclusion. In three or four minutes the floor was empty, and the people also of the shop ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... me, and I will do it." Then awakening suddenly to the consciousness of what she had said, she sat up in the darkness and scolded herself furiously. "Oh, you middle-aged donkey! You call yourself staid and sensible, and a little flattery from a boy of whom you are fond turns your head completely. Come to your senses at once; or leave Overdene by the first train ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone—her stockings cut from her feet—while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... happened to possess such a thing when Betty and Hugh were coming to stay, my doorstep would never have been cleaned. For once I was glad that I depended on the services of a very small boy, who thinks he cleans it. Staid and level-headed as were my maids, they answered no bells that morning, which was perhaps natural, as I believe none ring up to the nursery. Of course they had to be ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... Even when the bullets started in to rattle on the iron-covered sheds above our heads there was nothing terrifying about it. After the effect of the first few shots had worn off I felt as if I were watching a play. That quiet, staid Penang with her shaded streets and sampan covered harbor should be the scene of a naval engagement such as I witnessed today is almost unbelievable. Yet the sordid aftereffects are ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... taking her eyes off, by a violent wrench, from the fascinating watch; and she ran quickly and got the little old stocking-leg, where the hard earnings that staid long enough to be put anywhere, always found refuge. She put it into her mother's lap, and watched while Mrs. Pepper counted out slowly one ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... the night, and, the steward afterwards said, spent the second half of it "prancing" up and down outside the bar, waiting for the dawn. A suspicion that the staid Buford could prance anywhere would have brought me out of bed. I did rise once on my elbow in response to an excited whisper from the upper berth, in time to see a dazzle of electric lights swing into view through the porthole and ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... thenceforth absented himself from all outward and visible communion. Yet he seems to have preserved (alta mente repostum), as it were, in the pickle of a mind soured by prejudice, a lasting scunner, as he would call it, against our staid and decent form of worship; for I would rather in that wise interpret his fling, than suppose that any chance tares sown by my pulpit discourses should survive so long, while good seed too often fails to root itself. I humbly trust that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... torn and sorrowing heart, She flew back to her home, Where Twit and Chirrup trembling staid, Disconsolate and lone. ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... And he charged Mrs. Jervis, and promised to forgive her for what she had said and done, if she would conceal the matter. So the maids came down, and all went up again, when I came to myself a little, except Rachel, who staid to sit up with me, and bear Mrs. Jervis company. I believe they all guess the matter to be bad enough; though they ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... she rarely ate any dinner at all, and generally passed the time in tears. I did every thing in my power to conciliate and make her happy, but I am sure she hated me. I gave her very high wages, and she staid till she had obtained several expensive articles of dress, and then, UN BEAU MATIN, she came to me full dressed, and said, "I must go." "When shall you return, Charlotte?" "I expect you'll see no more of me." And so we parted. ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... staid New York Times, which had until now stayed out of UFO controversy, broke down and ran an editorial entitled, "Those Flying ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... better that in these times of pith and enterprise they should be more seemly employed. My Lord, because of one or two misadventures by reason of the slipperiness of the ice, was fain to go by London Bridge, which we did; my Lord as suited his humor ruffling the staid citizens as he passed or peering under the hoods of their wives and daughters—as became a young gallant of the time. I, being a plain, blunt man, assisted in no such folly, but contented myself, when they complayned to me, with damning their souls ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... wont, thy sovereignty adorn With woman's gentleness, yet firm and staid; So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn Be changed for one ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... you mention was written above a year before the queen's death. I left it with the treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke, when I first came over to take this deanery. I returned in less than a month; but the ministry could not agree about printing it. It was to conclude with the peace. I staid in London above nine months; but not being able to reconcile the quarrels between those two, I went to a friend in Berkshire, and, on the queen's death, came hither for good and all. I am confident you read that History; as this Lord Oxford did, as he owns ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... more at ease in Sir ROGER'S family, because it consists of sober and staid persons; for, as the Knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his valet de chambre ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... yourself my 'Father Confessor,' you know, if you entertain any scruples as to the propriety of a staid old bachelor's fathering a stray young cub like me—that will make it all right, surely! You will let me, won't you? In all the world there is no one so close to me as you, and such dreams as I may happily bring to fulfillment will be, more than you know, ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... A staid, melancholy man, forerunner of the great artist, had appeared and performed his customary and cryptic function. "Why do they always screw up the piano-stool at the last moment!" Betty Jardine murmured. "Is it to pepper our tongues ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... between them and the Main. At 7 was close under the first Island, from whence a large double Canoe full of People came off to us. This was the first double Canoe we had seen in this Country. They staid about the Ship until it was dark, then left us; but not before they had thrown a few stones. They told us the name of the Island, which was Mowtohora.* (* Motuhora, called also Whale Island.) It is but of a small ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... same patient, true, untiring friend? How often have I sat in the long winter evenings feeling such society in its cricket-voice, that raising my eyes from my book and looking gratefully towards it, the face reddened by the glow of the shining fire has seemed to relax from its staid expression and to regard me kindly! how often in the summer twilight, when my thoughts have wandered back to a melancholy past, have its regular whisperings recalled them to the calm and peaceful present! ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... persecutions and imprisonment." Greenway says he was one of the best swordsmen of his time. Gerard describes him as "a gentleman of Yorkshire, not born to any great fortune, but lived always in place and company of the better sort. In his youth, very wild and disposed to fighting... He grew to be staid and of good, sober carriage after he was Catholic, and kept house in Lincolnshire, where he had priests come often, both for his spiritual comfort and their own in corporal helps. He was about forty years old, a strong and a stout man, and of a very good wit, though slow of speech: ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... to laugh like Lord Dundreary with a sort of throaty gurgle; how inane it was to depict wine-cellar revelry with voices suggesting the sentimental drawing-room tenor, and how insipid it was to portray fiendish glee within hell's portals with the staid decorum of a body of local preachers of ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... the right and to the left, wheresoever he would. The King of Valencia with his knights was near the wall watching him, and Alvar Faez and his company were in readiness lest the French should defy them. And after Abenalfange had staid their awhile he drew off and went his way to Tortosa. And Yahia was perplexed with Alvar Faez, and sought for means to pay him, and he threw the two sons of Abdalla Azis into prison, and many other good men of the town also, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... Five minutes afterwards Joey returned to beg a moment of me in the passage; when I, too, got my invitation. The lad had just received, with an expression of polite surprise, though he knew he could claim it as his right, a slice of crumbling shortbread, and taken his staid departure, when Jess cleared the tea-things off the table, remarking simply that it was a mercy we had not got beyond the first cup. We then retired ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... She staid in the room but a few moments. Closing the drawer, she hastened down stairs, and took a seat by the fire. She tried to look as though nothing had happened; but she was sour and sullen, for she felt that she had ...
— Dolly and I - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... get together a competence, and was at one time worried by his neighbours and fined for refusing to serve in some parish offices. There was a fund of sagacity about the man which appears frequently in his later letters, but an utter absence of all sentiment and all sympathy. He had no nerves. Staid, stern, and curiously insensible to physical pain, he was absolutely fearless, with a constitution that could defy any hardships and bear ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... superiority, and he became something of a snob, in his dogged fashion, with a passion for outward refinement in the household, mad when anything clumsy or gross occurred. Later, when his three children were growing up, and he seemed a staid, almost middle-aged man, he turned after strange women, and became a silent, inscrutable follower of forbidden pleasure, neglecting his indignant bourgeois wife ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... place was worth to disobey her. I went back and told Ellen Butters. Ellen was drinking her tea; she couldn't abide Miss Inez, and the minute she finished her cup she jumps up. 'I'm not afraid of her,' says Ellen; 'she ain't my missis; I'll go and wake my lady up.' She went; we staid below. It might be five minutes after, when she comes flying back, screaming fit to wake the dead, 'Murder! murder!' There was blood on one of her hands, and before we could get anything more from her except ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... business was a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He had been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother of three unwed and selfish sisters is an under dog. The tale of how Jo Hertz came to be a loop-hound should not be compressed within the limits of a short story. It should be told as are the photoplays, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... there the picture of proud Phaeton, Mounting the chariot of the burning Sun, Was portraied, by which Apollo stood, Who seemd to check his hot sonnes youthful blood: One hand had holde, and one legge was aduanst, To climbe his longing seat; but yet it chanst, That warned by his father so, he staid A while, to heare whose teeres might well perswade; Which with such plenty answerd his desires, As though they striu'd to quench ensuing fires: Hanging so liuely on the painted wall, That standers by haue sought to make them ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... attending, he bid him "bring a bill immediately; for that he was in company, for aught he knew, with the devil himself; and he expected to hear the Alcoran, the Leviathan, or Woolston commended, if he staid a few minutes longer." Adams desired, "as he was so much moved at his mentioning a book which he did without apprehending any possibility of offence, that he would be so kind to propose any objections he had to it, which he would endeavour to answer."—"I propose ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... youth was going To make an end of all his wooing: The parson for him staid: Yet by his leave, for all his haste, He did not so much wish all past, Perchance ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... returned laden in the evenings. Sailors and fisher-folk travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content. There was always a certain sense of things going to happen—of adventures and farings-forth. The ways of Four Winds were less staid and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery and ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,[72] And you are staid ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... were the best we had yet met with. My companion having staid behind to sketch the village, and taken shelter from a shower of rain, had been courteously invited by a gentleman, who passed, to accept the accommodations of his house for the night, but, in the meantime, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... in our quest. The simple fact which we could not deny, that "WE WERE SAILORS," was sufficient to bar every door against our entrance. It was in vain we represented ourselves as remarkably staid and sober sailors, possessing amiable dispositions, not given to liquor or rowdyism, and in search of quiet quarters in ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... trunk were seized By the rude multitude; who not content With what the forward justice of the state. Officiously had done, with violent rage Have rent it limb from limb. A thousand heads, A thousand hands, ten thousand tongues and voices, Employ'd at once in several acts of malice! Old men not staid with age, virgins with shame, Late wives with loss of husbands, mothers of children, Losing all grief in joy of his sad fall, Run quite transported with their cruelty! These mounting at his head, these at his face, These digging out his eyes, those with ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... Assistant walked on, he began to meet persons coming out of their houses, in obedience to the invitation. There was the staid citizen, whose sobriety bordered on sternness, with hair closely cropped to avoid the "unloveliness of love-locks," covered with a large flapped peaked hat, and arrayed in broad white band and sad-colored garments, on whose arm leaned his wife, or walked independently at his side, bearing ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... shall of high and beauteous dames be said? Who (from their lovers' worth and charms secure) Against long service, I behold, more staid, More motionless, than marble shafts, endure: Then Avarice comes, who so her spells hath laid, I see them stoop directly to her lure. — Who could believe? — unloving, in a day They fall some elder's, fall some ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... death he left an estate of only 60,000 livres—about $12,000. Felibien relates an anecdote which pleasingly illustrates his simple and unostentatious mode of life. The Cardinal Mancini was accustomed to visit his studio frequently, and on one occasion, having staid later than usual, Poussin lighted him to the door, at which the prelate observed, "I pity you, Monsieur Poussin, that you have not one servant." "And I," replied the painter, "pity your Excellency much more, that you are obliged ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... ketch a big grashoper and say grashoper gashoper gray give me sum molasses and then fli away the grashoper will give you some molasses. just think he dident know that and he dident know that ef you squashed a caterpiller it would rane before nite. we have all got to join the club. i wish i had staid ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... voice; "I've come over t' stop with you to-night; Dad's away again; Mandy Ford staid with me last night, but she had to go home this evenin'." The big fellow at the woodpile drove his axe deeper ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... of treacherous soft places, fatal to that spotless condition of hose and shoes which was one of his weak points. However, before he had gone very far, he was overtaken by his son Neil, now a very staid and stately gentleman, holding under the government a high legal position in the investigation ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... Turin, but the Bishop of Geneva wrote against us. As he could pursue us no other way, he did it by letters. Father La Combe repaired to Verceil, and I staid at Turin, with the Marchioness of Prunai. But what crosses was I assaulted with in my own family, from the Bishop of Geneva, from the Barnabites, and from a vast number of persons besides! My eldest son came to find me on the death of my mother-in-law, which was an augmentation of my troubles. ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... morning, took a one-horse waggon of some one that had staid overnight at his house, and, accompanied by his wife, repaired to the hill which contained the book. He left his wife in the waggon by the road, and went alone to the hill, a distance of thirty or forty rods. He then took the book out of the ground, hid it in a tree top, and returned home. ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... sort of huddled together, forrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking steady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And then, here comes the bar'l again. She took up her old place. She staid there all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after midnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the thunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and the lightning spread over ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the height, every mile in distance brought changes in the botanical growths, which might have passed unnoticed by the ordinary observer or ignorant pioneer. All were noted and commented on by Brande, whose eye was still as keen as his brain had once been brilliant. His usual staid demeanour changed suddenly. He romped ahead of us like a schoolboy out for a holiday. Unlike a schoolboy, however, he was always seeking new items of knowledge and conveying them to us with unaffected pleasure. He was more like ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... visits, and at twelve I called at the coffeehouse for a letter from MD; so the man said he had given it to Patrick; then I went to the Court of Requests and Treasury to find Mr Harley, and after some time spent in mutual reproaches, I promised to dine with him; I staid there till seven, then called at Sterne's and Leigh's to talk about your box, and to have it sent by Smyth. Sterne says he has been making inquiries, and will set things right as soon as possible. I suppose it ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... does, a great deal with young men of pleasure, and good old sober family people, he is loved by them both and has as welcome a place made for him at a roaring bachelor's supper at the "Cafe Anglais," as at a staid dowager's dinner-table in the Faubourg St. Honore. Such pleasant old boys are very profitable acquaintances, let me tell you; and lucky is the young man who has one or two ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... naw nawtice of they,' 'er says. 'The little 'uzzies ought to be at 'awm look'n' aafter the chicken, 'staid of gallivantin' about ahl bai thursalves. Yure 'at's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... compliment, having no leisure to think of his business, or any man's but my own, and so away and home, where I find Sir H. Cholmly come to town; and is come hither to see me: and he is a man that I love mightily, as being, of a gentleman, the most industrious that ever I saw. He staid with me awhile talking, and telling me his obligations to my Lord Sandwich, which I was glad of; and that the Duke of Buckingham is now chief of all men in this kingdom, which I knew before; and that he do think the Parliament will ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... that people the sun-beams, Or likest hovering dreams, ............The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. But, hail! thou Goddess sage and holy! Hail, divinest Melancholy! Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The Sea-Nymphs, and their powers offended. Yet thou art higher far descended: Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore To solitary ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... was almost a man, and bid fair to make a fine-looking fellow. He was tall and muscular, with bold gray eyes and a face open and manly. He had lost none of his mirth, and his merry whistle still shocked some of the staid ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... from their classes on the dead run, and even the staid professors scampered along the slippery paths with more thought of speed ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... long to explain fully this great project that Albert staid until nearly supper-time, forgetting the burden of his sister's unhappy future in the interest of science and philanthropy. And even when he rose to go, Charlton turned back to look again at a "prairie sun-flower" ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... pacific, motionless, unmoved, stagnant, placid, serene, undisturbed, unruffled, halcyon, unmolested; hushed, silent, still, noiseless, inaudible; demure, meek, inoffensive, gentle, retiring, modest, unobtrusive, unassuming, undemonstrative, staid, reserved, sedate; sequestered, unfrequented, retired, secluded. Antonyms: noisy, tumultuous, boisterous, hoidenish, rude, stormy, disturbed, obtrusive, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... had the same feeling sometimes, Mr. Baxter. I am not always the staid respectable matron which I appear to you to be. Sometimes I—(She looks absently at the watch on ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... mere boys; Any thing to make a noise. Like to see the list of the dead; These 'craven Southerners' hold out; Ay, ay, they'll give you many a bout" "We'll beat in the end, sir" Firmly said one in staid rebuke, A solid merchant, square and stout. "And do you think it? that way tend, sir" Asked the lean Cooperhead, with a look Of splenetic pity. "Yes, I do" His yellow death's head the croaker shook: "The country's ruined, that I know" A shower of broken ice and snow, In lieu of words, confuted him; ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... 1864 in Laclede, Missouri, and is tall, wiry and strong. Every inch of his six feet is of fighting material. He is a man of action and has a penchant for utilizing the services of young men rather than staid old officers of experience. Pershing is a real military man, and has been notably absent from such things as banquets and other functions where by talking he might get into the lime light. It is true that he was jumped over the heads of a number of officers ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... sandy road took us to the mansion, where we found dinner in waiting. Meeting 'Massa Tommy'—who had staid at home with his mother—as we entered the doorway, the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... these little histories having brought the time for the girls to retire, and to prepare for the revels of the evening, I staid with Mrs. Cole, till Emily came, and told us the company was met, and waited ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Minner, sent me to Providence, in Rhode Island, to stay a year and a day, in order to gain my residence. But I staid only two months. Mr. Howard's vessel came there laden with corn. I longed much to see my master and mistress, for the kindness they had done me, and so went home in the schooner. On my arrival, I did not stop at my own house, except to ask my wife at the door how she and the children ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... visit that burial spot, and there is permanence; that fast-anchored isle has defied the surges and roaring currents; the grave seems beautifully constant; it has not betrayed our confidence; it is not weary of its precious charge; it has kindly staid behind to permit and encourage our griefs when all else may have fled. The winter's snows have fallen, the tempests have beaten, there; and now, this April or May morning, it is as steadfast and quiet as when ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... Staid miners, old experienced hands whose lives were wedded to their quest of gold, whose interest in affairs was only taken from a standpoint of their benefit, or otherwise, to the gold interest, were caught in the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... shook his head sadly. "When has he ever staid away three nights together before?" he asked. "No, my child; it is intentional. Manuel urges him to come, but ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... harangue, in which he set forth the extreme caution and reserve he considered it right and advisable for young gentlemen to exercise in their intercourse with young ladies, towards whom he declared they should maintain a staid deportment of dignified 275 courtesy, tempered by distant but respectful attentions. This, repeated with variations, lasted us till the tea was announced, and we returned to the drawing-room. Here Freddy made a desperate and final struggle to remove ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... have enough to eat, I can stand anything—if not, I break down. In two miles I 'caved in.' The captain thought the regiment would return shortly. So I staid behind. On Monday afternoon, however, they had not come back, and I started after them. I got a meal and passed the night in a house on the mountain, and, after some sixteen miles' walking, caught them on the broad turnpike ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... staid, and when the girl went one day to the prince's wife, and found her in a sorrowful and mournful condition, she asked her the ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... house) was the responsible protector of the establishment. It was not to the Don, as harborer of his daughter, but to the Don, as ex officio visitor of the convent, that the hidalgo was appealing. Probably Kate might have staid safely some time longer. Yet, again, this would but have multiplied the clues for tracing her; and, finally, she would too probably have been discovered; after which, with all his youthful generosity, the poor Don could not have protected her. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... omnibus she was driven toward home, Richard was not expecting them until the morrow, and thus no new fires were kindled, no welcoming lights hung out, and the house was unusually gloomy and dark. During Edith's absence Richard had staid mostly in the library, and there he was sitting now, with his hands folded together in that peculiarly helpless way which characterized all his motions. He heard the sound of wheels, the banging of trunks, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... not live alone. But Ellen is scarcely that. She is too staid, too old and respectable. She is my ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... up-turned box that had been used to contain food stores for the trail. He was facing them, and his back was towards the building of the store. It was rather the picture of two children listening to some wonderful fairy story, told in the staid tones of a well-loved parent. Never for a moment was attention diverted. Never was interruption permitted. Even the approach of ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... prison,' said Ulick; 'the horizon is choked all round, and one can't breathe in these staid stiff hedges and enclosures!' And he threw out his arms and flapped them over his breast with a ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Seas," as the Muette de Portici has it, I received at Leghorn an invitation from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to come to Florence, and was taken thither by the French Minister, M. de Ganay, a charming man. There was nothing that excellent good Grand Duke and his family did not do for me while I staid at the Pitti Palace, and the only acknowledgment I could make of it all was to turn my schoolboy talents to constructing a jointed jumping jack, that turned head over heels, for one of the young princesses whom we used to call the Archduchess Mimi, and who afterwards married Prince Luitpold ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... be past midnight before we reach your brother's clearing" (where we expected to spend the night), said D—-. "I wish, Mr. Moodie, we had followed your advice, and staid at Peterborough. How fares it with you, Mrs. Moodie, and the young ones? It ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... her good counsel that I braced up in the days when she was my sweetheart, and it was to please her that I have staid braced up ever since, and am consequently still strong in mind and limb and as healthy a specimen of an athlete as you can find in a year's travel, albeit a little too heavy to run the bases still and play the game of ball that I used ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... long trained dresses of silk and sendal, costly stomachers, bands of velvet, buckles set with precious stones, chains of gold and silver—all the fashions, in fact, enough to turn the head of any young lady, and in which the staid Lady Prioress seemed to take quite as much interest as if she had been to wear them herself—indeed, she asked leave to send Sister Mabel to fetch a selection of the older nuns given to needlework and embroidery to enjoy the exhibition, though it was to be carefully kept out of sight ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the landlady, in his slow, staid way, 'I have brought ye a little money that ye may buy any small things the lass may want; it is all I can spare the now; I will call in the morning and ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... explanation by her of the singular scene I then witnessed, and of all that has led up to it. I will not reproach you with anything that is past, because I feel that it is really I who am more to blame than anybody else for it. I have never thought it necessary to provide my daughter with any staid female companion—any duenna—to watch and control her actions; she has been allowed to run wild about the place from her infancy, and to have her own way in everything. I ought to have remembered this, and to have provided against all that ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... hearing a bustle in the entry I looked out, and saw several staid men slowly rubbing their feet on the door-mat; the husbands had come to escort their wives home, and by nine o'clock they all went. Veronica and I stayed by the ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard |
