"Stale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... solid weeks Stover, brooding desperately, sought to avert his glance from the profane spectacle before chance came to his rescue. One Saturday night, after a strenuous game with the Princeton Freshmen, Dink, afraid of going stale, decided to quicken his jaded appetite by an application of sardines, deviled ham ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Fifteenth Century, p. 105: 'The undrained neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the surface of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all classes, insufficient and unwholesome food, the abundance of stale fish eaten, and the scanty supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town population ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... indication I received of Mademoiselle Prefere's character, which I was able to see more of later on. A scared-looking servant took my card, and abandoned me without one word of hope at the door of a chilly parlour full of that stale odour peculiar to the dining- rooms of educational establishments. The floor of this parlour had been waxed with such pitiless energy, that I remained for awhile in distress upon the threshold. But happily observing that little ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... officers on Lord Roberts' staff, in a criticism in one of his own papers, has written that the English infantry, more than any he knows, has the knack of fighting and marching and keeping on at it, day after day, without getting stale or suffering from any reaction. The fact is, our Tommies go into a fight with much the same indifferent good-humour that they do everything else with. Towards the end of each day's march the soldiers all begin to look out for firewood, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... Also I called attention to the fact that I no longer ate so heavily as once I had. Not that I wished actually to decry my appetite. It had been a good friend to me and not for worlds would I slander it. I have a sincere conviction that age cannot wither nor custom stale my infinite gastric juices. Never, I trust, will there come a time when I shan't relish my victuals or when I'll feel disinclined to chase the last fugitive bite around and around the plate until I overtake it. But ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... it all together. Still, every once in a while it boils up in me yet against the discretion that has come with the years, and I want to slam in after the old fashion. Seems to me we are in danger of growing stale with ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... huge studio-window, over which various tattered blinds were drawn; a floor of bare boards, with a few rags of carpet here and there; in the middle, a table covered with painter's apparatus of different kinds; palettes, paints, rags, tin-pots, and, thrown down amongst them, some stale crusts of bread; a large easel, with a number of old and dirty canvases piled upon it; two chairs, one of them without the usual complement of legs; a few etchings and oil-sketches and fragments of coloured stuffs pinned ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stale, and the denizens of Minook had given up the hope of ever laying eyes on Windy again, when lo! here he was with twenty-two hundred letters in his sack. The patrons of the Gold Nugget crowded round him like flies round a lump of sugar, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... hosses; everybody knows about that. It got so the ginnies would line up in a bunch, every time he starts, 'n' holler: 'They're off—there he goes!' They does it regular, 'n' pretty soon the crowds get next 'n' then everybody does it. He begins to stale off at Pimlico, so I ships him to Miss Goodloe, 'n' writes her to turn him out ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... air became familiar. It was a perfect mixture of flavors; oilskins, stale tobacco-smoke, brine, burned grease, tar, and, as a background, fish. His ears almost immediately detected water noises running close by, and he could feel the pull of stout oak timber that formed the inner wall of ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... of the dark landing the dog came slowly and warily, ready to turn and slink off if he met no welcome, but Tode was in the mood when even a strange dog was better than his own company. He fed the half-starved creature with some stale sandwiches, and then talked to him and tried to teach him some tricks until to his own surprise he heard the city clocks striking nine, and the long, lonely evening ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... the rest were left vntouched, was this: For that it was most certainly knowen, that they were townes not woorth the saluting of such a royal companie, in which there was no maner of wealth in the world left, more then bare houses of stone, and standing walles, and might well haue serued rather as a stale, perchance, to haue entrapped, then as a meanes to haue enriched. And it had bin more then a suspicion of follie, for such an army as this, to haue sought to fight with the aire, and to haue laboured ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... people think we just go along with the bombers to catch a bit of fresh air and to keep from going stale. This mission promised to be our chance to crack the enemy, but unfortunately, Weather reports clouds up to our return point." The Old Man stared unwinkingly at his men. He read the disappointment in their faces. "We are hoping that for once ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... which comes from a woody bush called sweet-fern. That, and the strong smell of the bluish, short-needled pine, was ever clogging my nostrils and confusing me. Once I thought to scent a 'possum, but the musky taint came from a rotting log; and a stale fox might have crossed to windward and I not noticed, so blunted had grown my nose ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... was, nevertheless, most fitted for the convivial role of host, and no part that he played in his varied repertoire afforded such opportunity for the nice display of his unusual talents. History hath sneered at his rhymes as flat, stale and unprofitable; upon the bloody field he had been defeated and subsequently imprisoned; clever in diplomacy, the sagacity of his opponent, Charles, had in truth overmatched him; yet as the ostentatious Boniface, in grand bib and tucker, prodigal ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... do not know what in the world to say, but presume some one has been talking nonsense to him. Let Jim Perry go to Venezuela if he will—he may edit his 'Independent Gazette' amongst the Independents themselves, and reproduce his stale puns and politics without let or hindrance. But our poet is too good for a planter—too good to sit down before a fire made of mare's legs, to a dinner of beef without salt and bread. It is the wildest of all his meditations—pray tell him. The plague and Yellow Jack, and famine and free ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... are withered with light. The moon is pale with trying to remember something. Light, straining for a stale ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... The dreary, never-changing tale Of mortal maladies is worn and stale. You cannot charm, or interest, or please, By harping on that minor chord, disease. Say you are well, or all is well with you. And God shall hear your ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Lionel was helping him to get through things. What he had to get through was dying. It was going to be quicker than the way they had of dying in Davos, but it mightn't be quick enough; it might drive him out of his last fight, back to an inconceivable stale world. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... bridge—this broken as to coping and threadbare in general—then on the hither side of the way some three or four neighbour's houses, and opposite, the blacksmith's shop and post-office, the latter, of course, in a store, where you could buy anything from stale groceries to shingles. ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... with no difficulty. A faint cough from within, and a querulous protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin entered without further ceremony. A sickening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of stale dissipation, and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed, extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was for an instant startled. There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; there was palsy in his trembling limbs; there was ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... three chairs, a table which was littered with papers, and a corner-cupboard—the open doors of which revealed a miscellaneous collection—bundles of papers, a tin saucepan, a piece of cold sausage, and a couple of pistols. The fumes of stale tobacco-smoke hovered in the air, and mingled most unpleasantly with those of the lamp above, and of the mildew that penetrated through the walls just ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... kettle upon the hearth and at the same time speared with a fork a cloth hanging upon the meathooks, and lifted it down. It contained some beans which had been laid away for future use, and a very small and stale piece of pig's cheek, scored with a thousand slashes. When she had untied the string which fastened the cloth, she poured some of the beans upon the table and ordered me to shell them quickly and carefully. I obey her mandate and with careful fingers separate the beans from ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... be in the last extremity. He drank the water from the sheet as we caught it (we holding it above him as he lay so as to let it run into his mouth), for we had now nothing left capable of holding water, unless we had chosen to empty out our wine from the carboy, or the stale water from the jug. Either of these expedients would have been resorted ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... white-lipped morning-glory? Well, that's the rest of the story! But it's very singular, surely, They should produce so poorly. Father knows that I want them, So he continues to plant them; But, if I try to argue the question, He scoffs, as a thrifty farmer will; And puts me down with the stale suggestion— "Small potatoes, and few in ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... horribly stale in London without Barty that I became a quite exemplary young man when I woke up from that long nap on the floor of my laboratory in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury; a reformed character: from sheer grief, I ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... solidity of the young and vigorous country. In the correspondence of Henry Brevoort and Washington Irving and others one gets delightful little pictures—vignettes, as it were—of social life of that day. Mr. Emmet writes begging for some snuff "no matter how old. It may be stale and flat but cannot be unprofitable!" Brevoort asks a friend to dine "On Thursday next at half-past four o'clock." He paints us a quaint sketch of "a little, round old gentleman, returning heel taps into decanters," at a soiree, adding: "His heart smote him ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... wish to associate with. He spoke of his former life without hesitation, and confessed himself rather apprehensive of going to Singapore. He was remarkably civil, and sent us a breakfast of some fruit, salt fish, stale turtles' eggs, and coffee sweetened with syrup; but spite of all this, his blood-thirsty education and habits prejudiced me against him. Breakfast finished, we went forward to visit Seriff Sahib, who received ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... barge, than the keeper of the vestibule to the Reporters' Gallery. He was permitted to purvey refreshments of a modest kind to the reporters. He always had a bottle of whisky on tap, a loaf or two of stale bread, and a most nauseous-looking ham. I never, during my career in the Gallery, tasted that ham. The tradition was that every night, when Mr. Wright, at the close of his duties, retired to his modest abode in Lambeth, he took with him the ham, wrapped in a large red bandana which ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... 796. Cicero mentions the same proverb in his work De Officiis, B. i., ch. 10, substituting the word "injuria" for "malitia." "'Extreme law, extreme injustice,' is now become a stale proverb in discourse." The same sentiment is found in the ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... thy conscience witness, Iachimo, Thou didst accuse him of incontinency, Thou then look'dst like a villain: now methinks, Thy favour's good enough. Some Jay of Italy, Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him: Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion, And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls, I must be ript; to pieces with me. Oh, Men's vows are women's traitors. All good seeming By thy revolt, oh husband, shall be thought ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the same story, but this really was no argument for or against the charm, because, as I was told, bears in feeding usually make about a two weeks' circuit, and although we had seen many tracks they were all stale, demonstrating in a rough way that if we could linger for a week or two we would be sure to catch some one of the trackers on the ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... product, fish must be fresh when canned. No time should be lost in handling the fish after being caught. Putrefaction starts rapidly, and the fish must be handled promptly. The sooner it is canned after being taken from lake, stream or ocean, the better. Never attempt to can any fish that is stale. ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... another Arabian version, the man desires his wife to moisten some stale bread she has set before him for supper, and she refuses. After an altercation it is agreed that the one who speaks first shall get up and moisten the bread. A neighbour comes in, and, to his surprise, finds the couple dumb; he kisses the wife, ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. We are armed all over with subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin to play, and translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend to meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of a year ago have given way to the peaked mounds in which turnips wait transplanting. Where there were vast stretches of mud, scarred with intrenchments, with the wheel tracks of guns and ammunition carts, with stale, ill-smelling straw, the carcasses of oxen and horses, and the bodies of men, is now a smiling landscape, with miles of growing grain, green vegetables, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... history of the lives and operations of some of us, who have made names in this country during the last few years," he said, "would make the modern romance seem stale. Even odd scraps of news or surmises are fought for by the Press. The journalists know well enough where to come for their sensation. Our guests at last, I believe. Don't forget what I have been saying ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was going to meet here the same spirit I was getting in touch with among my emigrant friends—a zeal for life, a belief in the possibilities of life, an optimistic determination to use these possibilities, which somehow the blue-blooded Americans were losing. It seemed to me that life was getting stale for the fourth and fifth generation. I tried to make the boy see this point of view. I went back again with him to ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... pieces stale sponge cake or lady fingers, a few macaroons, some French cherries and apricots (glace), and mix all together. Make a custard of 1 quart milk and 6 eggs, and when cooked, reserve 1 cupful for a sauce, and add to the ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San
... recovered sufficiently to be released, and Prince brought it in again, quite dead, five minutes later. I shut the little casement window, but the room became so hot and stuffy, and suspicious fumes of stale beer and tobacco began to assert their presence, so that I found myself obliged to open it again. Sometimes the victim's bones were crunched close to my ear, and I found more than one feather in my hair in the morning. Never was any one so persecuted by a cat as I was ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... Durtal. His family were dead, the friends of his youth married and scattered, and since his withdrawal from the world of letters he had been reduced to complete solitude. Des Hermies kept him from going stale and then, finding that Durtal had not lost all interest in mankind, promised to introduce him to a really lovable old character. Of this man Des Hermies spoke much, and one day he said, "You really ought to know him. He likes the books of yours which I have lent him, and he wants ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Pires. The presence of the wild grape shows that vineyards might be cultivated with success; the wheat grows well without irrigation; and any one who tasted the butter and cheese at the table of Colonel Pires would prefer them to the stale produce of the Irish dairy, in general use throughout that province. The cattle in this country are seldom milked, on account of the strong prejudice which the Portuguese entertain against the use of milk. They believe that it may be used with safety in the morning, but, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... no other travellers on the platform, or in the little waiting-room where a paraffin-lamp with blackened chimney struggled feebly with the fog. It was not a cheery room, and he was glad to be called back from a contemplation of a roll of texts hanging on the wall, and a bottle of stale water on the table, to human things by the entry of a drowsy official who was discharging the duties of station-master, booking-clerk, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the Catholic question, with my name to it. There is such an uproar here that I think it is gallant, and becoming a friend of Lord Grey's, to turn out and take a part in the affray.... What a detestable subject!—stale, threadbare, and exhausted; but ancient errors cannot ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... compromise, he would—and thankfully. There would be no electricity, of course, but he had provided himself with flashlights and bulbs and batteries—not too many of the last, of course, because they'd grow stale. However, he'd also laid in plenty of candles and a vast supply of matches.... Tins of food and concentrates and synthetics, packages of seed should he grow tired of all these and want to try growing his own—fruit, he knew, would be growing wild soon enough.... ...
— The Most Sentimental Man • Evelyn E. Smith
... thing. She now is fresh and untouched, and shy and silent, and anything you like. She's worth educating and developing. You might make something fine out of her; but the other's—a stale loaf.' ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... would arise and go into the house. She would not look at Richard before she went, for in externals she forced herself to be loyal to Roger. When she got into the house she would linger about the rooms at factitious operations, pouring out of the flower-glasses water that was not stale, or putting on the kettle far too soon, until she heard Richard coming to look for her, lightfootedly but violently, banging doors behind him, knocking into furniture. He would halt at the door and stand for a moment, twiddling the handle round ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... the rustling of stoles and the muttering of prayers suggest incantation rather than worship; the organ has a hollow, sepulchral sound of lamentation; and there is a spirit of mystery and terror in the stale, clammy air. The place resembles an antechamber of Purgatory much more than of Heaven. The mummy of Don Jaime II., son of the Conquistador and first king of Majorca, is preserved in a sarcophagus of black marble. This is the only historic monument in the Cathedral, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... twilight. It is not surprising that these appearances should deeply impress the untutored mind and should be deemed significant and portentous; they must deeply impress any normal mind, they are so grand and so strange. The man who has trained his intellect until it is so stale, and starved his imagination until it is so shrivelled that he can gaze unmoved at such spectacles, that they are insignificant to him, has but reduced himself to the level of the dog upon whom also they make no impression—though even a dog will howl at a great aurora. Of course ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... satirist in the exposing of the cant and knavery of the pretenders to religion, what room is there for him to lash the infamies of the law! On this point the French are babes in iniquity compared to us—a counsel prostituting himself for money is a matter with us so stale, that it is hardly food for satire: which, to be popular, must find some much more complicated and interesting knavery whereon to ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... back the chairs and deposited two plates of lukewarm soup before the newcomers, after which he lifted a brush of variegated tissue paper and made valiant assault upon the flies which overran the tables. Stale odours of over-cooked food weighted the atmosphere, and waiters bearing enormous trays above their heads jostled one another as they threaded their difficult ways. Occasionally the clamour of voices was lost in the clatter of breaking ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... intended to write down a full description of the country immediately behind our present line. The Skipper, for fear we should become stale, allowed us plenty of leave. We would make little expeditions to Bethune for the baths, spend an afternoon riding round Armentieres, or run over to Poperinghe for a chop. We even arranged for a visit to the Belgian lines, but that ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... people rushed out into the fair to seek for fresh amusement; but the actors had no rest. Once more they appeared on the platform to attract a fresh audience, and then the same play was repeated, the same songs were sung, the same words were said; fresh to the people who were listening, but oh, how stale and monotonous ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... Human jokes, however stale, He jumps about and wags his tail, And Human People clap their hands And ...
— The Kitten's Garden of Verses • Oliver Herford
... in the French which waiters get together for the traveller's confusion in Italy, and he resigned himself to whatever chance of acquaintance might befall him. The place had a companionable smell of stale tobacco, and the dim light showed him on the walls of a space dropped a step or two lower, at the end of the room, a variety of sketches and caricatures. A waiter was laying a large table in this space, and when Colville came up to examine the drawings he jostled him, with due apologies, in ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... the suits were brought in, and the vapor released from the small tanks. A change was at once noticed. The old stale air in the cabin was forced out of the exhaust pipes, and the fresh took its ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... and spiritless that one can plainly see it is nearing the end. For more than two hours we have been strolling about the boulevards, but have not met with one adventure. Everywhere the stereotyped faces and masks; the same jokes as last year; even the coffee and the cake look stale to me. Arthur, don't ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... formations that may have a scientific value, but are utterly useless to a stomach not trained in Germany. Of this sort, for the most part, is the famous Lebkuchen, a sort of gingerbread manufactured in Nurnberg, and sent all over Germany: "age does not [seem to] impair, nor custom stale its infinite variety." It is very different from our simple cake of that name, although it is usually baked in flat cards. It may contain nuts or fruit, and is spoiled by a flavor of conflicting spices. I should think it might be sold by the cord, it is piled up in such quantities; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of reproach. "The very thought of that place, with its smell of stale beer and those awful creatures behind the bar, makes me shiver," he confessed. "I shall walk for an hour before lunch in Kensington Gardens. If I have a moment to spare I shall run into the Museum ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... though we 're ca'd a wee before The stale "three score an' ten," When Joy keeks kindly at your door, Aye bid her welcome ben. About yon blissfu' bowers above Let doubtfu' mortals speir; Sae weel ken we that "heaven is love," ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... rakes some ashes over the cake first; he then rakes on a suitable quantity of the live embers, and his cake is cooked in a short space of time." According to Mr. Cobbett, he grew ninety-five bushels of corn on one acre of ground; reckoning the value of this corn equal to bad and stale samples of wheat, which, at the time Mr. Cobbett was writing, was selling at 45s. the quarter, Mr. Cobbett's crop would be worth nearly 27l. the acre, three times, as he says, that of the average crop of wheat this same year. But in order to compare ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... and, at length, I was accepted— this was an opening! I registered malt, hops, ale, and small-beer, till I began to feel as though the world was one vast brewhouse; and calculated, added, and subtracted pounds, shillings, and pence, until all other lore appeared "stale, flat, and unprofitable." I was in this counting-house four years, and was, finally, discharged by my prudent principal as an unthrifty servant, for having, during a day of unusual business, cut up two entire quills, and overturned the inkstand on a new ledger! Again "the world ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... contrary, most of them exhibit the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anaemia. They are overtrained and overworked. In the language of training they are "stale." ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... suitable size, clean it well, and rub the inside with pepper and salt. Make a stuffing of bread, butter, parsley, sage and thyme; if the bread is stale, pour a little boiling water on it; mix altogether; fill the pig, and sew it up with strong thread; put in the skewers and spit, and tie the feet with twine; have a pint and a half of water in the bottom of the tin kitchen, with a spoonful of lard and a little salt, with ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... minds of men; and they, willing slaves, self-constituted subjects, were ready to bend their necks to the yoke. Some erect and manly spirits still remained, pillars of state; but the word republic had grown stale to the vulgar ear; and many—the event would prove whether it was a majority— pined for the tinsel and show of royalty. Ryland was roused to resistance; he asserted that his sufferance alone had permitted the encrease of this party; but the time for indulgence was passed, and with ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... for it (which alone would have sufficed to make him an Idealist) he united a fondness for observation, a love of the actual in nature, and a susceptibility to deep impressions from and interest in the objects of sense, which would have seemed to mark him out for a Realist. But is not this the true stale of the mind, instead of being; one which should excite astonishment? Is it not one-sidedness rather than many-sidedness that should be regarded as strange? Is it not as much an evidence of disease as the preponderance of one element or function in ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... education have impaired the vitality now of Christian presentations of ethics.) So that to have announced it positively, at that time, would have served his purpose but little: men would have said, "We have heard all that before; had he nothing better to give us than stale ideas from the Mysteries or Pythagoras?" What he wanted to do was to take it out of the region of religion, where familiarity with it had bread an approach to contempt; and restate it robbed of that familiarity, and clothed anew in a garb of sweet reasonableness. So ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... neighbourhood; and, like a trusty servant of the public, turned out of his bed instantly and went in search; till he discovered, hanging among what he judged to be the stems of ore-weed (Laminaria), three or four large pieces of stale thornback, of most evil savour, and highly prejudicial to the purity of the sea, and the health of the neighbouring herrings. Happy Squinado! He needed not to discover the limits of his authority, to consult any lengthy Nuisances' Removal Act, with its clauses, and counter- clauses, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... perhaps he would be of King Seleucus' opinion, that he who knew the weight of a sceptre would not stoop to pick it up, if he saw it lying before him, so great and painful are the duties incumbent upon a good king.—[Plutarch, If a Sage should Meddle with Affairs of Stale, c. 12.]—Assuredly it can be no easy task to rule others, when we find it so hard a matter to govern ourselves; and as to dominion, that seems so charming, the frailty of human judgment and the difficulty ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... fourth I had ever seen of that race was an old man called Uncle Jeff. He seemed to serve any one who called upon him for chores, in our little village of Lockport, that grew up as by magic upon the Erie Canal. Uncle Jeff was frequently employed by merchants to cry off their stale articles on the street. At one time the old man, whose head was almost as white as wool, was crying, "Gentlemen and ladies' black silk stockin's of all colors for sale," holding them up to view as he passed along the street, followed by a group of ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... down, down," said the giant. "Posted missing Tuesday night." He had folded his arms and was leaning up against the side, moody as the devil. "For some it makes a change; for others it don't. I'm one of the last sort. It's all stale to me. I live there—down, down, down." ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... were fresh and green, though one of the hot, burning breaks of blue sky and glaring sunlight had baked the road into Indian-red dust once more, and the interior of Mhtoon Pah's curio shop was heavy with stale scents and dark shadows that crept out as the gloom of evening settled in upon it. Mhtoon Pah moved about looking at his goods, and touching them with careful hands. He hovered over an ivory lady carrying an umbrella, and looked long at a white marble Buddha, ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... aspirations are too mean, his qualities too contemptible to win our sympathy save at rare moments of transcendent poetry, what shall be said of the setting provided for the story of his career? Once more we are offered the stale devices of the Moralities, the Good and Bad Angels, the Devil, the Old Man (formerly known as Sage Counsel), the Seven Deadly Sins, Heaven, Hell, and the carefully-pointed moral at the end. Even the Senecan Chorus has been forced into service to tell us ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... other matter. Is that what you mean? How are we going to take care of the news? It is not a magazine of stories and fiction; it is a magazine of news, and the news of the period between August 15th and September 15th, for instance, will become stale if it is not used in the September 15th issue and runs over until the October 15th issue. It is the American Nut Journal. I think your idea can be carried out very fully by featuring the convention as the main thing, but not to use every last ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... to suppress disorders, to maintain, as far as now practicable, the public peace, and to give security and protection to the persons and property of loyal citizens, I do hereby extend and declare established martial law throughout the Stale of Missouri. The lines of the army of occupation in this State are, for the present, declared to extend from Leavenworth, by way of the posts of Jefferson City, Rolla, and Ironton, to Cape Girardeau, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... of Abraham see my Pilgrimage (iii. 171-175, etc.), where I described the water as of salt-bitter taste, like that of Epsom (iii. 203). Sir William Muir (in his excellent life of Mahomet, I. cclviii.) remarks that "the flavour of stale water bottled up for months would not be a criterion of the same water freshly drawn;" but soldered tins-full of water drawn a fortnight before are to be had in Calcutta and elsewhere after Pilgrimage time; and analysis would at ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... where Carmona had struck at me, and the chapel where I had taken Monica. The stones were slippery as the floor of a ballroom, with wax dropped from innumerable candles, and the air was heavy with the smoke of stale incense. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and eliminates those secondary questions which cannot be entertained for a moment until the one great point of fact is peremptorily settled. In its very statement of the doctrine maintained it avoids all discussion of the nature of the disease "known as puerperal fever," and all the somewhat stale philology of the word contagion. It mentions, fairly enough, the names of sceptics, or unbelievers as to the reality of personal transmission; of Dewees, of Tonnelle, of Duges, of Baudelocque, and others; ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pleasures be stale and forsaken; No, 'tis your fool wherewith I am so taken, The only one creature that I can call blessed: For all other forms I have proved ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... that there must undoubtedly be an opening somewhere, because the air in the vault was comparatively pure and fresh; at least it had not the dead, stale, stuffy smell of air confined in a hermetically-sealed chamber. But Frobisher pointed out that the door by which they had entered, although an excellent fit, did not butt up against the jambs so closely as to exclude the air altogether; yet he acknowledged that the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... came, his leave-taking, always a regret, seemed now as painful as his blase indifference to all emotions, pleasant or unpleasant, could allow. He lingered—he hesitated—he repeated many times how glad he should be to see Beechwood again; how all the world was to him "flat, stale, and unprofitable," ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... say it's rather stale to be in the school. I don't see why your fellows should be looked ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... been read by his Chief. He made his way thither, somewhat dubious as to the thrill of his achievement, aware of a shadow about him, the ghost of yesterday's joy, which made all success save the intimate personal one that he most craved, flat, stale, and unprofitable. In the darkness of the street he was aware, too, that he was being observed and followed, but he went boldly toward his destination, sure that as a member of the staff of the British Embassy, his person at least partook of the official ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... deprived of the objects on which their imagination exerted its powers. Yet is this exercise so much the more necessary as the imagination is by far the most lively faculty of the mind. Hence, without doubt, it becomes necessary men should replace stale fooleries by those which are novel. This is, moreover, the true reason why devotion so often affords consolation in great disgraces, gives diversion for chagrin, and replaces the strongest passions, when they have been quenched by excess of pleasure and dissipation. ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... for the dance. It was to be one of those wholesome, generous, splendid outpourings of neighborliness and good feeling and wonderful simplicity and kindliness, such as one can meet with nowhere but in the remoter mountain communities of old New England, where customs do not grow stale and no innovation mars. If any man would discover the deep meaning of the word "welcome," let him attend such ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... like this and gather two or three bushels of hickory nuts. How I enjoyed the black walnut, especially when it was just shriveled so it would leave the shell—it got rather too rich when it was dried and stale in the winter time—but how delicious it was when just wilted! Also there was the butternut and the wild hazelnut. I used to take a one-horse wagon into the woods on a Saturday and gather enough hazelnuts in the shucks to fill it; then we had hazelnuts all winter. So I am in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... "Your news grows stale," croaked a hag who was passing; "go to the Piazzetta and you shall see the head of one who prayed before the altar ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... more than in the verse of his second volume—the marked tendency of the whole exquisite region to insist on the secret of its charm, when incorrigibly moved to do so, only at the expense of its falling a little flat, or turning a little stale, on our hands. I have for myself at least marked the tendency, and somehow felt it point a graceless moral, the moral that as there are certain faces too well produced by nature to be producible again by the painter, the portraitist, so there ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... than for a woman to tickle her palate? If a cigar would enfoul the purity of a woman, does it not of a man? Why is it more noble for a man to be the slave of an appetite or a habit, than for a woman? Why is it less impure for a man to saturate his hair, his breath and clothing, with vile, stale odors, than for a woman? What right have men to suppose that they can perfume themselves with stenches,—for whatever may be the fragrance of a burning cigar, the after smell is a stench,—and be any less offensive to a cleanly woman than a woman similarly perfumed is to them? ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... that the air in a cave constantly occupied would grow stale and close; while smoke from the fires would in time become annoying. But Indians used for fuel only dry wood and bark, the smoke from which would be a negligible factor. The varying pressure of the atmosphere outside ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... that thus insidiously crept in on my brain; and as before, the noise and glitter of the Toledo had been unbearable, so now I found it a relief and a distraction. Two maskers bedizened in violet and gold whizzed past me like a flash, one of them yelling a stale jest concerning la nnamorata—a jest I scarcely heard, and certainly had no heart or wit to reply to. A fair woman I knew leaned out of a gayly draped balcony and dropped a bunch of roses at my feet; out of courtesy I stooped to pick them up, and then raising my hat I saluted the dark-eyed donor, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the Worcestershire sauce is left out by braggarts who aver that they can take it or leave it. And, in these degenerate days, when it comes to substitutions for the original beer or stale pale ale, we find the gratings of great Cheddars wet down with mere California sherry or even ginger ale—yet so far, thank goodness, no Cokes. And there's tomato juice out of a can into the Rum Turn Tiddy, and sometimes celery soup in ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... what it is to start a piece of work, either intellectual or muscular, feeling stale—or cold, as an Adirondack guide once put it to me. And everybody knows what it is to "warm up to his job." The process of warming up gets particularly striking in the phenomenon known as the "second wind." On usual occasions we make a practice of stopping an occupation as soon as we meet ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... thence to the garden. The apartment itself was given up entirely to weapons or instruments of sport. Guns, fishing-rods, hunting-stocks, golf-clubs, tennis-rackets, were stored in various racks and stands. A smell of stale cigar-smoke pervaded it. Colonel de Vigne was wont to retire hither at night in preference to the less cosy and ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... art my theme; Not such as idle poets dream, Who trick thee up a heathen goddess That a fantastic cap and rod has; Such stale conceits are poor and silly; I paint thee out, a Highland filly, A sturdy, stubborn, handsome dapple, As sleek's a mouse, as round's an apple, That when thou pleasest canst do wonders; But when thy luckless rider blunders, Or if thy fancy should demur there, Wilt break thy ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... about the walls little sheds had been erected, to shelter this detachment and that on its way through to Ireland. Some of these were as old as Claverhouse and his King's Life Guards in the bad days of the covenant. But, one and all, they were insufficient, out of repair, drippy, smelling of stale bad tobacco ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... it has been cooked in the open air under weeping skies. While waiting for it, we shall clean the same old rifle. When night falls, we shall sleep uneasily upon a comfortless floor, in an atmosphere of stale food and damp humanity. In the morning we shall rise up reluctantly, and go forth, probably in heavy rain, to our labour until the evening—the same labour and the same evening. We admit that it can't be helped: the officers and the authorities do their best for ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... first coat carefully brushed, and the white trousers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day's dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks' doors; but a consciousness of their own importance and the receipt of seven shillings a-week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight, comes to their aid, and they accordingly put ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... spent his evenings in repairing. Such, too, was his maniacal, sordid avarice that he no longer spent a farthing on himself apart from the money which he paid for his bread—bread of the commonest kind, which he purchased every four days and ate when it was stale, in order that he might make it last the longer. This greatly puzzled the people who were acquainted with him, and never a week went by without the house-porter propounding the question: "When a gentleman of such quiet habits earns eight thousand ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... by deriding the pretensions of the Americans. The moon served as a pretext for a thousand stale puns and a score of ballads, in which bad taste contested the palm with ignorance. But as formerly the French paid before singing, so now they paid after having had their laugh, and they subscribed for a sum of 1,253,930 ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... to look at. You are made to be queen of a ball-room; not a London ball-room, where everything, I take it, is flash and faded, painted and stale, and worn out; but down here in the country, where there is some life among us, and where a girl may be supposed to be excited over her dancing. It is in such rooms as this that hearts are won and lost; a bid made for diamonds is all that is done ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... lyddite shells were discovered to be more effective than those of the Boers, many of which were charged with sand, and jocosely said to be "made in Germany." As a matter of fact, the shells were charged with cordite which had probably grown stale and ineffective from over-keeping. It may be remembered that they were stored for use against the British after the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... regulations, have sprung to their work with an earnestness and continued it with a vigor at which the philosophers of the old system stand aghast. The freed peasants of Wologda compare favorably with any in Europe. And when the old tirades had grown stale, English writers drew copiously from a new source—from La Verite sur la Russie—pleasingly indifferent to the fact that the author's praise in a previous work had notoriously been a thing of bargain and sale, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... for the quantity and excellence of its honey. The rock on which the aromatic flowers grew in such profusion for the bees, did not, however, partake of the same delightful quality. In working it a peculiar fetid odour of sulphuretted hydrogen, somewhat like that of a stale onion, was emitted, which gave rise to its modern Italian name—Marmo Cipolla. This repulsive quality, however, disappeared quickly on exposure. The finest specimens of this marble in Rome are the forty-six ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! Ah fie! 't is an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... old, old theme, Never stale, but never new, Floating like a pleasant dream, Back to me ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... assured me that they never throw bread away, and if they find a piece on the floor they pick it up and put it in a hole in the wall and keep it. It may be eaten, but may never be otherwise destroyed. I thought of Ruskin telling his readers in The Elements of Drawing that stale crumb of bread is better than india-rubber to rub out their mistakes, but "it crumbles about the room and makes a mess; and besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong; and your drawing will not for a long while be worth the crumbs. So ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... told that as a boy DANIEL was stupid, but this has been said of so many great men that it's getting stale. Some talented men were undoubtedly stupid boys, but it doesn't follow that every idiotic youth will make an eminent statesman. But there are plenty of vacancies in the statesman business. A great many men go into it, but they fail for want of capital. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... was creeping back into his face, his eyes were shut, and he was apparently quite unconscious of her presence. For the first time she was aware of a distressful faintness, which, as she had come suddenly out of the stinging frost into the little overheated room that reeked with tobacco smoke and a stale smell of cooking, was not astonishing. She mastered her dizziness, however, and presently, seeing that Hawtrey did not move, glanced about her with some curiosity, for it was the first time ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across the yellow wall a lizard ran for shelter, at his elbow a macaw compassing the circle of its tin prison muttered dreadful oaths. Outside, as the washerwomen beat their linen clubs upon the flat rocks of the river, the hot, stale air was spanked with sharp reports. In Camaguay theirs was the only industry, the only sign of cleanliness; and recognizing that another shirt had been thrashed into subjection and rags, Everett winced. No less visibly did his own thoughts cause him to wince. Garland he had forgotten, and he was ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... happiness is that to leave the home Of the Waywode, my father, for the house Of some count palatine, a grateful bride? What do I gain of new from such a change? And can I joy in looking to the morrow When it brings naught but what was stale to-day? Oh, tasteless round of petty, worn pursuits! Oh, wearisome monotony of life! Are they a guerdon for high hopes, high aims? Or love or greatness I must have: all else Are unto me alike indifferent. Smooth off the trouble from thy brow, dear father! Let's trust the stream ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "Stale!" Stalky shouted. "We knew that years ago, only we didn't choose to run about shoutin' 'stinker.' We've got some manners, ir they haven't. Catch a fag, Turkey, ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... of whoring, stealing, defrauding, and blaspheming." Again they were asked, "What is the quality of those delights?" They said, "To the senses of others they are like the stinks arising from dunghills, the stenches from dead bodies, and the scents from stale urine." And it was asked them, "Are those things delightful to you?" They said, "Most delightful." And reply was made, "Then you are like unclean beasts which wallow in such things." To which they answered, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What delightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an odor of cupboard. He talked of what he was interested in, or else he was silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea this was adorable genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which uses up the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... stand throng'd with faces, the broadcloth and laces, The booths, and the tents, and the cars, The bookmakers' jargon, for odds making bargain, The nasty stale smell of cigars. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Square. Tiens! I would have it a capital offence for any English cook to prepare hashed mutton without a license, and I would banish all the bakers of the kingdom to Siberia—ah! your English bread, which you have to eat stale so as to avoid a horrible death!—and I would open two hundred thousand cafes—mon Dieu! how thirsty I have been there!—and I would make every English work-girl do her hair properly, and I would ordain that everybody should laugh three times a day, under pain ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... Lane" was the street's title to fame. Windows showed dim candles, in the distance a sharp cry broke the silence and then fell away again. The street was very narrow and from the running gutters there stole into the air the odour of stale cabbage. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... had gone to Mrs. Vivian's. The burden of Longueville's confidences was a heavy load to carry there, but Bernard ventured to hope that he would deposit it at the door. He had given Gordon his impressions, and the latter might do with them what he chose—toss them out of the window, or let them grow stale with heedless keeping. So Bernard meditated, as he wandered about alone for the rest of the evening. It was useless to look for Mrs. Vivian's little circle, on the terrace of the Conversation-house, for the storm ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... head, and his hand fell on the table with a tired laugh. "Barney Rebstock," he murmured, "of all men! Coward, skate, filler-in! Barney Rebstock—stale-beer man, sneak, barn-yard thief! Hit two men!" He turned to McCloud. "What kind of a wizard is Murray Sinclair? What sort of red-blood toxin does he throw into his gang to draw out a spirit like that? Murray Sinclair belongs to the race of empire-builders. By Heaven, ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman |
