"Placid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Lady Mary's dressing-room—the room in which he had first declared his passion for her. Hope and fear alternately seized him—fear prevailed the moment that he beheld Selina. Not that any strong displeasure appeared in her countenance—no, it was mild and placid; but it was changed towards him, and its very serenity was alarming. Whilst she welcomed him to his native country and to his friends, and while she expressed hopes for his future happiness, all ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... looking almost with defiance across at the placid, sphinx-like face of the Frenchman, "His Royal Highness should add that we ladies think of him as of a hero of old . . . we worship him . . . we wear his badge . . . we tremble for him when he is in danger, and exult with him in the hour of ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... in a deep voice, and with such a grand flow of words, that the listening Emperor would have enjoyed expressing his approbation, and could not help considering the question as to how many cups of wine his usually placid fellow-countryman might have taken since breakfast to be so excited. When Floras tried to prove that under Hadrian's rule Rome had risen to the highest stage of its manhood, his friend, Demetrius, of Alexandria, interrupted him, and begged him to tell him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... men. "That of Hohastillpilp," says the journal, "was formed of human scalps and adorned with the thumbs and fingers of several men slain by him in battle." And yet the journal immediately adds: "The Chopunnish are among the most amiable men we have seen. Their character is placid and gentle, rarely moved to passion, yet not often enlivened by gayety." In short, the Indians were amiable savages; and it is a savage trait to ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... good deal of support to Mary's firm, well-knit arm. They showed well together: even lameness could not disfigure the grace of his leisurely movements; and the bright changefulness and delicacy of his face contrasted well with the placid nobleness of her composed expression, while her complexion was heightened and her eyes lighted by exercise, so that she was almost handsome. She certainly had been looking uncommonly well lately. Was this the way they were ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... apologetically, but his uncle turned away with a greater appearance of anger than his placid features were wont to exhibit; and Walter, cursing the innocent cause of his uncle's displeasure towards him, took up his fishing-rod and went out alone, in ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... presence of iron, and everywhere it had been rent or shattered into a thousand fantastic forms. At short intervals the massive cliffs were wrenched apart to make room for narrow fiords, of unknown depth, that penetrated for miles into the land, where they formed intricate mazes of placid waterways. Beside them there were nestled tiny fishing villages of whitewashed houses, though quite as often these were perched on apparently inaccessible crags, overlooking sheltered coves ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... fair placid face which she felt sure she should love, for the dark blue eyes reminded her of her father's, though the fair hair and small mouth were strangely unlike his. But there was something familiar in the tone of her voice, and when she called a cab, gave ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... the abyss; heaps of grey debris, interspersed with stunted grass, huge excavations, ugly ravines with a spout of grim stone at the seaward opening, like the burrowings of some huge mole. The placid green slopes of the fort give an impression of secret strength, even grandeur. Otherwise it is but a ragged, splashed aquarelle of grey and green. Over the debris appear at a distance the blunt ominous chimneys of the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Herbert to come to my room at once when he has finished telephoning, and when Mr. Bessemer arrives send him to me at once!" Then the door closed and the woman was alone with her defeat, and the placid enameled features melted into an angry snarl like an animal at bay. In a moment more Herbert ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... so long from home, my sweet cousin?" Mrs. Keith asked, something in her placid face seeming to tell of longing desire to be near ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... spoke English remarkably well. He was unmarried, and lived with his mother and a married brother. Sixteen years he and his sister-in-law had lived in the same house, but he had never seen her face. He had been unlucky in money matters, but accepted his poverty with the placid acquiescence of the Oriental. I remember one day when he told me of a piece of good fortune which had befallen a fellow- dragoman, and I said that I hoped he might be similarly fortunate. He bowed his head with quiet ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the sun, and nearly at the same time the departure of the twilight, which lasts so short time in that tropical region—one of the few advantages which a more temperate climate possesses over it, being the longer continuance of that sweet and placid light—gave signal to the warders of the city to shut the folding leaves of the Golden Gate, leaving a wicket lightly bolted for the passage of those whom business might have detained too late without the walls, and indeed for all who chose to pay a small coin. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... every one, she received many votive offerings. Her shrine was an amusing one to look at. A green china frog played a tuneless guitar; a pensive monkey gazed with clasped hands and dreadfully human eyes into futurity; there were sagacious looking elephants, placid rhinoceroses, rampant hares, two pug dogs clasped in an irrevocable embrace, an enormous lobster, a diminutive polar bear, and in the center of all a most evil-looking jackdaw ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... burden was lifted from my poor heart, but only, it seemed, to make room for the very one of all in the catalogue of causes by which a lover's hope dies beyond the possibility of a resurrection. It is the rock—no, I fear the placid waters of friendship into which my freighted bark is now drifting—which may lie between it and the bright isle of love, the safe harbor" (he shuddered), "not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... could ask her for which she had not an immediate answer ready. Her brow was always unruffled, her black shining hair brushed neatly back and parted down the middle, her large flat face always composed and placid, and her voice never raised above a whisper. The only sign that she ever gave of disturbance was a little clucking noise that she made in her mouth like an aroused hen. Peter's time in the little pink sitting-room was sometimes exceedingly ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... was a suffering, ill-disciplined, irritable old man; and by keeping these considerations in view, she actually achieved the most difficult—almost heroic effort. She managed to attain a frame of mind in which she could pity his sufferings, feel indulgence for his faults, and remain quite placid under their ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the Iberian Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river descends with such oblique vehemence, that in a short space it is traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream become placid and navigable, till it reaches the town of Sarapana, five days' journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the same hills, but in a contrary direction to the Caspian Lake. The proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least the idea, of wafting ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... flame, That placid dame, The Moon's Celestial Highness; There's not a trace Upon her face Of diffidence or shyness: She borrows light That, through the night, Mankind may all acclaim her! And, truth to tell, She lights up well, So I, for one, don't ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... and banned, He taught the scattered hillsmen to unite, And gave them laws, and bade the name to stand Of Latium, he safe latent in the land. Then tranquilly the happy seasons rolled Year after year, and Peace, with plenteous hand, Smiled on his sceptre. 'Twas the Age of Gold, So well his placid sway ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... close together. The river became much narrower and swirled with an oily-looking current around the buttresses of granite that thrust themselves from one side or the other into it. The declivity was not great and the torrent was otherwise placid. After three miles of this ominous docility, just as the dinner hour was near and the threatening black granite had risen to one thousand feet above the water, we heard a deep, sullen roar ahead and from the boats the whole river seemed to vanish instantly from ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... once, and, applying a light to the pile, leaped ashore. Next moment the cables were cut; the brushwood crackled with a fierce noise as the fire leaped up and the "ocean steed" bounded away over the dark blue sea. Guttorm was still seated by the helm, his face pale as death, but with a placid smile on his mouth, and a strange, almost unearthly, fire ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... snug ship, well found, well manned, and, as the times go, well officered. The captain, indeed, is not over-alert or fitted for high emergencies; but what emergencies can belong to so placid a voyage? For a week after the headlands of Tarifa and Spartel have sunk under the eastern horizon, the vessel is kept every day upon her course,—her top-gallant and studding sails all distent with the wind blowing freely from over Biscay. After this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... the most three, seconds had elapsed. The ship was, for the moment, full in view. As I looked, she gave a queer kind of quick shiver, prow and stern, and then sideways. It was for all the world like a rat shaken in the mouth of a skilled terrier. Then she remained still, the one placid thing to be seen, for all around her the sea seemed to shiver in little independent eddies, as when water is broken without a ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... went in they sped right under the guns of the shore batteries, which could no longer resist the temptation to see what they could do. Puffs of white smoke dotted the landscape on the far shore, and dull booms echoed over the placid water. Around the ships fountains of water sprang up into the air. The enemy had been drawn, but his marksmanship was obviously very bad. I think I am right in saying that not a single shot directed against the ships came within a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... robins; especially in the evening after supper, when they would gather about the great fire always burning on its clay bed in the centre of the raft, and with solo and chorus awake the echoes of the placid river. ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... though she had suddenly perceived (we were such children still!) that I was really going away for good, going very far away—even as far as Sulaco, lying unknown, hidden from our eyes in the darkness of the Placid Gulf. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... manner and external adornment affect not only the savage but the civilized man. A perfect master of the former, he was uniformly courteous. No frown ever deformed his face, nor even wrinkle ruffled its placid surface, on which was stamped the expression of a sweet and confiding nature; and, when circumstances required, he knew how to resort to the latter with an effect which seldom ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... illuminated. There were candles everywhere, and the great chandelier that hung from the ceiling was lit. The heat was stifling, and the incessant fluttering of fans gave the women in the parterre and in the crowded boxes a look of unrest that was belied by their placid, expressionless faces. Many glanced up at the Menotti in their box. There was some criticism ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... expanse of champaign country, glowing in all the brilliance of tropical vegetation. Fields of green, and forests of darker green; here and there patches of yellow, and belts of olive-coloured leaves; at intervals a sheet of silver—the reflection from a placid lake, or the bend of some silent stream—was visible upon the imposing picture ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... coat-tails. The mother, being en deshabille, ran away at the sight of a stranger. The duke excused himself for his want of ceremony, and added, "I am delighted to see so great a man living in such simplicity, and that the author of 'La Bonne Fille' is such a good father." Piccini's placid and pleasant life was destined, however, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... those lengthened storms which, during the month of August, are so prevalent along the Gulf coast. Clara Sanders sat near a window, bending over a piece of needlework, while, with her hands clasped behind her, Beulah walked up and down the floor. Their countenances contrasted vividly; Clara's sweet, placid face, with drooped eyelids and Madonna-like serenity; the soft, auburn hair curled about her cheeks, and the delicate lips in peaceful rest. And Beulah!—how shall I adequately paint the gloom and restlessness written in her stormy countenance? To tell you that her brow was ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... astonishment of both of us, the mare remained perfectly still. There was Enriquez bolt upright in the stirrups, completely overshadowing by his saddle-flaps, leggings, and gigantic spurs the fine proportions of Chu Chu, until she might have been a placid Rosinante,[149-2] bestridden by some youthful Quixote. She closed her eyes, she was going to sleep! We were dreadfully disappointed. This clearly would not do. Enriquez lifted the reins cautiously! Chu Chu moved forward slowly—then stopped, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... letter to the young man, who was then in Tripoli. That done, she returned to her business as if nothing had happened. Her placid face did not once betray the anguish of her heart during ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... Robin. He was a gentle youth who loved quiet things, quiet places, placid people, kind dogs, books, canaries even, if they did not sing too loud. He was sensitive about himself, being small and weakly, and took, as I have said, great care of what he had of health, such care indeed that some of his ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... legitimately, with their muscular strength. The terrible pictures which adorn the pages of eastern travels for children, of poor Indians with just their heads appearing above the folds of a gigantic boa, will probably recur to the visitor, as he surveys the tortuous folds of the placid specimens of the family that lie before him. It is therefore hardly necessary to inform him that the boa family destroy their prey by coiling round it, and having secured their tail to a tree to give themselves additional ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... the savage instincts which the best of men are not without. His face expressed something of what was passing within his active brain, and the girl before him, as she turned and watched the working features, usually so placid—indifferent, knew that she was to see a side of his character always suspected by her but never before made apparent. His thoughts at last found vent in words of almost ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... badly appointed open carriage, drawn by two very decent horses, and driven by a smart, red-sashed, white-robed negro. We saw him in profile as he passed along the road at some distance, but he was reading a paper with an expression so placid that I felt sure he had not seen us. On the seat beside him was a suitcase with the air of having been made in France; and circumstantial evidence said that Monny's ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Duncan's was a very placid, slow sort of mind. He went through his tasks without any excitement or distraction, although occasionally a vague curiosity as to what Elsie could want the atlas for, and what the letter said about them, did wander through his brain. When school was ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... oarsman. This was only large enough for one man. A second man had to sit on the deck behind the oarsman, with his feet hanging into the cockpit. Jimmy occupied this place of honour as we drifted through the placid water; first on one boat, then on the other, entertaining us meanwhile with ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... monotonous simple machinery of physical existence—everlasting cookery, everlasting cleanliness, everlasting stitchery—her mother did not with a yearning sigh demand, "Must this sort of thing continue for ever, or will a new era dawn?" Not a bit! Mrs. Lessways went to bed in the placid expectancy of a very similar day on the morrow, and of an interminable succession of such days. The which was incomprehensible ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... more determined I became. She would sit there, calm and placid, until one of us entered the water. Then she became a veritable fury. It ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... with riveted sight. They were not the image and likeness of God, these creatures, despite the doctrinal platitudes of the Reverend Darius Borwell and the placid Doctor Jurges. They were not alive, these stooping, shuffling things, despite the fact that the religiously contented Patterson Moore would argue that God had breathed the spirit of life into the thing of dust which He created. And these ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... temper was more placid but who had an enquiring mind, said, 'You do not know my friend Trottman yet, Mr. Trevor. He cares but little who has the most reason, so that he may have ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... took effect, but his mind was still vigorous, and when relieved of the cares of office he took up the humbler work of giving divinity lessons in a girls' school. He was pre-eminently a man of peace, but beneath the placid exterior there lay an indomitable will. One who knew him well wrote of him thus: "He left upon me the deep impression that he never had an ideal of power or wealth or fame, but that to go about doing good, and to promote the welfare of his fellow-men with all his strength, were the objects ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... The placid smile, the brow serene, Unstudied glance, unruffled mien, Glad approbation gain; From rankling spleen, and envy free, The venomed pang of jealousy Essays to wound ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... we came in sight of the Mahakam River. At this point it is only forty to fifty metres wide, and the placid stream presented a fine view, with surrounding hills in the distance. In the region of the Upper Mahakam River, above the rapids, where we had now arrived, it is estimated there are living nearly 10,000 Dayaks of various tribes, recognised under the general name Bahau, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... says,—'n' then she waited to see what he would say, 'n' she said a lamb would o' begun to hop about 'n' yowl with mad to see how kind of calm 'n' dazed like 'n' altogether peaceful 'n' happy he looked up at her. 'N' he says, quite placid 'n' contented, 'Can't you get some water out o' the pond?' he says. 'Out o' the pond!' says Hannah, high-keyed like,—Gran'ma Mullins says Hannah always went high-keyed easy,—'out o' that muddy, swampy, slimy, marshy, cow-churned pond,' says Hannah, 'out o' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... his wife! That alone was such an entrancing thought that he could not go to sleep when he tried to. What a new world it would be to take her into, and what supreme delight to show her these beautiful islands and placid coves, and the bold cliffs at the foot of which the white-crested billows were beating! How he would enjoy seeing her open her big, blue eyes with wonder and sweet surprise at all the grand and beautiful bits of scenery and all the magic ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... of the night, perhaps about two o'clock in the morning. Our lamps are burning somewhat dimly before our placid idols. Chrysantheme wakes me suddenly, and I turn to look at her: she has raised herself on one arm, and her face expresses the most intense terror; she makes a sign, without daring to speak, that some one or something is near, creeping up to us. What ill-timed visit ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Down below was impenetrable blackness, shading softly overhead into blue-gray which was mottled by lighter areas from breaks in the floes above. All was calm. There was no sign of life save for an occasional vague shadow that, melting swiftly away, might have been a fish or seaweed. Placid always, would be this shrouded sea of mystery, no matter what furious tempest raged above over the flat ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... turning-point in her life had been the impulse and decision to escape them by going away. She was also right in thinking that this inability would rather help than hinder her cause. If he had come back and realized his expectations, he would have bestowed unstintedly the placid affection of a brother, given her his confidence, his aid, anything she wished, except his thoughts. While she lost much else, she retained these in a way that puzzled and even provoked him, in view of his devotion to Miss Wildmere. The very fact that he resented the way in which he had ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... emissary—in London he was in the oil trade—is endeavouring to introduce into the province. Of "tones" instead of the five used by the Chinese, he does not recognise more than two, and these he uses indifferently. He hopes, however, to be understood by loud speaking, and he bellows at the placid coolies like a ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... fashion, a method borrowed from the Indians. Thorns took the place of pins in woman's gear, and thongs did duty for buttons, with men. If the maiden did have "genuine bear's oil" for her hair, for lack of a mirror her head must be dressed by the pool or placid spring. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... swooned, but remained in a state of stupefaction, gazing at the body. As the moon fell upon the placid features, they looked as ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... shaped the Arthuriad has escaped this danger, and that not merely by the simple process which Dryden, with his placid irony, somewhere describes as "leaving scarce three of the characters alive." We have reached, and feel that we have reached, the conclusion of the whole matter when the Graal has been taken to Heaven, and Arthur has gone to Avalon. Nobody ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... a placid waking dream, I'm free from worldly troubles, Calm as the rippling silver stream that in the sunshine bubbles; And when sweet Eden's blissful bowers some abler bard has writ on, Despairing to transcend his powers, I'll ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... What would the morrow bring forth? If this one man's cupidity and hate should succeed in releasing the terror upon the world, what sort of a world would it leave? Through the windows of the car he could see the placid policemen patrolling the streets, caught a glimpse of other cars brilliantly illuminated bearing their laughing men and women back to homes, who were ignorant of the monstrous danger which threatened their ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... names of common things; and by the aid of this, together with signs, a lame sort of conversation could be carried on. In returning in the evening to the boat, we stopped to witness a very pretty scene. Numbers of children were playing on the beach, and had lighted bonfires which illumined the placid sea and surrounding trees; others, in circles, were singing Tahitian verses. We seated ourselves on the sand, and joined their party. The songs were impromptu, and I believe related to our arrival: one little girl sang a line, which the rest took up in parts, forming a very pretty chorus. The whole ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Judge Henry's home ranch began upon Sunk Creek soon after that stream emerged from its canyon through the Bow Leg. It was a place always well cared for by the owner, even in the days of his bachelorhood. The placid regiments of cattle lay in the cool of the cottonwoods by the water, or slowly moved among the sage-brush, feeding upon the grass that in those forever departed years was plentiful and tall. The steers came ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... and wait. I have some knowledge of Captain Salt's movements; and when last your lad was heard of he had parted company with his father and was making for the coast. I have some quickness in reading character; and there is a certain placid obstinacy in that young man which persuades me he will reach Harwich in time. Return, therefore, and wait with what patience you may. Moreover, Captain Barker, I perceive that you ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... beautiful young man, who received them with immense cordiality. A little later the young man, whose name was Livio, involved himself in a violent quarrel with the cigar banker, watched by an amused, placid and impartial crowd of spectators. Peter knew Livio to have the right on his side, because the banker had an unpleasant face and Livio accused him of being not only a Venetian but a Freemason. The banker in response remarked that he was not going to stay to be insulted by a Ligurian thief, and ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... sitting alone in my apartment, I was attracted by a slight movement on the stairs. A moment afterwards there was a knock at my door. The door opened, and Mr Clayton himself walked into the room. I trembled instantly from head to foot. The minister had a serious countenance, and was very placid. He took a chair, and I waited ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... hands and mouthed the usual pleasantries, Colonel Lord Sorban watched them with an amusement that didn't show on his placid face. Young Senesin was rather angry that the tete-a-tete had been interrupted, while Heywood seemed flustered ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... one present, however—the highest in authority—whose actions and demeanor were calm and unexcited. He seemed to labor under no unusual influence whatever, but evinced a serenity so placid and philosophical, that I attributed the silence of the sitting group, and the restraint which curbed in the outbreaking passions of those who stood, entirely to his presence. He was a schoolmaster, who taught his daily school in that chapel, and acted also ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... howling from the north across the island of Pharos, and the shallows of Diabathra in the great harbour of Alexandria. The water, usually so placid, rose in high waves, and the beacon on the lighthouse of Sastratus sent the rent abundance of its flames with hostile impetuosity towards the city. The fires in the pitch-pans and the torches on the shore ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hundred horses, as many lackeys as masters—where was this crowd to be housed? Where were to be lodged all the gentry of the neighborhood, who would gather in two or three hours after the news had enlarged the circle of its report, like the increasing circumference produced by a stone thrown into a placid lake? ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... now in the balmy atmosphere of the Indian summer, with a dreamy sunshine warming and gladdening all things,—the very apotheosis of autumn,—that wintry blasts would howl along this placid river, surging fierce ice-waves together, before two months ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... car had been left was an old weather-beaten shack, which, judging from the sawdust all about, might once have been used as an ice-house. This seemed likely, for it stood near the shore of a placid lake in the black bosom of which shone a myriad of inverted stars and through which was a golden path of flickering moonlight. The ice-house, or whatever it was, had never been painted and the grain stood out on the shrunken wood like veins ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... common-sense, which could not possibly tolerate that such an unimaginable donkey should exist. I laid his absurdity before him in the very plainest terms, but without either exciting his anger or shaking his resolution. "O my dear man," quoth he, with good-natured, placid, simple, and tearful stubbornness, "if you could but enter into my feelings and see the matter from beginning to end as I see it!" To confess the truth, I have since felt that I was hard-hearted to the poor simpleton, and that there ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... steps he climbs the distant stile, Whilst all around him wears a placid smile; There views the white-robed clouds in clusters driven And all the glorious pageantry of heaven. Low on the utmost bound'ry of the sight The rising vapours catch the silver light; Thence fancy measures as they parting fly Which first will throw ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... cast a glance at the boat-hatchet as though he contemplated cutting the taut line. Our eyes were blinded by the wind which seemed to be blowing a hurricane. Actually there was scarcely a breath stirring over the surface of the placid ocean. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... poetical imagination, that lower inspiration, which, like the higher one of faith, is the "evidence of things not seen"? Troubled and billowy waters reflect nothing distinctly on their surface; it is the still, deep, placid element that gives back the images by which it is surrounded or that pass over its surface. I do not of course believe that a good man is necessarily a poet, but I think a devout man is almost always a man with a poetical imagination; he is familiar ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... smoother passage was never made across the Atlantic, than ours in the good ship Liverpool. For two-thirds of the way, we slid along over a placid sea, before the gentlest zephyrs that ever swept the ocean, and when at length the winds became contrary, they only impeded our progress, without making it unpleasant. The Liverpool is one of the strongest, ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... danger was past for the present, Robert went home to his mother, who received him in the sitting-room with a slight air of agitation unusual in one of such a placid temper. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the moon that sheds a partial gleam over yonder reja,[14] developes to the sight the outline of a female form. Gomez Arias approaches, and his penetrating glance discerns through the darkness the figure of his Theodora—her face is decked in placid smiles, and her frame evinces the soft flutterings of an anxious heart. The bolt of the entrance gently creeks, and the harsh sound thrills like the strain of heavenly music to the lover's throbbing breast—the door opens at length, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... innate purity and modesty, and, as I said, the poise of a true New England self-respect, stood her in better stead. When Diana saw Mr. Knowlton the next time, she was conscious of no discomposure; and he was struck with the placid elegance of manner, formed in no school, which was the very outgrowth of the truth within her. His own manner grew unconsciously deferential. It is the most flattering homage a man can ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... suggestion, her dark eyes brooding and remote again; and he lay watching her with placid interest in which no rancour remained. He was feeling decidedly better every minute now. He lifted the automatic pistol and shoved it under his pillow, then cautiously flexed his fingers, his arms, and finally his knees, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... up, and his broad face, usually so placid and good-humoured, was convulsed with grief as he greeted his Minister. He held in his hand a telegram, which ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... week" Fix felt his heart leap for joy. Fogg detained at Hong Kong for a week! There would be time for the warrant to arrive, and fortune at last favoured the representative of the law. His horror may be imagined when he heard Mr. Fogg say, in his placid voice, "But there are other vessels besides the Carnatic, it seems to me, in the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... on the other, which divorced, make wild work of character, and which united, make men like God. So if we desire our lives to be full of sweetness and light and beauty, the best way is to get the life of Christ into them; and if we desire our lives not to be made placid and effeminate by our cult of graciousness and gracefulness, but to have their beauty stiffened and strengthened by manly energy, then the best way is to get the life of the 'strong Son of God, immortal love,' into ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... man of calm benignity of face, a placid certainty of his power and place in the world; a rugged man, broad-handed, slow. His pleasure was in the distinction of his wealth, and not in any use that he made of it for his own comfort or the advancement of those under his ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... heard enough. Even though convulsed with merriment, she seized a pencil and scribbled a little line on a card. "Give this to Mrs. Archer," she said, and a moment later, in the midst of his first story, the veteran was checked by these placid words from ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... at him. He looked excessively annoyed; his face, usually so kind and placid, was ruffled and angry; he flicked the grass ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... and chisels were executing a blithe staccato movement in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one walking among the diligent gangs, and observing the placid faces of the men as they bent over their tasks, would have suspected that they were awaiting the word that meant bread and meat ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the six or eight gay girls, all dressed in the latest fashion; but the first moment was the worst, and the first titter put a fire in my veins that kept me warm all the evening. An occasional glance at Madam Le Baron's placid face enabled me to preserve my sense of proportion, and I remembered that two wise men, Solomon and my Uncle John, had compared the laughter of fools to the crackling of thorns under a pot. And—and there were some who did ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... owing to the position of the Cheviot Hills, flow right across the county from west to east. These Northumbrian streams have a distinct character of their own, and are of a different breed from those of the southern; counties. They are neither mountain torrents nor placid leisurely rivers, such as are met elsewhere in Britain, but busy, bright, joyous, and sparkling, never sluggish, never silent, even when deep and full, as is the Tyne in its lower reaches. With the Tyne and its tributary streams ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... him in the morning— So the mystic legend goes— With the placid face still smiling In its statuesque repose;— With a lily in his left hand, And in his right a rose, With their fragrance curling upward Through a nimbus ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... looked like the vestibule of some learned institute, was adorned with four Carrara marble statues, placid gods and goddesses smirking at vacancy, on pedestals of verde antico. The only pictures in the reception-rooms were family portraits, and a few of those large Dutch landscapes, battle scenes, sea-pieces and fruit-pieces, which cry aloud that they are furniture pictures, and have ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... miles and miles lies the gray, cactus-dotted, heat-devoured plain, weird and fascinating, with its placid, tree-fringed lakes, that are not; its barren, jagged, turquoise-tinted mountain-peaks, born here and there of the horizon and the desert; its whirling, dancing columns of sand, which mount to mid-sky; its lying distances and deceiving ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... freaks of politics did not provide one with food. And, meantime, Lisa, standing there with the lighted candle in her hand, looked at him with an expression of satisfaction resting on her handsome face, placid like that ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... placid Wrig (I afterwards learned that this is a Scots word for the youngest bird in the nest) was seated on the grass, with her fat hands full of pink thyme and white wild woodruff. The sun shone on her curly flaxen head. She wore a dark blue cotton frock with ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... at a country house among the hills of Settignano, where every other inhabitant is a worker in the marble quarries, and the child early became familiar with that strange first stage in the sculptor's art. To this succeeded the influence of the sweetest and most placid master Florence had yet seen, Domenico Ghirlandajo. At fifteen he was at work among the curiosities of the garden of the Medici, copying and restoring antiques, winning the condescending notice ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... is possible for us to know; but we cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean than a man on the level beach. The higher you climb the further you will see down into the 'sea of glass mingled with fire' that lies placid before God's throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished; of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down, and it is as hazardous for us to say ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face, for she too, like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as Ursula ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... brightening up his placid countenance, like one that had found out a riddle, and looked to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... parted, and a convulsive throb of the engine shot us clear of the shore. There was a cheer from the deck, another from the quay, a mighty fluttering of handkerchiefs, and the great vessel ploughed its way out of the harbour, and steamed grandly away across the placid bay. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an instant Mr. Checkynshaw was conscious that he was revealing the weakness of his position, and he sat down in his chair again, with a placid smile upon his face. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... sullen silence, too stunned to interrupt the placid flow of her speech. She had not only meddled in his affairs in a fashion that would afford comfort to his enemy, but she was now dictating terms—this old woman whose mild tone was in itself maddening. The ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... for reflection. In winter the mind is often sunk in a sort of comfortable drowsiness, and hybernates within its secure cell. Hugh found the activities of work very absorbing in those darker days: his thoughts took on a more placid, more contented tinge. Early in the year he walked alone along the Backs at Cambridge. He passed the great romantic gateposts of St. John's, with the elms of the high garden towering over them, his mind occupied with a hundred small ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Thoughtful minds, however, regarded him very differently. Not seldom it would happen that a glance, or an expression as full of significance as the utterance of a savage, would drop from him and bear witness to past storms in his soul; and a careful study of his placid brow revealed a power of stifling down and repressing his passions into inner depths, that had been dearly bought by a lengthy acquaintance with the perils and disastrous hazards of war. An officer who had only just joined the regiment, the son of a peer of France, had said one day of Genestas, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Shelley floats in a thin air to stars and mountain tops, and vanishes from our gaze like his skylark. Byron, in the midst of his revolutionary fervour, never forgets that he himself belongs to the "caste of Vere de Vere." Wordsworth's placid affection and magnanimity stretch beyond mankind, and, as in "Hart-leap-well" and the "Cuckoo," extend to bird and beast; he moralizes grandly on the vicissitudes of common life, but he does not enter ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the test. The Governor of the island with whom the Duke had to do was Edward Trelawny, and this shows that Williams returned to Jamaica between 1738 and 1748, for it was between those years that Trelawny held sway. They were stormy times, and Trelawny was a man with anything but a placid temper or compliant views. The famous war of "Jenkin's ear," between Britain and Spain, began in 1738. Porto Bello was destroyed by Vernon and Cartagena was attacked with troops whose base was Jamaica. In fact, Trelawny added a Negro detachment to the army ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... life; legions of unseen intelligences ruled the operations of nature, and although these might be bribed or threatened, pleased or made angry, their actions were regarded as beyond prediction or control. The procession of the seasons, the routine of day and night, the placid appeasement of the rains, the devastating roar of storms, the shining of the rainbow, the bubbling of springs, the terrors of famine and pestilence; all these—the varying environment which makes or mars human life—were regarded as inevitable and capricious. ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... of all wizardry, Night's spells do pass at sunrise; marvellous poems sink to doggerel, mighty dreams to blown ashes and solids regain weight. Miss Betty, waking at daybreak, saw the motes dancing in the sun at her window, and watched them with a placid, unremembering eye. She began to stare at them in a puzzled way, while a look of wonder slowly spread over her face. Suddenly she sat upright, as though something had startled her. Her fingers ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... sudden scorn on the musty shop that had given him work and food since he was a boy. The sight of the old man, bending over the last, with his simple, placid face, annoyed him. And he felt a sudden enmity for this man whose old-fashioned ways had let him grow grey here like a ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... jar, placing it in his left palm; and applying the opening of the bowl thereto, worked it round and round till the whole of the tobacco had been worked in, when, after a finishing pressure with one finger, he took a match-box from his pocket and began to smoke in placid content. ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... much, too, in that mild even temper and that placid equanimity which keep the domestic hearth always bright and peaceful—this is better than the ardent nature that changes twenty times in a day. I have studied Ellen and I think she would make a good wife—that is, if she had a good husband. If she married a fool ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... along the winding road till they came to the broad salt marshes. Beyond glittered the placid sea. There was no wind. Near them a cow looked up from her grazing and lazily whisked her tail. Lucy's heart began to beat more quickly. She felt that her father, too, looked upon that scene as the most typical of his home. Other places had broad acres and fine trees, other places had ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... above the sea, while Mount Olympus and his colleagues higher still poke their inspiring [Page 17] front heavenward. Between these two white and green clad mountain ranges, protected from the blizzards of the southwestern plains and from the hurricanes from the ocean, lie in safety the placid waters of Washington's great inland sea, matchless ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... there was a heavy frown on his usually placid countenance. "I judged from Detective Ferguson's confidences to us, Kent, at the Club de Vingt that he was wanted by the police in connection with the Turnbull tragedy, but the facts brought out through Harding's action to ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the genius of General Wilkinson," Colonel Clark continued, waving his hand towards the smilingly placid hero, "that tobacco has been deposited in the King's store at ten dollars per hundred,—a privilege heretofore confined to Spanish subjects. Well might Wilkinson return from New Orleans in a chariot and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... moorings, the awning rigged up overnight for shelter was close up among the leafage beneath a bough of the tree to which the rope was made fast; and, instead of the water upon which they floated being like that of a placid lake as it had seemed overnight, it was now rushing rapidly ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... very nice and placid; sort of thing you women who live sheltered lives can say. I often wonder if you women realise the strain ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... world's goods to make him glad. His lot in life did not appear to be more than usually pleasant, nor was there anything in the way of external evidence to show whence his happiness came. I had often sat and gazed upon his placid face lifted in devotion to God. He never seemed to get into trouble. No matter what happened, Uncle John seemed to have no part in the trouble. With others, troubles came and troubles went, but Uncle John still ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... to where Wriggs' head and shoulders only remained above ground, stooped quickly, and seized him by his thin garment, and held on, checking further descent and gazing wildly at his messmate, whose rugged features upturned to the red glow of light appeared to be singularly calm and placid. ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... interest; not a hand was raised; but all callously awaited the harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side and waited also. To the end of his life, my father remembered that amphitheatre of placid spectators on the beach, and with a special and natural animosity, the boys of his own age. But presently a light air sprang up, and filled the sails, and fainted, and filled them again; and little by little the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... yelling like fury?" inquired Dolly, who herself lay placid and white-faced, though her blue eyes showed the strain she ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... a placid hour in reading the titles of his friend's books, and then retired to the bedroom ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... told her shortly. She was inwardly ruffled, and further annoyed at Janet's placid acceptance of whatever the day brought along. Janet was a stick! She turned away and found herself facing the parlor and the memory of the impending hour of practice. Well, it had to be done before dinner, and she went forward ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... pleasing when sung by a crew of broad-chested fellows dashing their light birch-bark canoes over the waters rough or smooth, taking them, as they take fortune, cheerfully,—sometimes skimming like wild geese over the long, placid reaches, sometimes bounding like stags down the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... observed seems to me a slight one. You are hurt by the jests of Currito, and by being compelled to play—speaking profanely—a not very dignified role, mounted, like the reverend vicar with his eighty years, on a placid mule, and not, as a youth of your age and condition should be, on a spirited horse. The fault is the reverend dean's, to whom it did not occur that you should learn to ride. To know how to manage a horse is not opposed to the career you intend to follow, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... have no doubt, be joy in many a gentle heart over the glad news that Mrs. GEORGE WEMYSS, whose Professional Aunt made for her so many friends, has created yet another charming relation. Grannie for Granted (CONSTABLE) is the story of a delightful old lady who from her country home takes a placid and grandmaternal interest in the affairs of her descendants—their love affairs mostly, of course, or the engaging chatter of the smaller third generation. Some of the sayings of the latter are worthy examples of the "good enough for Punch" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... Himself pure haole, New England born, he kissed Bella first, arms around, full-hearty, in the Hawaiian way. His alert eye told him that there had been a woman talk, and, despite the signs of all generousness of emotion, that all was well and placid in the ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... and smiled at them under her lids, as the discussion flowed and ebbed round her, with an air of placid contempt and wonder at their excitement; and presently, murmuring something to Lady Clansford, who, as chaperone and deputy hostess was trying to coax them into some decision, she rose and went out to ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... took breakfast on the beach while the canoes were for the last time being led down the outlet. We had nearly finished it on the last morsel of the fawn, and were glancing all the while over the placid and bright expanse, with its dark foliage, when suddenly a small Indian canoe, very light, and successively seven others, with a warrior in the bow and stern of each, glided from a side channel, being the outlet into its other extremity. As soon as our position was revealed, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... counsel and consolation in flowers. So she found it this morning. An hour's talk with them had done her a great deal of good, and when she dressed herself and went down to the drawing-room her grave little face was not less placid than the roses she had left; she would not wear even one of them down to be a disagreeable reminder. And she thought that still snowy day was one of the very pleasantest she had had ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... children. Again he gazed at the disk of blue sky overhead. He seemed to himself to be viewing it from some indeterminate half-way house between life and death. And yet of the two, the invisible world seemed nearer than the earth roofed over by that placid sky. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Gladwyn. At some distance from the fort, both up and down the river, rose the smoke of populous Indian villages, for all the natives of that section were in from their winter hunting, and gathered at this point for trade. Over the placid waters light canoes occasionally darted from bank to bank. A boat brigade, bound for the far north, was just starting from the fort, and the Canadian voyageurs, gay with fringes, beads, and crimson sashes, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... not often an age of learning; the tumult and anxiety of military preparations seldom leave attention vacant to the silent progress of study, and the placid conquests of investigation; yet, surely, a vindication of the inspired writers can never be unseasonably offered to the defender of the faith; nor can it ever be improper to promote that religion, without which all other blessings ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... spectral illusions of broad lakes, with trees mirrored upon their placid surface. A sun of dazzling brightness seemed shining from the bottom of an unfathomed sea, and a forest ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... catching the skirt of his coat with an eager, trembling hand;—"a whole week, did you say? My mother may get better in that time. No, I do not love my lamb half so well." The struggle of her mind ceased, and with a placid countenance and calm voice, "take the lamb," ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... out from the window, and saw that Redgrave lay just where he had fallen—straight, still, his face turned upwards. Hugh stooped, and moved him into the light; the face was deathly—placid, but for its wide eyes, which seemed to look at his enemy. No blood upon the lips; no ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... had come into his life, and as his eyes rested upon his son he seemed to live anew in that glorious young life. To Mrs. Dean the years had brought only a few silver threads in the brown hair and an added serenity to the placid, unfurrowed brow. Calm and undemonstrative as ever, but with a smile of deep content, she sat in her accustomed place, her knitting-needles flashing and clicking with their old-time regularity. Duke, who had been left in Mr. ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... BALFOUR goes to the Lords, Will the atmosphere, I wonder, With the placid balm of its dreamful calm Bring his nimble spirit under? Or will he act on the Peers Like an intellectual cat-fish, Or startle their sleep with the flying leap Of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... holes, and was in the act of lifting his club to drive off from the tee of number three, when a faint buzzing sound from the direction of the lake caused him to suspend the stroke and glance over the placid blue water. Far away in the sky he saw a dark speck about the size of a swallow, which, however, grew with extraordinary rapidity, and in a few moments declared itself to be an aeroplane ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... creature as Sarudine whom he looked upon as infinitely inferior and more stupid than himself. Then wild, bestial jealousy took possession of his soul. He had moments of the bitterest despair, and anon he was consumed by fierce hatred of Lida, and specially of Sarudine, To his placid, indolent temperament this feeling was so strange that it craved an outlet. All night long he had pitied himself, even thinking of suicide, but when morning came he only longed with a wild, inexplicable longing to set ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... gave a distinct impression of feeling, emotion, passion held in check; it was as if her feelings had been frozen. But suppose a spring thaw should set in—what then? Would there be just a calm brook flowing underneath placid willows, or a tempestuous torrent sweeping ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... and thou mayest be delighted in thy mind. Let him, moreover, swear an oath to thee, standing up among the Greeks, that he has never ascended her bed, nor has been mingled with her, as is the custom, O king, of men and wives; and to thee thyself, also, let the soul within thy breast be placid. Then let him next conciliate thee by a rich banquet within his tents, that thou mayest not have aught wanting of redress. And for the future, O son of Atreus, thou wilt be more just towards another; for it is by no means unworthy that a king should appease a man, when he[631] ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... change. Her resolution did not falter; she was merely practising a trained discretion. She was going to buy a pair of satin dancing slippers though the whole world should look upon her as lost. Too long, she felt, had she dwelt among the untrodden ways. As she had confided to her journal, the placid serenity of her life had become a sea of mad unrest. Old moorings had been wrenched loose; she floated with strange tides. And Wilbur Cowan, who was going to war, had invited her to be present that evening at the opening of Newbern's new and gorgeous restaurant, where the diners, between courses ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Loves, many yet one — A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all, Fair tilth and fruitful seasons! Lo, how still! The midmorn empties you of men, save me; Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear. I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine, Holding the hills and heavens in my heart For contemplation. 'Tis a perfect hour. From founts of dawn the fluent autumn day Has rippled as a brook right pleasantly Half-way to noon; but now with widening turn Makes pause, in lucent meditation locked, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... must have forgot." It occurred to him that even the simple and placid Maggie had her personal prejudices, and that one of them might be against this child. For some reason she did not like the child. She positively could not have forgotten the child's visit with Janet. She had merely not ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... them, however, as we glide along the placid bosom of the Red Sea; the oppressive heat has a wilting effect even on the riotous spirits of the young mules. They still exhibit their mulish contempt for the barriers reared so confidingly around them, and develop new and startling traits of devilment every day; but ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... intervals when the pony was out of sight, I had improved my knowledge of the old coachman; and every look added to my liking. There was something I could not read that more and more drew me to him. A simplicity in his good manners, a placid expression in his gravity, a staid reserve in his humility, were all there; and more yet. Also the scene in the dell was charming to me. The ground about the negro cottages was kept neat; they were ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... dwelt her glance on a lake that lay embosomed between the meadow and the grove, partly skirted by trees that grew even to its edge, and partly by the rich grass, whose vivid color betrayed the influence of those placid waters, that now reflected every glowing tint, and every delicate hue ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... disturbance, five innocent boys were under blankets and apparently sleeping the deepest slumber. Drake had even reached a regular bass snore. The moonlight streaming in the room, and which showed us a smile breaking irresistibly on Mr Clare's face, was not more placid than we. The door had hardly closed behind Mr Clare before Harry Higginson had sprung from his bed, and, almost on the space our tutor had stood a half second before, was enacting a ridiculous and vigorous pantomime of kicking our "fresh tute" from the room. As quickly the door ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... darkness, but that the river showed in muddy grayness just over the gunwale. She saw Runnion more clearly, too, and made out his hateful outlines, though for all else she beheld they might have been miles out upon a placid sea, and so imperceptible was the laggard day's approach that she could not measure the growing light. It was a desolate dawn, and showed no glorious gleams of color. There was no rose-pink glow, no merging of a thousand tints, no final burst ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... occasion. With the exception of that whited sepulchre, all was neat, artistic, eminently habitable. She surveyed it critically: the "Mona Lisa," the large "Melrose Abbey," the Burne-Jones draperies, and the "Blessed Damozel" that spread a placid if monotonous culture through the rooms of educated single women. A proper appreciation of polished wood, the sanitary and aesthetic values of the open fire, a certain scheme in couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen other rooms ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... art. The poet, in his eyes, was neither the rushing stream a hundred times broken on its course, that it may carry fertility to the surrounding country; nor the brilliant flame, consuming itself in the light it sheds around while ascending to heaven; but rather the placid lake, reflecting alike the tranquil landscape and the thunder-cloud; its own surface the while unruffled even by the lightest breeze. A serene and passive calm with the absolute clearness and distinctness of successive impressions, in each of which ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... my mother; my father stood before me, again jumped overboard and disappeared; again the dark black column ascended from the cabin, and I was prostrate on the deck. Then I was once more alone on the placid and noble Thames, the moon shining bright, and the sweep in my hand, tiding up the reach, and admiring the foliage which hung in dark shadows over the banks. I saw the slopes of green, so pure and so fresh by that sweet light, and in the distance counted the numerous spires ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fearful of that organ and of the men by whom it was conducted. He distrusted that quiet-faced, thoughtful, and laborious young man, whom they so loved and reverenced—the founder, the soul, and the centre of their party. To the keen glance of the aged leader it appeared that for all that placid brow, those calm grey eyes and softly curving lip of his, the man had no horror of blood-spilling in a righteous cause, and was capable not only of deliberately inciting his countrymen to rise in arms against English rule, but also ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... for there was an indescribable expression of placid triumph, mingled with a modest confusion, lingering between the borders of Mrs Nickleby's nightcap, which arrested ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... who had so little of the "light and shade" of average humanity, and the placid current of whose life seemed so unrippled, offers none of those strong contrasts, and subtle peculiarities, which render the analysis of more stormy and unequal minds comparatively easy. His frank and open speech; ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... his mind away from the subject, but he could not. The race was so very close, and the stakes were so very high. He then looked at the dying man's impassive, placid face. There was no sign there of death or disease; it was something thinner than of yore, somewhat grayer, and the deep lines of age more marked; but, as far as he could judge, life might yet hang there for weeks to come. Sir Lamda Mewnew and Sir Omicron Pie had thrice ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope |
