"Stale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... augments the misery; whether he be able or not, it is expected from him, if there comes a Brief to town, for the Minister to cast in his mite will not satisfy! unless he can create sixpence or a shilling to put into the box, for a stale [lure], to decoy in the rest of the parish. Nay, he that hath but L20 or L30 [ L60 to L90 now] per annum, if he bids not up as high as the best in the parish in all acts of charity, he is counted carnal and earthly-minded; only because ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... that we began to realise that the new landing had been a failure. It was becoming a stale-mate. It was like a clock with its hands stuck. The whole thing went ticking on every day, but there was no progress—nothing gained. And while we waited there the Turks brought up heavy guns and fresh troops on the hills. They consolidated their positions in a great semicircle all round us—and ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... land-lover, but he wants land so that he may live on it, an' he wants to see it before he gives his money for it. Now, ye go to an Englishman, an' till him ye've a bit of land in the cintre of a lost island in the middle of the Pacific say, an' pfwhat does he do? He'll first thry to stale ut, thin thry to bully ye out of ut; but he'll ind by buyin' ut, at anny price ye've conscience to ask, an' he'll thrust to Providence to be able to find the island some day. That's wisdom. I've seen the worrld, me boy, from Injy to the Great American Desert. The Rooshan an' the Frinchman want ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... died before I was twenty. I do not say that I was not for the most part well enough treated, because I hope I did my best, and I believe I generally gave satisfaction. I had my happy hours like other people. But it was all getting so stale, flat, and unprofitable—I suppose because I was growing weary of it all, and longing for a change. You see I had not quite come to the age when we cease to want changes, and are resigned just to go on as we are to the end. In reality I could see no end, except the poorest of poor lodgings and ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... plainly eager to test the virtues of his new tea, for he put a kettle of cold water on the stove, thereby proving that he was an adept at the art of brewing the fragrant herb, since it requires fresh water, brought to a boil, and not stale stuff, to extract the ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... hear all the boys are well and getting on so fast in their respective schools. Agneta [Footnote: Agneta, afterwards Lady Agneta Bevan.] by this time must be a very fine little girl; does she ever talk of me? I really have no news to tell you worth mention, but the service is very stale for want of war, every day the same story. ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... house in law. And here the devil, who is himself a kind of lawyer, for he devours his best friends, the devil I say chose these opportunities to vent his choicest malice. He did not set a lawyer to confound a lawyer: that were but a stale device. He humbled him out of the mouths of men who had occasionally read law-books, it is true: but who had read them without a lawyers' obliquity; and had enquired what was the simple unadulterated intention of their authors. Now law, which in all ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... feeling blue and restless, tired of New York, tired of dancing, tired of everything. Broadway was full of people hurrying to the theatres. Cars rattled by. All the electric lights in the world were blazing down on the Great White Way. And it all seemed stale and dreary ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... all talk with me—all snarling and railing and whining at hard facts, like a viper wasting its venom on steel. I'm sick of myself—weary of the old, stale round of my thoughts. Where can I wash and be clean? Chrissy, for God's sake, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... end of the telegraph. From that point he sent it over the wire to Washington. It was successfully received at the Washington end, and never were human beings more surprised than were the train passengers on alighting at the capital city to find that they brought stale news, and that Clay's nomination was already known throughout Washington. It was the first public proof in America of the powers of the telegraph, and certainly a vital and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... reasons. I had to dress up, for one thing, and in the summer time ma made me wear linen suits, which was starched stiff by Delia, our girl. They had sharp edges which scratched. And my hat was too small, and my shoes hurt. And the inside of the church smelt like stale coffee grounds, and the teacher looked hungry and kept parting her lips with a sound as if she was gettin' ready to eat, or wanted to, and she trickled inside like the sound of water or somethin'. Besides, there was no end to the Bible stories ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... puddings. He would give much to be in a chair by one of those hearths and in the thick of that blowsy fragrance. Now his nostrils were filled with rain and bog water and a sodden world. It smelt sour, like stale beer in a mouldy cellar. And cold! He crushed down his hat on his head and precipitated a ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... fire-place, his long gray hair streaming over his collar, his pale eyes turning quickly from one listener to another to hold them quiet, his hands waving to keep time with the orotund sentences which had a stale, familiar ring as if often repeated before. Mr. Emerson stood listening, his head sunk on his breast, with profound submissive attention, but Hawthorne sat astride of a chair, his arms folded on the back, his chin dropped on them, and his laughing, sagacious eyes ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... a market is still more necessary. We have to trudge four miles for our vegetables and fish, which are obtainable in a more or less stale condition only twice a week. If one were started here, it would be a great boon to ten villages at least." Kumodini Babu assented, without further remark, ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... some kinds of moulds may be apparent to the eye, as in the growths that form on old leather and stale bread and cheese. That of others goes on unseen, as when acids are formed in stewed fruits. Concerning the work of the different kinds of moulds. Troussart says: "Mucor mucedo devours our preserves; Ascophora mucedo turns our bread mouldy; Molinia is nourished at the expense ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... seemed as if scales had fallen off their eyes, showing coarseness and deformity, where previously none had appeared. They had tasted the rapture of a more beautiful life; and now the ordinary toils of humanity appeared "stale, flat, and unprofitable," and common men and women tedious, rude, and mean. But the brave knight struggled against this feeling. "Shall we be so ungrateful, because a glimpse of the earthly paradise has been vouchsafed us, as to sink into idle, repining dreamers? Shall we allow ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... and stale, but the children were too hungry to be disdainful. At home they would have scorned such a supper with infinite disgust, but now they ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not a few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves sanctuary.... The visitants are, all men without exception, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights, and captains out of service, men of long rapiers and breeches which, after all, turn merchants here, and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... "Split me to the chin like a cod! Stood I not abaft of you all day long, packed like a herring in a pickle! 'Twas a pretty kettle of fish in your Noah's ark to-day! 'Tis all along o' goodness gone stale from ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... back your vows. Elsewhere you trimmed and taught these lamps to burn; You bring them stale and dim to serve my turn. You lit those candles in another shrine, Guttered and cold you offer them on mine. Take ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... am writing— Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting About thy frozen spine! Or thou thyself art eating whale, Oily, and underdone, and stale, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... in stopping those that lead to the heart. Those who attempt by outrage and violence to deprive men of any advantage which they hold under the laws, proclaim war against society. When, I ask, will such truths become obsolete among enlightened people; and when will they become stale?" ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... waggon, all powdery with flour, and its team of six horses, brave with brass harness and bells, a timber-carriage, and a couple of spring-carts, were drawn up on the half-moon of gravel before the porch; while, from out the open door, came a sound of voices and odour of many pipes and much stale beer. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... been paper boomerangs they could not have returned with greater accuracy to their unhappy dispatcher. Oh, the vileness and utter degradation of the moment when the stale little cylinder of closely written pages, which seemed so fresh and full of promise a few days ago, is handed in by a remorseless postman! And what moral depravity shines through the editor's ridiculous plea of "want of space!" ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the name of "C. E. Trench, Prop." He could see the swing-doors of the bar, and hear the click of balls from the poolroom advertising the second of the town's distractions. He could smell the composite odor of varnish, stale air, and boots, which made the overheated station waiting-room hideous. Heavy farmers in ear-mitts, peaked caps, and fur collars spat upon the hissing stove round which their great hide boots sprawled. They were his last memory ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... the ideas which I have quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of disappointed hopes, with Ennui for janitor. I admit that the old heaven of the Semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these lines. But that was no real heaven. The real heaven is a quiet, harpless, beautiful place where every one is a heaven-born ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... Cherry was pale and fighting tears, as they crossed the porch, and fitted the key in the door. Inside the house the air was close and stale, odorous of dry pine walls and of unaired rooms. Peter flung up a window, the girls walked aimlessly about, through the familiar yet shockingly strange chairs and table that were all coated thickly with dust. Somehow this dust gave Cherry a desolate sensation, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... your house and the picturesque breakwater. I do so wish that you and he and I did not suffer so much, but could be at least moderately happy. I am sure you would be glad if you knew even in this time of sorrow, when all seems stale, flat, unprofitable, the pleasure and interest I have had in reading your Vol. 3 ["Modern Painters"]. I study your character in your writings, and I find so much to elevate, to love, to admire—a sort of education for my poor ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... this wise. We were out together scouting preparatory to a raid, and were seeking a supposed new "listening post" of the enemy. There had been a very heavy bombardment of the German trenches all day, and it was only held up for three-quarters of an hour to let us do our job. The new-stale earth turned up by the shells extended fifty yards in No Man's Land. (Only earth that has been blown on by the wind is fresh "over there." Don't, if you have a weak stomach, ever turn up any earth; though there may not be rotting flesh, other gases are ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... enough good reputation to preserve his memory for twenty years. A number of them achieved bad reputations, or damaged good ones that had been gained in the Civil War. On the whole, even for Senators, diplomats, and Cabinet officers, the period was wearisome and stale. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... no black fellows and where the net was; the black fellows closing in behind, followed quickly. Poor Noorunglely floundered into the net, up rushed a black fellow and, seizing her, wrung her neck. Having secured her, they would next secure her eggs; that they might be a trifle stale was a ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... ancient graveyard with new gravestones every day,— But, come, regale us with appropriate detail, Those disillusions weeping at the fountains, say, Those new disgusts, just like their brothers, littered stale, ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... ever said it? Again, they plead for women who "revolt" from the "disfigurement" of the gestation period. The great artist Botticelli did not think this was disfigurement. What true women do? Are they not those of whom Kipling writes, "as pale and as stale as a bone"? And, if so, are these unworthy specimens of their sex worth tears? The vast majority of women bear the discomforts of gestation and the actual perils and pangs of birth with exemplary fortitude: ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... days ago, Mr. Seward again sent forth to Europe and to her Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... provisions. Memories of the famine of the siege of '70 tormented the imagination. Since war had broken out with the same enemy, it seemed but logical to everybody to expect a repetition of the same happenings. The storehouses were besieged by women who were securing stale food at exorbitant prices in order to store it in their homes. Future hunger was producing more ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... himself postprandially, in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air! It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time, and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the coming Age of Grits. Again, in the silent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... letters; more than once I have gleaned a hint from the outside of a letter that has proved valuable when applied to the contents. Here, for instance, is a letter which has been opened after being fastened up—apparently by the aid of steam. The envelope is soiled and rubbed, and smells faintly of stale tobacco, and has evidently been carried in a pocket along with a well-used pipe. Why should it have been opened? On reading it I perceive that it should have reached me two days ago, and that the date has been skilfully altered from the thirteenth to the fifteenth. The inference ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... Lady Ogreham happens to die—I won't say to go the way of all flesh, that is too revolting—I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you aver, on your conscience and honor, that mothers will not be found to offer their young girls to supply the lamented lady's place? How stale this misanthropy is! Something must have disagreed with this cynic. Yes, my good woman. I dare say you would like to call another subject. Yes, my fine fellow; ogre at home, supple as a dancing-master abroad, and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tenderly in the cup of her hands, and began to gaze at them with bent head. After a few moments' silence she raised her head again, and said to me: "You never look at these flowers; therefore they become stale to you. If you would only look into them, then your reading and writing would go to ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... period of a quarter of an hour to several hours after eating, are present. If the esophageal dilatation be great, regurgitation may occur only after an accumulation of several days, when large quantities of stale food will be expelled. The general nutrition is impaired, and there is usually the history of weight loss to a certain level at which it is maintained with but slight variation. This is explained by the trickling ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... and glees enlivened their evenings, and nearly every day there were boating excursions, or rides on horseback, in which Mr. and Mrs. King and Mr. and Mrs. Blumenthal invariably joined. No familiarity could stale the ever fresh charm of the scenery. The beautiful river, softly flowing in sunlight through richly cultivated meadows, always seemed to Mr. Blumenthal like the visible music of Mendelssohn. Mr. King, who had been in Germany, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... appear to me to have been very much injured by a wrong use of classic antiquity. Nothing could be more glorious and beautiful than the Grecian development; nothing more unlike it that the stale, wearisome, repetitious imitations of it in modern times. The Greek productions themselves have a living power to this day; but all imitations of them are cold and tiresome. These old Greeks made such beautiful things, because they did not imitate. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he shouted, swinging the halter stale to the shining flank. 'G'lang there!' and he went by, like a flash, the tail of Black Hawk straight out behind him, its end feathering in the wind. It was a splendid thing to see—that white-haired man, sitting erect on the flying animal, ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... that Lily was exchanged into the town near the camp, and Willy Cameron suddenly found life a stale thing, and ashes in the mouth. He finally decided that he had not been such a hopeless fool as to fall in love with her, but that it would be as well not to see her ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that his scent lay best near the ground, and was strongest when he was warm. So if he could get off the ground, and be left in peace for half an hour to cool off, and for the trail to stale, he knew he would be safe. When, therefore, he tired of the chase, he made for the Creekside brier-patch, where he 'wound'—that is, zigzagged—till he left a course so crooked that the dog was sure to be greatly delayed in working it out. He then went straight to D in the woods, ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... moved through her time. Hugging this melody of Marcia. Through the knife-edged nervous evenings in the theater. Bawlings. Purple lips with loose muscles crawling under the rouge. Fetidness of scent on stale bodies. Round faces that could hook into the look of vultures when the smell of success became as the smell of red meat. All the petty soiled vanities, like the disordered boudoir of a cocotte. The perpetual stink of perfume. Powder ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... need at all envy, and that instead of the perennial smell of the grass and woods and shores, their typical redolence is of soaps and essences, very rare may be, but suggesting the barber shop—something that turns stale and musty in a few ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... night" was usually stale and flat at San Francisco. The reaction from the feverish exaltation of the previous twenty-four hours was seen in the listless faces and lounging feet of promenaders, and was notable in the deserted offices and warehouses still redolent ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... had the appearance of energy which momentarily satisfies a public demand that something shall be done. It also afforded Canning the peg on which to hang a grievance, and dexterously to prolong discussion until the matter became stale in public interest. By the irrelevancy of the punishment to the crime, and by the intrusion of secondary matters into the complaint, the "Chesapeake" issue, essentially clear, sharp, and impressive, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... only with your eyes,"—and they can be more eloquent than any Demosthenes of your New England Athens. Women are younger than men, and nearer to nature; they have more animal life and spirits and glee. Their lively, frolicsome, sunshiny chatter keeps existence from growing mouldy and stale. We have it on the authority of the wittiest of Frenchmen, that for the purposes of pleasant, every-day life, L'enjouement vaut mieux que l'esprit. If I wish to discuss a question of political economy, or of metaphysics, I can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... "only you've got to think of hearses and stale milk when you read it. That isn't as pash as some ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... say no more. I am pining for Broadstairs, where the children are at present. I lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. But I hope to get down on Wednesday ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... for it would be better for such a child to put her down to hard work, and to keep her constantly under the eye of her guardians. This threat was more efficient than all the other means which had been used to keep the child within the bounds of common decency; but even this had grown stale ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... For naught than laughter silly sillier be. Thou Celtiber art, in Celtiberia born, Where man who's urined therewith loves a-morn His teeth and ruddy gums to scour and score; So the more polisht are your teeth, the more 20 Argue they sipping stale in ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... She felt that the scent of them must be visible. Every breath she drew was like a long yawning sigh. She felt the easy expansion of her body under her heavy jacket.... "Perhaps I won't have any more fitted bodices," she mused and was back for a moment in the stale little sitting-room of the Barnes dressmaker. She remembered deeply breathing in the odour of fabrics and dust and dankness and cracking her newly fitted lining at the pinholes and saying, "It is too tight there"—crack-crack. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... 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
... not always make an editor. Many of our editors grow discouraged over their failure to arouse a support to their journals, blaming the race for non-appreciation, when the fault lies with themselves. Do they give their readers news? If a local sheet, they deal in stale generalities. If a general sheet, they confine themselves to locals of no ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... I can't say—for I live in a very honest neighborhood. The only two thieves that were in it—Charley Folliott and George Austin—were hanged not long ago, and I don't know anybody else in the country side that would stale it." ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... I myself, as I began to reflect upon it, found it inconceivable that a Jewish God should turn Turk: as well expect him to turn Christian. But indirectly this redoubtable movement entered largely into my life by way of the great Eibeschuetz-Emden controversy. For it will not be stale in the memory of my readers that this lamentable controversy, which divided and embittered the Jews of all Europe, which stirred up Kings and Courts, originated in the accusation against the Chief Rabbi of the Three ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... in his room he sat for a while on the edge of the bed, gazing at the curtained window. Life had gone stale. He was sick of hunting men and of being hunted. Pedro Salazar was now a member of the Sonora police through Donovan's efforts. Eventually Salazar would find an excuse to shoot Waring. And the gunman had made up his mind to do no more killing. For that reason he had ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... clothing. There was a smooth water-worn boulder on the beach, and, seeing this, the man who had spoken went up to it and sat down thereon, while his companion, evidently of a more practical turn of mind, collected the stale biscuits which had fallen out of the bag, then, taking the barrel carefully on his shoulder, walked up to where the other was sitting, and threw both biscuits and ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... white sauce, and when it has grown a little cold, add the yolk of one egg, and a few drops of lemon-juice. Sprinkle in a slice of stale bread, and enough grated cheese to flavor it strongly, and leave it to cool for two hours. Then shape into small pieces like corks, dip them into the beaten whites of your egg, and then into grated breadcrumbs. Have ready some ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various
... entangle him in his talk. The meeting agreed with all that had been said regarding the antiquity of the earth and of its life. They had, indeed, known it all long ago, and they rallied the lecturer for coming amongst them with so stale a story. It was quite plain that this large body of clergymen, who were, I should say, to be ranked amongst the finest samples of their class, had entirely given up the ancient landmarks, and transported the conception of life's origin to ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... of bursary dinners and passing suppers, was now soliciting a customer to take his choice of three lank cod-fish, ticketed at so much per lb. Billiard-rooms were silent, save where a solitary marker practised impossible strokes: print-shops exhibited a dull uniformity of stale engravings; and the innumerable horde of mongrel puppies of all varieties, that, particularly towards the end of term, are dragged about three or four in a string, and recommended as real Blenheims, genuine King Charles's, or "one of old Webb's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... I think I have only to sit down and write it off, and do it to the quick. "The idea of his life," what he was as a whole, what was his self, all his days, would,—to go on with words which not time or custom can ever wither or make stale,— ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... and he said in a half-musing tone: 'The same stale, hackneyed story. She is on her way to where the first misstep always leads. Already he is wearied, and wants but an excuse to fling her off; and I—I—I—her avenger,' exclaimed he with a burst of fierce impatience, 'I ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... of the difficulties of portrait painters I gave in the same lecture has since been so frequently repeated in the Press that I fear it will be stale to most of my readers—the story of the man who called upon the portrait painter and asked him ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... following little Tale with a perusal, will probably anticipate in the Preface, the so-often-framed apology, that it was not written with an intention of being published. Yet stale as the assurance may be, it is ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... whatever civilization had left that he could use without 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 ...
— The Most Sentimental Man • Evelyn E. Smith
... the first story had smaller passages opening out of it—one at each end. I turned to the left. Now the sound of the cataracts, which had never left my ears, became a din. The passages were full of stale tobacco smoke. And advancing I suddenly found myself face to face with ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... this time, either," Dick declared. "I know that I'm going to strike out a string in every inning. If I go stale, you have Darrin to fall back on, and he's as baffling a pitcher as I can hope to be. And ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... summers and many winters 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 other. What a perpetual disappointment is actual society, even of the ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... timber drinks the river's mood, The mighty mood of man's Despair, which runs Like subtle electric blood through all the hulls, And tips each masthead with a glimmering candle Blue pale and flickering like a ghost? For you Are too much lit to mark a corposant. Nor yours the stale smell of the unhealthful stream, Clotted with mud and sullen with its weeds, Who carry your own air with you, blest sweet And drencht with many scattered fragrances. You, sailing in golden ignorance, know not The anxious flow of life under your way: Do you not miss ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... I could find a word that might make known The crime of my destroyer; and that done, 155 My tongue should like a knife tear out the secret Which cankers my heart's core; ay, lay all bare, So that my unpolluted fame should be With vilest gossips a stale mouthed story; A mock, a byword, an astonishment:— 160 If this were done, which never shall be done, Think of the offender's gold, his dreaded hate, And the strange horror of the accuser's tale, Baffling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... again at the tray. There were no fresh French rolls— only slices of stale graham bread from yesterday, the most detestable of bread so ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... wondered why the capitalists of New England, in search of recreation and pleasure for themselves and families instead of crossing the Atlantic to visit the oft-described and stale wonders of the Old World, do not charter a yacht or a packet schooner, and with a goodly company take a trip to the West Indies, sail around and among these islands, visit places of interest, accept the hospitality of the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... of me," said Clement, smiling, "as the old woman said when her husband did not die before the funeral cakes were stale. But could it not come off at ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their application to the dyeing of yarns, &c., by the Scotch Highlanders, under the name of "Crottles." "The process of the manufacture of the various crottles, generally consisted in macerating the powdered lichen for two or three weeks, in stale urine, exposing the mass freely to the air by repeated stirring, and adding lime, salt, alum, or argillaceous and other substances, either to heighten the color or impart consistence. To such an extent did this custom at one time prevail, that, in several ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... of the lowest description. Smoking was, of course, permitted. When they arrived the performance was over. People were still sitting at many of the tables. Reeking as the auditorium was with the stench of stale beer, it left the impression of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... 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 fur three or ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... blankets, upon which occasional soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a litter of cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles with expensive French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red shoulder-straps of the yunker-schools, moved about in a stale atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle of white Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace. They looked at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room after ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... well-broken mounts, rode out in front of the adobe corral and the expectant audience, halted and dispersed to their various stations as directed by Dade, clear-voiced, steady of glance, unemotional, as if he were in charge of a bit of work from habit gone stale. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... were swollen and starting, as though with gulping down strong passions, malice, and ill-will. His dress was of threadbare velveteen—a faded, rusty, whitened black, like the ashes of a pipe or a coal fire after a day's extinction; discoloured with the soils of many a stale debauch, and reeking yet with pot-house odours. In lieu of buckles at his knees, he wore unequal loops of packthread; and in his grimy hands he held a knotted stick, the knob of which was carved into a rough likeness of his own vile face. Such was the visitor who doffed ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Magazine. There lurk his earlier lays; but soon, hot pressed, [xcii] Behold a Quarto!—Tarts must tell the rest. Then leave, ye wise, the Lyre's precarious chords To muse-mad baronets, or madder lords, [cxiii] 730 Or country Crispins, now grown somewhat stale, Twin Doric minstrels, drunk with Doric ale! Hark to those notes, narcotically soft! The Cobbler-Laureats [69] sing to Capel Lofft! [70] Till, lo! that modern Midas, as he hears, [xciv] Adds an ell growth to his egregious ears! [xcv] There lives one Druid, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... Cut stale bread into slices one quarter of an inch thick; put on the toaster or fork, move gently over the heat until dry, then brown by placing near the heat, turning constantly. Bread may be dried in the oven before toasting. Hot milk may be ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... worms, no musty smell, no decay! Frost cannot hurt them, heat preserves them! For long voyages, army and navy use, mining, lumbering, and hunting outfits, they are simply invaluable! For all classes of consumers, they are cheaper, cleaner and more wholesome than the ordinary stale and wilted vegetables, for sale in the city markets! We have named these cubes, 'Solaris Vegetable Concentrates,' a title which we have copyrighted. The packages readily wholesale at 75 cents, to be retailed at one dollar. At these prices, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... had been through the first half of the year before, Haynes actually did go somewhat stale in some ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... have work requiring attention but want to go to the game, I should certainly be lacking in reasoning ability if I could not find something in the situation that made my attendance at the game imperative. I am stale, and the game will freshen me up and make me work better afterward. Or, I am in serious danger of degenerating into a mere "grind", and must fight against this evil tendency. Or, my presence at the game is necessary in order to encourage ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... for very long,' she replied, plucking a glittering firefly from her fan and laying it on his sleeve with her sweet light laugh. 'Like a firefly I shall dance out my short night, and die quickly before life grows stale!' ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... to these volumes with full assurance of faith for a fresh rehearsal of the old facts, which no time can stale, and for new views of those old facts, according to the larger framework of ideas in which they can now be set by the master of a captivating style and an expert in historical philosophy.—New York ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... themselves, ridiculing that young man! For five good minutes they stood there, shouting ribaldry at him, deriding him, mocking him, jeering at him. They peppered him with stale jokes, they even made a few new ones and threw at him. They hurled at him all the private family jokes belonging to our set, and which must have been perfectly unintelligible to him. And then, unable to stand their brutal jibes any longer, he turned round ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... The stale excuse, so often repeated by the lovers of tobacco, that they have been advised to use it by physicians, for the mitigation or removal of some bodily infirmity, may be urged with equal force and propriety by the tippler and the sot; for many, very many, have been ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... that French invasion, which had been threatened for such a time, and kept so long impending, "the cry of wolf" grows stale at last, and then the real danger comes. Napoleon had reckoned upon this, as he always did upon everything, and for that good reason he had not grudged the time devoted to his home affairs. These being settled according to his will, and mob turned into pomp as gaily ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... And beer that is stale Rosa-solis and damnable hum, But we will rack In the praise of sack 'Gainst Omne quod exit ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... is not to take advantage of his situation to utter stale jests or vulgar puns. A careful perusal of "The Jest Book" will be his best security against ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... an end when she saw the stale cakes and the weak and watery tea and oily chocolate which, out of politeness, we felt obliged to swallow; and the nightmare set in when she saw his apartment on the first floor, furnished by himself with his own individual taste, which was simply awful. But ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... note; but it may be my muddle. I see clearly that any satisfaction which Pan may give will depend on the constitution of each man's mind. If you have arrived already at any similar conclusion, the whole will of course appear stale to you. I heard yesterday from Wallace, who says (excuse horrid vanity), "I can hardly tell you how much I admire the chapter on 'Pangenesis.' It is a POSITIVE COMFORT to me to have any feasible explanation of a difficulty that has always been ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... Darcy, sent by King Henry the 8. with a lusty crew of soldiers, for that Ferdinands iust assistance, against the Infidels: but vsed by him as a stale, for the vniust conquest ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... shelves, and are not used very often at that. It was explained to me that when you are running a submarine you do not go in much for sleep. Luncheon consisted of a cup of coffee and a piece of canned beef on a stale slice of bread. Tinned food is about all that can be used aboard a submarine. It does not take up much room, and it requires little in the way of cooking utensils. We were still having our luncheon below when we dived again, so for ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... hours afterwards, and naps are not yet over in the kitchen. The hatchments in the dining-room look down on crumbs, dirty plates, spillings of wine, half-thawed ice, stale discoloured heel-taps, scraps of lobster, drumsticks of fowls, and pensive jellies, gradually resolving themselves into a lukewarm gummy soup. The marriage is, by this time, almost as denuded of its ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... guide into a parlour, redolent of stale cigar smoke, with oilcloth on the floor and varnished walls, an abode even more horrible than Hassan's lair. Joseph closed the door carefully behind him, and made no apology for his dishabille. He ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for giving up the writing of tales in verse was that Byron beat him. But there must have been something besides this: it is plain that the pattern of rhyming romance was growing stale. The Lay needs no apology; Marmion includes the great tragedy of Scotland ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... dictionaries of the day, but it was in the soldier's vocabulary, now obsolete. Chip up bacon in fine particles, place in an oven and fry to a crisp. Fill the oven one-third or one-half full of branch water, then take the stale corn bread, the more moldy the better, rub into fine crumbs, mix and bring the whole to a boil, gently stirring with a forked stick. When cold, eat with fingers and to prevent waste or to avoid carrying it on ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... account, in which, according to all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that stale stage in which those of her profession are reduced to think of showing company, instead of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... worked in, slept in, and, what is more, often inherited from a parent who had also worn it as his winter hide. Added to the smell of the sheepskin is that of an unwashed human, and the reek of stale food, for the poorest of the Russian peasants have no chimneys to their houses. They cannot afford to let the ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... Play, or some bawdy song; this speaking bilk, that nonsense, whilst all with loud houting and laughter confound the Fidlers noise, who may well be call'd a noise indeed, for no Musick can be heard for them; so whilst he utters nothing but old stories, long since laught thridbare, or some stale jest broken twenty times before: His mirth compared with theirs, new and at first hand, is just like Brokers ware in comparison with Mercers, or Long-lane compar'd unto Cheap-side: his wit being rather the Hogs-heads than his own, favouring ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... independent, anyhow." I suspect I must have been a rather unlovely customer, take 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 all ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... which started in life with a passport of flowery youth, now seemed all the more stale and old because Melchior himself was waning. Life in the world of fashion is quite as exhausting to men as it is to women, and perhaps the twenty years by which the duchess exceeded her lover's age, weighed more heavily upon ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... said Jenkins to Dion, after the latter had taken the shower bath. "You aren't as stale as I expected to find you, not near as stale. But I hope you'll keep it up now you've started ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... 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 to had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fled from the scene of their labours. Halfway across the square, however, I met McNeice. He seemed quite glad to see me and invited me to luncheon in his rooms. I accepted the invitation and was fed on cold ham, stale ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... his work, and this he loved with an increasing ardour. How devotedly he laboured he never knew until long afterwards, when what had once been a passion of delight and a necessity of nature degenerated into a stale drudgery practised for the sake of mere money. But, oh! the sweetness of brain-toil whilst the heart was fresh and whilst it still seemed worth while to preach some kind of gospel to mankind! To pace the streets and read the faces of people as they went by, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... was not tolerated by our frantic greenback opponents, and stale eggs with decayed cabbages hurled at the heads of Republican orators were the strongest arguments used by the General's admirers to combat our appeals for protective tariff and sound money. At a meeting of our state committee in Boston, Judge Thayer announced that General Hall of Maine, one of ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... had sharp work with Sir Arthur; he tried some of his stale tricks, but soon found that I was Yorkshire too: it would not do—you understand me. We went to the work like good ones, head, heart and soul; and, in fact, since I came here, I have lost no time. I am rather fagged, but I am sure to be well paid for my hardship; ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... appealing to his neighbours; "didn't I tell you he talked rot? Did you ever hear such a stale ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... almost he would ask, in Italian, 'Do you understand?' His young wife laughed heartily at the story of his dressing up in woman's clothes." A dull, garrulous husband, boring people with stories of which they were sick; a childish little wife, trying to make the best of things, and laughing over the stale old jokes; this is what may be called the idyllic moment in the wedded life of Charles Edward and Louise. What would she have felt, that strong, calm lady, growing old far off in the Isle of Skye, had she been able to see what Bonstetten saw; ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... not appeal to him when he awoke in the morning. He walked over, through the earliest light, to the hotel, where he made a meal of musty eggs, chemical-looking biscuits, and coffee of a rank hue and flavor, in an atmosphere of stale odors and flies, sickeningly different from the dainty ceremonials of Io's preparation. Rebuking himself for squeamishness, the station-agent returned to his office, caught an O.S. from the wire, took some general instructions, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 6. Stale or Decayed Foods.—Food which has been allowed to stand until it is spoiled, or has become stale, musty, or mouldy, such as mouldy bread or fruit, or tainted meat, is unfit to be eaten, and is often a cause of very severe sickness. Canned ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... intermittent, years, Cheyenne laughed loudly. Lin McLean laughed, too, and went about his business, ready to swagger at the necessary moment, and with the necessary kind of joke always ready to shield his hurt spirit. And soon, of course, the matter grew stale, seldom raked up in the Bow Leg country where Lin had been at work; so lately he had begun to remember other things beside the ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... the oil of the machines and the new leather—a combination which, added to the stale odours of the building, was not pleasant even in cold weather. The floor, though regularly swept every evening, presented a littered surface. Not the slightest provision had been made for the comfort of ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... in Lisbon having heard that his physician and friend was imprisoned by the Inquisition, under the stale pretext of Judaism, addressed a letter to one of them to request his freedom, assuring the inquisitor that his friend was as orthodox a Christian as himself. The physician, notwithstanding this high recommendation, was put to the torture; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling |
