"Staid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... days. A bill has been pending in each House, giving female tax-payers a right to vote at all school-district meetings. It was advocated by Mr. Butterfield, one of the leading members of the House, in an able and learned speech, and received 64 votes to 103 against. Is not that doing well for such a staid old State as Vermont, and one where the enemies of equal suffrage supposed, two years since, that the measure was indefinitely postponed? But this is not all. The measure was introduced in the Senate, composed of thirty members, who are supposed to be the balance-wheel of the General ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... same," demurred Judith, "the temptation is not to be laughed at. Just imagine real dimples speared in," with a finger poked in Maud Leslie's cheek, "and long silky lashes tangles in one's violet gaze——" This was too much even for staid juniors and the race that followed almost justified Shirley's much criticised romp. With this difference: Wellington Hall was now out of the shadows made by the swaying stream of laughing students darting ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... of maid Sets my heart a flame-a? Eyes must be downcast and staid, Cheeks must flush for shame-a! She may neither dance nor sing, But, demure in everything, Hang her head in modest way With pouting lips that seem to say, "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, Though I die of shame-a!" Please ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Doctor's household; the children were calmed, manageable; they stood in awe of their governess, but they liked her; in the staid Canonbury house Miss Boucheafen was popular. Her name was the only stumbling-block. Her pupils could not pronounce it, the servants blundered over it, and Mrs. Jessop declared it "heathenish." By slow degrees it was dropped, ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... illness: at length I assumed courage to ask my dear girl how long her mother and brother had been dead: she told me, that the morning after my arrest, George came home early to enquire after his mother's health, staid with them but a few minutes, seemed greatly agitated at parting, but gave them strict charge to keep up their spirits, and hope every thing would turn out for the best. In about two hours after, as they ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... the rest he enjoyed were sure to do him so much good. With regard, to the extension of John's visit, the vicar thought differently, although he held his peace. There were many reasons why John should not become attached to Mrs. Goddard both for her sake and his own, and if he staid long, the vicar felt quite sure that he would fall in love with her. She was dangerously pretty, she was much older than John—which in the case of very young men constitutes an additional probability—she evidently took an innocent pleasure in his society, and altogether such a complication ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... fireworks as I had not supposed it possible could be got up beyond the domain of our own 'glorious and immortal' American Fourth of July. Several accidents were caused by 'serpents' and other fireworks, and when I asked a staid and sober citizen of this old Protestant capital why the law permitted such performances, he quietly answered: 'The law does not permit them. The authorities have formally forbidden them, but the authorities ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... staid-looking maid, Harris by name, who accompanied them, could scarcely keep pace with the Vivian girls. They ran, they shouted, they laughed. When they were about half-way to the Mileses' farm they came to a piece of ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... pleasure other than those practised by his elderly sisters. I submitted and lived a life of slavery to his whims and his cruelty for five years. He had agreed to let me have Tibbetts for my maid, as he deemed her a staid old woman who would not encourage me in wayward desires. Nor did she. But she realized my thraldom, my lonely, unhappy life, and knew that I was pining away for want of the simple innocent pleasures ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... that I had no trouble at all. A youth of sixteen, who viewed me in the light of "opportunity knocking at the door," gladly accepted my terms. He was the son of the foreman at a dairy in the neighborhood, and rode over night and morning on a staid old mare loaned him by ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... perpetually dinning it in his ears. When he is in England, he does nothing but abuse the Boroughmongers, and laugh at the whole system: when he is in America, he grows impatient of freedom and a republic. If he had staid there a little longer, he would have become a loyal and a loving subject of his Majesty King George IV. He lampooned the French Revolution when it was hailed as the dawn of liberty by millions: by the time it was brought into almost universal ill-odour ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and tied; then six stitches to be taken with a great big needle. Most providentially dear Julia Willis came in about ten minutes before the doctors and though she was greatly distressed, she never faints, and staid till Lizzy was laid in bed.... She was just like a marble statue, but even more beautiful, while the blood stained her shoulders and bosom. You couldn't have looked on such suffering without fainting, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... art wont, thy sovereignty adorn With woman's gentleness, yet firm and staid; So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn Be changed for ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... if you do not, my lord, I know of no one that does. Colonel Furness is an officer who is somewhat staid and severe for his years, and who, in sooth, stands somewhat aloof from me, and cares not for the merry jests of Buckingham; but he is a gallant soldier. He has risked his life over and over again in the cause of my sainted father, and tried his utmost to save him, both at Carisbrook and Whitehall. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Staid old Mother Earth herself has in the hoary past repeatedly changed the configurations of her continents and oceans by great cataclysms ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... shouldered with that experience the first day. But I have tried to think it over calmly since, and I can see nothing else to have done." He paused in his pacing up and down, a smile struggling with his serious look. "It was quite a hot-headed business for one of the staid Brices, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... heart, With love replenished, and with courteous praise, In loyal deeds alone she hath delight. And, in her elder days, For prudence and just largeness is she known; Rejoicing with herself, That wisdom in her staid discourse be shown. Then, in life's fourth division, at the last She weds with God again, Contemplating the end she shall attain; And looketh back, and ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... very unlike, in many respects, to what we are accustomed to suppose a backwoods hunter should be. He did not possess that quiet gravity and staid demeanour which often characterize these men. True, he was tall and strongly made, but no one would have called him stalwart, and his frame indicated grace and agility rather than strength. But the point about him which rendered him different from his companions was his bounding, irrepressible ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... giuen order for the politike gouernement of the whole countrie, so far as he had conquered; he first sent ouer his houshold seruants, which tooke the water on Easter daie, and landed at Milleford, but he himselfe and other of the Nobles staid there all that daie, by reason of the high solemnitie of that feast: howbeit the daie next after they tooke the sea togither, and landed nere to S. Dauids in south Wales, [Sidenote: The king returneth into England. Ger. Dor. The popes legats.] from thence (without delaie) he hasted ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... held a unique place among the restaurants of the city. Its patrons were from all classes of society. At noon its many tables were largely filled by staid and respectable business men, but at night a certain element of the underworld claimed it as their own, and there was always a sprinkling of people of the stage, artists, literary men and politicians. It was, as a certain wit described ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... character of his face were widely different from those on which Paul gazed with such delight. He was not, seemingly, above five-and-forty, but his forehead was knit into many a line and furrow; and in his eyes the light, though searching, was more sober and staid than became his years. A disagreeable expression played about the mouth; and the shape of the face, which was long and thin, considerably detracted from the prepossessing effect of a handsome aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... therefore took some Gauls, the tallest he could find, of triumphal size, as he said, put them in German clothes, made them learn some Teutonic words, and sent them away to Rome to await in prison his return and his ovation. Lyons, where he staid some time, was the scene of his extortions and strangest freaks. He was playing at dice one day with some of his courtiers, and lost; he rose, sent for the tax-list of the province, marked down for death and confiscation some of those who were most highly rated, and said to the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... be, praise no less high must be accorded to Mrs. Wentworth's; she attained an altitude of admirable unconsciousness, and conducted her flirtation (the poverty of language forces me to the word, but it is over flippant) with the curate in a staid, quasi-maternal way. She called him a delightful boy, and said that she was intensely interested in all his aims ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... either through the death of the reigning sovereign, or as the head of a Catholic rebellion. At first she prudently decided to wait for the natural course of events, selecting as her secretary of state Maitland, "the Scottish Cecil," a staid politician bent on keeping friends with England. But at last growing impatient, she compromised herself in the Catholic plots and risings ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... which he set forth the extreme caution and reserve he considered it right and advisable for young gentlemen to exercise in their intercourse with young ladies, towards whom he declared they should maintain a staid deportment of dignified 275 courtesy, tempered by distant but respectful attentions. This, repeated with variations, lasted us till the tea was announced, and we returned to the drawing-room. Here Freddy made a desperate and final struggle to remove the wet blanket which ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... use, he would not let go that whale he was fast to. If he had only come to the ship they could have got some more water and bread. I set two gangs at work right away, one getting water and the other getting bread. The cask of bread was between decks and three men staid with that cask till the water came in and floated the cask away ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... look forward with relief to having Kate well settled in life. Kate had been a hard one to manage. She had too much will of her own and a pretty way of always having it. She had no deep sense of reverence for old, staid manners and customs. Many a long lecture had Madam Schuyler delivered to Kate upon her unseemly ways. It did not please her to think of having to go through it all so soon again, therefore upon her usually complacent brow there came a ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... the corpulent priest for exercise; of the ambitious student for thought and study; of the nursery maid with her youthful charge; and of wooing lovers and coquettish senoritas, accompanied by their staid chaperones. On Sunday forenoons a military band gives an out-of-door concert in the central music stand, on which occasion all grades of the populace come hither, rich and poor alike, the half-fed peon in his nakedness and the well-clad ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Leinster allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire and sword from Dublin to the border town of Gowran. This seems to have been the last of his notable exploits in arms. He died on the 20th of November, 876, and is lamented by the Bards as "a generous, wise, staid man." These praises belong—if at all deserved—to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... in our camp at the head of the Arkansas river until sometime in April, then we pulled out for Bent's Fort to dispose of our pelts. We staid at the Fort three days. The day we left the Fort, we met a runner from Col. Freemont with a letter for Carson. Freemont wanted Carson to bring a certain amount of supplies to his camp and then to act as a guide across the mountains to Monterey, California. ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... have to pocket their likings, and eat humble pie. But how has your father got into difficulties?" she burst out with an expression of frightened distress. "He always had plenty. Dolly!—tell me!—what do you know about it? what is it? How could he get into difficulties! Oh, if we had staid at home! Dolly, how is it possible? We have always had plenty—money running like water—all my life; and now, how could your father have ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... on my nerves," is a remark often made by one of the staid, stiff types concerning the seldom silent, extremely florid individual. So natural is this to the Thoracic that he is entirely unconscious of the wearing effect he ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... goes away, and here abandons me, and I remain in suspense; and yes and no contend within my head. I could not hear what he set forth to them, but he had not staid there long with them, when each ran vying back within. These our adversaries closed the gates on the breast of my Lord, who remained without, and returned to me with slow steps. He held his eyes upon the ground, and his brow was shorn of all hardihood, and he said in sighs, "Who ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... all this clamor, with the added notes of slamming doors and shouted numbers and epic struggles between angry drivers and determined policemen; sometimes he would extend his smoking stroll far enough to skirt the edge of all this Babel. Then, towards midnight, long after all staid and sensible people were abed, the flood would roll back, faster yet under the quiet moon, louder yet through the frosty air. But he never met the Circassian beauty, and he would have found "l'Africaine," for example, both tedious and unreasonable. To him each ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... expiration of the seven days of unleavened bread, they began their return homeward; but the child Jesus staid behind in Jerusalem, to make inquiries, and to listen to the instructions of those who publicly explained the sense of Scripture, and the traditions of the elders. His mother and Joseph were ignorant of this delay, till the end of the first day's journey; for as it ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... Thermoscope in the Air was at 8-7/8 inches; being put into a somewhat large evaporating glass, fill'd with water, it fell (after it staid a pretty while, and had been agitated in the liquor) to 8. inches: then about half the Salt, or less, that had been used twice before, and felt much less cold than the water, being put in and stirr'd about, the tincted Spirit subsided ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... a window, at a great height, and saw about twenty or thirty fine lads sporting in a court below. "This is as it should be," said I; "those boys will not make worse priests from a little early devotion to trap-ball and cudgel playing. I dislike a staid, serious, puritanic education, as I firmly believe that it encourages vice ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... that he was not willing to embark in the boats. It looked altogether too perilous. Besides, Bitts did not lean against the mast and go to sleep, and Cleats sent a hand down to bring up his luncheon, and the vice-principal staid on ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... the campus the next morning. The nocturnal bill-posters had shown themselves no respecters of places, for the placards adorned not fences and walls alone, but were pasted on the granite steps of each recitation hall. All the forenoon groups of staid seniors, grinning juniors and sophomores, or vexed freshmen stood in front of the placards and read the inscriptions with varied emotions. But in the afternoon a cheering mob of the "infants" marched through the college and town ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... I had done wrong! Mrs. Mirvan and Maria have been half the town over, and so entertained!-while I, like a fool, staid at home to do nothing. And, at the auction in Pall-mall, who should they meet but Lord Orville. He sat next to Mrs. Mirvan, and they talked a great deal together; but she gave me ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... bits of broken meat, And scattered crusts, and crumbs, to eat; And kept him there for her commands To pare potatoes, and scour pans, To wash the kettles and sweep the room; And she beat him dreadfully with the broom; And he staid as long as he could stay, And again, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... happily and peacefully enough, but without any happenings worthy of record. We returned the Vicar's call, and were asked to tea to meet ourselves, when Mrs Merrivale took the opportunity to ask me the address of my dressmaker! Two staid dames, who lived in small villa residences, left cards at the door, an attention which we duly returned in kind. The important people in the neighbourhood have left us severely alone, whirling past our gates to pay assiduous calls on General Underwood. He is the local ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... process of making steel. He had also many personal weaknesses: his egotism was marked, he loved applause, he was always seeking opportunities for self-exploitation, and he even aspired to fame as an author and philosopher. The staid business men of Pittsburgh early regarded Carnegie with disfavor; his daring impressed them as rashness and his bold adventures as the plunging of the speculator. Yet in all its aspects Carnegie's triumph was a personal ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... chillen 'long wid her, an pappy an th' others staid back in Louieville. Dey tuk us all on a boat de Big Ribber—evah heah ob de big ribber? Mississippi its name—but we calls ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... offices may seem of trifling import, but when true love is translated into Low Dutch it is in this way that it eloquently expresses itself. They were not lost upon the Webber family. The winning youngster found marvelous favor in the eyes of the mother; the tortoise-shell cat, albeit the most staid and demure of her kind, gave indubitable signs of approbation of his visits; the teakettle seemed to sing out a cheering note of welcome at his approach; and if the sly glances of the daughter might ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... where fierce Beauregard O'erwhelmed us with numbers and pressed us so hard, Till our veteran supporters came up to our aid And the tide of defeat and disaster was staid— Where like grain-sheaves the slaughtered were piled on the plain And the brave rebel Johnston went down with the slain? Lo—torn by the shot and begrimed by the powder, The Old Flag is waving ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... together on religion. Casaubon ardently desired a reunion of the Protestants with the Roman Catholics[64]: and would have set about it, had he staid longer in France, as he informed Descordes, who repeated it to Grotius. He greatly respected the opinions of the ancient church[65], and was persuaded its sentiments were more sound than those of the Ministers of Charenton. Grotius and he had imparted their thoughts to each ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... condition of life may have been altered: but we visit that burial spot, and there is permanence; that fast-anchored isle has defied the surges and roaring currents; the grave seems beautifully constant; it has not betrayed our confidence; it is not weary of its precious charge; it has kindly staid behind to permit and encourage our griefs when all else may have fled. The winter's snows have fallen, the tempests have beaten, there; and now, this April or May morning, it is as steadfast and quiet as when the ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... nawtice of they,' 'er says. 'The little 'uzzies ought to be at 'awm look'n' aafter the chicken, 'staid of gallivantin' about ahl bai thursalves. Yure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... bury peal doe grown flue know sea lie mete lynx bow stare belle read grate ark ought slay thrown vain bin lode fain fort fowl mien write mown sole drafts fore bass beat seem steel dun bear there creak bore ball wave chews staid caste maize heel bawl course quire chord chased tide sword mail nun plain pour fate wean hoard berth isle throne vane seize sore slight freeze knave fane reek Rome rye style flea faint peak throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... corked down for years, suddenly find themselves free and able to do what they like when they like, without having to render an account to any one, it would be rather wonderful if they did settle down and become quite staid and steady all ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and had not power to go beyond him. At the bottom of Cocking Warren the hounds turned to the left across the road by the barn near Heringdean, then took the side near to the north-gate of the Forest (Here General Hawley thought it prudent to change his horse for a true-blue that staid up the hills). Billy Ives likewise took a horse of Sir Harry Liddell's, went quite through the Forest and run the foil through Nightingale Bottom to Cobden at Draught, up his Pine Pit Hanger to My Lady Lewknor's Puttocks, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... "entertainment by declamations and music, after the manner of the ancients" (1656). The press began timidly to venture on books of amusement, in a style of humour which seemed ribald and heathenish to the staid and sober covenanter. Something of the jollity and merriment of old Elisabethan days seemed to be in the air. But with a vast difference. Instead of "dallying with the innocence of love," as in England's Helicon (1600), or The Passionate Pilgrim, the ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... exercise of the gymnasium; and they speak dreadful things about evolution and modern interpretation, and the new methods of hermeneutics, and polychrome Bibles; and they laugh at the idea of the world's creation in six days; and altogether, they disturb and disquiet the dreams of the staid and stately veterans of the Famine years, and make them forecast a dismal future for Ireland when German metaphysics and coffee will first impair, and then destroy, the sacred traditions of Irish faith. And yet, these young priests inherit the best elements of the grand inheritance that ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... spirit of a country orderly and prosperous, a flavour of the presence of magistrates and well-to-do merchants in bag-wigs, the clink of glasses at night in fire-lit parlours, something certain and civic and domestic, is all about these quiet, staid, shapely houses, with no character but their exceeding shapeliness, and the comely external utterance that they make of their internal comfort. Now the others are, as I have said, both furtive and bedevilled; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... n't saying a great deal, he reflected, one seldom enough, in our staid, our stale society, meets a person of whom one can say ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... entries in his diary will complete our preparation for the record of the day that changed his life. He is a youth of nineteen, staid and thoughtful, but full of life and merriment, and the popular center of ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... call him)? The ragged gamins scurried here and there, yelling ribald jests at the departing soldiers; and the scarlet-coated troopers had hard work keeping down their rising anger, as suggestive cries of "boiled lobsters" rose on every side. Even the staid citizens could hardly conceal their exultation, as they thought that with those soldiers departed forever the rule of Great Britain over the Colonies. It was a quaint-looking crowd that had gathered ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... them. Mr. Keaton didn't give em nothing at freedom. They stayed on long as they wanted to stay and then they went to work for Mr. Jack Keaton's brother, Mr. Ben Keaton. They worked on shares and picked cotton by the hundred. My parents staid on down there till they died. I been working for Mr. Floria for ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... 1864 in Laclede, Missouri, and is tall, wiry and strong. Every inch of his six feet is of fighting material. He is a man of action and has a penchant for utilizing the services of young men rather than staid old officers of experience. Pershing is a real military man, and has been notably absent from such things as banquets and other functions where by talking he might get into the lime light. It is true that he was jumped over the heads of a number of ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... should join later on. On leaving college Henri's conduct was not like that of a young man of twenty. He was considered very steady, and was never seen in places where drinking and gambling went on and where his reputation might have suffered. He was to be met with in staid drawing-rooms, where he was always extremely attentive and polite to ladies who were no longer young. All that would have gone against him elsewhere served him there in good stead. His reserve was considered an attraction, his seriousness ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... staid late, till the twenty-second or August —a rare instance! for they usually withdraw within the first week.* (*See Letter LIII to ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... could not live alone. But Ellen is scarcely that. She is too staid, too old and respectable. ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... baronial hall that was Tom Temple's home, and the people who had been invited to spend the festive season there. Presently I began to chide myself for my foolishness. Why should the thoughts of a Christmas holiday so unfit me, a staid old bachelor of thirty, for my usual work? Nevertheless it did, so I put on my overcoat, and went away in the direction of Hyde Park in order, if possible, to dispel my fancies. I did dispel them, and shortly afterwards returned to my lodgings, and ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... every Sunday to hear from the pulpit words of consolation and encouragement, similar to those which I had heard uttered from the pulpit by my good and venerable friend, but I was debarred from this privilege. At length, one day being in conversation with one of my labourers, a staid and serious man, I spoke to him of the matter which lay heavy upon my mind; whereupon, looking me wistfully in the face, he said, "Master, the want of religious instruction in my church was what drove ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... by this exposition of the quieter side of his idol's life. Of course he had known she could not always be making narrow escapes, and it seemed that she was almost more delightful in this staid domestic life. Here, away from her professional perils, she was, it seemed, "a slim little girl with sad eyes and ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... a smile. And I staid by poor Lizzie, for I have drank of the same cup, and I know how bitter was the taste of it. Old Elspeth McDonald stretched the corpse, and her and I had a change of words; but Lizzie was ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... time there lay within her soul An inner chamber, quietest place; but she Turned from its door, and staid out in the storm. She, entering there, had found a refuge calm As summer evening, as a mother's arms. There had she found her lost love, only lost In that he slept, and she was still awake. There she had found, waiting for her to come, The Love that ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... all impressed. Such a proposition did not appeal to her. It was too vague and intangible. People all got married, of course, some day, but not until you were very, very old and staid, and all the joy of life had departed from it—just as everybody died some day. But, though death was inevitable, Elizabeth did not borrow trouble from that solemn fact. Besides, she had far other and greater ambitions than were dreamed of in Charles Stuart's ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... astonished at the effect of this communication on her sober staid old friend. She started, made an incredulous outcry, caused it to be repeated, with its authority, then rose up, exclaiming, 'The wretch! My poor Emma! I never ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Byrom's "Christians, awake, salute the happy morn," has the stiffness and formality or its period, but it is not without a certain quaintness and dignity. One could hardly expect fine Christmas poetry of an age whose religion was on the one hand staid, rational, unimaginative, and on the other "Evangelical" in the narrow sense, finding its centre in the Atonement rather than ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... but not immoderately, to that persuasion; that he went up to Cambridge early, and had some kind of dissension with the authorities there; that the course of his youth was in a singular degree pure and staid; that in boyhood he was a devourer of books, and that he early became, and always remained, a severely studious man; that he married and had difficulties of a peculiar character with his first wife; that he wrote on divorce: that after the death of his first wife, he married a second ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... staid a week longer in the city. During that time Adelaide went out with them, quite frequently, but Elsie saw scarcely anything of her old friend; which was, however, all her own fault, as she studiously avoided him; much to his grief and disturbance. He could not imagine what he had done ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... much interested in a recent English essay ("On the Criminal Code of the Jews") to find how the typical Israel regarded games of chance. As if something of the old blessed "The Lord is our King," staid by them, even in the days of their ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... 20 Here they staid, and when the girl went one day to the prince's wife, and found her in a sorrowful and mournful condition, she asked her the reason of ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... us to sing this day the downfall of New France, the North American Babylon, New England's rival," cries Eli Forbes to his congregation of sober farmers and staid matrons at the rustic village of Brookfield. Like many of his flock, he had been to the war, having served two years as chaplain of Ruggles's Massachusetts regiment; and something of a martial spirit breathes ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... second town in the British kingdom; stopped over at the old town of Chester; took a run out to Hawarden Estate, the home of Gladstone; changed cars at Stratford-on-Avon and visited the tomb of Shakespeare; staid a half day and a night in the old university town of Oxford, and reached London on the evening of July 4th. Having spent a week in London, we crossed the English Channel to Paris; remained there two days, then made brief visits to the battlefield of Waterloo, to Brussels, Amsterdam, Hull, ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... in a London Bridge tram-car. At its next stoppage there entered a staid old gentleman, with whom he had made the Cityward journey for years; they always nodded to each other. This morning the grave senior chanced to take a place at his side, and a greeting passed between them. Christopher felt a sudden impulse, upon which he ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... letter from MD; so the man said he had given it to Patrick; then I went to the Court of Requests and Treasury to find Mr Harley, and after some time spent in mutual reproaches, I promised to dine with him; I staid there till seven, then called at Sterne's and Leigh's to talk about your box, and to have it sent by Smyth. Sterne says he has been making inquiries, and will set things right as soon as possible. ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... noisy human creatures were invading. Then they drove home in the golden light of the sunset, and sang all the way. And Lucy Haines carried into her dreams a memory of cheery friendliness and wholesome fun which was a novelty in her staid ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... other looked at him lucidly and penetratingly. He saw before him a man whose life he held in his hands. He knew that he had it in his power to do what he would with him. He could bend him like a piece of cardboard, or help him to develop amid his staid, village environments. Feeling himself the master and lord of another being, he enjoyed this thought and said to himself that this lad should never drink of the cup that destiny had made him, Tchelkache, empty. He at once envied and pitied this young existence, derided it and was moved to ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... roof of a house, consisting of nearly vertical granite rocks. The ascent requires 2 days, 6 or 8 guides are required, and each guide is paid 100 francs ($20.00). It was ascended by two natives, Jacques Belmat and Dr. Packard, August 8, 1786, at 6 a.m. They staid up 30 minutes, with the thermometer at 14 degrees below the freezing point. The provisions froze in their pockets; their faces were frost-bitten, lips swollen, and their sight much weakened, but they soon recovered on their descent. De Saussure records in his ascent August ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... had a visit from my landlady,[29] who is a staid, sober, piously-disposed, vice-abhorring widow, coming on her climacteric; she is at present in great tribulation respecting some daughters of Belial who are on the floor immediately above. My landlady, who, as I have said, is a flesh-disciplining godly matron, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... for a short while to Surbiton Cottage. It was not so gay a place as it once had been; merry laughter was not so often heard among the shrubbery walks, nor was a boat to be seen so often glancing in and out between the lawn and the adjacent island. The Cottage had become a demure, staid abode, of which Captain Cuttwater was in general the most vivacious inmate; and yet there was soon to be marrying, and giving ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... old men followed when we left the other natives, to whom I made presents in the afternoon; but it is remarkable that many of them trembled whilst we staid with them, and although their women were not present, they hovered on the opposite bank of the Darling all the time. We kept wide of the river almost all day, travelling between the scrub and lagoons, but we had occasionally to ascend and cross ridges of loose sand, over which the bullock-drivers ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... head spoke with the force of a logical climax. "He'd done rented a house down below though, an' was a-fixin' ter move. He staid one day too late. Jesse Purvy ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the Confessor staid the Confessor The Saxon line renewed. Remade 1041-1066 At Westminster the Abbey grand, And signed the first 'Will' in this land. And since his time ('tis not refuted) Scores of Wills have been disputed. Ah! legal quibbles such as these Mean Lawyers ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... and—no it was rany. had a speling mach today in school. Cele and Genny Morrison staid up til the last and then Cele missed and set down balling, and Genny beat. i cant stop to wright enny more becaus i am going ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... coughed. Aproned he stood from chin to toe. The apron's vertical long flow Warped grandly outwards to display His hale, round belly hung midway, Whose apex was securely bound With apron-strings wrapped round and round. Outside, Miss Thompson, small and staid, Felt, as she always felt, afraid Of this huge man who laughed so loud And drew the notice of the crowd. Awhile she paused in timid thought, Then promptly hurried in and bought 'Two kippers, please. Yes, lovely weather.' 'Two kippers? Sixpence ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... forms within the demesnes, and he could not distinguish their features. One was a woman, who seemed to him of staid manner and homely appearance: she was seen but rarely. The other a man, often pacing to and fro the colonnade, with frequent pauses before the playful fountain, or the birds that sang louder as he approached. This latter form would then ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Salutation Inn at Ambleside to-night. So, also, is Parson Sellafield, and the man and woman with whom we staid in Whitehaven, and in whose house you were born and lived until your fourth year. They are called Chisholm, and have been at Up-Hill ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... trade of great promotion, and let none euer thinke to mount by seruice in forain courts, or creep neere to some magnifique Lords, if they be not seene in this science. O it is the art of arts, and ten thousand times goes beyond the intelligencer. None but a staid graue ciuill man is capable of it, he must haue exquisite courtship in him or else he is not old who, he wants the best ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... Harry staid a little too long with his love—a little longer, at least, than had been computed, and, in consequence, met Theodore Burton in the Crescent as he was leaving it. This meeting could hardly be made without something of pain, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... Dick had come up again and he said he'd found some footprints coming to and going away from the house. It had rained the night before and the marks had staid. So pa got Old Bender and made him walk and compared the prints, but they wasn't the same. And pa said that was a clew. For Old Bender claimed he woke up and found the house on fire. So they took a box and turned ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... you as a staid, middle-aged man," she said, with a delicious little laugh, then added in low soft tones, "I'm so very pleased to meet ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... might not have been affected by such reflections. One that was merely contemplative might have regarded them only as a subject for curious study. But Tiberius's mind ran to neither of these two extremes. He was a thoughtful and sensitive man of action. Sweet in temper, staid in deportment, gentle in language, he attracted from his dependants a loyalty that knew no limits, and from his friends a devotion that did not even shrink from death on his behalf. Even in his pure and polished oratory passion ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Fayetteville, North Carolina. We climbed over fences and were just broke down chillun, feet sore. We had a little meat, corn meal, a tray, and mammy had a tin pan. One night we came to a old house; some one had put wheat straw in it. We staid there, next mornin', we come back home. Not to Marster's, but to a white 'oman named Peggy McClinton, on her plantation. We stayed there a long time. De Yankees took everything dey could, but dey didn't give us anything to eat. Dey give some of ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... at Lancaster, and in recording his impressions he declared it "a pleasant place, dropped in the midst of a charming landscape; a place with a fine, ancient fragment of a castle; a place of lovely walks and possessing many staid old houses, richly fitted with Honduras mahogany," and followed with other reflections not so complimentary concerning the industrial slavery which prevailed in the city a generation or two ago. The "fine, ancient fragment of a castle" ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... butcher their priests, and their belly their God.'—I felt my soul blessed and encouraged while hearing of sin being destroyed, with an earnest longing for its accomplishment. I felt the burden of indwelling sin very heavy; O when shall the happy period commence that God shall be all in all.—I staid the communion for the first time; how solemn! I was humbled and melted down exceedingly.—O how infinitely short I fall of walking with God! The love-feast was immediately after; the master of the feast was there: I felt his presence ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... the higher ranks talked in whispers, and even at times loudly, on their family concerns, their balls and concerts. The peasantry and lower ranks behaved with more decency, but seemed to think the service a mere form; they came in at all hours, and staid but a few minutes; ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Captain Minner, sent me to Providence, in Rhode Island, to stay a year and a day, in order to gain my residence. But I staid only two months. Mr. Howard's vessel came there laden with corn. I longed much to see my master and mistress, for the kindness they had done me, and so went home in the schooner. On my arrival, I did not stop at my own house, except ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... produced, a string of a dozen or so of ladies, in their full war paint, were decorously going through the monotonous evolutions of a popular dance, waving their arms about, gesticulating, and at the same time lingering, as it were, over the ground, and comporting themselves in that staid, yet fitfully lively way, which seems to be the general style of Eastern dancing. They were attired most picturesquely, and evidently in their very fullest ball costume, so that we were fortunate in hitting upon such a good opportunity of seeing their gala manners and customs. They all ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... paid, And says our wars thrive ill, because delayed; Nay hints, 'tis by connivance of the Court, That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a port. Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests, To see themselves fall endlong into beasts, Than mine, to find a subject staid and wise Already half turned traitor by surprise. I felt the infection slide from him to me, As in the —— some give it to get free; And quick to swallow me, methought I saw One of our giant statutes ope its jaw. In that nice moment, as another lie ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... when you were perhaps performing in tableaux for the "benefit of the Sanitary," these two girls had felt the great enthusiasm of the time lay hold of them in a larger way. Susan had a friend—a dear old intimate of school-days, now a staid woman of eight-and-twenty—who was to go out in yet maturer companionship into the hospitals. And Susan's heart burned to go. But there were all the little tiers, and the ABC's, and the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Elder Jordan, perhaps, throw one of those spit-balls that stuck so hard and fast to the ceiling? And did some of the grandmothers he had met giggle and hide their faces at Nathaniel's cunning evasion of the teacher's quick effort to locate the successful marksman? Had those staid pillars of the church ever been swayed and bent by passions of young manhood and womanhood? Had their minds ever been stirred by the questions and doubts of youth? Had their hearts ever throbbed with eager longing to know—to feel ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... found it fastened within. Finding this scheme frustrated, he waited till the hour the Baron was expected down to breakfast, and laid the letter and the key of the haunted apartment upon the table. Soon after, he saw the Baron enter the breakfast room; he got out of sight, but staid within call, preparing himself for a summons. The Baron sat down to breakfast; he saw a letter directed to himself—he opened it, and to his ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... made of a woman," &c.; showing, that, by "made under the law," is meant his circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand. I staid at home all the afternoon, looking over my accounts; then went with my wife to my father's, and in going observed the great posts which the City have set up at the Conduit in Fleet-street. Supt at my father's, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... a new waistcoat of his own devising, and an evening coat which almost swept the floor as he executed the evolutions of his western style of dancing. Other gentlemen were, perhaps, more grave and staid. We had with us at least one man, old in government service, who dared the silk stockings and knee breeches of an earlier generation. Yet another wore the white powdered queue, which might have been more suited for his grandfather. The younger men of the day wore their hair ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... to have shaken him off and retired: but the thing was impracticable. I do not choose that my own carriage should attend me on these expeditions; and as it was a rainy night, I knew the difficulty of getting a coach. I therefore staid an hour till the entertainment should be begun, and the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... what a pleasant face! He too has borne much for his Master. In 1865, when he left the Greek Church, he was living with his brother in Beirut. His brother turned him out of the house at night, with neither bed nor clothing. He came to my house and staid with me some time. He said it was hard to be driven out by his brother and mother, but he could bear anything for Christ's sake. Said he, "I can bear cursing and beating and the loss of property. But my mother is weeping and wailing over me. She thinks I am a heretic and am lost forever. ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... "That in the fulness of time God sent his Son, made of a woman," &c.; showing, that, by "made under the law," is meant the circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand. I staid at home the whole afternoon, looking over my accounts; then went with my wife to my father's, and in going observed the great posts which the City workmen set up ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... his passion for her had been cooling into a staid friendship, his imagination had been recurring with constantly increasing fondness and a dreamy passion to the memory of her girlhood. And the cruelest part of it was that he so unconsciously and unquestioningly assumed ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... now." When he met Fanny his manner was so calm and collected that she never dreamed how deep was the affection she had kindled in his heart. She received him with real pleasure, for he seemed like a friend from Kentucky. He staid with her but three days, and when he left he bore a sadder heart than he had ever felt before. Fanny had refused him; not exultingly, as if a fresh laurel had been won only to be boasted of, but so kindly, so delicately, that Frank felt almost willing to act ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... seated, had no sooner spoken a few words before she began to enlist the attention of her fellow-passengers. She began playing peek-a-boo with a staid and dignified old gentleman in the seat behind her. He at first looked at her over his spectacles, then lowered his paper a little, then a little more, and a little more. Finally, he dropped it altogether, and, apparently ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... will have spoken before you are called upon. The sharp contrast that will be presented in the staid and uninspiring speeches of your predecessors, and your fervid, fluent and convincing call to action, will lift you to the position of ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... them off without ceremony. Next morning, Veitch, perceiving his loss, summoned his servants and retainers, laid a blood-hound upon the traces of the robber, by whom they were guided for many miles, till, on the banks of Liddel, he staid upon a very large hay-stack. The pursuers were a good deal surprised at the obstinate pause of the blood-hound, till Dawyk pulled down some of the hay, and discovered a large excavation, containing the robbers and their spoil. He instantly flew upon Dickie, and was about to poniard him, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... aisle between sacks of flour and blankets on one side and a high counter on the other. Behind this counter Withers stood to wait upon the buying Indians. They sold blankets and skins and bags of wool, and in exchange took silver money. Then they lingered and with slow, staid reluctance bought one thing and then another—flour, sugar, canned goods, coffee, tobacco, ammunition. The counter was never without two or three Indians leaning on their dark, silver-braceleted arms. But as they were slow to sell and buy and go, so were others slow ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... the shade, And the merchants forget that they've got any trade, While many remember they've never been paid As they rushed out to look at the circus parade; And preachers who used to be terribly staid Yell just like boys at the circus parade. Every one's there, both the mistress and maid, All looking on at the ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... a table. She examined his work, and observing his abilities, interested herself in obtaining for him some employment in drawing, and enlisted in his behalf the services of others who could assist him in prosecuting the study of art. The boy was diligent, pains-taking, staid, and silent, mixing little with his companions, and forming but few intimacies. About the year 1830, some gentlemen of the town provided him with the means of proceeding to Edinburgh, where he was ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... birds or more were there; Some—from the sunny Southland, where The fragrant rose was blooming still, And green grass covered field and hill, And, free as ever, flowed the rill— Had come in answer to the call Of friends who at the North had staid, By stern old Winter undismayed, To see the dainty snow-flakes fall. These kindly greeted, with small head Held on one side, a sparrow said, "To choose a gift for Cecily We've met to-night. What ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... why you staid so long at the well"—and as he spoke his eyes flashed with resentment ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... a hard, steady game from one end of the season to the other; but he had come to college with Blake, and the position had been out of the question. Besides, there were a couple of star halves; he was not good at end, either. So he staid on the Scrub eleven, and worked doggedly ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... It is certain that all fencible persons were not present, because the whole army being numbered, ver. 8, was but 330,000. And who will say there was no more men in Israel, when they had 600,000 such, and above, before their coming into the land? Seeing then, many have staid at home, it is most probable that these men of Belial would not come, seeing they despised Saul's mean and low condition in their heart and thought him unfit to lead their armies, till he should prove what was in him. That which is said, ver. 12, doth not prove they were in the camp. It might be ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... 1350 Which now thou art deny'd to keep, And cure thy labour'd corpse with sleep. The Knight, who heard the words, explain'd, As meant to him, this reprimand, Because the character did hit 1355 Point-blank upon his case so fit; Believ'd it was some drolling spright, That staid upon the guard that night, And one of those h' had seen, and felt The drubs he had so freely dealt; 1360 When, after a short pause and groan, The doleful Spirit thus ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... tiny eggs were laid, I could no longer see the nest, for the thick foliage of other trees had built up a green wall between me and it. But for many days the mother-bird staid away, and the father came alone to drink honey from my blossom-cups: so I knew that the eggs were hatching under her warm folded wings, for I have seen such things before among my own branches in the ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... of the Emperor Trajan, both wrote treatises upon cosmetics—doubtless most scholarly treatises that would have given many a precious hint. It is a pity they are not extant. From Lucian or from Juvenal, with his bitter picture of a Roman levee, much may be learnt; from the staid pages of Xenophon and Aristophanes' dear farces. But best of all is that fine book of the Ars Amatoria that Ovid has set aside for the consideration of dyes, perfumes, and pomades. Written by an artist who knew the allurement ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... young squires felt that their time had come. The Puritan, the Presbyterian, the Commonwealthman, all were at their feet. Their very bearing was that of wild revolt against the Puritan past. To a staid observer, Roger Pepys, they seemed a following of "the most profane, swearing fellows that ever I heard in my life." Their whole policy appeared to be dictated by a passionate spirit of reaction. They would drive the Presbyterians from the bench and the polling-booth as the Presbyterians ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... feathery pale-green shrub grew in every country door-yard, humble or great, throughout New England; and every church-going woman picked a branch or spray of it when she left her home on Sabbath morn. To this day, on hot summer Sundays, many a staid old daughter of the Puritans may be seen entering the village meeting-house, clad in a lilac-sprigged lawn or a green-striped barege,—a scanty-skirted, surplice-waisted relic of past summers,—with a lace-bordered silk cape or a delicate, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle |
