"Sedate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reached the Maidan. As they had no riding-breeches, their trousers soon rucked up, exhibiting ample expanses of bare legs; they had no notion of riding, but managed to stick on somehow by clinging to pommel and mane, banging here into a sedate Judge of the High Court, with an apologetic "Sorry, sir, but this swine of a pony won't steer;" barging there into a pompous Anglo-Indian official, as they yelled to their ponies, "Easy now, dogs-body, or you'll unship us both;" galloping as ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... o'clock in the morning. The lights were out in Robinson's Hall, where there had been dancing and revelry; and the moon, riding high, painted the black windows with silver. The cavalcade, that an hour ago had shocked the sedate pines with song and laughter, were all dispersed. One enamoured swain had ridden east, another west, another north, another south; and the object of their adoration, left within her bower at Chemisal Ridge, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... found that my chief duty as junior clerk in this eminently sedate and respectable establishment was to read the Times to my immediate superior. This gentleman I must always remember with a lively sense of gratitude. His name was Fothergill, and, like myself, he had little taste for mere business avocations. He was ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... that he had burned much, metaphorically speaking, besides his soutane. He was less pale, less lank, less wobegone than formerly, and went more briskly. He had lost the air of crack-brained disorder which had distinguished him, and was smart, sedate, and stooped less. Only the odd sparkle remained in his eyes, and bore witness to the same nervous, eager ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... the ceiling and over a wretched wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge. The cat, a magnificently long-furred, fluffy animal, the envy of all portresses, presided there like the mistress of the house, grave and sedate, and without anxieties. On the top of an excellent Viennese piano he sat majestically, and cast upon the countess, as she entered, that coldly gracious look which a woman, surprised by the beauty of another woman, might have given. He did not move, and merely waved the two silver ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... to Prince John, a sober soul, sedate And slow, King Martin left the helm of state, While to the novel game with eager zest He all his time and all his powers addrest. Sure such a sight was never seen before! For robed and crowned the monarch trod the shore; His golden hooks were decked ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... Bishop walked the King with steps sedate, Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks great, Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages,—all the officers ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... flapping, cloak floating, she sailed along the corridor and out into the gallery beyond. Yes, there was the marble staircase, and below was the great, bright hall; but in this disguise she could pass O'Reilly if he had assembled half the detectives in New York. So she tripped down the stairs, sedate, unhurried as the care-free girl whose cloak she had borrowed. Arrived in the hall, she knew her way out, and could hardly subdue the triumph in her voice as she said "Taxi, please," to an ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of May, Bryde came down to the big house, and the Laird and his Lady welcomed him at the door, and Margaret behind them very sedate ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... the High Cliff House or its outbuildings were a horse, a pig, and a dozen hens and two roosters. Captain Obed bought the horse at Mrs. Barnes' request, a docile animal of a sedate age. A second-hand buggy and a second-hand "open wagon" he also bought. The pig and hens Thankful bought herself in Trumet. She positively would not consent to the pig's occupying the sty beneath the woodshed and adjoining the potato cellar, so a new pen was built in the hollow ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a number of years cut his passenger's throat for a groschen. It was impossible that such occurrences, related, not without embellishments, should not inspire a sort of involuntary horror amongst the sedate inhabitants of Kolomna. No one entertained any doubt as to the presence of an evil power in the usurer. They said that he imposed conditions which made the hair rise on one's head, and which the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... vary tactually according to the age, the sex, and the manners of the walker. It is impossible to mistake a child's patter for the tread of a grown person. The step of the young man, strong and free, differs from the heavy, sedate tread of the middle-aged, and from the step of the old man, whose feet drag along the floor, or beat it with slow, faltering accents. On a bare floor a girl walks with a rapid, elastic rhythm which is quite distinct from the graver step of the ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... more cautious Helen had twitched her by her skirt. "Like—like other gentlemen who came here. It was a kind word he had or a smile. I—I—" She made no attempt to finish but bounded to her feet, pulling up the more sedate Helen with her. "Let's go," she whispered, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... sedate maiden of five, a miniature of Theo in face, stood silent in the doorway for a few seconds, wistfully piecing out the possible meaning of her tall sister's bewildered grief. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... noon Branwen would bring his dinner, and she would sometimes chat with him while he ate. After supper he would discourse to Branwen of remote kingdoms, through which, as aimlessly as a wind veers, he had ridden at adventure, among sedate and alien peoples who adjudged him a madman; and she, in turn, would tell him curious tales from the Red Book of Hergest,—telling of Gwalchmai, and Peredur, and Geraint, in each one of which fine heroes she had presently discerned an inadequate ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... difference. He had better hope and heart in his work. It was the last luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing himself, a woman friend; but since life had brought it in the oddest way the boon should be met with no grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness crept into his manner which was new to him; he went about his duties with the look of a man to whom life had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. His blood might have received some mysterious chemical complement, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... then, shall Hope and Fear their objects find? Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise? No cries invoke the mercies of the skies? Inquirer cease; petitions yet remain Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain; Still raise for ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... kind, Holding us at vantage still, Our sumptuous indigence, O barren mound, thy plenties fill! We fool and prate; Thou art silent and sedate. To myriad kinds and times one sense The constant mountain doth dispense; Shedding on all its snows and leaves, One joy it joys, one grief it grieves. Thou seest, O watchman tall, Our towns and races grow and fall, And imagest the stable good For which we all our lifetime ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Chamberlain has become such a leading light in Parliament, his speeches have taken a much more solid, sedate, and serious tone than they had in his early Birmingham days. They have become considerably more weighty—perhaps some of his unfriendly critics would say more heavy—than they were in bygone times. Without being open to the charge of levity or flippancy, Mr. Chamberlain's speeches used to ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... Randolph, the Negroes who gathered at Secretary Forrestal's invitation for the National Defense Conference on 26 April appeared to be a rather sedate group. But academic honors, business success, and gray hairs were misleading. These eminent educators, clergymen, and civil rights leaders proved just as (p. 305) determined as Randolph and his associates to be rid of segregation and, considering their position ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... shall hymn thy worth, Nor wrong the theme? conspicuously in thee, Beyond the blind pre-eminence of birth, Shone Nature in her own regality! Coerced, thy Spirit smiled, sedate in pride, Fixt as the pine, while circling storms contend; But, when in Life's serener duties tried, How sweetly did its gentle essence blend, All-beauteous in the wife, the daughter, and ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... he did not know: he was not aware that when he reached the sleeping town a pale gray was lightening the eastern skies. He went to the house of the postmaster and hurriedly aroused him. Mr. Keith began to think that the ordinarily sedate Mr. Roscorla had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... be stirred up in many minds by the name of Darien. In truth that name is associated with calamities so cruel that the recollection of them may not unnaturally disturb the equipoise even of a fair and sedate mind. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Ralph; "but you mustn't think we are going to confine ourselves to that sedate conveyance and the old mare. The colts are old enough to be broken, and when they are ready to drive we shall ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... some of Mr Townsend's poetry; let us now see his etching. "Boyhood:" those who delight in the easy, every-day, every-hour play of boyhood, will enjoy this plate. A boy is, with a peacock's feather, tickling a child asleep in the arms of a grave old lady—so sedate have we seen grimalkin look whilst encouraging her kitten, lightly and coquettishly, to play with a ball of cotton. "The Beach" is a well-sketched coast scene, and shows Mr Townsend to have an eye ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... "Wingert's Corners, Ohio," on the threatening prospects of a migration of the negroes from the South, and the President's "evident intenshun of colonizin' on 'em in the North," he especially relished. After rehearsing a portion of this letter to his guests at the Soldiers' Home one evening, a sedate New England gentleman expressed surprise that he could find time for memorizing such things. "Oh," said Lincoln, "I don't. If I like a thing, it just sticks after once reading it or hearing it." He once recited a long and doleful ballad, something like "Vilikins ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the people round about, the cottagers and farmers. He was very weak in the mornings, and mostly read, or often was too feeble even for that; but later in the day his strength used somewhat to revive, and he would walk along the lanes with Flora, now growing older and more sedate, trotting by him. He was known and loved in the circle of the hills. "Oh, sir," as a poor woman said to me, with tears in her eyes, after he was gone, "I can't tell you how it was—he spoke very little ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... than thirty years have passed... But all the same on Thursday last My heart was beating just as fast Within that Hall of Wonder; My bliss was every bit as great As what it was in '88— Impossible to look sedate ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... occasion there were present the bishop himself and Mrs Pendle, who sat close beside his chair; also Miss Whichello, fluttered and anxious, in juxtaposition with Dr Graham; and Gabriel, who had placed himself near Baltic the sedate and solemn-faced. When all were assembled, the bishop lost no time in speaking of the business which had brought them together. He related in detail the imposture of Jentham, the murder by Mosk, who since had taken ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... Thielky, the queen's wardrobe woman, and the comfort of my life in the absence of Mrs. Schwellenberg, for she is the real acting person, though I am the apparent one : and she is also a very good sort of woman,-plain, sensible, clear-headed, mild-mannered, sedate, and steady. I found her in this journey of infinite service, for she not only did almost every thing for the queen, but made it her business to supply also the place of maid to me, as much as ever I ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... came and sat down beside him. Selkirk was the principal builder, and ultimately laid every stone of the lighthouse with his own hand. He was a sedate, quiet man, but full of energy and perseverance. When the stones were landed faster than they could be built into their places, he and Bremner, as well as some of the other builders, used to work on until the rising tide ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... thing but a smile upon his face. Whether report and the other captains were correct or not in their assertions, Captain Drawlock was in appearance quite a different character at the time we introduce him. He was of sedate aspect, seldom smiled, and appeared to be wrapt up in the importance of the trust confided to him, particularly with respect to the young women who were sent out under his protection. He talked much of his responsibility, and divided the whole of his time between his chronometers and ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... abound on the lips and the brows that are brighter than light, The demure little chin, the sedate little nose, and the forehead of sun-stained white, That love overflows into laughter and laughter subsides ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... truly a horrid, old-time, hoopskirt-minded prude. My first act of domestic tyranny is to make you find a sedate, prim place for my work and play, where I may know my own blushes when I see them in the mirror, and will have less occasion ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... fiction, a practical spring cart, drawn by a real horse at a trot, which horse was driven (as far as the telescope was credible) by a man! Over four years have elapsed since I saw any wheeled vehicle other than my own barrow—the speed of which is sedate (for I am a sedate and determined man, and refuse to be flurried by my own barrow). Nervousness and excitement began to play. Thank the propitious stars, two miles and more of mighty ocean separated me from the furious car. Otherwise, who may say? I might in my confusion have been unable ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... marvels of Kazan,—soap made from mare's milk. An amused apothecary had already assured us that it was a product of the too fertile brain of Baedeker, not of the local soap factories. May Baedeker himself, some day, reap a similar harvest of mirth and astonishment from the sedate Tatars, who can put mare's milk to much ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... little town, and no sooner were the doors of the houses level with the grass than the boys were out of them and running in some numbers towards my window; in fact, some slipped out of their own windows, not waiting for the doors to be available. Wag was the first. Slim, more sedate, came among the crowd that followed. These were still the only two who felt no hesitation about talking to me. The others were all fully occupied ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... days afterwards, he hands to Mr. Thomas Scott a formal statement of pecuniary affairs; the result of which was, that the Major had left something not much under L6000. Major Scott, from all I have heard, was {p.100} a sober, sedate bachelor, of dull mind and frugal tastes, who, after his retirement from the army, divided his time between his mother's primitive fireside, and the society of a few whist-playing brother officers, that met for an evening rubber at Fortune's tavern. But, making every allowance for his retired ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... to which he had slowly retired in order to pick up his spears and throwing-stick, both of which were precisely similar to those of Cape York, from which place they had probably been procured. He was a quiet, sedate, good-natured old man, and although at first rather shy he soon laid aside his fears on receiving assurances in the Kowrarega language, which he understood, that markai poud Kulkalaig Nagir (the white men are friends of the Kulkalega tribe of Mount Ernest) backed by a present ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... and habits. Friends that would harmonise with his gloves and umbrella he had none as yet. If he ordered an aperitif before the midday meal, it was on the terrace of a cafe on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, where he sat devouring newspapers in awful solitude. Sometimes he took Blanquette for a sedate walk; but no longer Blanquette en cheveux. He bought her a mystical headgear composed as far as I could see of three plums and a couple of feathers, which the girl wore with an air of happy martyrdom. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... him to the very spot or whistle him the very tunes; but he was busy, and wondered so sedate a man as myself could cherish so strange ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... demanded, or even if they made them but left the administration in those untrustworthy hands in which it was at the present time. On one occasion these feelings gave rise to an unparalleled scene in Parliament. Those bearded and sedate men wept and cursed. They feared for their country, and each one feared for himself, if they did not get rid of the man who possessed power, while on the other hand it seemed to them impossible to do so. Some could not speak for tears: violent exclamations against ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... this tenor, Burr, adapting himself to the moods of his sedate ally, unfolded his purposes. The philosopher heard, acquiesced, and accepted the part assigned to him in the execution of the great business. Blennerhassett's temperament, however, was such as to check, in some degree, ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... ugly. He liked especially the black mahogany sideboard in the dining-room, and he was enthusiastic about the four-post bed that Mr. Cronin had slept in for thirty years without ever thinking it was a beautiful thing. This massive furniture represented a life that Ned perceived for the first time, a sedate monotonous life; and he could see these people accomplishing the same tasks from daylight to dark; he admired the well-defined circle of their interests and the calm security with which they spoke of the same things every evening, ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... then turned and took a peep at him. As soon as he had done so he gave a great shout, and then, recovering himself, burst into a roar of laughter. He clapped his hands on his knees and fairly swayed with merriment. Master Freake looked at him with a sedate half-smile, and said, "How d'ye do, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... clattered through the door-way and left him with the group of elders who closed the proceedings and locked up the school. But after this, further delay was impossible. The whole party moved out into the moonlight, and the Rector and his son, the schoolmaster and the teachers, commenced a sedate parish gossip, while Bill trotted behind, wondering whether any possible or impossible business would take one of them his way. But when the turning-point was reached, the Rector ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... appeared pretty clearly in the starlight, was small, chubby-cheeked, young, sedate, and dressed in a scarlet livery, exposed from top to toe through the opening of a long gray cloak, then called a capenoche, a Spanish word contracted; in French it was cape-de-nuit. His head was covered by a crimson cap, like the skull-cap of a cardinal, on which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... best known and most respected citizens of Lowell. Dignified and sedate, but just touch on old Exeter days and watch their eyes twinkle and their ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... their ravines. Here, three thousand feet and more above the sea—upon which we looked down between cliff and woodland as through a funnel, and upon the roofs and whitewashed walls of fishing-villages on the edge of the blue—lived slow, sedate folks, who called their dogs off us and stared upon us as portents and gave us goat's-milk and bread, refusing the coins we proffered. The inhabitants of this Cape (I have since learned) are a race ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... discuss abstract propositions. He believed that this doctrine of courtesy was being carried to great lengths.[241] Evidently the young Senator, fresh from the brisk atmosphere of the House, was restive under the conventional restraints of the more sedate Senate. He ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... hopeless peculiarity. This emportement, this chaleur—generous, perhaps, but excessive—would yet, he feared, do me a mischief. It was a pity. I was not—he believed, in his soul—wholly without good qualities; and would I but hear reason, and be more sedate, more sober, less en l'air, less coquette, less taken by show, less prone to set an undue value on outside excellence—to make much of the attentions of people remarkable chiefly for so many feet of stature, des couleurs ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... and sedate, Or ought to be, that's certain; But sometimes, owing to the state Of human passions, or to fate, It is a scene of fierce debate And wrath; but ere it is too late I'll ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... work,—a favour attested, so far as earlier times are concerned, by the vast number of manuscripts existing of it. The "Host" is, so to speak, charged with the constant injunction of this cardinal principle of popularity as to both theme and style. "Tell us," he coolly demands of the most learned and sedate of ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... decided the momentous question of our route, we gave ourselves up to the unrestrained enjoyment of the few pleasures which the small and sedate village of Kluchei afforded. There was no afternoon promenade where we could, as the Russians say, "show ourselves and see the people"; nor would an exhibition of our tattered and weather-stained garments on a public promenade have been quite the proper thing, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Gravelotte. But one mark of a writer's greatness is that different minds can find in him different inspirations; and Professor Erlin, who hated the Prussians, gave his enthusiastic admiration to Goethe because his works, Olympian and sedate, offered the only refuge for a sane mind against the onslaughts of the present generation. There was a dramatist whose name of late had been much heard at Heidelberg, and the winter before one of his plays had been given at the theatre amid the cheers of adherents and the hisses of decent people. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... slid by, and the young bloodhound grew more sedate and less given to violent exercise. And then Bates succeeded in persuading the Colonel into allowing him to kennel the Lady Desdemona. It is true the kennel given her was pretty nearly the size of a horse's loose box, and had a little covered outside yard of ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... of its mistress,—even to the Major's sword and the twin doves. Esther, a stout middle-aged dame, and stanch Congregationalist, recommended by the good women of the parish, is installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As gardener, groom, (a sedate pony and square-topped chaise forming part of the establishment,) factotum, in short,—there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who has his quarters in an airy loft ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... vast improvement, as a resort, over any south coast town we had yet seen. It is not gay, it is rather sedate, and certainly eminently respectable and dignified. Giant wheels, hurdy-gurdies, and quack photographers are banished from its beach and esplanade, and one may stroll undisturbed by anything but perambulators and bath-chairs. Its sea-front walk of a couple ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... made this boy—Helen's boy, with Helen's nature strong in him, only the more sensible of his deficiencies as well as his responsibilities—humble, self-distrustful, and full of doubts and fears. Ten years seemed to have passed over his head since morning, changing him from a boy into a sedate, thoughtful man. ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... then," she said smiling, and looking up with a glance of brightness, such as her hitherto sedate face had never ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... persuaded to say that he thought Primrose's scheme a wise one, but this chance encounter might never have led to anything further but for a little coincidence which shows what a small place the world is, after all. When Primrose and Daisy, Poppy and the sedate Miss Slowcum, joined Jasmine, as she stood with her companion examining Nelson's monument, they were accompanied by a handsome, bright-faced boy, who ran up to Mr. Noel, and linked his hand within his arm. This boy turned out to be young Frank Ellsworthy, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... more like two boys of opposite natures rolled into one, than just one ordinary boy. When quite a little chap, he would at one time be as full of noise, action, and enterprise as the captain of an ocean steamer in a gale, and at another time be as sedate, thoughtful, and absentminded as the ancient philosopher who made himself famous by walking into a well in ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... upon us," he said, with a certain sedate pomposity which, like the black crest on his head, might be ludicrous in itself, but seemed fitting enough in him. "I speak for my people who are in camp upon the island. We have been upon strange rivers, and over mountains where the very name of Frenchman is unknown. Yet we have returned, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... stood, motionless with dismay. Right in front of her, half-reclining in a veranda chair, was a lady, a richly dressed lady of very sedate appearance, who was gazing with startled eyes ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... must have seeded in. It looked as if she might have gone over to the other side of the island. 'Twas neat and pretty all about the house, and a lovely day in July. We walked up from the beach together very sedate, and I felt for poor Nathan's little pin to see if 'twas safe in my dress pocket. All of a sudden Joanna come right to the fore door and stood ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... wine-clerk of the Grand Babylon,' said Felix, with a certain emphasis. 'A sedate man of forty. He has the keys of the cellars. He knows every bottle of every bin, its date, its qualities, its value. And he's a teetotaler. Hubbard is a curiosity. No wine can leave the cellars ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... meet for the last jollification of the season to-night, and they have all express't a wish to have the pleasure of your company. I hope you will allow me to say you will come? We meet at nine, sup at ten, and break up at twelve, quite regularly, in a very sedate and ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... In thankful blessedness, which yet survives. Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time A parti-colored show of grave and gay, Solid and light, short-sighted and profound; Of inconsiderate habits and sedate, Consorting in one mansion unreproved. The worth I knew of powers that I possessed, Though slighted and too oft misused. Besides, That summer, swarming as it did with thoughts Transient and idle, lacked not intervals When Folly from the frown ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... joke brings back good-humor to an angry mob, or makes mad and pugnacious bullies cower and slink away from derision harder to stand than hard knocks,—even so will a quizzical Punch be efficient as a philanthropist, when sedate exhortations or stern warnings would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... of substantial boots made by Mr. Russell of this town, having eyes which I call blue, and hair which I do not know what to call.... Secondly, with regard to my normal qualities, I am rather lazy than otherwise, and certainly do not study as hard as I ought to. I am not dissipated and I am not sedate, and when I last ascertained my college rank, I stood in the humble ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was excessive. His rector, moreover, had a trick of preaching upon the practical issues of the day, while he left to his assistant the driving home the points of doctrine. And the assistant did drive them home most lustily and with resounding whacks, until the sedate walls of old Saint Peter's echoed with the blows, and the congregations gathered in old Saint Peter's danced with the pain of the prickings. The mere presence of a pin is not sufficient to produce any callousness of mind or body. Saint Peter's ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... him to do this thing also. What faculty of caution the boy possessed was not as yet developed; he left the care for consequences to the sedate lady in the stern, and forgetting his quest of the Missouri shore, lay in the path of the steam-boat and howled unmusically, and marred the peace of the placid morning by shouting concerning a runaway slave and a fabulous reward that was offered for ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... cars. It was welcome music as it echoed over the foothills of the Alleghenies, and entirely new to nearly all who heard it. With the railway came the telegraph, the express, and the advent of the daily newspaper among the people. In a single year the community was transformed from its sedate and quiet ways into more energetic, progressive, and speculative life. It was a new civilization that had come to disturb the dreams of nearly a century, and it rapidly extended its new influences until it reached the remotest ends of the little county, and with this beneficent progress ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... flank. Farnese's situation seemed, desperate; while the shrewd Bearnese sat smiling serenely, carefully watching at the mouth of the trap into which he had at last inveigled his mighty adversary. Secure of his triumph, he seemed to have changed his nature, and to have become as sedate and wary as, by habit, he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with yourself!" Vanderborn, who is sedate in the ordinary, cries, "It's not me yet, you see! Here I am!" With a mad gesticulation he serves me a thump on the shoulder. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... of to-day the Enquiry betrays no party flavour, but its sedate pages clearly stirred up the hot feeling of the times. Early in February the Advertiser announced "This Day is published A Letter to Henry Fielding Esqre. occasioned by his Enquiry into the causes of the late increase of Robbers &c." And about the end of ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... the delight of my occupation—all acted as a strong wine on my mood, and sent my spirits soaring to immoderate heights I am very much afraid I made myself a nuisance, at times, to some of the more sedate of my grown-up companions. I wish they could know that I have truly repented. I wish they had known at the time that it was the exuberance of my happiness that played tricks, and no wicked desire to annoy kind friends. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... drops, that remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men's rough coats. The peasants looked at "the master," waiting for him to speak, and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This confused silence was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward, who considered himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian remarkably well. This strong, over-fed man, and Nekhludoff himself, presented a striking contrast to the peasants, with their thin, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... early in November. In the sedate Milbrey dining-room a brisk wood-fire dulled the edge of the first autumn chill. At the breakfast-table, comfortably near the hearth, sat Horace Milbrey. With pointed spoon he had daintily scooped the golden pulp from a Florida ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... the king of rolling waves Whose gems are piled in sunless caves, And threw his challenge to the sea; "Come forth, O King, and fight with me." He spoke, and from his ocean bed The righteous(567) monarch heaved his head, And gave, sedate, his calm reply To him whom fate impelled to die: "Not mine, not mine the power," he cried, "To cope with thee in battle tried; But listen to my voice, and seek The worthier foe of whom I speak. The Lord of Hills, where hermits ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... her canoe out of the main river into one of the many narrow channels amongst the wooded islets, and paddled vigorously over the black and sleepy backwaters towards Sambir. Her canoe brushed the water-palms, skirted the short spaces of muddy bank where sedate alligators looked at her with lazy unconcern, and, just as darkness was setting in, shot out into the broad junction of the two main branches of the river, where the brig was already at anchor with sails ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... had been profoundly shaken. Sedate Boston gave more generously than ever before to militant finances. And when the "Prison Special" arrived a few days later a Boston theatre was filled to overflowing with a crowd eager to hear more about their local heroines, and to cheer ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... which of the two was the more beautiful. Both were unusually lovely. Alma Trepka was queenly, her movements sedate, her disposition calm and unclouded—Carl Bloch could paint a Madonna, or even a Christ, from her face without making any essential alteration in the oval of its contours. Clara Rothe's beauty was that of the white hart ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... series of brilliant puns. More important merits than this must, no doubt, be attributed to Max Mueller; but, after all, so wayward is he and so whimsical, such a lover of paradox and of digression, that he must perpetually exasperate that sedate race of men whom Philology is supposed to have peculiarly chosen for its own. In this second series of Lectures, especially, "we have been at a great feast of languages, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... vitality because it has been raised in an unwholesome atmosphere. I should have been surrounded by hardy, mischievous, noisy playmates of my own age and sex, but instead of that I played only with gentle little girls. I was always careful and precise in my manners, and my curled hair and sedate bearing gave me the appearance of a little eighteenth ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... deliberation. In truth the Scotchman, with his national caution, was rather skeptical as to Tom's news, and did not suffer himself to become enthusiastic or excited. Tom had hard work to accommodate his impatient steps to the measured pace of his more sedate companion. When at length they reached the spot they found Russell no ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the boats, are considerably below the level of the pier, so that they have to look up at the girls, who look down at them with eager, anxious faces. The men, sure that their fish will be sold in the long-run, are quiet sedate, silent. The women, anxious to get good bargains and impatient to get home, bend forward, shouting, screaming, and flourishing arms, fists, and umbrellas. Every one carries an umbrella in Bergen, for that city is said to be the rainiest in the world. Of gay colours are these umbrellas too. Pink ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... array; With a good round dozen of bards to lead them And their wives all waving their hands to speed them, While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state, With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate. It wasn't his place to fight or tramp; When the warriors went he stayed in camp; But still from his chair he harped them on Till the very last of the host had gone, Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head And, leaving his seat, ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... calms, the dash of storms, and the romance of many strange lands about him. Now, if our admired hero should abandon his adventurous profession, and settle down quietly into the civilised career of an innkeeper, or village constable, or shopman, or sedate church clerk, and we chanced to meet him years after his "life on the ocean wave," it would probably be to find a sober-faced gentleman, with forehead a little bald, with somewhat of a paunch, with sturdy legs and gaiters, perhaps with a stiff stock and dignified ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... sedate and patient eye, Thou mark'st the zealots pass thee by To rave and raise a hue and cry Against each other: Thou see'st a Father up on ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... Hall was standing wide open, and save for a glimpse of the discreet John very busy in his shirt-sleeves, I saw no one about. I was glad to reach my room unobserved. I knew that my feeling was unreasonable, but entering that sedate house, under the blaze of the morning sun, I was ashamed of my tawdry dress. A sense of dissipation and revelry seemed to hang about ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... a woman of experience, who had been in service with the gentry, first as a wet-nurse, afterwards as a children's nurse, expressed herself with refinement, and a soft, sedate smile never left her face; her daughter Lukerya, a village peasant woman, who had been beaten by her husband, simply screwed up her eyes at the student and said nothing, and she had a strange expression like that of a ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "I know it all. I know Jim Ratcliffe, and a burly old monster he is. I know Nick of Redlands—also the sedate Mrs. Nick. And, last but not least, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... the effects, which sagacious mortals visibly experience to be the consequential result of natural causes. 'Tis the novelty of the experiment which makes impressions on their conceptive, cogitative faculties; that do not previse the facility of the operation adequately, with a subact and sedate intellection, associated with diligent and congruous study. Consequently let all manner of perturbation abdicate the ventricles of your brains, if anyone has invaded them while they were contemplating what is ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... hundred and fifty. Not long after the arrival of the two brothers, they formed themselves into six lines, and having laid aside many of their superfluous ornaments, and a portion of their clothing, they put on the most sedate countenance, and commenced their devotional exercises in a spirit of seriousness and apparent fervour, worthy of a better place and a more amiable creed. In the exterior forms of their religion, at least, the Mussulmans are here complete adepts, as this spectacle was well calculated to convince ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the sitting-room Eileen Meredith could see two men occasionally pass and re-pass the house. They did not go by often, but she knew that even if she could not see them they always held the house in view. They were not journalists—they were more sedate, older men. Nor did they molest any one who entered or left the house. They merely exercised a quiet, unwearying, unobtrusive surveillance, and Eileen knew that Heldon Foyle had taken his own way of preventing her ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... the final stage, when the decrepit old man, like the unwieldy though most sagacious elephant, becomes grave, sedate, and distrustful. He then also begins to hang down his head towards the ground, as if surveying the place where all his vast schemes must terminate, and where ambition and vanity are ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... on the first floor, I had a glimpse of his father. I remember him as a sedate man who did not insist. If he set a boy right, it was done but verbally; the boy was left to see the justness of the point and to act on it for himself. I gathered, later, that James Prince had done little, unaided, for himself; whatever ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... lip. Energetic prying admits first his head, then he squeezes his body through, brushing past the stamens as he finally disappears inside. At the moment when he is forcing his way in, causing the lower lip to spring up and down, the eyeless turtle seems to chew and chew until the most sedate beholder must smile at the paradoxical show. Of course it is the bee that is feeding, though the flower would seem to be masticating the bee with the keenest relish! The counterfeit tortoise soon disgorges its lively ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... however, that this twelve-year-old, Ma-ta-oka, fully deserved, even when she should have been on her good behavior among the white people, the nickname of "little tomboy" (po-ca-hun-tas) that her father had given her,—for we have the assurance of sedate Master William Strachey, secretary of the colony, that "the before remembered Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleven or twelve years, did get ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... Amelia Sedley bromidic. So we might follow the line of cleavage between the two groups in Art, Religion and Politics. Compare, for instance, President Roosevelt with his predecessor in office—the Unexpected versus the sedate Thermometer of Public Opinion. Compare Bernard Shaw with Marie Corelli—one would swear that their very brains were differently colored! Their epigrams and platitudes are merely the symptoms of different methods of thought. One need not consult one's prejudice, affection or taste—the Sulphitic ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... she said, "behave this evening with propriety, like a well-bred girl; and from this day forth be more sedate. Do not chatter heedlessly, and never walk alone with Monsieur Giguet, or Monsieur Olivier Vinet, or the sub-prefect, or Monsieur Martener,—in fact, with any one, not even Achille Pigoult. You will not marry any of the young men of Arcis, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... have a little money over and above these things," proceeded Miss Peel in her sedate voice. "I am not rich, but I'll allow you— yes, I'll manage to allow you two shillings a week. That will be for pocket-money, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... who occupied the middle step between the two, and was of a much more sedate and equable nature than either of her sisters, suddenly effected a diversion that did more to raise Cissy's spirits than all Conny's whispered ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... Cathedral walls, as described in Edwin Drood. Jackdaws fly about the tower, but there are no rooks, as also stated. Near Minor Canon Row, to the right of Boley Hill (or "Bully Hill," as it is sometimes called), is the "paved Quaker settlement," a sedate row of about a dozen houses "up in ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... Paganini in London several years, as he made his first appearance before an English audience in 1826. It was fortunate, perhaps, for De Beriot that such was the case, as it is more than probable that, after the dazzling and electric displays of the Geneose player, the more sedate and simple style which then characterized De Beriot would have failed to please. As it was, he was most cordially admired, and was generally recognized by English connoisseurs, as well as by the general public, as one of the most accomplished players who had ever visited England. The pecuniary ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... the mild state of passivity or enthusiasm created makes him more susceptible to the influence brought to bear upon him. This is true of religious singing and chanting, from the forest gatherings of the primitive savage down to the more sedate and elaborate assemblages in ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... Madame's summons Robin and Beryl came to the library, nervously sedate in manner and with fingers intertwined ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... the place also had their opinions, and expressed them to each other; especially the bronzed, stalwart sedate-looking men who hung about in knots near the centre of the village, and seemed to estimate the probability of the stout young Englishmen on horseback being likely to require their services often—for these, said the driver, were the celebrated guides of Chamouni; men ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the stirring scenes provided such vivid contrast to what he had hitherto known and seen of life that his soul was greedy for it all. To Mike these scenes were all familiar; his attitude towards them was one of quiet indifference, and he regarded Jim's rapture with the amused tolerance a sedate, elderly gentleman feels for the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... warm colours. It is in this way that the warmth of distance and the horizon reconciles the azure of the sky with the greenness of a landscape. Its less powerful discord is yellow, which needs to be similarly resolved by a purple-red, or its principles. In tone, green is cool or warm, sedate or gay, either as it inclines to blue or to yellow; yet in its general effects it is cool, calm, temperate, and refreshing. Having little power in reflecting light, it is a retiring colour, and readily subdued by distance: for the same reason, ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... apt to stray off into the dashing details that tell of a great wrestle of armies. One eminent man—whom I believe to have uttered a libel—has declared that women like war, and that they are usually the means of urging men on. He is a very sedate and learned philosopher who wrote that statement, and yet I cannot believe it. Ah, no! Our ladies can give their dearest up to death when the State calls on them, but they will never be like the odious viragoes of the Roman circus. At any rate, if any woman acts ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... boatswain's mate was very sedate, Yet fond of amusement, too; And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch, While the captain tickled the crew. And the gunner we had was apparently mad, For he sat on the after rail, And fired salutes with the captain's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... as heart-whole and free as a girl's—interrupted the ranchman's disparaging comments on his fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she understood the universal devotion of all to their ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... a party of those sedate and Germanesquely philosophical animals, the pigs, scrambling precipitately under a gate from out a cabbage-patch toward nightfall, may, perhaps, have observed, that, immediately upon emerging from the sacred vegetable preserve, a couple of the more elderly and designing of them assumed a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... They are the gratuitous jesters of the class-room; and, like the clown when he leaves the stage, their merriment too often sinks as the bell rings the hour of liberty, and they pass forth by the Post-Office, grave and sedate, and meditating fresh gambols for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of his wallet, and said he would skip some of the private phrases, if we were willing; then he went on and read the bulk of it—a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards and messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have witnessed during this debate, is not only mortifying, but it renders one almost hopeless of the permanence of our Government if this is to be the example set by one of the Houses of Congress, that which claims to be more sedate and deliberate, if it proposes in this light and perfunctory way to deal with questions of this grave nature and import. Sir, there is no time at present for that preparation which such a subject demands at the hands of any sensible man, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... bewildered, after listening intent, with grave and wondering eyes, to the conversation around him; at others, the bright animal life shone forth radiant, and no three-months' kitten—no foal, suddenly tossing up its heels by the side of its sedate dam, and careering around the pasture in pure mad enjoyment—no young creature of any kind, could show more merriment and gladness ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Under some sedate shade trees, you are led to an old Pennsylvania stone farmhouse—the administration building, if you please. Beyond are the barns, poultry houses, nurseries and greenhouses, and a cottage which is used as a dormitory for the girls—as unlike the usual dormitory as the school ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... village from which a crowd came out to look at them. The Cossacks on the Russian side of the river were highly satisfied and jovial. Laughter and jokes were heard on all sides. The captain and the head of the village entered the mud hut to regale themselves. Lukashka, vainly striving to impart a sedate expression to his merry face, sat down with his elbows on his knees beside Olenin and whittled ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... came to the one vulnerable part in all the haw-haw's length. She showed him how to take the bricks out and where to place his feet, and pointed out how secluded from any eye the place was. Then, as he climbed down and then up again, and looked across at her from Wendover lands, she said a sedate good-by, and turning, went on among the thickly growing saplings of the copse and, never looking back, was ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... or when ridden; but I even the quietest horse in the world is apt to show annoyance if very great liberties are taken with his person by either man or hound. My experience teaches me to remember this fact and not try a horse, who is not a huntsman's mount, too highly in this respect. The more sedate pup of the two is in fine condition, because he takes no liberties with the horses and therefore he obtains his requisite exercise; but if I wanted a bold, generous, dashing foxhound who can use his nose, swim a river or perform in brilliant style ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... and quiet the house seemed! Nothing broke the silence but the solemn "tick-tack" of the big clock in the hall, which had been ticking in the same sedate manner since the days when Elsie's grandmother had been a little girl. Feeling her way down the length of the hall, not without an occasional bump against chairs and other such obstacles, Elsie came to a little lobby or cloak-room, having at the farther end a half-glass door, ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... throng, as was ever the case in Puritan Boston, where the hats, cloaks and doublets of the people were made of dark, coarse materials, not designed to flatter the lust of the eye. The visages suited the garments, wearing a sedate or severe expression, whether the cast of the features above the broad white collars were broad and ruddy, or pale and hollow-cheeked. There was a touch of the fanatic in many of these countenances, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... clergyman's mind? She watched him, in spite of herself—strangely fascinated; stole looks at him during this meal, and the next, and when they passed upon the stairway. He had a confusingly contradictory face, had the Reverend Herbert E. Pyecroft—for such she learned was his full name; a face customarily sedate and elderish, and then, almost without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful; with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden straightening ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... day Aronffy was completely changed. The good-humored, spirited young fellow became suddenly a quiet, serious, sedate man, who would never join us in any amusement. He avoided the world, and I remarked that in the world he did his best to ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... any man, they might have been excused in Milton. But the strength of his mind overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect had power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits do not seem to have been high, but they were singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps stern; but it was a temper which no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such as it was when, on the eve of great ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord |
