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adjective
Staid  adj.  Sober; grave; steady; sedate; composed; regular; not wild, volatile, flighty, or fanciful. "Sober and staid persons." "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue."
Synonyms: Sober; grave; steady; steadfast; composed; regular; sedate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Staid" Quotes from Famous Books



... rill, Which now through all its course stands still and dumb Its own memorial,—purling at its play Along the slopes, and through the meadows next, Until its youthful sound was hushed at last In the staid current of the lowland stream; Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned, And where the fieldfare followed in the rear, When all the fields around lay bound and hoar Beneath a thick integument of snow. So by God's cheap economy made rich ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... say he was not an adventurer?" remarked the staid British landowner—one of a class perhaps the most conservative and narrow-minded in all ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... neighbours and friends of the sick yong man, and offered it to his patient. But the bold and hardy woman, to the end she might accomplish her wicked intent, and also gaine the money which she had promised the Physitian, staid the pot with her hand, saying: I pray you master Physitian, minister not this drinke unto my deare Husband, untill such time as you have drunke some part thereof your selfe: For what know I, whether you have mingled any poyson in the drinke or no, wherein ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... sight, I had improved my knowledge of the old coachman; and every look added to my liking. There was something I could not read that more and more drew me to him. A simplicity in his good manners, a placid expression in his gravity, a staid reserve in his humility, were all there; and more yet. Also the scene in the dell was charming to me. The ground about the negro cottages was kept neat; they were neatly built of stone and stood round the sides of a quadrangle; while on each side and below the wooded slopes of ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... Here is my key. Mind your orders!" So saying, he jumped into the boat; and though John ran as quick as he could, to get the Captain's permission to accompany him, the boat had left the ship by the time he came back. John staid on deck, watching with a glass all the boat's movements; he saw it safe alongside the other vessel, where it was detained nearly half-an-hour, he then had just light enough to see it leave the ship on ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford

... take care of yourself! You are the least fitted to have a child of any woman that I know. Leave all such charges to staid people like me. Why, you are a baby ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... any special claim to it as against any other portion of the tribe. He had frequently gone into it during the summer to fish and hunt, in common with various other bands of the tribe, but had never staid more than a few weeks at a time, and had made his home during the greater portion of each year in the Imnaha Valley near the ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields

... thoughts; this gentle, quiet companion for the autumn of his life—the thought was singularly attractive—infinitely more so than the thought of Dora or Bee that had always possessed also an element of distraction alarming to a man of staid habits. ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... to say, a close imitator of the oratory of Lord Erskine, with whom, till he died, he was on terms of the greatest intimacy. In fact he was writing his life for publication, by the express desire of Erskine himself, when death staid the pen. Alas! but a few pages of it were written, and those in the rough, I will, however, lay them, ere I ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper

... consequences. It was certain, he intimated, that the enemy would soon seek revenge with all his strength, and "with all the devices and traps he could devise." This was a matter which could not be doubted. "But," said Sir Francis, "I thank them much that they have staid so long, and when they come they shall be but the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... roadways, found consolation in speculative philosophy and romantic literature. The North American Review was already fifteen years old, and the best minds of the country were happy to have their thought and inspirations printed in its staid columns. Boston was a state of mind in 1830, and a good Methodist preacher who visited the city a little later lamented the lapse from the great virtues and the great theology ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... of site. On either side of the sandy road, as Conscience drove to the station, elms and silver oaks and maples were wearing new and tender shades of green. Among the sober pines they reminded her of fashionables flaunting their finery in the faces of staid conservatives. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... her a civil Salute, she should curtsy and be humble, nevertheless. Her innocent forsooths, yess, and't please yous, and she would do her Endeavour, moved the good old Lady to take her out of the Hands of a Country Bumpkin her Brother, and hire her for her own Maid. I staid till I saw them all marched out to take Coach; the brother loaded with a great Cheese, he prevailed upon her to take for her Civilities to [his] Sister. This poor Creatures Fate is not far off that of hers whom I spoke ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... at her beauteous face and hearing her thus inquire concerning his sickness, hoped that she might be willing to afford him a remedy. But at the same time, observing the grave and staid expression of her countenance, he became afraid, feeling himself to be in the presence of a judge whose sentence, he suspected, would be against him. Nevertheless he swore to her that this love had taken root in his heart in the days of his earliest youth, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... Alfred Clarke staid late at Colonel Zane's that night. Before going away for so many weeks he wished to have a few more moments alone with Betty. But a favorable opportunity did not present itself during the evening, so when he had bade ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... trusted without security, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; nor that it made him think himself secure, for, at that dissolution of government which followed the death of Oliver, he returned into France, where he resumed his former station, and staid till the restoration[11]. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... you?" "Under the tree, by the meadow-brook Reading, and oh, it was too lovely; I never saw such a charming book." The charming book must have pleased her, truly, There's a happy light in her bright young eyes And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor, To staid ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.

... I staid at Mrs. Pruden's about three months after this; I was then sent back to Mr. Williams to be sold. Oh, that was a sad sad time! I recollect the day well. Mrs. Pruden came to me and said, "Mary, you will have to go home directly; your master is ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... hundred 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 shall it be?" A flute-like ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... 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 ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... the ninth and seventh, augmented or diminished, in a selected fugue of that mad iconoclast Bach; or to mark two dozen examples of canon and counterpoint in the first act of the latest opera by the staid pillar of classicism, Richard Wagner! After which betrayal of his mental state, the master leaped to his feet, jammed his ancient hat over his eyes, called out that his classes for the next three days were to take their instruction from Balakirev, Gregoriev ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... a bellowing and pawing around the corral, for they was desperate hungry and thirsty, hadn't had nothing since the night before; yet we couldn't help them any, as we didn't know whether we was shet of the Ingins or not. We staid, patient-like, for two or three hours more after dark to see what the Ingins was going to do, as while we sot round our little fire of buffalo-chips, smoking our pipes, we could still hear the red devils a howling and chanting, while they ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... She went about quietly and made the best of the matter, altogether unlike my Aunt Lucinda of two years ago, and I believe she had a feeling of pity for the weary-looking mother of this disorderly family; she did remark to the Widow Green, on the day of their removal, that "she believed if they had staid much longer, her head would have been turned with their noise and confusion." But they were gone at last, and assisted by the Widow Green my aunt went from room to room, and endeavored again to bring order out of the mass of litter and confusion; remarking that the house looked as though it had ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell

... could none esteem But virtue's patriot theme, You lov'd her hills, and led her laureat band: But staid to sing alone To one distinguish'd throne; 35 And turn'd thy face, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... Thou 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 one whose ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... he was, but he would much rather have staid with them in the corn field than have carried that great yellow ball half a mile ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... no rival, she still had a regard for me at the bottom of her heart; and how I liked her all the better for her coy, maiden airs: and I received the assurance over and over that there was no one else; and that Sarah (they all knew) never staid five minutes with any other lodger, while with me she would stay by the hour together, in spite of all her father could say to her (what were her motives, was best known to herself!) and while we were talking of her, she came bounding into the room, smiling with smothered ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt

... you should wait, and choose for yourself, for in the matter of servants everyone has his fancies. Some like a silent knave, while others prefer a merry one. Some like a tall proper fellow, who can fight if needs be; others a staid man, who will do his duty and hold his tongue, who can cook a good dinner and groom a horse well. It is certain you will never find all virtues combined. One man may be all that you wish, but he is a liar; another helps himself; a third is too fond ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... huge mass displaced water enough to submerge many islands and to reconstruct the shore lines of every continent. There was untold loss of life and property, of course, but it is astonishing how easily those who were left alive accepted the new state of things, when it was found that the staid earth, in spite of the enormous wart on her side, was making her daily revolution ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... country-home beyond Liverpool, where they staid till the ship was ready to sail again. He amused his mother and sisters with stories of Osgood's adventures on sea and land, and represented him in the light of a "Jarley's wax-works" hero, till he was fairly cured ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... of the respectable officer, Captain Granville staid not to question on a subject that spoke so plainly for itself. Hastening back into the piazza with his subalterns, he reached the area just as the remaining troops, intended for the occupation of the Fort, were crossing the drawbridge, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... father lived, had forty apartments for men, exclusive of stables; twenty below and twenty above, the place having two stories. The staircase was within the inclosure, and was composed of rough boards; while he staid, the rooms were constantly occupied by natives and strangers; they hired rooms for three months, for which they paid thirty okiat, or fifteen shillings sterling per month. These fondacs are called Woal[24] ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... to Newlands, a still more beautiful place. Immense trenching and draining going on—the foreman a Caffre, black as ink, six feet three inches high, and broad in proportion, with a staid, dignified air, and Englishmen working under him! At the streamlets there are the inevitable groups of Malay women washing clothes, and brown babies sprawling about. Yesterday, I should have bought a black woman for her beauty, had it been still possible. ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... a pretty girl, but neither was she an ill-looking one. Neither tall nor very slender, her vigorous little figure had still a certain charm of trim erectness and youthful grace, though Imogen was twenty-four, and considered herself very staid and grown-up. A fresh, rosy skin, beautiful hair of a warm, chestnut color, with a natural wave in it, and clear, honest, blue eyes, went far to atone for a thick nose, a wide mouth, and front teeth which projected slightly and seemed a size too large for the face to which they belonged. Her dress ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... mornings, and returned laden in the evenings. Sailors and fisher-folk travelled the red, winding harbor roads, light-hearted and content. There was always a certain sense of things going to happen—of adventures and farings-forth. The ways of Four Winds were less staid and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery and possibilities ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,[72] And you are staid for. There,—my ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... deeming it better that in these times of pith and enterprise they should be more seemly employed. My Lord, because of one or two misadventures by reason of the slipperiness of the ice, was fain to go by London Bridge, which we did; my Lord as suited his humor ruffling the staid citizens as he passed or peering under the hoods of their wives and daughters—as became a young gallant of the time. I, being a plain, blunt man, assisted in no such folly, but contented myself, when they complayned ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte

... showed itself in the second best instead of the best china, and a tendency to weak tea, when Miss Emily took hers very strong. And such was the effect of their mutual watchfulness and suspicion, such perhaps was the influence of the staid old house on me, after a time even that fact, of the strong tea, began to strike me as incongruous. Miss Emily was so consistent, so consistently frail and dainty and so—well, unspotted seems to be the word—and ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... "Oh yes! the doctor staid to supper, but was obliged to start and visit a patient who had sent for him, which compelled him to commence a five miles' ride ere he had well ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... Upham Corners assembled there together, dressed in their best, displaying their most staid and decorous demeanor, showed their fortunes in life plainly enough. Generally speaking, they were a poor and hard-working folk—poorer and harder working than the average people in villages. Upham Corners, from its hilly site, freely intersected with rock ledges, was not well calculated ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Mr. Nelson was a deputy to the triennial meetings of every General Convention, and became the principal spokesman in the House of Deputies. This body is not always as decorous and staid in its deliberations as the House of Bishops, but Mr. Nelson at all times commanded a respectful hearing among the deputies. He came to be one of the leaders who, as a veteran church-paper correspondent put it, "could read the signs ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick

... was divided by a sharp line into two portions, of which the sadder began when rapier and colours were hung up at home to accumulate the dust that falls from philistinism. Then the head must weary itself with staid matters, and the hand must loosen its hold upon the schlager and forget its cunning fence. Happy were those who merely exchanged the whistling blade of the student for the heavy sabre of the soldier, the green forest glade of the mensur ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... 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 ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... on Why We Come Again, in which she explained why the suffragists would continue to come to Washington and haunt Congress until their object, a Federal Amendment, had been attained. The humor for which Mrs. Miller, a staid "Quaker," was noted sparkled in its sentences although she protested that she was entirely serious. Miss Anthony introduced Henry B. Blackwell (Mass.) with the quaint remark: "He was the husband of Lucy Stone; I don't ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... the only staid countenance there, as Mabel said, pleasantly, moving her chair beyond the bounds of the ring, "I, for one, find the combustion of the upper forest growth too powerful, just at this instant. This is a genuine Christmas-storm—is it not? Listen ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... to that club, and there I went with roused curiosity to hear the other sides of questions already settled for me by the amiable officials and officers on the rue de Rivoli. I had been warned against the Cercle Bougainville by staid pensioners as being the resort of commoners and worse, of British and American ruffians, of French vulgarians, and of Chinese smugglers. This advice made a seductive advertisement of the club to me, anxious to know everything real and unveiled about the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... made at Greencastle Ind., and the wires between Cincinnati and that staid old Methodist town, were ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... following year, thus obtaining a little honor but no land. After the conquest of Veii, there was a movement on the part of the plebeians to remove from Rome and settle upon the confiscated territory of the Veians; this was only staid by concessions on the part of the patricians. A decree of the senate was passed,—"that seven jugera, a man, of Vientian territory, should be distributed to the commons and not only to the fathers of families, but also that all ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson

... sixteenth century towns of the New World were no exception, and their streets and plazas early exhibited a multicolored panorama, wherein freely mingled knight and predaceous priest, swashbuckler and staid hidalgo, timid Indian and veiled doncella—a potpourri of merchant, prelate, negro, thief, the broken in fortune and the blackened in character—all poured into the melting pot of the new West, and there steaming ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... suffer herself to be beguiled by the wiles of evil men. Poor Kate sobbed, promised, and louted confusedly; and in due course of time, when King Edward had been long in his grave, and Kate was a staid grandmother, the crown-piece held the place of honour on her son's chest of drawers as a ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... pointed out to me as having seen get out of a Hackney coach was Mr. Cochrane Johnstone—she staid the whole time of the striking of the Jury, he struck the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney

... late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He had been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother of three unwed and selfish sisters is an under dog. The tale of how Jo Hertz came to be a Loop-hound should not be compressed within the limits of a short story. It should ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... continuing in his place of power be able to hold a part of the ground which would all be finally lost if he should join the crusade against the Administration. Under these motives Mr. Seward retained his portfolio. He staid on and on, continually hoping to do some act of patriotic service, and steadily losing that great host of friends who for twenty years had looked to him with unfaltering ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... part of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries mark a rather barren period in the religious and cultural life of Denmark. The spiritual ferment of the Reformation had subsided into a staid and uniform Lutheran orthodoxy. Jesper Brochman, a bishop of Sjaelland and the most famous theologian of that age, praised king Christian IV for "the zeal with which from the beginning of his reign he had exerted himself to make all his subjects think and talk alike about divine things". That the ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... kind 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 you, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... had gone off! Then I wanted to go along with her a little bit an' Arthur an' Adolph, they came along. Next we dropped in the ladies' entrance at Kalinich's an' what with tastin' a lot o' toddy an' other liquors she got good an' tipsy. An' then she staid all night with a woman what's Arthur's sweetheart. All next day there was always two or three of us boys after her, didn't let her go, an' played all kinds o' tricks, an' ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Mitchell en she had a boy in schul. One summer she went 'way. A Mrs. Smith wid 10 boys wanted me ter stay wid her 'til Mrs. Mitchell got back en I staid en laked dem so well dat I wouldin go ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Tennessee Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... all, I fancy it's the unexpected things that give spice to life. We're eighteen, Diana. In two more years we'll be twenty. When I was ten I thought twenty was a green old age. In no time you'll be a staid, middle-aged matron, and I shall be nice, old maid Aunt Anne, coming to visit you on vacations. You'll always keep a corner for me, won't you, Di darling? Not the spare room, of course—old maids can't aspire to spare rooms, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... grown less pale and less thin; the angles in his figure were filled up. On his brow there was no trace of younger passion. No able vice had ever sharpened the expression—no exhausting vice ever deepened the lines. He was the beau-ideal of a county member,—so sleek, so staid, so business-like; yet so clean, so neat, so much the gentleman. And now there was a kind of pathos in his grey hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his quick and uneasy transition of posture, the tremble of ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... lasted a long time. I scarce had time enough to change my weed for the dance. Till this day I had sported like a fish in this torrent of turmoil and pleasure; but to-day I was weary. My body was in pain with my spirit, and I would fain have staid at home; but I minded me of the Queen who, albeit she was so much older, and was watched by all—every one expecting that she should be gracious—in her heavy royal array, went through all this of which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and might be a month in advance, and ought to be. But it was sheer talking and raving for a solace to his disappointment or his anxiety. He had to let Carinthia Jane depart under the charge of his housekeeper, Mrs. Carthew, a staid excellent lady, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... carrying men and women bent on marketing, which will spread brown sails in the evening and bear their passengers home again. Here at her red buoy lies Sir Lucius' smartly varnished pleasure boat, the Tortoise, reckoned "giddy" in spite of her name by staid, cautious island folk; but able, with her centre board and high peaked gunter lug to sail round and round any other boat in the bay. Here, brilliantly green, lies Priscilla's boat, the Blue Wanderer, a name appropriate two years ago ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... women's journals and magazines have sprung up, publishing excellent articles; and public meetings were held. Then one day the members of these clubs—four hundred of them—cast away their veils. The staid, fossilized class of society were shocked, the good Mussulmans were alarmed, and the Government forced into action. These four hundred liberty-loving women were divided into several groups. One group composed of forty have been exiled to Akka, and will arrive in a few days. Everybody ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... but we hardly know what to do with them. They are shy and homesick, and thus far have had little to say to any one but their dusky old Ayah, their Indian nurse. Now, children can get on best with children, and so, my dear madam, I beg that you will lend us yours,—those charming little daughters, staid Margaret and roguish Maud, and that fine lad Robert. As for wee Master Alfred, my baby godson, I make no demand on him for the present. We think that if they could spend a day at the Castle now and then, they would help to break the ice between us ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood

... sitting 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 acted before timidity and other ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... a great degree of thirst, sleepless nights, and uneasy sensations; at other times heavy yet restless sleep, with dreams approaching to delirium; but whatever they are, never failing to recur every fourth night regularly. I will not venture to say, whether, if I had staid in Europe, the use of proper means, under skilful treatment, might not have entirely removed the complaint, but the fact, as it exists at present, has verified Dr. ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel

... 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 was customary on these ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... Preferring, for his own part, to be known by no sectarian name but to be reckoned among 'Christians only,' Taylor was recognized far and wide as a writer extremely 'dangerous' to the ordinary type of belief. When the American revivalists were at their height, there were many quiet and staid New England ministers who found in Taylor a welcome ally against the extravagances which they witnessed and deplored. The more logical the Calvinist was, the more vivid in depicting the horrors of predestined damnation, the more vigorous these men ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... the 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

... outside it was apparent that many strange things had been done to the staid and dignified house of Reynolds. A mass of aerials hung above the roof. Some new windows had been cut at the second floor and filled with glass of a peculiar reddish-purple tinge. A residence had been turned ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... University ("Only to Malvern—and then I studied with an architect in London—Who? Mr. Praed, A.R.A.—but then I travelled for a bit, and after that I felt more than ever I wanted to go in for the Bar"—said David, with a charming smile which lit up his young face ordinarily so staid). Stansfield consented that David should come and read with him, and in many ways facilitated his progress so materially and so kindly that more than once the compunctious young Welshman thought of discarding the impersonation; and might have done so had not this most ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... refreshments. This, Mr. Palmer told me, was the Lounge of the Beau Monde, who were all to be found here after the Opera & Plays. We have nothing of the sort in England, therefore I shall not attempt to describe it. We staid here about an hour. The Company was numerous, & I suppose the best, at least it was better than any I had seen at the Theatres or in the Walks, but it appeared to me to be very bad. The Men I shall say nothing more of, they are all the same. They come to all Places in dirty Neckcloths ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... my hands in front of me And sit quite still and staid, Till Great-aunt Lucy, smiling, says, "Come ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... up their cards with dignity, and, without turning their heads, glared sideways at everyone who approached; and five or six local petty officials, with fair round bellies, fat, moist little hands, and staid, immovable little legs. These worthies spoke in a subdued voice, smiled benignly in all directions, held their cards close up to their very shirt-fronts, and when they trumped did not flap their cards on the table, but, on ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... the most interesting accomplishments of mathematical astronomy—from a mundane standpoint, at any rate—are those that refer to the earth's own satellite. That seemingly staid body was long ago discovered to have a propensity to gain a little on the earth, appearing at eclipses an infinitesimal moment ahead of time. Astronomers were sorely puzzled by this act of insubordination; but at last ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... orations of Caesar without a sound of acclamation or approval; not a hand stirred to applaud when the democratic consul entered the theatre. But they hissed when one of the tools of the regents showed himself in public, and even staid men applauded when an actor utteredan anti-monarchic sentence or an allusion against Pompeius. Nay, when Cicero was to be banished, a great number of burgesses— it is said twenty thousand—mostly of the middle classes, put on mourning after the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home. ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... other, penniless mechanics and pitmen, the crisis which more than all others rent the Covenanting church, so dear to the descendants of the old Whigs, was close at hand. All was forgotten for the hour in the strange resemblance which exists between one strain of the character of the staid Scotch, and a vein in the nature of the impulsive French, two nations that used to be trusty allies. There is, indeed, a bond to unite "Caledonia stern and wild" and "the sunny land of France;" a weft of passionate poetry crosses alike the woof of the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... what was the matter. Everything had gone without a hitch; that is, until staid old Ames had so hopelessly forgotten himself. The dinner was perfect, the decorations were beautiful, the small group of congenial people had seemed to enjoy themselves immensely, and best of all, Ydo had brought him the wonderful news that his period of suspense and waiting ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... litterateur wore conspicuously his cunningly entwined wreath. Ladies appeared at 'aesthetic tea-parties,' crowned with the most delicate of the new importations. Young clergymen were not complete without a flower in their button-holes, and the tables of staid old professors groaned beneath the weight of huge pyramidal bouquets. The cursory examination of foreign literature had given rise to an eclecticism which reflected the distinguishing features of that of Cousin, yet went ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... royalty itself, merriment seemed to spread. Every one began to laugh and to cry out. The magpies and the jays fluttered away uttering their guttural cries, beneath the waving avenues of oaks; the cuckoo staid his monotonous cry in the recesses of the forest; the chaffinch and tomtit flew away in clouds; while the terrified deer bounded riverwards from the midst of the thickets. This crowd, spreading joy, confusion, and light wherever it passed, was heralded, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... ha! I laugh to hear thy folly; This is a trap for boys, not men, nor such, Especially desertful in their doings, Whose staid discretion rules their purposes. I and my faction do eschew those vices. But see, O see, the weary sun for rest Hath lain his golden compass to the west, Where he perpetual bide and ever shine, As David's offspring in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... an old American lady came to where I sat, and gave me some staid advice. "Well, now, I tell you for your good, you'd better quit this, and not drive my people to extremities. If you do, you'll be sorry for it, I expect." Thus harassed, I appealed to the stewardess—a tall sour-looking woman, flat and ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... have staid where he was through the night—but his feelings were such, that he preferred to seek other lodgings. Accordingly, shouldering his pack, he set forth in quest of a resting place; which at the distance of a couple of miles, he was so fortunate as ...
— Whig Against Tory - The Military Adventures of a Shoemaker, A Tale Of The Revolution • Unknown

... travel as well as study. I must say, I like not his confident and bold manner and bearing toward my fair cousin; and he hath more the likeness of a cast-off dangler at the court, than of a modest and seemly country gentleman, of a staid and well-ordered house. Mistress Broughton says he was not at first accredited in Boston, but that her father, and Mr. Atkinson, and the chief people there now, did hold him to be not only what he professeth, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... spiritual longings in relation to their future Homes, I should do a good service to them and their families. The grand idea of Home is a quiet, secluded spot, where loving hearts dwell, set apart and dedicated to improvement—to intellectual and moral improvement. It is not a formal school of staid solemnity and rigid discipline, where virtue is made a task and progress a sharp necessity, but a free and easy exercise of all our spiritual limbs, in which obedience is a pleasure, discipline a joy, improvement a self-wrought ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... and was at one time worried by his neighbours and fined for refusing to serve in some parish offices. There was a fund of sagacity about the man which appears frequently in his later letters, but an utter absence of all sentiment and all sympathy. He had no nerves. Staid, stern, and curiously insensible to physical pain, he was absolutely fearless, with a constitution that could defy any hardships and bear any ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... wait here. There was no call to any other place. This was more familiar and more pleasant to her than any other—the Morells' cottage being far away, and out of the question—and here she could live with the utmost possible cheapness. So here she staid. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... surprised to find a crowd ready to welcome us. One and another cried out, 'Senum wants you to go to Zechariah's.' So to Zechariah's we went, and there was my pupil, waiting with open arms to receive me. She took me from my horse, exclaiming, 'Is it true that you have come? I have heard where you staid last night, and I know you did not sleep at all. Come right into my room; there are no fleas here; I have a bed that is clean, that I keep for the missionaries. I will spread it for you, and you shall sleep before any body comes ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... I have had the same feeling sometimes, Mr. Baxter. I am not always the staid respectable matron which I appear to you to be. Sometimes I—(She looks absently at the watch on ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne

... by birth a Magdeburger, age now thirty-four; a solid staid man, with a good deal of hard faculty in him, and of culture unusual for a soldier. A handy, sagacious, learned and intelligent man; whom Friedrich, in the course of a year's experience, has grown to see willingly about him. There is something of positive in Guichard, of stiff and, as it were, GRITTY, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... pressing grief we meet it, since the red-speared king of the noble house lives not. It is fearful to watch how the waves heave from the bottom; To them may be compared all those who with us lament him. A generous, wise, staid man, of whose renown the populous Tara was full. A shielded oak that sheltered the palace of Milid's sons. Master of the games of the fair hilled Taillten, King of Tara of a hundred conflicts; Chief of Fodla the noble, Aed of Oileac ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... on, "we're quite a staid married couple, and I feel I'm intended by nature for the ideal chaperon—for a blonde like Miss Grant. We shall look charming together, and though we mayn't make her comfortable, I guarantee to amuse her; for as a household we are unique. We live in an ugly, square apartment house—a ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... a half miles from shore. It was like a vessel, bound to Halifax, coming to anchor on the Grand Banks; for the shore being low, appeared to be at a greater distance than it actually was, and we thought we might as well have staid at Santa Barbara, and sent our boat down for the hides. The land was of a clayey consistency, and, as far as the eye could reach, entirely bare of trees and even shrubs; and there was no sign of a town,—not even a house to be ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... Churches, and happening just at the time of celebrating the first Mass, thousands were assembled in the Churches, the major part of whom were killed; for the great Buildings, particularly those which stood on any Eminence, suffered the most Damage. Very few of the Churches or Convents have escaped. We staid near two Hours in an open Campo; and a dismal scene it was, the People howling and crying, and the Sacrament going about to dying persons: so I advised, as the best, to return to the Square near ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... wrath of his wicked uncle Set. Yet she could not guard him from all mishap; for one day when Isis came to her little son's hiding-place she found him stretched lifeless and rigid on the ground: a scorpion had stung him. Then Isis prayed to the sun-god Ra for help. The god hearkened to her and staid his bark in the sky, and sent down Thoth to teach her the spell by which she might restore her son to life. She uttered the words of power, and straightway the poison flowed from the body of Horus, air passed into him, and he lived. Then Thoth ascended up into the sky ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... old solitude, varied only by the mutterings and grumblings of old Keery, who had lifted up her voice against Hitty's marriage with more noise and less effect than Mrs. Perkins, and, though she still staid by her old home and haunts, revenged herself on fate in general and her mistress in particular by a continual course of sulking, all the time hiding under this general quarrel with life a heart that ached with the purest tenderness and pity. So some people are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... you mazed amid old memories stand, So shall you toil, and shall accomplish nought, And ever in your ears a phantom Band Shall blare away the staid official thought. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Marie Antoinette, but more staid and homely than the vivacious daughter of Maria Theresa. Neither did she interfere much in politics, until the great crash came: even when the blow was impending, and the patriotic statesmen, with whom she sympathized, begged the King to remove Haugwitz, she ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... away to the Strand, to my bookseller's, and there staid an hour, and bought the idle, rogueish book, L'escholle des filles, which I have bought in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it, ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys

... to realm he ran, and never staid: Kingdoms and crowns he won, and gave away: It seemed as if his labours were repaid By the mere noise and movement of the fray: No conquests or acquirements had he made; His chief delight was, on some festive ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... promptly. "Up in the air, down on the ground or all around?" and she carried out her speech in action, finally spinning about on one foot in a manner to shock the more staid Elizabeth. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr

... Tim staid with him till the last moment, and then took up his job at the Golden Brier, apparently as depressed by the continued barrenness of their mutual labors as Philip was himself. After that, Philip fought his battle alone, day after day, and slow work it was; he could scarcely see ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... Lo'd did all de preachin' dat day. We finish' de hymn, an' we went down an' talked an' prayed wid de seekers, an' we staid dar all night, an' afore next mornin' twenty-three was converted an' praisin' God. Massa call for me, an' I 'spected my time cum now anyhow. But I was ready for death or life. I went without fear of any thing. He looked at me as mile as a lamb, an' said, 'Phil, my boy, you may preach, pray, or ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... very kindly, although with some little reserve under all their politeness; but I staid and staid in vain beyond the proper time; Miss Sarah did ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... children, clapping their hands and dancing about with delight, while their elders, perhaps equally pleased, expressed their admiration after a more staid and sober fashion. When they thought their handiwork had been sufficiently admired, Mrs. Dinsmore and Adelaide approached the tree and began the pleasant task of ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... commander in front, rode forth from different gates, and found on a certain spot some troopers or hussars of the persons entitled to an escort, who, with their leaders, were well received and entertained. They staid till towards evening, and then rode back to the city, scarcely visible to the expectant crowd, many a city knight not being in a condition to manage his horse, or keep himself in the saddle. The ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... may have passed away with the Ice Age, or they may have remained in Ohio, and begun slowly to take on some faint likeness of civilization. There is nothing to prove that they went, and there is nothing to prove that they staid; but Ohio must always have been a pleasant place to live in after the great thaw, and it seems reasonable to think that the Ice Folk lingered, in part at least, and changed with the changing climate, and became at last the people who left ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... 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 to ask my wife at the door how she and the children ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy

... against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with Heaven and earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much then, but to ride out in companies with prudent and well-staid guides, to all quarters of the land,' etc. Many other passages might be quoted, in which the poet breaks through the groundwork of prose, as it were, by natural fecundity and a genial, unrestrained sense of delight. To suppose that a poet is not easily ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... actually afraid of us, and would not send his boat to the watering-place, where we kept guard, and our coopers and sail-makers were at work, till he had first obtained leave of our captain; neither is this strange, for he knew we had a consort, and was in Spain all the time he staid there, lest the Success should ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... where except in Ireland, at Versailles and at Saint Ildefonso, in the armies of Frederic and in the armies of Maria Theresa. One exile became a Marshal of France. Another became Prime Minister of Spain. If he had staid in his native land he would have been regarded as an inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who drank the glorious and immortal memory. In his palace at Madrid he had the pleasure of being assiduously courted by the ambassador of George the Second, and of bidding defiance in high ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... don't try and Find me out, For I would not go with you again for the world. I am so much better Off here. I wish you would be a good boy, and leave off your Bad ways; for I am sure, as every one says, I don't know what would have become of me if I had staid with you. Mr. [the Mr. half scratched out] the gentleman I am with, says if you turn out Properly, he will be a friend to you, Too; but he advises you to go, like a Good boy, to Arthur Beaufort, and ask his pardon for the past, and then Arthur will be very kind to you. I send you a great ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... the more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of sober and staid Persons: for as the Knight is the best Master in the World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him: by this means his Domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... also believe that new relations between things may be detected not merely by the staid and ordered process of collating abstractions, which is science, but by swifter and ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... departure of the Parisians was celebrated as a victory of the provinces over Paris by every one in Issoudun, except the more sober and staid inhabitants, who shared the opinions of Monsieur and Madame Hochon. A few of Max's friends spoke ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... and having staid but a little while {above}, sooner or later we {all} hasten to one abode. Hither are we all hastening. This is our last home; and you possess the most lasting dominion over the human race. She, too, when, in due ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... thought-directing and leavening work of the Scottish Churches may be placed the work of the Salvation Army in India. This unique organization invaded that great land nearly a quarter of a century ago. Believing that existing missionary organizations and methods of work were too dignified, staid and inadequate for best results, the leaders of this movement introduced its cyclone methods and proposed to take India by storm. They began by insisting upon all their European officers conforming to ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... was making his way slowly home. It was a dark night, and the road full of treacherous soft places, fatal to that spotless condition of hose and shoes which was one of his weak points. However, before he had gone very far, he was overtaken by his son Neil, now a very staid and stately gentleman, holding under the government a high legal position in the investigation of the disputed ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... go to-day, because three of the Indians whom he had brought from the islands, and who had staid behind, arrived, and said that the others with their women would be there at sunrise.[211-1] The sea also was rather rough, so that they could not land from the boat. He determined to depart to-morrow, with the grace of God. The ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... seeing that on the whole he was improving. He "cared" more and "forgot" less. He could always learn easily, and now he really tried to learn. His lessons, instead of going through his head "threading my grandmother's needle," went in and staid there. The blue book got a few marks, it is true, but not ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May

... and regarded his seat mate with some anxiety. He wanted to see what impression this, his maiden effort, would have on a staid man of ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr

... 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 ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... comic in the contrast between the subdued but courteous manner of Amos, who was patiently endeavouring to make himself agreeable to his two immediate neighbours, and the excited frivolity of Miss Morse's running fire of worldly commonplaces, occasionally interrupted by her mother's more staid ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... simpliciter against him." Had his said servant, then still in Edinburgh, been made aware of this meeting of Council at Dalkeith, "he would not have failed to have compeared, and had many good and sufficient reasons and defences to have staid all giving of the said letters simpliciter;" such as that "the said Colin received the said castle and fortalice of Strome by virtue of a contract passed betwixt him and the said Donald, wherein he was content and consented that the said castle should ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... at length at ten o'clock landed our provisions, when we made a hearty breakfast, sitting on a sail spread under the palm shade. The elder boys with their guns, then accompanied Mr. Dance and the captain of a merchant vessel, who volunteered to act as Cicerone, to shoot; and the younger ones staid with me to collect flowers, gather vegetables, and with the assistance of the boats' crews, to superintend the preparations for dinner. At four o'clock the sportsmen returned, bringing red-crested woodpeckers, finches of various hues, humming-birds, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... afternoon, but already small groups of twos and threes were gathered round the little tables. At one a merry knot of English girl-tourists were enjoying an al fresco tea, at another staid Swiss habitues solemnly imbibed the sweet pink or yellow sirop which they infinitely preferred to tea, while a vivid note of colour was added to the scene by the picturesque uniforms of a couple of officers of an Algerian regiment who were consuming unlimited cigarettes and Turkish coffee, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came: but hark the bell For dinner, let us go!' And in we streamed Among the columns, pacing staid and still By twos and threes, till all from end to end With beauties every shade of brown and fair In colours gayer than the morning mist, The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers. How might a ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... in Williams name; Let none edraw his arcublaster bowe. Girthe cas'd his weppone as he hearde the same, And vengynge Normannes staid the flyinge floe. The sire wente onne; ye menne, what mean ye so 55 Thus unprovokd to courte a bloudie fyghte? Quod Gyrthe; oure meanynge we ne care to showe, Nor dread thy duke wyth all his men of myghte; Here single onlie these to all thie crewe Shall shewe what Englysh ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... the plucking of the Autumn primrose that Benson had seen: a somewhat different operation from the plucking of the Spring one: very innocent! Our staid elderly sister has paler blood, and has, or thinks she has, a reason or two about the roots. She is not all instinct. "For this high cause, and for that I know men, and know him to be the flower of men, I give myself to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... afternoon a week when Otto went out to make his calls, but also to study narrowly his uncle's habits, and to play upon his weaknesses and turn them to his own advantage, so that by the time he was twelve years old he was quite an adept at mystifying the staid old gentleman. His aunt, an unmarried lady, was cheerful, witty, and full of pleasant gaiety; she was the only one who understood and appreciated her clever nephew; indeed she was so fond of him, and humoured ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Trollope, a portly lady, of any age between thirty and forty, staid and sedate, as became her character, and attentive to her 'thees' and 'thous,' which lent their cloak for plain speaking, of which she was not chary. She frequently admonished her daughters—perhaps adopted for the evening—against the vanities by which they were encompassed on every side,—satirizing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... smile at the mental picture of himself arriving in the staid college town, with a tawny-skinned child in a red, green, and black frock, a crop-eared cayuse, and a badger on a chain, McArthur ventured it as his opinion that the climate would be ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... provincial papers contained copious extracts from it, and vied with each other in defending or opposing its positions. Crossing the German frontier, it was published in complete and abridged forms in all the principal languages of Europe. Even staid Scotland, unable to escape the contagion, issued a popular edition of the ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske river where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late; For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy! Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem. Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended. Yet thou art higher far descended: ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... adventure. Canyon City at that time was a typical mining camp. There were congregated every known character, race, profession and creed. Under a rough exterior the lawyer, doctor, minister, the rude western frontiersman and the staid and sober farmer, worked side by side. There was no distinction of dress among that restless, surging, throbbing throng of humanity, drawn thither by the all-absorbing motive—the glittering dust that lay hidden beneath ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... Dear Lovelace,—I have plaguey news to acquaint thee with. Miss Harlowe is gone off. Here's the devil to pay. I heartily condole with thee. But it may turn out for the best. They tell me thou wouldst have married her had she staid. But ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... preferred a steeple- chase with water-jumps, after the fashion of the midshipmen on a certain second visit to the lake. How the Negroes grinned delight and surprise at the vagaries of English lads—a species of animal altogether new to them. And how they grinned still more when certain staid and portly dignitaries caught the infection, and proved, by more than one good leap, that they too had been English schoolboys—alas! long, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... the youth was going To make an end of all his wooing; The parson for him staid: Yet by his leave, for all his haste, He did not so much wish all past (Perchance) as ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... 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 revealed itself chiefly ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... of it was that Flossy, done up in a cloak twice too large for her, went off looking like the martyr that she was, and Eurie and Ruth staid in their room and laughed over the ridiculousness of Flossy Shipley going out in the night and the rain, in a lavender cashmere, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... their vacations, on the 4th of September. On the 1st of September an eight-hour bill, providing also for the appointment of a board of observation, was rushed through the House; on the following day it was hastened through the staid Senate; and on the third it received the President's signature. * The other recommendations of the President were made to await the pleasure of Congress and the unions. To the suggestion that railway strikes be made unlawful until their causes are disclosed ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... of sunshine and the little spot of shade Are here for joint consumption, for comparison are made; We're all meant to be happy, not too foolish or too staid. And the right dose to be taken is some sunshine mixed ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... her worst, and he had nothing to fear. A middle-aged man made his appearance, sleek and plump, who seemed to be in good circumstances, and to have profited by them. His glossy black dress, in contrast with the crimson colour of his face and throat, for he wore no collars, and his staid and pompous bearing, added to his rapid delivery when he spoke, gave him much the look of a farm-yard turkey-cock in the eyes of any one who was less disgusted with seeing new faces than Reding was at that moment. The new comer looked sharply at ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... just the same variations in primitive as in civilized communities. In every primitive society is to be found the flighty, the staid, the energetic, the indolent, the cheerful, the morose, the even-, the hot-tempered, the unthinking, the philosophical individual. At the same time, the average differences between different primitive peoples are as ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... remembered that the previous king absolutely refused to deal with the assembly which met early in 1849 to consider the constitution, and ordered a new election. At this election the Liberals saw that, if they reflected the old members, another dissolution would follow, and they therefore mostly staid away from the polls. Afterward, when the constitution had been formally adopted, the Government showed a determination to put down all liberal movements; consequently the Liberals made no special attempts to move. The Parliament was conservative, and so there ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... at night by such a clamour of chorus singers and such a clatter of 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 are elective, and they are more anxious to keep their places than ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Mr. Galloway. And if you wonder at a staid old proctor chattering about this desultory news with his clerks in business hours, it may be explained to you that Mr. Galloway took the greatest possible interest, almost a boyish interest, in the college ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... pets. We have nine cats. One is fourteen years old. And we have a shepherd dog that has a great deal of sense. I have three white hens—one top-knot, one plain, and one with pantalets. I have a chicken grave-yard, and we have funerals. The red and blue birds, wrens, jays, and woodpeckers, staid with us all winter. I found a nest of hatched partridge eggs, and the large ends were all picked round even, and opened like box-tops. We live in the woods, and I ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... flatterer. He said he thought you would have been far too sensible for that sort of nonsense, but that one never knew, and that it was not only young and pretty girls like Gladys who could be romantic, and for all your staid looks you were not Methuselah: rather a dubious ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... conceived, was intimately connected with my existence. I think that I have before said that she never avowed herself, either to my nurse or to myself, as more than my godmother. She evinced a brief, but violent emotion; and then controlled her features to a very staid and matronly expression. For myself I wept most bitterly; from many mingled emotions; but, to the shame of human nature, and of my own, wounded pride was the most intolerable pang that I felt. In all my day-dreams, I had made this lady the presiding genius. I gave her, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... "But the dress is staid, too,—a dear little austerity of a dress;—it's just as much you as that way of doing your hair is. Don't imagine that I would commit such a solecism as to dress you frivolously. Look; will you put this on at ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... the voice; "I've come over t' stop with you to-night; Dad's away again; Mandy Ford staid with me last night, but she had to go home this evenin'." The big fellow at the woodpile drove his ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... called upon the Professor's solicitors, in accordance with his instructions, and handed them the letter he had entrusted to me. They read it with many exclamations of surprise, for the news it contained was enough to startle even staid lawyers ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... suppose that so sudden and unexpected an Acquisition must produce very extra ordinary Emotions: Mr. Alder, however, supported him with great Decency, but almost immediately slipped out into the Yard behind his House, where he staid some little Time, probably to drop a joyful Tear, as well as to offer an Ejaculation for these Blessings of Providence; but at his Return into the House, we are told, he manifested a most open and generous ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... becoming one of the railroad commissioners, but so much light was thrown on his connection with railroad reports, railroad laws and lobbying, by the indefatigable Barnum, the, the man took to his bed, some ten days before the close of the session, and actually staid there "sick " until the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... promising, that in that time I should have hogs in plenty; but, as I had been here already a week, without so much as getting one, I could not put any faith in this promise; and yet, I believe, if I had staid, we should have fared much better than at Matavai. The present I made him consisted of a shirt, a sheet, a broad axe, spike-nails, knives, looking-glasses, medals, beads, &c.; in return, he ordered a pretty good hog to be carried ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... Mauchline husbands a', He aften did assist ye; For had ye staid hale weeks awa, Your wives they ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... homespun, and its reddish-brown skirt bordered with black. The knitted woolen mitts and the dainty cap showing her hair, which generally was hidden, made her seem almost like a princess to Gretel, while Master Hans grew staid and well-behaved ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... him with stupefaction. As though Felicia were like other girls! And then what danger was there with the Nabob, so staid a man and so ugly? Besides, Jenkins ought to know quite well that Felicia never consulted anybody, that she ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... next Wednesday night, the 25th. What would I give to see you in the front row of the centre box, your spectacles gleaming not unlike those of my dear friend Pickwick, your face radiant with as broad a grin as a staid professor may indulge in, and your very coat, waistcoat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take together when the performance was over! I would give something (not so much, but still a good round sum) if ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... to inquire how it is that these same democratic nations, which are so serious, sometimes act in so inconsiderate a manner. The Americans, who almost always preserve a staid demeanor and a frigid air, nevertheless frequently allow themselves to be borne away, far beyond the bound of reason, by a sudden passion or a hasty opinion, and they sometimes gravely commit strange absurdities. This contrast ought not to surprise us. There is one sort of ignorance which ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... and to his taking a more lively part in social gatherings. What we hear of the essays that he wrote at school, what we can read of his early letters, all harmonizes with our conception of a Quaker upbringing. There is a staid primness about him, which contrasts strangely with the pictures of medical students presented to us in the pages of Dickens. Capable though he was of enjoying a holiday, or of expanding among congenial associates, Lister ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... chandeliers. One of the rioters, a man with a broken nose, seated himself in the Speaker's chair and shouted, 'I dissolve this House.' It seems like a scene from a Paris emeute rather than an actual event in a staid Canadian city. Soon a cry was heard, 'The Parliament House is on fire.' Another band of rioters had set the western wing alight, and, in a quarter of an hour, the whole building was a mass of flames. ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... cheat head grain found how treat dead staid ground town beast stead waif hound growl bleat tread rail mound clown preach dread flail pound frown speak thread quail round crown streak sweat snail sound drown ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... are nice girls,—the flowers of good, staid, sensible families,—not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat of wild, high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and truly taught and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, to understand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various



Words linked to "Staid" :   decorous, staidness, sedate



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