"Stale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fifteen years you have been tossing in the literary world; you are no longer young, you have padded the hoof till your soles are worn through!—Yes, my boy, you turn your socks under like a street urchin to hide the holes, so that the legs cover the heels! In short, the joke is too stale. Your excuses are more familiar ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... the mud they saw the stale imprint of Ben's canoe as they had landed, and the tracks of both the man and the girl as they had turned into ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... familiar mendicant was a vender of printed ballads. These effusions were so stale, atrocious, and unsalable in their character, that it was easy to detect that hypocrisy, which—in imitation of more ambitious beggary—veiled the real eleemosynary appeal under the thin pretext of offering ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... rustlers at work. He told me how to find it, an'—well, I hit the trail. I hoped to head you, and get 'em myself, but," with a shrug, "I guess I was a fool some. My plug petered out two hours back, and I had to quit. You see he was stale ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... the sound of rushing waters, which then fell into the abyss beneath with a loud roar. After this she came upon a large grotto, hewn in the living rock and defended by a row of staring crocodiles' heads, plated with gold; the heavy smell of stale incense and acrid resins choked her, and her way now lay over iron gratings and past strangely contrived furnaces. The walls were decorated with colored reliefs: Tantalus, Ixion, and Sisyphus toiling at his stone, looked down on her in hideous realism as she went. Rock chambers, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dress him. A new religious atmosphere surrounds her life when the very work of her hands becomes hallowed in its purpose. The old crotchet and insertion—we use words to us more mysterious than intelligible—become flat, stale, and unprofitable by the side of the book-marker and the colored stole; and a flutter of excitement stirs even the stillness of a life which is sometimes offensively still at the sight of the new chasuble with "aunt's real lace, you know, dear," ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... getting out of hand. But a glance at them as they made free with the natives' provisions relieved him on this score, and when Smith explained that he had on board the aeroplane certain delectables in the shape of chicken patties (becoming rather stale), doughnuts, plumcake, a bottle of Australian burgundy, and sundry other remnants of the provisions furnished by the hospitable folk of Palmerston, he voted an immediate adjournment for lunch, and the officers, with the Smiths, were soon satisfying ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... to look at. You are made to be queen of a ball-room; not a London ball-room, where everything, I take it, is flash and faded, painted and stale, and worn out; but down here in the country, where there is some life among us, and where a girl may be supposed to be excited over her dancing. It is in such rooms as this that hearts are won and lost; a bid made for diamonds is all that ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... old proverb, viz. "The Mayor of Northampton opens oisters with his dagger." The meaning of which is, to keep them at a sufficient distance from his nose. For this town being eighty miles from the sea, fish may well be presumed stale therein. "Yet I have heard (says Dr. Fuller,) that oisters put up with care, and carried in the cool, were weekly brought fresh and good to Althrop, the seat of the Lord Spencer, at equal distance; and it is no wonder, for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... that have Been the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... in passion, 'tis the surest way. I'll bellow out for Rome, and for my country, And mouth at Caesar till I shake the senate. Your cold hypocrisy's a stale ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... stalk, step, to stamp with the feet, whence to stamp, that is, to make an impression and a stamp; stow, to stow, to bestow, steward, or stoward; stead, steady, stedfast, stable, a stable, a stall, to stall, stool, stall, still, stall, stallage, stage, still, adjective, and still, adverb: stale, stout, sturdy, stead, stoat, stallion, stiff, stark-dead, to starve with hunger or cold; stone, steel, stern, stanch, to stanch blood, to stare, steep, steeple, stair, standard, a stated measure, stately. In all these, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... do? There is this matter of the honour of Tamiya." He wrung his hands as in great perplexity, glancing sideways toward O'Iwa. The first part of his speech she disregarded. Such talk and consolation were growing stale. That all should pity her caused no surprise. Her situation was not unusual. It was the last words which caught her ear. "The honour of Tamiya: Cho[u]bei San?" Cho[u]bei turned away; to put some peppermint in his eyes. Tears stood in them as he turned again to her. O'Iwa was ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Shakespeare has more faults than any other poet of England. He is in turn careless, extravagant, profuse, tedious, sensational; his wit grows stale or coarse; his patriotism turns to bombast; he mars even such pathetic scenes as the burial of Ophelia by buffoonery and brawling; and all to please a public that was given ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... that is made of wheat? You know that people nowadays To what is old give little praise; All must be new in prose and verse: They want hot bread, or something worse, Fresh every morning, and half baked; The wholesome bread of yesterday, Too stale for them, is thrown away, Nor is their thirst ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... morning of the year Is old and stale now ye are gone. No friendly songs the children hear Among the bushes on the lawn. When babies wander out a-Maying Will ye, their bards, afar be straying? Unhymned by ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... things is the flat, stale, unprofitable stuff we hear about," he added. "You've been ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... naivete, minute, double measure running over, but never tedious—nunquam sufflaminandus erat. He is one of those writers who can never tire us, not even of himself; and the reason is, he is always 'full of matter.' He never runs to lees, never gives us the vapid leavings of himself, is never 'weary, stale, and unprofitable,' but always setting out afresh on his journey, clearing away some old nuisance, and turning up new mould. His egotism is delightful, for there is no affectation in it. He does not talk ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to the man who brings up his ponies from the Punjab, but golf is for all, and the nine-hole course, although flat, is not stale, and need not be unprofitable, unless you are fallen upon—as I was—by two stalwart Sappers, sons of Canada and potent wielders of the cleek, who gave me enough to do to keep my rupees in my pocket and the honour of the mother ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... had said, like a rat in a trap. But I would not let panic seize me. So I sat and ate the stale but sweet bread, took a long drink of the good water from the earthen jar, and then, stretching myself out, drew my cloak up to my chin, and settled myself for sleep again. And that I might keep up a kind delusion that I was not quite ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... old boy, your son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask; His absence in my verse ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... persuaded. But that's a different thing. 'Influence' makes me think of canting clergymen, and stout pompous women, who don't know what they're talking about, and can't argue—who think they've settled everything by a stale quotation—or an appeal to 'your better self'—or St. Paul. If Mr. Winnington tries it on with ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on the table smelt strongly of stale tobacco, and Burkin could not sleep for a long while, and kept wondering where the ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... staying Amid these stale things Who care not for gaying, And those junketings That used so to joy her, And never to cloy her As us they cloy! . . . But She is shut, she is shut From the cheer of them, dead To all done and said ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... in town, as the cattleman learned at Monte Joe's dance-hall, piled high with tables and chairs and reeking with the stench, left over from the previous night, of whiskey fumes and stale tobacco smoke. Monte Joe professed not to know where the puncher had gone, but as Trowbridge pressed him for information the voice of a woman, as shrill as the squawk of a parrot, floated ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... and cousins to solitary confinement on bread and water till you die—and the sooner you do that last the better they will be pleased!" returned the coarse woman letting down her basket and taking out a glass tumbler, two large bottles of water, some loaves of stale bread, and some of Dainty's clothes, saying, facetiously: "Here's yer duds and yer grub—enough o' both ter last yer a week—and at the end of a week I'll call again with more provisions, miss—and ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... a black powder resembling smut: a cirumstance too well known to many farmers. Those who wish to consult the remedies recommended against this, may refer to The Annals of Agriculture, and most other books on the subject. It is usual with farmers to mix the Wheat with stale urine or brine, and to dry it by sifting it with slaked lime, which has the effect of causing it to vegetate quickly, and to prevent the attacks of many insects when the seed is first put into the ground. This is considered as productive of great benefit to the ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... ten-pound turkey cut the brown crust from slices of stale bread until you have as much as the inside of a pound loaf. Put into a suitable dish and pour tepid water over it; take up a handful at the time and squeeze it hard and dry with both hands, placing it as you go along in another dish; now when all is pressed dry, toss it all up lightly through your ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... recklessness of his nature and to reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways of a young society. He is there to explain himself, voluble, with a glossary for his own artless slang. But his colonialism is only provincialism very articulate. The new air does but make old decadences seem more stale; the young soil does but set into fresh conditions the ready-made, the uncostly, the refuse feeling of a race decivilising. American fancy played long this pattering part of youth. The New-Englander hastened to assure you with ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... good resolution," rejoined the Old Year. "And, by the way, I have a plentiful assortment of good resolutions which have now grown so stale and musty that I am ashamed to carry them any farther. Only for fear that the city authorities would send Constable Mansfield with a warrant after me, I should toss them into the street at once. Many other matters go to make ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it up, and went back to his stale question: Could Sybil suggest any other resource? and Sybil sadly confessed that she could not. So far as she could see, they must trust to luck, and she thought it was cruel tor Mr. Carrington to ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to with an unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs, except as they touch upon me, and so turn into private, I cannot whip up my mind to feel any interest in, I grieve, indeed, that War and Nature and Mr. Pitt, that hangs up in Lloyd's best parlour, should have conspired to call up three ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... bethought me of paying a visit this summer to the land of the Czar; that I want companions; that I like young ones, who will follow my ways better than old ones, who won't; that I enjoy fresh ideas freshly expressed, and am tired of stale platitudes; in short, if you will entrust your youngsters to me, I will take charge of them, and point out what is mostly worth seeing and remembering at the places ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... said Mary vaguely. "I don't care so much about first nights. I like the theatre; but I go so seldom. Aunt Marcelle does not care for English plays; she says they are like stale bread-and-butter. I tell her that ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... the creeds, but stale the schools, Revamped as the mode may veer, But Orm from the schools to the beaches strays And, finding a Conch hoar with time, he delays And reverent lifts it to ear. That Voice, pitched in far monotone, Shall it swerve? shall it deviate ever? The ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together, O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you've done with it. What butter-colour'd hair you've got. I don't want to be personal. All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver. Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Finding on the mantel a bit of stale candy, she popped it into her mouth from sheer force of habit. But it was no sooner in than, with an expression of disgust, she spat it out on the floor. Scornfully, she added: "Makes me think of the old days, the dairy ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... contrary, most of them exhibit the peculiar and unmistakable signs of physical exhaustion, chief of which is cerebral anaemia. They are overtrained and overworked. In the language of training they are "stale." ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... leavings of the amber-mantling must; These, rude to look upon, But flasking up the liquor dearest won, Through sacred hours and hard, With watching and with wrestlings and with grief, Even of these, of these in chief, The stale breath sickens reeking from the shard. Nothing is left. Aye, how much less than naught! What shall be said or thought Of the slack hours and waste imaginings, The cynic rending of the wings, Known to that froward, that unreckoning heart ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... all ale And beer that is stale Rosa-solis and damnable hum, But we will rack In the praise of sack 'Gainst Omne quod ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... started a fashion that "custom cannot stale," a fashion that while time lasts shall be as cheap as roses, laughter and sunshine, as thrilling as wine, as sweet as innocence and as new as love, a fashion that wealth, time or country cannot monopolize, and one that ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... good restaurant and one of the most popular. They serve here a dejeuner at 1 kr. 50 oere consisting of an excellent dish of eggs (a speciality of the place) and meat and cheese or so-called "sweet" (generally a very unwholesome stale cake with cream). The table-d'hote dinners are excellent, one being at 3 kr. 50 oere and the other at 2 kr. 50 oere; the first consisting of soup (thick soups being a speciality of the place), fish, entree, meat, and releve (generally hjaerpe), with a compote of Swedish berries called ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... your taste than a bottle of beer and hard-boiled eggs at The Nimble Rabbit. Heaven knows I trust you will be happy, but I cannot persuade myself that this Pomponnet shares your ambitions; with his slum and his stale pastry he is ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... were sitting on the stoop of the boarding-house. On the upper steps, in their shirt-sleeves, were the other boarders; so the bride and bridegroom spoke in whispers. The air of the cross street was stale and stagnant; from it rose exhalations of rotting fruit, the gases of an open subway, the smoke of passing taxicabs. But between the street and the hall bedroom, with its odors of a gas-stove and a kitchen, the ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... maids and men I bring both points and pins; Come bid me welcome then, The good New Year begins: And for my love Let me approve The friendship of your Maid, Whose nappy ale, So good and stale, Will ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... loud houting and laughter confound the Fidlers noise, who may well be call'd a noise indeed, for no Musick can be heard for them; so whilst he utters nothing but old stories, long since laught thridbare, or some stale jest broken twenty times before: His mirth compared with theirs, new and at first hand, is just like Brokers ware in comparison with Mercers, or Long-lane compar'd unto Cheap-side: his wit being rather ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... is stale, and common. A townsman born in Taurus, gives the bull, Or the bull's-head: in Aries, the ram, A poor device! No, I will have his name Form'd in some mystic character; whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections, That may result upon ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... S. Shame to your tongue, Mr. Poe, that says I haven't been as kind to you as your own mother—sister! Haven't you had this room nigh to a month since I've seen a cent for it? Didn't I give you stale bread a whole week, an' coffee a Sunday mornin'? An' you dare say I'm not a Christian, merciful woman? You come out o' here, or I'll put hands on ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... this black shadow of war had loomed up with its deadly menace a great party of German editors had returned our visit and once again I had listened to speeches about the blood- brotherhood of the two nations, a little bored by the stale phrases, but glad to sit between these friendly Germans whom I had met in their own country. We clinked glasses again, sang "God Save the King" and the "Wacht am Rhein," compared the character of German and English literature, of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... lay his chin upon a knee, and make him lay down his work and come out for the regulation interval. In the longer marches of old days, there were halts in every hour. Come out! Come out! New strength and new ideas are to be gathered outside; you will grow stale in here, whether you choose to practise this art or that. Houses are well enough to sleep in and to give shelter; but it is the heavens that give strength, and it is God's heaven that somehow, if only feebly, must get ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... caught. Putrefaction starts rapidly, and the fish must be handled promptly. The sooner it is canned after being taken from lake, stream or ocean, the better. Never attempt to can any fish that is stale. ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... this morning when Dinky-Dunk announced that he felt a trifle stale and suggested that the family take a holiday on Tuesday and trek out to Dead-Horse Lake for the day. We're to hitch Tumble-Weed and Tithonus to the old prairie-schooner—for we'll be taking side-trails where no car could venture—and pike off for a whole blessed day of care-free ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Roll slices of stale bread into fine crumbs. Brush small custard cups, or a border mold with melted butter, sprinkle over a few currants or raisins, or any fruit that you may have left over. Fill the cups with crumbs. ...
— Made-Over Dishes • S. T. Rorer
... 6. Stale or Decayed Foods.—Food which has been allowed to stand until it is spoiled, or has become stale, musty, or mouldy, such as mouldy bread or fruit, or tainted meat, is unfit to be eaten, and is often a cause of very ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... salad or stewed, steamed or plain bread pudding. 20. Bread soup with apples, rice pudding with dried fruit. 21. Bran or bread soup, apple salad with grated cheese, lettuce. 22. Milk or huckleberry soup, unleavened apple pancakes. 23. Clabber milk with cream and grapenuts or stale bread, nuts. 24. Corn bread with apple salad and lettuce, nuts. 25. Plain milk rice with currants, nuts or cheese. 26. Bread dumplings with stewed prunes or pears, celery, nuts. 27. Buttermilk soup with dried fruit, nuts or eggs. 28. Peas with mashed carrots and lettuce ...
— Food for the Traveler - What to Eat and Why • Dora Cathrine Cristine Liebel Roper
... Porcupine is one of those writers who attempt to deal in wit—and to bear down every Republican principle by satire—but he miserably fails in both, for his wit is as stale as his satire, and his satire as insipid as his wit. He attempts to ridicule Dr. Franklin, but can any man of sense conceive any poignancy in styling this great philosopher, "poor Richard," or "the old ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... Melbourne for New Zealand we were all a bit stale, which was not altogether surprising, and a run ashore was to do us a world of good after five months of solid grind, crowded up in a ship which thought nothing of rolling 50 deg. each way. Also, though everything had been done that could be done to provide them, the want of fresh meat ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... to bore a hole in the rear wall of the villa, and while this was being done, Nero quenched his thirst from a pond of stagnant water, near the opening of the pozzolana quarries. Once inside the villa, he was asked to lie down on a couch covered with a peasant's mantle, and was offered a piece of stale bread, and a glass of tepid water. Food he refused, but touched the rim of the cup with his parched lips. It is curious to read in Suetonius of the many grimaces the wretch made before he could ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... It was a perfect mixture of flavors; oilskins, stale tobacco-smoke, brine, burned grease, tar, and, as a background, fish. His ears almost immediately detected water noises running close by, and he could feel the pull of stout oak timber that formed the inner ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... under it. The smoke, drawn through a long cherry-stick pipe and amber mouth-piece, is pure, cool, and sweet, with an aromatic flavor, which is very pleasant in the mouth. It excites no salivation, and leaves behind it no unpleasant, stale odor. ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... his treasure once more in the depths of the rick; he himself knows not how much there might be. Then he attacks anew the hard, stale bread, the rancid bacon, and devours it to the last morsel. Perhaps some ready-prepared banquet awaited him on the morrow. Or perhaps he is accustomed to feasting only every third day. At last he stretches himself out on the grass, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the only sound to be heard was the heavy tread of Varr himself as he walked through the main office to the small room where his own desk was located. He frowned at the difference, and sniffed discontentedly at the stale air which seemed already to have taken on the peculiar flat mustiness appropriate to closed and deserted habitations. He frowned again when he drew his finger along a desk and noted the depth of the furrow it had made in ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... as being somewhat unusual with Trollope, is the depiction of the public-house, 'The Pig and Whistle', in Norfolk Street, the landlady, Mrs. Davis, and the barmaid, Norah Geraghty. We can almost smell the gin, the effluvia of stale beer, the bad tobacco, hear the simpers and see the sidlings of Norah, feel sick with and at Charley:—he 'got up and took her hand; and as he did so, he saw that her nails were dirty. He put his arms round her waist and ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... yelled with wild lustiness. Those who did not know the words either whistled the air or improvised an impossible ditty. Whenever there was a pause to recall some new song, the interval was occupied with "Rule, Britannia!" This was a prime favourite, and repetition did not stale its forceful rendition, especial stress being laid upon the words, "Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!" to which was roared the eternal enquiry, "Are we down-hearted?" The welkin-smashing negative, crashing through ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... of my contemporaries—that is, men between thirty and forty-five—have given the world one single drop of alcohol?... Science and technical knowledge are passing through a great period now, but for our sort it is a flabby, stale, dull time.... The causes of this are not to be found in our stupidity, our lack of talent, or our insolence, but in a disease which for the artist is worse than syphilis or sexual exhaustion. We lack "something," that is true, and that means that, lift the ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... heroes, and as most of the ladies had probably been without previous opportunity of seeing such delights, they had their effect. When they had made their twenty-first procession the thing certainly grew stale, and as they brought with them an infinity of dirt, they were no doubt a nuisance. But no one would have been inclined to judge these amateur actors with harshness who knew how much they themselves were called on to endure, who could appreciate the disgusting ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... reasons for Lady Beldonald's fond calculation, which they quite justified—were written large in her face, so large that it was easy to understand them as the only ones she herself had ever read. What was it then that actually made the old stale sentence mean something so different?—into what new combinations, what extraordinary language, unknown but understood at a glance, had time and life translated it? The only thing to be said was that time and life were ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... He was as much at home in the Forest as if he had been native and to the manner born. His straight riding, his good looks, and agreeable manners won him everybody's approval. There was nothing dissipated or Bohemian about him. His clothes never smelt of stale tobacco. He was as punctual at church every Sunday morning as if he had been a family man, bound to set a good example. He subscribed liberally to the hounds, and was always ready with those stray florins and half-crowns ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... wind which blew in through the many shattered windows. We woke to the rumbling of distant cannon, which might more correctly be called a trembling of the air rather than a true sound. Still hoarding our provisions, we ate a frugal breakfast of stale bread and of tea made from the dried leaves of linden trees. We started off at half-past seven, receiving a very friendly God-speed from our aged ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... of the game; there was so little else for idlers to talk about these days. No comedies or other diversions, neither cock-fighting nor bear-baiting, and abuse of my Lord Protector and his rigorous disciplinarian laws had already become stale. ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... that there were several good hotels in Servia and Montenegro and Sofia, they were being overdone. Everybody went to the Balkans and came back with a pet nationality. She loathed pet nationalities. She believed most people loathed them nowadays. It was stale: it was GLADSTONIAN. She was all for specialization in social reform. She thought Benham ought to join the Fabian Society and consult the Webbs. Quite a number of able young men had been placed with the assistance of the Webbs. They were, she said, "a perfect fount...." ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... breakfast, and, for the first time in France, met with a surly host and a sour hostess. The bread being stale, salt, and bitter, I desired it to be changed. The host obeyed, so far as to carry it out of the room and bring it in again. It was in vain, however, that I insisted upon the identity, till I desired him to bring what he had removed, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... the heavy odor of stale cigar smoke it would have been easy to suppose that the fog without had crept into the library. The air was blue. Phil's glance swept the disordered room. Three empty whisky glasses stood on the library table. The butts of cigars and innumerable cork-tipped cigarettes lay ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... years. The electrotypes have been destroyed. In taking this course, which was sanctioned by William Morris when the matter was talked of shortly before his death, the aim of the trustees has been to keep the series of Kelmscott Press books as a thing apart, and to prevent the designs becoming stale by constant repetition. Many of them have been stolen and parodied in America, but in this country they are fortunately copyright. The type remains in the hands of the trustees, and will be used for the printing of its designer's ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... something!" he exclaimed. "It may be stale news, and it may be something for the future, but it's worth trying. I wonder I ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... declared Beth, believing that she understood horse language. She took a stale piece of candy out of her pocket, and gave it to Dolly. This attention sealed a never-ending friendship between ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... for forty-eight hours you ain't been able to talk about anything but that stale old accident of mine, and you got me so sick of it I could jump on you every time you begin. You got everybody in the party sick of it. Don't you see how they all try to get away from you? For the Lord's sake, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... which prevailed at this time, from a scarcity of corn; and a bill was brought in and passed, prohibiting the sale of bread which had not been baked twenty-four hours, it being generally admitted that stale bread satisfied the appetite sooner than new bread. The Archbishop of Canterbury recommended a series of resolutions in the upper house, and a voluntary association, by which each of their lordships should bind himself to lessen the consumption ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is, foul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes those are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the general sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco, there comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... and the white trousers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day's dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks' doors; but a consciousness of their own importance and the receipt of seven shillings a-week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight, comes to their aid, and they accordingly ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and I would but ask thy master's name and condition. Answer me straight—no equivocation, no shuffling or evasion shall serve thee; 'tis a stale device now, and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... more? Poor fool," (the scoffer cries;) "Gull'd by the despot's hireling lie, with lore That gives for Truth a shadow;—life is o'er When the delusion dies!" "Tremblest thou," hiss'd the serpent-herd in scorn, "Before the vain deceit? Made holy but by custom, stale and worn, The phantom Gods, of craft and folly born— The sick world's solemn cheat? What is this Future underneath the stone? But for the veil that hides, revered alone; The giant shadow of our Terror, thrown ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... to find the room flooded with golden sunlight. A glance at the clock on the mantel-shelf showed that it was after nine. My body was cramped and stiff and I felt stale and musty from having slept in my clothes. It was only after a cold shower and a complete change that I felt refreshed enough to pick up the threads where I had dropped them ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... warm, nourishing, and appetizing food upon which to begin the day's work on the farm and in the shops and classrooms. Nothing made him more indignant than to find the coffee served lukewarm and the cereal watery or the eggs stale. For such derelictions the guilty party was promptly located and admonition or discharge followed speedily. Probably in nothing was his instinct for putting first things first better shown than in his insistence upon proper food, properly prepared and served for ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... music-steeped is this land) setting him the key. Jog the foot-path way through Tuscany in my company, it's Lombard Street to my hat I charm you out of your lassitude by my open humour. Things I say will have been said before, and better; my tunes may be stale and my phrasing rough: I may be irrelevant, irreverent, what you please. Eh, well! I am in Italy,—the land of shrugs and laughing. Shrug me (or my book) away; but, pray Heaven, laugh! And, as the young ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... as a rule cooked and cold before they are sauteed. Some prefer them to the French. To many minds they never get quite rid of the stale taste that clings to the cold potato. The same may be said of stewed cold, cooked potatoes. The least objectionable way of serving them as left-overs is to ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... how changed did all at first appear! It seemed as if scales had fallen off their eyes, showing coarseness and deformity, where previously none had appeared. They had tasted the rapture of a more beautiful life; and now the ordinary toils of humanity appeared "stale, flat, and unprofitable," and common men and women tedious, rude, and mean. But the brave knight struggled against this feeling. "Shall we be so ungrateful, because a glimpse of the earthly paradise has been vouchsafed us, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... more than a few words, Sir Andrew was leading her right across the town, to the other side from that where they had landed, and the way towards Cap Gris Nez. The streets were narrow, tortuous, and mostly evil-smelling, with a mixture of stale fish and damp cellar odours. There had been heavy rain here during the storm last night, and sometimes Marguerite sank ankle-deep in the mud, for the roads were not lighted save by the occasional glimmer from ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... uncorrupted Florentinity of custom. But when he gave his order in offhand Italian, the waiter answered in the French which waiters get together for the traveller's confusion in Italy, and he resigned himself to whatever chance of acquaintance might befall him. The place had a companionable smell of stale tobacco, and the dim light showed him on the walls of a space dropped a step or two lower, at the end of the room, a variety of sketches and caricatures. A waiter was laying a large table in this space, and when Colville came up to examine the drawings he jostled him, with due apologies, ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... know what the sincerest form of flattery is, and certainly our dear old pet, Alice in Wonderland, whose infinite variety time cannot stale, will gracefully acknowledge the intenseness of the compliments conveyed in Olga's Dream, as written by NORLEY CHESTER, illustrated by Messrs. FURNISS AND MONTAGU (the illustrations will carry the book), and published by Messrs. SKEFFINGTON. It would be a preternaturally ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... of. Then, dogged by a diet befitting that state to which it had pleased Providence to call them, they rode the Great North Road for some days in a northern express. Vine said that the Victoria Falls were all right, but that their surroundings were, many of them, perversely wrong. It was so very stale, the hotel business, with the moonlight river excursions and the Livingstone trips, far too much sleeked and smoothed by foresight, and tamed by taking of thought. If one had only traveled up with pack ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... home victorious over some undeserved misfortune and of taking possession of a home to which he had some ancient right, was the tone given to Harry's settlement at Yoden, and for a long time he felt compelled to honor it, even after it had become stale and tedious. For it pleased his mother, and she did many unconsidered things to encourage it. For instance, she gave a formal dinner at Hatton Hall to which she invited all the county families and wealthy manufacturers within her knowledge. A dinner at Hatton Hall was a rare ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... about his head and shoulders and the rest of him half-naked, gritty with cinders, and as cold as a well curb. Through the ventilators (tightly closed) daylight was struggling with gas-light. The car smelled of stale steam and man. The car wheels played a headachy tune to the metre of the Phoebe-Snow-upon-the-road-of-anthracite verses. David cursed Phoebe Snow, and determined that if ever God vouchsafed him a honey-moon it should be upon the ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... present book. Many of its readers have been dreadfully, and in all seriousness, shocked to find such an immoral man as Pechorin set before them as an example. Others have observed, with much acumen, that the author has painted his own portrait and those of his acquaintances!... What a stale and wretched jest! But Russia, it appears, has been constituted in such a way that absurdities of this kind will never be eradicated. It is doubtful whether, in this country, the most ethereal of fairy-tales would escape the reproach of ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... driving. There was no luggage. Esther hoped a great deal from that. But it proved there was too much to come by cab, and Denny brought it afterward, shabby trunks of a sophisticated look, spattered with labels. Madame Beattie alighted from the cab, a large woman in worn black velvet, with a stale perfume about her. Esther was at the door to meet her, and even in this outer air she could hardly help putting up her nose a little at the exotic smell. Madame Beattie was swarthy and strong-featured with a soft wrinkled skin unnatural from over-cherishing. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... the pure, fresh air of the outside. The smoke of the chieftain's pipe, the smell of burning meat, and the untidiness of the place and people, left a stale odor, which was nauseating ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the gods. They kill us for their sport." When tenderness fails us, it is—"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time." When humour fails us, it is—"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, seem to me all ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... shall forget the waking, next morning; the being cheerful and fresh for the first moment, and then the being weighed down by the stale and dismal oppression of remembrance. Miss Murdstone reappeared before I was out of bed; told me, in so many words, that I was free to walk in the garden for half an hour and no longer; and retired, leaving the door open, that I might ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... toilsome and perilous journey, notwithstanding its numerous harrowing events, memory presents it to me as an itinerary of almost continuous excitement and wholesome enjoyment; a panorama that never grows stale; many of the incidents standing out to view on recollection's landscape as clear and sharp as the things of yesterday. That which was worst seems to have softened and lapsed into the half-forgotten, while the good and happy features have ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... in it as a mourning dove in a city mob. Her spirit sought tranquillity, and she found it in the serene and changless convent life. You and I might seek in vain for anything like peace of spirit in such a place: we might find it a stale and profitless imprisonment; and perhaps it speaks badly for both of us that it is so. The violet finds its silent cell in the earth-crevice by the hidden spring a sufficient refuge, and rejoices in it, but the sea-grass that has all its life tossed in the surges would think that a very dull ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... of stale bread-crumbs with two cupfuls of cold cooked flaked fish and two eggs well-beaten. Season to taste, adding a little Worcestershire Sauce. Put into a buttered mould, steam for thirty minutes, and serve with any ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... in looking after them, and it must have taken up some time longer to find them, or to prove their non-existence. Every one was impatient to get into port, and for good reasons: As for a long time we had had nothing but stale and salt provisions, for which every one on board had lost all relish. These reasons induced me to yield to the general wish, and to steer for the Cape of Good Hope, being at this time in the latitude of 38 deg. 38' S., longitude 23 ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... disease is most satisfactorily treated by placing the affected birds in warm, dry, well ventilated quarters, admitting sunlight if possible, but excluding all drafts of air. Feed stale bread, middlings, etc. Also place the fowls in a moderately air tight coop and compel them to inhale steam from hot water and Turpentine. This is readily done by placing the water and Turpentine in a pan and then insert a hot stone or brick in the solution. ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... so as not to be angry; but it made her angry that she couldn't be sad. And yet where was misery, misery too beaten for blame and chalk-marked by fate like a "lot" at a common auction, if not in these merciless signs of mere mean, stale feelings? ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... comprehensive, a knowledge so complete, and an appreciation so judicial, that nothing more remained to be said. His books and monographs for the time and era of their publication were standard, and will always remain exceptionally valuable. Only the lapse of many years may antiquate but never stale his elegant work on 'Ovarian Tumors,' of which one of his most famous compeers has said that he would 'rather have written it than any other medical work of any time or ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... growing uneasiness behind Adelbert's brave front. If now one could enlist such a man for the Cause, that would be worth doing. He had talked it over with the concierge. Among the veterans the old man was influential, and by this new policy of substituting fresh blood for stale, the Government had made many ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... compartments bulging with dusty papers. There were two or three shelves of uninteresting-looking books, and a desk which extended into a counter. The upper panes of the window were ragged with cobwebs, and the air of the place was redolent of stale publications. A thick-set little man in spectacles sat at the desk. It was ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... was old and stale, it was to be taken away, and new and warm put in its place, to show that God has but little delight in the service of his own people when their duties grow stale and mouldy. Therefore he removed his old, stale, mouldy church of the Jews from before him, and set ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... It is, however, highly improbable that he would in the slightest degree care for this letter, though he might suffer some remorse for his spiteful attack on so good-natured a fellow. Cibber says in this letter that people "allow that by this last stale and slow endeavour to maul me, you have fairly wrote yourself up to the Throne you have raised, for the immortal Dulness of your humble servant to nod in. I am therefore now convinced that it would be ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... out of the question, she looked about her at the people with whom her life must be spent, and shuddered at her loneliness. There was not a single man who could inspire the madness to which women are prone when they despair of a life become stale and unprofitable in the present, and with no outlook for the future. She had nothing to look for, nothing to expect from chance, for there are lives in which chance plays no part. But when the Empire was in the full noonday ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... I dedicate this tale; It's neither new Nor altogether stale,— Nor can completely fail, For your bright name as sponsor for my story Assures the author of reflected ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... look as if it were full of guests. There was, perhaps, the more need to exercise caution. The balmy air of the night might tempt visitors on to the terrace if the play did not prove exciting, and if the talk became stale and wearisome. So Rosmore waited. He did not intend to enter the house, and a little delay was of no consequence. Only one man besides himself could know the secret which the leather case held, and that other man was ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... had diverted his aim and his bullet had passed under my crooked elbow and armpit, merely searing the forearm in a caressing sort of way. The blood was negligible. Altogether, it was a "cushy blighty," as the Tommy puts it. We reloaded our revolvers to wait for nightfall. There was a bit of stale bread in the bottom of my gas mask, forgotten until now. I split it into three parts, about two mouthfuls for each, and ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... enquired the Chancellor further, "that you stale away out of the Castle of Windsor the four childre of Roger Mortimer, sometime ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... flush on her healthy pallor. At other times her mother's humor made her vaguely uncomfortable, usually after wine or other drinks that left the elder's breath thick and oppressive. Linda failed completely to grasp the allusions of this wit but a sharp uneasiness always responded like the lingering stale memory of a ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... people in the closest geographical, commercial, and social contact with the system of slavery. His fate was not different from that of his colleagues, in respect of interruptions of his meetings by mob violence, personal assaults with stale eggs and other more dangerous missiles, and a public sentiment which everywhere encouraged and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Sandy," Jack said, as the boys faced each other in the dim light. "While we sat in there waiting for some one to get us out, you got a move on and did something! Say," he added, with a grin, "ain't this tie-up game getting stale? Suppose we knock this fellow on the head? He may get away if we don't. And these others? Think they are sufficiently soused ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... she loves, may fancy what were the feelings of Madeline, as love, with its royal longing to give, was born in her heart. With what lilies of virgin innocence would she fain have rewarded her lover! but her lilies were yellow, their fragrance was stale. With what an unworn crown would she have crowned him! but she had rifled her maiden regalia to adorn an impostor. And love came to her now, not as to others, but whetting the fangs of remorse and blowing ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... shoulder look blue or bright red, it is newly killed; but if black, green, or yellow, it is stale. The leg is known to be new by the stiffness of the joint. The head of a calf or a lamb is known by the eyes; if sunk or wrinkled, it is stale; if plump ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... pleasant associations for us. Again, we love to encounter not only familiar characters but familiar jokes. Like Goldsmith's Diggory, we can never help laughing at the story of "ould Grouse in the gunroom." The best order of dramatic wit does not become stale, but rather grows upon us. We relish it at least as much at the tenth repetition as at the first. But while these considerations may partly account for the pleasure we take in seeing the play as a whole, they do not explain why the Screen Scene in particular should interest ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... herrin'-gutted bush-ranger over yonder? He'd stale the milk out of your tea, he would, be the same token. Well, last night he got vicious and took a crack at my lines. I had rayson to suspect he'd be afther tryin' somethin' on, so I laid for him. I planted a certain mule where he could stale it an' guarded the rest four ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... I am writing— Feeling a bear's wet grinder biting About thy frozen spine! Or thou thyself art eating whale, Oily, and underdone, and stale, That, haply, cross'd ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood |
