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More "Placid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... also of the North—the North as it is tonight; soft air, balmy with the incense of growing things; illusive dark, half concealing, half revealing, blurring distant outlines. A placid North, whose black waters flowed silent, smooth, deep. A benign and harmless North, upon its surface; and yet, withal, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Queen, however, was any such placid acceptance of defeat. Balked of her expected prey, she turned fiercely against her wheel-mate, whom she rightly considered responsible for her inability to bolt; and after one or two efforts, she fastened her teeth in his ear, leaving a small wound from which the blood trickled, ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... sailing planets and the stars look down complacent at this mimicry of heaven. Everything above, around, beneath, is very beautiful—the slumbrous woods, the snowy fells, and the far distance painted in faint blue upon the tender background of the sky. Everything is placid and beautiful; and yet the place is terrible. For, as we walk, the lake groans, with throttled sobs, and sudden cracklings of its joints, and sighs that shiver, undulating from afar, and pass beneath ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... heavy man as well as a big one, he was not so amusing and so fluent a talker out of school as his predecessor, nor, as we were delighted to discover, so exacting and tyrannical in school. On the contrary, in and out of school he was always the same, mild and placid in temper, with a gentle sort of humour, and he was also very absent-minded. He would forget all about school hours, roam about the gardens and plantations, get into long conversations with the workmen, and eventually, when he found that he was somewhat too casual to please his employer, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... move from his seat. He sat erect and placid, one knee crossed over the other, his serious, rather swarthy face perhaps a shade paler than usual: otherwise it seemed as if the insult had never reached his ears, or the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... glad to see him. Longueville, remembering that Gordon had written to him that he had been "making love," began to seek in his countenance for the ravages of passion. For the moment, however, they were not apparent; the excellent, honest fellow looked placid and contented. Gordon Wright had a clear gray eye, short, straight, flaxen hair, and a healthy diffusion of color. His features were thick and rather irregular; but his countenance—in addition to the merit of its expression—derived ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... by a tipstaff, of placid but severe expression, entered, perceived the doctors, and immediately in his own mind, gave to each of them the name of the judge of the infernal regions represented by the bust placed above his head. Minos, the president, the representative ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of fact, to do a little building-up and clearing-away when the German itch for destruction proved too strong for their more gentlemanly feelings. We lay on the grass in the sun and smoked our pipes, looking across the placid moat to Zillebeke Vyver, Verbranden Molen, and the slight curve of Hill 60. The landscape was full of interest. Here was shrapnel bursting over entirely empty fields. There was a sapper repairing a line. The Germans were shelling the town, and it was a matter of skill to ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... in his hammock, smoking, I think—certainly not reading. When I entered he lifted his head and stared at me, probably surprised to see me alive, unharmed, and in a placid temper. I laughed at the look, and, somewhat disconcerted, he dropped his head down again. After a minute or two I took the metal match-box and tossed it on to his breast. He clutched it and, starting up, stared at me in the utmost astonishment. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... to the east, and four to the west! Arrowy shots at the Umpire's chest! Placid the sinewy batsman beams— How easy it seems! ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... work, and was free to enjoy, as she sank into full repose, sunsets, hoar frosts, spring blossoms, the having me with her, her brother's return—everything was a pleasure. I can hardly call it a time of grief, when she was so placid and happy. All the wishing and scheming was over, and each day that I could look at her in her serenity, was only ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tint, as if the tip Of Beauty's finger faintly press'd it there,— Alas! Consumption is her name. Thou loved and loving one! From the dark languish of thy liquid eye, So exquisitely rounded, darts a ray Of truth, prophetic of thine early doom; And on thy placid cheek there is a print Of death,—the beauty of consumption there. Few note that fatal bloom; for bless'd by all, Thou movest through thy noiseless sphere, the life, Of one,—the darling of a thousand hearts. Yet in the chamber, o'er some graceful task When delicately bending, oft unseen, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... Navy cruiser Woonsocket, having made its placid way across the Mediterranean, up the Aegean Sea, and through the Dardanelles to the Bosporous, stopped overnight at Istanbul and then turned around and went back. On the way in, it had stopped at Gibraltar, Barcelona, Marseilles, Genoa, Naples, and Athens—the main friendly ports ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett
... world, that has left record of himself in the way of literature. On the whole, I know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man—such a calmness of depth, placid, joyous strength, all things in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil, unfathomable sea.... It is not a transitory glance of insight that will suffice; it is a deliberate illumination ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... coolly telling us, that "the operation is unattended with cruelty;" yet we must be content to refer our readers to the passage (vol. ii. p. 96) as an illustration of his skill in this interesting branch of farm-surgery. He is really an amiable sheep-operator, our author—what placid benevolence and hatred of quackery appear in his instructions— "Learn to slaughter gently, dress the carcass neatly and cleanly, in as plain a manner as possible, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... to confess their indiscretion. Julia was referred to as "the traveller"; other makeshifts were employed with the most knowing caution, and all the while Florence merely ate inscrutably. The more sincere Herbert was placid; ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... in bodily exercise carries its own sedative with it. And in comparing Wordsworth's nature with that of other poets whose career has been less placid, we may say that he was perhaps not less excitable than they, but that it was his constant endeavour to avoid all excitement, save of the purely poetic kind; and that the outward circumstances of his life,—his mediocrity of fortune, happy and early marriage, and ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... between a lady and her daughter I had already met at the North-Western Hotel and did not like, and opposite to the Bishop of Saskabasquia, his wife and sister and three children. There was no help for it, I must endure the placid small talk, the clerical platitudes, the intolerable intolerance born of a deathless bigotry that would emanate from my vis-a-vis. What a fuss they made over him, too! Only a Colonial Bishop after all, but when we were all at the wharf, ready to get into the tender, we were ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... with you, Buck Thornton!" she cried, making a monumental failure of the frown with which she tried to draw her placid brows. "Here I thought all the time you was ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... on ridge the wooded hills arise, Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, The creek goes twinkling through long glows and glooms Of woodland quiet, poppied with perfumes: The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... the door, his old straw hat in hand, with that placid expression on his smooth features. A man of medium height, shoulders slightly rounded; rather gaunt in the middle where the ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... and the daughter of the late Fromont, his former employer and his god. He had placed her beside him, and in his manner of speaking to her one could read affection and deference. She was a very young woman, of about the same age as Sidonie, but of a more regular, quiet and placid type of beauty. She talked little, being out of her element in that conglomerate assemblage; but she tried to ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure; ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the moist obscurity—yet not alone, for I was dimly ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... mass is broken here and there by a perpendicular rock or a white lace-like cascade. Every bay and little inlet has its own peculiar charm, and occasionally a sharp spit of rock is thrust out into the sea. The water to-day is as placid as it can possibly be, and reflects on its surface as in a mirror all the beauties of the scenery. About twelve o'clock we reached Cardwell, a collection of little tin houses, looking from the ship as if they stood amid widely ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... for to herself her position was only that of a poor relation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The front doors of the private houses were mostly left open at this warm autumn time, no thought of umbrella stealers disturbing the minds of the placid burgesses. Hence, through the long, straight, entrance passages thus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels, the mossy gardens at the back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, scarlet geraniums, "bloody warriors," snapdragons, and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... had been hoisted in and stowed away, and the Flying Fish, at an elevation of some three hundred feet above the sea- level, was moving to the southward and eastward across the placid waters of the Channel, at the moderate rate of some five-and-twenty miles per hour. At midnight, however, after a little music and conversation, the pace was quickened to about one hundred miles per hour; the altitude ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and though it was against the rules, we descended into the machinery room. The cause of Carmichael's silence was only too apparent. We saw him lying on the floor beside his strange machine, with his head leaning against the wall. There was a placid expression on his face, and he appeared to slumber; but we soon found that he was either in a faint or dead. Without loss of time we tried the first simple restoratives at hand, but they proved ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... not impress a vessel that had no existence, and the bay was empty. A few boats only lay peacefully resting on the placid waters, but of a ship there was no sign. We stood for an hour staring seaward, as if our will could conjure up a vessel, and then returned to the town. We paid a visit to the governor, but he could not help us. It was unlikely there would be a vessel, he said, until Lord ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... laid its chastening finger about the lips which meekly murmured: "Thy will be done." The rays of the setting sun gilded her mourning dress, gleamed in the white roses that breathed their perfume in her rippling hair, and lingered like a benediction on the placid pure face of the lonely woman who had survived every earthly hope; and who, calmly fronting her Altars of Sacrifice, here dedicated herself anew to the hallowed work of promoting the happiness and gladdening the paths ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... that night; and when she was seated in the boat, and they were rowing over the placid water, she so far forgot her fears as to begin singing. Something in the surroundings had recalled to her mind the time when she used to sing nearly every night her mother's favourite hymn. It all came back to her as freshly as though she had sung it only last week; and her sweet young voice ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... a little past twilight, and the western sky presented an unusual, if not an ominous, appearance. A sharp and melancholy breeze was abroad, and the sun, which had set among a mass of red clouds, half placid, and half angry in appearance, had for some brief space gone down. Over from the north, however, glided by imperceptible degrees a long black bar, right across the place of his disappearance, and nothing could be more striking than the wild and unnatural ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... flap of his vest enough to show the glitter of his badge of office. All the time his little beady eyes watched Barry with bird-like intentness. The rider made not a move. And now Matthews noted more in detail the feminine slenderness of the man and the large, placid eyes. He stepped closer and dropped a confidential hand on ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... peaks of higher mountains made a ragged outline against the sky. The sun was now almost directly overhead; the waters of the lake were still, and its lovely shores were mirrored on the placid surface. A great eagle soared in stately circles in the deep blue sky. It was so beautiful and so still that the children stood a moment among the rocks where the tarn emptied itself into the mountain stream to ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... came bowing in, and cast round a glance of scrutiny, wearing at the same time a very placid and venerable air. But water was dropping from every fold of his dark garments, from his long white beard and the white locks of his hair. The fisherman and the knight took him to another apartment, and furnished him with a change of raiment, while they gave his own ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... and cleared his throat. Madden looked around at his friend with a slight start. The Englishman did not see the approaching sailors. Madden frowned conspicuously, but Smith's long face was placid, and he ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... assailed Grace Ferrall, guiltily aware that once again she had meddled; and in the calm tenor of her own placid, marital satisfaction, looking backward along the pleasant path she had trodden with its little monuments to love at decent intervals amid the agreeable monotony of content, her heart and conscience ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... she, with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst, that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit, like ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... quiet which followed Arthur Howell's refined and distinct accents, I looked at the row of placid faces where the women sat, some rosy, some old, all in the monastic cell of the bonnet, which made it as impossible to see, except in front, as it is for a horse with blinders. I wondered how this queer headgear came ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... was ever directed to what was uncommon, either in nature or in the human heart; either in good or in evil, either in the ordinary course of things or beyond its limits. To the study of placid nature he preferred that of that soul which, though less well regulated, yet rises superior to fortune by its ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... a desultory, placid river of an old bachelor as I am, through the flowery mead of several nurseries. I am detained by all the little roots that run down into me to drink happiness, but I linger longest among the ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... He was in a placid mood, and strangely inclined to retrospection. Thoughtfully fingering the key which locked up the record of his wealth, he walked to the window and looked out. It was a dreary prospect of brown moor and gray sea, but Crawford loved it. The ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... motionless, before thee did I stand, And gazed upon thy placid mien, thy smile, thy proffer'd hand— Ah! ne'er could angel, sent to walk this earth of sinful men, Look lovelier in his robes of light, than thou to me ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down which the rivers sparkle; there is the deepest green of the bush, growing as God planted it, and the other greens of the mealie gardens and the sugar patches, while now and again a white house, smiling out at the placid sea, puts a finish and gives an air of homeliness to the scene. For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... She did not turn back to exactly the same train of thought. A new idea had been given her, which was to become the germ of a long train of others. She hardly put it into words, even to herself; but it was this—that God meant something. He was not sitting on the throne of the universe in placid indifference to her sorrows; neither was He a malevolent Being who delighted in interfering with the plans of His creatures simply to exhibit His own power. He was doing this—somehow—for her benefit. She saw neither the how nor the why; but He saw them, and He meant good to her. All the world ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... being jerked in every direction, without anything in particular being meant by it, that neither Arabia nor Mexico can furnish a bit which would surprise him, or startle his four legs from their propriety. No cow is more placid, no lamb more gentle; he would not harm a tsetse fly or kick a snapping terrier. His sole object in life is to keep himself and his rider out of danger, and to betake himself to that part of the ring in which the ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... is, too. You can not go in at all when the tide is up. Once within, you find yourself in an arched cavern about one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no man knows. It goes down to the bottom of the ocean. The waters of this placid subterranean lake are the brightest, loveliest blue that can be imagined. They are as transparent as plate glass, and their coloring would shame the richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could be more ravishing, no lustre ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Takamatsu, the capital of Kagawa, are many of them so narrow that the shopkeepers on either side have joint sun screens which they draw right across the thoroughfares. Here I found the carts hauled by a smallish breed of cow. The placid animals are handier in a narrow place and less expensive than horses. They are shod, like their drivers, in waraji. In Shikoku the cow or ox is generally used in the paddies instead of the horse. "It is slower but strong and can plough deep," one agricultural expert said. "It eats ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... slumbering, she is rich; Lies placid as a cradled child; At times with an uneasy twitch, That tells of dreams unduly wild. Shall she be with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... quiet and peaceful scene about us—with a low moon over San Rafael, and the lights of the shipping reflected in the placid water. A few fishing-boats were drifting out on the tide, with creak of oar and rowlock; and above all was the glare of the lighted streets and harbour lights ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... it is said to purloin occasionally from the villages. They feed morning and evening, and sleep much in the day. They are excellent climbers, but on the ground move rather awkwardly and slowly. Their senses all appear somewhat blunt, and they are easily captured. In captivity they are placid and inoffensive, docile and silent, and shortly after being taken may be suffered to go abroad. They prefer rice and milk to all other food, refusing animal food, and they are free from all offensive odour. They drink by lapping ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... went to school with lessons unstudied and awaited events. The mother of the bully appeared, and entered into an excited colloquy with the very placid and dignified teacher. I announced to the boy next to me, "My time has come." I was called up to the awful desk. "Is he dead?" I asked. "Did he bleed internally?" "You little wretch," the mother of the tyrant said, "you cut such fearful holes in my son's coat, that ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... interestedly to studying the faces of the two young men across the room. Neither of them, she decided, could be much more than thirty. The face that only a few hours before she had seen utterly convulsed with bitter hate, now placid and smiling, was really an attractive one, not in the least like a murderer's. Frank, alert blue eyes looked out from under an intellectual forehead. A small military mustache lent emphasis to a clean-shaven, forceful jaw. His flaxen hair was neatly trimmed. His linen and clothing were immaculate, ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... beer, heated to the boiling point by the afternoon sun, seemed to have soddened their senses. Behind the bar the two found a passage to the alley in the rear, which led by a cross alley into a deserted street. Finally they emerged on the placid boulevard. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Suddenly a voice broke the stillness—clear, sweet, and sonorous—the voice of the sleeper, though her lips scarcely moved, nor did the placid expression of her ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... but it is difficult to be philosophical when one's every sense is being continually froisse. I feel sometimes that I could commit murder, and I do not know when I shall be able to take the Marquis's advice to remain placid and shut my eyes and try to get what good ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... the hoary minstrel's song, That died the rustling heath among, Where sat the lovely Morna; It slumber'd on the placid wave, It echoed through the warrior's cave, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... abnormalities of women during the premenstrual period. A number of them have their pituitary balance upset then, with an overtopping of the ante-pituitary by the post-pituitary. Irritability, a sub-hysteria, or an actual hysteria may emerge in the usually most placid characters. A quiet wife and mother may go for her husband, curse and mortify him, even strike and beat him. She may slap her children at that time and no other. It is well known that most of their crimes ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... ashes of the great citizens of England have pressed into the sepulchre of the kings, and surrounded them as with a guard of honour after their death. We are sometimes inclined bitterly to contrast the placid dignity of our recumbent kings, with Chatham gesticulating from the northern transept, or Pitt from the western door, or Shakspeare leaning on his column in Poet's Corner, or Wolfe expiring by the chapel of St. John. But, in fact, they are, in their ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... and most lovely is the face on which they gaze with an eager, throbbing anxiety. Gladys presses her hand on Owen's arm, as she puts the candle near that placid face. He, too, puts his ear close to the half-open mouth, touches the hand that lies on the white counterpane, feels for the pulse, so quick but yesterday. He is about to utter the fear that oppresses him, but Gladys points to ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... by the evil spirit Sakuni, who in company with her, devours children on this earth. And Sarama, the mother of dogs, also habitually kills human beings while still in the womb. She who is the mother of all trees has her abode in a karanja tree. She grants boons and has a placid countenance and is always favourably disposed towards all creatures. Those persons who desire to have children, bow down to her, who is seated in a karanja tree. These eighteen evil spirits fond of meat and wine, and others ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 7, Easter-day, after having been at St. Paul's Cathedral, I came to Dr. Johnson, according to my usual custom. It seemed to me, that there was always something peculiarly mild and placid in his manner upon this holy festival, the commemoration of the most joyful event in the history of our world, the resurrection of our LORD and SAVIOUR, who, having triumphed over death and the grave, proclaimed ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... sight, greater, alas! and far more terrible meets us, and alarms our thoughtless senses. Laocoon, allotted priest of Neptune, was slaying a great bull at the accustomed altars. And lo! from Tenedos, over the placid depths (I shudder as I recall) two snakes in enormous coils press down the sea and advance together to the shore; their breasts rise through the surge, and their blood-red crests overtop the waves; the rest trails through the main behind and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... gently all the way uphill. I stooped under and soon felt better; My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple, As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter. My mind was full of the scene I had left, That placid flock, that pastor vociferant, —How this outside was pure and different! The sermon, now—what a mingled weft Of good and ill! Were either less, Its fellow had coloured the whole distinctly; But alas for the excellent earnestness, And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly, ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... is—there is the White City," some one yelled, and the people rose from their seats and looked at the most favored spot of the earth as long as it could be seen. Houses flew by, stations were passed; the placid lake, flecked with many boats, lapped the shore as with some friendly greeting. The great buildings of Chicago's business center appeared in view, and the end of their journey ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... against the straight back of her chair, looking very handsome and placid as Brotherton read and expounded "As You Like It" to her. Her gown of thin black silk threw out the fine gray tones of her skin; about her neck and chest was a heavy chain of Californian gold; her dense lustreless hair was held high with a shell comb banded with gold; ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants, those of some islanders were great swimmers, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... in its present state, will be averse to all solicitude as to the future, and will meet the bitter occurrences of life with a placid smile.—HORACE. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... This, said Dr. Mason, may be truly called "falling asleep in Jesus." It was remarked by those who attended her, that all terror was taken away, and that death seemed here as an entrance into life. Her countenance was placid, and looked younger than before ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... as I now moved among them in a relation of equality, seemed to me excellent gentlemen. They were not rough, nor hasty, nor disputatious; debated pleasantly, differed kindly; were helpful, gentle, patient, and placid. The type of manners was plain, and even heavy; there was little to please the eye, but nothing to shock; and I thought gentleness lay more nearly at the spring of behaviour than in many more ornate and delicate societies. I say delicate, where I cannot say refined; ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... That placid dame, The Moon's Celestial Highness; There's not a trace Upon her face Of diffidence or shyness: She borrows light That, through the night, Mankind may all acclaim her! And, truth to tell, She lights up well, So I, for one, don't ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Denner, at sixty-two, did not realize that he had ceased to be, as he would have expressed it, "a gentleman in middle life." He had no landmarks of great emotions to show him how far the sleepy years had carried him from his youth; and life in Ashurst was very placid. There were no cases to try; property rarely went out of families which had held it when Mr. Denner's father wrote their wills and drew up their deeds in the same brick office which his son occupied now, and it was a point ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... his eyes, but still he could see nothing, only the green waving forest, the patches of undergrowth, the rocks on the steep hills to right and left, and the placid blue sky overhead. It did not seem possible to him that they were about to enter into a struggle for life and ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... tapering, the cheek small, the throat clean, the muzzle fine and encircled with a light stripe, the nostril high and open; the horns smooth, crumpled, but not very thick at the base, tapering and tipped with black; ears small and thin, deep orange color inside; eyes full and placid; neck straight and fine; chest broad and deep; barrel hoofed, broad and deep, well ribbed up; back straight from the withers to the hip, and from the top of the hip to the setting of the tail; tail fine, at right angles with the back, and hanging down to the hocks; ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... he speedily assigned to the girl's account. He continued, as at first, to ignore her. But in the slow rumination of the forest he became more and more irritably sensible of her presence. Sam's taciturnity was contrastedly sunny and open. He looked on things about him with the placid receptivity of an old man, and said nothing because there was nothing to say. The Ojibway girl remained inscrutable, helping where she could, apparently desirous of ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... Verdurins') to desire the possession—as if that were ever possible—of another person. Happily for Swann, beneath the mass of suffering which had invaded his soul like a conquering horde of barbarians, there lay a natural foundation, older, more placid, and silently laborious, like the cells of an injured organ which at once set to work to repair the damaged tissues, or the muscles of a paralysed limb which tend to recover their former movements. These older, these autochthonous in-dwellers in his ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Bessie. "Now I suppose we shall have to stay here indefinitely while Uncle Somerville does things." And placid Mrs. Carteret added plaintively: "It's too bad! I think they might let him have one ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... the center of which the stumps of two trees held a rough plank to make a seat. A stony beach curved inward from this point, the dark woods rose behind, and the soft waters made music in the hollows of the rock beneath her feet. Delightful with the perfume of the forest, the placid shores of Valcour, sun, and flower, and bird filling eye and ear with beauty, the sight of the spot chilled her heart. Here Lord Constantine had offered her his love and his life the year before. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... narrations they had made, had left a superstitious feeling in every mind. They cast a fearful glance at the spot where the buccaneer had disappeared, almost expecting to see him sailing on his chest in the cool moonshine. The trembling rays glittered along the waters, but all was placid, and the current dimpled over the spot where he had gone down. The party huddled together in a little crowd as they repaired homeward, particularly when they passed a lonely field where a man had been murdered, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... attempted to recall to his recollection all the details of the royal banquet, gently joyful, thanks to the excellence of the wines; gently melancholy, thanks to his ambitions ideas, Porthos was gradually falling off into a placid doze, when his servant entered to announce that M. de Bragelonne wished to speak to him. Porthos passed into an adjoining room, where he found his young friend in the disposition of mind we are already aware ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... too, but did not seem inclined to speak again. The nurse came to say that the interview had lasted long enough, and Brian took his leave, promising to come on the morrow, and struck with the look of perfect peace and quiet upon the placid face as it lay amongst the white pillows, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... exactly opposite her, and I was surprised by the strange startled look in her face as she repeated the name of Egerton. That look passed away in the next moment, and left her with her usual air of languid indifference; a placid kind of listlessness which harmonised very well with her pale complexion and delicate features. She was not a woman from ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... always willing to meet you more than half way in such repartee. And finally, at the end of an hour, with aching back, sweat-soaked shirt, and slaughtered hands, you are through and swinging along on the placid, beneficent tide between narrow banks where the cattle stand knee-deep and gaze wonderingly at you. Excitement! Work! Can you beat it in a calm ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... relieved at seeing them so full of life and spirits. Besides, Daddy Tyl was so calm and placid. He sat ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... distinctly the splash of the body and he fired again into the spot whence the noise arose. The waters were still in commotion when he reached them, but there was no one to be found; nothing save the gentle undulation of the surface as it closed over its burden, and gradually became placid under the soft stillness of the night. After several minutes of intense vigilance, he ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... lose again, but the life principle that had been so roughly handled was marvellously tenacious, and refused to be ousted from its tenement. Slowly and painfully Aymer had groped his way from desolate despair to something higher than mere placid resignation, to a brave tolerance of himself and an open heart to what life might still ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Christianity. When the liberals were fiercely attacked, it spoke out, as, for instance, at the time when the Unitarians were charged with stealing churches from the orthodox.[20] Otherwise it was mild and placid enough, given to expressing its friendly interest in every kind of reform, from the education of women to the emancipation of slaves, thoroughly humanitarian in its attitude, not doctrinal or controversial, but faithfully catholic and tolerant. It was a well-conducted periodical, represented ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... there, thinking, she crept close to me with a low growl. I had not heard a sound except the songs of the birds and the stir of the south wind in the leaves that was like the placid flowing of waters. I put my hand on her head and she bristled under my hand, but she was quiet. She would always be quiet with my hand ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... of seven hundred miles. From the Iberian Caucasus, the most lofty and craggy mountains of Asia, that river descends with such oblique vehemence, that in a short space it is traversed by one hundred and twenty bridges. Nor does the stream become placid and navigable, till it reaches the town of Sarapana, five days' journey from the Cyrus, which flows from the same hills, but in a contrary direction to the Caspian Lake. The proximity of these rivers has suggested the practice, or at least the idea, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... lay, the fair young creature, stretched upon the floor and covered with a sheet. And looking so placid, so natural, and as if asleep. We knew what had happened. She was an epileptic: she had been seized with a convulsion and heart failure in her bath. The doctor had to come several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones, failed to bring her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... us a terrible study of jealousy in The Laboratory. The chemist says nothing, but the contrast between the placid face of the old scientist, intent only upon his work, and the wildly passionate countenance of the little woman with him, is sufficiently impressive. Those were the days when murder was a fine art. She plans the public death of the woman she hates so that the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... until long past middle age, to occasional sudden bursts of uncontrollable anger, generally followed by periods of black depression and almost absolute silence,[44] Baker was the very reverse. Partly by natural temperament, but also certainly by severe self-discipline, his manner was invincibly placid and his temper imperturbable.[45] Yet none was more tenacious in maintaining whatever he ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... lifted his hat, and with a courteous movement left the room. His face had the same suave urbanity of expression, but he could hardly restrain the passion in his heart. Placid as he looked when he entered his house, he threw off all pretenses as soon as he reached his room. The Yorkshire spirit which Ethel had declared found him out once in three hundred and sixty-four days and twenty-three hours was then in full pos-session. The American Judge had disappeared. ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... must mask the face with impenetrability and the manner with pretense. Never let the heart be vulnerable. Yet, try as we may, something of our weakness is laid bare. Hereafter Miss Elton might be serene, but would never again be placid. ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... that was in itself exhilarating to her young commander, who still gazed idly at the passing current. Once or twice a slight frown clouded his features, and his lips moved as though he was striving within himself either against real or imaginary evil, and then the same calm, placid manliness of countenance radiated his handsome features, and his ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... up, saw a flock of wild-ducks making for the coast. We watched these, and observing where they alighted, followed them up until we came upon a most lovely blue lake, not more than two hundred yards long, embosomed in verdant trees. Its placid surface, which reflected every leaf and stem as if in a mirror, was covered with various species of wild ducks, feeding among the sedges and broad-leaved water-plants which floated on it, while numerous birds like water-hens ran to and fro most busily on its margin. These all with one accord flew ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... schooners Beaver and Gladwyn. At some distance from the fort, both up and down the river, rose the smoke of populous Indian villages, for all the natives of that section were in from their winter hunting, and gathered at this point for trade. Over the placid waters light canoes occasionally darted from bank to bank. A boat brigade, bound for the far north, was just starting from the fort, and the Canadian voyageurs, gay with fringes, beads, and crimson sashes, caused the morning air to ring with a tuneful chorus as ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... bowers of the adjacent garden, and the tenants now indemnified themselves for silence during the day by a full chorus of their own unrivalled warblings, now joyous, now pathetic, now united, now responsive to each other, as if to express their delight in the placid and delicious scene to which they ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... attractions! It is dotted with islands of great beauty, as yet unvisited by man, but which at no remote period will be adorned with villas and the ornaments of civilized life. The winds from the mountain gorges roll its placid waters into a furious sea, and crest its billows with foam. Forests of pine, deep, dark and almost impenetrable, are scattered at random along its banks, and its beautiful margin presents every variety of sand and pebbly ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... no great success in his last two expeditions, but on February 20th he made an admirable march, and fell upon a Boer laager which lay in placid security in the heart of the hills. One hundred and sixty-four prisoners, including many Boer officers, were the fruits of this success, in which the National Scouts, or 'tame Boers,' as they were familiarly called, played a prominent part. This commando was ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. In this view of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office is continued. Him Nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs; him ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... grass, far away in front they altogether ended, and the open sky above the valley was alone visible. And now an unusual occurrence presented itself. We were following the stream upwards towards its source, yet at every mile it increased in width and became more placid, till at length its surface was unbroken, and it assumed the form of a magnificent river, wider than the Thames at Richmond. The hills continued provokingly to overlap one another as though anxious to shut in and hide the happy valley from sight. ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... mortified that it had fallen dark, and the beauties of the carriage were obscured. But of course I had it out in the yard the first thing this morning, and got in and out at both the doors, and let down and pulled up the windows, and checked an imaginary coachman, and leaned back in a state of placid contemplation. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... and round, And hardly know him in his yellow coats[3], Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue! Farewell, good aunt! Go thou, and occupy the same grave-bed Where the dead mother lies. Oh my dear mother, oh thou dear dead saint! Where's now that placid face, where oft hath sat A mother's smile, to think her son should thrive In this bad world, when she was dead and gone; And when a tear hath sat (take shame, O son!) When that same child has prov'd himself unkind. One ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Barndale are each enjoying their own charming spiritual discomforts. They say little, but, like the famous parrot, they think the more. Concerning one thing, however, Mr. Barndale thinks long and deeply, pulling his tawny beard meanwhile. Lilian, gazing with placid-seeming spirit on the deep, is apparently startled by the suddenness of ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... With crystalline splendour, In radiant grandeur, Upreared the sea-god's home. More dazzling than foam of the waves E'er glimmered and gleamed thro' deep caves The glistening sands of its floor, Like some placid lake rippled o'er." ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... constant companion of my thoughts. How wretched is the condition of one who is haunted with conscious guilt, and trembling under the idea of dreaded vengeance! and what a placid calm, what a charming secret enjoyment it gives, to bosom the kind feelings of friendship and the fond throes of love! Out upon the tempest of anger, the acrimonious gall of fretful impatience, the sullen frost of louring resentment, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that this takes place, they are promoting their mental, as well as their physical health and well-being. The accuracy of this remark is perhaps more conspicuous, although not more real, in the less boisterous and more placid employment of the young. The lively prattle of the girl, while constructing her baby-house; her playful arrogation of authority and command over her playmates, and her serio-comic administering of commendation or reproof in the assumed character of "mistress" or ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Mr Paton, going into the Combination Room, where the masters often met, threw himself into one of the armchairs with an unwonted expression of vexation and disgust on his usually placid features. ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... winds in and out through many islands, and is very placid, hushed, and lonely. Few folk, except at twilight, a pair or two of rustic lovers, walk along its banks. 'Arry and Lord Fitznoodle have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, dirty Reading is not yet reached. It is ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... marriage between the families of St. Castin and d'Amours, but also from the fact that the familiar titles of the d'Amours family seem to have been retained in this, the oldest branch of their family. In proof of this fact, the distinguished Acadian genealogist, Placid P. Gaudet, has shown that among the Acadians residing at the Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in 1767 (according to the census of that year), were Ursule de St. Castin, widow of the only son of Louis d'Amours, then 71 year of age, who resided with her son ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... wanted some mute form of consolation; perhaps the handsome placid features of the dark-eyed dame touched him: at any rate their Platonism was advanced by his putting an arm about her. She felt the arm and talked ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Timothy's gratification, when, on his birthday, Ida presented him with a beautifully drawn sketch of his wife's placid ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... this is one of the dominant thoughts that run through my dissertation. Scenes of power and savagery in nature were more welcome to him, probably more stimulating to him, than the scenes of the pretty and placid, and he cherished the hope that he had put into his "Leaves" some of the tonic and fortifying quality of Nature in her more ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... of meat in his mouth was crossing a bridge over a placid stream. On looking down he saw another dog with a precisely similar piece of meat in the water below him. "That's a singular incident," he thought to himself as he prepared to jump in. "But hold a minute! The angle of incidence is always equal ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... we were set down, I communicated to Johnson, my having engaged to return to London directly, for the reason I have mentioned, but that I would hasten back to him again. He was pleased that I had made this journey merely to keep him company. He was easy and placid with Dr. Adams, Mrs. and Miss Adams, and Mrs. Kennicot, widow of the learned Hebraean, who was here on a visit. He soon dispatched the inquiries which were made about his illness and recovery, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... marriages of affection you are preparing to describe so very placid? Do these jog along so well? Is the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice, of which you speak, as readily practised for the person who is that to you which twenty others may quite as easily be, as it is for the one beyond all whom you ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... from his natal cave In some blue rampart of the curving West, Comes up the valleys where green cornfields wave, Ravels the cloud about the mountain crest, Breathes on the lake till gentle ripples pave Its placid floor; at length a long-loved guest, He steals across this plot of pleasant ground, Waking the vocal leaves to ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... is over; you retire, and snatch a little sleep. But at cock-crow you are aroused. 'Wretch! Worm that I am!' you exclaim. 'To sacrifice the pursuits, the society of former days, the placid life wherein sleep was measured by inclination, and my comings and goings were unfettered, and all to precipitate myself bodily into this hideous gulf! And why? What, in God's name, is my glorious recompense? Was there no other ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... shaking hand, he lifts the latchet, Steps o'er the threshold stone; The heavy door slips from his fingers— It shuts, and he is gone. What touched, transfixed, appalled, his soul?— A nervous thought, no more; 'Twill sink like stone in placid pool, And ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... late. Roy's twenty-two had already sounded. However, nothing but a bullet was lost. When the monoplane had passed swiftly on its way, the placid and apparently unmoved animals stood ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... had had, at any time, as much taste or use as for a diving-bell; and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a bank of violets, moved to precocious contemplation by the spire of a village church. There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same calm blue eye, the same placid air. The shining bald head, which looked so very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very benevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen in the boy as in the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... administration of the town and the maintenance of order in the streets became difficult tasks, for the government had not been organized for such a state of things. The burgomaster—that worthy Van Tricasse whom we have seen so placid, so dull, so incapable of coming to any decision— the burgomaster became intractable. His house resounded with the sharpness of his voice. He made twenty decisions a day, scolding his officials, and himself enforcing the regulations of ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a silent reproach to the first irregular wish; and the purpose immediately appears to be disingenuous and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence of unsuspecting simplicity abused, and the peace even of virtue endangered, by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... establishment of my motives as a disagreeable necessity; I speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of the business was that it couldn't be done. When I saw in the glass the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences of the past few weeks had stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance, I could scarcely feel surprised that the few friends and relations I possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise, and persisted in their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I who had been done to death on the highway. ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... contribution to the sum of human knowledge, and I have sometimes thought that good people who lightly and freely criticize their actions scarcely realize just what such criticism means. It is one thing to stand on the comfortable ground of placid inaction and put forth words of cynical wisdom, and another to plunge into the work itself and through strenuous experience earn the right to ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... in his eyes; and we, I need not say, backed our friend, delighted to see him come out of his queer scrape so triumphantly. The Colonel bowed and smiled with very pleasant good-nature at our plaudits. There was something touching in the naivetee and kindness of the placid and simple gentleman. ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... o'er the place, And softens ragged edges; The rising moon's great placid face Looks ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... thirty-eight, Heinrich Schopenhauer married, on May 16, 1785, Johanna Henriette Trosiener, a young lady of eighteen, and daughter of a member of the City Council of Dantzic. She was at this time an attractive, cultivated young person, of a placid disposition, who seems to have married more because marriage offered her a comfortable settlement and assured position in life, than from any passionate affection for her wooer, which, it is just ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... were to assemble to pay their last tribute of respect to one who had no further need of friends and respect. The surviving members of the family came severally every few minutes to the casket and wept above the placid features beneath the glass. This did them no good; it did no good to John Mortonson; but in the presence of death reason ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... turn his thoughts into a more placid channel to find, when he reached the house, Myra sitting in the kitchen talking to Doris. Yet it was no great surprise. He had expected this, looked forward to it with an uneasy sense of ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... when he thoroughly enjoyed the labor of wresting a livelihood from the soil, and he took pride in raising the choicest products that could be offered for sale. Such spells were most frequent in midsummer, when all nature was in a placid mood for growth; but in autumn and spring came livelier hopes and a stronger call to this lad, and in his own way he set about accomplishing the chief aim of his life, the great end to which these winter pursuits were ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... Grey, the womanly feeling within her forcing its way, even through her placid non-resistance, "do stop! you surely don't consider ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... good Russian. He had no fighting spirit, but was essentially a man of peace, entertaining a horror of bloodshed or of sanguinary deeds. His placid temper caused him to avoid all questions in dispute. He was prepared to do all possible to benefit our country. He had cleverly conducted the election campaign, and had all the governors of each province with him. The Emperor trusted ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... many practical instances that even my illustrations are not exaggerated, by many placid proposals I have heard for the vivisection of criminals, or by the filthy incident of Dr. Neisser. But I prefer here to stick to a strictly logical line of distinction, and insist that whereas in all previous persecutions the violence was used to end our indecision, the whole point here ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... the right until he was past the sea-wall, Jerry came on down to the beach. No Arangi was to be seen on the placid surface of the lagoon. All about him was the debris of the feast, and he scented the smouldering odours of dying fires and burnt meat. Many of the feasters had not troubled to return to their houses, but lay about on the sand, in the mid-morning sunshine, men, women, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... "a week" Fix felt his heart leap for joy. Fogg detained at Hong Kong for a week! There would be time for the warrant to arrive, and fortune at last favoured the representative of the law. His horror may be imagined when he heard Mr. Fogg say, in his placid voice, "But there are other vessels besides the Carnatic, it seems to me, in the harbour ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... Presidency, the Senate, and the House, is builded the vast national party machine. Every citizen is familiar with the outer aspect of these great national parties as they strive in placid times to create a real issue of the tariff, or imperialism, or what not, so as to establish at least an ostensible difference between them; or as they, in critical times, make the party name synonymous with national security. The high-sounding platforms, the frenzied orators, ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... some miles from Bath, in a pleasant wooded valley, through which meandered a placid and slow-flowing stream. On either side of this water stretched broad meadow lands, flat and fertile, as well they might be, seeing they were of rich black loam, and well drained, withal. To the right these meadows were bounded by forest lands, the trees of which grew thickly up and over the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... ecclesiastical doctrine could be divorced from each other. As the individual sovereignty of the seven states established itself more and more securely, the right of provincial power to dictate religious dogmas, and to superintend the popular conscience, was exercised with a placid arrogance which papal infallibility could scarcely exceed. The alternation was only between the sects, each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore persecuting. The lessened intensity of persecution however, which priesthood and authority were now allowed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... among the Sisterhood of Mercy for some months. The deep calm of that holy retreat has soothed her, but only this much, that her melancholy has not lessened but grown more placid. She is in the midst of those whose thoughts are habitually directed to that work which she longs after. The home from which she has been exiled is the desire of their hearts. They aim after that ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... canter, and the doctor's horse clung close to its flank. The eager eyes of both were searching for the meaning of the stir which the youthful Inspector had detected. And instinctively they gazed out down the broad waters of the placid river as far as the rapidly ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... dully and heavily; his eyes never unclosed; she felt tempted to raise the lashes, as she would lift up and peep under the lids of a child. Ah! but she feared to see the balls sightless and glazing over fast. The marked, lively face was placid as if it were set in death, and the slight contraction between the brows, which she had remarked the first night she saw him, was almost effaced. How dreadful it would be if he died on her knees there, in the solitude ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... crouches among dead leaves which have gathered in the fork of a tree, and will construct a web which spans the coconut avenue with its stays. From one aspect its rotund body invites a good-humoured smile, for the marking exactly simulates the features of a tabby cat, well fed, sleepy, and in placid mood. Venom of virulence to kill a bat almost instantly would be severe enough to a human being. This dirty, obese spider deserves little consideration ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the other mornin', as I'm sittin' placid at my desk dictatin' routine correspondence into a wax cylinder that's warranted not to yank gum or smell of frangipani—sittin' there dignified and a bit haughty, like a highborn private sec. ought to, you know—who should come ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... his lonely nook, With naked head, and coldly placid look, Went out and gaz'd intently on the sky, Whose lights were letters to his ancient eye. "The stars," said he, "in friendly order stand, One only, flashes like an angry brand:— Thy Harrald, gentle Queen, will not be slain Upon the Earth, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... the darkness, his lofty figure rising above the moving crowd, his broad shoulders and robust body noticeable among the trampled limbs and crushed sides of the rest, stood the Prince des Boscenos, calm, immovable, and placid. Serenely and indulgently he waited. In the mean time, as the exit was opened at regular intervals between the ranks of the police, the pressure of elbows against the chests of those around the prince diminished and people ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... more immediately dependent upon the imagination, and which may have received from it a thorough taint of dishonour;—so the domestic loves and sanctities which are in their nature less liable to be stained,—so these, wherever they have flowed with a pure and placid stream, do instantly, under the same influence, put forth their strength as in a flood; and, without being sullied or polluted, pursue—exultingly and with song—a course which leads the contemplative reason to the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... of the things of life! The seventh day after that dreadful visit saw my brother Matthew—the delicate one, who, while bold men writhed in torture, had kept the same placid face, and the same untrembling fingers—him that seventh day saw a clay-cold corpse, carried to the repose of the churchyard. The shaft, rankling far down and within, wrought a poison too great for show, and the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and when they were through the churchyard gates walked at hazard towards the stream which ran through the grounds of Hawk's Hall. Here they sat down upon a fallen willow, watching the swallows skim over the surface of the placid waters, and for a while were silent. They had so much to say to each other that it seemed as though scarcely they ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... the many lovely places he knew, and so many dream-landscapes; the London streets made them infinitely remote, utterly unreal. His three years of gloom and hardship were longer than all the life of placid contentment that came before. Lucerne! A man of more vigorous temper would have been maddened at the thought; but Mr. Tymperley nursed it all day long, his emotions only expressing themselves in a little sigh or ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Irish hearth happy and the Irish name illustrious, is becoming understood. It must contain and represent the races of Ireland. It must not be Celtic, it must not be Saxon—it must be Irish. The Brehon law and the maxims of Westminster, the cloudy and lightning genius of the Gael, the placid strength of the Sasanach, the marshalling insight of the Norman—a literature which shall exhibit in combination the passions and idioms of all, and which shall equally express our mind in its romantic, its religious, its forensic, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... whose smile can brighten the darkest hour, and scatter roses over the thorniest path of life. I had rather," she added, with a glowing cheek, "far rather trust my little bark to the guidance of affection, upon the placid stream of domestic joy, than to launch it on the troubled waters of ambition, with pleasure at the helm, and freighted with hopes and desires, which can bring back no returns but those ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... gravely discussed this problem, contemplating profoundly the backs of the animals. Hawker gazed in silence at the meditating two before him. Under the wagon Stanley, the setter, walked slowly, wagging his tail in placid contentment and ruminating ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... breeze, wafting the pungent fragrance of pines, bore also up to that lonely hilltop the distant clatter of dishes and the voices of scouts from the camp below. The last patches of vapor were dissolving over the wood embowered lake, and one or two early canoes were already moving aimlessly upon its placid bosom. A shout and a laugh and a sudden splash, sounding faint in the distance, told him that some uninitiated new arrivals were diving from the springboard before breakfast. They would soon be checked in that ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... London. The heroine, Miss Arundel, is being initiated into the mysteries of the writing world by her friend, Mrs. Sullivan, when her attention is arrested by the sight of 'a female in a Quaker's dress—the quiet, dark silk dress—the hair simply parted on the forehead—the small, close cap—the placid, subdued expression of the face, were all in strong contrast to the crimsons, yellows, and blues around. The general character of the large, soft eyes seemed sweetness; but they were now lighted up with an expression of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... and yet live! Not only live, but live peaceably! If a husband and wife are going to quarrel they will find a cause for dispute easily enough, and will not be compelled to wait for election day. And supposing that they have never, never had a single dispute, and not a ripple has ever marred the placid surface of their matrimonial sea, I believe that a small family jar—or at least a real lively argument—will do them good. It is in order to keep the white-winged angel of peace hovering over the home that married women are not allowed to vote in ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... elevated ground, and far away to our left, down in a hollow, flows the broad Elbe; placid indeed from this distance, for not a ripple can we see upon its surface. A few ships are lazily moving on its waters. Stand aside, and make way for this reverend gentleman; he is a prediger, a preacher of the gospel; he is habited in a black gown, black silk stockings ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... "Hamlet" there is a looking forward to something better, some one is left at the end of the play to right wrong, restore society and build the state anew. The later plays, "The Tempest" and "Cymbeline," show a beautiful, placid optimism which delights in reconciliations and reunions and which plans for the triumph of external as well ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... happy prologue to those greater delights that would come when he at last went to Epsom and really saw the famous race for the Derby. To-day, he was sorry that anything—even so great a thing as that—must come to disturb such placid happiness ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... needed not the old lady's dash under "on an anxious affair" to bring him to her little drawing-room as soon as he could quit his desk. Perhaps he hastened his work with a hope in his heart which he durst not express, but the agitation on the usually placid face forbade him to entertain it for an instant, and he only said, 'So our expedition has led to unforeseen consequences, Miss Headworth.' And then she answered under her breath, as if afraid of being overheard: 'Mr. Dutton, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first-rate though rather precarious angling for salmon which may be obtained in the northern parts of Scotland, should not have contrived to include an account of the more uproarious Highland streams and placid lakes frequented by this princely species. With all our admiration for the flowing Tweed, of which we have fondly traced the early ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... as it went on, cold rain blew up, and the inmates of the Manor began to be anxious that Archelaus had not yet come in with little Jim. No one seemed to know where he had gone or taken the child. As the day wore on Marjorie, usually a very placid, strong-minded mother, began to grow frantic. She declared that never since he came to the place had she considered Archelaus quite sane or responsible, and that Ishmael ought to have known better to keep such ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the temple and to place in it some memorial of their veneration for the god. Usirtasen I., following the example of his father, set up a statue of himself in the form of Osiris: he is sitting on his throne of grey granite, and his placid face unmistakably recalls that of Amenemhait I. Amenemhait II., Usirtasen II., and his wife Nofrit have also dedicated their images within ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... they were standing outside the railings of the landing and regarding, through welling tears, the placid lake, the sunny slopes of grass and tree, the brilliant sky and the gleaming rubber-neck-boat-bird which, as Ikey described, "made go its legs," but only, as he had omitted to mention, for money. So there they stood, seven sorrowful ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... shot over the sky and stained the placid waters beneath to crimson. In this sea of blood the wreck lay, her decks ruddy with the stain of blood sacrificed ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... bathe and breakfast. A long line of dust marks the track from the course, for the sun is now high in the heavens, the lake is rippling in placid beauty under a gentle breeze, and the long lines of natives, as well as vehicles of all sorts, form a quaint but picturesque sight. After breakfast calls are made upon all the camps and bungalows round the station. Croquet, badminton, and other games go on until dinner-time. I could linger lovingly ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... her "my dear" instead of the customary Lou, it was a sign of supreme obstinacy on his part and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as an indication of placid affection. He always said "my dear" at the top of his voice and with ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... is possible for us to know; but we cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can look much deeper into the ocean than a man on the level beach. The higher you climb the further you will see down into the 'sea of glass mingled with fire' that lies placid before God's throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished; of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down, and it is as hazardous for us to say about any deed or any revealed ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... open volumes before him, was the benevolent old gentleman. His face was round and shiny, like Mr Pickwick's, big glasses were stuck on the end of his nose, and the top of his head was as bright and bare as a glass bottle. He never moved when I entered, but raised his placid eyebrows and waited ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... times over? There may be petty and amusing differences of opinion, quiet banter, and an occasional grave conflict of judgment; but, so long as three central requirements—confidence, generosity, and unselfishness—are met, there can be no serious break in the procession of placid, happy days. I abhor the gushing talk sometimes heard about "married lovers;" the people who dignify life and honour the community are those who are lovers and something more. Of course we can all feel sympathy with Fanny Kemble when she says that the poetry of "Romeo and Juliet" went ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... was conducted. He distrusted that quiet-faced, thoughtful, and laborious young man, whom they so loved and reverenced—the founder, the soul, and the centre of their party. To the keen glance of the aged leader it appeared that for all that placid brow, those calm grey eyes and softly curving lip of his, the man had no horror of blood-spilling in a righteous cause, and was capable not only of deliberately inciting his countrymen to rise in arms against English ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Gauthier arrived, placid and cool as though everything were normal. "Paris is calm; calm as Paris ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... to a guttural order from Dr. Fu-Manchu, placed the cage upon the carpet, completely covering Smith's body, but leaving his neck and head exposed. The seared and pock-marked face set in a sort of placid leer, the dacoit adjusted the sliding partitions to Smith's recumbent form, and I saw the purpose of the graduated arches. They were intended to divide a human body in just such fashion, and, as I realized, were most cunningly shaped to ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... by all the chief officers there, among whom are some particular favourites, and some men of the first quality. Instead of being shocked at this disappointment, Byng accompanied it with some wonderful placid letters, in which he notified his intention of retiring under the cannon of Gibraltar, in case he found it dangerous to attempt the relief of Minorca! These letters had scarce struck their damp before D'Abreu, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in Philosophy and elegant Literature, is well known to the present, and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal and placid temper[51], your variety of conversation, your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common centre of union for the great, the accomplished, the learned, and the ingenious; all these qualities ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... with the current and using the broad oars only to steer with, they kept their course in the main channel where there was little danger of shoals and snags. The weather was fine and the scenery along the banks of the majestic river had that placid beauty that distinguishes the country through which the lower Ohio rolls its mighty mass of waters on their way to the Mississippi. These halcyon days of the voyage were destined, however, to be soon abruptly terminated. They had descended the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Ali Mardan went out a-hunting, and as he hunted in the forest above the beautiful Dal lake, which stretches clear and placid between the mountains and the royal town of Srinagar, he came suddenly on a maiden, lovely as a flower, who, seated beneath a tree, was weeping bitterly. Bidding his followers remain at a distance, he went up to the ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... iv. p. 1449.) Evagrius and Liberatus present only the placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide over ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... cat race is nervous. Their temperaments are high-strung. They would never have become as poised or as placid as—say—super-cows. Yet they would have had less insanity, probably, than we. Monkeys' (and elephants') minds seem precariously balanced, unstable. The great cats are saner. They are intense, they would have needed sanitariums: but fewer asylums. And their asylums would have been not ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... beneath my feet, and whirred away; the next was a squirrel, who chattered angrily at me from an overhanging bough. I trod along by the dark, sluggish river, and remember pausing on the bank, above one of its blackest and most placid pools (the very spot, with the barkless stump of a tree aslantwise over the water, is depicting itself to my fancy at this instant), and wondering how deep it was, and if any overladen soul had ever flung ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ingeniously observed by a lady of rank and elegance, that 'his melancholy was then at its meridian[877].' It pleased GOD to grant him almost thirty years of life after this time; and once, when he was in a placid frame of mind, he was obliged to own to me that he had enjoyed happier days, and had many more friends, since that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Elersley," said Honor, in a provokingly placid way, "don't exert yourself so violently in contradicting your own free, unextracted observations. You can amuse me in a dozen other different ways ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... smoking-room was late in breaking up. The sound of their steps and voices as they came upstairs roused Lady Randolph, not from sleep—for she had been unable to sleep—but from the confused maze of recollections and efforts to think which distracted her placid soul. She was not made for these agitations. The constitution of her mind was overset altogether. The moment that suspicion and distrust came in there was no further strength in her. She was lying not thinking so much as remembering stray words and looks which drifted across her ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... while Phebe inspected the black cambric binding of her fan, and tried to gather energy to go out into the hot sun once more. Mrs. Richardson had rocked herself into more placid humor. ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... of the diplomatic pool had been ominously placid. Few ripples had disturbed its surface, save those occasional ones from the direction of unquiet Serbia. But the waters were seething now, stirred to their very lees by plot and counterplot. The advices received by the Ambassador were alarming. Had the attack ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... The placid smile, the brow serene, Unstudied glance, unruffled mien, Glad approbation gain; From rankling spleen, and envy free, The venomed pang of jealousy Essays to wound ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... turtles and alligators swarm in vast numbers; electric eels, too, abound in them, as well as many of the other curious water-creatures of that region. Water-fowl and various other aquatic birds dwell on their banks, while on the surface of their placid waters float the wide-spreading leaves and magnificent blossoms of the Victoria Regia, as also of other ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... to his time, he took up his residence at Passy, a suburb of Paris, where he lived most comfortably, keeping a carriage and entertaining at dinner numerous guests. He had a beautiful garden, in which he delighted to show his experiments to distinguished people. His face always wore a placid and benignant expression. He had no enemies, and many friends. His society was particularly sought by fashionable ladies and eminent savants. While affable and courteous, he was not given to flattery. He was plain and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... Ninaka were whispering together in low gutturals, and to the girl's distorted and fear excited imagination it seemed possible that she alone must be the subject of their plotting. The prahu was gliding through a stretch of comparatively quiet and placid water where the stream spread out into a little basin just above a narrow gorge through which they had just forced their way by dint of the most laborious exertions on the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... peace by the diamond lake. Senora Dolores, her tutor, Padre Francisco, and the placid Duenna Juanita make up a pleasant home circle. It is brightened by luxuries provided by the new lord. Maxime Valois' voice is heard through the valleys. He travels in support of James Buchanan, the ante-bellum President. For is not John C. Breckinridge, the darling ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... back at the barking squirrels that whisked before us along the fences. Mr. Yocomb seemed almost as much of a boy as Reuben, and for some reason Miss Warren always laughed most at his pleasantries. Mrs. Yocomb looked as placid and bright as Silver Pond, as it at last glistened beneath us in the breathless, sunny afternoon; but like the clear surface fringed with shadows that sank far beneath the water, there were traces of many thoughts in her ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... at the piano, served as his pilot and propeller while the rest of us formed an escort which could be turned into a rescue party if occasion required. A stout, capacious rowboat followed immediately in the wake of the canoe. We went down the dark, placid current in the fine summer weather to the Battleground, and then looked into the solemn forest aisle which arches over the narrow Assabeth. The day was perfect, the flowers and birds were at their best, the pleasant nature was all about us. All this John Fiske drank in to the full ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Checkynshaw was conscious that he was revealing the weakness of his position, and he sat down in his chair again, with a placid smile upon his face. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... remark. It will be remembered that, according to Shelley's belief, 'nothing exists but as it is perceived': see p. 56. The view of life expressed with passionate force in this passage of Adonais is the same which forms the calm and placid conclusion of The Sensitive Plant, a poem written ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... mystifying to him that for a moment he almost doubted that she was Mamie Pike. It came to him with a breath-taking shock that her face lacked a certain vivacity of meaning; that its sweetness was perhaps too placid; that there would have been a deeper goodness in it had there been any hint of daring. Astonishing questions assailed him, startled him: could it be true that, after all, there might be some day too much of her? Was her amber hair a little too—FLUFFY? Was ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... out, placid and smiling, and Margaret sobbed plentifully—until it became necessary to go to her room and remove the traces of her grief. So it may be assumed that her tears were not all occasioned by grief for the contemplated ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... directly, coming into the quiet channel of the stream which fell in upon its western shore. Up this stream in turn steadily they passed, amid a panorama filled with constant change. Sometimes the gentle river bent away in long curves, with hardly a ripple upon its placid surface, save where now and again some startled fish sprang into the air in fright or sport, or in the rush upon its prey. Then the stream would lead away into vast seas of marsh lands, waving in illimitable reaches of rushes, or fringed with the unspeakably beautiful ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... through, Looked at each other as yellow and blue, As any electioneering crew Wearing the colours of Whigs and Tories. Ah! well the Poet said, in sooth, That "whispering tongues can poison Truth," - Yes, like a dose of oxalic acid, Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid, And rack dear Love with internal fuel, Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel, Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel, - At least such torments began to wring 'em From the very morn When that mischievous Horn Caught the whisper of ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... appreciation for the fitness of things generally. The Parthenon was designed to be made in stone, as much for the construction as for the light color effect of the marble. Only the light color play of its exterior would do against a placid blue sky to relieve the otherwise exceedingly simple rigidity of its massive forms of construction. To make an imitation of this great building in uncouth, somber, almost black pine logs of dubious proportions is hardly ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... being cared for and restored by the State for the benefit of the whole world. Here, too, in Malines was a most quaint "Beguinage," or asylum, in an old quarter of the town, hidden away amid a network of narrow streets: a community of gentle-mannered, placid-faced women, who dwelt in a semi-religious retirement after the ancient rules laid down by Sainte Begga, in little, low, red-roofed houses ranged all about a grass-grown square. Here, after depositing a considerable sum of money, they were permitted to live in groups ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... Hamilton took out four photographs which were passed from one to another. One pictured a gray-haired man in military clothes, very erect, very stern and fine-looking. Another was of a plump, placid, elderly lady who looked the very ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... broken stillness and over the sanctity of that untravelled road. That terrible and wasting fever that, unlike so many plagues, comes not from the East but from the West, the fever of hurry, had not come here—only the Wrellis hurried on his eternal quest, but it was a calm and placid hurry that gave one time for song. It was in the early afternoon, and nobody was about. Either they worked beyond the mysterious valley that nursed Wrellisford and hid it from the world, or else they secluded themselves within their old-time houses that were roofed with ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... its pallid, placid glimmer on the purple ocean, when at the distance of a musket shot from them was seen a dark gray mass, above which gleamed a triangular sail; then masters and servants joined in a fervent cry to the crew of that vessel to ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of the mountain, jade green, placid, unwinking, also unfathomable. Whatever goes on under the high and stony brows is guessed at. It is always a favorite local tradition that one or another of the blind lakes is bottomless. Often they lie in such deep cairns of broken boulders that one never gets quite to ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... the most placid-tempered women who ever breathed, now became annoyed, and stepping out on the verandah, addressed herself to ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... noble-looking, with soft, heavy braids of light-brown hair carefully arranged on her fine, shapely head; her forehead is full and broad; her eyes large, dark blue, and pleasantly commanding, but with very gentle and dreamy phases interrupting their placid decision of expression; her features are classic and firm in outline, with pronounced resolution in the close of the full lips, or of hearty merriment in the open laugh, illuminated by a dazzle of well-set teeth; her complexion fresh and pure, ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... on one of the iron benches painted green, and decorated with castings of grapes and vine leaves. She sat down beside him and gazed out over the placid water, on which the crimson clouds cast a mellow glory. The sky seemed like another sea, stretching off into infinite distance, and strewn with continents of fiery splendor. Maud looked straight forward to the clear horizon line, marking the flight ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... room stood a chintz-covered lounge, and, creeping to it, she laid herself down; and, shading her features with her hand, looked through her fingers at the pale, grieved face of the anxious brother. Sometimes he stood up, studying the placid countenance of the sufferer, and now and then he walked softly to the fire-place, and held whispered conferences with Hester relative to the course of treatment ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... approached the Lagediak Strait, the breeze was sufficient to warrant us in venturing through it; I therefore gave up my intention of entering by the Schischmaref Strait where the wind would be against us, spread all sail, and soon rode on the placid waters of the basin. I would not however advise seamen, without an adequate inducement, to choose this strait: it is so narrow, that stones might easily be thrown across from either shore; while, on the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... A row of birches fringed the brook, and each birch seemed more exquisitely graceful and golden than her sisters. The woods receded from it on every hand, leaving it lying in a pool of amber sunshine. The yellow trees were mirrored in the placid stream, with now and then a leaf falling on the water, mayhap to drift away and be used, as Uncle Blair suggested, by some adventurous wood sprite who had it in mind to fare forth to some far-off, legendary region where all the brooks ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... African Republic had pursued a strenuous and violent existence, fighting incessantly with the natives and sometimes with each other, with an occasional fling at the little Dutch republic to the south. The semi-tropical sun was waking strange ferments in the placid Friesland blood, and producing a race who added the turbulence and restlessness of the south to the formidable tenacity of the north. Strong vitality and violent ambitions produced feuds and rivalries worthy of medieval Italy, and the story of the factious little communities ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... discourse with him, and showed a disposition to placid good-will, for with so irritable a spirit resentment has much less chance to do good than an appearance of not supposing it deserved. Our conversation was in the utmost gravity. He told me he was not happy, though owned he had everything to make him so; but he was firmly persuaded that ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... sleep revisited her eyelids, and when she woke the noonday sun streamed broadly through the lattice. By the bedside sat a matron advanced in years, but of a mild and prepossessing countenance, which only borrowed a yet more attractive charm from an expression of placid and habitual melancholy. She was robed in black; but the rich pearls that were interwoven in the sleeves and stomacher, the jewelled cross that was appended from a chain of massive gold, and, still more, a certain air of dignity and command,— bespoke, even to the inexperienced ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book III. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... healthy eye of the soul, is looked at afterward with the lens of apologetic ingenuity, through which all things that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made up of textures very much alike. Europe adjusts itself to a fait accompli, and so does an individual character—until the placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution. [Footnote: ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... by side, so to say, with his character, as a scientific man, though even he did not escape the accusation of being a Unitarian. In the resistance which official religion offered at every step to the advance of the sciences, it is small wonder if natures less placid found the maintenance of their ancestral faith too difficult. Natural science was deistic with Locke and Voltaire, it was pantheistic in the antique sense with Shaftesbury, it was pantheistic-mystical with Spinoza, spiritualistic with Descartes, theistic with Leibnitz, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... MAZZINI [with placid gallantry]. No, you won't, Hesione. But you would be quite safe. Would you believe it that quite a lot of women have flirted with me because I am quite safe? But they get tired of ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... speaking of the fully developed Virginia gentleman, says, "There was the foundation of a certain pride, based on self-respect and consciousness of power. There were nearly always the firm mouth with its strong lines, the calm, placid, direct gaze, the quiet speech of one who is accustomed to command ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... all intrusion, he bore with irritability and impatience. Even Clarence found himself excluded from the presence of his friend; even his nearest relation, who doted on the very ground which he hallowed with his footstep, was banished from the haunted sanctuary of the painter; from the most placid of human beings, Warner seemed to have grown the ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not remember ever to have experienced a greater sense of exhilaration than when I slipped noiselessly into the placid water, and struck out into the smooth, eddying current for the opposite shore. The night was so still and lovely, my black statues looked so dream-like at their posts behind the low earthwork, the opposite arm of the causeway stretched ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... mountain, and has descended its side. Bristling shrubs, swamps, precipitous banks, rushing torrents, are no obstacle to his course. He has reached the brow of a hill, with a deep placid river at the foot of it, just as the dawn begins to break. It is a lovely prospect, which every step he takes is becoming more definite and more various in the daylight. Masses of oleander, of great beauty, with their red blossoms, fringed the river, and ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... didn't understand the theory of the field he'd bought fame-rights to. But there was no point in bringing that up. Johnny Simms beamed at both of them. He was the swimmer Babs had pointed out in the swimming-pool. His face was completely unlined and placid, like the face of a college undergraduate. He had never worried about anything. He'd never had a care in the world. He merely listened with ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... grown up a tradition that Dorothy was a strong-minded woman, and her husband a submissive man without character and will. The myth rests only on the science of physiognomy working on portraits,—a most insecure foundation. The Founders' portraits depict him as a gentle, placid person with melancholy eyes; her as a hard-featured woman with a long upper lip and an almost cruel mouth. Against the testimony, always dubious, of portraits, must be set the known facts of her loyal devotion in carrying out ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... three times its usual breadth. Tall trees grew almost to the verge of the banks on both sides, so that the water was almost always in shadow, while so high were the banks that few breezes were able to ripple its surface. It lay placid all the year, scarcely troubled even in winter, when the other parts of the creek rushed and tumbled in flood. There was room in the high banks of Anglers' Bend for all the extra water, and its presence was only marked by the strength of the ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... believed him. This talk of dimensions and planes and of the halting of time was incomprehensible, but somehow there was communicated to his own restless nature something of the placid serenity of the white-haired stranger. He regarded the man more closely, saw there was an alien look about him that marked him as different and apart from the men of Earth. His sole garment was a wide breech clout of silvery stuff that glinted with changing colors—hues foreign to nature ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... weak should so long have endured the wear of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid and happy frame of mind which he habitually enjoyed; but it is important to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from temporal ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... lies, fat plenty in her halls, With calm parochial spires that hold in fee The friendly gables clustered at their base, And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place, The Gothic minister's winged immensity; And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned, Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find Long years of ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... sensations and is quite contented with vicarious gratification. There are delicately fibred novelists who satisfy a sort of secondary Berserkism by writing books whose pages reek with bloodshed. The most placid, benevolent, gold-spectacled paterfamilias I know, a man who thinks it cruel to eat live oysters, has a curious passion for crime and gratifies it by turning his study into a musee maccabre of murderers' relics. From the thumb-joint of a notorious criminal he ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... was behaving like the ideal pipe; and, as I strolled spaciously about the lawn, my novel was growing nobly. I had neglected my literary work for the past week, owing to the insistent claims of the fowls. I am not one of those men whose minds work in placid independence of the conditions of life. But I was making up for lost time now. With each blue cloud that left my lips and hung in the still air above me, striking scenes and freshets of sparkling dialogue rushed through my brain. Another uninterrupted half hour, ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... strikes any, it must be merely people of taste; for people of wit without taste, which comprehends the larger part of the critical tribe, will unavoidably despise it. I have been at some pains to recover myself from A. Phi**** misfortune of mere childishness, 'Little charm of placid mien,' &c. I have added a ludicrous index purely to show (fools) that I am in jest; and my motto, 'O, qua sol habitabiles illustrat oras, maxima principum!' is calculated for the same purpose. You cannot conceive how large the number is of those that mistake burlesque for the very ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... intelligent and receptive. She told him too that he was growing obedient, cheerful, kind to others, truthful and courageous. The little boy had put one arm round her neck and was listening with a placid smile. His face was quite ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... imagination, that lower inspiration, which, like the higher one of faith, is the "evidence of things not seen"? Troubled and billowy waters reflect nothing distinctly on their surface; it is the still, deep, placid element that gives back the images by which it is surrounded or that pass over its surface. I do not of course believe that a good man is necessarily a poet, but I think a devout man is almost always a man with a poetical imagination; he is familiar with ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... course obeyed, and the evening shut in beautifully and placid, with all the glory of a mild night, in a latitude as low as that they were in. They who have never seen the ocean under such circumstances, know little of its charms in its moments of rest. The term of sleeping is well applied to its impressive stillness, for the long sluggish swells on which ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... together, it may be, large, with full eyelids, and black, very black, but by no means lustrous; they reminded me of unpolished marble, or rather of velvet, and this gave a strange, dull, even cold expression to her countenance. Her fine eyebrows and these great placid eyes gave her an air of strength and dignity which was not borne out by the lower part of her face. Her nose was rather thick and not over shapely. Her mouth was also rather coarse and her chin small. She spoke with great simplicity, and her manners ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... this coming up the walk?" said Aunt Barbara, rising and turning toward her placid younger sister in sudden excitement. "It can't be—why, yes, it is Betty, after all!" and she ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... mother gave to Heidi, and which resulted in her happy, placid ways and quickly responsive intelligence, meets with a like response in older children; and reciprocal friendship grows in strength and in pleasure both for child and older friend, as the child grows older. When a child is permitted the freedom of his own individuality, ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... of Somers; the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment; the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which half ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... her fanatic population is so desirous to sever. A population with whom peace, humanity, mercy, oaths, contracts, and compacts, pass for nothing—whose promises and engagements are as chaff before the wind—to whom bloodshed, robbery, assassination, and murder, are objects of placid contemplation—whose narrow creed of bigotry supersedes all the obligations, of morality, and all the commands of positive law. With such men what valid compact can be made? The appeal must be to those who think that a deliberate compact is mutually binding on parties ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... person cannot get it in one way, he gets it in another. The stay-at-home gratifies his wandering fancy by making little alterations in his too-familiar surroundings. Even the Vicar of Wakefield in the days of his placid prosperity would occasionally migrate from the blue bed to the brown. A life that had such vicissitudes ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... nice and placid; sort of thing you women who live sheltered lives can say. I often wonder if you women realise the strain ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... desire to sing, and by a sort of brusque grace, which I could feel the of very well even as a child. She was the soul of the house, which she filled with her systematic and joyous activity. My father was just as slow as she was brisk. I can recall very well that placid face of his, over which at times an ironical smile used to flit. He was fatigued with active life; and he loved his fatigue. Seated beside the fire in his big arm-chair, he used to read from morning till night; and it is from him that I inherit my love of books. I have in ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... rounded a sort of mountain promontory, which, closing the view behind us, shut us up in the bottom of a perfect basin. In front lay a placid lake reflecting the intense black-blue of the sky. Granite, stained with purple and red, sank into it upon one side, and a broad spotless field of snow came down to its margin ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... shore Are the illustrious, the great and good— More pure than gold, more soft than stannine ore; The round imperial agate's not more sheen; Ever magnanimous and constant found, On glory's car they sit with placid mien, And smile benign where jocund ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Beneath—the clear placid stream comes coursing from the north, through narrow but beautiful flats, in all the pomp of rural wealth, wrinkled with corn-fields, bearded with rye, and whitened with buckwheat, imaging old age rejoicing amongst its blessings. Opposite, rise steep hills in all the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... a delightful thing to men of a quiet and placid disposition, so danger and war are a pleasure to the Alani, and among them that man is called happy who has lost his life in battle; for those who grow old, or who go out of the world from accidental sicknesses, they pursue with bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is there ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... course would hardly do in these modern days. It smacked too much of piracy. Money was the lever he hoped to use, and when the breeze came he intended to make the lever sufficiently strong to move even these placid souls. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
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