"Staidness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... full of fun, but with a thoughtful staidness in her highest spirits, even as a girl. I saw no change when we met again'—after a pause: 'No, I cannot describe her. When we go home you shall see her picture. No one ever reminded me of her as you do, though it is not flattering you to say so. If the baby had been a girl, I think I should ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sound of quick nervous footsteps with an odd halt in their fall on the gravel walk outside. The three girls ran to the door in a tumultuous greeting, even Jemima losing her staidness for the occasion. Ralph could hear only the confused babble of tongues and the expressions, "Now you hear, father—" "Now you understand—" "Listen to me, father—" as one after another took up ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... kept by Eaux Bonnes than might be expected. The little French chapel has its service, and there is a certain staidness about the morning which is unlooked-for and refreshing. The shops, however, are open as always; the vinaigrette-dragowomen as energetic as commonly; and in the afternoon the band plays in the kiosque as it ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... death of his father, Montaigne, then thirty-eight years old, retired from the practise of law at Bordeaux, and settled himself on his estate. Tho he had been a man of pleasure, and sometimes a courtier, his studious habits now grew on him, and he loved the compass, staidness, and independence of the country gentleman's life. He took up his economy in good earnest, and made his farms yield the most. Downright and plain-dealing, and abhorring to be deceived or to deceive, he was esteemed in the country for ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... hold his own against rude lads, and once came home crying with his donkey beaten and his eggs broken; moreover, he was apt to linger at stalls of books and broadsheets. As soon as Patience could venture to leave her brother, she was forced to go to market herself; and there was a staidness and sobriety about her demeanour that kept all impertinence at a distance. Poor Patience, she was not at all the laughing rustic beauty that Emlyn would have been at market. She would never have been handsome, and though she was only a few years over twenty, she was beginning ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desperately seeking some refuge, had thrown together. Yet an endeavour was made, and that on both sides; obligation blunted the edge of Mistress Barbara's scorn, freedom's respect for virtue's chain schooled Nell to an unwonted staidness of demeanour. The fires of war but smouldered, the faintest puff of smoke showing only here and there. I was on the alert to avoid an outbreak; for awhile no outbreak came and my hopes grew to confidence. But then—I can write the thing no other way—that ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... coming of age of the Squire's son, or for the Harvest Festival, in which the farmer might give thanks for the harvest, and the peasant, perhaps, for having been allowed to assist in winning it. I take a sort of pride in recording a staidness in the observance which I believe to be peculiar to the countryside in which I live. There was a service, with a sermon, in church, all persuasions uniting; then a dinner with speeches; then sports and dancing on the grass. Every stave of the Pastoral ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... most frequented. The intelligence was conveyed by a score of trivial signs, suggestive, satirical, or over-familiar, which he would not have perceived in days gone by, but to which he had grown sensitive. It was clear that the story gained piquancy from its contrast with the staidness of his life; and his most intimate friends permitted themselves a little covert "chaff" with him on the event. He was not of a nature to resent this raillery on his own account; it was serious to him only ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... my God would give The staidness of these things to man! for these To His divine appointments ever cleave, And no new business breaks their peace; The birds nor sow nor reap, yet sup and dine, The flowres without clothes live, Yet Solomon was never drest ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... capture Long Tom—when he will be treated with the utmost consideration—I am not able to tell you exactly what brand of gun he may be. It is evident from his conservative use of black powder, and the old-gentlemanly staidness of his movements, that he is an elderly gun. His calibre appears to be six inches. From the plunging nature of his fire, some have conjectured him a sort of howitzer, but it is next to certain he is one of the sixteen 15-cm. ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... things will right themselves by time and weight of circumstances. You take a wrong view in thinking of glories of that sort. My only hope is that my life will be quite private and simple, as will best become my inferiority and Lord Mountclere's staidness. Such a splendid library as there is at Enckworth, Picotee—quartos, folios, history, verse, Elzevirs, Caxtons—all that has been done in literature from Moses down to Scott—with such companions I can do without all other ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy |
