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Placid   Listen
adjective
Placid  adj.  Pleased; contented; unruffied; undisturbed; serene; peaceful; tranquil; quiet; gentle. "That placid aspect and meek regard." "Sleeping... the placid sleep of infancy."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Placid" Quotes from Famous Books



... life, he was amiable and kind; was patient under contradiction, and placid in manners; had great self-possession, and extraordinary dignity. His person was beautiful, and his address commanding. He was feared as a general, but loved as a man. He never lost his affections for his home, and loved to ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... quietly down a clear and placid stream, conversing about the figures they had just passed, they were interrupted by the sound of rapids before them; and a mass of floating timber, trunks and branches of trees, was swept from the mouth of the Pekitanoni with such a degree of violence, as to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... Britain 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 a foreign ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... deck admiring the different points as they went by, and delighting in the glorious pace at which they were going; a great contrast to their sluggish progress earlier in the day, when the river was broad, placid, and leisurely, and there was hardly a breath of wind stirring to ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... are so placid and serene (As Irish bogs are always green) They sleep secure from waking; And are indeed a bog, that bears Your unparticipated cares ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... Alice was tall and somewhat slight. Her head was large and overshadowed her body. Her shoulders were a little stooped and her hair and eyes brown. She was very quiet but beneath a placid exterior a ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... ancestors, therefore, has bequeathed nothing to her of a nature to alter her placid character; nor have her own tribulations aught to do with the sudden awakening of her vigilance in July. Like ourselves, animals have their joys and their sorrows. They eagerly make the most of the former; they fret but little about the latter, which, when all is said, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... (insensible) 823; unpassionate[obs3], dispassionate; cold-blooded, irritable; enduring &c. v.; stoical, Platonic, philosophic, staid, stayed; sober, sober minded; grave; sober as a judge, grave as a judge; sedate, demure, cool-headed. easy-going, peaceful, placid, calm; quiet as a mouse; tranquil, serene; cool as a cucumber, cool as a custard; undemonstrative. temperate &c. (moderate) 174; composed, collected; unexcited, unstirred, unruffled, undisturbed, unperturbed, unimpassioned; unoffended[obs3]; unresisting. meek, tolerant; patient, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... thought that he liked it—and then was not so sure. He perceived that there was no recognition of him. The gardener, as further desultory conversation about his work progressed, looked his interlocutor full in the face, but with a placid, sheep-like gaze which seemed to be entirely insensible to variations in ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... modelling in clay. Euphemia tells me it is to be quite the common thing this winter. It is intended especially for the evening, after a little dinner. As the reader is aware, the evening after a little dinner is apt to pall. A certain placid contentment creeps over people. I don't know in what organ originality resides; but it's a curious thing, and one I must leave to the consideration of psychologists, that people's output of original remarks appears to be obstructed in some way after these gastronomic exercises. Then a little dinner ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... a gimcrack pier with a gingerbread sort of band-stand and glass house at the end;—all that could have been done to ruin nature had been determinedly done there. But you cannot ruin a spring day, nor youth, nor the colour of the sea. Along the level shore, the placid waves swept and broke, and then gathered up their white skirts, and retreated to return with the same musical laugh. Children and dogs played about on the wet sands. The wind blew freshly and the sea stretched all one pure blue, till it met ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... it was that met their gaze. First of all there was the green and placid water, alive with fish, rippling gently to a narrow beach of golden sand, and beyond that sand nothing but vegetation, rich, green, and luxuriant. Green! yes, but of a hundred different tints, from the tender hue of the young shoots that was almost yellow, to a deep olive that turned to black in ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... his brazier, the enthusiast bent over the dead man—for dead he was—and noted the placid smile upon his features. By this time the unfortunate father had joined the group, and, on seeing the body of his son, wrung his hands in a pitiable manner, and gave utterance to the wildest expression of despair. No one attempted to seize him, till at length Solomon Eagle, rising from his kneeling ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... mile to the frontier and, with the panorama of green meadows, of placid rivers, and of long-legged storks gravely patrolling the marshes in search of frogs and lizards, passing by our car-window, I can stop to tell you how this filial pride in the flag of my fathers once betrayed me into the hands of the Philistines. It was in London, during ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... hay was harvested and the corn was ripening, his satisfaction was rudely banished. Grace had gone to the lodge with a message and stopped for a few minutes by the gate. The evening was calm and one side of the placid tarn glittered in the light; the other was dark, and soft blue shadows covered the fells behind. She heard the languid splash of ripples on the stones and the murmur of a beck in a distant ghyll. A strange restful ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... would be to fly into the face of Vermeer himself. I have enjoyed the privilege and pleasure of viewing the Widener Vermeers, and I believe that the Sleeping Servant—she may not be intoxicated, a jug on the table being the only evidence; certainly her features are placid enough; besides, Vermeer did not indulge in paintings of low life as did Teniers, Ostrade, or Jan Steen—is about the same period as The Merry Company, in the Dresden gallery, that is, if paint, texture, and arrangement of still-life be any criterion. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... guests were at the hotel, and of those few none desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre or Notre Dame or the monument in the Place de la Bastille. They mostly wore the placid expression of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the worried ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... doctor's visit about twelve he pronounced the case all but hopeless, and five hours later life was extinct. Consciousness remained till almost the last moment. The illness was attended by no bodily pain, little even of uneasiness, and the mind was calm and placid throughout. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... early, hasn't he?" commented the second engineer, and smiled indifferently. He was an abstemious man, with a good digestion and a placid, reasonable view of ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... palace of the Doges, that chains the eye, as well as the backward gazing, mind, oh! dome of St. Mark, in thy incomparable garb of gold and paintings, oh! ye steeds and other divine works of bronze, ye noble palaces, for which the still surface of the placid water serves as a mirror, thou square of St. Mark, where, clad in velvet, silk and gold, the richest and freest of all races display their magnificence, with just pride! Thou harbor, thou forest of masts, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... sufficiently well held off as if ashamed of their ignorance. We saw the bedrooms, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the harps and the pianos—in fact, everything, and I decided that Sophie could not be better placid. We went into the head-mistress's private room, and Madame Cornelis paid her a hundred guineas in advance, and obtained a receipt. We then agreed that Sophie should be received as a boarder as soon as she liked to come, that she was to bring ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the expression in the nun's usually placid face. But Sister Francesca did not stop to give any explanations. She led the way hurriedly back to the front door, of the convent, and up the steps through the ward of smiling men, and only stopped when she reached the door of ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent

... each other, thereon depicted. These doors could not well be more different from Ghiberti's, in the casting of which Donatello assisted; those in such high relief, these so low; those so fluid and placid, and these so vigorous. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... trench-plans, aeroplane photographs and all the documentation of modern war. Through the windows bees hummed, the garden rustled, and one felt, close by, behind the walls of other gardens, the untroubled continuance of a placid and ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... oft the shepherd came at noon-tide heat And sat him down upon the bank of turf Beneath the thorn, to eat his humble meal And drink the crystal from that cooling spring. Here oft at evening, in that placid hour When first the stars appear, would maidens come To fill their pitchers at the Hawthorn Well, Attended by their swains; and often here Were heard the cheerful song and jocund laugh Which told of heart-born gladness, and awoke The slumbering ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... side of the Nile are honeycombed with these strange houses of the departed. Their walls, in many cases, are decorated with bright and cheerful pictures, showing scenes of the life which the dead man lived on earth. There he stands, or sits, placid and happy, with his wife beside him, while all around him his servants go about their usual work. They plough and hoe, sow and reap; they gather the grapes from the vines and put them into the winepress; ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... short gaiters. So eager was he to commence, that he no sooner espied a piece of water, than, with trembling hands, he put his rod together, and displayed his nets, laying his basket, gaping for the finny prey, on the margin of the placid waters. With eager gaze he watched his newly-varnished and many-coloured float, expecting every-moment to behold it sink, the inviting bait being prepared 'secundum artem.' He had certainly time for ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... visage, placid for all its ruggedness, shone eyes large and timid as those of an animal or child bewildered among so many people. There was an expression in them not so much cowed or dismayed as "un-refuged"—the eyes of the hunted creature. That, ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... watching her graceful motions, as if taking heed for future imitation. If Kit and Tabby really did regard Laura with admiration and complacency, it was more than I can say for Mrs. Jaynes, in whose heart a secret rage was burning, though her aspect and demeanor were as placid and demure as if the butter she held in her hand would not have melted in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... see that she meant what she said. There was a determined expression about her mouth that would have surprised Nan if she had seen it. But at noon, when she returned, the governess' face was as placid as ever. She and Delia were discussing the price of butter in the most intimate fashion possible, and Nan snorted audibly as she heard them agree that it was ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... The placid progress of the Government of Ireland Bill through Committee was broken this afternoon when Captain COLIN COOTE proposed to hand over the control of the armed forces of the Crown in Ireland to the new Parliaments. His argument was in brief that these bodies must be given ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various

... of the last; but he is superior to either in the description of nature, and the painting vivid and interesting scenes on the mind of the reader. His work is a moving panorama, in which the historic scenes and azure skies, and placid seas and glowing sunsets, of the East, are portrayed in all their native brilliancy, and in richer even than their native colours. His mind is stored with the associations and the ideas of antiquity, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... up and down the trenches, pausing at the entrances to dugouts to smile and talk with the men. Once, where a grassy ridge hid the trench from the enemy snipers, they were permitted to peep over, but there was no look of war in the grassy, placid meadow full of flowers that men called "No Man's Land." It seemed hard to believe, that sunny, flower-starred morning, that Sin and Hate had the upper hand and Death was abroad stalking near in ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... corner—and he dozes! A doze in the coach is the flower of dozes, when you are alone. There, you may twist your person into any shape you please, without the fear of discomposing a silken dress, or a nursemaid's petticoats. No boisterous arguments from snuff-taking sexagenarians: all is placid —Eden-like—just as a dozer's sanctorum ought to be! The only thing attendant on the doze of an inside passenger, is the great chance of being suddenly aroused by the entrance of company. O tell me, ye of the fine nerve, what is more vexing than to be startled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... acres, all! But only stoop—catch the light thwartwise—and all is a silver network of gossamer! So the fairy filaments of this strange thing underrun and link together the whole world. Yet it is not the old imperious god of the fatal bow—{GREEK}not that—nor even the placid respectable {GREEK}—but something still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more divine! Only one must stoop to see it, old fellow, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... dress suit of spotted Manchester velvet, and stood conspicuously erect without the smallest movement of any part of his body. The muscles of his face had been previously composed, so as to afford a placid, tranquil expression of countenance, and he did not suffer the slightest alteration of it to appear during the continuance of the speech, in which he was so harshly and improperly treated. In short, to quote the words which he employed concerning himself ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More

... said the eldest, 'and she will give us something to eat—I am sure she will. Jenny, dear, don't cry,' and the urchin wiped the little face she had struck before, and tenderly took her in her own spare little arms. The child was not much weight. Gentle Mary Waters! who that gazed upon thy placid face, as thou earnest on thine errand of mercy—who that saw thee as thou ministered to the necessities of those poor desolate children, would not have loved thee—who that had seen thee in the first blush of thy beauty, when thy foot was as elastic as the fawn's, and thy countenance ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite

... that he did it without money. He had not 500 pounds or 5,000 pounds a year of salary for it; but lived merely on his Bedfordshire estates, and as Snigsby irreverently expresses it, "by chewing his own cud." And, sure enough, if any man might chew the cud of placid reflections, solid Howard, a mournful man otherwise, might at intervals indulge a little in that luxury.—No money-salary had he for his work; he had merely the income of his properties, and what ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... unnurtured listeners were rebuked by the simple, solemn manner of the trapper. Ishmael stood sullen and thoughtful; while his companion stole a furtive and involuntary glance at the placid sky, which spread so wide and blue above his head, as if he expected to see the Almighty eye itself beaming from the heavenly vault. But impressions of a serious character are seldom lasting on minds long indulged in forgetfulness. The ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... amusing themselves by trying to arrange the actions of the Iliad in chronological order. This task seems to have been accomplished in a friendly manner, but there was an occasion when a point of scholarship had a less placid ending. Two gentlemen, so the story goes, who were constant companions, drifted into a dispute at the Grecian one evening over the accent of a Greek word. The argument was protracted and at length grew angry. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... is changing, and the truth of Livingstone is not always the truth of to-day. In his first journey, in which he braved the perils of the South African thirst lands, he reached the broad and placid expanse of Lake Ngami, covering an area of three hundred square miles. In the gradual desiccation of that region, the lake has now entirely disappeared. Its place is wholly occupied by a partly marshy plain covered with reeds, and no vestige of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... monk, was unfelt by the two anxious maidens, who remained with their eyes bent, now upon the dim landscape, now on the stars by which it was lighted, as if they could have read there the events which the morrow was to bring forth. It was a placid and melancholy scene. Tree and field, and hill and plain, lay before them in doubtful light, while at greater distance, their eye could with difficulty trace one or two places where the river, hidden in general by banks and trees, spread its more ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... other (whichever it was) to tell us about the very pleasant and human audience. I had only one disappointment, but that was acute. I did want just once for them to hear a distant bang, and see what happened. I rather doubt whether the placid and literary charm of the tales would have sufficed to keep them within doors had there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... out, until they reached the mountains. From various points three lovely lakes were visible—one, half hidden by its green belt of forest trees, another glistening in the broad sunlight, and a third lying in calm and placid beauty. ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... to-night was contentedly placid. She walked slowly to the window, and, making the smallest possible peephole through the curtain, looked out. The motionless figure of a horseman still lingered on the road, with an excess of devotion that only a coquette, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... 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, ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... 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, ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... 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 current ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... more vital importance than the mere melodiousness of single lines, or a metre of unvarying sweetness bearing gently along in its placid course (as a stream the leaf or twig fallen into it from above) some tiny thought or finikin fragment of emotion. Matthew Arnold, who was both poet and critic, has told us with emphasis of "the necessity of accurate construction, and the subordinate character of expression."[5] ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... himself was utterly impossible. Meanwhile Madame Astier, sitting on the edge of an armchair in her dressing-gown, with a lace wrap round her head, watched his proceedings and murmured between yawn and yawn with placid ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... inquiry, but he could make nothing of her placid countenance; and the single word "very," it must have been his own imagination that gave significance to the very decided manner in which she had uttered it, or did she, indeed, see ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... at Rangoon, the oriental sunset splashing the golden dome, the wavering lights of the dripping candles, the dead flowers, the kneeling devotees, the yellow-robed priests, the tatters of gold-leaf, fresh and old, upon the rows of placid grinning Buddhas. The vision was of short duration. The sigh, which had been so long repressed, escaped; his shoulders sank a little, and the angle of his chin became less resolute; but only for a moment. Tension gave place to an ironical grimness. The brows relaxed, but the lips became ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... remember flippancies of her own that had been rebuked—but there was no sigh or token of disapproval in Arnold's face. What she might have observed there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a slight disarrangement, so to speak, of the placid priestly mask, and something like the original undergraduate looking out ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... served faithfully almost since the end of the war with the 16th United States Infantry, in which he holds a captain's commission. No one meeting him now would hear from his reticent lips, or read in his placid face, the thrilling story that links his name in so remarkable a manner with the history of the ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... crowned the barren hill there stood a single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man, long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His placid face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep. Beside him lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling his brown sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the breast of his velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted, showing ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... picturesque passion of five-and- twenty that a snow-fed torrent does to a navigable river. The one rushes and roars and sweeps away the bridges and devastates happy homes, while the other bears upon its placid breast the argosies of peace and plenty and is generally serviceable to the necessities of man. Still, there is something attractive about torrents. There is a grandeur in that first rush of passion which results from the sudden melting of the snows of ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... or the reverse, I believe," said Charles: "I have known instances of both. I have heard of a cousin of my mother's, who was a cripple from disease. She passed through life very quietly. She never complained of her deprivations: her temper was placid, and she found employment for her cultivated intellect in studies of various kinds: but nobody was ever the better for them. She did no good, though she never did any harm: she never seemed to love any one person more than another, and of course nobody was particularly attached ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau

... to be towed by several steam launches and escorted by three tinclads. Although Larry and his friends did not know it till several hours later, the destination was Santa Cruz, a pretty town, situated on a slight hill overlooking the placid waters of the Laguna de Bay. The general's plan was to reach the lake by nightfall, and steal over the silent waters in the dark until the vicinity of Santa Cruz was gained, in hopes that the garrison might be caught "napping," as it ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer

... to her lip, and said, "Hush!" my father returned to the cradle of the AEsas; Captain Roland leaned his cheek on his hand, and gazed abstractedly on the fire; Mr. Squills fell into a placid doze; and, after three sighs that would have melted a heart of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... nevertheless, periodical recollections of profound and bitter sorrow. Old Sam had his locket also, but it was invisible; its position being on that heart whose affections more resembled the enthusiasm of idolatry than the love of a parent. His wife was a placid, contented looking old woman, with a complexion exceedingly hale and fresh for her years; a shrewd, clear, benevolent eye, and a general air which never fails to mark that ease and superiority of manner to be found only in those who have had an enlarged experience in life, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... of Jesus regarding violence or non-resistance were intended to apply chiefly to personal relationships; he said little of international strife. What he did say showed placid acceptance of the ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... early training. He was mutely—unconsciously—calling to his aid the savage instincts which the best of men are not without. His face expressed something of what was passing within his active brain, and the girl before him, as she turned and watched the working features, usually so placid—indifferent, knew that she was to see a side of his character always suspected by her but never before made apparent. His thoughts at last found vent in words of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... her perpetual 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 my library ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... comes 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

... in the forest, how fair to the sight Was the clear, placid lake as it sparkled in light, And kissed with low murmur the green shady shore, Whence a tribe had departed, whose traces it bore. Where the lone Indian hastened, and wondering hushed His awe as he trod o'er the mouldering dust! How bright were the waters—how cheerful the song, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... But they had a placid journey to Stuttgart, sleeping by the way in the wagon. Arriving in the city John paid Fritz for his ride and parted from him with regret. He spent a night here in a humble inn, and discovered that Auersperg and his party were now ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... neighbors, within and without, would not tend to produce very placid slumbers, even if the ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... a pond in your dream, denotes that events will bring no emotion, and fortune will retain a placid outlook. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... shaking hands with one and another of his colleagues as if he were altogether unconscious of Barroux' glance. Nor did he even appear to see Monferrand, who walked by in the rear of the Prime Minister, wearing a placid good-natured air, as if he knew nothing of what was impending, but was simply coming to some ordinary humdrum sitting. However, when he reached his seat, he raised his eyes and smiled at Monseigneur Martha, who gently nodded to him. Then well pleased to think that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... 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, And ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... eve of winter; even yet the perfume of the stubble-field and of fruitage in forest and plantation breathed all about the country of Mac-Cailen Mor. Before the windows of the inn the bay lay warm and placid, and Dunchuach, wood-mantled, and the hills beyond it vague, remote, and haunted all by story, seemed to swim in a benign air, and the outer world drew the souls of these men in a tavern into a brief acquaintanceship. The window of the large room they sat in looked out upon this world new lit by ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... who had never uttered a word from the time of starting, now deliberately drew up his drosky on the corner of a principal street and began a conversation. I repeated the name of the street in which the consulate was located, and dratzall kopeck. The driver gazed in my face with a grave and placid countenance, stroked his long beard, tucked the skirts of his long blue coat under him, and drove on again. After rattling over a series of the most frightful cobble-stone pavements ever designed as an improvement ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... full of placid content as a kitten's, suddenly puckered with anxiety. "Lady, as I passed, it was still a long way down the fiord. I could only see that it was a large and fine trading-vessel. But one of the seamen on ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... Little!" exploded old man Packard, leaping to his feet, towering high above the little man, who looked up at him with an earnest and placid expression. "That wench, that she-devil, that Jezebel! Settin' her traps for my boy Stephen, is she? Why, man alive, she ain't fit to scrape the corral-mud off'n his boots. She's a low-down, deceitful jade, that's what she is, sired by a sheep-stealin', ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... up, and a faint flush rose in his cheeks. He was very fair, and lying there looked very young, younger somehow than Jack had expected. Had he ever seen him before? There was nothing remarkable about the face except its peculiarly gentle and placid expression—yet it was a face of considerable resolution as well, and there were lines about the mouth which told of endurance and fortitude, almost contradicting the wistfulness of the boyish-looking blue eyes. Jack grew more and more puzzled. ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth

... morning, old Tabaret's friend; still less could he have been recognized as Madame Juliette's lover. He was entirely another being, or rather he had resumed his every-day bearing. From his firm step, his placid face, one would never imagine that, after an evening of emotion and excitement, after a secret visit to his mistress, he had passed the night by the pillow of a dying woman, and that woman his mother, or at least one who ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... villagers, who fought them inch by inch, with sticks and trees, and mounds of stone and clay, all which they licked up and swallowed, as if they had been pebbles and clumps of leaves. Havoc with the Creeks upon the route, who dared to scorn their overtures, and wed the Torrent, willingly; for spurning the placid, humble Creeks one side, they tore along their paths, and vented their fury on the bridges overhead, bringing down in general destruction, turnpikes and railroads with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... "I was taciturn and placid for the most part, but occasionally very talkative and lively; in fact, I generally ran from one extreme to another. I was obstinate and restive when force was exerted, most docile under kind treatment; restrained more by fear of being scolded than by any thing else; susceptible of shame even ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... once go up and speak to that gentleman. He went up, conducted by Manon, and was unable to pay any heed to the apartment (which he had never before entered) so amazed was he by the agitated look and manner of a man who was usually calm and placid. ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... "old case" from Bendloe, Godbolt, or the Year Books, (which, having always piqued himself on his almost exclusive acquaintance with the modern cases, he made a point of doing,) gazed at Quirk with a smile of placid superiority. Mr. Frankpledge talked almost the whole time; Mr. Mortmain, immovable in the view of the case which he had taken in his "opinion," listened with an attentive, good-natured air, ruminating pleasantly the while upon the quality of the port he had ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... was quite lame but could move without a crutch. He talked mainly of his good friends in Boston and elsewhere, and alluded to his enemies without a particle of rancor. The lines on his noble face were as placid as those on the brow of an ox—not one showed petulance or discouragement. He was the optimist in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... flood! Like to the green bamboos upon it's 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 ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... of him to come, when he is so dreadfully busy?" continued Dinah in her placid, satisfied voice. "Cedric will be delighted to have him! Do you think we ought to ask Theo and Mr. Carlyon to dinner, or would Mr. Herrick prefer ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... say is," said Strout in snappish tones, "if the man who bought them knew that you got them for me, he was no gentleman to take the whole box. What do yer say, Stiles?" he asked, turning to Abner, who had kept his eyes fixed on the placid Quincy since entering the store, though listening intently ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... quiet and rest; but she wished to take him forth and exhibit him to the throng. Yet all of her admonitions that he "brace up" were in vain. His work was done. He foresaw the end, and grew impatient that it did not come. Placid, resigned, sane to the last hour, he passed away at Holland House, June Seventeenth, Seventeen Hundred Nineteen, aged forty-seven. His body, lying in state, was viewed by more than ten thousand people, and then it was laid to rest in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... very placid, slow sort of mind. He went through his tasks without any excitement or distraction, although occasionally a vague curiosity as to what Elsie could want the atlas for, and what the letter said about them, did wander ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... and Toledo, up Detroit River, through the Lake and River of St. Clair, then gliding over the waters of Lake Huron, dash down along the shores of Lake Michigan to Chicago, and back past Milwaukee, through the Straits of Mackinaw and the ship-canal into the placid waves of Superior, making Duluth the terminus of our journey. Our return would be leisurely, stopping here and there, at out-of-the-way places, camping-out whenever the fancy seized us and the opportunity ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... and which none but I had entered; and so, I think, I saw her in revelation, not as the wild thing they had all conceived her, but as she really was. I saw no tameless creature, nothing wild or strange. I saw my sweet love placid as a young cow browsing. As I brushed aside the haze and she was truly seen for the first time, she raised her head, like one caught, and gazed at me with meek affrighted eyes. I told her what had been revealed to me as I ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... genius who shaped the Arthuriad has escaped this danger, and that not merely by the simple process which Dryden, with his placid irony, somewhere describes as "leaving scarce three of the characters alive." We have reached, and feel that we have reached, the conclusion of the whole matter when the Graal has been taken to Heaven, and Arthur has gone to Avalon. Nobody wants to hear anything ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... this young man of himself conceived the design of assassinating me. There is something under it. I shall never be persuaded that the intriguers of Berlin and Weimar are strangers to the affair.'—'Sire, allow me to say that your suspicions appear unfounded. Staps has had no accomplice; his placid countenance, and even his fanaticism, are easiest proofs of that.'—'I tell you that he has been instigated by women: furies thirsting for revenge. If I could only obtain proof of it I would have them seized in the midst of their Court.'—'Ah, Sire, it is ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... Michel Angelo has embodied the soul of his era and the loftiest spirit of his country; Salvator typified the half-savage picturesqueness, Neapolitan Claude the atmospheric enchantments, Carlo Dolce the effeminate grace, Titian the voluptuous energy, Guido the placid self-possession, and Raphael and Correggio the religious sentiment of Italy; Watteau put on canvas the fete champetre; the peasant-life of Spain is pictured by Murillo, her asceticism by the old religious limners; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... touches it at top, forming a roof, with here and there a fissure, through which the light enters. At the bottom of the room there is a clear bed of water, which communicates with the sea by a small aperture under the rock. It is as placid as a summer pond, and is fitted with steps for a bathing place. Bathe, truly! with the sea ever dashing against the side, and roaring ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... a preacher, don't you?" asked the Harvester ingenuously. "Now sit thee here and gaze on the placid lake and quiet your troubled spirit, while I demolish your 'perfectly good' arguments. In the first place, you are now my wife, and you have a right to take anything I offer, if you care for it or can ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... difference at Downside, except in Mr Robins' white hair and set lined face; the little house behind the yew-hedge looked just the same, and Jane Sands' kind, placid face was still as kind and placid. Some of the girls had left school and gone to service; some of the lads had developed into hobbledehoys and came to church with walking-sticks and well-oiled hair; one or two of the old folks had died; one or two more white-headed ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... back to Mrs. Van Reypen with a placid countenance, and sat for an hour or more complimenting and admiring the costumes in process ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells

... contemplation of the cheerful office and the thought of its increasing prosperity seemed to give him great satisfaction; for he rubbed his white and well-kept hands, settled his staid cravat, smoothed his gravely decorous coat, and looked the picture of placid content. He meditated, gently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... Johnson's curiosity, though he had delicacy enough not to question her, very obligingly entertained him with a recital of the particulars which she herself knew of that escape, which does so much honour to the humanity, fidelity, and generosity, of the Highlanders. Dr Johnson listened to her with placid attention, and said, 'All this should ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... had all gone from her eyes by this time, and suddenly she smiled—a merry, girlish, wholly irresistible smile, which broke through the calm of her face like a gleam of sunlight rippling over a placid sea. Then she wrote, "I am very sorry that I cannot play this evening. I did not bring my violin with me. But I will bring it to-morrow evening and play for you if you would like to hear me. I should ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and leaf-flickerings; Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell Wherewith in every lonesome dell Time to himself his hours doth tell; All tree-sounds, rustlings of pine-cones, Wind-sighings, doves' melodious moans, And night's unearthly undertones; All placid lakes and waveless deeps, All cool reposing mountain-steeps, Vale-calms and tranquil lotos-sleeps; Yea, all fair forms, and sounds, and lights, And warmths, and mysteries, and mights, Of Nature's utmost depths and heights,— —These doth my timid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... in its bosom. The earth seems agitated at the confusion of the heavens—the late waveless mirror is lashed into furious waves, that roll in hollow murmurs to the shore—the oyster boats that erst sported in the placid vicinity of Gibbet Island, now hurry affrighted to the land—the poplar writhes and twists, and whistles in the blast—torrents of drenching rain and sounding hail deluge the battery walks—the gates are thronged by apprentices, servant-maids, and little Frenchmen, with pocket-handkerchiefs ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... walks of curiosity about town, you meet with a great many of the denomination termed Friends, or Quakers, and as you pass them you cannot refrain from giving them the inside walk, for their very garb is of humility; and as you look into the placid face of some matron, you feel like uncovering yourself, for you can see the innocence looking out of her eyes. You are curious to know whither so many are wending their way, and meeting a sailor-boy, he tells you it is "fifth day," and if you follow in the wake of the "slick ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... away in the hills of the fertile Oise, I think of you. I hope I may again visit you. And I wonder. What ripples from the seething capitals will stir the placid thoughts of your stouthearted peasants? And will your broad-browed women wait with age-old resignation for the next wave of war, or will they catch the echo that is rebounding through all the valleys of the world ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... little figure. It was one of those days in which things seem to take a positive pleasure in going wrong. To start with, the kitchen range could not go on, as something had happened to the boiler, and that had shattered Mrs. M'Cosh's placid temper. Also the bill for mending it would be large, and probably the landlord would make a fuss about paying it. Then Mhor had put a newly-soled boot right on the hot bar of the fire and burned it across, and Jock had thrown a ball and broken a precious ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... surely find An entrance in Deep River's current bright, As thoughts find entrance in a placid mind; Then let no rudeness of thine own affright The darting fish ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... was drowned," re marked Dick at last. "There is no wind today, and hardly any such thing as current on this placid water. Whoever the man was, ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... concealed them from anyone lingering in the doorway of the house; and even from the upstairs windows they could not have been seen. Through the thickets run wild, and the trees of the gently sloping grounds, he had cold, placid glimpses of the lake. A moment of perfect privacy had been vouchsafed to them at this juncture. I wondered to myself what use they had made of ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... he added nothing to them, but lived on in literary indolence; engaged in no controversy, contending with no rival, neither soliciting flattery by publick commendations, nor provoking enmity by malignant criticism, but passing his time among the great and splendid, in the placid enjoyment of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... Shrig, with his placid smile, "there's some traps as is so uncommon smart that they've got an 'abit of arresting innercent parties verever found, d'ye see. But if they should 'appen to lay their 'ooks on ye, jest ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... colony was Chesapeake Bay, a large gulf opening by a strait fifteen miles wide upon the Atlantic at thirty-seven degrees, and reaching northward parallel to the sea-coast one hundred and eighty-five miles. Into its basin a great many smooth and placid rivers discharge their contents. Perhaps no bay of the world has such diversified scenery. Among the rivers which enter the bay from the west, four—the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James—are particularly large and imposing. ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... Maitland house she found poor Nannie wandering vaguely about in the garret. "I am putting away Mamma's clothes," she said, helplessly. But a minute later she yielded, with tears of relief, to Mrs. Richie's placid ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... and the flowers and the dresses, yes, and the voices, gave her the new sense of being at home. Nevertheless, Daisy mused a little over some things that were not altogether pleasant. The faces that she scanned had none of them the placid nobleness of the face of her black nurse; no voice within her hearing had such sweet modulation; and Daisy felt a consciousness that Juanita's little cottage lay within the bounds of a kingdom which Mrs. Randolph's ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... years o' shade an' sunshine Have flung alternately Their fleeting shadows as they pass'd Athwart life's changing sky. Like troubled waters, too, the mind 'S been ruffled an' distress'd; But with the placid calm return'd Thine image to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... 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

... the placid German voice. "You andt I, Senor Ortiz, haff worked together. You are not a defil like most of the deputies, and I do not regret hafing been sent here to help you. And I am not a scoundtrel like most of those who ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... the lure of drink and the temptation to strikes, fall behind the spirit of the people. At the darkest moment of our inquietude the call of health took me for a tour in a motor-car over fifteen hundred miles of England, and though my journey lay through three or four of the least industrial and most placid of our counties, I found evidences of effort on every hand, The high roads were the track of marching armies of men in training; the broad moors were armed camps; the little towns were recruiting stations or depots for wagons of war; the land lay empty of workers with the hay crop still standing ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine

... with dignity Felipe demanded his vessel of the collector. And now a fresh honour awaited him. The collector's wife, who played the guitar and read novels in the hammock all day, had more than a little romance in her placid, yellow bosom. She had found in an old book an engraving of a flag that purported to be the naval flag of Anchuria. Perhaps it had so been designed by the founders of the nation; but, as no navy had ever been ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... seen and heard enough; too much, indeed, for my peace of mind. I crept away through the swamp, the eager calls following me even to my canoe; first a plaint, as if something were lacking to the placid lake and quiet woods and the soft beauty of twilight; and then a faint question, always heard in the kwit of a partridge, as if only I could explain why two eager voices would never again answer to roll call when ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... ship, well found, well manned, and, as the times go, well officered. The captain, indeed, is not over-alert or fitted for high emergencies; but what emergencies can belong to so placid a voyage? For a week after the headlands of Tarifa and Spartel have sunk under the eastern horizon, the vessel is kept every day upon her course,—her top-gallant and studding sails all distent with the wind blowing freely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... other little couples as exquisitely devoid of ease. Ah! it was worth those hours of torture to sit there together now, comforting each other with hands and lips and whisperings. It was more, as much more than that moment in the orchard, as sun shining after a Spring storm is more than sun in placid mid-July. To hear him say: "Nedda, I love you!" to feel it in his hand clasped on her heart was much more, now that she knew how difficult it was for him to say or show it, except in the dark with her alone. Many a long day they might have gone through together that would not have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... 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 ideas which ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... hour, as if it were impiety so utterly to have ceased to weep—so seldom to have remembered!—And then, with a powerlessness of sympathy to keep pace with youth's frantic grief, the floods we all wept together—at no long interval—on those pale and placid faces as they lay, most beautiful and most dreadful to behold, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them; till a favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried them in a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From thence issuing again through the narrow passage of the Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the numerous islands scattered ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... with her retirement, which she perceived took away the jealous tortures of her husband, he left home for a week, drawn out to two months, on one of his periodical visits to the capital. Lady Neville's frequent letters concerning her home and her children were always cheerful and placid, and the time for her husband's return was fixed. He arrived at the appointed hour in the evening. The servants were at the door to receive him, but in an instant alarm prevailed; Lady Neville and her son Gerard ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... had a bad reputation with the menagerie men. At times placid and even good-natured, on other occasions he was capricious, savage and dangerous. Even his trainer had narrowly escaped a death blow from one of the animal's enormous paws when the brute was in one of ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... me. I started up and pointed at the placid pair, my hand shaking like a leaf, my voice thick ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... silent, patient, conscientious. In fact, it did not matter at all. Having slept through the earlier lessons, the schoolmistress might well sleep through this. It was rather a pity that, instead of taking a placid and unbroken rest on the sofa, she sat stiffly on a worked chair and started into uneasy wakefulness between the lessons, dismissing one girl and sending for the next with infinite politeness and propriety. At last she said, "And will you have the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... was game and wasted no time. With a bound he caught Jack by the throat, tossed him several feet away, and sprang for him again. Jack seemed helpless against such strength and fury, but Chad's face was as placid as though it had been Jack who was playing the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... returned to his study and waited in anything but a placid frame of mind. He felt utterly humbled and crestfallen. It had really seemed of late as if he was making some headway in his uphill task of ruling Willoughby, but this was a shock he had never expected. It seemed to point to a combination all over the school to thwart him, and in face ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... 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 ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... a spot in the western hemisphere of the moon, on the border of a placid bay or "sea," that I can never look at without a feeling of awe and almost of shrinking. There, within a space about 250 miles in length by 100 in width, is an exhibition of the most terrifying effects ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss

... to the east, and four to the west! Arrowy shots at the Umpire's chest! Placid the sinewy batsman beams— How easy it seems! How ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... hoisting his parapluie; the French dragoon curls his mustachio at such effeminacy, and braves the liquid bullets in the genuine spirit of Marengo; the old French count picks his elastic steps with the placid and dignified philosophy of the ancien regime; while the Parisian dames, of all ranks, ages, and degrees, trip along, with one leg undraped, exactly in proportion to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... to have no doubts in his mind, but that "a general air of satisfaction arising from the accounts given in the last Monday's papers of the present state of our publick affairs will shew itself universally thro' the province." I have no inclination to disturb the sweet repose of this placid gentleman; but I must confess I see no cause for such a general air of satisfaction from those accounts, and I will venture to add, that there is no appearance of it in this town - Does Benevolus think ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... little frame of hers, there beat a great active heart, ever urging her onwards towards an unknown end. She would describe herself as an "ill- regulated woman," and the description was not without justice, for she did not possess that placid, even mind which is so necessary to the comfort of English ladies, and which enables many of them to bury a husband or a lover as composedly as they take him. She would have given worlds to be able to fall in love with some ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... so vague in view of subsequent developments, was the first move in the historic controversy that has resulted in the extraordinary exposures that are being made as this book goes to press. When that first pebble was thrown, the surface of the insurance pond was as placid as a mountain lake, unruffled by a ripple, and in it were reflected the benignant faces of the noble philanthropists who consented to spend their days conserving the interests of the widows and the orphans ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... to its close as Mr. Heard, in a placid, contemplative frame of mind, once more drew nigh the pink ramparts of the Old Town, purposing to find his way ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... poker into his left hand, that he might feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that placid occupation; "your sister's a ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... object was to secure the now empty canoe as it drifted away. The boat came alongside, and two words passed, 'The body!' Then it was lifted up, and laid across the skylight, rolled in the native mat, which was secured at the head and feet. The placid smile was still on the face; there was a palm leaf fastened over the breast, and when the mat was opened there were five ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... last century of an age, was a backwater in education as in literature. The great revival was to come. The fifteenth century was indeed a century of revolution in so far as under the almost placid surface of continuity and conformity, there were forces of revolt at work, probing, accumulating knowledge and experience, perhaps unconsciously, for the day of liberation and change. The Bible was not yet popularly available. Wiclif had been a pioneer in the work of translation ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson

... Mr. Rogers' pale and placid countenance, you would hardly have thought he lived; but turning to Luttrell, whose mouth twisted and whose eye rolled at the fun of the mistake, he simply whispered, 'Non tali auxilio, &c.' Barton survived it, and is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various

... of other days, Serenely placid, safely true, And o'er the present's parching ways The verse distils like ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... some larger planet rolling and flashing among them as the revolving beacon of a lighthouse. Here the muffled throb of the propeller, and the rushing hiss of water as the prow of the great steamer sheared through the placid surface, furrowing up on either side a long line of phosphorescent wave. Such a contrast he who stood alone in the darkness, leaning over the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... their condition, the 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 ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... of the Benedictine nuns caught some echo of this truth when, by a rule of their order, no sister among them is permitted to wear a frown upon her brow. And the placid-faced sisterhood evidence in their sweet expressions the close relation between the exoteric and esoteric of our natures; the reflex action between the physical and the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... Philippine native character, but with only partial success. Dealing with such an enigma, the most eminent physiognomists would surely differ in their speculations regarding the Philippine native of the present day. That Catonian figure, with placid countenance and solemn gravity of feature, would readily deceive any one as to the true mental organism within. The late parish priest of Alaminos (Batangas)—a Franciscan friar, who spent half his life in the Colony—left a brief manuscript ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... want to be deposed from housekeeping; her father is not paralytic, and only wants her to play to him in the evening; life seems choked by tiny interruptions, such as doing the flowers, or writing notes, and she sinks into a placid or unplacid drudge—the aspirations with which she left school have ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... in a flash. For one fleeting instant the dynamic force beneath the placid surface exhibited itself in every line of his gaunt face. He was transfigured; he was a man of monstrous energy, of tremendous enthusiasm. Then the enthusiasm vanished. He was a creature of stone again; the familiar and taciturn ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... gathered one of the roses, and with a shy grace offered it to Isabel, who shrank back a little as from too costly a gift. "Take it," said the first nun, with her pretty French accent; while the other, who spoke no English at all, beamed a placid smile; and Isabel took it. The flower, lying light in her palm, exhaled a delicate odor, and a thrill of exquisite compassion for it trembled through her heart, as if it had been the white, cloistered life of the silent nun: with its pallid loveliness, it was as a flower that had taken ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... dark hours of Prussia during the Seven Years' War. But in the midst of all these difficulties Bulgaria has kept a cool head, whereas public opinion in Servia and Greece has parted company with all reason. It is not indifference to the issues at stake which explains this placid demeanour. When the proper time arrives, the Bulgarians will be found tough bargainers and determined to claim their full due. They know, however, that the position of their country as prime factor in the Balkans cannot be seriously ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

... Above water nought was to be seen but a bleak, rocky, forbidding coast, a grey sky with sleet driving across it, and an angry indigo sea covered with white wavelets. Nothing was to be felt but a stiff cutting breeze, icy particles in the air, and cold blood in the veins. Below water all was calm and placid; groves of sea-weed delighted the eye; patches of yellow sand invited to a siesta; the curiously-twisted and smashed-up remains of a wreck formed a subject of interesting contemplation, while a few wandering crabs, and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne

... took part in the dissection of the corpse, says that Napoleon's face had a remarkably placid expression, and indicated mildness and sweetness of disposition, and those who gazed on the features as they lay in the still repose of death could not help exclaiming, "How beautiful!" After this very fine description ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... flowed, broad and leisurely, in great curves half a mile long from point to point. As we rounded one cape after another we said to each other, "When we pass the next turn we shall see the village." But that inconsiderate village seemed to flee before us. Still the tall trees lined the banks in placid monotony. Still the river curved from cape to cape, each one like all the others. We paddled hard and steadily. Ten o'clock passed. Every day of our journey we had lost something—a frying-pan, a hatchet, a paddle, a ring. This day was no exception. We had lost a train. Still ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... journey were passed in ease and gaiety. Floating 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

... characterless, so Beryl Denvers told herself a dozen times a day. How could she possibly marry any one so neutral? And yet in his amiable, exasperatingly placid fashion he had for some time been laying siege to her affections. He had shaved off his beard because he had heard her say that she objected to hairy men, and he seemed to think that this sacrifice on his ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell



Words linked to "Placid" :   smooth, equable, even-tempered, still, calm, good-tempered, quiet, placidness, good-natured, unruffled



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