"Placidly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... don't lose your heads," said Captain Jenks placidly. No one had ever seen him agitated. "Bobby, you take the wheel ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... placidly, "you have been making inquiries, I see. But you are wrong in one particular. I did not go to Italy with Ferruci—I left him in Paris, and I went on myself to Florence to find out the ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... were increasing every moment. When Jinny realised this, which she did suddenly, she forgot all about her silk dress and her new boots, and ran frantically towards the water's edge, screaming with all her might; and at last John heard, and began to walk placidly towards the spot where he had originally crossed. The mud banks were out of sight now, and a broad belt of water was spreading rapidly on the other side. It was advancing rapidly also at his rear; soon ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... you see you are not a donkey," said Tomty placidly. "And now I must go back to the flower-beds again, Miss Brighteyes," he added. "And will you go with me, Miss, or shall I ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... up to this had kept her eyes on the ledge of the witness-box, began to take courage. She lifted them towards the Coroner and, encountering his placidly benevolent ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... and faithful warnings which we were looking for with such ill success in our rhetorical speculations. The machinery disclosed would not be human; it would be machinery. But it would for that very reason serve the purpose which made us look for it instead of remaining, like the lower animals, placidly gazing on the pageants of sense, till some unaccountable pang forced us to spasmodic movement. It is doubtless better to find material engines—not necessarily inanimate, either—which may really serve to bring order, security, and progress into our lives, than to find impassioned ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... living man. As the dilapidated head emerged, it showed the grotesque caricature of a Neptune, whose element was not the waters of ocean, but the shattered hogsheads of "beer." Even now, however, Ben clung to his role. Once his face was clear, he continued to sit placidly, though the surface of the viscous pool was at his neck. For better effect, he blinked vacuously, and gurgled. Perhaps, memory of a bath in infancy inspired him. He had had none since. He beat his scrawny ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... blues at the back. But it was not the beauty of this grotto, nor was it the assurance of rescue which brought a cry of joy and of wonder from every lip, but it was that, seated upon an ice boulder and placidly smoking a long corn-cob pipe, there was perched in front of them no less a person than Captain Ephraim Savage of Boston. For a moment the castaways could almost have believed that it was his wraith, were wraiths ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my two loved ones, and proceeded to ascend the Berwyn. Near the top I turned round to take a final look at the spot where I had lately passed many a happy hour. There lay Llangollen far below me, with its chimneys placidly smoking, its pretty church rising in its centre, its blue river dividing it into two nearly equal parts, and the mighty hill of Brennus ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... again silent, and it had become quite clear that none of the animals were coming in our direction, we left our hiding place, and, taking careful note of the spot where the two great tuskers lay, proceeded to retrace our steps toward the place where we had left our horses. We found them placidly grazing, and, springing into our saddles, started on the back trail to meet the wagon, which I intended to outspan for the night close to the outskirts of the forest, that we might not have far to carry the ivory when we had cut ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... have walked a mile or so more, we find that our noisy friend has quieted down very much indeed. It is a little wider, and it may be it is a little deeper, but it flows along very placidly between its low banks. It is doubtful if we should find any trout in it now, but there may be cat-fish and perch, and some sun-fish ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... first, the King had said, and then had made it clear that he was France. Was the King's service the dearest thing life could give? In times of peace, when the millstones and the hearts of men alike grind placidly, patriotism is a cold virtue, and even in the hot passion of war it is often the magnetism of the individual man—the personal leader—who wakens the enthusiasm of desperate courage rather than the cause in ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... be possible for us to live for the present in just a shade "better style" than we do; but we have mean ambitions in other directions than style. Style is not for those who are placidly indifferent to display; and before whom on a comely, scornful Isle shall we strut and parade? "You and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashions," for do we not proclaim and justify our own? Are we not leaders who have no subservient, no flattering ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... with an involuntary gasp of fear, it was so unexpected. Roaring Bill Wagstaff stood within five feet of her, resting one hand on the muzzle of his grounded rifle, smiling placidly. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Egyptian word for the personal pronoun 'I' was anuk," said the Tracer placidly. "The phonetic for a was ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... in the extreme, moreover, and do great damage, seemingly wantonly, to any crops or garden patches that they may find in their neighborhood. Usually the natives are too terrified to offer any resistance and placidly allow the animal to devastate to the bent of his will. The cliff dwellers, however, had suffered so much from the depredations of this particular animal that they were determined to drive him out of their neighborhood, and that was ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... in a pan of snow to cool and bolted softly up the stairs. Dr. and Mrs. Morton placidly reading in the sitting room were blissfully ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... sufferings. It was most touching to hear her say: 'I ought never to complain anymore, now that I have seen the sufferings of that poor nun; her heart is surrounded with a crown of thorns, but she bears it placidly and with a smiling countenance. It is shameful indeed for me to complain, for she had a far heavier burden ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... to supper with him. You may deny the divinity of Jesus; you may doubt whether he ever existed; you may reject Christianity for Judaism, Mahometanism, Shintoism, or Fire Worship; and the iconolaters, placidly contemptuous, will only classify you as a freethinker or a heathen. But if you venture to wonder how Christ would have looked if he had shaved and had his hair cut, or what size in shoes he took, or whether he swore when he stood on a nail in the carpenter's ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... boddle how the moon travels, but the masterful crittur enrages him if she is in a hurry here, just as he is cleverly making out whose children's children are courting now. "Slow, there!" he cries to the moon, but she answers placidly that they have the rest of the world to view to-night. "The rest of the world be danged!" roars the man, and he cranes his neck for a last glimpse of the Cuttle Well, until he nearly ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... hyacinth, lilies and violets, myrtle and bay and flowering vine. Ravished with the perfume, and hoping for reward of our long toils, we drew slowly near. Then were unfolded to us haven after haven, spacious and sheltered, and crystal rivers flowing placidly to the sea. There were meadows and groves and sweet birds, some singing on the shore, some on the branches; the whole bathed in limpid balmy air. Sweet zephyrs just stirred the woods with their breath, and brought ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... Italian, rides on horseback, associates with a fashionable young man, dines with a rich genius, et cetera. Yet—and it cannot be minced—he and gentility with regard to many things are at strange divergency; he shrinks from many things at which gentility placidly hums a tune, or approvingly simpers, and does some things at which gentility positively sinks. He will not run into debt for clothes or lodgings, which he might do without any scandal to gentility; he will not receive money from Francis Ardry, and go to Brighton with the sister of Annette ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... mountains might not be pleasant to the eye of either seaman or landsman; but, when they poured their thundering deluge on a strong safe deck, we did not mind them. Happy hearts were there even in stormy warring afternoons; and men watched quite placidly as the long grim hills came gliding on. Then in the evenings there were chance hours when the dim forecastle was a pleasant place in bad weather. The bow of the vessel swayed wildly; the pitching seemed as if it might end in one immense ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the floral cross and crown ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... straight through Flora's astonishment, as if there had been no such thing in evidence. She drew up a chair and sat down beside the bed. It was a rocking-chair, but it did not sway with her calm poise. In the fine finish of her morning attire, with her hands placidly folded on her knee, she made Flora feel taken at a disadvantage, thus scarcely awake, disheveled and all but stripped. But Clara, if she looked at anything but Flora's eyes, looked only at her hands, one and then the other as they lay ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the floor as restlessly as a caged tiger. There were mental pictures of himself as already a discredited, ruined man. Mitchell had turned from him in scorn; Saunders was placidly appealing to him to withdraw from a tottering firm, and old Jeff Henderson was going from office to office, bank to bank, whining, "I told you so!" At any rate—Mostyn tried to grasp it as a solace worth ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... we found ourselves passing through an alley of box,—which, no long time before, had been clipped and dressed,—until a final turn brought me into a cul-de-sac, a kind of arbor, carpeted with grass, and so thickly set about as to afford no exit save by the entrance. Here the dog placidly stood and wagged its tail, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... took place in which caps and gowns were severely handled, and for a time the marble floor was covered with a fighting mob of students all clutching at the fluttering papers, while the marble features of the two first Georges, William Pitt, and the third Duke of Somerset remained placidly indifferent. ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... time. Instantly, she was again sliding downward, with an ever-increasing momentum, toward apparent destruction, yet landing finally upon a safe and mossy place; past which, for a brief space, the otherwhere rough stream flowed placidly. She caught the hum of happy insects and the moist sweet odor of growing ferns, then heard another rush and tumble. But she was as yet too dazed to look up or realize fresh peril, before Pepita and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... savage all you want to, Gwen. But don't tell me you're going in for this modern free-love stuff, because I won't believe it. You're not that kind of fool, Vivien. (She darns placidly away.) ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... landlord, representing his own establishment. Beyond this select circle, grouped snugly about the trim little square in front of the inn, appeared the towns-people in general, mixed here and there with the country people, in their quaint German costume, placidly expectant of the diligence—the men in short black jackets, tight black breeches, and three-cornered beaver hats; the women with their long light hair hanging in one thickly plaited tail behind them, and the waists of their ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... he found it a very quiet, sleepy little village, with a gleaming river flowing through it placidly, and such respectable houses and small clean cottages as put to shame the dwellings at Botfield. So early was it yet, that the village children were only just going to school; and the biggest boy turned back with Stephen to the gate of the Rectory. Stephen had never seen so large and grand ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... by a young panther. Unfortunately he developed a passion for killing everything that walked on four legs—short of a horse or an elephant—and of domestic pets and of poultry he took heavy toll. Nothing could break him of this propensity; he would take any punishment quite placidly, and then straightway repeat the offence at the first opportunity. And he developed also a curious habit of tracking his master when he dined out. No matter how "Sandy" was fastened up in barracks, before the meal was half over in the bungalow where his ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... there the pungent and spicy fragrance of the southernwood would be doubly grateful to the nostrils. Little Missy sat down delightedly to nibble the caraway-seed, and her mother seeing her so quietly and absorbingly occupied, at once fell contentedly and placidly asleep in her corner of the pew. But five heads of caraway, though each contain many score of seeds, and the whole number be slowly nibbled and eaten one seed at a time, will not last through the child's eternity of a long doctrinal sermon; and when ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... had died. Philip, though he thought it absurd, had never liked the idea of going back to it; and since Cronshaw's death he had remained in the little room, sleeping on a fold-up bed, into which he had first moved in order to make his friend comfortable. The baby was sleeping placidly. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... ridicule anything with which Lady Fulda's name is associated," he answered. "But tell me," he exclaimed, catching sight of Evadne placidly sleeping in the high-backed chair, with her hat in her hand held up so as to conceal the lower part of her face; "Are visions about? Is that one that I see there before me? If I were Faust, I should love such a Marguerite. I wish she would let her hat drop. I want to see the lower part of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... patiently about till Teacher did appear. When she came she was more wonderful than ever, in a long and billowy boa and a wide and billowy hat. She had seemed in a breathless hurry while up in Room 18, but now she stood quite placidly in a group of her small adherents on the highest of the school-house steps. And the cabinet, waiting gloomily apart, only muttered, "I told ye so," and "It must be a awful kind feeling," when the tall stranger came swinging upon the ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... worry," said the German, placidly looking at his watch. "I take eet through safe. She dam good sea boat, an' where I come in I can go out. Ach! 'tis ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... replied Mark; and he glanced at Rich, who was seated at work with Janet, while the doctor looked on, and smiled placidly ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... an arbour, placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the Major was giving a back to George, who chose to jump over him. He went over his head, and bounded into the little group of Bullocks, with immense black bows on their hats, and huge black sashes, accompanying ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the thick apple-trees and the bushes. Her mother had fallen into a doze. Margaret looked at her, thinking how sallow the plump, fair face had grown, and how faded the kindly blue eyes were now. Dim with crying,—she knew that, though she never saw her shed a tear. Always cheery and quiet, going placidly about the house in her gray dress and Quaker cap, as if there were no such things in the world as debt or blindness. But Margaret knew, though she said nothing. When her mother came in from those wonderful foraging expeditions in search ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... Chet was momentarily at a loss. Miss Kate had not told him to stop painting when the chicken was completed. Miss Kate was at the other end of the sunny garden walk, bending over a wheel chair. So Chet went on painting, placidly. One by one, with meticulous nicety, he painted all his fingernails a bright and cheery yellow. Then he did the whole of his left thumb and was starting on the second joint of the index finger when Miss Kate came up behind him and took the ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... observed Mrs. Ross placidly at this point, for she had been too busy counting her stitches to concern herself with the strife of words, 'Geraldine only mentioned that as a fact: she remarked that Mrs. Blake was a very prepossessing person, that she had rather an ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... as far as it goes," Jack continued, placidly; "but I'd defy even such an expert as Josh here, to cook those ducks so as to ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... side, now varied by little glimpses of the sea, which again they skirted from time to time, and so nearly that, as Mrs. Dollond remarked, it was like driving along the sands. Rainham identified spots for them as the prospect widened, naming sea-girt Mortola with its snug chateau, Mentone lying placidly with its two bays in the westering sun, and, now and again, notorious peaks of the Alpes Maritimes which bounded the horizon beyond. At the frontier bridge of St. Louis, where they alighted to meet the requirements of the Douane, even Mrs. Dollond's frivolity was changed into silent admiration of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... professor's good house, to have delightful walks arm in arm with Jan under the trees in the Baan or round the Singels, parting under the stars with many a lingering word and promise to meet again. It was during one of those very partings that the professor suddenly became aware, as he walked placidly home, of the change that had come ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... not yet awake to the fact that men usually imprison their wives in back parlors and maltreat them shamefully. The witnesses, wives to wit, refuse to bear testimony to this effect, and the public placidly accepts appearance for reality and believes that the gentlewomen who ride about in their carriages or haunt the shops of our cities in gay apparel are reasonably well contented with their lot in life. In a word, it is not hostility so much as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... either of them again. Priscilla never saw her change. Emma went to perdition. Priscilla went back to her chair by the fire. She was under the distinct and comfortable impression that she had been the means of making the girl happy. "How easy it is, making people happy," thought Priscilla placidly, the sweetest smile ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the house, and then, while Mrs. Watson rushed for the police, she had drunk herself into the stupor in which she had been found. But now, in the nick of time, the station cab came up with the luggage, and so the still placidly slumbering culprit was carried out to it, and sent off in the charge of the policeman. Such was the first entry of Mr. and Mrs. Crosse into their home at ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Lendal Bridge we saw the river Ouse running placidly through the town, and a lot of little green boats ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Man of the Coast, Who placidly sat on a post; But when it was cold he relinquished his hold, And called for some ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... calf," remarked the old gentleman to the tenderfoot. "High-yer!" And he placidly fired a fourth shot that scraped the boy's boot at the ankle and threw earth over the clock, so that you could not tell the minute ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the man, then at his companions. The latter appeared placidly indifferent. April sipped her wine, and her eyes roamed round the room whilst she exchanged idle talk with Sarle. But the moment Kenna's back was turned indifference fell from them; they looked at each other eagerly ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... from being trapped by the wiles of the villain Britisher. One has it all on the best of authority—his own—in My Three Years in America (SKEFFINGTON). Of course awkward incidents did occur, which have to be explained away or placidly ignored, but really, if the warlords at home had not been so invincibly tactless in the matter of drowning citizens of the United States, this simple and ingenuous diplomat might very well have succeeded, he would have us believe, in persuading ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... went into the sitting-room; the couch had been drawn near the fire and Marcus's easy chair was pushed back, and there in the warmth and firelight, with an old plaid thrown over him, the forlorn wanderer lay sleeping as placidly as a child. ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... rude latch to enter, but changed her mind and let it fall back into place. Then she suddenly dropped on one knee and kissed the rough-hewn threshold. If Pierre Fontaine saw, he gave no sign, and the memory in the time to come was never shared. But the next instant, one of the boatmen, placidly lighting his pipe, was startled by an unwonted harshness ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... an' soft, an' good to the poor. She used to take baskits of vittles aroun' to sick folks, an' set down on the side o' their beds an' read "The Shepherd o' Salisbury Plains" to 'em. She hardly ever speaked above her breath, an' always wore white gowns with a silk kerchief a-folded placidly aroun' her neck.' 'Them was awful different kind o' people,' I says to him, 'I wonder how they ever come to be married.' 'They never was married,' says he. 'Never married!' I hollers, a-jumpin' up from my chair, 'and you sit there carmly an' look me in the eye.' 'Yes,' ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... Dick answered placidly. "That's Paula's luck. She's tough to kill. Why, I've had her under shell-fire where she was actually disappointed because she didn't get hit, or killed, or near- killed. Four batteries opened on us, shrapnel, at mile-range, and we had to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... said Morgan placidly, "quite as rich as I want to be. I've another ambition—but let's not go into that. I want to show you what Talents, Incorporated can do in the four days—" he looked at his watch—"three hours and some ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... whirlwind of last night, had cleared away. There was quiet in the house, and through the open windows he could glimpse the broad lawn almost singing in its sun-gladdened greenness, and farther on he could glimpse the Sound gleaming placidly. Once for perhaps ten minutes he had seen the overalled and straw-hatted figure of Joe Ellison busy as usual among the flowers. He had strained his eyes for a glimpse of Maggie, but he had looked ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... Julia's were relieved by the appearance of Mr. Edward, in a tweed shooting-jacket sauntering down to them, hands in his pockets, and a cigar in his mouth, placidly unconscious of their solicitude on his account. He was received with a little guttural cry of delight; the misery they had been in about him was duly concealed from him by both, and Julia asked him warmly who ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... The witnesses testified placidly the most incredible things. Their memory was so good that they recollected the hour and minute of the merest trifles, which are forgotten from one day to the next. In night and fog they had seen and recognized people, their features, their gestures, the color of their clothes. They ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... unquenchable love for her was raging in his heart. Each moment, the flames of his passion increased in strength. When he looked away from her, he could see her in his mind's eye. Each of the players on the stage looked like Maggie.... And there she was, all unaware of this strong emotion in him, placidly sitting in her seat, gazing at the actors! Do women feel love as strongly as men do? he asked himself as he looked at her, and as he did so she turned, her head to him, conscious perhaps of his stare, and when her eyes met his in the glowing dusk of ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... fattening-coops (as close-shut as the Strasburg geese)[F] are doing well, and he has added a soupcon of sweetening to their barley-gruel. The young doves have their legs faithfully broken, ("obteras crura") and are placidly fattening on their stumps. The thrush-house is properly darkened, only enough light entering to show the food to some three or four thousand birds, which are in course of cramming for the market. The cochlearium has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... in earnest," she said decisively. He looked to Mrs. Gaston for help. That lady placidly shook her head. In fact, she appeared to be rather in favour of the preposterous plan, if one were to judge by the rapt expression on her countenance. "I had the supposedly honest word of these crafty gentlemen that I was not ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... again, what was her mortification at finding them gathered in a ring, round no object of interest belonging to the ruin, but round her faithful beast, who had loosened himself in some way from the stone, and stood in the middle of a plat of grass, placidly ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... loneliness, and would gladly have exchanged her crowded rooms for dark forest depths, or a drear, night-enshadowed heath. But she became gay. She could not keep in the medium, nor be, as was usual with her, placidly content. Every one remarked her exhilaration of spirits; as all actions appear graceful in the eye of rank, her guests surrounded her applaudingly, although there was a sharpness in her laugh, and an abruptness in her sallies, which might have betrayed ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Mr. Arabin looked placidly out at the lawn and, resting his shoulder on the head of the sofa, rubbed his chin with his hand. It was a trick he had when he was thinking deeply, and what the signora said made him think. Was it not all true? Would ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... over on his stomach, and patted him briskly on the back. At this change in his circumstances, the unappeasable infant only roared louder than ever. His mother appeared to be perfectly unaffected by the noise. This resigned domestic martyr looked placidly up at me, as I stood before her, bewildered, with the novel in my hand. "Ah, that's a very interesting story," she went on. "Plenty of love in it, you know. You have come for it, haven't you? I remember I promised to lend it to you yesterday." Before ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... conflict. "Poor heart," murmured she, in a deep and stifled tone, "what will become of thee!" She paused some moments, and at length, struggling to assume more composure, desired in a calmer voice that some one would read to her. Throughout the remainder of the evening she continued placidly and even cheerfully attentive to the person who read, observing that, should she recover, she designed to commence a long work, upon which she would bestow great pains and time. "Most of her writings," she added, "had been composed ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... than a week slipped by in the customary monotony of that large, placidly genteel, Bedford Square house, and Agatha heard nothing of the house round the corner, which constituted one of the faint few interests of her existence. Sometimes she felt vexed at the lengthened absence of her friend and "guardian," ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... I had begun to hate the very sight of sand; it seemed to me more dreary and pitiless than the stoniest of barren ground. Castro did not mind in the least, but lay on his back looking at the starry sky and placidly chewing his coca. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... interrupted placidly. "I know! You're going to tell me, once more, your pet theory that there's many a boy in that backwoods who might paint a great canvas, or model a deathless bronze—or—or lead a lost cause, if he could ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... that had been cut by the carver's knife. It must have been cut while the tree was very young, for the bark had very much expanded, and the letters were now more than a foot in length. We stood contemplating the rude verse. In the distance the sun was placidly reflecting the last golden rays, every thing was fresh and green, not a sound was heard. It must have been on such another lovely eve that the two lovers had plighted their faith together, and commemorated it on the young oak tree; and this was all we knew of them, all that we would ever know. This ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... was let down. Loria, Chandler, and the medical officer of the port came on board. Then the gangway was drawn up, though the French Consul and the four oarsmen sat placidly ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... to play the baryton, an instrument on which the prince was a performer greatly esteemed by his retainers. Such teacup storms soon passed: Prince Esterhazy doubtless forgave him; the Society was soon forgotten; and Haydn worked on placidly. Every morning he rose with or before the lark, dressed himself with a degree of neatness that astonished even that neat dressing age, and sat down to compose music. Later in each day he is reported to have eaten, to have ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Carter house as he slid by. Mrs. Carter was placidly shaking out the table cloth on the side porch. Mark had eaten his apple sauce and gone. He passed Browns, Todds, Bateses, chasing a white hen that had somehow escaped her confines, but in front of Joneses he suddenly became aware of the blue car that stood ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... do it, if a peasant saw him or any other noble knight in time to judiciously save him the trouble? The knights paid no attention to the king at all; it was his place to look out himself, and if he hadn't skipped he would have been placidly ridden ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... drink no store tea," Mrs. Getz answered him. "We drink peppermint tea fur supper, still. Tillie she didn't drink none this evening. Some says store tea's bad fur the nerves. I ain't got no nerves," she went on placidly. "Leastways, I ain't never felt none, so fur. Mister ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... constituted her dependable rearguard. Milo was there, and Milo would see to it that no skulker declined his queen's command. There lay the reason why Dolores so placidly turned her back to men whose dearest ambition would have been realized by the plunge of steel between her shoulders at that moment. Milo walked around to the rear of the hesitant mob, and without a word gripped the hindmost in his two great hands and ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... She loved to watch the ducklings swimming after their mothers: they were quite fearless, and would dash to the water's edge where one was standing and pick up nothing with the greatest eagnerness and swallow it with delight. The mother duck swam placidly close to her brood and clucked in a low voice all kinds of warnings and advice and reproof to the little ones. Mary Makebelieve thought it was very clever of the little ducklings to be able to swim ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... dreariness of a tempestuous voyage. The highlands and valleys, as we sailed up, had a verdant woody appearance, and were interspersed with rural and chateau scenery; herds of cattle remarkable for length of horn, and snow-white sheep, were grazing placidly in the lowlands. The country, as far as I could judge, seemed in a high state of culture, and the farms, to use an expression of the celebrated Washington Irving's, when describing, I think, a farm-yard view in England, appeared "redolent of pigs, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... white-armed, large-limbed Here, though queen by right of marriage, lorded it over her sister goddesses by any superior energy or force of nature. On the contrary, she was rather a heavy-going person, and, unless moved to anger by her husband's numerous infidelities, took her Olympian life placidly enough, and once or twice got cheated in a way that did no great credit to her sagacity. A little Frenchwoman would have sailed around her easily; and as it was, shrewish though she was in her speech when provoked, her husband not only deceived but chastised her, and reduced her to penitence ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... defect, of inherited degeneracy, fills us with horror and stirs us to move Heaven and earth to prevent another such. The inheritance of vigor, of healthfulness, and of sanity we placidly accept as a matter of course and bank upon it in our plans for the future, without so much as a thank you to the force ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... the cross-hilt of the naked sword The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held; His vigilant intense regard was poured 15 Upon the creature placidly unquelled, Whose front was set at level gaze which took No heed of aught, a solemn ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... with some tobacco he had thoughtfully borrowed from the cook before dinner, and dropping into a negligent attitude on the deck, smoked placidly with his eyes half-closed. The brig was fairly steady and the air hot and slumberous, and with an easy assurance that nobody would hit him while in that position, he allowed his head to fall on his chest and dropped off ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... copra-gathering business, old Heintz, really left me a very snug establishment. It was odd that I should have run across him at Panama that way. I sounded him on the question of treasure. He said placidly that of course the island had been the resort of Edward Davis and Benito Bonito and others of the black flag gentry, and he thought it very likely they had left some of their spoils behind them, but though he had done a little investigating as he had time he had come on nothing ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... together in the shadow of a great rock, gazing out over the peaks and pinnacles of the mountains which wall in Hidden Water and talking placidly of the old days—until at last, when the spell of the past was on him, Kitty fell silent, waiting for him to ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... formed a comely person, In the court of Caridwen I have done penance; Though little I was seen, placidly received, I was great on the floor of the place to where I was led; I have been a prized defence, the sweet muse the cause, And by law without speech I have been liberated By a smiling black old hag, when irritated Dreadful her claim ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... tenements, peeping out of the narrow windows in their balconies, made their remarks upon the strangers in not much more melodious tones; in an old court-yard a little way above, was visible an unwieldy rhinoceros, placidly contemplating a bundle of grass, from which it had satisfied its hunger, in happy ignorance that its life is dependent on that of the Rajah; for in Nepaul it is a rule that the death of one great animal should be immediately followed by that ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... glimmered in Madame's apartment, which looked out upon the square, and the soft rays from the expiring lamp seemed to be the image of the calm sleep of a young girl, hardly yet sensible of life's anxieties, and in whom the flame of existence sinks placidly as sleep ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that one kind of matter might be changed into another. We no longer think that notion absurd. Sir William Ramsay has actually succeeded in changing one element into another and radium and helium are seen changing into each other, until now we are quite ready to think of transmutation placidly. The Philosopher's Stone used to seem a great absurdity until our recent experience with radium, which is to some extent at least the philosopher's stone, since it brings about the change of certain supposed elements into others. A distinguished American chemist ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... Grace thrust her head between the portieres that separated the living-room from the hall. Mrs. Elwood sat reading her magazine as placidly as though nothing had happened within the last hour ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... old nurse," returned Mrs. Garnett, placidly. She was a pretty-looking woman, with flaxen hair, just becoming streaked with grey. Perhaps she was a widow, for she wore a black gown, and a cap with soft floating ends, and had a plaintive look in her eyes. "I hope ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... on both sides," the muleteer said, placidly. "I don't hold to it myself, but I don't know, after all, why a woman's life is a bit more precious than a man's. Vagas's wife and children are here, too, and if the news comes of his death, she would stir the band up to kill the prisoners, even if the captain wanted ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... courage! You took a leaf out of Reade's dictionary at Manchester, and trampled on two difficulties—impossibilities, you called them. That was on Saturday, Monday you knocked the poor impossibilities down. Tuesday you kicked them where they lay. Wednesday you walked placidly over their ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... will more than treble the value of the property," observed Maurice, placidly. "By the by, I presume you have had no occasion to use the power of attorney which I gave you? Just at this moment it is very fortunate for me that the ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Snowball soon followed; for the two sweet little things would swing on the burdock-leaves that grew over the brook. Sitting side by side, the plump sisters were placidly swaying up and down over the clear brown water rippling below, when—ah! sad to relate—the stem broke, and down went leaf, chickens and all, to ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the snow-sifted peaks and domes far to the north and south were lighting up with wondrous hues of gold and crimson; the stars aloft were paling and the moon was sinking low, and still big 705 stood hissing and grumbling placidly on the long siding, and the green lights back at the caboose blinked sleepily against the dawn. Two glimmering threads of light in rigid right lines, converging far beyond the rear of the train, ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... Plato had probably obtained it. He justified it, handily enough, from his doctrine of Ideas, but scarcely derived it thence. The triumph of Aristotle destroyed his justification, but the parent stream flowed on placidly, undisturbed by thought. ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... position than most successful assailants of the prerogative of whatever is to continue in being. They had carried a political end by means of a religious revival. The fulcrum on which they rested their lever to overturn the existing order of things (as history always placidly calls the particular forms of disorder for the time being) was in the soul of man. They could not renew the fiery gush of enthusiasm, when once the molten metal had begun to stiffen in the mould of policy and precedent. The religious element of Puritanism became insensibly merged in the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... be all right," said Hilda confidently and joyously. She was sure that the excursion to London had appealed to her mother's latent love of the unexpected, and that her faculty for accepting placidly whatever fate offered would prevent her from resisting the pressure that Sarah Gailey and Mr. Cannon ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... red and screaming—and the superlative length and arched beauty of their necks surpassed the wildest of Ikey Borrachsohn's descriptions. And relying upon the strength and politeness of these wondrous birds there were indeed "mans und ladies und boys und little girls" embarking, disembarking, and placidly weaving in and out and round about through scenes of hidden ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... placidly, and said he had had hard work to get stones enough to fill the skiff. "I put them in," he explained, "and then I sculled out in mid-stream, and scuttled her. I had to swim ashore. It was night, and the water was like flowing ink, and there was a star ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... earnestly warned his faithful Mucio, week after week, that dangers were impending over him, and that "some trick would be played upon him," should he venture into the royal presence, now acquiesced in his assassination, and placidly busied himself with fresh ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the amazed satisfaction of his employer. He went his way with naive and unconscious pleasure. It did not take long for his enemies to find a fulcrum for their chagrin. One evening, after closing, when he sat in the dressing room, with his feet in the usual tub of hot water, placidly reviewing the day's excitements and smoking his ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... with their calves; there were also horses and great fat pigs, scooping holes in the ground, and little plump sucking pigs, squealing as though they were being skinned alive. But we had eyes for nothing but the cows; they stood very quiet, placidly chewing. They permitted us to make a thorough examination, merely blinking their eyelids. After one hour's inspection, we had found seventeen that pleased us, this for one quality, that for another, a third because she was red, two because they ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... anecdote, I was extremely disappointed; the more so as it was not the sort of story, you know, one could very well press him for. I sat silent, and he too, as if nothing could please him better. Even his thumbs were still now. Suddenly his lips began to move. "That is so," he resumed placidly. "Man is born a coward (L'homme est ne poltron). It is a difficulty—parbleu! It would be too easy other vise. But habit—habit—necessity—do you see?—the eye of others—voila. One puts up with it. And then the example of others who are no better ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... kape stirring 'em up to ask 'em, seeing that they're resting aisy," returned the policeman, smiling placidly. "And there's nothing the matter with my muscle, is there?" He gently but firmly pushed the colonel ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... what appeared to be apples and leaves, and still more roses, and still more emerging ropes, spreading in a tangle over the ceiling. Here and there, in the midst of all this splendor, was the large, placidly smiling face of a boy angel; four of these placidly smiling boy angels gazed from the four sides of the snow-white cloud-burst, and Peter's eye roamed from one to another, fascinated by the mathematics of this architectural marvel. There were fourteen ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... snow. A few hardy geraniums in pots brighten the windows, but garden there is and can be none; the pebbly shore must serve the children as a playground. Rosy cheeks and sound lungs give proof that the little Drakes are thriving in their seaside home; and the youngest, a baby of two, lies placidly sucking its thumb on ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... dandy villain has robbed me of my wallet, with fifteen dollars in it, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake I was going to give Aunt Farnsworth!' exclaimed she, placidly. Stout folks bear disasters calmly. Luckily, she had two or three dollars in her satchel, which she had received from the ticket master when she purchased her ticket, so she was not entirely bankrupt. Some of the passengers attempted to sympathize with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... calmly and placidly. I prevailed on Dr Johnson to read aloud Ogden's sixth sermon on prayer, which he did with a distinct expression, and pleasing solemnity. He praised my favourite preacher, his elegant language, and remarkable ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... with an effort, and they rested on the boy, who sat at her feet placidly sucking the tassels of the bag. His mother stooped and extracted them from his rosy mouth, which a cry of wrath immediately filled. She lifted him in her arms, and for the first time no current of life ran from his bodyinto hers. He felt heavy ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... a body claiming to possess the highest ideals in the world, yet actually cherishing an entirely barbaric theory. There is probably not a Catholic lawyer in the world who does not reject the old idea of punishment as barbaric, yet he placidly believes that God retains it. That is why we find a Catholic archbishop like Carr putting forth so revolting an idea of the war, while Protestant preachers as a rule shrink from mentioning God in connection with it. These things make it impossible for one to understand how non-Christians can ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... my Anne Rose," said little Millicent placidly. "I don't know where she is. I guess she's lost," and Millicent carefully folded a piece of paper to ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... placidly watching the scene, but concluding at last that something unusual was happening he came up and went into the house. A few minutes after he came out alone and walked measuredly on toward the end of ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... despised him, but not for nothing was she Reginald Mallett's daughter; and Mr. Jenkins and the butcher and a gloomy old gentleman who emerged from his bedroom to eat, and locked himself up between meals, were the only men she knew. No doubt Mrs. Mallett, placidly sewing, was alive to the attentions and frustrations of Mr. Jenkins and had planned her letter to her sisters-in-law some time before she wrote it, but the idea of parting from her mother never occurred to Henrietta until Miss ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... feverishly and all England reading of the arrest of Mareno inquired indignantly, "But who is Kazmah, and where is Mrs. Monte Irvin?" Sin Sin Wa placidly pursued his arrangements for immediate departure to the paddyfields of Ho-Nan, and sometimes in the weird crooning voice with which he addressed the raven he would sing a monotonous chant dealing with the valley of the Yellow River where the opium-poppy grows. Hidden in the cunning vault, ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... the face of the rainswept moors. But to most quiet and sceptical souls such an issue of the drama contradicts the laws of nature. To most patient slaves of destiny the end of the ashes of these fierce flames is to mingle placidly with the dark earth of those misty hills and find their release in nothing more tragic than the giving to the roots of the heather and the bracken a richer soil wherein ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... placidly, as he had always lived. An improvident man, as the world uses the term, he undoubtedly had been, but this arose from a defect of character. He never could refuse to give when asked to do so; his failing sprang from ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... would have it, the day went placidly by, in spite of Mr. Slawson's somber prognostications. No one came to disturb the even tenor of its way. Then, at eveningfall, while Martha was still absent, there was a gentle rap upon the door, and ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... of the primitive was aroused in Dick by this time, the battle lust that dwells, placidly through life, perhaps, in every man, but which breaks loose in a torrent when once unleashed. He leaped after the retreating man, seized him by the collar, and gave a wrench that tore coat, collar, and tie from the man's throat. He ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton |
