Great Expectations vocabulary

They were so staid looking. So proper. You really couldn’t imagine them actually building—with their own hands—a school in the bush.

Alice Walker. The Color Purple (1982)

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everyone tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince’s household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished at that moment made itself felt.

Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman . Simon & Schuster