"Declining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manner as to cause pain. It is observable, that still as we recede from the light, nature has so contrived it, that the pupil is enlarged by the retiring of the iris, in proportion to our recess. Now, instead of declining from it but a little, suppose that we withdraw entirely from the light; it is reasonable to think that the contraction of the radial fibres of the iris is proportionally greater; and that this part may by great darkness come ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... spaniel emerged from beneath, climbed a flight of broad steps that ascended to the terrace, and paddled up to Henry, wagging his tail. He was a very ancient hero, whose record among the wild duck still remained a worthy memory and won him honour in his declining days. The age of "Prince" remained doubtful, but he was decrepit now—gone in the hams and suffering from cataract of both eyes—a disease to which it is impossible to minister in a dog. But his life was good to him; he still got about, ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... declining fortunes made it necessary for him to leave the school they supposed he attended, and get to work and help support his parents and their ten children. But there is no evidence that he ever entered or returned from the school ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... good with respect to the English as commonly spoken: yet the English dialect has in reality suffered much less than the Spanish, and still retains its original syntax to a certain extent, its peculiar manner of conjugating verbs, and declining nouns and pronouns. ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the sun hung lower, the smoke of every river boat, every locomotive speeding along the shores below, lay almost motionless above the water, tinged with the delicate enchantment of declining day. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... their Countries free-dome to maintaine, Egipt forsakes vs, Pompey found his graue, 1040 VVhere hee most succor did expect to haue: Scipio is ouerthrowne and with his haples fall, Affrick to vs doth former ayde denay, O who will helpe men in aduersity: Yet let vs shewe in our declining state, That strength of minde, that vertues constancy, That erst we did in our felicity, Though Fortune fayles vs lets not fayle our selues, Remember boy thou art a Romaine borne, And Catoes Sonne, of me do vertue learne; 1050 Fortune of others, aboue althings see Thou prize thy Countries ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... a Keltic legend, in former days there lived in Skerr a Druid of renown. He sat with his face to the west on the shore, his eye following the declining sun, and he blamed the careless billows which tumbled between him and the distant Isle of Green. One day, as he sat musing on a rock, a storm arose on the sea; a cloud, under whose squally skirts the foaming waters tossed, rushed suddenly into the bay, and from its dark womb ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... taken refuge in Granada from other Moorish dominions which had fallen into the power of the Christians, now groaned in despair at the thoughts that war was to follow them into this last retreat, to lay waste this pleasant land, and to bring trouble and sorrow upon their declining years. The women were more loud and vehement in their grief, for they beheld the evils impending over their children, and what can restrain the agony of a mother's heart? Many of them made their way through the halls of the Alhambra into the presence of the king, weeping, and wailing, and tearing ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... doing duty for Our Lady, with gothic crown and a fresh sprig of consecrated box, bringing the odd, enigmatic physiognomy, preferred by the art of that day, within the sphere of religious devotion. The King's manuscript, declining, in verse really as good as Ronsard's, the honour not meant for him, might be read, attached to the pedestal. The ladies of his own verse, Marie, Cassandre, and the rest, idols one after another of a somewhat ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... in her declining days, bought charms of carmine and pearl-powder, Jerrold said, "Egad! she should have a hoop about her, with a notice upon it, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... are visited upon women as well as upon men—upon wives who await in vain a husband's return, and upon mothers who must surrender up the sons whose support is the natural reliance of declining years. Even children are its victims—children innocent of wrong and incapable of doing harm. By war's dread decree babes come into the world fatherless at their birth, while the bodies of their sires are burned like worthless stubble in the fields ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... to get everything to market in one generation, indifferent to the fate of those who should come after-the passes through the mountains being choked by cars carrying to the coasts crops from increasing acreage of declining productivity or the products of swiftly disappearing forests or the output of mines that ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... also not to be forgotten, that Mr. Fox, and all who hold with him, on this, as on all other occasions of pretended reform, most bitterly reproach Mr. Pitt with treachery, in declining to support the scandalous charges and indefinite projects of this infamous libel from the Friends of the People. By the animosity with which they persecute all those who grow cold in this cause of pretended reform, they hope, that, if, through ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to answer more briefly and brusquely. One thing is certain. No criticism not entirety laudatory, which the Involuntary Bailee may make of his correspondent's MS., will be accepted without remonstrance. Doubtless Lord Tennyson has at last chosen the only path of safety by declining to answer his unknown correspondents, or to return their ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastick luxury of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in which he endeavours to persuade him, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... began wondering whether by chance this young mason of the name of Clark could be related to any of her mother's people. She must find out more about his family history. So she prolonged her walk among the hills until the declining sun told her that the mason would have returned to his home. Then she came back along the path by the shack. Clark was inside, whistling loudly, and evidently preparing his evening meal, for a thin stream of bluish smoke emerged into the still air from the mouth of the drain-pipe. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... the scheme as suggested by Mrs. Townsend. Her ideas as to Herbert's clerical studies would have been higher than this. Trinity College, Dublin, was in her estimation the only place left for good Church of England ecclesiastical teaching. But as Herbert was obstinately bent on declining sacerdotal life, there was no use in ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... the militia[372]. Mrs. Williams is, I fear, declining. Dr. Lawrence says he can do no more. She is gone to summer in the country, with as many conveniences about her as she can expect; but I have no great hope. We must all die: may ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the torch of Franklin and Greeley and Dana where Henry Watterson dropped it. Loose of your gangrenous chains, you behold the freelance correspondent of the North American Newspaper Alliance, the man who will devote his declining years to reporting in the terse and vivid prose for which he is justly famous the progress of the grass which strangles the country as you have ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... would be produced by this unimaginable policy of the Goths—the city would be saved! Rome had not scrupled in former years to purchase the withdrawal of all enemies from her distant provinces; and now that the very centre of her glory, the very pinnacle of her declining power, was threatened with sudden and unexpected ruin, she would lavish on the Goths the treasures of the whole empire, to bribe them to peace and to tempt them to retreat. The Senate might possibly delay the necessary concessions, from hopes of assistance that would never be realised; but sooner ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... that crowned Stone Mountain. His mood was tranquilly amorous. The vial in his pocket was full of golden grains. Presently, he would fashion a ring. Then, heigh-ho for the parson! He smiled contentedly over his vision of the buxom Widow Brown. Her placid charms would soothe his declining years. A tempestuous passion would be unbecoming at his age. But the companionship of this gentle and agreeable woman would be both fitting and pleasant. Really, Uncle Dick mused, it was time he settled down. One should be sedate ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... to get service abroad. When the time came he should find Sir John Parton, and beg him to procure for him some letter of introduction to the many British gentlemen serving abroad. He had not seen him since he came to England. His father had met him, but had quarrelled with him upon Sir John declining to interest himself actively to push his claims, and had forbidden Cyril to go near those who had ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... The rays of the declining sun seemed for a moment centred on one spot, immediately before my impending face, supported as this was on one hand, and my sight followed their lance-like rays to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... strength; and so often he lay in bed till six or even seven o'clock, instead of rising at four; and after dinner took a nap for a quarter-hour. It now grew upon him, however, that he was losing in spiritual vigour, and that his soul's health was declining under this new regimen. The work now so pressed upon him as to prevent proper reading of the Word and rob him ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... Mantuan Once charm'd the world; and here's the Uscan swan In his declining years does chime, And challenges the last remains of Time. Ages run on, and soon give o'er, They have their graves as well as we; Time swallows all that's past and more, Yet time is swallow'd in eternity: This is the only profits poets ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... the attitude which the latter took up at the Foreign Office on all the great questions which arose, sometimes in a sudden and dramatic form, at a period when the power of Napoleon III., in spite of theatrical display, was declining, and Bismarck was shaping with consummate skill ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... industry upon which the success of all other industries primarily depends—is almost stagnant throughout Canada as shown by the declining rural population in both Eastern and Western Canada, due largely to the greatly increased cost of agricultural implements and machinery, clothing, boots and shoes, building material and practically everything the farmer has to buy, caused by the protective tariff, so ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... regretfully decided, in council, that no attempt be made to add Queenie to the list of exhibits, her brothers warmly declining to act as ambassadors in that cause. They were certain Queenie would not like the idea, they said, and Herman picturesquely described her activity on occasions when she had been annoyed by too much attention to her appearance. However, Penrod's disappointment was alleviated by an inspiration ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... every form in which patriotism is ever subjected to a test, and I trust, whatever evil may be in store for us by those who wage war on the Constitution and our rights under it, that I shall be able to turn at least to the past and say, "Up to that period when I was declining into the grave, I served a Government I loved, and served it with my whole heart." Nor will I stop to compare services with those gentlemen who have fair phrases, while they undermine the very foundation of the temple our fathers built. If, however, there be those here who do really ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... she might have been: so were once the Ark, the Argo, the Old Temeraire, the Constitution, and sundry other hulks of celebrity. Yet it is not mere rhetoric to say, that, if the eyes of the second and third Presidents of these United States never, in their declining years, beheld the good ship Markerstown, it was only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... finish what was in his mind, but the next morning, immediately after breakfast, he pretended that he had an errand in the village, and started off alone, preferring to walk, he said, when Howard suggested the carriage, and also declining Howard's company, which was rather faintly offered. Howard never cared to walk when he could drive, and then he had a plan which he could better carry out with Jack away than with him present. He was more interested in Eloise than he would like to confess to Jack or any one, and he found himself ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... "Plain Man." The paper was with great industry circulated and dispersed; and he, for his seasonable intervention, had a considerable pension bestowed upon him, which he retained to his death. Towards the end of his life he went with his wife to France; but after a while, finding his health declining, he returned alone to England, and died in April, 1765. He was twice married, and by his first wife had several children. One daughter, who married an Italian of rank named Cilesia, wrote a tragedy called Almida, which was acted at Drury Lane. His second wife was the daughter of a nobleman's ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... that Coraunus, the successor of that King, dissolving the abbeys, brought, with the declining state of the nobility, so vast a prey to the industry of the people, that the balance of the commonwealth was too apparently in the popular party to be unseen by the wise Council of Queen Parthenia, who, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the plan of warfare which Fabius proposed, but his own countrymen put many obstacles in the way of its success. Many times he was called a coward for declining a battle which would certainly have been a defeat; but he let such idle cries pass him by, and hung on Hannibal's rear, keeping his soldiers, many of whom were raw and untrained, under his own eye. In vain Hannibal drew up his ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... March 4,1801, when Mr. Thomas Jefferson entered the breakfast room of Conrad's boarding house on Capitol Hill, where he had been living in bachelor's quarters during his Vice-Presidency. He took his usual seat at the lower end of the table among the other boarders, declining with a smile to accept the chair of the impulsive Mrs. Brown, who felt, in spite of her democratic principles, that on this day of all days Mr. Jefferson should have the place which he had obstinately refused to occupy at the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... "genuineness" of musicians been put to such a dangerous test. It is glaringly obvious: great success, mob success is no longer the achievement of the genuine,—in order to get it a man must be an actor!—Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner—they both prove one and the same thing: that in declining civilisations, wherever the mob is allowed to decide, genuineness becomes superfluous, prejudicial, unfavourable. The actor, alone, can still kindle great enthusiasm.—And thus it is his golden age which is now dawning,—his and that of all those who ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... Declining the civility, Elizabeth stood, and told her errand. She had come across the ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... anno Domini 1456 fuit totaliter combusta,"—this island was entirely burnt (i. e. blown up in an eruption) in 1456; and in later maps Mr. Major has found the corrupted name "Gombar Scheer" applied to the dangerous reefs and shoals left behind by this explosion.[295] Where volcanic action is declining geysers and boiling springs are apt to abound, as in Iceland; where it has become extinct at a period geologically recent, as in Auvergne and the Rhine country, its latest vestiges are left in the hundreds of thermal and mineral springs whither fashionable ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... words: "I have written so much about everything, that now it becomes difficult for me to write. I am tired." It frightened me to hear him say this, he was so wonderful in endurance and strength; and I could not shake off the effect that this first sign of his declining years made upon me. He was then sixty-nine years old, and the last of the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... angry attack on her folly and unkindness. But the more he lost his temper, the more provokingly Doris kept hers. She sat there, surrounded by his socks and shirts, a trim, determined little figure—declining to admit that she was angry, or jealous, or offended, or anything of the kind. Would he please come upstairs and give her his last directions about his packing? She thought she had put everything ready; but there were just a few things she was ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... fishery is an important industry, though apparently a declining one. Owing to the scarcity of seals and international difficulties concerning pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, where the greatest number have been taken, the business of seal-hunting is losing favour. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... and too affectionate, not to dispel all clouds by the sunshine he carried about with him. If rest and reliance came with Clarence, zest and animation came with Griffith. He managed to take the initiative by declining to remain any longer with the Robsons, saying they had been spoilt by such a model lodger as Clarence, who would let Gooch feed him on bread and milk and boiled mutton, and put on his clean pinafore if she chose to insist; whereas her indignation, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whilst drying, finding that two or three of the party had secreted small quantities amongst their clothes; such precautions were quite necessary, as well in justice to the whole of the party, as to keep up the strength of all, which seemed to be very fast declining. At night we made a fire to smoke the meat, and to destroy the maggots, which were very numerous in it; we packed the meat in ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... Miss Rogers; "let me be a judge of that. I know best, my dear. It will be a happiness to me in my declining years to have you do as I desire. The money will all go to you, and at the last you may divide it as you see fit. Do not refuse me, my child. I have set my heart upon seeing you the center of an admiring throng, to see you robed in shining satin and magnificent diamonds. I will ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... more active, in bespeaking for their master the first of the market. I trust, young man, that neither idleness, nor licentious pleasure, nor the love of worldly gain and worldly grandeur, the chief baits with which the great Fisher of souls conceals his hook, are the causes of your declining the career to which I would incite you. But above all I trust—above all I hope—that the vanity of superior knowledge—a sin with which those who have made proficiency in learning are most frequently beset—has not led you ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... Coal, and Transportation.*—A vast increase in the production of iron and coal was going on concurrently with the rise of the factory system. The smelting of iron ore was one of the oldest industries of England, but it was a declining rather than an advancing industry. This was due to the exhaustion of the woods and forests that provided fuel, or to their retention for the future needs of ship-building and for pleasure parks. In 1760, however, Mr. Roebuck ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... finished "posting" the town. It had been late in the afternoon before he had altered the posters and set out on his paradoxical mission; the sun was declining when he returned homeward. Pausing at a cross-road, he selected a tree for one of his remaining announcements. It was already adorned with a dodger, citing the escape of a negro slave and offering a reward for his apprehension; ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... had linsey dresses, since then, calico ones. During the last four months, had noticed many scars on her person. At one time had one of her eyes tied up for a week. During the last three months seemed declining, and had become stupified. Mr. Winters was passing along the street, heard cries, looked up through the window that was hoisted, saw the boy whipping her, as much as forty or fifty licks, while he staid. The girl was stripped down to the hips. The whip seemed to be a ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... were characteristically difficult, and made the difficulty greater by not understanding him—or declining to understand, which came to the same thing—when he laid down his ideas and endeavoured to bring them ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... objected that the removal of economic pressure would bring an undue increase in population and the evils that Malthus feared. But the tendency of advancing civilization seems to be so strikingly toward a declining birth-rate-a phenomenon unrecognized in this country because of the tide of immigration, but apparent in western Europe-that the net outcome may be attained of a stationary population. Moreover, the scheme ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... 26: In youth and old age. Muffett says, p.129-30, 'according to the old Proverb, Butter is Gold in the morning, Silver at noon, and lead at night. It is also best for children whilst they are growing, and for old men when they are declining; but very unwholesom betwixt those two ages, because through the heat of young stomacks, it is forthwith converted into choler [bile]. The Dutchmen have a by-Verse amongst ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... to inform Mr Thornborough that his state of health would not allow him to accept the office of Sheriff if the citizens of London did him the honour to elect him. He also acquainted T. M. Pearce with his intention of declining the Shrievalty in the event of its being conferred on him. It appears, however, that many friends and relatives spoke to him on the subject, and prevailed on him to accept ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... volume of water. I dislike very much to interfere with your part of the business, William, but under present conditions I feel justified in telling you that you must not ship these cattle just now. I have been watching the market with some uneasiness for a month. Beef has been declining steadily until now it ranges from two-ninety to three-sixty, and you will readily see, William, that we cannot afford to ship at that figure. For various reasons I have not obtruded business matters upon you, but I will now state that it is vitally ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... would be well to have a joint discussion between Judge Douglas and Mr. Lincoln. To which proposition Mr. Douglas at once demanded, "What party does Mr. Lincoln represent?" The answer of Mr. Fell was, "the Whig party, of course." Declining the proposition with much feeling Mr. Douglas said, "When I came home from Washington I was assailed in the northern part of the State by an old line abolitionist, in the central part of the State by a Whig, and in Southern Illinois ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... me," said Israel, "I am growing old, I am numbering the steps of death. I need her joyous young life beside me in my declining age. Then, she is helpless, she is blind, she is my scapegoat, Basha, as I am yours, and no one save ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... Anthony, insisted on removing their aged father to his home in Saratoga, N.Y., to the great grief of Humphrey, who claimed that the old gentleman was too childish to know whether he was orthodox or Hicksite and ought not to be taken to "a new country" in his declining years Hannah Anthony was ambitious for her children and insisted that they should be placed where they might have better educational facilities than in the little school at home. Humphrey thought the boys could manage a farm and the girls weave good ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... cracked window-panes were coated with dust; and the scanty fire in the grate, although the evening was cold enough to make a large one desirable—all combined to testify to the poverty of the inhabitants. It was a sorry retreat for declining years and sickness, and a sad and cheerless home for the fresh cheek and glad hopes of youth; and all the worse, that neither father nor daughter was 'to the manner born;' for poor John Glegg had, as he said, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... arresting gesture. "Kelson, Mr. Gifford, come here a moment and shut the door. Look!" he said in a breathless whisper, pointing to the floor beneath the window through which the deep orange light of the declining sun was streaming. ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... had each harangued his men. But if any slept, it was a marvel. All were too excited to sleep and every tent, as far as I could learn, talked without cessation. By the tenth hour, when the sun was visibly declining and the warmth of the midday abating, we were all assembled in the camp-square, the men helmeted and with their swords at their sides, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... animals received benefit from the metallic plates, but none at all from the wooden ones. But they found nobody to believe them; the Perkinean institution fell into neglect; and Perkins made his exit from England, carrying with him about ten thousand pounds, to soothe his declining years in the good ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... meetings with Certina Charley had inspired in Hal a mildly amused curiosity. Therefore, he readily enough accepted an invitation to sit down, while declining a coincident one to have a drink, on the plea that he ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... vision the proportions it presented to Cynthia Gardner's, but he saw no reason to deny its existence. Cynthia cast a backward glance from the wagon as she spoke, and saw Reuben slowly and stiffly gathering up dry stalks in his garden, while Stephen propped up the declining side of a water-butt in his adjoining domain, one man's back carefully ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... running near the hives is thought to be of advantage, especially in dry seasons, with gently declining banks, in order that the bees may have ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... narrow path, and pursued her way with a firmness and decision, of which, at any other time, when she was trusting to the arm and guidance of Rodolph, she would have believed herself incapable. She knew the direction in which the Indian village lay, and the slanting rays of the declining sun occasionally penetrated the thick wood, and cast bright streaks of light on the mossy ground, and the boles of the giant trees around; but soon they faded away, and a deep gloom overspread ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Cumnor, I will tell you so.' And her own fatigue showed itself during the rest of the evening in her sitting particularly upright, and declining all offers of easy-chairs or footstools, and refusing the insult of a suggestion that they should all go to bed earlier. She went on in something of this kind of manner as long as Lord Cumnor remained at the Towers. Mrs Kirkpatrick ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Italian agriculture during the reign of the emperors. For here, it appears, that during the four hundred years that the Western Empire endured, while the cultivation of grain in Italy was constantly declining, and at last wholly ceased, insomuch that the country relapsed entirely into a state of nature, or was devoted to the mere raising of grass for sheep and cattle, agriculture was flourishing in the highest degree in the remoter ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... from home, broke to her the horrible fact that she had made two ordinary young men fall in love with her. It was of a piece with the disturbing discovery that whereas she had come out, as she understood, to soothe the declining years of her aged parents, those parents, though grey-haired, were disconcertingly hale and hearty, and asked only that she would be happy and make herself agreeable—two tasks of which Honour found the first impossible, and the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... face of established usage by the Chief Magistrate of the Country, many of the old forms and customs of Colonial times fell into disuse, and among others the wearing of a livery by serving-men. A constantly declining grade of shabbiness was the result of this, as the driver of the horses wore a coat and hat of the same style as his master, only less clean and new. Like many of our American ideas so good in theory, the outcome of this attempt at "Liberty, Equality, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... over the reply to the Petersburg telegram, declining a conference in Stockholm, and further tactics to be followed in case of need. We agreed that if the Russians did not come, we must declare the armistice at an end, and chance what the Petersburgers would say to that. ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... reckless mind, yearned for a little kindness from them, that he might feel that every chance of retrieving their esteem had not gone! Once, after standing some time by Hamilton, he ventured to ask if he were still offended with him. Hamilton coldly disclaimed any idea of offence, and declining all discussion on the matter, hinted that Louis' conduct was too disreputable to be noticed. Louis turned from him with a proud resolve never to speak to Hamilton again. Hamilton's conscience smote him when he saw him a short time after in company with Casson and Harris, whispering ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... numerous, and interfered so much with trade and industry towards the year 1852, that the Brazilian Government was obliged to reduce them; obtaining the necessary permission from Rome to abolish several which were of minor importance. Many of those which have been retained are declining in importance since the introduction of railways and steamboats, and the increased devotion of the people to commerce; at the time of our arrival, however, they were in full glory. The way they were managed was in this fashion. A general manager or "Juiz" for each festival was elected ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... grassy uplands and hills; relief is mountainous with altitude declining from west ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... only wanted leave to run up to Fort Pulaski for the purpose of collecting his traps, taking leave of his former comrades, and procuring his discharge-papers from Col. Barton. Two days after that came a note to the department headquarters respectfully declining the commission! He had been laughed and jeered out of accepting a captaincy by his comrades; and this—though we remember it more accurately from our correspondence with Mr. Briggs—was but one of many scores of ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... resolve itself into a committee of the whole house, to consider so much of the 5th and 6th Victoria, c. 47, customs' act, as relates to the duties on the importation of foreign sheeps' and lambs' wool." Mr. Wood supported his motion on the ground that the trade had been declining for nearly thirty years; but it was opposed by the chancellor of the exchequer; and after a desultory conversation, it was rejected by a majority of one hundred and forty-two against seventy. About the same time, however, government showed that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... noticed that in declining each invitation he had suddenly stopped short in his inner fight and resentment and assumed his best manner, as though his finest and highest courtesy had responded instinctively to ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... to me upon these subjects, with reference to the rapidly declining health and strength of his and my friend, Mary Berry; over whose approaching death he lamented greatly, although she is upwards of eighty years old, and, according to my notions, must be ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and I could not bear to tell him of her error until I could tell him also of her sorrow and regret. Happily I was enabled to do so some time ago. And it will not be long, with Heaven's leave, before she is restored to me; before I find in her and her husband the support of my declining years. ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... potful. On his way up and down the stair he often paused to sniff, but he never asked for anything; his mother had warned him against it, and he carried out her injunction with almost unnecessary spirit, declining offers before they were made, as when passing a room, whence came the smell of fried fish, he might call in, "I don't not want none of your fish," or "My mother says I don't not want the littlest bit," ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... informed Mary, by the bishop of Ross, that the queen of England never meant to come to a decision; but only to get into her hands the proofs of Mary's guilt, in order to blast her character. See State Trials, vol. i p. 77. But this was a better reason for declining the conference altogether, than for breaking it off, on frivolous pretences, the very moment the chief accusation was unexpectedly opened against her. Though she could not expect Elizabeth's final decision in her favor, it was of importance to give a satisfactory answer, if she ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... The declining rays of the orb of light bathed in molten gold the pinnacles, steeples, and lofty palaces of proud Florence, and toyed with the limpid waves of the Arno, on whose banks innumerable villas and casinos already sent forth delicious strains of music, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... no occasion to make himself think about death. But when the vision of the inevitable draws nigh, when it appears plainly on the horizon, though but as a cloud the size of a man's hand, then it is equally foolish to meet it by refusing to meet it, to answer the questions that will arise by declining to think about them. Indeed, it is a question of life then, and not of death. We want to keep fast hold of our life, and, in the strength of that, to look the threatening death in the face. But to my walk ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... so with a strong hand, and I believe that my judgment will bear good fruit in the future.' The prisoners could not but contrast the action of the Government in employing and appointing, on approval, a judge who had no status whatever in the country, with their action in declining to allow Mr. Rose Innes to appear at the Bar on the pretext of his previous qualification not being in order; and it was felt to be ominous that an independent and upright judge, against whom there could be ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Launcelot and Croisette came into that little valley it was at the declining of the day and the sky was all alight with the slanting sun, and the swallows were flying above the smooth shining surface of the river in such multitudes that it was wonderful to behold them. And the lowing herds were winding slowly along by the river in their homeward way, and all ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... had some reasons besides those stated in my note for declining the Mission, but I did not want to hurt the President's feelings by going over the ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... party, and never loses an opportunity to indulge his tastes in this direction. I had an excellent chance the other day to note how fond he is of a bit of hunting. We had camped before sundown in a rather picturesque position, and I was watching the effect of the declining sun on the gloomy kopjes, when I noticed a commotion in all the camps, in front, at the rear, and on both flanks. In ten seconds every nigger in the whole camp had deserted his work and was frantically dashing out on to the veldt. They ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... the stimulus of some acrid material, as the matter of the itch; or of the herpes on the scrotum, and about the anus; or from those universal eruptions, which attend some elderly people, who have drank much vinous spirit. It occurs also, when inflammations are declining, as in the healing of blisters, or in the cure of ophthalmia, as the action of the vessels is yet so great as to produce sensation; which, like the titillations that occasion laughter, is perpetually changing ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... When day declining sheds a milder gleam, What time the may-fly * haunts the pool or stream; When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed; Then be the time to steal adown the vale, And listen to the vagrant** ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... and vegetable food. Some infants are so constituted as to require a frequent and total change in their system of living, seeming to thrive for a certain time on any food given to them, but if persevered in too long, declining in bulk and appearance as rapidly as they had previously progressed. In such cases the food should be immediately changed, and when that which appeared to agree best with the child is resumed, it should be altered in its quality, and perhaps in ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... If he could only relieve his father's declining years from care and anxiety, he was content to give up his home for a time, and therefore agreed to accept the proposal. The contract was soon arranged, and Walter entered upon his new duties the same day. He wrote a long letter ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is regulated by the nature of the estate. On flat or gently declining land they may be greater than on steep grounds, because, in order to prevent the washing away of the soil on precipitous land, the water must be led off by trenches, which of themselves make the divisions of land smaller. On flat ground the divisions may be each 625 square roods, each of ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... ambition, the delight of beginning the story he had planned so hopefully, seemed to give him new strength, and he threw himself into the work with an enthusiasm that was, alas, misleading to those who had noted fearfully his declining vigor of body. For years no literary occupation had seemed to give him equal pleasure, and in the discussion of the progress of his writing from day to day his eye would brighten, all of his old animation would return, and everything would betray the ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... 1857, he was again elected to the State Senate from Columbus, being then 64 years of age, and the oldest member of the Legislature. This was his last appearance in public life. During the last year of this service his health was declining. Although so much debilitated that prudence required confinement to his house, if not to his bed, yet such was his fidelity to his trust, that he went daily to the Senate and carried through the Legislature several important measures to ascertain the true condition of the ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... their childhood by his labors, and yet perhaps not one heart, at any moment, felt the sentiment—I have lost——. They never could regard him with respect, and their miserable education had not taught them humanity enough to regard him in his declining days as an object of pity. Some decency of attention was perhaps shown him, or perhaps hardly that, in his last hours. His being now a dead, instead of a living man, was a burden taken off; and the insensibility and levity, somewhat ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... a cloudless sky, was declining towards the western horizon. It was past four o'clock before the lines were ready. Once more the guns of the fleet hurled solid shot and shells upon the redoubt. Captain Brandon, looking from his housetop down upon the guns almost beneath him, saw a gunner ramming an inflammable ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... out and conveyed up the walk. The front door opened. Betty had been watching for him. He walked to the family vueroom, as usual declining to convey in the house. The hell with the conveyor's feelings, if so simple a robot really had any. ...
— The Real Hard Sell • William W Stuart
... Courtreeve did not get on at all. Sir Lionel had too many odd and high-flavoured anecdotes about life in Siam to be a congenial neighbour for the champion of social purity. He had a way, too, of referring everything to the lower instincts of man, and roughly declining to reckon in the least idea of any of man's, or woman's, higher qualities. Therefore, the Dictator did not take to him any more than Lord Courtreeve did; and Sir Rupert began to think that his luncheon party was not well mixed. Soame Rivers saw it too, and was determined ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... other window, and a bluebird perched for an instant on the window ledge and was off again. She saw the bee and the bird and paused awhile, gazing with dreamy eyes through the high, uncurtained window at drifting clouds already taking on the tint of the declining sun; then she stretched her arms across her wide desk, and putting her head down on them, was soon ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... declining argument which is always useless between people are are determined not to sympathise with each other's views. "I knew that you would think my story foolish. I should never have troubled you with it, had I not felt it to be my duty, for naturally the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... keep their spirits up, and, by God! it was a good thought. She knows how it heartens folk to play a great part in a great business: keeps them from feeling the fingers of famine in their inwards, keeps them from whining, repining, declining, what you will. But I own I did not count on the presence of Gammer Cook ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... twelve when he, pacing in front of the inn, observed Polly Wheedle, followed some yards in the rear by John Raikes, advancing towards him. Now Polly had been somewhat delayed by Jack's persecutions, and Evan declining to attend to the masked speech of her mission, which directed him to go at once down a certain lane in the neighbourhood of the park, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Declining the invitation with thanks, he answered the questions curtly and hurriedly and begged the resting soldiers for a guide. One was placed at his disposal without delay. But he was soon to learn that it would not be an easy matter to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and they paced up and down the decks, while the half-hours and hours were struck by the bells. The moon was declining to the horizon. Long ago the last of the revellers had left the smoking-room, and there was nothing to interrupt the stillness but ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... subsistence. To this scheme Charles objected; and the meal was lodged in Inverness. His confidence in his General, notwithstanding the incessant displays of his ability, was now wholly undermined. Charles's affairs were indeed rapidly declining; money, the principal sinew of war, was wanting. "His little stock might have held out a little longer," observes Mr. Maxwell, "had it been well managed; but it is more than probable that his principal steward was a thief from the beginning." ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... before, was named after the inn-keeper, came into the world. Great changes have taken place since then. Tite, as the neighbors all call him, is now a bright, intelligent boy, and a great favorite in the village. Hanz and Angeline are proud of him, and he promises to be the joy of their declining years. Hanz had always held to the opinion that men with too much learning were dangerous to the peace of a neighborhood, inasmuch as it caused them to neglect their farms and take to pursuits in which the devil was served and honest ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... on Germany) was not redeemable in gold, and it fell in price. In normal times a bill could not fall below the shipping point in gold, (par with us for 4 marks is 95-1/4 cents in gold;) but, since gold could not be sent, exchange on Germany could fall to any figure, set only by a declining demand. Already bills on Germany have been quoted in New York at 82, showing a depreciation of German money in the international field of about 13 per cent. Likewise, as early as the first week of September, the Reichsbank notes were reported at a discount of 20 per cent., and as practically ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... place too; for one day he was found, for the first time, by the waiter at the Mourning Coach-Horse, the House-of-call for Undertakers, down in the City there, making figures with a pipe-stem in the sawdust of a clean spittoon; and declining to call for anything, on the ground of expecting a gentleman presently. As the gentleman was not honourable enough to keep his engagement, he came again next day, with his pocket-book in such a state of distention that he was regarded in the bar as a man of large property. After that, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... logging activities throughout the country and strip mining for gems in the western region along the border with Thailand are resulting in habitat loss and declining biodiversity (in particular, destruction of mangrove swamps threatens natural fisheries); deforestation; soil erosion; in rural areas, a majority of the population does not ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the coloured bust—that bust which you see in reproduction at every turn in this loyal town. It is perhaps more interesting than impressive, and the children had a serious argument over it, Jack even daring to say that the face was stupid-looking, and Gregory declining almost petulantly to consider Shakespeare in ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... distance, neared, broke overhead, as summer waves upon a shingly beach, died in delicious whispers, only to sweep up and break and die again. Meanwhile the gray pall of cloud parted in the west, disclosing spaces of faint yet clearest blue, and the declining sun, from behind dim islands of shifting vapour, sent forth immense rays ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... you to make such an assertion as that. Circumstantial evidence often points to an innocent person. If Mr. Dunbar had been in any way concerned in this matter, he would have made a point of seeing you, in order to set your suspicions at rest. His declining to see you is only the act of a selfish man, who has already suffered very great inconvenience from this business, and who dreads the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... years of age, my father, whose health had been gradually declining, died, leaving me in heart wretched and desolate, and, owing to his previous seclusion, with few acquaintances, and ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his soul in an estate so hazardous? He formed a thousand sad ideas to torment himself with fancying he should never see her more, that he should hear that she was dead, though now she appeared on this side the grave, and had all the signs of a declining disease. He fancied absence might make her cold, and abate her passion to him; that her powerful beauty might attract adorers, and she being but a woman, and no part angel but her form,'twas not expected she should want her sex's frailties. ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... during this period five years have seldom passed away, in which some book or pamphlet has not been published, written, too, with such abilities as to gain some authority with the public, and pretending to demonstrate that the wealth of the nation was fast declining; that the country was depopulated, agriculture neglected, manufactures decaying, and trade undone. Nor have these publications been all party pamphlets, the wretched offspring of falsehood and venality. Many of them have been written by very candid and very intelligent people, who ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... miles distant in the Basque Roads, and Cochrane in the Imperieuse was watching, with powder-blackened face, the curious spectacle of the entire fleet he had driven ashore, and the yet more amazing spectacle of a British fleet declining to come in and finally destroy its enemy. For here comes a chapter in the story on which Englishmen do not love to dwell. Cochrane tried to whip the muddy-spirited Gambier into enterprise by emphatic and quick-following signal. At six A.M. he signalled, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... means about one hour); or a longer distance, by saying that if you started at the usual time from one of the places you would reach the other when the sun is as high as the hawk (which means a journey from sunrise to about 10 A.M.), or when the sun is overhead (I.E. noon), or when it is declining (about 3 P.M.), or when the sun is put out (sunset), or when ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... principal partners of the Tide-net Fishing Company, and done a great deal of damage. Am sorry to add, young Mr. Latimer was in the fray and has not since been heard of. Murder is spoke of, but that may be a word of course. As the young gentleman has behaved rather oddly while in these parts, as in declining to dine with me more than once, and going about the country with strolling fiddlers and such-like, I rather hope that his present absence is only occasioned by a frolic; but as his servant has been making inquiries of me respecting his master, I thought ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... against the unfair treatment of professional women by the United States authorities in declining the services of women physicians, surgeons and dentists in the recent war, thus compelling loyal, patriotic women to serve under the flag of a foreign government. We recommend that in future our Government recognize the fitness of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... of the year,' said the young gentleman, 'I lunch at two, and dine at eight. This gives me two long divisions of the morning, for any in-door and out-door purposes. I hope you will partake with me. You will not find a precedent in Homer for declining ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... future companion in life. If these precautions be neglected, there is danger of the wedded pair being deprived of little prattlers around their fire in the early days of their wedded life, and of having sons or daughters to comfort them in declining years. A mother should not enter a neighbour's house after having an infant before she is "kirked"; nor should she carry her child even to her nearest and dearest friend's abode before the little one has ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... a cry of terror; but when they looked before them the block had disappeared, the passage was free, and beyond an immense plain of water, illumined by the rays of the declining sun, assured them of an ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... long drawn out,' and must have cost the gallant Colonel a pile of stamps. Declining an invitation to visit the stables,—for our new millionaire is a lover of horse-flesh, as well as the narcotic weed—and leaving that gentleman to 'witch the world with wondrous horsemanship,' the 'Tattler' reporter withdrew, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... 1728 was fatal. The heart of the politician was steeled against the miseries of the Catholics; their number excited his jealousy. Their decrease by the silent waste of famine must have been a source of secret joy; but the Protestant interest was declining in a proportionate degree by the ravages of starvation. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... has again, like Jeshurun, 'waxed fat and kicked', as soon as he had eaten enough to be once more plump and shiny. After his hungry period, he took to squatting on the stoep, just in front of the hall-door, and altogether declining to do anything; so he is superseded by an equally ugly little red- headed Englishman. The Irish housemaid has married the German baker (a fine match for her!), and a dour little Scotch Presbyterian has come up from Capetown ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... at Florence, visited Galileo at Arcetri. We are ignorant of the details of this eventful and interesting interview between the aged and blind astronomer and the young English poet, who afterwards immortalised his name in heroic verse, and who in his declining years suffered from an affliction similar to that which befel Galileo, and to which he alludes so pathetically ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... "initiation" which he experienced in his youth, and during the secret and most vivid drama or "mystery" in which he then took part, he actually came in contact with the spiritual world. Such men were not uncommon. The declining society of the time was already turning to influences ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... Douglas was quite aware, not only of the military, but of the political risk. "The political effects of an unsuccessful attack upon a position so well known as the Hindenburg line would be large, and would go far to revive the declining morale, not only of the German Army, but of the German people." This aspect of the matter must, of course, have been terribly present to the mind of ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Earl, Yniol's nephew, adjudged the Sparrow-Hawk to Geraint, as victor in the tourney, and prayed him to come to his castle to rest and feast. But Geraint, declining courteously, said that it behoved him to go there where he had rested the night before. "Where may that have been?" asked the Earl; "for though ye come not to my castle, yet would I see that ye fare as befits your valour." "I rested even with Yniol, your uncle," ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... unspeakable delight to me. It was like your mother coming back from the dead. That little letter of yours made me wish for the first time that I had a son—and that he should be like you. I fell into a sort of reverie, thinking if I were yet too old to marry, so that a son might be with me in my declining years—if such were to ever be for me. But I concluded that this might not be. There was no woman whom I knew or had ever met with that I could love as your mother loved your father and as he loved her. So I resigned myself to my fate. I must go ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... when appointed military tribune for the sixth time, begged to be excused, as he was growing old, and perhaps feared that such unbroken success and glory would call down upon him the wrath of the gods.[A] His most obvious reason for declining the appointment was the state of his health, for at this time he was sick. However, the people would not permit him to retire, but loudly urged that they did not want him to ride on horseback or fight in the ranks, but merely to advise and superintend. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... She was dressed in the widow's coif of the time; but although clean and neat, her garments were faded from long wear. She was seated upon the small couch which we have mentioned, evidently brought down as a relief to her, in her declining state. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... guests the particulars of the interview that had occurred between him and Alvaros in the afternoon; and if he had, even for a moment, entertained the slightest doubt as to the wisdom of the step which he had taken in declining Alvaros' proposal and dismissing him from the house, it was finally dissipated when Senorita Isolda expressed in quite unmistakable terms her ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... with bright green shutters outside), fronting fields whence the forest had been pushed back considerably. Orchards of young trees bloomed about them; the sawmill was noisily eating its way through planks on the edge of the stream; groups of 'sugar-bush' maples stood about; over all the declining sun, hastening to immerse itself in the measureless woods westward. 'Pleasant places,' said Mr. Wynn to himself, quoting old words; 'my lot ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... strength still more rapidly declining, I determined to be a slave to my appetites no longer, and I discontinued the use of tobacco in every form. The trial was a severe one, but the immediate improvement in my general health richly paid me for all I suffered. My appetite has returned, my food nourishes ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... be hard for aristocratic parents who have lavished every care upon a son, and cherished for him the highest hopes, when he turns from the women of his own order to one considered beneath him in station. But I did not view the subject in this light then; and instead of declining his attentions, as I perhaps should have done, I encouraged them—I loved him so dearly, Nell!—and in spite of family opposition, Miles soon openly ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was far advanced and dreary. The wind howled; the half bare trees were despoiled of the remainder of their summer ornament; the state of the air which induced the decay of vegetation, was hostile to cheerfulness or hope. Raymond had been exalted by the determination he had made; but with the declining day his spirits declined. First he was to visit Evadne, and then to hasten to the palace of the Protectorate. As he walked through the wretched streets in the neighbourhood of the luckless Greek's abode, his heart smote him for the whole course of his conduct towards ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... bottom of the slope, and had slipped down the last few feet, of course cutting the remaining steps before attempting to reascend. We found him strutting about the floor of the cave, tossing his wet cap in the air, and crying No one! No one! I the first!, declining to take any part in measurements until the full of his delight and pride had been poured out. He shouted so loud that I was obliged to stop him, lest by some chance the unwonted disturbance of the air should bring down an unstable block from the ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... towns—says The Christian—in the north- western part of Connecticut, there lived, some time since, an aged couple who had seen some eighty years of earthly pilgrimage, and who, in their declining days, enjoyed the care of a son and daughter, who resided with ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... aggressive. Him you must imagine as sitting at a table reading a manuscript about Utopias, a manuscript he holds in two hands that are just a little fat at the wrist. The curtain rises upon him so. But afterwards, if the devices of this declining art of literature prevail, you will go with him through curious and interesting experiences. Yet, ever and again, you will find him back at that little table, the manuscript in his hand, and the expansion of his ratiocinations about Utopia conscientiously resumed. ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... one came and asked for a longer lease, I gave it to him. No one would take a longer lease than fourteen years, and I have given none longer than fourteen.' Can you suggest any other reason than that you have named for the tenants declining leases on these estates?-I think it must have been because under the leases, all improvements were to be held ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... nobleman, quickly, declining with his customary proud courtesy. "But I never shall forget the service you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... my dear Watson, I will. At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my declining years to the composition of a text-book which shall focus the whole art of detection into one volume. Our present research appears to be a ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... necessary to let Mr. Worden into the secret; and he no sooner learned the business we were on, than he expressed a wish to be of the party. As there was no declining, we now went to the inn, and gave him time to assume a suitable disguise. As the divine was a rigid observer of the costume of his profession, and was most strictly a man of his cloth, it was a very easy matter ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... pretended to nip his leg. They understood each other, and were now making the best of a very unpleasant situation. Since morning they had been lost on the desert. The heat of midday had found them plowing over sandy wastes. The declining sun had left them among the foothills, wandering from one to another, in the vain hope that each summit might show the silvery gleam of a windmill, or even that outpost of civilization, the barb-wire fence. And now the stars looked down indifferently, myriads of them, upon the travelers ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... he said, declining the chair which Higgs offered to him, apparently because, from long custom, he preferred his wooden-soldier attitude against the wall, "as a humble five-per-cent. private in this very adventurous company I'll ask ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... went very willingly. At the door of the room the old man looked back at his visitor, and said in the same peevish voice, "This is a poor place for me to pass my declining years in, Mr. Audley. I've made many sacrifices, and I make them still, but ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Assembly as a delegate in Congress.[312] It is not known whether he at any time thought it possible for him to accept this appointment; but, on the 28th of the following October, the body that had elected him received from him a letter declining the service.[313] Moreover, in spite of all invitations and entreaties, Patrick Henry never afterwards served in any public capacity outside ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... existence and the bitter inheritance of humanity should exercise but a modified sway, and entail but a light burden, within the circle of the city into which the next scene of our history leads us. For it is the sacred city of study, of learning, and of faith; and the declining beam is resting on the dome of the Radcliffe, lingering on the towers of Christchurch and Magdalen, sanctifying the spires and ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... each year. That's the way I used to amuse myself when I was young,—now I am old, the sea tempts me less, and I am fonder of my arm-chair; yet I've seen a good deal in my time—enough to provide me with memories for my declining days. And it's a droll thing, too," he added, with a laugh, "the further south you go, the more immoral and merry are the people; the further north, the more virtuous and miserable. There's a wrong balance somewhere,—but where, 'tis not ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... A declining sun painted the crags in raw splendour; valleys were already dusky; a vast stretch of misty glory beyond the world of mountains to the north was Alsace; southward there was no end to the myriad snowy summits, cloud-like, piled along the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passers-by on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned hearse, ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and tears. This hearse contained a coffin covered with a white cloth ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... never before shown evidence of a hard heart, permitted his quizzical twinkle to broaden into a frank grin, "With every confidence in Dr. Heathergill, I doubt his ability to aid our declining son." ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... autumn. The days were declining. Showers and tempests swept through the forest. Upon a night, brightened by no moonbeam or glittering star, Emma sat melancholy and alone in her apartment. The heavy embroidered curtains were drawn across the high windows of the balcony, which jutted out as a point ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... existence. Certain it is that he had no inkling of the sorrow which his brother's advent was destined to bring upon him. Michael's progress was remarkably rapid, and it was soon apparent that Joseph's prospects were as surely declining. The voice which hitherto had enabled him to hold the chief place in the choir showed signs of breaking, and one after another of the solo parts which formerly he alone had been selected to sing were assigned to the new chorister. Joseph's failing powers were unmistakably betrayed ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... was, indeed, one of her most vivid and lasting memories. The declining afternoon enlivening the dark waters of the Grand Canal with its opalescent spangles; a gondola passing hers in the opposite direction; and inside, a pair of blue, imperious eyes, shining, under thick eyebrows, with ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ought to hate them? For if passion and judgement were the same thing, love and hate would immediately follow the judging it right to love and hate, whereas the contrary happens, passion following some judgements, but declining to follow others. Wherefore they acknowledge, the facts compelling them to do so, that every judgement is not passion, but only that judgement that is provocative of violent and excessive impulse: admitting that judgement and passion in us are something different, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... with some uneasiness. She saw that on the question which of two declining lives should waste fastest, much of the future now depended. If death came first to the rich and well-born Englishman, in his stately house, Maurice would be set at liberty, and by his presence at Cacouna would ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... way Of baiting those that pay Dear for the sight of your declining wit: 'Tis known it is not fit That a sale poet, just contempt once thrown, Should cry up thus his own. I wonder by what dower, Or patent, you had power From all to rape a judgment. Let't suffice, Had you been modest, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli |
