"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the empty sky, no sail upon the sea, Birds are yet on their nests perchance, but they sing no more to me. Past—vanished—faded away—all the joys that were. My youth died down in a swift decline when they married ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... the lives of men, are transitory, ever advancing from their beginning to their decline and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... but from the time of the disappearance of the buffalo, the power of the tribes was on the wane. The advance of the paleface and the curtailment of the supply of game, marked the beginning of the savage decline. The constant complaint of the tribes to General William Henry Harrison, the first military governor of Indiana, was the lack of both game ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Tyope squatted down near the fire, facing the other Indian. It had turned cold, and both men held their hands up to the flame. The former glanced at the latter furtively from time to time, but neither uttered a word. The fire was beginning to decline; its light grew faint. At ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... a farming community in a new country, with fields continually reclaimed from the wilderness and added to culture, would increase in substance: if so, his annual stipend would increase. If the place should decline, he was to abate the tax of individuals, if desired by them personally, so far as he should judge their petition to that effect reasonable. If "strangers' money," or contributions from "outsiders," were not to go to make up his sixty ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... desire for the Presidency that shortened his life, not the mere disappointment. When President Fillmore offered him the post of Secretary of State, in 1850, it appears to have been his preference, much as he loved office, to decline it. He longed for his beautiful Marshfield, on the shore of the ocean, his herds of noble cattle, his broad, productive fields, his yachts, his fishing, his rambles in the forests planted by his own hand, his homely chats with neighbors and beloved dependents. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... hungry, and it is well-known that hungry men are not sociable. At all events they maintained a profound silence while they cut down a small decayed tree, made a good fire, and prepared dinner, or—as the sun was beginning to decline at the time—I may ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Smith the significant detail that Madame's role had changed from the benefited to the benefactor. And, as if this were not enough for one morning's developments, it revealed also that Gabriella's fictitious value as a saleswoman was beginning to decline; for Madame was disposed to scorn the sort of sensational advertisement which the newspapers had devoted of late to the unfortunate Fowlers. At one moment there had been grave doubt in Madame's mind as to whether or not she should employ young Mrs. Fowler in her respectable ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly, slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning before the world is aired, and they put on his tombstone: 'In the fulness of years!' yea! If he preserve his principles in perfect order, a Forsyte may live on long after ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to me, and I said to the girls that I thought I loved it just as a mother loves her daughters. There is no sacrifice I wouldn't make to keep up the team's good work, and that is the reason why I am going to make a sacrifice, now, and decline to resign. If I had been a poor captain, you would have had a right to ask for my resignation But I haven't. I have been a good, hard-working, conscientious captain, and I have made a success of the team. None of you can deny it. If you took a new captain at this stage ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... a commonplace of criticism to observe and regret the decline of power and interest after the opening acts of "The Jew of Malta." This decline is undeniable, though even the latter part of the play is not wanting in rough energy and a coarse kind of interest; but the first two acts would be sufficient ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... reservation they ran into a great pow-wow of chiefs from far and near, to which old Crowfoot invited the representatives of the Great White Mother with impressive cordiality, an invitation, however, which the Inspector, such was his strenuous hunt for stolen horses, was forced regretfully to decline. ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... the great mass of the people became slaves to their more warlike conquerors. It was in this way the gold of Mexico and Peru enriched the treasury of Spain; but every ingot had the curse of blood upon it, and from that time the Spanish power, then at its height, began to decline in Europe, till it sunk in the scale of nations among the least important. The colonies revolted from the mother country, and became independent states; but the curse that followed the infamous appropriation of the ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... glanced at him again during the first soprano solo, and saw him in the same position, his eyes fixed on the singer. Rehearsal over, he coolly walked up to her to proffer his escort. I verily believe she was too startled to decline it. She accepted his arm with a look of blank amazement, and the two set off together through the April slosh, followed by the inevitable juvenile guard. Judging from the bespattered condition of Timothy's overcoat that night, the younglings danced about him like frisky satyrs all the way; but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... did as in their subtle reactions to the civilization about them. In Gloria had been born something that she had hitherto never needed—the skeleton, incomplete but nevertheless unmistakable, of her ancient abhorrence, a conscience. This admission to herself was coincidental with the slow decline of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... young lady had long been declining, and she took this opportunity of forbidding him her presence for the future. He felt this abandonment bitterly, but could not surrender the all-absorbing passion which was destroying him. He fell into a decline, and at last died "without a struggle, just after writing ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... to the violence with which he endeavoured his escape, he declared it was not his design to fly from justice, or decline a trial, but to avoid the expences and severities of a prison, and that he intended to appear at the bar, without compulsion. This defence which took up more than an hour, was heard by the multitude that thronged the court, with the most attentive ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... dramas of Aeschylus we have one of many examples that, in art as well as in nature, gigantic productions precede those that evince regularity of proportion, which again in their turn decline gradually into littleness and insignificance, and that poetry in her earliest appearance attaches itself closely to the sanctities of religion, whatever may be the form which the latter assumes among the various ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... fall of the Spanish Empire does not challenge the imagination like the decline and fall of that other Empire with which alone it can be compared, possibly because no Gibbon has chronicled its greatness. Yet its dissolution affected profoundly the history of three continents. While the Floridas were slipping from the grasp of Spain, the provinces to the south ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... decline of the Egyptian power, which sets in after the death of the second Rameses, a change takes place. External pressure being removed, ambitions begin to develop themselves. In the north Aradus (Arvad), in the south Sidon, proceed to exercise a sort of hegemony over several ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... resolved to leave you, and return to Europe. You know my reasons. I am not a companion, but only a drag upon you; besides, my mother is left unprotected. You will excuse me if I decline to enter into a discussion on this point. I have not strength for it, and ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... discreet young lady should think of incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long before Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Maryland engineer, directing some of the vast constructions of his native State,—where he was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline that famous Russian offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in a few years. Iris does not write verse often, nowadays, but she sometimes draws. The last sketch of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was of two ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Cheronean Sage, is thine. '(Why should this praise to thee alone belong!) 'All else from Nature's moral path decline, 'Lured by the toys that captivate the throng; 'To herd in cabinets and camps, among 'Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride; 'Or chaunt of heraldry the drowsy song, 'How tyrant blood, o'er many a region wide, 'Rolls to a ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... territorial possessions; during the 14th and 15th centuries were constantly at war with the heathen Wends and Lithuanians, but the conversion of these to Christianity and several defeats destroyed both the prestige and usefulness of the knights, and the order thenceforth began to decline. As a secularised, land-owning order the knighthood lasted till 1809, when it was entirely suppressed in Germany by Napoleon; but branches still exist in the Netherlands and in Austria, where care for the wounded in war has ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... constitution lead me to enter into the affairs of my clients with feeling and sincerity, but I fear I am sometimes misunderstood. Not long ago I issued an order to my junior partners to exercise more compassion for those unfortunate men with whom we decline business, and not to tumble them down the front steps so roughly. Let six of the porters attend with trestles, I said, and carry them out carefully, and dump them with discretion in some quiet corner, where, as soon as they recover their faculties, they ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to be overawed against his conscience by a secular power, could not any longer be recognised; but no thing or things contained in the act should be afterwards "interpreted or expounded, that his Grace (the king), his nobles and subjects, intended by the same to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church in anything concerning the articles of the Catholic faith of Christendom, or in any other things declared by the Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... which excite and sustain them, is (1) to make man the most emotional of animals, and (2) to render possible the debasement of his character. For that which is a condition of his progress is also a condition of his decline,—the acquired power of ideas over emotions, and the subsequent power of each indefinitely to sustain the other. Hence the existence of the emotions constitutes a serious danger for him though not for the animals, and the balance which is lost when the emotions are no longer exclusively ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... this visit to the Castle was only marred by the illness of Mrs. O'Neill, who was thought to be in a decline. Arthur, though so far removed from his simple life by the patronage of the great, had always been a good and dutiful son, while Philip had ever evinced a remarkable fondness for the warm-hearted foster-mother, whose sad blue ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... the United States in order that they might not be obeyed, and political regulations are obeyed by the public for, at most, seven weeks. Of course, the United States is no exception; it seems as if the respect for law is declining everywhere, and if this decline occurs in one field no other is likely to be free from it. A certain subjective or egoistic attitude is potent in this regard, for people in the main conceive the law to be made only for others; they themselves are exceptions. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... of you," the girl answered, "and I hope you will not think me ungrateful if I decline. I am not used to gayeties of this kind, and"—with a smile—"I have no ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the early times — "Their sole object, according to the commercial principles of the time, was to obtain, through arrangements with the native prince, the staple products of the country at prices below their natural cost, and to sell them above it... . The result of these (arrangements) was the decline of the trade of Banjermasin; its staple product, pepper, which had at one time been considerable, having become nearly extinct" (DICTIONARY OF THE INDIAN ISLANDS, Lond., ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... as if he expected to hear me decline; but I had made up my mind to go, and he looked quite pleased when he heard me ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... to our machines here. For one, I decline to stay out of the rescuing party. Besides, perhaps I may get a chance to snap off a lovely picture of the ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... and Acestes first of all, and instructs them of Jove's command and his beloved father's precepts, and what is now his fixed mind and purpose. They linger not in counsel, nor does Acestes decline his bidden duty: they enrol the matrons in their town, and plant a people there, souls that will have none of glory. The rest repair the thwarts and replace the ships' timbers that the flames had gnawed upon, and fit up oars and rigging, little in number, but alive and valiant for war. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... saw that they were at the commencement of a decline measuring four or five hundred yards in length, and so steep that, even had it offered a good foothold, human beings could scarcely have stood upon it. As yet the tongue of ice was fifty paces or more in width, but it narrowed ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... were no evidence at all to support our faith in human goodness, our faith, however vigorous at first, would soon decline, and hope and courage might utterly desert us. If men on nearer acquaintance turned out to be, as some pessimists have represented them to be, hard egotists, ingrates, slanderers, backbiters, envious, incapable of generous admirations, sodden in sensuality, knaves devoid ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... couriers—thirty-five thousand of them, imagine! Pray, picture the situation to yourself! "Ivan Aleksandrovich, do come and take the directorship of the department." I admit I was a little embarrassed. I came out in my dressing-gown. I wanted to decline, but I thought it might reach the Czar's ears, and, besides, my official record—"Very well, gentlemen," I said, "I'll accept the position, I'll accept. So be it. But mind," I said, "na-na-na, LOOK SHARP is the ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... are at present made by the Spanish Gypsies. Gypsyism is certainly on the decline in both countries. In England, a superabundant population, and, of late, a very vigilant police, have done much to modify Gypsy life; whilst in Spain, causes widely different have produced a still greater change, as ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... If you decline, well and good. If you accept, five hundred pounds will be assigned you as salary, and at the end of each year of the voyage your pay ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural machinery, and some defense items. The breakup of the USSR and the collapse of demand for Kazakhstan's traditional heavy industry products have resulted in a sharp contraction of the economy since 1991, with the steepest annual decline occurring in 1994. In 1995-97 the pace of the government program of economic reform and privatization quickened, resulting in a substantial shifting of assets into the private sector. The December 1996 signing of the Caspian ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... followed Lisardo and his bibliographical treasures into the chaise; and instantly set off, at a sharp trot, for the quiet and comfort of green fields and running streams. As we rolled over Westminster-bridge, we bade farewell, like the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... events Exasperate me, but the funest conclusions I draw from these events; the sure decline Of art, and all the meaning of that word: All that embellishes and sweetens life, And lifts it from the level of low cares Into the purer atmosphere of beauty; The faith in the Ideal; the inspiration That made the canons of the church of Seville Say, "Let ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... from childhood she has been taught that toadstools are poison. Some are, of course, boy, so are some wild fruits, but it would be rather a deprivation for us if we were to decline to eat every ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... for my own part, I felt a bit puzzled; I did not quite know what to make of the weather indications. It might be that nothing worse than a violent thunderstorm was brewing; but against this theory there was to be set the sudden and ominous decline of the barometric pressure. We had fulfilled our task, and were preparing to get under way, when Takebe, who was in command of the torpedo flotilla, came aboard to consult with our skipper as to the advisability of going to sea, in the face of such ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... Some large teeth sell for a hundred dollars, or even a hundred and fifty. The sale of such a gigantic tusk, as may well be supposed, is considered an affair of almost national importance, and the bargain can only be adjusted through the medium of a "big palaver." The trade in ivory is now on the decline; the demand in England and France not being so great as formerly, and America never having presented a ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... melancholy, tired, discouraged, nothing helps me against moral or physical troubles like a book of Dumas." Again, M. About says that M. Sarcey was in the same class at school with a little Spanish boy. The child was homesick; he could not eat, he could not sleep; he was almost in a decline. ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... he cried, seeing that the lassie was about to decline, "not even me. I shall tell no one. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... was almost at the end of his strength and a victim of the very malady against which he was railing. The constant wear and tear of country practice, year in and year out, had depleted him of a magnificent stock of energy and endurance. Perhaps, too, she had had her share of responsibility in his decline, for she had been severe with him; had defied him when she might have comforted him. She forgot his insolence, his meanness, his conscienceless hectoring, as she saw how his temples seemed fallen in and how his gray hair straggled ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... the Sweet Grass down to the Yellowstone; and until we reached it, whenever there were creeks to ford or extra pulls on hills, half a dozen of us would drop back and lend a hand from our saddle pommels. The gradual decline of the country to the river was in our favor at present, and we should reach the ford in two days at the farthest, where we hoped to find a wheelwright. In case we did not, our foreman thought he could ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... is represented at Manchester out of all proportion to its worth, in comparison with the earlier and greater schools of Italy. It is essentially the school of decline, and, after the time of Francia, very few pictures proceeded from it dignified by noble thought, or exhibiting either purity or power of imagination. Its very method condemned it to inferiority. But debased as it is, it has been during the last two centuries the object of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... literature do not, I think, decline with age; last 1st of January was my eighty-second birthday, and I think that I had as much enjoyment from books as I ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... "unbending" a scholar like Eames was perfectly familiar—he would switch the conversation into realms of military science, and begin to expatiate upon the wonderful advance which has been made since those days in the arts of defensive and offensive warfare—the decline of the phalanx, the rise of artillery, the changed system of fortifications, those modern inventions in the department of land defences, sea defences and, above all, aerial defences, parachutes, hydroplanes. . ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... he quotes with a certain pleasure the result obtained by a grave calculator, who found that in the first line of Satan's army there were a thousand times a hundred thousand million devils, and more in the other two. He gives a kind of arithmetical measure of the decline of the devil's power by pointing out that 'he who was once equal to the angel who killed eighty thousand men in one night, is not able now, without a new commission, to take away the life of one Job.' He is filled with curiosity as to the proceedings of the first parliament (p————t ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... mansion void; To ruin-heaps may soon its walls decline. O heavens, that one poor fire's but employ'd, One poor fire only ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... Irish, when he might easily prevent it without the least loss to himself or his men, assuring him that if he should join General Hurry with what forces he had then under his command, Montrose would go away with his Irish and decline to fight them. Seaforth, believing his visitors, and thinking, as they said, that Montrose with so small a number would not venture to fight, his opponents being twice the number, and many of them trained soldiers. Hurry told him that he was to march immediately against Montrose and ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... banquet in New York, that was long remembered for its brilliancy, was followed by the tender of the same tribute in other cities, an honor which his unconquerable shrinking from this kind of publicity compelled him to decline. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... doubtless the cause of his decline in the royal favor, which he never, in after days, regained; for, after Essex was dead by her award and deed, Elizabeth, in her furious and lion-like remorse, visited his death upon the heads of all those who had been his enemies in life, or counseled ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... two reasons for which a physician can decline the title of Doctor of Medicine, because he supposes himself disgraced by the doctorship, or supposes the doctorship disgraced by himself. To be disgraced by a title which he shares in common with every illustrious name of his profession, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... adolescence, and for the propagation of the species during the procreative period. Unless other factors intervene, this reduction in speed is progressive until senescent death. The diminished size of the thyroid of the aged bears testimony to the part the activating organs bear in the general decline. ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... decline so delicate a mission, and excused herself. Then, as they re-entered the room she mentioned Holroyd's petition. Mrs. Featherstone recollected him faintly, and was rather flattered by his anxiety to see her play; but then he was quite a nonentity, and she was determined to ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... dormitories are full; the scholastic year is very far advanced; we have even been obliged to decline receiving new pupils until the next term. You would be compelled to wait until then, madame; and ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... and into whose cold sentences your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will come—and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for breakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present at these festivities. I came South for my health; I will go back on the same errand, and suddenly. Tennessean journalism is too stirring ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... at this period is not so easily drawn. The decline of the family fortunes seemed to have had as little effect upon her as upon her father, although their characters differed sharply. Something of that spontaneity, of that love of life and joy in it she had possessed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of these were the true solution of the difficulty or not, Kearney's popularity was on the decline at the moment when this unfortunate narrative of the attack on his castle aroused the whole county and excited their feelings against him. Mr. McGloin took every step of his proceeding with due measure and caution: and having secured a certain number of promises of attendance ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... brain development of women point to the same conclusion. The growth of the brain is relatively more rapid in women than in men before the twentieth year. Between 15 and 20 it has reached its maximum, and from that time there is a gradual decline in weight until about the fiftieth year, when there is an acceleration of growth, followed by a renewed diminution after the sixtieth year. The maximum of brain weight is almost reached by men at 20 years, but there is a slow increase until 30 or 35 years. There ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... statements, it appears that the fur trade must henceforward decline. The advanced state of geographical science shows that no new countries remain to be explored. In North America the animals are slowly decreasing, from the persevering efforts and the indiscriminate slaughter practiced by the hunters, and by the appropriation to the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... a superior man helps the distressed, but does not add to the wealth of the rich.' 3. Yuan Sze being made governor of his town by the Master, he gave him nine hundred measures of grain, but Sze declined them. 4. The Master said, 'Do not decline them. May you not give them away in the neighborhoods, hamlets, towns, and villages?' CHAP. IV. The Master, speaking of Chung-kung, said, 'If the calf of a brindled cow be red and horned, although men may not wish to use it, would the spirits ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... that, Mr. Carlis," Blaine returned quietly. "As far as the financial argument goes, I think you discovered long ago that its appeal to me is based upon a different point of view than your own. You forget that I am not a servant of the public, but a private citizen, free to accept or decline such offers as are made to me in my line of business, as I choose. This affair is not a public charge, but a business proposition, which I decline. As to my reputation depending upon it, I differ with you. My reputation will stand, I think, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... one weakness, the love of gambling, which was one of the besetting sins of the monarchs of the day. Sakuni was an expert at false dice, and challenged Yudhishthir, and Yudhishthir held it a point of honour not to decline such a challenge. ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... Theign could tell him. "Because it was a tissue of expressions that may pass current—over counters and in awful newspapers—in his extraordinary world or country, but that I decline to take time ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... getting hold of good things, as every thing has two handles, by the wrong one. It was a misconception of the meaning and principles of poets and painters which gave countenance to the modern system of gardening, which is now, I hope, on the decline; in other words, we are submitting to the rule which you at present are guided by, that of having our houses belong to the country, which will of course lead us back to the simplicity of Nature. And leaving your own individual sentiments and present work out of the question, what good ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... specimens of your Faubourg," said Frederic; "they would decline my acquaintance because my grandfather kept a shop, and they ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that curious symbol which appears over the letter n in the word "canon." A rise, a fall, a rise. Here is the whole story of the American poetry-lover. His enthusiasm first reached a high point about the middle of the nineteenth century. A generation later it fell into a swift decline. But three or four years ago it began to revive so rapidly that a poetry-lover's renaissance is now a reality. This renaissance has not yet been explained, although the majority of readers and writers feel able to tell why poetry ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... the dark blue line Of western distance that sublime descendest, And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline, Thy million hues to every vapour lendest, And, over cobweb lawn and grove and stream 5 Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light, Till calm Earth, with the parting splendour bright, Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream; What gazer now with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... white to the lips. It had come at last, and the "Silver Shoe" was within her reach, but the gift was incomplete. She must decline it, and take her chances for ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... rough and in general it is true; and the reason is the reason I have given you, that when decay begins, whether of a man or of a State, there comes with it an appalling and a torturing loneliness in which our energies decline into a strong affection for whatever is constantly our companion and for whatever is certainly present upon earth. For we have ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... 5) Girls, decline consecutive dances with the same boy. Do it graciously, explaining that you would like to accept, but must not be selfish. If he is the right sort, he will understand at once, or come to his senses later. If he is offended, don't worry about it; ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... affair: the long and mutual animosity between her and Sir John will make her interference merely productive of debates and ill-will. Neither would I have Evelina appear till summoned. And as to myself, I must wholly decline acting; though I will, with unwearied zeal, devote all my thoughts to giving counsel: but, in truth, I have neither inclination nor spirits adequate to engaging personally ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... the preceding Christmas there had been, temporarily, strong signs of decline in the Union strength of the Perth district. A great many miners had quietly seceded; one of the periodical waves of suspicion as to funds and management to which all trade unions are liable had swept over the neighbourhood; and wholesale desertion from the Union standard seemed likely. In hot ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... boots, also, for most of the townsmen wore shoes, thus marking the decline of the military spirit. I never again owned a pair of those man-killing top-boots—which were not only hard to get on and off but pinched my toes, and interrupted the flow of my trouser-legs. Thus one great era fades into another. The Jack-boot period was over, the shoe, commonplace and comfortable, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... having read them, fly in terror and in pain At the cult of vivisection of La belle Americaine? HOWELLS puffs up DUDLEY WARNER, who declares his HOWELLS fine. Do the spectres hate "log-rolling," and to haunt the place decline? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... even in summer time, on account of great bogs, rocks, and precipices which environed it. The popular tradition concerning it is as ridiculous as is to be found in any legend of the Romish Martyrology. After continuing in great credit many years, it began to decline; and in the 13th of Henry the Seventh was demolished with great solemnity, on St Patrick's Day, by the Pope's express order. It, however, afterwards came into reputation again, insomuch that, by ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... laid upon this inference, as the history of what befel this country after the decline of the Roman empire is so intimately blended with that of Suabia, the Tyrolese, and the lower parts of the Grisons, which are known to have fallen to the share of the rising power of the Franks, that nothing positive ...
— Account of the Romansh Language - In a Letter to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S. • Joseph Planta, Esq. F. R. S.
... departments of State affairs; he favoured, by protectionist measures—free trade not yet being heard of—French industry and commerce; was to the French marine what Louvois was to the army, and encouraged both arts and letters; from 1671 his influence began to decline; he was held responsible for increased taxation due to Louis XIV.'s wars, while the jealousy of Louvois weakened his credit at Court; he became so unpopular that on his death his body was buried at night, but a grateful posterity has recognised his services, and done homage to his memory ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... own part Isaac dated his decline from the hour of his son's defection. He had not been brought to this pass by any rashness in speculation, or by any flaw whatever in his original scheme. But his original scheme had taken for granted ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... of my wife and myself, with three children, the eldest about nine years old, she and the next in age being girls; and the youngest, between six and seven, a boy. To these were added six servants, whom, although for certain reasons I decline giving their real names, I shall indicate, for the sake of clearness, by arbitrary ones. There was a nurse, Mrs. Southerland; a nursery-maid, Ellen Page; the cook, Mrs. Greenwood; and the housemaid, Ellen Faith; a butler, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... again here, dear master, and not very happy; my mother worries me. Her decline increases from day to day, and almost from hour to hour. She wanted me to come home although the painters have not finished their work, and we are very inconveniently housed. At the end of next week, she will have a companion who will relieve me in ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... what does it all mean? What is the secret of your elation? I decline to rejoice with you in this abridged fashion; I must have details. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... master, whom of course he obeyed under protest. When the sheep was brought forward, and its head was put between the lion's jaws, it was almost in a swooning condition, and excited general pity. He had to get a new sheep every month, the daily fear causing them soon to decline ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... owned the churches, for all purposes practical to himself; he owned the ministers—if not, then this was another mistake that he had made. So long as it was true that they could not live without him, he was content with his title. He patronized the church, and the church was too weak to decline his ostentatious courtesy. He humiliated every man who came into his presence, seeking a subscription for a religious or charitable purpose, but his subscription was always sought, and as regularly obtained. Humbly to seek his assistance for any high purpose was a ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... masses, I enjoyed a superb view to north, west, and east, over a wilderness of rugged hills, with huge masses of grey rock rising out of a feathery forest, while to the north the undulating line, faintly blue in the far distance, marked the point where the plateau of central Matabililand begins to decline toward the valley of the Zambesi. It was a beautiful prospect both in the wild variety of the foreground and in the delicate hues of ridge after ridge melting away towards the horizon, and it was all waste and silent, as it has been ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... received notion that the energies of living matter have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life. That all living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but it would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief that they needs ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but influential—have been as meekly acquiescent as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government which is conducting a great war? Or did they, less laudably, shrink from the prospect of appearing as the inveterate enemies of a social and economic revolution which they saw to be inevitable? Let us charitably ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... others. It may be well to note here, however, a fact which is often overlooked, namely, that the written records of France are not only very complete and exhaustive, but, with respect to Paris itself, to cite an example, the documentary history, consecutive and exact, from the time of the decline of Roman power is preserved intact,—a record which is perhaps not so true of any other large ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... right to visit any lodge within his jurisdiction at such times as he pleases, and when there to preside; and it is the duty of the Master to offer him the chair and his gavel, which the Grand Master may decline or accept at his pleasure. This prerogative admits of no question, as it is distinctly declared in the first of the Thirty-nine Regulations, adopted in ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... The great moral decline of the clergy was confined chiefly to the Lutheran church. The Reformed was earnest, pious, and aggressive. At this very time it was endeavoring to spread the leaven of the Gospel through other lands. It was, during the whole period, the conservative power of Protestantism. As might be expected, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Palmerston was requested by Prince Castelcicala to forward the reply of the Neapolitan Government to the different European courts to which Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet had been sent. His lordship, with his wonted courage and independent spirit, replied that he 'must decline being accessory to the circulation of a pamphlet which, in my opinion, does no credit to its writer, or the Government which he defends, or to the political party of which he professes to be the champion.' ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... men are common in and around Assam among non-Aryan races. The institution is here seen in various stages of decline or transition. In the case of 'head-hunters' the young men's barracks are invariably guardhouses, at the entrance to the village, and those on guard at night keep tally of the men who leave and return." — Op. cit., vol. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... upon a series of prophecies developing fully the successive steps in the decline of the Western Roman empire, by which it finally tottered to its fall. It was necessary that this persecuting, tyrannical government should be subverted in order to give opportunity for the establishment of apostate Christianity in the form of the Papacy, as it constituted the ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... matter of surprise if the population in that part should have declined in forty years from six thousand to less than four hundred; which are, once more on the authority of M. Aussel, the estimated figures. And the rate of decline must have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Affecting to believe that they were of General Jackson's selection, he pointed now to the portrait of some famous race-horse, and now to the print of some celebrated rat-terrier, as queer revelations of his private tastes, indicating a great decline in his moral character, which would be a grief and disappointment to the pious old ladies of the South. Jackson, with a quiet smile, replied that perhaps he had had more to do with race-horses than his friends suspected. It was ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... you, Miss Woodley," said the attorney, "that this gentleman would decline the brief, especially with ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren |
