"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... honour it. In the foregoing illustration A is not obliged either to pay or to accept the draft. It is not binding upon him any more than a letter would be. He can refuse payment just as easily and as readily as he could decline to pay a collector who calls for payment of a bill. Of course, if a man habitually refuses to honour legitimate drafts it may injure his credit with banks ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... Jason hoarsely, without lifting his eyes from his plate. He could scarcely eat another mouthful, and Minty found it unexpectedly easy to obey Aunt Kittredge's injunction to decline snow pudding lest there should not be "enough to ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... wasteful people, and in the wake of our wastefulness have followed a dismal train of disasters, cold, hunger, and many another form of distress. Deplore and repent of our prodigality as we may, the effects abide to remind us of our decline from the high plane of industry, frugality, and conservation of leisure. Nor can we hope to avert a repetition of this crisis unless education comes in to guide our minds and ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... we turn to the crustaceans we have to deal with two distinct assemblages, one purely marine, trilobitic, the other mainly lacustrine or lagoonal with a eurypteridian facies. The trilobites had already begun to decline in importance, and as happens not infrequently with degenerating races of beasts and men, they began to develop strange eccentricities of ornamentation in some of their genera. A number of Silurian genera lived on into ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... Decay.—I have often observed that the more proudly a mansion has been tenanted in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitants in the day of its decline, and that the palace of the king, commonly ends in being the nestling place ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... and he offered me the place. I told him I had once offered my services, and they were declined; that I had made business engagements in St. Louis, which I could not throw off at pleasure; that I had long deliberated on my course of action, and must decline his offer, however tempting and complimentary. He reasoned with me, but I persisted. He told me, in that event, he should appoint Lyon, and he ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... say all that I ought to say, would be to be very voluminous. But I may venture to say, in general terms, that no man hath written in our language so much, and so various matter, and in so various manners so well. Another thing I may say very peculiar to him, which is, that his parts did not decline with his years, but that he was an improving writer to his last, even to near seventy years of age, improving even in fire and imagination, as well as in judgment; witness his Ode on St Cecilia's Day, and his Fables, his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... (February 13, 1788): "From the impudent conduct of Mr. Dallas in misrepresenting the proceedings and speeches in the Pennsylvania Convention, as well as from his deficiency of matter, the Columbian Magazine, of which he is editor, is in the decline." ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... athrob with thought and feeling. A great tidal wave of unrest swept the land. It was an epoch of growth, second only in history to the Italian Renaissance. The two Wesleys were attacking the Church, and calling upon men to methodize their lives and eliminate folly; Gibbon was writing his "Decline and Fall"; Burke, in the House of Commons, was polishing his brogue; Boswell was busy blithering about a book concerning a man; Captain Cook was sailing the seas finding continents; the two Pitts and Charles Fox were giving the king unpalatable advice; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... like,—spend five or six weeks in the woods, they two alone, a hundred miles or more from any town,—roaming about, and sleeping on the ground where night overtakes them,—depending chiefly on the provisions they carry with them, though they do not decline what game they come across,—and then in the fall they return and make report to their employers, determining the number of teams that will be required the following winter. Experienced men get three or four dollars a day for this work. It is a solitary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... GENTLEMAN. I absolutely decline to do anything of the sort [he rises and walks away ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... this friend spoke to me as follows, in a voice scarcely audible: "All illusion is at an end; from this moment I will no more flatter myself with the hope of ever again seeing my native country. I feel my strength gradually decline. This night, yes, this night, my friend, (for surely you deserve that name, after what you have done for me), you will find nothing here, but a corpse cold and dead. Fly, my dear Brisson, fly this hated abode. Try every ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... girl again. "Don't bank on me. Merton isn't in my class, and if you're her chum, I'll have to decline ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... alone had attracted my attention. He was a tall, pale man, in the decline of life, dressed in a sort of half-uniform; he walked with a stooping gait, and seemed to me (perhaps it was a mere fancy) as much weighed down by care as years. Several times I had seen him going in or coming out of the court that opened two ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... rapidly furnished in whispers, and interrupted, brief as it was, by many false alarms of Mr Pecksniff's return; which Martin received of his grandfather's decline, and of that good gentleman's ascendancy. He heard of Tom Pinch too, and Jonas too, with not a little about himself into the bargain; for though lovers are remarkable for leaving a great deal unsaid on ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... all hands, he was so carefull that he tried all orders of men, in placing them in roomes of iustice. And lastlie, trusting to find among the cleargie such as would not be corrupted with bribes, nor for respect of feare or freendship decline from right iudgement, [Sidenote: Bishops chosen principall iustices.] he chose foorth the bishops of Winchester, Elie and Norwich to be principall iustices of the relme, so as they might end and determine all matters, except in certeine cases reserued to the ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... your own renown. She herself was going in search for you to secure the boon for which she hoped; no one else would have taken her place, had she not been detained by an illness which compels her to keep her bed. Now tell me, please, whether you will dare to come, or whether you will decline." "No," he says; "no man can win praise in a life of ease; and I will not hold back, but will follow you gladly, my sweet friend, whithersoever it may please you. And if she for whose sake you have sought me out stands in some great need of me, have ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... saw the sun decline, "When you rise again," she thought, "when you peep bright to-morrow morning into this little room to call me up, I shall not be here to open my eyes upon a hateful day—I shall no more regret that you have waked me!—I shall be sound asleep, never to wake again ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... the General Development of Penal Law; Development and Disuse of Torture in Procedure and in Penalty; Progress of International Law; Origin and Decline of Slavery; etc. Given before the senior class of Cornell University, 1878. (Published ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... a great deal regarding the decline of our shipping interests, and so far as our shipping in the foreign trade is concerned it is unfortunately true," says The Boston Commercial Bulletin. "But few people realize the immensity of our coastwise commerce. The Custom House figures on the shipping of the port of New York for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... see any very serious inconvenience likely to arise from it, sir," said the doctor: "only I maintain that the cure is not so complete as it might have been, and, on this subject, I decline ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Yet a new king had but to appear to change everything. George III. ascended the throne with the determination not to be the slave of any minister, himself the slave of Parliament; and from the day that he became king to the day that the decline of his faculties enforced his retirement, his personal power was everywhere felt, and his personal character everywhere impressed itself on the British world, and to no ordinary extent on other countries. George III. was not a great man, and it has been argued that his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... do it in the car," said Harley suddenly. "I have been asked to look into this case myself, and before I definitely decline I should like to hear your version ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... understand, Madame Richard," I said, "that you decline to give me the address of those who stand behind you in the ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that declines war may be refusing to inflict that just punishment which alone can set the wrong-doers on the better course. It is not the faith of that Society to which I belong to decline correction lest ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... several years at school this same uncle examined me and discovered that the net result of my schooling was that I had forgotten what he had taught me, and had learnt nothing else. To this day, though I can still decline a Latin noun and repeat some of the old paradigms in the old meaningless way, because their rhythm sticks to me, I have never yet seen a Latin inscription on a tomb that I could translate throughout. Of Greek I can decipher ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... empire. "However extended these labours," he says,{1} "my complete blindness could not have prevented my going through them; I was resigned as much as a courageous man can be: I had made a friendship with darkness. But other trials came: acute sufferings and the decline of my health announced a nervous disease of the most serious kind. I was obliged to confess myself conquered, and to save, if it was still time, the last remains ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... cases is the dependency of partial fluctuation on the season and on the weather. Flowers decline when the season comes to an end, become smaller and less brightly colored. The number of ray-florets in the flower-heads is seen to decrease towards the fall. Extremes become rarer, and often the deviations from the average seem nearly to disappear. Double flowers ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... Adelphi Theatre, Lord Tenterden in the chair, it was stated that Mr. Dodd evinced, through his solicitor, a disposition to fence round his gift with legal restrictions and stipulations, which apprised the committee of coming difficulty; and the meeting unanimously agreed to decline Mr. Dodd's offer of land. Previously and subsequently to this, Mr. Dodd was most discourteously commented on and attacked in the newspapers, the editors of which, however, sided with him. I was told that the stipulation for a presentation was the great offence; but I should think ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... But after the decline of Ur's ascendancy, and long before Babylon's great monarch came to the throne, the centre of power in Sumeria was shifted to Isin, where sixteen kings flourished for two and a quarter centuries. Among the royal ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant Shall pass between us; ere long you are like to hear, If you dare venture in your own behalf, A mistress's command. [Giving a favour.] Wear this; spare speech; Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak, Would stretch thy spirits up into the air:— Conceive, ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... says that when the owl would boast he boasts of catching mice at the edge of a hole. Shakespeare would have understood this. Milton would have made him talk like an eagle. His influence is not to be left out of account as partially contributing to that decline toward poetic diction which was already beginning ere he died. If it would not be fair to say that he is the most artistic, he may be called in the highest sense the most scientific of our poets. If to Spenser younger poets have gone to be sung-to, they have sat at the feet of ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... himself and all the world. He had lost Graciella already; any possibility that might have remained of regaining her affection, was destroyed by his having made her name the excuse for a barroom broil. His uncle was not well, and with the decline of his health, his monomania grew more acute and more absorbing, and he spent most of his time in the search for the treasure and in expostulations with Viney to reveal its whereabouts. The supervision of the plantation work ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... they give them, and are blame-worthy, if they fail in the least. But proposing this but as a History, or if you will have it so, but as a Fable; wherein amongst other examples, which may be imitated, we may perhaps find divers others which we may have reason to decline: I hope it will be profitable to some, without being hurtfull to any; and that the liberty I take will be ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... Gossips," a poem, by Shipman, in 1666, there is the following mention of the custom of presenting apostle-spoons at christenings, which it appears was then on the decline:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... Parliament. He at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are of opinion that THIS BILL do pass, say ay! The affirmative was languid, but indisputable. Another momentary pause ensued. Again his lips seemed to decline their office. At length, with an eye averted from the object he hated, he proclaimed, with a subdued voice, 'The, AYES have it.' The fatal sentence was now pronounced. For an instant he stood statue-like; then indignantly, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... ago by the Council of the British Association to give an evening lecture to the working men of Dundee, my experience of the working men of London naturally rose to my mind; and, though heavily weighted with other duties, I could not bring myself to decline the request of the Council. Hitherto, the evening discourses of the Association have been delivered before its members and associates alone. But after the meeting at Nottingham, last year, where the working men, at their ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... wooing are also possessed with jealousie, if you see that another obtains access to your Mistriss; or who, perhaps as wel as you, doth but once kiss the knocker of the dore, or cause an Aubade to be plaied under her Chamber Window: Look sharply about you, and behold how these Aubades decline, or whether it be worth your while to give your Rival the Challenge; or to stab, poison, or drown'd your self, to shew, by such an untimely death, the love you had for her; and on your Grave, bear this Epitaph, that through damn'd jealousie you murthered your self. These married Couple, used to ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... governors. The message is to the effect that if those silly girls who have allied themselves to that most ridiculous society, the Wild Irish Girls, will give the name of their leader, they shall be forgiven. Do you accept, foundationers, or do you decline?" ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... he drawled; "after that for a little ride down to th' Pecos or over in Chihuahua somewhere a couple hundred miles. I decline with enthusiasm to fall in love on th' spur of th' moment for ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... judges, all set before us a state of society which changed but little down to the Persian era. Behind it lie centuries of slow development and progress in the arts of life. The age of Amraphel, indeed, is in certain respects an age of decline. The heyday of Babylonian art lay nearly two thousand years before it, in the epoch of Sargon and his son Naram-Sin. It was then that the Babylonian empire was established throughout western Asia as far as the Mediterranean, that ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed, as you may suppose, revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick-bed; from which, considering the nature of his disease—decline—and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in taking steps to prevent ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... 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 ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... their assistance, but despise the instrument. He will now be fierce against his benefactor (who, though a bad king, was tender to his friends), and bitterer against his faith than if he had never been either a courtier or a bigot. I receive his congratulations, Sir Walter Ouseley, but I decline an interview for ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of useful but not exciting measures. Meanwhile the more active Members of the Liberal Party, among whom I presumed to reckon myself, began to agitate for more substantial reforms. We had entered on the fourth Session of the Parliament. A noble majority was beginning to decline, and we felt that there was no time to lose if we were to secure the ends which we desired. Knowing that I felt keenly on these subjects, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, then Editor of the Fortnightly, asked me to write an article for his Review, and in that article ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the accompanying blocks resting on the south-eastern declivity of the Jura are traced from their culminating point G in opposite directions, whether westward towards Geneva or eastwards towards Soleure, they are found to decline in height from the middle of the arc G towards the two extremities I and K, both of which are at a lower level than G, by about 1500 feet. In other words the ice of the extinct glacier, having mounted up on the sloping flanks of the Jura in the line of greatest ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... national ambitions and dynastic enterprise, rather than a creative work of installing any institutional furniture suitable to its own ends. It has in effect gone no farther than what would be called an incipient correction of abuses. The highest rise, as well as the decline, of this movement lie within ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... with you, Captain Gary," he replied, "there was nothing said about my serving as a gunner. I must respectfully decline to fire on an American ship. I am too much ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... Circensian games, than the regular drama of the Chinese will admit of being measured by the softer, but more refined and rational amusements of a similar kind in Europe. It is true the scenic representations in the decline of the Roman empire, as they are described to us, appear to have been as rude and barbarous as those of the Chinese. They began by exhibiting in their vast amphitheatre the rare and wonderful productions of nature. Forests enlivened with innumerable birds; caverns pouring forth lions, and ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... which I cannot explain, because I do not understand them; these might have been omitted very often with little inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity as to decline this confession: for when Tully owns himself ignorant whether lessus, in the twelve tables, means a funeral song, or mourning garment; and Aristotle doubts whether [word in Greek] in the Iliad, signifies a mule, or muleteer, I may surely, without shame, leave some obscurities ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... the insurance offices can seldom be persuaded to accept of risks even in first-class vessels, when their crews are Spaniards, on the same favourable terms at which risks are freely taken on good British ships. They almost invariably demand an increased premium, and occasionally decline ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... little while ago that I was getting sadly belated in the matter of novel-reading. I had come to decline on a few old favourites and was breaking no new ground. That is a provincial frame of mind, just as when a man begins to discard dressing for dinner, and can endure nothing but an old coat and slippers. It is easy to think of it as unworldly, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was usually twelve feet high, and defended by a ditch twelve feet in depth, as well as in breadth. This important labour was performed by the legionaries themselves, to whom the use of the spade and the pick-axe was no less familiar than the sword and the pilum" ("Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," vol. i., p. 27.) This gives a faithful description of the Roman encampment (Castra Stativa) at Boulogne, which is described by St. Patrick as Bonaven Tabernise, or Bononia, where the Roman encampment ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... child is about eleven or twelve years of age, some of these characteristics decline and others equally pronounced take their place. "Nominies" disappear and games of simple chase (tag games) decline in interest. Races and other competitive forms of running become more strenuous, indicating a laudable instinct to increase thereby ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... Smithfield in 1830, who, however, said, when he had read it, 'were I to print it I should be ruined.' That fate followed the book to the end, and Borrow was premature when he said in his Preface to The Sleeping Bard that such folly is on the decline, because he found 'Albemarle Street in '60 willing to publish a harmless but plain-speaking book which Smithfield shrank from in '30.' At the last moment John Murray refused to publish, but seems to have agreed to give his imprint to the title-page. Borrow published the book at his ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... good-hearted old fellow, he never did. And after abusing everybody else, he sent for George, complimented him upon his gallantry publicly on the quarterdeck of the Tremendous, offered to obtain a commission for him (an offer which our hero was foolish enough to decline), and gave his hearty consent to the proposed borrowing of ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... grieved, but not surprised, when they learned that Miss Amelia was fast following her sister into a decline. It was what they had expected of the Heath twins, they said, and they reminded one another of the story of the strained eyes and the glasses. Then came the day when the little dressmaker's rooms were littered from end to end ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... nation gives itself up to war, trade languishes, the population loses the habit of steady industry, government and administration become corrupt, abuses escape punishment, and the real sources of a people's strength and expansion dwindle. What has caused the relative failure and decline of Spanish, Portuguese, and French expansion in Asia and the New World, and the relative success of English expansion therein? Was it the mere hazards of war which gave to Great Britain the domination of India and half of the New World? That is surely ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... Censorii. A disturbing element in this enumeration is the uncertainty of numerals in ancient manuscripts. But the fact of the progressive decline is beyond all question. No accidental errors of transcription could have produced this result in the text ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... of a lawyer's right to clear a known criminal (with the several questions involved) is not answered affirmatively by showing that the law forbids him to decline a case for reasons personal to himself—not even if we admit the statute's moral authority. Preservation of conscience and character is a civic duty, as well as a personal; one's fellow-men have a distinct interest in it. That, I admit, is an argument rather in the manner ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... President Woodruff's life there had been a slow decline of the feeling that it was necessary for self-protection that the hierarchy should preserve a political control over the people. I cannot say that the feeling had wholly passed. It had continued to show itself, here and there, whenever a candidate was so ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then, of course. I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... hopes decrease, Dick," he said. "Remember that at least twenty per cent of the decline is due to the darkness and inaction. In the morning, when the light comes once more, and we're up and doing again, you'll get back all the twenty ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 her against him, even when he ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... described in the preceding tale the rise of Christianity in Japan, and the remarkable rapidity of its development in that remote land. We have now to describe its equally rapid decline and fall, and the exclusion of Europeans from Japanese soil. It must be said here that this was in no sense due to the precepts of Christianity, but wholly to the hostility between its advocates of different sects, their jealousy and abuse of one another, and to the quarrels ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... prospect, which included the boundaries of three sovereign states, with various rivers, valleys and fertile fields. On such a spot, where Nature reigned and developed herself in quiet beauty, whether in the voluptuous budding of the spring, or in the year's gorgeous decline, Charity had taken the hint and erected an asylum for the insane. Happy invocation of Nature, most kind and gentle saviour of the sick, who meeting her in her quiet haunts may touch her beautiful garments and be whole! In the exhilarating sunshine, in the fields ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... In like fashion, the German military chiefs of 1914 hoped to conquer France and Russia before England was ready. It was the old story as told by Shakespeare. "Our legions are brim full, our cause is ripe. The enemy increaseth every day. We, at the height, are ready to decline." ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... mode, see his Evidences, part iii, chapter iii. For the more scholastic expressions from Irenaeus and others, see Gore, Bampton Lectures, 1891, especially note on p. 267. For a striking passage on the general subject see B. W. Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, p. 33, ending with the words, "We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus Christ on a question of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... second resolution, and wrote to his uncle a calm and lofty letter, free from all token of offence, expressing every wish for the happiness of Guy and Amabel, and thanking his uncle for the invitation, which, however, he thought it best to decline, much as he regretted losing the opportunity of seeing Hollywell and its inhabitants again. His regiment would sail for Corfu either in May or June; but he intended, himself, to travel on foot through Germany and Italy, and would write again before ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... convincing to the one who offers it. Most people say that they are being brought in for the siege of Antwerp, which is about to begin. The siege of Antwerp has begun so often and never materialized that I decline to get excited about it at this stage of the game. Another explanation is that the German retreat in France is so precipitate that some of the troops and supply trains are already pouring through here on their way home. I cannot get up much enthusiasm ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... very field on which you were about to oppose him, like Maurepas; and making a truce, for a short interval, when you are almost destitute of ammunition, and the enemy so exhausted with the heats as to decline coming into the field; while, at the same time, fresh troops are pouring in upon the coast, in such numbers as to prevent your regaining your independence by remaining in arms. If every man of the negroes has not wit enough to understand this for himself, who is better able than ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... that lay on the Barrett household was the curse of considering ill-health the natural condition of a human being. The truth was that Edward Barrett was living emotionally and aesthetically, like some detestable decadent poet, upon his daughter's decline. He did not know this, but it was so. Scenes, explanations, prayers, fury, and forgiveness had become bread and meat for which he hungered; and when the cloud was upon his spirit, he would lash out at ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... and fair lost faces stray, To make us weary at our wakening; And of that long lost path to the Divine We dream, as some Greek shepherd erst might sing, Half credulous, of easy Proserpine, And of the lands that lie 'beneath the day's decline.' ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... pence table too; and could do sums in multiplication without a mistake, when he took pains; but sometimes, when he was careless, or in a hurry, the sums were wrong: however, I am happy to say that did not happen very often. Besides all these things, Charles learned grammar, and geography, and could decline many Latin nouns; which was very well for a little boy not quite seven years old. But of all his lessons he liked geography best, he liked to find out places in the maps, and to know whereabouts the different countries were that he heard people talk of; and then his papa was often kind to tell ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner
... no proper subcastes in the Central Provinces, but the Kudas and Kisans, having a distinctive name and occupation, sometimes regard themselves as separate bodies and decline intermarriage with other Oraons. In Bengal Sir H. Risley gives five divisions, Barga, Dhanka, Kharia, Khendro and Munda; of these Kharia and Munda are the names of other tribes, and Dhanka may be a variant ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... giver of the tournament, Bayard was, in a sense, the host of those who accepted the challenge; and it was very like his extreme courteousness to decline to carry off the prize from them, however much he may have wished in his heart to possess ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... as I do the reasons why it would be best for you not to go to Grayleigh Manor at present," he said. "You can easily write to give an excuse. Remember, we were both asked, and the fact that I cannot leave town is sufficient reason for you to decline." ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... cleared, particularly when it is remembered that the highest portions of the range are thickly wooded. But allowing this supposition to be correct, it is no proof, that the total population has been on the decline, for we must take into account, the wandering nature of all hill tribes. In forming an opinion of a hill population, which in all times and places has, in this country at least, been found scanty, we must take care ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... labouring man. I decline, because I spend my time daily tracing out little crooked lines on paper with a pen, because I have wrought day and night to make little patterns of ink and little stretches of words reach men together round a world, because I have sweat blood to believe, because in weariness and sorrow ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the decline of evangelical faith is found in the presence of many false doctrines among the leaders of so-called orthodox Christianity in that period of which I now write. Paul not only taught that at a later time some should "depart ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... been as dark as any nigger's, I should have been just as happy and as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value; and as to his offer of bleaching me, I should, even if it were practicable, decline it without any thanks. As to the society which the process might gain me admission into, all I can say is, that, judging from the specimens I have met with here and elsewhere, I don't think that I shall lose much by being excluded from it. So, gentlemen, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... former with some interest, while he mixed a small powder in the family medicine-glass, and when he advanced with it to Master Jim, her large eyes dilated so that the amount of white formed an absolutely appalling contrast with her ebony visage. But when she saw Master Jim decline the draught with his wonted decision of character, thereby rendering it necessary for the nautical man to put powerful restraint on his struggling limbs, and to hold his nose while the surgeon forced open his mouth and poured the contents ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... midnight, gone back to the hotel. It was now past two o'clock. There was no lessening in the vigor of the dancing, the laughter, or in the stream of laden trays; no trace of fatigue in Mrs. Grove. She had the determined resilience of a woman approaching, perhaps, the decline, but not yet in it; of one who had danced into innumerable sun-rises from the night before, destroying many dozens ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in just when the severer manifestations of Puritanism were beginning to decline, and they have since become as much a part of English fairy lore as the old English folk and fairy tales themselves. These latter, thanks to Mr. Joseph Jacob, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. E.S. Hartland, and others, have been unearthed and revived, ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... still," I answered; "it might be nothing at all, and I should still decline. I cannot afford to be impatient now and to borrow knowledge of the future. I shall know all in ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... luncheons. In fact, to break bread, or, more correctly speaking, to crack a bottle with the master of the house, is as essential an element of a morning call as the making a bow or shaking hands, and to refuse to take off your glass would be as great an incivility as to decline taking off your hat. From earliest times, as the grand old ballad of the King of Thule tells us, a beaker was considered the fittest token a lady could ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Arden, of whom I spoke last evening. He leaves her at Albany to-day, and asks me to join her to-morrow. They were on their way to Niagara; but unexpected business—he is a lawyer—requires him to return home; and I am to be the young lady's escort. So they have arranged the matter, and I cannot decline, of course." ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... begins to decline, in whatever form, there is always an accompanying decline physiologically, a decadence. The divinity of this decadence, shorn of its masculine virtues and passions, is converted perforce into a god of the physiologically degraded, of the weak. Of course, they do not call themselves ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... question of neighborhood, which is important. Beware of a place too near a small factory settlement. The latter is apt to grow and destroy the peace you have come so far to get. Besides, your property value will decline in direct ratio. We once knew a charming place set high on a hill with neat hedges, shrubs, and arbors reminiscent of England, birthplace of the man who built and developed it. The family that bought the property forgot to look down at the foot of the hill. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... out of hand; and now I wait a formal answer, nothing more. Guido dare not decline. No, by the saints, He'd send Ravenna's virgins here in droves, To buy a ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... with the addition, Senior Sophister. How curiously do the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin proclaim themselves the universal languages, thus blending with the uncouth Mohican word! Caleb's constitution proved unable to endure College discipline and learning, and he died of decline soon after taking his degree. Consumption was very frequent among the Indians, as it so often is among savages suddenly brought to habits of civilization, and it seems to have mown down especially ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... time, colleges stand in peculiar need of gifts for general purposes of administration. Funds are frequently given for a special object, as the foundation of a professorship. But the amount may be inadequate. It is not expedient to decline the gift. Properly to endow the new chair, therefore, revenue must be drawn from the general funds, which thus suffer diminution. Donations are of the greatest advantage to a college, which are free from conditions relative ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... to which glands are concerned in the production of this phenomenon, which is homologous to the urethrorrhaea ex libidine of the male. In woman, as in man, the curve of voluptuousness exhibits four phases: an ascending limb, the equable voluptuous sensation, the acme, and the rapid decline. There are, however, in this respect, certain differences between man and woman, to which von Krafft-Ebing drew attention, and whose existence was confirmed by Otto Alder.[9] Whereas in the male the curve of voluptuousness both rises and falls with extreme abruptness, in the female both the onset ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... against him at the head of the princes of Rajast'han. A terrible battle ensued, which long inclined in favour of the Rajputs, until, through the treachery of a Tuar chief, they were defeated, and the star of Mewar began to decline, although so severe had been the struggle that Baber dared ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... decline, shed its golden rays upon the blackened sculptures of the porch of Notre-Dame, and upon its two massy towers, rising in imposing majesty against a perfectly blue sky, for during the fast few days, a north-east ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... went on, Arthur continued gradually to decline. Philip was with him always. The sufferer took a strange liking to this long-dreaded relation, this man of iron frame and thews. In Philip there was so much of life, that Arthur almost felt as if in his presence itself there was an antagonism to death. And Camilla saw thus her cousin, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... synonymous. To-day both are suffering a rapid decline, and a head is seldom taken in the valley of the Abra. In the mountain district old feuds are still maintained, and sometimes lead to a killing, and here too the ancient funerary rites are still carried out in their entirety on rare occasions. However, this peaceful ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... deliberately set out to be humorous, but have nearly always allowed the humor to drop in or stay out, according to its fancy. Although I have many times been asked to write something humorous for an editor or a publisher I have had wisdom enough to decline; a person could hardly be humorous with the other man watching him like that. I have never tried to write a humorous lecture; I have only tried to write serious ones—it is the only ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... knew what to think of all this—of Miss Tita's sudden conversion to sociability and of the strange circumstance that the more the old lady appeared to decline toward her end the less she should desire to be looked after. The story did not hang together, and I even asked myself whether it were not a trap laid for me, the result of a design to make me show my hand. I could not have told why my companions (as they could only ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... from the beginning of my stay with him, for my mother's letters stigmatising his conduct had begun very early. For some time he had been uncertain how to proceed. Then he had invented the excuse (which seemed to me at the time, if you remember, to be quite inadequate) about the slight weekly decline in the practice in order to get me out of it. His next move was to persuade me to start for myself; and as this would be impossible without money, he had encouraged me to it by the promise of a small weekly loan. I remembered how he had told me not ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... acres, but they were still in debt. Indeed, the gaunt father who toiled night and day would scarcely be happy out of debt, being so used to it. Some day he must stop, for his massive frame is showing decline. The mother wore shoes, but the lionlike physique of other days was broken. The children had grown up. Rob, the image of his father, was loud and rough with laughter. Birdie, my school baby of six, had grown to a picture of maiden beauty, tall and ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... even more than his usual insight when he called 'Cyrano de Bergerac' a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not the facts themselves, but our feeling about them, that makes tragedy and comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. The same apparent contradiction holds good in ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... was raging inwardly, and it was in his mind to decline abruptly such a service, but second thought told him a refusal might make a bad matter worse. He would have given much, too, to see the face of Mr. Sefton—his fancy painted ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... simple period of Grecian life; and still more elect to pass a few years wandering among the villages of Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some of our quaintly vicious contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire and the reign of Henry III. of France. But there are others not quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfect gravity, who have never taken the categorical imperative to wife, and have more taste for what is comfortable than for what is magnanimous and high; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing the subject, put a stop to her entreaties. She thought it probable that as they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some more particular account of Willoughby's general character, than could be gathered from the Middletons' ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen |
