"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the cost of living of a British working man's family has been 40 points, while that of the German working man shows a decline of only 12 points. It is, on the whole, surprising that there has not been more ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... their deaths with brave hearts and morning faces, because they were not prepared to reconsider or review the greatest decision they had ever made. There are some things on which no wise man will think of changing his mind. And he will decline to contemplate a change because he knows that his wardrobe holds no better garb. It is of no use doffing the robes of princes to don the rags of paupers. 'Eighty and six years have I served Christ,' exclaimed ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... I'm afloat on the coaly black Tyne! The draft licence sent me I begged to decline; Though other chaps had 'em, they were not for me; I prefer a free flag, on the strictest Q.T. A sly "floating factory" thus I set up (I'm a mixture of RUPERT the Rover and KRUPP). At Jarrow Slake moored, my trim wherry or boat I rejoiced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... what you mean," said George; "if you wish to see Mr. Charles Holland walk in and see him. He is in this house; but, for myself, as you are strangers to me, I decline answering any questions, let their ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the plains, and stretch proudly up to the very summits of the mountains. It is impossible to exaggerate the autumnal beauty of these forests; nothing under heaven can be compared to its effulgent grandeur. Two or three frosty nights in the decline of autumn transform the boundless verdure of a whole empire into every possible tint of brilliant scarlet, rich violet, every shade of blue and brown, vivid crimson, and glittering yellow. The stern, inexorable fir tribes alone maintain their ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... said the old man thoughtfully and with some hesitation, "the curiously rapid decline of intelligence, or if you will have it differently, the clouding of thought that has marked the last thirty years. Men in my youth knew what they held and what they did not hold. They knew why they held it or why they did not hold it; but the attempt to enjoy the advantages ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... Providence has cast their lot. Innumerable indications of this disposition among the masses of the Southern people are visible in the events of every day; and these will multiply in proportion to the success of our arms and the decline of power in the rebellion. If we are mistaken in this view, then our argument falls to the ground. If, upon a full consideration of all the circumstances and with perfect freedom to act according to their understanding of their best interests, the people of the Southern States should ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... actual breach was due to a woman. The Crown Prince of Titia had come a wooing of the Princess Royal of Valeria, and had been twice refused by her. King Frederick had left the question entirely in her hands. Her choice was her own, to marry or to decline. As a matter of state policy the match was greatly desired by him and his Ministers. They were becoming very weary of Murdol and the turmoil it maintained on the border, and the great force of troops required there to preserve order. Then, too, Titia had grown vastly ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... Claret deemed himself constitutionally bound to decline all presents from his subordinates, the sense of gratitude would not have operated to the prejudice of justice. And, as some of the subordinates of a man-of-war captain are apt to invoke his good wishes and ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... no power to speak, sir. Wol. What, amazed At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder, A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep, I am fall'n indeed. Crom. How does your grace? Wol. Why, well; Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. I know myself now; and I fed within me A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... have added to the number of bad examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as in private, enforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of the world denominate honour, imposed on me, as I thought, a peculiar necessity not to decline the call. The ability to be in the future useful, whether in resisting mischief, or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular."[147] The pathway of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... advanced and offered his hand, saying that he was glad to see me, and proposed to introduce me to his commander, General Cleburne. I replied, that I was not particularly pleased to see him, but, under the circumstances, should not decline his invitation. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... or more, the tragedy of the childless home would be realized. There are localities and even nations where the birth-rate is so small that population is little more than stationary. In the United States the native birth-rate tends to decline, while the rate of immigrant foreigners greatly exceeds it. The higher the degree of comfort and luxury in the home the smaller the birth-rate seems to be a principle of social experience. There are selfish people who shirk the responsibilities ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... far more real consequence to us than the possible change from coal gas to oil gas, however, as long as we remain manufacturers of the former, is the value of our residual products, which has suffered so great and sudden a decline in value, for which various remedies have been proposed, though none of them, I regret to say, have as yet restored anything like the former value. A statement of the highest prices realized for coal tar products, and a comparison with those obtained on the 30th of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... she said, "my father was robust and active in spite of his age. He was cheerful, busy, and optimistic. But he fell into a decline. It has not been a sudden sapping of his strength. If it were that I should not worry so much; I'd attribute it to disease. But every day something of vitality goes from him. He is fading almost from hour to hour, as slowly ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... my travels I am ofttimes asked if I desire my meals sent to my room, presupposing, as would be naturally inferred, the possibility of great awkwardness in my manner of eating; hence I invariably decline this offer of privacy, as there need be nothing in our manner of eating ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... to see their mother weep, Fettering their father with their little arms; What are to him the wars alarms? What are to him the distant foes? He at the earliest dawn of day To daily labor went his way; And when he saw the sun decline, He sat in peace beneath his vine:— The king commands, the peasant goes, From all he lov'd on earth he flies, And for his monarch toils, and fights, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... they shall divide without partiality, and share in common with the upright and holy, all such things as they receive in accordance with the just provisions of the order, down even to the mere contents of a begging bowl; . . . so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but to prosper." ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... I am not attempting to sum up all the many reasons for and against this proposal, but only to deal with the particular virtue claimed for it, bearing upon the increasing burden of the debt as prices decline. ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... wages which will substantially be paid in other branches of business. Wages, like water, seek a level; if manufacture pays best, labor will quit agriculture; if agriculture pays best, manufactures will decline, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... to hold out "the idea of singularity as a shield;" and the great ROBERT BOYLE was compelled to advertise in a newspaper that he must decline visits on certain days, that he might have leisure to finish some ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... matter was considered as the elementary cause of all beings, by which they expected literally to work miracles, to transmute the base into noble metals, to metamorphose man in his animal state by chemical processes, to render him more durable, and to secure him against early decline and dissolution. Millions of vessels, retorts, and phials, were either exposed to the action of the most violent artificial heat, or to the natural warmth of the sun; or else they were buried in some dunghill or other fetid mass, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... little more of it would do for him, Mackenzie thought, noting with surprise the change that had come over Reid since they last met. The improvement that had begun in him during his first weeks on the range had not continued. Opposed to it, a decline appeared to have fastened upon him, making his flaccid cheeks thinner, his weary eyes more tired, his slight frame lighter by many pounds. Only his voice was unchanged. That was hearty and quick, resonant of enjoyment in life and a keenness ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... 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 not follow up ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... and tens of thousands of hand-bills at the ferries. No task was ever more welcome. I went to the trustees man by man. The majority of the trustees very cheerfully accorded the permission. One or two of them were disposed to decline and withhold it. I made it a matter of personal friendship. "You and I will break, if you don't give me this permission." And they signed. So the meeting glided from the Graham Institute to this house. A great audience assembled. We had detectives in disguise, and every arrangement ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... ought to decline further discussion. But she was tongue tied. Spencer was regarding her so fixedly that she began to fear lest he might notice the embarrassed perplexity that she herself was quite ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... traced the gradual decline of the drama in Rome, until it consisted but of buffooneries and mimes; and so its revival in modern times commenced with performances in dumb show, the low intellectual character of the age being reflected in ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... "I decline to rest assured of anything of the kind," asserted Audrey with determination. "Don't be such a fool, Garth—or so unfair to your friends. Just because you chance to have met a women who, for some reason, chooses to cut you, doesn't alter ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... maintain your rights or perish in the glorious struggle. However difficult the combat, you will never decline it when freedom is the prize. Independence of Great Britain is not our aim. Our wish is that Britain and the Colonies may, like the oak and the ivy, grow and increase in strength together. If pacific measures fail, and it appears that the only ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... sincere respect and affection for her, but be kept in the background by the overzealous attention of his rivals. Still, if she has sufficient self-command to patiently and calmly investigate their general private character, she may find reason to decline their suit, and may discover that the more modest and retiring youth is the one that is ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... for the favourite this family gathering to which she was bidden presented disagreeable prospects of extreme difficulty, and she craved Eberhard Ludwig to permit her to decline the honour, but Serenissimus implored her to consent. It would be unwise to rebuff the Duchess's overture, and after all, possibly it was her Highness's intention to live peaceably with her husband's mistress. Other ladies ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... to the stair and calling down—"Danna Sama, has the time come?... Ah! The sky is light. The streets at night will be full of people with lanterns. Plainly O'Tento[u] Sama (the Sun) has forgotten to decline in the West. Alas! This Densuke is most unlucky." At last the hour of the dog was passing (7-9 P.M.). Daihachiro[u] appeared. "Now for the corpse! Wrap it up in this matting.... Coward! Is Densuke afraid of a dead man?" He took the ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... must have accepted many local cults, but that they adopted the whole aboriginal faith and its priests en bloc is not credible. M. Reinach also holds that when the Celts appear in history Druidism was in its decline; the Celt, or at least the military caste among the Celts, was reasserting itself. But the Druids do not appear as a declining body in the pages of Caesar, and their power was still supreme, to judge by the hostility of the Roman Government to them. If the military ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... myself. I recalled to mind the Archbishop of Granada, and I thought I could hear Gil Blas predicting the failure of my works. We can not dismiss the public as we can our secretary; meanwhile, I surrendered to a too severe justice in order to decline others' opinions. A horrible thought suddenly came into my mind; my artistic life was ended, I was a worn-out man; in one word, to picture my situation in a trivial but correct manner, I had reached the end of ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... not venture to apply to the institutions of Germany. While Prussia and Austria were perilous topics for discussion, liberal and innovating doctrines might be promulgated in lectures on the progress and decline of liberty in the ancient world. Accordingly, the study of universal history, to which the philosophical views of Herder gave the impulse, has been industriously prosecuted during the last fifty years, and learned and diligent collectors ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of raw sugar is nearly 1,000,000 tons more than sufficient to meet the demands of the entire refining industry of the country. There appears to have been considerable manipulation, foreign sugar being imported with the view of producing a panic, followed by a decline of market prices, after which Marseilles refiners would buy. All sound arguments are in favor of protecting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... complete starch of rectitude. He was a pillar of Society, and whatever age he had been born in, he would have accepted its orthodoxy. He was as grave a man as Holy Willie. Stevenson has commented on the gradual decline of his primness in the later years of the Diary. "His favourite ejaculation, 'Lord!' occurs," he declares, "but once that I have observed in 1660, never in '61, twice in '62, and at least five times in '63; after which the 'Lords' may be said to pullulate like herrings, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... quite so straight, and her hair, which it was a sheer impossibility to care for, was losing its soft vitality. She was still pretty, but not the beauty she had been when she was ejected from the class in which she was bred. However, she gave the change in herself little thought; it was the rapid decline of Etta's prettiness and freshness that worried ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... from such a profession of friendship in Sir Charles, an offer of correspondence in absence? And if he made the offer, ought I to decline it? Would it not indicate too much on my side, were I to do so?—And does it not on his, if he make not the offer? He corresponds with Mrs. Beaumont: nobody thinks that any thing can be meant by that correspondence on either side; because Mrs. Beaumont must be at least forty; Sir ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions and passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which, alas! he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly restrain, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... labourers. When the society declines, they fall even below this. The order of proprietors may perhaps gain more by the prosperity of the society than that of labourers; but there is no order that suffers so cruelly from its decline. But though the interest of the labourer is strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable either of comprehending that interest, or of understanding its connexion with his own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Duryodhana invites them to Hastinapura to join in a great gambling festival. The passion for play was as strong apparently with these antique Hindus as that for fighting or for love: "No true Kshatriya must ever decline a challenge to combat or to dice." The brothers go to the entertainment, which is to ruin their prosperity; for Sakuni, the most skilful and lucky gambler, has loaded the "coupun," so as to win every throw. Mr. Wheeler's excellent summary ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, and from time immemorial Persian trade has made its way to the Black Sea by the road which still runs through Tabriz to Teheran, a distance of 800 miles. This traffic is now on the decline, for modern means of communication have taken the place of the old caravans, and most of their trade has been diverted to the Suez Canal and the Caucasian railways. Many large caravans, however, still journey to and fro along this road, which is so well made ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... [324:2] Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," chap. ii. Some writers, such as Zumpt and Merivale, consider this estimate quite extravagant. Others again think it quite too low. See Schaff's "History of the Christian Church," p. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... to himself became unfortunately verified; for his constitution, after this, began to decline, till at length his mortal destiny, in the eyes of his medical attendants, was sealed. But even then, when removed by pain and sickness from the discussion of political subjects, he never forgot this cause. In his own sufferings he was not unmindful of those of the injured ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... gradual rise of empires trace, Till they seem founded on Perfection's base; Then (for when human things have made their way To excellence, they hasten to decay) 560 Let me, whilst Observation lends her clue Step after step to their decline pursue, Enabled by a chain of facts to tell Not only how they rose, but why they fell. Let me not only the distempers know Which in all states from common causes grow, But likewise those, which, by the will of Fate, On each peculiar ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... and the other. But if, in connection with the mortality, care be taken to isolate cases, and to divide them into groups according to the ages of those who die, a singular and significant series of facts follow, which show that after a given age a sudden decline of the temperature influences mortality by what may be considered a definite law. The law is, that variations of temperature exert no marked influence on the mortality of the population under the age of thirty years; but after the age of thirty is reached, a fall of temperature, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... modesty, he was so fundamentally patriotic, that even his faults are transformed to virtues, and the very failures of his declining years are popularly accounted successes. He alone was conscious of his mental decline, and gave this as a reason for not accepting a third nomination for the Presidency. This humility has established an unwritten law of limitation on vaulting presidential ambitions. Indeed, intrigue and corruption in America must ever struggle ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... hand and head Whose might is as light on a dark day shed, On a day now dark as a land's decline Where all the peers ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I may so call it) the acquaintance of the mother confirmed the view I had already taken of the son. The family blood had been impoverished, perhaps by long inbreeding, which I knew to be a common error among the proud and the exclusive. No decline, indeed, was to be traced in the body, which had been handed down unimpaired in shapeliness and strength; and the faces of to-day were struck as sharply from the mint, as the face of two centuries ago that smiled upon me from the portrait. But the intelligence ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my companion, "how dark it is here,"—looking into each hut that was shown him. "Misericorde! if I were to ensconce myself in this leafy cabin, this gloomy sombre hole, I should fancy myself seated at the bottom of a blacking-bottle—I respectfully decline the ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... people find cause for grousing, no matter how good their luck is," Jim answered. "I believe you and old Bob would decline to recognize bad luck even if it did come ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... now. I did not mean to-night,' Elfride responded, with a slight decline in the firmness of her voice. 'It is not light as you think it—it troubles me a great deal.' Fearing now the effect of her own earnestness, she added forcedly, 'Though, perhaps, you may ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... [Decline of colony.] The downfall of Portugal occasioned the loss of her colonies once more. Spanish policy, the government of the priests, and the jealousy of the Spanish merchants and traders especially, did everything that remained to be done to prevent the development ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... pugnacity at times revolted. A cad from the Potterrow once struck him in the mouth; he struck back, the pair fought it out in the back stable lane towards the Meadows, and Archie returned with a considerable decline in the number of his front teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses of the foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she wept and prayed over the infant backslider until my lord was due from Court, and she must resume that air of tremulous composure with ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mesozoic era is shorter than the Paleozoic, as measured by the thickness of their strata, yet its duration must be reckoned in millions of years. Its predominant life features are the culmination and the beginning of the decline of reptiles, amphibians, cephalopod mollusks, and cycads, and the advent of marsupial mammals, birds, teleost fishes, and angiospermous plants. The leading events of the long ages of the era we can sketch only in the most ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... was "for avoiding offence, they should neither meddle with matters of state nor religion." "But before our next meeting," says Spelman, "we had notice that his majesty took a little mislike of our society, not being informed that we had resolved to decline all matters of state. Yet hereupon we forbore to meet again, and so all our labour's lost!" Unquestionably much was lost, for much could have been produced; and Spelman's work on law terms, where I find this information, was one of the first projected. James the First has ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... Government to assume the exercise of powers which it does not possess.... We trust, therefore, that no unnecessary discussions on this matter will be introduced into your negotiations. If, unfortunately, this reliance should prove ill-founded, you will decline continuing negotiations on your side, and transfer ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... a shroud, denotes sickness and its attendant distress and anxiety, coupled with the machinations of the evil-minded and false friends. Business will threaten decline after this dream. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... pull'd her together, I press'd her, and she Shot down the decline to the Company's yard, And on by the paddocks, yet under my knee I could feel her heart thumping the saddle-flaps hard. Yet a mile and another, and now we were near The goal, and the fields and the farms flitted past; And 'twixt the two fences I turned with a cheer, For a green grass-fed mare ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Stannard had given Billings anything to do, he bothered himself no further about the matter, instead of going along and supervising as was his wont with most of the others. "If he's good enough for Stannard, he'll do for me," was the colonel's comment, and when Billings sought to decline the appointment offered, hinting, with well-meant but awkward delicacy, that perhaps it ought to go to some man of more established reputation and record in the regiment, the colonel cut him short with, "Here, Mr. Billings, I must have some one at once; old Bucketts has been doing office-work ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... if you please,' she said. 'You can put them in a pot by the grate, but I like no litters made by flowers or anything else. You may sit down while I talk to you,' Mrs Lambert added. 'You look very delicate; I hope you are not in a decline.' ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... rather than creation became the method adopted, resulting in an increased poverty of design and feeble execution. The art of the sixteenth century deteriorated rapidly till the baroco style was in evidence. One reason, too, for the decline was in that art was no longer so exclusively dedicated to the high service of religion, but aimed, instead, to please and to procure patrons, and thus were all worthy standards lowered ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... kitchen busied with our supper, when she suddenly fell down and died in a few minutes. Heart disease was the cause, but in our part people only die of three complaints—a seizure, an inflammation, or a decline. The difference between these is purely one of time, so that Joe Roscorla, learning the suddenness of the attack, judged it forthwith a case of ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the change which physical and mental suffering had wrought in the Conde de Villabuena. His form was bowed and emaciated, his cheek had lost its healthful tinge; his hair, in which, but a short three months previously, only a few silver threads were perceptible, telling of the decline of life rather than of its decay, now fell in grey locks around his sunken temples. For himself individually, the Count grieved not; he had done what he deemed his duty, and his conscience was at rest; but he mourned the ingratitude of his king ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... late coldness and threats of Miss Stewart. He long since had offered her all the settlements and all the titles she could desire, until he had an opportunity more effectually to provide for her, which she had pretended only to decline, for fear of the scandal they might occasion, on her being raised to a rank which would attract the public notice; but since the return of the court, she had given herself other airs: sometimes she was for retiring from court, to appease the continual uneasiness ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... I want you should decide to accept the proposition. Keimer has made an apology, so that you can return without compromising your manhood at all. It looks to me as if it were wiser to accept his proposal than to decline it." ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... It was a curious thing to see him have recourse to all kinds of expedients to escape from the necessity of tracing a few lines. Many times he preferred traversing Paris from one end to the other in order to decline a dinner or give some slight information, to saving himself the trouble by means of a little sheet of paper. His handwriting remained almost unknown to most of his friends. It is said that he sometimes deviated from this habit in favour of his ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Egypt inundates, Running its sevenfold course unto the sea. Nature hath given two lights To this small earth for governance; But thou, perverter of eternal law, Hast turned them into everlasting streams. But Heaven is not content to see her law Decline before unbridled violence. ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... that is not at least as physical as they are. I have witnessed certain transactions effected by means unknown to me—possibly by the action of a natural law not yet fully expounded by science. If there was anything spiritual in the affair, it has not been manifest to my apprehension: and I must decline to lend my ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... conflict. Beyond taking a few soldiers out of the country such quarrels are productive of no good. There must be some strong excitement in which every one can take a part and feel a personal interest, and then Nihilism will decline." ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... has been playing "HAMLET" and "OTHELLO" at NIBLO'S GARDEN. So graceful and elegant is he in his stage presence, that I have been obliged to decline to take MARGARET to see him. There is nothing so annoying as to escort one's cousin (I think I have mentioned that MARGARET is my cousin) to the theatre and to hear her express the most ecstatic admiration of that "perfectly lovely Mr. MONTGOMERY." I have suffered from this sort ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... "I decline your confidence. Madam, if I could only tell you, that your vile suspicions are too contemptible to merit the indignation they arouse, I should ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... itself in foam, it is compressed immediately into a bed of ninety-three yards in width: it continues for three hundred and forty poles to the entrance of a run or deep ravine, where there is a fall of three feet, which, added to the decline during that distance, makes the descent six feet. As it goes on, the descent within the next two hundred and forty poles is only four feet; from this, passing a run or deep ravine, the descent in four hundred poles is thirteen feet; within two hundred and forty poles, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... long, quiet talk with Henry Warner, and, wishing the Englishman anywhere but there, she answered coldly, "I cannot well decline your escort, Mr. Carrollton, so of course ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... The more important was, I remember, a view of Paris seen from a suburb—a green railing and two loitering nursemaids in the foreground, the middle of the picture filled with the city faintly seen and faintly glittering in the hour of the sun's decline, between four and six. It was no disagreeable or ridiculous parody of Corot; it was Corot feminised, Corot reflected in a woman's soul, a woman's love of man's genius, a lake-reflected moon. But Corot's influence ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... before, there is not much to tell," I answered. "I was compelled in honor to tell Julia I loved another woman more than herself; and I presume, though I am not sure, she will decline to ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... saw such an expedient would be certain death, and I wound one arm round her waist, and held her forcibly down in her seat, while with the other I endeavoured to assist her in the hopeless task of stopping the runaway ponies. Everything was against us: the ground was slightly on the decline; the thaw had not yet reached the sheltered road we were travelling, and the wheels rung against its frozen surface as they spun round with a velocity that seemed to add to the excitement of our flying ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Balmoral, and its bracing outdoor avocations and amusements, the Prince-Consort's health seemed to decline again. He suffered from rheumatic pains and sleeplessness, and he began to feel the chill shadows of the valley he was nearing, creeping around him. The last work of his beneficent life was one of peculiar interest to Americans. It ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... the remarkable "Letter to Liszt in Regard to the Goethe Memorial," wherein he confidently asserted that painter as well as sculptor would decline to compete with the poet acting in harmony with the musician, and that they would with reverential awe bow before an art-work in comparison with which their own productions would seem but lifeless fragments. For such an art-work ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... The neighbourhood of Leamington, a watering-place of some celebrity, has obliged the family to decline showing the Castle after ten o'clock. I tried the virtue of an old acquaintance with Lord Warwick and wrote to him, he being in the Courthouse where the assizes were sitting. After some delay we were admitted, and I found my old friend ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the lights of the scattered villages. The bells in the water were still ringing languidly, and their voices emphasised the pervading silence, a silence full of the pensive melancholy of Nature in decline. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... Midshipmen are not in the habit of carrying much money about with them, but I have heard of Guerillas carrying people off to the mountains and getting ransoms. There, we are at the place where that fellow said the road turned. It doesn't turn. Now, I vote we both get off our mules and decline ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... In fact, on the 11th, at 9.11 a.m., the moon would enter her last quarter. After this delay she would decline every day, and even if the sky should clear the chances of observation would be considerably lessened—in fact, the moon would then show only a constantly-decreasing portion of her disc, and would end by becoming new—that is to ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... a misfortune in the fourteenth century. The decline in fertility had made it impossible for a villain to support himself and his family and perform the accustomed services and pay the rent for his land. Sometimes heirs were excused on account of their poverty. Page has made note ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... wench;[211] but others were of a loftier and better and truer apprehension, whereof it booteth not to tell at this present. Thereafter the king let kindle store of flambeaux upon the grass and among the flowers and caused sing divers other songs, until every star began to decline, that was above the horizon, when, deeming it time for sleep, he bade all with a good night betake ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... gallant young officer of Philadelphia, is our leader, but, in this instance, I don't feel the need of consulting him. I know that your offer is kindly, that it comes from a generous soul, but however much it may disappoint you I must decline it. Our resistance in the night has been quite successful, we have inflicted upon you much more damage than you have inflicted upon us, and I've no doubt the day will witness a battle continued ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... warm, and the thought of Dick's misfortunes swept away the recollection of his insults. Joker had, of his own initiative, soon turned aside from the high road into a grassy lane, and he moved along it in the relentless manner in which many horses will decline to stand still while Larry, deep in thought, allowed the reins to lie on the horse's neck while he lit a cigarette and tried to fix in his memory Father David's exact words. He thought he would talk to Dr. Mangan about it. Things might be better than the old priest ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... decline of the Hans was rapid. They produced no other ruler worthy of the throne. In the palace the eunuchs, always numerous at the Chinese court, obtained the upper hand, and appointed their own creatures to the great governing posts. Fortunately this dissension at the capital was not attended ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Ashrafis, boys from 9 to 150: the worst are kept for domestic purposes, the best are driven and exported by the Western Arabs [36] or by the subjects of H. H. the Imam of Muscat, in exchange for rice and dates. I need scarcely say that commerce would thrive on the decline of slavery: whilst the Felateas or man-razzias are allowed to continue, it is vain to expect ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... men felt themselves overtaken by a speedier chastisement. As day by day they sank deeper in their wickedness, it was but right they should daily, as it were, stick faster in their woe. The very change in nourishment made manifest their decline and degradation, since as they became feebler they became also ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... he lingered before her erect, then, shrugging his shoulders, said: "What's the good, since you decline?" ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... turnips, leeks, lilies, horseradish, saffron, and other plants, are said to increase during the fulness of the moon; but onions, on the contrary, are much larger and are better nourished during the decline. [328] To recur to Plutarch is to find him saying: "The moone showeth her power most evidently even in those bodies, which have neither sense nor lively breath; for carpenters reject the timber of trees fallen in the ful-moone, as being ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... And he cried, "My good sword have I girt, In Roncesvalles to dye it red. Let Roland but in my pathway tread, Trust ye to me that I strike him dead, His Durindana beat down with mine. The Franks shall perish and France decline." Thus were mustered King Marsil's peers, With a hundred thousand heathen spears. In haste to press to the battle on, In a pine-tree forest their arms ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... said, wheeling in his chair, "I am not worried. I decline to be worried. And I am going ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... of the alphabet and first reading lesson, Abraham appeared at the door of the room brandishing a very long thin knife, and with many bows, grins, and apologies for disturbing me, begged that I would go and cut up a sheep for him. My first impulse of course was to decline the very unusual task offered me with mingled horror and amusement. Abraham, however, insisted and besought, extolled the fineness of his sheep, declared his misery at being unable to cut it as I wished, and his readiness to conform for the future to whatever patterns of mutton 'de missis ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... would promote it with all his influence; but when I took notice that there seemed to be an aversion on the side of Liddy, he said he would sound her on the subject; and if her reluctance was such as would not be easily overcome, he would civilly decline the proposal of Mr Barton; for he thought that, in the choice of a husband a young woman ought not to sacrifice the feelings of her heart for any consideration upon earth — 'Liddy is not so desperate (said he) as to worship fortune at such ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... truth is incapable of being applied to another case: the essential is unique. Perhaps that is why it is so neglected: because it is useless. What we learned about that Spaniard is incapable of being applied to any other Spaniard, or even recalled in words. With the decline of orthodox theology and its admirable theory of the soul, the unique importance of events has vanished. A man is only important as he is classed. Hence there is no tragedy, or no appreciation of tragedy, which is the same thing. We had been talking of young Bistwick, ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot
... are with infinite pains overcome, the jury will not convict, no matter what the crime. Before he commences his career of crime, the moonlight marauder knows the chances of being caught are immensely in his favour, that should luck in this matter be against him, his very victim will decline to identify him, nay, will affirm that he is not the man, and that when the worst comes to the worst, no jury in the counties of Kerry, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... will come fast enough after a while. We are all tired of the sea just now," said Jack. "What about Captain Bonnet and meeting him at Sullivan's Island to pass the word that we must decline his courteous invitation?" ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... "I decline to give you the opportunity of saying anything more," he rejoined. "I beg to leave you in possession of the room, and to wish you ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... really serious ladies of the family, sided with Tiberius. But it is easy to understand that this situation could not long endure. A power which defends itself weakly against the attacks of its enemies is destined to sink rapidly into a decline, and the party of Agrippina would therefore quickly have gained favor and power had there not arisen, to sustain the vacillating strength of Tiberius, a man whose name was to become sadly famous—Sejanus—the commander of the ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... it seems to me that the British footman has relaxed a trifle since we were last here; or is it possible that he reaches the height of his immobility at the height of the London season, and as it declines does he decline and become flesh? At all events, I have twice seen a footman change his weight from one leg to the other, as he stood at a shop entrance with his lady's mantle over his arm; twice have I seen one stroke his chin, and several times ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wanted you just to mention that it was not true I was going to be married to him," she murmured, with a slight decline in her assurance. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... he could not decline to make a friend of the storekeeper, who had taken an interest in the voyage of the little Tramp. Maurice was only a boy, but he knew that one could never have too ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... where I am willing to continue, lest it should grow less; and having had no leisure, while I was in Rome and other parts of Italy, to practice myself in the Roman language, on account of public business and of those who came to be instructed by me in philosophy, it was very late, and in the decline of my age, before I applied myself to the reading of Latin authors. But to appreciate the graceful and ready pronunciation of the Roman tongue, to understand the various figures and connection of words, and such other ornaments, in which the beauty of speaking consists, is, I doubt ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... kind Tom Wested. He had stayed over night with them several times, and had come to them for consolation after his wife died. It seemed to her that his decline in health and loss of courage, Mr. Wheeler's fortuitous trip to Denver, the old pine-wood farm in Maine; were all things that fitted together and made a net to envelop her unfortunate son. She knew that he had been waiting impatiently for the autumn, and that for the first time he ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... "I am willing to draw it up in conjunction with you, or to let it be drawn up by you alone, but, from past experience, I must decline to ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... The decline of Issoudun is explained by this spirit of sluggishness, sunken to actual torpor, which a single fact will illustrate. When the authorities were talking of a highroad between Paris and Toulouse, it was natural to think of taking it from Vierzon to Chateauroux ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... than those of the same year, who may be the teachers in forming the new comb. Now, in a scientific inquiry, a point which can be proved should not be assumed, and a totally unknown power should not be brought in to explain facts, when known powers may be sufficient. For both these reasons I decline to accept the theory of instinct in any case where all other possible modes of explanation ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the Squire denominated true old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea-and-toast, which he censured as among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of old English heartiness; and though he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of cold meats, wine and ale, ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... developed as already this monarch of rivers gave signs of opening out like a sea! Plants from eight to ten feet high clustered along the beach, and bordered it with a forest of reeds. Porto de Mos, Boa Vista, and Gurupa, whose prosperity is on the decline, were soon among the ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... told me, that being with him a little after Melitus had accused him, he observed, that he seemed to decline speaking of that affair: from whence he took occasion to tell him that it would not be amiss for him to think of what he should answer in his own justification. To which Socrates replied: "Do you believe I have done anything else all my life than think ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... thing for which I looked in vain. I looked in vain for anything in the nature of statistical precision, except here and there in connection with minor and scattered details. Frequent references were made, for example, to the decline of the Highland population; but no attempt had apparently been made by anyone to state by reference to extant official documents what the total of the alleged decline had been, or whether or why in some districts it had been greater or less than in others. The two voluminous works ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... down upon them, the odor of apple blossoms and the hum of bees seemed to make it all the more incongruous. And still the elderly Quaker skipper talked on and on with hardly an interruption, till the warm sun slanted to the west and the day began to decline. ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... But with the 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 ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Hills, as we found also to be the case on many Polynesian islands, it is closely associated with female infanticide.[1353] The Todas in 1867 showed a proportion of two men to one woman, but later, with the decline of infanticide under British rule, a proportion of 100 men to 75 women, and a resulting modification of the institution of polyandry.[1354] It may well be that the paucity of women suggested this form of marriage, whose expediency as ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... ignorance of the vernacular, and cause me no end of vexatious delay. To this the quick-witted Frenchman replies by at once offering to go with me to the resident pasha, explain the matter to him, and get a letter permitting me to wear the uniform; which offer I gently but firmly decline, being secretly of the opinion that these excessive precautions are all unnecessary. From the time I left Hungary I have been warned so persistently of danger ahead, and have so far met nothing really dangerous, that I am getting sceptical about there being anything like the risk people ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the Germans, and their strict regard to the laws of marriage, are witnessed by all their ancient codes of law. The purity of their manners in this respect afforded a striking contrast to the licentiousness of the Romans in the decline of the empire, and is exhibited in this light by Salvian, in his treatise ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... the menaces of Commodus, maintained towards Pertinax a stately ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added new weight to his sentiments, or rather to his professions of patriotism. A regard to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles of Augustus and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba, who, on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... administered will more than repay its cost. The use of the hoe will greatly help the growth, and a little earth may be drawn towards the stems, not to the extent of 'moulding-up,' for that is injurious, but to 'firm' the plants in some degree against the gales that are to be expected as the days decline. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... with a less suspicious eye than most people hereabouts, for he invited me into his house to take a petit verre with him. But the sun was getting near the end of his journey, and I had to fare on foot to the next village; so I thought it better to decline the offer. ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... opposed the French policy of President John Adams in 1798, and were conspicuous for their British sympathies. Four years before his death he was chosen president of Harvard College, an honour which his broken state of health obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Junkett, he shall beginne it again." "By no Means," said I, "for I love Talking more than Reading." However, it was not soe to be, for Rose woulde not be foyled; and as it woulde not have been good Manners to decline the Hearinge in Presence of the Poet, I was constrayned to suppresse a secret Yawne, and feign Attention, though, Truth to say, it soone wandered; and, during the last halfe Hour, I sat in a compleat Dreame, tho' not unpleasant one. Roger having made an End, 'twas diverting ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... When she came out she was very angry, and set about making an image of the woman whose sheep she had taken. When the image was made she burned it and put the ashes in a burn. And it is a very curious thing, but the woman she made it on fell into a decline, and ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... can not yet put words into correct grammatical form, decline, or conjugate. They like to use the indefinite noun-substantive and the infinitive, likewise to some extent the past participle. They prefer the weak inflection, ignore and confound the articles, conjunctions, auxiliaries, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... the sight of a sunset does not beget as much meditative melancholy as contemplative pleasure, the human decline and death that it illustrates being too obvious to escape the notice of the simplest observer. The sketcher, as if he had been brought to this reflection many hundreds of times before by the same spectacle, showed that he did not wish to pursue it just now, by turning away his face ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... ships, and consisted in carrying people to America. The increasing population of the country made it an increasing trade, but when the linen trade was low, the passenger trade was always high. At the time of Lord Donegan letting his estate in the north, the linen business suffered a temporary decline, which sent great numbers to America, and gave rise to the error that it was occasioned by the increase of his rents. The fact, however, was otherwise, for great numbers of those who went from his lands actually sold those leases for ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... the vision was near the beginning of the Third Punic War, when Scipio, no longer in his early youth, was just entering upon the career in which he gained pre-eminent fame, thenceforward to know neither shadow nor decline. ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis
... and loved. He also was the author of those well-known text-books, "The Founders of Islam," and "The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire." This latter work, in five volumes, had been not unfavorably compared to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The original newspaper comment, dated some thirty years back, the doctor had preserved, and would produce it, now somewhat frayed and worn, and read it to visitors. He knew it by ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... 1550 under Suleyman the Magnificent, when, with its eastern frontier in the heart of Asia, its European frontier touching Russia and Austria, it held in its grasp Egypt, the northern coast of Africa, and almost every city famous in biblical and classical history. Then commenced a decline; and when its terrible Janizaries were a source of danger instead of defense, when its own Sultan was compelled to destroy them in 1826 for the protection of his empire, it was only a helpless mass in the throes ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... he takes so much interest in my affairs, I will now tell Aemilianus why I have examined so many fishes already and why I am unwilling to remain in ignorance of some I have not yet seen. Although he is in the decline of life and suffering from senile decay, let him, if he will, acquire some learning even at the eleventh hour. Let him read the works of the philosophers of old, that now at any rate he may learn that I am not the first ichthyologist, but follow in the steps ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... abolitionists has been mentioned, and will occasionally be referred to hereafter, the following historical statement of its rise and decline, and of the commencement of the present abolition movement, will probably be interesting to the anti-slavery reader on this side of the Atlantic. It is from the pen of my valued coadjutor ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... as the family spokesman. I can see them now in solemn conclave. They think it their indisputable right to select a husband for me, to pass upon him, to accept or decline him as they see fit, to say whether he is a proper man to hang up his hat and coat in the offices ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... longer considered necessary to send ticket men in their stead when they were taken out, and as a matter of fact less than a dozen such men were that year put on board ships passing the Downs. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 1453—Capt. Anderson, 31 Aug. 1811.] Pressing itself was in its decline, and as for the vocation of the man in lieu, it had gone ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... idea how I am relieved, and I shall not go back empty-handed. But the relief I feel admonishes me never to return to the full charge. How little do people know or conceive what it is! One case, like what I fear Mrs.-'s is, of slow decline,-one such case weighs upon the mind and heart for months. If you could go and make the call, without any sad anticipation or afterthought; but you cannot. And then, when it is not one case that draws upon your sympathies, but several, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... American novel. You got your brush in the wrong pot of local colour when you daubed me. No offence intended, or taken, I hope. God bless you! strike your pencil through all that came after the spree part. You're welcome to that, but I decline to let you ruin your reputation by offering up the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance."—Gibbon, Decline And ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... me no more messages from Miss Charteris," she replied. "I do not like her—she would only come to triumph over me; I decline to see her. I have no message ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... considerable portion of the night. Some species of birds are partly nocturnal in their habits. Such is the Chimney Swallow. This bird is seldom out at noonday, which it employs in sleep, after excessive activity from the earliest morning dawn. It is seen afterwards circling about in the decline of day, and is sometimes abroad in fine weather the greater part of the night, when the young broods require almost unremitted exertions, on the part of the old birds, to procure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... carries on with China and India. Efforts have been made in Spain to suppress the former commerce, as being detrimental to that of Spain and the Indias. He admits that this last is decreasing, but claims that Filipinas is not responsible therefor. The causes of that decline are, rather, the greatly lessened yield of the precious metals in America, the enormous decrease of the Indian population in the colonies, the smaller consumption of goods among the Spaniards therein, and the exorbitant imposts ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... prosecution," urged Paul, "has mentioned something about giving me the benefit of a doubt. There is no matter of benefit in it, and I decline to accept the term. It is only a matter of justice. It is only justice I desire. My lord and gentlemen of the jury, I have refused to enter the witness-box, not because I desired to keep back anything in relation to the murder, for in truth I know absolutely nothing, but because I might be, ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... approaches its climax, the note of warning sounds again (ver. 25). The convert, fresh from the reminder of the "voice" of the sprinkled blood of the better covenant, is cautioned not to "refuse" it, not to "decline" it ([Greek: me paraitesesthe]). The primary reference is manifestly to that perpetual danger of the Hebrews, the temptation to turn back from the Gospel, with its spiritual order and its hopes of things not yet seen, ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... reasons to be compelled to decline participation in the conference at Charlottetown. The season is so far advanced that I find my summer's work would be so seriously deranged by the visit to Prince Edward Island that, without permission from the Foreign Office, ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... they were inclined to be costive, gave mild Purges, or emollient laxative Clysters. We afterwards applied Blisters; and if the Pulse began to sink, gave Cordials, Wine, and other Remedies commonly employed in such Cases;—and towards the Decline of the Fever endeavoured to promote such Evacuations as were pointed out by Nature, and likely ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... read that once in Africa A princely wight did reign, Who had to name Cophetua, As poets they did feign: From nature's laws he did decline, For sure he was not of my mind, He car-ed not for women-kind, But did them all disdain. But mark what happened on a day: As he out of his window lay, He saw a beggar all in gray, The ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... have assumed metropolitan importance in their densely populated districts. Only Plymouth in the south-west is now of first-class consequence to the nation; and Plymouth is a parvenu compared with Looe and Fowey. The actual decline of these two little towns may not be great, but relatively it is enormous. Yet it deserves a milder term than decay, for the present-day life here is still wholesome and in a certain sense prosperous. It is a gentle ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... have been times in France when the study of color produced artistic effects in costume worthy of attention, and resulted in styles of dress of real beauty. But the present corrupted state of morals there has introduced a corrupt taste in dress; and it is worthy of thought that the decline of moral purity in society is often marked by the deterioration of the sense of artistic beauty. Corrupt and dissipated social epochs produce corrupt styles of architecture and corrupt styles of drawing and painting, as might easily be illustrated by the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil, which no honest government should decline. There is another strong feature in the new Constitution, which I as strongly dislike. That is, the perpetual re-eligibility of the President. Of this I expect no amendment at present, because I do not see that anybody has objected to it on your side the water. But it will be ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... headache, and often in an almost fainting condition. And the same cause which brings about these extreme cases, on a smaller scale causes such physical discomfort to many delicately organized persons that a large class exist who absolutely and resolutely decline to have gas as an illuminant or fuel in any of their living rooms; and if the use of gas, more especially as fuel, is to be extended, and if gas is to hold its own in the future against such rivals as the electric light, then those interested in gas and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various |
