"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... acknowledge that the policy of England with respect to Europe should be policy of reserve, but proud reserve; and in answer to those statesmen—those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of England and the decline of its resources, I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Lady Mary," cried Sylla; "but you cannot half act a thing. When the exigencies of the stage require one to be embraced, one must admit of that ceremony. Surely if a girl has scruples about going through such a mere form, she had much better decline ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... career, can never be known. He exerted his influence so secretly that contemporary historians took little note of him; and while, in view of his final record, some see in him the spirit that prompted Yoritomo's merciless extirpation of his own relatives, others decline to credit him with such far-seeing cruelty, and hold that his ultimately attempted usurpations were inspired solely by fortuitous opportunity which owed nothing to his contrivance. Wherever the truth may ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... spite of the lectures he would at times read him, was in a way proud of him as he grew older; he saw in him, moreover, one who would probably develop into a good man of business, and in whose hands the prospects of his house would not be likely to decline. John knew how to humour his father, and was at a comparatively early age admitted to as much of his confidence as it was in his nature to ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... animal productions; for example, in the southern parts of the continent the Xanthorrea affords an inexhaustible supply of fragrant grubs, which an epicure would delight in, when once he has so far conquered his prejudices as to taste them; whilst in proceeding to the northward, these trees decline in health and growth, until about the parallel of Gantheaume Bay they totally disappear, and even a native finds himself cut off from his ordinary supplies of insects; the same circumstances taking place with regard to the roots and other kinds of ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the lovely corner of the island of Jersey where her father, a country doctor, had begotten a large family of lovely creatures and brought them up on the appallingly inadequate proceeds of his totally inadequate practice. Pretty female things must be disposed of early lest their market value decline. Therefore a well-born young man even without obvious resources represents a sail in the offing which is naturally welcomed as possibly belonging to a bark which may at least bear away a burden which the back carrying it as part of its pack will willingly ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the Sabbaths, when she worshipped with them in the little chapel, which served the purposes of a church to all the families of the vicinity. There was, about this period (and the fact was undoubtedly attributable to Ellen's influence,) a general and very evident decline in the scholarship of the college, especially in regard to the severer studies. The intellectual powers of the young men seemed to be directed chiefly to the construction of Latin and Greek verse, many copies of ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... look. She turned dead white for a minute, then she spoke: 'I never discuss family matters with perfect strangers.' Those were her words—'perfect strangers.' 'I consider your question impertinent, madame, and decline to answer it.' Then she turned her back upon Mrs. Featherbrain; and shouldn't I like to have seen Mrs. Featherbrain's face. Since then, she just bows frigidly ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... animal vigour with a melancholy vivacity. The remaining energies of Algernon's mind were devoted to animadversions on swift bowling. He preached it over the county, struggling through laborious literary compositions, addressed to sporting newspapers, on the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who witnessed and chronicled young Richard's first fight, which was with young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Call at the time I was doing a little reporting on the same paper. It happened that a benefit was arranged for some charity. "Nan, the Good-for-Nothing," was to be given by a number of amateurs. The Nan asked me to play Tom, and I had insufficient firmness to decline. After the play, when my face was reasonably clean, I dropped into the Call office, yearning for a word of commendation from Harte. I thought he knew that I had taken the part, but he would not give me the satisfaction of referring to it. Finally I mentioned, casually like, that I was Tom, whereat ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... "Yes. I absolutely decline to encourage the practice of using good horses in four-wheeled cabs. It's a disgrace to the poor animals. It must ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... where not already in the Astronomical Society became Fellows without contribution, all the books and other property of the old Society being transferred to the new one. I was one of the committee which made the preliminary inquiries, and the reason of the decline was soon manifest. The only question which could arise was whether the members of the society of working men—for this repute still continued—were of that class of educated men who could associate with the Fellows of the Astronomical ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Dunstan seeth the diuell often, but now he was become a waiter at the table when Dunstane sat with the king.] the kings death, and the changing of the nobles into dum and insensible beasts betokened that the princes & gouernors of the realme should decline from the waie of truth, and wander as foolish beasts without a guide to rule them. Also the night after this talke when the king was set at supper, Dunstane saw the same spirit, or some other, walke vp and downe amongst ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... Watty was not built to receive merchandise, but he was built to receive food, and the quantity he could consume when he was unfettered was so great that a crew made up of men proportionately as great eaters would have made a captain wince when stores were running out, and shipowners decline to take them again at ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... did not say much about it; but as the king insisted on his wish he did not entirely decline, but said, "I will let you hear, king, what my desire would have been had I gained the wager. It would have been to be received into your body of court-men; and if you will grant me that, I will be the more zealous now in fulfilling your pleasure." The king gave ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... our neighbours' throats, wives, and pockets; still, every year shows that the parson's maxim—"non quieta movere "—is as prudent for the health of communities as when Apollo recommended his votaries not to rake up a fever by stirring the Lake Camarina; still, people, thank Heaven, decline to reside in parallelograms, and the surest token that we live under a free government is when we are governed by persons whom we have a full right to imply, by our censure and ridicule, are blockheads compared ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for your kind intentions, but the misfortune of the rank to which destiny has called me will not allow me to accept the high title with which you honor me. I thank you very much, but I must decline it[34]." ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... until you are better. Whether a doctor can help you or not—forgive me, but you cannot judge of that by your feelings. God's help is certainly decisive, but it is just He who has given us medicine and physician that, through them, His aid may reach us; and to decline it in this form is to tempt Him, as though the sailor at sea should deprive himself of a helmsman, with the idea that God alone can and will give aid. If He does not help us through the means He has placed within our reach, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... father had been describing the last hours of his life in the terms habitual to him. Professor Hyslop had been mistaken again. The doctor had noticed pain in the stomach at 7 a.m. The heart action began to decline at 9.30; this was shortly followed by terrible difficulty in breathing, and death followed. When his father's eyelids fell, James Hyslop said, "He is gone," and he was the last to speak. This last incident seems to indicate that consciousness ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... may have been sabred by the Manchester Yeomanry or shot in the '48? Are we still strong enough to spear mammoths, but now tender enough to spare them? Does the cosmos contain any mammoth that we have either speared or spared? When we decline (in a marked manner) to fly the red flag and fire across a barricade like our grandfathers, are we really declining in deference to sociologists—or to soldiers? Have we indeed outstripped the warrior and passed the ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... he was menaced by Elam and repudiated by Chaldaea, and it remained to be seen whether his resources would prove equal to maintaining the integrity of his empire, or whether the example set by Merodach-baladan would not speedily be imitated by all who groaned under the Assyrian yoke. Since the decline of Damascus and Arpad, Hamath had again taken a prominent place in Northern Syria: prompt submission had saved this city from destruction in the time of Tiglath-pileser III., and it had since prospered ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... nothing to be done. He and his lawyers had no official standing in the case—they could only consult with and advise Niles in an unofficial fashion. And, though Niles held a long conference with Holmes and his party before the bail bond was signed, it proved to be impossible for the court to decline to accept it. Some things the law made imperative, and, much as Niles might feel that he was being tricked, he could not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... a reputation among his associates. He had read everything, and when his key was not busy, there was in his hand a copy of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... pacifist lines cannot exist if hemmed in by capitalistic and militarist states. Russia's revolution must follow the law of all healthy organisms. It must increase. If it does not increase it will decline.... ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... continue, lest it should grow less; and having had no leisure, while I was in Rome and other parts of Italy, to exercise 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. Upon which that which happened to me, may seem strange, though it be true; for it was not so much by the knowledge of words, that I came to the understanding of things, as by my experience of things I was enabled to follow ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to borrow from Mordecai on interest, but, having regard to the fact that Jacob and Esau were brothers, he refused to lend me upon usury, and I was forced to sell myself as slave to him. If, now, I should at any time decline to serve him as a slave, or deny that I am his slave, or if my children and children's children unto the end of all time should refuse to do him service, if only a single day of the week; or if I should act inimically toward him on account of this contract, as Esau did toward Jacob after selling ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... which Aileen observed was when the customary cards and invitations for receptions and the like, which had come to them quite freely of late, began to decline sharply in number, and when the guests to her own Wednesday afternoons, which rather prematurely she had ventured to establish, became a mere negligible handful. At first she could not understand this, not being willing to believe that, following so soon ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... should proove a pricze) which cannot be cleered so well, any where as at Berbadoes, who have as wee are Informed inquired of hr [?] the value of the prize, and the Rather becawse they broke bulke at Pemequid, out of our Jurisdiccion,[4] and that after they had our order, which they seemed to decline by theire Accepting proteccion from Capt. Gilbert Crane, as appeares by proofe, who was in our harbors under the Imploiment of the Parliament of England for masts ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... kite the Countess pounced upon his character. Would the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Duflian decline to participate in the sparest provender? Would he be guilty of the discourtesy of leaving table without a bow or an apology, even if reduced to extremest poverty? No, indeed! which showed that, under all circumstances, a gentleman ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a little, and then rose to the higher slope of Mount Joy. To north the land again dropped, and rose beyond to the deep gulch of the Valley Creek. On its farther side the fires of a picket on Mount Misery were seen. Everywhere were regular rows of log huts, and on the first decline of every hill slope intrenchments, ditches, redoubts, and artillery. Far beyond, this group of hills fell gradually to the rolling plain. A mile away were the long outlying lines of Wayne, and the good fellows with whom I ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candor, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve, and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in the present instance. My pretensions to virtue are, unluckily, so few, that, though I should be happy to deserve your praise, I can not accept your ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... mine closed, and a large promising platinum and gold mine was not yet operational. Greenland has signed a contract for its largest construction project, a power plant to supply the capital. To avoid a decline in the economy, Denmark has agreed to pay 75% of the costs of running Sondrestrom Airbase and Kulusuk Airfield as civilian bases after the US withdraws ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... midst of all his triumphs, if not to doubt their reality, at least to distrust their continuance; and sometimes even, with that painful skill which sensibility supplies, to extract out of the brightest tributes of success some omen of future failure, or symptom of decline. New successes, however, still came to dissipate these bodings of diffidence; nor was it till after his unlucky coalition with Mr. Hunt in the Liberal, that any grounds for such a suspicion of his having declined ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... either to walk quietly down to the North River and drown herself or to wait her husband's return and tell him everything and throw herself on his mercy, implore him, adjure him, not to give that woman his play; and then to go into a decline that would soon rid him of the clog and hinderance she had always been to him. It flashed through her turmoil of emotion that it was already dark, in spite of Mr. Sterne's good-morning at parting, and that some one might speak to her on the way to the river; and then she thought how Maxwell ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... was a movement among the elders, and Lord Silverbridge soon found himself walking alone with Miss Boncassen. It seemed to her to be quite natural to do so, and there certainly was no reason why he should decline anything so pleasant. It was thus that he had intended to walk with Mabel Grex;—only as yet he had not found her. "Oh yes," said Miss Boncassen, when they had been together about twenty minutes; "we shall be here all the summer, and all the fall, and all the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... research and almost our conjecture; which things the generality of philosophers (for the generality are speculative) deem of the first importance. Questions relating to them I answer evasively, or altogether decline. Again, there are modes of living which are suitable to some and unsuitable to others. What I myself follow and embrace, what I recommend to the studious, to the irritable, to the weak in health, would ill agree with the commonality of citizens. Yet my adversaries ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... the provinces or from other lands; the next floor had been divided into a succession of private rooms, comfortably furnished, where, screened behind thick curtains, dined somewhat "irregular" patrons: lovers who were in either the dawn, the zenith, or the decline of their often ephemeral fancies. On the top floor, spacious salons, richly decorated, were used for large and elaborate receptions of ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... there lay for two days and nights, without eating a morsel of food. The poor Princess Helena, almost prostrated by the blow, mourned alone, or with Boris, in her own apartments. Her influence, no longer kept alive by her constant presence, as formerly, began to decline. When the old Prince aroused somewhat from his stupor, it was not meat that he demanded, but drink; and he drank to angry excess. Day after day the habit resumed its ancient sway, and the whip and the wild-beast yell returned with it. The serfs even began to tremble as they ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... to allow discipline to decline, or discouragement to grow among the crew; so that, on the 7th of January, Captain Len Guy at my request assembled the men and addressed them ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... Gentlemen should decline an invitation to spend the evening when making a first visit; indeed, such an invitation ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... subtle Spirits he called That near him stood, and gave them thus in charge. Ithuriel and Zephon, with winged speed Search through this garden, leave unsearched no nook; But chiefly where those two fair creatures lodge, Now laid perhaps asleep, secure of harm. This evening from the sun's decline arrived, Who tells of some infernal Spirit seen Hitherward bent (who could have thought?) escaped The bars of Hell, on errand bad no doubt: Such, where ye find, seise fast, and hither bring. So saying, on he led his radiant files, Dazzling the moon; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... those of the old school—that does not necessarily mean that the new tendency is bad and wrong. Any change in fundamentals is apt to be upsetting, for the time being. The new way, in the end, may really be better than the old, and represent progress. Or it may mean deterioration and decline. It will be time enough to discuss that phase of the question, after we have made sure that we thoroughly understand what it is, that has ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... remembered with misgiving some things which at the time had seemed regular and right enough, but which took on a different color in the light in which he found himself recalling them. He debated with himself whether he should not decline to send Mrs. Cullom the notice as he had been instructed, and left it an open question when he ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... since, at this hour. There are now Nine upon our List. What the thoughts of the Dominus Rex may be farther? The Dominus Rex, thanking graciously, sends out word that we shall now strike off three. The three strangers are instantly struck off. Willelmus Sacrista adds, that he will of his own accord decline,—a touch of grace and respect for the Sacrosancta, even in Willelmus! The King then orders us to strike off a couple more; then yet one more: Hugo Third-Prior goes, and Roger Cellerarius, and venerable Monk Dennis;—and now there remain on our List two only, Samson ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... superior to our own maidens? No evidence has been produced from literature, from journals, from family correspondence, and I am pretty certain that no evidence exists. Practically speaking, the complaints of the decline of morality are merely uttered as a mode of showing the talker's ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... 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 ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... anticipated, by a well-bred man. You must never usurp to yourself those conveniences and agremens which are of common right; such as the best places, the best dishes, &c. but, on the contrary, always decline themself yourself, and offer them to others; who, in their turns, will offer them to you: so that, upon the whole, you will, in your turn, enjoy your share ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... praise, O Cheronean Sage, is thine. '(Why should this praise to thee alone belong!) 'All else from Nature's moral path decline, 'Lured by the toys that captivate the throng; 'To herd in cabinets and camps, among 'Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride; 'Or chaunt of heraldry the drowsy song, 'How tyrant blood, o'er many a region wide, 'Rolls to a thousand thrones its ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... plot, nor envy, nor sedition in the state, for the love of virtue and the serenity of spirit of the king flowed down upon all the happy subjects. In due time, after a long reign and a peaceful and useful life, Numa died, not by disease or war, but by the natural decline of his faculties. The people mourned for him heartily and honored him with ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... Provinces in October 1905, and the two Uriya-speaking states of Gangpur and Bonai were attached to the Orissa Tributary States. There now remain, therefore, only the two states of Kharsawan and Saraikela. At the decline of the Mahratta power in the early part of the 19th century, the Chota Nagpur states came under British protection. Before the rise of the British power in India their chiefs exercised almost absolute sovereignty in their ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... or attempted purchases or transfers; (B) the appropriate course of action to be taken by the ammonium nitrate facility owner with respect to such a purchase or transfer or attempted purchase or transfer, including— (i) exercising the right of the owner of the ammonium nitrate facility to decline sale of ammonium nitrate; and (ii) notifying appropriate law enforcement entities; and (C) additional subjects determined appropriate to prevent the misappropriation or use of ammonium nitrate in an act of terrorism. (2) Use of materials and programs.—In providing guidance ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... many 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, I would scarcely be justified in consulting ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... meditating, without having any capacity for thinking; and in such men a particular notion easily fixes itself fast, which may be regarded as a mental disease. To such a fixed view he always came back again, and was thus in the long run excessively tiresome. He would bitterly complain of the decline of his memory, especially with regard to the latest events, and maintained, by a logic of his own, that all virtue springs from a good memory, and all vice, on the contrary, from forgetfulness. This doctrine he contrived to carry out with much acuteness; ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... disowned by the latter. The spirit of rhetoric was soon to overspread all Hellas; and Plato with prophetic insight may have seen, from afar, the great literary waste or dead level, or interminable marsh, in which Greek literature was soon to disappear. A similar vision of the decline of the Greek drama and of the contrast of the old literature and the new was present to the mind of Aristophanes after the death of the three great tragedians (Frogs). After about a hundred, or at most two hundred years ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... benefactors of the human race, M. de Moltke goes on to declare that it is not the rulers, but the peoples, who want war to-day. In Germany, it is "the cupidity of the classes whom fate has neglected"; it is also the socialists who decline to vote more soldiers because they desire to trouble the world's peace and expect "to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives in the next war and to threaten the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... that is not yours; or the delusion which makes you hope for ampler privileges in that country hereafter. Tell us; which is the white man, who, with a prudent regard to his own character, can associate one of you on terms of equality? Ask us which is the white man who would decline such association with one of our number, whose intellectual and moral qualities are not an objection? To both of these questions we unhesitatingly make the same answer: there is no such ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... threatened with decadence more owing to the Peace Treaties than as a result of the War. She is in a state of daily increasing decline, and the causes ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... one more anecdote of a dog, for the present; and that is one for the truth of which I distinctly decline to vouch. It was imparted to me by a calker, who owned a woolly French poodle, which remarkable animal, he informed me, used to swim out regularly once a week,—on Saturday evenings, I think he said,—with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... young besom- maker, now residing at Linton in Craven, who for some years past has himself been one of these rustic actors. From the allusion to the pace, or paschal-egg, it is evident that the play was originally an Easter pageant, which, in consequence of the decline of the gorgeous rites formerly connected with that season, has been transferred to Christmas, the only festival which, in the rural districts of Protestant England, is observed after the olden fashion. The maskers generally consist of five characters, one of whom officiates in the threefold ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... about the probability of his reelection; but with friends he made no secret of his readiness to continue the work he was engaged in if such should be the general wish. "A second term would be a great honor and a great labor; which together, perhaps, I would not decline," he wrote to one of them. He discouraged officeholders, either civil or military, who showed any special zeal in his behalf. To General Schurz, who wrote asking permission to take an active part in the ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... been without any regular, certain course of elevation or decline, we may hope that the British fortune may fluctuate also; because the public mind, which greatly influences that fortune, may have its changes. We are therefore never authorized to abandon our country to its fate, or to act or advise as if it had no resource. There ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... afforded, that his was no barren admiration. "You are in want of money," said he, "I will buy your rod." I hardly know how I looked when this proposition came forth with all imaginable solemnity, but I made haste to decline it, and he had too much native good breeding to ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... stood, a way-worn company, looking at those faint and formidable shapes that blocked their path to the Promised Land. It was a sight to daunt the most high-hearted, and they stared, dropping ejaculations that told of the first decline of spirit. Only the sick woman said nothing. Her languid eye swept the prospect indifferently, her spark of life burning too feebly to permit of any useless expenditure. It was the strange man who encouraged them. They would pass the mountains without effort, the ascent ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... sufficient object of existence. Alas! how cruelly different is the feeble attachment that I have inspired from that all-powerful sentiment to which I live a victim! Countless symptoms, by you unheeded, mark to my love-watchful eye the decline of passion. How often am I secretly shocked by the cold carelessness of your words and manner! How often does the sigh burst from my bosom, the tear fall from my eye, when you have left me at leisure to recall, by memory's torturing power, instances of your increasing indifference! Seek not to calm ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Of course she was uneasy about him; that entered into her role of model spouse: but the excellent lady never suspected the true cause of that habit of sadness which had grown upon her husband during the last few years, a melancholy which anticipated his decline in health. John Jacks had made the mistake natural to such a man; wedding at nearly sixty a girl of much less than half his age, he found, of course, that his wife had nothing to give him but duty and respect, and before ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... described as commercial, we shall find an affirmative answer to be more than dubious. The law was a dead letter when Cicero indicted Verres,[104] but its demise may have been reached through a long and slow process of decline. But, even if the provisions of the law had been adhered to throughout the period which we are considering, the avenue to wealth derived from business intercourse with the provinces would not necessarily ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... a long, cold look. "And if I decline your hand, you will revenge yourself, will you not, by displaying my note to the Emperor and the whole world, you will defame me and all my house? Was not ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... last years shows a diminution, and he thinks the trade to be on the decline. But this evidently arises from the Bornouese caravan being intercepted, or the traffic interrupted by the fugitive Arabs on the route. There has been no large caravan from Bornou for three years. And Mr. Gagliuffi considers the route at the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... people thought to humbug the hard-headed man from the North, he succeeded on one occasion in completely silencing his chief enemy, O'Halloran. That lover of paradox and idle speculation was tracing the decline of superstition to the introduction of the use of steam, and was showing how, wherever railways went in India, ghosts disappeared; whereupon the Darlington man calmly retorted that, as far as he could see, the railways in this country were engaged in making ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... be avenged; of Xenophanes of Elea who had to witness the devastation of his fatherland by Cyrus; of Zeno tortured; of Socrates put to death by poison; of Plato dreaming during the rule of the Thirty Tyrants; of Marcus Aurelius, sustaining the empire whose decline was at hand. Let us think of those who watched the ruin of the old world; of the bishop of Hippo dying when his city was about to fall before the onslaught of the Vandals; of the monks who, in a Europe peopled with wolves, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions. Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting sun,—where and what is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has travelled in the paths worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... sustain Spain's strong economic growth. Despite the economy's relative solid footing significant downside risks remain, including Spain's continued loss of competitiveness, the potential for a housing market collapse, the country's changing demographic profile and a decline in EU structural funds. ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... together majestically. "This is too gross!" she cried. "We decline to accept your story, sir—we repudiate it. Urbain, open the door." She turned away, with an imperious motion to her son, and passed rapidly down the length of the room. The marquis went with her and held the door open. Newman ...
— The American • Henry James
... crumbling pillars—all these are desolate enough; but then, their condition is picturesque: and I doubt whether Marius in the capitol, and the Coliseum newly finished, and the Temple at the time of its consecration, were half such interesting objects as in the days of their decline and fall. But to me the true representative of desolation was the long tufts of grass that grew in old Frank Edwards's stable-yard, the weeds that choked up the hall door, and the broken panes of the great dining-room windows—the spacious yard, the hospitable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... less than a delusion. If production should be quadrupled,—a thing which does not seem to me at all impossible,—it would be labor lost: if the additional product was not consumed, it would be of no value, and the proprietor would decline to receive it as interest; if it was consumed, all the disadvantages of property would reappear. It must be confessed that the theory of passional attraction is gravely at fault in this particular, and that Fourier, when he tried to harmonize the PASSION for property,—a bad passion, whatever ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... appropriately styled, and defended it with equal logic and grace whenever it was assailed. The young gentlemen when in the society of the young ladies generally join them in this unique use of snuff, as they are always sure to be invited and urged if they decline, and to merit their favor of course they must appear social. I believe, in credit to their taste, however, that they really prefer a good cigar, and think it more in keeping with their ideas of manhood and neatness. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... the course of last session. Upon many of these no calls have yet been made, and consequently they are still open to every kind of fluctuation. It cannot, therefore, be said that they have settled down to their true estimated value, and, in all probability, erelong some may decline to a certain degree. Still it is very remarkable, and certainly corroborative of our view, that the amazing influx of new schemes during the last few months—which, time and circumstance considered, may be fairly denominated a craze—has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... squire," remarked Bagby, with a grin. "Lastly, we don't want to be represented in Assembly by such a king's man, and so you're to decline a poll." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the history of those genii of light who strayed from their dwellings in the stars and obscured their original nature by mixture with this material sphere; while the Egyptians connecting it with the descent and ascent of the sun in the zodiac considered Autumn as emblematic of the Soul's decline toward darkness and the re-appearance of Spring as its return ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in progress of fatal tendency to the Post-office Department, and its decay has commenced. Unless arrested by vigorous legislation, it must soon cease to be a self-sustaining institution, and either be cast on the treasury for support, or suffered to decline from year to year, till the system has become incompetent and useless. The last annual report of the Postmaster-General shows that, notwithstanding the heavy retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of the department, for the year ending June 30th, 1843, exceeded its income by the sum ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... and elegant historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, we are told that "In the decline of the Roman empire, the proud distinctions of the republic were gradually abolished; and the reason or instinct of Justinian completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy. The emperor ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... seasons; for see how, in the great human family, the innocent suffer for the guilty; and not only are the sins of the fathers visited upon the children, but my sins are visited upon your children, and your sins upon some one else's children; so that, if we decline a brotherhood of mutual blessing and honour, we alternatively accept one of mutual injury and ignominy. Eternal justice is in no hurry for recognition, but flesh and blood will assuredly tire before that principle tires. It is precisely in relation ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... easiest or safest in the situation given. Points of dignity only arise between those who are, or assume to be, equals. Indeed, nothing is at times so contemptuous as compliance. It indicates not merely a consciousness of strength, but of strength so superior as to decline comparison ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... warfare are practically 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
... often deplorably misused. One detestable custom, originally borrowed from France, is that of "padding" a journal with tenth-rate novels, pointless anecdotes and would-be humorous feuilletons, such as the weakest "comic annual" would decline without thanks. Another failing of Russian journalism is its fondness for the tu-quoque style of argument, retorting every mention of Poland by an allusion to Ireland. But, despite all this, there is much hope for the future of Russian journalism. It is no slight gain that, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... aware that there are those who decline to admit any influence of mental heredity, and argue that environment is the only factor to be considered. In a clever and well-reasoned work on the subject I lately read, this proposition was substantiated ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... simple, Mr. Gleason. You are believed to be the accuser of Mr. Ray at a moment when it is certain the regiment is going to be so far away that its officers cannot be present at the court,—may not even be able to communicate with it. If you decline to indicate what you know to Major Stannard and me, who are his friends, the immediate protest of the regiment against your conduct must go to headquarters with the request that the court be held until we can appear before it. More than that, in two days we will reach the general commanding ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... that 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 had done so. He quoted history and recent events: ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... 'one man alone' shall interpret Christ's teaching to us of the Roman following,—and this man an old frail teacher, whose bodily and intellectual powers are, in the course of nature, steadily on the decline. Why we ask, must an aged man be always elected to decide on the teaching of the ever-young and deathless Christ?—to whom the burden of years was unknown, and whose immortal spirit, cased for a while in clay, saw ever the rapt vision of 'old things ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... to pay his tribute to that anticipated death which is called the absence of those we love. Returned to his house at Blois, no longer having even Grimaud to receive a poor smile when he passed through the parterre, Athos daily felt the decline of the vigor of a nature which for so long a time had appeared infallible. Age, which had been kept back by the presence of the beloved object, arrived with that cortege of pains and inconveniences, which increases in proportion ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... colour; the gold and the rose has faded away with the truer light, and a stern realism takes its place. The human form must be expressed, in all its solidity and truth, not only in its outward semblance, but the hidden soul must be seen through the veil of flesh. And in this lies the reason of the decline; only to a few great masters it was given to reveal spirituality in humanity—the others could only emulate form and colour, ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... basis for legislative action at this time, the aggregate of votes was 5,905. Sincerely anxious for the welfare and prosperity of every Territory and State, as well as for the prosperity and welfare of the whole Union, I regret this apparent decline of population in Colorado; but it is manifest that it is due to emigration which is going on from that Territory into other regions within the United States, which either are in fact or are believed by the inhabitants of Colorado to be richer ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... "I must decline to answer," he said gravely, after a pause. "I understand that you are twenty-three and old enough therefore to judge for yourself, and I do not intend to influence either you or Jean, if I can help it. You will be perfectly free to do exactly what you think right, my dear girl. I will only give ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... of their will and feelings and character; but the history of free thought points to that which has been the product of their characters, the doctrines which they have taught. Science however no less than piety would decline entirely to separate the two;(14) piety, because, though admitting the possibility that a judgment may be formed in the abstract on free thought, it would feel itself constantly drawn into the inquiry of the moral responsibility of the freethinker ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... was right in his surmise, for the time glided on, with the stars rising to the zenith and beginning to decline. The heavens had never seemed more beautiful, being one grand dome of sparkling incrustations. The atmosphere was so clear that it seemed to those who lay back watching as if the dazzling points of light formed by the stars of the first magnitude stood out alone in the midst ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... people were kind and friendly. They informed me there was no other colored family in the city, but my step-mother was continually crowded with friends and customers without distinction. My step-mother had buried her only son, who returned from the war in a decline. The white friends were all in deep sympathy with them. I felt immediately at home among such kind and friendly people, and have never felt homesick, except when I think of my poor mother's farewell embrace when she accompanied ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... wonderfully exact and exhaustive knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical powers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Commonwealth. "Dr. Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the introduction, "though the production of a man of most profound and extensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for the professional ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... of this period complain of the decline of the Christmas celebrations during the time of the Commonwealth, and some of them contrast the present with former celebrations. In a ballad called "The Old and Young Courtier," printed in 1670, comparing the times of Queen Elizabeth with ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... time when Richard Grant would have desired no better fun than to engage in such a mutiny as that proposed by Nevers and Redman; and he was not yet so far removed from his evil propensities as to be able to decline the proposition. The boys of the Institute believed they had a real grievance, for it seemed harsh and needless to deprive them of some of their best hours for amusement. It looked just as though the principal was angry because he could not ascertain who ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... consideration," pursued Heliet. "If I mistake not—to alter the figure—we have arrived at different points in our education. If one of us can but decline 'puer,' while the other is half through the syntax, is it any wonder if the same lesson be not given to us to learn? Dear Clarice, all God's children need keeping down. I have been kept down all these years by my physical sufferings. That is not appointed to thee; thou art tried ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... many feet; the upper limbs are irregularly disposed, not whorled; they strike downward from the start (so that it is almost impossible to climb one of the trees for want of foothold), then curving outward to the outline of the tree, they are terminated by short, hairy branchlets that decline gracefully, and are decorated with pendant cones which are glaucous purple until maturity, then leather brown, ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... longer in his refusal; and indeed it had been far more a feeling of pride than of justice that made him decline accepting it at first. Nor was there any generosity in Mr. Arnold's cheque; for Hugh, as he admitted, might have claimed board and lodging as well. But Mr. Arnold was one of the ordinarily honourable, who, with perfect characters for uprightness, always contrive to err on the safe side of the purse, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... to trust in appearances, and that he has no servant more faithful than I. The Cardinal is on the decline, and my conscience tells me to warn against his faults him who may inherit the royal power during the minority. To give your great Prince a proof of my faith, tell him that it is intended to arrest his friend, Puy-Laurens, and that he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... life of the group. Wives can be got abroad, either by capture or contract, only by those who command respect for their power or who use power. On the other hand, endogamy is both cause and effect of weakness and proceeds with decline. Some cases will be given below in which incestuous marriages occur where the parties are unable to obtain any other wives. Neglect of the incest taboo is rather a symptom than a ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... education and nature had never prepared for much hard encounter. But, though I saw these proofs of feebleness—of a feebleness that might have occasioned reasonable apprehensions of premature decay, and possibly very rapid decline—there were little circumstances constantly occurring—looks shown, words spoken—which kept up the irritation of my soul, and prevented me from doing justice to her enfeebled condition. My sympathies were absorbed in my suspicions. My heart was the debateable land of ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Nelson was much gratified by this capture, which reduced the number of French ships that had escaped at the battle off the Nile to the single one of Le Guillaume Tell, then blocked up at Malta, his health appeared daily on the decline. Still, however, his spirits seem to have remained lively; for, in writing on the occasion, to Palermo, he desires Prince Leopold will tell his august father, that he is, he believes, the first Duke of Bronte who ever took ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... was who had disappointed Mrs. Poppit could be thought out later: at present, as Miss Mapp smiled at Withers and hummed her tune again, she had to settle whether she was going to be delighted to accept, or obliged to decline. The argument in favour of being obliged to decline was obvious: Mrs. Poppit deserved to be "served out" for not including her among the original guests, and if she declined it was quite probable that at this late hour her hostess might not be able to get anyone else, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... different names, sir; and, although I may happen to know his right one, you will excuse me if I decline to tell it," answered Dillon, the dark frown still resting on his brow as he spoke.—"His present followers know him as Manuel Bermudez; but he has not a drop of Spanish blood in his veins, ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... had hoped that you came here from a higher motive. It will do you no good to know, and I therefore decline telling you." ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... colorless lips which we more often see, indicate weakly constitutions and delicate health, and prophesy a short and suffering life to many. Various causes are at work to produce this unfortunate decline; and while we hope that in the larger share of cases, bad diet, improper clothing, confinement in poorly ventilated rooms with too little exercise, and similar causes, are the active agents, we are obliged to recognize the fact ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Daphne, after she represented to him what he was losing by such lack of resignation, when the time of rest had come for which he longed, but from which many things still withheld him. Yesterday the King had invited him to the palace for the first time, and to decline ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent banker at Birmingham. Four sons survived him. He died, after a gradual decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his orders were disregarded, in compliance with a memorial addressed to his relatives ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... together of politics, of the state of the relations between England and America, of the court to which Redclyffe was accredited; sometimes Redclyffe tried to lead the conversation to the family topics, nor, in truth, did Lord Braithwaite seem to decline his lead; although it was observable that very speedily the conversation would be found turned upon some other subject, to which it had swerved aside by subtle underhand movements. Yet Redclyffe was not the less determined, and at no distant period, to bring up the subject on which his ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this art. And with such a purpose in view, I have chosen, or surrendered myself to, a theme that might well be said to lie outside the partisan strife of the day: for the problem of social ascendancy or decline, of higher or lower, of better or worse, of men or women, is, has been, and will be of lasting interest. In selecting this theme from real life, as it was related to me a number of years ago, when the incident impressed me very deeply, I found it suited ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... judgment on that side called protestors, and therefore was in the beginning of the year 1661. deposed by the synod of Ross, because he would not decline that party judicially; and afterward when he knew he was to be put out of the charge at Killearn anno 1662. he had a farewell sermon to them, where, with the apostle Paul, he took God and their own consciences to witness that he had not shunned to declare the whole counsel of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... confession and bear it, and that all who pray for and claim in faith God's reviving power for His Church, shall humble themselves with the confession of its sins. The need of revival always points to previous decline; and decline was always caused by sin. Humiliation and contrition have ever been the conditions of revival. In all intercession confession of man's sin and God's righteous judgment is ever an ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... best you can get, by any means," insisted Purcell. "I decline the honor for that reason, and also because I don't want the ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... Austria was to be offered the Danubian Provinces upon condition of giving up northern Italy; that Piedmont was to receive Lombardy, and in return to surrender Savoy to France; that, if Austria should decline to unite actively with the Western Powers, revolutionary movements were to be stirred up in Italy and in Hungary. Such reports kindled the King's rage. "Be under no illusion," he wrote to his ambassador; "tell the British Ministers in their private ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... occidental Russia, thus ravaged by interminable wars, desolated by famine and by flame, was rapidly on the decline, and was fast lapsing into barbarism. Davidovitch had hardly ascended the throne ere he was driven from it by Rostislaf, whom Georges had dethroned. But the remote province of Souzdal, of which Moscow was the capital, situated some seven hundred miles north-east of Kief, was now emerging from ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... Representations one of the principal Causes of the Decline, Degeneracy, and Corruption ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... tawdry. In these observations, although they were furiously resented at the time, Cooper was probably correct. There was a period of about fifty years in the nineteenth century, when, in the development of material resources, there was a large indifference to manners in America, and a decline in the love for beautiful things and in the power to create them. This period of neglect toward the refinements of life set in at just about the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... the power, he could serve his country with manifest advantage to her interests. At this juncture the offer of the King was renewed. It came now just at the right time, and the young statesman was found as ready to accept as he had before been prompt to decline. Mr. Pitt became the Prime-Minister of George III., and henceforth his history is blended with the movements ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... himself and his possessions to the suite of rooms immediately below. This comprised the Gun-Room, a bed and dressing-room, and a fourth room connecting with the offices, which came in handy for his valet. Since his decline upon this more commodious apartment, the old nursery had stood vacant. Katherine could not find it in her heart to touch it. It was furnished now as in Dickie's childish days, when, night and morning, she had visited it to make sure of her darling's health ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... is on the increase, you may let blood at any time day or night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... progress of the seasons, the birth of vegetation in spring, or its revival after the autumn rains, its glorious fruition in early summer, its decline and death under the maleficent influence either of the scorching sun, or the bitter winter cold, symbolically represented the corresponding stages in the life of this anthropomorphically conceived Being, whose annual ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... Empire. And why? I have been years negotiating my exchange, and it cannot be managed; those who have influence at the Ministry of War continually rush in before me, and I have to wait, and my daughter at home is in a decline. I am going to see my daughter at last, and it is my only concern lest I should have delayed too long. She is ill, and very ill,—at death's door. Nothing is left me but my daughter, my Emperor, and my honour; and I give my honour, blame me for ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prisons for the European ambassadors during tumults or in the event of hostilities, I think the sooner the remaining five tumble down the better; for the European powers will certainly not brook such an insult from the Turks, now in the day of their decline. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... properly—four children! All that is necessary to begin with. They are such convenient excuses. To be a good Prefect one must have four children. They are inexhaustible pretexts for escaping social horrors; if you wish to decline a compromising invitation, your dear little girl has got the whooping cough; when you wish to avoid dining a friend in transitu, your eldest son has a dreadful fever; you desire to escape a banquet unadorned by the presence of the big-wigs—brilliant idea! ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad |
