"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and repaired the mahogany cruiser, and she had passed into other hands. When Betty and her father came to Cradle Bay they came on a cannery tender or a hired launch. MacRae hoped it might be true that Gower was slipping, that he had helped to start him on this decline. ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the place was low, And that you kept bad wine: So, as a Phantom had to go, And I was first, of course, you know, I couldn't well decline." ...
— Phantasmagoria and Other Poems • Lewis Carroll
... are which I cannot explain, because I do not understand them; these might have been omitted very often with little inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity, as to decline this confession; for when Tully owns himself ignorant whether lessus, in the twelve tables, means a funeral song, or mourning garment; and Aristotle doubts whether [Greek: oureus] in the Iliad, signifies a mule, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Despite the steady decline in the gold output of late years, a drop of from twenty millions down to four or five, there is little visible decay in its trade, and despite stampedes to new diggings all over Alaska, there is no marked visible diminution ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... of its wealth, its industry, its banks, its luxury, its agriculture. The ruin of Leipsic, of Lisbon, and of Lima has led to bankruptcies on all the exchanges of Europe, and has affected the fortunes of many millions of persons."[191] In the same spirit he foresees the decline of patriotism in its older and narrower sense, and the predominance of the international over the national sentiment. "All nations now have sufficiently just ideas of their neighbours, and consequently they have less enthusiasm ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... dressed very respectably, with crape and green ribbons round their caps. These were followed by a number of rather elderly men, probably the parents of the children far ahead. At this portion of the procession, a mile from the point, they marched four deep, there having been a gradual decline from the front. Next came the bricklayers' band all dressed in green caps, a very superior-looking body of men. Then followed a very imposing well-kept line, composed of young men of the better class, well attired and respectable ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... informed that Ord, in a conversation relating to "the possibility of arriving at a satisfactory adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties by means of a military convention," had stated that if Lee desired an interview with Grant on the subject, the latter would not decline, provided Lee had authority to act. Lee, in his letter, said he was fully authorized in the premises, and proposed a meeting at the place proposed by Ord and Longstreet, on Monday the 6th. Accompanying Lee's letters was the usual "by-play" letter on an immaterial ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... selfish thing in the world is to give way to depression, to think of one's troubles at all except of how to overcome them. I spend many delightful hours thinking of the pleasant and beautiful things of life. I decline to waste a single second even in considering the ugly ones. Do you know that this becomes ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... your good intention, but I must decline your offer. I have a friend who would be uneasy were he to hear that I am hurt and away from him. The injury is but slight, and the bullet has missed the bones; but I believe, sir, you will now admit me ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... half talking and half shouting, now came stumbling and panting up over the edge of the wooded decline where the thick brush had played havoc with his scout suit but ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... brief day knew no decline— 'Twas cloudless joy; Sunrise and night alone were thine, Beloved boy! This morn beheld thee blithe and gay; That found thee prostrate in decay; And ere a third shone, clay ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... become exhausted, be it soon or late, he would be a wise or, perhaps, a rash speculator who fixed himself to a year or a generation. Being inevitable, the best philosophy is to make our decline more gradual and less bitter. Sentimental regrets that these hills and valleys will no longer resound with the din of labor, or be blackened by the smoke of the factory, would surely be out of place. What we ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... colony at Marseilles was probably in decline when, in B.C. 599, a Greek fleet left the port of Phocaea, one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, seeking new homes in the West. The colony was under the command of an adventurer named Protis. Attracted by the Bay of Marseilles, and the basin surrounded by hills ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... His earnest attention to sermons, his occasional remarks on their evangelical and practical character as profitable, and his prayerful reading of the Bible, showed the influence divine truth was exerting upon him. The sickness and rapid decline of his brother Joseph was to him most affecting, as they had grown up from childhood together in uninterrupted intercourse and love. In his feeble state of health, he saw his beloved brother hastening to death and the grave, while their dear mother was yearning ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... trustful expectation he does not again decline. Prayer has brought its chiefest blessing—the peace that passeth understanding. The foe is lost to sight, the fear conquered conclusively by faith; the psalm which begins with a plaintive cry, ends in praise for deliverance, as if it had ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... Though the decline in trade on account of the war caused widespread unemployment, the sending off of 75,000 men eased matters considerably. As these men were paid at almost the same rate as their ordinary wage, and as a big proportion of their pay was held in Australia, the war did not hit the Commonwealth ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... money; it was not my all," replied Mr Benson; and then he went on as if the interruption had never been: "Against an habitual offender. I shall not prosecute Richard. Not because he is your son—do not imagine that! I should decline taking such a step against any young man without first ascertaining the particulars about him, which I know already about Richard, and which determine me against doing what would blast his character for life—would destroy every ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... which they attend is but a fallen University; it has doubtless some remains of good, for human institutions decline by gradual stages; but decline, in spite of all seeming embellishments, it does; and, what is perhaps more singular, began to do so when I ceased to be a student. Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very last of the very best of Alma Mater; the same thing, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to bring me to condign punishment; and if you allow a criminal to escape unpunished, you are not only unworthy of a place in the commission, but become accessory to his guilt, and, to all intents and purposes, socius criminis. With respect to your proffered mercy, I shall decline the favour; nor do I deserve any indulgence at your hands, for, depend upon it, I shall show no mercy to you in the steps I intend to take for bringing you to justice. I understand that you have been long hackneyed in the ways of oppression, and I have seen some living monuments ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the future. He never painted his own portrait, and no one else seemed to consider him worth while; his income was barely sufficient for his wants. He was so big that following fast upon his life came a lamentable decline in art: his personality being so great that his son and a goodly flock of disciples tried to paint just like him. All originality faded out of the fabric of their lives, and they were only cheap, tawdry and dispirited imitators. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... this time to visit Queen Victoria, but was informed by Lord Salisbury that Her Majesty's health had already obliged her to decline other visits and she was therefore unable ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... first professor of Greek teaching alpha, beta, gamma to hundreds of eager young men, begging their way to the city of the Arno, living in stables and in dingy attics that they night learn how to decline the verb [gr paidenw paideneis paidenei] and enter into the companionship ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... that had displeased him in the sports soon led him to decline the company of those who indulged in them. From the low-minded, from the uncultivated, from the unrefined in mind and manner, and such there are in the highest class of society, as well as in the ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... excellence betray; O could I Write in thy Immortal Way! If Art be Nature's Scholar, and can make Such vast improvements, Nature must forsake Her Ancient Style; and in some grand Design She must her Own Originals decline, And for the Noblest Copies follow Thine. Pardon this just transition to thy Praise, Which Young ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... be, but I have only your word for that. I decline to sign anything I do not understand. It ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... other circumstances is laudable conduct. No sooner do they arrive than they offer to purchase food, and, instead of waiting till a meal is prepared for them in the evening, cook for themselves, and then often decline even to partake of that which has been made ready for their use. A present is also given, and before long the natives come to expect a gift without having ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... half so much as the speech misrepresents the soul. Monsieur Rostand showed even more than his usual insight when he called "Cyrano de Bergerac" a comedy, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, it ends with disappointment and death. The essence of tragedy is a spiritual breakdown or decline, and in the great French play the spiritual sentiment mounts unceasingly until the last line. It is not the facts themselves, but our feeling about them, that makes tragedy and comedy, and death is more joyful in Rostand than life in Maeterlinck. The same apparent contradiction ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... Abercrombie, breaking in upon the oppressive silence that succeeded, after all had retired for the night but herself and husband, "that the mother of Edward Wilson is very poor and in a decline?" ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... American Republic contains many climates in its vast area, there may be parts of it which are perfectly healthy for Anglo-Saxons, and other parts where they cannot live without degenerating. Very few athletes, we are told, come from south of the fortieth parallel of latitude. But the decline in the birth-rate is most marked in the older colonies, the New England States, where for a long period the English colonists, living mainly on the land, not only throve and developed a singularly virile type of humanity, ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... monopolized by a victorious party as by a privileged class; the government of the day had little interest in maintaining the system, the bulk of the nation had a direct interest in upsetting it, and its downfall was a natural result of the growth of popular power and the decline of aristocracy. Our system, however similar in its character and effects, had no such origin; it does not belong to some peculiar institution which we are seeking to get rid of: on the contrary, it has its roots in certain conceptions of the nature of government ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... 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, I can ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... recesses of that wood; animated by this thought I limped on with renewed energy. What had seemed so near to my vision was in reality quite distant, as I found in my endeavor to reach it; for the sun had begun to decline behind the horizon when I reached the belt of timber. Entering this leafy solitude, I had not advanced many steps when my ears were gladdened by the sound of running water. With an exclamation of joy I ran to the banks of the arroyo (as by this name these little streams ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... fully informed of the nature of Governor Phillip's commission, he gave it out in orders to the garrison that the same honours should be paid to that officer as to himself. This distinction the Governor modestly wished to decline, but was not permitted. His officers were all introduced to the Viceroy, and were, as well as himself, received with every possible mark of attention to them, and regard for their country. They were ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... sturdy, natural-minded population of a muling village not far from Bursley. Seldom have I had such a bath in the pure fluid of human nature. All sense of time was lost. I lived in an eternity. I could not suggest to my host that we should depart. I could, however, decline more whisky. And I could, given the chance, discourse with gay despair concerning the miserable wreck that I should be on the morrow in consequence of this high living. I asked them how I could be expected, in such a state, to judge delicate ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... lived to see the decline and fall of that peculiar and powerful art of book illustration which was introduced by Cruikshank; was fostered and encouraged by Charles Dickens, Charles James Lever, their imitators and contemporaries; and died, so to speak, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Agriculture, dominated by banana production, is the most important sector of the economy. The services sector, based mostly on a growing tourist industry, is also important. In 1993, economic growth slowed to 1.4%, reflecting a sharp decline in agricultural production caused by drought. The government has been relatively unsuccessful at introducing new industries, and high ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... savage's total supply of food. AB will represent the utility of the first unit; CD of the hundredth. If we supply the food unit by unit, the utility of the successive increments will decline along the curve BC. When the man has a hundred units of food, no one unit of it is worth any more than the last one, since if any one were taken away, the last one could be put in the ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... which, however, the natural strength of her constitution would have enabled her in some degree to rally; but the springs of life had been injured by previous bereavement. Her lungs became affected, and the symptoms of decline rapidly and fatally increased from continual ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company to the act approved March 3, 1901, under which act this board has the power to appoint one member of all committees authorized to award prizes for such exhibits as may have been produced in whole or in part by women. The board of lady managers decline to accept the amendment of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company to this act of Congress expressed in a resolution of the executive committee of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, as follows: ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... am, back again here, dear master, and not very happy; my mother worries me. Her decline increases from day to day, and almost from hour to hour. She wanted me to come home although the painters have not finished their work, and we are very inconveniently housed. At the end of next week, she will have a companion who will relieve ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... have resolved to leave you, and return to Europe. You know my reasons. I am not a companion, but only a drag upon you; besides, my mother is left unprotected. You will excuse me if I decline to enter into a discussion on this point. I have not strength for it, and my ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the ordinances of religion is the cause of the greatness of a State, so their neglect is the occasion of its decline; since a kingdom without the fear of God must either fall to pieces, or must be maintained by the fear of some prince who supplies that influence not supplied by religion. But since the lives of princes are short, the life of this prince, also, and with ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... most foully treasonable. That in speaking to him, the King, they should give To' Raja—the vassal he had been at such pains to humble—a royal title equal to his own, was in itself bad enough. But that, not content with this outrage, they should decline to acknowledge the Bendahara as both Master and Chief was the sorest offence of all. A man may own duty to any Chief he pleases, until such time as he comes into the presence of his King, who is the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... sorry I cannot accept the honour," replied King Charming. "A monarch is surely at liberty to form his own engagements. I know what is a knight's duty to his lady, and should wish to fulfil it; as I cannot fulfil it to Troutina, I would rather decline the favour she offers me than ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... perfectly DRESSED if she has two. There is a difference in features and expression—much exaggerated, however, by Japanese artists—between the faces of high-born women and those of the middle and lower classes. I decline to admire fat-faces, pug noses, thick lips, long eyes, turned up at the outer corners, and complexions which owe much to powder and paint. The habit of painting the lips with a reddish-yellow pigment, and of heavily powdering the face and throat with pearl ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... beloved in the county, and has done much for the labourers, nor upon her own lands only. If she had the full power she would do yet better. But of course it is very doubtful whether she will accept it. Should she decline it, I shall try to manage it myself—leaving it to her, with reversion to the man, whoever he may be, whom I shall choose to ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Fortune is to be honored and respected, and it be but for her daughters, Confidence and Reputation. For those two, Felicity breedeth; the first within a man's self, the latter in others towards him. All wise men, to decline the envy of their own virtues, use to ascribe them to Providence and Fortune; for so they may the better assume them: and, besides, it is greatness in a man, to be the care of the higher powers. So Caesar said to the pilot in the ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... value our license alone at over a million!' And there was no law which could prevent them from placing that value upon it, or more. There was one thing that I could do—and only one. I could resign, decline to accept my stock and the hundred thousand, and publicly announce why I had broken off my connections with the company. I was about to do this when cooler judgment prevailed. It occurred to me that there would have to be an accounting. The company might sell a million and a quarter of ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... represent, I here simply remark, that this was no arrangement of mine nor our party, as such at the time; and whatever of success the visit was attended with, and benefit thereby accrued mutually to us in Africa, I as frankly decline any authority in the matter and credit to myself, as I should had the result proved what it might have done otherwise. I am only willing to claim that which is legitimately mine, and be responsible for my own doings whether good or bad; but this act the integrity ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... wagons, well drawn together now, at last turned down the precipitous decline which took them from the high plateau to the water, level. Here a halt was called. Bridger took full charge. The formidable enterprise confronting them was one of the real ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... do they show such a disinclination to do you justice?" He replied: "Under the shadow of his majesty's good fortune I have pleased everybody, excepting the envious man, who is not to be satisfied but with a decline of my success; and let the prosperity and dominion of my lord the king be perpetual!" I can so manage as to give umbrage to no man's heart; but what can I do with the envious man, who harbors within himself the cause of his own chagrin? Die, O ye envious, that ye may get a deliverance; for ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... us that it will not accept the proposal for a conference at Prinkipos. It seems dignified and honorable at this moment to inform the Archangel government that since it can not agree to the allied proposal, presented after the most serious consideration, we shall decline to support it further with arms, but will make provision for the safety of all Russians who are ...
— The Bullitt Mission to Russia • William C. Bullitt
... presence in the boat with him and his cousin. He did not fathom the objection. But its existence was not to be ignored. And Merefleet wondered a little, as he cast about in his mind for a suitable excuse wherewith to decline the ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... on foot, as he calculated it—nobody in that country ever had walked it, as far as he could learn—to Tim Sullivan's ranch on Poison Creek. Now, in the decline of the fifth day he had come to Poison Creek, a loud, a rapid, and boisterous stream which a man could cross in two jumps. It made a great amount of noise in its going over the boulders in its bed, as a little water in a vast arid land probably was justified by its importance in ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... really cannot endure this doubt cast upon the truthfulness of my story. I decline to discuss the matter. You have read the paper, and you know me as the author ...
— Money Island • Andrew Jackson Howell, Jr.
... Twain's home. The beautiful house in Hartford was a place of welcome and merriment, of many guests and of happy children. Especially of happy children: during these years—the latter half of the 'eighties—when Mark Twain's fortunes were on the decline, his children were at the age to have a good time, and certainly they had it. The dramatic stage which had been first set up at George Warner's for the Christmas "Prince and Pauper" performance was brought over and set up in the Clemens schoolroom, and every Saturday there were plays or ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... so overwhelmed me, I cried unto the Lord and said, "Oh my God! Have I done all I could during this life of mine to dam up this fearful tide? Then I said, show me Lord, what this means. Immediately a great cloud of human souls came rolling down a steep decline and as my eyes followed them, saw them rolling on and on until they finally fell into a pit from whence fire and smoke were ascending. Then my eyes were turned again up the ascent from whence the souls were coming. When, Lo! I saw the National Capitol, with her Senate and Congressmen. I saw the Legislative ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... Musteazem might be at the audacity which prompted a Frankish king to send ambassadors to the heir of the prophet, he did not venture to decline receiving the message of a prince who so recently had threatened the empire of Egypt with destruction, and might have the power of doing so again. Besides, Musteazem was not in the most celestial humour with the Mamelukes, who seemed inclined ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... 'Las, no sooner did I say All that you told me, than he gives the word, 'A guest, a guest, a very potent guest,' Takes me a goblet brimful of strong wine And hands it to me, mocking, on his knee. This I decline, when on his back they lay Your faithful Page, nor set me on my legs Till they had drenched me with this fiery stuff, That I could scarcely see, or reel my way Back to ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... Shall be from every service freed within the sea-surrounding shore. Oh, Daman's son, Ferdiah fair, oh, champion of the wounds renowned, For thou a charm'ed life dost bear, since ever by the victories crowned, Oh! why the proffered gifts decline, oh! why reject the nobler fame, Which many an arm less brave than thine, which many a heart less bold, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... the name suggests, the tone should rise gradually in volume or loudness, and as gradually decline. If this can be done readily, and continued for several seconds, it will be easy to produce other effects, as the sudden swell, but such effects should come after, not before, the slower ones. A critical observer soon realizes the defects of modern technique when he listens ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... two tea-spoonfuls twice a day in any suitable liquor, sharpened with a few drops of the spirits of vitriol. This tincture is highly beneficial in intermitting fevers, and in slow, nervous, or putrid fevers, especially towards their decline. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... wrap My youth in its decline, And riot in the rosy lap Of thoughts that once were mine, And give the worm my little store When the last ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the chiefs of the Aegean. However modern civilization may in some things surpass the ancient, it is certainly not in luxury and splendour. And although the Hellenic States had not, at that period, aimed at the pomp of show and the refinements of voluptuous pleasure which preceded their decline; and although they never did carry luxury to the wondrous extent which it reached in Asia, or even in Sicily, yet even at that time a wealthy sojourner in such a city as Byzantium could command an entertainment ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... to decline an invitation from the President, Mollie," Mr. Hamlin continued. "Only a death in the family is regarded as a reasonable excuse. Now the President most distinctly stated that he desired a ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... charge? My respect for you inclines me to the belief that you are laboring under a momentary excitement; for when you reflect that I am a prominent, not to say famous, author, you will realize how absurd it is that I should be an embezzler, and why I decline to lower myself by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ill-tempered you will not choose them well: thus, though not infallibly a test of character in individuals, colour power is a great sign of mental health in nations; when they are in a state of intellectual decline, their colouring always gets dull.[242] You must also take great care not to be misled by affected talk about colour from people who have not the gift of it: numbers are eager and voluble about it who probably never in all their lives ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... regard the whole of these proceedings as unmitigated despotism, I beg respectfully to decline to withdraw." ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... commonplace of criticism to observe and regret the decline of power and interest after the opening acts of "The Jew of Malta." This decline is undeniable, though even the latter part of the play is not wanting in rough energy and a coarse kind of interest; but the first two acts would be sufficient ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... day, and determined to ask her to let him have the pleasure of driving her in. He had the proposition several times at his tongue's end, but held back from uttering it, for fear she should decline. At length he summoned up courage enough to disclose his wish. Mrs. Maroney had a habit of blushing. She blushed very sweetly, and accepted his ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... Whereupon the Kanaka departed to join his brother in the country. The fellow had shamefully swindled L. There was only one "match" horse, and he had examined his starboard side through one window and his port side through another! I decline to believe this story, but I give it because it is worth something as a fanciful illustration of a fixed fact—namely, that the Kanaka horse-jockey is fertile in invention and elastic ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... use of liquors, as shown by cirrhosis of the liver, Bright's disease, diseases of the heart, brain, and nervous system, is the cause of a large proportion of the deaths, these companies prefer to grade the premiums accordingly rather than to decline habitual drinkers altogether. While this is partly due to the difficulty and expense of diagnosis, it is more probably due to an objection to take a definite stand ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... thou nobly dost decline, Of tracing word by word and line by line. Those are the labour'd births of slavish brains, Not the effect of poetry but pains; Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords No flight for thoughts, but poorly stick at words, A new and nobler way thou dost pursue, To make translations and translators ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... know what you are talking about," the girl exclaimed, angrily. "I know nothing about any woman. You must pardon me, Mr. Bradley, if I decline to be questioned in this way any further." She moved toward ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... founded is of two Irishmen, one of whom challenged the other to a duel. But when the eventful hour arrived one sat down and wrote that, were it only his honour at stake he would meet his opponent, but his wife depended on him, so he begged to decline. The other individual sent a message to say that if honour were the only consideration he would come, but he had a daughter and therefore prayed to be excused. So the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sanctity of a contract would be fatal to any remodelling of the Irish land law which tended towards the spoliation of landowners. Yet this very fact makes the matter all the more serious. That British statesmen should under these circumstances deliberately decline to insert an injunction to respect the sanctity of plighted good faith is much more than an omission. It amounts to the suggestion, almost to the approval, of legislative robbery; it is a proclamation that as against landlords, as against creditors, as against ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... and we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte—with that happy soul for whom life and love wore their brightest smile, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... mental states. He sees that nothing really IS, but that everything is BECOMING and CHANGING. Nothing stands still-everything is being born, growing, dying-the very instant a thing reaches its height, it begins to decline—the law of rhythm is in constant operation—there is no reality, enduring quality, fixity, or substantiality in anything— nothing is permanent but Change. He sees all things evolving from other things, and resolving into other things—constant action ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... of Nancy at this period is not so easily drawn. The decline of the family fortunes seemed to have had as little effect upon her as upon her father, although their characters differed sharply. Something of that spontaneity, of that love of life and joy in it she had possessed in youth she must have inherited from McAlery ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... other great truths, such as the teaching concerning the church. Just as the giving up of the blessed Hope affected the other great doctrines of the Bible and became in part responsible for the fearful decline, confusion and departure from the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints, so the recovery of the blessed Hope, the imminent Coming of the Lord, results in the recovery of these same blessed doctrines which were given up and leads to a return to the true position. All this ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... after the day of the wedding. To Emma, constantly on the dark decline of the unillumined verge, between the two worlds, those words were a radiance and a nourishment. Had they waned she would have trimmed them to feed her during her soul-sister's absence. They shone to her of their vitality. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Italian sceptre unto one Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin, Professed at first to flout antiquity, Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones, And level dynasts down to journeymen!— Yet he, advancing swiftly on that track Whereby his active soul, fair Freedom's child Makes strange decline, now labours to achieve The ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... cannot return or accept; you MUST believe me, my lord, for I mean every word I say, and I shall never swerve from this decision. Even if the virtue and purity that I value more highly than life itself were not against it, I should still feel myself obliged to decline this dangerous honour." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences—universal languor, jealousies and rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with foreign nations, and at length in discontents, animosities, combinations, partial conventions, ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Schemes outlined in In Darkest England have met with only moderate success, as all cool observers foretold in 1890. They have, at least, provided no panacea for poverty. Probably Mr. Booth felt this during the last years of his life; but he has been spared the sight of the still further decline of his projects, which to most of us seems inevitable. Of course, some persons are more confident: they argue that Napoleon's system did not disappear after Waterloo, nor Wesley's system with the death of its founder, and that the Roman Catholic Church is as strong as ever, though Pope after ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... Lydia, "whether I, If you refuse my suit, shall die." (Now pray don't let this hurt you!) Although the time be out of joint, I should not think a bodkin's point The sole resource of virtue; Nor shall I, though your mood endure, Attempt a final Water-cure Except against my wishes; For I respectfully decline To dignify the Serpentine, And make hors-d'oeuvres for fishes; But if you ask me whether I Composedly can go, Without a look, without a sigh, Why, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... court circles; and thus through the centuries it has grown into use to describe the conventions sanctioned for the purpose of smoothing personal contacts and developing tact and good manners in social intercourse. With the decline of feudal courts and the rise of empires of industry, much of the ceremony of life was discarded for plain and less formal dealing. Trousers and coats supplanted doublets and hose, and the change in costume was not more extreme than the change in ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... distinctly low—quite Evangelical in fact: indeed, I may say, scarcely what I should consider sound church principles at all in any way; and I think you ought most certainly to avoid it sedulously. Evangelicism is on the decline at present in Pilbury Regis. As to St. Barnabas—Barabbas they call it generally, a most irreverent joke, but, of course, inevitable—Barabbas is absolutely Ritualistic. Many of our parents object to it most strongly. But St. Martha's ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... my lust for the bowl decline, Nor my love for my good long bow; For as bow to the shaft and as bowl to the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... acutely the ugliness and discomfort of her surroundings. The day's task done, she dreaded to return to her narrow room, with its blotched wallpaper and shabby paint; and she hated every step of the walk thither, through the degradation of a New York street in the last stages of decline ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... that resolve had weakened. Imperceptibly at first. Then the decline had been perceived as one sometimes perceives a thing in the background out of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... have preferred to remove himself, but no man worthy of the name can decline to come to the rescue of womanhood in distress. To twist the lady's upper lid back and peer into it and jab at it with the corner of his handkerchief was the only course open to him. His conduct may be classed as not merely blameless but definitely praiseworthy. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... series of wonders, and a fund of delight. Here she displayed her ingenuity and industry in a variety of flowers and fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly shaped, and charmingly flavored; and we were diverted with innumerable animals presenting themselves perpetually to our view. In the decline of the day, near Kentucky River, as we ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out of a thick canebrake upon us, and made us prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived, and the scene fully opened. The Indians plundered us of what we had, and kept us in ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... younger man, was employed in the Royal Irish Constabulary Office in Dublin Castle. The arc of his social rise intersected the arc of his friend's decline, but Mr. Kernan's decline was mitigated by the fact that certain of those friends who had known him at his highest point of success still esteemed him as a character. Mr. Power was one of these friends. His inexplicable ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... I had once offered my services, and they were declined; that I had made business engagements in St. Louis, which I could not throw off at pleasure; that I had long deliberated on my course of action, and must decline his offer, however tempting and complimentary. He reasoned with me, but I persisted. He told me, in that event, he should appoint Lyon, and ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... progress in the art of tunneling. On the contrary there was a decline from the earlier construction until late in the 17th century when gunpowder came into use as an explosive in blasting rock. The first application of gunpowder was probably at Malpas, France, 1679-1681, in the construction of the tunnel on the ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... was very anxious for me to stay a few days, hinting that, if I would consent, the authorities and dignitaries of Hamburg would show me some mark of respect, for my name was well known to them. I was obliged to decline as I am anxious to be in St. Petersburg before the Emperor is engaged in ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... with irresistible strength, prevented him from using either his teeth or claws in his own defence. It was not long before the struggles and violence of the wolf grew perceptibly weaker from fatigue, and he seemed to wish to decline a further combat with so formidable a foe, could he have found means to escape. Sophron then collected all his strength, and, seizing his fainting adversary by the neck and throat, grasped him still tighter in his terrible hands, till the beast, incapable either of disengaging ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... decline, but they could find no good reason for refusing an offer which was so agreeable to them. The Count of Monte Cristo remained a quarter of an hour with them, conversing on all subjects with the greatest ease. He was, as we have already said, perfectly well acquainted with ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... citadel; that Oberstein should hold the city at the disposition of Sancho d'Avila; that he should refuse admittance to all troops which might be sent into the city, excepting by command of Don Sancho, and that he should decline compliance with any orders which he might receive from individuals calling themselves the council of state, the states-general, or the estates of Brabant. This treaty was signed, moreover; by Don Jeronimo de Rods, then established in the citadel, and claiming to represent exclusively ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... certain disaster. Of course for an inferior force to accept battle by thinning its line, to be able by extending to meet the long lines of the enemy, would involve the greatest risk of being broken through at the center. The best remedy for inferior numbers was manifestly to decline a decisive battle. ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... himself more in relation with the place; then, after an hesitation, seemed to speak certain words instead of certain others. "Oh, I know where I AM—! I do decline to be left, but what I came for, of course, was to thank you. If to-day has seemed, for the first time, the end of preliminaries, I feel how little there would have been any at all without you. The ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... Sevilla; for Sevilla, though fifty miles up the Guadalquivir River, is practically a seaport. Cadiz was appointed the official harbor for vessels plying between Spain and the Indies. This meant the decline of proud Barcelona, but naturally a port nearer the Atlantic had to be chosen. Customhouses were established in Cadiz, and special licenses were issued to intending traders. Botanists were called upon ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... appealing to a parent pray'd; But all opposed the event that she design'd, And all in vain—she never changed her mind; But coldly answer'd in her wonted way, That she "would rule, and Lucy must obey." With peevish fear, she saw her health decline, And cried, "Oh! monstrous, for a man to pine! But if your foolish heart must yield to love, Let him possess it whom I now approve; This is my pleasure."—Still the Rector came With larger offers and with bolder claim; But the stern lady would attend no more - She frown'd, and ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... But it so happens that I cannot, dare not, tell you where I got those notes from. So far as I am concerned they came honestly into my hands in payment for special services rendered. It was part of my contract that I should reveal the secret to nobody. If I told you the story you would decline to believe it; you would say that it was a brilliant effort of a novelist's imagination to get out of ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... had some experience. Don't put your own name on the title-page; it would be suicide and madness. Treat with General Tom Thumb, Mr. Hood, for the use of his name on any terms. If the gallant general should decline to treat with you, get Mr. Barnum's name, which is the next best in the market. And when, through this politic course, you shall have received, in presents, a richly jewelled set of tablets from Buckingham Palace, and a gold watch and appendages from ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... distributed to members of their fraternity throughout Europe by the Cardinal de Lugo. Hence it was sometimes called Jesuits' bark, and sometimes Cardinal's bark. For many years, however, great opposition was made by European physicians to its use. Some Protestants, indeed, went so far as to decline taking it, because it was favoured by the Jesuits. Although the bark was used for many years, it was not till Dr Gomez, a surgeon in the Portuguese navy, in 1816 isolated the febrifugal principle, and called it chinchonine, that its true ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... who has a Perryian pen in hand, is pleased to exercise it on the decline of the drama; one of the legitimate targets of penny-a-liners. But how inadequately are the goose quills, and ostrich quills, phoenix quills, and roc quills, of the few standard critics of the age, directed towards the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... to have it. You're a dunderheaded lump of obstinacy, but I've taken a fancy to ye and I decline ...
— Hobson's Choice • Harold Brighouse
... "Encheiridion Epictete"—a "Handbook to Epictetus" compiled and condensed from the chaos of the almost verbatim "Discourses"—Arrian gives the most authentic account of the philosophy of the Greek and Roman Stoics, the sect founded by Zeno about 300 years before the Christian era, which flourished until the decline of Rome. Arrian himself was born about 90 A.D. at Nicomedia. He wrote in the style of Xenophon the "Anabasis of Alexander," a book on "Tactics," and several histories which have been lost. He is chiefly of note, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... fugitive slaves. But the free States will not obey this law. They even pass State laws in opposition to it, "Catch your own slaves," they say, "and we will not hinder you; at any rate we will not hinder you officially. Of non-official hinderance you must take your chance. But we absolutely decline to employ our officers to catch your slaves." That list comprises, as I take it, the amount of Southern official grievances. Southern people will tell you privately of others. They will say that they cannot sleep happy in their beds, fearing lest ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... President; but such is their extreme anxiety to insure the prostration of the Junto, who have stolen into the seats of power, that they all desire that you should be the candidate. They will support Tompkins to the bat's end if you refuse, or he should not decline; but if he does, and you consent to our wishes, you will be hailed as the saviour of New York."[198] On the same day Van Buren also wrote Rufus King: "Some of our friends think it is dangerous to support the Vice President under existing circumstances.... A few of us have written him freely ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... 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 steeds. Ever and anon we ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Boston, on issuing the usual warrants for an election of Representatives, requested General Mackay to order the troops out of town on the day (May 8, 1769) of the town-meeting; but though he felt obliged to decline to do this, yet, in the spirit in which he acted during his entire residence here, he kept the troops, on this day, confined to their barracks. The town, after choosing Otis, Cushing, Adams, and Hancock as Representatives, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various |
