"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he used to take the original prescription to several druggists to obtain a quantity that one would not have given him. The crisis came long after my close personal relations with him had ceased, and I had become only an occasional correspondent, living in Italy. But to make his decline the consequence of the use of chloral, even when it was finally become habitual, as some do, is absurd. It had been prescribed for him by a competent physician, because some remedy for his malady ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... be upwards of fifty, tall, rather plump, and extremely majestic, an air of dignity distinguishes her person, and every virtue is engraven in indelible characters on her countenance. There is a benignity in every look, which renders the decline of life, if possible, more amiable than the bloom of youth. One would almost think nature had formed her for a common parent, such universal and tender benevolence beams from every glance she casts ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... better informed than I; we discussed possible combinations and possible developments, and the chances of some great constructive movement coming from the heart-searchings the Boer war had occasioned. We would sink to gossip—even at the Suetonius level. Willersley would decline towards illuminating anecdotes that I capped more or less loosely from my private reading. We were particularly wise, I remember, upon the management of newspapers, because about that we knew nothing whatever. We perceived that ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... up, then sank, flared up again, and at last went into a steady decline, which left the room filled with a dull glow that would have failed to identify the objects in sight had not the boy been ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... a long time to fill, and patience seemed a harder virtue than ever. Perhaps the last fact had something to do with the rapid decline of Monsieur the Viscount's health. He became paler and weaker, and more fretful. His prayers were accompanied by greater mental struggles, and watered with more tears. He was, however, most positive ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... feeling; but it was mainly the creation of a nature that was morbidly sensitive to criticism. He was not, to be sure, the popular idol at his return that he had been at his departure. But this decline, outside of the causes already mentioned, was due to ignorance rather than dislike. A new generation had, during his absence, come on the scene of active life. To it the influence of his personal presence was unknown. He had been away so long that many looked upon him with ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... understand, but measles, pneumonia, and smallpox are witchcraft. Winnenap' was medicine-man for fifteen years. Besides considerable skill in healing herbs, he used his prerogatives cunningly. It is permitted the medicine-man to decline the case when the patient has had treatment from any other, say the white doctor, whom many of the younger generation consult. Or, if before having seen the patient, he can definitely refer his disorder to some supernatural cause wholly out of the medicine-man's ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... pretty and plain, all came in for a due share of his attentions. His sisters were quite vexed with him for not falling in love with one of three or four of their especial friends. They had a preference for a Julia Giffard; but should Jack fail to lose his heart to Julia, or Julia decline bestowing hers on him, there were at least three others of almost equal attractions and perfections, either of whom they could love as a sister-in-law; and it would be so delightful, while Jack was away, to have some one to whom they might talk about him, and to whom he would ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... 1777, they conferred upon the matter. Mr. Deane was in favor of demanding from the French court a direct answer to the question, whether or not France would come openly to the aid of the colonies; and he advised that de Vergennes should be distinctly told that, if France should decline, the colonies would be obliged to seek an accommodation with Great Britain. But Dr. Franklin strenuously opposed this course. The effect of such a declaration seemed to him too uncertain; France might take it as a menace; ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... shouted the little man, in a hoarse tone of voice. "The time has passed when you can have fun with me; I decline to permit you to have fun with me. I have decided to assert myself, and right here is ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... them consider themselves asked to dine with him later on that evening, but Cuthbert saw an opportunity to put in an entering wedge and reluctantly said that they would have to decline, since they had a comrade and would not feel like ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... without success. Dr. Eastwood had been right in his augury, that her seeming improvement had been only temporary, and that the delicately-organized constitution was not meant for the wear and tear of long life. So evident at last did the decline become, that a consultation was held as to whether it would not be advisable to remove her for the winter to a warmer climate; but the more experienced physicians were decidedly of opinion that taking her away from her home and family would be a needless cruelty, and that, ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... 1986, but growth rates remain high by Latin American standards. Conservative economic policies have kept inflation and unemployment near 30% and 10%, respectively. The rapid development of oil, coal, and other nontraditional industries over the past four years has helped to offset the decline in coffee prices - Colombia's major export. The collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in the summer of 1989, a troublesome rural insurgency, and drug-related violence have dampened growth, but significant ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... from the position that an English writer on the French novel is bound to follow—or at least to pay express attention to—French criticism of it. This position I respectfully but unalterably decline to accept. A critical tub that has no bottom of its own is the very worst Danaid's vessel in all ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... woman, sir,—after a little playful badinage, had offered to lend me her daughter's mustang if I could ride it home. You know what it is, Mr. Grey," he said gallantly. "I'm an older man than you, sir, but a challenge from a d——d fascinating creature, I trust, sir, I am not yet old enough to decline. Gad, sir, I mounted the brute. I've ridden Morgan stock and Blue Grass thoroughbreds bareback, sir, but I've never thrown my leg over such a blanked Chinese cracker before. After he bolted I held my own fairly, but he buck-jumped ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Latins, the Etruscans, the Samnites, and the Cisalpine Gauls. From the time that, by the conquest of Carthage, they obtained the mastery of the shore of the Mediterranean, agriculture in the neighbourhood of Rome began to decline. Pasturage was found to be a more profitable employment of estates; and the vast supplies of grain, required for the support of the citizens of Rome, were obtained by importation from Lybia and Egypt, where they could be raised at a less expense. "At, Hercule," ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... from proceeding to further acts of violence, and checked the growth of a conspiracy which might, otherwise, have gone to the full length of open rebellion. From this, and other causes, the spirit of disturbance in Wales began to decline, about the latter end of the summer. The most obnoxious of the turnpike gates had been swept away; and, on some of the trusts, the trustees had announced their determination not to re-erect those which ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... decline her, She's made of dragon-pattern stony China. What fools her suitors are, their hearts to fix on So termagant and bloodthirsty ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... consumption cut him off she walked about shrouded in her grief as one dead to the world of men and women. I passed her occasionally when I returned home to visit my family, and she looked as though she were going into a decline. That was a year after her marriage. Solicitous sympathy was unavailing, and the person responsible for her regaining her grip on life was, curiously enough, a summer boarder whom old Mrs. Spaulding had taken into her family in order to make both ends meet. Westford ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Constantine, from his first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of Licinius, at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both interesting and important, but still more, as they contributed to the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure, and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes, as of the military establishment. The foundation of Constantinople, and the establishment of the Christian religion, were the immediate and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... me what the politics of the inhabitants of the moon are, and I reply that I do not know; that neither I, nor any one else, has any means of knowing; and that, under these circumstances, I decline to trouble myself about the subject at all, I do not think he has any right to call me a sceptic. On the contrary, in replying thus, I conceive that I am simply honest and truthful, and show a proper regard ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is, the Armours did not try at all to push her. For over three years they had let society talk. They had not entertained largely in Cavendish Square since Lali came, and those invited to Greyhope had a chance to refuse the invitations if they chose. Most people did not choose to decline them. But Lady Haldwell was not of that number. She had never been invited. But now in town, when entertainment must be more general, she and the Armours were prepared for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to decline dancing, whether from dislike to the gentleman who invites her, or from whatever cause, she must make some excuse; but she must never refuse point blank, nor must she, after having refused to dance with one gentleman, consent ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... 1877 Lord Russell had taken a house overlooking the sea near Broadstairs. But he was falling into a gradual decline, the consequence of great age, and after they came home from Broadstairs, he never again ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... men who go quietly about their business have been cajoled, threatened, driven, and often, when they have been guilty of doing a little independent thinking on their own account, banished. And further than this, when you read the story of nations dead and gone you will see that their decline began when the parasites got too numerous and flauntingly asserted their supposed power. That contempt for the farmer, and indifference to the rights of the man with tin pail and overalls, which one often sees in America, are portents that mark disintegrating ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... me," she remarked, "that, as you decline to recognize the name given to that young woman by our institution, you should call her Miss Raynor; but I will ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... and long hours in the household as great as are those of the factory or the office? Is the birth-rate less among women who are engaged in the occupations unknown to women of the past? Or is the decline alike marked among those who are pursuing the ancient occupations but under different conditions?... If conditions surrounding their employment are such as to make it a "social question of the first importance" it is unfortunate the President had not seen that ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... inaccessible by horsemen even in summer time, on account of great bogs, rocks, and precipices which environed it. The popular tradition concerning it is as ridiculous as is to be found in any legend of the Romish Martyrology. After continuing in great credit many years, it began to decline; and in the 13th of Henry the Seventh was demolished with great solemnity, on St Patrick's Day, by the Pope's express order. It, however, afterwards came into reputation again, insomuch that, by an order ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... (for such you will consider it) when, after giving you reason to expect that I would accept the professorship of Chemistry, if it was offered to me, I now inform you that I must decline it. ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... the wealth brought in by the raids of the Knights, the condition of the Maltese also improved, and while the Order flourished it was not an excessive burden to the natives. But when the Knights started upon their decline the condition of the islanders deteriorated. They had always suffered from the occasional scarcity due to the ill-humour of the Spanish King or the natural failure of the Sicilian harvest. But now the taxes became heavier and heavier, and ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... true. Dewey's panorama, if I understand this colleague, is the widest of the three, but I refrain from giving my own account of its complexity. Suffice it that he holds as firmly as I do to objects independent of our judgments. If I am wrong in saying this, he must correct me. I decline in this matter to be corrected ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... at the hut on the hill to-day. One of those poor girls, the youngest, Nora, I think they call her, is in a bad way. She seems to me to be sinking into a decline." As he said this he happened to glance at Herman Brudenell. That gentleman's eyes were fixed upon his with a gaze of wild alarm, but they sank ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... hotel, she brooded far into the night over her bedroom fire, reviewing bitterly her moral decline from the day of her first great mistake. Feeling unable to face the people who had known her in the Station, she departed the next morning for Muktiarbad, leaving her infantile charge and its ayah to the tender mercies ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... the contemporary testimonials that I have received are so cautiously framed and so wanting in warmth that I decline to make any use of them. I have always hated cowardice. I have the courage of my opinions. Why ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... will find disparaging allusions in it to myself, purposely introduced to suggest that the writer must be one of the persons whom I addressed while conducting her inquiries. If Mrs. Lecount takes the business in hand and lays a trap for me—I decline her tempting invitation by becoming totally ignorant of the whole affair the instant any second person appears in it. Let the end come as it may, here I am ready to profit by it: here I am, facing both ways, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... lead the way towards matters of nearer personality was William MacGregor, the linen manufacturer, a man who possessed a score of hand-looms or so—half of which, from the advance of cotton and the decline of linen-wear, now stood idle—but who had already a sufficient deposit in the hands of Mr. Thomson the banker—agent, that is, for the county-bank—to secure him against any necessity for taking to cotton shirts himself, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... old Maori declared, a few years ago, that the decline of his race has been entirely due to the loss of the ancient religious faith in the tabu. "For," said he (I quote from an Auckland newspaper), "in the olden-time our tapu ramified the whole social ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... took the same view; and after long negotiations a war between France and China broke out. It lasted for four years, and demanded a large expenditure of strength. But it ended (1885) with the formal recognition of French suzerainty over Annam, and a further decline of ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... that they will withdraw? Supposing at the last moment Lady Anna were to decline the alliance, would they withdraw then? Not a bit of it. The matter would be further delayed, and referred over to next year. You and your daughter would be kept out of your money, and there ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... behold, the Viscountess herself "dropping odors." Esmond recollected from his childhood that rich aroma of musk which his mother-in-law (for she may be called so) exhaled. As the sky grows redder and redder towards sunset, so, in the decline of her years, the cheeks of my Lady Dowager blushed more deeply. Her face was illuminated with vermilion, which appeared the brighter from the white paint employed to set it off. She wore the ringlets which had been in fashion in King Charles's time; whereas the ladies of ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Abel, "if my father should unhappily conceive a prejudice in regard to this elopement, and decline to know any thing of the happy pair, six hundred dollars, in the present liberal style of life incumbent upon a man who has moved in the circles to which your son has been accustomed, would be a very limited income for your son ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... science could have to encounter—would be the monopoly of knowledge at Berlin; a Centralisation of Science. The injurious fruits of this system of centralisation in France, for instance, the continual deterioration of French science through the Parisian "Monopoly of Knowledge," and its steady decline during half a century from the sublimest heights—these are all well known. From such a centralisation of German science—which would be especially dangerous if it occurred in the capital, Berlin—we may hope to be preserved; in the first place by the manifold differences and the many-sided ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... but fair," Sookdee declared. "The ordeal of the heated cannon ball will surely burn the hand of the traitor if there is one," and he looked at Ajeet; and though suspicious that this was still another trap, Ajeet without cowardice could not decline. ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... rings, some of which did not fit her, as John Hardy when he bought her betrothal ring in Copenhagen had not been able to get them altered, as his stay in Copenhagen was short. Her first impulse was to decline such a costly present, next she thought, "He cannot have told his mother." The breakfast bell rang, and she went into the saloon where breakfast was served, and kissed Mrs. Hardy, whose present she wore and thanked her warmly. ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... Successive Diets were dissolved and new Diets elected, in none of which, however, could the supporters of the Cabinet secure a majority; the Cabinet was, therefore, incapable of carrying out any of its distinctive measures. Several times the opposition went so far as to decline to pass the budget proposed by the Cabinet, unless so reduced as to cripple the government, the reason constantly urged being that the Cabinet was not competent to administer the expenditure of such large sums ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... You will live to thank me and bless me. I have fancied, of late, that your heart had been allowed to decline a little to this Marteau. Oh, he is a brave man and true, I know. I take no stock in his confession of theft or assault upon you. Why, I would have cut him down where he stood, or have him kill me if I believed that! But he is of another race, another blood. The Eagle does not ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... shares of some of the South American railways command a high premium, but of the whole number quoted in the official list the large majority show a heavy decline on the original value, many indeed being valueless. These stocks are highly speculative and subject to be affected by political convulsions and other contingencies, which make them undesirable as ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.
... to the Hall went up through a world of rich sylvan scenery, winding through groves and meadows and over undulating ground. Before the Hall lay the open sea about three miles away; but the Hall was on an eminence and overlooked all the intervening ground. Standing there one might see the gradual decline of the country as it sloped downward toward the margin of the ocean. On the left a bold promontory jutted far out, on the nearer side of which there was an island with a light-house; on the right was another promontory, not so ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... disapproval has on the process of the 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 to the palingenesis of Humanity ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... hill they scrambled, slipping and sliding down the steep decline. They came to the bottom in safety, however, and it was not long before they reached the spot where the baggage ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... seen much of him during the last year. He had spent some weeks with him at Dorking in the summer of 1858, and had taken a little expedition with him in the spring of 1859. My father injured himself by a walk on his seventieth birthday (January 3, 1859), and his health afterwards showed symptoms of decline. In the autumn he was advised to go to Homburg; and thence, on August 30, he wrote his last letter, criticising a draft of a report which Fitzjames was preparing for the Education Commission, and suggesting a few sentences which would, he thinks, give greater ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Speed, Lincoln treated the circumstance with his usual humor. "We had," he says, "a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint delegates to a district convention. Baker beat me, and got the delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my attempt to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the nomination I shall be 'fixed' a good deal like a fellow who is made groomsman to the man who 'cut him out' and ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... actually decide the constitution of Parliament? If this be granted, it follows that unless the electoral machinery be adapted to give effect to these two great principles, parliaments will inevitably decline; and that the present method of election is a very inadequate means of giving effect ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... friendly declination. Keep the same mind and disposition in other parts of thy life also. For many things there be, which we must conceit and apprehend, as though we had had to do with an antagonist at the palestra. For as I said, it is very possible for us to avoid and decline, though we neither suspect, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... government's ability to pay debts and maintain the peso's fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. The economic situation worsened in 2001 with the widening of spreads on Argentine bonds, massive withdrawals from the banks, and a further decline in consumer and investor confidence. Government efforts to achieve a "zero deficit," to stabilize the banking system, and to restore economic growth proved inadequate in the face of the mounting economic problems. The peso's peg to the dollar was abandoned in January ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... after a brief halt for refreshment, and about an hour before midday advantage was taken of a great mango tope for another halt; but as soon as the sun began to decline we were off again, with the ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... from an intense headache, and often in an almost fainting condition. And the same cause which brings about these extreme cases, on a smaller scale causes such physical discomfort to many delicately organized persons that a large class exist who absolutely and resolutely decline to have gas as an illuminant or fuel in any of their living rooms; and if the use of gas, more especially as fuel, is to be extended, and if gas is to hold its own in the future against such rivals as the electric light, then those interested in gas and gas stoves must face ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... and therefore is, I think, worth the experiment. It is a fair and open appeal to the liberality, perhaps in some sort to the justice, of a great people; and I think I ought not in the circumstances to decline venturing upon it. I have done so manfully and openly, though not perhaps without some painful feelings, which however are more than compensated by the interest you have taken in this unimportant matter, of which I will not soon lose the recollection." (Knickerbocker Magazine, Vol. ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... indicator of the mortality situation in a country, accurately indicates the current mortality impact on population growth. This indicator is significantly affected by age distribution, and most countries will eventually show a rise in the overall death rate, in spite of continued decline in mortality at all ages, as declining fertility results ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the history of the intervening years. He had heard now of the moral decay that had followed the collapse of supernatural religion in the minds of ignoble man, the decline of public honour, the ascendency of wealth. For men who had lost their belief in God had still kept their faith in property, and wealth ruled ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Beneath the dark blue line Of western distance that sublime descendest, And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline, Thy million hues to every vapor lendest, And over cobweb, lawn, and grove, and stream Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light, Till calm Earth, with the parting splendor bright, Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream; What gazer now with astronomic ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... often at day's decline I pushed from my window the curtaining vine, To see from your lattice the lamp-light shine— Type of a message that, half divine, Flashed from your ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... expected, therefore, that he should enter into an explanation of the reasons whereby he was provoked into a necessity of altering his intention. But he is willing to decline saying any thing upon so well-known ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... me. If you will pause a moment you will know perfectly well that I had no idea of 'spying' upon you. Have I ever done so? You know better. It seems to me you are displaying some doubt also. If I did not know it to be the outcome of your excitement I should decline to make any explanation. As it is I'll tell you that I went up there to get out your winter things in order to have them remodeled. By chance I looked out of the window—it is a view rather worth looking upon, you'll ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... BOOKS RECEIVED.—Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with Notes by Milman and Guizot, edited by Dr. William Smith. The second volume of this handsome edition, forming part of Murray's British Classics, extends from the reign ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 232, April 8, 1854 • Various
... as shown in the preceding experiments, much greater when clover is grown for seed, than when it is made into hay. This affords an intelligible explanation of a fact long observed by good practical men, although denied by others who decline to accept their experience as resting upon trustworthy evidence, because, as they say, land cannot become more fertile when a crop is grown upon it for seed, which is carried off, than when that crop is cut down and the produce consumed on the land. The ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... invitation, which was couched in the most courteous terms, a simple visiting card, with the following refusal: "The Comte and the Comtesse Desvanneaux, not being in the habit of accepting invitations during Lent, feel constrained to decline that of ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... is my plan: You no doubt have in Chicago some friend who can and will oblige you. Request this friend to insert in three of the city papers here an advertisement as follows: If you accept you will say, "Number three, we decline," which I will read by contraries. You will then send by express, to be called for, a package containing ten thousand dollars in bank-notes—none larger than one hundred nor smaller than ten—and ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... 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 ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... the same time. Was it, then, some mad hope of doing this, a fervent belief in a miracle, in the possibility of some saviour descending from Heaven, that kept Constance thus rigid and stubborn, awaiting destiny? Those twelve years of vain waiting—and increasing decline did not seem to have diminished her conviction that in spite of everything she would some day triumph. No doubt her tears had gushed forth at Chantebled in presence of the victory of Mathieu and Marianne; but she soon recovered her self-possession, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... on the Home Front is also proceeding. There are some maids who announce the approach of Zeppelins as if they were ordinary visitors. There are others who politely decline to exchange a seat at an attic window for the security ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... that you'd even suggest sech a thing! Mob law is worse even than no law at all. Besides," he added—and now there was a small twinkle in his eye to offset to a degree the severity in his tones—"besides, the feller that was bein' called on by the committee might decline to take the hint and then purty soon you might have another self-made martyr on your hands. But ef he ran away on his own hook now—ef something came up that made him go of his own accord and go fast and cut ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... tone seemed to be employed? She had told me once that it behoved her to consult a friend in Seville as to the expediency of her marriage with me. Was this the friend whom she had wished to consult? If so, she need not trouble herself. Under such circumstances I should decline the connection! And I resolved that I would find out how this might be. A man who proposes to take a woman to his bosom as his wife, has a right to ask for information—ay, and to receive it too. It flashed upon my mind at this moment that Donna Maria ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... to decline, and his physician advised that he move to the country. And so we find him taking a course of solitude as a cure for love. He moved to Vaucluse, a hamlet fifteen miles from the city. Some of the old-time biographies tried to show that Laura ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... you decline to haul our logs, after the expiration of our present contract, and in view of the fact that we are not financially able to build our own logging railroad, that the wisest course my father and I could pursue would be to sell ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... for Phoebe; I mean if we ever should part, which seems more and more unlikely, as I shall never leave Thornycroft until somebody comes properly to fetch me; indeed, unless the "fetching" is done somewhat speedily I may decline to go under any circumstances. My indecision as to the purchase was finally banished when the poultryman asserted that the fowls had clear open centres all over, black lacing entirely round the white ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... one was looking. He let the servant fill them all, and he drank out of each, not to appear odd. Later, he observed that the young ladies were not taking wine, and he was glad to see that Irene had refused it, and that Mrs. Lapham was letting it stand untasted. He did not know but he ought to decline some of the dishes, or at least leave most of some on his plate, but he was not able to decide; he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... know what you mean," said George; "if you wish to see Mr. Charles Holland walk in and see him. He is in this house; but, for myself, as you are strangers to me, I decline answering any questions, let their import ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... weird and, I may add, chilling experiences in connection with the decline of county families which it was my lot to experience, occurred a year or two ago in a remote corner of the eastern counties. I had received, through a friend, an invitation to visit an old mansion before the inmates (descendants of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... shook Henri, while Chicot shuddered with terror. The one saw his star rising, radiant like the morning sun; the other saw the scepter of the Valois ready to decline and fall. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... father, the retired lawyer, whose sensibilities were fatal to his success. It was not long before Ned Hinkley and his widowed sister found it their policy to depart also, seeking superior objects in another county; and at this moment Charlemont is an abandoned and deserted region. It seemed to decline from the moment when the cruel catastrophe occurred which precipitated Margaret Cooper from her pride of place. Beautiful as the village appeared at the opening of our legend, it was doomed to as rapid a decay as growth. "Something ails ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... one could possibly understand that a prima donna just on the edge of decline could possibly wish to advertise a rising ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... day 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 monstrous abuse of public patience which will render the Victorian age ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... joy; I being, with some cause, jealous of that foolish minx. The Duchess Dowager of Wurtemberg also came, sorrow on her; a foolish talking woman, always cutting jokes, making eyes, giggling and coquetting; "HAS some wit and manner, but wearies you at last: her charms, now on the decline, were never so considerable as rumor said; in the long-run she bores you with her French gayeties and sprightliness: her character for gallantry is too notorious. She quite corrupted Marwitz, in this and a subsequent visit; turned ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of the day in its heat and light, would gradually decline; and again the golden water would be dancing ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... number of automatisms per 100 persons Smith found to be in children 176, in adolescents 110. Swaying is chiefly with children; playing and drumming with the fingers is more common among adolescents; the movements of fingers and feet decline little with age, and those of eyes and forehead increase, which is significant for the development of attention. Girls excel greatly in swaying, and also, although less, in finger automatism; and boys lead in movements of tongue, feet, and hands. Such movements ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... manifested very plainly what a miserable thing, how weak and weakening, is the pride of this world. One who could be so cast down, was hardly one, alas, of whom to expect any greatness of action! He was not likely to have honesty or courage enough to decline a succession that was not his—even though it would leave his way clear to marry Eppy. Whether any of Forgue's misery arose from the fact that Donal had been present at the exposure of his position, Donal could not tell; but he could hardly fail to regard him as ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... something more ancient and more imperative than reason. He knew now that he loved her, and his recent rage, his hostility, his condemnation of her seemed to him the reign of some exterior influence in his mind. He thought incredulously of the long decline in tenderness that had followed the first days of their delight in each other, the diminution of endearment, the first yielding to irritability, the evenings he had spent doggedly working, resisting all his sense ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... with the Civil and Political. These three he latterly, instead of calling about 6 or 7 o'clock, has had to appoint for 4 each morning: "My situation forces me," his message said, "to give them this trouble, which they will not have to suffer long. My life is on the decline; the time which I still have I must employ. It belongs not to me, but to the State." [Preuss, iv. 257 n.] About 11, business, followed by short surgical details or dressings (sadly insisted on in those Books, and in themselves sufficiently sad), being all done,—his friends or daily ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... claims to which as a papal fief could of right be determined in no other way than by the arbitration of the pontiff himself. Should King Charles consent to accept this arbitration, they tendered the good offices of their master as mediator between the parties; should he decline it, however, the king of Spain stood absolved from all further obligations of amity with him, by the terms of the treaty of Barcelona, which expressly recognized his right to interfere in defence ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... like those from whence they sprung. The lips, nostrils, eyelids, and other parts of the body are sometimes affected with sores; but these evidently arise from their being heedlessly rubbed or scratched with the patient's infected fingers. No eruptions on the skin have followed the decline of the feverish symptoms in any instance that has come under my inspection, one only excepted, and in this case a very few appeared on the arms: they were very minute, of a vivid red colour, and soon died away without advancing to maturation; so that I cannot determine whether they ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... century a great educational revival manifested itself in western Europe, following upon several centuries of intellectual decline or relative inactivity. Though its beginnings may be traced into the eleventh century, and though its culmination belongs to a much later period, the movement is often called the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century. In that century it ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... being laught at. If we do a foolish thing, we are the first to laugh at it ourselves, and are almost as much pleased with a Bon Mot or a Chanson, that ridicules well the Disappointment of a Project, as we might have been with its success. It does not seem to me a good reason to decline prosecuting a new Experiment which apparently increases the power of Man over Matter, till we can see to what Use that Power may be applied. When we have learnt to manage it, we may hope some time or other ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... against contemplation. The gospel of action is always individualistic. It requires of the individual a sense of his independence, and of the real virtue of his initiative. Hence those voluntarists who emphasize the many individual wills and decline to reduce them, after the manner of Schopenhauer, to a universal, may be said to afford a direct justification of it. It is true that this practical realism threatens the tenability of an epistemological idealism, but the two have been united, ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... in this way," said I, "I shall decline taking any more tea with you. Will you decline an ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one. The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The position men have given to Jesus, now for many centuries of history, is a position of authority. It characterizes themselves. It cannot alter the eternal facts. Great is the soul, and plain. It is no flatterer, it is no follower; it never appeals ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... name of the firm of "Hofmeister & Kuehnel, Bureau de Musique," are given here as they first appeared in 1837 in the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik. On applying to the present representative of that firm, I was told that those who now possess these letters decline giving them out of their own hands, and that no copyist can be found able to ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... plain. In the phase through which {29} religious thought is passing to-day there are few things more urgently needed than to dispel that interpretation of immanence which obliterates the line of demarcation between God and man. We may decline the mechanical dualism which placed the Creator altogether outside the universe, and yet embrace a view which for want of a better name might be called spiritual dualism, and which maintains the distinction of which we are speaking. What happens when that distinction is lost, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... such jubilation as marks an event thought to be the forerunner of a new era. There is indeed a certain pathos in the high hopes expressed in the Address of Dedication by President Earle, for, though the Order continued to thrive until 1878, shortly after a decline began, and dissolution was its fate ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... suppression of the monasteries tended in no slight degree to hasten the decline and fall of our ancient church architecture, to which other causes, such as the revival of the classic orders in Italy, also contributed. The churches belonging to the conventual foundations, which had been built at different periods ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... I instantly decline To the traditionary sympathies Of a most rustic ignorance,— This rather would I do, than see and hear The repetitions wearisome of sense Where soul is dead, and feeling hath ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... my power, if convinced of the wrong done. I place my opposition to duelling on higher grounds than here stated. No doubt a majority of the duels fought have been for want of moral courage on the part of those engaged to decline. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... was standing in front of the Tavern. She had waved her hand to him, and had smiled gaily, but it was not the first time that week she had failed to stop and repeat her usual invitation for him to accompany her, even though she knew he would politely decline. He resented this oversight. How could she know that he hadn't changed his mind about going to the city? As a matter of fact, he had changed it. He would have gone like a shot. Indeed, he had dressed ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the center of the upper millstone. Its ends are divided and curved backward. As they are turned in all directions, they are said to express the universal diffusion of the blessings of the Cross; or, as they decline both to the right and the left, they express willingness to do exact justice and ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... is not a more instructive chapter at once stranger and sad, interesting to our curiosity and mortifying to our pride, than the history of Platonic philosophy sinking into gnosticism, or in other words, of Greek philosophy merging in Oriental Mysticism; showing, on the one hand the decline and fall of philosophy, and, on the other, the rise and progress of Syncretism. Perhaps, also, it is the most remarkable instance on record, that out of the religious, moral, and political, in one word, the intellectual corruption which brings on the fall of great and mighty nations, ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... of place would sell his daughter, his country, his soul, to regain it: yea, he would part with his skin and his senses, were it possible to hold office without them. I commiserate Photinius, whose faculties are clearly on the decline; the day has been when he would not have wasted his time sticking pins into a waxen figure. I will give him some shadow of authority to amuse his old days and keep him out of mischief. The Abbot of Catangion is just dead. Photinius shall ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... The glaciers have passed, but still the work goes on. Slowly the mountains rise, and slowly, but not so slowly, the frosts chisel and the rains carry away. If conditions remain as now, history will again repeat itself, and the gorgeous peaks of to-day will decline, a million years or more from now, into the low rounded summits of our eastern Appalachians, and later into the flat, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... knew not, haveing great feare of one another. Finally, finding but a fearfull country full of mountains and rocks, they made great boats that might hould some 30 men to traverse with more assurance the great bay for to decline from the tediousnesse of the highway, which they must doe, having but small boats; whence they came to a country full of mountains of ice, which made us believe that they descended ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... been extensively cleared, particularly when it is remembered that the highest portions of the range are thickly wooded. But allowing this supposition to be correct, it is no proof, that the total population has been on the decline, for we must take into account, the wandering nature of all hill tribes. In forming an opinion of a hill population, which in all times and places has, in this country at least, been found scanty, we must take care ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... especially the lives of men, are transitory, ever advancing from their beginning to their decline and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the States is reported to be small this year, which probably accounts for the decline in the number of pacifists ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... implicated; but if he had been strongly pressed, it seems that he would have been found to be an ultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait, and since we do not wish to conceal anything, we are forced to add that he was glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with 1813, he gave in his adherence to or applauded all hostile manifestations. He refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island of Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperor in his ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Captain Bothwell. This is a law office, in the city of San Francisco, United States of America. I am neither Tommy Atkins nor a Russian serf. Therefore, I again decline." ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... this machine may be applied are too numerous to mention, but it will be found particularly useful for lifting up, and expelling from the cars, the heavy commuters of the railroad just referred to, who decline to pay double fare for stopping at Newark, and who sometimes even object to being ejected for non-payment of said perfectly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... clear that in some wild rush of the waters the ground had yielded a trifle. We could not find that the foundations had sunk more than six inches, but that was enough. In that fatal six inches' decline of the centring, the MOON had been launched upon the ways just as George had intended that it should be when he was ready. But it had slid, not rolled, down upon these angry fly-wheels, and in an instant, with all our friends, it had been ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... was on the decline. While still under the crown, Virginia and several other colonies had attempted to check slavery by forbidding the importation of more slaves, but their laws for this purpose were disallowed by the king. After 1776 the states ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... would be simply a loan either from himself or from the theatre with which he is connected. I may be mistaken, but I have imagined that it would come from the theatre; I will ascertain, and if it be not so, I will decline ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... century B.C. the Greeks, already on the decline, were conquered by the Romans, a nation hardier and more powerful, though ruder and less civilized than themselves. The conquerors recognized this, and immediately set to work to copy or steal from their vanquished foes everything that might enhance the beauty ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... large area, and it sprang majestic into the winter air. It was detached from the rest of the collegiate group, and stood in a grassy triangle of its own. As he approached it with Verena she suddenly stopped, to decline responsibility. "Now mind, if you don't like what's ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... observations, which I have had occasion to confirm by comparing the longitude given by the chronometer with that which the pilots obtained by their reckoning, are, however, contrary to these theoretical ideas. In both hemispheres, the polar currents, when they are perceived, decline a little to the east; and it would seem that the cause of this phenomenon should be sought in the constancy of the westerly winds which prevail in the high latitudes. Besides, the particles of water do not move with the same rapidity ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... another offers me a home and to make me the mother of many children; as if that was the highest attainment for a spiritual being; while still another offers me money, good things to eat and drink and wear, only what this body of mine seems in his eyes. No, I will have to decline all your offers, because you are under the illusion that I am ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... Fasti Censorii. A disturbing element in this enumeration is the uncertainty of numerals in ancient manuscripts. But the fact of the progressive decline is beyond all question. No accidental errors of transcription could have produced this result in the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... on the old woman's face as she turned houseward—also an afterglow. 'Twas a fitting nook for her present days, the decline of those splendidly vigorous years behind! What satisfaction to look back on strenuous, fruitful years, and be able to afford ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... often watched the movements of small insects. She had come in one afternoon for this purpose, and wandered down to a rather wild spot at the bottom of the garden. It was a small piece of rough ground surrounded by a high hedge, on the farther side of which the land sloped in a sharp decline. As Dona hunted about among the docks for caterpillars or other specimens, greatly to her surprise she saw a figure come pushing through the hedge. It wore a gym. costume and a St. Elgiva's hat, and, as the leaves parted, they revealed the face of Chrissie Lang. Her astonishment ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then, of course. I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr. Bennett. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Shaw to dinner, and he replied on a postcard: "Never! I decline to sit in a hot room and eat dead animals, even with you to ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... of this book;" and such is the condescension of our gracious Master, that those who, by reason of invincible ignorance, cannot read, yet may share in the reward promised to such as "hear and keep" the sayings of this book. And no doubt thousands have received this reward since the begun decline of Popery, who were privileged to hear and to "know the joyful sound" of the gospel proclaimed by the heralds of the Reformation. In the times of Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others, who were their compeers and successors, many were called from darkness to light, in continental ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... on the increase, you may let blood at any time day or night; but when she is on the decline, you must bleed only in ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... court; scribblers who keep scribbling at little articles until their temper is a cross to all who come about them, as though Pharaoh should set the Israelites to make a pin instead of a pyramid;[25] and fine young men who work themselves into a decline,[26] and are driven off in a hearse with white plumes upon it. Would you not suppose these persons had been whispered, by the Master of the Ceremonies, the promise of some momentous destiny? and that this lukewarm bullet on which they ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... extremity in which the Swedes were now placed by the desertion of their allies, they addressed themselves to France, who met them with the greatest encouragement. The interests of the two crowns were closely united, and France would have injured herself by allowing the Swedish power in Germany to decline. The helpless situation of the Swedes, was rather an additional motive with France to cement more closely their alliance, and to take a more active part in the German war. Since the alliance with Sweden, at Beerwald, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... same principles it is easy to explain the quickness of the pulse in infancy, its gradual decrease till maturity, its slowness and strength during the meridian of life, and the return of its frequency during the decline. ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... and the two first drawn and quartered. Where we walked up and down, and at last found Sir G. Carteret, whom I had not seen a great while, and did discourse with him about our assisting the Commissioners in paying off the Fleet, which we think to decline. Here the Treasurer did tell me that he did suspect Thos. Hater to be an informer of them in this work, which we do take to be a diminution of us, which do trouble me, and I do intend to find out the truth. Hence to my Lady, who told me how Mr. Hetley is dead of the small-pox going to Portsmouth ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... with your head in the sand, thinking no one can see you, you forget that there is a portion of your anatomy admirably placed—indeed in my mind's eye I can see the sign upon it. It reads 'Kick me.' It is an invitation I will not decline. He thinks he can wipe our good friend Pearlie off the map by having her name dropped from the Millford 'Mercury,' forgetting that there are other ways of reaching the public eye. There are other publications, perhaps not in the class with the Millford ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... waterway enjoy the benefits of this industrial competition. Unless the railroad can give the industries in these local towns rates that will enable them to market their products, the industries will decline and the railway ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... of beating his cotanei et conscolares terr su, of being reproved for idleness by his uncle, the Bishop of St David's, and of being constantly chaffed by two of his uncle's chaplains, who used to decline durus and stultus to him. Also he alludes to the rod. Probably there was some sort of school at either Pembroke or St David's[[24a]].—De Rebus a se ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... chronic struggles of races necessitate perpetual wars there is evolved an ideal of life adapted to the requirements. We have changed all that in modern civilized societies, especially in England and still more in America. With the decline of militant activity and the growth of industrial activity the occupations once disgraceful have become honorable. The duty to work has taken the place of the duty to fight; and in the one case as in the other the ideal ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... commenced, Hogg was asked by his former schoolfellow, Mr Robert Chambers, to undertake the duties of assistant editor, on a salary superior to that which he then received; but this office, from a conscientious scruple about his ability to give satisfaction, he was led to decline. He was an extensive contributor, both in prose and verse, to the two first volumes of this popular periodical; but before the work had gone further, his health began to give way, and he retired to his father's house in Peeblesshire, where he died in 1834. He left ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... a mere incident in it all is your life and mine! If we stand off at the distance of a few centuries, so that we have no present interest in them, it is strange how the proudest empires assume an empty and spectral aspect. Their growth and decline occupied ages; but what a brief achievement it appears now! Why puzzle ourselves about their origin, or seek to disengage the true from the fabulous in their history? Why strain laboriously to settle names, and dates, and dynasties? What mere point they have occupied in the processes of the ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... for the benefit of the Theatrical Fund, on the 23d of February 1827, Sir Walter made his first avowal as to the authorship of the Waverley Novels,—an announcement which scarcely took the public by surprise. The physical energies of the illustrious author were now suffering a rapid decline; and in his increasing infirmities, and liability to sudden and severe attacks of pain, and even of unconsciousness, it became evident to his friends, that, in the praiseworthy effort to pay his debts, he was sacrificing his health and shortening his life. Those apprehensions proved ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... vision of the five Miss Moxeys and of a dinner table, such as he was not used to sit at; he wished to decline, yet knew not how to do ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... decline immediately after the decease of Charlemagne, in every part of his extensive dominions, and that its decline was principally owing to the wars among his descendants, which devastated every portion of his empire, ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... the subject; contested election between Clinton and Jay for governor; canvassers differ as to the legality of certain votes; apply to Rufus King and Burr for advice; King and Burr differ in opinion; Burr proposes to decline giving advice; Mr. King objects; in consequence, they give separate and conflicting opinions; Burr becomes zealous in support of that which he has given; seven of the canvassers decide on destroying the votes of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... but Lady Elmwood fell sick and languished—possessed of youth to struggle with her woes, she lingered on, till ten years decline brought her to that period, with which the reader is ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... "No; but they decline to have anything to do with my mad patient. It was no easy matter, I can tell you, to get them to consent to having her there at all. I must ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... so many pleasures, that run like perpetual springs and rills, these men decline and avoid; nor will they permit those that put in among them so much as to take a taste of them, but bid them hoist up the little sails of their paltry cock-boats and fly from them. Nay, they all, both he and she philosophers, beg and entreat Pythocles, for dear Epicurus's ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... stared at me with his round and owl-like eyes. Never before had he known an officer in Constantinople who wished to decline power and more pay. Scarcely, indeed, could he believe his ears. But the Augusta ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... Trajan the Roman Empire REACHED THE SUMMIT OF ITS POWER; but the first signs of decay were beginning to be seen in the financial distress of all Italy, and the decline of the free peasantry, until in the next century they were reduced to a condition ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... 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 had charged ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... think it no scorn If, in my fancy, I presume To call thy bosom poor Love's Tomb. And on that tomb to read the line:— "Here lies a Love that once seem'd mine. But took a chill, as I divine, And died at length of a decline." ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... savagely, out of the gloom. "Marriage is a duel to the death, which no man of honour should decline." ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... narrow, that it cannot easily be discovered, and so little beaten, that there are no certain marks by which it can be followed: the care, therefore, of all those who conduct others has been, that whenever they decline into obliquities, they should tend towards ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Signor Marchese, not to make any remarks on the communication you have just made to me. There is one, however, which perforce I must make. It is that I must decline to take any instructions, or to act in any way, for the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... you for 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 title to ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the intention of Mr. Willet to accept any courteous invitation extended by the family to pass a part of the evening with them; but, seeing how troubled Mrs. Markland was at the absence of her husband, he thought it better to decline entering the house, and wait for a better opportunity to make their more intimate acquaintance. So he bade her a good evening, after answering what further inquiries she wished to make, and returned to ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... the patriarch gravely, "have shown a little respect for the length of my beard and the whiteness of my hairs. 'Tis hardly the way to speak to a man of my years and standing. One, too, who with the decline of the year expects to be at the ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... Dean's apparent decline, some of his intimate friends, with concern, foresaw the impending fate of his fortune and his works. To this it is owing, that these sheets, which the world now despaired of ever seeing, are rescued ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... flattering inscription would cure me of so unfashionable a malady. I might, indeed, lately have had a legal title to as much supremacy on Parnassus as can be conferred by a sign-manual, for I had a very flattering offer of the laurel; but as I felt obliged, for a great many reasons, to decline it, I am altogether unconscious of any other title to sit high upon the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... loaded with cards, and I even received two dinner invitations from Lady Maelstrom, who told me how her dear nieces had wondered what had become of me, and that they were afraid that Louisa would have fallen into a decline. And during these three months Cecilia and Susannah had been introduced, and had become as inseparable as most young ladies are, who have a lover a-piece, and no cause for jealousy. Mr Cophagus had so far recovered as to be able to go down into the country, vowing, much to the chagrin ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... the same parish a Mrs. Williams, who kept a college for instructing little gentlemen and ladies in the science of A B C, who was at this time very old and infirm, and wanted to decline this important trust. This being told to Sir William Dove, he sent for Mrs. Williams, and desired she would examine little Two-Shoes, and see whether she was qualified for the office. This was done, and Mrs. Williams made the following report in her favour: namely, that little Margery was the ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... position a very important one, as it was the only paper within hundreds of miles of the seat of war, and the only one on the Mississippi above Alton, Ill.; hence he must procure a substitute or decline the appointment of surgeon. Having made his acquaintance after he had learned that we had been engaged in newspaper life, he insisted that we should take a position on the Galenian for a few weeks, or until the close of the war, so that he could accept the offer ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... greatly. Helen was tired, and she admitted it. She did not decline his aid when the path was steep and slippery. In delightful snatches of talk they managed to say a good deal to each other, and Helen did not fail to make plain the exact circumstances under which she first caught ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... through a rugged and hilly country, which was divided into nine principal parts or districts, each under a different governor; and these again were reduced into endless subdivisions. Some of them we were obliged to decline. It was not a little puzzling to perceive the intricate ramifications of the paths in these parts. Here the natives spoke several dialects, which rendered our intercourse with them very perplexing. However, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... court did not displace the county court immediately, it forecast its eventual decline as a judicial tribunal. The new court introduced the beginnings of professionalism on the bench, and offered the prospect of full-time attention to the administration of justice by trained judges. Establishment ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... be found for them. A cabin and five acres of land will let for 4 pounds a year. The industrious cottar, with two, three, or four acres, would be exceedingly glad to have his time to himself, and have such an annual addition of land as he was able to manage, paying a fair rent for it; none would decline it but the ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first part, unless he would give me leave to add that, if it was not for putting him to an extraordinary expense, I would ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe |
