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verb
Decline  v. t.  
1.
To bend downward; to bring down; to depress; to cause to bend, or fall. "In melancholy deep, with head declined." "And now fair Phoebus gan decline in haste His weary wagon to the western vale."
2.
To cause to decrease or diminish. (Obs.) "You have declined his means." "He knoweth his error, but will not seek to decline it."
3.
To put or turn aside; to turn off or away from; to refuse to undertake or comply with; reject; to shun; to avoid; as, to decline an offer; to decline a contest; he declined any participation with them. "Could I Decline this dreadful hour?"
4.
(Gram.) To inflect, or rehearse in order the changes of grammatical form of; as, to decline a noun or an adjective. Note: Now restricted to such words as have case inflections; but formerly it was applied both to declension and conjugation. "After the first declining of a noun and a verb."
5.
To run through from first to last; to repeat like a schoolboy declining a noun. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books



... order that He might lead us thereto more efficaciously, He wished to be baptized with a baptism which He clearly needed not, that men who needed it might approach unto it. Wherefore Ambrose says on Luke 3:21: "Let none decline the laver of grace, since Christ did not refuse the laver ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... assured Daphne, after she represented to him what he was losing by such lack of resignation, when the time of rest had come for which he longed, but from which many things still withheld him. Yesterday the King had invited him to the palace for the first time, and to decline ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... will be very difficult to express our sense of such kindness; and more so still to decline it: but I hope they will understand and even ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau

... 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 Gestis, lib. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... of color produced artistic effects in costume worthy of attention, and resulted in styles of dress of real beauty. But the present corrupted state of morals there has introduced a corrupt taste in dress; and it is worthy of thought that the decline of moral purity in society is often marked by the deterioration of the sense of artistic beauty. Corrupt and dissipated social epochs produce corrupt styles of architecture and corrupt styles of drawing and painting, as might easily be illustrated ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... field? Are you a god? would you create me new? Transforme me then, and to your powre Ile yeeld. But if that I am I, then well I know, Your weeping sister is no wife of mine, Nor to her bed no homage doe I owe: Farre more, farre more, to you doe I decline: Oh traine me not sweet Mermaide with thy note, To drowne me in thy sister floud of teares: Sing Siren for thy selfe, and I will dote: Spread ore the siluer waues thy golden haires; And as a bud Ile take thee, and there lie: And in that glorious supposition thinke, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Romenay, Rumney, Romaine, or Romagnia. That it could not be the produce of the Ecclesiastical State, as the two last corruptions of the word would seem to imply, may be safely averred; for at no period, since the decline of the empire, has the Roman soil furnished any wines for exportation; and even Bacci, with all his partiality, is obliged to found his eulogy of them on their ancient fame, and to confess that, in his time, they had fallen into disrepute." He argues also against ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... had lighted up, and for the moment his air had the jollity of youth. I would have accepted the entertainment had I not again caught Madame's eye. It said, unmistakably and with serious pleading, "Decline." I therefore made my excuses, urged fatigue, drowsiness, and a delicate stomach, bade my host good-night, and in ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... part of the sixteenth century, Mont St Michel seems to have reached the high-water mark of its glories. After this time a decline commenced and Cardinal le Veneur reduced the number of monks to enlarge his own income. This new cardinal was the first of a series not chosen from the residents on the mount, for after 1523 the system of election ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... place, appears to be intended in a sense peculiarly strict. It seems to imply a theory, that would be certain in its application to those vicissitudes and fluctuations to which nations are liable, and not merely to explaining their rise and decline. As to such fluctuations, it would be absurd to enter into any theory about them; they depend on particular combinations of circumstances, too infinite, in variety, to be imagined, or subjected to ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... in receipt of another letter from 'Fair Play,' but as personalities are indulged in, and as we are averse to entering upon a prolonged and bitter controversy, we are constrained to decline ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... Espanoles"). His arrangement of the scenes has been followed throughout, thus enabling the reader in a moment to verify for himself the exactness of the translation by a reference to the original, a crucial test which I rather invite than decline. ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... generations they degenerate not only in their mental faculties, but in form. Captain Williamson (1/75. 'Oriental Field Sports' quoted by Youatt 'The Dog' page 15.), who carefully attended to this subject, states that "hounds are the most rapid in their decline;" "greyhounds and pointers, also, rapidly decline." But spaniels, after eight or nine generations, and without a cross from Europe, are as good as their ancestors. Dr. Falconer informs me that bulldogs, which have been known, when first brought into the country, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... 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

... not at least as physical as they are. I have witnessed certain transactions effected by means unknown to me—possibly by the action of a natural law not yet fully expounded by science. If there was anything spiritual in the affair, it has not been manifest to my apprehension: and I must decline to lend my countenance ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... half without realizing it, as families will. Then Mr. Kronborg, who had never been ill, died suddenly of cancer of the liver, and after his death Mrs. Kronborg went, as her neighbors said, into a decline. Hearing discouraging reports of her from the physician who had taken over his practice, Dr. Archie went up from Denver to see her. He found her in bed, in the room where he had more than once attended her, a handsome woman of sixty with a body still firm and white, her hair, faded ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... room for a stately piece of machinery, that stood up-reared, between her thighs, as she continued siting on his lap, and pressed hard for instant intromission, which the tender Emily, in a fit of humour deliciously protracted, affected to decline, and elude the very pleasure she sighed for, but in a style of waywardness, so prettily put on, and managed, as to render it ten times more poignant; then her eyes, all amidst the softest dying languishment, expressed, ait once a mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her sweetness was zested with ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... little on its decline since the days of the Dukes of Aquitaine and the Counts of Toulouse, it was still held in honour; and, when Petrarch arrived, the Floral games had been established at Toulouse ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... polity offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants, and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek. xlvii. 21-23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of family honor and personal character. 1 Kings ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... precious, what shall we say to Him who exhorts us, "Go! ... and, lo, I am with you"? Is He not saying: The good SHEPHERD must seek the wandering sheep until He find them. Go ye, too, and seek them, and in so doing you shall find My companionship ensured? Shall we decline this fellowship with Him, and leave Him, so far as we are concerned, to seek ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor

... reach. If you love me, assist me with your prayers." He often invites others to weep with him, and conjures them to pray for him. John, archbishop of Ravenna, modestly reprehended his cowardice in endeavoring, by flight, to decline the burden of the pastoral charge. In answer to his censure, and to instruct all pastors, soon after his exaltation, he wrote his incomparable book, On the Pastoral Care, setting forth the dangers, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he remarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings, as if he were a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... our society may not appear a set of humorists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life. But having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His person is well ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... plan, hasten to the work; I have assigned to each one the part he is to take in its accomplishment. Hasten, therefore! I, however, by way of exception, will myself go to the market to-day and make the necessary purchases. On such an important occasion, no one, however highly placed, must decline labor and the faithful performance of duty. I go, therefore, and six of the kitchen-boys may ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... isolation in the matter of markets, and the decline of our shipping interest in the last thirty years, have coincided singularly with an actual remoteness of this continent from the life of the rest of the world. The writer has before him a map of the North and South Atlantic ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... 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, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... manifest advantage to her interests. At this juncture the offer of the King was renewed. It came now just at the right time, and the young statesman was found as ready to accept as he had before been prompt to decline. Mr. Pitt became the Prime-Minister of George III., and henceforth his history is blended with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... has evidently been taught and learnt as the world's lesson, and is not native there. Near her sits a man benign of aspect, advanced in years; his hair and eyebrows white from the winter's fall; his eye and mien telling of decline, easy and placid as the close of softest music, and nothing harsher. Care and trouble he has never known; he is too old to learn them now. His dress is very plain. The room in which he sits is devoid of ornament, and furnished like the study of a simple scholar. Books take up the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... naturale, saith Justinian,(1137) est quod naturo omnia animalia docuit. This the lawyers take to be the law of nature, which nature, by its sole instinct, teacheth as well to other living creatures as to men; for nature teacheth all living creatures to save and preserve their own being, to decline things hurtful, to seek things necessary for their life, to procreate their like, to care for that which is procreated by them, &c. The Archbishop of Spalato(1138) liketh to speak with the lawyers. Jus naturale, saith he, simpliciter ponitur ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... echoes forth a voice, But when it's drowned in western seas is done, And drowsy-like leaves off to make a noise; So I, my love, enlightened with your shine, A poet's skill within my soul I shroud, Not rude like that which finer wits decline, But such as Muses to the best allowed. But when your figure and your shape is gone I speechless am like as I was before; Or if I write, my verse is filled with moan, And blurred with tears by falling in such store. Then muse not, Licia, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... ab illis solo contemptu, I lie still and sleep, vindicate myself by contempt alone. [4025]Expers terroris Achilles armatus: as a tortoise in his shell, [4026]virtute mea me involvo, or an urchin round, nil moror ictus [4027]a lizard in camomile, I decline their fury ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... of the Thames. In giving him this prominent place, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who with much modesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, have acknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and with him they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylor and Albert Smith, Esquires, thus bear testimony to his merits in one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... joke was connected with the Jewesses, four or five of whom sat in a row in the diwan. Almost everybody else was puffing away at a tchibouque or nargileh, and the place was one cloud of smoke. The poor Jewesses were obliged to decline joining us, for it happened to be Saturday, and they must not smoke on their Sabbath. They were naturally much pitied, and some of the young wives did what was possible for them. Drawing in a long breath of smoke, they puffed it forth in the faces of the Jewesses, who opened ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... specific agent of the disease. This agent is thought to reside in the sputum and the secretions of the nose and air passages of the patient. It is very contagious at the height of the attack. The sputum of the first or catarrhal stage is thought to be highly contagious. The sputum in the stage of decline is also thought to be capable of carrying the disease. It prevails in all countries and climates. During the winter and spring months it is most frequent. At times it prevails as an epidemic. It occurs most frequently in infancy and childhood, but a person can take it at any age. Second ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... (whoever she was) suffered. The secret of this catastrophe Mrs. Falchion, as I believe, held. There was a parting, a lapse of years, and then the meeting on the 'Fulvia': with it, partial restoration of Mrs. Falchion's influence, then its decline, and then a complete change of position. It was now Mrs. Falchion that cared, and Roscoe that shunned. It perplexed me that there seemed to be behind Mrs. Falchion's present regard for Roscoe some weird expression of vengeance, as though somehow she had been wronged, and it was her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... class is the topic of many of these monodies: either the virtues of the loyal slave are extolled[140], or the knavery of the cunning slave[141]. The parasite is "featured" too, when Ergasilus bewails the decline of his profession[142], or Peniculus and Gelasimus indulge in haunting threnody on their perpetual lack of food[143]. Bankers, lawyers and panders come in for their share of satire[144]. Our favorite topic today, the frills and furbelows of woman's dress and its reform, held the boards ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... question," said King Robert, "the commission must be ample; and did it consist with the dignity of our crown, we would not ourselves decline its jurisdiction. But we trust that, while the thunders of the church are directed against the vile authors of these detestable heresies, there shall be measures of mildness and compassion taken with the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... strength decline every day and every exertion began to be irksome; when we were once seated the greatest effort was necessary in order to rise, and we had frequently to lift each other from our seats, but even in this pitiable condition we conversed cheerfully, being sanguine ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... "I decline to answer any questions beyond what I have already said," Harry replied firmly. "I tell you that I am an English gentleman traveling here on my own private business, and it were foul wrong for me to be seized and punished upon the suspicion ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... I'm kinder thin and some changed, so ye didn't know me," said Reuben, with a feeble smile. "Ye see I've been here a year, and am going into a decline. I sent word home to have father ask Deacon Nash if he wouldn't let me go home to be nussed up by mother. I should get rugged again if I could have a little o' mother's nussin. P'raps ye've come to take me home, Perez?" And a faint gleam of hope ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... has to be done through the begging of my friends I decline the honor. I don't know that I'd care to be any kind of a colonel, anyhow. I'd have to pass the boys here, and maybe I'd have to command 'em, which would make 'em feel bad. Old Jack himself might become jealous of me. I guess ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... when spinning was done by hand, was the staple trade of Knaresbro' and its vicinity, but which, of late years has been much on the decline, perhaps owing ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... that this displacement of numbers and of riches was not accomplished without terrible disturbances. The Mahes and the Hoches detest each other. Between them is a hatred of centuries. The Mahes in spite of their decline retain the pride of ancient conquerors. After all they are the founders, the ancestors. They speak with contempt of the first Floche, a beggar, a vagabond picked up by them from feelings of pity, ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola

... Declension? Decline girl and tooth. Decline the several personal pronouns, the relative and the interrogative. What adjective pronouns are declined wholly ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones. This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... particular and local causes for the decay of Chivalry which St. Palaye gives, have, of course, little application to Japanese conditions; but the larger and more general causes that helped to undermine Knighthood and Chivalry in and after the Middle Ages are as surely working for the decline ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... squarely, and his voice rang as coldly as the clang of steel when he quietly said, handing back the papers: "I must tell you, Mr. Ferris," he answered, with decision, "that I release you from any obligation to me for my services so far. I shall decline to express any personal or professional opinion in this matter until I get further orders." Ferris sprang back like a tiger cat ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... 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 ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... lamented that the taste for poetry is on the decline—that it is no longer relished—that the public will never again purchase it as a luxury. But it must be some consolation to our modern poets to know (as no doubt they do, for it is by this time notorious) that their productions really do a vast deal of service—that they are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various

... our bones, and of ptyalin and flint in human spittle—besides some 10,000 times 10,000 other things which we must be told and try to remember, and which we cannot prove not to be true, but which I decline to ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... elephant can be induced to pass over ground he considers unsafe. Sometimes, however, a driver obtains such a mastery over a timid animal, that he compels him to undertake what his better sense would induce him to decline. ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... think brisk out of my breeches I can pay clever gentlemen for doing Greek for me I do not defend myself ever I was discontented, and could not speak my discontent I laughed louder than was necessary If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? Intimations of cowardice menacing a paralysis of the will Irony instead of eloquence Is it any waste of time to write of love? It goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little finger Kindness is kindness, all over the world Learn all about them afterwards, ay, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Cologne, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. The splendour of these edifices and the munificence of their wealthy inhabitants could only be equalled in the maritime regions of Italy. But in the fifteenth century the power of the League began to decline. The Russian towns, under the leadership of Novgorod the Great, commenced a crusade against the Hanse Towns' monopoly in that country. The general rising in England, which was one of the great warehouses, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... decline to make the venture, I thought, but her courage was too great. Now was the time when I proved myself still a son of the earth, with fallible judgment and a will too much engrossed with self. I had been wishing for an opportunity ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... the service was urgent, and no one, it Was agreed, so competent as himself to the duty—indeed upon this point Mr. Smith remarked that the most flattering unanimity of opinion was exhibited by all the gentlemen likely, should he decline the honor, to be selected in his place—he finally consented and in due time found himself fairly within the walls of the devoted city. "It was an uncomfortable business," the captain said, "very much so—and in more ways than one. It took a long time to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... it were a mere question of the education to be received, it is much to be feared that the great majority of Americans, unless quite unable to attend one of their own universities, would politely decline to come to England. At the time when the terms of the will were made public, a good many unpleasant things were said in the American press; and it was only the admiration of Americans for Mr. Rhodes (who appealed to their imagination as no other Englishman, except perhaps Mr. Gladstone, has appealed ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... steps about it. Soon afterward we came here; Vittoria with us. Poor girl! Poor girl! She did nothing but weep and wring her hands, moan and lament and wonder why she had ever been born, and at last she died of decline—that is to say, they called it decline, but it was really a broken heart. That is the story—a black chronicle, is it not? You know about Sigmund's coming here. My husband remembered that he was heir to our name, and we were in a measure responsible for ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... gladly have received you into their protection, had not your aunt Rossville claimed you as her sister's last bequest. She soon after became a protestant, and persisted in educating you in that faith, which naturally gave offence to your paternal relatives; and to that cause alone I attribute the decline of their interest. But, if you return to France, and as the wife ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... III.: the decline of the military spirit in Egypt—The reorganisation of the army and fleet by Ramses—The second Libyan invasion—The Asiatic peoples, the Pulasati, the Zakleala, and the Tyrseni: their incursions into Syria and their defeat—The campaign of the year XL and the fall of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... marine is declining. Even in our own colonies we cannot compete with foreign countries, despite the enormous pecuniary subventions accorded by the State. M. Cruppi, an ex-Minister of Commerce, has insisted on this melancholy decline in a recent book. Falling into the usual errors, he believed it easy to remedy ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... happens in the history of states and races, in which there is found first a rise and then a decline, that the greatest glories take place just then when the reverse is beginning or begun. Thus, for instance, in the history of the Ottoman Turks, to which I have not yet come, Soliman the Magnificent is at once the last and greatest of a series of great Sultans. So was it ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... justice." It troubled her that when she allowed herself to take a milder view of deity, "I feel," she says, "less fear of God and, in view of sin, I feel only a sensation of grief." This was an alarming decline. It troubled her again that she loved literature, whereas she ought only to care for religion. She writes to Edward: "You speak of your predilections for literature being a snare to you. I have found it so myself." ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... it is on all hands agreed to be best, that he should think rightly; but since a fallible being will always make some deviations from exact rectitude, it is not wholly useless to inquire towards which side it is safer to decline. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... (1774-89). The several states were never at any time sovereign states. The Articles of Confederation. Nature and powers of the Continental Congress. It could not impose taxes, and therefore was not fully endowed with sovereignty. Decline of the Continental Congress. Weakness of the sentiment of union; anarchical ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... with the fact that life admits of a natural analysis into no less than fifteen distinct periods. Taking the five primary divisions, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, each of these has its own three periods of immaturity, complete development, and decline. I recognize on OLD baby at once,—with its "pipe and mug," (a stick of candy and a porringer,)—so does everybody; and an old child shedding its milk-teeth is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... indicates a higher degree of appreciation of the pictorial art than is generally ascribed to the age in which Achilles Tatius wrote. Even in the latter part of the first century of our era, Pliny, when enumerating the glorious names of the ancient Greek painters, laments over the total decline, in his own days, of what he terms (Nat. Hist. xxxv. 11) "an aspiring art;" but the monarchs of the Macedonian dynasties in Asia, and, above all, the Egyptian Ptolemies, were both munificent patrons of the fine arts among their own subjects, and diligent collectors of the great works of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... thus released from obligation to discharge, is still left free to create responsibilities, for which it is now the business of the State to make provision. Under such a system the ability to pay as well as the number of the solvent citizens must continuously decline. ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... the setting sun. And 'midst the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars, The death-wound on their gallant breasts the last of many scars: But some were young—and suddenly beheld life's morn decline; And one had come from Bingen—fair ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... almost until I was beginning to decline in life, before I took the right path and sought refuge in port; before going to what is pure and virtuous, and before listening to the continual advice of those who love me, I passed too suddenly from those lies, from those ephemeral enjoyments, from that satiety ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... in the morning, we take our pilot on board, and shortly after, my German friends rouse me with the intelligence that we are alongside the wharf. I am now, however, getting an "old bird;" my enthusiasm about novelty has gone down considerably; and I decline the pleasure of accompanying them on shore at this early hour. Honolulu will doubtless wait for me ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... beyond the strata of rock, on the good ground, stood two splendid apple-trees called "Jersey Sweetings," and for nearly two summer months their bounty was the delight of the children. Farther down, the ground sloped abruptly and settled into a pleasant orchard; then another sudden decline, and here a pretty stream came purling through, making a tiny cascade as ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... Mr. Glyn and Mr. Thomas Baring had urged me to undertake a mission to Canada on the business of the Grand Trunk Railway, which mission I had been compelled to decline; and when, in 1860-1, the affairs of that undertaking became dreadfully entangled, the Committee of Shareholders, who reported upon its affairs, invited me to accept the post of "Superintending Commissioner," with full powers. They desired me to ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... admits of a natural analysis into no less than fifteen distinct periods. Taking the five primary divisions, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, each of these has its own three periods of immaturity, complete development, and decline. I recognize an old baby at once,—with its "pipe and mug," (a stick of candy and a porringer,)—so does everybody; and an old child shedding its milk-teeth is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his permanent ones. Fifty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... twice in the course of a century, she would glance into this or that new history book, only to lay it down with a shrug of her shoulders. Some of the mediaeval chronicles she rather liked. But when, one day, Pallas asked her what she thought of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" her only answer was "ostis toia echei en edone echei en edone toia" (For people who like that kind of thing, that is the kind of thing they like). This she did let slip. Generally, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... were happy, they died?' Coming next to that part of literature which is more under the control of the imagination, such as what we call Glaubsila, or colloquially 'Glaubs,' and you call poetry, the reasons for its decline amongst us ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... that behind which the enemy stood, but not near so precipitous or rugged, and about a mile distant, with a gentle decline towards the base of the opposite ridge, was to be the base of the battle ground of the day. This plain or gentle slope between the two armies, a mile in extent, was mostly open fields covered with grain or other crops, with here and there a farm house, orchard and garden. It seems from reports ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... at Sherry's with the Donaldsons," she explained. "I knew you wouldn't come, so I didn't even trouble you to decline." ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... my assistance. I said to him: "If Spiritualism be true, why not ask the man who made the will what it was and also what has become of it. If you can find that out from the departed, I will gladly take a retainer in the case; otherwise, I must decline." I have had no other experience with ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... share in common with the upright and holy, all such things as they receive in accordance with the just provisions of the order, down even to the mere contents of a begging bowl; . . . so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... duties which his social position demands. In some cases of insanity, as in confirmed idiocy, there is no evidence of the exercise of the intellectual faculties. It is probable that no standard of sanity as fixed by nature can be said to exist. The medical witness should decline to commit himself to any definition of insanity. There is no practical advantage in attempting to classify the different forms ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... enough after a while. We are all tired of the sea just now," said Jack. "What about Captain Bonnet and meeting him at Sullivan's Island to pass the word that we must decline his courteous invitation?" ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... I should think so," said Sylvia, pushing the folds aside and looking down the western decline of the hill, where a wide reach of Casco Bay came in view. Small snowy sails were flying out to sea, like a flock of ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... decline to accept this challenge. He decided to remain where he was, and allow the Romans to cross the stream. This they accordingly did; and when all the troops had effected the passage, they were drawn up in battle array on the plain. Pyrrhus marshaled his forces also, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... light up with a pure brightness the lofty summits of our Alps; when the sun at his setting stretches a path of fire along the waters of our lake, who does not feel impelled to render glory to the supreme Artist? When dark cold fogs rest upon our valleys at the decline of autumn, it only needs sometimes to climb the mountain-side, in order to issue all at once from the gloomy region, and see the chain of high peaks, resplendent with light, mark themselves out upon a sky of incomparable blue. Often have I given myself ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... off. In the first year of its existence nearly a million entered the gates; four years later an equal number was registered; for the last three years the number has fallen to less than half a million. Its popularity, therefore, is on the decline. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... public pressed for solution as never before. The only suggestion at first discussed was arbitration. Enforced arbitration could not be effected in the absence of contract without infringing the workingman's right to labor or to decline to do so; in other words, without reducing him, in case of adverse decision by arbitration, to a condition of involuntary servitude. It looked as though no solution would be reached unless State or nation should condemn and ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... brown hair. Her black brows and lashes, like her eyes and mouth, were vivid, but her hair and complexion were soft, without lustre, but very warm. She looked like a flower set on so strongly sapped a stem that her fullness would outlast many women's decline. She had inherited the beauty of her father's branch of the family. Mrs. Madison was very small and thin; but she carried herself erectly and her delicately cut face was little wrinkled. Her eyes were blue, and her hair, which was always carefully rolled, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... expenses, which he could not do at the gay Capitol, but likewise gather in a few more of the loaves and fishes of office, which were said to be found in greater abundance at a distance from the seat of Government, besides Mr. Barton was in the decline of life, and felt that the harness of office life did not fit so easily upon him while under the immediate supervision of the Suddur Aydowlett, as it would do when removed from its immediate influence. However, be this as it may, he was quite content with the change, nor was he the ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... needs correspond to some other detail in Spaceland; and yet he hopes that, taken as a whole, his work may prove suggestive as well as amusing, to those Spacelanders of moderate and modest minds who—speaking of that which is of the highest importance, but lies beyond experience—decline to say on the one hand, "This can never be," and on the other hand, "It must needs be precisely thus, and we know ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... Such a decline of the power and commercial importance of Timbuctoo would naturally be accompanied by a corresponding decay of the city itself; and we cannot suppose that Adams' description of its external appearance will be rejected, on account of its improbability, by ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... all, and there's nothing to argue about," Esther said stiffly. She had taken off her gloves and was flattening them out nervously. "You offered me your friendship, and now I decline it. I suppose I am free ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... by the Khan—treachery against the Khan's person. He mused a little, and then communicated so much of his suspicions to the Khan as might put him on his guard; 25 but, upon further consideration, he begged leave to decline the honor of accompanying the Khan. The fact was that three Kalmucks, who had strong motives for returning to their countrymen on the west bank of the Wolga, guessing the intentions of Weseloff, had offered 30 ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... writing, waiting a reasonable time for it, and which, if it contain their decision to come through without further condition, will be your warrant to ask General Ord to pass them through as directed in the letter of the Secretary of War to him. If by their answer they decline to come, or propose other terms, do not have them pass through. And this being your whole duty, return ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... upon the lawyer, who responded with consuming zeal. But the parents would none of it. What they wanted in the family was a Duke; and a Duke they were determined to have; though they confessed that next to the Duke the lawyer had their preference. Necessarily the blonde now went into a decline. The parents were alarmed. They pleaded with her to marry the Duke, but she steadfastly refused, and pined on. Then they laid a plan. They told her to wait a year and a day, and if at the end of that time she still felt that she could not marry ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... retirement, were not years of leisure. "I have rarely," he wrote in 1827, "during the period of my public life, found my time less at my disposal than since I took my leave of it; nor have I the consolation of finding, that as my powers of application necessarily decline, the demands on them proportionally decrease." Much as he wrote upon questions of an earlier period, there were no topics of the current time that did not arouse his interest. Upon the subject of slavery he thought much and wrote much and ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... by a short cut through the fields on the left and the garden of the Villa Russe, whose owner, "charmant et gentil," not only showed us all over, but very kindly invited us to a strawberry feast a month hence—which sorrowfully we had to decline—as well as making us free of his garden and fields, the latter being filled with the ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... debated among the islanders whether the white men should be assailed by the warriors, and it was on the advice of a native queen that the women were sent to make friends with the strangers; and this was the policy pursued. As for the decline of the natives in numbers, and the "digging the grave of the nation." the horror of the islands was the destruction of female infants, and also the habit of putting aged and helpless men and women to death. The general indictment against Captain Cook ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... a reason why a city is just where it is. Nothing is more controlled by law than the planting, the growth, and the decline of cities. Even the particular site is not a thing of chance, as we can see in the sites of Paris, London, Constantinople, and every other great city of the world. A town exists by supplying to the country about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... from Bavaria, the fine Court of France was on the decline: it was at the commencement of Maintenon's reign, which spoilt and degraded everything. It was not, therefore, surprising that the poor Dauphine should regret her own country. Maintenon annoyed her immediately after her marriage in such a manner as must have excited ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... was ill for some time, and it wore him to a skeleton, so that people thought he was in a decline. If I could only get sufficiently well to go back to duty, I should not mind; it is so sad to give trouble ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... ground ready for crops, to go to parties. Some people are pretty disgusted, I can tell you, Mr. Green. Some people talk about ingratitude and wonder why the colony doesn't hang together better. Some people even wonder why it is that folks are interested mainly in their own affairs, and decline to attend watch meetings and—receptions. So I'm afraid very few, except your nearest neighbors, will be present, after all might I ask when you expect to—to ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... hoary statesman out 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 ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... rysing wombe without a weame, That shone as bright as anie siluer streame; And bare out like the bending of an hill, At whose decline a fountaine ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash

... check the lawless riot of the trees, To plant the grove, or turn the barren mould Oh happy he, whom, when his years decline, (His fortune and his fame by worthy means Attain'd, and equal to his mod'rate mind; His life approv'd by all the wise and good, Even envy'd by the vain) the peaceful groves Of Epicurus, from this stormy world Hereine in rest; ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... bright snow-flake-petaled daisy, Whose heart of yellow gold, Is richer vein of pure delight Than miner-kings may hold, Sends out her invitation warm, To search in her domain For berries like a bleeding heart, I cannot well decline. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... which have followed in the train of this fatal invention of gunpowder, the squire classes the total decline of the noble art of falconry. "Shooting," he says, "is a skulking, treacherous, solitary sport in comparison; but hawking was a gallant, open, sunshiny recreation; it was the generous sport of hunting carried into ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... my inquiries I wrote a work of 52 pages, calling attention to the spiritual and natural causes of such decline of the native stock, and especially to the bad habits and false ideas of men and women which have produced it. This pamphlet I entitled, "Deterioration of the Puritan Stock, and its Causes," and printed 140,000 copies, which I sent to all the clergymen and physicians in our country whose names ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis

... remaining) the peculiar features, and general characteristics of Decorative Art, as applied to the various materials on which it was employed, whether for sacred or domestic purposes, from the Byzantine, or early Christian period, to the decline of that termed ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... suspected exile. As much flattered and courted when she was poor as while she was rich. Just as fascinating when old and blind as while young and beautiful. Loss of fortune brought no loss of power,—decline of beauty, no decrease of admiration. Modelled by artists, flattered by princes, adored by women, eulogized by men of genius, courted by men of letters,—the beloved of the chivalric Augustus of Prussia, and the selfish, dreamy Chateaubriand,—with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... didn't want it. I expected you, like everybody else, to decline carrying out your ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... whence proceeds that borowed name? Of what continuance? scarcely hath the Sunne Beheld thy pride a day, but doth decline Shaming to view ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... Plantat, unwilling to decline, appropriated a lozenge, and the detective's face became again serene. Public sympathy was necessary to him, as it is to ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... may be well to note, in this connection, that the decline in the birth rate among the more intelligent classes of British labor followed upon the famous Bradlaugh-Besant trial of 1878, the outcome of the attempt of these two courageous Birth Control pioneers to circulate among the workers the work of an American physician, Dr. Knowlton's "The Fruits ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... sentence of which is pregnant with the deepest observations and most lively images." I mention Gibbon, for it is more than a strong probability that in diligence, accuracy, and love of truth he is the equal of Tacitus. A common edition of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is that with notes by Dean Milman, Guizot, and Dr. Smith. Niebuhr, Villemain, and Sir James Mackintosh are each drawn upon for criticism. Did ever such a fierce light beat upon a history? With what keen relish do the annotators pounce upon mistakes or inaccuracies, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... press their acceptance of the invitation I had given them to continue the yachting excursion with me up the Mississippi; but before I had time to say anything about it, Owen told me the Shepards had concluded to decline the invitation. I was rather taken aback by this announcement, for the party were exceedingly pleasant company, and I knew that Margie Tiffany would enjoy being with her ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic

... retirement! friend to life's decline, Retreats from care, that never must be mine, How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, A youth of labor with an age of ease; Who quits a world where strong temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! For him no wretches, born to work and weep, Explore the mine, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... that you would raise my salary, but I've changed my mind, and have come here to decline ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... of its strength, the Army of the Potomac will give or decline battle whenever its interests or honor ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... Pietro, had said that it would not be at all dangerous for him to have his desire gratified—to take the holy communion at the sacred altar. His days were plainly numbered; it but remained to make his decline as full as possible of ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker

... had predicted, Arthur utterly refused to go near Elsie; and, at first, seemed disposed to decline her gift; but at length, on Lora suggesting that he might require a Bible for some of his school exercises, he accepted it, as Elsie had thought he might, on ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley

... would choose the Renaissance; many some stately and simple period of Grecian life; and still more elect to pass a few years wandering among the villages of Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some of our quaintly vicious contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire and the reign of Henry III. of France. But there are others not quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfect gravity, who have never taken the categorical imperative to wife, and have more ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the Sovereign himself, who was pleased to bestow encomiums upon the excellence of her beauty. Many persons of consequence, who had dropped the acquaintance of Peregrine in the beginning of his decline, now made open efforts to cultivate his friendship anew; but he discouraged all these advances with the most mortifying disdain; and one day when the nobleman, whom he had formerly obliged, came up to him ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... Tears fell from their eyes, they sank to their knees, their eyes fixed with anguish on the depths of the valleys, which the thickening evening shade was gradually invading. The sun had disappeared, but the moon, then in her decline, was not yet up. There was thus, between sunset and the rising of the moon, a rather long interval. It was a bitter one for husband and wife; bitter, like the certain expectation of some ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... answer you very plainly, Monsieur de G—; and perhaps it is as well you have taken this unusual step, as it will save you the trouble of making any application to Madame d'Albret. Flattered as I am by your compliment, I beg to decline the honour you propose, and now that you know my feelings, you will of course not be so ungenerous as to make ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... closing with a meeting in the Casino at Roger Williams Park with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as the principal speaker. Miss Yates, after serving five years, was obliged on account of other demands on her time to decline reelection and was made honorary president. No president being elected at the annual meeting, Agnes M. (Mrs. Barton P.) Jenks was chosen later by the Executive Committee to fill the vacancy and afterwards was elected and held the office until ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... decline those, father. I'd be glad to go!" was Donald's reply. "I always promised Sandy I would come West again some time, and I should really enjoy ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... a profound moral significance in this fiction all will see; but I am of opinion that it is accidental and adventitious. The means that Tezcatlipoca employs to remove Quetzalcoatl refer to the two events that mark the decline of day. The sun is reflected by a long lane of beams in the surface waters of lake or sea; it loses the strength of its rays and fails in vigor; while the evening mists, the dampness of approaching dewfall, and the gathering clouds obscure its power and foretell the extinction ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... hundred dollars, or even a hundred and fifty. The sale of such a gigantic tusk, as may well be supposed, is considered an affair of almost national importance, and the bargain can only be adjusted through the medium of a "big palaver." The trade in ivory is now on the decline; the demand in England and France not being so great as formerly, and America never having presented a ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... numbers of persons under the influence of these societies have forsaken patriotism for profits. And I know both co-operators and Chartists who were loud-mouthed for social and political reform, who now care no more for it than a Whig government; and decline to attend a public meeting on a fine night, while they would crawl like the serpent in Eden, through a gutter in a storm, after a good security. They have tasted land, and the gravel ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... Lanier committed the assault. Pierre Lanier has defrauded Alice out of a large estate. She is alive and interested in recovery of the property. I would do all in my power to aid her. Against any breaches of confidence I decline to make pledges. The time and money I have spent to right her wrongs show my sincerity. What assurances should you require that I will not betray this ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... beat out his brains! Piety, and fear, Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth, Domestic awe, night-rest and neighbourhood, Instruction, manners, mysteries and trades, Degrees, observances, customs and laws, Decline to your confounding contraries, And let confusion live! Plagues incident to men, Your potent and infectious fevers heap On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica, Cripple our senators, that their limbs ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... cattle-pens, we must mention one other: Caron de Beaumarchais, Author of Figaro; vanquisher of Maupeou Parlements and Goezman helldogs; once numbered among the demigods; and now—? We left him in his culminant state; what dreadful decline is this, when we again catch a glimpse of him! 'At midnight' (it was but the 12th of August yet), 'the servant, in his shirt,' with wide-staring eyes, enters your room:—Monsieur, rise; all the people ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... influence and rise to control of France of the Parisian proletariat. The Republic ... The Terror ... Robespierre. 3. Radiation of revolutionary ideas to other nations. 4. Wars between revolutionary France and monarchical Europe. The rise of Napoleon. D. The decline of the revolutionary elements, 1800-1815. 1. France converted from a republic to an empire by Napoleon. 2. The Napoleonic Wars. a. Reveal Napoleon's dynastic ambition. b. Lead Europe to combine against ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... bibliographical treasures into the chaise; and instantly set off, at a sharp trot, for the quiet and comfort of green fields and running streams. As we rolled over Westminster-bridge, we bade farewell, like the historian of the Decline and Fall of the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... waters of the Nile across the plain of Egypt, looking towards Arabia. It took four days to go up this canal, and it was so wide that two triremes could go abreast. It was carried on by Darius, the son of Hystaspes, and probably finished by Ptolemy II. Strabo saw it navigated: but its decline from the point of departure, near Bubastes, to the Red Sea was so slight that it was only navigable for a few months in the year. This canal answered all commercial purposes to the age of Antonius, when it was abandoned ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... crown all, Captain Polkington had a fit of virtue and repentance on the second day after his return. It was not of long duration, and was, no doubt, partly physical, and not unconnected with the effects of his decline from the paths of temperance. But while it lasted, he read some of the bills and talked about the way ruin stared him in the face and the need there was for retrenchment, turning over a new leaf, facing facts and kindred ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... [Sidenote: Decline of the Continental Congress.] At first the powers of the Congress were vague. They were what are called "implied war powers;" that is to say, the Congress had a war with Great Britain on its hands, and must be supposed to have power ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... had led him (p. 126) to suspect such a 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 ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... monosyllabic. This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like epixoriambikos. Still, it is now thought by the learned that other agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may have been concerned in the decline of "the glory that was Greece" and the rise of "the grandeur that was Rome." There can be no doubt, however, that by simplifying the name of W (calling it "wow," for example) our civilization could be, if not promoted, ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... during the period of about one hundred fifty years, extending from the middle of the twelfth to the close of the thirteenth century, that the features of our modern civilization began to assume a recognizable form. The age was characterized by the decline of feudalism, and by the growth of all the new influences which combined to create a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... to have been called Ralph Latimer of Langcote Hall, in Westmoreland; and he mentioned family affairs, which it may be of the highest importance to you to be acquainted with; but as he seemed to decline communicating them to me, I could not civilly urge him thereanent. Thus much I know, that Mr. Herries had his own share in the late desperate and unhappy matter of 1745, and was in trouble about it, although that is probably now over. Moreover, although ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... Palestine, and then to visit every place made memorable by the life of Christ, besides many others of Biblical interest. He tried to be critical, and constantly discusses the pros and cons for admitting the received location of prominent points; but in this he is not very successful, and seems to decline at length into helpless acquiescence. He rejects the innovations and doubts of such men as Robinson and Baker, and acknowledges that the sacred sites have for the most part been identified. But there is a limit to even his credulity. He swallowed easily the "exact spot" ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... Pie-Wagon Pete dispensed light viands; and Pie-Wagon Pete was the friend he had invited to share Mr. Critz's generosity. The seal of secrecy had been put on Pie-Wagon Pete's lips before Mr. Gubb offered him the opportunity to accept or decline; and when Mr. Gubb stopped for his evening meal, Pie-Wagon Pete—now off duty—was waiting for him. The story of Mr. Critz and his amateur con' business had amused Pie-Wagon Pete. He could hardly believe such utter innocence existed. Perhaps ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... philanthropist violently uncorked a bottle and directed half of its contents in a magnificent jet of light brown froth all over everybody, before he found the way into the tumbler. It was of no use to decline imbibing the remainder of the light brown froth—"There was the Cheese-Wring (cried all the benevolent strangers in chorus), and here was the porter—I must drink all their good healths, and they would all drink mine—this was Cornish hospitality, and Cornish hospitality ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... tentative and humble, so much that of one who scarce feels a right even to plead, so different from that of the old petted and radiant Madge, that 'twould have taken a harder man than Philip to decline. And so, when the servant had placed additional chairs, down we sat to supper with Miss Warren, of Drury Lane Theatre, who had sent her maid to answer the inquiries of the alarmed house concerning the recent tumult ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... "I decline your confidence. Madam, if I could only tell you, that your vile suspicions are too contemptible to merit the indignation they arouse, I should to some extent ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... marshal. It was not a question of peculation, but of offending the great cardinal, for which he was really put on trial, and the case ended in his being found guilty of malfeasance in office and executed. His brother died in prison three months afterwards,—of decline, so ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... remembers the trial of Michael Shay. It filled the papers for a month; it filled folk's minds and mouths for two. Many a worse murder had been quietly buried and forgotten, but this was too conspicuous. The boss, facing a decline of his power, had undoubtedly murdered the man he had begun to fear, and the parties in control of all the machinery of justice ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... right of this position was an open space, almost level with the immediate surroundings, but ending in a steep decline some 900 paces further on. There we went towards evening with a reinforcement of the Pretoria town commando that had followed us. The Field-Cornet made us stand in rows, and told off forty men to dig a trench that night. The rest of the men ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... to produce things in those days which are not produced now; they had talents which we lack, and it is not without reason that some good folk cry out that the decline has come. We no longer know how to sculpture living human flesh; this is consequent on the loss of the art of torture. Men were once virtuosi in that respect, but are so no longer; the art has become so simplified that it will soon disappear altogether. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees 310:12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun is not affected by the revolution of the earth. So Science reveals Soul as God, untouched 310:15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence around which circle harmoniously ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... schools of thought and work are artificially forced to the front are too often temporary, and their life is apt to be, Hamadryad-like, conterminous with that of their foster-parents. It has been my lot to witness the rise, decline, and evanescence of groups of authors and artists, whom it was almost sacrilegious to mention even with qualification. Adverse criticism was out of the question for any one valuing his ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... understand your answer to my request, Mr. Barclay, you decline to send back Mr. Gordon's pony. Pray, on ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... further sight of him. I think I was at bottom rather ashamed—I hated to remind him that, though I had irremediably missed his point, a reputation for acuteness was rapidly overtaking me. This scruple led me a dance; kept me out of Lady Jane's house, made me even decline, when in spite of my bad manners she was a second time so good as to make me a sign, an invitation to her beautiful seat. I once became aware of her under Vereker's escort at a concert, and was sure I was seen by them, but I slipped out without being caught. I felt, as ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... lava to sell: there is Victor Emanuel, or, if we are of the partito d'azione, there is Garibaldi; both warm yet from the crater of Vesuvius, and of the same material which destroyed Herculaneum. We decline to buy and the custodian makes the national shrug and grimace (signifying that we are masters of the situation, and that he washes his hands of the consequence of our folly) on the largest scale that we have ever seen: his mighty hands are rigidly ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... swallowed, too. In that task the old lady was not only industrious but generous, offering to subscribe handsomely toward the dot, as well as giving it to be understood that the bride-elect would figure in the end as her residuary legatee. Owing to this prospect Olivia had been compelled to decline a comte and a vicomte of crusading ancestry, procured at some pains by Madame de Melcourt; but when she also refused the eminently eligible Duc de Berteuil, whose terms in the way of dowry were reasonable, while he offered her a splendidly ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... were afforded, that his was no barren admiration. "You are in want of money," said he, "I will buy your rod." I hardly know how I looked when this proposition came forth with all imaginable solemnity, but I made haste to decline it, and he had too much native good ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig

... grave and silent for some time. Then opening a drawer, he took out the check which had been given to him as a retaining fee, and handing it to Allison, said—"I believe, sir, I must decline this case." ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur

... not decline to answer before the throne of God. For you and Tom will meet yonder. Good God, man, did you ever think of that? Did it ever occur to you that you and Tom will take your last ride in the same conveyance, and have the same upholstery in the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... frequently been asked by my English friends why it is that I decline to return to my country, and to associate my own efforts for the moral and political advancement of Italy with those of her governing classes. "The amnesty has opened up a path for the legal dissemination of your ideas," they tell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... alluvial plains and watercourses have been searched without ceasing, no attempt appears to have been made to explore the rocks themselves, in the debris of which the gems have been brought down by the rivers. Dr. Gygax says: "I found at Hima Pohura, on the south-eastern decline of the Pettigalle-Kanda, about the middle of the descent, a stratum of grey granite containing, with iron pyrites and molybdena, innumerable rubies from one-tenth to a fourth of an inch in diameter, and of a fine rose colour, but split and ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... whenever it should please Ivo to beat or kick her? Only "Gilbert of Ghent," the pious and illustrious earl, sent messages of congratulation and friendship to Hereward, it being his custom to sail with the wind, and worship the rising sun—till it should decline again. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley



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