"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poetry as a natural and popular, and not (as it became later) an artificial and academic literary form—passed through the usual three phases, of development, of maturity, and of decline. ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... at Marseilles and its depopulation, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xv, especially document cited in appendix; also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xliii; also Rambaud. For the resort to witch doctors in Austria against pestilence, down to the end of the eighteenth century, see Biedermann, Deutschland im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert. For the resort ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Prayer is the Christian's native air. It seems as if some Christians who are doomed to die of soul decline, might live if they would go back to their native air. Reader, do you need ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... my travels I am ofttimes asked if I desire my meals sent to my room, presupposing, as would be naturally inferred, the possibility of great awkwardness in my manner of eating; hence I invariably decline this offer of privacy, as there need be nothing in our manner of eating at all outre ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... pain to be compelled to decline your generous invitation to attend your annual meeting, but there is a deep pleasure in the thought that you remembered and desired me to be with you. Nowhere would I so gladly speak my little word for woman, her rights, her needs, her privileges delayed and debarred—yet blessed ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... out of a gilt frame or the dribbling of stock phrases over three hundred pages than for gibes and laughter and cheery gossip and honest, unromantic eating, as well as another purpose, which, as a highly dangerous topic, I decline even to mention. ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... brightly frescoed, and paved with ancient mosaics, representing the combats with beasts and gladiators in the Coliseum, curious, though very rudely and awkwardly designed, apparently after the arts had begun to decline. Many of the specimens of sculpture displayed in these rooms are fine, but none of them, I think, possess the highest merit. An Apollo is beautiful; a group of a fighting Amazon, and her enemies ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... outside aid continued to support this desperately poor economy. The economy continues to suffer massively from failure to maintain the infrastructure, looting, neglect of important cash crops, and lack of health care facilities. Because of the accumulated damage to capital plant and the decline in public discipline, recovery of domestic ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the expense you decline, mother, is it? You know Mr. Crawford gave me a dollar, and the tickets ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... highly mischievous, I decline receiving any communications from it, and must request that no publications from your office ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... said, a word in the first declaration which refers to general peace, and which states this to be the second time in which the Consul has endeavoured to accomplish that object. We thought fit, for the reasons which have been assigned, to decline altogether the proposal of treating, under the present circumstances; but we, at the same time, expressly stated that, whenever the moment for treaty should arrive, we would in no case treat but in conjunction with our allies. Our general refusal to negotiate at the present moment did not ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... decline of religious feeling among the people . . ." he sighed. "I should rather think so! They'd better foist a few more priests like ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... assert their independence at some future period, unless it be conceded to them without such rebellion. Who, on looking back, can now refuse to admire the political aspirations of the English Puritans, or decline to acknowledge the beauty and fitness of what they did? It was by them that these States of New England were colonized. They came hither, stating themselves to be pilgrims, and as such they first placed their feet on that hallowed rock at Plymouth, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... thy habitants! All the fair children of creative creeds, All the lost tribes of Fantasy are thine,— From antique Saturn in Dodonian haunts, Or Pan's first music waked from shepherd reeds, To the last sprite when Heaven's pale lamps decline, Heard wailing soft along ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... they were. Many 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 taste for what is comfortable than for what is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... various crucial points connected with the history of religion in Europe at the close of the Middle Ages, its decline, revival, and the causes which led to both, have already appeared in print as regards their general outline, although they have for the most part been rewritten, added to, and in each case ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... of life. Our analysis of this situation leads to only one possible conclusion: Repeated experiments with civilization unmask it as a way, not of life, but as a cycle of rise, expansion, maturity, decline and certain death. ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... 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
... He erst invincible, the Full of Days, The Grand Old One, full-fed with power and praise. ACHILLES-NESTOR, to no younger foe, Because of one chance slip and casual throw, The Champion's Belt is ready to resign; Nor may his foe the final fall decline. So "Greek meets Greek" in wrestling rig once more. Not AJAX or ULYSSES sly of yore, Nor modern STEAD MAN, JAMESON, or WEIGHT, Was e'er more eager for the sinewy fight. Much time is spent in "getting into grips." Mark how each wrestler crouches, feints, and slips! Mark how they circle round and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... profitable contract." Modern bourgeoisie is absolutely indifferent as to who is to be their political boss, just so they are given opportunity to store their profits, and accumulate great wealth. Besides, the cry about the decline of the great Republic is really meaningless. As far as it ever stood for liberty and well-being of the people, it has long ceased to be. Therefore lamentations come too late. True, the American Republic has not given birth ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... beautiful, in buoyancy, variety, charm and creature comfort. Drunkenness, of the kind familiar to London and New York, is invisible to Paris. The brandy and absinthe habit has been greatly exaggerated. In truth, everywhere in Europe the use of intoxicants is on the decline. They are, for the first time in France, stimulated partly by the alarming adulteration of French wines, rigorously applying ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... desire him to show you his celebrated collection of pottery. Seize the opportunity to ask him for a subscription (not less than L10,000) towards the re-opening of the closed ward of Sladen Hospital. He will decline. Offer to accept, instead, the mahogany case which he has in his smaller Etruscan urn. When you have secured this, decide to accept a cheque also. Arrange to be alone in ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... every year the Inspecting Commanders were to lay before the Board of Customs the conduct of the several officers within their district and the state in which smuggling then was, and "whether on the progress or decline, in what articles, and at what places carried on." For the Board was determined "to probe the conduct of the Preventive officers and punish them" for any laxity and negligence, for which faults alone they would be dismissed. And in order that the vigilance and faithful duty in the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... the bards of that poetic time, When all found readers who could find a rhyme; Green grew the bays on every teeming head, And Cibber was enthroned, and Settle read. Sing, drooping Muse, the cause of thy decline; Why reign no more the once-triumphant Nine? Alas! new charms the wavering many gain, And rival sheets the reader's eye detain; A daily swarm, that banish every Muse, Come flying forth, and mortals call them ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... that Part of mine which it is brought to countenance, it is very difficult to know what his opinion concerning salt, sulphur and mercury, was; and that consequently we had reason about the beginning of our conferences, to decline taking upon us, either to examine or ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... the sea was silver, on that October morning. It was the brilliant decline of the year. Edith stood with Jack on the veranda. He had his grip-sack in hand and was equipped for town. Both were ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Mr. Jones? Old 'Decline and Fall' Jones? He never reads any book excepting Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Always declines a drink when offered, but he's sure to fall a moment later!" Thus ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Synods composed of bishops and elders, 619 Deacons and laymen had no right of voting, ib. Churches not originally independent, 620 Utility of Synods, 621 Circumstances which led to a change in their constitution, ib. Decline of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the man who foresees this end approaching strive to hasten its arrival, or should he oppose it? In a decadent society, to come nearer to the problems which concern us in ethics, must a man strive to realize the social will expressed in progressive decadence? Should he hasten the decline of the community? ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... was right in his surmise, for the time glided on, with the stars rising to the zenith and beginning to decline. The heavens had never seemed more beautiful, being one grand dome of sparkling incrustations. The atmosphere was so clear that it seemed to those who lay back watching as if the dazzling points of light formed by the stars of the first magnitude stood out alone in the midst ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... old, but they grew thickly round the glade: there was no outlook, except northeastward upon distant hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky; and the encampment felt secure and private like a room. By the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over my eyes ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... students; in regard to whom I cannot do better than quote Mr. Lathrop. One of these young men "is Edward Wolcott, a wealthy, handsome, generous, healthy young fellow from one of the sea-port towns; and the other Fanshawe, the hero, who is a poor but ambitious recluse, already passing into a decline through overmuch devotion to books and meditation. Fanshawe, though the deeper nature of the two, and intensely moved by his new passion, perceiving that a union between himself and Ellen could not be a happy one, resigns the hope of it from ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... thorn in the side of the king, Edward IV, by reason of their continuing to capture French ships after peace had been concluded, that the angry monarch caused them to be enticed to Lostwithiel, where their ringleaders were taken and hanged. From this period Fowey's maritime position began to decline. The inhabitants were compelled to pay a heavy fine, and the whole of their shipping was handed over to the ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... Virgilians in France disputed for half a century. Not fifty years ago the Italians neglected Dante—Bettinelli reproved Monti for reading "that barbarian;" at present they adore him. Shakspeare and Milton have had their rise, and they will have their decline. Already they have more than once fluctuated, as must be the case with all the dramatists and poets of a living language. This does not depend upon their merits, but upon the ordinary vicissitudes of human opinions. Schlegel and Madame de Stael have ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... of these seventeenth-century Hollanders and yet that was assuredly finer, even as was the older Italian civilization, which my father thought to surpass while he was really living in a state of sad decline. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... blocks resting on the south-eastern declivity of the Jura are traced from their culminating point G in opposite directions, whether westward towards Geneva or eastwards towards Soleure, they are found to decline in height from the middle of the arc G towards the two extremities I and K, both of which are at a lower level than G, by about 1500 feet. In other words the ice of the extinct glacier, having mounted up on the sloping flanks of the Jura in the ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... my body as I did. I have already received several invitations from householders to meet their families and friends at their homes, and tell them of our trip, but the present dilapidated condition of my toilet renders it necessary for me to decline their hospitalities until some future period. My first duty to myself and my fellow citizens is to seek a tailor and replenish my wardrobe. Jake Smith is the only one of our party who has returned with a garment fit to wear ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... well. Plums were entirely a failure, cherries are not raised to any extent, grapes and small fruits were not enough to supply the market as a whole. Raspberry and strawberry growing seems to be on the decline, owing to the prevalence of insect pests which do not receive attention to keep them in check. The importance of this is all the more apparent, because with the shorter distances of this district being the rule, the danger from rapid spread ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... compares with an average advance of 89% up to August, 1919, on the basis of prices in 1913, as shown by the retail food price index numbers of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.[5] August, 1919, prices of food were the highest ever recorded by the Bureau and there has been a decline of several points ...
— The Cost of Living Among Wage-Earners - Fall River, Massachusetts, October, 1919, Research Report - Number 22, November, 1919 • National Industrial Conference Board
... who arguing against the heathens, made it a principal topic to decry their philosophy as much as they could: which, I hope, is not altogether our present case. Besides, it is to be considered, that those fathers lived in the decline of literature; and in my judgment (who should be unwilling to give the least offence) appear to be rather most excellent, holy persons, than of transcendent genius and learning. Their genuine writings (for many of them have extremely suffered by spurious editions) are of admirable ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... time of decline the hymns of the Evangelical Church (to which Fleming contributed) were full of feeling, and brought the national songs to ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... replied, "I am at present engaged with a gentleman, but I must certainly decline to accompany you at all without further and definite particulars as to why you wish ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... that they were at the commencement of a decline measuring four or five hundred yards in length, and so steep that, even had it offered a good foothold, human beings could scarcely have stood upon it. As yet the tongue of ice was fifty paces or more in width, but it narrowed rapidly as it fell, till at length near the opposite ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... full of politeness and a letter to convey to the Nuncio at Paris. Then to La Ferronays, who says, as does Dalberg, that he is persuaded it will end by the recall of Villele to the Ministry, a compromise that all parties will be glad to make—that he has had the prudence to decline being a party to Polignac's Administration, and when he is called to form one he will have nothing to say to Polignac.[12] It certainly will be curious if Villele, after being driven from the Government with universal ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... success had not been sustained. As time passed and Eliza Appleton's exposure remained unrefuted he had found it ever more difficult to enlist support. His own denials and explanations seemed powerless to affect the public mind, and as he looked back he dated his decline from the appearance of her first article. It had done all the mischief he had feared. Not only were his old stock-holders dissatisfied, but wherever he went for aid he found a disconcerting lack of response, a half-veiled ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... persists that there exists an essential conflict between industry and the farm. There is no such conflict. It is nonsense to say that because the cities are overcrowded everybody ought to go back to the farm. If everybody did so farming would soon decline as a satisfactory occupation. It is not more sensible for everyone to flock to the manufacturing towns. If the farms be deserted, of what use are manufacturers? A reciprocity can exist between farming and manufacturing. The manufacturer can give the farmer what he needs ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... lights of experience and the known opinions of my constituents. We sedulously cultivate the friendship of all nations as the conditions most compatible with our welfare and the principles of our Government. We decline alliances as adverse to our peace. We desire commercial relations on equal terms, being ever willing to give a fair equivalent for advantages received. We endeavor to conduct our intercourse with openness and sincerity, promptly avowing our objects and seeking to establish that mutual frankness ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... for believing that a large river may be found to exist, draining Central Australia, but the character of the country appeared strongly to indicate the vicinity of such a feature; added to which, the gradual decline in the elevation of the country, notwithstanding our increasing distance from the coast, tended towards the same conclusion. Nor should we omit the strong evidences that the remarkable ridges of drift-sand which encumbered the plains must in the first instance, have been brought from the interior ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... most emphatically decline to do so," he said. "What! do you think that if it were he, I would be so base as to discredit him now? For you must remember that I said that only one of my defeats was due to foul play, that most of the others were simply due to the fact that he was a better man than I was. The matter has ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... must pass on to the conclusion of the story. About the year 1082, Queen Matilda's health began seriously to decline. She was harassed by a great many anxieties and cares connected with the affairs of state which devolved upon her, and arising from the situation of her family: these anxieties produced great dejection of spirits, and aggravated, ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to me that there are but two courses left for any agent of our government to pursue: either to take official rank as his only guide, or to decline presenting any one. It is not his duty to act as a master of ceremonies; every court has a regular officer for this purpose, and any one who has been presented himself, is permitted on proper representations ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... children, for they had heard the melancholy news. After that, he had to tell them all the particulars about the accident, which caused him to shed tears, to repel all the proffered attentions which they sought to thrust upon him merely because he was wealthy, and to decline even the breakfast they wanted him to partake ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... powerful reasons for his choosing that life, proved the chief obstacles to it. These qualities, by which the Priesthood is so much adorned, represented the duties of it as too weighty for him, and rendered him still the more worthy of that honour, which they made him decline. It is happy that this very circumstance has since turned so much to the advantage of Virtue and Religion; in the cause of which, he has bestowed his labours the more successfully, as they were his voluntary, not his necessary ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... The world was too fair to be darkened by a girl's disdain, and a reaction of feeling putting him in tune with the humours of the market-place, he at once set forth on foot to view the city. It was now near sunset and the day's decline irradiated the stately front of the Cathedral, the walls of the ancient Hospital that faced it, and the groups gathered about the stalls and platforms obstructing the square. Even in his travelling-dress Odo was not a figure to pass unnoticed, and he was ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... and artificial language of Samuel Johnson, who set the standard for prose writing from 1745 onward. This century saw the beginnings of the modern novel, in Fielding's Tom Jones, Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume his History of England, and Adam Smith ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... addicted to ritualism and literalism decline, the Brotherhood movement gains in force and influence. Men meet to give united expression to their religious impulses. They meet for prayer and worship, but never without immediate bearing on some great social question or object. Opinions ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... said Edward: "but, soyons de notre siecle; flunkeyism is on the decline. I'll give you something to put in ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... his eyes and speculates as to how far the martial god may be expected to tolerate his novel engines. Will asphyxiating gas, and destruction of non-combatants and neutrals on land and sea, trouble him? Or will he demand the rules of the game, and decline to applaud this satire on civilization, although mounted and produced regardless of cost ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... began, as I have before remarked, sensibly to decline, and his appetite, which had always been good and uniform, very considerably diminished. Even foreign countries became aware of this. Bets were laid in London that his life would not last beyond the first of September, that is to say, about three months, and although the King wished ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Leicester; the support of the queen, and the strength of the party which the long possession of power, and a remarkable fidelity in the observance of his engagements towards his own adherents, had enabled him to form, effectually protected him from experiencing any decline of his political influence. Of this a proof appeared soon after, when in consequence of further disclosures of the dangerous designs of the catholics, a form of association, by which the subscribers bound themselves to pursue, to the utmost of their power, even to the death, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... his light doth ne'er decline, But gath'ring up fresh store, Through ages yet to come, shall ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... great. The exceptional will disappear. A plateau with fewer and fewer undulations, without contrasts and without oppositions, such will be the aspect of human society. The statistician will register a growing progress, and the moralist a gradual decline: on the one hand, a progress of things; on the other, a decline of souls. The useful will take the place of the beautiful, industry of art, political economy of religion, and arithmetic of poetry. The spleen will become the malady of a ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wonder how he could have looked before? Such a whitefaced creature I have seldom seen. He reminds me of the laddie that died at Pentlands, of a decline, a month since. I doubt he isn't long for ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... a 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
... the Cronidae, the Hyperboreans, the Hesperides, and the Islands of the Blessed. Homer described the Atlantic region of Europe in his account of the wanderings of Ulysses. . . . In the ages previous to the decline of Phoenician influence in Greece and around the AEgean Sea, the people of those regions must have had a much better knowledge of Western Europe than prevailed there during the Ionian ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... not all constituted this way; I am speaking now of the impression created in California by tourists in bulk. They decline to do the things for which this country is best adapted; they will not see the things for which it is most famous. Few of them take the roughing trips up into the mountains; fewer still visit the desert ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... continued he, 'we know the old proverb—"It's a bad thing teaching an old dog new tricks." I must decline the Sunday school, and shall therefore probably decline the hospital also. But I will first see your brother-in-law.' So he took up his hat, kissed the baby, and withdrew, leaving Eleanor in ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Octavio by clear confession, or to run herself into farther error by denying the matter of fact, stops her words, and she only blushes and sighs at what she dares not tell; and if by chance their speaking eyes meet, they would both decline them hastily again, as afraid to find there what their language could not confess. Sometimes he would press her hand and sigh.—'Ah, Sylvia, you have undone my quiet'; to which she would return no answer, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the form. In the best period the first requisite was that the interest should be thoroughly identified with the shape in which it is manifested, and not imparted, as by history, association, etc. The decline began when this lofty isolation was felt as negative, needing to have interest and expression added to it. But whatever was added only emphasized without curing the defect. Even the "awful diagonal" of the Laocooen and the godlike triumph of the Belvedere Apollo show a lower age. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... my maternal interest in your welfare, and my devoted efforts to serve you, are only rewarded with furious looks. The less we see of each other the better. Permit me to thank you for your invitation, and to decline accompanying you when you leave Mount Morven tomorrow." Mrs. Linley answered the note in person. The next day Kitty's grandmother—ripe for more mischief—altered her mind, and thoroughly enjoyed ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... the moidores found upon Hately, as they appeared to have been taken from the subjects of a prince in amity with our sovereign. Happily for us, Don Diego Morsilio, the viceroy, who was an archbishop in the decline of life, was pleased to investigate this matter; and finding only one of us guilty, would not sign an order for taking away the lives of the innocent. Some were for sending Hatley to the mines for life, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... 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 honourable. The duty to work has taken the place of the duty to fight; and in the one case, as in the other, the ideal of life has become so ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... of the new religion: The Arian controversies: The Zenith of monasticism: The final struggle of Paganism: The decline of Alexandria. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... Hope's mental improvement; but his health remained in so precarious a state, that a decline was apprehended, and Mr. Hope granted Josiah's earnest request to let his son remain with them till he should have gained sufficient strength to ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... decline of practical piety in the parish where she resided, a school teacher of remarkable virtue determined as the first step to improvement, to introduce devotion to the Mother of the Incarnation. For this purpose, she began by circulating copies of the Venerable Mother's prayers to ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... proposal by this impertinent young man; and Lord Blandamer has so strange a reputation himself that one scarcely knows how far it is right to accept anything from him for sacred purposes. I honour your reluctance. Perhaps it would be right for you to decline this proposal, or, at any rate, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... an 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 system. The head, the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... are varied, and, from a business point of view, it must be admitted that there has been a considerable decline during the last fifty years. Although never a manufacturing town, within the usual meaning of that term, there were formerly many small manufactories of various articles, among which may be mentioned buckets, furniture, hatchets, etc. The mackerel-fishery was also extensively ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... Physician of the People 4 Terrorism of the Middle Ages 5 The Witch was the Offspring of Despair 9 She in her Turn created Satan 12 Satan, Prince of the World, Physician, Innovator 13 His School—of Witches, Shepherds, and Headsmen 15 His Decline 16 ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... ambassadors nodded assent, and Dalberg continued, in a loud and solemn voice: "I have to inform the Diet that, as I am growing old and feel a sensible decline of my strength, I have deemed it indispensable for the welfare of Germany and myself to choose already a successor and coadjutor. Having long looked around among the noble and worthy men who surround ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... without excusing myself Habit of antedating his sagacity He thinks or he chews If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? It goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little finger Look within, and avoid lying Mindless, he says, and arrogant One who studies is not being a fool The past is our mortal mother, no dead thing The proper defence for a nation is its history Then for us ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... horse-flesh and blood could endure—and off we two went like a whirlwind. Where we went—that is to say, what were the names of the few first streets along which we were borne, is a question which, as a man of veracity, we must positively decline answering. For some short space of time, lines of houses reeled by without a single face at the windows—and these, we have since conjectured, might be North and South Hanover street, and Queen-street. By and by we surely were in something like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... impatiently; "I am tired of the whole business. You have questioned and cross-questioned me quite long enough, Mr. Fenton, and I have answered you to the best of my ability, and have given you rational advice, which you will of course decline to take. If you think your friend has wronged you, go to him, and tax him with that wrong. I wash my hands of the affair altogether, from this moment; but, without wishing to be offensive, I cannot help ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... "Deor's Lament." "The Seafarer." "The Fight at Finnsburgh." "Waldere." Anglo-Saxon Life. Our First Speech. Christian Writers. Northumbrian Literature. Bede. Caedmon. Cynewulf. Decline of Northumbrian Literature. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... book in this remarkable trilogy of novels relating to Southern Reconstruction. It is a thrilling story of love, adventure, treason, and the United States Secret Service dealing with the decline and fall ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... was very much surprised when he was told that Anastase Gouache wished to see him, and as he was very much occupied with the details of the suit his first impulse was to decline the visit. Although he had no idea that matters had already gone so far between the Zouave and Faustina, he was not, however, so blind as the young girl had supposed him to be. He was naturally observant, like most men who devote their lives to the pursuit of their own interests, and ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... generally happens in the night; as during the recumbent state of the body, the fluid, that was accumulated in the cellular membrane, or in the lungs, is more readily absorbed, as it is less impeded by its gravity. I have seen more than one instance of this disease. Mr. D. a man in the decline of life, who had long accustomed himself to spirituous liquor, had swelled legs, and other symptoms of approaching anasarca; about once in a week, or ten days, for several months, he was seized, on going to bed, with great general uneasiness, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... her Moods, and her Tenses: I'le Grammer with you, And make a trial how I can decline you: By ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... allow a criminal to escape unpunished, you are not only unworthy of a place in the commission, but become accessory to his guilt, and, to all intents and purposes, socius criminis. With respect to your proffered mercy, I shall decline the favour; nor do I deserve any indulgence at your hands, for, depend upon it, I shall show no mercy to you in the steps I intend to take for bringing you to justice. I understand that you have been long hackneyed in the ways of oppression, and I have seen some living monuments ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... civilization of Greece, the universal dominion of Rome? They founded empires of conquest, which have perished by the sword by which they rose. Is it to be with us as with them? I hope not—I think not. But if the day of our decline should arise, we shall at least have the consolation of knowing that we have left behind us a race which shall perpetuate our name and reproduce our greatness. Was there ever parent who had juster reason to be proud of its offspring? Was there ever child that had ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... the sun-spot cycles may be described as follows: For two or three years the spots are both larger and more numerous than on the average; then they begin to diminish, until in about six or seven years from the maximum they decline to a minimum; the number of the spots then begins to increase, and in about four and a half years the maximum is once more attained. The length of the cycle is, on an average, about eleven years and five weeks, but ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Not events Exasperate me, but the funest conclusions I draw from these events; the sure decline Of art, and all the meaning of that word: All that embellishes and sweetens life, And lifts it from the level of low cares Into the purer atmosphere of beauty; The faith in the Ideal; the inspiration That made the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... times the Empress Dowager invites the Emperor to dine with her, and on such occasions he is forced to kneel at the table at which she is seated, eating only what she gives him. It is an honour which he does not covet, but which he dare not decline for fear of ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... see in us, alone of all his works, the majesty of the Father, and lose all their rage in our presence. Therefore, when the night is near, when life is a burden and we remember our mortality, we hasten the end, that those we love may cease to sorrow at the sight of our decline; and we know that this is his will who called us into being, and gave us life and joy on the earth for ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... silence, for a word from her was always put down by some tender jest, avowing as much inferiority in goodness as superiority in intellect. As to Clement, Edgar's sport was to startle him with jokes, dilemmas, and irreverences, and then to decline discussion on the ground that he never argued with sisters, and that Clement would understand when he went to Cambridge. Otherwise, the subject was avoided at home, but Edgar consorted a good deal with ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I replied, "I intend to go, and you must not refuse me, d'Ardeche; I decline to be put off. Here is a chance for you to do the honors of your city in a manner which is faultless. Show me a real live ghost, and I will forgive Paris for having ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... business genius of the day, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Though he had spent his early life and had laid the basis of his fortune in steamboats, he was the first man to appreciate the fact that these two methods of transportation were about to change places—that water transportation was to decline and that rail transportation was to gain the ascendancy. It was about 1865 that Vanderbilt acted on this farsighted conviction, promptly sold out his steamboats for what they would bring, and began buying ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... particularly for their children, and so they stand for better schools, better churches, and better facilities for all phases of community life. It is largely for this reason, it seems to me, that older communities seem to have cycles of relative decline and progress, according to the proportion of older and younger people. It is to be hoped that in future generations the ability to "keep young" may become more common; indeed, this is one of the chief ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... the prince, his figure appeared to decline in majesty in proportion to the access of dignity which had added its unwonted emphasis to the personality ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... that they make us gain for them by our toil what they spend in their pride?" * * * "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"[26] As in the history of Chaucer's time, so in his "Canterbury Tales" we perceive the decline of feudal and priestly tyranny which had gone hand in hand: the one keeping up a perpetual state of war and violence; the other limiting and enfeebling the human intellect, the activity of which could alone raise ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... country's peril, and all the public service and sacrifice it demanded. His chauffeur was gone, and one gardener did the work of three. He enjoyed-positively enjoyed, his committee work; even the serious decline of business and increase of taxation had not much worried one continually conscious of the national crisis and his own part therein. The country had wanted waking up, wanted a lesson in effort and economy; and the feeling that he had not spared himself in these strenuous times, had given a zest ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... establishment, from the fact of his lounging back in a rocking chair contiguous to his desk, and balancing his feet instead of his hands on the latter,—"I suppose it's because I can give no references to former employers here, that all the men I speak to invariably decline ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... leave to fight Gestiblind, thinking that a duel was better than a general engagement. But Erik said that Gestiblind was unfit for arms by reason of old age, pleading his bad health, and above all his years; but offered himself to fight in his place, explaining that it would be shameful to decline a duel on behalf of the man for whom he had come to make a war. Then they fought without delay: Alrik was killed, and Erik was most severely wounded; it was hard to find remedies, and he did not for long time recover health. Now a false report had come to Frode that Erik ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... was right. Since this term first entered the Jargon File in 1990, the minicomputer has effectively vanished, the {mainframe} sector is in deep and apparently terminal decline (with IBM but a shadow of its former self), and even the supercomputer business has contracted into a smaller niche. It's networked killer micros as far as the ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... accepting it. His struggle heretofore had been so hard that he could not bear the idea of missing so promising an opportunity of professional advancement. But the son, foreseeing the jealousies and heartburnings which the joint engineership would most probably create, recommended his father to decline the connection. George adopted the suggestion, and returning to the Committee, he announced to them his decision; on which the promoters decided to appoint him the engineer of the undertaking in conjunction ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... we will decline your offer," Albert said. "My father is detained at the Tower, and my mother and sister are alone, and will ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... grave was close to the graves of Manuel and Benjamin Constant. The soil in this place slopes with an abrupt decline. One has under his feet there the tops of green trees, further down the chimneys of steam-pumps, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... taken ill, and seemed to go into a rapid decline. I, with others, sought kindly and prayerfully to turn his mind to his need of a Saviour, but only met with rebuffs. As I saw that his end was drawing near, one day I pressed the importance of preparing to meet God, when he became angry and said I ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... after him in a special way, breaking his uncle's neck in the very nick of time, and filling a breeches-maker's daughter's mind with so sound a sense of the propriety of things, as to induce her to decline the honour of being a millstone round his neck, when positively the offer was pressed upon her. As things stood there could be no difficulty with Mr. Neefit. The money would be paid, of course, with all adjuncts ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... it were really Mdlle. de Cardoville, to whom; if she found her in a lucid interval, she might say that Agricola had things of the greatest importance to communicate, but that he did not know how to inform her of them. The day was advancing, the sun was on its decline, and fearing that Florine would be tired of waiting for her, Mother Bunch made haste to act; with a light step, listening anxiously as she went, she reached the end of the passage, where three or four stairs ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue |
