"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would boast he boasts of catching mice at the edge of a hole. Shakespeare would have understood this. Milton would have made him talk like an eagle. His influence is not to be left out of account as partially contributing to that decline toward poetic diction which was already beginning ere he died. If it would not be fair to say that he is the most artistic, he may be called in the highest sense the most scientific of our poets. If to Spenser younger poets have gone to be sung-to, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... be stripped off twice during the season, to feed to cows or other stock, without injury to the crop. Cows will give more milk for fifteen days, fed on this root alone, than on any other feed; they then begin to get too fat, and decline in milk: hence, they should be fed beets and hay or other food in about equal parts, on which they will do better than in any other way. Horses do better on equal parts of beet and hay than on ordinary hay and ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... would seem that this was well understood in Paris; for the day on which the 'Moniteur' published the reply of his Majesty to the senate, stocks increased in value more than two francs, which the Emperor did not fail to remark with much satisfaction; for as is well known, the rise and decline of stocks was with him the real thermometer ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... have gone too far in attributing these evils to the influence of the works and the fame of Petrarch. It cannot, however, be doubted that they have arisen, in a great measure, from a neglect of the style of Dante. This is not more proved by the decline of Italian poetry than by its resuscitation. After the lapse of four hundred and fifty years, there appeared a man capable of appreciating and imitating the father of Tuscan literature—Vittorio Alfieri. Like ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of Alexander the Great was followed by a visible decline in all the fine arts; but the fatal blow to their existence was given by the success of the conquering Romans, who reduced Greece to a ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... the commencement of the civil dissensions, to interpose their mediation, which they knew would be so little favorable to the king: and the king for that very reason had ever endeavored, with the least offensive expressions, to decline it.[*] Early this spring, the earl of Loudon, the chancellor, with other commissioners, and attended by Henderson, a popular and intriguing preacher, was sent to the king at Oxford, and renewed the offer of mediation; but with the same success as before. The commissioners were also ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... present Atlas will help to illustrate, editions of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," and of Merivale's Roman History which leads up to it, are already in preparation; it is hoped to publish in the series also an edition of Herodotus, the father of the recorders of history ...
— The Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography • Samuel Butler
... answered you, I should only lead to other questions, and I should be obliged to decline replying to them. I am sorry to disappoint you. I repeat what I said on the beach—I have no other feeling than a feeling of sympathy toward you. If you had consulted me before your marriage, I should willingly have admitted ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... energy to lift the ship up from one planet to another. If your trip was, say, twenty billions of miles to the next planet, you'd be fighting a gravity as bad as the solar gravity at Earth here all the way—no decline with a ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... Nancy at this period is not so easily drawn. The decline of the family fortunes seemed to have had as little effect upon her as upon her father, although their characters differed sharply. Something of that spontaneity, of that love of life and joy in it she had possessed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... speak," continued the magistrate, "is still young, and is rich. He will be only too happy to receive Mademoiselle Claire without a dowry. Not only will he decline an examination of your accounts of guardianship, but he will beg you to invest your ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... 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 ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... decline the mission, as his wife, whom he loved with devotion rarely equalled, and perhaps never surpassed, was sick and dying. Arthur Lee, then in Europe, was elected in his stead. He was a querulous, ill-natured man, ever in a broil. A ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... already performed by men highly skilled in science and languages, and as I do not myself possess a knowledge of Greek sufficiently exact for the task; lastly, as we have lost the originals of those books which were written in Hebrew, I prefer to decline the undertaking. (106) However, I will touch on those points which have most bearing on my ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... kind of labour can be mentioned, not even the chase, which can be pursued without money in hand. And, as for ourselves, what would become of us? What! we are not to be allowed to borrow, in order to work in the prime of life, nor to lend, that we may enjoy repose in its decline? The law will rob us of the prospect of laying by a little property, because it will prevent us from gaining any advantage from it. It will deprive us of all stimulus to save at the present time, and of all ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... This decline in American tonnage is, it must be added, only relative, whether the comparison be made with other countries or with our own past. The returns show a carrying capacity in our ships more than twentyfold that of 1789, and three times that of 1807; when, on the other hand, it exceeded in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... Full many a corse lay ghastly pale, beneath 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 there came from ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... thou must hence, or I shall be depos'd. But I will reign to be reveng'd of them; And therefore, sweet friend, take it patiently. Live where thou wilt, I'll send thee gold enough; And long thou shalt not stay; or, if thou dost, I'll come to thee; my love shall ne'er decline. Gav. Is all my hope turn'd to this hell of grief? K. Edw. Rend not my heart with thy too-piercing words: Thou from this land, I from myself am banish'd. Gav. To go from hence grieves not poor Gaveston; But to forsake you, in ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... whole Iliad in due sequence. "But the unity existed before the mangling. That this has been so long and so stubbornly misunderstood is no credit to German scholarship: blind uncritical credulity on one side, limitless and arbitrary theorising on the other!" We are not solitary sceptics when we decline to accept the theory of Mr. Leaf. It is neither bottomed on evidence nor does it account for the facts in the case. That is to say, the evidence appeals to Mr. Leaf as valid, but is thought worse than inadequate by other great scholars, such as Monro and Blass; while the fact ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... products, but the boycotts did not have a significant impact on the overall Danish economy. Because of high GDP per capita, welfare benefits, a low Gini index, and political stability, the Danish living standards are among the highest in the world. A major long-term issue will be the sharp decline in the ratio ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... resumed his attacks on Judaism. In 1816 he published an article under the title "Concerning the Causes of the Obnoxiousness of the Jews," in which he asserted that the Jews were responsible for Poland's decline. They multiplied with incredible rapidity, forming now no less than an eighth of the population. Should this process continue, the Kingdom of Poland would be turned into a "Jewish country" and become "the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe." The Jewish religion ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... ship owning. She will protect that, by leaving it free, and every Englishman who desires to buy a ship will come for that purpose to the Delaware. Mr. Roach objects to our buying British ships now; will he decline to sell ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... do. She could not decline to know the Prince without making some explanation to Millicent. She also could not flatter him so much. She must just be icily cold, and if he should be further impertinent she ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... ancestors by their study and industry have imported all their other arts which were worth having. Thus the praise of oratory, raised from a low degree, is arrived at such perfection that it must now decline, and, as is the nature of all things, verge to its dissolution in a very short time. Let philosophy, then, derive its birth in Latin language from this time, and let us lend it our assistance, and bear patiently to be contradicted and refuted; and although those ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... in the County of Berkshire, Esquire, Gent, have one failing, and I freely confess it. I cannot keep a key. Were I as other men are—which, thank Heaven, I am not—I might wear a pound or so of hideous ironmongery chained to my person. This I decline to do, with the result that, as I say, I cannot keep a key. Of all the household stowaway places under my control (and Barbara limits their number) only one is locked; and that drawer containing I know not what treasures or rubbish is likely to continue so forever ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... committed forgery, and, being apprehended, took a dose of prussic acid. Mr. Archer came with the stomach-pump, and asked the patient how much prussic acid he had taken. "Sir," he replied, attorney-like, "I decline answering that question!" He recovered, and afterwards arrived at great ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... revulsion from new-born hope to despair had been too much for it. Poor Mr. Lee! what did his heart say now? Did it yet upbraid him? Dr. Kent, who had set out on a course of visits, could not at once be found, and the wretched father sat gazing in agonizing helplessness on his suffering child until the decline of the day. What would he have given to live over again the last few hours! At length the physician appeared: 'Now,' said he, on accosting Mr. Lee, 'do you think I know my own business or not? Do I make mountains of mole-hills or not? I knew what I was about, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... assault upon Fort Sumter; but it was not the cue of Southern partisans to admit that this internal action of certain sovereign States of the Union was of a nature to justify coercive war on the part of the North, while the fact that it rested with the North to decline or accept the challenge was patent to the friends of both belligerents. Thus, when the enormous magnitude and horrors of the war startled English onlookers, the odium, in the opinion of many, attached to the North: ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... nationally considered, is in a state of decline. The very efforts which the more enlightened amongst her statesmen are now making towards rescuing her from the collapse which threatens show how desperate they consider her case, and how anxious they ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... fear, sir; I did of purpose humble myself against your coming, to decline the pride ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... suit brings me luck. I earn enough. And I have begun to save; for I feel that one's powers decline. I am tired frequently; sometimes I have pain. I shall also become fat and old. I don't like to put make-up on-I am no longer being supervised. Kuno Kohn has made me free. ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... care of her,' said one of the oldest of the good ladies; 'Phillis comes of a family as is not long-lived. Her mother's sister, Lydia Green, her own aunt as was, died of a decline just when she ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the dark ages, the "ready to die;" Philadelphia, the rise of Protestantism, "an open door, a little strength;" and Laodicea, (the riches of civilization choking the plant of Christianity,) its decline, and, but for the Founder's second coming, its fall; ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... 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 and blocked up with sand. Restored by order of the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... is dormant. If the branch is large I do not cut quite close in, and recut close in June, when the wound heals more readily. I do not approve of rigorous pruning of old trees showing signs of feebleness. Such operations would increase decline—only the dead wood should be removed, the loss of live wood depriving old trees of the supply of sap which they need for support. Grafting-wax is good to cover the wounds of trees, or a thick paint of the color of the bark answers well. Trees also may be pruned in ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... never steps outside of his specialty or dissipates his individuality. It is an Edison, a Morse, a Bell, a Howe, a Stephenson, a Watt. It is Adam Smith, spending ten years on the "Wealth of Nations." It is Gibbon, giving twenty years to his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." It is a Hume, writing thirteen hours a day on his "History of England." It is a Webster, spending thirty-six years on his dictionary. It is a Bancroft, working twenty-six years on his "History ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... and that, at the period of the publication, offers were made to him of legal evidence on which to convict the author of a libel; but that, as he had then treated the man with contempt, he should decline to disturb him after so great a lapse of time." From this communication it would seem, that the Duke believed that he knew the author, and also that ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... decline in favor at home, Pre-Raphaelitism colonizes. During the past year, some lovers of Art in England organized an association, having as its purpose the introduction of English Art to the American public,—partly, it was to be expected, with the view ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... September, 1908, the superintendent of the Department of Public Safety issued an order to the effect that the "red-light district" would no longer be tolerated, and that the common prostitute and street-walker would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. From that date on a gradual decline was noticeable in the emergency work, and the calls for shooting and cutting affrays were few. At this time I can safely say that emergency work coming from this source has decreased ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... was cast, the decision made. It was with no regret that I wrote to Trevanion to decline his offers. Nor was the sacrifice so great—even putting aside the natural pride which had before inclined to it—as it may seem to some; for restless though I was, I had labored to constrain myself to other views of life than ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... outrage or pillage upon the inhabitants. The general was aware of your opinion, that colored men will not fight. You have failed to show, by the conduct of these free men, so far, anything to sustain that opinion. And the general cannot see why you should decline the command, especially as you express a willingness to go forward to meet the only organized enemy with your brigade alone, without farther support. The commanding general cannot see how the fact that they are guarding your line of communication by railroad, can weaken ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... "I decline to discuss this disgraceful matter with you any further," said the sister coldly. "Perhaps my good husband can bring you to your senses," and the lady left the room in a ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... prodigal of smiles and civilities. Alas! no one was found any longer to cut it voluntarily. The new comers seemed to decline the honor. The "old favorites" reappeared one by one like dethroned princes who have been replaced for a brief spell in power. Then, the chosen ones became few, very few. For a month (O, prodigy!) M. Anserre cut open ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... in a country that is not yours; or the delusion which makes you hope for ampler privileges in that country hereafter. Tell us; which is the white man, who, with a prudent regard to his own character, can associate one of you on terms of equality? Ask us which is the white man who would decline such association with one of our number, whose intellectual and moral qualities are not an objection? To both of these questions we unhesitatingly make the same answer: there ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... company would receive any benefits from a contemplated road. As its representative he must decline to contribute fifty thousand pesos. But he would assume the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... 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 of the Ku ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... have lungs and what not, and instead of galloping on merry hunters through the frost and snow of Piccadilly and Park, instead of enjoying the roaring fires of piled logs in the evening, at the first approach of winter steal away to the Land of the Sun, and decline to die, like honest Britons, on British soil. And then they know nothing of the Egyptians and are horrified at "bakshish," which they really ought to pay for the privilege of shocking the straight-limbed, naked-footed Arab in ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... stern and unyielding morality, supported as it was by such visible policy, there was no appeal. From that moment the yells in the forest once more ceased, the fire was suffered to decline, and all eyes, those of friends as well as enemies, became fixed on the hopeless condition of the wretch who was dangling between heaven and earth. The body yielded to the currents of air, and though no murmur or groan escaped the victim, there ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... said to show that the goodness of action must be determined with reference to nothing less than the totality of all affected interests. For this highest principle I have reserved the honored term, good-will. Neither you nor I can reasonably decline to consider the bearing of our actions on any interest whatsoever. Right conduct, since it is inconsistent with the least ruthlessness, must inevitably in the end assume the form of humanity ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... inwardly under the sense of his own helplessness. What in God's name could he do? Could he denounce Wardour to Captain Helding on bare suspicion—without so much as the shadow of a proof to justify what he said? The captain would decline to insult one of his officers by even mentioning the monstrous accusation to him. The captain would conclude, as others had already concluded, that Crayford's mind was giving way under stress of cold and privation. No hope—literally, no hope now, but in the numbers of the expedition. Officers ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... the seventeenth century some of the old austerity and rudeness was sensibly modified under the influence of the great neighbouring monarchy. One striking illustration of this tendency was the rapid decline of the Savoyard patois in popular use. The movement had not gone far enough when Rousseau was born, to take away from the manners and spirit of his country their special quality ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... that, for my own part, I felt a bit puzzled; I did not quite know what to make of the weather indications. It might be that nothing worse than a violent thunderstorm was brewing; but against this theory there was to be set the sudden and ominous decline of the barometric pressure. We had fulfilled our task, and were preparing to get under way, when Takebe, who was in command of the torpedo flotilla, came aboard to consult with our skipper as to the advisability of going to sea, in the ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... my heart this day, And make it always thine, That I from thee no more may stray, No more from thee decline. ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... baron accepted—Athalie would not have allowed him to decline had he wished to—so we all three went there and have been residing there ever since. On the night after our arrival an alarming, a horrifying, thing occurred. It was while we were at dinner that the conversation turned upon the supernatural, upon houses and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... address himself to the task of portraying the rise, progress, and decline of the American union, the year 1850 will arrest his attention, as denoting and presenting the first marshalling and arraying of those hostile forces and opposing elements which ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the Queen had remarked "How sorry she was she could not ask him to be seated." Subsequently, Disraeli, after an attack of gout and in a moment of extreme expansion on the part of Victoria, had been offered a chair; but he had thought it wise humbly to decline the privilege. In her later years, however, the Queen invariably asked Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury to ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... her into unexpected perplexity. She thought it would not become a princess of her rank to undeceive the king, and to own that she was not prince Kummir al Zummaun, whose part she had hitherto acted so well. She was also afraid to decline the honour he offered her, lest, being so much bent upon the conclusion of the marriage, his kindness might turn to aversion, and he might attempt something even ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... went down the steps, a gentleman ascended them, and made his entrance into the shop. It was the portly, and, had it possessed the advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a man, considerably in the decline of life, dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... the sad decline Which takes this form of futile prattle? That pious feat might yet be mine If I could only win a battle; Cases are known of mental crocks Restored by sharp ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 6, 1917 • Various
... (B) the appropriate course of action to be taken by the ammonium nitrate facility owner with respect to such a purchase or transfer or attempted purchase or transfer, including— (i) exercising the right of the owner of the ammonium nitrate facility to decline sale of ammonium nitrate; and (ii) notifying appropriate law enforcement entities; and (C) additional subjects determined appropriate to prevent the misappropriation or use of ammonium nitrate in an act of terrorism. (2) Use of ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... honesty, it is the opinion of all with whom I have conversed on the subject that there has been a great decline in the honesty of the common people. In feudal days thefts and petty dishonesty were practically unknown. To-day these are exceedingly common. Foreign merchants complain that it is impossible to trust Japanese to carry out verbal or written promises, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... that case, it is said, Mr. Loring, who has no Curtis blood in his veins, did not wish to steal a man; and proposed to throw up his commission rather than do such a deed; but he consulted his step-brother, Charles P. Curtis, who persuaded him it would be dishonorable to decline the office of kidnapping imposed upon him as a United States Commissioner by the fugitive slave bill. Benjamin R. Curtis, it is said, I know not how truly—himself can answer, aided Mr. Loring in forming the "opinion" by which he attempted to justify the "extradition" of Mr. Burns; that is ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... were dissolved and new Diets elected, in none of which, however, could the supporters of the Cabinet secure a majority; the Cabinet was, therefore, incapable of carrying out any of its distinctive measures. Several times the opposition went so far as to decline to pass the budget proposed by the Cabinet, unless so reduced as to cripple the government, the reason constantly urged being that the Cabinet was not competent to administer the expenditure of such large sums of money. There were no direct charges of fraud, but simply of incompetence. ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... invitation to prepare a weekly column under the caption of "What Women Wear;" a summary of passing usages in clothes. The woman reporter in charge of it had just died. Selma's first impulse was to decline the work as unworthy of her abilities, yet she was in immediate need of employment to avoid running in debt and she was assured by Mrs. Earle that she would be very foolish to reject such an offer. Reflection caused her to think more highly of the ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... going themselves needing explanation. This, it is true, might be found in very slight changes of figure,[964] not altogether unlikely to occur. But into this cloudy and speculative region astronomers for the present decline to penetrate. They prefer, if possible, to deal only with calculable causes, and thus to preserve for their "most perfect of sciences" its special ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... are about to decline my offer?" demanded the Count sharply. "Have a care, Mr. Edestone. I am not merely trying to frighten you, as you may suppose. The facts are just as I have stated them, and I shall ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... water-meads with Proserpine Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content Cool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine, With lilies woven and with wet woodbine; Till once they sought the bright AEtnaean flowers, And their bright mistress fled from summer hours With Hades, down the irremeable decline. And they have sought her all the wide world through Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong Have filled and changed their song, and o'er the blue Rings deadly sweet the magic of the song, And whoso hears must listen till he die Far on ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... O Cheronean Sage, is thine. '(Why should this praise to thee alone belong!) 'All else from Nature's moral path decline, 'Lured by the toys that captivate the throng; 'To herd in cabinets and camps, among 'Spoil, carnage, and the cruel pomp of pride; 'Or chaunt of heraldry the drowsy song, 'How tyrant blood, o'er many a region wide, 'Rolls to a thousand ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... as the one supreme poetess of Hellas, and the poets, if so they must be called, of the decline of Greek dramatic art were never weary of loading her name with every most disgraceful reproach they could invent. It is hardly worth while to discuss a subject so often discussed with so little profit, or it would be easy to show that these gentlemen, Ameipsias, Antiphanes, Diphilus, and the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... religious movement, of which we know, has depended on a personal impulse, and has behind it some real, living and inspiring personality. It is true that at a comparatively late stage of Hinduism a personal devotion to Shri Krishna grew up, just as in the hour of decline of the old Mediterranean paganism we find Julian the Apostate using a devotional language to Athena at Athens that would have astonished the contemporaries of Pericles. But Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad stand on a very different footing ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... Fairly Park, I did not know you. I can give you a medical certificate that since then I have been in the doctor's hands. I know you now. I call upon you to meet me, with what weapons you like best, to prove that you are not a midnight assassin. The place shall be where you choose to appoint. If you decline I will make you publicly acknowledge what you have done. If you answer, that I am not a gentleman and you are one, I say that you have attacked me in the dark, when I was on horseback, and you are now my equal, if I like to think ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... But the leader disapproved of this arrangement; and having reminded Henry that he owed him obedience, as having taken wages at his hand, he commanded him to occupy the space in the third line immediately behind himself—a post of honour, certainly, which Henry could not decline, though he accepted ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... of its shows of power, pride, and ostentation, a tableau vivant of European rule in the darker ages, when, on the decline of Roman dominance, the principles of feudal dependence were established by barbarians from the North. Under such a system, it is impossible to ascertain, or to represent by any standards of currency, the amount of the royal revenues and treasures. But it is known that the riches of the Siamese ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... purchased was that which every consumer must pay, and was not increased for my advantage. The transaction was satisfactory to buyer and seller, and was concluded when payment was made. I am now tendered a commission which I am at liberty to accept or to decline. If I decline it, I lose something, my client gains nothing, and the remaining profit to the seller is greater than he expected by that amount. If I accept it, I do my client no wrong. If it is the custom of manufacturers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... distance of a quarter of a league from the farm, yet we continued walking more than an hour without reaching it. We perceived too late that we had taken a wrong direction. Having left it at the decline of day, before the stars were visible, we had gone forward into the plain at hazard. We were, as usual, provided with a compass, and it might have been easy for us to steer our course from the position of Canopus and the Southern Cross; but ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... school—that does not necessarily mean that the new tendency is bad and wrong. Any change in fundamentals is apt to be upsetting, for the time being. The new way, in the end, may really be better than the old, and represent progress. Or it may mean deterioration and decline. It will be time enough to discuss that phase of the question, after we have made sure that we thoroughly understand what it is, ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... and his signing the Magna Carta was partly due to the influence of the then Master of the Temple. Henry III. at one time intended to be buried in the Temple Church. His subsequent change of mind perhaps marks some decline in the popularity of the Templars. But their downfall in England (1308) was mainly owing to Papal pressure. Edward II. resisted as long as he could, and the more serious charges against them, which were based on confessions ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession; with a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels. By W. G. Brownlow, Editor of the "Knoxville Whig." Philadelphia. G. W. Childs. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... afraid of Montriveau; they respected him, but he was not very popular. Men may indeed allow you to rise above them, but to decline to descend as low as they can do is the one unpardonable sin. In their feeling towards loftier natures, there is a trace of hate and fear. Too much honour with them implies censure of themselves, a thing forgiven neither to the living ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once, by all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly. His more friendly neighbors may pity him, but all will decline to connect their fortunes with his; and not a few will seize the opportunity of making their fortunes out of his. One nation is to another what one individual is to another; with this melancholy distinction ...
— The Federalist Papers
... her if she would allow him to come to her." On receiving this she pondered for some time before she could make up her mind as to what answer she should give. She would have been most anxious to do as she had already heard that Lord Hampstead had done, and decline to meet him at all. She could not analyze her own feelings about the man, but had come during the last few days to hold him in horror. It was as though something of the spirit of the murderer had shown itself to her in her eyes. She had talked glibly, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... mechanical labour—a demand that was far in excess of the supply. Employers began to outbid each other, and wages rapidly rose. At the same time the disposition to steady exertion on the part of the workmen began to decline. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... land, form the coast; but the latter Cape itself consists of a lofty group, with several peaks, the highest of which is visible from the sea at twenty leagues. The heights from thence towards the north decline gradually, as the mountainous ranges approach the shore, which they join at Cape Weymouth, about latitude 12 degrees; and from that point northward, to Cape York, the land in general is comparatively low, nor do any detached ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... noisy disputants and intemperate intriguers of the mess-room; and again during the Reign of Terror, and even later,[3321] in the persecution or dismissal of so many patriotic and deserving officers, which led Gouvion-Saint-Cyr and his comrades, through disgust, to avoid or decline accepting high rank, in the scandalous promotion of club brawlers and docile nullities, in the military dictatorship of the civil proconsuls, in the supremacy conferred on Lechelle and Rossignol, in the subordination forced on Kleber ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... would, believe me, boys, if I only knew the gentleman, which I don't, never having been properly introduced. Must have been out of town when he gave his little show the other day. So I respectfully but firmly decline the honor you want to pay me. Now, it's sure up to Smithy to get busy, and make up with his old chum again. Here's his chance to win immortal glory, and the thanks of the whole Silver Fox Patrol as ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... time, the same appertains to all that depend upon God and His promises. And, therefore, however we are assaulted by Satan, our adversary, within the Word of God is armor and weapons sufficient. The chief craft of Satan is to trouble those that begin to decline from his obedience, and to declare themselves enemies to iniquity, with divers assaults, the design whereof is always the same; that is, to put variance betwixt them and God into their conscience, that they should not repose and rest themselves in His assured promises. And to persuade this, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... assaults of the Norwegian and Danish rovers by whom those seas were infested, and by them it was repeatedly pillaged, its dwellings burned, and its peaceful inhabitants put to the sword. These unfavorable circumstances led to its gradual decline, which was expedited by the subversion of the Culdees throughout Scotland. Under the reign of Popery the island became the seat of a nunnery, the ruins of which are still seen. At the Reformation, the nuns were ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... has been a decline and degradation in these things. First came the old drinking days which are always described as much more healthy. In those days men worked or played, hunted or herded or ploughed or fished, or even, in their rude way, wrote or spoke, if only expressing the simple minds of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... still "Rejoice!"—his word which brought rejoicing indeed. So is Pheidippides happy forever,—then noble strong man Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved so well, He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously—once to shout, thereafter be mute: "Athens is saved!"—Pheidippides dies in ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... favour (I have brought out fifteen books), invitations to lecture or talk about birds kept pouring in. I was talking this over with Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune), declaring I could never appear in public, that I should be frightened out of my wits, and that I must decline. My voice would all go, and my heart jump into my mouth. She exclaimed, 'For a sensible woman, you are the biggest fool I ever met!' This set me thinking, and with many ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... spectators, who accompanied me down to that point, which I reached about eight o'clock in the evening. The town was illuminated, and the citizens tendered me a polite invitation to land and take supper; but of course I was obliged to decline, accepting in lieu a drink and a sandwich. Of the sandwich I ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... somewhat indignant at the very sudden manner in which Mr. Peter Magnus had conjugated himself into the imperative mood, 'I decline answering ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... obliged to change its name. I felt there was a gap in the story. The high-water mark of Greek religious thought seems to me to have come just between the Olympian Religion and the Failure of Nerve; and the decline—if that is the right word—which is observable in the later ages of antiquity is a decline not from Olympianism but from the great spiritual and intellectual effort of the fourth century B.C., which culminated ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... compromise the matter by returning Cesare an offer of accommodation for his men with victuals, artillery, etc., but without the concession of Castel Bolognese. With this Cesare was forced to be content, there being no reasonable grounds upon which he could decline so generous an offer. It was a cunning concession on Bentivogli's part, for, without strengthening the duke's position, it yet gave the latter what he ostensibly required, and left no cause for grievance ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... the national Constitution, let any man who would nullify its laws, stand forth and tell us what he would wish. What does he propose? Whatever he may be, and whatever substitute he may hold forth, I am sure the people of this country will decline his kind interference, and hold on by the Constitution which they possess. Any one who would willingly destroy it, I rejoice to know, would be looked upon with abhorrence. It is deeply intrenched in the regards of the people. Doubtless it may be undermined by artful ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... "failing them for fear and for looking after those things that were coming on the earth." And Christianity was called to meet the argument drawn from the fact that the visible declension seemed to date from the time when the new religion was introduced into the Roman world, and that the most rapid decline had been from the time when it had been accepted as the religion of the State. It fell to the Bishop of Hippo to write in reply one of the greatest works ever written by a Christian. Eloquence and learning, argument and irony, appeals to history and earnest entreaties, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... and riant land, rich in trees and streams, with gazelles pacing daintily over the plains; whereat he fell a-musing and said to himself, "Would I knew the name of yon town and in what land it is!" And he took to circling about it and observing it right and left. By this time, the day began to decline and the sun drew near to its downing; and he said in his mind, "Verily I find no goodlier place to night in than this city; so I will lodge here and early on the morrow I will return to my kith and kin and my kingdom; and tell my father and family what hath passed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... impossible not to be moved at this spectacle. We know not the subject of their prayers; we hear not their secret groanings; but they are old, they precede us in the journey to the tomb. When we in our turn pass into that terrible advance guard, may God by his grace so ennoble our age, that the decline of life may be ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... her cordially, but must decline this offer; her daughters, she said, must learn betimes to moderate their ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Hotel Conde. The prince was good enough this morning to ask me to establish myself there while I remained in Paris, and I could not very well decline ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty |
