"Decline" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reason I have stated, gentlemen, I decline to resign," he said. "I stand upon my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 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 and no grounds upon which to molest Bologna. So much was this the case that on February ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... of mine he appeared somewhat ashamed, and answered me: 'It is true that such a thought passed through my mind one day, when the king offered to show me his fleet. I answered that I hoped to see it some day, and then quietly retired, in order to escape from the embarrassment of being obliged to decline, point blank, the offer, should ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... &c.; Sardis, the dreary void 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; if, indeed, this ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... judged me as I judged myself. I recalled to mind the Archbishop of Granada, and I thought I could hear Gil Blas predicting the failure of my works. We can not dismiss the public as we can our secretary; meanwhile, I surrendered to a too severe justice in order to decline others' opinions. A horrible thought suddenly came into my mind; my artistic life was ended, I was a worn-out man; in one word, to picture my situation in a trivial but correct manner, I had reached the end ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... voluminous. But I may venture to say, in general terms, that no man hath written in our language so much, and so various matter, and in so various manners so well. Another thing I may say very peculiar to him, which is, that his parts did not decline with his years, but that he was an improving writer to his last, even to near seventy years of age, improving even in fire and imagination, as well as in judgment; witness his Ode on St Cecilia's Day, and his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... with him only his own squadron, consisting of forty-four ships of the line. But he had received positive orders to protect the descent on England, and not to decline a battle. Though these orders had been given before it was known at Versailles that the Dutch and English fleets had joined, he was not disposed to take on himself the responsibility of disobedience. He still remembered with bitterness the reprimand which his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... himself putting us somewhat on our guard concerning his feelings towards England; for, not only does he decline to forgive her the occupation of Cape Colony, but also her triumph over ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... and sat watching the tape as the ticker champed it out and soon he saw Navajoa. It had been quoted at thirty-two and a half, but this sale was made at thirty. He watched it decline to twenty-eight, and twenty-five, and soon it was down to ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... to animal productions; for example, in the southern parts of the continent the Xanthorrea affords an inexhaustible supply of fragrant grubs, which an epicure would delight in, when once he has so far conquered his prejudices as to taste them; whilst in proceeding to the northward, these trees decline in health and growth, until about the parallel of Gantheaume Bay they totally disappear, and even a native finds himself cut off from his ordinary supplies of insects; the same circumstances taking place ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... brief halt for refreshment, and about an hour before midday advantage was taken of a great mango tope for another halt; but as soon as the sun began to decline we were off again, with the track ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... lives of reformers, Tolstoy found himself more often in affinity with strangers than with his own kin. The estrangement of his ideals from those of his wife necessarily affected their conjugal relations, and the decline of mutual sympathy inevitably induced physical alienation. The stress of mental anguish arising from these conditions found vent in pages of his diaries (much of which I have been permitted to read), pages containing matter too sacred and intimate to use. The diaries ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... assumed on Fast Day that one should criticise only what he saw. I have never understood that Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is any the less good because he did not live in the first few centuries of the Christian era, or that Jomini could write any less well of Frederick than of Napoleon. Service certainly helps a man in his researches or work, but it only helps. The best critic ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... anything but a temporary, passing state, due to a little over-production and soon to end, is not a cheerful task, and it is made less so by those who, having never looked for themselves, pronounce all such statements either sensational or the work of a morbid and excited imagination. The majority decline to take time to see for themselves. The few who have done so need no further argument, and are ready to admit that no words can exaggerate, or, indeed, ever really tell in full the real wretchedness that is plain for all who will look. But, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... grounds, and I do not wish to interfere with your plans; but I must ask you to obtain another gardener. I have a reputation at stake, and this work, if I do it even at your direction, will be considered as a specimen of my taste and of my planning, so that I must in justice to myself, decline remaining in your employment." This too, would be right, though probably, both in the business of gardening and of teaching, the case ought to be a strong one, to ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... was not the end. Among other spoils, Lige had made capture of a Comanche mustang; and as his own war-horse had been for a long time on the decline, this afforded him an excellent opportunity for a remount. Some duty of the day had called him forth, and he now appeared in the piazza leading the mustang, to which he had transferred his own saddle and bridle. A fine handsome horse it appeared. More than one ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... that Jud shut his lips tight together as though making up his mind on the spot to decline absolutely to pay a cent for what had been a sheer accident, and which had already cost ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... always a grateful employment; but to leave his home for months, and to be engaged in the monotonous routine of deliberative bodies, was most distasteful to him; but, true to the great maxim of his life—never to seek or to decline a public trust—he accepted the appointment; and took his seat in the early part of January, 1825. A casual view of his career in that body, which extended from 1825 to 1833—a period of nearly eight years—during which he held, at least in the estimation ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... dated his decline from the hour of his son's defection. He had not been brought to this pass by any rashness in speculation, or by any flaw whatever in his original scheme. But his original scheme had taken for granted Keith's collaboration. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... But, though we decline painting the scene, it is not our intention to conceal from the world the frailty of Mr. Booth, or of his fair partner, who certainly past that evening in a manner inconsistent with the strict rules of ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... 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 of, thus wounding ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... have both praised them, and praised them coldly, on this very account, that they have travelled half-way, and only half-way, towards the region of "high a priori" speculation. With M. Cousin's permission, the Scotch come of quite another house. His praise we should beg leave to decline: he may carry it to Alexandria, if he will. The method of philosophising pursued in Germany is fundamentally different from that which happily obtains in Scotland. No two schools of philosophy could resemble each other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... long. Every change of this sort requires to be made cautiously, and by degrees. In general, all clothes should be light and easy, and in no instance ought health and comfort to be sacrificed to pride and vanity. In the early part of life it is not necessary to wear many clothes: but in the decline of life, when many diseases proceed from a defect of perspiration, plenty of warm clothing is required. Attention should also be paid to the constitution, in this as well as in other cases. Some persons can endure either cold or heat better than others, and may therefore ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... principal scholarship. He was extremely well read in English poetry; and he would in his walk review a poem or a poet with admirable precision and fairness. He did not intrude his own poetry or himself, but he did not decline to talk about either; and he spoke of both simply, unboastingly, and yet with a manly consciousness of their worth. It was clear he thought he had achieved a high place among poets: it had been the aim of his life, humanly ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... asked what will be the result of the arrangement that we have made. I decline to speculate or prophesy on that point. It would be indecent and improper. I cannot even tell in this country at the next election how large the Liberal majority will be. Still less would I recommend hon. gentlemen here to forecast the results of contests in which they will not be candidates. ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... struggled, and which, notwithstanding the assurances given to me, and the efforts of its partisans to conceal it, is day by day gaining strength, to the despair of every enlightened Turkish statesman, to the prejudice of our relations with this country, and to the visible decline of those improvements which, in my humble judgment, can alone avert the dissolution ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various
... had just been taunting the old gentleman with being afraid to sleep on his own domain, and as the eyes of all the tavern loungers were on him he could hardly decline so flattering a proposition, so, after some hemming and hawing, he said he would take the Quaker at his word. He played but two or three more tunes that evening, did Peter Matthews, and played them rather sadly; then, as Quidd had finished ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... are strongly brought out in our material. The first, and apparently most important, is the necessity of offering liquor and food, both to strangers and to guests (p. 58). Refusal is so keenly resented that in one instance a couple decline to allow their daughter to marry a man whose emissaries reject this gift (p. 73). Old quarrels are closed by the tender of food or drink, and friendships are cemented by the drinking of basi [24] (p. ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... though not at all anxious for fame, but modestly willing to decline it, had not been successful—though he worked so much by night—in preserving sweet obscurity. His character was public, and set on high by fortune, to be gazed at from wholly different points of view. From their narrow and lime-eyed outlook the coast-guard ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... eagerly into my face. "Very well, then; I will answer in a few words, if facts were as you so confidently state them to be, I might possibly be induced to cast in my lot with yours; but, fortunately for humanity, they are not so, and I must therefore most emphatically decline." ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... "poor girl—poor girl—deep decline, wasted, terribly wasted," said he, as he returned from the railing of the altar—piece, where he had been to look down upon the body; and then, as if there never had been such a being as poor Maria Olivera in existence, he continued, "Pray, Mr Bang, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... us hear him decline it!" cried Harry, in an ecstasy. "Oppossum, opottis, opposse, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... three greatest producers—South Africa, United States, and Australia,—reached the acme of its production, and output then fell off. Simultaneously there was a marked decrease of production in many of the less important districts. This general decline was due in considerable part to the fact that during the war the price of gold was fixed and its use restricted to monetary purposes. The price of gold, which is itself the standard of value, could not rise to offset ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... then said I had better just name a hint of her death to you, and away they went. Her death might have been brought on by biding in the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people used to say she'd go off in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter time. However, 'tisn't much odds to us about that now, for ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... exportations, the once flourishing trade of Kingston has, of course, decreased. But it marks the eagerness of some to turn everything to the discredit of emancipation, that this decline is commonly attributed entirely to that event, no notice being taken of the fact that Kingston was once the entrepot of a flourishing trade between Europe and the Spanish Main, which, having, in 1816, shipping to the amount of 199,894 tons, and having risen in 1828 to 254,290 tons, had in 1830, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... their brethren were scandalized by this equitable and generous criticism. Spanheim and L'Enfant attempted to save this poor engine of controversy, and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspicion."—The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xlix. Spanheim's work, Joanna Papissa Restituta, was printed at Leyden ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 • Various
... me with her winsome ways, and I learned to look on her as the blithe spirit whose artless wiles won me to forget a bitter past and a regretful present." I paused; and then added, with a smile, "But, in our wise schemes, we have overlooked one point: Effie does not love me, and may decline the future you desire me to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... thousands and tens of thousands of hand-bills at the ferries. No task was ever more welcome. I went to the trustees man by man. The majority of the trustees very cheerfully accorded the permission. One or two of them were disposed to decline and withhold it. I made it a matter of personal friendship. "You and I will break, if you don't give me this permission." And they signed. So the meeting glided from the Graham Institute to this house. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... survived. They saw the Egyptians go, the Assyrians go, the Greeks go, the late Romans go, the Moors in Spain go—all the artistic peoples perish. They remained triumphing over all. Now at last their long-belated apogee is here; their decline is at hand. I am told that in this present generation in Europe the Jews are producing a great lot of young painters and sculptors and actors, just as for a century they have been producing famous composers and musicians. That means the end ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... very kind; but my time is so occupied that I have long since made it a rule to decline all private invitations out of my own home. At my years, Mr. Mayor, one may be excused for taking leave of society and its forms; but you are comparatively young men. I presume on the authority of these gray hairs, and I shall expect you this evening,—say ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his Cabinet about money; they declaring they would advance no more, it being discoursed of in the House of Parliament for the King to issue out his privy-seals to them to command them to trust him, which gives them reason to decline trusting. But more money they are persuaded to lend, but so little that (with horrour I speake it), coming after the Council was up, with Sir G. Carteret, Sir W. Coventry, Lord Bruncker, and myself, I did lay ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... literary history has not received the attention it deserves; and the future investigator will find a rich field in his researches for the causes of the expansion of the novel in the nineteenth century simultaneous with the decline of the drama in the literature of almost every modern language ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... 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 tomb? And somebody else's filly will be making ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... from God to say, "Karl, thou shalt summon thine empire's host, And march in haste to Bira's coast; Unto Impha city relief to bring, And succor Vivian, the Christian king. The heathens in siege have the town essayed, And the shattered Christians invoke thine aid." Fain would Karl such task decline. "God! what a life of toil is mine!" He wept; his hoary ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... 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, which ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... lust for the bowl decline, Nor my love for my good long bow; For as bow to the shaft and as bowl to the wine, Is a maid to ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... 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
... as Sancho Panza said, there cometh in the end satiety. The neighbours, after several years of refreshing colloquial combat, felt an alarming decline of virility and the approach of an anaemic peace. Their arguments grew monotonous, remote, repetitious, amounting to little more than a bald statement of position: "Here I stand"—"There you stand"—"There ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... remained with him. Captain Sayres engaged in this enterprise merely as a matter of business. I, too, was to be paid for my time and trouble,—an offer which the low state of my pecuniary affairs, and the necessity of supporting my family, did not allow me to decline. But this was not, by any means, my sole or principal motive. I undertook it out of sympathy for the enslaved, and from my desire to do something to further the cause of universal liberty. Such being the different ground upon which Sayres and myself stood, I did not think it necessary ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... raged as usual in the Holy Roman Empire. There was, of course, a section of German nobles who opposed Charles and who on the death of King Louis offered the imperial crown to the victor of Crecy. Edward III was wise enough to decline, influenced, it is said, by a mission which Charles had sent to England; what is more, a treaty of alliance was arranged between these two countries, and this, to my thinking, had far-reaching effects on their future relations, intermittent but ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... singularly adaptable one or we wouldn't have survived so long, Jim, or gone so far in our particular direction. It's lack of fertility, not lack of enterprise, that's responsible for our decline. And I think your species must be an adaptable one, too; you just haven't really tried. Oh, James, let us reverse the classical roles—let me be the Apollo to your Daphne! Don't let Phyllis stand in our way. The Greek gods never let a little thing ...
— The Venus Trap • Evelyn E. Smith
... 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 railroads despite the fact that his friends warned him that, in his old age, ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naive pretences, but hardly anything genuine except her own appalled indignation. Charles, very quiet and twisting his long moustaches, would decline to discuss them at all. Once, however, he observed ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... he lay at Death's door for a week with resulting cholera-morbus, she relented not. So the experiment went on, till a list of casualties that numbered in it fatal accidents to three kittens, two hens and a rooster, and at last Pink himself, who was pent into a decline by repeated drenchings from the watering-pot, put an end to her forbearance, and she instituted in her viziership the old man who had now kept his office so long,—a queer, withered, slow, humorous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... adjutant, who, owing to the exigencies of duty, was obliged to decline the Colonel's offer of a seat at table, the luncheon-party broke up, and the Colonel made apologies to his guest for being unable, under existing circumstances, to devote more time to him. His officers accompanied him, and soon after Mrs. Baird was also called ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... and I have been asked to treat it as transcendentalism, and—I am inclined to think—in a perverted sense of that term. Can I be expected to hold my religion up for ridicule? I do not refuse the appointment to write a paper; it is the subject that I decline." ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... plain truth at once, Mary. I shall go over myself with it, and see the earl. Then I will decline it or not, according to what passes between me and him. I wish ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... and we submit to the gloomy inevitable fact of decay and death. But to see our rose of roses, the pride and glory of the garden, fade and perish in its midsummer prime, is a calamity inexplicable and mysterious. Diana watched her father's decline with a sense of natural sorrow and pity; but there was neither surprise nor horror in the thought that for him the end of all things was drawing nigh. How different was it with Charlotte—with that happy soul for whom life and love wore ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... firm, energetic resolve, she took the roll of parchment and handed it back to Catharine. "Queen, take this parchment back again; return it to my father, and tell him that I thank him for his provident goodness, but will decline the brilliant lot which this act offers me. I love freedom so much, that even a royal crown cannot allure me when I am to receive it with my hands bound ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... his decline, and the evening remarkably serene, when he entered a hollow part of the road, which winded between the surrounding banks, and seamed the sward in different lines, as the choice of travellers had ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... it was that indeed, and not any irresistible fate, which had been the cause of her ruin. To complete the misery, she herself was suspected of having stolen the silver cup which Rachel had pocketed. Her master, however, would not prosecute her, as she was falling into a deep decline, and she died in a few months of a broken heart, a sad warning to all ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... that 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 her journey to ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... of pique and disappointment, when she realised that Denis Quirk was impervious to her attractions, Sylvia Jackson suddenly awoke to a new interest in life. At the moment she was hesitating between an interesting decline and a fearful vendetta. But this did not deter her from attending the Grey Town Intellectual Society's lecture on Art and Artists, which was delivered by George Custance, R.A., nor did it prevent the lecturer from fascinating ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... 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 ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... "I decline to give an opinion upon the gentleman's part in the business," answered Clementina, laughing, but glad there was so little light in the room, for she was painfully conscious of the burning of her cheeks. "Besides, ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... to apply at the nearest town here, to the first respectable solicitor you could find, he would tell you as a stranger what I tell you as a friend. He would inform you that it is against all rule to abandon the lady's money entirely to the man she marries. He would decline, on grounds of common legal caution, to give the husband, under any circumstances whatever, an interest of twenty thousand pounds in his ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... interrupted Trujano, with a smile, "it is a bad plan to borrow from one for the purpose of paying another. I could not think of accepting a loan. It is not from pride, but a sense of duty that I decline your generous offer; and I hope you will not be offended. The sum I owe is not a very heavy one—a few hundred dollars. Since it has pleased God that my mules should find a shelter in the stables of Don Mariano, and thus escape the inundation, I can now take the road through the mountains ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... Crati valley and the Ionian; thenceforward my walk would be a descent along the Trionto river, the Traeis of old, as far as Longo-bucco which overlooks its flood. It was cool here at last, from the altitude and the decline of day; and hay-making was going on, amid the pastoral din of cow-bells and a good deal ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the cottage which we are going to visit has never got over the death of one of his children. The eldest boy, he was only a lad, would try to do a man's work last harvest-tide; it was beyond his strength, and before the autumn was out he died of a decline. This is the first case of really strong fatherly love that has come under my notice. As a rule, when their children die, the peasant's regret is for the loss of a useful chattel, and a part of their stock-in-trade, and the older the child, the heavier their sense of loss. A ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... misspend, fritter away, dissipate, dawdle; desolate, devastate, despoil, sack, pillage, ravage, strip; decline, decay, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... of Shalmaneser the Assyrian prestige was maintained at a high level by dint of the same lavish bloodshed and truculent energy; but towards the eighth century it began to decline. There was then a period of languor and decadence, some echo of which, and of its accompanying disasters, seems to have been embodied by the Greeks in the romantic tale of Sardanapalus. No shadow of confirmation for the story of a first destruction of Nineveh is to be found in ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, ruled by priests in the interest of Catholicity and of France. Their habits of agriculture would have been developed, and their instincts of mutual slaughter repressed. The swift decline of the Indian population would have been arrested; and it would have been made, through the fur-trade, a source of prosperity to New France. Unmolested by Indian enemies, and fed by a rich commerce, she would have put ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... in Marston's feelings observed and provided against,—every stage of the crop carefully watched. Graspum, however, had secured himself in the real estate, and gave little heed to the epidemic that was carrying off the negro property. Finally, to pass over several stages in the decline of Marston's affairs, the ravages of the disease continued until but forty-three negroes, old and young, were left on the old homestead. The culminating point had arrived. He was in the grasp of Graspum, and nothing could save him from utter ruin. It had lately been proved that the Rovero family, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... myself laughing, singing, praying, apostrophising the sun, the clouds, the distant land, and even the spirits of my drowned companions, whom I imagined to be crowding round me and trying to drag me off the floating hatch. I was aware, in a vague, impersonal fashion, of the gradual decline of the sun toward the west, of his disappearance beneath the horizon, and of the fact that just as the outlines of the land ahead were fading into the gathering darkness a small spark of light sprang into view somewhere in the direction that I was ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... quotations of theirs, however brief, as their practical endorsement of all the twelve verses: to infer from their general recognition of the passage, that the Church in her collective capacity accepted it likewise. As I have shewn, the Fathers decline, almost to a man, to return any answer. But,—Are we then without the Church's authoritative guidance on this subject? For this, I repeat, is the only thing of which we are in search. It was only in order to get at this that we adopted the laborious expedient of watching for ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... for you both. I merely asked you for the sake of politeness, und I wass glad to hear you decline. But as for me, I am old enough to be your father, und I will ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... might, if he could, hire another to aid him; otherwise, he must remain in his place till the work was done. ] These festins manger tout were much dreaded by many of the Hurons, who, however, were never known to decline them. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... days passed by, and no answer came. At length two appeared by the same post. One was from the orphans' uncle, stating that he had children of his own, and that he had long ceased to have any communication with his brother. He must therefore decline interfering in the matter. The other contained the words:—"Lord Heatherly presents his compliments to Mr Davenport, and not having been personally acquainted with the late Mr Heathfield for many years, must decline in any way interfering ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... widow, mother, relatives, mates of the fire department, and his other friends, (I was one, only lately it is true, but our love grew fast and close, the days and nights of those eight weeks by the chair of rapid decline, and the bed of death,) gather'd to the funeral of this young man, who had grown up, and was well-known here. With nothing special, perhaps, to record, I would give a word or two to his memory. He seem'd ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and remote, and indisposed to be of service to an alien sister. Roads are infrequent and most bridges have broken down. No bridge has been repaired since the later seventeenth century, and no new bridge has been made since the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. There are no shops at all. The scenery is magnificent but precipitous, and many of the high roads are difficult to trace. And there is rain. In Albania there is sometimes ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the Gentleman who left the enclosed to forward it the earliest opportunity, as he said it was of consequence. Mr. P—— called the day after you left town. My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best respects, in which they ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... of the profession. In the hour of battle it was not these, but the tone and efficiency of the officers, that chiefly told. A false pattern of action had been accepted at a moment favorable to its perpetuation, when naval warfare on the grand scale had ceased, owing to the decline of the principal enemy, the navy of France; while the average competency of naval officers had been much lowered through want of professional incentive, and the absence of any sifting process by which the unfit could be surely eliminated. That plenty of good material existed, was sufficiently ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... thus for an hour before dinner, and then for three hours in the evening, and produced a very legible copy of half a chapter of the 'Decline ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... their correct selection and arrangement for the purpose of promulgation by speech or writing, and which is very properly termed composition. When we reflect, that from our infancy to the natural decline of our intellectual powers, we are employed, during our waking hours, in the exercise of language;[8]—by conversation, often desultory, where we range through a variety of topics, as the bird sports from branch to twig; to the more deliberate act of composition, where ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... being under the law of growth, is, in all its parts, subject to the consequent necessity of decline. And very swiftly does the direction change from ascending to descending. At first, and for a little while, the motion of the dancing stream, which broadens as it runs, and bears us past fields each ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... me, Bishop; but you are asking too much. I ran away from the Boers because I was a snob. I run away from the Beadle for the same reason. I absolutely decline ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... met with great cordiality; and Johnson soon gave him the same sad account of their school-fellow, Congreve, that he had given to Mr. Hector; adding a remark of such moment to the rational conduct of a man in the decline of life, that it deserves to be imprinted upon every mind: 'There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse. Innumerable have been the melancholy instances of men once distinguished for firmness, resolution, and spirit, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... were built everywhere, and before the end of the thirteenth century, the most splendid Gothic buildings were begun or completed. With the end of the thirteenth century Gothic architecture began to decline, lured by the "fascination of the statical tour de force, the craving to bring down to an irreducible minimum the amount of material that would suffice to the stability of a building ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... present dared to cope with the decline of so large a subject, the Colonel had the floor. He looked at each man in turn; then waved the hand that held his cigar airily towards the ceiling. "Just inbreeding, sir, inbreeding. That's what did it. We Americans, are profiting by the experience of the ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... education of women. George Page knew her at the time of his marriage. I do not mean that he paid her serious attention then, but he had the opportunity to ask her instead of the other. Now, when she has become absorbed in her life-work, she would naturally decline to give it up unless she felt sure that she could not be ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... wish. The Minister who founded these pensions intended them, I believe, to be marks of honour which even proud men might accept without compromise of independence. When, however, the intimation first reached Faraday in an unofficial way, he wrote a letter announcing his determination to decline the pension; and stating that he was quite competent to earn his livelihood himself. That letter still exists, but it was never sent, Faraday's repugnance having been overruled by his friends. When Lord Melbourne came into office, he desired to see Faraday; and probably ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... Zack found words in which to express himself, and used them pretty freely to praise his new friend's unexampled generosity, and to decline taking a single farthing. Mat deliberately lit his pipe, in the first place, and then bluntly answered ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... straw-thatched cabins upon the lands of masters who paid no wage. When there was rebellion, these masters knew how to deal punishment swift and sure; when there was submission, they gave kindness and reward. Had Rome not been as strong as even in her decline she was, Romans could not have held Britain as long as they did. For on sea and land, on the verge of the civilization they maintained, were restless tribes, Scots, Picts, and Saxons, seizing every pretext, every moment of ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... made up it should, within a few days, warm to a temperature of 110 deg. to 120 deg.. Carefully observe this, and never spawn a bed when the heat is rising, or when it is warmer than 100 deg., but always when it is on the decline and under 90 deg.. In this there is perfect safety. Have a ground thermometer and keep it plunged in the bed; by pulling it out and looking at it one can know exactly the temperature of the bed. Have a few straight, ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... log-drivers. His wife and daughters make extensive visits to Europe, his sons go to some university, and he himself is likely to acquire political position, or to devote his energies to saving the town from industrial decline, as the timber is cut away, by transforming it into a manufacturing center for more finished products. Still others continue their activity among the forests of the South. This social history of the timber areas of Wisconsin has left clear indications in the development of the peculiar political ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... suppression of the monasteries tended in no slight degree to hasten the decline and fall of our ancient church architecture, to which other causes, such as the revival of the classic orders in Italy, also contributed. The churches belonging to the conventual foundations, which had been built at different periods ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... can depend upon Fran Van der Werff too. At first she wanted to decline, but when I proposed a pretty madrigal, yielded and took ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hasty, that her scheme involved too great a risk and that, after all, she had better abandon it. But each time she changed her mind and at last fell asleep determining not to think any more about it, but to wait until Mr. Cobb came to accept or decline the mortgage. Then she ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I do not see any very serious inconvenience likely to arise from it, sir," said the doctor: "only I maintain that the cure is not so complete as it might have been, and, on this subject, I decline all responsibility for ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... proportions, and qualities, according to which they act for a time, after a given mode; these are afterwards taken from them, to make them act after a different manner. It is thus that Nature makes them expand and change, grow and decline, augment and diminish, approximate and remove, forms and destroys them, according as she finds it requisite to maintain the whole; towards the conservation which this Nature is herself essentially necessitated ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... worshiping the same Jehovah, are disputing with each other, and indeed, amongst themselves, with regard to the various attributes, amorous pursuits, and lineal descendants of the Godhead. Jehovah himself appears to be on the decline and his unity is steadily disintegrating into a paradoxical trinity. But we are progressing, for in 1300 years no new prophet has arisen, and no new divine revelation is perturbing our race; the old ones, however, are causing quite ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... the observance of the ordinances of religion is the cause of the greatness of a State, so their neglect is the occasion of its decline; since a kingdom without the fear of God must either fall to pieces, or must be maintained by the fear of some prince who supplies that influence not supplied by religion. But since the lives of princes are short, the life of this prince, also, and with it his influence, must soon come to an ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters having been designed by the authorities to fit the girls for the next world only, Beth could not dance. She had had some lessons at Miss Blackburne's, but not enough to give her confidence, so she was obliged to decline. Another and another would-be partner, and some quite important people, as Dan said, offered, but in vain; ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... of the Ducal Palace, then, represents the state of Gothic work in Venice at its central and proudest period, i. e. circa 1350. After this time, all is decline,—of what nature and by what steps, we shall inquire in the ensuing chapter; for as this investigation, though still referring to Gothic architecture, introduces us to the first symptoms of the Renaissance influence, I have considered it as properly belonging to the third division ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... neglect of important public duties. The bonded indebtedness of these States began to increase, the State paper to depreciate, the burden of taxation to grow intolerable, bad laws to find their way into the statute-books, interest in education and industry to decline, the farm Negroes to grow idle and gravitate to the infectious skirts of large cities, and the whole South ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... and packer of pork and beef. For a time it was up-hill work, but his native perseverance overcame all difficulties, and in the season of 1862-3, his business had grown to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. From that time there was a steady decline in the amount of packing done in Cleveland, the supply of cattle and hogs decreasing until but a very small quantity, in proportion to the facilities for packing, could be depended on. The slaughter-houses ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... hospitable to see people so near her house without inviting them in, now came forward to give the invitation, and as they were obliged to decline on the score of lateness, she called Almira to bring some cool spring water for them. Seeing Freddie approaching dangerously near one of the horses, Marty cried, "Freddie, Freddie, come away from the horse!" and he gravely inquired, "What's the matter ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... Alfars' chief, or prince, applied to Volund, who, as we learn from the prose introduction, was a son of a king of the Finns, may perhaps be accounted for by the circumstance that the poem itself hardly belongs to the Odinic Mythology, and was probably composed when that system was in its decline and giving place to the ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... awakening attention to the subjects of his calling in the village, was marked, and of a kind which brought pleasure to his own heart. But, like all other excitement, it tends to exhaustion, and it was not long before he sensibly felt the decline of the powers of life. To the best regulated mind there is something bitter in the relinquishment of projects for which we have been long and laboriously preparing, and there is something far more bitter in crossing the long-cherished expectations of friends. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... afraid I was rude enough to decline to go into the scheme on the ground that I did not care twopence whether the Rothschilds and Oppenheims went back to Palestine or not. This was felt to be an obstacle; but then he began to try and make me care, whereupon, of course, I had to get ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... Two men of his tribe, who witnessed these circumstances, persuaded the women to fly in their company. One of these men had formerly been dangerously stabbed by I-e-tan. Actuated by hatred, calculating the chief's power was on the decline, and depending on the strength of their connections, which were influential, the seducers became tired of living out in hunting-camps and elsewhere, and determined to return to the village and face it out. Such cases of elopement are ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... understand, but measles, pneumonia, and smallpox are witchcraft. Winnenap' was medicine-man for fifteen years. Besides considerable skill in healing herbs, he used his prerogatives cunningly. It is permitted the medicine-man to decline the case when the patient has had treatment from any other, say the white doctor, whom many of the younger generation consult. Or, if before having seen the patient, he can definitely refer his disorder to some supernatural cause wholly out of the medicine-man's jurisdiction, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... countenance is one of calmness, or, it may be, resignation—for the tranquility 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... perfectly free, of course, to do as you please. If you please to decline a good offer, merely because you won't promise not to drink what you say you don't drink, and not to sell what you say you don't want to sell, why that is your own matter, of course, and I can ...
— Three People • Pansy
... intrinsically deficient in that species of merit which appeals directly to the senses, the Arch of Hadrian attracts comparatively little notice. It is, however, a highly interesting monument, bearing unmistakable marks of the decline of art; yet distinguished for much of that quality of beauty which gives so peculiar a character to the architecture of the Greeks. The inscriptions on the sides of the entablature have given rise to much learned discussion, and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... to the civil affairs of the heathen Roman Empire. So long the Apostolic traditions prevailed, and preserved the Church in its purity: and therefore the affairs of the Church do not begin to be considered in this Prophecy before the opening of the fifth seal. She began then to decline, and to want admonitions; and therefore is admonished by these Epistles, till the Apostacy prevailed and took place, which was at the opening of the seventh seal. The admonitions therefore in these ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... 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 stream not in the vivid flush of a short day ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... peach-stone, that old central nuisance of the island. The little monster still crowed, and flapped his wings on his dunghill, as had been his custom always in the afternoon for certain centuries. But nothing on earth is immortal: even mighty bantams must have their decline and fall; and omens began to show out that soon there would be a dust with the new master at Columbo. Seven years after our debut on that stage, the dust began. By the way, it is perhaps an impertinence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... are growing bare before they can see all in a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; and, even then, it will be only for one little moment of consummation before the faculties are again on the decline, and they that look out of the windows begin to be darkened and restrained in sight. Thus the study of nature should be carried forward thoroughly and with system. Every gratification should be rolled long under the tongue, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... public utility is held to justify the outlay. Nor does the Deptford Cattle market, of thirty acres, maintained on the banks of the Thames to deal with live cattle imported from abroad, pay its way. But there has been a serious decline in imported stock in late years, especially from America. At this market extreme precautions are taken to prevent the entry of cattle disease that might spread infection to British flocks and herds. All animals ...
— A Terminal Market System - New York's Most Urgent Need; Some Observations, Comments, - and Comparisons of European Markets • Mrs. Elmer Black
... shop proved to be closed, in accordance with the law, which permits trading—in buildings—only between twelve and three o'clock on Sundays. On our way home the count expressed his regret at the rapid decline of the republican idea in America, and the surprising growth of the baneful "aristocratic"—not to say snobbish—sense. His deductions were drawn from articles in various recent periodical publications, and from the general tone of the American works which had come ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... my friends," said the counsellor with great earnestness, "the art of eating, the skill men may attain in it, has its epochs, its classical ages, and its decline, corruption, and dark ages, just as much as every other art; and it seems to me that we are now again verging to a kind of barbarism in it. Luxury, profusion, rarities, new dishes, overpeppering, overspicing, all these, my good sirs, are ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... "I decline to give it," said Mr. Allen, harshly, "and if I hear any more of this nonsense I will discharge you ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Spain's rise and decline were not primarily a result of sea power, still, taking the term to include the extension of shipping and maritime trade as well as the employment of naval forces in strictly military operations, there are lessons ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... than the constitution; however, he would do his duty, and oppose the business totally; and if it was referred to a committee, as mentioned yesterday, consisting of a member from each State, and he was appointed, he would decline serving. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... she began almost to fear that if she went back to her aunt, her aunt would prevail, and that in very truth Peter Steinmarc would become her lord and master. Then there was another plan, as impracticable as that scheme of running away. What if she were to become sullen, and decline to speak at all? She was well aware that in such a contest her aunt's tongue would be very terrible to her; and as the idea crossed her mind, she told herself that were she so to act people would treat her as a mad woman. But even that, she thought, would ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... does not concern me. Your courts tried their best to hang the man who was responsible for his cousin's death, and failed. I take it you decline this proffered duel?" ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... riders having descended a decline were no longer visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him, standing in the stirrups, trotted a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... old to learn new tricks, what were you going to do? Get sent to the printer's home, that was all! The new printer drank heavily to assuage his gloom, even to a degree that caused Herman Vielhaber to decline his custom, so that he must lean the gloomy hours away on the bar of Pegleg McCarron, where they didn't mind such things. Sam Pickering warned him that if this kept on there would no longer be jobs for ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... l'espiegle. "I take that to mean you would fain brush the morning dew off, as your bashful companion calls it; well then, excuse me, 'tis customary, but not prudent. I decline. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... delusion. If production should be quadrupled,—a thing which does not seem to me at all impossible,—it would be labor lost: if the additional product was not consumed, it would be of no value, and the proprietor would decline to receive it as interest; if it was consumed, all the disadvantages of property would reappear. It must be confessed that the theory of passional attraction is gravely at fault in this particular, and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... be made by the authorities for the wholesale murder of our men I know not. Possibly those high and haughty personages will sniff contemptuously and decline to give any explanation at all. And you, who hold the remedy in your own hands, what will you do? Will you at election times put a stern question to every candidate for the Commons, and demand a straight and unqualified answer to ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... of such experience, the Hindu has a certain right to decline the offers made to correct his annals by Western history and chronology. On the contrary, he would respectfully advise the Western scholar, before he denies point-blank any statement made by the Asiatics with reference to ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... silence all Drop in the dark the fatal ball? What though no overt voice or sound Amidst the voting throng be found? In reason's ear they speak of choice, And utter forth a boding voice, Saying, as silent they recline, "Your company we must decline!" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... and the people born to refinement who were his associates, his friends. That phase of feeling was rather strong in him just now; disguising itself in the form of sundry plausible motives, it had induced him to decline Mrs. Tyrrell's invitation, and was fostering his temporary distaste for the society in which he had always found much pleasure. What if in strictness he belonged to neither sphere? What if his life were to be a struggle between inherited sympathies and the affinities of ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... to me that with the decline of my active force I am becoming more purely spirit; everything is growing transparent to me. I see the types, the foundation of beings, the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... high: "Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man: Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth: There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... it was, in fact, the cause of his being left behind. It is possible that I may have been too hard on his reverence's nervousness—scarcely doing justice to his earnestness of purpose; but, as to the aforesaid infernal machines I decline to retract one word.] ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... found to sustain such a publication as L'Art. In six years it has not abated by one tittle the perfection with which it first burst upon the world. Its standard is as high, its subjects are as inexhaustible, as ever. We hear now and then of a decline in French art: the great artists who carried it to the high-water mark of modern times have all, or nearly all, passed away, but there is certainly no sign of a vacuum. The activity of production is as great as ever, the interest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... and be wonderful careful on the ballicaders,"[7] cautioned Mrs. Twig, as Toby broke the komatik loose and the dogs dashed away down the decline to ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... singing that song for many a day to come. Not that there's any sense in it. But it's just because there's no sense in 'em that such songs oughtn't to be sung. See that young woman go out just now? Well, she's in a decline, and knows as she can't last very long. And she's got a young man in India—in the same battery as our Bill—as nice and straight a lad as ever ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... determination. Some exclude the seeking of pleasure as a permissible motive, some the love of beauty; some insist upon one's "being oneself" and prohibit or limit responses to exterior opinions. Most of such selections strike me as wanton and hasty. I decline to dismiss any of my motives at all in that wholesale way. Just as I believe I am important in the scheme of things, so I believe are all my motives. Turning one's back on any set of them seems to me to savour of the headlong actions of stupidity. To suppress a passion ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... this sense of profound significance for him, while he turned away with indifference or disgust from the whole doctrinal apparatus of the Atonement, which, however closely bound up with the popular conception of God's love, had nothing to do with his conception of it, and he could thus consistently decline the name of Christian, as some witnesses aver that he did.[42] It was thus in entire keeping with his way of approaching Christianity that he imagined this moving episode,—the dying apostle whose genius had made that way so singularly persuasive, the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... well acquainted with all these facts, and in preparing everything for May's escape, his only fear was lest the murderer might decline to profit of the opportunity. Hence, it was necessary to offer every possible inducement for flight. The plan the young detective had eventually decided on consisted in sending an order to Mazas for May to be despatched to the Palais de Justice. He could be placed in one of the prison vans, and ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau |
