"Decay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scarred and swarthy veterans returned to their homes on the border there were no marks of neglect to be erased, no evidences of dilapidation and decay. "They found their farms in as good a condition as when they enlisted. Enhanced prices had balanced diminished production. Crops had been planted, tended, and gathered, by hands that before had been all unused to the hoe and the rake. The sadness ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... summer amplitudes of pomp And rich autumnal melancholy, and the shrill, Embittered housewifery Of the lean Winter: all such things, And with them all the goodness of the Master Whose right hand blesses with increase and life, Whose left hand honours with decay and death. ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... sylv' y^t ys about the same hed," which they claim as belonging to the parish on the ground that it was made by the charity of the parishioners in times past. "Our chyrche," they say, "ys in gret ruyn and decay and our toure ys foundered and lyke to fall and ther ys no money left in [o] chyrche box and by reason of great infyrmyty and deth ther hath byn thys yere in oure parysh no chyrche aele, the whych hath hyndred [o] chyrch of xx^ti nobles and above, and well it is knowen y^t we ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... day, I lingered again at Tuttletown. There is a strange attraction about the place—it would hold you apart from its associations, The old hotel, fast going to decay, surrounded by splendid trees whose shade is so dense as to be impenetrable to the noon-day sun, is a study for an artist. And as I gazed in a sort of day-dream at the ruins of what once was one of the liveliest camps in the Sierras—with four faro ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... the learned demonstration of the antiquary who is settling the date of a Roman or Celtic ruin, I forget which; and the intervention of the beggar, who has no archaeological system, but who has seen the edifice in question both built and fall to decay. Reason as much as you like; if your reasonings do not accord with facts, you will have woven spider's webs, of admirable fineness perhaps, but wanting ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... have given my heart to a flower, Though I know it is fading away, Though I know it will live but an hour And leave me to mourn its decay! ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... great rapidity, and decay proportionably soon. From ten to fifteen years may be considered the life of this tree. Our peaches are delicious, but they sometimes fail by being destroyed in the germ by winter frosts. The bud ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... sang his exquisite melodies, touching his mouth with his thumb, and striking the strings with his fingers, it is said that his priestly mates, transported by the magic power of his art, fell prostrate, and wept. Under the Oriental trappings of this tale is concealed regretful anguish over the decay of old Hebrew song. The altar at Jerusalem was demolished, and the songs of Zion, erst sung by the Levitical choirs under the leadership of the Korachides, were heard no longer. The silence was unbroken, until, in our day, a band of gifted men disengaged the old harps from the willows, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... from the mountain, and attacked the bushes again. He climbed over great logs, golden-brown in decay, and was opposed by thickets of dark-green laurel. A brook slid through the ooze of a swamp, cedars and hemlocks hung their spray ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... should be filled up; the parasitic orchides or epyphites, with green bulbs, can be sent in wooden boxes, pierced with little holes, and kept dry; all the old leaves should be taken off, as, in their decay, they cause dampness, and the roots wrapped in dry moss or cloth. The same means may be used for the pulpy plants, such as the cactus: any dry flexible substance, not subject to dampnes, as hairwool ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... wish to graft, then cut again to where you want them. This will avoid splitting. Usually we cut back to where the limbs are from two to four inches in diameter. We have cut some back that were six to eight inches with good results. However, limbs this size require careful attention to avoid decay as it takes so long for them ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... they came to look, they found that "decay's offensive fingers" had been more busy than they could have imagined, and that whatever they touched of the earlier coffins crumbled into ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the progress of improvement, the practice of military exercises, unless government takes proper pains to support it, goes gradually to decay, and, together with it, the martial spirit of the great body of the people, the example of modern Europe sufficiently demonstrates. But the security of every society must always depend, more or less, upon ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the stalk, rub the warts with the wheat's beard or bristles at the end of the ear, take these to four crosses or roads that cross each other, bury the straw, and the warts will decay with the decay ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... in the ordinary course of events would have been the going on of the party until it died of dry rot and decay, as the Liberals had already died in Ontario; but fortunately, both for the party and for Laurier's subsequent fame—though it may not have seemed so at the time—emergence of the reciprocity question gave it an opportunity to fall on an issue which seemed to link up the end of the ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... primarily to rouse those of his own class that he labored, to gall them into seeing (though they should turn again and rend him) that moral supineness is moral decay, that the soul shrivels into nothingness when wrong is acquiesced in, as surely as it is torn and scattered by the furies let loose within it, when wrong is done. But just there lay the difficulty and pain of his mission: that, from his acknowledged standing in the literary world, and as a leader ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... scarcely to be called a picturesque ruin, except inasmuch as every ruin is picturesque. Its bare walls rose gaunt and black out of the ground, not out of a heap of tumbled moss-grown masonry, or covered over with ivy. There were very few signs of decay about the place, ruinous as it was, and very little examination was enough to show that it had suffered not from old age, or from the cannon of an enemy, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... fall in love so much less than they used to do is largely due to the decay of the imaginative faculty. As for women, although they are in the main as anxious to marry as ever, although it is universally acknowledged that the modern young woman does cultivate the modern ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... and there was a "'Change," where merchants met every day, as in the Royal Exchange in London. Public dinners were given here also with great magnificence; but from the marshy nature of the ground on which the building had been set up, it fell to decay in 1797, and a new ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... to my Lord, how perrelous this is to his Lordschip and his house, and decay thareof, in caise the Authoritie wold be scharpe, and wold use conforme bayth to civile and cannon, and als your awin municipall law of ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... likewise in the direction of Mecca, to which place all Mohammedans turn when saying their prayers. Again, I entertained some suspicion that the walls, which were in some parts ten feet high, had not sufficient decay to warrant their being four and a half or more centuries old. But one thing was remarkable at this present time—there were no springs or any water nearer than my camping place, which could not have been the case when this place was occupied; but it denoted a certain ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... by way of Crete and Cyrene at Alexandria; but the Egyptian court rejected his request for the support of ships of war with equal courtesy and decision. Hardly anything illustrates so clearly as does this fact the sad decay of the Roman state, which had once been able gratefully to decline the offer of the kings of Egypt to assist the Romans with all their naval force, and now itself seemed to the Alexandrian statesmen bankrupt. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd; Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar, Represt ambition struggles round her shore, Whilst, over-wrought, the general system feels Its motions stopt, or phrenzy fires the wheels. Nor this the worst. As social bonds decay, As duty, love, and honour fail to sway, Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law, Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe. Hence all obedience bows to these alone, And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown; Till time ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... ponds, nesting in hollows of the largest trees. Sometimes a hole in a horizontal limb is chosen that seems too small to hold the Duck's plump body, and occasionally it makes use of the hole of an Owl or Woodpecker, the entrance to which has been enlarged by decay. ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... sea through all our polities; we have that high differentiation between the various parts of our unity which makes the whole of Europe so marvellous an organism; we alone change without suffering decay. To the truth as Europe accepts it I cannot but bow down; for if that is not the truth, then the truth is not to be found upon earth. But there conies upon us perpetually that "wind of Africa"; and it disturbs us. ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... him, of a lingering malady, with features expressive of frantic misery; and it seemed to me that he looked at the least three centuries old. One might have fancied him one of Swift's strulbrugs, that, through long attenuation and decay, had dwindled back into infancy, with one organ only left perfect—the organ of fear ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Yemen falling into decay, Zayla passed under the authority of the Sherif of Mocha, who, though receiving no part of the revenue, had yet the power of displacing the Governor. By him it was farmed out to the Hajj Sharmarkay, who paid annually to Sayyid Mohammed el Barr, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... the death of the body—partly perhaps because they had a much more rational method of disposing of the body—a method which was not only infinitely better for the dead man and more healthy for the living, but was also free from the gruesome suggestions connected with slow decay. They knew much more about death in those days, and because they knew more ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... not five," answered Don Quixote, "for never in my life have I had tooth or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been destroyed by any decay or rheum." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... A dozen men could have been accommodated in it, and there was ample room for that number either sitting or standing. In fact, the whole pyramidal mass which supported the tree was nothing more than a thin shell, all the heart having perished by decay. The floor, by the falling of this debris of rotten wood, was raised above the level of the water, and felt firm and dry underfoot. Near its centre I could perceive the ashes and half-burnt embers of an extinct fire; ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... book of Divine origin? Look to the east where the Koran rules, obstructing with its absolutism the development of human intellect: what do you behold there? You behold mighty nations, a noble race of men, interesting in many respects, teeming with germs of vitality, and still falling fast into decay, because doomed to stagnation of their intelligence by that blind faith in their Koran's absolute perfection, which we see recommended as a model to the people of this Republic, whose ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... in Poverty Bottom," said Heriot, pointing south of his barn to a hollow that went by that name. For there was a dismal habitation that had fallen into decay, a skeleton of a hut with only two rotting walls, and a riddled thatch for a roof. And it was worse than no habitation at all, for what might have been a green and lovely vale was made desolate and rank with disused things, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... great and visible decay of piety in the country, and the growth of many miscarriages, which we fear may have provoked the glorious Lord in a series of various judgments wonderfully to distress us.... It is humbly desired ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... roamed from country to country keeping her in the core of my heart, and around her have risen and fallen the growth and decay ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... has broadened beyond the backstairs of the Palace and the benches of the Senate House in Rome to the wide lands north and east and south of the Mediterranean, and we have begun to realize the true achievements of the Empire. The old theory of an age of despotism and decay has been overthrown, and the believer in human nature can now feel confident that, whatever their limitations, the men of the Empire wrought for the betterment and the ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... objectionable in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park; but she found that an appeal to a policeman or a Park-keeper, or to any decent workman, was enough to stop the nuisance. Genuine respect for women, which is an antidote to the moral rottenness that promotes the decay of nations, and portends the indefinite prolongation of the life of a race, is of slow growth, but it is steadily increasing among the ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... tide of the years! I am so weary of toils and of tears, Toil without recompense,—tears all in vain,— Take them, and give me my childhood again. I have grown weary of dust and decay, Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away, Weary of sowing for others to reap,— Rock me to sleep, ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... native to it. Yet it was the first time I ever entered a little into sympathy with the exalted cruelty of your spiritual nature. For in the forest, ever present, is the intimation of Nature's indifference to pain. There is no charity in a commonwealth of trees. They live, decay, and die, and there is no sign of compassion anywhere. It is terrible, but there is a Spartan beauty ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... thankful that (like most other broken-down authors) I do not pester you with decrepit pages, and insist upon your accepting them as full of the old spirit and vigour. That trouble perhaps still awaits you, after I shall have reached a further stage of decay. Seriously, my mind has, for the time, lost its temper and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had better keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigour if I wait quietly for it; perhaps not." The winter passed away, but the ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... and sent by Pope. Nor was this all. The poet acted with still greater meanness, for he had the audacity to deplore the sad vanity of Swift in permitting the publication of his correspondence, and to declare that "no decay of body is ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... nourished under the impenetrable shade of ancient trees ranging from 100 to 180 feet high; briars and thorns abundant; lazy creeks meandering through the depths of the jungle, and sometimes a deep affluent of a great river. Imagine this forest and jungle in all stages of decay and growth, rain pattering on you every other day of the year; an impure atmosphere with its dread consequences, fever and dysentery; gloom throughout the day and darkness almost palpable throughout the night; and then if ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... certain islands of the South Seas you may hear a crashing on windless noons, and, looking up, see a corpse swinging along head downwards at a great speed from tree to tree, holding by its toes, grimacing, dripping with decay. Americans, so active in this life, rest quiet afterwards. And though every stone of Wall Street have its separate Lar, their kind have not gone out beyond city-lots. The maple and the birch conceal no dryads, and Pan has never been heard amongst these reedbeds. Look as long ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... during the reign of Asoka did not last very long; and the Hindus had the support of very powerful kings before and after the commencement of the Christian era. Moreover, the author says, in p. 132 of his book, that Buddhism was in a state of decay in the seventh century. It is hardly to be expected that the reaction against the Buddhists would commence when their religion was already in a state of decay. No great religious teacher or reformer would waste ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... almost impossible that these evidences of guilt should have been accidentally left where found. There was sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed) to remove the corpse; and yet a more positive evidence than the corpse itself (whose features might have been quickly obliterated by decay,) is allowed to lie conspicuously in the scene of the outrage—I allude to the handkerchief with the name of the deceased. If this was accident, it was not the accident of a gang. We can imagine it only the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... militant and pacific, he has expressed in literature, as indeed in the other forms of art, his pacific and militant moods. Nor are these moods, of necessity, incompatible. War may become the price of peace, and peace may so decay as inevitably to bring about war. Of the dully unresponsive pacificist and the jingo patriot, quick to anger, the latter no doubt is the more dangerous to the cause of true freedom, yet both are "undesirable ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... worshipped their idols, which turned to their own decay: yea, they offered their sons and their ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... company, that he is the Prince of Wales, and that he is the Almighty. Moral perversion is a common symptom, and the patient is often guilty of criminal assaults, indecent exposures, bigamous marriages, and the like. It is accompanied with progressive bodily and mental decay. Women are comparatively rarely affected by it, and it generally commences in men about middle age, and its duration is from a few months to three years. It is commonly parasyphilitic in origin. Paralytic symptoms first appear in the tongue, lips, and face; the speech becomes ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... rapidly, almost like a drunken man, as his reeling brain battled with the rising shock of the malarial stroke. When he stumbled toward the companionway, his face was purpling and mottling as if attacked by some monstrous inflammation or decay. His eyes were setting in a glassy bulge, his hands shaking, his teeth clicking ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... strolled mechanically from the Strand to the Embankment, and after walking some little distance she sat down in a corner close to Cleopatra's Needle—that mocking obelisk that has looked upon the decay of empires, itself impassive, and that still appears to say, "Pass on, ye puny generations! I, a mere carven block of stone, shall outlive you all!" For the first time in all her experience the child ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... empires changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts; not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play. Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... painting. Bellini's hand was cunning enough to make us feel what he intended, and did his utmost to realise; but he has not realised it, and the same hallowing effect which has been wrought upon the Theseus by decay (to the enlarging of its spiritual influence), has been wrought upon the work of Bellini by incapacity—the incapacity of the painter to utter perfectly the perfect thought which was within. The early Italian paintings have that stamp of individuality upon them ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... collection of plants to prosper, unless he love them: for neither the goodness of the soil, nor the advantage of the situation, will do it, without the master's affection; it is that which renders them strong and vigorous; without which they will languish and decay through neglect, and soon cease to do him service. I have seen many gardens of the new model, in the hands of unskilful persons, with good walls, walks and grass-plots; but in the most essential adornments so deficient, that a green meadow is a more delightful object; there nature alone, without ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... ancient sea kings. They were in a state of surprisingly perfect preservation, and indeed had the appearance of having only recently fallen asleep, the intense cold having seized upon them with such fierce rapidity that their bodies had completely congealed before even the primary stages of decay had had time to manifest themselves. Indeed, judging from appearances, they had succumbed, in the first instance, to starvation, and, overcome by weakness, had been frozen to death. They were all of lofty ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... dry cellar, it is economy to procure in the fall vegetables enough for all winter, but if the cellar is too warm the vegetables will sprout and decay before half the cold months have passed. Those to be bought are onions, squashes, turnips, beets, carrots, parsnips, cabbages, potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes, all of which, except the first two, should be bedded in sand and ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... [Footnote ref l]. All the dharmas (appearances) are without death or decay [Footnote: ref 2]. Gau@dapada then follows a dialectical form of argument which reminds us of Nagarjuna. Gau@dapada continues thus: Those who regard kara@na (cause) as the karyya (effect in a potential form) cannot consider the cause as truly unproduced (aja), for it suffers production; ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... that the task were mine, To guard the liquid fires that shine, And round your orbits play— To watch them with a vestal's care, And feed with smiles a light so fair, That it may ne'er decay! ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... it is." M. Julien Benda[12] is not led to this startling utterance by any political or sentimental grudge. It is not the late war, nor the peace of Versailles, nor the parlous state of the arts, nor the decay of morality and prosperity that disgusts him with our confused world. It is simply overmastering respect for the infinite. La Trahison des Clercs, or Treason of the Levites, with which he had previously upbraided ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... of yours," said his friend, glancing at him. "If he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay none of the withering if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in the majestic honours that crown a glorious life the graces of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always dinning ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of strength and of weakness are to be found in the character of each judge. (4) From the story of Gideon and Sampson, point out New Testament truths. (5) From the story of Jephthah and Deborah gather lessons for practical life today. (6) Religious apostasy as a cause of national decay. (7) Political folly and social immorality as a sign of national decay. (8) The method ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... was noticed that the poet had not been able to resist the temptation of covertly sneering at the superannuated author, and certain of the lines in the prologue were found susceptible of a satirical application. Happily, poor Dennis, protected by his vanity or the decay of his intelligence, perceived nothing of this. Indeed, the poor old critic survived the benefit but twenty days, dying in the seventy-seventh year of his age. Other benefit performances on behalf of distressed men of letters, or their ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... It is a most singular and significant stroke in the delineation, that sleep seems to loosen the fetters of his soul, and lift him above himself: then indeed, and then only, "the muddy vesture of decay" doth not so "grossly close him in," but that some proper spirit-notices come upon him; as if in his passive state the voice of truth and good vibrated down to his soul, and stopped there, being unable to kindle any answering ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Weston she had kept tolerable health, but certainly her constitution was not strong, and the slavery of Walworth Road threatened her with premature decay. Her sisters counselled wisely. Coming to London was a mistake. She would have had better chances at Weston, notwithstanding the extreme discretion with which she was obliged ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... was no isolated phenomenon. There were already in the air the seeds of the decay of the ancient order, and those seeds fructified more rapidly in England by reason of the plague.[1] It is only because of the impetus which it gave to changes already in progress that the pestilence had ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... privation, pain, and death. The instinct becomes more powerful than any other, and can override any other, even fear itself."[2] Wherever the power of the parental instinct has waned, as in Greek and Roman society, the civilization in which that degeneration occurred was subjected to rapid decay.[3] ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Lyon had never seen her before the day she planted herself in his studio; but he knew her and classified her as if he had made her. He was acquainted with the London female model in all her varieties—in every phase of her development and every step of her decay. When he entered his house that September morning just after the arrival of his two friends there had been no symptoms whatever, up and down the road, of Miss Geraldine's reappearance. That fact ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... security of their life and possessions; for these cannot be safeguarded unless contribution be made to the state. I know of several princes who have lost their kingdoms and their subjects by letting their strength decay through fear of taxing them; and subjects have before now fallen into servitude to their enemies, through wishing too much liberty under their natural sovereign. The proportion between the burden and the strength ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... control, 155 Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul; While low delights, succeeding fast behind, In happier meanness occupy the mind: As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway, Defac'd by time and tottering in decay, 160 There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed, And, wond'ring man could want the larger pile, Exults, and owns his cottage with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... can gather," he said, coughing above the spirit, "you call it decay of the optic nerve, or something, and therefore hopeless. What is my time-limit, avoiding all strain ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... old acquaintance in this play. Thackeray's hero in the Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush is "the Honourable Algernon Percy Deuceace, youngest and fifth son of the Earl of Crabs," and in The Masquerade (Act III. Sc. i) Mr. Ombre says: "Did you not observe an old decay'd rake that stood next the box-keeper yonder ... they call him Sir Timothy Deuxace; that wretch has play'd off one of the best families in Europe—he has thrown away all his posterity, and reduced 20,000 acres of wood-land, arable, meadow, ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... nebulae, he may greatly widen the range of his inquiries. The sequence of phenomena seen during the growth of a sun-spot, or the observation of spots of different sizes, and the long series of successive steps that mark the rise and decay of stellar life, resemble the changes that the experimenter brings about as he increases and diminishes the current in the coils of his magnet or raises and lowers the temperature of his electric furnace, examining ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... loves a rosy cheek, Or a coral lip admires, Or from starlike eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires, As old time makes these decay, So his flames must ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Beyond the clothes for the ceremony, there should be a general overhauling of the wardrobe and shirts, undervests, underclothes, handkerchiefs, and such articles must, if any of them are needed or have fallen into decay, be supplied or renewed. All this is ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... to toy, Gay Delights we enjoy, And have Crouds of new Lovers wooing; When were old and decay'd, We procure for the Trade, Still in ev'ry Age we ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... idolatry, nor adultery, nor whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie." And "that fadeth not away." The luster of the eye; the bloom of the cheek; the facial expressions of beauty and love, purity and truth, know nothing of decay in the amaranthine bowers of ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... easy to see that an orchestra thus constituted would be better adapted for making a great noise than for music, while the pantomime itself was of such a brutal nature that the degradation of art may be said to have been complete. As the decay of art in Egypt culminated under Ptolemy Auletes, so in Rome it culminated in the time of Caligula (12-41 ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... dates the decay of Scandinavian power from Good Friday, 1014, yet the North did not wholly cease to send forth its warriors, nor were the shores of the Western Island less tempting to them than before. The second year after the battle of Clontarf, Canute founded his Danish dynasty in England, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... effigies of Buddha and his disciples, mostly defaced or overthrown, all wearing the same expression of beatified rest and indifference to mundane affairs; and by temples of lacquered wood falling to decay, whose bells sent their surpassingly sweet tones far ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... have now? They are clothed with the protection of law.[477] In my judgment, Mr. President, the day that the floodgate of female suffrage is opened upon this country, the social organism will have reached the point at which decay and ruin begin.... Why, sir, what is the advantage? If the head of the family votes he is apt to reflect the views of the family. It is more convenient than to have all the family going out ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... essential to that part of the community. The religious foreign community cannot otherwise long continue to perform its functions. It must have the means of liberally educating its children on the ground. Without a College, its moral, social and civil influence will tend constantly to decay. This most precious Christian influence, now rooted on the Islands, now no longer exotic, needs only the proper culture to perpetuate itself. The cheapest thing we can do for the Islands and for that part of the world, is to furnish this culture. It is better to educate our ministry there, than ...
— The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands • Trustees of the Punahou School and Oahu College
... almost jovially at the decay of the best year I have ever lived through, and am your very middle-aged faithful ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... piece of philosophy, Dulcie turned away, leaving Lilias to shake her head over the decay of family feeling, and the ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... which even assassination could not temper; patriotism became servility; vices the most foul flouted themselves in public; literature sank to puerilities; learning was forgotten; fertile districts became waste without the ravages of war—everywhere inequality produced decay, political, mental, moral, and material. The barbarism which overwhelmed Rome came not from without, but from within. It was the necessary product of the system which had substituted slaves and colonii for the independent husbandmen of Italy, and carved the provinces into ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... universe a faultless being in a faultless world, but he soon fell from his first estate, and his fall entailed world-wide consequences. It introduced into our globe sin, death, suffering, disease, imperfection and decay; all the mischievous and ferocious instincts and tendencies of man and beast; all the multitudinous forms of struggle, terror, anxiety and grief; all that makes life bitter to any living being, and, even as the Fathers were accustomed to say, the briars and weeds and sterility ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Bold warriors come from all the cities round, Who greatly harass me, and render vain My hope to storm the strong-built walls of Troy. Already now nine weary years have pass'd; The timbers of our ships are all decay'd, The cordage rotted; in our homes the while Our wives and helpless children sit, in vain Expecting our return; and still the work, For which we hither came, remains undone. Hear then my counsel; let us all agree Home to direct ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... more. She had died, perhaps of love, more likely of shame. Can you guess how I spent that night?—I stole a pickaxe from a mason's shed, and all alone and unseen, under the frosty heavens, I dug the fresh mould from the grave; I lifted the coffin, I wrenched the lid, I saw her again—again! Decay had not touched her. She was always pale in life! I could have sworn she lived! It was a blessed thing to see her once more, and all alone too! But then, at dawn, to give her back to the earth,—to close the lid, to throw down the mould, to hear the pebbles rattle ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... conscientious as himself. The man whom he scoffs at as a 'radical,' an 'abolitionist,' and a 'fanatic,' by education and intuition believes in his very soul that the holding of men in bondage, forcing from them involuntary labor, and the consequences thereof, are pregnant with moral and political ruin and decay. The system, not the men, is offensive to his eyes. Is he to blame for this opinion, provided it be well founded in his mind? Admit it eroneous in logic, still, if he believes it, is he to be condemned for holding the belief, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a "find" of more than 200 Jersey Gaulish coins, which are in the possession of R. R. Lempriere, Esq. They were turned up by the plough on his manor of Rozel; and whatever covering had enclosed them had either gone to decay, or become broken up, as they were quite loose. He had cleaned a few of them. Even to the eye the metallic composition varied greatly—some being of the colour of silver, and some lowering to that of copper. In this lot there ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley
... applicable to the 'organs of thought,' the four central instruments of mental activity." [3] But if our inner life was merely the counterpart of certain changes in the grey matter of the brain, how could the function be expected to persist after its organ had undergone decay? ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... society. I am sure I have no need to remind you that, while a Jew was forbidden by his law to take usury—i.e., interest for the loan of money—from his brother, if he were waxen poor and fallen into decay with him, and this generous provision was extended even to strangers and sojourners in the land (Lev. xxv. 35-38), and the interesting story in Nehemiah (v. 1-13), tells us how this principle was recognized in the latest days of the commonwealth—still in that old law there ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... fatigued; his spirit has no holiday; it is all school-work. And thus, generally, we find in such men that the break up of the constitution seems sudden and unlooked-for. The causes of disease and decay have been long laid; but they are smothered beneath the lively appearances of constrained ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... that kept his life Throughout a long, protracted strife, Could never fail or know decay, Though earth itself should pass away; And as the stormy night rolled on, His spirit ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... formerly than now. There were but few trees, a kind of long-leaved willow, standing; and numerous trunks of large trees were scattered about on the ground. In many similar places I had occasion to remark an apparent progressive decay in the timber. Ten miles farther we reached the mouth of Lodge Pole creek, a clear and handsome stream, running through a broad valley. In its course through the bottom it has a uniform breadth of twenty-two feet and six inches in depth. A few willows on the banks strike pleasantly ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... with water, which filtering rapidly through small holes in the bottom, was received in jars beneath: this water was again used with fresh mud until it became a strong brine, when it was boiled and evaporated. The salt was white, but very bitter. I imagine that it has been formed by the decay of aquatic plants that have been washed ashore by the waves; decomposing, they have formed a mud deposit, and much potash is combined with the salt. The flat sandy meadow that extends from the lake for about a mile to the foot of the precipitous cliffs of 1,500 feet, appears to have formed at one ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... sustaining force; when it takes its flight, that which remains falls back to the earth and becomes dust. And so the spiritual in man is the only force that can give him a moral nature and preserve it from decay; when his spiritual life departs the mind as well ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... which, like large serpents, clasp the soil with their coiling roofs, and overshadow with their dark green branches the white chalk cliffs of the Thames. But those French gardens, unless they are constantly clipped and prevented from growing, soon fall into decay. As in nature, so in society, uniformity means but too often stagnation, while variety is the surest sign of health and vigor. The deepest secret of nature is its love of continued novelty. Its tendency, if unrestrained, is towards constantly creating new varieties, which, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... bloody reign of the degenerate Commodus was such as surely to forecast the decline of Roman power and supremacy. In the next hundred years there were twenty-three emperors, thirteen of whom were murdered by their own soldiers or servants—a tragic period of cruelty, licentiousness, and decay. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... see, within yon wasted hall, O'erhung with tapestry of ivy green, The grim old king Decay, who rules the scene, Throned on a crumbling column by the wall, Beneath a ruined arch of ancient fame, Mocking the desolation round about, Blotting with his effacing fingers out The inscription, razing off its hero's name— And lo! the ancient mistress of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... man facing eternity. But that was what gave him strength to endure. Somehow he was a part of it all, some atom in that vastness, somehow necessary to an inscrutable purpose, something indestructible in that desolate world of ruin and death and decay, something perishable and changeable and growing under all the fixity of heaven. In that endless, silent hall of desert there was a spirit; and Cameron felt hovering near him what he imagined ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... down-at-heel boots, which had become recognised as the distinctive uniform of the sansculotte party. The inevitable Phrygian cap, with its tricolour cockade, appeared on the heads of all those present, in various stages of dirt and decay. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... amount of heat that accompanies fermentation, or decay of vegetable matter, is seen in the case of rotting farmyard manure. The danger of loss of the volatile ammonia from this cause is often great, and care must be taken to prevent fermentation going on too quickly, and ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... what remains Of Alba, still her ancient rights retains, Still worships Vesta, though an humbler way, Nor lets the hallow'd Trojan fire decay.—Juvenal. ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... Stadtholder, but the reigning Prince, who had obtained the Mark as a fief from the Emperor of Germany, to whom alone he were responsible. Look about you, Frederick William, look at these poor, wretched apartments, in which you live—look at the decay of the princely house, the embarrassments with which your father has to contend, and the privations which your mother and sisters have to undergo. And then, Prince, then look across at Broad Street, at ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... glow. It was a warm night, and the breeze that rolled down from the mountain peaks, so remote and passionless, was charged to overflowing with resinous odours, mingled with which, and just strong enough to be recognizable, was the faint, pungent smell of decay. A couple of hares, looking somewhat ashamed of themselves, sprang into upright positions, and with frightened whisks of their tails disappeared into a clump of ferns. With a startled hiss a big snake drew ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... like the morning flow'r, In beauty's pride array'd; But long ere night, cut down, it lies All wither'd and decay'd. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... doubts on the subject have now been dispelled by the exhaustive monograph of Pere Havret, S.J., entitled La Stele de Si-ngan. The date of the tablet seems to mark the zenith of Nestorian Christianity in China; after this date it began to decay. Marco Polo refers to it as existing in the 13th century; but then it fades out of sight, leaving scant traces in Chinese literature of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... vessel of about a hundred tons' burden, which was bound to Buenos Ayres. As the weather was not fair, we moored early in the day to a branch of a tree on one of the islands. The Parana is full of islands, which undergo a constant round of decay and renovation. In the memory of the master several large ones had disappeared, and others again had been formed and protected by vegetation. They are composed of muddy sand, without even the smallest pebble, and were then about four ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the world Augustus reigned, The rule of kingships felt decay; And when our Lord appeared as Man, The idol shrines ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... experience in full measure the vicissitudes of national weal and woe, the periods of growth, of maturity, and of age, the blessedness of creative effort in religion, polity, and art, the comfort of enjoying the material and intellectual acquisitions which it has won, perhaps also, some day, the decay of productive power in the satiety of contentment with the goal attained. And yet this goal will only be temporary: the grandest system of civilization has its orbit, and may complete its course but not so the human race, to which, just when it seems to have reached its ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the autumn air that morning, but the green slopes far and near bore no trace of flaming color or of decay, as in fall at home; it was rather like a glimpse of some cool, eternal spring. A stream of water trickled down under thick grass at the side of the ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... That's but a trifle heere: You Lords and Noble Friends, know our intent, What comfort to this great decay may come, Shall be appli'd. For vs we will resigne, During the life of this old Maiesty To him our absolute power, you to your rights, With boote, and such addition as your Honours Haue more then merited. All Friends ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... commodity, but not of least importance for health, is SALT: the works whereof having been lately suffered to decay; we now intending to restore in so great plenty, as not only to serve the Colony for the present, but as is hoped, in short time, the great fishings on those coasts, a matter of inestimable advancement to the ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... unaltered, except by injuries inflicted by the hand of man. The colors of the painting, in which there is no mixture of oil, preserve all their brightness—the beams and wood work of the ceilings show no signs of decay. The art of rendering timber and paints durable, and of making porcelain mosaics, arabesques, and other ornaments, began and ended in western Europe with the Spanish Arabs. But perhaps the most curious achievement attributed to them is, that spiders, flies, and other ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... foliage was marked by the approach of early frosts, which had already seared their verdure, and left those rich and varied tints that charm the eye in an autumnal landscape, while yet too brilliant to seem the presage of decay. The river flowed on its still smooth course, receiving on its waves the reflection of nature, in her quiet but ever glorious array, and mingling its faint murmurs with the busy sounds which breathed from those countless ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... where the air was close and heavy, the pale glimmer of the lantern showed piles of moldering coffins in the niches, and everywhere lay tokens of decay and death. The man drew his hat lower over his eyes, pulled the muffler closer about his mouth, and surveyed the spot with an undaunted aspect, though the beating of his heart was heard in the deep silence. Nearest the door stood ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... year or less, the curtains of age and infirmity fell between us. There came an illness, an operation, and he rose from it ailing, suffering, dwarfed and altogether changed. Of all the dark shadows upon life I think that change through illness and organic decay in the thoughts and spirits of those who are dear and close to us is the most evil and distressing and inexplicable. Suddenly he was a changeling, a being querulous and pitiful, needing indulgence ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... Ward was an authority on nothing at all, even in his own house, where his youngest grand-daughter attended to his wants. Amid a population which seldom broke the law and never resisted it, he had sunk of late years into a peaceful decay of all his faculties. He carried his emblem of office, a small mace, attached to his wrist by a string, and his hand shook pitiably as he fumbled for it, but less with excitement than from shock at having been aroused and dragged from his bed into ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... is injurious to society in general. Society is maintained in peace and progress by encouragement of mutual and personal virtues and gifts; but when disparagement is cast upon them, they are in danger of languishment and decay; so that a detractor is one of the worst members of society; he is a moth, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... in astonishment; "where is your power to enforce your authority?" And our Lord's answer seems to me to mean substantially this: Roman legions shall suffer defeat, rout, and extermination; and Roman power shall cease to terrify. All its might must decay. But "everyone that is of the truth" shall attach himself to me with a love which will brave rack and stake. All your power cannot give a grain of new life. I can and will infuse my own divine life, my own divine self, into men. And this new life is invincible, immortal, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... up in sharp pyramids, of which every brick and every tile was in its place, sharp, clear, well formed, and appropriate, in those very inches of space which each was called upon to fill. For in Nuremberg it is the religion of the community that no house shall fall into decay, that no form of city beauty shall be allowed to vanish, that nothing of picturesque antiquity shall be changed. From age to age, though stones and bricks are changed, the buildings are the same, and the medieval forms remain, delighting the ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... to slog at the donkey-work again, when I knew it. So we talked it over, and he says I ought to do the Final next year. And then, Marcella, look out! I've told you I've laid down my challenge to sickness! I'll have it whacked before I die. I can't see why anyone should die except of senile decay or accident—and those we'll eliminate in time! I feel that there's only a dyke of matchboarding between me and the ocean of knowledge. One day it's going to break, and I'll be flooded with it. It's a most uncanny feeling, old girl. One of the chaps here—a rather mad American—says that ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... reflects with satisfaction that the one person in the West who can call his ministration to account is exposed to the daily attacks of barbarians: is surrounded with palaces whose masters are ruined, and which are daily dropping into decay. The Pope, behind the crumbling walls of Aurelian, shudders at the cruelties practised on his people: the bishop of Constantinople, by terming himself ecumenical, announces ostentatiously that he claims to rule all his brethren in the East—that he is supreme judge over his brother patriarchs. ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the propriety of drawing from the oblivion of forgotten literature such a story will be questioned. The decay of the chivalrous spirit of the middle ages, and the prudish, puritanical code of morality that has superseded the simple manners of our forefathers, render it hazardous to cast into the hands of the present generation ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... speech— Be wise, O ye Nations! and hear What yesterday telleth to-day, What to-day to the morrow will preach. A change cometh over our sphere, And the old goeth down to decay. A new light hath dawned on the darkness of yore, And men shall be slaves and ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... the literature of his day, but here again he was beset with misgivings and haunted by forebodings. He felt that the State had reached its zenith both in material prosperity and intellectual achievement, and that all the future held in reserve was decline and decay. This thought was ever present with him; in the vast extension of empire he foresaw the inevitable disintegration, and he wondered in a melancholy fashion what would be the fate of mankind when the Empire, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... was ripe it fell into decay. After Sixteenth Century perfection, Seventeenth Century designs fell of their own overweight, figures were too exaggerated, draperies billowed out as in a perpetual gale, architecture and landscapes were too important, and tapestries became frankly pictures to attract the attention. To this ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... from the tree. The kayu putih (Melaleuca leucadendron) oil, which is somewhat better known in England, is obtained in the same manner; but to procure the meniak kayu or common wood-oil, used for preserving timber or boards exposed to the weather, from decay, and for boiling with dammar to pay the bottoms of ships and boats, the following method is practised. They make a transverse incision into the tree to the depth of some inches, and then cut sloping down from the notch, till ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... day has not passed without a curse; the dew does not come down with a blessing, and the fruits have lost their proper taste." Rabbi Yossi adds, "Also the lusciousness of the fruit is gone." Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar says, "With the decay of purity the taste and aroma (of the fruit) has disappeared, and with the tithes and richness of the corn." The sages say, "Lewdness and ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... grin of decay in Coventry Street, we mounted a motor-'bus, and dashed gaily through streets of rose and silver—it was October—and dropped off by the Poplar Hippodrome, whose harsh signs lit the night to ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... halted, it ran on, it stopped again to consider, but always it was of Dick and incidentally of himself who didn't matter so much, but who had to be in it all. Were they at one in this epidemic of world sickness? As the great explosive forces of destruction and decay seemed to have released actual germs to attack the physical well-being of races, had the terrible crashes of spiritual destinies unsettled the very air of life, poisoned it, drugged it with madness and despair? ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of a "Big Fire" about four centuries ago. There is some evidence of a general fire over the Rockies about the time that the Indian's tradition places it, but in this forest there were no indications that there had ever been a fire. Trees were in all stages of growth and decay. Humus was deep. Here I found a stump of a Douglas spruce that was eleven feet high and about nine feet in diameter. It was so decayed that I could not decipher the rings of growth. This tree probably required at least a thousand years to reach maturity, and many years must ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... Adonis, Persephone, and Osiris. Bres having exacted a tribute of the milk of all hornless dun cows, the cows of Ireland were passed through fire and smeared with ashes—a myth based perhaps on the Beltane fire ritual.[172] The avaricious Bres was satirised, and "nought but decay was on him from that hour,"[173] and when Nuada, having recovered, claimed the throne, he went to collect an army of the Fomorians, who assembled against the Tuatha De Danann. In the battle Indech wounded Ogma, and Balor slew Nuada, but was mortally ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... amusements she provided. She received letters of grateful thanks from his mother, who was, like herself, a widow, but was prevented from coming to him by close attendance on her mother-in-law, who was in a lingering state of decay when every day might be ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thus, from childhood's bawl, I've seen my fondest hopes decay; Whatever I want most of all, I do not get ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... ever tell which if any one among these four may be to the others as a sun; for in this special tract of heaven "one star differeth" not "from another star in glory." From each and all of them, even "while this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close [us] in," we cannot but hear the harmony of a single ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... many to be seen in this part of France, is in a somewhat pathetic state of disrepair, but as far as one may see from the exterior, it would not require any very great sum to completely restore the broken stone-work and other signs of decay. These, while perhaps adding to the picturesqueness of the buildings, do not bring out that aspect of carefully preserved antiquity which is the charm of most of the houses of this period in England. ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... 1786, as will be remembered, being then poor and in debt, he declined another election to the governorship, and set himself to the task of repairing his private fortunes, so sadly fallen to decay under the noble neglect imposed by his long service of the public. One of his kinsmen has left on record a pleasant anecdote to the effect that the orator happened to mention at that time to a friend how anxious he was under the great burden ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... just above Challe. Tall bushy trees followed the course of the little stream, and described a half-circle, inclosing the house on three sides. The house itself was formerly an inn which proved unproductive to the innkeeper. It had been closed for seven or eight years, and was beginning to fall into decay. Before reaching it, the main road coming from Macon made ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... in the least overloaded; and no signs of failure have ever been detected in it except by those who upbraid the still further severance between the line of Peacock's thought and the line of what is vulgarly accounted 'progress,' and who almost openly impute decay to powers no longer used on their side but against them. The only plausible pretext for this insinuation is that very advance in mildness and mellowness which has been noted—that comparative absence of the sharper and cruder strokes of the earlier ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... disorders and perplexities is due to the disbelief, among the classes and combinations of men, Barbarian or Philistine, which have hitherto governed our society, in right reason, in a paramount best self; to the inevitable decay and break-up of the organisations by which, asserting and expressing in these organisations their ordinary self only, they have so long ruled us; and to their irresolution, when the society, which their conscience tells ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... I began to feel depressed again: But Gorman is not the man to sorrow long, even over the decay of the British Constitution. He dropped the ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... neighbourly duties which had in earlier years diversified and entertained his country life. He had been a great figure among the squires and farmers of the Cotswolds, but all this was now at an end, paralysed by the hopeless decay of his hearing. It grieved him, too, that he was unable to do any useful war-work in the county, and he was forced to depend upon his pen and his flying visits to London for refreshment. He was ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... soldiers—the long strange tramp, tramp, tramp, the beat, beat, beat, the roll of drums, the call of bugles, the boom of cannon in the dark, the lightnings of hell flaring across the midnight skies, the thunder and chaos and torture and death and pestilence and decay—the hell of war. It is not sublime. There is no glory. The sublimity is in man's acceptance of war, not for hate or gain, but love. Love of country, home, family—love of women—I fought for women—for Helen, whom I imagined my ideal, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... subject is To fickle Fortune's power, And to a million of mishaps Is casual every hour: And Death in time doth change It to a clod of clay; Whenas the mind, which is divine, Runs never to decay. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... breaks the bounds by these decreed, New statutes rise, and stronger laws succeed; More and more gentle grows the dying stream, More and more strong the rising bulwarks seem; Till, like a miner working sure and slow, Luxury creeps on, and ruins all below; The basis sinks, the ample piles decay; The stately fabric, shakes and falls away; Primeval want and ignorance come on, But Freedom, that exalts the savage state, is gone. Next, HISTORY ranks;—there full in front she lies, And every nation her ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... toys of ministerial power fade into insignificance before it. It is out of respect for people, for the minister himself, that I demand that his presence here be not marked by any of those homages that mark the decay of public feeling. He asks us to counsel the ministers; I promise him, on my part, to give him advice which will be useful to them and to the country at large. So long as M. Dumouriez shall prove by acts of pure patriotism, and by ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... playmate, and Amy forgot everything but the present enjoyment as she stooped and dabbled in the water here and there. Sometimes she came to the fantastic little bridges which Hallam had used to lie upon the bank and construct out of the roots and pebbles she brought him. Where these had fallen into decay she repaired them; and at one time was busily endeavoring to force a grapevine into place when she heard a sound that made her pause in her task and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... about, but everybody knew it must be affecting, because even the orator was overcome. The popularity of the distribution society among the ladies of our parish is unprecedented; and the child's examination is going fast to decay. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... pensive, in yellow and gray, And soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay; The dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw Alane ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... mind of the Spirit" by patient tarrying and humble surrender to God; but the more laborious way will certainly prove the more profitable way. The failure to take this way is, we are persuaded, the cause of more decay and spiritual death in the churches than we have yet imagined. From the watch-tower where we write we can look out on half a score of churches on which "Ichabod" has been evidently written, and the glory ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... passed the plains, the place of the sleepless winds where wan white skies bent above the grass of the hot dry pulse, the lifeless grass that wailed into the ceaseless wind its dirge of death and decay. ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... first blow should be struck at Fort Stanwix, on the head-waters of the Mohawk. This was an old English stronghold that had fallen into decay, but was being repaired and defended in the interest of the revolting colonies by Colonel Peter Gansevoort. It lay on the traffic-road to Oneida Lake, and was considered a strong point of vantage. Its garrison was made up of about seven ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... has been small. Only seven have died; some few are still very ill, yet the character of the fever is less severe now. We had some sharp hospital work for a few days and nights, all the accompaniments of the decay of our frail bodies. Now we have a respite. Codrington, Palmer, and I take the nursing; better that the younger ones, always more liable to take fever, should be kept out of contagion; to no one but I have gone among the sick in town, or to town at all. We ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like watching a game from the grand stand, instead of playing it; betting on a race instead of running it. The transition hither is hard to make. Retired athletes, we know, suffer from fatty degeneration of the heart; retired men of affairs decay. I have walked lately at five miles an hour with the Widgers, and I do not relish dawdling at the rate of two with these people here. Better risk hell for heaven than lounge about ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... often considered objects which were wasting away. Their disintegration is identical with our own. They have their decay, their ruptures, their tumors, their madnesses. A piece of furniture gnawed by worms, a gun with a broken trigger, a warped drawer, or the soul of a violin suddenly out of tune, such are the ills ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... years imprison'd in those towers ye lay? Wide o'er the world was Ilion famed of old For brass exhaustless, and for mines of gold: But while inglorious in her walls we stay'd, Sunk were her treasures, and her stores decay'd; The Phrygians now her scatter'd spoils enjoy, And proud Maeonia wastes the fruits of Troy. Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls, And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls, Darest thou dispirit whom ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... addressed his disciples: 'Everything, O mendicants, is burning. With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you it is burning with the fire of passion, with the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance. It is burning with the anxieties of birth, decay and death, grief, lamentation, suffering and despair.... A disciple,... becoming weary of all that, divests himself of passion. By absence of passion, he ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... houses were of a noble simplicity, flat-roofed and builded of a red, porous stone, in some cases coated with white cement, whiles here and there, towering high among these, rose huge structures that I took for palaces or temples, yet one and all timeworn and crumbling to decay. Before one of such, standing in a goodly square, we alighted and here found a crowd of people—men, women and children—who stood to behold us; a mild, well-featured people, orderly and of a courteous bearing, yet who stared and pointed, chattering, at sight of the dog. ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... City. From the year 369, when Theodosius the general landed in Britain, to the year 609 we see nothing of London except one brief glimpse of fugitives flying for their lives across London Bridge. Of this interval we shall speak in the next chapter. Meanwhile it is sufficient to say that the decay of the Roman power made it necessary to withdraw the legions from the outlying and distant portions of the Empire. Britain had to be abandoned. It was as if England were to give up Hong Kong and Singapore ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... vividness he saw the years of his youth and desire slipping away in the round of trivial "jobs" in the city; he saw the slow decay of resolves under the ever increasing demands to "make good" by earning money. And he shrank from it as ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... fairy Aladdin palaces, the creatures of Oriental gorgeousness and imagination, with which Spain alone can enchant the dull European; here let the man of feeling dwell on the poetry of her envy-disarming decay, fallen from her high estate, the dignity of a dethroned monarch, borne with unrepining self-respect, the last consolation of the innately noble, which no adversity can take away; here let the lover of art feed his ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... apartment, wrapped in a blanket and busily engaged in writing with a hand that was blue and trembled with the cold. He firmly refused to receive aid, in any shape, from his friends; and they were obliged to witness his gradual decay with sad hearts. The gallant Major always persisted in denying that he needed anything; he swore his garret was the most comfortable place in the world, and that the introduction of a fire would have been preposterous; he always affirmed with a round military oath, that he "lived like a fighting-cock," ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... so much larger a proportion of the people speak the same speech as he—not so refined as his used to be, but materially better than the majority of those who use it to-day could then have shaped their lips to frame. Few Englishmen at least would acquiesce in the opinion that it showed a decay of culture in England—that the people were more ignorant or less educated. It may not be safe to draw an analogous conclusion in the case of ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... are caught in the incandescent wax of a taper, Rouget rapidly dissipated his remaining strength. In presence of that decay, the nephew remained as cold and impassible as the diplomatists of 1814 during the convulsions of ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... forgot you were so sensitive; pray pardon me! As I was saying, two months ago the palace of the Princess Ziska was a deserted barrack. Formerly, so I hear, it used to be the house of some great personage; but it had been allowed to fall into decay, and nobody would rent it, even for the rush of the Cairene season, till it was secured by the Nubian you were speaking of just now—the interesting Nubian with the face like a mummy; he took it and furnished it, and when it was ready ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... and change are lords of all, and the most durable things come to an end. Celestial and infernal, like earthly, powers are subject to the law of decay. Mutability touches them with her dissolving wand, and strong necessity, the lord of gods and men, brings them to the inevitable stroke of Death. Senility falls on all beings and institutions—if they are allowed ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... fetch a ladder, and I will set him. Fortune, thou injurious dame, thou shalt not by this villany Have cause to triumph over Prodigality. Why speak'st thou not? why speak'st thou not, I say? Thy silence doth but breed thine own hurt and decay. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various |
