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Wane   /weɪn/   Listen
Wane

verb
(past & past part. waned; pres. part. waning)
1.
Grow smaller.  Synonyms: decline, go down.
2.
Become smaller.
3.
Decrease in phase.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wane" Quotes from Famous Books



... There is unbounded suffering. There is the perpetual destruction of the individual. Even the moral growth meets obstacles often insurmountable; inheritance limits; circumstances betray; we see sudden falls and slow deterioration; whole races wane. ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... from light and air This year is the hundredth year, 200 I feed my fire with a sleepless care, Watching my potion wane or wax: Elixir of Life is simmering there, And ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... 13 the New York Tribune announced the death of Lucretia Mott, eighty-eight years old. Having known her in the flush of life, when all her faculties were at their zenith, and in the repose of age, when her powers began to wane, her withdrawal from among us seemed as beautiful and natural as the changing foliage, from summer to autumn, of some grand old oak I have watched ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... mind on the beauty, and there'll be no room for comparisons. Most of them are unjust, precious few instructive. In this case, they spoil both pictures: and that scene down there rather hooks me; though I prefer the Dachstein in the wane of the afterglow. You called ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... time, captivating brilliance. Gloom was already beginning to gather round the Imperial household; the influence of Maecenas, the great support of letters for the last twenty years, was fast on the wane. In the words just quoted, with their half-sad and half- mocking echo of the famous passage of Lucretius,[8] Horace ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... till my teeth chattered, though the weather was hot; so hot in fact, that the sunrays on my head seemed to scorch my hair, even through the willows and alders. I was devoutly glad when the sunrays became more slanting and the daylight began to wane, and the ducks, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... honour, and is reserved for free men only, slaves in New Zealand not being permitted to undergo the operation. Oddly enough, those who are accustomed to see tattooed people think that natives without it look bare and "unfinished." Tattooing is said to be on the wane. If it be so, it is quite possible that Macaulay's famous New Zealander may present none of those marks which distinguished ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... ambitions of the other German princes, the interested intervention of foreign powers, notably Sweden and France, made it brutally clear that Habsburg influence in the Germanies had already reached its highest pitch and that henceforth it would tend gradually to wane. ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... had fed horses and dined, I at the planter's board, my "slaves" under the house-grove trees, Euonymus took the lines, and for five hours Luke slept inside. Then they changed places again, and Euonymus and I, face to face, watched the long hot day wane, and pass through gorgeous changes into twilight. Often I saw questions in the young eyes that watched me so reverently, but I dared not encourage them; dared not be a talkative angel. Also my brain had its questions. How was I to get out of the most perilous trap into which a sane ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... Calm your eyes, and come to me. For long ago, in some palmed forest, I too felt claws curling Within my fingers . . . Moons wax and wane; My eyes, too, once narrowed and widened Why do you shrink back? Come to me: let me pat you— Come, vast-eyed one . . . Or I will spring upon you And with steel-hook fingers Tear you limb ...
— Spectra - A Book of Poetic Experiments • Arthur Ficke

... Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in the wilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated that adventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went on rapidly in the establishment of missions throughout the land. So sedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around their isolated chapels there presently arose adobe huts, whose mud- plastered ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... and though his still unpublished poems were at the service of The Liberal, he did little or nothing to further its success. Each number was badly received. Byron had some reason to fear that his popularity [v.04 p.0903] was on the wane, and though he had broken with Murray and was offering Don Juan (cantos vi.-xii.) to John Hunt, the publisher of The Liberal, he meditated a "run down to Naples" and a recommencement of Childe Harold. There was a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... substitute his own language for it, and that not merely because he must, but also because the very scarcity of Latin had favoured the culture of English. For it was in no dull or stagnant time that Wessex had let Latin wane; it was in that vigorous stage of youth and growth when Wessex was fitting herself to take an imperial place at home and raise her head among the nations. In almost all the transactions of life, public and private, where Latin was used in other countries, the West Saxons ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... bit of perspective awakens, the blue tints that the sunsetting lends to a white dress, or the eternal verities, death and love. But, although I tested every fibre of thought and analysed every motive, I was very sincere in my friendship, and very loyal in my admiration. Nor did my admiration wane when I discovered that Marshall was shallow in his appreciations, superficial in his judgments, that his talents did not pierce below the surface; il avait se grand air; there was fascination in his very bearing, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... love thee thus, to whom the air, Blest by thy breath, makes heaven where'er it be, Watch thy cheek wane, and smile away despair, Lest it should dim one hour ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mistress, attached to the Empress of Austria, prevailed to except Prussia from the negotiations, and England would not allow the exception. Pitt, indeed, was not yet ready for peace. A year later, October 25, 1760, George II. died, and Pitt's influence then began to wane, the new king being less bent on war. During these years, 1759 and 1760, Frederick the Great still continued the deadly and exhausting strife of his small kingdom against the great States joined against him. At one ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... hurricane of fire. For aught I know, the next flash of electric fire that shimmers along the ocean cable may tell us that Paris, with every fibre quivering with the agony of impotent despair, writhes beneath the conquering heel of her loathed invader. Ere another moon shall wax and wane the brightest star in the galaxy of nations may fall from the zenith of her glory never to rise again. Ere the modest violets of early spring shall ope their beauteous eyes, the genius of civilization may ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... been here, in communication with AIRY, the astronomer Royal, about a telegraph to the moon. A lunatic observation makes it wax plain that it will not be in wane to attempt it. STOKES and HUGGINS, moreover, have been taking views of people through the spectroscope. Absorption bands are very striking in the spectra of the ROTHSCHILDS and other bankers. Bright lines are seen in TENNYSON and WILLIAM ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various

... to stand by and see it; she had made dainty garments for Constance's trousseau, and had even been obliged to serve as maid of honour at the wedding. She had seen, day by day, the man's love increase and the girl's fancy wane, and, after his blindness came upon him, Constance would often have been cruelly thoughtless had not Miriam sternly held her to her own ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... for passing the honeymoon in a balloon appears to be on the wane in this country. The reason for this may be that a majority of those who enter wedlock find they "go up" soon enough without the aid ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... vowed that he would never take wife as long as he lived. But in no wise will he keep this vow if he can win to reach Cologne. On a day appointed he departs from Greece and shapes his course towards Germany; for he will not fail for blame nor for reproach to take a wife. But his honour will wane thereby. He does not stop till he reaches Cologne where the emperor had established his court for a festival held for all Germany. When the company of the Greeks had come to Cologne there were so many Greeks and so many Germans from the north, that more than sixty thousand had to find ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... in the preceding paragraph protestants against local taxation appealed, but unavailingly, to the Robbins case. So it would seem that the generative powers of that prolific precedent had begun to wane somewhat even before the Depression, an event which rendered judicial reaction against it still more pronounced. Indeed, by the Court's decision in McGoldrick v. Berwind-White Co.,[597] in 1940, the authority of the entire line of cases descending ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... day of freedom: the Gods hearkened not. Far other issues Fate devised, nor recked Of Zeus the Almighty, nor of none beside Of the Immortals. Her unpitying soul Cares naught what doom she spinneth with her thread Inevitable, be it for men new-born Or cities: all things wax and wane through her. So by her hest the battle-travail swelled 'Twixt Trojan chariot-lords and Greeks that closed In grapple of fight—they dealt each other death Ruthlessly: no man quailed, but stout of heart Fought on; for ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... just as he had held himself on that day in the winter when she had so indignantly intervened to save his dog from his ungovernable fury. But he did not seem to resent her attack, and in spite of herself Avery's own resentment began to wane. She suddenly remembered that her very protest was an admission of intimacy of which he would not scruple to avail himself if it suited his purpose, and with this thought in her mind she ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... the time he was called on to bide was growing into an unreasonable one. I cannot state with precision exactly how long he waited. Whether he disturbed the sweet influences of the honey-moon by his intrusive presence, or permitted that nectareous satellite to fill her horns and wax and wane in peace before he sought to bring the bridegroom down to the things of earth, are questions which I must leave to the discretion of my readers to settle, each for himself or herself, according to their own notions of the proprieties of the case. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... mine excuse * This parting rent, but I will Mend that garb again! No couch is easy to my side, nor on such wise * Aught easeth him, when all alone without me lain: Time with ill omened hand hath wrought between us two, * And made my waxing joys to wane and his to wane, And poured mere grief and woe, what time Time fain had crowned * The bowl he made me drink and gave ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... She will think of his food, and his raiment, and his well-being, and never of her own—only, if she is wise she will hide all these things in her heart, for the average man cannot stand this great light of her sweetness, and when her love becomes selfless, his love will wane." ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... tumbled bent; And over the brow he clomb, and there beyond was the world, A place of many mountains and great crags together hurled. So down to the west he wendeth, and goeth swift and light, And the stars are beginning to wane, and the day is mingled with night; For full fain was the sun to arise and look on the Gold set free, And the Dwarf-wrought rings of the Treasure and the gifts from the floor ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... the Last Examples of Euphuism. When Lodge wrote "Rosalynde," euphuism was already on the wane. Even among Lodge's contemporaries the fashion was becoming an object of frequent ridicule. Thus Warner, in his "Albion's England" (1589), complains in the preface, which, by the way, is written wholly ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... our social existence that there is a great tendency to postpone its application,—to let it depend upon contingencies. When nearly all of the good or evil that we can possibly do has been done,—after temptations have been resisted or yielded to,—after our years begin to wane, we then think seriously of moral improvement. Preachers the most eloquent—for their eloquence commands the highest reward—we employ to exhort us to practise virtues, which, if we had been rightly educated, we should have practised from our earliest youth with as much facility ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews

... the Baptist taught, The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue? The much-enduring wisdom, sought By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among? Who counts it gain His light should wane, So the whole world to ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... pursuit of motors did not wane, however, and after trying every known make of car, and investigating the advance reports of all cars designed for manufacture in the early future, she blithely invested her fortune in a sturdy blue Rollsmobile, and ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... [Note 1] of cyclical evolution. Nay, we have but to cast our eyes over the rest of the world and cyclical change presents itself on all sides. It meets us in the water that flows to the sea and returns to the springs; in the heavenly bodies that wax and wane, go and return to their places; in the inexorable sequence of the ages of man's life; in that successive rise, apogee, and fall of dynasties and of states which is the most prominent topic of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... white, from Tuscan green, and where Vesuvius reddens air. Fly! and let all men see it, and all kings wail, And priests wax faint and pale, And the cold hordes that moan in misty places And the funereal races And the sick serfs of lands that wait and wane See thee and hate thee in vain. In the clear laughter of all winds and waves, In the blown grass of graves, In the long sound of fluctuant boughs of trees, In the broad breath of seas, Bid the sound of thy flying folds be heard; And as a spoken word Full of that fair god and ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... under the old order only to witness its fall and live in degenerate days. Not less able than his father, but how much less influential! In early years his voice was a commanding one, but he was destined to see his popularity wane and to live most of his long life in comparative isolation and neglect in the very community where Increase Mather had been a high priest indeed. In such men as Cotton Mather the old spirit lived on, sharply accentuated by defeat; ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... of peace followed, during which the whaling industry rose to its highest point; but was again on the wane when the Civil War let loose upon the remaining whalemen the Confederate cruisers, the "Shenandoah" alone burning thirty-four of them. From this last stroke the industry, enfeebled by the lessened demand for its chief product, and by the greater cost and ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... not. And probably of the first men, the first beings worthy to be so called, this was true: they had, or may have had, certain remnants of instincts which aided them in the struggle of existence, and as reason gradually came these instincts may have waned away. Some instincts certainly do wane when the intellect is applied steadily to their subject-matter. The curious 'counting boys,' the arithmetical prodigies, who can work by a strange innate faculty the most wonderful sums, lose that faculty, always partially, sometimes ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... natives came to us. The next night was the full of the moon, he said. He reminded me of my promise. They would go back to their village in the morning; they would return after the third night, when the moon had begun to wane. They left us sundry charms for our 'protection,' and solemnly cautioned us to keep as far away as possible from Nan-Tauach during their absence. Half-exasperated, half-amused I watched ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... we in gray dishonoured eld, Feeble of frame, unfit were held To join the warrior array That then went forth unto the fray: And here at home we tarry, fain Our feeble footsteps to sustain, Each on his staff—so strength doth wane, And turns to childishness again. For while the sap of youth is green, And, yet unripened, leaps within, The young are weakly as the old, And each alike unmeet to hold The vantage post of war! And ah! when flower and fruit are o'er, And on ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... you wish," Damaris assented eagerly. Yet that image of the scissors stayed by her. Already her joy was sensibly upon the wane. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... partisans of liberty were more united and sanguine. She turned a deaf ear. But she was severed now from all influential connection with those in authority. Before the end of May she left for Nohant, with her hopes for the rapid regeneration of her country on the wane. "I am afraid for the future," she writes to the imprisoned Barbes, shortly after these events. "I suffer for those who do harm and allow harm to be done without understanding it.... I see nothing but ignorance and moral weakness preponderating on ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... another wondrous story, The which me list not drawen to memory. This goddess on an hart full high was set*, *seated With smalle houndes all about her feet, And underneath her feet she had a moon, Waxing it was, and shoulde wane soon. In gaudy green her statue clothed was, With bow in hand, and arrows in a case*. *quiver Her eyen caste she full low adown, Where Pluto hath his darke regioun. A woman travailing was her beforn, But, for her child so longe was unborn, Full piteously Lucina gan she call, And saide; "Help, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... without respecting the state of the Moone, or any such like obseruation, but when you come to gather your Winter-fruit, which is the Pippin, Peare-maine, Russetting, Blacke-annat, and such like, you shall in any wise gather them in the wane of the Moone, and, as before I said, in the dryest season that may be, and if it be so that your store be so great that you cannot gather all in that season, yet you shall get so much of your principall fruit, the youngest and fairest, as is possible to be gotten, and preserue it for the last ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... more the beautiful valley before me, and indicated that I was about to wane into the invisible. Then did her womanly nature assert its supremacy and she, for the first time, touched my ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... period, the one that follows immediately the early, immature, Chopinesque period, are scarcely less rich and refined, scarcely less important. No doubt the influence of Scriabine's masters, though considerably on the wane, is still evident. The "Poeme satanique" refines on Liszt. The Third Sonata, despite its lambent andante, is patently the work of one who has studied his Liszt and loves his Chopin. And yet, these works are characteristically male and raging and proud. And in all the works ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... further encounter for the time impossible. They could not close again with the girl between them, and the stranger, his anger holding its breath, glanced at her with sudden interest, stayed his angry growl, suffered rage to wane out of his eyes and frank ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... maple said to the birch one day when the Summer and her patience with her sombre neighbor were on the wane—one day when there was a gleam of golden pumpkins in the tawny corn stubble beyond the wood, and the purpling grapes hung ripening over the old stone wall that lay between, and the maple had brightened its summer dress with ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... hands go, but pressed them tighter and tighter until the circulation nearly stopped and they grew numb. Her own strength seemed endless—to grow rather than to wane in proportion as her yearning to look into the past grew. Her attitude would have been more understandable if she had believed herself and King to be reincarnations of those forgotten conquerors; but she was too original for that. She had said the old gods ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... other your presence should recall to the king that golden vision of his youth, whereof Olympia Mancini was the enshrined divinity. For this reason you are more obnoxious to the ex-governess than De Montespan herself. The star of the latter favorite is already on the wane, whereas yours may rise again at the bidding of Memory. These four women have long-meditated your destruction, and many are the thorns with which they have strewed your path in life. But, to compass your ruin, there was wanting ONE strong arm that could ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... they are going to put in an appearance to-night," he said to himself, as the liquor in the glass began to wane. "Can this letter have been a hoax, an attempt to draw me off the scent? If so, by all the gods in Asia, they may rest assured I'll ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... improve and correct the public taste; not to humour or meanly prostitute itself to the gross or low taste which it finds. And you may depend upon it, that whatever author labours to accommodate himself to the taste of his age—suppose it, if you please, this present age—the sickly wane, the impotent decline of the eighteenth century: which from a hopeful boy became a most insignificant man; and for any thing that appears at present will die a very fat drowsy block-head, and be damned to eternal infamy and contempt: ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen

... Those of the Federal army were cut off in like manner from their hospitals in the North. In addition to all this, the surgeons and ambulances and their corps continued with their respective commands, to meet emergencies of like nature, to be repeated before the September moon had begun to wane. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... plans of grandeur wane, saw saloons and opium, vice and disease, fastened upon the natives, and saw the converted, the old gods overthrown, the new God reigning, cut down like trees when the fire runs wild in ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... year—1883—Gladstone's Government had regained some portion of the popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ran out, their success was palpably on the wane, and their popularity of course waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities, crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to be concealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Government resolved on their crowning ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... size of brain and keenness of intelligence, the true mammals were able at last, towards the close of the secondary ages, to enter the lists boldly against the gigantic saurians. With the dawn of the tertiary period, the reign of the reptiles begins to wane, and the reign of the mammals to set in at last in real earnest. In place of the ichthyosaurs we get the huge cetaceans; in place of the deinosaurs we get the mammoth and the mastodon; in place ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... when the moon began to wane that the Arab marauders became troublesome. Shots whizzed about the place at night, and one continually heard the high pitched, nervous challenge of native sentries: "'Alt, who goes da?" It was unwise to move about after dark ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne

... WANE. In timber, an imperfection implying a want of squareness at one or more of its corners; under this deficiency it ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... were riding on the crests of the waves, or skimming so closely down on the water that it was hard to know whether they were swimming or flying; and long strings of geese overhead all headed southward showed plainly that summer was on the wane. All these things Katherine took note of as she pulled across the choppy water to Fort Garry, only now they did not sadden her as two days ago they would have done. Hope had shone into her life again, a heavy burden had been lifted, and ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... thumping her umbrella upon every step as she went, hot vengeance breathing from between her parted lips, and her eyes flashing with the delight of prospective fury, she entered her room. The light of the afternoon had but just begun to wane, and she had not made three steps into the apartment, before her eyes fell upon a pair of faded, light blue shoes, which stood side by side upon a table. She stopped suddenly, and stood, pale and rigid. Her grasp upon her umbrella loosened, and, unnoticed, it fell upon the floor. ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... itself, and the original combinations to reappear—but to reappear in changed form, hence the law of Diversity in Monotony. The law of Balance is seen to be but a modification of the law of Polarity, and since all things are waxing and waning, there is the law whereby they wax and wane, that of Rhythmic Change. Radiation rediscovers and reaffirms, even in the utmost complexity, that essential and fundamental unity from which complexity ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... and wane, the G.O.C. changeth not; neither does he bow down and worship the little tin gods the Army Council set up. But instead, as one by one the formations he used to know are culled from the manual, he watches the new formations with ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... dwarfed little man of no account whatever. Madame Romain, however, lived well up to her reputation as being "incontestablement la plus jolie femme de Paris." By 1824 the fame of the establishment had begun to wane and in 1826 it expired, though the "Almanach des Gourmands" of the latter year said that the proprietor was the Very of limonadiers, that his ices were superb, his salons magnificent—and his prices exorbitant. Perhaps it was the ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... afresh. By the time the turn of my trunk came, the men were clearly bored. I had quantities of papers,—notes, MSS., sketches for lectures, extracts, charts,—papers which would have caused wild interest the evening before, but excitement was on the wane. By eleven o'clock everything had been seen thoroughly. The chief of police beamed upon us kindly. "It has to be done," ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans

... Florentine: ye monarchs, hearken To your instructor. Juan now was borne, Just as the day began to wane and darken, O'er the high hill, which looks with pride or scorn Toward the great city.—Ye who have a spark in Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn According as you take things well or ill;— Bold Britons, we are now ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... very dark, the lamp 'moved like a moon in a wane,' as Merton might have quoted in happier circumstances. The rough customers glared at him, but his cap had a peak, and he wore ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... the nations bear no trace Of all the sunshine so far foretold; The cannon speaks in the teacher's place; The age is weary with work and gold; And high hopes wither, and memories wane; On hearths and altars the fires are dead; But that brave faith hath not lived in vain; And this is all that our ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... dawn hour thought to wane, Where Paradise leaned over Iran's plain, A man god looked from his templed fane On a maiden wondrously fair: He saw her first in the Cashmere's danks, Singing at dawn by a river's banks, Where the long grass leaned to her, ...
— In the Great Steep's Garden • Elizabeth Madox Roberts

... another be covered with snow? Or, if such a number of things regulated their own changes, could the approach and retreat of the sun in the summer and winter solstices be so regularly known and calculated? Could the flux and reflux of the sea and the height of the tides be affected by the increase or wane of the moon? Could the different courses of the stars be preserved by the uniform movement of the whole heaven? Could these things subsist, I say, in such a harmony of all the parts of the universe without the continued ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... ensued the Colonel moved back to the side of the Surveyor-General, and the two stood, thoughtfully regardant of the prisoner. The light from the partially consumed vines beginning to wane, the overseer motioned to Regulus to collect and apply his torch to a quantity of the fagots with which the ground was strewn. The negro obeyed, and stood behind the light flame and curling smoke which he had evoked, like the genie of an Arabian tale. Sir Charles, left standing in the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... day for the 4 years more I have of life up to 35 no Im what am I at all 111 be 33 in September will I what O well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than me I saw her when I was out last week her beautys on the wane she was a lovely woman magnificent head of hair on her down to her waist tossing it back like that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street 1st thing I did every morning to look across see her combing it as if she loved it and was full of it pity I only got to know her the day before we left and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... unaccountable for his words, and little or no heed was paid to this death sentence on the Barcroft name. And yet, light as the family made of it, within a short time there were not wanting indications that their prosperity was on the wane, a fact which every year became more and more discernible until the curse was fulfilled in the person of Thomas Barcroft, who died in 1688 without male issue. After passing through the hands of the Bradshaws, the Pimlots, and the Isherwoods, the property was finally sold ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... wane. He stayed out of doors, in the forest or on the lake, until midnight, and was up again at five in the morning. Betty was fond of fresh air and exercise, but she had so much of both during the two days of his visit that she went ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... of the summer burn to ashes in the sun, When the feast of love is finished, and the heart is overrun; When the hungry soul is sated and the tongue at last denies Expression to the wonders that are wearing out the eyes, Then the splendor it will wane like a dream that haunts the brain, Or the swift dissolving beauty of the bow above the rain; And the summer domes of pleasure that bubble up the sky Will tumble into legends in the twinkling of an eye; But the art of man endureth, and the heart of man ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')

... that there ain't the wane on the top of our mast sticking up out of a hindful o' fog, I'm ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... of earth no longer held any value. He lived only for his dear dream's sake. Had he been permitted to grow old and worn and tired, and still a dreamer, who knows how his story might have ended? But to Diana there came the fear that with age his beauty might wane, and from her father, Zeus, she obtained for the one she loved the gifts of unending youth and of ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... a little fool you are!" He jumped up angrily from his chair, leaving her there upon the hearthrug. A woman makes a false move when she speaks of "another woman" to the man whose affection for her is on the wane. In the present instance the accusation was utterly without foundation. Many as were his self-reproaches on her account, that one had never been amongst them. If he did not love her, neither had he the slightest fancy for any other woman. Her remark irritated ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time being on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again the old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the trooper holds her to his ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... instead of following on with the other women. She told how they carried a few things on their backs, and how one and another of the men would take the little one at intervals to help her, and how long the marches were when the summer was on the wane and they wished to make as much distance as possible before they were ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... lent their own persons to him, had set up the Duke of Grafton, to list their own dependents under against their rival. When the Chamberlain would head a party, you may be sure the opposite power is in the wane. The Newcastle is at open war, and has left off waiting on the Duke, who espouses the Bedfords. Mr. Pelham tries to patch it up, and is getting the Ordnance for the Duke; but there are scarce any terms kept. Lord Sandwich, who governs the little Duke through the Duchess, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... the happiest moments proud, peerless Pluma Hurlhurst was ever to know—"before the hour should wane the fruition of all her ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... now on the wane; the robins sang clear, wild little songs in the shrubberies, the sunshine fell slanting across the grass. And at night, the stars twinkled with a frosty brilliancy, and the flowers were cut down by cruel invisible hands. The long dark evenings ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... political tendency. The government came in with the good wishes of the people and for nearly ten years went on from strength to strength, carrying out an extensive and well-considered domestic programme; then its strength began to wane and its vigor to relax. Its last few years were given up to a struggle against the inevitable fate that was visibly rising like a tide; and the great stroke of reciprocity which was attempted in 1911 was ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... made in the tone in which a modern beauty, whose charms are rather on the wane, may be heard to condemn the rudeness of the present age, Quentin took upon him to reply that there was no lack of that chivalry which the Lady Hameline seemed to consider as extinct, and that, were it eclipsed everywhere ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... has flitted and fled — but it never shall rest, 'Til, pluming its pinions, it sweeps o'er the main, And speeds to the shores of its old home again, Where its fetterless folds o'er each mountain and plain Shall wave with a glory that never shall wane. ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... forth on a round of speech making, canvassing the entire district. He returned at the wane of October's golden glow for the round-up, as Joe termed the finish of the campaign. The flaunting crimson of the maples, the more sedate tinge of the oaks, the vivid yellow of the birches, the squashes piled up on the farmhouse porches, and the fields filled with pyramidal stacks of ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... the same as that used by the bovites to excite their frenzy. Almost immediately they believe they see the room turn upside down, and men walking with their heads downwards. This kohobba powder is so strong that those who take it lose consciousness; when the stupefying action of the powder begins to wane, the arms and hands become loose and the head droops. After remaining for some time in this attitude, the cacique raises his head, as though he were awakening from sleep, and, lifting his eyes to the heavens, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... power to achieve, but, what all history affirms to be so much more unusual, the capacity to maintain. The oppressed throughout the world from that day to the present have turned their eyes hitherward, not to find those lights extinguished or to fear lest they should wane, but to be constantly cheered by their steady and ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... a tameless hurricane Arose, and bore me in its dark career Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane On the verge of formless space—it languished there, 1345 And dying, left a silence lone and drear, More horrible than famine:—in the deep The shape of an old man did then appear, Stately and beautiful; that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... which surmounted the offender's claim, drawl through the genealogical tree at the commencement of the New Testament in a most earnest and impressive manner, as though it were especially appropriate to the occasion. In time, an oath became a rare thing amongst us. Drunkenness was on the wane too. Casual travellers passing through the Gulch used to marvel at our state of grace, and rumours of it went as far as Ballarat, and ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... eternal hills that cover them increase or are worn away. Much more is this obvious in the case of ephemeral man, of his thoughts, his works, and everything wherewith he has to do, he who within the period of a few short years is doomed to appear, wax, wane, and vanish. ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... lifts up his plumes! How bravely doth he speak! How he presumes To drive down all before him! But so soon As Faithful talks of heart-work, like the moon That's past the full, into the wane he goes. And so will all, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... material, should, to be consistent, have only those senses possessed by ourselves, so that to them this planet would ordinarily appear deserted." "I shall be glad," said Bearwarden, gloomily, "when those moons wane and are succeeded by their fellows, for one would give me an attack of the blues, while the other would subject me to the inconvenience of falling in love." As he spoke, the upper branches of the trees in the grove began to sway as a cold ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... unwillingly. It was fortunate for him that she did so, or he would have found his position almost unbearable. Doctor Gordon relaxed again into his state of apathetic gloom. His strength also seemed to wane. Almost the whole practice devolved upon James. Gordon seemed less and less interested even in extreme cases. Georgie K. also lost his power over him. Now and then of an evening he came, but Gordon, save to offer him a cigar, took scarcely any notice of him. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... lower the military character of that great warrior, who is now no more, those who would libel Napoleon rob Wellington of half his glory. It may be the proud boast of England's hero, that the subjugator of Europe fell before him, not in the wane of his genius, but in the full possession of those martial talents which placed him foremost in the list of conquerors—leading that very army which had overthrown every power that had hitherto opposed it, now perfect in its discipline, flushed with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various

... decrease, diminution; lessening &c v.; subtraction &c 38; reduction, abatement, declension; shrinking &c (contraction.) 195; coarctation^; abridgment &c (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c 306; decrement, reflux, depreciation; deterioration &c 659; anticlimax; mitigation &c (moderation) 174. V. decrease, diminish, lessen; abridge &c (shorten) 201; shrink &c (contract) 195; drop off, fall off, tail off; fall away, waste, wear; wane, ebb, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... that they should work, and the college was full of rich men, and commanded in the university the sort of respect which riches bring with them. But the old reputation, though still strong out of doors, was beginning sadly to wane within the university precincts. Fewer and fewer of the St. Ambrose men appeared in the class lists, or amongst the prize-men. They no longer led the debates at the Union; the boat lost place after place on the river; the eleven got beaten in all their matches. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... for this wane was the putting into operation, by President Wilson and the triumphant Democrats, of many of the Progressive suggestions which the Democratic Platform had also contained. The psychological effect of success in politics is always ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... of the poor peasant was soon on the wane, and before long he was reduced to abject poverty.[15] These legends, in addition to illustrating the fairy mythology of bygone years, are additionally interesting from their connection with the plants and flowers, most of which are familiar ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... Siwanois are free people. No lodge door is locked on them, not even in the Long House. They are at liberty to come and go as the eight winds rise and wane—to sleep when they choose, to wake when it pleases them, to go forth by day or night, to follow the war-trail, to strike their enemies ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... Quirinal make something of a merit, I believe, of their modest and inexpensive way of life. The merit is great; yet, representationally, what a change for the worse from an order which proclaimed stateliness a part of its essence! The divinity that doth hedge a king must be pretty well on the wane. But how many more fine old traditions will the extremely sentimental traveller miss in the Italians over whom that little jostled prince in the landau will have come into his kinghood? ... The Pincio continues ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... little to a witch. It was long before Lois could reach them; and she had something of the natural hunger of youth left in her still, which prompted her, lying her length on the floor, to weary herself with efforts to obtain the bread. After she had eaten some of it, the day began to wane, and she thought she would lay her down and try to sleep. But before she did so, the gaoler heard her singing the ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... human movement by which predominating conditions extend and perpetuate themselves, overcoming those which are weaker and on the wane. We observed this in our brief survey of the feudal system. Freedom is now in the ascendant, and slavery must go down. And since secession is the child of slavery, and both at war with the cardinal principles of progressive civilization, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... narrative, as well as from local remains and later references, we know that the Trinobantes possessed Essex, and the Cenimagni (i.e. "the Great Iceni" as they were still called,[46] though their power was on the wane), East Anglia; while the Cateuchlani, already beginning to be known as the Cassivellauni (or Cattivellauni), presumably from their heroic chieftain Caswallon (or Cadwallon),[47] corresponded roughly to the later South Mercians, between the ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... lengthened to summer; summer was on the wane, and still the New World seemed no nearer. The ships were completed, and the empty hulls rode in the harbour of St Malo awaiting supplies and arms. But the money promised by the King was not forthcoming; and Cartier ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... abundant in sap, and more prone to the dry rot than the oak grown in any other country. Canadian timber has increased in value since the causes of its former rapid decay have been more fully understood. Mr. Nathaniel Gould asserts that the wane of the moon is now universally considered the best season for felling timber, both in the United States and in Canada. The Americans contract for their ship timber to be felled or girdled between the 20th of October and the 12th of February. Dry rot being probably ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... It has been said with some truth that once a writer is established he can write anything he likes. This is to an extent true, and such work may even be published and fairly popular, but he will find sooner or later that his influence is on the wane. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... without a parallel in the world. After fourteen years of experience and observation, what is the result? Gradually but surely, we find that all through the South the disposition to look upon labor as a disgrace is on the wane, and the parents who themselves sought to escape work are so anxious to give their children training in intelligent labor that every institution which gives training in the handicrafts is crowded, and many (among them Tuskegee) have to refuse ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... undertaking, he will be wise to do so when the moon is filling. People who are married in one of the first two quarters of the moon, are more happy than those who enter into the matrimonial state when it is on the wane; and, taking a sudden bound from the sublime to things that are common, we are compelled to say that not a few consider the effects of the moon so great, that they would not kill their pigs but when it was on the increase. Then every one has heard ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... years old," she said. "It is rather an anomalous age. At fifty a man's taste is almost hypercritical and his attraction to my sex is on the wane. No, the problem isn't ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... document to Sir Sibert, who then hied him at full speed to The Mount, there to find the siege going forward. The walls of the castle were strong, and as yet the inmates were showing a good fight; but as day after day went past their strength and resources began to wane, and anon it seemed as though they could not possibly hold out longer. Accordingly the soldiers redoubled their efforts to effect a breach, which being compassed ultimately, they rushed upon the little garrison; and now picture the consternation of Liba ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... and in watching them consume; and several times, when they woke during the night, the boys saw, by the bright light streaming in through the slits in the deerskin, that the bonfire was never allowed to wane. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... the season was over, she said; there had been tableaux and charades, and broom-drills, and readings and charity concerts. Now the season was on the sentimental wane; every night the rooms were full of whist-players, and the days were occupied in quiet strolling over the hills, and excursions to Cooperstown and Cherry Valley and "points of view," and visits to the fields to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... for her!—By fleet or slow decay, It never grieved her bosom's core to mark The playmates of her childhood wane away, Her prospects wither, or her hopes grow dark; Translated by her God with spirit shriven, She pass'd as 'twere in smiles from earth to heaven. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... clerical comforters, but one which, I lament to say, will answer quite as well for 1826, with, perhaps, a little less of enthusiasm in the composition, and some faint glimmerings of light opposed to the darkness of bigotry and the frauds of superstition. Methodism is said to be on the wane—we can hear no better proof that true religion and good sense are coming into fashion. The sketch of Mrs. Vehicle, by the same hand, is said to have been a true copy of a well-known female gambler; it is like ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... prisons will sometimes yawn, And yield their dead unto life again; And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn In golden glory at last may wane. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... uttermost. These he beheld With unsealed vision, and of all those worlds, Cycle on epicycle, all their tale Of Kalpas, Mahakalpas—terms of time Which no man grasps, yea, though he knew to count The drops in Gunga from her springs to the sea, Measureless unto speech—whereby these wax And wane; whereby each of this heavenly host Fulfils its shining life and darkling dies. Sakwal by Sakwal, depths and heights be passed Transported through the blue infinitudes, Marking—behind all modes, above all spheres, Beyond the ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... at last. It was just as summer was beginning to wane, but when in September she was putting on some of her last glories and her most fervid heats. He had reached the summit of a hill, then slowly walked down its slope, as he admired the landscape that revealed itself to him. He saw, far away among the hills in the horizon, the town towards which he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... theobromine in cocoa are so similar to caffeine that chemists can not differentiate them. These drinks when first taken cause a gentle stimulation under which more work can be done than ordinarily, but this is followed by a reaction, and then the powers of body and mind wane so much that the average output of work is less than when the body is not stimulated. The temporary apparently beneficial effect is more than offset by the reaction and therefore partaking of these beverages makes people inefficient. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... musette and of playing upon it; they counted among their pupils the highest and noblest in the land. The cult of the musette continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until the 'seventies, when its popularity was on the wane and musettes figured largely in sales.[40] Lully introduced the musette into his operas, and in 1758 the list of instruments forming the orchestra at the Opera includes one musette.[41] Illustrations of bag-pipes are found ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... Chemmis an island, which, though laden with a temple, a palace, and a garden, and all manner of trees bearing fruit, and all manner of vines, shall nevertheless float about as the winds may blow it. Make the island, and let it be fully furnished by the time the moon begins to wane.' ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... who know'st no wane, The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again; How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same Garden ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... what has charmed them? Hath he saved the state? No. Doth he purpose its salvation? No. Enchanting novelty, that moon at full That finds out every crevice of the head That is not sound and perfect, hath in theirs Wrought this disturbance. But the wane is near, And his own cattle must suffice him soon. Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise, And dedicate a tribute, in its use And just direction sacred, to a thing Doomed to the dust, or lodged already there. Encomium in old time was poet's work; But, poets having lavishly long since Exhausted ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... the swaying lines of battle until the lost is won. Then forth goes the cry of triumph, as they ring the captives round And cheat the crow of her portion and heap the warriors' mound. There are faces gone from our feast-hall not the least beloved nor worst, But the wane of the House of the Wolfings not yet the world hath cursed. The sun shall rise to-morrow on our cold and dewy roof, For they that longed for slaughter were ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... Love might fail; passion might wane; conscience, aiding self-interest with its usual servility, might overcome the instincts of gratitude. But what power could overcome the loyalty resting upon money interest? No power but that of a longer purse than his. As she was not in the mood to make pretenses about herself to herself, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... happier. He devoutly loved his country and despite his sarcasm was fond of his countrymen. Never an extravagant man, he invariably assisted the Poles. After 1834- 5, Chopin's activity as a public pianist began to wane. He was not always understood and was not so warmly welcomed as he deserved to be; on one occasion when he played the Larghetto of his F minor concerto in a Conservatoire concert, its frigid reception annoyed ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... had no more idea of marrying a second time than of flying. He was tenderly attached in his way to his wife's memory, and quite sufficiently troubled by the number of dwellers in his house already; but he rather liked, as a good-looking man in his wane generally does, to think that he could marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility over the heads of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins against him which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew hot and angry at the name of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... the story during those later days of the great cardinal's life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity. One of the most striking portions of the story is that ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... the western extremity of the same range; thence in a straight line to a beacon (No. 3) erected on the summit of the northern extremity of a low, bushy hill, or "koppie," near to and eastward of the Notwane River; thence in a straight line to the junction of the stream called Metsi-Mash wane with the Notwane River (No. 2); thence up the course of the Notwane River to Sengoma, being the Poort where the river passes through the Dwarsberg Range; thence, as described in the Award given by Lieutenant-Governor Keate, dated October 17, 1871, by Pitlanganyane (narrow place), Deboaganka ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... extension of civilization—or of rousing and reuniting people who had fallen into lethargy, if attacked by less civilized and numerous hordes. Frequently we find in history that the ruder and victorious tribe is made to recover as it were civilization, already on the wane with a refined nation. Paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, it is, nevertheless, amply proved by history, that the closest contact and consequent exchange of thought and produce and enlargement of knowledge, between two otherwise severed ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... had been Peter Ruff's first love had fallen upon evil days. Her prettiness was on the wane—powder and rouge, late hours, and excesses of many kinds, had played havoc with it, even in these few months. Her clothes were showy but cheap. Her boots themselves, unclean and down at heel, told the story. She stood upon the ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... him in 1841 to his old "messmate," Commodore Shubrick, reveals no wane of Cooper's love for and pride in this sister, and his letter's "political discovery" reveals that Miss Cooper's attractions were as fully appreciated by the eminent of her own country as by those of foreign shores. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... the queen of the royal master of that court. It is Lady Suffolk, the mistress of King George II., and long mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. She is now past the bloom of youth, but her attractions are not in their wane; but endured until she had attained her seventy-ninth year. Of a middle height, well made, extremely fair, with very fine light hair, she attracts regard from her sweet, fresh face, which had in it a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... her self-possession. "I only wished to warn you against too close a connection with the Marquis de Valorsay. He has an excellent position in society, but yours will be far more brilliant. His star is on the wane; yours is just rising. All that he is regretting, you have a right to hope for. Perhaps even now he is jealous of you, and wishes to persuade you to take ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... trouble, though no more than the shadow of a passing cloud, when at last he said that they must be getting back to town, for the afternoon was beginning to wane. She besought him for five minutes more of sitting here in the sunshine that was still warm, and when those minutes were over, she begged for yet another postponement. But then the quiet imposition of his will suddenly conquered ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... moon, on the wane, scarcely left the horizon, and was covered with heavy clouds; the height of the trees ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... The Wane of Uxenden (ARNOLD) seems to be one of those novels which may be classed as worthy in intention without being exactly happy in execution. Miss LEGGE has a desire to warn us all against the perils of monkeying with spiritism, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various

... of weeks public attention was centered upon the meteors and storm; but gradually, when nothing further occurred, the fickle interest of the masses began to wane. A month after the storm, the strange meteors were no longer mentioned by the press, and consequently, had passed from the public mind. Only the astronomers remembered, keeping their telescopes trained on Venus night ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... who say I come no more, When once I knock and fail to find you in; For every day I stand outside your door, And bid you awake and rise to fight and win. Wail not for precious chances passed away; Weep not for golden ages on the wane; Each night I burn the records of the day, At sunrise every soul is born again. Laugh like a boy at splendors that are sped; To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come. Though ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... statue in the Tuscan Way in Rome, and a temple. His festival, the Vortumnalia, was held on the 23d of August, when the summer began to wane. Garlands and garden ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... hills, and singing to her lyre; the fawn beside her, with the gleam of light and sunrise on its ear and breast. Those of you who are often out in the dawntime know that there is no moon so glorious as that gleaming crescent, though in its wane, ascending before ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... but his love began to wane. Between them there was too much of a moral and social distance. He lived with her, however, drawn to her by the knowledge of the deep and tender affection which ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... so was she now When she had put behind her her old vow And had no pride but thinking of her new. But she was lovelier, of more burning hue, And in her eyes there shone, for who could see, A flickering light, half scare and half of glee, Which made those iris'd orbs to wax and wane Like to the light of April days, when rain And sun contend the sovereignty. She kept Beside the King, and only closer crept To let him feel her there when some harsh word Or look made her heart waver. Many she heard, And much she saw, but ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... Sunday were on the wane. The outbreak of war had detracted little from its peace; but its dinners were—oh, so different! Sunday had formerly been in the main an occasion of abandonment to the joy of eating. The propriety of such a custom may be open to question; but we ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... also his creative power, inasmuch as day is occasioned by the diffusion of his light through the sky; and when night has obscured the earth, they should contemplate the heavens bespangled and adorned with stars; the surprising variety of the moon, in her increase and wane; the rising and setting of all the stars, and the inviolable regularity of their courses; when,' says he, 'they should see these things, they would undoubtedly conclude that there are Gods, and that these are their ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... like nations, wax and wane,' I said, 'they become atrophied, if not extinct.' The port was magnificent—of the year '64—and I felt oracular. 'Hence the use of bastards. Robert the Devil from the top of his tower falls in love with ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... there's a story going about of an oracle, an oracle which says that the Republic reached its acme under Trajan, that the Empire kept up its prosperity under Hadrian and my Grandfather and Father, but that the glory of Rome is fated to fade and wane and that its decline will date from my taking over ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... mental resources had made his honeymoon last for about four years; the moon began to wane, and he saw appearing the fatal hollow in its circle. His wife was exactly in that state of mind which we attributed at the close of our first part to every honest woman; she had taken a fancy to a worthless fellow who was both insignificant in appearance and ugly; the only thing in ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... might wane as the song wore, that well-nigh at one while it befell that the song was done and Hallmund dead; then she grew very sad and wept right sore. Then came Grim forth and bade her be of better cheer, "For all ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... glorify thy aim, Unfalteringly adhered to through ill-report and blame— The fretting of the groundlings, the fumings of the pit, The jibes and jeers and snarls and sneers which men mistake for wit. We knew the rising splendor of thy sun could never wane Until, the earth encompass'd, it sank in dazzling flame. In faith assured we waited as in patience thou didst wait, Knowing full well the answer must sooner come or late. And come it has, sufficingly, the discord disappears Until ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler

... to-day,"—Lavretzky resumed:—"with his unsuccessful romance. To be young, and be able to do a thing—that can be borne; but to grow old, and not have the power—is painful. And the offensive thing about it is, that you are not conscious when your powers begin to wane. It is difficult for an old man to endure these shocks!... Look out, the fish are biting at your hook.... They say,"—added Lavretzky, after a brief pause,—"that Vladimir Nikolaitch has written a very ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... of De l'Esprit des Lois was as important in the history of European speculation as in that of French literature; but inevitable changes of circumstances and ideas have caused his influence to wane. His life was one in which the great events were thoughts. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de MONTESQUIEU, was born in 1689 at La Brede, near Bordeaux. After his years of education by the Oratorians, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... unspiritual who talk of age. The man who allows himself to sink into feebleness and apathy merely because of the passing of years has some mental or spiritual weakness in him which he has not the Will to overcome—the woman who suffers her beauty and freshness to wane and fade on account of what she or her 'dearest' friends are pleased to call 'age,' shows that she is destitute of spiritual self-control. The Soul is always young, and its own radiation can preserve the youth of the Body in which it dwells. Age and decrepitude come to those with whom the Soul ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... was beginning to wane in 1812. The snow made its first appearance in Russia on the 13th of October of that year, and the French emperor already commenced his preparations for retreat. This is referred to in a very clever ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... the time of Mendelssohn, the study of the Talmud had been on the wane. The great yeshibot formerly existing in Metz, Frankfort, Hamburg, Prague, Fiirth, Halberstadt, etc., disappeared, and the reforms introduced in the synagogue and the numerous converts to Christianity impressed the outside world with the idea that ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... till the evening was on the wane and the sunset was dim in the quiet western heaven. As the darkness came, the light of the frail little life—faint and feeble from the first—flickered and went out. All that was earthly of mother and child lay, that night, on the same bed. The Angel of Death had done his awful ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... honestly. Had I lived in the early days of civilization, when men were allowed to have as many women as they could provide for, I would have mercifully killed any sweet favorite as soon as her beauty began to wane. A lovely woman, dead in her first exquisite youth,—how beautiful a subject for the mind to dwell upon! How it suggests all manner of poetic fancies and graceful threnodies! But a woman grown old, who has outlived all passion and is a mere bundle of fat, or a mummy of skin and ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... to a thankless duty While cold and starving, though clothed and fed, For a young heart's hunger for joy and beauty Is harder to bear than the need of bread. I have watched the wane of a sodden season, Which let hope wither, and made care thrive, And through it all, without earthly reason, I have thrilled with the glory of ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... to wane. They had traveled continuously over a long stretch of plain between two mountain ranges, over a country entirely uninhabited except by the stage company's employees, who kept the stations and tended ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... snatch the sceptre from thy hand, thy moon shall wane, no longer wilt thou be strong and proud, then thy servants shall ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton

... certainly to satisfy his personal ambition. "Ma maitresse," he said, "c'est le pouvoir," and in 1811, when, although he knew it not, his star was about to wane, he said to the Bavarian General Wrede, "In three years I shall be master of the universe." He was not deterred by any love of country, for it should never be forgotten that, as Lady Blennerhassett says, "this French Caesar was not a Frenchman." Whatever patriotic ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... morning of their days To the world's weal, in palaces and halls, 'Mid luxury and regal pomp abiding; Then, in the wane of life, to seek release From kingly cares, and make the hallowed shade Of sacred trees their last asylum, where As hermits they may practise self-abasement, And bind themselves ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... influence was on the wane, but a few years previously, when her financial affairs were in a more flourishing condition, and when it was observed that the pashas valued her opinion and feared her censure, she had obtained an almost ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... groaned bitterly. At first he only shut his teeth and held his temples in his hands; but after a while he began to cry to himself, over and over again, "O Absalom, my son, my son! O my son Absalom!" and then only "My son, my son!" And when the day began to wane above the woods of Arden, he arose, and came up from the river, walking swiftly; and, looking neither to the right nor to the left, came up to the Great House garden, and went in ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... without taking her black eyes from my face, she solemnly put one finger in her mouth and jerked it out with a loud 'pop,' much to her mother's gratification. But when she decided to crawl up into my lap, my interest began to wane, for she exuded such a concentrated 'essence of Mongol' and rancid mutton fat that I was ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... sincerely that they would try to do something, for I should have received them with pleasure. But their threats never came to anything, for as the days passed by and every one knew how completely they had been scored off, their desire for revenge seemed to wane. Ridicule smothered them, and try as they would to live it down, their influence, as far as the college was concerned, disappeared entirely. Some of the set pulled themselves up and became more or less silent, while ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... overflowed the glass, that was twice as dainty to the taste, and twice as exhilarating in its effects. It was at the close of the seventeenth century that this discovery was made—when the glory of the Roi Soleil was on the wane, and with it the splendour of the Court of Versailles. Louis XIV., for whose especial benefit liqueurs had been invented, recovered a gleam of his youthful energy as he sipped the creamy foaming vintage that enlivened his dreary ttes—ttes with the widow of Scarron. It found its chief ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly



Words linked to "Wane" :   lessen, dip, waning, fall, diminution, decrease, diminish, wax, drop, wear on



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