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Decay   Listen
verb
Decay  v. t.  
1.
To cause to decay; to impair. (R.) "Infirmity, that decays the wise."
2.
To destroy. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Decay" Quotes from Famous Books



... whole Church the latter part of the third century was a period of spiritual decay; and many returned to heathenism during the sifting time which now followed. Not a few incurred the reproach of their more consistent and courageous brethren by surrendering the Scriptures in their ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... fringed and blossoming, new sceneries, and new races of extinct animals. We are rich every morning, and poor every noon. One day with us measures the space of two hundred years in kingdoms—a hundred years to build up, and a hundred years to decay and destroy; twelve hours to overspread the evanescent pane with glorious beauty, and twelve to extract and dissipate the pictures.... Shall we not reverently and rejoicingly behold in these morning pictures, wrought without color, and kissed upon ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... almost as soon as they admitted him. I telegraphed at once to the governor, assuring him of my interest in the case and requesting information. This is his reply: ' Vro died three-thirty this morning. Doctor supposes senile decay.' It was considerate of him to make this addition, for it will satisfy your ladyship that we acted, though unwillingly, with the plainest possible justification. The man ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... are the wrecks of systems; suns Blaze a brief space of age, and are not; Worlds crumble and decay, creation runs To waste—then perishes and is forgot; Yet thou, all changeless, heedest not the blot. Heaven speaks once more in thunder; empty space Trembles and wakes; new worlds in ether float, Teeming with new creative ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... suffer, and it is for this reason that coolies often try to shirk joining the shade party. The branches lopped off should be cut up into short lengths, and piled between the coffee trees. Such branches and twigs, as they decay, form ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... of raising their prices is a necessity of keeping in their Shops such Medicines as are seldom used, or such as must upon necessity decay, and grow useless. Now suppose they throw such away, this reason is good, but you will find a remedy for ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett

... noon-tide sun— Time's deepest lines engrave thy brow, And dost thou hesitate to go? Idiot, what warning would'st thou have? One foot already in the grave: Sight, hearing, feeling, day by day, Sunk gradual in a long decay. I blame myself for my neglect; Thou'st not a ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... "is The New Bethlem for the care and cure of lunatics. Bethlem was formerly situated on the South side of Moorfields, but as that building was hastening to decay, this elegant receptacle for its inmates has been prepared. It is not a little curious to remark, that it now occupies a part of that ground which was formerly devoted to mirth and revelry, The Dog and Duck Tea Gardens, the scene ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... is still San Francisco de la Victoria de Vilcabamba, and as such it occurs on most of the early maps of Peru. The solidity of the stone houses was due to the prosperity of the gold diggers. The present air of desolation and absence of population is probably due to the decay ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... universe; but it does not give the cause of the belief, only the way in which it can be more or less favourably combined with abstract logical principles. The great poet unconsciously reveals something more than the metaphysician. His poetry does not decay with the philosophy which it took for granted. We do not ask whether his reasoning be sound or false, but whether the vision be sublime or repulsive. It may be a little of both; but at any rate it is undeniably fascinating. That, I take it, is because the imagery ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... no happier. The healthy animal treads under his feet the helpless and the weak, who suffer that he may grow fat and kick. The attractive warmth and color and richness are found to be but rottenness and decay. ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... a morbid habit, which leaves them neither strength nor firmness to resist calamity—which they feel less keenly than an Irishman, exactly as a healthy man will feel the pangs of death with more acuteness than one who is wasted away by debility and decay. Let any man witness an emigration, and he will satisfy himself that this is true. I am convinced that Goldsmith's inimitable description of one in his "Deserted Village," was a picture drawn from actual observation. Let him observe ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... god's image, is shapeless and bare. And until the work of restoration began the whole interior was infested with mean little dwellings which choked it like offensive weeds—while rain and frost steadily were eating into the unprotected masonry and hastening the general decay. ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... Holloway Gaol was the City Prison, all the inmates had a "blow-out" on Christmas Day, in the shape of beef, vegetables, plum-pudding, and a pint of beer. Some of the old hands, who remembered those happy days, bitterly bewailed the decay of prison hospitality. Their lamentations were worthy of a Conservative orator at a rural meeting. The present was a poor thing compared with the past, and they sighed for "the tender grace of a day that ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... in a pot plunged in sand. Another plant, grown on rockwork, "high and dry," is about the same size, but it looks better fed. Probably the long roots are short of depth in pots, and the amount of decay may soon poison the handful of mould contained therein. Be that as it may, the specimens grown in pots have a hungry appearance compared with those less confined ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... supreme divine law seeks to maintain himself by his own power solitarily as if he might be a law unto himself; he experiences, without the intervention of any human judge, the condemnation which consigns him to enfeeblement and extinction through the decay and death of his nature, as a moral being, stage by stage; this is God's justice, visiting sin with death. Similarly, and to most more obviously, in society itself, the criminal against society, because ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... view," as he calls them, Wagner finds two other "considerations of no less importance" for explaining the decay of Darwinism. It is an incontrovertible fact, that the hereditary transmission of acquired characters has in no way been proved. On the contrary after it had at first received a general tacit recognition and was postulated by Lamarck, Darwin and Haeckel, it was denied by Weismann. Wagner ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... private industries concerned with the supply of common wants of life to develop into dangerous monopolies by the decay of effective competition. If the forces at work in the United States for the establishment of syndicates, trusts, and other forms of monopoly, show themselves equally strong in England, the inevitable result will be an acceleration ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... Pharisees, hypocrites, politicians, and priests, artists, authors, dancers of death; inwardly you are all full of decay and dead men's bones. Truly you are the sons of them that slew Christ, and like them you lay on men's shoulders burdens grievous to be borne, which you yourselves would not touch with the end of your fingers. Crucifiers ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... today, as in the past; and this constitutes his labour problem. (The nearest approach to complete parasitism on the part of a vast body of males occurred, perhaps, in ancient Rome at the time of the decay and downfall of the Empire, when the bulk of the population, male as well as female, was fed on imported corn, wine, and oil, and supplied even with entertainment, almost entirely without exertion or labour of any kind; but this condition was of short duration, and speedily contributed ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... sometimes, that a pencil mark should so long outlive the fine, strong body of the man who made it. It seemed pitiful, in a way, and yet he knew that books and letters are the things that endure, in a world of transition and decay. ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... along underground, and among them a saying about Kapchack. Besides which he knew that the elm-tree could not exist for ever; already there was a crack in it, which in time would split farther up; the elm had reached its prime, and was beginning to decay within. By-and-by it would be blown over, and then the farmer would have the butt grubbed up, and split for firewood, and he should escape. It was true it might be many years hence, perhaps a century, but that did not matter in the least—time was nothing ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... school and seminary, that are going to bless the world with good and happy homes, that shall eclipse all their predecessors, a fact that will be acknowledged by all men except those who are struck through with moral decay from toe to cranium; and more inexcusable than the Samson of the text is that man who, amid all this unparalleled munificence of womanhood, marries a fool. But some of you are abroad suffering from such disaster, and to halt others ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... and we must not meet even to transact the business of a benefit society without giving notice of our design to the police, and receiving into our party at least two of its agents as lookers-on. The result has been the decay of all such societies, and the extinction of most of them. Where they remain, the average monthly subscription is fifteen-pence, which insures the payment of twenty-pence a day during sickness, with gratuitous advice and medicine ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... its political aspect," he reflected, "I believe strongly in water. I might have been deeply disturbed if there had been a ground swell or a cross sea going around Point Judith, but I wouldn't have been threatened with approaching senile decay en route." ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... permanence; every permanence lives but in and through progress. Where all, and with equal and simultaneous impulse, strives to move, nothing can move, but chaos is come; where all refuses to move, and therefore stagnates, decay supervenes, which is motion, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... whose dome-shaped head has taken back, with the thin white floss hair that recalls infancy, an infantine lack of solidity; whose mouth is drooping already, perhaps after a first experience of paralysis, and his eyes getting vague in look; but who, in this intellectual and physical decay, seems to have become only the more full of gentleness and sweetness; misnamed David, a Job become reconciled to his fate by becoming indifferent to himself, an Ancient Mariner who has seen the water-snakes and blessed them and ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... Petrarch is rooted in the mind of Italy, that his renown has grown up like an oak which has reached maturity amidst the storms of ages, and fears not decay from revolving centuries. One of the high charms of his poetical language is its pure and melting melody, a charm untransferable to any more ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... the mouth or throat make it difficult for the horse to chew or swallow his feed. Where difficulty in this respect is experienced, the following named conditions should be borne in mind and carefully looked for: Diseases of the teeth, consisting in decay, fracture, abscess formation, or overgrowth; inflammatory conditions, or wounds or tumors of the tongue, cheeks, or lips; paralysis of the muscles of chewing or swallowing; foreign bodies in upper part of the mouth between the molar teeth; inflammation of throat. Difficulty in swallowing ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... 3, and so sure was I of this new discovery, that I at once made an application while removing decay from an extremely sensitive tooth. To be successful, I found I must make the patient take the start, and I would follow with a thrust from the excavator, which move would be accomplished before the lungs could be inflated. This was repeated for at least ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... The war engrossed the energies and the resources of the peoples of the different Colonies, and schools, never very securely placed in the affections of the people, outside of New England, were allowed to fall into decay or entirely disappear. The period of the Revolution and the period of reorganization which followed, up to the beginning of the national government (1775-89), were together a time of rapid decline in educational advantages and increasing illiteracy among the people. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... sunlight awoke me, and I examined my new prison with care. It was a bit of a natural rock passage, such as I had often seen on Sercq, formed, I have been told, by the decay of some softer material between two masses of rock. It was about eight feet wide, and the roof, some twenty feet above my head, was formed by the falling together of the sides which sloped and narrowed somewhat ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... vessels, and thereafter it was not worth while to take the blubber to Spitzbergen to be boiled; and the different nations, having carried home their coppers, left the apparatus of those fishing stations to decay. ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt

... I had on me when I awoke next day, And what a firm conviction of intestinal decay! What seas of mineral water and of bromide I applied To quench those fierce volcanic fires that rioted inside! And, oh! the thousand solemn, awful vows I plighted then Never to tax my system with a small hot ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... myriads of creatures of whose existence we had previously no knowledge. We had not even a suspicion that what to our unaided vision appeared inert elements held a rampant, multitudinous life, nowhere dead, but always surging and changing, ever replacing death and decay with a new life all its own. Nature's luxuriance everywhere fills us with wonder and delight. The fragrant ferny depths of the forest, and the lush growth of the rank marsh-land, the immeasurable sands of the ocean-edge hiding in their ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... the rest is a series of pillars and arches from which the roof has long vanished. In the photographs (which may be bought at the inn) there is some appearance of order even in the midst of the decay, but this was probably carefully effected prior to the artist's visit; for when we were there the whole space was overgrown completely with weeds, among which a rose-bush and a few other flowers struggled to bloom, untended ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... universe. This great work, which he dedicated to Pope Paul III., was completed in 1530; but he could not be prevailed upon to have it published until 1543, the year in which he died. In 1542 Copernicus had an apoplectic seizure, followed by paralysis and a gradual decay of his mental and vital powers. His book was printed at Nuremberg, and the first copy arrived at Frauenburg on May 24, 1543, in time to be touched by the hands of the dying man, who in a few hours after expired. The house in which Copernicus lived at Allenstein is still in existence, and ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... of them seemed to be standing at the four corners of old age, which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of Vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;[227] Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely Nothing dies but ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... down and all was utter dark. And then the moon arose, and in a moment John Oxenham's ship was close aboard; her sails were torn and fluttering; the pitch was streaming from her sides; her bulwarks were rotting to decay. And what was that line of dark objects dangling along the mainyard?—A line of hanged men! And, horror of horrors, from the yard-arm close above him, John Oxenham's corpse looked down with grave-light eyes, and beckoned and pointed, as if to show him his way, and strove to speak, and could not, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... summarized statement of the general views of the Upani@sads. This work is divided into four books or adhyayas and each adhyaya is divided into four padas or chapters. The first four sutras of the work commonly known as Catu@hsutri are (1) How to ask about Brahman, (2) From whom proceed birth and decay, (3) This is because from him the Vedas have come forth, (4) This is shown by the harmonious testimony of the Upani@sads. The whole of the first chapter of the second book is devoted to justifying the position of the Vedanta against the attacks of the rival schools. ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... late research at best concede that Hebrew literature has been permitted to garner a "tender aftermath." Both verdicts are untrue and unfair. Jewish literature has developed organically, and in the course of its evolution it has had its spring-tide as well as its season of decay, this again ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... the Semitic race neither political life, art, poetry, philosophy, nor science. We owe to them religion. The whole world—we except India, China, Japan, and tribes altogether savage—has adopted the Semitic religions." Speaking then of the gradual decay of the various pagan faiths of the Aryan races, Renan continues: "It is precisely at this epoch that the civilized world finds itself face to face with the Jewish faith. Based upon the clear and ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden

... great caution; but the shrivelled substance which it contained bore now no resemblance to what it might once have been, the means used having been apparently unequal to preserve its shape and colour, although they were adequate to prevent its total decay. We were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his influence in the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the bailie himself, to silence ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... N.—75.0 E. Also called Govindgarh. Old names are Vikramagarh and Bhatrinda. Historically a place of great interest (page 167). Fell into decay in later Muhammadan times. Is now a great railway junction and a nourishing grain mart. The large fort is a conspicuous object for many miles round. ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... the divine Study of Nature, he has the following reflective truths:—"If we look with wonder upon the great remains of human works, such as the columns of Palmyra, broken in the midst of the desert, the temples of Paestum, beautiful in the decay of twenty centuries, or the mutilated fragments of Greek sculpture in the Acropolis of Athens, or in our own Museum, as proofs of the genius of artists, and power and riches of nations now past away; with how much deeper feeling of admiration must we ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction—Volume 13 - Index to Vol. 13 • Various

... in rows. You have observed that they were conducted with great pomp in the funeral processions. The Romans did not despise these exhibitions of vanity. They clung all the more tenaciously to their ancestry as they became more and more separated from them by the lapse of ages and the decay of ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... if 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

... whispering and gurgling sounds which came from out of the darkness, before and behind; while now, to fully prove what was wrong, they noticed the peculiar odour of the sea-water when impregnated with seaweed in a state of decay, and directly after Gwyn had called attention to the fact Joe ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... the grains are collected one by one and carried within. Like all harvesters, these Hymenoptera are at the mercy of a shower that may fall during the harvest. They are well aware that in this case their provisions would be damaged, and that they would run the risk of germination or decay in the barns. Therefore, on the first sunny day all the ants, as observed by Lincecum and Buckley, may be seen carrying their grains outside, only bringing them back when they have been thoroughly dried, and always leaving behind those that ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... in Carolina, at least, four sorts. The Pitch-Pine, growing to a great Bigness, most commonly has but a short Leaf. Its Wood (being replete with abundance of Bitumen) is so durable, that it seems to suffer no Decay, tho' exposed to all Weathers, for many Ages; and is used in several Domestick and Plantation Uses. This Tree affords the four great Necessaries, Pitch, Tar, Rozin, and Turpentine; which two last are extracted by tapping, and the Heat of the Sun, the other ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... Time, indeed, has partly done the work for us. In Pope, more than in almost any other writer, the grain has sifted itself from the chaff. The jewels have remained after the flimsy embroidery in which they were fixed has fallen into decay. Such a result was natural from his mode of composition. He caught at some inspiration of the moment; he cast it roughly into form; brooded over it; retouched it again and again; and when he had brought it to the very highest polish of which his art was capable, placed it in a pigeon-hole ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... Shinto rite,—is religious defilement. The ancient legend of Izanagi's descent to the nether world, in search of his lost spouse, illustrates the terrible beliefs that once existed as to goblin-powers presiding over decay. [41] Between the horror of death as corruption, and the apotheosis of the ghost, there is nothing incongruous: we must understand the apotheosis itself as a propitiation. This earliest Way of the Gods was a religion of perpetual fear. Not ordinary homes only were deserted after a death: ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... dissolve the United Kingdom into a confederacy because Germany, through a clumsy form of confederacy, is growing into a united empire. This counsel confuses the stages of imperfect development with the stage of incipient decay; it ascribes to the childishness of approaching senility the hopes which are proper to the childishness of early youth. The point is worth pressing. The considerations which govern a confederacy as it is developing into a nation are very different from the considerations applicable ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... to be a rule, that nations and families recently emerged from barbarism soon fade and decay under the influence of high civilization; and just as the first race of Frankish kings had withered away on the throne, so the line of Charles the Great, though not inactive, became less powerful and judicious, grew feeble in the very next generation, and were little ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... instantly a great desire to let him draw a troublesome tooth of hers which, she took pains to assure us, was not impaired by natural decay, but only accidentally broken in cracking a cherry-stone. "The edge is so rough," said she, "that it hurts my tongue; and since this honest gentleman can extract it painlessly, I have a great ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning

... Beauty's orbs improve These orphan babes of solitary love; Birth after birth the line unchanging runs, And fathers live transmitted in their sons; Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds, The same their manners, and the same their minds. 110 Till, as erelong successive buds decay, And insect-shoals successive pass away, Increasing wants the pregnant parents vex With the fond wish to form a softer sex; Whose milky rills with pure ambrosial food Might charm and cherish their expected brood. The potent wish in the productive hour ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... dear Clary, it is a blow, certainly; I don't deny that. But there is a bright side to everything; and really your father could not afford to live in the place. It was going to decay in the most disgraceful manner. He is better out of it; ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... comment in his diary is brief: 'The whole impression is saddening; it is all indolence, decay, stagnation; the image of God seems as if it were nowhere. But there is much of wild and picturesque.' The English in the island, both civil and military, adopted the tone of unfriendly journals in London, and the garrison went so far as not even to invite Mr. Gladstone to mess, a compliment ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... Sam Brannan's palace, "The Bungalow," built by one Shillaber of San Francisco at a cost of from thirty to forty thousand dollars. In its day it had outshone its regal neighbor, the palace of the king, but had fallen to decay after passing into Brannan's hands, and had become a picturesque Theban ruin by the time ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... there has been no perceptible growth or decay in the star business since man began to roam around through space, in his mind, and make figures on the barn door with red chalk showing ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... Sessions, provinciall and nationall Assemblies, the generall Assembly considering the great defection of this Kirk, and decay of Religion, by the usurpation of the Prelates, and their suppressing of ordinaire judicatories of the Kirk, and clearly preceiving the benefit which will redound to the Religion by the restitution of the said judicatories, remembring also that they ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... exceptional Cactuses are in their manner of growth, and in the wonderful tenacity of life they exhibit under conditions which would destroy the majority of plants in a very short time. We sometimes find, when examining the bases of Cactus stems, that decay has commenced; this is carefully cut out with a sharp knife, and the wound exposed to the action of the air till it is perfectly dry, or, as ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... short time to stay as you, We have as short a spring, As quick a growth to meet decay, As you or anything. We die, As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer's rain, Or as the pearls of morning dew, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... no reason to believe that, from this time till within a few weeks of Chatham's death, his intellect suffered any decay. His eloquence was almost to the last heard with delight. But it was not exactly the eloquence of the House of Lords. That lofty and passionate, but somewhat desultory declamation, in which he excelled all men, and which was set off by looks, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fragile and the long bones slender, with no marked impression for muscular attachment. A curious fact is that the ends of all the long bones are absent, presumably from decay, and as these ends are united to the shafts between the age of puberty (14-15) and adult life it is suggestive that the individual may have been of about the age of 18 or 20 and this is somewhat confirmed by the noneruption of ...
— A New Hochelagan Burying-ground Discovered at Westmount on the - Western Spur of Mount Royal, Montreal, July-September, 1898 • W. D. Lighthall

... suggest the taking from the church "seynt Cuthborow's hed," and "the 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 ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... strength, yea even in things spiritual, decayes, and yet shall never the work of God decay. Belovit brother, seeing that God of His mercy, far above my expectation, has callit me over again to Edinburgh, and yet that I feel nature so decayed, and daylie to decay, that I look not for a long continuance ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... loved ones my life would have nourished Are foodless, and bare, and cold. My flocks by their fountain that flourished Decay on the ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... the literature of the past but in 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, dismembered and rotten, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... devoted, and perhaps only thus far censurable, that it proposed objects and courses of action inconsistent with the frailties and imperfections of man." In "Ivanhoe," too, there is something like a dithyrambic lament over the decay of knighthood—"The 'scutcheons have long mouldered from the walls," etc.; but even here, enthusiasm is tempered by good sense, and Richard of the Lion Heart is described as an example of the "brilliant but useless character of a knight ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... the woods for adoption of the mode called Vanaprastha. Having studied the scriptures called Aranyakas, having drawn up his vital fluid and having retired from all worldly affairs, the virtuous recluse may then attain to an absorption with the eternal Soul knowing no decay. These are the indications of Munis that have drawn up their vital fluid. A learned Brahmana, O king, should first practise and perform them. The Brahmana, O king, that is desirous of emancipation, it is well known, is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... annually a convenient sum toward providing the naval defense which our situation may require, I can not but recommend that the first appropriations for that purpose may go to the saving what we already possess. No cares, no attentions, can preserve vessels from rapid decay which lie in water and exposed to the sun. These decays require great and constant repairs, and will consume, if continued, a great portion of the moneys destined to naval purposes. To avoid this waste of our resources it is proposed to add to our navy-yard here ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... chemical compound, the other metal being highly negative to it, powerful galvanic action will be set up and the structure will quickly deteriorate. This explains the failure of boats built of commercially pure aluminium which have been put together with iron or copper rivets, and the decay of other boats built of a light alloy, in which the alloying metal (copper) has been injudiciously chosen. It also explains why aluminium is so difficult to join with low-temperature solders, for these mostly contain a large proportion of lead. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... character and career we are venturing to review, extended far beyond the allotted term of man: and, perhaps, no existence of equal duration ever exhibited an uniformity more sustained. The strong bent of his infancy was pursued through youth, matured in manhood, and maintained without decay to an advanced old age. In the biographic spell, no ingredient is more magical than predisposition. How pure, and native, and indigenous it was in the character of this writer, can only be properly appreciated by an acquaintance with the circumstances ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... the Netherlands town life had been, as we have seen, slower of development.[13] Hence for these Northern cities the period of decay had not yet come. In fact, the fourteenth century marks the zenith of their power. Their great trading league, the Hansa, was now fully established, and through the hands of its members passed all the wealth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... thatch dishevelled, its doors gone long since, its aged walls cracked and scarred by years, a very monument of desolation; upon its threshold weeds had sprung up, and within its hoary shadow breathed an air damp, heavy, and acrid with decay. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... the basaltic dykes is that they are composed of a more compact basaltic rock than the basalt which they penetrate, so that whilst the rock has mouldered away these basaltic dykes have remained standing; and, as in the progress of their decay they split up, they present the appearances of walls built by human hands, with regular layers of stones, and which traverse the ravines of the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... Season made for Joys, Love is then our Duty, She alone who that employs, Well deserves her Beauty. Let's be gay, While we may, Beauty's a Flower, despis'd in Decay. ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... beauty and this pleasure are for nought? The intelligence which observes and loves these sights hesitates not, nor can it be deterred from reflecting upon their Source. The farmer, turning the sod with the plough, and dropping the grain into the newly turned furrow, expects life amid the decay of the clod. The favorable sunshine and shower, the gentle dews and heat of summer bring forth, after a partial decay of the seed, the blade, the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. The perfume ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... other times, we should still be enjoying Pigeon pie as freely as we did in my boyhood. But as the population of the country increased, these great flocks were cruelly slaughtered, for the mere greed of killing them; thousands were often left to decay upon the ground, and now I do not believe that any one of you has ever seen a wild Pigeon ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... who dwell in Youth's inviting bowers, Waste not, in useless joy, your fleeting hours, But rather let the tears of sorrow roll, And sad reflection fill the conscious soul. For many a jocund spring has passed away, And many a flower has blossomed, to decay; And human life, still hastening to a close, Finds in the worthless dust its last repose. Still the vain world abounds in strife and hate, And sire and son provoke each other's fate; And kindred blood by kindred hands is shed, And vengeance sleeps not—dies not, with the dead. All ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... deposits are essentially original sediments which have subsequently undergone more or less decay and distillation. The migration of the distillates to suitable underground reservoirs is responsible for the accumulation ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... pale, and thin, but fought to the last inch for life; the noble youths who were blighted just as they began to bloom; the beautiful maidens etherealized into almost more than mortal beauty by the breath of the death-angel, as autumn leaves, touched by the breath of winter, blush with the beauty of decay. My young friend indulged no false hopes. He knew he was doomed to early death, and did not shrink from the thought. One day, as we were conversing in a store uptown, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... in a melancholy tone, at the first sound of which the man within turned round with startling swiftness. "From childhood's hour I've seen my fondest hopes decay. I did think I was ahead of Scotland Yard this time, and now here is the largest officer in the entire Metropolitan ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... 131, "Venedetto" changed to "Benedetto" (the master-mason Benedetto Drei, whose drawing,) Page 147, "Winckelman" two times changed to "Winckelmann" (Fea and Winckelmann assert and Winckelmann attributes their rapid decay) Page 185, "in" changed to "is" (the urn of Agrippina is kept in the courtyard) Page 208, "Emmanuele" changed to "Emanuele" (southwest corner of the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele) Page 273, "astrinum" changed to "ustrinum" (it was an ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... good deal of companionship in the rows of plaster busts that stand on the wall, in all attitudes of listlessness, and all stages of decay. I thought at first they were penates of the premises; but better acquaintance has convinced me that they never were gods, but the clayey representations of great men and noble dames. The stains of time are ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... lying between a long range of hills and the base of the Andes. Just how these mineral deposits were formed it is difficult to explain, the most plausible theory being that this desert was once the bottom of an inland sea having vast quantities of seaweed covered with sand. In the gradual decay of this substance the nitrate of soda, or "Chile ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... comfortable to my good Father-in-law, Sir George More, whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal crosses; I have maintained my own mother, whom it hath pleased God, after a plentiful fortune in her younger days, to bring to great decay in her very old age. I have quieted the consciences of many, that have groaned under the burden of a wounded spirit, whose prayers I hope are available for me. I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth; but I am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to see what ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... where the wall of the city continued for a long distance to the south-east with occasional towers, but this portion of the wall, as seen in the illustration facing page 208, is now in a sad state of decay and fast being covered with sand. The first three hundred yards of it, which are the best preserved, however, will show what a place of great strength Zaidan must have been. The towers appear to have been enormous, as shown by the base of the nearer one in the foreground of the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... having been completely destroyed in 1287 by an inundation. It was afterwards rebuilt by Edward I. on higher ground. The French made several attempts on the town, and in 1380 succeeded in capturing and burning it. The gradual decay of the port was due to the retiring of the sea in the fifteenth century, which rendered the harbour useless. Winchelsea is a pretty place with massive gateways, survivals of the old fortified town. In ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... inquire for the causes of this physical and moral decay. For every class has its special complaint, every traveller his favorite theory, and every political economist his sufficient explanation. But let the cause be what it may, the fact stands out black and repulsive. Jamaica, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... hearts of men to clip; * Close-veiled, far-hidden mystery dark and deep: O thou whose beauties sham the lustrous moon, * Wherewith the saffron Morn fears rivalship! Thy beauty is a shrine shall ne'er decay; * Whose signs shall grow until they all outstrip; [FN467] Must I be thirst-burnt by that Eden-brow * And die of pine to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... preservation of records that are not worth keeping. This preservation by frequent renewal is just what is taking place with books; we make them of perishable materials; if we want to keep them, we reprint them; otherwise they decay and are forgotten. ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... latter about to fall. I thought that only Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks Could so forget his handiwork on which He spent himself, the labour of his axe, And leave it there far from a useful fireplace To warm the frozen swamp as best it could With the slow smokeless burning of decay. ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost

... one of my boys,' said the Genius of Pantomime, rather sadly. 'It so happens that those closing scenes are the very ones I have least control over—they are a part of my kingdom which has fallen into sad decay and rebellion. But one thing, O Tommy, I can do for you. I will give you the clown for a friend and companion—and much good may ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... "I have not suffered any other damage than the loss of a tooth, and that was neither whole nor white. Time had already effected its decay." M. d'Anquetil, legs astride and arms akimbo, examined ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... sugar is harmful there is no doubt. Physicians who practiced when the use of sugar was increasing very rapidly called attention to the increasing decay of teeth. Sugar, as it appears upon the table is an unsatisfied compound. It does not appear in concentrated form in nature, but mixed with vegetable and mineral matters, and when the pure sugar is put into solution it seeks these matters. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... to acquaint ourselves with the character and disposition, the talents, virtues, and even vices of those by whom they were governed; and whose good or bad qualities contributed to the grandeur or decay of the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... the conscription was a constant drain upon the youth of Flanders, who went away to leave their bones on foreign soil, nothing happened to disturb the quiet of the town, and the fortifications were falling into decay when the return of Napoleon from Elba set Europe in a blaze. During the Hundred Days guns and war material were hurried over from England, the old defences were restored, and new works constructed by the English engineers; but the Battle of Waterloo rendered these preparations unnecessary, ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond

... was stained by the smoke of years almost to a monochrome of dirty brown. From the lofty cross-beams, on long sennit strings, hung the heads of enemies taken aforetime in jungle raid and sea foray. The place breathed the very atmosphere of decay and death, and the imbecile ancient, curing in the smoke the token of death, was himself palsiedly shaking into the ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... see what the Ancients thought of the Capacity of Men of such Principles in Matters of Eloquence, and let a long Experience among us, prove the right Judgment the Philosopher in Longinus made of them 1500 Years ago. He is treating of the Causes of the Decay of Humane Wit; I can never enough admire, said he, how it came to pass, that there are so many Orators in our Times, and so few of 'em rise very high in the Sublime; so Steril are our Wits now a Days; is it not, continues he, because what is generally said of Free Governments, that ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... counseled petulant youth with the experienced calmness of age was thirty-nine years old. A state of society where one could at that age call himself or be called by others an old man, is proved by that fact alone to be one of wearing hardships and early decay of the vital powers. The survivors of the pioneers stoutly insist upon the contrary view. "It was a glorious life," says one old patriarch; "men would fight for the love of it, and then shake hands and be friends; there is nothing like it now." Another says, "I never enjoy my breakfast now ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... in which I live Is falling to decay, But God renews my spirit's strength, Within ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper

... a few years later, and through the rest of his life, believes that in his personality resides something immortal, and has as his prime pleasure the feeling of worth and growth of that personality, and as his worst hurt the feeling of decay and inferiority ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... marvellous prodigies presented by the annals of humanity. Ordinarily, nations that begin to decline, decline constantly more and more; a rare power of life is needed to retrieve their position, and stop in its course a decay ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin

... mysterious sort of personage. He was an aboriginal inhabitant, and, though the only one of the aborigines in existence, had lived many centuries, and, to the consternation of some of the Vraibleusians and the exultation of others, exhibited no signs of decay. This awful being was without a name. When spoken of by his admirers he was generally described by such panegyrical periphrases as 'soul of the country,' 'foundation of the State,' 'the only real, and true, and substantial being;' while, on the other hand, those ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli

... mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants, to preserve for a while their once terrible names." Now the plan laid down by the president, in order to prevent, if possible, the total decay of the Indian people, is, to send them beyond the Mississippi, and guarantee to them the possession of ample territory west of that river. How far this is likely to answer the purpose expressed, let ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... students of ancient law," says Mr. Toulmin Smith, one of the greatest authorities of his country's old records, documents, etc. "They have been overridden by justices of the peace, county lieutenants, and other functionaries.... From this general decay of local ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... or how it ceases. A single flagrant act may end it at once, and then there is no difficulty. But confidence may be just as effectually destroyed by a series of causes too subtle for demonstration. As it is a plant of slow growth, so, too, it may be slow in decay. Such has been the process here. I will not pretend to say what acts or omissions have broken up this relation. They are hardly susceptible of statement, and still less of formal proof. Nevertheless, no one can read the correspondence of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... and the blue mountains far away in the background, looking, however, much nearer than is actually the case. Distance is almost annihilated in this clear, dry, Italian atmosphere, which also to a great extent prevents decay, the most ancient buildings looking often singularly fresh. "Antiquity refuses to look ancient in Italy; it insists on retaining its ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... again within the old tender place and we both struggled to nourish our phantom joy. Counterfeit though we both discerned it, yet it passed unchallenged between us and at least kept our souls' commerce from decay. Counterfeit I have called it, for the tenure of another's love was upon her; and her stay with us was like that of a sailor lad who is for a time ashore, ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... Southey's learned friend, who wrote whole volumes of hypothetical history in the subjunctive mood, it is hardly necessary for present purposes to discuss the internal changes which, had the missions been left to themselves, might in the long run have brought about their decay. For as a matter of fact the missions were not left to themselves. The closing chapter of their history, to which we have now to turn, is mainly concerned, not with their spiritual management, or with their success or failure in the work they had been given ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson

... on a November day. The autumn was late, and of a marvellous beauty. The month was a third gone and still there were trees here and there, isolated trees, intensely green as though they defied decay. The elder trees, the first to leaf under the Spring, were now the last to wither. The elms in twenty-four hours had turned a pale gold atop, while all below was still round and green. But the beeches ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... be the event, the lot is cast; Where appetites are given, what sin to taste? Or if a sin, 'tis but by precept such; The offence so small, the punishment's too much. To seek so soon his new-made world's decay: Nor we, nor that, were fashioned for ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... the "Month's Mind" still to come, and then the chapter of nuns intended to proceed to the election of their new Abbess, unanimously agreeing that she should be their present Prioress, who had held kindly rule over them through the slow to-decay of the late Abbess. Before, however, this could be done a messenger arrived on a mule bearing an inhibition to the sisters to ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... erected upon the virgin rock. A roof of old wooden shingles shelters the well, and ancient rotting timber mingles everywhere with the impervious stone in the massive buildings of the castle, conveying a sense of weakness and decay in the midst ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... the great bond between mother and child; perhaps too, as Philip had been one to inspire as much pride as affection, so the pride faded away with the expectations that had fed it, and carried off in its decay some of the affection that was intertwined with it. However this be, Philip had formerly appeared the more spoiled and favoured of the two: and now Sidney seemed all in all. Thus, beneath the younger son's caressing gentleness, there grew up a certain regard for self; it was latent, it took ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... respect, does not recognize such a marriage. And you have, in my opinion, committed an offence against society. To recognize you by social intercourse would be to condone that offence, to open the door to practices that would lead, in a short time, to the decay ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... keep that bird with us in spite of the annual wail, rising occasionally in South Devon to a howl, of human trout-fishers. It is a traditional feeling coming down from the far past in England—from the time of William the Conqueror to that of William of Orange and the decay of falconry. That a species without any sentiment to favour it and without special protection by law may increase is to be seen in the case of the starling. This increase has come about automatically after we had destroyed the starling's natural enemies and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... of their being, as in the Gruevo Upas, reduced to skeletons, the carcasses have all their bones dissolved by the vapours; while the flesh, skin, hair, and nails are by their action preserved from decay. This remarkable crater is situated near the ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous

... might be generated by the decay of minute creatures congregated in the cloudy corner, a lump of charcoal was tied to a stone and sunk upon the spot. Next morning, the cloud had cleared from around the charcoal, but slender wreaths of similar appearance were rapidly rising from the sand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... Spottsylvania; battle of Cold Harbor; Butler "bottled up"; Early's raid against Washington; Sherman's Atlanta campaign; capture of Mobile; Sheridan's Valley campaign; Sherman's march to the sea; Thomas's destruction of Hood's army; sinking of the Alabama and of the Albemarle; decay of Confederate army in 1865; siege of Petersburg; march of Sherman through Carolinas; Bentonsville; attempts of Lee to escape; Five Forks; abandonment of Petersburg and Richmond; flight of Lee to Southwest; Appomattox; surrender of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... of the show spots of this section," replied Mlle. Nadiboff. "It does well enough to look about there for a few minutes. But a ruin like that suggests death and decay, ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham

... should stand on a board or on a flat stone, and its top should be covered with a stone or with a couple of bricks. Wood will last almost forever below the level of the drain, where it will always be saturated with water, but in the drier earth above the tile, it is much more liable to decay. ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring

... visit, and inquired after certain patients in whom she was particularly interested: since the last time she came they had suffered a relapse—the malady had changed in nature, and had shown graver symptoms. It was a kind of deadly fatigue, killing them by a slows strange decay. She asked questions of the doctors but could learn nothing: this malady was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art. A fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead, others still alive, but desperately ill; living ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... secrets of the inner tribunal of the conscience are known only to the tomb, where souls enter naked. The point on which we are certain is, that the difficulties of faith never resolved themselves into hypocrisy in his case. No decay is possible to the diamond. He believed to the extent of his powers. "Credo in Patrem," he often exclaimed. Moreover, he drew from good works that amount of satisfaction which suffices to the conscience, and which whispers to a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... our sunniest hours, Ne'er to this cloudy land one moment stray, Whose brilliant plumes, fleeting and fair as flowers, Come with the flowers, and with the flowers decay.[67] The Indian bird, with hundred eyes, that throws From his blue neck the azure of the skies, And his pale brother of the northern snows, Bearing white plumes, mirrored with ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... disregarded by the law, rise and take position in society-not only entering into more respectable business-but joining in that phalanx who are seeking the life-blood of the old Southerner, and like a silent moth, working upon his decay. There is a deep significance in the answer so frequently given in Charleston to the interrogatory, "Who lives in that splendid dwelling-it seems to have been the mansion of a prince, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... doth cast, The lion's force, whose courage stout declares a prince-like might, The eagle, that for worthiness is borne of kings in fight— Then these, I say, and thousands more, by tract of time decay, And, like to time, do quite consume and fade from form to clay; But my true heart and service vow'd shall last time out of mind, And still remain, as thine by doom, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... is one of the most interesting relics of monastic splendour which have been spared from the wrecks of desolation and decay. It is dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity, and is the remains of an abbey or monastery of great magnificence, which was dedicated to St. Augustine. The erection of this monastery was begun in 1140, and was finished and ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... the most calamitous effect which has followed the measures which have lately been pursued in this country, is, a rapid decay of the domestic affections among the lower orders of society. This effect the present rulers of this country are not conscious of, or they disregard it. For many years past, the tendency of society, amongst almost all the nations of Europe, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... of the Byzantine Empire, showing, with vivid imagination, the possible forces behind the internal decay of the Empire that ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... anniversary of my wedding day. THEN, my husband tells me, the bloom of the rose sat on my cheek; NOW, I am shrinking into an old woman, hair grey, teeth gone, bloom faded, and my eyes dim: but, through the mercy of God, though my outward tabernacle is thus sinking in decay, my spiritual strength is daily renewed; the vigour of my mind is not abated; my understanding is clearer, and my faith stronger than ever. And though, by the light that shines upon my soul, I discover more of my natural depravity; the Lord, by his Spirit, graciously ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... that process and made it impossible? Why did the day, which began with a certain amount of separation and decay, end with a closer consolidation than ever, so that they were, for the most part, gathered in the upper room; and forty days after they were all with one accord in one place? Why was it that they who had been like timid deer, before He ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... antecedents are either in the mind or out of it, we clearly see that all the variations in the results—in other words, all the changes of which history is full, all the vicissitudes of the human race, their progress or their decay, their happiness or their misery—must be the fruit of a double action; an action of external phenomena upon the mind, and another action of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... considered that the needful arts among them are managed with less labour than anywhere else. The building or the repairing of houses among us employ many hands, because often a thriftless heir suffers a house that his father built to fall into decay, so that his successor must, at a great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge: it frequently happens, that the same house which one person built at a vast expense, is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that sort on this eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a rosebud, and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, I concealed the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to be sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very well, but on my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to inspect some present for Francine. A band, with many banners and figures in masquerade, swept past, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... the stars by the Ionian sea, a feeling that one thing in creation ought to be immortal on earth, the passionate, leaping flame of joyous youth, physically careless, physically rapturous, unconscious of death and of decay. Delarey seemed to him like a tarantella in repose, if such a thing ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Business. At the club you would often find him bemoaning the business decay of the city he loved, but here, sitting by the girl on the forsaken wharf, in the sunshine, the feeling suddenly came to him that there was something here that business would drive ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... of life within the temple precincts; there were evidences of decay and disuse spread broadcast on every hand; but according to the ancient law there should be eternally one at least on watch in the priests' dwellings, so down the passages which led to them I made my way. It would have surprised me little to have found even these deserted. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor's appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon his face. The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much, these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer's notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

... when well done, gave moderately satisfactory results against decay. A pavement laid in the yard of the Schlitz Brewing Company, in Milwaukee (experiment No. 7), was sound in 1882, after some six years' exposure. A report by Mr. J.F. Babcock, a chemist of Boston (experiment ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various

... venerable part of St. Saviour's Church in such a manner as is absolutely necessary. The pillars have in a great degree lost their perpendicular position: the mouldings and mullions of the windows are distorted in the most shameful manner; the walls are rapidly hastening to their final decay; and the whole place appears to be destined to become once more the resort of hogs and vermin of every description. That this should be the case is a great disgrace to the parish, and an insult to the diocese, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... mythology. This criticism is more formidable in appearance than in reality. The vital question for the poet is his own belief, not the belief of his readers. If the Iliad has survived not merely the decay of faith in the Olympian divinities, but the criticism which has pulverized Achilles as a historical personage, "Paradise Lost" need not be much affected by general disbelief in the personality of Satan, and universal disbelief in that of Gabriel, Raphael, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... this vetoing power may have been greatly curtailed or only occasionally and capriciously exercised. It is much easier, however, to indicate the meaning and origin of the jurisdiction confided to the Comitia Calata, than to trace its gradual development or progressive decay. ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... of adventures with your trusty friend Thor Helwyse, the yellow-bearded Scandinavian? Do you fancy this fresh, unwrinkled face a mate to your own? and is it but the vision of a restless night,—this long-drawn life of dull routine and gradual disappointment and decay? Open those dim eyes of yours, good sir! stir those thin old legs! inflate that sunken chest!—Ha! is that cough imaginary? those trembling muscles,—are they a delusion is that misty glance only a momentary weakness There is ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... town, which had seen better days. The big lumber-mill that had once kept it busy was burned down, and the business had slipped away to the prosperous neighbouring town of Machias. There were nice old houses with tall pillars in front of them, now falling into decay and slipping out of plumb. There were shops that had evidently been closed for years, with not even a sign "To Let" in the windows. Our dinner was cooked for us in a boarding-house, by a brisk young lady of about fifteen years, whose mother had gone to Machias for a day in the gay ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... despair for our country is a knowledge of its history. If the study of our annals does not train up patriots among us, we must consent to lose our heritage. We are glad to be assured that our historians do not intend to allow the republic to decay before they have written out in full the tale of its life. Their records, well digested, may prove to be the pledges of its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... is no more notion nor memory of colours left in their minds, than in those of people born blind. The memory of some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle. But yet there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print wears ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... consideration, attention, deliberation, opinion true and false, joy and sorrow, confidence, fear, hatred, love, and other primary motions akin to these; which again receive the secondary motions of corporeal substances, and guide all things to growth and decay, to composition and decomposition, and to the qualities which accompany them, such as heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness, blackness and whiteness, bitterness and sweetness, and all those other qualities which the soul ...
— Laws • Plato

... mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption—no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, A Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)



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