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Wane   /weɪn/   Listen
Wane

noun
1.
A gradual decline (in size or strength or power or number).  Synonyms: ebb, ebbing.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wane" Quotes from Famous Books



... of an hour the struggle continued; then its vigour began to wane. The heaviest British metal went out of action; some time later the field batteries discontinued their activities. The volume of firing in the advance trenches dwindled, was fiercely renewed some half a dozen times, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... began to wane, and a freshness blew across the veldt. Somewhere on the very top of the kopje a bird uttered a twittering note. She turned her face, listening for the answer, and found Burke seated on another boulder not six ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... between the combatants and rendered any 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 admiration to appear ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... papers and seals, all to set forward that marriage affair that had failed so dismally, he hardly understood how. But he had hoped that the Prefect would die, and the news of his rapid recovery seemed strangely inopportune. It appeared to Simon that General Ratoneau's star was on the wane; and so, for those entangled in his rascally deeds, a lucky thrust of Monsieur de la Mariniere's swiftly flashing sword—Ah, no! the fortune of war was on the wrong side that morning. A few passes; a fight three or four minutes long; a low cry, then silence, and the slipping down ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... is on the wane; we are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... of it. To me it was most uncomfortably genuine. When we had stood there in the middle of the road five minutes, like a couple of idiots, with our hands aloft, freezing to death by inches, Mike's interest in the joke began to wane. He said: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the dead and gone artist might be, would have been gratified to know the pleasure his handiwork, even in its wane, had power to give to the heavy heart of a young girl; for they conjured up visions of other sister-flowers that grew, and blossomed, and withered away ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the patient is also highly recommended. If the patient is a boy, cakes (crispelle?) of consolida major mixed with the yolk of eggs should be administered, one each day for nine days before the wane of the moon. If, however, the rupture is large in either a boy or an adult, and of long standing, whether the intestine descends into the scrotum or not, operation, either by incision or by the cautery offers the only hope of relief. Singularly enough too, while Roger devotes to the operation ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson

... if haply we retain The reverence that ne'er will overrun Due boundaries of realms from Nature won, Nor let the poet's awe in rapture wane. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... rules The fates of children and of fools! I kiss'd the kind, warm neck that slept, And from her side this morning stepp'd, To bathe my brain from drowsy night In the sharp air and golden light. The dew, like frost, was on the pane. The year begins, though fair, to wane. There is a fragrance in its breath Which is not of the flowers, but death; And green above the ground appear The lilies of another year. I wander'd forth, and took my path Among the bloomless aftermath; And heard ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... 50,000 men for each nation; and that neither power shall increase its forces, without two months' notice to all the rest. The "volunteer" military organizations will still be allowed, besides these armies; but zeal for rifle practice seems to be very much on the wane. It is probable that occasional showy parades may soon be all that is left in civilized countries of the "pomp and circumstance of ...
— 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century • Henry Hartshorne

... guard the sacred outpost, not in vain Hold your proud peril! Freemen undefiled, Keep watch and ward! Let battlements be piled Around your cliffs; fleets marshalled, till the main Sink under them; and if your courage wane, Through force or fraud, look westward to ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various

... Russians encamped on the Asiatic hills overlooking Constantinople, ready to protect the Sultan in his seraglio against the Egyptians. Among the Turks dissatisfaction was rampant. The Ulemas saw their influence wane; the innovations had hurt countless interests, and the new taxes incommoded all classes. Thousands of Janizaries, who were no longer permitted to call themselves such, and the relatives and friends of thousands of others who had been throttled, drowned, or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... hum the air of the song which Mr. George Amberson was now discoursing, "O moon of my delight that knows no wane"—and there was no further ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... or is, in the cabinet; the republican party is completely on the wane—and perhaps beyond redemption; all this is a logical result, and was easily to be foreseen by any body,—only not by the wiseacres of the party, not by the republican papers in New York, as the Times, the Tribune, and the Evening Post, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... unnatural. A chilliness, not altogether due to the night air, invaded the room, and made them cold. The influences against them, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing them of self-confidence, and the power of decisive action; their forces were on the wane, and the possibility of real fear took on a new and terrible meaning. He began to tremble for the elderly woman by his side, whose pluck could hardly save her beyond a ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... he laid 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 ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... on the wane. Already the sounds of the middle night were hushed. The owls had stopped their hooting, and now, on noiseless wing, were making their last hunting rounds ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... has weakened the trees so that they could not withstand the winter cold and have been "winter killed." With the drought we had several winters of infrequent snowfall. We did better last winter and the disease seems to be on the wane. Next to plenty of rain in summer, a winter in which we have frequent falls of light snow will be the best medicine for the ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... sleeking, are so lean, That they're like Cynthia in the wane, Or breast of goose when 'tis pick'd clean, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... accompanied and sometimes assisted by Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer, professional readers both—the last distinguished more for grace and beauty, even though now on the wane of life, than she ever had been for talent, but eminently fitted, both by education and character, for a guide ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... are wonderful, and pass into each other. The quail has hardly ceased piping in the corn when winter, from the folds of trailing clouds, sows broadcast over the land snow, icicles, and rattling hail. The days wane apace. Erelong the sun hardly rises above the horizon, or does not rise at all. The moon and the stars shine through the day; only at noon they are pale and wan, and in the southern sky a red, fiery glow, as of a sunset, burns along the horizon and then goes out. And pleasantly under ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... a tonga from Mure to Srinagar; but at the approach of the winter season, when all Europeans desert Kachmyr, the tonga service is suspended. I undertook my journey precisely at the time when the summer life begins to wane, and the Englishmen whom I met upon the road, returning to India, were much astonished to see me, and made vain efforts to divine the purpose of my travel ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... Duelling, although on the wane, was far from dead. I could have given numerous instances of duels in the earlier part of this reign, but have refrained, as they were of no particular interest; but the following is an exception, as ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... perceive that 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... 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, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... fearless-hearted, Flag of the broken chain, Flag in a day-dawn started, Never to pale or wane. Dearly we prize its colors, With the heaven light breaking through, The clustered stars and the steadfast bars, The red, the white, ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... their greatest height soon after the fire first broke out, and directly the first cask of spirits had burst. Then the fire went steadily on till it began to wane slightly, when another cask would explode, and flames rush up again—those great waves of fire which lapped and leaped, and floated up out of the hold, appearing from where we lay to lick the sails hanging from the fore and main-masts. But these never caught, the golden and bluish waves rising steadily ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... niece; "but my children are not troublesome, I am thankful to say. I was going to tell you that marsh-mallows makes one of the finest poultices you can have. Pluck it when Jupiter is in the ascendant, and the moon on the wane, and you'll find it first-rate for easing that foot of yours.—Gilbert, I heard thy mother tell thee not to go up ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt

... certain to make him a thief, for the memory of those kisses burned fiercely. He was as one who, by steeping himself in the vice of intoxication, begets a craving for alcohol, and he felt that his powers of resistance were on the wane. His cherished "ideal" was forgotten, and her portrait reposed face downward among envelopes and papers in his dispatch-box, while he kept out of Mrs. Meredith's way and ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... resulted in the fall of the dynasty and the Egyptian empire. The letters from Canaan, more especially those from the vassal-king of Jerusalem, show that the power of Egypt in Asia was on the wane. The Hittites were advancing from the north, Mitanni and Babylonia were intriguing with disaffected Canaanites, and the Canaanitish governors themselves were at war with one another. The Pharaoh is entreated to send help speedily; if ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... in fight they bore him down; he never cried aman; He never sank his sword before the PRINCE OF FRANGHISTAN; But with traitors all around him, his star upon the wane, He heard the voice of ALLAH, and he would not ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... gathering, which commemorated, on its thirty-third anniversary, the outbreak of the rising of 1830, was destined to resuscitate the feeling of the American people for the Polish cause. For the Poles sojourning in this country had reasons to believe that even that passive sentiment was on the wane, that interests, not less illusory than selfish, were working to destroy even the impressions which sacred national remembrances, by twining together the memories of Washington and Kosciuszko, had created in the American heart. Strange to say, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... for Greece, coinciding with the dawn of her own earliest impetus in this direction, and travelling puri passu almost with the growth of her mightiest friend, was the advancing decay of her oppressor. The wane of the Turkish crescent had seemed to be in some secret connection of fatal sympathy with the growth of the Russian cross. Perhaps the reader will thank us for rehearsing the main steps by which the Ottoman power had flowed and ebbed. The foundations of this empire were ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... their own power. But we seem always to be denied this happy style of thinking, and cannot put aside what comes into our heart more quickly, and has less stir of outward things, to lead it away and to brighten it. So that I fell into sad, low spirits; and the glory of the year began to wane, and the forest grew more and ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore

... of Georgiana as the single peach on a tree in a season when they are rarest. Not a very large peach, and scarcely yet yielding a blush to the sun, although its long summer heat is on the wane; growing high in the air at the end of a bough and clustered about by its shining leaves. But what beauty, purity, freshness! You must hunt to find it and climb to reach it; but when you get it, you get it all—there is not a trace left for another. But Sylvia! I am ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen

... superior skill, he engaged the earl in single play. His lordship lost his estate, equipage, everything! Our generous gamester returned all, only stipulating for the payment of L5000 whenever he might think proper to demand it. Some time after his lordship's death, Nash's affairs being on the wane, he demanded it of his heirs, WHO ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... that the power of the priest in Ireland is on the wane. This is partly true and partly not true. It is true that he is not quite the political and social autocrat that he once was. But it is not true that the Church of Rome is less powerful in Ireland than she was. On the contrary, as an ecclesiastical organisation Rome ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... and religious observances, fall into disuse. And (then) reign iti[1], and disease, and lassitude, and anger and other deformities, and natural calamities, and anguish, and fear of scarcity. And as the yugas wane, virtue dwindles. And as virtue dwindles away, creatures degenerate. And as creatures degenerate, their natures undergo deterioration. And the religious acts performed at the waning of the yugas, produce contrary effects. And even those that live for several yugas, conform to these changes. O ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... and paler again, night by night, till at last it disappears for a while, altogether. Well, poor little Daylight waxed and waned with it. She was the rosiest, plumpest, merriest baby in the world when the moon was at the full; but as it began to wane her little cheeks grew paler, her tiny hands thinner, with every night, till she lay in her cradle like a shadow-baby, without sound or motion. At first they thought she was dead, when the moon disappeared, but after some months they got used to this too, and ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... which took so long to wane, He saw sad sufferers relieving pain, And daughters of iniquity and scorn Performing deeds which God will ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... college, these parents rose up early to vex the soil and sat up late to wear their fingers thin, denying the eye beauty, denying the taste and imagination their food, denying the appetite its pleasures. And while they suffer and wane the boy in college grows wise and strong and waxing great, comes home to find the parents overwrought with service and ready to fall on death, having offered a vicarious ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... chair, the drowsy smile still on her lips; the gardenias drop into her lap; her arms relax, her head falls forward on her breast. And the voices behind the screen talk on, and the sounds of joy from the supper-party wax and wane. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... their money foolishly, and of saying and doing things on the ball field that were decidedly objectionable; also if, in consequence, the interest in the game had not to a very large degree been on the wane for a number of years past? He said he had read in the papers of a number of acts that had led him to believe that such was the case, and that, while formerly he had been an attendant at the games, that latterly he had lost his desire in that respect, though he still had an interest in all that ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... but from his 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, ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... 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 by ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... beings here; for the satellites, being 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 ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... opportunity arose out of my endeavours to secure the acceptance of my Rienzi by the Court Theatre at Dresden. Herr Winkler, the secretary of that theatre, whom I have already mentioned, regularly reported progress; but as editor of the Abendzeitung, a paper then rather on the wane, he seized the opportunity presented by our negotiations in order to ask me to send him frequent and gratuitous contributions. The consequence was, that whenever I wanted to know anything concerning the fate of my opera, I had to oblige him by enclosing an article for his paper. Now, as these ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... in the 'yard' a yelling in the rain? That's the boy who never gave his mother any pain, But now his moral character is sadly on the wane, 'Tis little Peter Stirling, bilin' drunk again. Oh, the Sunday-school boy, His mamma's only joy, Is shouting drunk as ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... failure seemed like pronouncing his own doom. Still, it was being slowly but surely borne in upon him that Mr. McAlpine's grandson was neither a prophet like his relative nor a shepherd like his predecessor. Duncan's hopes for his valley were beginning to wane. What better were they now than four months ago? What better was Donald? And at the thought of his nephew, Duncan's heart ached. What was the matter with his boy? Some strange, unpleasant change seemed to have ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... cold within my bosom, that had no nourishment save hope, save hope! Day and night I have watched for thy coming for many years, praying that thou shouldst return to me ere this frail prettiness of mine, that made thee love me long ago, should wane and fade, so that thy heart should turn to ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... the trade petitioned the Imperial authorities against the Act, representing with all the force of which they were capable, the serious injury inflicted by it upon bohea, souchong, hyson, spirits, wane, and molasses. The gaols were, however, built, without direct taxation having been resorted to. Another act of very considerable importance became law: that for the better regulation of pilots and shipping, and for the improvement of the navigation ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... field-mouse only for its blindness was worshipped as a god among the Egyptians, because they were of an opinion that darkness was before light and that the latter had its birth from mice about the fifth generation at the new moon; and moreover that the liver of this creature diminishes in the wane of the moon. But they consecrate the lion to the sun, because the lioness alone, of all clawed four-footed beasts, brings forth her young with their eyesight; for they sleep in a moment, and when they are asleep their eyes sparkle. Besides, they place gaping lions' heads for the spouts ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... stream! some moons must wax and wane Ere I again shall cross thy tide, And then, perhaps, a viewless chain Will drag me to her side, To love with all my spirit's scope, ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... far off. Stas, however, slackened his pace for his strength began to wane. Nell, though light, seemed heavier and heavier. The Sudanese, who were anxious to go to sleep, shouted at him to hurry and afterwards drove him on, striking him on the head with their fists. Gebhr even pricked him painfully in the shoulder with a knife. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... god—will be cut off even like a reed. Whoso honors not the goddess—his bodily strength shall waste away; Like a star of heaven, his light shall wane; like waters of the ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... have now adduced renders even this plea of doubtful force. As to the value of Zebehr's co-operation, if Gordon could have obtained it there cannot be two opinions. Gordon did not exaggerate in the least degree when he said that on the approach of Zebehr the star of the Mahdi would at once begin to wane, or, in other words, that he looked to Zebehr's ability and influence as the sure way to make his own ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... 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

... no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... B. F. Grigg, had a wife and baby that he thought more of than of the Confederacy after hope of success was on the wane. He held out faithful to the end, but was so glad when the cruel war was over that he turned Republican and was for many years postmaster at Lincolnton and a successful merchant. He went in early—joined First ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott

... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... and the intervening gossip of past months duly recounted, a lull in the conversation made itself rather obstinately felt. Molly had already guessed that matters were about to slip into a new phase; the affair had reached maturity long ago, and a new phase must be in the nature of a wane. ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... 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 ...
— In the Great Steep's Garden • Elizabeth Madox Roberts

... intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other opposite, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane? ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato

... if Americans were a religious people, as a rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England. ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... where'er the sun Does his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore Till moons shall wax and wane no more. ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... with her noble pride, And she walked with Saad, side by side; As she led him, a moon that would not wane, Where Midjan counted the ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... a 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 produce ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... keeps of Ilion, We, too, will sleep, whilst overhead the spring Rules, and young lovers laugh—as we have done,— And kiss—as we, that take no heed thereof, But slumber very soundly, and disdain The world-wide heralding of winter's wane And swift sweet ripple of the April rain Running about the world ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... Prophet. This is not improbable; yet, admitting it to be true, if he had taken a bold and decided stand against the measure, it might, in all probability, have been prevented. The influence of the Prophet, however, even at this time, was manifestly on the wane, and some of his followers were beginning to leave his camp. He doubtless felt that it was necessary to do something to sustain himself: a signal victory over the whites would accomplish this end; and hence he consented the more readily, to the wishes of the Winnebagoes, that an attack ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... of the clat of her personal charms, and indulged from her cradle in every wish, every fantaisie.—Will such a young creature as this be happy with our Alexander after her bridal supremacy, when the ecstasy of his first transports are on the wane? That a beauty such as you describe might bring him, even from a first interview, to her feet, notwithstanding all his present prejudices against a French wife, I think probable enough, though he now thinks his taste in beauty different from yours; for he has never, he says, been struck but by ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... transactions in Spain of this year. At Rome the reputation of Scipio increased daily. The capture of Tarentum, though effected by artifice more than valour, was considered honourable to Fabius. The fame of Fulvius was on the wane. Marcellus was even under an ill report, not only because he had failed in his first battle, but further, because while Hannibal was going wherever he pleased throughout Italy, he had led his troops to Venusia in the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... tolerate variety in religious opinions with better grace, and the dominant authoritative rule of the Saybrook Platform began to wane, though for twenty years more it strove to assert its power. In 1755, the Middletown Association advised licensing candidates for the ministry for a term of years. The idea was to prevent errors arising from the personal ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... lictor's pace: Stay, not to put your robes on; but away, With the pale troubled ensigns of great friendship Stamp'd in your face! Now, Marcus Lepidus, You still believe your former augury! Sejanus must go downward! You perceive His wane approaching fast! ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... There saw I many 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 ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... the name of his mansion—was to be confined to the lords of the creation. It was to be one of those days on which he collected round his board all the notables of the county, in order that his popularity might not wane, or the established glory of his hospitable house ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... as Jane Carlyle's mind began to wane, she transferred her jealousy to her husband himself. She hated to be out-shone, and now, in some misguided fashion, it came into her head that Carlyle had surrendered to Lady Ashburton his own attention to his wife, and had fallen in love with ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... the element and atmosphere of God. He is in light. He is the fountain of all light. He is light; perfect in wisdom, perfect in purity. The sun has its spots, but in Him is no darkness at all. Moons wax and wane, shadows of eclipse fall, stars have their time to set, but 'He is the Father of lights with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.' All that light is focussed in Jesus the Light of the world. That Light ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... term night any part of the twenty-four hours at that season and in that region, where the sun had never once sunk beneath the horizon since the twenty-first of the preceding March, and where the day had still two months more to run before it should wane into the long six-months' night of winter. But, as might be expected, they were up bright and early on the following morning, eager to explore this strange new polar land, and scarcely patient enough to sit down and consume with becoming leisure the appetising breakfast which ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... play. To arts and learning, matins' chime, Vespers and midnight, seizing time, I never know an idle hour Love not more fugitive in bower. But I have heard coquettes complain That they have let the seasons wane, Nor caught me in my flight; and sorrowed To see the springtide was but borrowed— Not permanent—and so had wasted The tide of joy they never tasted. But myriads have their time employed, And myriads have their time enjoyed. Why then are mortals heedless ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... she must stand or fall, This grief is to be conquered day by day. Who could befriend her? who could make this small, Or her strength great? she meets it as she may. A weary struggle and a constant pain, She dreams not they may ever cease nor wane. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... Mercy. It was the wane of the moon; I might have been mistaken. It might have been Goody Corey; their carriage is somewhat ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... closed and falling to ruin and the church's vast country estates were abandoned. The revival of the country during the eighteenth century affected the church as well, but the occupation by Haitians and French during the beginning of the nineteenth century caused its influence to wane, and restrictive legislation under Haitian dominion and the expulsion of the archbishop for political reasons in 1830, severed all connection with Rome for many years. The first archbishop appointed after the independence of the ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... the vulture at the door of her chamber. They fancied that the end could not be far off, that no more strength was left in that aged body that lay prone for the moment. But I have heard the howling wane into the distance and get lost in the outer darkness when the old Church roused herself and went forth to face the snarling teeth—the eager talons. There is life in this mighty old mother of ours still. New life comes to her, not as it did to the fabled ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... civilized world is becoming more and more metaphysical—that the understanding is more appealed to, and has greater sway than formerly, and the imagination less. The age of magic, and witches, and ghosts, has passed away. That of poetry is on the wane. Speculation has taken the place of taste. What once passed unheeded, or was perceived only as it was felt, must now be analyzed, and sifted, and decompounded, until we have reached its elements, and a reason is required for every thing. Such is the spirit of the age, and it is eminently ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... left New York, he assured himself that now for the first time he was comfortably settled in a state which might be reasonably expected to endure. The careless first impulse of his affection would wane, he knew—it were as useless to regret the inevitable passing of the spring—but beyond this was it not possible that Laura might hold his interest by qualities more permanent than any transient exaltation of the emotions? He thought ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... gayety to sadness, as in this moment. It seemed as though Rome, under the magic breath of some demon of the night, had suddenly changed into a vast tomb. By a chance, which added yet more to the intensity of the darkness, the moon, which was on the wane, did not rise until eleven o'clock, and the streets which the young man traversed were plunged in the deepest obscurity. The distance was short, and at the end of ten minutes his carriage, or rather the count's, stopped before the Hotel de Londres. Dinner was waiting, but as Albert had told him ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... follow that the course the father prescribes is the best one in the end, for sometimes a boy develops in unsurmised directions; and this was the case with Amerigo Vespucci. The fortunes of the family being on the wane, he was selected as the one to retrieve them, and of four sons was the only one who did not receive a college education. The other three were sent to the University of Pisa, whence they returned with their "honors" thick upon them, and soon lapsed into obscurity, from which they never ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... nearly two years. In Rogers's "Table Talk," it is recorded—"Before his going abroad, Garrick's attraction had much decreased; Sir W.W. Pepys said that the pit was often almost empty. But, on his return to England, people were mad about seeing him." His popularity did not wane a second time.—ED.] ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... distinctly a nature myth. The attempt of Gressmann [116] to find some historical background to the episode is a failure. The goddess Ishtar symbolizes the earth which woos the sun in the spring, but whose love is fatal, for after a few months the sun's power begins to wane. Gilgamesh, who in incantation hymns is invoked in terms which show that he was conceived as a sun-god, [117] recalls to the goddess how she changed her lovers into animals, like Circe of Greek mythology, and brought them to grief. Enraged at Gilgamesh's insult to her vanity, she flies to ...
— An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic • Anonymous

... survival of many of its characteristics. It is still easy for a stranger who has stayed a while in England to form an idea of the tone, the habits, the aspect of English social life before its classic insularity had begun to wane, as all observers agree that it did, about thirty years ago. It is true that the mental operation in this matter reduces itself to fancying some of the things which form what Mr. Matthew Arnold would call the peculiar "notes" of England infinitely exaggerated—the rigidly aristocratic constitution ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... to be hoped that this evil is already on the wane. It is to be hoped that the present stirring up of our society from its uttermost depths, with its consequent exploding of worn-out theories, which have hitherto held their places only through our national lethargy—with its sweeping away of old-time prejudices, and mingling together ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in the recent rebellion against the King. But this we held not to his injury, for there were still many lovers of the White Rose in the fair province of Maryland, and we afterward welcomed him the more heartily for it. From the advent of the stranger the good fortune of James Rodolph began to wane; for the rich planter of the border, with his wild and boisterous manners, was no match for the Scottish cavalier. It is true that he was penniless, but he was very handsome, of distinguished manners and address, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... August the bird-lover's year is already on the wane. In the chestnut grove, where a month ago the wood thrush, the rose-breasted grosbeak, and the scarlet tanager were singing, the loiterer now hears nothing but the wood pewee's pensive whistle and the sharp monotony of the red-eyed vireo. The thrasher is silent in the ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... beauty, you know, a little on the wane, and wanting to be elaborately made up and curled and powdered and painted, and all that. She's a little of a slattern underneath the surface, you know, and doesn't bear to be taken unawares—mustn't be seen for at least an hour or two after she has got out of bed. ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... acted in France eighty odd times. The original scenes were produced by the Italian comedians at the Hotel de Bourgogne, 5 March, 1684. Their popularity did not wane for many a decade. In the fifth edition (1721) of Gherardi's Theatre Italien there are far fuller excerpts from the farce than in the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... howling of wolves. An ugly fear began to invade the hollow places of my heart; my confidence was on the wane! The horse maintained his headlong swiftness, with ears pricked forward, and thirsty nostrils exulting in the wind his career created. But there was the moon jolting like an old chariot-wheel down the hill of heaven, with awful boding! She rolled at last over the horizon-edge ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... for me in Lake 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

... cannot give direction to my search, I search everywhere. Fortunately my business permits of this, and also of doing a little service to my fellow-men as I go on my way. Periodically I return here to rest,"—(he pointed to the little mound,)—"and when my powers begin to wane, either through disease or age, it is my purpose, if God permit, to return ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... nations of Europe, China has had its evolution; the causes were analagous, its destiny the same. This is especially felt in the history of its painting. When the potent inspiration of the Southern School began to wane, the style of the North took the upper hand for ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci

... youth, and good-looking youth; and youth that was intelligent and engaging and well-mannered. He also liked old men. But, between fifty and seventy, he saw little to approve of in the dark sex. They had lost their good looks if they ever had any, their wits were on the wane, and they were invariably selfish. When they attained second childhood, the charm often returned. Age was frequently beautiful, wisdom appeared like an aftermath, and the heart which seemed dry and deadened suddenly put ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... William III. brought to England the passion for tulip-growing which originated in Holland. At this time it was already on the wane in England. ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... clear and starlit; the air soft and very pleasant, with a faint breath of freshness from the south-west. The moon, being well upon the wane, would not rise for an hour or more, but the heavens were glowing with the gentler light of stars, and on earth the darkness was of that transparent description which sailors prefer to the ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... sweeter part of creation was now and then carried beyond the limits of poetic respect, and the delicacies of courtesy; tending to estrange the austere and to lessen the admiration at first common to all. Other causes may be assigned for this wane of popularity: he took no care to conceal his contempt for all who depended on mere scholarship for eminence, and he had a perilous knack in sketching with a sarcastic hand the characters of the learned and the grave. Some ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... breeds in me aught of forgetfulness; * What should remember I did you fro' my remembrance wane? Time dies but never dies the fondest love for you we bear; * And in your love I'll die and in your love I'll ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. I have always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. I have always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed to me that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absolute ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... knew that victory was his, and that soon he would have avenged the murders that had gone before. He saw that his adversary was strong neither in wind nor arm, and had not the skill to penetrate his guard in a week's trying, so he determined to fight on the defensive until Judson's strength should wane, and then kill him ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... he were to tell it, in all its details from beginning to end, the night would wane and breakfast would get cold. He has had as many adventures as travelled Odysseus. But tell us something husband; you know there is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... now followed the latter to the city. And, with the coming of that personage, together with the foolish ambition that had, about that time, seized Elwood, to outshine some of his city competitors in display and expensive living, commenced the wane of a fortune which, as large as it was, it had required but two short years to bring to the verge on which we represented its unhappy master as standing in the opening ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... comply with the priest's counsel, could she have seen the way with her husband. But it had become almost manifest even to her, with the Cure to support her, that the star of Adrian Urmand was on the wane. She felt from every word that Marie spoke to her, that Marie herself was confident of success. And it may be said of Madame Voss, that although she had been forced by Michel into a kind of enthusiasm on behalf ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... note, dreadful the warrior shout, Lances and halberts in splinters were borne; Halberd and hauberk then Braved the claymore in vain, Buckler and armlet in shivers were shorn. See how they wane, the proud files of the Windermere, Howard—ah! woe to thy hopes of the day! Hear the wide welkin rend, While the Scots' shouts ascend, "Elliot of Lariston, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... 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 was immediately enraptured ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... all Ersemen Sharp sorrow shall fall, That woe to those warriors Shall wane nevermore; Our woof now is woven. Now battle-field waste, O'er land and o'er water War tidings ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... golden moments. Then it was that the naked crags, which caught the almost level rays of the setting sun, grew brighter and more brilliantly coruscating, until they seemed ready to melt from the intensity of their own heat; then this fiery golden colour would slowly fade and wane into misty purple tones, which lingered long when there was no more sun. Why did it linger? All the sky that I could see was blue, and of deepening tone. But the most wonderful sight was yet to come, when, while the valley was ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... of his hostess. No struggle there, on the part of the children, "to share the good man's knee;" but protruded eyes, round as spectacles, and almost as large, fixed alternately upon his flushed face and that absorbing epigastrium which is making their miserable flesh-pot to wane most wretchedly. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various

... autumn; there is no need now to keep out of the sun. Everything is soberer, more measured, more fugitive, less emphatic. Energy is gone, youth is past, prodigality at an end, the summer over. The year is on the wane and tends toward winter; it is once more in harmony with my own age and position, and next Sunday it will keep my birthday. All these different consonances ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... for evil was gone, and we hear no more of them till the Revolution, when their warriors followed Burgoyne to Saratoga, where they again used the tomahawk and scalping knife, but when his fortunes began to wane, they retired to the banks of the St. Lawrence. Again in the war of 1812, they joined the English, but their numbers were few, and after a brief campaign, they, for the last time, retraced their ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder

... supported by the impalpable ether! It brightens about thee, and 'tis the stir of thine agitation that distributes the winds and fruitful dews. According as thou dost wax and wane the eyes of cats and spots of panthers lengthen or grow short. Wives shriek thy name in the pangs of childbirth! Thou makest the shells to swell, the wine to bubble, and the corpse to putrefy! Thou formest the pearls at the ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... not return to the school. Much of the time she was among the woods and rocks. The season was now beginning to wane, and the forest to put on its autumnal glory. The dreamy haze was beginning to soften the landscape, and the mast delicious days of the year were lending their attraction to the scenery of The Mountain. It was not very singular that Elsie should be lingering in her old haunts, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... very unequal to the task of climbing those grim precipices, frowning so blackly down on him; but the daylight would soon be on the wane, and no time could be lost in vain regrets. Rousing himself, he got up, but found he had not escaped without some severe bruises, which would prove serious drawbacks to an awkward climb. It was miraculous that he had not met with ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... rolling of her heav'nly sphere, Hide and reveal the strand unceasingly; So fortune deals with Florence. Hence admire not At what of them I tell thee, whose renown Time covers, the first Florentines. I saw The Ughi, Catilini and Filippi, The Alberichi, Greci and Ormanni, Now in their wane, illustrious citizens: And great as ancient, of Sannella him, With him of Arca saw, and Soldanieri And Ardinghi, and Bostichi. At the poop, That now is laden with new felony, So cumb'rous it may speedily sink the bark, The Ravignani sat, of whom is sprung The County Guido, and ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... newspaper first found its way into the hands of thinking men the power of the orator felt the influence of its silent opponent and began to wane. Today, it is not often that multitudes are swayed by a single voice. The debates and stump-speeches of a political campaign change but few votes. The preacher no longer depends wholly upon the convincing power ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... the fragrant dust! Your reckless indulgence of licentious love and your naturally moonlike face will soon be the source of the ruin of a family. The decadence of the family estate will emanate entirely from Ching; while the wane of the family affairs will be entirely attributable to the fault of Ning! Licentious love will be the main ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... and true, Of all the light and power, Dispensing light in silence through Each successive hour; Lord, brighten our declining day, That it may never wane Till death, when all things round decay, Brings back the morn again. This grace on Thy redeemed confer, Father, Co-equal Son, And Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Eternal Three in One—Amen." (St. Ambrose's ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... to wane, while we, with our two companions, yet sat talking by the brook-side. Mr. Charles had washed his face, and his travel-sore, blistered feet, and we had induced him, and the man he called Yates, to share our remnants ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... is to be recited in a whisper, in the presence of an image of wax. The image is burnt as the words are spoken, and as it is consumed the power of the witch is supposed to wane. The reference to the indispensable presence of the fire-god in the temple is rather interesting. Sacrifice always entailed the use of fire. To whatever deity the offering was made, Gibil-Nusku could not in any case ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... The wane of interest in amateur political affairs is to be commended as a recognition of the superior importance of literary matters. Amateur journalism is rapidly progressing nearer and nearer its ideal: a device for the instruction ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... two hours not a word was exchanged. The two girls read on and on. As the afternoon began to wane Evelyn finished her magazine, took off her hat, and, leaning her head against the high green velvet back of the seat, closed her eyes. At last Grace laid aside her reading, and idly watched, with half dreaming eyes, the fleeting landscape. Occasionally her gaze wandered, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower

... 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

... the Mei-ji (1867) the popularity of Zen began to wane, and for some thirty years remained in inactivity; but since the Russo-Japanese War its revival has taken place. And now it is looked upon as an ideal faith, both for a nation full of hope and energy, and for a person who has to fight his own way ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... true. Great Spirits plan what mortal man achieves, The hand works magic when the heart believes. Arouse, ye braves! let not the foe advance. Arm for the battle and begin the dance— The sacred dance in honor of our slain, Who will return to earth, ere many moons shall wane." ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... being ridiculous. Miss Ffoulkes, the elderly spinster, is a capital character, and, indeed, the whole book is cleverly written. It has also the advantage of being in only one volume. The influence of Mudie on literature, the baneful influence of the circulating library, is clearly on the wane. The gain to literature is incalculable. English novels were becoming very tedious with their three volumes of padding—at least, the second volume was always padding—and extremely indigestible. A reckless punster once remarked to me, apropos of English novels, that 'the proof ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... Lithuanians. The utmost the French Emperor would do was to promise, in a secret clause, that he would never aid any other Power or any popular movement that aimed at the re-establishment of that kingdom.[245] In fact, as the Muscovite alliance was on the wane, he judged it bad policy to discourage the Poles, who might do so much for him in case of a Franco-Russian war. He soon begins to face seriously the prospect of such an event. At the close of 1810 he writes that the Russians are intrenching themselves on the Dwina ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... 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 ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... my wheel! All things must change To something new, to something strange; Nothing that is can pause or stay; The moon will wax, the moon will wane, The mist and cloud will turn to rain, The rain to mist and cloud again, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... service to the Confederacy. Perhaps it is as well that I did not, for memory preserves at least this one picture, more full of light than shadow, because always softly illumined by the beautiful star which had not then begun to wane,—"the star ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... The daylight began to wane. The big, low room was only lighted by two small windows, and in the twilight that filled the room he saw—now that he had made up his mind to rise—that the white face opposite him was smiling. He felt quite embarrassed; was that meant for him? Yes, certainly, she was smiling at him in ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... is true, the Humanist movement did much, undoubtedly, to prepare men's minds for the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century. Springing into life as it did at a time when the faith of the Middle Ages was on the wane, and when many educated men were growing tired of the cold formalism and antiquated methods of the Schoolmen, it tended to develop a spirit of restless inquiry that could ill brook any restriction. The return to the classics ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... and stiff, 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 paused ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... of this poem would have been surprised to be told that interest in it would ever wane, but it was fitted to arouse the enthusiasm, not of all time, but of an age,—an age that knew from first-hand experience the meaning of a struggle for hearth fires and freedom. Most critics to-day prefer Halleck's lines On the Death of Joseph ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... sat there in that chair watching the pyramids, at first so sharp-cut against the cloudless blue, wane imperceptibly and fade from sight, watching the golden Mokattan Hills and the pearly tinted Tura range slip softly from the horizon and all the old landmarks of the Egypt that she knew disappear and be replaced by strange, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... birds is seldom heard, and the blueberry plains are given over to silence save for the buzzing of gorged flies, the humming of bees, and the chirping of crickets that stir the drowsy air when the summer begins to wane. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... begin her pleasant notes without stammering." Old Gerarde, by the way, ought to have said "his pleasant notes," for it is the male bird alone that cries "cuckoo." Its flowers are of a delicate pale purple when at the height of its beauty; they become nearly white when on the wane. "Ladies' smock" is another name for this harbinger of ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton

... ISLE, some Iceland call the reign Whereof a royal lady fills the throne; Whose charms (before those charms all beauties wane) Are such as Heaven had dealt to her alone. The shield you see she sends to Charlemagne, But with the pact and purpose plainly shown, He should confer it on the knight, whose worth Is, in his judgment, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... Oracle whom he consulted most upon his wars, and to my wisdom he owed his victories. Afterwards we quarrelled, and I left him and pushed forward with Rassen. From that day the bright star of Alexander began to wane." At this Leo made a sound that resembled a whistle. In a very agony of apprehension, beating back the criticisms and certain recollections of the strange tale of the old abbot, Kou-en, which would rise within me, I asked quickly—"And dost thou, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... the sweetest thing to remember If courage be on the wane. When the cold, dark days are over— Why, the birds ...
— Thoughts I Met on the Highway • Ralph Waldo Trine

... well from past experience what the temptation was likely to be; yet for all his admonitions when he met Owen in the morning he caught the bouquet of whisky. It was disguised with sen-sen and he pretended not to notice it but his hopes of first money began to wane. They went out again to the backyard of an old saloon where a great block of granite was embedded and while their admirers looked on they practiced their turn, for they had never worked together. A Cornish miner, a champion in his day, volunteered to be their coach and ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... books shine in all the fertile richness and grace of French artistic ingenuity.[70] The new style asserted itself everywhere, and remodelled every art; but the long reign of Louis Quatorze gave the fashion time to wane and change. Under Louis XV. the defects increased and the beauties diminished. The fine heavy borders were broken up into fragmentary forms; all flow and strength were eliminated; and what remained of the Louis Quatorze style became, under its next ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... began to wane, and the shadows of a neighboring mountain to creep slowly across the lea; and yet, so absorbed was that gay company in the merry pleasures of the day, that hours glided by unnoticed; and it was not until the round, yellow moon rose over the eastern hills, as if peeping ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... that she was not mistaken when she assured them that she had given birth to one. The midwife with great effrontery told her that the new moon was unfavourable to childbirth, and that she must wait for the wane, when it would be easier as matters were ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Lady Moon, your horns point toward the east: Shine, be increased; O Lady Moon, your horns point toward the west: Wane, be ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various

... suspended communication had lasted more than a week, when, at the wane of the term, the inevitable explosion ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman



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



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