If I have ever deserved well at your hands, my Lady,-if I have served you faithfully in anything,-if my devotion has lightened you of one care, or aided you through one difficulty,-spare me, oh, spare me, I beseech you, this-degradation!
"The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)"
Charles James Lever
Dressed in rags, with ugly brown faces, seamed with many deep wind-fissures, we had reached, in our appearance, the extreme limit of degradation.
"My Attainment of the Pole"
Frederick A. Cook
Something of degradation always attaches to the fact of one's having been brought up in a charity school.
"Contemporary Socialism"
John Rae