grand climacteric

Mrs Beazely, the housekeeper, was a good-tempered woman, long past the grand climacteric, and strongly attached to Forster, with whom she had resided many years.

From Newton Forster by Frederick Marryat

Celestial photography has not reached its grand climacteric; yet its earliest beginnings already seem centuries behind its present performances.

From A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition by Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

I groped about the streets of London in all but utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric, and exposed to every species of degradation and insult. 

From Old Roads and New Roads by William Bodham Donne

Stap my vitals, but the author grows scurrilous in his grand climacteric!

From Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 4 With His Letters and Journals by Thomas Moore

It was a grand climacteric in the life of humanity--an epoch in the moral and religious history of the world.

From Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker