"Declivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... current, madly, furiously, as if rejoicing in the work of destruction, while the white foam of its eddies presents a fearful contrast to the prevailing blackness of the surface. Over the last declivity it leaps, hissing, foaming, crashing like an avalanche. The stone wall for a moment opposes its force, but falls the next, with a mighty splash, carrying the spray far and wide, while its own fragments roll onwards with ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... slight declivity that quiet refuge lies, Where stately forest-trees observe the hot of cloudy skies! The shack is back a goodly distance from the mighty lake Whose waters on the pebbly beach with pretty music break; ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... with the similar reach called 'Lake St. Francis;' and in the narrow passage between these unruffled waters are the principal rapids—the 'Coteau du Lac,' the 'Cedars,' and the 'Cascades.' The passage through this 'sixteen miles' declivity of boiling waters' is exciting. The large steamers rush down with the rapidity of the wind, through waves lashed into foam—sweeping close past the rocks and islets in the stream, and only kept in safety in their course by the united exertions of six or seven 'voyageurs,' ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... on the side opposite to the town, its walls rose straight up from the verge of a tremendous and rocky precipice, whose base was washed by Saint Ronan's burn, as the brook was entitled. On the southern side, where the declivity was less precipitous, the ground had been carefully levelled into successive terraces, which ascended to the summit of the hill, and were, or rather had been, connected by staircases of stone, rudely ornamented. In peaceful ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... safe, but there is a spice of excitement about it. I was nervous at first, and seeing that the mule wished to nibble such herbage as offered itself, I had thought it well to humor him. At a narrow space with sharp declivity below, the beast fixed his jaws upon a small tough bush on the upper bank. As he warmed up to the work, his hind feet worked around toward the edge of the chasm. The bush began to come out by the roots, which seemed to be without end. As the weight of the mule was thrown heavily ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... of which I got six for a penny, a stage came at full speed down the hill, with only two men on the driving-seat. The back straps had evidently given way, and the whole machine had a tendency to jump forward, when, in coming down the steepest part of the declivity, it got a jolt, and in the most ridiculous way turned "topsy-turvy," the roof coming down upon the horses' backs. The men were thrown off unhurt, but the poor animals were very much cut ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... his agitation by caresses and iterations of love, mentally resolving to turn aside in time from his sad career, as if those who involve themselves in perdition can pause in the rapid descent down the declivity to sorrow and death, whither the sturdiest champions are hurried to be entombed in the grave they have ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... premiere classe, and which was destined to attain a sinister celebrity during his proprietorship. One of the straightest and steepest of the stairways had been cut close to the terre which the mason owned, and a massive wall, destined to bound the high-road at the foot of the declivity, was in ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... far as I could see, all the remains west of the building A. The edge of the mesilla rounds into the north-western corner of the latter, almost closing up with it; the slope is very steep and covered with huge rocks, broken and tumbled down along the declivity. ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... it met a small stream, which meandered at the base of the hill, and running in an easterly direction, was lost to sight in the forest. In front of the house, at the distance of a rod, bubbled up a bright spring, which, dashing down the declivity, fell into the first-mentioned stream. Except this cultivated spot, which had been an old corn-field of the natives, selected by them for the fertility of the soil, its advantage of water, and the favorable slope of the land, which enabled it to engross more than a common share of the genial ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Indians moved out of winter camp and pitched their tents in a circle on high land overlooking a lake. A little way down the declivity was a grave. Choke cherries had grown up, hiding the grave from view. But as the ground had sunk somewhat, the grave was marked by a ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... considerable extent, over part of which we rode, until we came to the foot of the hill from whence the town is supplied with water. We ascended the mountain, and traced the stream to its fountain-head, where we found it issuing from cavities in several parts of the hill, and was conveyed down the declivity in stone-troughs, and received on the plain by troughs of wood, supported about seven or eight feet above the ground by props; through this aqueduct, the water is carried to the center of the city, over a plain, from a distance of four or ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... further on, the aspect of the valley becomes formidable. Troops of mammoths and mastadons in stone lie crouching over the eastern declivity, one above another, and heaped up over the whole slope. These colossal ridges shine with a tawny hue like iron rust; the most enormous of them drink the water of the river at their base. They look as if warming ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... place of the other robbers who used to live there, when there came a procession of donkeys down the steep, and I heard a little voice cry, 'Hullo! it's Clive! hooray, Clive!' and an ass came pattering down the declivity, with a little pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey's back, and behold there was little Alfred grinning with all ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... should not be lost sight of in the discussion, viz, the very low elevation of the ditch above the river. The Verde is, as already stated, a typical mountain stream, with an exceptionally high declivity, and consequently it is rapidly lowering its bed. If, as already conjectured, the water for the ancient ditch was taken from the river but a short distance above the point where remains of the ditch are now found—and ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... perhaps she would fear to pass under the eyes of a watchman or other servant who might be in her way. He stamped nervously, and turned to look for a moment in the outward direction. This little villa stood on the edge of a declivity falling towards the sea; a thicket of myrtles grew below. At the distance of half a mile along the coast, beyond a hollow wooded with ilex, rose a temple, which time and the hand of man had yet spared; its whiteness glimmered against a sky whose cloudless dusk was warming with a reflection of ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the tempest in the third act. Unfortunately, however, while the King was braving, in front of the scene, the pitiless storm at the back, the carpenter missed his footing, tripped over one of the ledges, and fell down, wheelbarrow, cannon-balls, and all. The stage being on a declivity, the cannon-balls came rolling rapidly and noisily down towards the front, gathering force as they advanced, and overcoming the feeble resistance offered by the scene, struck it down, passed over its prostrate form, and made ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... along the side of the mountain, the road, on reaching the gentle declivity which lay at the base of the hill, turned at a right angle to its former course, and shot down an inclined plane, directly into the village of Templeton. The rapid little stream that we have already mentioned was crossed by a bridge of hewn timber, which manifested, by its rude construction ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the hill before me, were the dozen jaded riders, forced to draw rein by the steepness of the declivity, and all pointing with vehement gestures below. In the next instant, through the ravine at its foot, and within a hundred yards of the cliff, came Marianne, still clinging to the horse, and flying like the wind. The look which she cast upon me, as she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... arrived at a little waterfall, and here occurred a break in the woods, causing him to stand entranced by the view which presented itself. Down the declivity the forest lasted for some distance, then it gave place to ever-descending vineyards, with here and there a house showing among the vines. At the foot of this hill ran a broad blue ribbon, which he knew to be the Rhine, although ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... of Suliotes; when all hope and all retreat were clearly cut off, then the women led the great scene of self- immolation, by throwing their children headlong from the summit of precipices; which done, they and their husbands, their fathers and their sons, hand in hand, ran up to the brink of the declivity, and followed those whom they had sent before. In other situations, where there was a possibility of fighting with effect, they made a long and bloody resistance, until the Turkish cavalry, finding an opening for their operations, made all further union impossible; ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... delighted contemplation of a rakish sombrero or of a doubtfully "diamond" scarf-pin. When, at last, the stage reached the edge of the sort of basin in which the camp lies, and began the descent of the last declivity, he could scarcely contain himself for sheer joy. What, to him, were the glories of the encircling peaks, the unfolding wonders of this heart of the Rockies, compared with the actual sight of the mushroom growth of pine huts and canvas tents, straggling sparsely up the hill, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... at least equalled the best of England, magnetite containing from fifty to seventy per cent. of iron, copper, lead, bismuth, antimony, sulphur in rich veins, a large bed of rock-salt on the western declivity just above the salt lake of Nakuro, and a number of other mineral treasures, were discovered in rapid succession, and the most accessible of them were at once taken advantage of. In particular, the newly ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... sink under his feet. He instinctively caught hold of some branches to keep himself from falling, pricking his hands with the thorns, and breaking a slender bough, finally rolling in company with dust and earth, torn-out bushes and stone, down a steep declivity of several feet to a little grass plot at the bottom. He heard a slight scream near him, and a girlish form sprang up and cried in ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... declivity which surrounded the abyss, and we followed them with a sinking feeling in our hearts, as we realised that this was ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the Ames family, and of the deep interest its members take in the welfare of their native town. In the triangle near the centre of the village, formed by the converging of the principal streets, is a declivity, where art has so arranged the rough and irregular forms of New England boulders as to re-produce a unique scene from some Scotch or Swiss village. This "rockery," as it is called, is clothed in summer with verdure and flowers, and from its summit one finds ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... top, commanding the ground to the south and east for a considerable distance. Fane's and Anstruther's infantry, with six guns, were posted here. Fane's left rested on a churchyard, blocking a road which led round the declivity of the hill to the town. Behind this position, and separated by the river and road, was a hill extending in a half-moon ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... our batteries. Hardly a man of them escapes. Death and destruction reap a wondrous and instant harvest. Wounded, dying, or dead, lie the brave cannoniers at their guns, officers and men alike hors du combat, while wounded horses gallop wildly back, with bounding caissons, down the gentle declivity, carrying disorder, and further danger, in their ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... wallet of the "Gueux" slung across their shoulders, drank out of wooden porringers a benison on the cause of the emancipation of the United Provinces. So prompted to think of these stirring times, we are carried by the steep declivity of a few streets to that magnificent Town Hall, where, only eleven years before the occurrences in the Hotel Cuylembourg, Charles V. had resigned into the hands of his son Philip the sovereignty of an ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... and that as though almost panic-stricken, the spies finally betook themselves into the sheltering forest. Before they could hide under the branches of the oaks, the tall man was seen to stumble at the top of a rather steep declivity and roll all the way to the bottom, as though he might be a barrel that some mischievous lad had started downhill for the fun of seeing ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... in successive lines on the declivity of the hill, while he himself took his station, with a large reserve, on the summit of it. He committed the general charge of the battle to his generals and knights, and one of the chief in command was the young prince, who was placed at the head of one of the most important ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a short distance farther, to a declivity, and at the foot of the slope a little river wound its way. The trees on its margin stretched their long leafy branches across toward each other, and where their natural growth would not allow them to come together, the roots had been torn out ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... pass by the other bridge. A number of large ammunition waggons, heavy carriages, and cannon crowded to it from all parts. Directed by their drivers, and carried along rapidly over a rough and unequal declivity, in the midst of heaps of men, they ground to powder the poor wretches who were unlucky enough to get between them; after which, the greater part, driving violently against each other and getting overturned, killed in their fall those who surrounded them. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... which, without offering any features of extraordinary beauty, were generally pleasing, and exercised a soothing influence upon his mind. At that time Stamford Hill was crowned with a grove of trees, and its eastern declivity was overgrown with brushwood. The whole country, on the Essex side, was more or less marshy, until Epping Forest, some three miles off, was reached. Through a swampy vale on the left, the river Lea, so dear to the angler, took its slow and silent course; while through a green valley ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... proceeded to descend on the other side, passing through the Protestant and Catholic cemeteries, both elaborately laid out, and looking like beautiful flower gardens, rather than burial grounds. As they neared Cote des Neiges Miss Cuthbert commenced to scamper along like a child, and at one short declivity, she started off at a run, calling on the others to follow. Clarkson took his companion's hand and invited her to descend in like manner, but, almost at the first step, his sister-in-law uttered a sharp ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... the axe, and at last came the night after Ugh-lomi brained the otter, and they had feasted. Uya went too far. Ugh-lomi awoke, scowling under his heavy brows, and he took his axe, and extending his hand towards Eudena he bade her wait for him upon the ledge. Then he clambered down the white declivity, glanced up once from the foot of it and flourished his axe, and without looking back again went striding along the river bank until the overhanging cliff at the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... long gone among the summer days that come but to go, a lad of twelve years was idly and recklessly swinging in the top of a tall hickory, the advance picket of a mountain forest. The tree was on the edge of a steep declivity of rocky pasture-land that fell rapidly down to the stately chestnuts, to the orchard, to the cornfields in the narrow valley, and the maples on the bank of the amber river, whose loud, unceasing murmur came to the lad on his aerial perch like the voice of some ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... doubt it was another entrance to the cave, and a far more convenient one, too, for it opened out on to a little spur of the hill that ran down a somewhat steep declivity to the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... rose on either beam, up and up like tossing hillsides. Then would come the staggering climb to the summit, and for a dizzy second the terrified lad, clinging to a shroud, could look for miles across the shifting valleys. Before he could catch his breath, the sloop pitched down the next declivity in a long, sickening sag, and rocked for a brief instant at the foot, her masts swaying in a great arc half across the sky. Then she began to ascend. Shivering and wide-eyed, the boy crept to his bunk, where he fell asleep at last to the sound of ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... machinery, he was appointed chief engineer in 1813, at Killingworth, at a salary of L100 per year. Besides erecting a winding engine for drawing up coal, and a pumping-engine, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity of the Willington ballast quay, so arranged that full wagons descending to the vessels drew up the empty ones. But the construction of an efficient and economical locomotive steam engine mainly occupied his mind. He was among those who saw the Blenkinsop engine first put on the track, and ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... was on the brow of a diminutive hillock covered with fresh, lovely grass of a particularly vivid green. In the rear and on either side of it, the ground rose and fell in pleasing alternation for an almost interminable distance, whilst in front of it there was a gentle declivity (up which I had clambered) terminating in the broad, level road leading to Worthing. Here, on this broad expanse of the Downs, was a fairyland of soft sea air, sunshine and rest—rest from mankind, from the shrill, ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... road here, and sat down to rest. Then I began to look about for a place to suit me, to gather together heather and juniper leaves, and make up a bed on a little declivity where it was a bit dry. I opened the parcel and took out the blanket; I was tired and exhausted with the long walk, and lay down at once. I turned and twisted many times before I could get settled. My ear pained me ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Torwich which stood on a declivity, with an opening descent to the shore, about half a mile from the entrance of the cove, had little communication, from the nature of its site, with the neighbouring country, except when the all-powerful attraction of a wreck ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... foot of the breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel, and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... beauty was reached during his stay on Monte Amiata, in the summer of 1462, when plague and heat made the lowlands uninhabitable. Half way up the mountain, in the old Lombard monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court took up their quarters. There, between the chestnuts which clothe the steep declivity, the eye may wander over all Southern Tuscany, with the towers of Siena in the distance. The ascent of the highest peak he left to his companions, who were joined by the Venetian envoy; they found at the top two vast blocks of stone one upon the other—perhaps the sacrificial ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... side, the stately Norway pines that Kit always loved. The back of the house looked directly out over the lake, and the land here was frankly left to nature. Trees, grass and underbrush rioted at will, until they suddenly ended on the brow of the bluff, where there was a sheer declivity of sand to the beach. Looking at it from below, Kit afterwards thought it was like a miniature section of the Yosemite, the sand had hardened into such fantastic shapes, and the strata in places was ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... and narrower, and the stream at intervals formed small cataracts which the horses, who had been trained thereto, had to cross. Finally, at a sudden declivity, the water took an unexpected leap of four yards, and when the riders reined up at this very spot, it was plain that here a mill had been built into the hillside, whose wheel it was which drove the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... where, as occasionally happens, a considerable stream fed by the rain and snow fall in its torrent section courses for a great distance over high, arid plains, on which the ground water and the tributaries do but little work, the basin may slope with very slight declivity to the river margins, and there descend to great depths, forming very deep gorges, of which the Colorado Canon is the most perfect type. As instances of these contrasted conditions, we may take, on the one hand, ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... gave the word to charge as the sun sank behind the western hills. Rushing down hill, under heavy fire and losing many men, the clans, when they came to the shock, swept the enemy from the plateau, drove them over the declivity, forced many to attempt crossing the Garry, where they were drowned, and followed, slaying, through the pass. Half of Hastings' regiment, untouched by the Highland charge, and all of Leven's men, stood their ground, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... their heads. The last ascent boldly skirted the shoulder of the mountain, and then doubled upward in a series of serpentine coils. Below them the whole of Lake Garda was spread like a map. Mr. Wilder and the Englishman, having paused at the edge of the declivity, were endeavouring to trace the boundary line of Austria, and they called upon the officers for help. The two relinquished their post at Constance's side, while the donkeys kept on past them up the hill. The winding path ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... declivity which led to the Valley of Etretat. On this particular morning I had, by chance, the sort of floating vapor which I needed. Suddenly something rose up in front of me like a phantom; it was Miss Harriet. On seeing me she was about to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a word toppled a large mass of rock over the edge of the cliff. It fell directly upon the head of an archer, crushing him to instant death and carrying his mangled corpse with it to the bottom of the declivity, and on its way brushing three more of the attackers ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... genius,—that things which are not should be as though they were,—that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turn-stile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction,—the long line of road, as straight as a rule can make it,—the Interpreter's house, and all its fair shows,—the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... the tired, trembling girl, he saw that a stand against the oncomer was unavoidable. He cleverly selected the spot for this stand, and braced himself as for the onslaught. Scarcely a yard beyond his position there was a sharp declivity among the rocks, with a clear drop of a dozen feet or more to the bottom of a wide crevasse. His shot went wild and he could not repeat it, for Dorothy was frantically clutching his arm. The strategem worked well, ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the hill to the place to which they had been lowered from the platform, and continuing thence up a very steep hill, more than one hundred feet, they reached its summit. Arrived at the summit, a scene of awful grandeur and magnificence is presented to the view. Looking down the declivity, you see far below to the left, the visiters whom you have left behind, standing on the platform or termination of the avenue along which they had come; and lower down still, the bottom of the Great Dome itself. Above, two hundred and eighty feet, is the ceiling, lost ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... long-neglected condition, occasional ridable stretches are encountered, but every bridge and culvert has been destroyed, and an honest shepherd, not far from Hafsa, who from a neighboring knoll observes me wheeling down a long declivity toward one of these uncovered waterways, nearly shouts himself hoarse, and gesticulates most frantically in an effort to attract my attention to the danger ahead. Soon after this I am the innocent cause of two small pack-mules, heavily laden with merchandise, attempting ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... he had but just waked up from some inexplicable dream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the middle of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and whom she was thrusting into the gulf ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... still too far down the declivity to be seen till the enemy came to the top of the hill, and the riflemen were likely to bring them to a halt before they could reach that point. The captain had taken a position where he could see without being seen. ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... made quite a picturesque appearance and a good target for the enemy. These lay around the house and in front in almost arm's length of each other. This position had been taken and lost twice during the day. Beyond the house and down the declivity on the other side, the enemy's dead told how destructive and deadly had been the Confederate fire. On the other plateau where Jackson had formed and where Bee and Bartow fell, the scene was sickening. There lay friend and foe face to face in the cold ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... exploratory climb. The broken body seemed at least a hundred feet long; the mangled shoulders and chest filled the great torn hole in the cliff. I climbed over the litter. Indescribable, horrible scene! A river of warm blood was flowing down the declivity outward.... ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... deadly rifle. Even contemporaneous history demonstrates this. In many parts of South America, both jaguar and cougar attack man, and numerous are the deadly encounters there. In Peru, on the eastern declivity of the Andes, large settlements and even villages have been abandoned solely on account of the perilous proximity ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... standing pines with their axes, felling them into convenient breastworks. The child had fallen asleep, so the woman placed it on a heap of furs and lent a hand in fortifying the camp. Three sides were thus defended, the steep declivity at the rear precluding attack from that direction. When these arrangements had been completed, the two men stalked into the open, clearing away, here and there, the scattered underbrush. From the opposing camp came the booming of war-drums and the voices of the ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... form of government may be said to exist in Mexico. It lies westward of Chapultepec, the old palace of the Aztec kings, and from the nature of its position, and the careful manner in which it was fortified, was a position of great strength. It lay at the foot of a rapid declivity, enfiladed by the fire of Chapultepec, and so situated, that not a shot could be discharged but must fall into an ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... or white sails are scattered over it like wings, steamers leaving behind them their trail of smoke; and on the sands, fishermen no larger than birds, in their anchored boats like nests. Then the road descends, follows a rapid declivity along the rocks and sharp promontories. The fresh wind from the waves shakes the little harness bells; while on the right, on the side of the mountain, the rows of pine-trees, the green oaks with roots capriciously leaving the arid soil, and olive-trees ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... by side, now peering down into the ravine where the car was visible, bottom side up against a tree, near the base of the declivity. The horse's head could be seen protruding from beneath ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... reach. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations, or hanging to the declivity. A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river. A blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudescence ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The "Dudley Mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where it rose steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of overhanging wood. It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a practised eye could see from a distance the zigzag lines of the sheep-paths which scaled it like miniature Alpine roads. A few hundred feet up The Mountain's side ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had not proceeded far, when, in passing through a defile, overhung with trees, they heard the voice of a man, singing. They immediately concealed themselves in a grove, on the brow of a declivity, up which the stranger would have to ascend. The moonlight, which left the grove in deep shadow, lit up the whole person of the wayfarer, as he advanced, and enabled them to distinguish his dress and appearance with perfect accuracy. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Doune is a village on the Teith, a few miles northwest of Stirling. The word "brae" means slope or declivity; the braes of Doune stretch away east and ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... no purpose. He then resolved to seek some way whereby he could outwit the stubborn lord, for he would not willingly resign his lady-love. He left the tower, vowing to do his utmost to perform the seemingly impossible task, and as he descended the rocky declivity his beloved waved ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... happy shore a Temple[449] still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps Upon a mild declivity of hill,[nd] Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales,[450] Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scattered water-lily ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... by no stirring incident until he reached the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains, where a company of United States Volunteers were overtaken. They had in charge an enormous train of wagons on the way to New Mexico. On the morning after the encampment of Carson ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... men-at-arms swarmed round the gateway of the "Sign of the Broom Pod," singing, shouting, and jostling in rough good-fellowship. The sight of the tall thin figure of Chandos brought order amongst them, and a few minutes later the horses were ready and saddled. A breakneck ride down a steep declivity, and then a gallop of two miles over the sedgy plain carried them to the outer harbor. A dozen vessels were lying there, ready to start for Bordeaux or Rochelle, and the quay was thick with sailors, laborers and townsmen and heaped with ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scattered numerous small bushy lemon trees, the deep verdure of their foliage, interspersed with golden fruit, contrasting charmingly with the light green carpet from which they spring. At the foot of this declivity, a screen of trees rising to a considerable height, almost shuts out the view of the water, though breaks here and there allow small patches to be seen, athwart which a native canoe occasionally glides to and from the fishing grounds. These fairy boats, stealing along the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... mountain peaks in the horizon are, to the eye of science, parts of one range. We should consider that the flow of thought is more like a tidal wave than a prone river, and is the result of a celestial influence, not of any declivity in its channel. The river flows because it runs down hill, and flows the faster the faster it descends. The reader who expects to float down stream for the whole voyage, may well complain of nauseating swells ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... called Elna, and on it was built the ancient town of Gessoriac, which was connected with the mainland by a bridge. Realising the future importance of the place both for naval and military purposes, Caesar commissioned Pedius, a native of Bononia, in Italy, to lay out a town on the declivity of the Grande Rue, leading to Haute Ville, as the upper town and the hill leading to it are called at the present day. (Bertrand's "History of Boulogne-sur-Mer," pp. 17, 18. "Walkernaer's ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... it once, and found it swarming with trout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while the ascent grew steeper, the creek became a mere rill that issued from beneath loose, moss-covered rocks and stones, and with much labor and puffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity. Every mountain has its steepest point, which is usually near the summit, in keeping, I suppose, with the providence that makes the darkest hour just before day. It is steep, steeper, steepest, till you emerge on the smooth level or gently rounded space at the top, which the old ice-gods polished ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... is consumed another falls down into its place, in consequence of the declivity of the sides of the furnace; this gets into the stream of air from the grate, d e, and is burnt; and so on, successively, till the whole charcoal is consumed. The air which has served the purpose of the combustion passes through the mass of charcoal, and is forced ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... the proportional number of those who will distinctly profess their belief in the transubstantiation of Lot's wife, and the anticipatory experience of submarine navigation by Jonah; in water standing fathoms deep on the side of a declivity without anything to hold it up; and in devils who enter swine—will not increase. But neither is there ground for much hope that the proportion of those who cast aside these fictions and adopt the consequence of that repudiation, are, for some generations, likely to constitute ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... boat full of men and women set out from the highest peak, shot down the declivity like lightnin' and dashed 'way out on the other side ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... Clay, Washington, and Jackson Streets rise in almost impracticable declivity to the hills. Their tops, now inaccessible, are to be the future eyries of self-crowned railroad nobs and rude ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... opposite the middle of the channel. Rivers in general have what may be deemed a bar, in respect of the depth of the channel within, although it may not rise high enough to impede the navigation—for the increased deposition that takes place when the current slackens, through the want of declivity, and of shores to retain it, must necessarily form a bank. Bars of small rivers may be deepened by means of stockades to confine the river current, and prolong it beyond the natural points of the river's mouth. They operate to remove the place of deposition ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... an hour and a quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing from under his knees, beneath which the sand, disturbed by his efforts, was sliding downwards along the surface of the rock. Concluding that the sliding ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... that night when Carlos Freggetti came down a steep declivity into Great Saffron Street and walked swiftly along that deserted thoroughfare till he came to his brother's house. His brother was a respectable Italian artisan, engaged by an asphalt company in London. Near the narrow door of the tenement ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... another four hundred yards, then it disappeared, and he remembered it pitched sharply forward in a rough and twisting descent. Whatever he did must be done quickly—no horse ever foaled could carry its rider down that declivity ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... an observable fact, that he rests in his own ground still. He had lived for a great length of time on that spot; and it remains in his family and in his name to this day, having come down by direct descent. It is a beautiful locality: the land descends with a gradual and smooth declivity to the bank of the river. It is not much more than a mile from the city of Salem, and in full view from ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... ambitious Alp climbers, but it kept its virgin height untrodden. However, in 1864, seven men, almost unexpectedly, achieved the victory; but in descending four of them were precipitated, down an almost perpendicular declivity, four thousand feet. They had achieved the summit after hundreds of others had failed. They had reveled in the upper glories, deposited proof of their visit, and started to return. According to law, they were roped together. ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... difficulty, by the light of the young moon. By this time "the oldest inhabitant" had hazarded a guess as to the line whose steamer would arrive first. Accordingly, we gathered up our small luggage and our Tchuvash costume, and fairly rolled down the steep, pathless declivity of slippery turf, groping our way to the right wharf. How the luggage cart got down was a puzzle. Here we ordered in the samovar, and feasted until far into the night on the country dainties which we had brought with us, supplemented by one of the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... lighting us every night. This was one of the most imposing sights I ever beheld; large streams of molten lava pouring down the sides of the mountain, whilst at intervals, huge masses of solid burning matter were hurled into the air, and rebounding from their fall, ricocheted down the declivity till they found a resting place ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... of the station down the declivity into the Square, thence into Glasgow's longest street, then swarming with pedestrians ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... property and person. Casting a brief glance over it, they turned short to the left, by a branch of the Sacred Way, which led, skirting the market place, between the Comitium, or hall of the ambassadors, and the abrupt declivity of the Palatine, past the end of the Atrium of Liberty, and the cattle mart, toward ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... been following a faintly defined track in the luxuriant grass, a track which had always up to the present determined the direction of their longer walks; but arriving at last at a point where this trail turned abruptly off, and passed down a gentle declivity apparently toward the sea on the eastern side of the island, they determined to abandon it, and, tempted by the shade, to plunge boldly into a broad expanse of park-like timber which spread before them. The welcome shade was soon reached; and, somewhat fatigued ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... pitched the usurper three times as far as he had thrown my friend, then rolled the "apple of discord" directly in the path of its rightful owner, and saw him commencing his task anew, with unabated energy. A little declivity stood in his way, and it was a Sysiphus-labor to get beyond it. Time after time, poising himself squarely and solidly on his head, and bracing himself after the manner of equestrian performers by his superior extremities, he walked backwards, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... thee, dadda," protested the girl, as she guided the mare over the let-down bars of the fence, through which her father put Joggles, and in a moment both horses were climbing the declivity under the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the latter place. The following robbery was committed there in or verging on the year 1676: About four o'clock one morning, a gentleman was robbed by one Nicks, on a bay mare, just as he was on the declivity of the hill, on the west side. Nicks rode away, and as he said, was stopped nearly an hour by the difficulty of getting a boat, to enable him to cross the river; but he made the best use of it as a kind of bait to his horse. From thence he rode across the county of Essex to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... playgrounds to innumerable bright-eyed squirrels. Further down one comes upon gentle elms, succeeded by sassafras and locust—these, in their turn, succeeded by the softer linden, red bud, catalpa, and maple; and at the foot of the declivity, and in the bottom of the valley, wild shrubbery, interspersed with silver willows, and white poplars. Still following the path down the vale, in a southerly direction, one, at length, finds oneself in an amphitheatre, shut in on all sides ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Italy in their power and possession." The army then began to advance, the enemy now making no attempts beyond petty thefts, as opportunity offered. But the journey proved much more difficult than it had been in the ascent, as the declivity of the Alps being generally shorter on the side of Italy is consequently steeper; for nearly all the road was precipitous, narrow, and slippery, so that neither those who made the least stumble could prevent themselves from ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... declivity of this mountain range, the most remarkable illustration of this fact of cropping out is found at Batopilos, already mentioned. This town is in a deep ravine. The climate is, like that of the California gulches, intensely hot, but remarkably healthy. Here the lodes of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... with him leaped on shore; the light infantry, who found themselves borne by the current a little below the intrenched path, clambered up the steep hill, staying themselves by the roots and boughs of the maple and spruce and ash trees that covered the precipitous declivity, and, after a little firing, dispersed the picket which guarded the height; the rest ascended safely by the pathway. A battery of four guns on the left was abandoned to Colonel Howe. When Townshend's division disembarked, the English had already gained one of the roads to Quebec; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Kutaiah. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 13,000; Christians, 5000). Called Nicopolis by Leo III. after his victory over the Arabs in 740, its name was changed by the Seljuk Turks to Kara-hissar. It stands partly on level ground, partly on a declivity, and above it rises a precipitous trachytic rock (400 ft.) on the summit of which are the ruins of an ancient castle. From its situation on the route of the caravans between Smyrna and western Asia on ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... morning. Some part of the road was very narrow and wound round the mountain we were going to. At one of the angles, or turns, the purser, who was one of the party, had got his mule too near the precipice, and in a few seconds was rolling down the declivity, the mule first and he afterwards. Fortunately for both animals, there were several dwarf cotton-trees about half-way down, which brought them up with a severe round turn. The planter, who, I presumed, had seen exploits of ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... boards. It was long, low, and irregular; bearing marks of having been reared at different periods, as the wants of an increasing family had required additional accommodation. It stood near the verge of the natural declivity, and on that side of the hill where its base was washed by the rivulet, a rude piazza stretching along the whole of its front and overhanging the stream. Several large, irregular, and clumsy chimneys, rose out of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... with a steep declivity towards the river, which rushes with considerable impetuosity between its banks. Fancy a long, narrow valley, and separating the east and west portions of the town ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... a hill rising from the Shannon, and backed by some fine woods, which unite with many old hedges well planted to form a woodland scene beautiful in the contrast to the bright expanse of the noble river below. The declivity on which these woods are finishes in a mountain, which rises above the whole. The Shannon gives a bend around the adjoining lands, so as to be seen from the house both to the west and north, the ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... their real troubles and difficulties began, for here they had to find a practicable route up the face of the Western Cordillera in the first instance, and, having found it, to measure with the nicest accuracy not only the horizontal distances but the height of every rise and the depth of every declivity in the face of a country made up to a great extent of lofty precipices and fathomless ravines, the whole overgrown with dense vegetation through which survey lines had to be cut at enormous expense of time ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... at him, leaving herself in his hands. He went over the brim of the declivity and began to ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... was forgotten when it ran with sand and gravel away from the mountain vein and upland ore along the low, alluvial bar, till, like an oyster, the iron is dredged from the stagnant pool, impure, inefficacious, corrupted. So is it with man, whose magnetic spirit follows the dull declivity to the barren sandbars of the world, and lodges there. I am of the bog ores; but that exists which will flux with me, clean me of rust, and transmit my better quality to posterity. O, youth, beauty, and station—lovely Vesta! for thee ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... a gentleman as the women all run after. Let us skip down the mountain, and then forward where our hearts incline us. This afternoon I will go for you and bring you to Belvedere, and then we can talk over the surprise." They ran down the declivity into the suburb, to the terror of the good people, who looked after them, saying that the young duke had returned with his mad protege. The "mad favorite" seemed more crazy than ever to-day, for after a brief farewell to the duke, he bounded through the streets across ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... sight; the reins we held in our hand might have been dispensed with so far as they acted as a guide to the pony, who picked his own foothold and followed the white jacket. With painful persistence, he picked the edge of the precipitous declivity which was lost ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... Mogodor. I sent my horses by land; and on our 59 approach to the shore, I discovered them approaching the mountain on which Santa Cruz stands. Soon after we came to anchor in the road, the boats came off, and the battery, which is situated about half-way up the mountain on the western declivity, saluted me with 8 guns, (the Muhamedans always saluting with an even number.) This compliment being unexpected, we were about half an hour preparing to return it, when we saluted the battery with 9 guns. The captain of the port ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... by a bullet in the counter; and scarcely had I recovered my legs when a shot struck my shako and grazed my temples. I quickly threw myself to the ground, and creeping on for some yards, reached at last some rising ground, from which I rolled gently downwards into a little declivity, sheltered by the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... his strength should be again renewed. Fortune for once now seemed to stand his friend; for stooping down at the base of the rock, he discovered it to be shelving and projecting somewhat over the declivity; so that by dropping upon the ground and crawling up under it, he would, owing to the density and darkness of the thicket, as before mentioned, be wholly concealed from any one standing upright. To ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... forms of the great black horses scrambling and struggling up the almost perpendicular streets. How could you ever have borne it, my dear aunt? You must have been in perpetual fear of your life! Lord Bellamont's description of the county of Cavan—all acclivity and declivity, without any intervention of horizontality—I am sure applies to Lausanne. I am sure travelled horses from all parts of the world say to each other when they meet in the stable, "Were you ever at Lausanne? Don't you hate Lausanne? How could men build a town in such a place? What asses! ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... had installed myself to commence painting, at the end of that beautiful valley, which you know, and which extends as far as Etretat, I perceived, in lifting my eyes suddenly, something singularly attired, standing on the crest of the declivity; one might indeed say, a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I re-entered the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this old original. But she did not respond to my polite ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of 250 feet. A stream of lava takes its rise at the western base of the hill instead of issuing from either crater, and descends the granitic slope towards the present site of the town of Pont Gibaud. Thence it pours in a broad sheet down a steep declivity into the valley of the Sioule, filling the ancient river-channel for the distance of more than a mile. The Sioule, thus dispossessed of its bed, has worked out a fresh one between the lava and the granite of its western bank; and the excavation has disclosed, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... moment from the dense underbrush near the auto there came a loud cry, and some one fairly tumbled down a little declivity into the road—the figure of an old man ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... obliquity, inclination, slope, slant, crookedness &c. adj.; slopeness[obs3]; leaning &c. v.; bevel, tilt; bias, list, twist, swag, cant, lurch; distortion &c. 243; bend &c. (curve) 245; tower of Pisa. acclivity, rise, ascent, gradient, khudd[obs3], rising ground, hill, bank, declivity, downhill, dip, fall, devexity|; gentle slope, rapid slope, easy ascent, easy descent; shelving beach; talus; monagne Russe[Fr]; facilis descensus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... moderate height, and gentle declivity of Mount Atlas, (see Shaw's Travels, p. 5,) are very unlike a solitary mountain which rears its head into the clouds, and seems to support the heavens. The peak of Teneriff, on the contrary, rises a league and a half above ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... distance, rolling along the declivity; and my body stopped at the bottom on the damp earth. When I had a little recovered, I prepared to attempt an escape, as I heard that my tormentors had departed; but, on reaching the opening, I found a barrier which I had not looked ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... sieges and fruitless attempts to surprise each other. 19. However, Caesar, after taking many cities from the enemy, and pursuing his adversary with unwearied perseverance, at last compelled him to come to a battle upon the plain of Munda. 20. Pompey drew up his men, by break of day, upon the declivity of a hill, with great exactness and order. Caesar drew up likewise in the plains below; and after advancing a little way from his trenches, ordered his men to make a halt, expecting the enemy to come down from the hill. This delay made Caesar's soldiers ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... in no condition to assume the same office. It required the all-seeing eye, which alone can scan the heart, to read all the agonized suspense with which that young and beautiful creature approached the spot, where she might command a view of the whole of the side of the fearful declivity, from its giddy summit to the base, where it was washed by the sea. The latter, indeed, could not literally be seen from above, the waves having so far undermined the cliff, as to leave a projection that concealed the point where the rocks and the water came absolutely in contact; ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... confusion, larger trees showed long wounds upon their bark, and here and there pieces of metal—a gray mud-guard, a car door, a wind-shield frame, with shattered plate glass still clinging to it—lay scattered on the precipitous declivity. Beside these, hanging to a branch, Gabriel saw a gaily-striped auto robe; and, further ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... committee was appointed and clothed with omniscient and omnipotent powers, there being no declivity to it. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... and earth swept through a forest, carrying off a great belt of timber, wherewith to strew the little valley, and block the road and stream below. The rugged mountains on either hand have been burnt over, and send up into the blue ether bare, white, foot-enticing peaks. At the base of the western declivity lies the valley of the East Branch of the Au Sable, and beyond, the great Adirondac range, overtopped by Whiteface and Mount Tahawus. We greeted these giants with due reverence, hoping for a nearer acquaintance, for only their extreme summits are ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Quistram, as the sun was beginning to decline, I was particularly impressed by the beauty of the situation. The road was on the declivity of a rocky mountain, slightly covered with a mossy herbage and vagrant firs. At the bottom, a river, straggling amongst the recesses of stone, was hastening forward to the ocean and its grey rocks, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... he still walked with her. A woman's head arose from the declivity before them, and as she drew nearer, Christine ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... packed between them in the hollows. Every now and then one or another of the party sank deep on stepping down from some ledge of slippery stone. They were on the northern side of a spur of the higher range, though they were approaching the angle where it broke off and fell in a steep declivity facing west. This point they had to turn before they reached the spot from which Kinnaird purposed descending to the river. They made very slow progress, while the shadow of the peaks grew blacker and longer ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... care was to reform the Legion. These handsome young fellows, who regarded themselves as the military majesty of the Republic, governed themselves. He reduced their officers to the ranks; he treated them harshly, made them run, leap, ascend the declivity of Byrsa at a single burst, hurl javelins, wrestle together, and sleep in the squares at night. Their families used to come to see them and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... whistling explosion and its overcharged heart of furious metal and the great percussion shells, whose thunder is that of the railway engine which crashes suddenly into a wall, the thunder of loaded rails or steel beams, toppling down a declivity. The air is now glutted and viewless, it is crossed and recrossed by heavy blasts, and the murder of the earth continues all around, deeply and more deeply, to the ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... The declivity was so small that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least, I was in so weak a condition, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... too rapid for using oars to advantage, the crew had to commence tracking, or dragging the boat by a line to which they were harnessed. This operation is extremely laborious in these rivers. Our men were obliged to walk along the steep declivity of a high bank, rendered at this season soft and slippery by frequent rains, and their progress was often further impeded by fallen trees which, having slipped from the verge of the thick wood above, hung on the ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... bombardier turned himself impatiently on to the other side, and cried to the stretcher-bearers to make haste. "Now get me away quickly!" Turk gazed after the stretcher with his large, mournful eyes, and as it disappeared behind the edge of the declivity ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... greatly fatigued the horses and wore down and injured their hoofs, even though they were led by the bridle. In this manner a long league was surmounted, and another was traversed by a more easy road along a declivity, and in the afternoon the Governor with the Spaniards arrived at a small village of which a part was burned, and in the other part, which had remained whole, the Spaniards settled. And in the evening two Indian couriers, ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... manifested was all feigned, and that the assassins were rewarded for their devotion to her interests. She shut herself up for a few days, assuming the aspect of a mourner, and issued to her subjects a declaration announcing the death of the late tzar. When one enters upon the declivity of crime, the descent is ever rapid. The innocent girl, who, but a few years before, had entered the Russian court from her secluded ancestral castle a spotless child of fifteen, was now most deeply involved in intrigues and sins. It is probable, indeed, that she had not intended ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... and the lovers went on. John looked after them as they strolled, aqua-tinted by the weak moon and mist. Bob had thrust one of his arms through the rein of the horse, and the other was round Anne's waist. When they were lost behind the declivity the trumpet-major came out, and walked homeward even more slowly than they. As he went on, his face put off its complexion of despair for one of serene resolve. For the first time in his dealings with friends he entered upon a course of counterfeiting, set his features to conceal ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... until at length they reached the bridge. Just beyond it was the rocky precipice, with shrubs and evergreens growing upon the shelves and in the crevices, and spaces between the rocks. It towered up pretty high above the road, and the declivity extended also down to the brook below the bridge, forming one side of the deep ravine across which the bridge was built. There was a very large, old hemlock-tree growing upon a small piece of level ground between the ravine and the higher part of the precipice. Under this hemlock-tree ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... attacked and shells were thrown into our column. Gen. Long remained with the 3d to direct its movements. The position held by the regiment was a good one, being protected by rail breast-works (the men were afoot) and below a declivity extending into a marsh; beyond this a creek. As the rebels came across the creek they opened a vigorous fire, and, simultaneously, another line moved up at close quarters on the right. The 3d held its fire until ...
— Bugle Blasts - Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of - the Loyal Legion of the United States • William E. Crane
... nearly purpindicular, I directed two men to kill those anamals, one went on the top and the other man near the water they had two Shots at the doe while in motion without effect, Those animals run & Skiped about with great ease on this declivity & appeared to prefur it to the leavel bottom or plain. Capt Lewis & one man walkd on Shore and he killed a yellow Bear & the man with him wounded one other, after getting the flesh of the bear on bord which was not far from the place ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... trot-line in the morning, when there were any on it. Once or twice they allowed themselves to visit an Indian mound or burial-place on the summit of a neighboring hill, where idle boys and other loungers had dug up many bones and thrown them down the declivity. Jack, who had thoughts of being a doctor, made an effort to gather a complete Indian skeleton, but the dry bones had become too much mixed up. He could not get any three bones to fit together, and ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... nearly to the place advancing, Descending rather quickly the declivity, Through the waved branches o'er the greensward glancing, 'Midst other indications of festivity, Seeing a troop of his domestics dancing Like Dervises, who turn as on a pivot, he Perceived it was the Pyrrhic dance[178] so martial, To which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... down the headwall by sharp switchbacks till it reached the easier declivity below, passed a gushing spring where a tin dipper hung on a twig proclaiming unseen passers, and presently picked up the bed of a tumbling brook. It was when I reached this brook that I was aware of Spring ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... over the snow and in a few minutes was at the edge of the declivity in which lay the penguin rookery. Gazing down into it the boys could hardly keep ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... lay in the vicinity of certain lands cultivated by Vang-yung-man and Vang-ky-hao, inasmuch as that the fields of Vang-yung-man lay on the left of those of She-fo-pao, which were in the center, and those of Vang-ky-hao on the right side of the declivity of the hill. It occurred that on the 7th day of the 9th moon of the same year, She-fo-pao observing the corn in his fields to be nearly ripe, was apprehensive that thieves might find an opportunity of stealing the grain; and being aware, at the same time, of the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... instantly radiated in all possible directions, so that by the time he had descended through the intricacies of the glen to the field of battle, neither victor nor vanquished was visible, except, perhaps, a straggler or two as they topped the brow of the declivity, looking back over their shoulders, to put themselves out of doubt as to their visibility by the master. They seldom looked in vain, however, for there he usually stood, shaking at us his rod, silently ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... est, quendam quasi pontem aetatis ascendere, ab eaque inde descendere. Whether Addison ever met with the commentary of De Nores, it is perhaps impossible to discover. But this idea of the ascent and declivity of the bridge of human life, strongly reminds us of ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... mercies of the grooms; at least, I should have been, if Mr. Musgrave had not taken pity on me, and guided my uncertain feet and the petticoats, which Zephyr is doing his playful best to turn over my head, down the steep declivity of the ladder. This, as you may guess, does not help to restore my equanimity. However, I am down now, on firm ground; and, at least, we are rid of the dust. My eyes are still full of grit, but I suppose they will get over that. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Alone, they would have preferred to have fought it out to the last drop of blood in their veins, but had yielded to the expedient because the girl's safety was dearer to them than their most cherished wish. At the foot of the declivity, the entire force reunited before finally ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... her own mind she no doubt said with MacMahon, "J'y suis! j'y reste!" Mounting again, we rode round to the south of Coressus, passing along a regular street, with the remains of paving and curbing, parallel with the southern wall of the ancient city, which ran along the declivity of Mount Pion. Here was pointed out the tomb of St. Luke. Extensive excavations were being made near here under English auspices, and tombs were daily being discovered, both pagan and early Christian. On the very day of our visit a substantial tomb had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... before whom Dante quails, but whom Virgil defies by mentioning Theseus. Taking advantage of the moment when the furious, bull-like monster charges at him with lowered head, Virgil runs with Dante down a declivity, where the stones, unaccustomed to the weight of mortal feet, slip and roll in ominous fashion. This passage, Virgil declares, was less dangerous when he last descended into Hades, for it has since been riven ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... on the steep, treeless declivity. The sound of shells bursting off at a distance, of tattooing machine guns, and roaring artillery on their own side was now mingled with the howling sound of shots whizzing through the air and coming closer and closer. And still the top of the ridge had ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko |
