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Steep   Listen
noun
Steep  n.  A precipitous place, hill, mountain, rock, or ascent; any elevated object sloping with a large angle to the plane of the horizon; a precipice. "We had on each side naked rocks and mountains broken into a thousand irregular steeps and precipices." "Bare steeps, where desolation stalks."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Steep" Quotes from Famous Books



... him chatting with a little shepherd boy who was herding three goats on the steep rocky slope of the mountain, and throwing pebbles into the fountain. Sir John opened his lips to tell Roland that all was ready; but the latter, without giving the Englishman time to ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... shown her extraordinary kindness, as though with the view of undoing, so far as lay in his power, the evil which his rash, though well-meant conduct had originally created, assisted his wife into her litter, and rode beside it during the short journey. On arriving at the door, where they found a steep flight of steps to mount, Lord Marnell would not allow Margery to try her strength, but carried her up in his arms. He knew, and so did she, that she would need all the strength she could muster for the trial which was to come. The council-chamber ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt

... aluminum, lead, coal, lignite, copper, hydropower Land use: arable land: 17% permanent crops: 1% meadows and pastures: 24% forest and woodland: 39% other: 19% Irrigated land: 40 km2 (1989) Environment: population is concentrated on eastern lowlands because of steep slopes, poor soils, and low temperatures elsewhere Note: landlocked; strategic location at the crossroads of central Europe with many easily traversable Alpine passes and valleys; ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... power as it descends the mountain side. As it grows by the addition of other streams it picks up larger pieces, grinds them together, grinds at its banks and loads itself with rocks, pebbles, sand and clay. As the stream reaches the lower part of the mountain where the slope is less steep, it is checked in its course and the larger stones and pebbles are dropped while the sand and finer particles are carried on and deposited on the bottom of some broad quiet river farther down, and when the river overflows its banks, are distributed ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... could not be restored, but another chamber should be built for her, beneath whose window it should again run: when she was married to Fergus, and her father could not touch it, the place should be hers. More masons were gathered, and foundations blasted in the steep rock that formed the other bank of the burn. The main point in the building was to be a room for Ginevra. He planned it himself—with a windowed turret projecting from the wall, making a recess in the room, and overhanging the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... mountain peaks, he would send a party against the Happahs. The Taeehs eagerly agreed; and, after seeing the gun fired once or twice (a sight that set them fondling and kissing it, to show their reverence for so powerful a weapon), they set off up the steep mountain sides, tugging the gun after them. Lieut. Downes led the American forces. They had hardly reached the mountain tops, when the fighting began. The Happahs were armed with spears, and with slings, from which they threw heavy stones with terrific velocity. They seemed to know no fear, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... rising steeply from the sea, are rugged and mountainous; South Georgia is largely barren and has steep, glacier-covered mountains; the South Sandwich Islands are of volcanic origin ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Circled beneath me over the dark sea, Flashing the waves with pinions snowy white, That glimmer'd faintly in the gloomy light Betwixt the foaming furrows constantly. It was a mighty cape, that proudly rose Above the world of waters, high and steep, With many a scar and fissure fathoms deep, Upon whose ledges lodged the endless snows; A noble brow to a firm-founded world, That at the limits of its empire stood, Fronting the ocean in its roughest mood, And all its fury calmly backward hurl'd. The Midnight Sun ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... and precipitous range making it impossible to take the shorter and more direct route. One had perforce to use the road, and the road turned and twisted where the level plains were broken by the range, passing, at one stage, through a narrow gorge hemmed in by steep, rock-strewn heights, on which a growth of stunted gums flourished sufficiently to hide the jagged boulders ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... light clouds often sailing under the feet of the high-perched inhabitants, while the sound of a deep and rapid though narrow river, dashing with violence among the insolently impeding rocks at the bottom, and bells in thickly-scattered spires calling the quiet Savoyards to church upon the steep sides of every hill—fill one's mind with such mutable, such various ideas, as no other place can ever ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... juncture I was further cheered by the arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel Perkins and Major McQueen, who, with the 5th Punjab Infantry, had worked their way up the steep mountain-side, in the hope of getting near to the Peiwar Kotal and co-operating with me. They were, however, checked by the deep ravine I have before described, and, guided by the sound of firing, pushed higher up the hill. They brought me word that the Artillery left in camp had opened fire ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... near it again," he said in a menacing voice, and then he turned hastily away. I watched him as he climbed up a steep bank and disappeared from view. He was going in the opposite direction from the house. Seizing the opportunity of his absence, I once more approached the mill. Was it possible that Wentworth had been hurled into it? But had this been the case there would have been signs and marks on the body. ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... agriculturist, a shepherd, and a woodsman. A Westmoreland cottage has scarcely any resemblance to a Scottish one. A Scottish cottage (in the Lowlands) has rarely any picturesque beauty in itself—a narrow oblong, with steep thatched roof, and an ear-like chimney at each of the two gable-ends. Many of the Westmoreland cottages would seem, to an ignorant observer, to have been originally built on a model conceived by the finest poetical genius. In the first place, they are almost always ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... and in it escape for me from that guarded place was impossible, since I could not see where to set my feet and one false step on the steep rock would have meant my death. From the direction of Rorke's Drift I could hear continuous firing; evidently some great fight was going on there, I wondered vaguely—with what result. A little later ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... in one half of an old farmhouse, standing not far from the ivy-covered church tower (which was all that was to remain of the original structure). The long steep roof of this picturesque dwelling sloped nearly down to the ground, the old tiles that covered it being overgrown with rich olive-hued moss. New red tiles in twos and threes had been used for patching the holes wrought by ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... the great vehicle turned slowly over, and at the same moment Whittaker and the driver leapt into the tangle of heels and harness. One of the leaders swung right out in mid-air with flying legs, and mules and diligencia rolled over and over down the steep in a cloud ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... from the tail pocket of his coat a small shawl of knitted silk and laid it solicitously about the shoulders of the lady. Mrs. Blaylock sighed contentedly, and turned her expressive eyes—still as clear and unworldly as a child's—upon the steep slopes that were slowly slipping past. Very fair and stately they looked in the clear morning air. They seemed to speak in familiar terms to the responsive spirit of Lorella. "My native hills!" she murmured, dreamily. "See how the foliage drinks the sunlight from ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... faith shall keep You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port Of egress from you I will seal and steep In perfect chrism. Now it is done. The mort Will sound in heaven before it ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... to put in the staircase, Claude telephoned Enid and asked her to come and show them just what height she wanted the steps made. His mother had always had to climb stairs that were too steep. Enid stopped her car at the Frankfort High School at four o'clock and persuaded Gladys Farmer to ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... reason of its sitting low in the stern. O'Hara, as I yelled at him, pulled his starboard paddle and brought her (for these prams spin round easily) almost broadside on to a tall comber. As we slid up the side of it and hung there, I had a glimpse of a steep clean fissure straight through the wall of rock ahead; and in that instant O'Hara sprawled his arms and toppled overboard. The boat and I went by him with a rush. I saw a hand and wrist lifted above the foam, but when I looked back for them they were gone—gone as I shot over the bar ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... pervades the persons of kings and bishops with the damper dustiness that is usually the final shape of commoners, curates, and others who take their last rest out of doors. Then, if you are in love, you can, by sauntering in the chapels and behind the episcopal chantries with the bright-eyed one, so steep and mellow your ecstasy in the solemnities around, that it will assume a rarer and finer tincture, even more grateful to the understanding, if not to the senses, than that form of the emotion which arises from such ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... was little frequented, and gave the idea not only of complete retirement, but of remoteness. Though a lonely situation, it was, however, a beautiful one. The house stood on the brow of a hill, and looked into a deep glen, through the steep descent of which ran a clear and copious rivulet rolling over a stony bed; the rocks were covered with mountain flowers, and wild shrubs—But nothing is more tiresome than a picture in prose: we shall, therefore, beg ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... she expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many tears, scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry; but, he said, he might as well make the best of his bargain, so he put the seed-beans into the ground close by the side of the steep hill under shelter of which their cottage was built, and went to bed. The next morning when he got up, he found that the beans had grown, till the bean stalks reached right over the top of the hill, and were lost to his sight. Greatly surprised, he called his ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown

... small vial of gin, which was kept in case of any accident, and set out with the dog Fly. The snow fell fast, the wind blew, and the drifts lay thick. She had great confidence in Fly, that if any thing was the matter he would find it out. He ran straight up the little steep path which led through the woods. On she followed, her cloak white with snow, until she came, into the more open ground, where she lost sight of Fly and for a time stood bewildered, until he should return and guide her. The birds and ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"

... of the dark underwood they passed, by a steep, narrow path, down through the tangled briers and bending ferns, until they reached the banks of the stream. The path was but little defined, and evidently seldom trodden; the stream gurgled and lisped under the brushwood; ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... laboured, was not a way which could long endure. That difficulties in the future inevitably must come as lions in the path. "Constantinople itself looks to me like mere card-houses—bright blue and bright red; and they are not much better. By being perched up so steep, they force themselves on the eye.... Perhaps I am out of humour: Constantinople is so dreadfully dear to one who comes from Asia (I pay ten piastres, or half-a-crown, for my mere bed—full London price). It is also very ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage beauty lay before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks hemmed them in, peeping over each other's shoulders to the far horizon. So steep were the rocky banks on either side of them, that the larch and the pine seemed to be suspended over their heads, and to need only a gust of wind to come hurtling down upon them. Nor was the fear entirely an illusion, for the barren valley was thickly strewn with trees and boulders which had ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... they passed through several dense forests. George, who was in the lead at this time, emerged from the thickest wood into a rather open plain. He saw the river make a long circular sweep, and directly ahead noticed a coast line of steep hills which marked the shore of the river ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... heart heavier than the huge package, Rosa sped down the steep stairway, out into the bitter ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright

... that usually occurred during the Governor's morning walk has had its chronicling delayed by more important matters. The procession was accustomed to halt before a small brick office on the Avenue, fronted by a short flight of steep wooden steps. A modest tin sign over the door bore the words: "Wm. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... whereupon we were assailed with visions of brigands, and amputated ears, and ransom. But at a turn of the road we came upon two magnificent white oxen, which, being harnessed on in front, drew us, and our carriages and horses as well, up five miles of steep incline. These beautiful fellows, it seemed, were what the driver was signalling for, and not for brigands. Again, every inn we stayed at supplied us with some representative touch of local life and habit. Here the whole personnel ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... well named "The Pocket," since for years it served as a safe receptacle for itinerant beggars and fugitives from justice who found an ideal retreat among its limestone quarries, which, being long abandoned, provided holes in the steep hillside for certain vagabonds, who paid neither taxes to the government, nor heed ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... please," said the cool business voice of the warder. Arthur rose and moved forward mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's attempt to help him up the steep, narrow steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached the highest step a sudden giddiness came over him, so that he staggered and would have fallen backwards had the warder not ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... "your stairs are steep, and dark! mais en, fin! nous voila! I have ventured to come for a talk." His glance fell on the cloaked figure in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... tickled that she could hardly check herself, even when she saw Lucy looking distressed and hurt, and little laughs would break out every moment as she beheld the young lady keeping aloof, as if ashamed of her company, turning towards the steep church steps, willing at least to hide the dreadful sight from ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stuck in the mire, and it is said that a fresh supply of ball sent from Boston was too large for the cannon. Even if this was the case, it could have made no difference, for the supply taken with the guns was not exhausted.[102] Up the steep hill, through long tangled grass, the red-coats toiled on towards the redoubt, each burdened with a weight of some 125 pounds. With admirable coolness the Americans held their fire until the enemy was about ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... of potatoes and buttermilk. Mary had been trying to improve on the old days but I interposed, and together, we went through the old regime. Father took the pot of potatoes to the old tub in which he used to steep the leather. There he drained them—then put them on the fire for a minute to ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... slopes of greenness show Fantastic outcrops of the rock below; The slow result of patient Nature's pains, And plastic fingering of her sun and rains; Arch, tower, and gate, grotesquely windowed hall, And long escarpment of half-crumbled wall, Huger than those which, from steep hills of vine, Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine; Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind A fancy, idle as the prairie wind, Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed; The unsung ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... built above the small settlement of that name on the flats about three miles to the northeast of the Ponto river. The Richfield river was a branch of the latter, and was a turbulent stream, often rising rapidly, for It was confined between steep, high! banks. ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster

... the view is said to be magnificent, and proceeding northward, we first reach the Plattekill Clove, up whose steep and wooded cleft winds a wild road, chiefly used for quarrying purposes, and down whose abrupt declivity the Plattekill leaps from crag to crag in a series of fine falls and cascades. The quantity of water during the summer months, except after considerable rain, is small, but the rock formations ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... principal force of about 700 men, commanded by a most distinguished officer, the Piedmontese Colonel, de Jermagnan, whose loss we deeply lament; but on the back of the mountain—near 1,800 feet high, steep, rocky, deemed almost inaccessible, and which we had laboured much to make so—they found means once more to penetrate between our posts, which occupied an extent of above two miles, guarded by about 450 men; and in a very short ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... into dome-shaped unopened masses of feldspathic trachyte and dolerite (as in Puy de Dome and Chimborazo), in consequence of some great or local manifestation of force in the interior of our planet, or the upheaved strata are broken through and curved in such a manner as to form a steep rocky ledge on the opposite inner side, which then constitutes the inclosure of a crater of elevation. If this rocky ledge has been uplifted from the bottom of the sea, which is by no means always the case, it determines the whole ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... almost at the same hour, that four thousand brigands were marching towards such towns or villages as it was wished to induce to take arms. Never was any plan better laid; terror spread at the same moment all over the kingdom. In 1791 a peasant showed me a steep rock in the mountains of the Mont d'Or on which his wife concealed herself on the day when the four thousand brigands were to attack their village, and told me they had been obliged to make use of ropes ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... with its bridge of cloud? The mule plods warily: the white mists crowd. Coiled in their caves the brood of dragons sleep; The torrent hurls the rock from steep to steep. Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. Father, away! ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... fate, Most tender and compassionate; The noblest of all lordly givers, Whom good men follow, as the rivers Follow the King of Floods, the sea:— So liberal, so just is he. The joy of Queen Kausalya's heart, In every virtue he has part; Firm as Himalaya's snowy steep, Unfathomed like the mighty deep; The peer of Vishnu's power and might, And lovely as the Lord of Night; Patient as Earth, but, roused to ire, Fierce as the world-destroying fire; In bounty like the Lord of Gold, And Justice' self in human mould. With him, his best and eldest ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... old and form wonderful groups, full of quaint gables and dormer windows, whilst the high roofs slant upwards and fall away in picturesque outlines. An artist might work here for years and still find fresh material to his hand. The streets are narrow, steep and tortuous; the houses, crowding one upon another, are many stories high; not a few seem ready to fall with age and decay. Only have patience, and all ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various

... four o'clock, a.m., with a 3-pounder against the first division of the enemy, under Colonel Van Rensselaer, who had formed his men near the river, and was awaiting the arrival of the next boats. The Americans were driven with some loss behind a steep bank, close to the water's edge, where they were reinforced by a fresh supply of troops, and whence they returned the fire of the British. In the mean time the remainder of the 49th grenadiers and of the militia company joined Captain Dennis; while ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... go to Scarborough for their holidays in the summer, as they run down the steep paths with their spades and buckets to dig on the beach, they are too busy to pay much attention to the high cliff that juts out against the sky above the steep red roofs of the old town. But if they do look up for a moment they notice a pile of grey stones at the very ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... concealed beneath a broad-brimmed hat, hands tucked each within the opposite sleeve, awaited Windham just outside the door. He set out immediately in an easterly direction, glancing over his shoulder now and again to make certain that Benito followed. Down the steep slope of Washington street he went past moss-grown retaining walls; over slippery brick pavements, through which the grass-blades sprouted, to plunge at length into the eddying alien mass of Chinatown's main artery, Dupont street. Here rushing ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... flame cleaved the night. It lit the steep bank, flinging a bright glare across the dark waters. In that instant I saw, my face set shoreward, a dozen black figures clustered in a bunch. One ball crashed into the planking close beside my hand, hurling a splinter of wood against my face. The boat ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... audience delighted for an hour and forty minutes." From here she went to the Geysers, riding on the front seat with driver Foss, and she says in her diary: "On the way out he explained to me the philosophy of fast driving down the steep mountain sides; and on the way back he unfolded to me the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... There has been a fire in that simple savage home. Our path here is cut by one that goes east and west, and after a consultation between my men and the Bakwiri, we take the path going east, down a steep slope between weedy plantations, and shortly on the left shows a steep little hill-side with a long low hut on the top. We go up to it and I find it is the habitation of a Basel Mission black Bible- reader. He comes out ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... before. She was waiting for Miss Percival in the shadow behind one of the pillars. By a steep and narrow staircase, she led Bettina to the gallery, and ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy

... upland heights display, Down the steep cliff I wind my devious way; Oft rousing, as the rustling path I beat, The timid hare from its accustom'd seat. And oh! how sweet this walk o'erhung with wood, That winds the margin of the solemn flood! What rural objects steal upon the sight! What rising views ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... had been built at a period when the neighborhood was considered the best in the city. While Kaplan and I were taking off our overcoats in the broad, carpeted, rather dimly lighted hall, a dark-eyed girl appeared at the head of a steep stairway ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... is much favoured for defensive work in both the German and the Austrian armies. The howitzer is capable of elevation up to 65 deg., the idea of this high elevation being, it is stated, to obtain a steep angle of descent for the shells at comparatively short ranges, in combination with a high remaining velocity so as to ensure the penetration of overhead cover. These howitzers are also employed in siege and fortress defence warfare. They have been used along the Aisne positions as auxiliaries ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various

... dangers he wished to avoid. A sort of cliff or wall of rock he had for some time had on his left hand, now suddenly ended, and a scene burst on his view which to him was commonplace enough, but would have appeared somewhat strange to a person unaccustomed to such sights. The mountain, which had been steep and difficult to descend, now began to slope more gradually as it approached nearer its base. On a sort of shelving plateau of great extent, a number of charcoal-burners had established themselves, and, as the most expeditious way of clearing the ground, had set ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... were high and steep, making it far from an ideal fording place. Stallings, however, thought it better to cross there than to take the time to work the herd further down. Joining the boys, he cast his glance up and down the stream to decide whether his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin

... all these long, agonizing years, if your story be true. Why, yourself told me my wife and child had both died on that never-to-be-forgotten night, and were buried in one grave. How could you dare steep your lips with a lie so foul and black? Heaven could have struck you dead while the false words were yet warm on ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... in the sky is a striking one. The warrior is represented as holding a club in the right hand, and a skin or shield in the left. His left foot is raised high as if he were climbing a steep ascent, he seems to be endeavouring to force his way up into the zodiac, and—as Longfellow expresses it—to be beating the forehead of the Bull. His right leg is not shown below the knee, for immediately beneath him is the little constellation of the Hare, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... than ever decided that it was so, as he lay in his attic sleepless on his narrow iron bedstead, staring up at the steep slope of the white-washed ceiling that leaned over him, pressed on him, and threatened him; watching it glimmer and darken and glimmer again to the dawn. He had put away from him the almost tangible vision of Winny lying there, pretty as she would be, in her little white nightgown, and her ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... the first professional theatrical troupe came out from Australia under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, whom probably a few people may still remember. They erected close to the Ochterlony monument a temporary wooden structure, accessible by a steep flight of steps, and played in it for a few seasons, after which Lewis built the present Theatre Royal. He brought out several companies in successive seasons, and other companies also used to come and perform ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey

... very fond indeed of her, and often bemoaned the fact that she lived at the very top of the house now, for he very seldom saw her; she was lame and suffered a good deal, and could not get up and down the steep stairs very well, and he could ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... meant to take home that evening—and sneaked him upstairs and put him on a flat roof outside the laboratory. He had a touch of the mange and didn't look well, so we gave him a dose of something; and he scrambled over the parapet and slipped down a steep iron roof in front, and fell on a respected townsman that knew my people. We were awfully frightened, and didn't say anything. Nobody saw it but us. The dog had the presence of mind to leave at once, ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... Goethe soon reached the old, antiquated house where the poetess lived. After many questionings and inquiries at the lower stories and more splendid apartments of the house, he found the abode of the poetess, and climbed up the steep stairs to the slanting attic-room. The dim light of a small window permitted Goethe to read upon a gray piece of paper, pasted upon the door, 'Anna Louisa Karsch, German poetess.' He knocked modestly at the door at first, then louder, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... wood, the road runs within hail of the railway, under a steep and high chalk bank partly copsed with scrub. Three-quarters of a mile from the wood it passes through the skeleton of the village of Hamel, which is now a few ruined walls of brick standing in orchards on a hillside. Just north of this village, crossing the road, ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield

... wheels against the brake as she drove down the steep pitch brought no one around the corner of the house, which faced the trickling stream that made the ranch a ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... wind was sharp throughout the year and pitilessly cold in the winter, giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it descended on the valley of the Saco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one, for a mountain towered above their heads so steep that the stones would often rumble down its sides ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O Pioneers! We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go the unknown ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... friends of the Pacha, and had letters from him, commanding an escort for them. They only came to see our mountain, to ascend Parnassus amid the snow and clouds, and to look at the strange black rocks which raised their steep sides near our hut. They could not find room in the hut, nor endure the smoke that rolled along the ceiling till it found its way out at the low door; so they pitched their tents on a small space outside our dwelling. Roasted lambs and birds were brought forth, and strong, sweet wine, of which ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... chasms, irregular coast- and hill-lines, tumbled rocks, bare, wind-swept hills, and sheltered coves where flowers bloom and ivy climbs from the very verge of the sea. On this side lies the famous region known as the Undercliff—a series of terraces rising ambitiously from the sea up the steep sides of St. Boniface's Down—the tract being about seven miles long, and from a quarter to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... more than a mile along the road he turned sharply to the right and began climbing a steep and narrow bridle path which joined the mountain road, half-way up to La Turbie. The boy with the donkey turned off to the main road and continued the steep climb toward the Grande Corniche. There were many houses built on the edge of the road and practically on the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... released from his obligations. The Church is therefore like a city on a hill, with a palisade fence all round, with openings by which one can get in, but not out; and having only two outlets—one by a gate kept carefully locked, and the other over a steep wall, fifty feet high. You have your choice of three things: 1. Stay where you are; 2. Go through the gate into another palisaded enclosure; 3. Be pitched down the Tarpeian ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... had all been thrown back; the compartment was enclosed only in glass. Watson could get a clear view, and he was amazed at the speed of the craft. Before he could think they were out in mid-air and ascending skyward. Travelling on a steep slant, there was no vibration, no mechanical noise; scarcely the suggestion of movement, except for the muffled swish of ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... suddenly came to a river with very steep banks and a number of narrow and slender bridges. If this had in reality been a nightmare this river could not have obtruded itself more often than it did. We discovered to our dismay that our soldier-guide had disappeared (exactly as in a nightmare he would have ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... step was to engage "bushmen," or woodcutters by profession, who felled and cut the timber into the proper lengths, and stacked it neatly in a clearing, where it could get dry and seasoned. These stacks were often placed in such inaccessible and rocky parts of the steep mountain side, that they had to be brought down to the flat in rude little sledges, drawn by a bullock, who required to be trained to the work, and to possess so steady and equable a disposition as to be indifferent to the annoyance ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... had got off the paving-stones of the sleep-shrouded town and were out on a winding road with what they could just see was a low wall on their left beyond which was a great black emptiness and the sound of the sea. On their right was something close and steep and high and black—rocks, they whispered to each other; ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... Pass. By the time they emerged into the Devil's Bowl it was altogether black and blind. But the threat of wind had passed, leaving utter stillness; and they could hear the splash of an otter on the far side of the Lone Tarn as they skirted that gloomy water's edge. When at length the last steep rise on to the Marches had been topped, a breath of soft air smote them lightly, and the curtain ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... speed. The Xth Soudanese opened fire on the village as soon as they topped the rise. The 3rd and 4th Egyptians deployed on the right and left of the leading regiment, two companies of the 4th extending down on to the foreshore below the steep river-bank. Peake's battery (No. 1) and the Maxim guns, coming into action from a spur of Firket mountain, began to fire over the heads of the ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... that break the view of the river, which has often seemed to us, at that particular passage of its course, to glide with unusual calmness and serenity. On the opposite side of the stream there is a range of steep hills, celebrated for nothing more romantic than their property of imparting to the flocks that browse upon that short and seemingly stinted herbage a flavour peculiarly grateful to the lovers of that pastoral animal which changes its name into ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily, The fringes of a southward-facing brow 235 Among the AEgaean isles deg.; deg.236 And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, deg. deg.238 Green, bursting figs, and tunnies deg. steep'd in brine— deg.239 And knew the intruders on his ancient ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... the day after this lion episode that we came upon Pereira's wagon, or rather its remains. Evidently he had tried to trek along a steep, rocky bank which overhung a stream, with the result that the wagon had fallen into the stream-bed, then almost dry, and ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... arrival at the manse, by strangling an ancient monkey, or "puggy," the pet of the minister,—who was a bachelor,—and the wonder of the island. Jock henceforward took to evil courses, extracting the kidneys of the best young rams, driving whole hirsels down steep places into the sea, till at last all the guns of Westray were pointed at him, as he stood at bay under a huge rock on the shore, and blew him into space. I always regret his end, and blame myself for ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... path To ampler fates that leads? Not down through flowery meads, 110 To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds; But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay 115 By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... the pavement; the white balconies and cornices of the houses, all cleanly cut in the soft Maltese stone, stand out in intense relief against the sky, and from the manifold reflections and counter reflections, the shadows (where there are any) become a sort of milder light. The steep sides of the promontory, on which the city is built, are turned into staircases, and it is an inexhaustible pastime to watch the groups, composed of all nations who inhabit the shores of the Mediterranean, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... stile back of the terrace and took her way up Bowling Green Hill toward the gate. She sauntered leisurely until she was out of sight of the Hall. Then gathering up her cloak and sword she sped along the steep path to the hill crest and thence ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... should not find a tolerable auberge in any other place between this and Noli, which was at the distance of forty miles. We accordingly landed, and were conducted to the poste, which our gondeliere assured us was the best auberge in the whole Riviera of Genoa. We ascended by a dark, narrow, steep stair, into a kind of public room, with a long table and benches, so dirty and miserable, that it would disgrace the worst hedge ale-house in England. Not a soul appeared to receive us. This is a ceremony one must not expect to meet with in France; far less in Italy. Our patron going into ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... a sigh as he climbed the steep step, throwing the candle rays ahead of him into the gloom of the gallery. Not a sound. The silence of death was in the big church.... Muttering to himself, he traversed the long aisle at the top of the gallery, peering down into the vacant seats ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee

... origin, surrounded by coral reefs; relatively flat coralline limestone plateau (source of most fresh water), with steep coastal cliffs and narrow coastal plains in north, low-rising hills in center, mountains ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Descending a steep hill toward the sea as the big car slipped between tall marble gate-posts, a perfume as of all the sweetest flowers of the world, gathered in a bouquet, was flung into the two men's faces. In the distance, beyond the house whose windows suddenly lit up as if by ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... to attend to, the question of food, for he was getting very hungry. He was now on a steep trail that led up to the valley now known as the Santa Mar'a, and there, he knew, was another rancher'a, or village. Here, too, he might be known, but he must take the chance: he must have food, and would ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase

... however, to their landing upon the isthmus, a detachment of the fleet was sent against a fortress at the mouth of the Chagu—which river it was necessary to ascend before disembarking for Panama. This fortress was built upon a steep rock, against which the waves of the sea were continually breaking, and was defended by an officer of distinguished ability and courage, and by a garrison in all respects worthy of such a commander. For a time the contest was doubtful, but the fates favored ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... sand; iron-sand?) superposed on limestone. The whole of this formation, which I shall designate by the name of the limestone of Guines, to distinguish it from another much more recent, forms, near Trinidad, in the Lomas of St. Juan, steep declivities, resembling the mountains of limestone of Caripe, in the vicinity of Cumana. They also contain great caverns, near Matanzas and Jaruco, where I have not heard that any fossil bones have been found. The frequency of caverns in which the pluvial ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt

... swords and muskets, accompanied them; for they were friends of the pacha, and had letters from him commanding an escort for them. They only came to see our mountains, to ascend Parnassus amid the snow and the clouds, and to look at the strange black steep rock near our hut. They could not find room in it, nor could they endure the smoke that rolled along the ceiling and found its way out at the low door; therefore they pitched their tents on the small space outside our dwelling, roasted lambs ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... line is single, and has a gauge of three feet, the standard of the existing narrow gauge lines in Ulster. The gradients are exceedingly heavy, as will be seen from the diagram, being in parts as steep as 1 in 35. The curves are also in many cases very sharp, having necessarily to follow the existing road. There are five passing places, in addition to the sidings at the termini and at the carriage depot. At the Bushmills end, the line is laid for about 200 yards along the street, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... decided grade up from the beginning, a steep slant, that causes many to avoid it, though they feel impelled to take it. Those who take it say that after the first decided step into it the slant does not seem nearly so hard as before starting, and that climbing ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... she told Gerry when she had recovered her breath, being somewhat portly for so steep a hill, "we've heard about your barn plan, and we thought we'd better have a finger in the pie. So we decided that instead of packing a barrel for the heathen just now we will dress up the Jimson's, so as to have them match better with their new home. Oh, we shall ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various

... first very steep bit of the hill, and came to an even stretch of ground, and the driver said, "Now, musician, let us have a jolly song to ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri

... They turned into the steep road leading into the town, flashing past shuttered villas set in gardens, till they reached a labyrinth of quaint, narrow, walled thoroughfares ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... settling matters in this way, our good friend, Lope Asturiano, was on his way to the river, musing upon his beloved tunny fisheries and on his sudden change of condition. Whether it was for this reason, or that fate ordained it so, it happened that as he was riding down a steep and narrow lane, he ran against another water-carrier's ass, which was coming, laden, up-hill; and, as his own was fresh and lively and in good condition, the poor, half-starved, jaded brute that was toiling up hill, was knocked down, the pitchers were broken, and the water spilled. ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... her up the steep stairs, which were closed at the head by a stout door. The upper story was divided about equally into two rooms. The east room, to which Mrs. Preston opened the door, was plainly furnished, yet in comparison with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... the island, then straight across, keeping the island between her and the settlement. Gaining the other shore, Helen pulled the canoe into the willows, and mounted the bank. A thicket of willow and alder made progress up the steep incline difficult, but once out of it she faced a long stretch of grassy meadowland. A mile beyond began the green, billowy rise of that mountain which she ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... which, through lost opportunities or the oppression of others, are still virtually children—were to dictate principles of intolerance to those who, by no merit of their own but as a plain matter of fact, can possess the wider vision. Let a composer steep himself as much as he can in his native folk-music, as in all other great music, and then write in sincerity whatever is in his own marrow; but anything approximately like a chauvinistic attitude towards music, as towards ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... doth peep Over the soft hill's verdant steep, Lighting up its shadows deep, I'll think of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... attempts be made to turn the stream elsewhere; there simply ensues a stoppage of the natural issue, a dam barring useful canals, a haphazard change of current not only without gain, but loss, the stream subsiding in swamps or undermining the steep banks of a ravine. At the utmost, the millions of buckets of water, forcibly taken from private reservoirs, half fill with a good deal of trouble the great central artificial basin in which the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of junction between two great rivers—the Monongahela and the Alleghany. A wild and solitary spot it was, hardly visited till then by white men; the land on the fork was level and broad, with mighty trees thronging upon it; opposite were steep bluffs. The Alleghany hurried downward at the rate a man would walk; the Monongahela loitered, deep and glassy. Washington had acted as adjutant of a body of Virginia troops for the past two or three years, and he examined the place ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... dared not trust herself to address him by name. Still not for a moment did Ronald relax in his exertions. The Frenchmen had the advantage of knowing the ground, and they were evidently, Ronald conjectured, aiming at some particular spot, where they might hold out successfully. The path was steep, and numerous creepers of a tropical vegetation crossed it. In one of these the big Frenchman must have caught his foot; he stumbled, and before he could recover himself young Doull sprung like a tiger on his throat, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... own again became rather boisterous. Having seen all there was to be seen I made my way down to camp as slowly as possible, followed by a howling mob. The moment one had one's back turned stones flew in abundance. The camel man and I went down the steep incline, and when we reached the last houses of the village a great number of people were congregated on the roofs, who gesticulated frantically and yelled something or other at me as I passed. One or two of them had long matchlocks. We had gone but a few yards when a shot was fired at ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... intervening obstacle, that which is called the romantic passion of love, in its high poetical character and colouring can hardly have an existence—any more than there can be a current in a river without the stream being narrowed by steep banks, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and were choked ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... as alcohol enervates the body. If a man's function in life is to learn, then by all means let him be learned. When Macaulay took the trouble to master thousands of rubbishy pamphlets, poems, plays, and fictions, in order that he might steep his mind in the atmosphere of a particular period in history, he was quite justified. The results of his research were boiled down into a few vivid emphatic pages, and we had the benefit of his labour. When Carlyle spent thirteen mortal years in grubbing among musty German histories ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... cabin was near at hand, the two men did not quicken their speed, for the ascent was somewhat steep ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... do now that the stage-play was ended, and deception could no longer avail? Would she once more resume her old habits—open her saloons to the patrician gamblers of West-end London, and steep her weary, guilt-burdened soul in the mad intoxication of ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon



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