"Acclivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fled by night from Mulinuu, they carried their wandering government some six miles to windward, to a position above Lotoanuu. For some three miles to the eastward of Apia, the shores of Upolu are low and the ground rises with a gentle acclivity, much of which waves with German plantations. A barrier reef encloses a lagoon passable for boats: and the traveller skims there, on smooth, many-tinted shallows, between the wall of the breakers on the one hand, and on the other a succession of palm-tree capes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it descended the farther slope, the acclivity of which was much less abrupt. The anchors were thrown out from the car and one of them, coming in contact with the branches of an enormous nopal, caught on it firmly. Joe at once let himself slide down the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... themselves in the concealment of the woods brough Fortner and Harry out upon an acclivity that almost overhung the ford, and those gathered around it. The two Unionists crawled cautiously through the cedars and laurel to the very edge of the cliff and looked down upon their enemies. They were so near that everything was plainly ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... from the market-place of Jena, it lies on the south-west border of the town, between the Engelgatter and the Neuthor, in a hollow defile, through which a part of the Leutrabach flows round the city. On the top of the acclivity, from which there is a beautiful prospect into the valley of the Saal, and the fir mountains of the neighbouring forest, Schiller built himself a small house, with a single chamber.[32] It was his favourite abode ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... along the summit of the cliffs; oftentimes winding so close round the edge of a projecting acclivity, that it required a clear head and a steady foot, for one false step would have been instant destruction. The coast below me was justly entitled to take its place amongst the finest rock-scenery in the island; and exhibited in its grandest form, the peculiarly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... ended, and before those to whom it was addressed at all had digested the wonder of it, and so hesitated in their reply, a half-dozen men and a woman or two came in sight in the narrow way before us, panting after their rapid ascent of the acclivity; and the calls of others pressing up the slope behind them sounded loudly, and in a very little while a crowd of a hundred or more pressed about us, all gazing at us and questioning us with a most eager surprise. For the most part these seemed to be ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... began to ascend the steep sides of the acclivity. Fortunately for them, a dense mist had arisen, which rolled down the skirts of the hills and filled the valley through which they moved. As soon as they left its cover and were revealed to the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... 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 averni[Lat]. V. intersect; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... returned the Major's stare with a steady gaze of appraisal. For a long minute he remained poised, then beckoned to the Major to follow him and whirling with a flirt of his long black hair he led the way up the acclivity, bearing to the right of the course ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... spots wind-rows. By letting in the light of heaven upon the dark and damp recesses of the wood, they form a sort of oases in the solemn obscurity of the virgin forests of America. The particular wind-row of which we are writing lay on the brow of a gentle acclivity; and, though small, it had opened the way for an extensive view to those who might occupy its upper margin, a rare occurrence to the traveller in the woods. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the power that so often lays desolate spots of this description; some ascribing it ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... yet several hours of light remaining, Roswell, still attended by Stimson, each armed with a sealing spear or lance, not only as a weapon of defence but as a leaping-staff, set out to climb as high up the central acclivity of the island as circumstances would allow him to go. He was deceived in the distances, however, and soon found that an entire day would be necessary to achieve such an enterprise, could it be performed at all; but he did succeed in reaching a low spur of the central mountain that commanded ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... character, was dimly seen through the branches and foliage on the edge of the rock, so the mode by which it was accessible was not at first apparent amongst the mist of the cascade. A pathway, a good deal hidden, by vegetation, ascended by a gentle acclivity, and prolonged by the architect by means of a few broad and easy marble steps, making part of the original approach, conducted the passenger to a small, but exquisitely lovely velvet lawn, in front of the turret or temple we have described, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... perpendicular, or nearly so; precipitous applies to that which is of the nature of a precipice, and is used especially of a descent; abrupt is as if broken sharply off, and applies to either acclivity or declivity. Compare HIGH. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... eloquence untaught and unpolished. He compared himself to the peasant of the Danube. Always more ready to strike than to speak, Legendre's gesture crushed before he spoke. He was the mace of Danton. Huguenin, one of those men who roll from profession to profession, on the acclivity of troublous times, without the power to arrest his course; an advocate expelled from the body to which he belonged; then a soldier, and a clerk at the barriere; always disliked, aspiring for power to recover his fortune, and ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... to state; but I believe that in point of cleanliness it is superior to many. It is situated on both banks of the Narenta, in a gorge which opens out into two small plains, at its N. and S. extremities. The eastern and larger part is built on an acclivity, and contains the bazaar, government offices, and the houses of the traders and the richer inhabitants. The western part is occupied by the poorer classes, who are for the most part Catholics, and are employed in agricultural ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... at dusk to the sick chamber of a countryman, I realized the shadows of life in Paris. From the dazzling Boulevard the cab soon wound through dim thoroughfares, up a deserted acclivity, to a gloomy porch. A cold mist was falling, and I heard the bell sound through a vaulted arch with desolate echoes. When the massive door opened, a lamp suspended from a chain revealed a paved entresol and broad staircase; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... easy grade, of more than a mile. Here were rows of plane-trees again, which, being of no great age and not meeting over the road, were most noticeable as emphasizing the perspective. And from the crest of this acclivity—down the long dip in the land, at the end of the loom of grey-white road lying shadowy between the perspective lines of trees—we saw rising in sombre mass against the purple haze of sunset, dominating the little city nestled at its base and even dwarfing the mountain at its ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... north is dark, lofty Blomidon—whose name is probably a memorial of a Portuguese voyager—with its overhanging cliff under which the tumultuous tides struggle and foam. Here, in a meadow close by, is a long row of Lombardy poplars, pointing to another race and another country. There, on a slight acclivity, among the trees, is a pile of white college buildings, there a tall white spire {52} rises into the pure blue sky. We see cottages covered with honeysuckle and grapevine; with their gardens of roses and lilies, and ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... they found McClelland fully awake to the danger they were in. From his eyrie he had seen parties of warriors strike off in every direction on hearing the shrill note of alarm first sounded by the squaw, and before White and the girl had joined him, twenty warriors had already gained the eastern acclivity of the Mount and were cautiously ascending, keeping their bodies under cover. The scouts soon caught glimpses of their swarthy faces as they glided from tree to tree and from rock to rock, until the hiding place ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... later, on the twenty-eighth of June, a friend and I clambered up Grays Peak, which is several hundred feet higher than Pikes Peak. It was a long and toilsome climb, winding about the snowbeds of the mountain side. Sometimes we scaled straight up the acclivity on "all fours," throwing ourselves down on the rocks at frequent intervals to rest our aching limbs and fill our lungs with the rarefied air; up and up and up, until at last, with a long pull and a strong pull, we stood on the sky-haunting ridge above all the surrounding elevations, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... mountain the intensity of the magnetic forces, before sunrise, we set out at five in the morning, accompanied by slaves carrying our instruments. Our party consisted of eighteen persons, and we all walked one behind another, in a narrow path, traced on a steep acclivity, covered with turf. We endeavoured first to reach a hill, which towards the south-east seems to form a promontory of the Silla. It is connected with the body of the mountain by a narrow dyke, called by the shepherds the Gate, or Puerta ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... we knew the tug must come. We set off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which had looked like a close chain from below, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... down the most frightful precipices. But the utmost precaution did not always prevent the corps from losing their way. Sometimes men, at the head of a battalion, would continue to follow the windings of a deafening torrent, instead of turning abruptly to the right or left, up some rocky acclivity, over which lay their proper course; whilst others who chanced to be right, would pursue the proper track. The line was so drawn out, that there were unavoidably many intervals, and it was easy for such mistakes to occur, although trumpeters were placed at regular ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... remembers afterwards these details, which are indeed so few as not properly to enter into the effect. The rock fully justifies its attributive height to the eye, which follows the upward rush of the mighty acclivity, steep after steep, till it wins the cloud-capt summit, when the measureless mass seems to swing and sway overhead, and the nerves tremble with the same terror that besets him who looks downward from the verge of a lofty precipice. It is wholly grim and stern; no touch of beauty relieves the ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... she meant to dart from that eminence into the air, that the slope of each following surge swung like a pendulum under her, and though her sail was becalmed in the trough, her momentum was so great that she was speeding up the acclivity and catching the whole weight of the wind afresh before there was time for ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell |
