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Parapet   /pˈɛrəpˌɛt/   Listen
Parapet

noun
1.
A low wall along the edge of a roof or balcony.
2.
Fortification consisting of a low wall.  Synonym: breastwork.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Parapet" Quotes from Famous Books



... long rope, made fast to a staple, and repaired to the palace. When they came thither, they looked and beheld the damsel standing on the roof. So they threw her the rope and the staple; whereupon she [made the latter fast to the parapet and] wrapping her sleeves about her hands, slid down [the rope] and landed with them. They carried her without the town, where they mounted, she and her lord, and fared on, whilst the guide forewent them, directing them in ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... give five years of my life to know who and what that woman is!" Angelique added, as she leaned over the parapet, gazing intently at the great forest that lay beyond Charlebourg, in which was concealed ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... the flat roof of Miramar, leaning on the parapet, were two young people. Above them were the blue-black sky and white stars of the tropics; from below rose the happy cheers of the mob and the jubilant strains ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... shield; up that dread path he went Hardening his heart from trembling, in his hand Now shook the threatening spear, now upward climbed Fast high in air he trod the perilous way. Now on the Trojans had disaster come, But, even as above the parapet His head rose, and for the first time and the last From her high rampart he looked down on Troy, Aeneas, who had marked, albeit afar, That bold assault, rushed on him, dashed on his head So huge a stone that the hero's ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... trenches, we finally reached the front line which we found to be what we afterward called a "half-and-half" trench; that is, it was dug down to a depth of perhaps four feet and built up about the same with sand-bags, making it possibly eight feet from the bottom of trench to top of parapet. It was quite dry and clean and comfortable and proved that the Buffs and Surreys had not been loafing during the summer. I'm afraid we did not properly appreciate it at that time, but as I look back over all the time that has passed since, I am compelled to admit that it was ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... same time a push with the butt end of his musket, whether I still doubted the power of the people? I answered "No," and I mentioned the number of my brother-in-law's house. I saw my sister ascending the steps of the parapet of the bridge, surrounded by members of the National Guard. I called to her, and she turned round. "Would you have her go with you?" said my guardian to me. I told him I did wish it. They called the people who were leading my sister to prison; she ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... there—an old man dressed in a shabby suit, kneeling before a great block of stone that had been dislodged upward from the parapet and formed a sort of table. Upon this table the old man had placed a large, square box, resembling an exaggerated kodak, and it was from the lens of this box that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... thou thyself seest how careful he is over me." Quoth the Shaykh, "My lodging adjoineth thine; so there will be no difficulty, when thy brother sleepeth, to rise and, entering the privy, feign thyself asleep. Then come to the parapet[FN103] of the terrace-roof and I will receive thee on the other side of the wall; so shalt thou sit with me an eye-twinkling and return without thy brother's knowledge." "I hear and obey," answered the lad; and the tutor began to prepare gifts ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... hiding another yawn behind his gauntlet; "the Line's nothing half so bad as this; one day in a London mob beats a year's campaigning; what's charging a pah to charging an oyster-stall, or a parapet of fascines to a bristling row ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... for Mark. There is a point where the covered portion of the bridge ends, and the structure is supported by a massive stone pier, whose angles, facing up and down the river and protected by a broad parapet, form recesses on either side of the roadway. Here he stopped for a moment, fascinated by the charm of the scene, and, leaning upon the ledge, watched the last touches of scarlet fading out of the slate-coloured cloud-masses in the west. He was roused from this occupation by a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... and the same superposition of one rank of society over another, are to be observed in both. Thus, the broad and comely approach to Princes Street from the east, lined with hotels and public offices, makes a leap over the gorge of the Low Calton; if you cast a glance over the parapet, you look direct into that sunless and disreputable confluent of Leith Street; and the same tall houses open upon both thoroughfares. This is only the New Town passing overhead above its own cellars; walking, so to speak, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... iron-clads approached Fort Sumter in line of battle, Col. Alfred Rhett, commandant of the post, mounting the parapet, where he remained, ordered the band to strike up the national air of "Dixie;" and at the same time, in addition to the Confederate flag, the State and regimental flags were flung out at different salients of the fort, and saluted ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... speak a parable. Humanity—ourselves—are as people dwelling ever bound and fettered in a twilit cave, with our backs to the light. Behind us is a parapet, and beyond the parapet a fire; all that we see is the shadows thrown on the wall that faces us by figures passing along the parapet behind us; all we hear is the echo of their voices. Now, if some of us are turned round to face the light and look on the real ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... hundred yards of the fort, the rebel fire opened with such effect that the first battalion hesitated and wavered. Colonel Shaw sprang to the front, and waving his sword, shouted: "Forward, 54th!" With another cheer, the men rushed through the ditch, and gained a parapet on the right. Colonel Shaw was one of the first to scale the walls. As he stood erect, a noble figure, ordering his men forward and shouting to them to press on, he was shot dead and fell into the fort. After his fall, the assault ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... opposite, and a touch of salt freshened the breeze that blew up the river. Most of the inhabitants of the Vale were in bed, and the wet road was lonely under the stars. He walked as far as a little bridge spanning a brook that ran into the river, and seating himself on the low parapet smoked thoughtfully. His mind went back to his own marriage many years before, and to his children, whom he had placed, on his wife's death, with a second cousin in London. An unusual feeling of loneliness possessed him. He smoked a second pipe and then, knocking ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs

... when he was calculating the inclination of the platform and the breadth of the causeway; but this task was so easy with the snow, that he enjoyed it, and he was able to make the wall seven feet thick; besides the plateau overlooking the bay, he had to build neither counterscarp nor glacis; the parapet of snow, after following the outlines of the plateau, joined the rock on the other side. The work of fortification was finished April 15th. The fort was completed, and the doctor seemed very ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... being shunted, in token of colossal hidden activity. Then a train passed by, leaving Paris, with puffing breath and a growing rumble. And all she perceived of this train was a white plume, a sudden gust of steam which rose above the parapet and then evaporated. But the bridge had shaken, and she herself seemed impressed by this departure at full speed. She turned round as if to follow the invisible engine, the noise of which was ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... in the veiled sunshine. The hill to the back of the house where I had lived, in the distance, the red roofs of the fishing villages, the little spire of the smallest of them barely projecting, as it always did, above the freshly reaped fields. And I felt, as I leaned against the parapet watching for my train's smoke coming towards me, not the loss, but rather the inestimable gain which a kindly past represents. Years gone by? Nay, rather years which make endurable, which furnish and warm the present, giving it sweetness and significance. How very poor ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... energy, by means of which, exercising his trading, he came to possess great wealth and to have influence with the governors of Filipinas. Through his arrangements the Sangleys negotiated with Don Pedro, asking his consent to finish a parapet of the wall that he was completing, at their own cost; for they, as a portion of the commonwealth, wished to do this service for his Majesty. Each of them offered four reals for the work. This service and the thanks of the citizens, whom Encan or Baptista had bought by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... there, through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed. The sea lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipt in gold. The smaller craft, moored close to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... When I left home this morning the pearl was in my pocket, and as I came over Waterloo Bridge, I leaned over the parapet and flung the thing into the water. After that I felt quite relieved for a time; I had shaken the accursed thing off without involving anyone in the curse that it carried. But presently I began to feel fresh misgivings, and the conviction has been growing upon ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... struck the flag-staff, and the banner, which had waved in that lurid atmosphere all day, fell on the beach outside the fort. For a moment there was a pause, as if at a presage of disaster. Then a grenadier, the brave and immortal Serjeant Jasper, sprang upon the parapet, leaped down to the beach, and passing along nearly the whole front of the fort, exposed to the full fire of the enemy, deliberately cut off the bunting from the shattered mast, called for a sponge staff to be thrown to him, and tying the flag to ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... century, not mentioned in the annals, are the entire removal of the lower stage of Norman windows in the aisles, these were replaced by wide windows of five lights each; the addition of a parapet to the apse; the erection of piscinas and other accompaniments to side altars, at the east ends ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting

... broad gutter ran round the roof on the inside of the Quadrangle, with a low stone parapet at the edge. Along this the two boys crawled slowly and cautiously, until they had reached about the middle of their side ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... reason, for, after all, they are the most important events in our lives, and in the villages most of the cottagers are more or less related. All the inhabitants were much excited when a poor old widow, living very near my house, sitting on a low circular stone parapet round her well, lost her balance in some way, fell in, and was drowned. I was foreman of the jury at the inquest, and after hearing the evidence, which amounted to no more than the finding of the body soon after the event, the coroner expressed ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... that it was useless to try to get to Stanley along the passage. He might succeed in getting past the master's room, but what then? The door would be locked, and he could not pass through a locked door. Dormitory X had a window looking on to the parapet outside, and it was by this window he hoped to gain Stanley's room. There was a small lavatory at the end of the corridor, and this likewise had a window leading ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... Bradmore House, the oldest house in Hammersmith, is in the lane. The grounds stretch out a long way eastward, and one or two old cedars are still growing here. The eastern portion of the house has a fine front with fluted pilasters, with Ionic capitals running up to a stone parapet surmounted by urns. The windows are circular-headed, and those over the central doorway belong to a great room, 30 feet by 20, and 20 in height. The house, though much altered, is in its origin part of a very ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... rushed to repel an attack. Heralded by a storm of fire from every gun which could be brought to bear upon the battery, thousands of fanatics rushed from the shelter of the houses outside the intrenchments and swarmed down upon it. The garrison lay quiet behind the parapet until the approach of the foe caused the enemy's cannon to cease their fire. Then they leaped to their feet and poured a volley into the mass. So great were their numbers, however, that the gaps were closed in a moment, and with yells and shouts the enemy leaped into the ditch, ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... and painted domes, the Gothic turret and Moorish minaret, impressed us with the idea of the antique; while here and there the tamarind, nourished on some azotea, or the fringed fronds of the palm-tree, drooping over the notched parapet, lent to the city an aspect at once southern ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... up to the parapet Crowning the corner height, the stones as set By him—ashlar whereon the gales might drum For ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy

... unarmed men creeping up ladders set at every side of the lofty tower. Again and again they cast off the ladders, till at length, being so few, they could stir them no more because of the weight upon them, but must hack at the heads of the stormers as they appeared above the parapet, ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... The men were allowed to go back to their trenches unmolested, but the two bottles of beer quite naturally and without any difficulty continued their journey to our lines. When I got up to the front trench, I found our boys standing on the parapet and looking over at the enemy. I climbed up, and there, to my astonishment, I saw the Germans moving about in their trenches apparently quite indifferent to the fact that we were gazing at them. One man was sawing wood. Between us and them lay that ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... of wood, have no parapet, and are only just wide enough for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of the smallest accident, wound inevitably be plunged into the river. They are startling contrivances, and ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... their weapons. The superior accuracy of aim which the American has obtained by practice from his early youth, has enabled our militia to gain, under the protection of military works, victories as brilliant as the most veteran troops. The moral courage necessary to await an attack behind a parapet, is at least equal to that exerted in the open field, where movements generally determine the victory. To watch the approach of an enemy, to see him move up and display his massive columns, his long array of military equipments, his fascines and scaling-ladders, his instruments of attack, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... below was swamp. This battery, if maintained, cut off the enemy alike from retreat, and from reinforcements and supplies. When the morning of the 15th disclosed the muzzles of the heavy guns peering over the river-bank as over a parapet, five gunboats moved up within three hundred yards, and with furious cannonade strove to destroy them. In an hour and a half one gunboat was sunk, others damaged, gunners on them shot from the rifle-pits on shore, and ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force

... rule or phrase of Architecture, but it seems to me surely that that square-set strength, as of a fortress, towering against the clouds, and catching the last light always on its fretted parapet, and everywhere embossed and enriched with foliage, and tracery, and the figures of saints, and the shadows of vast arches, and the light of niches gold-starred and filled with divine forms, is a gift so perfect to the whole world, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... anticipation of rest. So have I seen a wayfarer quicken his footsteps as, at eventide, he came in sight of the village lights. So have I seen a soldier, weary with the stress of conflict and wounded unto death, bear the standard aloft as he climbed the parapet and with his last voice shouted ...
— The Centurion's Story • David James Burrell

... trickled from the wood, and a rustic bridge—more for ornament than use, for a man with long legs could stride the stream well—was thrown over it. Val had reached thus far, when he saw someone standing on the bridge, his arms on the parapet, apparently in ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... hill-pony, came a young country girl across one of the ancient bridges, with a large market-basket on her arm, brimful of golden May-flowers, set off well by their own glossy leaves, and by the dark blue of her dress. She checked her pony and lingered for a few minutes, looking over the parapet at the swift rushing of the current through the narrow arches. A thin line of alders grew along the margin of the river, with their pale green leaves half unfolded; and in the midst of the swirling waters, parting them into two streams, lay a narrow islet on which tall willow wands were springing, ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... the first line of the enemy was represented by sacks stuffed with straw, hung upon a frame, the second by stuffed sacks deposited on the parapet of a trench. In bayonet-fighting the three points demanding special emphasis are the "guarding" of the enemy's attack, a swift bayonet thrust and an equally swift recovery, each operation, whether in case of a living enemy or in the stuffed effigy, being attended with ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... would be a favourable site; and asked him to tell me definitely how to reach it. He offered to guide me to the place. On getting to the position I found that the conformation of the ground constituted almost a natural parapet for a six gun battery—requiring but little work to complete it for use. It afforded immediate shelter ...
— Company 'A', corps of engineers, U.S.A., 1846-'48, in the Mexican war • Gustavus Woodson Smith

... rather deaf, and has not caught the name, grasps the paper and hides behind it. From long experience he has discovered the utility of the newspaper as a sort of parapet behind which ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson

... cells in this budding city was developed further, and a low wall built round each cell. Moreover, more cells were built, always taking the cross as the center of all things—six-sided cells, with a low, incomplete wall, or, rather, parapet, partitioning each off, to the number of about twenty-four cells in all. Each cell was closed, of course, at the top, the top being its floor, and open at the bottom, the bottom being, if I may so put it, the top; for, as has already been said, wasp cities are built ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... revelation which he had received, unconscious of whither his steps were taking him, Gaspard de Vaux wandered on in the darkness from street to street until he found himself upon London Bridge. He leaned over the parapet and looked down upon the whirling stream below. There was something in the still, swift rush of it that seemed to beckon, to allure him. After all, why not? What was life now that he should prize it? For a moment De Vaux ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... fort, is described by an early writer thus: "Col. Johnson's mansion is situated on the border of the north bank of the River Moack. It is three stories high (two with an attic) built of stone, with port-holes and a parapet, and flanked with four bastions on which are some small guns. In the yard, on both sides of the mansion, are two small houses; that on the right of the entrance is a store, and that on the left is designed for workmen, negroes and other domestics. The yard gate is a heavy swing-gate, ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... the quaint dragons' mouths, ranged along the parapet of the Abbey roof; it dripped from every stone coping and abutment; from window-ledge and porch, from gable-end and sheltering ivy. The rain was everywhere, and the incessant pitter-patter of the drops beating against the windows of the Abbey made ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... edge, at the brilliant throng of skaters, at the great stone bridge spanning the frozen river over which people were forever passing to and fro, some hurriedly, some with leisure to lean over the parapet for a moment to watch the unaccustomed revelry below. And as he looked, another scene, which he had so lately left, rose before him. In fancy he could see the broad and shining Potomac, on its banks the stately old colonial house ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... yourselves cross-bowmen and let these two dogs keep their station under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the battlement, an better may not be. Get pick-ax and levers and down with that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone-carved work that projected from the parapet. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... his demeanor, had grown cold and silent. The dejected Clare sought retirement. Courteous she was to Lady Angus, shared in ceaseless prayers for the safe return of Scotch liege and lord, but borne down with sorrow, she loved best to find some lonely spot, turret, tower, or parapet, where she might retire alone to listen to the wailing waters, to hear the sea-bird's cry, to recall her life at the Convent of Whitby, and to regret the loss of the loved garb of the nun. At the command ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... a small hamlet. On the further side of the valley to the east was a steep hill on which were a few houses—at the foot of the hill was a brook crossed by an antique bridge of a single arch. I directed my course to the bridge, and after looking over the parapet for a minute or two upon the water below, which was shallow and noisy, ascended a road which led up the hill: a few scattered houses were on each side. I soon reached the top of the hill, where were some more houses, those which I had seen from the valley below. I was in a Welsh mountain village, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... beyond were passed at a run, and the men with fascines cast them into the ditch. It was already half full of the wreck the cannon had made in the earthwork. We jumped in, and out; it was all mud and water. Ladders were set against the parapet, but the slope was now not abrupt, having been crumbled away by our guns, so that most of us scrambled up without delay. I saw Captain Hunt fall, the enemy firing wildly. If Sergeant Brown of the Fourth Connecticut, or Mansfield of the Forlorn Hope, were first on the parapet, I do not know. Hamilton ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... currents.... If this fault cannot be removed, I should propose to return to our original system of independent wires (formerly to Croydon and Dartford).—The new Azimuth-mark (for the Altazimuth), upon the parapet of the Naval College, is found to be perfectly satisfactory as regards both steadiness and visibility. The observations of a low star for zero of azimuth have been omitted since the beginning of 1881; the mark, in combination with a high star, appearing to give all that is necessary for this purpose.—All ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... friend by my side. Lord Battersea chaffed me in his noisy, flamboyant manner, trying to separate us; but with tact and determination this frontal attack was resisted and my new friend and I retired to the darkest part of the Terrace, where, leaning over the parapet, we gazed into the river and talked far ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... they drew it back: foot by foot, and yard by yard, it came yieldingly towards them—until they saw the broad curving breast of the pseudo-bird projecting over the parapet ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... but, suddenly changing his plan, he allowed the Spaniard to lift him from the ground. Then, assisting himself with his feet against the wall, he, much to the astonishment of the spectators, scrambled quite over the parapet, and dashed sword in hand among the defenders of the fort. Had he been endowed with a hundred lives it seemed impossible for him to escape death. But his followers, stimulated by his example, made ladders for themselves of each others' ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... four hours he paced backwards and forwards, every now and then stopping to lean on the parapet, and once or twice to sit down, until the chill autumn wind pierced his scanty clothing, and compelled him to resume his walk in order ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning woman floated to the surface, moving ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... and better preserved village. The little church with its grey tower is noticeable on account of the vigorous ash-tree that grows from the parapet. It has been there for many years, and I am told that the roots have penetrated for a very great distance among the stones, and may even be drawing their sustenance from the ground. In order to prevent the ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... militia-men with guns loaded and bayonets fixed, not as a complimentary escort, but a stern necessity, a fact that had been proved not an hour before, when some desperate fellow had broken through the guard, and flung himself from the parapet of the bridge over the Nene at Peterborough, and was shot the moment he rose to the surface of the water. Alas! for him, poor fellow, they could aim well in those days with ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... in the street were new and well built, with large window panes and smooth walls. Any one could see they had nothing to do with the old house. Perhaps they thought, "How long will that heap of rubbish remain here to be a disgrace to the whole street. The parapet projects so far forward that no one can see out of our windows what is going on in that direction. The stairs are as broad as the staircase of a castle, and as steep as if they led to a church-tower. The iron railing ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... therefore, in the first instance, of little more than a rude circular tower of that architecture called Cyclopean, additions had been made to it by the Romans of a strong brick wall with a parapet, enclosing a space of about a hundred feet in diameter, accessible only by a single gateway, with a steep and narrow path leading to it, and thoroughly commanded ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... vision was somewhat marred by his conception of himself eating a huge sandwich as he looked down from his parapet upon the worshipping throng below. Roy Blakeley would be down there among the others, his jollying propensity subdued by a feeling of awe as he gazed at the great scout hermit, the famous pioneer scout who sent messages to lesser scouts the world over. They would whisper, ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... finished with a tall finial also crocketed. Between and on either side of these windows are panelled pilasters and brackets carrying figures. The lower and upper stages are divided by a narrow external gallery running round the tower, and protected by a pierced, embattled parapet. This is known as the Bell Ringers' Gallery, and certainly adds greatly to the effect of the tower as a whole. The upper stage, which is much less lofty, has also two two-light windows on each face, surmounted by crocketed ogee label mouldings and finials. These lights are louvred. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate

... the walls, of whom the greater part had fought against the Danes in the battles of the previous year. The attack commenced simultaneously on all sides by a discharge of arrows by the archers of both parties. The Saxons, sheltered behind the parapet on the walls, suffered but slightly; but their missiles did considerable execution among the masses of the Danes. These, however, did not pause to continue the conflict at a distance, but uttering their ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... you may pass through low and small door-ways to other apartments. It is all haphazard, but exceedingly picturesque. You may find some of the family in every room, or they may be gathered, women and babies, on a roof which is protected by a parapet. At the time of our visit the men were all away at work in their fields. Notwithstanding the houses are only sun-dried bricks, and the village is without water or street commissioners, I was struck by ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... reason Deane seemed to wish to let the subject rest for a moment. He stood close to the little parapet, looking towards the horizon, watching the dull glare of lights, whose concentrated reflection was thrown upon a bank ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... for the land breeze to carry us out, having already recalled the officers and men from the fort, the guns being spiked and thrown over the parapet, the carriages rendered unserviceable, and the embrasures, with part of the fort, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... stone parapet, in the darkest corner of the portico, Federico posted himself, silent and motionless. He had not long waited, when he heard the sound of footsteps upon the rough pavement. They came nearer; a shadow crossed the front of the arched gateway and was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... castle, and between the keep and the outer wall what was once a ditch has grown into the Bishop's garden, a sloping stretch of shaven lawn and flower borders, with a fountain and birds bathing in it. The keep itself, almost from the broken parapet to the tumbled stones at the base, is a mixture of wall and rock garden, in which grow all the rock plants worth growing. Perhaps there were wallflowers when Bishop Mew planted his orchard in the keep; but the pasque flower and other rarer blossoms which crowd round the base belong ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... ready to flatten to earth as soon as any one of his many overshoulder glances detected another sky-spearing flight of sparks. But this necessity he was spared; no more lights were discharged before he groped through the wires to the parapet, with almost uncanny good luck, finding the very spot where the British had come over the top, indicated by protruding uprights of a rough ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... this land whose most ancient name signifies the Place of the Issuing of Clouds. With the passing of twilight a faint ghostly brume rises over lake and landscape, spectrally veiling surfaces, slowly obliterating distances. As I lean over the parapet of the Tenjin-bashi, on my homeward way, to take one last look eastward, I find that the mountains have already been effaced. Before me there is only a shadowy flood far vanishing into vagueness without a horizon—the phantom of a sea. And I become suddenly aware that little ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... mountains near the source of the Tarn. He was on his way to prison, tied behind a trooper, like Rob Roy in Scott's novel, when, suddenly freeing himself from his bonds while crossing the bridge of Pont-de-Montvert, he slid from the horse, and leapt over the parapet into the Tarn. The soldiers at once opened fire upon the fugitive, and he fell, pierced with many balls, and was carried away in the torrent. And thus Pont-de-Montvert, which had seen the beginning, also saw the end of ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... the southern sun. There is a canal below, crowded with gondolas, and across its bridge the good folk of San Vio come and go the whole day long—men in blue shirts with enormous hats, and jackets slung on their left shoulder; women in kerchiefs of orange and crimson. Barelegged boys sit upon the parapet, dangling their feet above the rising tide. A hawker passes, balancing a basket full of live and crawling crabs. Barges filled with Brenta water or Mirano wine take up their station at the neighbouring steps, and then ensues a mighty splashing ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... over the entire breadth of the causeway, and some even to the very middle of the street. Slops of all sorts, and from all parts of the houses, were emptied into the street before the front doors! The ashes were disposed of in a very peculiar manner. Each house had, on the edge of the parapet opposite, an old flour-barrel, or something of the sort, into which were thrown ashes, sweepings, fish-bones, dead rats, and all kinds of refuse. A dead rat very frequently garnished the top of the barrel. This was the ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... missing parishioners, lying on their stomachs on the tower roof, except a few who, elevated on their hands and knees, were peeping through the embrasures of the parapet. Stockdale did the same, and saw the village lying like a map below him, over which moved the figures of the excisemen, each foreshortened to a crablike object, the crown of his hat forming a circular disc in the centre of him. Some of the men had turned ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... Shafts of light from an unseen sun tinged the edges of the smoke-coloured clouds with amber and rose. A few spent musket-balls falling about the enclosure aroused Brock's suspicions. He was watching, from behind the earthen parapet, the flight of the shells discharged by the eighteen-pounder, and, seeing that they burst too ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... the low parapet of the quay-wall, rested on the quiet harbour, the ships swinging slowly with the tide, the farther shore touched with the sunset glory. Evensong, the close of day, the end of deeds, the twilit passing ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... at that northern parapet; thoughts of her own life or even of Brian's would not do just then. She had to think of her father, to devote herself to him. And somehow, though her heart was sad, yet her happiness was real as they tried together to make out the various ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... thirty men, was told off to advance and reconnoiter the position. These were allowed to enter the gorge, and to follow it for a distance of a hundred yards, to a point where the sides were approached to their nearest point. Then, from a parapet of rock piled across the ravine came a volley of musketry; and, simultaneously, from the heights of either side great stones came crashing down. Such of the party as did not fall at the first discharge fired a volley at their invisible ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... and they set off again, but more slowly, for the road now was paved with bricks instead of the loose sand over which they had travelled hitherto, and moreover it ran, without fence or parapet, along the top of a formidable dyke, the black waters of which far beneath him caused Tristram the most painful apprehension. Captain Salt, guessing this, slackened the pace to a walk. The glare still reddened the sky behind: but either the firing had ceased or they had passed beyond ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... they keep this up?" she asked, as they were ascending the parapet from which they could still see the moving mass and the flashing lights, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... traceable. The rubbish with which long since the moat had been filled—possibly when William the Third made his alterations to the Palace, or perhaps even earlier—was cleared away, the brick sides revealed, the bottom of the moat neatly turfed over, and a parapet with shield-bearing heraldical beasts erected on either side. These heraldical beasts, it must be admitted—whether a restoration in accordance with an old design or not—tend to spoil the approach to the Great Gatehouse, for the whole would ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold

... stone, As he tried like a wounded bird to rise, and placed his hand in my own; And he said in a voice half smothered, though its whispering thrills me yet, "I think in a moment more that I would have stood on that parapet. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... bird, and brook, and murmuring bees, For luckless fancies of illusion born, What time in dark we dwelt and framed our lore? Woe, woe, if then regretful we should mourn "What wisdom left we on that human shore!" For brooding kindness can a charm beget, Not duly won, and from Heaven's parapet These terrene colours shine with starry gleam— But this is all a fable and a dream; A fable, for this axiom it brings, Immortal loves must love immortal things; Dream is it, for uncurbed it took its flight, And roamed afar, a fancy ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... his wild career. The horses are changed every ten miles or so, and horrible and blood-curdling tales are extant of the villainy and wrong-headedness of some of these tonga ponies, how they jib for sheer pleasure, and leap over the low parapet that guards them from the precipice merely to vex the helpless traveller. When we suggested that to sit facing the past might be conducive to a sort of sea-sickness and certainly to headache, and that a total absence of view was to be deprecated, it was impressed upon us ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... what appears from below to be the summit, but is not, I found a large platform, improved by art, with remains of houses and cisterns, and surrounded at the edge by a parapet wall five feet thick,—except at the eastern end, opposite to the present town, where one-third of the hill has been left rising considerably higher, and therefore ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... the garden announced the coming of Lazarus and Joel. Martha leaned over the parapet and called, "A ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... led to the roof. It has been said that a turret had fallen in, breaking part of the stairs away, but the roof could easily be reached. There were many fragments, some large, some small, lying there, and one piece of considerable size Ellerey and Stefan managed to get on to the wall of the parapet immediately over the door. The manoeuvre was apparently unnoticed, for there came no ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... of discomfort which had been vexing Ellen all that day returned. There was, she felt, some remedy for it quite close at hand; but she did not know what it could be. If she leapt from a height she might lift this curious burden from her heart. She scrambled up on the stone parapet of the bridge and jumped back to earth; and he, because it was the kind of thing a boy might have done, took no notice. But she shivered because this tangible lump of misery was still within her. She must run about, or the beating of her heart would become ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... fro they paced, balancing sometimes with hysterical precision [Footnote: Hysterical precision. What does this mean?] on the ledge of the parapet, passing each other at whisker's length, but cutting each other dead. [Footnote: Cutting each other dead. Have you ever thought of the quaint absurdity of this figurative expression?] Not a cat had a look or a sniff for his fellow; not a ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... shape of the tent to determine those of the enclosures. A square of nine or ten feet, inside measurement, is amply sufficient for three guns or archers. The parapets can be built of large stones. A travelling party rarely carries spades, but when they have them, the parapet may be formed of the earth thrown up by digging a trench outside it; the common calculation is, that, with good tools, a labourer can dig one cubic yard of earth an hour, and can continue working for eight ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... were not too Mohammedan, and he was not much shocked at seeing our pretty Parisians without veils over their faces. One day, which he had spent almost entirely at Saint-Cloud, I saw him go through his prayers. It was in the court of honor, on a broad parapet bordered with a stone balustrade. The ambassador had carpets spread on the side of the apartments, which were afterwards those of the King of Rome; and there he made his genuflexions, under the eyes of many people of the house, who, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... battery, and no sign of a sentinel, I essayed to climb, accomplishing the ascent with no greater difficulty or hurt than the wearing of the soles off my stockings—for I took off my shoes for the sake of quietness and to gain a better foothold. Having gained the parapet, I found two sentries sitting there, with their backs against the wall, fast asleep, with their matchlocks beside them. Gently lifting their weapons in my hand, I shook out the priming—lest perchance they should awake and, seeing me, open fire upon me before I could get away—and then, replacing ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... bayou, and here two gunboats had taken station. They too were of the toy sort, plated perhaps with railway metals, perhaps with boiler-iron. They staggered under a heavy gun or two each. The bayou made an opening in the high bank of the river. The bank was a parapet, behind which the gunboats crouched, firing up the bayou as through an embrasure. The enemy was at this disadvantage: he could not get at the gunboats, and he could advance only by exposing his flank to their ponderous missiles, one of which would have broken ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... Strong outposts of infantry had been thrown out into the woods; the men were still working in the intrenchments; batteries were disposed so as to sweep every approach from the south, the south-east, or the south-west, and there were at least five men to every yard of parapet. The line, however, six miles from flank to flank, was somewhat extensive, and to make certain, so far as possible, that sufficient numbers should be forthcoming to defend the position, at 1.55 ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... camp, which might assist him in repelling any attack of the Frenchmen. "Though my countrymen will kill me if they discover I have warned you, I would rather die than that you should be taken by surprise," exclaimed Pierre, as he was helped over the parapet. ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston

... grotesquely, from the crevices of which sprays of peach-coloured orchids quivered, while the flora of land and sea commingled on the lustrous surface. Beyond again, the inlet wound round the base of it cliff vocal with the fugue of birds which flew from flowery parapet to flowery parapet. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... trust, withdraw from the company of their wives. Unless, said Eleazar, all the rules of our order be abolished. We did well to leave them, Caleb answered. And then, posing his small fat hands on the parapet, he said: women have ever been looked upon as man's pleasure, and our pleasures are as wolves, and our virtues are as sheep, and as soon as pleasure breaks into the fold the sheep are torn and mangled. We're better here with our virtues than they by ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... Invalides in Paris, but of the Invalides it falls far short. I know nothing of the history of the building, but it is easy to believe that the original intention may have been to place at the center of it, under the dome, a great well, over the parapet of which might have been seen the sarcophagus of John Paul Jones, in the crypt. One prefers to think that the architect had some such plan; for the crypt, as at present arranged, is hardly more than a dark cellar, approached by what seems to be a flight of humble back stairs. To descend into ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... Rebecca Motte, a rich widow of South Carolina, had been taken possession of by the British authorities, she being obliged to take up her residence in a farm-house on her lands. The large mansion was converted into a fort, and surrounded by a deep ditch and a high parapet. A garrison of one hundred and fifty men, under Captain McPherson, was stationed here, the place ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... a few months in St. Pierre is certain, sooner or later, to pass an idle half-hour in that charming place of Martinique idlers,—the beautiful Savane du Fort,—and, once there, is equally certain to lean a little while over the mossy parapet of the river-wall to watch the blanchisseuses at work. It has a curious interest, this spectacle of primitive toil: the deep channel of the Roxelane winding under the palm-crowned heights of the Fort; the blinding whiteness of linen laid out to bleach for miles upon the ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... height of gun deck from the water line twelve feet; armament: ten twelve-inch caliber guns mounted in turrets on the center line of the ship. The turrets were bolted to the deck, five of them forward and five aft, and were eighteen feet in diameter, eight feet high, with a slope from deck to parapet of thirty degrees and made of armor steel twelve inches thick. One gun in each turret and the guns could swing around on four-fifths of the circle, so that every gun could be brought to bear on an enemy either ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... groups of twenty or thirty massed together, as if for mutual protection, some lying on their faces, some killed in the act of firing; others hung up in the barbed wire. In one place a small group actually reached our parapet, and now lie dead on it, shot at point-blank range or bayoneted. Hundreds of others lie just outside their own trenches, where they were caught by rifle or shrapnel when trying to regain them. Hundreds of wounded must ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... man," and as he spoke, Hubert Graham drew his arm away from the parapet over which he was leaning with book in hand, and turning round a frank, honest-looking face towards the boy who was questioning him, passed his hand over his eyes, and added, "What can have come to Uncle Charlie to make him send ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... one, i.e., had parapet all around, and embrassures in all directions, as if built to stand a siege even if entirely surrounded by the enemy. Our four guns were its whole armament however, fronting the river and its ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little

... is provided with pots containing shrubs and evergreen plants; some even having small trees, as the orange, lime, camellia, ferns, and palms; while here and there one is conspicuous by a mirador (belvedere) arising high above the parapet to afford a better ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... right, where Breyman was posted behind a breastwork of logs and rails, that formed a right angle with the rest of the line. Calling on the nearest battalion to follow him, Arnold leaped his horse over the parapet. The Germans fired one volley and fled. Our troops took guns and prisoners. By this success they had gained an opening on Burgoyne's right and rear, precisely as he had meant to do by them. In this last assault Breyman ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake

... men retire behind some neighbouring rocks, which formed a kind of protecting parapet along our front and right flank, whilst I took post on the left. Both my barrels were now exhausted; and I desired the other two to fire separately, whilst I was reloading; but to my horror, Coles, who was armed with ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... the hour of noon, the great bell (which Garibaldi struck when he called the Romans "to arms") boomed out twelve mighty strokes with its immense clapper, and nearly deafened her. The wind was so strong that I had to take off my hat and cling to the parapet. But how interesting was the panorama that met my gaze! Right over the Eternal City beneath me, and far away beyond the plains around it, lay that great range of bare mountains over which, in the day of her distress, poured Rome's Gothic enemies, in wild and ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... standing apart with eyes bent in dumb and rigid despair upon his master. A confused tumult of arms is heard. The shepherd climbs hurriedly over the parapet with the announcement: "A second ship!" Kurwenal starts from his trance of grief and rushes to look off. He breaks into curses, recognising Mark and Melot among the men just landed. His resolution is instantly taken. "Arms and stones! Help me! To the gate!" ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... esplanade on the summit. Must he forever flee this pursuing Nemesis? Or should he hurl himself from the wall, once he gained the top? At the upper end of the incline he heard the low sound of voices. A priest and a young girl who sat there on the parapet rose as he approached. He stopped abruptly in front of them. "Wenceslas!" he exclaimed. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Buildings (Lord Lorn being in Scotland). She was obstinate, and would not illuminate, though with child, and, as they hope, of an heir to the family, and with the Duke, her son, and the rest of her children in the house. There is a small court and parapet wall before the house: they brought iron crows, tore down the gates, pulled up the pavement, and battered the house for three hours. They could not find the key of the back door, nor send for any assistance. The night before, they had obliged the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... the two pillars at the north side of the screen; both pillars and pulpit studiously plain, while the staircase which ascends to it is a compact mass of masonry (shaded in the plan), faced by carved slabs of marble; the parapet of the staircase being also formed of solid blocks like paving-stones, lightened by rich, but not deep, exterior carving. Now these blocks, or at least those which adorn the staircase towards the aisle, have been ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... Briggs of Ayr," whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep between. Nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless I mention, that, during the rain, the women ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... stood, its walls and spires rising before them, and the flag of France floating from the citadel. The town was about half a mile long, surrounded by a stockade and occasional batteries. Upon the highest point the citadel stood, with the guns peeping over the parapet. The path here entered a road, which ran towards the town; and now, going to this road, they went on, and soon reached ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... in his public office; then, trusting to the favour which Akbar had always displayed towards his family and himself, went and stood at the door of the harem. But for such a man, and for such an act, Akbar had no mercy. The assassin was cut to pieces, and his dead body was hurled over the parapet into the moat below. Those who had incited him, dreading lest their complicity should be discovered, fled across the Jumna, but they were caught, sent back to Agra, and were ultimately pardoned. The mother of the chief culprit died forty ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson

... statue. It was surrounded by benches occupied by strollers of both sexes. A dealer in fancy articles was offering his laces, a seller of cooling drinks, his portable cistern on his back, was tinkling his bell; little girls were showing off their airs and graces. The parapet was lined with anglers, standing, rod in hand, very still. The weather was stormy, the sky overcast. Gamelin leant on the low wall and looked down on the islet below, pointed like the prow of a ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then, there ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens

... enamelled coffee-pot or something; a geranium from a window, still growing; a china egg, a bit of a chair, a bit of an iron gateway. And as far as the eye can see in this particular region, just undulating stretches of tormented earth. All the old game of never showing above the parapet is quite disregarded, for often there is no parapet. Time after time the Huns could have seen us, and I saw lots of them running across gaps. You see, no sniping or anything like that can be organized yet. Huns often come into our lines by mistake, and we do likewise. And when you ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson

... moment Tito, with bloodless face and eyes dilated, had one of the self-preserving inspirations that come in extremity. With a sudden desperate effort he mastered the clasp of his belt, and flung belt and scarsella forward towards a yard of clear space against the parapet, ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... stronghold. This picturesque incongruity reaches its climax in the lofty round tower upon which a dovecot has been grafted, whose extinguisher-roof, with long drooping eaves, is quite out of keeping with the machicolations which remain a little below the line of the embattled parapet that has disappeared. The castle is now used for the schools of the commune, and a score or so of little boys and girls whom I met on my way up the rough path stared at me with much astonishment. I climbed to a bastion of the outer works, where a fig-tree, growing from the old wall, and reaching ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... he had quitted the seventh tree and had seated himself on the parapet of the River des Gobelins. A cheerful sunlight penetrated the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... went up to the roof—it was eleven o'clock—and soon I heard her running down-stairs crying. When she got to my room she just folded up on the floor. She said there was a black figure sitting on the parapet of the house next door—the empty house—and that when she appeared it rose and waved long black arms at her and spit like ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... him, a large family whom he adored, and they all lived an idyllic country life. Well, one day the Count's coat, his hat, his pocket-book (which was known to have been full of bank-notes, but which was now empty) were found on the parapet of a bridge near his chateau. It was given out—it was believed that a dastardly crime had been committed. And then, by a mere accident, it was brought to my notice—for there was nothing in the Count's dossier which could have led me to suspect such ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... afternoon. The admiral was for pushing on, driving all night. He stormed, but the drivers were obdurate. At Carghese they would remain till sunrise; that was final. Besides, it was not safe at night, without moonshine, for many a mile of the road lipping tremendous precipices was without curb or parapet. Not a foot ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... houses. The clusters which we came across seemed to have been composed of a larger number of houses. Parapets, also built of undressed stones and surrounding these villages, now became a constant feature. Even within sight of our camp was such a parapet, six feet high, and house ruins were near by. We also discovered an ancient pueblo consisting of thirty houses, all of the usual small dimensions, but not all alike in shape. Some were round, others ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... of thee I shall build Will be no stone thing, but my great regret By which our love's eternity is willed. My sorrow shall make thee its god, and set Thy naked presence on the parapet That looks over the seas of future times. Some shall say all our love was vice and crimes. Others against our names, as stones, shall whet The knife of their glad hate of beauty, and make Our name a pillory, a scaffold and a stake Whereon to burn our brothers yet unborn. ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa

... Severo—that at least one of the spectators wished, as he beheld Simone, that he had been suddenly blessed by Heaven with the strength of a giant, that he might have picked the Bardi up by the middle and pitched him over the parapet into the street below. But as Heaven vouchsafed this spectator no such grace, Severo kept his place and his peace, and he heard what Messer Folco said to his ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... churches throughout Northamptonshire, which have any pretensions to size or beauty, have their tracery of this form, as, for instance, the east window of Higham Ferrers church, and many others. Above this window is an elegant pierced cross, probably of the same date as the window itself. The parapet of this chancel has nothing worthy of notice about it; it is like the rest of the building, of plain ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips

... captive in a castle by a tyrant, has a lover, who has sworn to effect her rescue. On the rising of the curtain, the fair prisoner, a pretty spaniel, is discovered walking on the parapet of a tower; the lover, a very handsome dog, presently appears at the foot of the wall, barking most amorously. As for the tyrant, he is represented by a ferocious-looking bull-dog, with a smashed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... refreshing sea breeze that swept in from the water was most delicious, after the scorching heat of a summer's day in the West Indies, and the party paused as they breathed in of its freshness, leaning upon the parapet of the walk, over which they looked down upon the glancing waves of the bay far beneath them. The moon was stealing slowly but steadily up from behind the lofty tower of Moro Castle, casting a dash of silvery ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... end of the court, and stands there, looking over the broken parapet. Once she fancies that he raises his hand, as though beckoning to some one, but she is not certain, because it is so dark and he is so far off. As she stands shivering, she hears a step go slowly past. Surely it is Brian's ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford

... their limbs with the grace and freedom assigned to them by nature. One of the designs to "The Virginians" shows a horseman, who in the letterpress is described as crossing a bridge at full gallop, whereas in the picture both man and horse will inevitably leap over the parapet into the river below. Nothing could possibly avert the catastrophe, and the effect thus produced is due, not to the manifest carelessness and haste with which the sketch is thrown off, but to a palpable defect in the artistic powers of the designer ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... nothing about the bridge of a vessel, or what it was for; but when she had mounted some steps she found herself on a narrow parapet walled in with canvas up to the height of her waist. Above her head was a tight-drawn canopy made of an enormous flag; and on the white floor, wedged tightly against the canvas wall, were pots containing long rose-vines that made a drapery of ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... call. The din and noise of the dance drown her voice, and all are so occupied by the sights that none pay any attention to her. The youngster who has been devoting all his time to the pranks of the Delight Makers jumps forward in his enthusiasm, and would have tumbled sheer over the low parapet encircling the roof had not one of the men standing near grasped his hair and pulled him back. It saved the boy's life, but the urchin is highly displeased at the informal manner in which he is restrained. He screams and struggles ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... glacis, which, except the abatis near the ditch, is left free and open, so as to expose the assailants to the fire from the parapet. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... weight too heavy for her to bear, and she felt herself giving way under it. "Pray," she stammered,—"pray for us both, for we must never meet again." She reached the door, went down the stair, and, turning mechanically to the right, found herself at last in the pavilion, where she leaned against the parapet and looked into space. She had lost the capacity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... ramparts pour'd The Lycians' valiant councillors and chiefs. They quickly join'd the fray, and loud arose The battle-cry; first Ajax Telamon Sarpedon's comrade, brave Epicles, slew, Struck by a rugged stone, within the wall Which lay, the topmost of the parapet, Of size prodigious; which with both his hands A man in youth's full vigour scarce could raise, As men are now; he lifted it on high, And downward hurl'd; the four-peak'd helm it broke, Crushing the bone, and shatt'ring all the skull; He, like a diver, from the lofty tow'r Fell ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... note what these battle-scarred veterans who had just been fighting for a month through the Wilderness thought of the situation. Tired from an all-night's march, but as soon as they got in position they stripped blankets and piling handfuls of cartridges on the breastworks got up on the parapet, took a look in front and said, "This is a good place; we would like for them to come on ten lines deep, so we won't waste any lead." Then they quietly sat down. We were now too much crowded, and our regiment was ordered out and I was ordered to help carry ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott

... curving eastward, are two trench lines perfectly clear still on the brown desolation, the British and the enemy front lines. From that further line, at half-past seven on the summer morning for ever blazoned in the annals of our people, the British Army went over the parapet, to gather in the victory prepared for it by the deadly strength and accuracy of British guns; made possible in its turn by the labour in far-off England of millions of workers—men and women—on the lathes and in the filling factories of ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... night as soon as dark screened them from the accurate gunnery of the Americans, they were restored and the firing renewed, it was done with a feebleness that bespoke discouragement and exhaustion. For two days shot and shell splintered and tore through abattis and fraising, and levelled parapet and ditch, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... bridge which it was necessary to cross in order to get to his brother's house. Here he stopped abruptly, as if struck by a sudden idea. The moon had just risen, and her light, streaming across the river, fell full upon his face as he stood by the parapet wall that led up to the bridge. He was so lost in thought that he did not hear the conversation of two ladies who were advancing along the pathway close behind him. As they brushed by him, the taller of the two turned round and looked back ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... mine, and we hastened along the edge of the battlements. We could hear music now; and as we went on the strains grew louder and louder, and at last we stood on the parapet overlooking the Ladies' Terrace. Beneath us stretched the gardens of the palace, and thousands of lights glowed, in many-coloured radiance, from within the foliage of the trees wherein they were set; or, raised high in the air, burned in rainbow-hued ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... shells. At ten o'clock the Mahon battery, with the one adjoining it, were in flames. By five in the evening both were entirely consumed; a great part of the eastern parallel, and of the trenches and parapet for musketry, were likewise destroyed. A large battery near the bay was so much damaged by having repeatedly been set on fire, that the enemy were compelled to abandon it, while they lost an immense number of men in their endeavour to extinguish the flames. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... replied. "I'm thinking of cathedrals; I'm thinking of the beauties of nature. Come," he went on, turning round on the bench and leaning his elbow on the parapet, "I'll think of those mountains over there; they ARE pretty, certainly. Can't you ...
— The Pension Beaurepas • Henry James

... behind a rack, where Sir George had ordered the man and his comrade to seek shelter. Fortunately, a series of rocks made a natural parapet to the right, and in a degree in front. Sir George, his gun empty at the moment, placed himself on the exposed left position. The spears rained round him, as if they were falling from the clouds. Things could not go on thus for long, ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... dug the trenches the day before, and the ground was so marshy and wet that water began to ooze in before we had dug more than three feet. Then we had gone on the other side and thrown up more dirt, to make a better parapet, and had carried sand-bags from an old artillery dug-out. Four strands of barbed wire were also put up in front of our trenches, as a sort of suggestion of barbed-wire entanglements, but we knew we had ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... brief tribute to the memory of Bow-Bridge. That single arch of stone, richly shadowed with ivy, spanned, at the corner of this island, the arm of the Soar. Its beautiful curve, unbroken either by parapet or hand-rail, well merited the name with which some Antiquaries have graced it, the Rialto Bridge. On the top of the bow, feeding on the mould which time had accumulated upon the stony ridge, flourished a spreading hawthorn; this with the stream below, when sparkling under the reflection ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again; and as the window of Oliver's observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... battle was over, Marcel stood with his fellow gunners on the parapet of Rodriguez Canal and looked out across the field—smoke-hung under the cloudless morning sky. The British dead, in their scarlet uniforms, were lying row on row, one behind the other, like grain cut down by the mower's scythe. The boy's heart sickened. But a prolonged cheer came ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... captain went on, one word tripping the other in the eagerness of his speech. "March right in. Don't stop for anything. Get close to the parapet. Look at the British boys; throw them 'Hello, guys!' and begin to shoot ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... He smiled when Henry spoke of dying, and then looked away. They were still standing on the bridge, and he leant on the parapet and looked down ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... him. Chairs had been brought out on the balcony. Muchross and his friends had adjourned from the supper-room, bringing champagne and an hysterical lady with them. Snowdown and Platt were with difficulty dissuaded from attempting acrobatic feats on the parapet; and the city faded from deep purple into a vast grayness. Strange was the little party ensconced in the stone balcony high above the monotone of ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... Often have I woke up in the old dugout, my hair standing straight up and one eye looking straight into the eyeball of the other, trying to obtain an answer to this burning question. I have kept my weary vigil over the parapet at night, with my rifle in one hand and a couple of bombs in the other, and two or three in each pocket, and still I am pondering over this burning question. I will now ask you the question. When do you think this God dam ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... for useless talk. The two men said no more, but sprang on the parapet outside the garden, to find, if possible, a way of escape by the roofs of the neighbouring houses. The sight they beheld was sufficiently appalling. The fire which raged below them cast a noonday glare over the wilderness ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne

... wild resolve to confirm his worst sense of what was on the other side of the wall made him seize a log, put it against the stones, clutch the parapet with insecure fingers, and lug himself to a momentary balance on ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... yourself standing on the parapet of St. Elmo, about thirty minutes past five o'clock on the evening above mentioned; the Gentile lies but little more than a cable's length from the shore, so that you can almost look down upon her decks. You perceive that she is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... Durrieu whispered to me, "I have just left Proudhon. He wishes to see you. He is waiting for you down below, close by, at the entrance to the Place. You will find him leaning on the parapet ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... sold himself to a system which is its own punishment. And yet the last place in which he will look for the cause of his misery is in that very money-mongering to which he now clings as frantically as ever. But so it is throughout the world. Only look down over that bridge-parapet, at that huge black-mouthed sewer, vomiting its pestilential riches across the mud. There it runs, and will run, hurrying to the sea vast stores of wealth, elaborated by Nature's chemistry into the ready materials of food; which proclaim, too, by their own foul smell, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... the end of half an hour that two figures were seen above the parapet of the dreary old pile, motionless as bitterns on a ruined mosque. Even then Stephen was not true enough to perform what he was so courteous to promise, and he ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... came to a bridge over a wide river. I mounted Harry astride the parapet, and there we stopped for some minutes to look at the boats as they passed under us, and to watch two swans which were sailing up the river with their great wings spread out for sails, and their necks so proudly bent that they looked like the king and queen of the river. ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous

... harbour, which extended right up to the wall. For it was outside the circuit-wall and entirely without defenders. Now when the ships had anchored there, it was seen that the masts were higher than the parapet. Straightway, therefore, he filled all the small boats of the ships with bowmen and hoisted them to the tops of the masts. And when from these boats the enemy were shot at from above, they fell into such an irresistible fear that they immediately ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... stilted, the tracery beginning a long way below the springing of their arches; and the buttresses are so thick, and their arms spread so here, that each of the clerestory windows looks down its own space between them, as if between walls: above the windows rise their canopies running through the parapet, and above all the great mountainous roof, and all below it, and around the windows and walls of the choir and apse, stand the mighty army of the buttresses, holding up the weight of the stone roof within with their strong arms ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris

... the substance acted upon produces increase of intensity, I hoped to obtain effects from extensive moving masses of water, though quiescent water gave none. I made experiments therefore (by favour) at Waterloo Bridge, extending a copper wire nine hundred and sixty feet in length upon the parapet of the bridge, and dropping from its extremities other wires with extensive plates of metal attached to them to complete contact with the water. Thus the wire and the water made one conducting circuit; and as the water ebbed or flowed with the tide, I hoped to obtain currents ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... guardians live; and all around the expanse of sky. Dawn was stealing on; already its pale light was creeping up the east, and a bar or two of vivid fire proclaimed the coming of the sun. The priests were astir to receive the early pilgrims, and as Paul led me to the edge of the parapet I could see far away below the torches of the new-comers dotted in thin lines of fire down the mountain-side. Some pilgrims had arrived before us, and stood shivering in their thin white garments ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch



Words linked to "Parapet" :   munition, fortification, wall, machicolation



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