"Precipice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were sheltered from the wind, warm sunbeams began to play, streams to flow, and groves of pines diversified the rocks. Sometimes they became suddenly bare and sublime. Once, in particular, after mounting the most terrific precipice, we had to pass through a tremendous defile, where the closing chasm seemed to threaten us with instant destruction, when, turning quickly, verdant meadows and a beautiful lake relieved and ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... pass apparently o'er rugged rocks, ascend high mountains, and descend to vaults; hear the close baying of the forest wolf, and the loud cataract's terrific roar; and now, e'en now, perhaps, to stand upon the verge of some stupendous precipice—— ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... and the quick-go-quick of the quail, were cheerfully uttered on all sides. The rapid martins twittered with peculiar glee, or, in the light caprice of their mirth, placed themselves for a moment upon the edge of a scaur, or earthly precipice, in which their nests were built, and then shot up again to mingle with the careering and joyful flock that cut the air in every direction. Where is the heart which could not enjoy such a morning scene? Under any other circumstances it would have enchanted me; but here, in fact, that intensity ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... was no knowing whether they had finally abandoned the attack. Their shelling continued, and the rifle fire indicated a nervous temperament. Consequently the squadron still remained in reserve as near as possible to the firing line. Mac could see through a sap which ran to the edge of the precipice the beach and the cool, wonderfully cool-looking water. The few lucky beggars were splashing there, for practically every man was up in the firing-line. There were no troops to spare in those days—the line was but thinly ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... did not ask my advice, and I did not force it upon him, to make him angry with me.' GARRICK. 'But as a friend, Sir—' JOHNSON. 'Why, such a friend as I am with him—no.' GARRICK. 'But if you see a friend going to tumble over a precipice?' JOHNSON. 'That is an extravagant case, Sir. You are sure a friend will thank you for hindering him from tumbling over a precipice; but, in the other case, I should hurt his vanity, and do him no good. He would not take my advice. His brother-in-law, Strahan, sent him a subscription ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... arrived at the wall of a precipice, along which ran a narrow ledge just wide enough for their ponies ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... horror hanging over one, one has not the right to make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to make them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it, one has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them, one has no right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. It is hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark with one's ulcer. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... guidance. Nanari having commended us to the care of Jehovah, we and our friends, not stopping even to obtain anything at the house, hurried off towards the mountains, while Tofa led the stranger by a more direct way up a precipice, which was too steep for us to climb. As we were quitting the chapel, turning my eyes seaward for a moment, I caught sight of several sails dotting the ocean in the far distance. I pointed them out ...
— Mary Liddiard - The Missionary's Daughter • W.H.G. Kingston
... into the hands of an utterly unscrupulous intriguer. How could it be other than a terrible thought for her that her daughter listened willingly to this roue? Her darling stood on the brink of a precipice, she felt horribly sure of it, yet dared not hold her back. She was afraid of the Countess. She knew too that Moina would not listen to her wise warnings; she knew that she had no influence over that nature—iron for her, silken-soft ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... a necessity in fate, Why still the brave bold man is fortunate: He keeps his object ever full in sight, And that assurance holds him firm and right. True, 'tis a narrow path that leads to bliss, But right before there is no precipice: Fear makes men look aside, and then their ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... won that desperate game; For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch, Vindictive toiled the bloodhounds stanch; Nor nearer might the dogs attain, Nor farther might the quarry strain Thus up the margin of the lake, Between the precipice and brake, O'er stock and rock their ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... road through the valley was necessarily much longer and more circuitous than the footpath with which we are so familiar. The footpath, we know, went straight down the steep precipice of Brudenell hill, across the bottom, and then straight up the equally steep ascent of Hut hill. Of course this route was impracticable for any wheeled vehicle. The carriage therefore turned off to the left into a road that wound gradually ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of our way we reached; And, to the right hand turning, other care Awaits us. Here the rocky precipice Hurls forth redundant flames; and from the rim A blast up-blown, with forcible rebuff Driveth them back, ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... resourceful men. During their long trudge across the mountainous country between Shelbyville and the Tennessee, Watson had uttered many a grumble, but his complaints meant nothing more than a desire to hear himself talk. When it came to fording a stream, climbing a precipice, or fairly wading through the slush, he was quite as willing and energetic as the other two ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... they lie, the two silvery sheets of water with their verdant holms, making a little world of peace and beauty, a toy dropped amid Titanic awfulness and splendour. The vantage ground is on the edge of a dizzy precipice, but the picture thus sternly framed is too exquisite to be easily abandoned. We gaze and gaze in spite of the vast height from which we contemplate it; and when at last we tear ourselves away from the engaging scene, we are in a region ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... slopes of Kilimanjaro you can look westwards to Mweru, a still active volcano little known and rarely visited, and from Mweru a chain of heights runs west once more till they end abruptly almost in a precipice that descends to the plain. At its foot rises a small river, bubbling up from half a dozen springs in a slight depression, and flowing swiftly off, very clear and cool, towards the great lake which is visible on the horizon from the mountain behind. Just below the pool ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable
... passed the waterfall D'Orli, and a few miles beyond we paused to admire the cataract of Arpenas. Its height is estimated at eight hundred feet. The water rushes with considerable volume over a tremendous precipice of dark and fantastic rocks. At first it divides into separate streams that in their fall resemble descending rockets, till at length, caught by the rocks beneath, they meet and mingle in one ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... self-possessed, and perfectly attentive to the duties of his office,) had neglected to light the diligence-lamp, and partly by the obstinacy of a drunken postilion, who insisted on keeping too close to the ditch side of the road, while he instinctively avoided the precipice side. Nearly two mortal hours was our diligence detained, during which time our cattle were taken from their traces and harnessed to those of the half-overturned coach, in various attempts to dislodge it. The first resulted in a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the way," Blackmouth says; an' leads toward dawn of day, Till they come straight out beside the brink Of a precipice that seems to sink Into everlasting gulfs below. "Loose me!" Blackmouth tells 'em. "But go slow." Then they loosed him; and, with one swift leap, Blackmouth swooped right down into the deep;— Jumped out ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... above thirty feet across. He felt that if he was pursued here, there was no escape. The third milestone passed, he came to the country road; he pursued it, counting out his thousand steps, as Caecilius had instructed him. By this time it had left the stony bottom, and was rising up the side of the precipice. Brushwood and dwarf pines covered it, mingled with a few olives and caroubas. He said out his seven pater nosters as he walked, and then looked around. He had just passed a goatherd, and they looked hard at each other. Agellius wished ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... of 1837 approached, hundreds had reason to be thankful to Dr. Ryerson that the publication of his "Impressions" had, without design on his part, led to the disruption of a party which was being hurried to the brink of a precipice, over which so many well meaning, but misguided, men fell in the winter of 1837, never to ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... this morning (July 5), by watching numbers of huge apes, the size of human beings, with white hair all round their faces, and down their backs and chests, who were disporting themselves and feeding on the green leaves, on the sides of the precipice close to the house. Many of them had one or two little ones—the most amusing, indefatigable little creatures imaginable—who were incessantly running up small trees, jumping down again, and performing all sorts of antics, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... accused by his enemies of timidity, but no man ever doubted his profound capacity to look quite through the deeds of men. His political foresight enabled him to measure the dangerous precipice which they were deliberately approaching, while the abyss might perhaps be shrouded to the vision of his companions. He was too tranquil of nature to be hurried, by passions into a grave political step, which in cooler moments he might regret. He resolutely, therefore, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... south end of Star Island, and climbs down on the face of the precipice to the "Chair," a niche where a school-teacher used to sit as long ago as 1848. She was sitting there one day when a wave came up and washed her away into the ocean. She disappeared. But she who loses her life shall save it. That one thoughtless ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... will feel how rapidly I was advancing to the brink of the precipice. I had a confused apprehension of what I was doing, but I could not stop myself. "Is it possible," said I, "that Mr. Falkland, who is thus overwhelmed with a sense of the unmerited dishonour that has been fastened upon him in the face of the world, will long endure the presence ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... in July (the date is not specified) a party of troopers were escorting sixteen prisoners to Dumfries. They were Claverhouse's men, but their captain was not with them. At Enterkin Hill, a narrow pass with a deep precipice on either side, a rescue was attempted by a considerable body of men,—English Borderers, it was whispered. Some of the prisoners escaped: others were killed in the scuffle or broke their necks over the precipice: only two were brought into Edinburgh: a few of ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... his family, when there was no longer a home for them in Small Isles. "You are much in luck," he said, after our first greeting: "one of the villagers, in improving his garden, has just made a cut for some fifteen or twenty yards along the face of the precipice behind the village, and laid open the line of junction between the conglomerate and the clay-slate. Let us go and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... expelled, and then Violetta stooped to ask what the Greek's reason for his behaviour could be. She admitted that it was in his power to ruin her, as far as money went. "Perhaps a little farther," said Pericles; "say two steps. If one is on a precipice, two steps count for something." But, what had she done? Pericles refused to declare it. This set her guessing with a charming naivete. Pericles called Irma back to assist her in the task, and quitted them that they might consult together and hit upon the right thing. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the slightest indiscretion, Rochester acted with the greatest caution. The more at ease she felt with him, the more deferential did he become; and before she was conscious of her danger, the poor girl was once more on the brink of the precipice. ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... solely of myself, But of the groaning cataract of life, The ruddy stream that leaps importunate Out of the night, and in a moment vaults The immediate treacherous precipice of time, Splashing the stars, downward ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... you please tell us how you happened to find us out and come to our rescue just in the nick of time? I should also very much like to know how you managed to tumble down that precipice unharmed, as well as how you produced those flashes of light that scared the savages so badly—me too, for ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... "No, sir; it should be all precipice,—all vacuum. The crows impede your fall. The diminished appearance of the boats, and other circumstances, are all very good description, but do not impress the mind at once with the horrible idea of immense height. The impression ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... which sounds like the effusion of a boyish rhapsodist. "At the sound of your [reason's] voice let the enemies of nature be still, and swallow their serpents' tongues in rage." "The eyes of reason restrain mankind from the precipice of the passions, as her decrees modify likewise the feeling of their rights." Many other passages of equal absurdity could be quoted, full of far-fetched metaphor, abounding in strange terms, straining rhetorical figures to distortion.[22] ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... and began to wish most enthusiastically for some romantic admirer; some one who would expose himself to the danger of a sore throat and influenza for the sake of serenading me—who would be rather glad than otherwise to risk his life by jumping down a precipice to bring me some descried wild flower, and who, when away from me, would pass his time in writing extravagant poetry, of which I was to be the bright divinity. Old as I am, I feel almost ashamed to repeat this nonsense now; and had I then possessed more ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... into annihilation the tiniest or the staunchest opposition from the earth's surface, and under the earth and above the earth death waited to leap up and draw the daring to its bosom. Not one, nor two, nor three lines of defences frowned down as we cautiously steamed along, but every precipice was bristling with defiance, as if the deep subterranean fires underlying our race had burst here fitfully and frequently, heaving up the swells of the hills till they lay hard and barren for human ingenuity to garnish them with anxious artillery. All along were the deep funnel-shaped cases ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... incomprehensible are the ways of God. His love is proved by bitterly convicting us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Like Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle, sometimes so overwhelming as to drive us to the verge of despair and self-destruction. We fall not down the precipice, for still there is hope and pardon in his bosom, and at the proper time it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fashion, that this was the hunchback's declaration of love. The hurdy-gurdy tune and the unsung words had acted like a spell. For a space of seconds she gazed with a fixed look at Jonah, waiting for him to move or speak. She seemed to be slipping down a precipice without the power or desire to resist. Then, like a fit of giddiness, the sensation passed. She stumbled to her feet and ran wildly down the rocky path to the wharf where the ferry-boat, glittering with electric lights, like a gigantic firefly, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... excellent idea of Pangenesis—an infant cherished by few as yet, except his tender parent, but which will live a long life. There is parental presumption for you! You give a good slap at my concluding metaphor (A short abstract of the precipice metaphor is given in Volume I. Dr. Gray's criticism on this point is as follows: "But in Mr. Darwin's parallel, to meet the case of nature according to his own view of it, not only the fragments of rock (answering to variation) should fall, but the edifice (answering ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... of that kind of precipices, and of the mode in which they are connected with the banks above. Fig. 88 shows its abstract leading lines, consisting of one great parabolic line x y falling to the brow, curved aqueous lines down the precipice face, and the springing lines of its vegetation, opposed by contrary curves on the farther cliff. Such an arrangement, with or without vegetation, may take place on a small or large scale; but a bolder projection than ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... than a thousand feet right above their heads. It was a stern and sombre coast, unbroken by any bays or inland glimpses, and gloomy and terrible in the fading light. The great oily swell broke into spouts of foam at the cliff-foot, and all along the face of the precipice they could see innumerable sea- fowl clinging to ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... in the necessity of radical changes, or prescience of a coming alteration of the intellectual atmosphere. Speculation, like politics, could advance quietly along the old paths without fearing that they might lead to a precipice; and society, in spite of very vigorous and active controversy upon the questions which decided it was in the main self-satisfied, complacent, and comfortable. Adherence to the old system is after all the general rule, and it is ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... desperately does he hurry on, consoling himself with the thought that he will arrive somewhere. But the time comes when it becomes quite clear that the way along which he is going will lead to nothing but a precipice, which he is already ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell—off a tower and down a precipice—into the depths of sleep. I have an impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Prairie,[14] On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,[15] Gitche Manito, the mighty, He the Master of Life, descending, On the red crags of the quarry Stood erect, and called the nations, Called the tribes of men together. From his footprints flowed a river, Leaped into the light of morning, O'er the precipice plunging downward Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet. And the Spirit, stooping earthward, With his finger on the meadow Traced a winding pathway for it, Saying to it, "Run in this way!" From the red stone of the quarry With his hand he broke a fragment, ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... table, at the opposite side of the left ravine, which winds round in the direction of the wall, as nearly as if it were the work of art, stands the other redoubt. Beyond this, again, there is a perpendicular precipice, the hills there abruptly ending; so that on two sides the walls of the fort skirt the extremity of a bare rock. It was along the outer ridges of these ravines, and through the churchyard of St. Etienne, that our trenches were drawn, the village itself being the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... They rounded this precipice only to face a worse one. Shefford's nerve was sorely tried when he saw steep slants everywhere, all apparently leading down into chasms, and no place a man, let alone a horse, could put a foot with safety. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... down, is called the Wald Rauschenbach, that is, the Valley of the Roaring Brook; and roar it did, indeed, most solemnly! The road on which we walked was weedy with infant fir-trees, an inch or two high; and now, on our left hand, came before us a most tremendous precipice of yellow and black rock, called the Rehberg, that is, the Mountain of the Roe. Now again is nothing but firs and pines, above, below, around us! How awful is the deep unison of their undividable murmur; what a one thing it is—it is a sound that impresses the dim notion of the Omnipresent! ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... named Forsyth, on the plea that his land belonged to the Crown. The property was situated at the Falls of Niagara. A building stood upon a part of the land claimed for the Crown by Sir Peregrine. The soldiery tumbled the building over the precipice, and the land was free of all incumbrances. The House of Assembly interfered in this matter too. They attempted to obtain the evidence of the officers engaged in the business, but the government would not permit them to testify, the consequence of which was that the Assembly imprisoned them ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... point ends suddenly, at a kind of precipice, and you look right over the valley of the Avon and the Severn to the Malverns. Just below on the south-west is Tewkesbury, where the Severn and the Avon meet, after that becoming the Severn only all the way to Bristol ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... of its sinuous way through the heart of Colombia like an immense, slow-moving morass. Born of the arduous tropic sun and chill snows, and imbued by the river god with the nomadic instinct, it leaps from its pinnacled cradle and rushes, sparkling with youthful vigor, down precipice and perpendicular cliff; down rocky steeps and jagged ridges; whirling in merry, momentary dance in shaded basins; singing in swirling eddies; roaring in boisterous cataracts, to its mad plunge over ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... mountains on the east; from Skiddaw and Blencathra on the north, southward through all the shoulders and edges, the tarns and ghylls of the Helvellyn range; through the craggy fells of Thirlmere, Watendlath, Easedale; over the high plateaus that run up to the Pikes, and fall in precipice to Stickle Tarn; through the wild clefts and corries of Bowfell, the Crinkles, Wetherlam and the Old Man; over the desolate backs and ridges that stretch from Kirkstone to Kentmere and Long Sleddale, the great man-hunt passed, enlisting ever fresh feet, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for a moment, noble Dudley, that we could blame THEE for the folly of thy retainer—thee, whose thoughts we know to be far otherwise employed. He that would climb the eagle's nest, my lord, cares not who are catching linnets at the foot of the precipice." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... wild contrasts of form and color were finest about ten miles up the canyon, where lies to the west a sombre, dark square mountain, crowned by what it needed little fancy to believe a castle in ruins, with central keep and far-reaching walls. On the brow of a precipice fifteen hundred feet above us, at the end of the castle-wall, a gigantic figure in full armor seemed to stand on guard for ever. I watched it long as we rode round the great base of the hill, and cannot recall any such striking simulation elsewhere. My guides called it the "Sentinel," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... that so soon as business permitted him he would take steps to discover her mother's whereabouts, but that night he was awakened out of a deep sleep by cries of terror from his wife; she had had a dream, she said, that her mother hung over a precipice, looking up to her for help, which, while she hastened to give, she saw her mother sink into the yawning abyss, uttering shrieks of agony. Hartley was beside himself with fright; he thought his wife would lose her reason, and so he quieted her by assuring her that he would write ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... ran out and stumbled over a body lying in the road. By the bright moonlight he could see that it was that of his employer. The surrey was nowhere in sight, but he could easily make out where it had slipped over the precipice. He ran back into the shaft-house and began ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... giant, and that recalls to me a fact which bears upon the subject of our conversation now," said Gluck, with a laugh. "It was the fall of my 'Giant' that first showed me the precipice toward which I, my works, and all my musical predecessors, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Cinq-Mars; 'I have opened to you that of the precipice; but let us meet death nobly, and we shall revel in the ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... breast of Maundrell, although they all have not the candour to acknowledge it. Alluding to the Arabs, who demanded a sum of money for liberty to ascend, he says, "we departed without further trouble, not a little glad to have so good an excuse for not climbing so dangerous a precipice."[122] ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... cork, and bags of hay and corn, hung dangling from mighty hooks—the latter to feed the cattle, should they be compelled to camp out on some sterile spot on the Veldt, and methinks to act as buffers, should the whole concern roll down a nullah or little precipice, no very uncommon incident in the blessed region they must ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... unto eagles like which fixedly, Long adown the precipice look, Adown THEIR precipice:— Oh, how they whirl down now, Thereunder, therein, To ever deeper profoundness whirling!— Then, Sudden, With aim aright, With quivering flight, On LAMBKINS pouncing, Headlong down, sore-hungry, For lambkins longing, Fierce 'gainst all lamb-spirits, ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... John Hepburn led them on. I was resolved to see this piece of service, and therefore joined myself to the volunteers. We were armed with partisans, and each man two pistols at our belt. It was a piece of service that seemed perfectly desperate, the advantage of the hill, the precipice we were to mount, the height of the bastion, the resolute courage and number of the garrison, who from a complete covert made a terrible fire upon us, all joined to make the action hopeless. But the fury of the Scots musketeers was not to be abated by any difficulties; they mounted ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... depths of my soul to behold in you one of the foolish virgins whose light hath been extinguished for lack of the saving oil,—to see you wandering as a lost sheep in the paths of darkness and error, without a hand to rescue your steps from the near and dreadful precipice! Ay, truly! . . . my spirit yearneth for you as a mother for an own babe—fain would I save you from the devices of the evil one,—fain would I—" here the minister drew out his handkerchief and pressed it lightly to his eyes,—then, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... screaming parrots. But the doctor kept steadily on till a dull humming roar away to the right began to grow louder, and at the end of about a mile of climbing there was a soft moist feeling in the air, which increased till all at once their guide halted upon the brink of a precipice. ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... it, or somebody will give me a pass. I'm too young to stay to the concert and there's more of life coming to me still. I only hope and pray that I'll manage to keep my head and not make the fatal, heart-breaking mistake of the women who go over the precipice, waving defiance at the social law that bids them stay with ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... us, until a rocky peninsula running right into the river, after we had clambered up its sides like squirrels, he led the way across its spiky surfaced summit, and soon we were leaning forward over our horses' necks in danger of taking somersaults into space, as we peered over the sides of a precipice at the river away down beneath us. "Nothing like variety," Dan chuckled; and a few minutes later again we were leaning well back in our saddles as the horses picked their way down the far side of the ridge, old Roper letting himself down in his most approved ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... bed, her ankles crossed below her petticoat; her accounts were made up. After paying the bill and bestowing one franc in the unavoidable tip, there would remain to her exactly eight francs for her whole resources. It was the edge of the precipice at last. It was that precipice, overhanging depths unseen and terrible, which she was contemplating as she sat, feet swinging gently in the rhythm of meditation, her face serious and quiet. For six weeks she had seen it afar off; now it was at ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... haunted of a very lively Thing; a White Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round a house in Lahore; Dalhousie says that one of her houses "repeats" on autumn evenings all the incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice accident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been swept by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers' Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose furniture ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... they were hitherto unknown. But woe to her, who cheats herself with the belief that the creature of her imagination is a real being, who will not listen to the counsels of understanding, but rushes blindly down the precipice, which, with one open eye, she might easily ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... his gracious words, and then they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter of their village should make such an astounding claim. They rose up in wrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over the precipice had he not eluded them and gone ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... distance, he began to see a little light. It grew brighter and more dazzling as they approached, so that he had to close his eyes. Presently she halted and told him to look. He was standing on the edge of a precipice, in the side of which steps had been hewn out, and far below was a silver lake which he knew to be Parima; and far away was a gleaming of domes and spires which he recognised. He was about to speak to thank her, when he tottered and his feet sank from under him. ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... person who has been walking in the darkness along a familiar road, and suddenly feels himself plunging over an unsuspected precipice. She was conscious of nothing but a gasping sense of dizziness—all control of herself and her life seemed passing out of her hands into those of another, and she scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry. Was it only this afternoon ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... some distance to the west, into a river of considerable size and depth, which then ran on over a descending and rocky bed, forming alternately smooth broad sheets of water and noisy broken falls, until it precipitated itself over a sudden precipice of great depth, and fell dashing and foaming into the basin which its continual fall had worn in the rocks below. The distant roar of this cataract had frequently been heard in the camp, when the wind came from that direction, and when ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... pastor. The chapel, which is a part of Mr. K.'s dwelling-house, is situated on the summit of a high mountain which overlooks the sea. As seen from the valley below, it appears to topple on the very brink of a frightful precipice. It is reached by a winding tedious road, too rugged to admit of a chaise, and in some places so steep as to try the activity of a horse. As we approached nearer, we observed the people climbing up in throngs by various footpaths, and halting in the thick woods which skirted the chapel, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... l'hyver conduit leurs pas, Le precipice est sous la glace; Telle est de nos plaisirs la legere surface, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... he came down to supper, Annie smiled so sweetly and looked so gentle and kind, that he thought, "She does not seem one to push a wretch over a precipice. That warm little hand that charmed away my headache so gently cannot write Dante's inscription over my 'Inferno,' and bid me enter it as 'my own place'; and yet I dread her sense ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... which I did, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to the rug, where the dog lay ... dear old Havannah, ... and where he and I were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonised bones. Now my present false position ... which is not the chimney-piece's, ... is the necessity you provide for me in the shape ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... shortcomings of his own, as he was accustomed to say, with true humility. He did not, however, look upon the failings of his friends with indifferent eyes. "How strange it is!" he once said. "We see those whom we love going to the very verge of the precipice of self-destruction, yet it is not in our ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... is described in the Atharva as 'the gatherer of men, who died the first of mortals, who went forward the first to that world.' In the Atharva we read of 'reverence to Yama, to Death, who first approached the precipice, finding out the path for many.' 'The myth of Yama is perfectly intelligible, if we trace its roots back to the sun of evening' (ii. 573). Mr. Max Muller then proposes on this head 'to consult the traditions of real Naturvolker' (savages). The Harvey Islanders ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... exploits, though I have never seen a glacier or a permanent snow mountain in my life. I do not care a row of pins how badly they may be written, and what form of bumble-puppy grammar and composition is employed, as long as the writer will walk along the edge of a precipice with a sheer fall of thousands of feet on one side and a sheer wall on the other; or better still crawl up an arete with a precipice on either. Nothing on earth would persuade me to do either of these things myself, but they remind me of bits of country ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that the common cock makes a very respectable figure, even in the grand Parisian assembly of all the stuffed birds and beasts in the universe. It is a glorious thing to have a friend who will jump into a river, or down a precipice, to save one's life: but as I do not intend to tumble down precipices, or to throw myself into the water above half a dozen times, I would rather have for my friends persons who would not reserve their kindness wholly for these grand occasions, but who could condescend to make ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... his ugly eyes, with a kick into each, which brought the red fire flashing out into the darkness. Back, with a terrified howl, cowered the monster, and spinning swiftly 'round, vanished like the bison and the wild-cat, with a blind leap over the precipice. But this time, when the moccasins came back, a voice came with them; a new voice, whose tones, gentle and kind, reminded the poor boy of his mother's, and thus the new ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... detection of their intrigue, resolved to mate their escape into the Spanish territory. Before they could effect their purpose, however, they were hotly pursued by the damsel's father at the head of a party of Moorish horsemen, and overtaken near a precipice which rises between Archidona and Antequera. The unfortunate fugitives, who had scrambled to the summit of the rocks, finding all further escape impracticable, after tenderly embracing each other threw themselves headlong from the ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Nuuanu, where Kalanikupule had prepared to make his last stand. The Oahu warriors were soon routed and pursued up the valley. Some of the fugitives were hemmed in and driven over the "Pali," or precipice, at the head of Nuuanu, a little north of the ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... and that with such violence that we thought it would have shattered the bare hills, for an infernal thunder crashed from one precipice to another, and there flashed, now close to us, now vividly but far off, in the thickness of the cloud, great useless and blinding glares of lightning, and hailstones of great size fell about us also, leaping from the bare rocks like marbles. And when the rain fell it was just as though it had ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... have the least possible chance of being observed, Ralph reached out for his rifle, and—-shifting his position by crawling forward until the feasting eagles were within range—-fired. At the report, one big bird toppled over the precipice to a ledge not ten feet above the foaming water, on the other side of the stream. Its mate, with a harsh scream of alarm, darted up into the air, circled once over the spot where Ralph crouched, and flew hastily away. It was so swift in its flight ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... hills that want taking down. At Ogwen Pool there is a very dangerous place where the water runs over the road, extremely difficult to pass at flooded times. Then there is Dinas Hill, that needs a side fence against a deep precipice. The width of the road is not above twelve feet in the steepest part of the hill, and two carriages cannot pass without the greatest danger. Between this hill and Rhyddlanfair there are a number of dangerous precipices, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... this? Must I give way and let it have full sway over me?' I said, 'Must I let it die out by consuming its own self?' And as I was about to cry out in despair, 'There is no other way; I will feed the fire till there is nothing left for it to burn;' and just as I was on the brink, on the edge of the precipice, as it were, the fury of the storm being at its very height, then all of a sudden I saw a light and the storm began to lose some of its fury, and the clouds appeared not so black, and the light seemed growing brighter. ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... consequence whatever compared with the thrill which came with the first glimpse of, high up under the bulging brow of an overhanging cliff, a rude wall and a cluster of half ruined dwellings sticking to the side of the precipice as barn swallows' nests are plastered beneath eaves. Then the climb and the glorious burrowing into the homes of these long dead folk, the hallelujahs when a bit of broken pottery was found, and the delightfully ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... you swerve. Now I beseech you, tell me, which you think you would prefer, the discipline of the goddess Fashion, or that of the good old mistress, which you may have wished to leave? The one kindly points out to you, and invites and warns you to avoid, every dangerous precipice, that may be before you. The other is not satisfied, but with your destruction. She will force you, for a single word, uttered in a thoughtless moment, to run the hazard of your life, or to lose what she calls your ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... to say stop"—Ridley spoke in a tone of fretfulness—"and of about as much use as to cry 'Stop!' to a man falling down a precipice or sweeping over ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... of radiance beamy Spirit, fair with womanhood! Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy, Climb unto the hour of good. Dumb space will be rent asunder, Now the shining column stands Ready to be crowned with wonder By the builder's ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... to pastures that have an insufficient or uncertain supply. It is a little better known than most because of a certain exceptional boldness in its construction; for a distance of a few score yards it runs supported by iron staples across the front of a sheer precipice, and for perhaps half a mile it hangs like an eyebrow over nearly or quite vertical walls of pine-set rock. Beside it, on the outer side of it, runs a path, which becomes an offhand gangway of planking at the overhanging ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... that one of the finest views among the mountains was to be had at Indian Head, a vast overhanging precipice facing toward the entrance to the Kaaterskill Clove, Graydon easily induced Madge to explore with him the tangled ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... already ascending. The traverse of the Meije even for an experienced mountaineer is a long day's climb. They reached the summit of the Grand Pic in seven hours, descended into the Breche Zsigmondy, climbed up the precipice on the further side of that gap, and reached the Pic Central by two o'clock in the afternoon. There they rested for an hour, and looked far down to the village of La Grave among the cornfields of the valley. There was no reason for ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... he was playing on the edge of a precipice—that he was fluttering as a moth round a candle. He knew that it behooved him now at once to tell her all his tale as to Stratton and Florence Burton—that if he could tell it now, the pang would be over and the danger gone. But he did not tell it. Instead ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... on revisiting it, when returning to England after his unfortunate quarrel with Walpole, that Gray inscribed his beautiful "Alcaic Ode" in the album of the fathers of this monastery. Gray's account of this grand scene, where "not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry," will be found in his letter to West, dated Turin, Nov. 16, N. S. 1739. Works, vol. ii. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... shame on the coward heart that refuses to take it up. He has declared war against the people, by treating their opinions with contempt; he has forfeited his claim to their confidence, by acting in opposition to their will. Our liberties are in jeopardy, and we must either rescue them from the precipice or they will be lost for ever. One hope offers itself to us, and a consolatory one, too—the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES. As we have looked in vain for patriotism from the president, let us turn our eyes toward that body; ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... deceitful Light, That cheats the wearied Traveller by Night, Tho on a Precipice each step you tread, I am resolv'd to follow ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... he—he, whose greatest joy was to make holy ablutions in the mountain waters, or to climb the summits of the mountains and to wander about wrapt in the thought of God? Once the robbers who lurked in the caves saw him approaching a precipice, his ecstatic gaze heavenwards. They halloed to him, but his ears were lent to the celestial harmonies. Then they held their breath, waiting for him to be dashed to pieces. But the opposite mountain came to him. And then the two mountains separated, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the edge of the cliffs and found that on my right hand the mountain dropped in a sheer precipice from hundreds of feet above me straight into the sea. I considered, and made up my mind that by striking back some distance one might by a very rough climb gain the top of the precipice, and so swing around the shoulder of the mountain. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... and from her face I saw that she gave way in mortal dread. I sat her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put my arm round her and with her cast myself down the precipice. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to this conversation with the sensation of a man who has stopped himself on the very edge of a precipice. I thought in those few moments with a marvellous and penetrating clarity. I had, after all, been always until now at the battle of S——, or when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff, on the outskirts of the thing. I knew that to-night, in another ten minutes, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... smut, grimed from prow to stern, with workmen almost black shovelling coal or hoisting tackling—pushing in and out among the statelier craft of any seaport. It is this stage in a great man's career which is the test. Is the man sure enough of himself to leave everything behind, and jump over the precipice into the unknown? If ever he wishes to return to what he has left, he will have just the height of this jump to climb back to the old place. The old place is a certainty. The unknown may engulf in failure. He {178} must chance that, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... valley, a fold, as it were, in the skin of the mountain, well but not densely bushed. The woods of this valley climbed up the mountain flank for some distance above it and then gave way to grassy slopes that ended in steep sides of rock, which were crowned by a black and frowning precipice of ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... alone my existence and my mentality that I must sacrifice, but my body. That too was to be given up! To what horrible profanation and outrage was I to be subjected! My head grew dizzy and my eyes blind. I shared in the torments of Julia—I was Julia herself. I was on the brink of a precipice, with hell beneath me and devils goading me on to the leap. I went home stunned and half crazed. West spoke to me, but I believe that I never answered him a word. If I could have killed him suddenly and without reflection, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... dawn, as the white, panic-stricken creatures, crowding, bleating, and complaining, were forced through the canyon to the bed of the narrow, shallow stream, on their way to the opening in the cliffs, through which the brook fell in a tiny waterfall over the edge of the precipice. These innocent instruments and victims of the greed and ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart |
