"Acclivity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ahead. It was a very lonely spot. The cab had stopped before some partially-constructed houses. Beyond that lay vacant lots, on either side. In front, showed a clump of trees, and, at the back of them on a slight acclivity, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... of his group, the grand and united effect of the statue and its pedestal striking at once upon the eye, would have been unequalled in the works of man. A mass of granite, of a size at present most immense, but formerly most astonishing, is the pedestal. A steep acclivity, like that of a rugged mountain, carries the eye to its summit, which looks down on the opposite side to a descent nearly perpendicular. The figure of the hero is on horseback, supposed to have attained the object of his ambition, by surmounting all the apparent impossibilities which so arduous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... once dwelt a maiden of surpassing beauty. Many suitors climbed the stern acclivity to woo this charming damsel, but her stern father repelled one and all. Only Kuno of Sayn was firm enough to persevere in his suit against the rebuffs of the stubborn Lord of Falkenstein, and in the end he was rewarded with the smiles and kind looks ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... been the interval required for this combat, it had been sufficient to bring the pursuers within sight of the fugitive. Hugh Badger, who from the acclivity had witnessed the fate of his favorite, with a loud oath discharged the contents of his gun at the head of its destroyer. It was fortunate for Luke that at this instant he stumbled over the root of a tree—the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a solitary lamp-post upon a suburban acclivity. The light of the city's existence I think my successor would say, of her pulsating and palpitating or ebullient existence—is pale upon the sky, and the murmur of her voice sounds like large but distant waves. I stand ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... vehicles down to the bank of the stream. In one place where a narrow point of ground projected across, a passage seemed just possible; and after we had made it better with spades we attempted to take a light cart over. The acclivity was still however rather too much, and over went the cart, carrying the shaft bullock with it, and depositing all my instruments etc. under it in the bed of the stream. With travellers on roads this might have been thought ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... they saw her, not three miles ahead at four o'clock, just entering a little clump of pines at the top of a steep acclivity. They fired their rifles and shouted loud in hopes of halting her, but all to no purpose. Night came down and compelled them to bivouac. They built a big fire to guide the wanderers, but morning broke without sign of them; so on they went, for ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... through the rushing torrent of a cataract, whose distant roarings might have intimidated even a younger adventurer, he turned from its tumbling waters which burst upon his sight, and crept on his hands and knees up the opposite acclivity, catching by the fern and other weeds to stay him from falling back into the flood below. Prodigious craggy heights towered above his head as he ascended; while the rolling clouds which canopied their ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... had devised was a very simple one. The slope of the land on the island was about four feet to a rod. The bateau was to be rolled up the acclivity about thirty feet, and turned bottom upward. The lower end was then to be gradually pried up until it was level with the upper end, leaving a space of four feet under the higher part. Stakes were to be set in the ground under the gunwale to support ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... knitting of the joints is so close, that they are scarce discernible to a curious eye; and that which adds grace to the whole structure, though it makes the passage the more slippery and difficult, is the acclivity or rising of the ascent. The height of this gallery is 26 feet" (Professor Smyth's careful measurements show the true height to be more nearly 28 feet), "the breadth of 6.870 feet, of which 3.435 feet are to be allowed for the way in the midst, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... magnetic forces, before sunrise, we set out at five in the morning, accompanied by slaves carrying our instruments. Our party consisted of eighteen persons, and we all walked one behind another, in a narrow path, traced on a steep acclivity, covered with turf. We endeavoured first to reach a hill, which towards the south-east seems to form a promontory of the Silla. It is connected with the body of the mountain by a narrow dyke, called by the shepherds the Gate, or Puerta de la Silla. We reached this dyke about seven. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... Stumpy's head back into the position assigned it by Nature, had crowded his eyes in, and was going about with a reassuring smile, helping the pious upon their feet. Not a word was spoken; I took the lead, and we strode solemnly to camp, picking up Lame Dave at the foot of his acclivity, played a little game for Gus Jamison's horse and "calamities," then mounted our steeds, departing thence. Three or four days afterward I ventured cautiously upon a covert allusion to peculiar lakes, but the simultaneous clicking of ten revolvers convinced me that I need not ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... setting out drew nigh, when the first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan Durbeyfield's mind. It prompted the matron to say that she would walk a little way—as far as to the point where the acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer world. At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring-cart sent by the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, and her box had already been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... country in which the battle was fought, as well from mountain acclivity as dense wood, rendered a minute knowledge of the roads of vast importance. There is reason to believe that competent guides led the enemy, by roads unknown to our army, to the flank and rear of its position, and thus caused the sacrifice of those who had patriotically come to repel ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... a gentle acclivity, and presently reached what appeared to be a tract of moory undulating ground. It was now tolerably light, but there was a mist or haze abroad which prevented my seeing objects with much precision. I felt chill in the damp air of the early morn, and walked rapidly forward. In about half an ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... sheer ascent or descent is perpendicular, or nearly so; precipitous applies to that which is of the nature of a precipice, and is used especially of a descent; abrupt is as if broken sharply off, and applies to either acclivity or declivity. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... acclivity, which starts from Camberwell suburban dwellings. The houses vary considerably in size and Green, and, after passing a few mean shops, becomes a road of aspect, also in date,—with the result of a certain picturesqueness, enhanced by the growth of fine trees on either side. Architectural ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... perfectly straight line but by a very easy grade, of more than a mile. Here were rows of plane-trees again, which, being of no great age and not meeting over the road, were most noticeable as emphasizing the perspective. And from the crest of this acclivity—down the long dip in the land, at the end of the loom of grey-white road lying shadowy between the perspective lines of trees—we saw rising in sombre mass against the purple haze of sunset, dominating the little city nestled at its base and even ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... When we were seven minutes out from the starting-point, we reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect; an apparently limitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted heavenward before our faces. As my eye followed that awful acclivity far away up into the remote skies, it seemed to me that all I had ever seen before of sublimity and magnitude was small and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... where we found ourselves in a large piazza, where the horses are always changed. There being no relays at the post, we were obliged to stay the whole day and night at Perugia, which is a considerable city, built upon the acclivity of a hill, adorned with some elegant fountains, and several handsome churches, containing some valuable pictures by Guido, Raphael, and his master Pietro Perugino, who was a native of this place. The next stage is on the banks of the lake, which was the Thrasimene of the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... had little to interest us in their looks, though at San Germano we caught a glimpse of the famous old convent of Monte-Cassino, perched aloft on its cliff and looking like a part of the rock on which it was built. Fancy now loves to climb that steep acclivity, and wander through the many-volumed library of the ancient Benedictine retreat, and on the whole finds it less fatiguing and certainly less expensive than actual ascent and acquaintance with the monastery would have been. Two Croatian priests, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... stones, but of such as you gather together at random; which stones, when they are whited over with mortar, will have a handsome appearance, and be beautiful to the sight. Let the ascent to it be not by steps [16] but by an acclivity of raised earth. And let there be neither an altar nor a temple in any other city; for God is but one, and the nation of ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Lieutenant-colonel Howe commanded a body of light infantry. Before the end of June the army stepped ashore on the island that fills the channel of the St. Lawrence below Quebec, called the Isle of Orleans. Montcalm's camp was between them and the tall acclivity on which stood the famous fortress, which had defied capture for a hundred and thirty years. The French outnumbered the English, but neither the physical condition nor the morale of their troops was good. That beetling cliff was the ally on which Montcalm most depended. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... river is so abrupt as to render the summit completely inaccessible even to a pedestrian, except in a very few places, where he may ascend by taking hold of the bushes and rocks that cover the slope. In general the acclivity is made up of precipices arranged one above another, some of which are a hundred and fifty ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... pumice-stones. One could not mistake its volcanic origin. In some parts, slight curls of smoke emitted a sulphurous smell, proving that the internal fires had lost nothing of their expansive powers, though, having climbed a high acclivity, I could see no volcano for a radius of several miles. We know that in those Antarctic countries, James Ross found two craters, the Erebus and Terror, in full activity, on the 167th meridian, latitude 77 deg. 32'. The vegetation of this desolate continent seemed to me ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... the Me-Zaka there was posted an army of women, and at the acclivity of Wo-Zaka there was stationed a force of men. At the acclivity of Sumi-Zaka was placed burning charcoal. This was the origin of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the farther slope, the acclivity of which was much less abrupt. The anchors were thrown out from the car and one of them, coming in contact with the branches of an enormous nopal, caught on it firmly. Joe at once let himself slide ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... gun struck on the listening ear. But all doubt on the subject was quickly removed; for, on ascending the rising ground, where stands the village of Quatre Bras, we saw a considerable plain in our front, flanked on each side by a wood; and on another acclivity beyond, we could perceive the enemy descending towards us, in most ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... fall of a few inches is sufficient to diversify the prospect; there is always some gentle acclivity to be surmounted, which cheats the sense with the expectation of finding a novel scene beyond: the sand-hills in the distance also range themselves in wild and fantastic forms, many appearing like promontories jutting ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... blaze the stones beside it at intervals with splashes of whitewash, for guidance on dark nights. Above this plateau, which here expands to a width of twenty or thirty feet and anon contracts almost to nothing, the cliff takes another climb, right away now to the skyline; but the acclivity is gentler, with funnel-shaped turfy hollows between bastions of piled rock not unlike Dartmoor tors or South African kopjes in miniature. On top of all runs a second terrace, much broader than the first, and a low hedge, beyond which, out of ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... and reported that he had passed through a channel—probably that which is now known as South Passage—and had followed the coast of Dirk Hartog's Island until he reached the northern extremity of the island. There, upon an acclivity, a tin plate was found on the ground. Certain words scratched upon the metal indicated that the ship Eendragt, of Amsterdam, of which Dirk Hartog was master, had anchored off the island on the 25th of October, 1616, and had departed for Bantam on the 27th day of the same month. ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... turning descended slightly into a hollow. On the right arose a steep acclivity, covered with the dense forest. On the other side the ground rose more gradually, and was covered over by a forest much less dense. Some distance in front the road took another turn, and was lost to view among the trees. About a hundred yards in front of them a tree had been felled, and lay across ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... been denied that there is a remarkable difference between the two sides of the ridge which forms the central chain of Judea. On the western acclivity, the soil rises from the sea towards the elevated ground in four distinct terraces, which are covered with an unfading verdure. The shore is lined with mastic-trees; palms, and prickly pears. Higher up, the vines, the olives, and the sycamores amply repay the labour of the cultivator; ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... strength had not begun to fail, and with that her courage also. Her breath grew short. She refused to burden her husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. At last she sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to which the company had been guided by the trapper was a level space, about ten rods back from the stream here falling into the lake from the east, and at the foot of a rocky acclivity forming a portion of the southern side of a high ridge that ran down to the lake. The first ten feet of the rise was formed by the smooth, even face of a perpendicular rock, which from the narrow shelf at the top fell off ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... fashion of that later age, which he prudently suited in size to the diminished fortunes of his family. It was situated about the middle of the village, whose vicinity was not in those days judged any inconvenience, upon a spot of ground more level than was presented by the rest of the acclivity, where, as we said before, the houses were notched as it were into the side of the steep bank, with little more level ground about them than the spot occupied by their site. But the Laird's house had a court in front and a small garden behind, connected with another ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... expectations, and he found himself mounting the acclivity at racing speed. At its highest point, the road, skirting a hilltop, offered an extensive view of the valley below. Here Nicol Brinn pulled up and, descending, ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... up the great acclivity of Griante. One was brown and elderly, clad in black with an orange rag wrapped about her brow—a sturdy, muscular creature who carried a great, empty wicker basket upon her shoulders; the other was clad in a rosy jumper of silk: she flashed in the morning fires and ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... glades,) boundless as the ocean. This green forest was, however, relieved in one direction by a chain of excessively bold, detached, well-wooded, rocky, pyramidal mountains, which stood forth in grand relief. In advance the picture was bounded by forest and mountain; one bold acclivity, in shape of a dome, standing prominent among its fellows. It was a lovely evening: the sky, overcast and gloomy, threw an interesting, wild, mysterious coloring over the landscape. I gazed forth upon the romantic scene before me with intense delight, and felt melancholy ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... when I was again watching Meg Hawkes on the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the acclivity, on the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might be brought safely there. Vain prayer of an agonised heart! Meg's journey was already frustrated: she was not to reach ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... stepped from the back door of the cabin and swiftly ascended the little trail that rose at a sharp acclivity to the spring. At some height above the cabin, they crouched behind boulders and watched the cautious approach ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... led along the summit of the cliffs; oftentimes winding so close round the edge of a projecting acclivity, that it required a clear head and a steady foot, for one false step would have been instant destruction. The coast below me was justly entitled to take its place amongst the finest rock-scenery in the island; and exhibited ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... the smoke stacks of three or four transports were visible above the weed stalks and bushes, and the course of one or two more could be traced by a distant, trailing line of smoke as they steamed down toward Savannah. The opposite bank rises from the river a steep acclivity, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet in perpendicular height, down whose sides of brownish yellow clay narrow roadways showed out to the landings below. Cresting the bluff, woods overlooked the whole, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a grove of firs, or pines; then they would come out upon some rounded promontory of grass land or projecting peak of rocks; and a few minutes afterwards they would move along smoothly for a time upon a level, with a steep acclivity, rough with rocks and precipices on one side, and an abrupt descent on the other down which a stone would have rolled a thousand feet ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... approaching the station. The cab horse soon slackened its pace to climb the acclivity of the Rue d'Amsterdam; and shortly afterward the vehicle drew up in the courtyard of the railway station. Faithfully observing the directions which had been given her, the worthy woman had her trunks ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... effect which we see brought out in tasteful pencil sketches and good line engravings. We approached it this day from the shore in the direction in which the eminence it stands upon assumes the pyramidal form, and itself the tower-like outline. The acclivity is barren and stony,—a true desert foreground, like those of Thebes and Palmyra; and the huge square shadow of the tower stretched dark and cold athwart it. The sun shone out clearly. One half the immense ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... Dacota mother, goaded by jealousy,—the husband [sic] of her children having taken another wife,—unmoored her canoe above the Great Fall, and seating herself and her children in it,—sang her death song, and went over the foaming acclivity in the face and amid the shrieks of her tribe. And often, the Indian believes, when the nights are calm, and the sky serene,—and the dew-drops are hanging motionless on the sprays of the weeping ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... had to be climbed, yet another effort had to be made up that rough acclivity, with its large slippery flagstones. And the procession rose yet higher, and the ascent still went on in the full, bright light. There came a last turn, and the wheels of Marie's car grated against a granite curb. Then, still higher, still ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and before those to whom it was addressed at all had digested the wonder of it, and so hesitated in their reply, a half-dozen men and a woman or two came in sight in the narrow way before us, panting after their rapid ascent of the acclivity; and the calls of others pressing up the slope behind them sounded loudly, and in a very little while a crowd of a hundred or more pressed about us, all gazing at us and questioning us with a most eager surprise. For the most part these ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... hill to Mouse-hole, breasted slowly the steep acclivity which leads therefrom toward the west. Presently he turned, where a plateau of grass sloped above the cliffs into a little theater of banks ablaze with gorse. And here his thoughts and the image they were concerned with perished before reality. ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... little party were beginning to enter among the mountain spurs, or foot-hills. Here the travelling grew exceedingly difficult, the path sometimes running up a steep acclivity and then descending into deep ravines—so deep and dark that the sun's rays seemed hardly to enter them. The road was what Spanish-Americans term, "Cuesta arriba, cuesta abajo" (up hill, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the Chateau a couple of hundred yards distant. Taking a lad who lounged about the inn, to show me the way, I sauntered up the path, pausing a while at a long-disused spring, and idly plucked an apple from a branch which over-hung it. A little further up, and mounting the steep acclivity, I stood within the ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... colloquy ended, the horsemen spurred onward, and soon arrived in view of the residence of Mrs. Williams, which was situated on a gentle acclivity, accessible by a long avenue, skirted on either side with tall poplars, and entered at the extremity by a slight wooden gate. On entering this avenue, old Pompey came running towards them with a brow darkened a number of shades ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... among the trees, the winding path that leads to it being now lost to sight in the thick foliage, now visible again as a thin serpentine line of soft grey. Midway on the slopes appear the gardens of Looe, built up the acclivity on stone terraces one above another; thus displaying the veritable garden architecture of the mountains of Palestine magically transplanted to the side of an English hill. Here, in this soft and genial atmosphere, the hydrangea is a common flower-bed ornament, the fuchsia ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... prepared to state; but I believe that in point of cleanliness it is superior to many. It is situated on both banks of the Narenta, in a gorge which opens out into two small plains, at its N. and S. extremities. The eastern and larger part is built on an acclivity, and contains the bazaar, government offices, and the houses of the traders and the richer inhabitants. The western part is occupied by the poorer classes, who are for the most part Catholics, and are employed in agricultural pursuits. The gardens, which supply the town with vegetables, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... about twilight, as he sat at the outer gate, looking sadly on the broad, bright river which flowed calmly beneath, he became aware of the presence of a stranger, who seemed to toil wearily up the steep acclivity on the summit of which the castle is situated. The stranger—an unusual sight within those walls then—soon reached the spot where Ulric sat, and, greeting the youth in the fashion of the times, prayed him for shelter during ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... blended with night when Wildeve ascended the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young innkeeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy |
