"Steep" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... benignantly from a bower of chrysanthemums on a certain evening one winter not so many years ago, set rolling a small stone upon a steep hill. So, in fact, wags the world; and none of us may know when the echo of a careless word will cease vibrating in the hearts ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... within a circle of two or three miles around the village of Boulmer. The villages are much alike in every respect. The early settlers seem to have looked for places where a range of low rocks lay like the string of a bow across the curve of a bay, or where a cove nestled under the southerly steep of a jutting point. The beaches shelve very gradually, and are never shingly; so that a special kind of boat gradually had to be contrived in order that the peculiar nature of the landing might be suited. The early fishermen saw that the boat must have a very light draught of water, and ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... army, rather concave, very dense, and very compact, was strongly posted. It occupied the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, having behind it the village, and in front of it the slope, which was tolerably steep then. It rested on that stout stone dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and which marks the intersection of the roads—a pile of the sixteenth century, and so robust that the cannon-balls rebounded from it without injuring ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... localities listed above and others at which mounds were seen are areas of disturbance such as the old burn on Wetherill Mesa, the rights of way for roads, the river valley, and the grazed floor of Prater Canyon. Little evidence of pocket gophers was found on unusually rocky slopes, steep slopes, or in stands of pinyon and juniper or in relatively pure stands of oak-brush. In addition to workability of the soil, the presence of herbaceous plants, many of them weedy annuals, is probably the most important factor governing the success of pocket gophers in a local area. ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson
... of his assertion, he found it no easy matter to struggle up from the steep ditch, cumbered by his helpless burden, but the girl steadied it with a capable hand and leaped lightly ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... animals and fish; to corruption, by the flaxen sheets in which the dead are wrapped when they are buried, and who become corrupt in these winding sheets.— And again, this flax does not separate its fibre till it has begun to steep and putrefy, and this is the flower with which garlands and decorations for funerals ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... am I In my iust Censure? in my true Opinion? Alack, for lesser knowledge, how accurs'd, In being so blest? There may be in the Cup A Spider steep'd, and one may drinke; depart, And yet partake no venome: (for his knowledge Is not infected) but if one present Th' abhor'd Ingredient to his eye, make knowne How he hath drunke, he cracks his gorge, his sides With violent Hefts: I haue drunke, and seene the Spider. Camillo ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Mr J. ought to have known that by express act of parliament no malt, however small the quantity, can be legally manufactured until previous entry be made in writing of all the ponds, barns, floors, &c., so as to be used before the grain can be put to steep. In the Excise entry-books for the division there is not a syllable of T. J.'s name for a number of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... 6 o'clock. Poor country, full of mountains. Crossed the lofty Allegheny. High ridges, deep valleys and steep precipices. Roads good for such steep mountains. Here one of the most sublime and beautiful scenes presented itself my eyes ever witnessed. After ascending the Allegheny nearly to the top, as far as human sight ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... head and started again down the winding, steep trail. "I don't hunt over that way for maybe a week. That's too bad he's killed. I like Fred Thurman. He's a fine ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... me; they were beneath me; they faced me across the valley; wherever I looked they were shutting me off from the outer world. No nightingales were singing here, but I heard the melancholy scream of the hawk and the harsh croak of the raven. And yet, when I looked down into the bottom of this steep desert of stones, what soft and vernal beauty was there! Over the grass of living green was spread the gold of cowslips, just as if that strip of meadow, with its gently-gliding river, had been lifted out of an English ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... Sounds of revelry and triumph are heard from the Pirate Isle. They celebrate recent success. Various groups, accurately attired in the costume of the Greek islands, are seated on the rocky foreground. On the left rises Medora's tower, on a craggy steep; and on the right gleams the blue Aegean. A procession of women enters. It heralds the presence of Conrad and Medora; they honour the festivity of their rude subjects. The pirates and the women join in the national ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... I do think is well named, by a correspondent who communicates it, as a "quintessential phasis of dry Scotch humour," and the explanation of which would perhaps be thrown away upon any one who needed the explanation. The story is this:—The laird riding past a high steep bank, stopped opposite a hole in it, and said, "Hairy, I saw a brock gang in there." "Did ye?" said Hairy; "wull ye hand my horse, sir?" "Certainly," said the laird, and away rushed Hairy for a spade. ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... some sort, this residence of ours. Immediately at the back of it runs a ditch, about three feet wide, which empties and fills twice a day with the tide. This lies like a moat on two sides of the house. The opposite bank is a steep dyke, with a footpath along the top. One or two willows droop over this very interesting ditch, and I thought I would add to their company some magnolias and myrtles, and so make a little evergreen plantation round the house. I went to the swamp reserves I ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... of that stream were steep, All-radiant banks of beryl bright; Sweet-sighing did the water sweep, With murmuring music running light; Within its bed fair stones lay deep; As if through glass they glowed, as white As streaming stars when tired men sleep ...
— The Pearl • Sophie Jewett
... a steep hill. The hedge of tall pines and underbrush drew closer in on either side. The road was very narrow. As the mare started down the incline it seemed as though they were going into ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... winding lanes to his mother's shop. This was in Litany Row, a crazy dark entry over against the Dominican convent. The streets and alleys were empty, the rain coursed down all the gutters of the steep little town; its music and their own plashy steps were all they could hear. Knocking at a little barred door in Litany Row, they were admitted by a wrinkled old woman ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... tumbled rocks and seaweed at the head of the bay, and there the grim cliffs fell back into a steep green gully which suggested possibility of ascent. But instead of running in there, the sails were furled and the boat nosed slowly towards the overhanging side of the cliff, where a broad iron ladder fell precariously into the water with its top projecting ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... of the steep bluff was a struggle, but they accomplished it, and at length the stranger was seated in a ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... time, by the resistance which it offered, for a small body of noblemen and gentlemen attached to the cause of King Charles to make their escape from a superior party of pursuers. It was built upon the edge of a very steep slope, so that on one side it was very much taller than the other. It was surrounded by thick trees also; and though by no means large, it had contrived to get into a small space as many odd corners as a Chinese puzzle. The walls were very thick, the windows few and ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... blood, like raging flood Which ’neath steep hills doth pour; Then tribute they were forced to ...
— King Diderik - and the fight between the Lion and Dragon and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... region of the mind, Where branched thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind; Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees, Fledge the wild ridged mountains steep by steep, And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness, A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, With buds and bells and stars without ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... aspect of the men that were dispersed around the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley between two hills and a river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising moon. The suffering woman might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay,—seen it winding like a silver thread until it was lost ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... if I were to leap into the well and dive to the bottom, thou couldst give me the rope when I reappeared, and with the aid of the ass pull me forth again? I can dive through the water, I trow, albeit the well is none too wide. But I could not climb the steep stone sides; thou and the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... more with patient skill we lure The mighty salmon from the deep; Once more we tread the boundless moor, And wander up the mountain steep. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... river, so as completely to insulate the castle, and make it entirely inaccessible on either side except by boats or a bridge. With the earth thrown out of the trench they were making an embankment on the inner side, so that an enemy, after crossing the ditch, would have a steep ascent to climb, defended too, as of course it would be in such an emergency, by long lines of desperate men upon the top, hurling at the assailants showers of ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... character, the line claimed by the United States for the most part presents, when seen at a distance, the appearance of lofty and deeply serrated ridges, while to one who traverses it it is a labyrinth of lakes, morasses, and short but steep elevations which hide its peaks from the valleys ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... when a party of us were crossing the hills in chairs—the way was rough and very steep, the work for the coolies very severe. At the highest point of our journey, we stopped for ten minutes to let the men rest. Instantly they all sat in a row, brought out their pipes, and began to laugh among themselves as if they had not a care in the world. In any country that had learned ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... face and long white beard began to slip down the steep slant of the pillows, and a troubled look came into his left eye. Sophia rose and, putting her hands under his armpits, lifted him higher in the bed. He was not heavy, but only a strong girl of her years could have ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... right bank, and Messrs. Hunt and Crook the left. They counted on arriving very quickly at the Columbia; but they followed this Mad river for twenty days, finding nothing at all to eat, and suffering horribly from thirst. The rocks between which the river flows being so steep and abrupt as to prevent their descending to quench their thirst (so that even their dogs died of it), they suffered the torments of Tantalus, with this difference, that he had the water which he could not reach above his head, while our travellers had it beneath their feet. Several, not to die ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... Prudy's set the whole school to romancing, although it was in the midst of a recitation. Flossy said if there was a man in the moon, he must be a giant, or he never could get round over the mountains, which she had heard were very steep. ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... wrote to Franklin, swiftly and urgently. She did not clearly know what she wanted of him; but she felt, like a flame of faith within her, that he, and he only, could sustain her at her height. He was her spiritual affinity; he was her wings. Merely to see him, merely to steep herself in the radiance of his love and sympathy, would be to recover power, poise, personality, and independence. It was a goal she flew towards, though she saw it but in dizzy glimpses, and as if ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... fancy. After an hour spent in devotion the sultan reappeared, and entering his carriage was driven away. We saw him again on our way home, when he stopped to call on an Austrian prince staying at the legation. The street leading up to the embassy was too narrow and steep for a carriage, so, mounting his horse at the foot, he rode up, passing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... process of making filigree work, the principle of which is, fine wire coiled flat so as to form designs with an interesting and varied surface. Filigree is quite common still, and any one who has walked down the steep street of the Goldsmiths in Genoa is familiar with most of its modern forms. Cellini says: "Though many have practised the art without making drawings first, because the material in which they worked was so easily handled and so pliable, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... Come Bright! Miss Lilywhite, I see you hiding in the croft! By yon steep stair of ruddy light The sun is climbing fast aloft; What makes the stealthy, creeping chill That hangs about the morning still?" Tinkle, tinkle in the pail: "Some one saunters up the vale, Pauses at the brook awhile, Dawdles ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... steps," Bertha said. "When I came down with Mrs. Wilson to christen the boat we had to climb up nasty steep steps against the side. This is a great deal more comfortable. I was thinking that mamma would have a difficulty in getting up those other things, if it ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... whose voice reached them—now in hoarse whisperings, now in throaty chucklings, and whose ripples were bright with the reflected glory of the moon. Just where they stood, a path led down to these shimmering waters,—a narrow and very steep path screened by bending willows; and, moved by Fate, or Chance, or Destiny, Barnabas descended this path, and turning, reached up his hands ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... redolent boiled potato, and on Saturday mornings, almost to the thirty-odd of them, wasp-waisted, oiled-haired young negro girls in white-cotton stockings and cut-down high shoes enormously and rather horribly run down of heel, tilted pints of water over steep stone stoops and scratched at the ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... had been running down hill for ever so long, it came to a place where the banks went up very high and steep on each side of it. Here something strange happened. The little river was stopped by an enormous wall. The wall was made of stone and cement and it stretched right across the river from one bank to the other. The little river couldn't get through the wall, so it just filled up ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... decided Stanley, clucking to his horse. "My duty's ahead." He took the steep pitch of the hillside almost at a gallop and soon they were descending again into that little settlement of waterside and slope called North Beach. Juana Briones' place had been its pioneer habitation. Her hospitable gate stood always invitingly open. Through the branches of a cypress ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... were allowed to float gently down with the stream, stern foremost, when, as much out of bravado as anything, several shots were fired from the small brass swivel guns on board, the little balls rattling through the steep roof of the men's quarters; while before a gun could be brought to bear, the oars rapidly plashed the water, and the two prahus were swept back round a wooded point up ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... he, and the Argives shouted aloud, like to a wave on a steep shore, when the south wind cometh and stirreth it; even on a jutting rock, that is never left at peace by the waves of all winds that rise from this side and from that. And they did sacrifice each man to one of the everlasting gods, praying for escape from death and the tumult of battle. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... a newly-bathed steep Emerging from a mist: or like a stream 20 Of music soft that not dispels the sleep, But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Grazed by an idle eye with silent might The picture stole upon my inward sight. A tremulous warmth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... open flung, The quivering drawbridge rocked and rung, And echoed loud the flinty street Beneath the coursers' clattering feet, As slowly down the steep descent Fair Scotland's king and nobles went, While all along the crowded way ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... steep where we would leap; The grape-vine swing hung high, And I would throw the swing up so That, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... mile loop of the perfect macadam track circling the factory buildings, then the way ran off into the country roads, inches deep with heavy sand, littered with ugly stones, rising over and pitching down steep grades where holes and mud-patches abounded. Over this the new Mercury cars were driven at top speed, each one reckoning many miles before the makers allowed them to be clothed with bodies and gleaming enamels and to be sent to the purchasers. ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... in a pinewood between Ischl and the Traun. I had climbed the steep hill alone, while my father and Mr. Peterborough drove round the carriage-road to the margravine's white villa. Ottilia was leaning on the arm of Baroness Turckems, walking—a miracle that disentangled her cruelly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... artificial irrigation. Whilst much good work has been carried out in this field, much remains to be done; and the want of irrigation works is almost as serious a drawback as the want of labour. The singular topographical formation of Mexico has robbed it of natural irrigation facilities—steep slopes facing the oceans and a high riverless plateau war against the retention and absorption of the rain-waters, and the run-off is consequently excessively rapid. Nevertheless proper storage of water in reservoirs during times ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... stiffness and soreness, consequent upon their recent bout, was now well-nigh forgotten, though occasionally they laughingly rallied each other as the sharp air stung their bruised faces. They were just surmounting the summit of a long, steep ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... be said that I forget the beauty and the human interest, which appertain to classical studies. To this I reply that it is only a very strong man who can appreciate the charms of landscape as he is toiling up a steep hill, along a bad road. What with short-windedness, stones, nits, and a pervading sense of the wisdom of rest and be thankful, most of us have little enough sense of the beautiful under these circumstances. The ordinary ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... the vale and dim, And though the skies are dark and drear, And though the mountains everywhere Rise steep and rugged round me here To bar me out from life! there lives One Star which shineth bright and clear From out the sky and comfort ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... yell I was after him, making five yards to his one. He tumbled along the best he could, and, to my great surprise, directly away from his hole. It was steep downhill. I should land upon him in half ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... cup from the terrible steep, That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge Of the endless and measureless world of the deep, Swirl'd into the maelstrom that madden'd the surge. "And where is the diver so stout to go— I ask ye again—to the deep below?" ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... half-witted Ma'azi, by name Masa'i, had tantalized us with a glorious account of the "House of 'Antar" in the Hisma, and the cistern where that negro hero and poet used to water his horses. Near its massive walls rises a Hazbah ("steep and solitary hillock") with Dims or layers of ashlar atop: he had actually broken off a bit of greenstone sticking in the masonry, and sold it to a man from Tor (Khwajeh Kostantin?) for a large sum—two ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... Down the steep west unrolled, I watch the river of the sunset flow, With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold, Into the ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... said. 'We can't get them. The bottom slopes, you know, very steep. The water lies between two very sharp slopes, with little branch valleys, and God knows where the drift will take you. It isn't as if it was a level bottom. You never know where you are, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Kemp in a low but calm voice, when our hero's foot rested on the last projecting point that he could gain, and found that with the utmost reach of his arm he could not get within six inches of his friend's outstretched hand. Besides, Nigel himself stood on so narrow a ledge, and against so steep a cliff, that he could not have acted with his wonted power even if the hand could have been grasped. Moses stood immediately behind Nigel, where the ledge was broader and where a shallow recess in the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... We started off at 8.30 P.M., and got to the foot of our hill about 2 A.M. The Royal Irish Fusiliers were in front, then the battery and S.A.A. mules, and last ourselves. The Royal Irish Fusiliers had got part way up the hill—a very steep one—when three mounted Boers galloped down amid clouds of dust, rolling stones, &c. They started off the battery and S.A.A. mules, the Boers firing as they passed. The mules cut right through the regiment, and all was chaos ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... and fifty feet. From a boat on the river the visitor has the nearest and most impressive view of the city, with its peculiarities as the high place of Hindu worship. If he proceed to the top of one of the minarets, which is reached by a steep, dark spiral stair, he will have a most commanding and extensive view of the city, the river, and the country for many miles around. He will see that while the streets in the centre of the city are long and narrow, and have very lofty houses, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... convents, the cathedral, the bishop's palace, and the churches of noble, though not elegant architecture, are placed in stations which a Claude or a Poussin might have chosen for them; some stand on the steep sides of rocks, some on lawns that slope gently to the sea-shore: their colour is grey or pale yellow, with reddish tiles, except here and there where a dome is adorned with porcelain tiles of white and blue. Just as we reached the highest point of the town, looking across the woody bason ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... along a quiet country road and was approaching a steep hill, which he could not see until he was close to it, owing to a ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... climbs the watery steep, Sets foot on many a slimy stair; Treads on the monsters of the deep, And rising seeks the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle poised ready ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... and covered with vegetation. You can lie on the blossoming clover, where the bees hum and the crickets chirp around you, and can look through the arch which frames its own fair picture. In the foreground lies the steep slope overgrown with bayberry and gay with thistle blooms; then the little winding cove with its bordering cliffs; and the rough pastures with their grazing sheep beyond. Or, ascending the parapet, you can ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... cave into a hollow, grown to a wilderness of small trees, yet carpeted between with a brilliant sod of short grass. On the steep sides were larger trees; but evidently, at a time not then long past, the cup of the hollow had been cleared. And at one side was the ruin of ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... and could see the snow still drifting over the peak of the snowy mountain as we had seen it farther east, where we were ourselves under the burning sun. This was now pretty near February first, or midwinter. The eastern side of this great mountain was too steep to be ascended, and no sign of a tree could be seen on the whole eastern slope. The range of mountains on the east side of this narrow valley were nearly all the volcanic, barren in the extreme, and the roughest of all the mountains we had ever seen. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... which, turning to me with a smile, 'And I would give a thousand, young gentleman (said he) that I could gratify your longing.' My uncle and he are perfectly agreed in their estimate of life; which Quin says, would stink in his nostrils, if he did not steep it in claret. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of the Tennessee river, in a thickly wooded region about twenty miles northeast of Corinth. There was no town there then, nothing but "the log house on the hill" that the survivors of the battle of Shiloh will all remember. The banks of the Tennessee on the Pittsburg Landing side are steep and bluffy, rising about 100 feet above the level of the river. Shiloh church, that gave the battle its name, was a Methodist meeting house. It was a small, hewed log building with a clapboard roof, about two miles out from the landing on the ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes. What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream; 'Tis the star-spangled banner; ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... with their vineyards, stood each in a green niche of its own in this steep and narrow forest dell. Though they were so near, there was already a good difference in level; and Mr. M'Eckron's head must be a long way under the feet of Mr. Schram. No more had been cleared than was necessary for cultivation; ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the sorrel," said he. "Quick—dismount!" Cumner's Son did as he was bid. Going a little to one side, the hillsman pushed through a thick hedge of bushes, rolled away a rock, and disclosed an opening which led down a steep and rough-hewn way to a great misty valley beneath, where was never a bridle-path or causeway over the brawling ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... steep Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep: For our kisses lightlier run Than the traceries of the sun By the lolling water cast Up grey precipices vast, Lifting smooth and warm and steep Out of the ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... the preceding, with the exception that the legs are bright red, the mantle is darker, and the bill is shorter. This species was found by Dr. Leonard Stejneger to be a very abundant nesting bird on islands in Bering Sea, selecting steep and inaccessible rocks and ledges on which to build its nest. Their nesting habits are precisely the same as the Pacific Kittiwake, but they most often nest in separate colonies, but can be distinguished readily when ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... part of the cretaceous formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their sides till ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... hours, Banneker went to the small, bare room in his apartment which he kept as a study, and sat down to write the interview. Angles of dawn-light had begun to irradiate the steep canyon of the street by the time he had finished. He read it over and found it good, for its purposes. Every line of it sparkled. It had the effervescent quality which the reading public loves to associate with stage life and stage people. Beyond that, nothing. Banneker mailed it to Miss Westlake ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of that mountain," he said, on the last occasion, "is a place so difficult of access, except by one way, that it is called the 'Eagles' Home.' Lives have been lost there. The hill is dangerous—the clefts are steep and deep. Leave it alone. There are plenty of other hills to climb that ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... table, Scott proposed that we should all ascend his western turret, to enjoy a moonlight view of the valley. The younger part of his company were too happy to do so: some of the seniors, who had tried the thing before, found pretexts for hanging back. The stairs were dark, narrow, and steep; but the Sheriff piloted the way, and at length there were as many on the top as it could well afford footing for. Nothing could be more lovely than the panorama; all the harsher and more naked features being lost in the delicious moonlight; the Tweed and the Gala winding and sparkling beneath ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... miles he must have come since leaving the ranch house. His car now was high in the mountain range, running on low gear, the engine working hard in the thin air and against the steep grade. He was not making more than five miles an hour, he judged, at this moment. The radiator was boiling and steaming like a cauldron. But he might be sure that if his travel was slow, Sorenson's was no better; the road was the same for the pursued ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... unable any longer to steep his consciousness in slumber, he raised himself from his incumbent posture, and discovered his favorite freedman sitting by his bedside as usual; for Sallust, who, as I have said, had a gentlemanlike taste for the polite letters, was accustomed to be read ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... to cover the other machine. It was of the same type; and Smith saw that it was swooping in a steep spiral, its driver leaning over ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... advance-guard of the Spanish army, all well mounted, and inspired by the energies of their impetuous chief, soon reached a point where the road led over a mountain by steps cut in the solid rock, steep as a flight of stairs. Precipitous cliffs rose hundreds of feet on either side. Here it was necessary for the troopers to dismount, and carefully to lead their horses by the bit up the ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... of danger, with a queer feeling about his heart, which was beating furiously. Mark had hoped to be able to make his way down the side of the crater to where his chum was and help him up. But a look at the steep sides and the uncertain footing afforded by the loose rocks of lava-like formation showed that this could ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... That Heav'n would want Spectators, God want praise: Millions of spiritual Creatures walk the Earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep; All these with ceaseless Praise his Works behold Both Day and Night. How often from the Steep Of echoing Hill or Thicket, have we heard Celestial Voices to the midnight Air, Sole, or responsive each to others Note, Singing their great Creator: Oft in bands, While they keep Watch, or nightly Rounding walk, With heav'nly Touch of instrumental Sounds, In full harmonick Number ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Sunium's marble steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There swan-like let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine— Dash down yon cup ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... The grounds are diversified by bold swells and winding vallies, and command at various stations, some extensive and interesting prospects. To the south-east the bold promontory called Roundaway-hill, presents its steep acclivity, with its commanding encampment on the summit. A range of lofty chalk-hills extend thence for several miles to the east, on the southern face of which is the White-Horse of Cherril, and above it is another ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... of the little town, so steep as to be cut out, here and there, into a rough semblance of steps, were alive with quickly moving figures, in holiday attire: which, in the East, is a true outward and visible sign of its wearer's inward and ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... the time of the emperors was a city of 2,000,000 inhabitants.[163] This population was herded in houses of five and six stories, poorly built and crowded together. The populous quarters were a labyrinth of tortuous paths, steep, and ill paved. Juvenal who frequented them leaves us a picture of them which has little attractiveness. At Pompeii, a city of luxury, it may be seen how narrow were the streets of a Roman city. In the midst of hovels monuments by the hundred would be erected. The emperor Augustus boasted ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... church a hideous rectangular building, with flat walls and shallow, sham Gothic windows. It was thought extremely beautiful when it was built forty years ago. The town itself is an irregular and rather picturesque place, with a twisting steep High Street, looking as if a number of houses had been shot at random into this nook among the hills and left to find ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... the people above have any courage. Just come and look at the stair; it was made in times when people thought of defending themselves.' They issued forth now together to the top of the landing, where a narrow, steep flight of stone steps descended between two walls to the basement-storey. A little more than half-way down was a low iron gate or grille of considerable strength; though, not being above four feet in height, it could have been no great defence, which seemed, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... was the nullah, thirty feet deep, eighty yards wide, soon to be a swollen torrent dashing towards the Hugli, but now dry. Its sides were in parts steep, and unscalable in face of determined resistance. In a moment Desmond saw the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Count struck the Janissary fairly on the flat cap with his axe, bringing him to his knees. Almost simultaneously a heavy stone descended upon the dazed man from a higher part of the wall, and he rolled backward down the steep. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... and his knights rode day after day and came at last to the foot of the steep slope. The long ridges were high, but not so high but that horse and man might make shift to scramble to the crest. Up they climbed and from the heights they looked across and down into the Valley of Virginia, twenty miles wide, a hundred and ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... the polished Spaniard in the south the conditions scarcely varied. Everywhere there was the same spirit. A Louis pushed wide the borders of France by theft and the law of the stronger arm, a Ferdinand offered up his holocaust to the greater glory of God, a Philip yet to come would steep the Netherlands in blood to the very dikes that the same God might be worshipped in violation of the worshipper's conscience, in England a Crookback Richard had neither pity nor scruple when a crown was the reward ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... "The favors of fortune are like steep rocks; only eagles and creeping things mount to the summit." Lord Campbell, who became Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of England and amassed a large fortune, began life as a drudge in a printing office. A little observation shows us that, as a rule, the men who accomplish ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... strategic location at the crossroads of central Europe with many easily traversable Alpine passes and valleys; major river is the Danube; population is concentrated on eastern lowlands because of steep slopes, poor soils, and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of evening mountain mist, A spiral thread of dark blue smoke arose From hidden cove and rugged steep defile; While like a ball of blood o'er some far magic isle, The sun a moment hung in deep repose, Above a placid sea of amethyst, In mystic prophecy of death and doom,— Then dropped and splashed the sky with crimson ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... openings which neglect had permitted the rains to wash underneath the parapet. He floundered as some dying men will, and these movements caused him to work his body through the opening. That done, he started rolling down the steep eastern declivity, the speed of his flight increasing with every bound. Many cottages are perched precariously on this precipitous slope. Mrs. Armour, a resident of one of them, was sitting in a rear room near the window, sewing, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... the animals had laboriously flopped up, to die in peace. "Unless we had actually found these remains, it would have been past believing that a dying seal could have transported itself over fifty miles of rough, steep, glacier-surface," but "the seal seems often to crawl to the shore or the ice to die, probably from its instinctive dread of its marine enemies." In India, Purun Dass, at the end of statesmanship, sought solitude, and died in sanctity among the deer and monkeys, rather than remain with ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... we had before us a fine mountainous line of coast, running down from Table Bay to the extremity of that lofty headland known as the Cape of Good Hope. Everywhere the coast appeared bold and high. The mountains seemed to rise abruptly from the sea in a succession of ledges, steep, rugged, and bare, with rough and craggy crests. As we stood in close to the shore, the sun shining on the crags and projections made them stand out in bold relief, throwing the deep furrows of their steep sides into dark shades, while the long line of white surf dancing wildly at their bases ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... as ever, Johnny walk'd beside the river. Johnny watch'd the swallows trying Which was cleverest at flying. Oh! what fun! Johnny watch'd the bright round sun Going in and coming out; This was all he thought about. So he strode on, only think! To the river's very brink, Where the bank was high and steep, And the water very deep; And the fishes, in a row, Stared to see him ...
— CAW! CAW! - The Chronicle of Crows, A Tale of the Spring-time • RM
... the aspect savage. On one side, heavy shadows, a chaos of trees, twisted and gnarled on a steep slope, down which foamed a torrent noisily; to right, an enormous rock overhanging the road and bristling with branches that sprouted from ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... which the unit of highest virtue, the naught-fearing love of reality, was missing. And I was still too timid and too modest to give every man his due cold-bloodedly, to break the bond of absolute sincerity with him, and to mount the steep path of pride which each truly pious man, - as you and I, dear reader, - alas! is obliged to take against his will and pleasure, under penalty of losing time, life and strength, and the subtle discernment of God's loving signal light, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... stream: the bridge was partially lined with guards, in different dresses, few in uniform; it was besides armed with shoulder wall-pieces, capital things for demolishing friends. We then crossed a sort of court-yard and then ascended a steep and extraordinarily bad flight of steps to the door of the palace. Here we found the household troops all dressed in scarlet with two door-keepers, one seated on either side of the door: this led us into a quadrangle. The citadel being in front, the side walls ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... by trickling brooks, past huge boulders that scarce a wild vine dare cling to, with its feeble, delicate tendrils, is all exquisite, and full of living repose; and turning to descend the mountain, just where a brook drops headlong with clattering leap into a steep black ravine, and comes out over a tiny green meadow, sliding past great granite rocks, and bending the grass-blades to a shining track, you see suddenly at your feet the beautiful mountain valley of the Farmington river, trending ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... ago chosen him instead of Pierre? A smile, half pitying, half contemptuous, was suggested by an undecided quiver of the muscles of his face, more pronounced by the light in his expressive eyes. He left the waggon trail that zig-zagged up the steep grade beyond the outskirts of the town, cutting across their sharp angles in a straight line. Near the foot of an almost perpendicular cliff he again picked up the trail. Through a notch in the brow of the cliff a solid bar of water shot forth. The solid bar, in its fall ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... horseman, cigarette in mouth, shaggy chaps on long legs, spurred and booted and decorated with a red neck-scarf came picturesquely into view. His pony dug sturdy feet into the steep roadside, avoiding the mud of the road itself. The man led two other horses, saddled, but empty of riders. He stopped and between him and Thatcher took place one of the immensely tranquil, meditative, and deliberate conversations of ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... had not been brought round, however, when a very different vehicle appeared, climbing the steep; and Primrose proclaimed that Mrs. Powder was at hand. The carriage drew up before the verandah, and from it descended the ex- Governor's lady, and two young ones—Miss Annabella and another. Mrs. Powder was a stately lady, large and dignified;— those two things ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... marvellous mead for their own consumption, they did not even taste it, but hid it away in a secret place, while they went in search of further adventures. They had not gone very far ere they found the giant Gilling also sound asleep, lying on a steep bank, and they maliciously rolled him into the water, where he perished. Then hastening to his dwelling, some climbed on the roof, carrying a huge millstone, while the others, entering, told the giantess that her husband was dead. This news caused the poor creature great grief, and she rushed out ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... individual and peculiar look, like no watercourse they had seen. Its course drew a sharp line between the wooded country and the prairie. Like a figure dressed in motley, the steep southern bank was everywhere dark and wooded, while the other side, sweeping up in countless fantastic knolls and terraces, was bare, except for the brown grass, and patches of scrub-like hair in the hollows. Far back from ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... ain't our ways, and we're all welcome to our opinions, and to sling them round from barrels or otherwise if so minded. What I says and Bill says is, that when it comes to slingin' boots instead o' words it's too steep by half, an' if this man's wronged we'll chip in an' see him righted." This oratorical effort had the effect of checking the more active signs of disapproval, and the party of disorder attempted to settle ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Harry," said I—"You know the ladies of the east steep the tips of their fingers in some ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices—and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence with water on two sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
