"Ascent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... above. At the suggestion of the cicerone, we follow our names; not by the same means, however, but by winding staircases and intricate passages. Before starting, we peep into the engine-room to glance at the steam power which works the machinery required in the different departments. The first ascent brings us to spacious store-rooms, where loose cigarettes, and those already packed in bundles, are kept. The walls are literally papered with cigarettes in wheels, which look like complicated fireworks. As we move from one wheel to another, we are invited to help ourselves to, and ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... song, beginning in C minor, and then the octaves, in contrary motion, split wide asunder the very earth. After terrific chordal reverberations there is the rapid retreat of vague armies, and once again is begun the ascent of the rolling triplets to inaccessible heights, and the first theme sounds in C minor. The modulation lifts to G flat, only to drop to abysmal depths. What mighty, desperate cause is being espoused? When peace is presaged in the key of B, is this the prize for which ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... Glyn, speaking almost mechanically, for he was anxiously watching the dark hole for the ascent of the next bucket. ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... silence of the country, a silence pierced and thrilled by the songs of larks. Larks make the sea lands of the south and east coasts insufferable. One lark in a suitable setting, and, for a while, is delightful, but twenty larks in all grades of ascent and descent, some near, some ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... allure, With provocations fresh of your Victorious capacity. Whither may love, so fledged, not fly? Did not mere Earth hold fast the string Of this celestial soaring thing, So measure and make sensitive, And still, to the nerves, nice notice give Of each minutest increment Of such interminable ascent, The heart would lose all count, and beat Unconscious of a height so sweet, And the spirit-pursuing senses strain Their steps on the starry track in vain! But, reading now the note just come, With news of you, the babes, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... named; and through this gate of mountain often, when the day was waning, a bar of slanting sunset entered, like a plume of golden dust, and hovered on a broad black patch of weather-beaten fir-trees. The day was waning now, and every steep ascent looked steeper, while down the valley light and shade made longer cast of shuttle, and the margin of the west began to glow with a deep wine-color, as the sun came down—the tinge of many mountains and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... gracious qualities, thoughtful, and throughout on a high literary level, but as a realistic transcription of frontier talk it leaves me incredulous. Still the setting, I repeat, is quite wonderful. You shall read the chapters that tell of Gail's ascent of Mount Lincoln, and see if they don't stir your blood, especially where he reaches the top, alone (and therefore unable to talk), and sees the world at his feet. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... as true as instinct,—a large black wolf, his pelt glossy and fresh with the renewal of the season, lay stretched dead in an instant upon the slope. Emsden sprang from his horse, tossed the reins to "X," and, drawing his knife, ran up the steep ascent to ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... March a party of six—David, Mawson, Mackay, Adams, Marshall, and Brocklehurst—prepared for the ascent of Mount Erebus, the volcano, then active, discovered by Ross and named after one of his ships. The crater rim was only a few miles distant, and during the first three days the party could be seen from the camp by means of a powerful telescope—tiny black ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... because the necessity for providing his halls and corridors with a top light, put an upper floor out of the question. No trace of such a staircase as would have been required to give access to an upper story has been discovered in any of the Assyrian ruins,[233] and yet some means of ascent to the terraced roofs must have been provided, if not for the inhabitants of the chambers below—who are likely, however, to have passed the nights upon them in the hot season—at least for the workmen whose duty it was to keep them ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... judgment (which yet I wish it were so right in all things else), as the most compendious scale for so much to the height of the Roman Eloquence, when I consider how equally it turnes and rises with so many figures it seems to me a Trajan's columne, in whose winding ascent we see imboss'd the severall monuments of your learned victoryes: And Salmatius and Morus make up as great a triumph as that of Decebalus, whom too, for ought I know, you shall have forced, as Trajan the other, to make themselves away out of a just desperation. I have an affectionate ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... lonely house of Adam. I wrote some part of these rambling remarks on a high ridge of rock and turf overlooking a stretch of the central counties; the rise was slight enough in reality, but the immediate ascent had been so steep and sudden that one could not avoid the fancy that on reaching the summit one would look down at the stars. But one did not look down at the stars, but rather up at the cities; seeing as high in heaven the palace town of Alfred like ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... neighbourhood. It is completely commanded and protected by Rheinfels, an ancient hill fortress, but the fortification of which no longer exist. It requires half an hour's walk to ascend to the summit of Rheinfels, but the traveller is well repaid for the fatigue of the ascent by the fine view enjoyed from the top. I remained at Rheinfels nearly an hour. What a solemn stillness seems to pervade this part of the river, only interrupted by the occasional splash of the oar, and the tolling of the steeple bell! Bingen on the right ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... Miss Joliffe herself had helped Ann to carry the picture as far as the Grands Mulets of the last landing. The final ascent she thought could be accomplished in safety by the girl alone, while it would have been derogatory to her new position of an independent lady to appear before Westray carrying the ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Gods grew weary. Change and development were dammed back by invincible dams for ever. But the Modern Utopia must be not static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long ascent of stages. Nowadays we do not resist and overcome the great stream of things, but rather float upon it. We build now not citadels, but ships of state. For one ordered arrangement of citizens rejoicing in an equality of happiness safe and assured to them and their children for ever, we have ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... about, him,—little dreams of being connected with Brandenburg on the other side of the world; but IS unconsciously more so than any other of the then sons of Adam. He is the lineal ancestor, twentieth in direct ascent, of the little Boy now sleeping in his cradle at Berlin; let him wait till nineteen generations, valiantly like Conrad, have done their part, and gone out, Conrad will find he is come to this! A man's destiny is strange always; and never wants for miracles, or will want, though it sometimes ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... the stairs. That is the only way to rise above the natural plane. Our life should be one of quiet mounting with occasional resting places; but we should be mounting higher step by step. Everybody does not find this way of secret ascent. It is for God's chosen ones. The world may think you are going down. You may not have as much public work to do as formerly. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." It is a secret, hidden life. We may be hardly aware that we are growing, till some ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... out the sting of pain; our sorrows after a certain period have been so often steeped in a medium of thought and passion that they 'unmould their essence'; and all that remains of our original impressions is what we would wish them to have been. Not only the untried steep ascent before us, but the rude, unsightly masses of our past experience presently resume their power of deception over the eye: the golden cloud soon rests upon their heads, and the purple light of fancy clothes their ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... is probably no accident that, like Dante's poem, Boccaccio's romance is styled a 'comedy.' Both represent, in allegorical form, the ascent of the human soul from sin, through purgation, to ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the difficulty of entering "The Kingdom of Heaven" still apply to ourselves. For we have been admitted as subjects of the Kingdom, only that we may loyally serve our King; and we have been placed upon the narrow way, only that we may struggle up the steep ascent to Heaven. "The Kingdom of Heaven" is as yet in an imperfect condition here on earth. Here we are in a state of trial and probation, as well as of grace and blessing. And a day will come when the Kingdom of Grace will become the Kingdom of ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... man's eye and he hailed her for news. Nothing yet, she signaled back, then far on the plain's rose-brown limit saw a dust blur and gave a cry that brought him running and carried him in nimble ascent to her side. His old eyes could see nothing. She had to point the direction with ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... coachman, cursing the length of an interminable drive "within the circuit," leading at last to this difficult ascent, turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: "Come! are we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... second speed the car toiled upward through the clinging sand. The pace was snail-like. Behind, the horsemen were gaining rapidly. The labored breathing of their mounts was audible even above the noise of the motor, so close were they. The top of the ascent lay but a few yards ahead, and the pursuers were ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... occupying our attention by reason of its non-individual, anonymous, collective character, attains a long development that we may follow in its successive phases of ascent, climax, and decline. To begin with, is it necessarily inherent in the human mind? Are there races or groups of men totally devoid of myths? which is a slightly different question from that usually ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... mysterious stillness of the bedroom regions. Zack sat down on the stairs, and took his boots off, got up again with some little difficulty, listened, took his candlestick, listened once more, whispered to himself, "Now for it!" and began the perilous ascent to his own room. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... seems raised in these remote recesses of the mountains, where even the children of each brown hamlet play silently as figures in a dream. Our bearers, swishing through wet grass and splashing across brimming brooks, push with renewed energies up a steep ascent to the heart of the wild solitude, where three mighty waterfalls dash in savage grandeur from a range of over hanging cliffs into a churning river, descending by continuous rapids over a stairway of brown-striped trap-rock and swirling between lichen-clad banks, to lose itself in the green gloom ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... impossible; some other mode of attack had therefore to be adopted, or the siege must have been abandoned. Rome generally took towns by the battering-ram; but the engines in use were of such heavy construction that they could not be dragged up an ascent like that upon which Petra stood. Bessas was in extreme perplexity, when some Hunnic allies, who happened to be in his camp, suggested a mode of constructing a ram, as effective as the ordinary one, which should nevertheless be so light ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... of the most "modern" men of that century; but he had the final excellence of wisdom which consists in never forcing his contemporaries to bite off more than there was reasonable prospect of their being able to chew. He lifted them gently up step after step of the ascent toward the stars. ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... grown fat in the country's service, but this man had a large accumulation of adipose matter before the war broke out. A rapid ascent of a long flight of stairs was, therefore, a serious matter with him. Five minutes after leaving us, he dashed rapidly up the stairs and entered our room. As soon as he could speak, he asked, ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... place Where your presence was as a leaf that skims Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims The bloom on ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... [13] up the hill—(it was at least Four [14] roods of sheer ascent) Sir Walter found 50 Three several hoof-marks which the hunted Beast [15] Had left imprinted on the grassy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... promptly. The questioning eyes of both Ross and Sol roamed round the forest and finally and simultaneously the two uttered a low cry of pleasure. They had come into rocky ground and they had been ascending. Before them was a hill with a rather steep ascent, and dropping off almost ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Toward evening the ascent became rapid and the road horrible beyond conception, growing narrower and rougher as we advanced. Indeed, our way had long since ceased to be a road. In the dense forest, where sunshine never comes, rocks, mud, and fallen trees in rapid alternation macadamize the path, save where it turns ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... thus travel with a load of fifty or sixty pounds about three miles an hour. The day was fine and bright, and we started in high spirits, the horsemen hardly able to conceal their exultation in their superiority over the walkers, whilst they cantered over the plain from which our ascent commenced; this, 4000 feet almost gradual in forty miles, is not fatiguing; and thus, although we found the path through a wood about three miles long, very deep, and the air oppressive, we all arrived together without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... breasting the steep ascent with a look behind at frequent intervals as if he feared pursuit, and when he reached the wall, he drew a great ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... meal—which was shared by Peter and his attendant sprite—we informed our friend that it was time for us to be starting back; upon which he remarked that he would go part of the way with us, as, by taking one of the gulches farther on he would find an easier ascent to his house than by returning the way he had come. Hanging his skis over his shoulder, therefore, he trudged along beside us at a pace which made us hustle to keep up ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... they began the ascent of the ridge of the Alleghany, that had for some days bounded their view. The mountainous character of the country, for some miles, before the highest elevations rose to sight, rendered the travelling laborious and slow. Several days were spent in this toilsome progress. Steep summits, impossible ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... said Mazie, as all of them hastened over to the tree that had been selected as the harbor of refuge on account of the fact that its lower branches seemed to invite an ascent. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... shout on arriving at my present position, and then to wait for the front shot as he charged; but on looking back to the tamarind-tree and my proposed course for retreat, the distance appeared so great, rendered still more difficult by a gradual ascent, that I felt it would be impossible to escape if my chance lay in running. I hardly knew what to do; I had evidently caught ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... river behind them, they began a gradual ascent. Now they did not seem to be in so great a hurry as before, and allowed their ponies to walk for a mile or so, after which they took up their easy jog again. Shortly after that the boy descried several wreaths of smoke curling ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... god, Lucien took a cab, and reached the Cafe Servel at a quarter to seven. There the portress gave him some tolerably complicated directions for the ascent of four pairs of stairs. Provided with these instructions, he discovered, not without difficulty, an open door at the end of a long, dark passage, and in another moment made the acquaintance of the traditional room of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... he honestly thought was value received. If he met a man who wanted to take a mule ride among the Mountains of the Moon, Aristide would at once have offered himself as guide. The man would have paid him; but Aristide, by some quaint spiritual juggling, would have persuaded him that the ascent of Primrose Hill was equal to any lunar achievement, seeing that, himself, Aristide Pujol, was keeper of the Sun, Moon and Seven Stars; and the gift to that man of Aristide's dynamic personality would have been well worth anything that he would have found in the extinct ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... although not largely (in this country at all events), for driving piles, by allowing the monkey to fall on a cartridge placed in the cavity in the cap on top of the pile; the cartridge is exploded by the fall, and in the act of explosion drives down the pile and raises the monkey; during its ascent, and before the completion of its descent, time is found for the removal of the empty cartridge and the insertion ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... toward them from the crests of lesser mountains—looked up toward them as a man looks to a great and unattainable ideal. Here he was come to the crest of all the ranges; here he was come to the height and limit of his life, and what had he attained? Only a cruel, cold isolation. It had been a steep ascent; the declivity of the farther side led him down to a steep and certain ruin and the dark night below. But he stiffened suddenly and threw his head high as if he faced his fate; and behind him the cream-colored mare raised her head with a toss and ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" By the "lower parts of the earth" some understand parts lower than the earth, but such a view rests on a strained interpretation of the passage. Paul's argument is that ascent to heaven must have been made by one who, before ascending, was below. Christ had come down from heaven to earth, and was below therefore, he argues, Christ is the subject of the prophecy he has quoted. He it was that hid ascended ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... pushed it open with caution and timidity—a candle placed upon a chair in the narrow passage threw a sickly light over the flight of stairs, till swallowed up by the deep shadow from the sharp angle made by the ascent. Robert Beaufort stood a moment in some doubt whether to call, to knock, to recede, or to advance, when a step was heard upon the stairs above—it came nearer and nearer—a figure emerged from the shadow of the last landing-place, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... after a leisurely ascent, interspersed by various gymnastic performances over the handrail here and ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... to investigate it at all, on this trip," said Diana, when they had made the difficult ascent to the plateau. "I really ought to get into the Hopi country. My ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... falls. . . . It is, perhaps, the largest in America, and is situated in a pleasant level plain, about twenty-five yards from the river, into which it falls over some steep, irregular rocks, with a sudden ascent of about six feet in one part of its course. The water boils up from among the rocks, and with such force near the centre that the surface seems higher there than the earth on the sides of the fountain, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... fitness to prepare such a work, yet I feared that when you came to see the time, industry, care and patience, which it would require aside from your pressing everyday business cares and perplexities, you might stop at the foot of the mountain and abandon the tedious ascent. But you have actually made the ascent and stand now on the top of the mountain. Hurrah for my old ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... gradual ascent they were making now, and it was also obvious that the trees were not so thick nor so tall, in ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... great black hull of the vessel, and it soon became manifest that, although all danger was past, there yet remained difficulty ahead; for when the boat was made fast and the ladder lowered, the elder of the two ladies firmly and emphatically denied her ability to make the ascent. The French boatman, shivering in a borrowed great coat, and with a vociferation which flavoured the air with cognac, added his entreaties to those of the mate and steward. In the small boat Conyngham, in French, and the lady's daughter, in Spanish, represented that at least half ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... best is like stepping down. That sex might be an ascent. That sex might be the only means of growth and expansion. You never suppose that! You only assume perdition. You are afraid to assume heaven. I may take pride in that which I may abstract from my anatomy. I ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... think of something. You know I was in the Berkshire Hills last summer? Well, I saw Greylock from several points of view. From one it seemed a rather sharp spur; from another it was long and obtuse; and from the last,—when somebody pointed out an ordinary, featureless ascent and said: 'That's Greylock,' I could scarcely believe it. I imagine our views of the truth are somewhat like that. It will take time to walk all ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... and about midday found myself alone in the solitudes of the Dalles. At last there came a gorge deeper and steeper than any thing that had preceded it, and I was forced to rest long before attempting its almost perpendicular ascent. When I did reach the top, it was to find myself thoroughly done up—the sun came down on the side of the embankment as though it would burn the sandy soil into ashes, not a breath of air moved through the silent hills, not a leaf stirred ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... heard these words of the Rishis, Baladeva entered that asylum. Bidding farewell to the Rishis, Baladeva of unfading glory went through the performance of all the rites and ceremonies of the evening twilight on the side of Himavat and then began his ascent of the mountain. The mighty Balarama having the device of the palmyra on his banner had not proceeded far in his ascent when he beheld a sacred and goodly tirtha and wondered at the sight. Beholding the glory of the Sarasvati, as also the tirtha called Plakshaprasravana, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... high. The path was rocky and difficult. After riding three hours we reached the plain, and dismounting near a stream of water reposed for an hour. Our road then lay near the foot of the mountains; it was one continual ascent and descent. When we were about two hours' ride from Tiberias, while saying the afternoon prayers, we heard the sound of the darabuca (Turkish drum), with shouts of joy, and soon beheld a large party coming to meet us, dancing and singing. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... every stone that has been laid remains as the foundation for another. The coming generation takes up the work where the preceding left it. There is no retrograde movement. The individual nation may recede, but science still advances. Every step that has been gained makes the ascent easier for those who come after. Every step carries the patient inquirer after truth higher and higher towards heaven, and unfolds to him, as he rises, a wider horizon, and new and more ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... continual elaboration of the absolutely new. The systems marked off by science endure only because they are bound up inseparably with the rest of the universe. It is true that in the universe itself two opposite movements are to be distinguished, as we shall see later on, "descent" and "ascent." The first only unwinds a roll ready prepared. In principle, it might be accomplished almost instantaneously, like releasing a spring. But the ascending movement, which corresponds to an inner work of ripening or creating, endures essentially, and imposes ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... lava. But most dangerous were the chasms filled with snow over which we had to pass; the snow had been softened by the warmth of the season, so that we sank into it nearly every step, or, what was worse, slipped back more than we had advanced. I scarcely think there can be another mountain whose ascent offers so many difficulties. ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... of St. Michael is mountainous, even to the very edge of the water, but the heights, though lofty, do not present a rugged or barren appearance. Here and there, indeed, bare rocks push themselves into notice, but in general the ascent is easy, and the hills are covered to the tops with groves of orange-trees and beautiful green pasturage. Like other Portuguese settlements, this island abounds in religious houses, the founders of many of which do not appear to have ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... and long processes go to them.—The inexhaustible fertility displayed by Kepler is a psychologic marvel. He had that subtile chemistry that turns even failures to account, consumes them in its flaming ascent to new reaches. After years of labor on his theory of Mars, he found it failed in application to latitudes and longitudes "out of opposition." Remorselessly he let his hypothesis go, and drew from his failure an important inference, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... and set their ranks more orderly. But I, clad as I was in the rags of the finery I had worn at the feast whence I was taken, shrank within myself, ashamed to meet the gazes that must be turned on me presently, for I saw that we were going on up the steep ascent to mix with the crowd on the summit of ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... of the ascent was good, but the descent was even better on account of the views of the Dalpe glacier on the other side the Ticino, towards which ones back is turned as one ascends. All day long the villages of Dalpe and Cornone had been tempting me, so I resolved ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... for we have a lot to do: amongst other things, a climb to where that flag flutters indistinctly in the breeze. After sundry twists and turns, now up these steps, now down this street, or that, we find ourselves at the beginning of the ascent, and in as rubbly and dusty a pathway as one would wish to traverse. What with the ruts worn by the rain, and the tearing up of the ground by the passage of heavy ordnance, it would be a difficult matter indeed to select any particular line of march and call it a road. Travellers ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... dull, so insipid, so void of all wit or common sense, that indeed they were only French words: after a long and tedious travel, I came at last to meet with a piece that was lofty, rich, and elevated to the very clouds; of which, had I found either the declivity easy or the ascent gradual, there had been some excuse; but it was so perpendicular a precipice, and so wholly cut off from the rest of the work, that by the first six words, I found myself flying into the other world, and thence discovered the vale whence I came so deep and low, that I have never had since the heart ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... or hurled themselves to the top of the walls. Column after column melted back, under the torrent of fire from the parapet and from the batteries in the citadel. "In vain," says Napier,[10] "the following multitude covered the ascent, seeking an entrance at every part; to advance was impossible, and the mass of assailants, slowly sinking downwards, remained stubborn and immovable on the lower part ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... As the ascent grew steeper it became clear that if I was to reach the Melch See Inn by nightfall, our moment for parting had come. And with a "Well," and a white-lipped smile and a glance at the Argus-eyed hotel, she held out her hand to me. ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... by chance on the snow slopes of the Wetterhorn early one August morning. Miss Alden was trying to disentangle some meaning from the patois of her guides, and gratefully accepted Hilton's assistance. Half-an-hour after she had continued the ascent, David noticed a small gold locket glistening in her steps. It recalled him to himself, and he picked it up and went home with a strange trouble clutching at his heart. The next morning he carried the locket down into the valley, found ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... sketching the reigning beauties of the time, we shall endeavour to indulge the lovers of variety without sacrificing the fair fame of individuals, or attempting to make vice respectable. Pleasure is our pursuit, but we are accompanied up the flowery ascent by Contemplation and Reflection, two monitors that shrink back, like sensitive plants, as the thorns press upon them through the ambrosial beds of new-blown roses. In our record of the daughters of Pleasure, we shall only notice those who are distinguished as ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... stripped of the comforts of friendship by the tenacious and thorny hold of politics. On the present occasion, however, the desertion of his standard by a few who had followed him cordially in his ascent to power, but did not show the same alacrity in accompanying his voluntary fall, was amply made up to him by the ready devotion, with which the rest of the party shared his fortunes. The disinterestedness of Sheridan was the more meritorious, if, as there is every reason to believe, he considered ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... kloof[68] running in a south-westerly direction, and ascended by it, still out of sight of the English, till we reached a point nearly half-way up the mountain. There we had to leave the kloof, and, turning to the south, continue our ascent in full view of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... and declining any attendance, rode for some little distance, until he had escaped from the precincts of the camp. Then he turned his horse towards one of the wildest passes of the mountain, and galloping at great speed, never stopped until he had gained a considerable ascent. The track became steep and rugged. The masses of loose stone rendered his progress slow; but his Anatolian charger still bore him at intervals bravely, and in three hours' time he had gained the summit of Mount Haemus. A brilliant moon flooded the broad plains of Bulgaria with shadowy ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... He became much associated with the American evangelist, D.L. Moody, and became an extremely effective speaker on religious subjects, devoting himself specially to young men. His chief contribution to literature was his Natural Law in the Spiritual World, which had extraordinary popularity. The Ascent of Man was less successful. D. was a man of great personal fascination, and wrote in an interesting and suggestive manner, but his reasoning in his scientific works was by no ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... They were pretty sure to be accused of having had no right to begin them, or to take such trusts and responsibilities into their hands. But Nan and many of her friends had gladly climbed the hill so far, and with every year's ascent had been thankful for the wider horizon which was spread ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... smarting under the sting of Miss Baylis' sarcasm rose hastily, and with her as hastily rose Petty's foot to a horizontal position, encountering in its ascent the rung of Electra's chair and toppling it ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... to the trapeze perch, hand over hand, the muscles standing out on his arms as he made the ascent, with as much ease as he would walk to the dressing room, and perhaps even ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... while, the ascent began. Broken and bare the soil was; and thin grass, Dry and scarce green, was scattered here and there In tufts: and, toiling up, my knees almost Reaching my chin, one hand upon my knee, Or grasping sometimes at the earth, I went, With eyes fixed on the next step to ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... the sage, 'Go and show him its movement, that he also may help thee to thy wish.' Now the Persian bore the prince malice for that he willed not he should have his sister; so he showed him the peg of ascent on the right side [of the horse's neck] and saying to him, 'Turn this pin,' left him. So the prince turned the pin and forthwith the horse soared with him into the air, as it were a bird, and gave not over ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... is difficult of ascent, and is guarded by vigilant genii: he who cannot comply with their singular demands must certainly sink under the dangers to be encountered, or at least withdraw from the attempt without bringing it ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... professor in Northwestern University, has made a special study of volcanoes. He has made an ascent of the two highest in the world, and has climbed many others for purposes of study. He is ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... could see that the summit of this dike was probably nearly flat, and he surmised that, once up there, one would become master of a pretty enough little plateau on which to sit; but his careful circumvallation could discover no possible method of ascent. The walls afforded no chance for a squirrel's foothold even. He began to doubt whether he had guessed aright as to the girl's whereabouts, and began carefully to examine the tops of the trees. Discovering ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Then the ascent grew so sharp that for a time they needed all their breath for the climb before them. But the prospect of reaching their destination prevented them from being weary; they were too excited by this strange sort of race in which the contestants ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... swiftly along the beach, and commenced the ascent to the castle. In a few minutes the little band of fishermen returned, carrying lanterns in their hands, and with a priest walking amongst them. They reached the spot, and paused, while the priest commenced to mumble a prayer. He was scarcely ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the house, we had the snow with which to build statues and make forts, and huge piles of wood covered with ice, which we called the Alps, so difficult were they of ascent and descent. There we would climb up and down by the hour, if not interrupted, which, however, was generally the case. It always seemed to me that, in the height of our enthusiasm, we were invariably summoned to some disagreeable duty, which ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... near the sea-level, of such are the interminable outpourings of newspapers and novels and school books. And, as each ascent from the sea-level is reached, less and less land attains to it, and when the snow-line is approached only a very small proportion indeed of the land ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... due south into the mountainous region led us between the high peaks of South Victoria Land. To all intents and purposes no great difficulties awaited us here. To be sure, we should probably have found a less steep ascent if we had gone over to the newly discovered mountain range just mentioned. But as we maintained the principle that direct advance due south was the shortest way to our goal, we had to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... for the ascent and the officers were not yet on the field, although there were a dozen or two soldiers and civilian employes standing about the sheds in the middle of the plain, and working with the huge machines, ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... this, we know that these breathing-times when 'we have no changes,' are but pauses in the storm, landing-places in the ascent, the interspaces between the shocks. However hope may tempt us to dream that the future is like the present, a deeper wisdom lies in all our souls which says 'No.' Drunken bravery may front that darkness with such words as these of our text, but the least serious spirit, in its ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... was transported to a Hill, green, flowery, and of an easie Ascent. Upon the broad Top of it resided squinteyed Error, and popular Opinion with many Heads; two that dealt in Sorcery, and were famous for bewitching People with the Love of themselves. To these repaired a Multitude from every Side, by two different ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ladder. The zigzags then follow the line of a mountain torrent, the natural Pass, crossing its bed from left to right and from right again to left: the path is the rudest of corniches, worn by the feet of man and beast; and showing some ugly abrupt turns. The absolute height of the ascent is about 450 feet (aner. 26.70—26.25) and the length half a mile. The ground, composed mostly of irregular rock-steps, has little difficulty for horses and mules; but camels laden with boards (the mess-table) ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... After a somewhat adventurous ascent of Mount Tan-kon-bau-pra-hou, a hurried visit to the volcanoes of Merbabou and Derapi (the former nine thousand feet high, the latter eight thousand five hundred), and a glimpse at the sacred woods of Wah-Wons, we turned our faces toward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... that rose from Preshbend, and ended after an hour's walk in a high cliff of easy ascent. Bedient often went there alone when the moon was full—and waited for her rising. At last through a rift in the far mountains, a faint ghost would appear, and waveringly whiten the glacial breast of old God-Mother—the highest ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... mob the road for a hundred yards showed clear as it topped a slight ascent. A belt of scrub a quarter of a mile through intervened between the mob and the open stretch of road. But from where Durham and Brennan were ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... cannot win hearts; 'In the ascent of this bold usurper to greatness . . . he had encouraged the levellers and persecuted them; he had flattered the Long Parliament and betrayed it; he had made use of the sectaries to crush the Commonwealth; he had spurned the sectaries in his last advance to power. These, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... is cold," quoth Prosper, "but we cannot stand on ceremony. It might be well to make sure of my punt." He manoeuvred it under the stair with some trouble, lashed it fore and aft, and entered Goltres by the slippery ascent, addressing himself as he went to God and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... three streets; and from one window and another, glimpses could be caught of the distant heights about the city,—San Miniato in one direction, Bellosguardo in another, and for the third the long olive-hung ascent of Fiesole, crowned ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... elms. Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood, principally of beech, over a mile in length, with a public path running through it. On the right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, there was a long green hill, the ascent to which was gentle; but on the further side it sloped ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... Railway scheme as proposed, why not a Sub-Serpentine Line? Start it from the South Kensington Station, District-cum-Metropolitan system, run it with one station well-underground in the middle of Exhibition Road, whence an easy ascent to the Imperial Exhibition, when passengers would come up to "carp the vital airs," then right away again, branching off left and right, thus bringing the mild Southerners into rapid, easy communication, at all reasonable hours, and at reasonable prices, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the altar was screened by a drapery of black cloth, which being festooned towards the middle, gave a partial view of the vocal and instrumental orchestra, disposed not in the usual form of a gradual ascent from the front to the back, but only on the level ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... seven miles above, rush, with the fury of an Alpine torrent, the gathered waters of four inland oceans. To urge the canoe farther was impossible. He landed, with his companions, on the west bank, near the foot of that part of the ridge now called Queenstown Heights, climbed the steep ascent, and pushed through the wintry forest on a tour of exploration. On his left sank the cliffs, the furious river raging below; till at length, in primeval solitudes, unprofaned as yet by the pettiness of man, the imperial cataract burst upon his sight. [Footnote: ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... about how to climb others. He develops ability to conquer any and all obstacles he may meet. He proves repeatedly that what would be impossible to a novice is a certainty to him. He starts the most difficult ascent with absolute confidence that ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... ou meseontentment des Grenouilles contre Jupiter," in five acts. The subject of this tragi-comic piece is nothing more than the fable of the frogs who asked Jupiter for a king. In the pantomimical scenes of a wild fancy, the actors were seen croaking in their fens, or climbing up the steep ascent of Olympus; they were dressed so as to appear gigantic frogs; and in pleading their cause before Jupiter and his court, the dull humour was to croak sublimely, whenever they did not ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... tell whether my spy had been faithless, but when I reached Furcaria, I perceived that my game had taken wing from her anchorage. Here was a sad disappointment. The schooner drew too much water to allow a further ascent, and, moreover, I was unacquainted ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... very wide or very deep at that time. By the time he was struggling up the opposite bank the last of the train, followed by the young trailers, was making its way down the first slope. One by one, the horses splashed methodically across the little stream and began the long and slow ascent up the farther side, a climb of more than a hundred and fifty feet, which Uncle Dick made easier by two or three zigzags, turning at points where little trees made it possible. So at last they all ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... all about that room, crossed the hall, and began, slowly but steadily, to ascend the stairs. Miss Harriet gazed upon her with amazement, for Aunt Patsy had been considered chair-ridden when the postmistress was a young woman. Arrived at the end of her toilsome ascent, Aunt Patsy knocked at the door of the spare chamber, and as the voice of her old mistress said, "Come ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... or eight times. Then put it into a cask, which must be kept full, and the yeast taken off at the bunghole with a spoon. In a fortnight, add half a pint of fining to nine gallons of the liquor, which will clear it by ascent, if it has been properly fermented. The cask must still be kept full, and the rising particles taken off at the bunghole. When fine, which may be expected in twenty-four hours, bottle and cork it well; and in summer ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... hung upon his shoulder, clinging desperately, while he made that perilous ascent. He went up with amazing agility, as if he were entirely unencumbered. She felt the strength of his great frame beneath her, and marvelled. Again the magnetic force of the man possessed her, stilling all fear. She shut her eyes dizzily, but she ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... reembarked his whole force, in his canoes, and commenced the laborious ascent of the stream he had just descended so pleasantly, borne along by the aid of the current. When they reached the mouth of the Kankakee, instead of following up that stream, they struck across the country, by a portage directly north, until they reached the Chicago River. Here ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... day is still tenanted by a body of monks. Cuthbert made up his mind at once to take refuge in these caves. He speedily picked out one some fifty feet up the face of the rock, and approachable only with the greatest difficulty and by a sure foot. First he made the ascent to discover the size of the grotto, and found that although the entrance was but four feet high and two feet wide, it opened into an area of considerable dimensions. Far in the corner, when his eyes became ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... of the sea: number two is now the only good wire and the hold is getting in such a mess, through keeping bad bits out and cutting for splicing and testing, that there will be great risk in paying out. The cable is somewhat strained in its ascent from one mile below us; what it will be when we get to two miles is a problem we may ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Master Lees' tenement; it was a long ascent, and toward the last stages perilous; the stairs had a fashion of curving round unexpectedly and bending against jambs and blank walls. He was quite out of breath when he staggered against Lees' door and burst ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Persia. They were alike I think in many things, these two Persian evangelists, and also in their deaths. When they passed out of the Tabriz gate, journeying homeward after a course of illness in the fated city, for each it was a quick ascent, a painful translation, to the heavenly city with abundant entrance and the Master's "well done"—in heaven; and on earth, a foreign grave taking possession for Christ, as the Nestorians reverently say, with "white stones still speaking out." S. ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... hold out, by means of its defences, till the arrival of the army. Their position was at once understood by all; and, by a sudden, simultaneous impulse, they found themselves half-way up the steep ascent, and in the struggle of a close conflict, without being aware of any order to that effect from their officer. But their courage was of no avail; the advantages of the place were too great; and in ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... formed;—a dozen or more priests leading,—incense-bearers and acolytes walking next,— and then the long train of little children and girls carrying their symbolic banners, following after. The way they had to walk was a steep, winding ascent, through tortuous streets, to the Cathedral, which stood in the centre of a great square on an eminence which overlooked the whole city, and as soon as they started they began to sing,—softly at ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... three topographical points which indicate the situation of the palace. 1. The staircase which connected it with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by a flight of marble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum was a spacious court, one side of which was occupied by the front of the palace, and another by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... observed him. From that point, as I have said, the most of Aros and the neighbouring Ross would be spread below him like a map; and it was plain that he kept a bright look-out in all directions, for my head had scarcely risen above the summit of the first ascent before he had leaped to his feet and turned as if to face me. I hailed him at once, as well as I was able, in the same tones and words as I had often used before, when I had come to summon him to dinner. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reality of this supposition concerning the motion of the sap, it would follow that the proper time for felling the timber would be the new moon, that being the epoch at which the descent of the sap would have been made, and the ascent not yet commenced. But can there be imagined, in the whole range of natural science, a physical relation more extraordinary and unaccountable than this supposed correspondence between the movement of the sap and the phases ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... bo'sun had made complete his examination, we turned to descend, thinking that this would be the bo'sun's intention; but he called to us to stay, and, looking back, we saw that he made to finish the ascent of the hill. At that, we hastened to follow him; though we had no notion of his reason for going higher. Presently, we were come to the top, and here we found a very spacious place, nicely level save that ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... with his party took their leave of the hospitable old planter, and commenced their return to Bridgetown. They had not proceeded further than a quarter of a mile, when, ascending a little hill, Newton discovered that a negro was assisting his own ascent by hanging on to the tail ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... clear. A light breeze stirred the ivy, and shook the leaves of the old lime, by whose aid Pierrebon had made his ascent. Within I sat at the table, my cloak unclasped, now sipping my wine, now gently touching with my finger the dark patch on my sleeve near my shoulder. Without, Pierrebon stood on guard in the black shadow. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... front of the lookers-on as the others had done, and their gay plumes, which had hung lazily during the ascent, swung to northward as they reached the top, showing that on the summit a fresh breeze blew. 'But look across there,' said Anne. There had entered upon the down from another direction several battalions of foot, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... had slept, and which he supposed to be the highest point thereabouts, in order that he might obtain a wide view of the ocean around. He at length found a part, from whence by a little climbing he might reach the top of the hill. He had began his ascent, when he heard Desmond's voice shouting to him, and sitting down he waited for his messmate to come up. The rock was more rugged and uneven than they had at first supposed. Sometimes Desmond helped him up to a ledge, then he hauled Desmond after him. Here and ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... depths, contained in those little words, life and death. They are far higher, and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy of man has reached to. But, even on the first edge of either, at the visible beginnings of that infinite ascent or descent, there is surely something which may give us a foretaste of what is beyond. Even to us in this moral state, even to you advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, life and death have a meaning: to be dead unto God, or to be alive to him, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... Grant stopped on the brow of the hill to feast his eyes on the scene that lay before him. It burst upon him with the unexpectedness peculiar to the foothill valleys; miles of gently undulating plain, lying apparently far below, but in reality rising in a sharp ascent toward the snow-capped mountains looking down silently through their gauze of blue-purple afternoon mist. At distances which even his trained eye would not attempt to compute lay little round lakes like silver coins on the surface of the prairie; here and there were dark green ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... of Mont Blanc," she said, "till one young girl, named Marie, resolved to have this glory. The guides told her it was madness, but she persevered. She took the staff, and everything requisite, and, following a party, began the ascent. She bravely supported every fatigue, climbed each precipice, was undaunted by the giddy heights she attained, bravely crossed the fields of snow, supported the bitter cold, and finally, though suffering severely, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... declivity up which, through the long ages, divine Providence, the guide of man, has been in the ceaseless and finally successful endeavor to raise it. The American republic is the highest level, the loftiest table land yet reached by man in his political ascent; and the forces that would drag him from thence are forces from beneath, the animal, selfish, devilish element of depraved human nature, which so long have held the race in bondage; and which, now that they see their victim slipping from their grasp, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... this Long Mynd mountain on the northern side, looking towards Shrewsbury, presents no feature of striking interest, and the ascent is a gradual one, leading chiefly through cultivated ground; but the aspect of the south-eastern or Stretton side is wild in the extreme, the whole face of the mountain being broken up into deep ravines, with precipitous sides, ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... be a formula of initiation, and we find the aspirant ascending through the Seven Heavenly Spheres, to be finally met by Mithra who brings him to the presence of God. So in the Mithraic temples we find seven ladders, the ascent of which by the Initiate typified his passage to the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... plain in vain. Only a few herds drove their cattle afield; and now and then the sharp bark of a dog broke the stillness. At length, on the slope of the hill opposite, we saw a flock of sheep break suddenly into panic flight; and there appeared, crawling up the ascent, a body of horsemen, who, by the occasional glancing of the sun upon steel, we knew to ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... in a very narrow lane, going up a hill, said to be two miles of ascent, they overtook a heavy laden waggon, and they were obliged to go step by step behind it, whilst, enjoying the gentleman's impatience much, and the postilion's sulkiness more, the waggoner, in his embroidered frock, walked in state, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... where a traveller, without regard to weight, is called upon to take four horses; and that is at Ambleside, in going by the direct road to Carlisle. The first stage to Patterdale lies over the mountain of Kirkstone, and the ascent is not only toilsome, (continuing for above three miles, with occasional intermissions,) but at times is carried over summits too steep for a road by all the rules of engineering, and yet too little frequented to offer any means of repaying ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... is fixt on the Frame RT, in the manner exprest in the Figure. In the middle of this, on the back side, in a convenient frame, is placed a small Cylinder, whose circumference is equal to twice the length of one of those divisions, which I find answer to an inch of ascent, or descent, of Mercury: This Cylinder I, is movable on a very small Needle, on the end of which is fixt a very light Index KL, all which are so pois'd on the Axis, or Needle, that no part is heavier then another: Then about this Cylinder is wound a small Clew of Silk, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... guarded it at the only side on which level ground approached the walls. He wondered whether it would be necessary to make a toilsome march up the side ravine to reach the entrance, but Badan Hazari, pointing to a gateway at the top of the cliff, reached by a winding ascent from the foot, told him that this was the usual means of approach when the river was low. When it was high, a drawbridge was lowered over the ditch at the back. Gerrard sent off, therefore, his selected embassy, bearing a friendly letter from himself as well as that signed by ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... that the ascent of this mountain was attended with great difficulty. I did not, however, find this to be the case, since the summit may be reached with the greatest ease in three hours and three quarters, while three parts of the way can ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Jr., though never unkindly, dragged me with him, even to make the balloon ascent at the Porte Maillot on a windy evening. Without embarrassment I confess that I was terrified, that I clung to the ropes with a clutch which frayed my gloves, while Poor Jr. leaned back against the side of the basket and gazed upward at the great swaying ball, ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... not less formidable than that of the river, presented itself to the troops. The ground rose up with an abrupt, almost precipitous, swell from the river-side, till, in the highest peaks, it reached an elevation of several thousand feet. This steep ascent, though not to its full height, indeed, was now to be surmounted. The difficulties of the ground, broken up into fearful chasms and water-courses, and tangled with thickets, were greatly increased by the darkness of the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Serapis, in Alexandria, was most stately and rich, built on an eminence raised by art, in a beautiful spacious square, with an ascent of one hundred steps, surrounded with lofty edifices for the priests and officers. The temple was built of marble, supported with precious pillars, and the walls on the inside were covered with plates of brass, silver, and gold. The idol was of so enormous a size, that ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... another conspicuous triumph in that career we are depicting. Gradual indeed had been the ascent from the sweeping out of a store to the marrying of a Preston, but none the less sure inevitable. For many years after this event, Eldon Parr lived modestly in what was known as a "stone-front" house in Ransome Street, set well above the sidewalk, with a long flight of yellow stone ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... arrived at a bare rocky hill, of no great size, but very steep; and having no trees—scarcely even a bush—upon it, entirely exposed to the heat of the sun. Over this my way seemed to lie, and I immediately began the ascent. On reaching the top, hot and weary, I looked around me, and saw that the forest still stretched as far as the sight could reach on every side of me. I observed that the trees, in the direction in which I was ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... house had a small loft, to which the ascent was by a step-ladder through a door in the inside gable. The first good thing ever Phil was noticed for he said upon the following occasion. His father happened to be called upon, one morning before ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... crowned a perfect perpendicular detached mass of rock, half round which rushed a mountain torrent, the approach being a very steep zigzag with now ruinous defences, a very steep and difficult ascent. It is true from a low entranced cave at the foot a secret stair led up from the garden, of which I shall have more to say in relating some incidents of the Count's earlier history, as confessed to us in ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... colony, kirk and manse, garden and graveyard, finds harbourage in a grove of rowans, and is all the year round in a great silence broken only by the drone of the bees, the tinkle of the burn, and the bell on Sundays. A mile beyond the kirk the road leaves the valley by a precipitous ascent, and brings you a little after to the place of Hermiston, where it comes to an end in the back-yard before the coach-house. All beyond and about is the great field, of the hills; the plover, the curlew, and the lark cry there; the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was to select, as the place of publication, a town exactly twenty-eight miles from his own abode—a distance virtually trebled, as De Quincey observes, "by the interposition of Kirkstone, a mountain only to be scaled by a carriage ascent of three miles, and so steep in parts that without four horses no solitary traveller can persuade the neighbouring innkeepers to convey him." Here, however, at Penrith, "by way of purchasing intolerable difficulties at the highest price," Coleridge was advised ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... to be wise (one counsel pays another), Should we have—months ago, when first we loved, For instance that May morning we two stole Under the green ascent of sycamores—If we had come upon a thing like that ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... virtues, known to the scientific mind that fostered them. Some were placed in urns, rich with old carving, and others in common garden pots; some crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on high, using whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged that it might have served ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the ascent of man, one gorgeous night Lucifer gave a feast. Its world-bewildering light Danced in Belshazzar's tomb, and the old kings dead and gone Felt their dust creep to ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... objections, lest I should be considered wanting in courage. The back side of the town, next the country, was guarded by a wall from 25 to 40 feet in height and 20 feet thick; this is called the lower town. The upper town is situated on a rock one hundred feet above this. The ascent from the lower to the upper town is very steep and strongly fortified with pickets and gates. The front of the town bordering on the river is almost inaccessable, and strongly fortified by nature and art. But our heroic General seemed resolved on victory or death, and ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... wicked man; and though he was himself called so good, he wished to put to death the builder who had built for him his castle, with its tower and thick walls, just where Joergen and his foster-parents stood, where Skjaerumaa falls into the Nissumfiord. The sloping bank or ascent to the ramparts was still to be seen, and red fragments of the walls still marked out the circumference of the ancient building. Here had Herr Bugge, when the builder had taken his departure, said to his squire—"Follow him, and say, Master, the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... deep watercourse trickled a scarce perceptible stream. On either hand were hills of pleasant outline, tilled on the lower slopes, and often set with olives. Here and there came a grassy slope, where shepherds or goatherds idled amid their flocks. Above the ascent a long tunnel, after which the line falls again towards the sea. The landscape took a nobler beauty; mountains spread before us, tenderly coloured by the autumn sun. We crossed two or three rivers—rivers of flowing water, their banks overhung with dense green jungle. The sea was ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... time, Mark lent a hand and the launch was soon above high-water mark. Then, with Brendon in front and the light from his torch upon the steps, they began their ascent. Save for a drop of blood here and there, the stone stairway gave no clue; but when they had reached its summit and the subterranean path turned to the left, still in a tunnel of the solid rock, they marked on the ascending slope, slippery with percolations ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... encountered another rapid, but though it was much shorter than the former, the current ran too strong to attempt the ascent with the aid of only paddles or poles. The northern tripper has the choice between five methods of circumventing "white waters," and his selection depends upon the strength of the current: first, paddling; second, poling; third, wading; ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... round the mountain towards the summit became narrower and narrower, and the ascent more steep and difficult. Flora sat down upon a stone amid the ruins of the chapel to rest, and to enjoy the magnificent prospect. The contemplation of this sublime panorama for a while absorbed every other feeling. She ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... away down the long descent, while he watched her swift flight. He set his teeth and was off after her. A thrill of pleasure possessed him, the joy of swift movement. Near the foot was an abrupt fall to a frozen brook and then a sharp ascent. He rolled over at Leila's feet seeing a firmament ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Dalmatian coast-road (the only one, I believe, in the country) passes through it, but it would prove indifferent, I should think, to any but the pedestrian; and there is also the mountain-path, of three hours' ascent, which leads into Montenegro, and issues up from the gates of the town in a zigzag form, till it appears lost in the clouds. Any one wishing to quit Cattaro, has indeed, like the country waiter in England, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... sudden methought this select band sprang forward, with a resolution to climb the ascent, and follow the call of that heavenly music. Every one took something with him that he thought might be of assistance to him in his march. Several had their swords drawn, some carried rolls of paper in their hands, some had compasses, others quadrants, others telescopes, and others ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... his way up the ascent through the crooked and narrow little streets he saw many eyes, mostly black and quick, watching him. This by night was old Paris, dark and dangerous, where the Apache dwelled, and by day in a fleeing city, with none to restrain, he ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... carriages are roomy enough, and fairly comfortable, when you are in them, but that same entrance is apt rather to puzzle a stranger. The fore and hind wheels are nearly the same height, and set very close together; even when the fore-carriage is turned so that they nearly lock, the space left for ascent between them is narrow indeed; this same arrangement renders, of course, impossible a sudden turn in a contracted circle. But the dames and demoiselles who put their trust in these rapid chariots, make a mock at such small difficulties. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... rapid trot, and soon at full gallop; by which means the equipage acquired sufficient momentum to carry it part of the way up the next hill before the animals relapsed into the slow walk which the steepness of the ascent imposed upon them. Indeed this part of the route would have been a very tedious one (for the country about was almost entirely devoid of interest), had it not been for Le Roi, who came out in great force. He laughed at ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... advanced so far to the northward that all felt an anxiety to reach their destination. Accordingly no time was lost in the ascent of the stream. ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis |
