"Precipice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dashing and thundering of the mighty waters, and the awe they inspired no words can paint. Across such an abyss of terrors it was certain no vessel could sail. We took our glasses and scanned the opposite shore, which appeared to be a vast cataract as though the ocean was pouring over a precipice of rock. Wauna informed me that where the shore was visible it was a perpendicular wall of ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... saw a golden eagle trying the same tactics upon a herd of elk that contained one yearling. The eagle doubtless had his eye upon the yearling, though he would probably have been quite satisfied to have driven one of the older ones down a precipice. His chances of a dinner would ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... and his followers were on shore. True Blue was next to him, carrying the flag. A rocky height, almost a precipice, had to be climbed to reach the fort. Up they all went at once, like goats, making violent springs, or climbing up with hands and knees. True Blue was one of the first, helping up Sir Henry, whose strength was often ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... against the current, and forcing him to make his best efforts to mount the stream, we were carried directly across. The owner of the horse said he would come back of his own accord. I turned him into the stream, and when half way across, he was borne headlong over a precipice, where I concluded he was dashed to pieces. Another horse was immediately procured, by a man who had no fears, to bring the guide across; but the latter was so terrified that he made himself drunk ere he attempted the dangerous ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... presently found himself walking through an earthly paradise. Since his advent in Ischl, where he drank the waters and endeavoured to quiet his overtaxed nerves, he had made up his mind to visit Alt-Aussee; several Viennese friends had assured him that this hamlet, beneath a terrific precipice and on the borders of a fairy-like lake, would ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... things have been done. You are potently oppos'd, and with a malice Of as great size. Ween you of better luck, I mean, in perjur'd witness, than your Master, Whose minister you are, whiles here He liv'd Upon this naughty earth? Go to, go to! You take a precipice for no leap of danger, And woo ...
— The Life of Henry VIII • William Shakespeare [Dunlap edition]
... Confused images passed before her mind, now losing memory of earth. She knew that Luigi was there, for she clasped his icy hand tightly, and more tightly still, as though she strove to save herself from some precipice down which ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... hundreds of feet beneath us, flowed the Tennessee—I could almost believe that my horse could leap from the top of the precipice to the opposite bank of the river. On the other side the land was low and nearly level. The green fields ran back from the river's brink, in a gentle imperceptible ascent, until miles away, the eye lost them in the horizon. The noisy cavalrymen were hushed by the scene, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... carried the bodies, therefore, with him to Spezzia, and then prepared for that fatal interview, the commencement of which we first indicated. Yet it must be confessed that, though the bravest of men, his courage faltered as he entered the accustomed ravine. He stopped and looked down on the precipice below; he felt it utterly impossible to meet them; his mind nearly deserted him. Death, some great and universal catastrophe, an earthquake, a deluge, that would have buried them all in an instant and a common fate, would have ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... frankness has offended and alienated her. Oh, Dr. Grey! the child totters on the brink of a flower-veiled precipice, and will heed no warning. Perhaps I should libel Mr. Granville were I to impute mercenary motives to him,—perhaps he fancied he loved Muriel when he addressed her,—I hope so, for the honor of manhood; but the glamour was brief, and certainly he must be aware that he has not ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... giddy and sick to watch them. But our own position was often not much safer. The path see-sawed up and down; one moment we were splashed by the spray of a waterfall as it dashed into a creamy pool, and the next we were up on a dizzy height, with one foot hanging over a precipice, gazing on the foam-flecked mill-race below. Verily, it is no journey for a giddy man to take. A single false step on the part of the horse would send both it and its rider to a sudden death. With the ordinary mountain pony, for the horses are practically only that, it is not necessary ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... ridge, which soon grew very steep, and forced us to a crawl. There were places where we had to scramble up loose cliffs amid a tangle of vines, and then we would dip into a little glade, and then once again breast a precipice. By and by the trees dropped away, and there was nothing but low bushes and boulders and rank mountain grasses. In clear air we must have had a wonderful prospect, but the mist hung close around us, the drizzle blurred our eyes, and the most we saw was a yard or two of grey ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... and then said, "Shall we come down now? Is your dance quite finished, Tony? Are you content, Marko? All right. We'll descend. This is us descending. Lady Tybar, who is a superb horsewoman, descending a precipice on her beautiful half-bred Derry and Toms, a winner ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... leaps, and the lightness of his tread like unto some powerful and frisking beast, he advances by quick and impetuous bounds, and nor mountain nor precipice arrests his progress. Already has the King of Persia fallen into his hands. "At his sight he was exasperated; efferatus est in eum," says the prophet; "he strikes him down, he tramples him under foot; none can save him from his blows nor ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... his sleep, walks along the edge of a precipice, over which he would fall if he were awake, so my Emile, in the sleep of ignorance, escapes the perils which he does not see; were I to wake him with a start, he might fall. Let us first try to withdraw him from the edge of the precipice, and then we will awake him to show ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... wrong. But Count Bismarck was determined not to let the French escape lightly from the quarrel. He had to do with an enemy who by his own folly had come to the brink of an aggressive war, and, far from facilitating his retreat, it was Bismarck's policy to lure him over the precipice. Not many hours after the last message had passed between King William and Benedetti, a telegram was officially published at Berlin, stating, in terms so brief as to convey the impression of an actual insult, that the King had refused to see the French Ambassador, and had informed him by an aide-de-camp ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... and sat beside me, and laid his hand upon my shoulder. Then I saw the green slopes that rise all round the lake were much higher than I had thought; they went up thousands of feet, and there were pine forests upon them, while two large glaciers came down in streams that ended in a precipice of ice, falling sheer into the lake. The edges of the mountains against the sky were rugged and full of clefts, through which I saw thick clouds of dust being blown by the wind as though from the other ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... sweetness of the farewell to his heart's adored, the mathematical exactitude of his position while embracing her, the cool deliberation which marked his exit—offered a picture of calm stoicism just on the point of tumbling over the precipice of destruction not to be equalled—not, at least, since those halcyon dramatic days when Osbaldiston leased Covent Garden, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... large humble-bee bustles in with the greatest ease, and uses these hairs as footholds whilst he is sucking the honey; but the smaller honey-bees are impeded by them, and when, having at last struggled through them, they reach the pearly, slippery precipice above, they are completely baffled. I passed the autumn of 1857 in North Wales, where the foxglove was very abundant, and watched the flowers throughout the season, but only once saw a small bee reach the nectary, though many were seen trying in ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... goats, and if any should be lost, they alone would be to blame? Stumbling over roots, dodging trees and rocks, they plunged wildly along until finally they saw a light spot ahead and a moment later came out suddenly upon the edge of a precipice, from which they could look straight down into a deep valley below. The goats were there before them huddled together an the brow of the cliff, bleating piteously. Bello sat on his haunches with his tongue hanging out and looked at the scenery! ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... a chain on the left, was a huge lumpy hill with a precipice towards the road probably three hundred feet high. When I had come nearly parallel with the commencement of this precipice, I saw on the left-hand side of the road two children looking over a low wall behind which at a little distance stood a wretched hovel. On coming up I stopped ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... upon at a point in the heart of one of the hills. This was singularly well adapted for defense The hill itself was extremely precipitous on all sides. On one side, it fell sheer down. A goat track ran along the face of this precipice, to a point where the hill fell back, forming a sort of semicircular arena on the very face of the precipice. This plateau was some two acres in extent. Here quantities of forage were heaped up in readiness, for the food of such animals as might be driven ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... other influences; and Saurin, partly from prudence, partly because he was making a struggle to escape from the net which he felt that evil habits had thrown around him. He was like one who has been walking in a fog along the brink of a precipice, and discovers his position by setting a foot on the very edge and nearly falling over. He shrank from the abyss which he now saw yawning for him. At the same time he exerted himself to become popular, and since he was no longer anxious ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... man could not believe that his darling granddaughter was no more—for he had sought her throughout the neighboring district of the Black Forest, and not a trace of her was to be seen. Had she fallen down a precipice, or perished by the ruthless murderer's hand, he would have discovered her mangled corpse: had she become the prey of the ravenous wolves, certain signs of her fate would have ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... close, close, and listen to the breath of life as it entered regularly, almost imperceptibly, vivifying that organism in repose. There is something terrible in the still beauty of sleep. It is as though the spiritual fabric hangs inexplicably over the precipice of death. It seems impossible, or at least miraculous, that the intake and the expulsion upon which existence depends should continue thus, minute by minute, hour by hour. It is as though one stood on the very confines ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... him; he rallied, gathered himself, stumbled, and then, plunging heavily forward, crashed down upon his master, rolled completely over him, and then went sliding and pawing desperately to the edge of the rocky precipice, over which he shot, a huge, living bowlder and fell with a thud upon the jagged rocks below. For some minutes Gwynne lay where he had been hurled, stunned and senseless; then he slowly revived, found that his left arm was severely ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... edge of the precipice—behind her, suddenly, a crater opened. A hissing breath came up, and the chill air quivered and scorched about her. Her feet were upon a volcano! A lake of boiling, molten stone heaved—huge, brazen, bubbling—spreading ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... ledges that a light-armed soldier, carefully making the attempt, and clinging with his hands to the bushes and roots around, could with difficulty lower himself down. The ground, even before very steep by nature, had been broken by a recent falling away of the earth into a precipice of nearly a thousand feet in depth. Here when the cavalry halted, as if at the end of their journey, it was announced to Hannibal, wondering what obstructed the march, that the rock was impassable. Having ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... we could get up to them; and their leaders plunging in, they began to swim across, the animals in the rear driving those in front into the water. The former would have treated the latter in the same way had they reached the edge of a precipice, when all would have gone over together. As it was, they proved themselves good swimmers, quickly gaining the opposite bank, and ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... in this happy glamour of assured success, and, by the inevitable contrariness of things, dreamed that he was falling over a steep precipice on The Dutchman's back, and that at the bottom Mortimer and Allis were holding a blanket to catch him in his fall. Even in his imaginative sleep, he was saved from a dependence upon this totally inadequate receptacle for a horse and rider, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... had the wild notes of the chieftain's song Died mournful on the evening breeze away, Ere down the precipice he plunged along Mid ragged cliffs that in his passage lay: All torn and mangled by the fearful fray, Naught save the echo of his fall arose. The winds that still around that summit play, The sporting rill that far beneath it flows, Chant, where ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... give, amid the most impressive surroundings, three stirring events in the lives of three great Emperors. State briefly the first story. The Emperor Maximilian was hunting a chamois, when he slipped on the edge of the precipice, rolled helplessly over, and caught a jutting ledge of rock, which interrupted his descent. An outlaw hastened to his assistance ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... air was anything but enviable. They were wet through, for it needed only a few minutes exposure to the pelting storm to bring this about. They could not tell, in the midst of the darkness, where they were, and they almost feared to move for fear they might be on top of some rock or precipice, over which they might tumble if they ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... of me I had a feeling that I stood on the edge of a precipice. It was as though I were about to see a new and awful revelation of life. And not I alone. My whole world was turning over. There was my father. I could see the effect Ernest was beginning to have on him. And then there was the Bishop. When I had ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... is so natural that until closely approached a quarry appears a cliff. Stone got out in squares, or cut down straight, leaves an artificial wall; these rocks cannot be made to look artificial, and if painted a quarry would be certainly quite indistinguishable from a natural precipice. Entering a little town (Dulverton) the road is jammed tight between cottages: so narrow is the lane that foot passengers huddle up in doorways to avoid the touch of the wheels, and the windows of the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... The third milestone passed, he came to the country road; he pursued it, counting out his thousand steps, as Caecilius had instructed him. By this time it had left the stony bottom, and was rising up the side of the precipice. Brushwood and dwarf pines covered it, mingled with a few olives and caroubas. He said out his seven pater nosters as he walked, and then looked around. He had just passed a goatherd, and they looked hard at each other. Agellius ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... struck the turnpike within half a mile of the point where the second runaway commenced, and there there was an embankment twenty or more feet deep on the opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped on the very brink of the precipice. My new horse was terribly frightened and trembled like an aspen; but he was not half so badly frightened as my companion, Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last experience, and took passage on a freight wagon for Maysville. Every time I attempted ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Upon a hanging precipice atop of the Eagle Scout Butte there appeared a motionless and solitary figure—almost eagle-like he perched! The people in the camp below saw him, but none looked at him long. They turned their heads quickly away with a nervous tingling, for the height above the plains was great. ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... only woman I could ever respect, as well as love. Oh, hereafter, when you see me at that height to which I feel that I am born to climb, let me think that to your generosity, your affection, your zeal, I owed the ascent. At present I am on the precipice; without your hand I fall forever. My own fortune is gone; the miserable forfeit due to me, if Evelyn continues to reject my suit, when she has arrived at the age of eighteen, is deeply mortgaged. I am engaged in vast and daring ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... up a cliff in a basket, when the rope on the creaking windlass above slipped a few inches. Well, it is like that, or like taking a false step on the edge of a precipice. Is the clock about to strike twelve or not? Not this time! The burst was thirty yards away, along the path we had just traversed, and the sound was like the burst of a shell and like nothing else ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges. It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour, or his daughter, to have found their way along these shelves without the guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in high tides, though never, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... officer, however brave in the field, was one of those whom a great height strikes with giddiness and sickness. He shrunk back from the view of the precipice, on the verge of which Cromwell was standing with complete indifference, till the General, catching the hand of his follower, pulled him forward as far as he would advance. "I think," said the General, "I have found the clew, but by this light ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... blood o'ercast his day: From thence his clouds, from thence his storms, begin, It cries aloud, and twice lets Aram in. So Amaziah lives, so ends his reign, Both by their traitorous servants justly slain. Edom at first dreads his victorious hand; Before him thousand captives trembling stand. Down a precipice, deep down he casts them all; The mimic shapes in several postures fall: But then (mad fool!) he does those gods adore, Which when plucked down had worshipped him before. Thus all his life to come is loss and shame: No help from gods, who themselves ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... darkness of the succeeding nights fell upon Him, He would sleep on some wild mountain cliff, on the edge of some mighty precipice, the sides of which dropped down a thousand feet or more. But these things disturbed Him not. On and on He pressed at the appearance of each dawn. Without food He boldly moved forward to the Heart ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... suddenly upon the beautiful suppliant. A thought had come into his brain so whimsical and so fantastic that it made him as dizzy for an instant as if the smooth grass beneath him had yawned into a sheer and evil precipice. ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... truth apply to the raw material of education,—the children who enroll in the schools! Under your very eyes they lose their childish ways, feel their steps along the precipice of adolescence, enter the wonderland of imagery and idealism, and pass on into the maturity of life. How vain is our hope that the child may remain a child; how worthless our prayer that adult life shall never lay her heavy ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... headache, I felt no remains of yesterday's illness. In a few minutes we reached a point where the buttress was overhanging, and there was no other way of surmounting the difficulty than by passing around one side of it, which was the face of a vertical precipice of several ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... through her mind as she stood half turned from Amy, looking down the deep stair that sank like a precipice before her. She heard nothing, but Amy started and turned to the door. She was following her, when Amy said, in ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "Less than one-half of the island," you say, "is devoted to the lepers." Molokai—"Molokai ahina," the "grey," lofty, and most desolate island—along all its northern side plunges a front of precipice into a sea of unusual profundity. This range of cliff is, from east to west, the true end and frontier of the island. Only in one spot there projects into the ocean a certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, stony, windy, and rising ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to alarm them much at first but, when they perceive that they have fairly hemmed in the unsuspecting creatures and cut off their retreat across the plain, they move more quickly and with hideous yells terrify their prey and urge them to flight by the only open way, which is that towards the precipice, appearing to know that when the herd is once at full speed it is easily driven over the cliff, the rearmost urging on those that are before. The wolves then descend at their leisure and feast on the mangled carcasses. One of these animals passed ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... were now following was narrow. In fact, it was a mere gash in the side of the mountain, winding in and out with many a sharp turn, and there was barely room for the ponies to travel in single file. Above them towered the mountains for thousands of feet. Below them was a sheer precipice of fully two hundred feet, getting deeper all the time, as they ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... Pampeluna over the Pyrenees, one learned something of the beauty of the scenery and the healthy, hardy characteristics of the people, as one whirled along through the chestnut groves, over the leaping streams, always at full gallop, up hill and down dale, with a precipice on one side of the road and the overhanging mountains on the other. Below lay a fertile country with comfortable little homesteads and villages clustering round their church, and the like dotted the hillsides and the valleys wherever there seemed a foothold. As the diligence, with its team of ten ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... went. Barne and Quartley had left them to try to find out what had become of Evans, and neither of them had come back, though they waited. Afterwards they had gone on, and had suddenly found themselves at the edge of a precipice with the sea below; Vince had shot past over the edge. Wild feared all the others must be lost; he was sure Vince had gone. Could he guide a search party to the scene of the accident? He thought he could—at any rate ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... could conjecture. No sound could have been audible above the clamour of the train. Yet by some means—some electric battery of the mind—he made the girl below aware of him. On the very verge of the precipice she stopped, stood poised for a moment, then turned herself back ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... as "The Brummagem Bonaparte out for a Ride" (the cartoon which helped to lose Thackeray to Punch), galloping a blind horse at a precipice, was certainly in the spirit of English popular feeling; and even the coronation of the prince made for a time but little difference in Punch's demeanour. But when the Russian difficulty came in sight, and "the Crimean sun rose red," Napoleon III. was treated with a certain measure ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... parts of the hills, with their flocks of sheep and goats. The valley terminated in a deep gorge, with perpendicular walls of rock on either side. Our road mounted the hill on the eastern side, and followed the brink of the precipice through the pass, where an enchanting landscape opened upon us. The village of Yebrood crowned a hill which rose opposite, and the mountain slopes leaning towards it on all sides were covered with orchards of fig trees; ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... splendid victory won by Bazaine, who had driven an entire Prussian corps into the quarries of Jaumont, and the trumped-up tale was told with an abundance of dramatic detail, how men and horses went over the precipice and were crushed on the rocks beneath out of all semblance of humanity, so that there was not one whole corpse found for burial. Then there were minute details of the pitiable condition of the German armies ever since they had invaded France: the ill-fed, poorly equipped soldiers ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... they came in single file down the precipice, the old man counted them, much astonished to see that there was no new member of the company—that as many were coming back as had gone away. For the moment his heart was glad, then he reproached himself bitterly for his selfishness, and was truthfully most tender toward Elaine, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... future and incapacity to preserve your own existence, and this belief helps rather than 374:21 hinders disease. Such a state of mind induces sickness. It is like walking in darkness on the edge of a precipice. You cannot forget the belief of danger, and your steps 374:24 are less firm because of your fear, and ignorance of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... large ship might have floated alongside the rocks. The party seated themselves near the cliff, and were observing the rolling sea beneath them, for a south-easterly wind was driving the huge waves into the little bay. It was a grand sight, and the two young ladies sat on the very edge of the precipice, watching the surges which beat and broke against the wall ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... side the walls of the mountains rose at the distance of only a few hundred yards, covered with dark pines and huge rocks showing here and there on the bare fall of some precipice. Between the foot of the mountains and the track was rugged ground, with large bowlders scattered here and there. Clumps of trees and bushes and ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... pleasant time." Would any of our greatest geniuses, being limited to one word, have done better than take "pleasant?" and then the fine vagueness of "time!" "Flowers o' every color;" he gets a glimpse of "herself a fairer flower," and is off in pursuit. "The water rins ower the heugh" (a steep precipice); flinging itself wildly, passionately over, and so do I long for my true lover. Nothing can be simpler ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... insurgents in the Canadian rebellion. It was captured by Colonel McNabb, an officer of the Canada militia, and by his orders it was set on fire then cut loose from its moorings. All in flames, it went glaring and hissing down the rapids and over the precipice, and smothered its ruddy blaze in the boiling chasm below. Thia was witnessed by large crowds on both sides of the falls, and was described as a most magnificent sight. Of course there was no one ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... speech, in this manner. When that most unhappy traitor saw that Christ was condemned to death, he began to repent of his deed; and being thereupon wreck'd with grief and despair, or seized with the swimming in the head (which often happens in such cases) he fell headlong down some precipice; or, which is more probable, he designedly threw himself down, and his body chancing to pitch on some large stone or stump of a tree, his bowels burst forth, and he was killed. Wherefore Matthew declared ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... at once those in the car began to realize that something else was occurring. Somehow, they could feel the accommodation car wavering as if on the brink of a precipice. Then it began to settle slowly and the mystified performers and car hands thought it was going to rest where it ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... should become the wife of her cousin she knew not; for the father shrunk from revealing it to either his child or nephew, unless Ferdinand loved and sought her himself. What therefore had she to warn her from the precipice on which she stood, when new, strange, yet most exquisitely sweet emotions gradually obtained possession of her heart in her daily intercourse with Arthur Stanley? What they were indeed she knew not; ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... won't you please tell us how you happened to find us out and come to our rescue just in the nick of time? I should also very much like to know how you managed to tumble down that precipice unharmed, as well as how you produced those flashes of light that scared the savages so badly—me too, ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... the mighty acclivity, steep after steep, till it wins the cloud-capt summit, when the measureless mass seems to swing and sway overhead, and the nerves tremble with the same terror that besets him who looks downward from the verge of a lofty precipice. It is wholly grim and stern; no touch of beauty relieves the austere majesty of that presence. At the foot of Cape Eternity the water is of unknown depth, and it spreads, a black expanse, in the rounding hollow of shores of unimaginable wildness ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... how rapidly I was advancing to the brink of the precipice. I had a confused apprehension of what I was doing, but I could not stop myself. "Is it possible," said I, "that Mr. Falkland, who is thus overwhelmed with a sense of the unmerited dishonour that has been fastened upon him ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the summit of the rock, stood several hundred yards higher, at one side. The Castle of St. Louis, the main ornament of the place next to the cathedral, overlooked the cliff, resting on a series of tall buttresses ribbing the side of the precipice. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... a ravine, a short distance off, were discovered seven others, who appeared to have been leaders in the insurrection, who had shot each other. Seven guns broken to pieces, save one, were found lying by their sides. Tradition reports that three hundred had cast themselves from a high precipice on the rocks below. The historian Hoest says they were shot and were found lying in a circle. A few had been taken prisoners. Two of these had been summarily executed in St. John and twenty-six in St. Thomas, some of the latter having been made ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... no real body. I wonder the Gentleman did not carry his argument a little further, and prove, that Christ, before his death, had no real body; for we read, that when the multitude would have thrown him down a precipice, he went through the midst of them unseen. Now, nothing happened after his resurrection more unaccountable than this that happened before it; and if the argument be good at all, it will be good to prove, that there ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... thunder, rising from some fall and brawling shallow "rapid" of the river, was the only sound, except the hooting of an owl from some old ivied building, a ruin apparently, visible on the olive-hued precipice behind. The russet mass of mountain, bulging, as it were, over the little range of cots, gave an air of security to their picturesque white beauty; while silver clouds curled and rolled in masses, grandly veiling their higher peaks, and sometimes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... how far she did believe my assurances, or thought me deceived, when I strenuously denied all evil intent from Harold towards his poor wife, and explained that he had merely driven over a precipice in the dark, and had a brain fever afterwards; all I could see was that, though not perfectly satisfied or convinced, she found that her brother would not allow the separation to be kept up, and therefore she resumed her favourite office of adviser. She examined me on the religious habits of my ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by four horses, and, at one time, the snow accumulated around the foot of one of the leaders until it formed a huge ball, and with this impediment he was partially precipitated over the edge of a precipice. This noble animal exhibited more presence of mind than would have characterized many human beings under similar circumstances, and, with great judgment, gradually extricated the foot from its snowy burden, and resumed his journey, but not before ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... in so doing, the fore wheels came in contact with their hinder feet, which unfortunately frightened and set them off at full speed. I got hold of the reins with the coachman, and endeavoured to pull them into a ditch to the left—on the right was a precipice—the reins broke, and we had no longer command over them. We were in this state of anxiety for a few minutes, when the fore wheels detached themselves from the carriage, and over it went on its larboard broadside. I was, with the coachman, thrown head foremost ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... gone forth among the new-dropp'd lambs, With two or three companions whom it chanc'd Some further business summon'd to a house Which stands at the Dale-head. James, tir'd perhaps, Or from some other cause remain'd behind. You see yon precipice—it almost looks Like some vast building made of many crags, And in the midst is one particular rock That rises like a column from the vale, Whence by our Shepherds it is call'd, the Pillar. James, pointing to its summit, over ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... might lie hidden in the dark recesses behind. I have not coolly weighted the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... by his enemies of timidity, but no man ever doubted his profound capacity to look quite through the deeds of men. His political foresight enabled him to measure the dangerous precipice which they were deliberately approaching, while the abyss might perhaps be shrouded to the vision of his companions. He was too tranquil of nature to be hurried, by passions into a grave political step, which in cooler moments he might regret. He resolutely, therefore, and with his eyes open, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... singularly adapted to some of the methods of primeval warfare. Being on the defensive, the Austrians frequently made use of the primitive ambush of mountain tribes. Loose, heavy bowlders were lashed to the edge of a precipice and masked with pine branches. Then when the enemy passed along the mountain path beneath, the wires holding the rocks in place were cut, releasing a deadly avalanche upon the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... less advance, under such a galling fire. They were mowed down as wheat before the sickle, but they faltered not. The vacant places of the fallen were instantly filled, and inch by inch they gained the heights of Vicksburg. When the precipice was too steep for the horses to draw up the artillery, our brave boys did the work themselves, and then fought and conquered. When they had gained the topmost line of rifle-pits, they entered in and took possession; ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... between the berry patch and the bare steep above,—but what was a little crevice in a position like this, where it could not amount to anything? Had it been on the other side of the hollow, he would have feared a precipice, and would have been on his guard. But, as it was, he never gave the matter a second thought, because it did not look dangerous! He found the best berries growing very near the edge of the crevice; and in his satisfaction he turned his back to the height and settled himself solidly upon his ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Mussoorie has a house haunted of a very lively Thing; a White Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round a house in Lahore; Dalhousie says that one of her houses "repeats" on autumn evenings all the incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice accident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been swept by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose furniture is guaranteed ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... and a plunge into the black, empty air. When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying at the bottom of a precipice in total darkness. How long had he been in the air? The marionette did not know. He remembered only that while flying down he had heard a familiar ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... to her and Camille, "I am on the verge of madness; is it for you two to thrust me over the precipice? Come, now, if you are a man of honor, if you have a spark of gratitude towards the poor woman who has given you all except her fair name—that she will take to the grave in spite of you all—promise that you will leave Raynal's house this minute if he is alive, and let me die ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... has nothing new to say, but nothing foolish. His words are words of purest wisdom, though you may have heard them before. You feel that if he cannot lead you to the Promised Land, at least he will not conduct you to the precipice and the abyss. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... precipice descends sheer into deep water, waves swash up and down the face of the rocks but cannot break and strike effective blows. They therefore erode but little until the talus fallen from the cliff is gradually built ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... remarkable for its human-like profile, that it seems part of a half-buried sphinx, protrudes into the deep green water. On the other—less prominent, for even at full tide the traveller can wind between its base and the sea—there rises a shattered and ruined precipice, seamed with blood-red ironstone, that retains on its surface the bright metallic gleam, and amid whose piles of loose and fractured rock one may still detect fragments of stalactite. The stalactite is all that remains of a spacious cavern, which ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... It now began to grow lighter, until at last objects were plainly discernible. The light was caused by the moonbeams, which shone in through a place where the outside wall was broken away. Looking through the opening, Russell saw, not far distant, a precipice, with bits of shrubbery here and there. Soon they came ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... lap; he travels from chair to chair; he puts his circle round the room; he dares to cross the threshold; he braves the precipice of the stair; he takes the greatest step that, according to George Herbert, is possible to man—that out of doors, changing the house for the universe; he runs from flower to flower in the garden; crosses the road; wanders, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... fields. The road ran above it, zigzag along the hill-side. She thought, as her horse galloped up the path, she could see the very spot where Douglas was lying. Not dead,—she knew he was not dead! She came to it now. How deathly still it was! As she tied the horse to the fence, and climbed down the precipice through the snow, she was dimly conscious that the air was warmer, that the pure moonlight was about her, genial, hopeful. A startled snow-bird chirped to her, as she passed. Why, it was a happy promise! Why should it not be happy? He was not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... little iron tables, on the terrace. We were sipping our morning coffee, beneath the plane-trees. The terrace, a foot beyond our coffee-cups, instantly began its true career as a precipice. We, ourselves, seemed to have begun as suddenly our own flight heavenward—on such astonishing terms of intimacy were we with the sky. The clapping close to our ears of large-winged birds; the swirling of the circling ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... lies exactly midway, halving the voyage between Byzantium and Heraclea. It is a long promontory running out into the sea; the seaward portion being a rocky precipice, at no point less than twenty fathoms high; but on the landward side there is a neck 3 about four hundred feet wide; and the space inside the neck is capable of accommodating ten thousand inhabitants, and there is a haven ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... lodging or boarding house of the humblest grade. Respectable undoubtedly; for the fitfully prosperous offenders against laws and morals insist upon better accommodations. Susan's heart sank. She saw that once more she was clinging at the edge of the precipice. And what hope was there that she would get back to firm ground? Certainly not by "honest labor." Back to the tenement! "Yes, I'm on the way back," she said to herself. However, she pulled the loose bell-knob ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the mountainous district of Ardeche Department fell a thousand feet down a precipice, but escaped without injury. We understand that in spite of many tempting offers from cinematograph companies the motorists have decided not to repeat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... the night at intervals, and sharp cold in the morning; we left at 9 A.M. and arrived at our encampment about 12 P.M. The first part of our march was very difficult, it in fact consisted of crossing a precipice overhanging the Lohit; the difficulty was increased by the slipperiness occasioned by the rain; no one could pass some of the places unless aided by ratans fixed to trees, etc. We came to the Sung river about 12 noon, but were delayed some time in building a bridge. This river appears to me to ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... gesture of assent and came also almost to the edge of the precipice. The sunrise, which was broadening over sea and shore, was one of those rare and splendid ones in which there seems to be no mist or doubt, and nothing but a universal clarification more and more complete. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... fed on black bread and cold water, and fettered in accordance with the time-honored traditions of the treatment lavished on captives. His cell, under the fortress-yard, was vaulted with hard stone, the walls were of desperate thickness; the tower overlooked the precipice. ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... precipice just ahead of her, and level with the sea floor, she saw a huge opening. As she approached, it widened, grew higher, until she round herself peering into the yawning mouth of a sea cavern fifty feet wide and half that in height. Like monster peas in a ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... domestics, nor ever walk about, or make visits, without him. This flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and, upon occasion, to give a soft flap upon his eyes; because he is always so wrapt up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post, and, in the streets, of jostling others, or being jostled into the kennel himself. If Christian will undertake this province into the bargain, with all my heart; but I will not allow him any increase of ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... opposite parties—is equally unsafe for the crown and detrimental to the country, and cannot do for a long time. The fact seems to be that Lord Goderich, a well-meaning and timid man, finds himself on a precipice—that his head is grown dizzy and he endeavours to cling to the person next him. This person is Lord Lansdowne, who he hopes may support him in the House of Lords against Lord Grey, so he proposes to bring Lord Lansdowne into the Cabinet. Lord G. resigns, and his resignation ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... her to administer to her father, in order to gain his affection and procure his consent. This injunction she did not carry out, on account of a frightful dream, in which she saw her father fall from a precipice into the ocean. Thereupon the Captain wrote a second time, and told her in words somewhat enigmatical, but easily understood ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... on the brink of a precipice," replied the young man with more calmness. "But a hand has suddenly drawn me away, and I am trembling at the danger I have escaped. Oh, mother, will you not give up this mode of life? We have none ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... and spear-like hostility are communicated to its falling form, and the fall is marked as not utter subversion, but sinking only, the pines remaining in their uprightness, and unity, and threatening of darkness upon the descended precipice: and again in that yet more noble passage at the close of the fourth book, where almost every operation of the contemplative imagination is concentrated; the angelic squadron first gathered into one burning mass by the single expression "sharpening in mooned horns," ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... volume of his history, of the fall of this great favourite, which serves to throw a melancholy veil over the splendor of his life, and demonstrates the extreme vanity of exterior pomp, and the danger those are exposed to who move on the precipice of power. It serve[s] to shew that of all kind of cruelty, that which is the child of enthusiasm is the word, as it is founded upon something that has the appearance of principles; and as it is more stedfast, so does it diffuse more mischief ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... power of oratory is very wonderful. Those among his countrymen who have criticised his manner in my hearing, have said that he is too florid, that there is an affectation in the motion of his hands, and that the intended pathos of his voice sometimes approaches too near the precipice over which the fall is so deep and rapid, and at the bottom of which lies absolute ridicule. Judging for myself, I did not find it so. My position for seeing was not good, but my ear was not offended. Critics also should bear in mind that an orator does not speak chiefly ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... affair, Borrow returned to Madrid, crossing the Guadarramas alone and with two horses. "I nearly perished there," he wrote to Mr Brandram (1st Sept.), "having lost my way in the darkness and tumbled down a precipice." The perilous journey north had resulted in the sale of 900 Testaments, all within the space of three weeks and amidst scenes ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... commiseration. I could find by some implications, not followed up by me, lest she might have condemned herself afterwards for her involuntary disclosures, that he soon attempted to corrupt her principles, both with respect to her own conduct and her latitude for his. She saw the precipice on which she stood, and kept his sister with her as much as possible. He returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, where he made her understand he had been, with manners so profligate! "O the wretch!" said I. "And had ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... result from one of the shoes being loose. A terror—strange even to my experience—seized me, and I hastened home. The sounds gradually died away as I descended the hill. Could they have been an echo from some precipice of the mountain? I knew of no road lying so that, if a horse were galloping upon it, the sounds would be reflected ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... with awful surges, and roared and boomed among the crags. The clouds dashed and seethed along the surface, shutting out all landmarks. I was every moment in fear of slipping or being blown over a precipice, but there was no shelter; I was on the roof of the continent, twelve thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, and to stop in the ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... she were afraid, literally scared of letting herself go, of loving—the subtlest instinct of self-preservation against something fatal; against being led on beyond—yes, it was like that curious, instinctive sinking which some feel at the mere sight of a precipice, a dread of going near, lest they should be drawn on and over by ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... this woodland sanctuary she encountered an enemy. A cat from the farm on the hill, having acquired poaching habits, had strayed, and taken up her abode among the boulders at the foot of a wooded precipice adjoining the lower pastures of the estate. In a gallery between these boulders, she had made her nest of withered grass and oak-leaves, where, at the time of which I write, she was occupied with a family of kittens. The wants of the kittens taxed the mother's ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... but to keep their due channel; and, at length recovering and uniting their better resolutions, now that they see already how open and unbounded the insolence and rage is of our common enemies, to stay these ruinous proceedings, justly and timely fearing to what a precipice of destruction the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurry us, through the general defection of a misguided ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... tragic. In spite of protests from his officers, he led in person the attack from the west side of the fortress. The advance was along a narrow road under the towering cliffs of a great precipice. The attack was expected by the British and the guard at the barrier was ordered to hold its fire until the enemy was near. Suddenly there was a roar of cannon and the assailants not swept down fled in panic. With the morning light the dead head of Montgomery ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... a gully through which a mountain runlet descended, unrolling a ribbon of green mossy herbage on its way, and slipping out of sight over the edge of a precipice of two hundred feet or so. Beyond this the eye saw nothing but clouds of mist heaving and smoking to the very lip of the fall. Young Prior halted for a moment on the farther slope to take breath, and precisely at that moment something happened which he ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... on the plain, Horse, foot, and dragoons, are defiling amain. "That flash!" said Prince Eugene: "Count Merci, push on"— Like a rock from a precipice Merci is gone. Proud mutters the Prince: "That is Cassioli's sign: Ere the dawn of the morning Cremona'll be mine; For Merci will open the gate of the Po, But scant is the mercy Prince Vaudemont ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... right, across the lowlands, ran the long ridge ending in an abrupt precipice, that was the scene of the great buffalo-killing by the Indians many a long year ago. Straight ahead were the stage station, the forage sheds, and the half dozen buildings of Phillips's. All was as placid and peaceful ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... keep well with the Court, cramped the resolutions of his great soul. I bewailed this change in his behaviour both for my own and the public account, but much more for his sake. I loved him as much as I honoured him, and clearly saw the precipice. ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... hugely above them, the grass waved vast beneath them, and the sky ringed them in from immensity. Their forms scarcely disturbed the big outline of nature, their laughter only whispered against the silence, as ineffectual to disturb that gigantic serenity as a gnat's wing fluttered against a precipice. ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... woods seem a reflection of the sky, and the gorse was ablaze on the common. The walk was collar-work at first, up, up, up, climbing a steep track between loose-built, fern-covered walls, taking a short cut over the slope that formed the spur of Cwm Dinas, and scaling the rocky little precipice of Maenceirion. Some who had started at a great rate and with much enthusiasm began to slacken speed, and to realize the wisdom of Miss Teddington's advice and try the slow-going, steady pace she had learned ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... instance. An Indian officer gave me an account of an elephant, as follows. A detachment was on the march, and one of the gun-carriages got a wheel off the track, so that it was also off the ground, and hanging over a precipice. If the bullocks had moved a step, carriages, bullocks, and all must have been precipitated. No one knew what could be done until some one proposed to bring up an elephant, and let him manage it his own way. The elephant took a moment's survey of the fix, put his trunk under the ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... increase. The roads row bad beyond all badness, the night dark beyond all darkness, our guide frightened beyond all frightfulness. However, without being at all killed, we got UP, or down,—I forget which, it was so dark,—a famous precipice called Silver Hill, and about ten at night arrived at a wretched village called Rotherbridge. We had still six miles hither, but determined to stop, as it would be a pity to break our necks before we had seen all we intended. But alas! there ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... going over," exclaimed Adela, who rode the second in the rear after Polly; "he flirts his hind legs right over the precipice every time ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... him like the proprietor's son; Pat Waugh, foreman of the cooperage, put "Mr. Arthur" or "Mr. Ranger" into every sentence; the workingmen addressed him as "sir," and seemed to appreciate his talking as affably with them as if he were unaware of the precipice of caste which stretched from him down to them. He was in a pleasant frame of mind as he went home and bathed and dressed for dinner. And, while he knew he had really been in the way at the cooperage and had earned nothing, yet—his ease about his ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... know. We do not go there. Two years ago a young man from this village went there seeking a sheep which had gone astray. He never came back. And the sheep skin was found some days later at the foot of the precipice. And scarcely a month ago, a venturesome young man from Bartfa climbed the road to the castle in the dead of night on a wager. What he saw no one will ever know, for he came running down the road to his companion stricken with ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... got over the wood, and, letting our ship down in the same manner, fell into smooth clear water, till we came to a horrid precipice, hollow and deep, resembling the cavity made by an earthquake. We furled our sails, or should soon have been swallowed up in it. Stooping forward, and looking down, we beheld a gulf of at least a thousand stadia ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as though they were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... arrived at the wall of a precipice, along which ran a narrow ledge just wide enough ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... aware of the precipice, to the verge of which his improvident passion had drawn him, watched them out of the corner of his eye, uncertain how far their comprehension of the scene had gone. He trembled to think how nearly he had betrayed his secret; and took the more shame to himself, inasmuch as ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... well-defined anxiety, felt no fear, was moved to no prayer, did not give a thought to home or friends; only it swept over me, as with a sudden tempest, that, if I meant to get back to my own camp, I must keep my wits about me. I must not dwell on any other alternative, any more than a boy who climbs a precipice must look down. Imagination had no business here. That way madness lay. There was a shore somewhere before me, and I must get to it, by the ordinary means, before the ebb laid bare the flats, or swept me below the lower bends of the stream. That ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lifted his arms toward her, and she swayed, took a step toward him—a step toward the precipice. Suddenly she stopped, eyes startled, a deeper pallor blighting her face—for she heard Bonbright's step on the stairs.... She had forgotten the ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... near the mare's head is the Greek band with trumpets and cymbals encouraging the men. The army is rushing up under an opening of the rock to the left, while the advanced guard of cavalry are trotting down the shelving top of a precipice, the horses excited and snuffing up the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... that one of the finest views among the mountains was to be had at Indian Head, a vast overhanging precipice facing toward the entrance to the Kaaterskill Clove, Graydon easily induced Madge to explore with him the ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... learned to obey—he will not know how. The one great thing life has to teach you is—obey. There was a young bear once that was bound to go his own way. The old bear told him it wouldn't do to jump over a precipice, but, somehow, he couldn't believe it and jumped. 'Twas the last thing he ever did. It's often so with the young. Their own way is apt to be rather steep and to end suddenly. There are laws everywhere,—we couldn't live without them,—laws of nature, ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... agreed. "I've thought of that. But, you see, I would have to feel my way. At best I'd get a lot of falls. I might walk off a precipice. That doesn't appeal to me, now that I've set ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... gorilla climbing ponderously the trunk of a large tree, the branches of which overhung the precipice. Blount climbed on frantically. He stopped again. The gorilla was crawling out upon one of the overhanging branches! The strange beast-brain had conceived a death for Pauline more terrible than any Raymond ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Railway company started to grade their road-bed around here, men were first swung over this precipice from above with ropes, until they made standing room for themselves; and then a narrow ledge was cut on the almost perpendicular side of the rocky mountain, around which the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... never imagine," she replied, smiling. "It was the descent of a small flight of steps alone by myself. At first it seemed to me a dreadful precipice, and I was obliged to sit down on the steps and slide down in that attitude."—"A princess, indeed, who had never descended any but the grand staircase at Versailles, leaning on the arm of her cavalier in waiting and surrounded by pages, necessarily trembled on finding herself alone on ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... he were walking on the brink of a precipice, and that it needed all his care to steer clear of ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... gallop, like DICK TURPIN on Black Bess, and we leave girls dressed as boys behind us, and provincial JOANS OF ARC going out fighting for Church and King; and then, just as we are hanging suspended in mid-air over an awful precipice, there is a last gallant effort, and we awake to find ourselves gasping for breath, and awake to the fact that "Q.'s Pegasus" is a nightmare. It recalls memories of LOUIS STEVENSON'S Black Arrow, but distances it by miles, while here ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various |
