"Sloping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It was a freshly chiseled cavity, as could be seen plainly from below. The mother nuthatch was feeding her young. She would fly to the tree with an insect in her bill, calling "Yank, yank," or "Ha-ha, ha-ha," as if to announce her arrival, then glide around the branch, scurry down its sloping wall, swing to the underside where the nest hole was, and jab the juicy morsel into the chirruping throat of one of the bantlings within. The bloodthirsty hawk dashed at her several times, but she deftly ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... smilingly. The ink having dried, she folded the paper, and put it into an envelope, which she closed. Then her face indicated a new effort. She could think of only one way of disguising her hand in cursive—the common device of sloping it backwards. This she attempted. The result failing to please her, she tried again on a second envelope, and this time with success; the writing looked masculine, and in no respect suggested its true authorship. She had addressed the letter to Dyce ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... sloping sides of the iron. The holder and iron can be moved at the same time. —Contributed by ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Nellie had taken refuge was several yards from the edge of the stream, the bank sloping so steeply that the water never reached the base, excepting ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... and lances of fire seemed to increase around the young inventor. The airship could be seen to slip slowly down the sloping roof. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... seem to be commanded by any accessible position. It was partly covered by a huge fragment of stone, which, having fallen from the cliffs above, had been intercepted by others in its descent, and jammed so as to serve for a sloping roof to the farther part of the broad shelf or platform on which they stood. A quantity of withered moss and leaves, strewed beneath this rude and wretched shelter, showed the lairs,—they could not be termed the beds,—of those who dwelt ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and ran back along the deserted tunnel, bending low to avoid collision with the sloping roof, striving to move rapidly, yet in silence. The intense darkness blinded him, but one hand touching the wall acted as safeguard. For a moment the bewildering surprise of this new situation left his brain in a whirl of uncertainty. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... crossed, and had ranged themselves in order about noon, they proceeded through the country of Armenia, consisting wholly of plains and gently sloping hills, a distance of not less than five parasangs; for there were no villages near the river, in consequence of the hostilities with the Carduchi. 2. The village, however, at which they at length arrived, was of considerable size, and contained a palace for the satrap;[206] upon most of the houses ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... injuring its fiber to a great extent and causing it to be much more susceptible to rot, but it is said to increase the adhesion of the spike in hard wood ties at least 50 per cent. But in order that the best results may be obtained, the spike should be flattened on either side of the sloping point, which will generally ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... pushed up the pass, and came into action on the enemy's first position. The pass widened out from this point, and the two leading regiments moved forward to the sloping crest of the third position. The Queens had advanced on the right, with the Ghoorkhas on their flank. The pathway was covered by the fire of the enemy, hidden behind rocks; and this was so accurate that men could hardly show themselves on the path, without being immediately ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... Avenue and Cambria Street, in this city, which was reached about three o'clock. Here several hundred people were already gathered to witness the interment. Fairhill is a little cemetery, about the size of a city square. It is mound-shaped, sloping up from all sides to the center. It is filled with trees and shrubbery, but does not contain a single monument, the graves being simply marked with little marble blocks, which do not rise more than six inches ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... but again received no reply. He now observed in the stem of the boat a large bunch of pansies, dark as velvet, and evidently freshly gathered,—proving that Sigurd had been wandering in the deep valleys and on the sloping sides of the hills, where these flowers may be frequently found in Norway during the summer. He began to feel rather uncomfortable, as he watched that straight stiff figure in the boat, and was just about to swing down the companion-ladder for ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... out between two salt-water lochs—Loch Beg, the "little," and Loch Mhor, the "big" lake. The latter is grand and gloomy, shut in by bleak mountains, which sit all round it, their feet in the water, and their heads in mist and cloud. But Loch Beg is quite different. It has green, cultivated, sloping shores, fringed with trees to the water's edge, and the least ray of sunshine seems always to set it dimpling with wavy smiles. Now and then a sudden squall comes down from the chain of mountains far away beyond the head of the loch, and then its waters ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... that something must be happening, that had drawn the people from the other parts of the town. As he came nearer it seemed as if the whole population was there collected. Conspicuous was pompous Canon Parkyn, and by him stood Mrs Parkyn, and tall and sloping-shouldered Mr Noot. The sleek dissenting minister was there, and the jovial, round-faced Catholic priest. There stood Joliffe, the pork-butcher, in shirt-sleeves and white apron in the middle of the road; and there stood Joliffe's wife and daughters, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the termination or end of the line should, above all, be distinctly noted, for the all-important reason that this shows the direction that the Mentality is inclined to develop towards. For example, if found with the end of the line sloping downwards in the left hand, and having become straight or lying across the palm in the right—the student is safe in concluding that the subject has not been able to follow his natural bent, but by the force of circumstances has ...
— Palmistry for All • Cheiro
... under the roof, with its cracked water-jug that matches neither the basin or the soap-dish, and its boards with a ragged scrap of carpet on them, and your tin box in the corner; and the light of the moon or street lamp coming in at the window and casting shadows on the sloping whitewashed ceiling; and your guttered candle. What will you try on to-night? A hat, or a dress, or the two-and-eleven-three-farthing blouse? Shift the candle. Show yourself to the looking-glass. A poke here and a pull there—and now put everything away carefully in the box ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hill-sides and moderate elevations it insensibly swells into lofty and majestic heights, whose blue outlines, ranged all around, close in the view. The beautiful aspect of the shore is heightened by ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... where their ponies were cropping the grass was several acres in extent, nearly half of it sloping abruptly; but the grass was abundant enough to furnish the animals with all they could need, no matter how long they stayed, since it had plenty of opportunity to ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... hall, which, I had thought, seemed full at the entrance, continued to admit party after party, until the semicircle before the stage presented one dense mass of heads, sloping from floor to ceiling. The stage, too, or rather the wide temporary platform, larger than any stage, desert half an hour since, was now overflowing with life; round two grand pianos, placed about the centre, a white flock of young girls, the pupils of the Conservatoire, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of the breakfast things in this summary way, he betakes himself to the great work of the day, the polishing of the knives. He first plunges the ivory handles into boiling water, and leaves them to steep for a time, then he seats himself on the ice again, and, arranging a plank of wood in a sloping position, holds it fast with his toes, rubs it well with a piece of bath brick, and commences to polish with all the energy which he has saved by the neglect of other duties. Hour after hour the squeaky, squeaky, squeaky sound of that board plays upon your nerves, not the nerves of the ear, but ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... buried the young English officer at the foot of one of the large pines which my father saw at each return. At one end of the hilltop path was a thicket of birch and maple trees; and at the end towards the west and the village was the open brow of the hill, sloping rapidly to the Lexington Road, and overlooking meadows and distant wood-ranges, some of the cottages of humble folk, and the neighboring huge, owlet-haunted elms of Alcott's lawn. Along this path in spring huddled ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... sloping-shouldered variety, whom one can see on the Avenue and in the clubs and hotels in such numbers that it almost seems that there must be an establishment for turning them out, even down to a trademark concealed somewhere about them, "Made in England." Only Ogleby seemed a ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... chance observer, the prospect would have been deeply suggestive; in the woman it stirred many memories. She put back her veil; her face glowed; a long sigh escaped her lips. Slowly she walked down the steps, along the sloping path to a turn, where she sank down on a bench. A rosy, tired child, rather the worse for mud-pies, and hanging reluctantly at the hand of its nonchalant nurse, brought a bit of the woman's emotion to the surface. She smiled radiantly at ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... distance that separated them from the road, with a vague idea that once on it they would somehow or other see something—meet some one to guide them as to what next to do. But it was not so—there it stretched before them, white and smooth and dusty at both sides, rising a little to the right and sloping downwards to the left—away, away, away—to where? Not a cart or carriage of any kind—not a foot-passenger even—was to be seen. And the sun was hot, and the four little legs were very tired; and where was the use of tiring ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... then, straight ahead!" He and Lamar had headed for the water. Some of the students tried to turn to the right or the left, but others followed the leaders. In a moment more, the carriage had reached the sloping bank of the river. Then the crowd scattered, and a moment later the turnout, with a twist, struck the water and went over sideways, plunging old Filbury and William ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... made headway, he still swung forward rapidly, splitting the waves and scarcely giving Beverley freedom enough so that he could help in the progress. It was a long, cold struggle, and when at last they touched the sloping low bank on the other side, Long-Hair had fairly to lift his chilled and exhausted prisoner ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... situation (although I have since heard it alleged that there was a swamp to windward of it, over which the sea breeze blew, but this I did not see,) considerably elevated above the hot sandy plain on which Kingston stands, and sloping gently towards the sea. They were splendid, large, airy two story buildings, well raised off the ground on brick pillars, so that there was a perfectly free ventilation of air between the surface of the earth and the floor of the first story, as well as through the whole of the upper rooms. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... dreamy attitudes, with their heelless slippers hanging from the toes of their bare feet. Beyond the entrance of the tunnel Domini could see two horsemen galloping at a tremendous pace into the desert. Their red cloaks streamed out over the sloping quarters of their horses, which devoured the earth as if in a frenzy of emulation. They disappeared into the last glories of the sun, which still lingered on the plain and blazed among the summits of the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... location for a camp than that which we occupied could hardly be found in Siberia, and I watched with the greatest uneasiness the signs of the weather as it began to grow dark. The huge sloping snow-drift upon which we stood rose directly out of the water, and, so far as we knew, it might have no other foundation than a narrow strip of ice. If so, the faintest breeze from any direction except north would roll in waves high enough to undermine and break up the whole escarpment, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... impulsively, went on her knees, swept her two young arms round Grannie's frail figure, laid her head on the little woman's sloping shoulder, ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the crows as they flew up from the woods or fields nearby and flapped heavily across the valley. The effect of their flight was simple, but laid hold on the imagination in a peculiar manner. As they flew in a horizontal line the sloping hillside appeared to drop away beneath them like the subsiding of a great wave. It was just the touch needed to add a sense of mystic instability to the earth and to subtilise the prosaic farmland into the realm of illusion. Looking at the fields in this glorified light I first understood ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... domed roof over the shrine. As to the long wall, about which Socrates says that he heard Pericles bring forward a motion, Callicrates undertook to build it. The Odeum, which internally consisted of many rows of seats and many columns, and externally of a roof sloping on all sides from a central point, was said to have been built in imitation of the king of Persia's tent, and was built ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... you a ride in my car," Mr. Westcote informed David, after he had been introduced to the captain, and had handed him a cigar. "It is a pity to take you from such a beautiful place as this," and he cast his eyes over the sloping fields before him. "But, I would like for you to come with me to the city to-day. It is a matter of business, that is, some details which should have been ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... sloping field was bare, except for the huge straw-stacks. A bright procession lumbered down the road, led by the long strings of wagons filled with brown bags. A strange silence had settled down over the farm. The wheat was gone. That waving stretch of ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... bluff base the sloping ravine bends; Hills forms on hills, and croupe o'er croupe extends; Ascending, whitening, how the crags are lost, O'erhung with headcliffs of eternal frost! Broad fields of ice give back the morning ray, Like walls of ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... towards the clearing. Directed by the sound, Captain de Haldimar bent his eyes upon the thin skirt of wood that lay immediately before him, and at intervals could see the towering form of that vast warrior bounding, with incredible speed, up the sloping ground that led from the town towards the forest. A ravine lay before him; but this he cleared, with a prodigious effort, at a single leap; and then, continuing his way up the slope, amid the low guttural acclamations of the warriors at his extraordinary dexterity and strength, finally ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than 75,000,000 people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the Republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific being the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped resources. In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them this great interior ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... mean to be caught. Being a fast runner for a boy of his size, he bade fair to outdistance his pursuer. But directly in his path was an excavation of considerable size and depth. Ernest paused on the brink to consider whether to descend the sloping sides or to go round it. The delay was fatal. The tramp saw his advantage, and pushing forward ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... sea! Where float the mighty ichthyosaurus, the megalosaurus, in company with the gigantic plesiosaurus! Upon whose sloping shores disport the enormous mastodon, the stately megatherium, ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... drainage area commanded by the vastly larger Pacific. The Pacific is for the most part rimmed by mountains, discharging into the ocean only mad torrents or rapid-broken streams. The Atlantic, bordered by gently sloping plains of wide extent, receives rivers that for the most part pursue a long and leisurely course to the sea. Therefore, the commercial and cultural influences of the Atlantic extend from the Rockies and Andes almost to the heart of Russia, and by the Nile highway they even invade ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... A gently sloping saddle, bare of snow, which succeeds the glacier, forms the top of the Tunkra pass; it unites two snowy mountains, and opens on the great valley of the Machoo, which flows in a part of Tibet between Sikkim and Bhotan; its height is 16,083 feet ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... a sloping pasture, across a footbridge spanning an arm of the Lesse which washed the base of the garden wall, then ascended a gentle aclivity among hazel thicket and tall sycamores, becoming for a little distance ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... and falaises; and we anchored, at 4 P.M., in the roadstead of Las Palmas, north of the spot where our s.s. Senegal whilom broke her back. The capital, fronting east, like Santa Cruz, lies at the foot of a high sea-wall, whose straight and sloping lines betray their submarine origin: in places it is caverned for quarries and for the homes of the troglodyte artisans; and up its flanks straggle whitewashed boxes towards the local necropolis. The ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... music-rack fell upon her hair, and made it flash and burn. She had twisted it high, in a coil, and there never was anything more lovely than the burnished copper against the white glow of her skin, nor anything so noble as the way her head rose upon her neck and sloping shoulders. It was like a flower on ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... This island, as we may call it, is nearly covered with an enormous rock, which to this day is called Annawan's Rock. Its southeast side presents an almost perpendicular precipice, and rises to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet. The northwest side is very sloping and easy of ascent, being at an angle of not more than thirty-five or forty degrees. A more gloomy and hidden recess, even now, although the forest-tree no longer waves over it, could hardly be found by any inhabitant of ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... which Prescott found it impossible to deny, Kennedy had already started to telephone to his own laboratory, describing a certain suitcase to one of his students and giving his directions. It was only a moment later that we were panting up the sloping street that led from the river front. In the excitement I scarcely noticed where we were going until we hurried up the steps ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... previously marked. The ground within this circle is then scraped and dug out until a fairly level floor is obtained, leaving a low bench of earth entirely or partly around the interior. This bench is sometimes as much as a foot and a half high on the high side of a slightly sloping site, but ordinarily it is less than a foot. The object of this excavation is twofold—to make a level floor with a corresponding increase in the height of the structure, and to afford a bench on which the many small articles constituting the domestic paraphernalia ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... towards Alvarez and Matanzas, they stretch in the direction of the northern coast. Proceeding from the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo to the Villa de la Trinidad, I saw on the north-west, the Lomas de San Juan, which form needles or horns more than 300 toises high, with their declivities sloping regularly to the south. This calcareous group presents a majestic aspect, as seen from the anchorage near the Cayo de Piedras. Xagua and Batabano are low coasts; and I believe that, in general, west of the meridian of Matanzas, there is no hill more than 200 toises high, with the exception ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... by free people of colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about it; or where the wood-cutter has erected himself a dwelling and cleared a few acres for pasturage. Sometimes you see level ground on each side of you for two or three hours at a stretch; at other times a gently sloping hill presents itself; and often, on turning a point, the eye is pleased with the contrast of an almost perpendicular height jutting into the water. The trees put you in mind of an eternal spring, with summer and ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... the west and south mostly mountains (Alps); along the eastern and northern margins mostly flat or gently sloping ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... And now, though the wind and tide both served me, I yet lingered, for it seemed that the spirit of Joanna still tarried hereabouts. Moved by sudden desire, I began searching among the tumbled boulders that lay here and there and presently finding one to my purpose, urged it down the sloping beach and with infinite pains and labour contrived at last to set it up at the head of Joanna's resting-place. Then, taking hammer and chisel, I fell to work upon it, heedless of sun-glare, of thirst, fatigue or the lapse of time, staying ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... ladies and gentlemen, statesmen, politicians, women with their knitting, and lion-hunters. The tall, awkward orator ascended the platform, took off his top-coat and drew a manuscript from his pocket. He had a narrow, sloping forehead, a prominent nose, gray eyes and a skin of singular transparency. His voice was rich and mellow but not strong. Lincoln listened with rapt attention to his talk about Democracy. It was ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... and Melchoir together, "is the voice of Balthazar," and they hastened to meet him, for he was now almost at the summit, and the refrain of his song was still upon his lips. At that moment Balthazar sprang up from the sloping path into full view of the two men, and, giving each a hand, exclaimed: "Gaspard, Melchoir, beloved companions, I have found you at last. The peasants below were not mistaken. From their description, I was certain I should find you ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... children to bed and seen that Mrs. Bowles was comfortable, and had water and crackers and a candle beside her—she was a very poor sleeper—I was glad enough to go to bed myself. Barbara showed me my room, a pretty little room with sloping gables and windows down by the floor. There were two doors, and I asked her where the other led to. She opened it and said, 'The shed chamber.' I looked over her shoulder, holding up the candle, and saw a great bare room, with some large trunks in it, but ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... feet in diameter. In the fifteenth century this colossal ruin was converted into a fortress by the Orsini family; and of the remains of this fortification a farmhouse and other buildings were constructed, and these now stand on the summit, surrounded by a tolerably-sized oliveyard and garden, with a sloping grass-grown stair leading up to them on the outside. Notwithstanding their dislike of death and their horror of dead bodies, the modern Romans have no more repugnance to the proximity of tombs than their ancestors had. Shepherds fold their sheep and goats in the interior ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... boat softly, proceeded to the west of the point of land near which the Sea lion had stationed herself. Ahead of them they saw a sloping shore, running white and smooth as to surface for some distance from the water. Then, at the back, rose a line of wooded hills. There were no natives ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... bare wet maple branches—a dripping brown meadow lightly wreathed in blue mist, sedgy undergrowth along water and the further ranges of hills merged in shifting clouds. A shaft of sunlight, pale and without warmth, illuminated with its emphasis an undistinguished and barren spot. On the meadows sloping to the south there were indefinite spaces of green. Claire ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of breezy brown stream deeply encased in bright green forest. The draught caused by flowing water keeps the clearing clean of sand-flies, the pest of the inner settlements, and European employes will find the place healthy. The up-sloping ground behind the house could be laid out in a pottage-garden; and, as Bahama-grass grows fast, there will be no difficulty about ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... stroke being knocked down between the seats in his effort to back water and keep her clear. Half-crippled already and at least one-third full of water, she was in no trim to dodge the underdraw of the sloping bows of an empty barge, at the worst hour of ebb-tide. The boy in the garden, next door to The Pigeons, whom curiosity had kept on the watch, saw the swerve off-shore; the men struggling in the stern; the collision with the moorings; and the final wreck of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... were springy beneath the horse's hoof. The trail went softly, with the courtesy of great gentleness. Occasionally we caught sight of other ridges,—also with pines,—across deep sloping valleys, pine filled. The effect of the distant trees seen from above was that of roughened velvet, here smooth and shining, there dark with rich shadows. On these slopes played the wind. In the level countries it sang through the forest progressively: here on the slope it struck a thousand ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... o'clock this morning, after taking the compass bearings of the principal points within sight on Wrangell Land, and making a hasty collection of the flowering plants on my way. I found one species of poppy, quite showy, and making considerable masses of color on the sloping uplands, three or four species of saxifrage, one silene, a draba, dwarf willow, stellaria, two golden compositae, two sedges, one grass, and a veronica, together with a considerable number of mosses and lichens, some of them quite showy and so abundant as to form the bulk ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... with the Commander-in-Chief and Headquarters, we were fortunate in having our camp on the finest piece of ground on the estate; our tents stretched down a strip of sloping sward, sheltered from the wind by the wonderful trees that luxuriate on the lower falls of Table Mountain; from one's tent entrance the eye was caught by a panorama sweeping a radius of twenty miles inland. I shall never forget those days when in the morning wind and sun I helped to make ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... or might not be a good placer mine—time would show—but it was certainly a wonderful location. Below the sloping bench on which it stood the country fell away into the brown heat haze of the lowlands, a curtain that could lift before a north wind to reveal a landscape magnificent as a kingdom. Spreading white oaks gave shade, a spring sang from the side hill on which grew lofty pines, and back to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... An unanswerable question, since even if it weren't the habit of the undertaker to close the eyes, the light so soon goes out of them. At first, part of herself; now one of a company, he had merged in the grass, the sloping hillside, the thousand white stones, some slanting, others upright, the decayed wreaths, the crosses of green tin, the narrow yellow paths, and the lilacs that drooped in April, with a scent like that of an invalid's ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... completely altered and made to assume an entirely new appearance. This alteration was rendered necessary by the serious damage which, to our great sorrow, we found the books had suffered—a damage which was increasing daily—partly from the sloping form of the desks, partly from the inconvenient weight of the chains (tum ex declivi pluteorum fabrica, tum ex inepta ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... on the linden avenue. Here, a score of grooms holding torches aloft had been arranged in a circle so that the impromptu theater thus formed, which Maignan had ordered with much taste, was as light as in the day. On a sloping bank at one end seats had been placed for those who had supped at my table, while the rest of the company found such places of vantage as they could; their number, indeed, amounting, with my household, to two hundred persons. In the center of the open space ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... been at Diplow before except to dine; and since certain points of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, Lady Flora Hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had dispersed, and the sun was sloping toward four o'clock, that the remaining party should make a little exploration. Here came frequent opportunities when Grandcourt might have retained Gwendolen apart, and have spoken to her unheard. But no! He indeed spoke to no one else, but what he said ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... her spirits rise under the influence of the sunshine, the refreshing fragrance of the morning air, and the ride among scenes of romance and beauty. It was a country of rolling hills and gently sloping vales through which they passed, with occasional rocky dells and low cascades. A country of orchards, meadows, and woodlands; a country of flowing water, salubrious, fertile and wealthy; dotted with a few villages and many fine farms. The road ran incessantly up and down hill through dense woods ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... of the 16th, his advanced guard discovered the enemy at eight o'clock next morning, and at nine o'clock the British line of battle was formed. The enemy, 36,000 strong, were posted along the dry bed of the river Fullaillee, which falls into the Indus. Its high bank, sloping towards the plain in front, formed a rampart. Their position was about 1200 yards wide. Eighteen guns, massed on the flank in advance of the bank, poured their shot on the British troops while forming the line, and the Beloochee wings rested on shikargahs ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... to raise the leaves to the same height, I introduce vertical columns; and I make the leaves square-headed instead of pointed, and their lateral ribs at right angles with the central rib, instead of sloping from it. I have, indeed, only given you two boughs instead of four; because the perspective of the crossing ones could not have been given without confusing the figure; but I imagine you have quite enough of them ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... roads leading toward the north and eastward. This spot was also the boundary of the grounds, and a portion of the old boulevard of the town formed the defense against the open country beyond. It was a deep ditch, with sides of sloping sward, cropped neatly, and kept in trimmest order; but, from its depth and width, forming a fence of a formidable kind. I was peering cautiously down into the abyss, when I heard a voice so close to my ear, that I started with surprise. I listened, and perceived that the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... extremity, was strong in Frank Costello's breast; his firmness and presence of mind gradually returned, and he resolved not to perish without a struggle. He remembered that, at the farther extremity of the cavern, the rock rose like a flight of rude stairs, sloping from the floor to the roof; he had often clambered up those rugged steps, and he knew that, by means of them, he could place himself at an elevation above the reach of the highest tide. But the hope thus suggested was quickly damped when he reflected that a deep ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... night sloping rocks and ominous reefs made it impossible for us to effect a landing, and in a shallow place we dropped anchor. Fortunately there was no wind, for we were in an exposed position, and had there been we should have come to grief. A bit of hardtack ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... canopy above; there, dashing over a projecting rock forming a little cascade, and then flowing smoothly along, bearing upon its tranquil bosom the fair images of the flowers which spring up along its banks, upon the sloping hill-side and in every shady nook and dell, smiling in strange beauty among the stern features of the woodland scene. Sweet flowers, so fair and fragile, that they flourish only when sheltered from the rude blast and pelting storm by some friendly shade, and so modest and ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... wild scenes haste; The unfinish'd farm awaits your forming taste: Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true; Through the high arch call in the length'ning view; Expand the forest sloping up the hill; Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill; Extend the vista; raise the castle mound In antique taste, with turrets ivy-crown'd: O'er the gay lawn the flow'ry shrub dispread, Or with the blending garden mix the mead; Bid ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Paestum. At first they drove along the sea-shore, but after a few miles the road turned off into the country. All around them were fields, which were covered with flocks and herds, while in the distance were hills that were clothed with vineyards and olive groves, that adorned their sloping declivities with mantles of dark green and light. In the country, on either side, they also saw some indications of Italian life, which excited strong feelings of repugnance within them; for here and there, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... in the centre of the house a narrow stairway, hidden away behind an angle of the wall so that one did not notice it at first, led above to three large attics with steeply-sloping roofs and evidently designed more for ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... of the city from west to south runs Mill Creek, the remains of a once glacial stream, whose gently sloping valley, half a mile or more wide, forms an easy path into the heart of the city, and was an indispensable factor in determining its position. Highways, canals and railroads come through it, and the city's growth has pushed much farther up this valley than in ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... as Graeme paused to take in the view, and down the sloping dusty road we flew on ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... the right, dedicated to the Confessors, was a vast hull set on end; on the sloping side to the left of the door stood Saint Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra, holding up a gloved hand, and trampling under foot the cruel host killing the children whose death became a theme for so many laments; Saint Ambrose, Doctor of the Church and Bishop of Milan, wearing a singular peaked mitre, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the dawn of day, Rustem arose, and wandering took his way, Armed for the chase, where sloping to the sky, Turan's lone wilds in sullen grandeur lie; There, to dispel his melancholy mood, He urged his matchless steed through glen and wood. Flushed with the noble game which met his view, He starts the wild-ass o'er the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... a few moments, and then the savages hastened forward with Helen to a creek, where the banks were sloping, and the water shallow enough for them to wade the stream. By the time they had crossed, it was quite dark. The night was cloudy, and distant thunder could occasionally ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... sunshine and shadow, every undulation, every ridge and hollow, softly marked out. With what wonderful sharp outline the mountain edges rose against the bright sky; how wonderful soft the changes of shade and colour adown their sloping sides; what brilliant little ripples of water rolled up to the pebbles at Elizabeth's feet. She stood and looked at it all, at one thing and the other, half dazzled with the beauty; until she recollected herself, and with a deep sighful expression of thoughts and wishes unknown, ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... enclose valleys with sides sometimes steep and precipitous and sometimes gently sloping. The country is watered by numerous streams bordered by magnificent tree-ferns, and by trees, shrubs, and plants requiring a large amount of water, while the dry hillsides bear noble pines standing at wide intervals and often arranged as if grouped ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... opposite side, with a line of trees almost invariably round it, especially along the river. These flats are backed, at uncertain distances, by the fossil formation, as by a natural inclosure—sometimes it rises perpendicularly from the flats, but more generally assumes the character of sloping hills. The cliffs occasionally extend, like a wall, along the river for two or three miles, and look exceedingly well; but their constant recurrence, at length fatigues the eye. At the point at which we had now arrived this remarkable formation ceases, or, as we are ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... in window and archway, turret and tower. The centre had been rebuilt in the reign of Henry VIII, and a long range of noble Tudor windows looked out upon the broad terrace, beyond which there was a garden, or pleasaunce, sloping down to the park. In the centre of this long facade there was an archway, opening into a stone quadrangle, where a fountain played perpetually in a marble basin. This was Raynham Castle, and all the woods and pastures as far as the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... took was a continuously uphill one; the sloping ground hid the horizon from their view. They reached a height close to La Butte, and at a single glance the disaster was ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... great lake. As we glided out on what proved to be, after all, another lake instead of an arm of Michikamau, we saw that land, not water, stretched across the western horizon. South from our island camp the shore of the lake was a low ridge sloping to the water in three distinct terraces, moss-covered and smooth as a carefully kept lawn, with here and there a clump of stunted fir trees. Four miles to the west the ridge terminated ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... about. A moment later the lightning lit up the calm stretch of the river and the broad lawns sloping down to it. Monsieur Dupont detected no form or movement—but with a startling shout, the manager bounded away from ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... who came testifying to the great event at the sepulchre of Lazarus. The road soon loses sight of Bethany. It is now a rough, but still broad and well-defined mountain track, winding over rock and loose stones,—a steep declivity below on the left; the sloping shoulder of Olivet above on the right. Along this road the multitudes threw down the branches which they cut as they went along, or spread out a rude matting formed of the palm branches they had already cut as they came out. ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... length found on the northern side of the mountain, on a sidelong slanting snow-bank, which seemed to have accumulated between two projecting crags. It was by no means a desirable spot on which to effect a landing, the area of the bank being very small, and the surface sloping most awkwardly; however, it was the best place the travellers could find, and they were therefore obliged to rest content with it; so the ship was headed toward it, and in another second or two a harsh grating sound, accompanied ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... beauty had been given to Ida Palliser in fullest measure. She had the form of a goddess, a head proudly set upon shoulders that were sloping but not narrow, the walk of a Moorish girl, accustomed to carrying a water-jug on her head, eyes dark as night, hair of a deep warm brown rippling naturally across her broad forehead, a complexion of creamiest white and richest ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... right on the heads of their assailants, the besiegers contrived hanging roofs of strong rope-work netting, laid over with a thick covering of raw hides. These roofs were to be worked up and down by mechanism, and it was calculated that by their sloping position they would throw off the shot and shell of the garrison into the sea. Above eighty gun-boats and bomb-ketches were to second the operations of the floating batteries, together with a multitude of frigates and smaller vessels, while the combined fleets ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to be a pretty sheet of water only slightly salt, a mile long and three quarters of a mile wide, separated from the ocean by a long narrow strip of sandy beach. No stream enters it, but it is the reservoir of the rainfall from the low-lying hills sloping ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... rush the old boat was pushed down the sloping sandy shore and into the mill-pond. Hugh and Thad sprang aboard and each snatching up a paddle, they commenced to urge the unwieldy craft along ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... mind) on one side of the room on another side by a partition was a wash-hand stand of marble, against the wall on the opposite side a large glass just at the level of the bed; at the foot of the bed a large sofa opposite to the fire; over the chimney-piece a big glass sloping forwards, so that those sitting or lying on the sofa could see themselves reflected in it; in the angle of the room by the windows a big cheval-glass which could be turned in any direction, two easy-chairs and a bidet, the ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... may be described as a great, broad, rounded ridge, extending north and south, and crossed by thick mountain chains, between which lie elevated valleys, open and gently sloping towards the east, but narrow and confined, with a rapid fall towards the west. The waters which run in all, with the exception of the eastern flow from the Taghdungbash, collect in the Oxus; the Aksu from the Little Pamir lake receiving ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... usual way of bestowing books, especially when they were not numerous, was to place them in a sort of cupboard under the sloping desk on which the owner read or wrote. An excellent specimen of this device—which Richard de Bury specially commends, as being modelled on the Ark, in the side of which the book of the Law was put—is to be found in the Ship of Fools (1498). Another, ...
— Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods - The Rede Lecture Delivered June 13, 1894 • J. W. Clark
... he knew had rolled off the slightly sloping roof after accomplishing their duty. If only he could lay hands on them they might be made to serve again but the darkness would make this problematical. There was that log he had mentioned to Jack—with it he fancied he might do something ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... my father, was always studying something. Some map or book always lay open before her, when I went to visit her, in her picturesque old house, with its sloping roof and tall well-sweep. And she always brought out some book or picture for me from her quaint old-fashioned chest of drawers. I still possess the "Children in the Wood," which she gave me, as a keepsake, when I ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... most of which produced some small trees and brush-wood. These formed a pleasing contrast with the main land we had passed, which was full of sand-hills. The country continued hilly, and the northernmost land, the same which we saw from the lagoon island, appeared like downs, sloping towards the sea. To the southward of this is a flat-topped hill, which, on account of its shape, I called Pudding-pan hill, and a little to the northward two other hills, which we called the Paps; and here was a small tract of country without sand, the eastern part of which forms a cape, whence ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... floating in the centre of the lovely tranquil pool, was Jim-Jim's head. The lioness had bitten it right off, and it had rolled down the sloping rock into ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... garden they were standing stood upon the brow of the hill. Behind was a little wood, and gardens sloping pretty-steeply down. Then along by the water was a street, with houses upon either side. The river was, here, divided by an island; the lower end of which, however, scarcely extended low enough to be opposite to the spot upon which the ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... but the children don't freeze, any more than they do here. What would a Leyden house-keeper say to our village streets? Poles with vines, boughs of fig-trees, and all sorts of under-clothing on the roofs, at the windows, and the crooked, sloping balconies; orange and lemon-trees with golden fruit grow in the little gardens, which have neither straight paths nor symmetrical beds. Everything there grows together topsy-turvy. The boys, who in rags that no tailor has darned or mended, clamber over the white vineyard walls, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... contrasting with the outflung feet of her clumsy partner. Weird myths of the great fishes which guided and propelled the coracle-like boats of the first Buddhist missionaries to the shores of Java are perpetuated in stone, and the forest, sloping down to the wave-beaten coast, shows the rich vegetation which still clothes this island of eternal summer. The sumboya or flower of the dead, droops over stately tombs; bamboo and palm, banana and bread-fruit, mingle their varied foliage; mangosteen and pomegranate, mango ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... of sunny openings, and with nooks To lie and read in, sloping into brooks. The Story of Rimini. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... been made fast to the dock, other ropes were attached to the aircraft that floated at her stern, and the wrecked biplane was slowly hauled up the sloping bank of the stream. ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... smell, like earth damped with stagnant water, came up to them, mixed with the sharp, piercing smell of the coffin. The vigilant, upright coffin-lid leaned with its sloping ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... the shadow of the tree, and passed under its trailing parasites. The pirogue touched its trunk. Mechanically I climbed along the sloping buttress—mechanically assisted Aurore. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... sought to defend or to advocate some unreasonable conclusion of some sort, at which her own weak mind had arrived somehow. So she shook her head, and sobbed good-bye to Buzzby, as she ascended the sloping avenue that led to her pretty cottage on the green hill that overlooked the harbour and the ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... evidence of having once been a stately home. It was of plaster stucco, yellow washed, peeled and broken in places, with large dormer windows and sloping roof, one end of which was smothered in a tangle of Virginia creeper and trumpet vine climbing to ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... agency of long rifts in which dull shades of red broke through and were reflected even upon the white at her feet. It was not a cheery world just then, since the sun did not shine and the great fronds of evergreens loomed very dark, but the vastness of the wooded valley sloping down beneath her and stretching beyond the limits of her vision impressed her with a sense of greatness and of power. It was a tremendously big, strong and inexorable world, in which was being fought the unending and apparently unjust battle of the mighty against ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... pleased with himself for leaving the train in this bold, original way. For to him it had seemed bold and original. He felt something of a dog. His room, too, soothed him with its dark panelling and low irregular ceiling, and the long sloping passage that led to it seemed the natural pathway to a real Chamber of Sleep—a little dim cubby hole out of the world where noise could not enter. It looked upon the courtyard at the back. It was all very charming, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... A gently sloping hill of considerable height now lay in their path and Mukoki led the ascent. At the top the three paused in joyful astonishment. At their feet lay a "dip," or hollow, a dozen acres in extent, and in the center of this ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... rocks rising sheer up hundreds of feet on either side, the bottom was filled with large blocks of stone brought down by the floods, whose highest level could be seen forty or fifty feet above them on the rocks. Occasionally it was necessary to build a sloping platform with small boulders of stones to enable the camels to get over the vast blocks that filled ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... a short time, near the Boylston Station, stood a very ancient building, with a pitched roof in the rear sloping nearly to the ground, known as the "Curtis Homestead." It is claimed that this was one of the oldest houses in our country, and that, in 1639, William Curtis made a clearing in the forest for it, using timbers in its construction from his felled trees. The record is that ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... of the Angel just as good to us as if we had been her favorite niece and nephew. She hired us a carriage the next day, and we was driven out to Raglan Castle, through miles and miles of green and sloping ruralness. When we got there and rambled through those grand old ruins, with the drawbridge and the tower and the courtyard, my soul went straight back to the days of knights and ladies, and prancing steeds, and horns and hawks, and pages and ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... hut and hid himself beneath the hut that he might not be seen through the cracks. The horses on seeing him became restive. He slowly cut their reins with the knife which he held open in his hand, and a sudden squall coming up, the animals fled, frightened at the hail which rattled on the sloping roof of the wooden hut and made it shake ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... converse with Jupiter, his only compeer. From the top of the Basilica he occasionally threw money into the Forum to be scrambled for by people who crushed each other to death in the process. It would require too much space if we climbed the sloping road which leads on to the Palatine and examined the various structures upon that hill. As we now see it in its ruins it is perhaps the most mysteriously impressive place in the world. But many alterations ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... marshalling an army (since the hill where the camp was pitched, rising gradually from the plain, extended forward in breadth as far as the space which the marshalled army could occupy, and had steep declines of its side in either direction, and gently sloping in front gradually sank to the plain), on either side of that hill he drew a cross trench of about four hundred paces, and at the extremities of that trench built forts, and placed there his military engines, lest, after he had marshalled his army, ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... that western end is fifty acres of pasture, sloping north; those gray dots are sheep grazing. The eastern half is just scrub evergreen. That little cove on the northeast corner's the Sly Hole; you mightn't think it, but a good-sized schooner can ride there at low tide. Pretty rocky all round. Always a surf breaking ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... ground, crushed down by another tree which fell upon it. There it lay, with some of its roots torn loose from the earth and drying in the heat of the sun. It was left there in the forest to die. [As you speak, draw Step A of Fig. 33.] The writer tells also of a small poplar tree which grew on the sloping side of a mountain. One day, when there was a heavy landslide, the rush of boulders and earth tore the tree from its place and carried it a considerable distance down the side of the mountain. When it stopped sliding, it was left ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... of smaller size, scattered profusely over her whole surface. They are from one to twenty or thirty miles in extent. Many of them are the most beautiful that can be imagined—the water deep, and of crystal purity and clearness, surrounded by sloping hills and promontories, covered with scattered groves and clumps of trees. Some are of a more picturesque kind, being more rugged in their appearance, with steep, rocky bluffs, crowned with cedar, hemlock, spruce, and other evergreen ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... out on the sloping ground. He covers us with a quick glance, and when we are all there he ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse |
