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Precipice   Listen
noun
Precipice  n.  
1.
A sudden or headlong fall. (Obs.)
2.
A headlong steep; a very steep, perpendicular, or overhanging place; an abrupt declivity; a cliff. "Where wealth like fruit on precipices grew."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Precipice" Quotes from Famous Books



... one point we ascended a long, wide, gentle slope all laid out in tiny fields, and well watered from two large, fast-flowing streams. But where did they come from, for the slope ended abruptly in a sharp, high precipice overlooking a gorge through which flowed the Chin Ch'uan, a tributary of the Anning. But on turning a corner at the head of the slope we saw that from high up on the mountain-side an artificial channel had been constructed with infinite labour, bringing ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... in a suspense that racked her whole body. Guy reached the bend first. There was room for only one upon that narrow ledge. He went round the curve with the confidence of one who fully expected a clear path ahead. And then—on the very edge of the precipice—he caught sight of the horseman galloping towards him. He reined back. He threw up one hand as his animal staggered under him, and called a warning. But the thudding of the hoofs ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... stand up straight like a hero, which I did, straighter and straighter, and then suddenly 'was 'ware' (as we say in the ballads) of the walls' growing alive behind me and extending two stony hands to push me down that frightful precipice to the rug, where the dog lay ... dear old Havannah, ... and where he and I were likely to be dashed to pieces together and mix our uncanonised bones. Now my present false position ... which is not the chimney-piece's, ... is the necessity ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... 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 myself ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... I love best in all the world Is a castle, precipice-encurled, In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)— In a sea-side house to the farther South, Where the ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... as a warning from Heaven, that Chevalier Menars had been led across his path to save him just as he was approaching the brink of the precipice; he vowed that he would withstand all the seductions of the gambler's ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves Beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine: And sees, on high, amidst the encircling groves, From cliff to cliff the foaming torrents shine: While waters; woods, and winds in concert join, And Echo swells the chorus to the skies. Would Edwin this majestic scene resign For ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... on," says Gondocori. "Better roll down the precipice than be frozen to death. And if we stop here much longer, and the snow continues, the pass beyond will be blocked, and then we must die of hunger and cold, for there ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... woman who blows the bellows at Syree dak-bungalow on the Old Road; 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 to creak, not with the heat of June but with the weight of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... ways of Mercy—his gallant deeds (like this particular one) of risking all for the life of a friend—were as signposts to bewildered humanity. He foresaw the precipice down which the Terrorists were headed ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... Street in the Philippines A River Scene in the Philippines A Negrito Family Negrito Girls (showing Shaved Head at back) A Negrito Shooting Tree Climbing by Negritos A Negrito Dance Arigita and his Wife Three Cape Nelson Kaili-Kailis in War Attire Kaili-Kaili House on the edge of a Precipice "A Great Joke" A Ghastly Relic Cannibal Trophies A Woman and her Baby A Papuan Girl The Author with Kaili-Kaili Followers Wives of Native Armed Police A Papuan Damsel Busimaiwa, the great Mambare Chief, with his Wife and Son (in the Police) A Haunt of the Bird of Paradise The Author starting ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker

... left her writing from time to time, to go into the adjoining room where her daughter was. Rosarito had been ordered to sleep, but, already precipitated down the precipice of disobedience, ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... sleep are impossible. We seem constantly on the edge of a precipice, over which, were we to go, the fate awaiting us would reduce the tortures of Hades to pin-pricks. The Revolutionists have the railroads, the bandits the rivers. Yet, if I don't reach Japan in twelve days now, I will be ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... something ominous about it, and in intangible ways one was made to feel that the worst was about to come. Slowly the whole eastern sky filled with clouds that over-towered us like some black sierra of the infernal regions. So clearly could one see canon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that lie therein, that one looked unconsciously for the white surf-line and bellowing caverns where the sea charges on the land. And still we rocked gently, and there was ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... the rim of the precipice, high above, two active men, bending every nerve and muscle to their effort, stood with repeating rifles laid against their cheeks, pumping and firing at the figure ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... possible, I have been studying this matter over a good deal, and trying to figure out how to make the death the least painful to these poor victims, and it has occurred to me that if we place them on the edge of the precipice, and you shoot them through the brain, while at the same time I push them, they will fall down a hundred feet into the river, and if they are not killed instantly by having the brain blown out, they will certainly drown. How does that ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... this on the table before them, so to speak, but both had realized it from the beginning. They had walked beside the social precipice serene, but aware of ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... large see the precipice, and hear the roaring of the breakers ahead, but despair not! Sublime phenomena for the future historian to dwell upon! All this is genuine American originality. In its sublime presence, down, down upon your knees in the dust, ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... men no longer struggle—persist in the effort to triumph over an evil fate, the thunder of which they hear, from time to time, on the horizon of their lives; and when at last they succumb and roll down the precipice of evil, we ought to do them justice and acknowledge these ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac

... at last behind the great hump of towering rock. The place, walled in by beetling precipice, was beginning to darken into cloister-dim shadows. Bud's back was turned and he did not hear the footfall of the two men who had come upon him there. He knew that when once he succumbed to the thirst it meant a parting with reason and a frenzy of violence. But when the first savor of the fiery ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... 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 passage. As he was essential ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... Bible Dict. identifies the modern En-Nazirah, with the Nazareth of old on the following grounds: "It is on the lower declivities of a hill or mountain (Luke 4:29); it is within the limits of the province of Galilee (Mark 1:9); it is near Cana (John 2:1, 2, 11); a precipice exists in the neighborhood (Luke 4:29); and a series of testimonials reaching back to Eusebius represent the place as having occupied the same position." The same writer adds: "Its population is 3000 or 4000; a few are Mohammedans, the rest Latin and Greek Christians. Most of the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the journey's end. At Lockport we are lifted up the precipice over which the Falls of Niagara pour some miles distant. We are now on a level with Lake Erie, to which we have climbed by many locks and lifts over the hills since we left Albany. Soon we travel along the side of the Niagara River; ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... wondrous and charming; every level spot is enamelled with verdure, forests of never-fading bloom cover mountain and valley; flowers of the brightest hues grow in profusion over the plains, and delicate climbing plants, rooted in the shelving rocks, hang in huge festoons down the edge of every precipice. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... those who feel fear, and fight despite it. I maintain that I deserved a Victoria Cross for the grim smile which did not leave my lips as I braced myself for the death-dealing blow. But, as in a dream one finds without surprise that the precipice, over which one is hanging by an eyebrow, obligingly transforms itself into a bank of violets, so did the dragon which had been whirling us to destruction magically change into a swan-like creature skimming just ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... 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, God, and man. Until ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... situation as was the boy. But his mind was quickly brought to the consideration of things which he could understand. Almost at his feet was Maka, lying on his face, his arms and head over the edge of what might be a bank or a bottomless precipice, and yelling piteously. Making a step toward him, the captain saw that he had hold of another man, several feet below him, and that he could not pull ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... are hours when one is just exploring the wilderness like a child. Sometimes perhaps one gets a glimpse from some precipice edge of the plains far away, and houses and roadways, and remembers there is still a busy world of men. And at last one turns one's feet down some slope, some gorge that leads back. You come down, perhaps, into a pine forest, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... superlative loveliness in the wildest environment. Deep down they lie, the two silvery sheets of water with their verdant holms, making a little world of peace and beauty, a toy dropped amid Titanic awfulness and splendour. The vantage ground is on the edge of a dizzy precipice, but the picture thus sternly framed is too exquisite to be easily abandoned. We gaze and gaze in spite of the vast height from which we contemplate it; and when at last we tear ourselves away from the engaging scene, we are in a region all ruggedness and sublimity, on either side rocky ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... thoroughly exhausted when, after a few more struggles, we at last climbed the first cliff and sat on the top, resting and looking about us for a means of escape. It was impossible for us to scale the precipice that stretched along the beach. We must keep to the lower crags at its foot for a mile before we could reach the firm land. This, in the gathering twilight, was a difficult and dangerous thing to attempt. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... the principal citizens of Waterford. Large sums of money were offered for their ransom, but in vain. They were brutally murdered by the English soldiers, who first broke their limbs, and then hurled them from a precipice into the sea. It was the first instalment of the utterly futile theory, so often put in practice since that day, of "striking terror into the Irish;" and the experiment was quite as unsuccessful as all such experiments have ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... early, I had some notion of the bo'sun's design; for I went to the edge that overlooked the valley, and peered down, and, finding it nigh a sheer precipice, found myself nodding my head, as though it were in accordance with some part formed wish. Presently, looking about me, I discovered the bo'sun to be surveying that part which looked over towards ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... the name of this little stream, there is sweet music made by its rippling waters, as they rush rapidly along the shallow channel, fretting at the rocks that obstruct its course, and racing toward a precipice, down which it plunges, some thirty or forty feet, forming a light, feathery cascade; and then, as if exhausted by the leap, creeping sluggishly its little distance toward the broad Hudson. The ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... king, he might expect, would second him, if force became requisite for restraining his discontented subjects, and supporting the measures which, by common consent, they had agreed to pursue. But the king was startled when he approached so dangerous a precipice as that which lay before him. Were violence once offered, there could be no return, he saw, to mutual confidence and trust with his people; the perils attending foreign succors, especially from so mighty a prince, were sufficiently apparent; and the success which his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... there would make you love me less?" I went on, dwelling on the subject with a dreadful fascination, as one looks over the brink of a precipice. ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... troubles. The death of her first son, whom the Emperor wished to adopt, and whom he had intended to be his successor in the Empire, the divorce of her mother, the tragic death of her best-loved friend, Madame de Brocq, who, before her eyes, slipped over a precipice; the overturning of the imperial throne, which caused her the loss of her title and rank as queen, a loss which she, however, felt less than the misfortunes of him whom she regarded as her father; and finally, the continual annoyance of domestic ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... to unite them than any amount of argument. As if they stood on the edge of a precipice they clung together. They knew that they could not separate; painful and terrible it might be, but they were joined for ever. They lapsed into silence, and after a time crept together in silence. Merely to ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... view of the precipice be not sufficient, or whether we must tumble headlong before we ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... up; whilst on another table, at the opposite side of the left ravine, which winds round in the direction of the wall, as nearly as if it were the work of art, stands the other redoubt. Beyond this, again, there is a perpendicular precipice, the hills there abruptly ending; so that on two sides the walls of the fort skirt the extremity of a bare rock. It was along the outer ridges of these ravines, and through the churchyard of St. Etienne, that our trenches were drawn, the village itself being the most advanced British ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... watershed of the Early Victorian time. They alone rise high enough to be confused among the clouds—or perhaps confused among the stars. They certainly were seeking truth, as Newman and Carlyle were; the slow slope of the later Victorian vulgarity does not lower their precipice and pinnacle. But I begin with this name also because it emphasises the idea of modern fiction as a fresh and largely a female thing. The novel of the nineteenth century was female; as fully as the novel of the eighteenth ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... in the extensive grounds, beneath some ancient oaks resembling those seen in English parks. It was a charming spot. Through the openings in the summer foliage you saw the old walls of the hall. At the foot of the hill, the Opequon stole away, around the base of a fir-clad precipice, its right bank lined with immense white-armed sycamores. Beyond, extended a range of hills: and in the far west, the North Mountain mingled its azure billows with the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... times yes!' cried his soul; for he was awake now, and he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice barely escaped. In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its divineness burst upon him. Here was a heart capable of a great tragic love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and what ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... commodore, determined to put that fiery animal (the Arab) to its paces in scouring the country in all directions. It is not often that an assistant adjutant-general sets out on a tour in search of the picturesque; but in this instance the search was completely successful. Rock, ravine, precipice, and dell—running waters and waving woods, come as naturally to his pen as returns of effective force and other professional details; and, whatever the writing of them may be, we are prepared to contend that the reading of them is infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... few minutes after Evans 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 he ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... trimming betwixt the 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, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... small island, with the sea breaking into white foam all around its rocky shore, except on one side, where there was a beach of snowy sand. He descended toward it, and looking earnestly at a cluster or heap of brightness at the foot of a precipice of black rocks, behold, there were the terrible Gorgons! They lay fast asleep, soothed by the thunder of the sea; for it required a tumult that would have deafened everybody else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber. The moonlight glistened on their steely ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... (Appealingly.) Look yer, stranger, don't provoke me, I, a desperate man, desperate and crazed with drink,—don't ye, don't ye do it! For God's sake, take your hands off me! Ye don't know what ye do. Ah! (Wildly, holding STARBOTTLE firmly, and forcing him backward to precipice beyond ledge of rocks.) Hear me. Three years ago, in a moment like this, I dragged a man—my friend—to this precipice. I—I—no! no!—don't anger me now! (Sandy's grip on STARBOTTLE relaxes slightly, and his ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte

... might follow the bluff; and though there was one just back, we never saw our buggies again. Once, following a crescent, far below us lay the water battery concealed by the trees that grew by the water's edge, looking, from where we stood, like quite a formidable precipice. Then still beyond, after leaving the river, we passed through a camp where the soldiers divided their attention equally between eating their supper and staring at us in the most profound silence. Then, through an old gate, down a steep hill, past a long line of rifle-pits, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... countenance, when a great and tortured spirit speaks out from it accusingly to a soul that comprehends. The crushed heart, the ravaged existence, were bared before her in that glance, as clearly as to a wanderer through the night are the rents of the precipice in the flash of the lightning. So they encountered—so, without a word, they parted. To him that moment decided the flight from active life to which his hopeless thoughts had of late been wooing the jaded, weary man. In safety to his very conscience, he would ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the two consulted together. Near them was a hill, one side of which was a precipice. At the base of the precipice ran a path. The result of the consultation was that Yellow Hair left the girl, and making a swift circuit, came upon the precipice from the farther side, and crouched low upon its ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... love is proved by bitterly convicting us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Like Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle, sometimes so overwhelming as to drive us to the verge of despair and self-destruction. We fall not down the precipice, for still there is hope and pardon in his bosom, and at the proper time ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... "There," said the king, standing erect upon his regal throne, "my terrible and invincible hosts, spare neither care nor diligence in removing these prisoners from out of my boundaries, lest they prove the ruin of my country; cast them bound, over the precipice of Despair, with their heads downward. But for the seventh, this Courts Comprised, who threatens me, leave him free over the chasm, beneath the court of Justice, and let him try whether he can make his complaint good against me." Then Death ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... loomed implacable, with the naked cliffs staring grotesquely. It overhung her like immutable fate, silent, pitiless. There was sinister significance in its aspect, for just before her lay the cavernous shadows of the Devil's Cauldron. The girl's gaze went to the verge of the precipice far above. It followed down the wild tumblings of the little stream, fed from lofty springs. It descended in the last long leap of the waters into the churning pool. And she had a vision of the man she loved, bound, and helpless—dead perhaps, shot from behind—and now ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... bright speck of world; he looked languidly after the flights of birds, and grinned as he saw the hawks dart into round holes in the granite wall not much larger than their bodies—those mysterious holes perforating the precipice, seemingly bored there by ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... cliffs of Table Mountain. The houses of the town which fill the space between the hills and the sea were still more or less in shadow, picked out here and there by twinkling lights. On the summit rested a fleecy cloud which concealed the pointed crags and hung from the edges of the precipice like a border of fine drapery. On the right, groups of buildings stretched onwards to Sea Point, where the surf was breaking on the rocks within a few feet of the road; on the left were the more picturesque suburbs of Rosebank, Newlands and Claremont nestling amid their woods and orchards; ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... you are growing dizzy from looking over that fearful, two-foot precipice," said Danvers, adopting Winifred's tone, "I'm going to be the one to save you from a tragic death! I'll go around now, and get ready to ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... ceased, and there was a long silence; and then he told the unspeakable portion of his story by performing these two: "Sternenkranz," "Warum." Who has ever scaled the rapture of the former, or fathomed the pathos of the latter? Every summit implies its precipice; and the star-wreath that crowned Love was snatched at by the Fate which soon burdened two hearts with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... I had no stripping to do, and began my descent by taking hold of the rope with both hands, and slipping down, sometimes with hands and feet round the rope, and sometimes breasting off with one hand and foot against the precipice, and holding on to the rope with the other. In this way I descended until I came to a place which shelved in, and in which the hides were lodged. Keeping hold of the rope with one hand, I scrambled in, and by aid of my feet and the other hand succeeded in dislodging all the hides, and continued ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... the peculiarity was just such as would 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

... uncontrolled tone of the last words disclosed the precarious hold he had over himself. He was like a man defying his own dizziness in high places and tottering suddenly on the very edge of the precipice. Miss Haldin pressed her hand to her breast. The dropped black veil lay on the floor between them. Her movement steadied him. He looked intently on that hand till it descended slowly, and then raised again his eyes to her face. But ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... yearningly after it, a mother's hand fell upon his shoulder, and her sweet voice trembled as she pointed upward, and bade him follow. Then he showed her his empty hand, from which the tiny hand had been drawn, and stepping quickly backward, he plunged headlong over an unseen precipice, and fell, fell far down, where all was darkness; but finding no bottom, and shuddering with the thought that so he must go dizzily rushing through that blackened space to all eternity! But, looking up, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... cathedral. The Cat had never climbed it—trees were the ladders to his heights of life. He had often looked with wonder at the rock, and miauled bitterly and resentfully as man does in the face of a forbidding Providence. At his left was the sheer precipice. Behind him, with a short stretch of woody growth between, was the frozen perpendicular wall of a mountain stream. Before him was the way to his home. When the rabbit came out she was trapped; her little cloven feet could not scale such ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... and one native soldier were fighting hand to hand with a dozen pirates who were forcing their way up the edge of the cliff. Half of the men dashed to their relief just in time to see the soldier go over the precipice locked in the arms of a giant Illanum. One volley from our muskets settled ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... and it seemed to be of that uniform depth as the horses slowly walked along. But suddenly without warning the off horse sank down clear over his back. The next minute the wagon wheels tipped down as if they had run over the edge of a precipice a mile high. ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... and land-owner, who, while often kindly enough and even generous in their way, expected obedience, and who exacted servitude in all matters of opinion. The big people and the cottage folk were two entirely different sets of beings. What a precipice there was between them can hardly be understood by those who have not passed some time in the village life of Britain. A man who took a rabbit or hare from the preserved coverts of game extending for miles in all directions was rigorously prosecuted as a criminal. ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... start, which discomposes 5 The drowsy waters lingering in your eye? And are you really able to descry That precipice ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Where a 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 up beneath the sea to the level at which the ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... impatience of them, that enforces our pity for him. The part which Cordelia bears in the scene is extremely beautiful: the story is almost told in the first words she utters. We see at once the precipice on which the poor old king stands from his own extravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity of her love (which, to be sure, has a little of her father's obstinacy in it) and the hollowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... Jaugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreading out their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from precipice to precipice on to the Matterhorngletscher below—a distance of nearly 4000 feet in height. From the moment the rope broke, it was impossible to help them. So ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... related to one another, since children naturally owe their parents honor. Hence the Philosopher instances a horse (De Animal. ix, 47) which covered its own mother by mistake and threw itself over a precipice as though horrified at what it had done, because some animals even have a natural respect for those that have begotten them. There is not the same essential unbecomingness attaching to other persons who are related ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... as 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

... ratlin-stuff, he threw the line down until certain it reached bottom, at the distance of about six fathoms. Then he caused Stimson to brace himself firmly, holding on to the line, aided by a turn round a rise in the rock, and he boldly lowered himself down the precipice, reaching its base at about the distance he had ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... sand looking off over the blue water veiled with the soft haze of Indian summer. A point covered with pine trees stretched boldly out into the lake, its rocky cliffs rising perpendicularly eighty feet above the beach, a sheer precipice from whose summit a pebble dropped would strike the water below. On the west a stream came rippling over the stones between bluffs high and massive enough for a deep rapid river—bluffs of wild majesty worn into varied outlines, as though ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... in the west. But the "boss" was right: night comes quickly in the mountains, and this night was unusually dark. Leloo had to ride very slowly, for the narrow trail was a mere ledge carved out from the perpendicular walls of the cliffs, which arose on the left, a sheer precipice hundreds of feet above him, and fell away to the right in a yawning chasm, black, and deep and unexplored. But the sure-footed cayuse stepped gingerly and knowingly, neither halting nor stumbling, and his ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... drainage that ever I heard of that will apply up in those regions!" said the doctor, after again a second's delay to speak. "And you are doing my will too much honour now—I tell you it is in a state of stagnation, and I don't at present see any precipice to tumble down. When I do, I'll promise to think of you—if that thought isn't carried away too.—Come, Linden!" he said with more expression of kindliness than Mr. Linden had seen certainly during ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... the slope is found to be steeper, and more difficult than was expected. What from below seemed a gentle acclivity turns out to be almost a precipice—a very common illusion with those unaccustomed to mountain climbing. But they are not daunted—every one of the men has stood on the main truck of a tempest-tossed ship. What to this were even ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... his door a thing calling out to be done! The thing he did not like was always the thing he had to do! he grumbled; but this thing he hated doing! It was abominable! What! send the grand head, with its horns spread wide like a half-moon, and leaning—like oaks from a precipice—send it to the man that made it a dead thing! Never! It must not be left behind! It must go to the grave with the fleet limbs! and over it should rise a monument, at sight of which every friendly highlandman would say, Feiich an cabracli mor de Clanruadli! ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... say, these long tete-a-tetes had not attracted observation. No rumor of them escaped, so that no thorn appeared in this path of roses which led to the brink of a precipice. ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... the gold miners, who were anxious to find a practicable track to the gullies at the foot of Nulla Mountain, to observe a narrow winding way apparently leading over the brow of the precipice on its western face. To their surprise, half hidden by a fallen tree, they discovered a difficult but practicable track down a gully which finally opened out into a broad well-grassed valley of considerable extent, in which cattle and horses ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... mutual emulation, they got possession of the place, for when they had once rushed in, not a stone was hurled from above. But a dreadful spectacle was then to be seen; for the women, flinging their children over the precipice, threw themselves after them; and the men followed their example. AEneas of Stymphalus, a captain, seeing one of them, who had on a rich garment, running to throw himself over, caught hold of it with intent to stop him. But the man dragged ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... women, and in a moment the inner parts were rent to morsels. So, like a flock of birds aloft in flight, they retreat upon the level lands outstretched below, which by the waters of Asopus put forth the fair-flowering crop of Theban people—Hysiae and Erythrae—below the precipice of Cithaeron."— ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... wrought so deeply on thee? Doubt not for a moment, noble Dudley, that we could blame THEE for the folly of thy retainer—thee, whose thoughts we know to be far otherwise employed. He that would climb the eagle's nest, my lord, cares not who are catching linnets at the foot of the precipice." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... then gave my luggage to the guide to carry home, and struck off through the forest, by compass, to the river. I promised myself an exciting scramble down this little-frequented canyon, and a creel full of trout. There was no difficulty in finding the river, or in descending the steep precipice to its bed: getting into a scrape is usually the easiest part of it. The river is strewn with bowlders, big and little, through which the amber water rushes with an unceasing thunderous roar, now plunging down in white falls, then swirling round in dark pools. The day, already past meridian, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over a precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. He committed the murder and couldn't take the money, and what he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn't enough for him ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... dispirited, just as the sun was setting. He turned a sharp angle round an abrupt cliff. He saw a horseman within ten yards of him—Captain Desborough, holding a pistol to his head! Hungry, cold, desperate, unarmed—his pistols had gone with his horse over a precipice—he threw up his arms, and was instantly chained fast to Desborough's saddle, only to be loosed, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... as it were by irresistible force to the verge of a precipice which she saw but could not avoid, permitted not a moment's respite by the eager words and menacing gestures of the offended Queen,—Amy at length uttered in despair, "The Earl ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... walked straight out of the Casino; but uncertainly, feebly, as a man who has received a staggering blow between the eyes, as a man who has been pitched into a mountain-pool in January, as a somnambulist who has wakened to find himself on the edge of a precipice. ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... by Arabs of a tribe called "the Ravens." But the prophet's hiding-place was certainly on the other side of the Jordan, and this Wadi is probably the Valley of Achor, spoken of in the Book of Joshua. On the opposite side of the canyon, half-way down the face of the precipice, clings the monastery of Saint George, one of the pious penitentiaries to which the Greek Church assigns unruly and ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... to the precipice that testified to the vanished river. I climbed its worn face, and went on into the desert. There at last, after much listening to and fro, I determined the spot where the hidden water was loudest, hung Lilith's hand about my neck, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... through the chasm, and the boulder became a subject for history. It disappeared, thus partially explaining how it was originally lodged in its former resting place. A short distance below the Flume are the Georgiana Falls, where the water descends for more than a hundred feet over a sheer precipice. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... low level, terminates at Plan del Rio, the site of the American camp, from which the road ascends immediately in a long circle among the lofty hills, whose commanding points had all been fortified and garrisoned by the enemy. His right, intrenched, rested on a precipice overhanging an impassable ravine that forms the bed of the stream; and his intrenchments extended continuously to the road, in which was placed a formidable battery. On the other side the lofty and ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... hundred feet above the sea-level. We had almost passed the rock and nothing of the kind could be seen; but Capt. Riis, who was on deck, encouraged us to have a little patience, changed the steamer's course, and presently we saw a dark cavern yawning in the face of a precipice on the northern side. It was now midnight, but a sunset light tinged the northern sky, and the Torghatten yet stood in twilight. "Shall we see through it?" was the question; but while we were discussing the chances, a faint star sparkled ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... its perpendicular face into a series of partially connected religious edifices, the most remarkable of which is a cathedral as colossal as St. Peter's, and completely relieved from the bluff on all sides save the rear, where a portico joins it with the main precipice. The perfect symmetry of this marvellous structure would ravish Michel Angelo. So far from requiring an effort of imagination to recognize the propriety of its name, this church almost staggers belief in the unassisted naturalness of its architecture. It belongs to a style entirely its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... like an immense, slow-moving morass. Born of the arduous tropic sun and chill snows, and imbued by the river god with the nomadic instinct, it leaps from its pinnacled cradle and rushes, sparkling with youthful vigor, down precipice and perpendicular cliff; down rocky steeps and jagged ridges; whirling in merry, momentary dance in shaded basins; singing in swirling eddies; roaring in boisterous cataracts, to its mad plunge over the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... whose unspent penny was burning a hole in her temper, "you are getting too big to talk like that. Late big lecipice! Say, great big precipice." ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... Finally something went wrong with one of our two guns, and Theron being hard pressed, with the reserve too far away to render immediate help, the order was given to retire. The artillerists profited by the occasion to tumble the damaged gun down a precipice, saying that they had had enough of repairing it. Here it was found by the enemy the next day. A rush was made for the mountain passes, as it was feared the enemy might occupy them and cut off our retreat, but this was not ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... gentleman was at once very prudent, very harsh and austere, very tenacious in his resolutions, and wedded to his own notions—which is the occasion for the greatest errors in princes; for by not yielding, in matters that self-love adopts as certain, they allow themselves to be carried over any precipice. This passion was greatly predominant in that gentleman and was the cloud that obscured other talents, worthy of esteem, that adorned him. Immediately occasions of dispute arose between the two, not because Guerrero tried to meddle with the civil government, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... runner at college and his muscles had not forgotten their old training. Yet it seemed to him an age ere he reached Four Winds, secured the rope, and returned. At every flying step he was haunted by the thought of the girl lying on the brink of the precipice and the fear that she might slip over it before he could rescue her. When he reached the scene of the accident he dreaded to look over the broken edge, but she was lying there safely and she smiled when she saw him—a brave smile ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... 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 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... France on to the brink of a precipice, and he had in his turn been led on by her; king and people had given themselves up unreservedly to the passion for glory and to the intoxication of success; the day of awakening ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... hundred feet, until she gained a little natural terrace, thinly scattered with trees, that grew in the fissures of the rocks, which were covered by a scanty soil. She had advanced to the edge of this platform, and was gazing over the perpendicular precipice that formed its face, when a rustling among the dry leaves near her drew her eyes in another direction. Our heroine certainly was startled by the object that she then saw, but a moment restored her self-possession, and she advanced ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... footpath described by the landlord. It led straight up a steep shoulder of rock which at its highest part became a ledge; and when they had climbed to the top, at a distance they could see a cluster of red roofs apparently falling down a precipice, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... frequent are the curves on some parts of the ascent, that on looking out of the window one could seldom see more than a part of the train at once. At Cape Horn, where the track curves round the ledge of a precipice 2,500 feet in depth, it is correct to be frightened, and a fashion of holding the breath and shutting the eyes prevails, but my fears were reserved for the crossing of a trestle bridge over a very deep chasm, which is itself approached by a sharp curve. This bridge appeared to be ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... boast a thousand fountains that can cast The tortured waters to the distant heavens; Yet let me choose some pine-topped precipice Abrupt and shaggy, whence a foamy stream, Like Anio, tumbling roars; or some black heath Where straggling stands the mournful juniper, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... flames leaped on exultantly. They leapt chasms like a waterfall taking a precipice. Now they are here, now there, always pressing on into the west and through to ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... and raised his sword as if he would smite them with it; but he said nothing. So they were in great fear, and turned from him and went back in great sorrow of heart, wandering they knew not whither, until they found themselves standing on the top of a rock, and before their feet was a precipice. And Adam was so miserable that he desired to live no longer; and he cast himself down from the top of the rock, and lay on the ground below without moving; and Eve thought that he was dead, and said, "I will not live ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James

... not think there were more than two there. They ascended and descended the cliff with ease, though not, of course, the straight wall or precipice. He had known them fall over and be dashed to pieces, as when fighting on the edge, or in winter by the snow giving way under them. As the snow came drifting along the summit of the Down it gradually formed a projecting eave or cornice, projecting the length ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... scarce a spear's length from his haunch Vindictive toiled the bloodhounds staunch; Nor nearer might the dogs attain, Nor farther might the quarry strain. Thus up the margin of the lake, Between the precipice and brake, O'er stock and rock their ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... his perishable body with nails of brass, or still worse; down there the pain for that deed shall be as hard as any in this world: even as if one should by force throw his perishable body headlong down a precipice a hundred times the height of a man, or still worse; down there the pain for that deed shall be as hard as any in this world: even as if one should by force impale his perishable body, or still worse; down there the pain for this deed shall be as hard ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... neglected staircase, scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris. Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice; they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been purchased by the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... long grey back and a bushy tail were visible as the wolf glided among the rocks, making for the side of the precipice, with the intention, doubtless, of rushing past ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... from us; and directly in the line on which we were moving. The nature of the ground so completely favoured our approach, that they did not become aware of it until we were within a few yards of them, and had ascended a little ridge, which, as we afterwards discovered, ended in an abrupt precipice upon the river, not more than thirty yards to our right. The crack of the drayman's whip was the first thing that aroused their attention. They gazed upon us for a moment, and then started up and assumed an attitude of horror and amazement; their terror ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... 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 ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... dark gloom in my solitary chamber, when I at length returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed again, fell—off a tower and down a precipice—into the depths of sleep. I have an impression that for a long time, though I dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was always blowing in my dream. At length, I lost that feeble hold upon reality, and was engaged with two dear friends, but who they were ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... he heard the sword of his son, and asked "on what particular part he had dealt the blow?" Then the retainers answered that it had gone through no one limb, but the man's whole frame; whereat Wermund drew back from the precipice and came on the bridge, longing now as passionately to live as he had just wished to die. Then Uffe, wishing to destroy his remaining foe after the fashion of the first, incited the prince with vehement words ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... entering in renouncing their habitual ways of life appears itself as dreadful to them. It is all very well to dread the unknown when our habitual position is sound and secure. But our position is so far from being secure that we know, beyond all doubt, that we are standing on the brink of a precipice. If we must be afraid let us be afraid of what is really alarming, and not what ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... generally covered with moss or earth, and earth with vegetation, that untravelled Englishmen and Americans are not very familiar with naked rock as a conspicuous element of landscape. Hence, in their conception of a bare cliff or precipice, they hardly ascribe definite color to it, but depict it to their imagination as wearing a neutral tint not assimilable to any of the hues with which nature tinges her atmospheric or paints her organic creations. There are certainly extensive desert ranges, chiefly limestone ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... mighty hooks—the latter to feed the cattle, should they be compelled to camp out on some sterile spot on the Veldt, and methinks to act as buffers, should the whole concern roll down a nullah or little precipice, no very uncommon incident in the blessed region they must pass to ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... at the last hour, concur to keep her suspended on the hither brink of the precipice.—The winter chances to be exceptionally mild.[4297] The vegetables which make up for the absence of bread and meat provide food for April and May, while the remarkably fine harvest, almost spontaneous, is three ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... to be little hope, for not a foot of standing-room was to be seen on the rocky sides of the vast black precipice upon which they were driving headlong. ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... sides of which and the neighboring hillside seem to have been burnt over by fire, and baked of many colors, like the neighborhood of an old brick kiln. Any one who has seen the island of St. Helena will at once recognize it as the same phenomenon which is famous in the 'Hangings,' the blasted precipice by the side of Longwood Farm, overhanging the valley which Napoleon chose for his last resting place. This striking similarity is all the more worthy of note from its occurring there in a purely volcanic ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... author wishes to 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 and guided ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... men absorb all the political extravagances of their day, he had stood by the side of law and government, though the popular cry was a frenzied one for "liberty." Moreover, he had held back his whole chafing and stamping tribe from a precipice of disaster, and had secured valuable recognition of their office-holding capacities from that really good governor and princely Irishman whose one act of summary vengeance upon a few insurgent office-coveters has branded him in ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... forget, not this hour of mingled tenderness and doubt, but the words of that madman. Jules, you must. Promise me not to see him, not to go to him. I have a deep conviction that if you set one foot in that maze we shall both roll down a precipice where I shall perish—but with your name upon my lips, your heart in my heart. Why hold me so high in that heart and yet so low in reality? What! you who give credit to so many as to money, can you not give me the charity of faith? And on the first occasion ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... storm. He may "lead thee about," but He will not lead thee wrong. Unutterable tenderness is the characteristic of all His dealings. "Blessed be His name," says a tried believer, "He maketh my feet like hinds' feet" (literally, "equaleth" them), "he equaleth them for every precipice, every ascent, ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... hospitality, for his protection. This was fatal to those who were driven upon the western coast of Cyprus. The natives of Curium made it a rule to destroy all such, under an appearance of a religious rite. Whoever laid their hands upon the altar of Apollo, were cast down the precipice, upon which it stood. [678][Greek: Euthus estin akra, aph' hes rhiptousi tous hapsamenous tou bomou tou Apollonos]. Strabo speaks of the practice, as if it subsisted in his time. A like custom prevailed at the Tauric Chersonesus, as we are informed by Herodotus. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... youth to whom the flavour of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise look upon my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will—to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself—to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise—to hear ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... throw out the water. After having long sustained the violence of the raging waves, by managing their little boat very dexterously, they suffer themselves to be carried away with the impetuous torrent as swift as an arrow. The affrighted spectator imagines they are going to be swallowed up in the precipice down which they fall; when the Nile, restored to its natural course, discovers them again, at a considerable distance, on its smooth and calm waters. This is Seneca's account, which is ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... road, and the Road of Spears, that is the blood road. I see you travelling on the Road of Medicine, that is my own road, Saduko, and growing wise and great, till at last, far, far away, you vanish over the precipice to which it leads, full of years and honour and wealth, feared yet beloved by all men, white and black. Only that road you must travel alone, since such wisdom may have no friends, and, above all, no woman to share its secrets. Then I look at the Road ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... you will come across a track, and will follow it breathlessly for hours, and it will lead to a sheer precipice. Whether the explanation is suicide, or a reprehensible tendency on the part of the animal towards practical joking, you are left to decide for yourself. Then, with many rough miles between you and your rest, you ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome

... bridge for a little, fascinated, wondering what was to become of it next in the tumult of waters till he came to the falls, where he had looked for a check to it. But it stayed no more than a moment on the lip of the precipice swung up a jagged edge above the deep, then crashed into the linn, where it seemed to swerve and turn, giddy with its adventure. Gilian stood spellbound on the banks looking at it so far down, then he turned, and cutting off the bend of the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... through 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

... yet. They say that Rome Sprang from a wolf. I fear my dear lord mixt With some conspiracy against the wolf. This mountain shepherd never dream'd of Rome. (Sings.) 'Safe from the wolf to the fold'—— And that great break of precipice that runs Thro' all the wood, where twenty years ago Huntsman, and hound, and deer were all neck-broken! Nay, ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... propose the sacrilege. They realized the importance of establishing the order in the North. The leaders saw with delight the working of secret organizations, where men were sworn to secrecy, and drawn onward step by step, till they reached the very brink of the fearful precipice. Thus did the people fasten upon themselves and each other the shackles of slavery, which they have since so unwillingly worn. The doctrine of State sovereignty proclaimed by John C. Calhoun, and which, together with its apostles, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... to Megara he slew Skeiron by flinging him down a precipice into the sea, so the story runs, because he was a robber, but some say that from arrogance he used to hold out his feet to strangers and bid them wash them, and that then he kicked the washers ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... the Killer of Souls pass on till they come to Naindelinde, one of the highest peaks of the Kauvandra mountains. Here the path ends abruptly on the brink of a precipice, the foot of which is washed by a deep lake. Over the edge of the precipice projects a large steer-oar, and the handle is held either by the great god Ndengei himself or, according to the better opinion, by his deputy. When a ghost comes up and peers ruefully over the precipice, the deputy accosts ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... which only became more and more inconceivable as the eye strove to ascend it, was passing behind the tower with a steady march, whose swiftness must in reality have been that of a tempest: yet, along all the ravines of vapor, precipice kept pace with precipice, ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin

... declivity with a precipitous face was in front of us, which strained your eyes to look at; yet high up to the summit and to the very edge of the precipice, little farmsteads are dotted, and every yard of land available is under cultivation. So steep is it that the scanty soil must be washed away, you think, at the first rains, and only an adventurous goat could dwell there in comfort. My laoban, Enjeh, pointing to this mighty mass, said, "Pin su ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... whilst Ricardo stood there crying. Her repose was too dominating. And if he touched her something terrible and incalculable might happen. He felt as though he were standing on the edge of a precipice, and that suddenly he might let ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... Kee-too, which juts into the midst of the cluster of islands, the wind suddenly failed us; and the current hurried us with such velocity directly towards the point, that we expected momentarily to be dashed in pieces; but on coming within twice the length of the ship of the perpendicular precipice, which was some hundred feet high, the eddy swept her round three several times with great rapidity. The Captain would have dropped the anchor, but an old Chinese fisherman, whom we had taken on board to pilot us, made signs that it was too deep, and, at the same time, that there was no danger, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... careful, Gypsy," called her father, nervously; "I'm really almost afraid to have you go. You might come to the precipice sooner, than you expect, and then the ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... lawful for anyone to restrain a man for a time from doing some unlawful deed there and then: as when a man prevents another from throwing himself over a precipice, or from striking another. But to him alone who has the right of disposing in general of the actions and of the life of another does it belong primarily to imprison or fetter, because by so doing he hinders him from doing not only evil but also ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... thy slopes of radiance beamy Spirit, fair with womanhood! Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy, Climb unto the hour of good. Dumb space will be rent asunder, Now the shining column stands Ready to be crowned with wonder By ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... Brilliana, blown apart, as it were, by the breath of the King's merriment, regarded the monarch with very different feelings. Though he stood upon the edge of peril's precipice, at the threshold of death's temple, Evander could not scrutinize without vivid and conflicting emotions the face of the man because of whom the solid realm of England seemed to be dissolving into anarchy. This was the King of ship-money, the heart's-brother ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... or by nature to the production of species. Employing a favorite metaphor, he said: "If an architect were to rear a noble and commodious edifice without the use of cut stone, by selecting from the fragments at the base of a precipice wedge-form stones for his arches, elongated stones for his lintels, and flat stones for his roof, we should admire his skill and regard him as the paramount power. Now, the fragments of stone, though indispensable ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... place where there was a high cliff overhanging the sea. Here John drew his sword, and, riding up to Arthur, suddenly ran him through the body. Arthur cried aloud, and begged for mercy as he fell from his horse to the ground; but John dragged him to the edge of the precipice, and threw him over into the sea while he was ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... No-foo-gong and a rocky precipice towers up on the west shore, something like a thousand feet high. The crackling of fire-crackers innumerable and the report of larger and noisier explosions attract my attention as we gradually crawl up toward it; and coming nearer, flocks of pigeons are observed ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... 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

... feel she was innocent; you are of the same opinion, and that confirms me. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. William and Justine were assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free, and perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer on the scaffold ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... leap up in value; and his judgment had been right. His prosperity had all come since George went away with Cassy Mavor. His anger at George had been the more acute, because the thing happened at a time when his affairs were on the edge of a precipice. He had won through it, but only by the merest shave, and it had all left him with a bad spot in his heart, in spite of his "having religion." Whenever he remembered George he instinctively thought of those black days when a Land and Cattle Syndicate was ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... not get that profit out of the Earl's daughter to which he thought he himself had the sole right. He fought in wild despair, striking out, clinging to Jack's arms and legs, and throwing his weight on him in the mad effort to bear him down, or force him over the precipice. Jack could not understand his insane fury, and tried at first simply to overpower him, in order to hear what he was about, and ask him questions. But Thomas had no intention of being questioned. He wanted to get rid of this man once and for all. If Estelle had not screamed, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... from land see the glow, and we here, on the precipice above, can read ordinary print ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various

... behind. The crosses of the past week, of the day before, of two days before, extended in a line down the slope; they glided along, plunged suddenly downward, and seemed to be taking long strides as if they were in danger of being carried over a precipice. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... mankind is too busy and too poor for the long and expensive sieges which the professed libertine lays to virtue. Still, wherever there is idleness or even a reasonable supply of elegant leisure there is a good deal of coquetry and philandering. It is so much pleasanter to dance on the edge of a precipice than to go over it that leisured society is full of people who spend a great part of their lives in flirtation, and conceal nothing but the humiliating secret that they have never gone any further. For there is ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw

... side of Case’s hill goes down near as steep as a precipice into the next valley. We were on the very edge of it, and I could see the dead wood shine and hear the sea sound far below. I didn’t care about the position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change. ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... After thoroughly enjoying the view to the south, Mr. Waterman turned away and they went in a northeasterly direction. In a little while they came to another side of the mountain. In a short time Mr. Waterman led them out onto a bold rocky precipice that stood out from the mountain. They looked down into a gulch hundreds of feet below. They gazed at an immense coliseum, the sides of which were lined with giant trees. It was the wildest bit of scenery that the ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton

... fight about the ship of Protesilaus. Then Patroclus drew near to Achilles with tears welling from his eyes, as from some spring whose crystal stream falls over the ledges of a high precipice. When Achilles saw him thus weeping he was sorry for him and said, "Why, Patroclus, do you stand there weeping like some silly child that comes running to her mother, and begs to be taken up and carried—she ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... for this indomitable love, outdoing the most ingenious marvels of fairy tales in real life—a love that would spring over a precipice to find a roc's egg, or to gather the singing flower. I explained that the Southern Cross was a nebulous constellation even brighter than the Milky Way, arranged in the form of a cross, and that it could only be ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac



Words linked to "Precipice" :   precipitous, cliff



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