Palatine Hill

“ Civilization impinges on humanity in Pennsylvania perhaps not more unfairly or cruelly than elsewhere; but the contrasts are shockingly apparent.
But we came to look at the hills and the river, not at the social relativities. And the hills are as sadly marked as the human moles who burrow into them. There is no desecration of a mountain so blighting as the sinking of a mine into its heart. The dark mouth of the shaft, high up on the side of the hill, is repulsive as a cancer to the eye searching for beauty. ”

“ Notwithstanding that Pollard's Hill is only a small elevation, and its rise scarcely noticed when approached from the London Road, when its summit is gained one is astonished by the extensive and splendid view it commands over hills and valleys, town and country; and it breaks upon one almost as a startling surprise when its beauties are seen for the first time. ”

“ Of all the Plantation Homes we loved and visited, the brightest, sweetest memories cluster around Grove Hill; a grand old place in the midst of scenery lovely and picturesque, to reach which, we made a journey across the Blue Ridge—those giant mountains from whose winding road and lofty heights we had glimpses of exquisite scenery in the valleys below.
Thus winding slowly around these mountain heights and peeping down from our old carriage windows we beheld nature in its wildest luxuriance. The deep solitude; the glowing sunlight over rock, forest and glen ”

“ Descending the slope of the ridge that divides Gold Hill from Virginia City a strange scene attracts the eye. He who gazes upon it for the first time is apt to doubt if it be real. Perhaps there is not another spot upon the face of the globe that presents a scene so weird and desolate in its natural aspect, yet so replete with busy life, so animate with human interest. It is as if a wondrous battle raged, in which the combatants were man and earth. ”

“ It stands on the brow of a hill which bounds one side of the wealthy and picturesque valley that winds along from Huddersfield to Penistone. It boasts one main street, which sidles along down the hill-side with here and there a clever curve, just enough to prevent you from taking a full-length view of the street; on and down it goes, the houses on the one side looking down on those opposite, and evidently having the advantages of being higher up in the world than their neighbours, until it terminates in the highroad leading out of the village towards Honley and Penistone. ”

“ You walk out with the conviction that consistency is a jewel, and tread a pavement that is classical to every lover of books. Paternoster Row receives you, and you slowly saunter through it. Nobody walks rapidly through Paternoster Row. Situated midway between the bustle and turmoil of Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, it is a kind of resting-place for pedestrians. They breathe the more quiet air of bookland there, and the windows are a temptation which few loiterers can withstand. ”

“ Back to the shadow of Kiley's Hill.
One is away on the roving quest,
Seeking his share of the golden spoil;
Out in the wastes of the trackless west,
Wandering ever he gives the best
Of his years and strength to the hopeless toil. ”

“ The Plain, at the Foot of this Hill, is very different. The Eastern Part of it is much widen’d by the Sea Shore, which jets out in a semicircular Manner. The Breadth of the South-east and northern Part of it is encreased by the Valley, which divides the first from the second Hill. The Plain on the Top of the Hill is about seven hundred Paces in Length. This Hill is not only fortified by Nature, as being encompassed on the East by the Bosporus, on the North by the Bay of Ceras, and on the West by a cool Valley ”

“ Fillan's Hill, we are yet high enough to get a glimpse of that gem of Highland lochs—Loch Earn, set literally at the feet of the hills, its waters murmuring a never ceasing song, as if happy with their near presence, having wooed and kissed their steep and rugged sides into silver strands and gently curving bays from end to end ”

“ Past it and Pallington, whose hill and hilltop firs, known as Pallington Clump, are conspicuous for great distances, we turn to the left and explore a portion of Egdon Heath towards Bryan’s Piddle and Bere Regis. Everywhere the wilds now stretch forth and seem to bid defiance to the best efforts of the cultivator, but down at the hamlet of Hurst, where water is plentiful, there is an ancient red-brick farm p. ”

“ North Hill is so striking a feature in all views of the town, that one comes unconsciously to regard it as the only typical outstanding feature of the place. It is, so far as pictures go, Minehead. A noble hill it is, with the old quayside houses of the original fisher-village and ancient little port nestling beneath it. Immemorially a swelling green hillside, seamed and lined irregularly with hedgerows roughly into a chessboard pattern, it is distressing nowadays to find it being studded with villas and scarred with roads. ”

“ He could even see Landing City itself on the horizon, a smudge of rusting, corrugated steel shacks, muddy streets, and the small rocket port—a scorched thirty acres or so fenced off with barbed wire.
Karl looked out of the corner of his eye at Hill and felt a vague wave of uneasiness. Hill was a big, thick man wearing the soiled clothes and bristly stubble of a man who was used to living alone and who liked it. But once he took a wife, he would probably have to keep himself in clean clothes and shave every few days. ”

“ Continuing on the trunk line two miles, a turn is made to the left, the highway approaching a rugged elevation on the left side of the road. This outcrop of sandstone is known locally as Rocky Point or Violet Hill, from the abundance of violets which carpet its slopes in the spring. Violent Hill would perhaps be a better appellation as the point has been responsible for a number of serious accidents. ”

“ Back of Court-house Hill another street, starting parallel to Court Street, rapidly loses its sense of direction and its original character of a business street, wavers to right and left, past a scatter of discouraged looking houses, and finally slants off in the general direction of the woods at the edge of the town, and the abortive, sparsely wooded hill known to generations of picnickers—not the élite of the town, but humbler, more rowdy picnickers—as Mountain Rock. ”

“ We’re perfectly aware of each other’s neighborhood now. This is the way of it.
This afternoon, being tired of the continual drilling on the parade ground, I slipped away before it could begin, and leaving the Colonel at his nap, went walking out a gravel road that I’ve for some time wished to explore. It took me 86 along a rather desolate tract of scrub land, with nothing ahead but the distant Adirondacks; so at last, seeing a little hill to the left, I thought I’d try if I could see the lake from it, and perhaps sit there awhile in quiet. ”

“ The hill, with its approaches so steep as to suggest to the imaginative the pathway winding up some rock-bound fastness of the Highlands, successfully defies organ-grinders and motor-buses and other aspirants to the membership in the great society for the propagation of street noises. As you near the summit, the quiet becomes more pronounced until you might fancy yourself a thousand leagues, instead of as many yards, removed from the busy commerce of Kensington or the rather strident activity of Notting Hill. ”

“ A cliff on the right gradually merges into the rounded swell of a green hill; we come to a plantation where, in the open places by the beck, grow wild strawberries; then to trees on one side—ash, holly, beech, and larch, the stems embraced by ivy, and thorns and wild roses between; then trees on both sides, and the narrow track is beautiful as a Berkshire lane—and that is saying a great deal—and the brook which accompanies it makes a cheerful sound [Pg 202] as if gladdened by the quivering sunbeams that fall upon it. ”

“ The hills are covered with pine and olive trees, vines and oaks. There is soon attained a perfect view over the whole town of Nice, when it will be seen how commanding is the position occupied by the Castle Hill. Across the valley are Cimiez and St. Pons. At the first bend, as the height is climbed, is a tablet to mark the spot where two racing motorists were killed. When the road turns round the northern end of Mont Gros a fine view of the Paillon valley is displayed. This valley is much more attractive at a distance than near at hand. ”

“ Passing up the hill, a few new streets are being pushed into the fields, which are, however, still continuous to the westward, the limit of building being apparently reached for a time in that direction, and, after a short climb past fine houses with spacious grounds and drives, we come to Putney Heath near the Green Man, a quaint little road-house of the last century ”

“ V2 Meanwhile Bouquet's men pushed on the heavy work of road-making up the main range of the Alleghanies, and, what proved far worse, the parallel mountain ridge of Laurel Hill, hewing, digging, blasting, laying fascines and gabions to support the track along the sides of steep declivities, or worming their way like moles through the jungle of swamp and forest. Forbes described the country to Pitt as an "immense uninhabited wilderness, overgrown everywhere with trees and brushwood, so that nowhere can one see twenty yards." ”

“ On our map we saw Alconbury Hill marked{104} right on our road of to-day, also we found it noted in our Paterson, therefore we expected to have some stiff collar-work, for we reasoned to ourselves, when an Ordnance map makes prominent mention of a hill it means climbing for us; so we were surprised to find the hill only a gentle, though rather long, rise, with a descent on the other side to correspond—trotting-ground every inch of the way. ”

“ It is a hilly district, revealed in these times by ascending and descending vistas of roads and roof-tops, instead of the grass and fields of yore; and Loampit Hill—the “Loam Pit Hole” of Rocque’s map of 1745—is just a little interlude in the commonplace, where an old retaining-wall in the hill-top sliced through in a bygone era serves to keep the banks and the houses now built hazardously on them from settling in the roadway. A number of old hollies give the spot something of an old-world look. ”

“ In some localities the ravages were far more dreadful than in others; Up Park camp, Spanish town, Fort Augusta, and Stony hill were among the fatal number, and at a small place on Kingston harbour, called Greenwich, no human being could exist. ”

“ The eye still keeping its circuit, looks over a fine level of three thousand acres, once intended as the scite of a town to be called Allegheny, to be the capital of the county, but the situation of Pittsburgh being very properly judged more convenient, it has eventually become the seat of justice of the county, and the most flourishing inland town in the United States. A chain of irregular hills, not so steep, but nearly as high as Coal hill, bounds this level, and completes the Panorama. ”

“ Let those who have not a lively picture in their mind of the prospect from the Calton Hill walk along the line of the projected road, and upon attending to it they will meet88 with such a richness and variety of scenery as will satisfy them how greatly the ornament of the city, and the pleasures of the inhabitants and of its occasional visitants, would be promoted by the continuation of the line of Princes Street towards the lands of Calton Hill. ”

“ The modern wayfarer is not so easily rid of the Great City, whose low-pitched roar not only follows him to these northern heights, but pursues him, clamant, onwards through Finchley, and whose rising tide of houses now laps the crest of Highgate Hill and spills over the brim, in driblets of new suburban streets, like a brick and mortar Deluge. ”

“ This street is a continuation of Cheapside, but is not used much as a thoroughfare, though it communicates by transverse alleys or courts with St. Paul’s Churchyard, and, at its western extremity, by means of Ave-Maria Lane, leads into Ludgate Hill. Paternoster Row, or ‘the Row,’ as it is familiarly termed, is a dull street, only wide enough at certain points to permit two vehicles to pass each other, with a narrow pavement on each side. The houses are tall and sombre in their aspect, and the shops below have a dead look, in comparison with those in the more animated streets. ”

“ In the wide gap between these ranges of hills—beyond the stone pines and ilex groves of Præneste—the far perspective is closed by a glorious vision of the snow-crowned mountains of the Abruzzi, giving an air of alpine grandeur to the view. And all this vast and varied landscape, comprehending all glories of nature and art, all zones and climates, from the tropical aloes and palms of the Pincian Hill to the arctic snows of the Apennines, is seen through air that acts upon the spirits like wine, and gives the ideal beauty of a picture to the meanest things. ”

“ Seebohm's "English Village Community." They may remember seeing in that book a plan of a "toot-hill" which adjoins the churchyard at Pirton, and also a plan of another artificial hill which is close to the church at Meppcrshall. It is not an uncommon thing to find artificial mounds near old churches, and the late Mr. ”

“ Southwest of the village is a lofty ridge, on which the American army lay encamped. Upon its gentle slope toward the road to old Tappan, Major André was executed. Travelers passing up the Hudson, and viewing with astonishment the mighty amorphous wall of the Palisades, along the western shore, have no idea of the beauty and fertility of the country in the rear. The Palisades, so bare and precipitous in front, present a heavily-wooded slope in the rear, reaching down into a plain of great fertility. ”