"Bolster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fear, has forgot Britain." Her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false imputations and his designs against herself, is a good lesson to prudes; and may shew that where there is a real attachment to virtue, it has no need to bolster itself up with an outrageous or affected antipathy to vice. The scene in which Pisanio gives Imogen his master's letter, accusing-her of incontinency on the treacherous suggestions of Iachimo, is as touching as it is ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Harry!" and down goes George's head on the pillow again, and he takes his pencil and notebook from under his bolster, and falls to polishing his verses, as Harry, with his cloak over his shoulder and a little valise in his hand, walks to the inn in Holborn whence the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... next morning the decision of Chief Justice Bolster to try each prisoner separately and in closed court, they all protested against such proceedings. But guards took the women by force to a private room. "The Matron, who was terrified," said Miss Morey, "shouted to the guards, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... entirely crushed; the sooner it is so altogether the better, for no good can be expected from it, and it would be far better to erect a Conservative party upon a new and broader basis than to try and bolster up this worn-out, prejudiced, obstinate faction. But the times are difficult and men are wanting; the middle classes are pressing on, and there are men enough there of fortune, energy, activity, zeal, and ambition—no Cannings perhaps or Broughams, but a host of fellows ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... them out. It's the divine foolishness of women's love that serves their need, that makes them feel after better things. No woman ever won a man by despising him. He may be inferior—he is—but he wants real love to bolster him up. I guess the dear Lord thought of that when He ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... Archie and Jamie, lay tossed about in a tangle of bare limbs and blankets. Elizabeth brushed back her hair from her sleepy eyes, and peered into the dim room. The green paper blinds were partly raised, and she could discern through the gloom John's black head on the bolster beside Malcolm's fair one. The black head was hanging half out of bed and its mouth was wide open. Elizabeth giggled softly. She longed to stuff something into that yawning cavity; but she knew that dire consequences ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... after the manner of a mediaeval fortress. Here she seems to have passed her time in encouraging the Druzes to rise against Ibrahim Pasha, intriguing against the British consuls, and attempting to bolster up the declining authority of the Sultan. In the intervals of political business she occupied herself with superintending her building and gardening operations, physicking the sick, and tyrannising over her numerous servants. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... It was still doing splendid work, having daily services and extending its educational influence for miles around. There was but scanty comfort for its inmates, who rested on a straw mattress and bolster on their narrow bedstead in a bare cell, and whose food, duties and discipline were marked by an austere simplicity. Nor were they idle, these monks of Glastonbury—some taught in the abbey school, others ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... with humid kisses, and, slowly rising, he bent towards her face, which she again began to hide. Suddenly he threw one arm across the bed, winding it around his wife over the clothes, and slipped his other arm under the bolster, which he raised with her head upon it; then he asked, in ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... their sentry had disappeared, their fears were in no way allayed, and as though to bolster their courage by warlike actions, they began to fire rapidly at the barred gates of the village, although no enemy was in sight. Tarzan took advantage of the deafening roar of this fusillade to fire into ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was nearly seventy feet above the ground, while the only way of leaving the court was by a door reserved for the governor alone, the key of which was always carried about his person. By day it was suspended from his belt, by night it was under his bolster. To gain possession of this key was the most difficult ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... air, with slow and emphatic gestures. Maurice was already sound asleep, with the tranquillity of death resting on his face, on a bed that had been improvised for him beside the stove, and Henriette was busying herself about a sofa on which a mattress had been thrown; she brought in a bolster, pillow and coverings; with nimble, dexterous hands she spread the white sheets, snowy white, dazzling in ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Peter and his men slept soundly. No prowling robber came to disturb them, and, as they were distributed in separate rooms, they did not even have a bolster battle in ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... respectability. It would have been proper for the learned counsel on the part of the plaintiff, if he thought the witnesses on the part of the respondent unworthy of belief, to have proved them so; but instead of that, he attempts to bolster up men, who, whether respectable or otherwise, from their inconsistency, involutions and tergiversations in regard to this case, produce no possible effect upon the judicial mind, but that which is unfavorable to themselves. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... extraordinary. Could she be laughing at him? The prospect of a new building had been, it was true, a joke for many years and evidently she put no more confidence in the statement than he did himself. "Of course, you are aware," he continued to bolster his assertion, "that the road has been bought by an immensely rich lot ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... and was not able to find it again. The wounds upon the hand of the dead man indicated his having caught and struggled to hold the blade of the weapon with which he was assailed. The impression of a bloody hand thrust under the bolster, where it was Sir Wynston's habit to place his purse and watch, when making his arrangements for the night, supplied the motive of this ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... it for him and began to ask how he was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place. The doctor was very much ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... door, and saw a bare feather-bed and bolster, the usual materiel in an unoccupied college chamber. "Seeing's believing," said ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... stolen up beside him, went out and caught her hand and held it in a grip that hurt. "I know, boy. And one day in the glad future I shall call upon you—who knows?—to attend a similar ceremony on my behalf, and in which Mr. Narkom here has promised to act as best man—with Dollops to bolster him up if he should be attacked with nerves. Now be off with you and—be happy. We'll see you later at the Towers, ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... and—worse still—with all its shams and commonplaces. When we read Othello, we only behold the tempest of the passions and the wreck of a great soul; but when we see Othello, we are affronted by the colour of the Moor's skin, and are brought face to face with the vulgarities of the bolster!" ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... overview: Domestically, the European Union attempts to lower trade barriers, adopt a common currency, and move toward convergence of living standards. Internationally, the EU aims to bolster Europe's trade position and its political and economic power. Because of the great differences in per capita income (from $10,000 to $28,000) and historic national animosities, the European Community faces difficulties in devising and enforcing common policies. For example, both Germany and France ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... cot were some very wide windows, and three windows were filled with galleons of cloud—fat, bolster, swelling vessels, white, save where, in their curving sails, they had caught a faint radiance from the hidden sun. In fine procession, against the blue, they passed along. Very faint and muffled there came up from the Square the lingering notes of "Robin Adair." This ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... violent fever, owing to the chill and the excitement of my discovery, an attack of delirium supervening, during which I related the whole adventure; so that, guided by my avowal, my governor found, under the bolster, the two pieces ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... found his employer an exact man—one who required service by the card. This the young man could not, or rather would not render. He blundered in his work on more than one occasion, and resorted to tricks to bolster up his carelessness or inefficiency. The result was that after a few weeks' service he was discharged. He was chagrined, mortified, angry. But he "cheeked it through," as the young men of his class would say. It is bad business, ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... about the immorality, the unwisdom, the short-sightedness, the sinful wastefulness of a lie. But at that moment, if Harriet had not been present—and that illustrates one of the purposes of society, to bolster up a man's morals—I should have evolved as large and perfect a prevarication as it lay within me to do—cheerfully. But I felt Harriet's moral eye upon me: I was a coward as well as a sinner. I faltered so long that Horace ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... building, he set us about fetching heaps of dry leaves to spread behind the stocks for a couch. A trunk of a small cocoa-nut tree was then placed for a bolster—rather a hard one, but the natives are used to it. For a pillow, they use a little billet of wood, scooped out, and standing on four short ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... lady Feng, laughingly, "I know everything! You don't at all come to look me up on account of verses or paintings, but simply to take revenge on P'ing Erh's behalf! I never had any idea that P'ing Erh had such a backer as yourself to bolster her up! Had I known it, I wouldn't have ventured to strike her, even though a spirit had been tugging my arm! Miss P'ing come over and let me tender my apologies to you, in the presence of your senior lady and the young ladies. Do bear with me ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... my feet at that. His derision cut me like a whip. If what I did was the act of a braggart, yet it almost seems I could do no less to bolster up my former boasting—or what ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... atmosphere that accompanies forlorn hopes took possession of Ridgley School and penetrated not merely to the recitation halls, but even, it was said, to the office of Doctor Wells, the head. In such times there were mighty efforts to bolster up the spirit of the team, to feed it concentrated football knowledge and to ward off by Herculean effort the black shadow of defeat that raised its ugly head like a thunder cloud pushing itself higher and higher over the white buildings ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... fleet should take possession of Cuba; which, after a civil apology to Spain for taking such a liberty with her possessions, and, perhaps, a few million by way of hush money, you carve into two more states, and, in this manner, try to bolster up your federal relations. How many of her West India islands Great Britain will be able to keep after such a war, is another problem, the solution of which will depend upon the relative strength of fleets and success of seamanship. These islands, which should of right be ours, and without ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... His long black hair scattered over the straw bolster contrasted with the olive pallor of his face. It occurred to me he might be a Basque. It didn't necessarily follow that he should understand Spanish; but I tried him with the few words I know, and also with some French. The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear to his lips puzzled ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... its chief feature is a tremendous bedstead. Now, a Javan bedstead is quite sui generis, and requires a ground plan. The ordinary size is six feet square. It is completely covered with mosquito curtains, and has no clothes, the broad expanse being broken by two pillows for the head and a long bolster (called a Dutch wife) which lies at right angles to the pillows. This latter is one of the numerous contrivances for securing coolness. The ordinary routine of hotel life is much the same as elsewhere in the island. ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... the law—that's your business. But you can't juggle the law enough to horn in on the Double A. If you do, I'm comin' for you with a law of my own!" He tapped his gun bolster significantly. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a peculiarly insecure seat at this period was Mastai Ferretti, better known as Pope Pius IX. His temporal power was weak, whilst his spiritual dominion, as might have been expected, had never been much stronger. To bolster up the former, and at the same time find employment for his troops, Louis, Prince President of the French Republic, sent an army to Rome, thus affording matter for the speculation of his countrymen, who were puzzled to know what possible ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the growth in the monetary base by law to the growth in reserves. Inflation fell sharply in subsequent years. In 1995, the Mexican peso crisis produced capital flight, the loss of banking system deposits, and a severe, but short-lived, recession; a series of reforms to bolster the domestic banking system followed. Real GDP growth recovered strongly, reaching 8% in 1997. In 1998, international financial turmoil caused by Russia's problems and increasing investor anxiety ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... toilet and inevitably put on clean underthings, even as dressy as possible. The windows toward the street were closed with shutters, while at one of those windows, which gave out upon the yard, was put a table with a hard bolster to put ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was—had been—the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its place, and the pillow in its place upon the bolster, and upon the pillow was the little old woman's ugly, dirty head,—which was not in its place, for she had ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... condition,—for it was the same,—but between their nationality. First, then, was social estrangement, next legal difference, and last of all political disagreement and strife. In order to oppress the weak, and justify the unchristian distinction between God's creatures, the persons who would bolster themselves into respectability must have the aid of law. Luther could march fearlessly to the Diet of Worms if every tile on the houses were a devil; but Macbeth was conquered by the remembrance of the wrong he had done the virtuous Duncan and the unoffending ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... upon us; For you yourself have truckled to the tyrant, And done your best to bastardise our Queen, For which God's righteous judgment fell upon you In your five years of imprisonment, my Lord, Under young Edward. Who so bolster'd up The gross King's headship of the Church, or ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... peaceable chap you've ever seen, Mr. Mott. You needn't be alarmed. I'm not going to bite a hole in the ship and scuttle her. Moreover, I am a very meek and lowly individual on board this ship. There's a lot of difference between being in supreme command with all kinds of authority to bolster you up and being a rat in a trap as I am now. Up in Copperhead Camp I was a nabob, here I'm a nobody. Up there I was the absolute boss of five or six hundred men,—I won't say I could boss the women,—and I made 'em all walk chalk without once ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... have been slept in the night before, and the clothes were not much disarranged; but on the lower sheet, close to the bolster, was ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... stirring until the mixture is thick like dough. Put it on a pasteboard and when cold roll to the desired thickness, about one-quarter of an inch thick; lay any kind of jam over the paste, roll it into a bolster-like form and bake. Serve cold, whole, or in slices nearly an inch thick. Time twenty to twenty-five ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... came, and drawing down the coverlet made off with it. One of them was aware of the theft, and said to the other, "Get up, and run after the man that has stolen our coverlet." "You blockhead," replied his companion, "wait till he comes back to steal the bolster, and we two will master him." And has "Joe" got this one?—A pedant's little boy having died, many friends came to the funeral, on seeing whom he said, "I am ashamed to bring out so small a boy to so great ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... growth for 1996 after achieving 4.8% growth in 1995. The government is continuing its economic reforms to enable the Philippines to move closer to the development of the newly industrialized countries of East Asia. The strategy includes improving infrastructure and plans to overhaul the tax system to bolster government revenues. ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Every room, every closet, every trunk, box, drawer, was rifled. Two men went to the sideboard, quietly gathering up the few silver spoons, forks, ladles, etc., not hidden, wrapped them up and put them in their pockets. Others stripped off the pillow-and bolster-cases, stuffing them with clothing, pictures, etc., tied them together, and placed them ready to be slung over the backs of their horses. Bayonets wore thrust through portraits; the sofas, beds, and lounges were pierced in search of concealed valuables; bureau-drawers ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... is ever manifested save as the result of a physical force. This principle will before long be a scientific commonplace. And Huxley predicted that we would arrive at a mechanical equivalent of consciousness. But I will not attempt to bolster my position with authorities. I know, and I can prove ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... Emmy Lou cried with her head buried in Aunt Cordelia's new bolster sham; for how could she confess to Hattie and to Rosalie that it was ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... and candy is a narrow foot-path that shows more mounting than anything, so much really that a calling meaning a bolster measured a whole thing with that. A virgin a whole virgin is judged made and so between curves and outlines and real seasons and more out glasses and a perfectly unprecedented arrangement between old ladies and mild colds there ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... England have often been to me. It is true, however, that tall people do find the old-fashioned German bedsteads short; and it is true that the big square downy pillows are supported by a wedge-shaped bolster called a Keilkissen. But the Plumeau is what the German loves, and the Briton hates above all things: the mountain of down or feathers that tumbles off on cold nights and stays on on hot ones. You hate it all the year round, because in winter ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Lady Bernard, "this is a serious matter you suggest. The man may be honest, and yet it may be of no use trying to help him. I don't want to bolster him up for a few months in order to see my money go after his. That's not what I've got to do with it. No doubt I could lose as much as you mention, without being crippled by it, for I hope it's no disgrace in me to be rich, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... power to waken him. When he wakes, he does so gradually, perhaps yawning and stretching himself. The nervous child may move at the slightest sound, or with a sudden start or cry is wide awake at once. A hard mattress should be chosen without a bolster, and with only a low pillow. Flannel pyjamas, which cannot be thrown off in the restless movements of the child, should be worn. The temperature of the room should be cool, and the air from the open window should circulate freely, while draughts may be kept from striking on the ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... might be justified, more or less, on the principle laid down by Pitt, that the income tax should be held in reserve as a war tax only, or on the ground that it was equally wasteful and mischievous to keep up so large a peace-establishment, especially if it might be used to bolster up despotism abroad. It was also unfortunate that Castlereagh, ignoring the heroic efforts made by the people of England for more than twenty years, should have deprecated "an ignorant impatience to be relieved from the pressure of taxation". Still, it is remarkable that friends of the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... simple tomb, a sort of coffin of white marble which rose a few inches above the ground, with an elevation at one end, like the bolster of a bed and ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... smoke vanished, neither said a word, but sat there silent, with clasped hands. The bitterness of disappointment wore away slowly, and as the uneventful hours left them in the same helpless condition, they fell again into fitful conversation, merely to thus bolster up courage, and lead their minds to other thoughts. It was maddening to sit there motionless and stare off across the desolate water, seeing nothing but those white-crested surges sweeping constantly toward them, and to feel the continuous leap and ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... had fallen, like the rest of us, to think mainly of the house. Now that all the living members of the family were plunged in irremediable sorrow, it was strange how we turned to that conjoint abstraction of the family itself, and sought to bolster up the airy nothing of its reputation: not the Duries only, but the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... millionaire with the looks of an Eastern prince, and manners of quite an original nature, although these were not quite conventional. Oh, yes, there was nothing in the scandal that said Garvington had sold his sister to bolster up the family property. Lady Agnes was quite happy, and her husband was a dear man, who left her a great deal to her own devices—which he wouldn't have done had he suspected the cousin; and who gave her pots of money to spend. And what more could ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... O'Malley and the galling sense of inferiority it carried with it; but once on the highroad again the smart returned and the sting lingering behind the man's scorn was not to be allayed. It required every excuse his wounded dignity could muster to bolster up his pride and make out for himself the plausible case that had previously comforted him and lulled his conscience to rest. It was now more impossible than ever for him to make any confession, he decided; for having denied in his father's presence O'Malley's ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... being again irritated by another stroke on his chops, he gave her such a remembrance in the guts, that she began to roar loud enough to be heard all over the house. Adams then, seizing her by the hair (for her double-clout had fallen off in the scuffle), pinned her head down to the bolster, and then both called for lights together. The Lady Booby, who was as wakeful as any of her guests, had been alarmed from the beginning; and, being a woman of a bold spirit, she slipt on a nightgown, petticoat, and slippers, and taking a candle, which always burnt in her chamber, in her hand, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... was made by this law the subservient tool of tyranny. This law gave Douglass and the other abolitionists a new text. It was a set-back to their cause; but they were not entirely disheartened, for they saw in it the desperate expedients by which it was sought to bolster up an institution already doomed by the ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... of sheets, three pairs of pillow cases, three bolster cases, one or two pairs of blankets, two counterpanes, and ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... Government had asked him to make it. Then he made his statement. "Perhaps," he said, "no falser accusation than this had ever been brought forward against a minister of the Crown, for it specially charged his noble friend with resorting to the employment of unconstitutional practices to bolster up his parliamentary support, whereas it was known by everybody that there would have been no matter for accusation at all had not the Duke of his own motion abandoned a recognised privilege, because, in his opinion, the exercise of that privilege was opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... congratulation, and the embraces of the crowd. I perceived an elderly gentleman come forward; I knew it was my father, and I threw myself into his arms. I awoke, and found myself rolling on the floor, embracing the bolster with all my might. Such was the vivid impression of this dream, that I could not turn my thoughts away from it, and at last I considered that it was a divine interposition. All my scruples vanished, and before the day had dawned I determined that I would ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... grandmother taught me them lines when I wasn't more'n eleven, and I've never forgot 'em. Next you spreads the sheet just so, and you must be careful not to leave any creases in it. Then you beat up the bolster and pillow, and lay them like that," suiting the action to the words. "Then comes the top sheet, and the blankets. You must tuck each one in at the bottom first, and then at the sides, and leave the top end loose, so that when you've got the blankets spread, you turn the sheet neatly down ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... book, I Pose; a surer touch, a finer restraint. What is it all about? Does that matter? It is the manner of the telling rather than what is told that constitutes the charm. If I tell, you that Jay runs away from a respectable home, and, after a grievous experiment as a bolster-filler, becomes a bus-conductor, has a romantic friendship with a middle-aged married man, and marries the faithful Mr. Morgan, her dead brother's soldier friend, I have told you just nothing at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... was in the darkest corner of the room on the floor. It looked as though composed of the refuse raked from a pig-sty, and thrust into a sack which had been used for the conveyance of dust and bones. Bolster or pillow it had none, but against the wall, where the bed's head was supposed to be, were three or four logs of rough wood piled together, over which was laid a faded cloak crumpled into a heap. Such was the only couch which the unhappy sufferer ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... Therese, the inn-keeper's daughter, and this is my sister." There was another girl beside her, whom I had not seen, as her head was under the bolster. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... succeed; for what is worth Success's name, unless it be the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A noble purpose to a noble end, 160 Although it be the gallows or the block? 'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need These outward shows of gain to bolster her. Be it we prove the weaker with our swords; Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, And clings around the soul, as the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... made flat. Another set of five poles is tied above, and to these the roof is affixed. On the platform, is placed the bedding belonging to the deceased, the undercloth, counterpane, etc., and at the head are laid the pillows, bolster-shaped and stuffed with cotton-tree fluff, or shredded palm-leaves, and covered with some gaily-coloured cotton cloth. In every case I have seen— and they amount to hundreds, for you cannot take an ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... was talked over for a few minutes, and Sam readily fell in with his brother's ideas. Reaching the houseboat, the pair went to one of the staterooms and procured a sheet and a bolster. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... marched on: and whereas it had been his complaint to Joseph that Rabbinism laid no stress on immortality, further investigation of the Pentateuch had shown him that Moses himself had taken no account whatsoever of the conception, nor striven to bolster up the morality of to-day by the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... well off the ground, and the hair-felt not only preserved their bodily heat from escaping, but it prevented the damp of the earth from ascending. This mattress was ten feet long, therefore it could be rolled up to form a bolster at one end; and, during a hot sun, it was intended for a cover to the roof of the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... day Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... miserably. She had tried to bolster herself with the consciousness of having acted from the sincerest motives, and from having done only what was right. But consciousness of rectitude, whatever the moralists may say, is an inadequate balm for a heart that is breaking. Phillida ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... the girls or to perform any other merry joke. It is necessary, therefore, ever to enlarge the stock of things humorous, vivacious, or rousing, if thoughts are to be kept young and eyes bright in this age of restraint. What would Yuletide be without the olden times to bolster it? What would the Christmas numbers do without the pictures of our great-grandparents' coaches snow-bound, of huntsmen of the eighteenth century, of jesters at the courts of the barons? What should we do without the 'Vicar of ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... ill-gotten gains, were no better than hovels—in one of them, in which, as the information stated, some valuable plunder was concealed, they found nothing but a poor woman groaning in bed, and two little children; one crying as if its heart would break, and the other sitting up behind the mother's bolster supporting her. After the soldiers had searched every place in vain, even the thatch of the house, the woman showing no concern all the while, but groaning on, seeming scarce able to answer Mr. Ormond's questions—the constable, an old hand, roughly bid her ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... Apostle claims for himself the same authority which the false apostles attributed to the true apostles. Paul simply inverts their argument. "to bolster their evil cause," says he, "the false apostles quote the authority of the great apostles against me. I can quote the same authority against them, for the apostles are on my side. They gave me the right hand of fellowship. ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... done," she told him gently, "is to find argument to bolster up impulse. That is generally very easy to do, isn't it? If one wants a thing, it is not hard convincing himself that it is right that he ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... 1688 the theory of continuity had not been invented by the father of lies, to bolster up a lost cause, so the letter actually appears in Barnes' History, to tell its own unvarnished tale: and to bear its uncompromising ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... all the family."—"He is obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with the French teacher, who disturbs him for an hour every night in papering and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the bolster." ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... But! But with the universal use of cosmetics and the consequent secernment of soul and surface, upon which, at the risk of irritating a reader, I must again insist, all those old properties that went to bolster up the ordinary novel—the trembling lips, the flashing eyes, the determined curve of the chin, the nervous trick of biting the moustache, aye, and the hectic spot of red on either cheek—will be made spiflicate, as the puppets were spiflicated by Don Quixote. Yes, even now Demos begins ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... bolster behind his great, stupid head, she reached over, and, seizing the mass of his gray, grizzly beard, she pulled up the wrong way with all her might, until, roaring with pain, he started up in a fury, and, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the relief were sympathy for Mike, gratitude to him for having given himself up so promptly, and a curiously dazed sensation, as if somebody had been hitting him on the head with a bolster. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... at football, or to run a big paper-chase across country, or get up a grand concert of an evening; and not too many of us to crowd into the long dormitory, where, for all we were interfered with, we might have prolonged our bolster matches ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... only subject to the inherent penalties that follow its infraction, not to external penalties. Ours is not free; our faith in its natural virtues is not quite so firm as we assert; we are always meddling with it and worrying over its health and anxiously trying to bolster it up. We are not by any means willing to let it rest on the sanction of its own natural or divine laws. Our feeling is, as James Hinton used ironically to express it: "Poor God with no ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... her throat, and she went to the floor like a toppling bolster. It was the old man that lifted her face from the rug, ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. The son just wavered in his chair and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... more and more uncomfortable all the time. He had attended to his boat, making it properly fast and covering the engine, under the eyes of four men who were at pains to see that he did not crank up and desert. Now he was back beside me, trying to bolster up his own ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... circulation of the blood of the nation and of the country standing still,—the clock of the world. Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter—whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by the side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, bell and wires to the head of his bed, and bells at each ear—think how even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, and how they would become mere nothing without the activity and honesty which catch up the threads and stitches ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... prove a theory—much like the stuff they put between the covers of school history books—so Ali Baba's lecture, although gorgeous fiction in its way, hardly enriched knowledge. Not that he was free from the latterday craving for accuracy whenever it might serve to bolster up the rest ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... drinking below. Though we could have very well dispensed with his company, we were glad to submit to this disposition, as there was not another bed empty in the house; and accordingly went to rest, after having secured our baggage under the bolster. About two or three o'clock in the morning I was awaked out of a very profound sleep by a dreadful noise in the chamber, which did not fail to throw me into an agony of consternation, when I heard these words pronounced with a terrible voice: "Blood and wounds! run the halbert into ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Saul to the camp? And Abishai said, I will go down with thee. 7. So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster: but Abner and the people lay round about him. 8. Then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... "On bolster I sat. In Baldur's Mead erst, And all songs that I could To the king's daughter sang; Now on Ran's bed belike Must I soon be a-lying, And another ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... in describing the last scene of "Othello," had this exquisite passage: "Upon which the Moor, seizing a bolster full of rage ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... to bolster up Catholic courage. The intelligent Catholic layman of the present day makes his own observations, and draws his own conclusions as to the status and the future prospect of Protestantism. Therefore, he must be invited ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Boston banker, gets control of an old, reliable trust company, wrecks it to bolster up another business, and disappears. Police and reporters hunt him in vain. As Ashley, a reporter, is "combing" the neighborhood of Newhall's home for evidence, a young girl draws him inside a house, where he finds the banker dead, a pistol beside him. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the other movements with similar care, and after one is the thoughtful observation: "Excellent to make Lizzie look less like a bolster." ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... before the house," said Jim Blaisdell, "is, are we justified in playing politics to bolster up a young man we're afraid can't stand on his merits? I don't fancy pulling wires—in church ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... scale. It was not a simple matter of ordering pills for them from the pharmacy, or castor oil from the medicine room. I had to sit beside their beds when they heard the truth; I had to see the women crumple up and go limp; I had to tell the blind child's father that he did it, to bolster up the weak girl, to rebuild the wife's broken ideals, to suppress the rowdy and the roysterer, to hear the vows of the boy who was paying for his first mistake, and listen to the stories of the pimp and the seducer. What made syphilis ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... dresses, or making calls on dull people. On the dressing-table is another mirror, an oval one, framed with pink roses, each of which has an electric light hidden in its heart; and the bedspread is of pink and silver brocade to match the hangings, with a large, hard roll like an ossified bolster, at ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... so's it hung down some like a cap, and he wuz a tryin' to fasten it round his forward with one of my stockin' supporters. He couldn't buckle it, and that is what called forth his exclamations. At his feet, partly upon the stairs, wuz the bolster from our bed (that accounted for the log that had gin way). And he had spread a little red shawl of mine over the top on't, and as I opened the door he wuz jest ready to embark on the bolster, he waz jest a steppin' onto it. But as he ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... had turned many things over in his mind to bolster up this conclusion, he was still not at ease. Against his will he recalled certain unpleasant things which had happened within his knowledge under sudden and unexpected stress of emotion. He tried to laugh the absurd stuff out of his thoughts and to the end that he might add a new color to his ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... the reply, yet he tried to bolster his courage with the argument which had seemed so potent at the time he used it, namely, that they were all in too deep to refuse aid at this crisis. Symes imagined that he could almost see himself growing old in the hours of suspense ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... since depreciated around 2.5% against the dollar. The government hopes the boost in export competitiveness from the depreciation will help lift Sweden out of its 3-year recession. To curb the budget deficit and bolster confidence in the economy, BILDT continues to propose cuts in welfare benefits, subsidies, defense, and foreign aid. Sweden continues to harmonize its economic policies with those of the EC in preparation for ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... led to a long and recriminatory correspondence in the columns of The Tittersham Observer. The Rev. Eldred Bolster, Vicar of Little Titley, writing in the issue of May 9th, characterises them as grotesque and preposterous fabrications. He points out, to begin with, that the Nether Wambleton Parish Magazine only contains eighteen pages, of which no fewer than sixteen are provided from London ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... pillows are much rumpled, are they not? But look under the bolster—it is all smooth, and you find none of those wrinkles which are made by the weight of the head and the moving about of the arms. That's not all; look at the bed from the middle to the foot. The sheets being ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... roue. nor might they under thy roof none reste finden. find any rest; noldest thu naefre helpen. nor wouldst thou ever help tham orlease wrecchen. 230 the unhappy wretches; ac thu sete on thine benche. but thou sate on thy bench, underleid mid thine bolstre. underlaid with thy bolster, thu wurpe cneow ofer cneow. thou threw knee over knee, ne icneowe thu the sulfen. nor knew thou thyself that thu scoldest mid wurmen. 235 that thou shouldst with worms husien in eorthan. dwell in the earth. nu thu hauest neowe hus. Now thou hast a new house, inne bethrungen. a crowded dwelling; ...
— The Departing Soul's Address to the Body • Anonymous
... on week days; her verses all had morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans, coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin |
