"Bolster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the return of her boy. Although their own home was safe, the sorrow of other homes, devastated and mourning, weighed heavily upon Mary Ballard, and she needed to listen to the stirring editorials of the Tribune, which Bertrand read with dramatic intensity, to bolster up her faith in the rightness of this war between men who ought to be brothers in their hopes and ambitions for the national life of ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... other persons of note, the king of Navarre,[360] the Archbishop of Lyons, the Ladies de Retz, de Lignerolles, and de Sauve, two of whom have since confirmed this conversation. As she was hastening to bid them good night, she threw herself with a start upon her bolster, put her hands before her face, and crying out violently, she called to her assistance those who were present, wishing to show them, at the foot of the bed, the Cardinal (de Lorraine), who extended ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... chronology of shifts in opinion would, at first glance, indicate that Gladstone made this speech with the intention of forcing Palmerston and Russell to continue in the line earlier adopted, thus hoping to bolster up a cause now losing ground. His declaration, coming from a leading member of of the Cabinet, was certain to be accepted by the public as a foreshadowing of governmental action. If Jefferson Davis had in truth created a nation then early ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... one, and, indeed, for the reason that I do not wish to do any one harm. Moreover, in the last instance I always think: if it is something decent it will maintain itself in spite of all attack and envy; if there is nothing good and sound at the bottom of it, it will fall to pieces of itself, bolster it up ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... he, "and in defiance of your laughter, I lay behind her bolster, and supported her in my arms; and, upon my soul, I believe I felt more pain in my mind than she underwent in her body. And now answer me as honestly: Do you really think it a proper time of mirth, when the creature one ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... various offers which he was making. He knew that the German peace offers were merely an attempt on the part of the civil government of Germany to avert a resumption of ruthlessness at sea; that they were mere gestures on the part of the German Government made to bolster up the morale of the German people and that these German offers did not indicate the real desire for peace on equitable terms, as subsequent events showed, but that they were the terms of peace of a nation which thought itself the victor, and, therefore, ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... ever increasing." (404.) In 1812 the Evangelisches Magazin appeared "under the auspices of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod," Pastors Helmuth and Schmidt being the editors. Its avowed purpose, however, was not to represent Lutheranism, but specifically to bolster up the cause of the German and to oppose the introduction of the English language. The "Proposal to Synod" concerning the new German paper states: "1. We want to aid the German language as much as we can, because we are convinced that, with her language, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... saw a bare feather-bed and bolster, the usual materiel in an unoccupied college chamber. "Seeing's believing," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... inquiry. There is no doubt that by 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 article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... government, which is that of following precedents. It is from the enterprise and industry of the individuals, and their numerous associations, in which, tritely speaking, government is neither pillow nor bolster, that these improvements have proceeded. No man thought about government, or who was in, or who was out, when he was planning or executing those things; and all he had to hope, with respect to government, was, that it would let ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... moment of uneasiness," she added, slapping the bolster. "You didn't know what to think, now ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... or, in the simpler hostleries, by barrels of water and dippers. The mattresses and pillows appeared to be filled with asphalt, though it should be remembered that a soft bed is unendurable in the tropics. Every bed is provided with a cylindrical bolster, six feet long and about fifteen inches in diameter, which serves to keep the sheet from touching the body. They are known ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... a plot it is not at all unlikely that Overbury knew of it. If there was need of such a scheme to bolster the nullity petition it would have had to be evolved while the petition was being planned—that is, a month or two before the commission went first into session. At that time Overbury was still Rochester's ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... sound asleep, and required some shaking before they could be convinced that it was time to get up. Then each boy put his bolster in his bed, rolled up his night shirt into a ball and laid it on the pillow, and then partly covered it up with the clothes. Then they slipped on their shirts, breeches, and stockings and, taking their ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... some straw to lie upon. The address on my second paper was that of a basket-maker, whose house was pointed out to us. We were very cordially received there, and taken to a room containing a bed provided with a sommier elastique. But there was no mattress, no sheet, no blanket, no bolster, no pillow—everything of that kind having been requisitioned for the German ambulances; and I recollect that two or three hours later, when my father and myself retired to rest in that icy chamber, the window of which was badly broken, we were glad to lay our heads on a couple of hard baskets, ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... read in bed, and when he wanted to go to sleep he either extinguished his candle by throwing it on the floor in the middle of the room, and taking a shot at it with the pillow, or else quietly placed it, when still lighted, under the bolster. At Badminton, and other country houses, his habits in this respect were so well known that a servant was ordered to sit up in the passage ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... similar conditions, by inconsistencies so strongly marked and so numerous that, having frequency on their side, they ought, in all logic, to serve as the basis of the law. Here, one fact says yes; there, a thousand facts say no. To which evidence shall we lend an ear? If we only wish to bolster up a theory, it would be prudent to listen to neither. The how and why escapes us; what we dignify with the pretentious title of a law is but a way of looking at things with our mind, a very squint-eyed way, which we ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... they could let him have a knife, but fell upon it tooth and nail. He ate and ate till school began, and after school was over he ate again; at night, too, it was the same thing till bedtime—nay, a little fellow that Henry had for a playmate told me that he put the cake upon his bolster when he went to bed, and waked and waked a dozen times, that he might take a bit. I cannot so easily believe this last particular; but, then, it is very true, at least, that on the morrow, when the day was hardly broke, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... the bed is well aired, shake the feathers, from each corner to the middle; then take up the middle, and shake it well, and turn the bed over. Then push the feathers in place, making the head higher than the foot, and the sides even, and as high as the middle part. Then put on the bolster and the under sheet, so that the wrong side of the sheet shall go next the bed, and the marking come at the head, tucking in all around. Then put on the pillows, even, so that the open ends shall come to the sides of the bed, and then spread on ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... to excite or arouse it; and there was little of this in Pope. Had he been a really great poet of the old Homer or Dante breed, he would have outshot his age, till he "dwindled in the distance;" but in lieu of immediate fame, and of elaborate lectures in the next century, to bolster it unduly up, all generations would have ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... go of the ropes at the same time. Together they dropped down to the hay—and then something happened! The two older Bobbsey children jumped too near the edge of the mow, where the hay was piled in a big roll, like a great feather bed bolster, over the top rail. And Bert and Nan, in their drop, caused a big pile of hay—almost a wagonload—to slip from the mow and down to the barn floor. And directly underneath were ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... 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, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... the Lord taketh away, according to His good will and pleasure," I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the bolster and laid ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... box, whose brilliant colors and blazing jewels fascinated her very soul; but where could she securely hide it from her husband's search? At that moment it was with the watch and the diamond ring under the bolster of her bed. But there it was in danger of being discovered, should a ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... were obliged to take care of themselves. Many of the articles of furniture left them had been disposed of to supply the calls of urgent want. In the room was an old four post bedstead, with curtains almost worn out, one mattrass with two small pillows, a bolster that was almost flat, three old blankets and cotton sheets, of coarse description, three rush-bottom chairs, an old claw table, a chest of draws, with a few battered band-boxes on the top of it, a miserable bit of carpet before ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... the labours of the diligent worker. Allowed to lie waste, the product will be only noxious weeds and vicious growths of all kinds. One of the minor uses of steady employment is, that it keeps one out of mischief, for truly an idle brain is the devil's workshop, and a lazy man the devil's bolster. To be occupied is to be possessed as by a tenant, whereas to be idle is to be empty; and when the doors of the imagination are opened, temptation finds a ready access, and evil thoughts come trooping in. It is observed at sea, that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... noon we see the King again. He is dressed in white flowing robes with a heavy carcanet of emeralds round his neck. His red turban is tied with strings of seed pearls and set off with an aigrette springing from a diamond brooch. He sits on the Royal mattress, the gaddi.[E] A big bolster covered with green velvet supports his back; his sword and shield are gracefully disposed before him. At the corner of the gaddi sits a little representation of himself in miniature, complete even to the sword and shield. This is his adopted son and heir. For all ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... lady, having arranged a bolster in her bed to look as like a human being as possible, put on her hat and jacket and ran downstairs. There was no one in the hall, and she was absolutely daring enough to go out by that door. Mrs. Tennant raised her head when she ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... well-made and beautiful. They are of some use in the world. I understand why they are there. I cannot understand why the ugly and crippled are there, however healthy they may feel inside. Don't you know how Turner spoils his pictures by introducing a man like a bolster in the foreground? Well, in actual life every landscape is spoilt by men of ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... tell the truth," grinned Walky, "it was a soft job, for I carried five pounds of feathers in a bolster twelve miles to old Miz' Kittridge one Winter day when I was a boy. I got a dollar for it and come as nigh bein' froze ter death as ever a boy ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... one end of a bolster-slip, and thrust her arm down the sack, and brought forth a specimen of the article, which Nelson seized, and vainly endeavored to break. It was like leather. The General gave it a sudden twist and broke it in two, when out dropped three or ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... "Everybody is abundantly civil, but homesickness comes creeping over me. I cannot shake it off." That was in September, in M. Heger's absence. Later, she tells Emily how she went into the cathedral and made "a real confession to see what it was like". Charlotte's confession has been used to bolster up the theory of the "temptation". Unfortunately for the theory it happened in September, when M. Heger and temptation were not there. In October she finds that she no longer trusts Madame Heger. At the same time "solitude oppresses me to an excess". She ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... leue manerly, & [d]go to the chyrche or chapell to your soueraynes closet, & laye carpentes & cuysshens, & lay downe his boke of prayers / than drawe the curtynes, and take your leue goodly, & go to youre soueraynes chambre, & cast all the clothes of his bedde, & bete the feder bedde & the bolster / but loke ye waste no feders; than shall the blankettes, & se the shetes be fayre & swete, or elles loke ye haue clene shetes / than [e]make vp his bedde manerly, than lay the hed shetes & the pyllowes / than take vp the towel & ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... sir, permit me to observe. When I say defend, draw up the hand smartly, and from the first guard. Be smart!—second guard! third guard! Remember, if you have a big, ugly fellow, with a sword sharp enough to divide a bolster, who happens to wish to cut your head off, he doesn't stop to consider which is the right guard to make, or thrust to deliver. He'd whip off your head before you had time to look round, and then what would you think of yourself, I should like ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... moss, the Shadow stalks out of the South. The brilliant eye of the Sun is blotted over, and with a remorseless mantle of mist the silvery cusp of the new moon is enfolded. Follow fast the stars, the little brethren of the sky; and like a huge bolster of fog the Shadow scales the ramparts of the dawn. We are lost in the blur of doom, and the long sleep of the missing months is heavy upon our eyelids. We rail not at the coward Sun-God who fled fearing the Shadow, but creep noiselessly to the caves. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... ghastly fashion. With a snakelike movement, the evil thing slithered out of the wardrobe, and, gliding past Letty, approached the bed. Letty was obliged to follow every proceeding. She saw the thing deftly snatch the bolster from under the sleeping head; noted the gleam of hellish satisfaction in its eyes as it pressed the bolster down; and watched the murdered creature's contortions grow fainter, and fainter, until they finally ceased. The eyes then left the room; ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... vainly hoping for a reestablishment of the imperial regimen, as they pinned their fate to this last desperate conflict. Among these, none had been prouder, none more loyal to the Spanish Sovereign, and none more liberal in dispensing its great wealth to bolster up a hopeless cause than the ancient and aristocratic family at whose head stood Don Ignacio Jose Marquez de Rincon, distinguished member of the Cabildo, and most loyal subject of his imperial majesty, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the other sisters were enjoying their feast, a witch passed by, and catching sight of the open door, she walked in. She went up to the eldest girl, and said: 'Where shall I begin on you, you fat bolster?' ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... recover to more than 2% in 1999. The government has promised to continue its economic reforms to help the Philippines match the pace of development in the newly industrialized countries of East Asia. The strategy includes improving infrastructure, overhauling the tax system to bolster government revenues, and moving toward further deregulation ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... 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, Bennett, had played so ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... is nothing like an evil to bolster up an evil," cried Professor Fortescue; "the argument never fails. Every abuse may find shelter behind it. The slave trade, for instance; have we not white slavery in our midst? How inconsistent to trouble about negroes till our own people are truly free! Wife-beating? Sad; but then ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... 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 ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... 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 ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... to 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 into boasting they ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... room. At one end of the table he had laid a cloth and he made me sit down and eat a very tasty supper that had been prepared for me in the kitchen. This was an attention I had not expected. It served to bolster up my belief that I had some influence in my mother's house, ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... doctors hope to bolster each other up till Mr. Tom comes down with modern science in full force. That boy will do great things—he has as clear a ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the bed and revealed a crowd of people. A man lay on the camp-bed, lying aslant for he was too long for it. A sheet covered his lower limbs, but his breast and shoulders had been bared. The head was nearest to the entrance, propped on an outjutting bolster. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... 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
... and we ourselves also, have lain full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (I use their own terms), and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers—or the good man of the house had within seven years after his marriage purchased a mattress or flock bed, and thereto a stack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... shape; their hands were gloves stuffed out with handkerchiefs; and their faces were the paper masks painted in the afternoon by the untutored brush of Gerald, tied on to the round heads made of the ends of stuffed bolster-cases. The faces were really rather dreadful. Gerald had done his best, but even after his best had been done you would hardly have known they were faces, some of them, if they hadn't been in the positions which faces usually occupy, between ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... "Oh! haven't I got a picture of you dancing. Wait 'til I show you!" And ably assisted by the bolster and the bedspread, she gave a masterly imitation of her stout stepmother that made the original limp with laughter. Then quite as suddenly, Nance collapsed into a chair and grew ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... yet day?" "He must not cover it, when it begins to be dark." "He covered it, and it opened?" "It is allowed to cover it again." A man may fill the goblet, and put it under the pillow or under the bolster (to warm it). ...
— Hebrew Literature
... procure 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 ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... candle upon it. Then, with Elizabeth's help, she dragged out a large, thick straw mattress, and the blankets and coverlet of which Dorothy had spoken, and made up the bed in one of the unoccupied corners. A further search revealed a bolster, but no pillows were forthcoming. That did not matter, ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... dames, 'T would be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. But, oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! Where may she wander now, whither betake her From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now, Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. What if in wild amazement and affright, Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp Of savage hunger, or of savage heat! ELD. BRO. Peace, brother: be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... majority of five, both sides bringing down the sick and the dying without remorse. A close division and parties nicely balanced, extinguish all feelings of humanity. The best speeches were Charles Buller's, Sheil's, Follett's, Peel's, and John Russell's. It is supposed this will bolster them up for the Session, but something still ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... and steaks and—oh, you know better than me what a sick man wants. Get along with you, and be back sharp. Stay! where are your matches? Ah! Any coals? Good, now away with you and fetch a doctor too, else I'll fetch a policeman, you bolster of bones." ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... ground, led the three big brothers in that direction one May morning, and, on turning the corner, they found the little girl leaning convulsively against the old straw stack for support, while in front of her, blinded by a big, red handkerchief, and with a long bolster full of hay across her dappled withers, was the blue mare, making stiff, wild plunges into the air, with arched back and head held low. For the little girl was breaking her ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... son Hafbur, "And whatten a bed for me?" "O thou shalt sleep in the bower aloft, And blue shall thy bolster be." ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... hour," said Clover, unhooking the rules, and carrying them to the window,—"Half an hour; and this says that we must turn the mattress, smooth the under-sheet over the bolster, and spend five minutes in silent devotion! We'll have to be quick to do ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... 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. 9. And ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... come in. Then she drew a sword and thrust it at Thord and gave him great wounds, the sword striking his right arm and wounding him on both nipples. So hard did she follow up the stroke that the sword stuck in the bolster. Then Aud went away and to her horse and leapt on to its back, and thereupon rode home. Thord tried to spring up when he got the blow, but could not, because of his loss of blood. Then Osvif awoke and asked what had happened, and ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his friend with a simplicity that ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... am incoherent. If a great old family can only bolster up its greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then let the family ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... glance into the interior of two or three of the cells deepened this impression. In each was a small wooden bedstead about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung a small ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... understand their plight. If we know ourselves we are strengthened that much, because we can bolster up our weaknesses. We will know enough to combat timidity. We can then know what we are capable of, and thus become conscious of our innate powers that only need to be called into action in order to become useful. We cannot imagine for an instant a great violinist going out on the concert ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... but a shabby truth that wants an author's affidavit to make it trustworthy. I shall not help my story by any such poor support. If there are not enough elements of truth, honesty, and nature in my pictures to make them believed, they shall have no oath of mine to bolster them up. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... they held, the dead spiders and huge dead flies, and the living generation of spiders descending and ascending through the gloom, I say that you also would have been surprised at the sight of those nice clean sheets. Rodriguez noted the fact and continued his preparations. He took the bolster from underneath the pillow and laid it down the middle of the bed and put the sheets back over it; then he stood back and looked at it, much as a sculptor might stand back from his marble, then he returned to it and bent it a little in the middle, and after that he placed his ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... myself," was her next astounding statement, "but I wanted some one else's opinion to bolster mine up. I can't decide even on my own appearance. Just as soon as I've decided that I'm pretty I begin to feel miserably that I'm not. Besides, have a horrible old great-aunt who is always saying to me, with a mournful sigh, 'You were such a pretty baby. It's ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to produce an etymological document, the translator uses many compounds such as even the German language might be better without; such are—Sippenschar (sibbegedriht), 730; Schattenwandler (sceadugenga), 704; Wangenpolster (hl[-e]or-bolster), 689; Leibpanzer (l[-i]c-syrce), 550. As compounds these may not be offensive to a German; but the trouble with them is that they do not ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... a class of whites, who never had much love for the Negro, happened to take a sleeper that was occupied by a few Negroes who did not conduct themselves properly. Though the great body of Negroes who were able and disposed to occupy berths were genteel and well-behaved, this governor, to properly bolster his dignity resolved upon a course that would work discomfort for thousands. He threatened to recommend to the legislature that a law be passed demanding separate sleeping cars for the two races unless Negroes were kept out of sleepers. We lose less by keeping Negroes out ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... warnings to turn our attention from it, as a subject lying beyond the range of all sober speculation, and as unsuited to the investigation of our finite minds. If this be a wise conclusion, it would be well to leave it to support itself, instead of attempting to bolster it up with the reasons frequently given ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... presence gave her happiness. She became gloomy before she reached her new house, and never laid her gloom aside. He would have made a struggle for some domestic comfort, had any seemed to be within his reach. As it was, he struggled for domestic propriety, believing that he might so best bolster up his present lot in life. But the task became harder and harder to him, and the gloom became denser and more dense. He did not think of her unhappiness, but of his own; as she did not think of his tedium, but of hers. "If this be domestic felicity!" he would say to himself, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... arrangement involved my sharing its pillow with the two infants or with the ancient dame; and at the bare thought of either alternative, I shivered from head to heel. At last, with infinite difficulty, I obtained permission to sleep on my horse-rug spread on the floor, with my saddle for a bolster; when this point was once settled, I spent the evening very contentedly, basking in the blaze of the huge oaken logs; if stinted in all else, the mountaineer has always large luxury of fuel. I was curious to find out if my host knew anything of his own lineage; but he could tell me nothing further, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... and remained there six days. They showed a white flag, quite unlike the English one. The strangers had been very friendly with the natives, and had had a house on the island and entered into trade. She related that a native who had agreed to exchange a wooden bolster for a knife, was shot by an officer because he wanted to take back his merchandise when he had been paid for it. However, the incident had not broken the peace, because in that instance the native was ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... down, and too much of it invented to 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 of ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... "So this is one of his tricks to bolster up his new bank! He hopes the people who withdraw their money from our bank will deposit with him. I see his game. He's a scoundrel, and if it's possible I'm going to sue him for damages after ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... that sickness collects—jostle death about, in short. It was a ghastly thing to enter that attic, where the crumbs of bread from her last meal were still lying in the folds of the bedclothes. I threw the coverlid up over the bolster, like a sheet over the ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... 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 ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... What sort of "inspiration" is that which leads to the promulgation of a fable as divine truth, which forces those who believe in that inspiration to hold on, like grim death, to the literal truth of the fable, which demoralises them in seeking for all sorts of sophistical shifts to bolster up the fable, and which finally is discredited and repudiated when the fable is finally proved to be a fable? If Satan had wished to devise the best means of discrediting "Revelation" he could not have ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... been played, and two of them were won by the Navy. Next would come Stanford College, a hard lot to beat. The Navy tried to bolster up its own hopes; a loss to Stanford would mean the majority of games lost out ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... the Doctor, uttering a peculiar growling sound, and, to the astonishment of mother and son, he caught up the pillow and gave Vince a bang with it which knocked him back on the bolster. "Cold pudding!" he cried. "Here! try a shoe-sole to-morrow night, and see if you can digest that. Come to bed, my dear. Look here, Vince: tell Mr Deane to give you some lessons in natural history, and then you'll learn that you are not ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... particular places the Tory party is 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 of the calibre of the actors ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... an old story which, besides applying to the parish, all who are married, and all who intend to marry, will do well to recollect. A worthy couple, named John and Joan, had lived happily together many a long year, till one unlucky day they bought a new bolster. Joan said the bolster was too hard, and John that it was too soft. So, of course, they quarrelled. After sulking all day, they agreed to put the bolster between them at night." (Roars of laughter amongst the men; the women did not know which way to look, except, indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean, who, though ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a chuckle, spoke of her two children, saying they hadn't come from under a bolster, she slapped his fingers; she added that she was, no doubt made on the model of other women; women thought of their home, slaved to keep the place clean and tidy, and went to bed too tired at night not to go to sleep at once. Besides, she resembled her mother, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... 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 possible ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... 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
... eyes, discharged a kind of phlegm, which was received in a little golden basin before it fell on the carpet. This was the usual effect of the caliph's powder, the sleep lasting longer or shorter, in proportion to the dose. When Abou Hassan laid down his head on the bolster, he opened his eyes; and by the dawning light that appeared, found himself in a large room, magnificently furnished, the ceiling of which was finely painted in Arabesque, adorned with vases of gold and silver, and the floor covered with a rich ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... "Now, then, bolster-brains," said the starling to the jackdaw, "why, you've been asleep!" And there, sure enough, had sat the daw with his head in his pocket, and one leg put away for the present until ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... so violently that she could not take the saucepan off the fire; and later, when they were all at work, she went up into her room and cried, burying her head in the bolster, so that she might not be heard. During the day, however, she tried to obtain some information without exciting any suspicion, but she was so overwhelmed by the thoughts of her misfortune that she ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... of the most sanguinary battles of the Revolution were those in which the combatants on both sides were chiefly natives of the soil, upon which a portion of them but too freely shed their blood in a sincere desire to bolster up that foreign tyranny that mocked the generous ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... still animal, but more highly-developed feeling, for example, the feeling of comfort. We lay a cat on a soft bolster— she stretches herself, spreads and thins herself out, in order to bring as many nerve termini as possible into contact with the pleasant stimuli of the bolster. This behavior of the cat may be construed as instinctive, also as the aboriginal source of the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... absurd, that they might well provoke a smile, did they not excite a deeper feeling. The last of the charges was the only one of moment in such a trial; and the weakness of this may be inferred from the care taken to bolster it up with the others. The mere specification of the articles must have been sufficient to show that the doom of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... out, and had been actually on the point of deciding when the old physician appeared. Then Doctor Purdy, reading in his eyes the very image of despair, left good suggestions as the best medicine he then knew to bolster him up. The consequence was that Jeb, instead of resorting to wounds, settled on a better plan: he would become more ill, grow worse and worse, so that by Tuesday the doctor might carry a certificate to the registration ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... To bolster up his case, Maeterlinck urges that "the capacity for folly so great in itself argues intelligence," which amounts to saying that the more fool you are, the more ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything. But unfortunately their explanations do, ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... assistance, a horrible combat with the said Succubus, whose claws still clutched my heart, causing me infinite pains; still, while reanimated by the voice of my servitors, relations, and friends, I tried to make the sacred sign of the cross; the Succubus perched on my bed, on the bolster, at the foot, everywhere, occupying herself in distracting my nerves, laughing, grimacing, putting before my eyes a thousand obscene images, and causing me a thousand wicked desires. Nevertheless, taking pity on me, my lord the Archbishop ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Her boy had taken a fancy to him, and she was an unreasonably motherly mother. People who are unreasonably motherly like by impulse wholly very often, and hate by impulse. Their mind has no why or wherefore with which to bolster up their heart. She went slowly towards the cottage to dress for dinner, and all the time that she was walking, she continued, rather strenuously, to ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... former, but it is accused of being unwholesome. The people drink palm-wine at different hours of the day, according to taste. The beverage is mild as milk in the morning; after noon it becomes heady, and rough as the sourest cider. The useful palm bears a huge bolster-like roll of fruit, which should be tried for oil: Cameron brought home a fine specimen for Kew. Here the land is evidently most fertile, and will form good farms for the Company. Leaving Arabo, we forded the double ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... ground or sand. When my friend Ouweek was napping near me at the well of Tadoghseen, his spear was struck into the sand close by his head. So it is said, "And, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster." (1 Samuel, chap. xxvi. ver 7.) The Sheikh of highest rank now seated, the Sheikhs next in dignity take their seats around him, at a short distance off, in the form of a semicircle, these generally squatting on the ground. Sometimes the principal ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Spanish victories everywhere, and one of the most extravagant reported that General Weyler had landed on American soil at Key West with an army of 80,000 Spanish troops. The motive of this harmless ruse was to bolster up Spanish prestige and thereby avoid bloodshed. During several months no trading or mail-steamer came, and the Zamboanguenos were practically cut off from the rest of the world. Military preparations were made for the feigned purpose ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... therefore, in the monarchists, to associate General Washington with their principles. But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by often repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves. It is a mere artifice in this party, to bolster themselves up on the revered name of that first of our worthies. If I have dwelt longer on this subject than was necessary, it proves the estimation in which I hold your ultimate opinions, and my desire of placing the subject truly before them. In so doing, I am certain ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... myriad of bound volumes and pamphlets called forth by the war, a very large number have long since been consigned to oblivion. Many of these were written to bolster up personal ambitions, interests, rivalries and jealousies, while as many more were composed, without regard to facts, to gain dollars and cents. Of none of these productions ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... to make a skeleton platform which is filled in with withies and 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 hour's walk even from Duke Town ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... 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 for having proved so utterly wanting in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again? No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes." Goody! For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures. What? Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee ninety times? For four-score and ten years ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... through gross carelessness. All he has to do is to solve a problem and to place his answer before a magistrate, and then a judge and jury to decide whether he's right or wrong. No one but a fool would attempt to bolster up a wrong answer. In this case, too, you must remember that there are finger-prints. They cannot lie. If we get the right man—Grell or any one else—there will be no question ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... lights were governed by two switches. A pair of lamps occupied the usual place in front of a dressing table; a third was suspended from a canopy over the bed, and was controlled also by an alternate switch behind the bolster. Winter turned on all three lights, so ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... going to march up to the guns like good soldiers to-night, and I'm going to do the talking for them. Sarah, sensibly enough, wants to get it over before dinner, so I've promised to come over right after lunch and sit on your porch so I'll be here no matter how early Hugh gets home. You and I have to bolster up the weak spots ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... was reflected in his face must have been the counterpart of what I myself felt, but in that brief instant I determined to hide my own misgivings that I might bolster up the ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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 hired ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mother's souls, and all Christian souls. Item. I give and bequeath to my mother-in-law Mercy Prior, L40 of lawful English money, and her chamber, with certain household stuff; that is to say, a featherbed, a bolster, two pillows with their beres, six pair of sheets, a pair of blankets, a garnish of vessel, two pots, two pans, two spits, with such other of my household stuff as shall be thought meet for her by the discretion ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... got a hunch that we will," chirped his cousin, with a sublime confidence that quite won Andy's heart; if he could not see any good reason for hope himself, the fact that his chum pinned his faith on it was enough to bolster ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... know. The funny part is that he doesn't know it. He has simply assumed he is devoted to me, because all respectable people are devoted to their wives. I can assure you, mon ami, he would be a veritable Othello, if there were any scandal, and would infinitely prefer the bolster to the divorce-court. He would have us followed and torn apart ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... my haid up wid de blanket—an' de bolster—an' de piller when hit's astormin'," said Hattie, in an awed undertone. "An' Ah squeals lak a pig ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... across the bed, and she must be held by strong persons to prevent her from slipping down or moving during the surgeon's operations. Her thighs must be put as far apart as possible, and held so, whilst her head must rest upon a bolster, and her loins be supported in the same manner. After her rump and buttocks have been raised, be careful to cover her stomach, belly and thighs with warm clothes, to keep them from ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... liberty, but more than once he had had to stand for a frame-up against a guilty one. According to his cop-psychology, if his side partner saw something it was practically the same as if he had seen it himself. That phantasmagorical scintilla of evidence needed to bolster up a weak or doubtful case could always be counted on if Delany was the officer who had made the arrest. None of his cases were ever thrown out of court for lack of evidence, but then, Delany never arrested ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... 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 all. I will merely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... you can be happy with Miss Prettyman?—Now, Caudle, if you knock the pillow with your fist in that way, I'll get up. It's very odd that I can't mention that person's name but you begin to fight the bolster, and do I don't know what. There must be something in it, or you wouldn't kick about so. A guilty conscience needs no—but you ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... whether he was in every respect well made; and that he, having found the child perfectly well made, went to the Prince de Conti, and said to him: "Monseigneur, I have examined the shape of the young Prince who is just born: he is at all points well formed, let him sleep without a bolster that he may remain so; and only imagine what grief it would occasion to the Princesse de Conti, who has brought him into the world straight, if you ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... a upland dog like Ship be gwaine to faace the fiery sunshine on furrin gawld diggings, I caan't answer. Here goes again: '1 sofa; 1 armchair; 4 fine chairs with green cloth seats; 1 bedstead; 2 cots; 1 cradle; feather beds and palliasses and bolster pillows to match; wash-stands and sets of crockery, mostly complete; 2 swing glasses; 3 bedroom chairs; 1 set ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... moist; and, lastly, that I was seized with a 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 of the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... task was beyond her strength. She could not move the helpless weight, and, in her despair, she let Tibbie's head fall back with a dull plash upon the bolster. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... front view: 1, Axletree. 2, Bolster, showing wear plates. 3, Upper bolster, actually part of the wagon bed. 4, ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile
... cabins, with a bottle of syrup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to extract its contents—these and other details of that eventful day I shall not weary the reader with now. Enough, that when Dick Sylvester returned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an immense bolster at the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... supported by her old father, decked out in his old-fashioned brown coat, with a wig of the same colour, beautifully relieving the burning redness of his huge projecting ears; and the mother, puffed up like an overgrown bolster, encouraging the trembling girl, and joining her maiden aunts of full fifty years, in telling her to take courage, for it is what they must all come to. Bride's-maids and mutual friends make up the company; and there, standing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... we are as likely as the holiest of 'em to refresh ourselves all night on a stone bolster," pettishly replied the unthankful youth, as he ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... of which she had only read in English novels, but had never seen in Russia and in the country. Everything was new from the new French hangings on the walls to the carpet which covered the whole floor. The bed had a spring mattress, and a special sort of bolster and silk pillowcases on the little pillows. The marble washstand, the dressing table, the little sofa, the tables, the bronze clock on the chimney piece, the window curtains, and the portieres ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Abe's wardrobe for a visit to Bleak Hill had been many years ago, when Samuel Darby, though somewhat Abe's junior, was keeper of the Life-saving Station, and Abe was to be gone for a whole season's duty. Then all of his possessions had been stowed in a long, bolster-like canvas ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... shall be In the works of the foeman. So we twain a night-tide Shall forgo the sword, if he dare yet to seek The war without weapons. Sithence the wise God, The Lord that is holy, on which hand soever The glory may doom as due to him seemeth. Bowed down then the war-deer, the cheek-bolster took The face of the earl; and about him a many Of sea-warriors bold to their hall-slumber bow'd them; 690 No one of them thought that thence away should he Seek ever again to his home the beloved, His folk or his free burg, where erst he was fed; For of men had they learn'd that o'er mickle a ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... men who saw the evils and who tried to remedy them attempted to work in two wholly different ways, and the great majority of them in a way that offered little promise of real betterment. They tried (by the Sherman law method) to bolster up an individualism already proved to be both futile and mischievous; to remedy by more individualism the concentration that was the inevitable result of the already existing individualism. They saw the evil done by the big combinations, and sought to remedy it by destroying ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... it carefully through. The statement of the mine, the description of its development, and of the value of the ore, had been prepared by an expert so eminent that he could not afford to sell his name to bolster ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... scheming 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 ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... A poor kind of country, New York is, even though they do call it the 'Empire State' and try to bolster up its failin's with a lot of fine talk. Now our Province o' Novy Scoshy, and this Ya'mouth, don't need to do no talkin'. All's necessary for us and them is just to—BE! Once a feller comes and gets a good square look at us—no water-front way—" he interpolated, ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... now as a bedlam; trunks and chests were locked and tied round with ropes; and a general washing and rinsing of faces and hands was beheld. While this was going on, forth came an order from the quarter-deck, for every bed, blanket, bolster, and bundle of straw in the steerage to be committed to the deep.—A command that was received by the emigrants with dismay, and then with wrath. But they were assured, that this was indispensable to the getting rid of an otherwise long detention of some weeks at ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Congress were the motives of the later "reconstruction." Both ingloriously failed, as they deserved to do. How much stronger the Republican party would have been if it had relied upon the loyal States which had sustained it through the war, instead of timidly distrusting them and trying to bolster itself up by the aid of the negro and "carpet-bag" governments ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... end than the making things clear to himself and his readers, and whom we should mistrust as having an ulterior aim on which he is more intent than on the furthering of our better understanding. We want to know who is doing his best to help us, and who is only trying to make us help him, or to bolster up the system in which his interests are vested. There is nothing that will throw more light upon these points than the way in which a man behaves towards those who have worked in the same field with himself, and, again, than his style. A man's style, as Buffon long since ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... invention prompted others to perfect safety trucks for locomotives. Alba F. Smith came forward in 1862 with the simple substitution of swing links (fig. 4) for the incline planes.[11] A swing-bolster truck had been developed 20 years earlier for use on railroad cars,[12] and while Smith recognized this in his patent, he based his claim on the specific application of the idea to locomotive trucks. That the swing links succeeded the incline planes as a centering device was mainly ...
— Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck - Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24 • John H. White
... deals, held together laterally by transverse wooden bars, which serve to lift it two or three inches from the floor. At the head there is a raised portion of flat wood, slightly sloping, to serve as a bolster. For the first month (such is Sir Richard Cross's brilliant idea) every prisoner, no matter what his age or his offence, must sleep on this plank bed without a mattress, unless the doctor sees a special reason for ordering him one. During the second month he sleeps on the plank bed three ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... promptest grocery clerk you ever saw!" boasted Dock, perhaps to hide a little confusion, and bolster up ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... support, v. prop, brace, bolster, uphold, sustain; maintain, keep, provide for; verify, substantiate, ratify, corroborate, confirm; vindicate, defend, maintain; second, back, aid. Antonyms: ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... mercy on you. It's going to be difficult enough to do anything for you as it is. However, if you don't advance him any more—we will see. It may be possible, I can't say, but at any rate, no more money must leave the treasury to bolster up this bad business. It's much too difficult as it now is." He stared at Stener warningly. And he, shaken and sick, yet because of the faint suggestion of mercy involved somewhere in Mollenhauer's remarks, now slipped from his ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Dale," he said, "you've braced me up wonderfully. I feel more like a man and less like a feather-bolster than I did when I came in. I wonder if you couldn't—" He hesitated and pressed her fingers persuasively. "Couldn't you manage to drop a hint to Molly about ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... beat, and will not be obedient. She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat; Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not; As with the meat, some undeserved fault I'll find about the making of the bed; And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster, This way the coverlet, another way the sheets; Ay, and amid this hurly I intend That all is done in reverend care of her; And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night: And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl, And with the clamour keep her still ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... merry bowl Again shall bolster up my soul Against itself. What, good man, hold! Canst tell me where red wine is sold? Nay, just beyond yon peach-tree? There? Good luck be ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London |
