"Prop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... convince A hungry fisherman Of his unfitness for the frying-pan. The fisherman had reason good— The troutling did the best he could— Both argued for their lives. Now, if my present purpose thrives, I'll prop my former proposition By building on a small addition. A certain wolf, in point of wit The prudent fisher's opposite, A dog once finding far astray, Prepared to take him as his prey. The dog his leanness ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... splendid and wise; merchants tell us how crafts thrive under his iron hand, and war-men say that his forts are constructed with skill and his battle-schemes planned as the mason plans key-stone and arch, with weight portioned out to the prop, and the force of the hand made tenfold by the science of the brain. So that the boy will return to us a man round and complete, a teacher of greybeards, and the sage of his kin; fit for earldom and rule, fit for ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make such an offer as this puzzled me, but his reason for wanting to prop the bank up was no business of mine, and there was no doubt if he could get fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth of mortgages taken off our hands, it would enable us to hold on for some time. He did, in fact, get one batch of twenty thousand pounds' worth transferred, but about a month before ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... much towards reviving the drooping fortunes of the Association. Nor was the anticipation illusory. From the day on which O'Brien became a Repealer, down to the date of the secession, the strongest prop of the Conciliation Hall was his presence and support; he failed indeed to counteract the corrupt influences that gnawed at the vitals of the Association and ultimately destroyed it; but while he remained within its ranks, the redeeming ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... 'Akkar prop.aromatic roots; but applied to vulgar drugs or simples, as in the Tale of the Sage ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... pays you too) so much, Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more: You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch, A prop not quite so certain as before: The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch, Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore; And Waterloo has made the world your debtor (I wish your bards would sing it ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... that he might jump up almost in time to catch the robber. I had almost forgotten this, and now it puzzled me. The vault-room, a narrow apartment, is between the old man's room and mine, and I could have left the window up, propped with a stick, and from my window jerked out the prop, but the cool air would have shown the old man that the window was raised, and this would have ruined everything. Finally I decided that the falling of my own window—both are old-fashioned and are held up ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... different sort also. Anna's father was failing. He had written her a feeble, half-senile appeal to let bygones be bygones and come back to see him before he died. Anna was Peter's great prop. What would he do should she decide to go home? He had built his ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... me a splinter, Huggins,' says Peets, as he turns down the prop'sition to take whiskey checks as his reward. 'We'll jest call them services of mine in subdooin' your delirium treemors a contreebution. It should shorely be remooneration enough to know that I've preserved you to the Wolfville public, an' that the camp can still ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... In his own shade, or sun-shine, and enjoy His own dear Dell, Doxy, or Mort, at night In his own straw, with his own shirt, or sheet, That he hath filch'd that day, I, and possess What he can purchase, back, or belly-cheats To his own prop: he will have no purveyers For ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... worst, Which England, aeroplaning, now, lets drop By day and night, in bank, press, church and shop, Timed to the minute that it is to burst. List to Demosthenes, if not to Hearst, Sublime Republic! Lest thy great heart stop, Shocked by the blast of Freedom's every prop, And bats and ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... kindness or did not even know; how others, whom I had quarrelled with or did not like, forgot the poor puny quarrels and the dislike, and begged to do for me whatever they could; how friends went softly around the garden, caring for a flower, putting a prop under a too heavily-laden limb, or climbing on step-ladders to tie sacks around the finest bunches of grapes, with the hope that I might be well in time to eat them—touching nothing themselves, having no heart to eat; ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... were garnished with corslets and helmets, gaping with open mouth, with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts, brown bills, batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern colivers and petronils (in King Charles I.'s time) turned into muskets and pistols. Then were entails in fashion, (a good prop for monarchy). Destroying of manors began temp. Henry VIII., but now common; whereby the mean people live lawless, nobody to govern them, they care for nobody, having no dependance on anybody. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... one of immeasurable and unspeakable thankfulness. No fate on earth was so dreadful but that it would be somewhat alleviated by the fact of his presence: just the sight of him, standing beside her, put her in some vague way out of Ray's power to harm. Exhausted, reeling, he was still the prop ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... deeper dejection. Not only had she lost Franklin; she had lost herself. She embarked on the dangerous and often demoralising search for a definite, recognisable personality—something to lean on with security, a standard and a prop. With growing dismay she could find only a sorry little group of shivering hopes and shaken adages. What was she? Only a well-educated nonentity with, for all coherence and purpose in life, a knowledge of art and literature and a helpless feeling for charm. Poor Althea was rapidly sinking to ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the apophthegm: "Give me a lever long enough, and a prop strong enough, and with my own weight I will move the world." This arose from his knowledge of the possible effects of machinery; but however it might astonish a Greek of his day, it would now be admitted to be as theoretically possible as it is practically ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... you, and tell you all about things, which is your dorm. and so on. See you later," he concluded airily. "Any one'll tell you the way to the school. Go straight on. They'll send your luggage on later. So long." And his sole prop in this world of strangers departed, leaving him to find ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... again, solemn and austere, standing at the gates of Life and Death. He followed the ritual with scrupulous detail, scorning to give short measure to the poor. In the vestry they signed their names with tremendous effort, holding the pen as if it were a prop. Mrs Yabsley, being no scholar, made a mark. The Canon left them with an apology, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... during which George could think only of the ghastly figure on the sofa. She sat upright, generally, against a prop of cushions, dressed in a white French tea-gown, slim enough to begin, with, but far too large now for the shrunk form—a bright spot of rouge on either pinched cheek, and the dyed "fringe" and "coils" covering all the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on. At short intervals his guards would look in to see that he was not attempting to escape, and, satisfied with their inspection, would prop themselves in a sitting posture outside the door against the wall, and to ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... which it occurred to him to give vent to his surprise, was to prop his back against the shop door, and indulge in a soft, prolonged whistle. He could not take his eyes from Jenkins's face. "Is it you, or your shadow, Jenkins?" he asked, making room for ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... expression. He had a pale, large, and cruel face, and gray eyes that had become sinister since the disaster which had overtaken him. Near this group were three men, a musical critic, Paul Lane, and a famous English composer, prop and stay of provincial festivals. The composer was handsome, with merry eyes and a hearty laugh which seemed to proclaim "Sanity! Sanity! Sanity! Don't be afraid of the composer!" The critic was tall, gay, and energetic, and also looked—indeed, seemed to mean to look—a thorough ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... one Stand-By left to him. He could prop himself up on the Bleachers with a bag of lubricated Pop-Corn between his Knees and hurl insulting Remarks at Honus Wagner, ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... boy, Sir Hewlin, withstood their evil ways. Wherefore they hated him. And yesterday did Sir Nulloth and Sir Dew, my elder sons, return, and did quarrel with my dear lad Hewlin. And now I fear they go about to slay him. Oh, if that they kill him, who is the prop and comfort of my old age, I shall ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... dissolute indolence, wholly lost the esteem, and, in a great measure, the affections, of his people. Instead of advancing such men of character and abilities as were neuters between these dangerous factions, he gave all his confidence to young, agreeable favorites, who, unable to prop his falling authority, leaned entirely upon it, and inflamed the general odium against his administration. The public burdens, increased by his profuse liberality, and felt more heavy on a disordered kingdom, became ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... most urgent wants indeed, Mrs. Haller has relieved; but whether she has or could have given as much as would purchase liberty for the son, the prop of ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... places stone on stone; He scatters seed: you are at once the prop Among the long roots of his fragile crop. You manufacture for him, and insure House, harvest, implement and furniture, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... "Prop it up on any leg you like, only go," said Benson simply. "I'll take it as a personal favor, and do as much for you, some time. I suppose I don't have to warn you not to fall in love with Faith Dawson yourself—or, on second thought, perhaps I ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... under the trees in that broad backyard wherein, as Valentine Corliss had yesterday noticed, the last iron monarch of the herd, with unabated arrogance, had entered domestic service as a clothes-prop. The young man, who was of delicate appearance and unhumanly pale, stretched himself at full length on his back, closed his eyes, moaned feebly, cursed the heat in a stricken whisper. Then, as a locust directly overhead violently shattered the silence, and seemed like ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... branch which came out on one side, and which hung down loaded with fruit. It would have broken down, perhaps, if there had not been a crotched pole put under it, to prop it up. ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... felt confidence and relief; he had obtained the very precise aid of which he stood in need. The danger was now over, and a prop placed under his own feeble resolution, on which he could depend with safety; here there could be no tampering with temptation; the matter was clear, explicit, and decisive: so far all was right, and, as we have said, his conscience felt relieved ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... less degree, so much only as is sufficient to preserve what has been already communicated, rather than acquire any new degree; as if it were derived from the Latin sto; for example, stand, stay, that is, to remain, or to prop; staff, stay, that is, to oppose; stop, to stuff, stifle, to stay, that is, to stop; a stay, that is, an obstacle; stick, stut, stutter, stammer, stagger, stickle, stick, stake, a sharp, pale, and any thing deposited at play; stock, stem, sting, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... of the world, are the true saints. Nothing else will do in its place. Not Churches, nor creeds, nor rituals, nor respectabilities. Without it we are not friends of Christ, nor co-workers with God. Without it we deepen the channels of human woe, and prop the strong-holds of wickedness. Without it, whatever we may not be, we are Allies of the Tempter. The Saviour says to each of us to-day, placed amidst these antagonistic forces of Life—"He that is not with me is ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... ovens used for baking bread and roasting meat in outdoor life. The simplest way is to prop a frying pan up in front of the fire. This is not the best way but you will have to do it if you are travelling light. A reflector, when made of sheet iron or aluminum is the best camp oven. Tin is not so satisfactory because it will not reflect the heat equally. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... following your meteoric career in the papers! As I nibble at my toast of a morning I prop the New York Herald against the water giraffe and read, spilling my coffee down my neck: 'The life of the party was Right Tackle Thayer. Seizing the elongated sphere and tucking it under his strong left ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit; Stol'n from a duel, follow'd by a nun, And, if a borough choose him, not undone; See, to my country happy I restore This glorious youth, and add one Venus more. Her too receive, (for her my soul adores,) So may the sons of sons of sons of whores, Prop thine, O Empress! like each neighbour throne, And make a long posterity thy own. Pleas'd she accepts the hero, and the dame Wraps in her veil, and frees from sense ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... (in Honan), I had no appetite for the political affairs of the country. As the result of the revolution in Hsin Hai, I was by mistake elected by the people. Reluctantly I came out of my retirement and endeavoured to prop up the tottering structure. I cared for nothing, but the salvation of the country. A perusal of our history of several thousand years will reveal in vivid manner the sad fate of the descendants of ancient kings and emperors. What then could have prompted me to aspire to ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... Presence Reason of man, perilous Reformation Reforms, suggested to princes Relics Rent-charges Repentance Roman Catholic doctrine Requiems Reservatio culpae poenae Reserved cases Resolutiones super prop. XIII. Rest, bodily spiritual Reuchlin Riches not sin Rietschl Right hand and left band Righteous man defined Rock, a type of Christ does not signify authority Roman Church See Rome corruption ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... last sigh seems to waft the immortal spirit into a state of existence of which no adequate conception can be formed. After all was over, and the breath of life had fled, I could not believe my senses, that the prop of my affections was gone from my love and my embrace, and that all which remained on earth of my father, protector, and gentle monitor, was a lifeless wreck on the shore of time. The world appeared to my young eye and heart as a wide scene of mere ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... as he walked along by her side that she seemed to lean upon him naturally now; the loss of her main support and chief advisor in life seemed to draw her closer and closer every day to her one remaining prop and future husband. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... teown prop'ty somewhars, and they own all the Neck here, and lays areound on her through the summer. Why, Note's father—he 's dead neow—he and I uster stand deown on the mud flats when we was boys, a-diggin' clarms tergether, barefoot; 'tell he cruised off somewhar's ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... from me that thou art sprung. Thy first combat [lit. sword-stroke] equals all of mine, and thy youth, fired with a splendid enthusiasm, by this great proof equals [or, reaches to] my renown. Prop of mine age, and sum of my happiness, touch these white hairs, to which thou restorest honor! Come, kiss this cheek, and recognize the place on which was branded the insult which thy ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... of the great pity I have for him. He is weak and helpless, almost child-like in his dependence on me. I am the prop which holds up the last shreds of his self-respect. If I left him, he would drift lower and lower, I know it. Sometimes I pass some awful creature staggering along the sidewalks. He is dirty and uncared for. Long matted hair ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... /n./ 1. Notional 'information-space' loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called 'cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of {cyberpunk} SF. Serious efforts to construct {virtual reality} interfaces modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to deny outright the possibility of ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... of trade or property at such a crisis?" interrupted an enthusiast, in figured trowsers and a gay cravat. "Our beloved Union must and shall be preserved. The fabric that our fathers reared for us must not be allowed to crumble. We will prop it with our mangled bodies," and he brushed a speck of dust from the fine ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... way o' dyin' an' leavin' prop'ty, hit mought suit white folks, but it don't become our complexioms, some way; an' de mo' I thought about havin' to die ter give de onlies' gran'son I got de onlies' prop'ty I got, de miser'bler I got, tell I couldn't stan' ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... and brutal nature. I have seen them frequently pull the plumes from wounded birds, leaving the crippled birds to die of starvation, unable to respond to the cries of their young in the nests above, which were calling for food. I have known these people to tie and prop up wounded egrets on the marsh where they would attract the attention of other birds flying by. These decoys they keep in this position until they die of their wounds, or from the attacks of insects. I have seen the terrible red ants of that country actually eating out the eyes ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... described: "A kind of cudgel worn, or rather borne, by the bloods of a certain college in New England, 2 feet 5 inches in length, and 1-7/8 inch in diameter, with a huge piece of lead at one end, emblematical of its owner. A pretty prop for clumsy ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... his wonted posture, had been employed in dragging the covering of his couch, and gradually pulling it to her with a force which was resisted, though but faintly, she possessed herself of that arm, the prop of Christendom and the dread of Heathenesse, and imprisoning its strength in both her little fairy hands, she bent upon it her brow, and united ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... another attempt to smooth obvious difficulties in the way of accepting either of the two extremes or the middle course proposed by Yang Hsiung. The famous Han Yu, to be mentioned again shortly, was a pillar and prop of Confucianism. He flourished between A.D. 768 and 824, and performed such lasting services in what was to him the cause of truth, that his tablet has been placed in the Confucian temple, an honour reserved only for those whose orthodoxy is beyond suspicion. Yet he ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... well that Kate was merely propping her hope with the statement, but she was glad enough to accept the prop for her own hopes. So they talked desultorily and with that arms-length amiability which is the small currency of polite conversation between two strange women, and Mrs. Singleton Corey laid aside her dignity with her fur-lined coat, and made tea for them—since Kate ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran" the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... special conclusions at which I had arrived concerning the books of the Bible. I conceived myself to be resting under an Indian Figtree, which is supported by certain grand stems, but also lets down to the earth many small branches, which seem to the eye to prop the tree, but in fact are supported by it. If they were cut away, the tree would not be less strong. So neither was the tree of Christianity weakened by the loss of its apparent props. I might still enjoy its shade, and eat of its fruits, and bless ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... give it me!" exclaimed Mrs. Myles, "it is from my own darling child, bless her!—my beauty! Oh, deary me! I'm sure that's a beautiful seal, if I could only see it; prop me up—there. How the jessamine blinds the window—now my spectacles—so"—She tried hard to read, but the power of sight was gone. "She used to write the best hand in the school, but this fashionable writing is hard to make out," observed the ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... write often to you, would be a very easy task: for every day I talk with you, and of you, in my heart; and I need only set down what that is thinking of. The nearer I find myself verging to that period of life which is to be labour and sorrow, the more I prop myself upon those few supports that are left me. People in this state are like props indeed; they cannot stand alone, but two or more of them can stand, leaning and bearing upon one another. I wish you and I might ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... people of Macedon have always been thought to love their kings, but now, as if some main prop had broken, and the whole edifice of government fallen to the ground, they gave themselves up to Aemilius, and in two days constituted him master of the entire kingdom. This seems to confirm the opinion of those who say ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... right and left leaving a clear path between me and him. To make quite sure of things, for I was trembling a little with fatigue and somewhat sick from the continuous sight of bloodshed, I knelt down upon my right knee, using the other as a prop for my left elbow, and since I could not make certain of a head shot because of the continual whirling of the huge trunk, got the sight of my big-game rifle dead on to the beast where the throat joins the chest. I hoped that the heavy conical bullet would either pierce through to the spine or cut ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... sprained her foot the other day, dancing in her private apartments; of Victoria, that she reads aloud, in a distinct voice and agreeable manner, her addresses to Parliament on certain solemn days, and, yearly, that she presents to the nation some new prop of royalty. These ladies have, very likely, been trained more completely to the puppet life than any other. The queens, who have been queens indeed, were trained by adverse circumstances to know the world around them ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... us, the woods seemed to melt into the mountains; the rivers veiled their course by their misty incense to the heavens—wreath after wreath of vapor creeping upwards; and as the distances faded into indistinctness, the bold headlands seemed to grow and prop the clouds; the heavens let down the pall of mystery and darkness with a tender, not terrific, power; earth and sky blended together, softly and gently; the coolness of the air refreshed us, and yet the stillness on that high point was so intense as to become almost ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... felt numbed, and beaten down, and spiritless. Well, well! I believe it was good for him and for many others in like case, who had to learn by that loss that the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, and good; but that He upon whom alone it can stand and lean will knock away all such props in His own wise and merciful way, until there is no ground or stay left but Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... differently in the country. We don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,—but keep living in it all the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... as if I had lost a stay or prop," replied Mrs. Seagrave. "So accustomed have I been to look to him for advice since we have been on this island. Had he not been thus snatched from us - had he been spared to us a few years, and had we been permitted to surround his death-bed, and close his eyes ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... not a leaden loade of foule reproach Upon so weake a prop; what's done is past recal. If ought is done, unfitting to be done, The worst is done, my ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck, but this would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a strutting attitude. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... within, if Kate's view of that especial propriety had not been modified by a subsequent occurrence; but his deciding that it was quite likely not to have been had no effect on his own preference for tact. It pleased him to think of "tact" as his present prop in doubt; that glossed his predicament over, for it was of application among the sensitive and the kind. He wasn't inhuman, in fine, so long as it would serve. It had to serve now, accordingly, to help him not to sweeten Milly's hopes. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... his love for this girl, who had given herself to him with the strangely combined passion of a mature woman and the trusting confidence of a child, was touched with gratitude. She had put out her hand and lifted him from the pit. She would always be near him, a prop and a stay. Sometimes it seemed to Hollister a miracle. He would look at his face in the mirror and thank God that she was blind. Doris said that made no difference, but he knew better. It made a difference to eyes that could see, ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the broken lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats and bonnets that had been stuffed into them. He put on new buttons to keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from the wood-pile that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... dead. The eggs are dabbed in a continuous layer, at the entrance to the throat, at the root of the tongue, on the membrane of the palate. Their number appears considerable; the whole inside of the gullet is white with them. I fix a little wooden prop between the two mandibles of the beak, to keep them open and enable me to ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... our own extra-marginal self, we come at its remoter margin into commerce should be the absolute world-ruler, is of course a very considerable over-belief. Over-belief as it is, though, it is an article of almost every one's religion. Most of us pretend in some way to prop it upon our philosophy, but the philosophy itself is really propped upon this faith. What is this but to say that Religion, in her fullest exercise of function, is not a mere illumination of facts already elsewhere given, not a mere passion, like love, which views things in a rosier light. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... would be sure to follow them, in order to make an attempt to recover their captives. Several times before Joe had tried to kidnap an attractive smart child whom he could train to be a sort of golden prop upon which his laziness could lean, but hitherto he had always been balked in his purpose. He would be furiously angry, Bambo knew, when he discovered that, just when a life of ease and idleness such as he had longed ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... surpasses the nature not only of man, but also of every creature, as was shown in the First Part (Q. 12, A. 4). For the natural knowledge of every creature is in keeping with the mode of his substance: thus it is said of the intelligence (De Causis; Prop. viii) that "it knows things that are above it, and things that are below it, according to the mode of its substance." But every knowledge that is according to the mode of created substance, falls short of the vision of the Divine Essence, which infinitely surpasses ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the French Socialist, Rappaport, "test the gifts of capitalistic reform through its motives. And they discover that these motives are not crystal clear. The reformistic patchwork is meant to prop up and make firmer the rotten capitalistic building. They test capitalistic reforms, moreover, by the means which are necessary for their accomplishment. These means are either altogether lacking or insufficient, and in any ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... kiss, surreptitiously delivered, roused Cappy from his meditations. He opened his eyes and beheld his daughter Florence, a radiant debutante of twenty, and the sole prop of her eccentric ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... lavished rings in largesse, When the fights' red rain-drips fell, Bright of face, with heart-strings hardy, Hogni's father met his fate; Then his brow with helmet shrouding, Bearing battle-shield, he spake, 'I will die the prop of battle, Sooner die than yield an inch, Yes, sooner ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... would only bray!—and the braying of an ass is not euphonious! No!—you might as well shake a dry clothes-prop and expect it to blossom into fruit and flower, as argue with a musical critic, and expect him to be enthusiastic! The worst of it is, these men are not REALLY musical,—they perhaps know a little of the grammar and technique ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... which grows beside our house and brushes against the window, is so burdened with fruit that I have had to prop it up. I never saw more splendid peaches in appearance,—great, round, crimson-cheeked beauties, clustering all over the tree. A pear-tree, likewise, is maturing a generous burden of small, sweet fruit, which will require to be eaten at about the same time as the peaches. There is something ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... of Osbaldistone Hall, Bart., and so forth; and it only remains to pitch upon the happy man whose name shall fill the gap in the manuscript. Now, as Percie is seldom sober, my father pitched on Thorncliff, as the second prop of the family, and therefore most proper to carry on ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... something to prop up science, or she will fall upon our heads and crush us to death," ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... say, beside the throne, once your father is again seated there. We can afford to bide our time, and assuredly it will not be long before a party is formed against Warwick. Until then we must bear everything. Our interests are the same. If he is content to remain a prop to the throne, and not to eclipse it, the memory of the past will not stand between us, and I shall regard him as the weapon that has beaten down the House of York and restored us to our own, and shall give him my confidence and friendship. If, on the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... it? And when a thing's fixed—it ought to stay fixed. Mrs. Calvert don't want either of us. She said so, more 'n once, too. She's tickled to death to think there's such a good time comin' for us. She's got all that prop'ty that got itself into trouble to look after, and she's got them ladies, her old friends, that's been in San Diego all winter, to go home to New York with her. You better stop frettin' and lookin' out o' winder, and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... a comforter—not such a blessed caressing domestic comforter as the Yankees have, light as a feather, but responsive to a tender touch. This Philippine comforter is another red roll that must be a quilt firmly rolled and swathed in more red silk; and it is to prop yourself withal when the contact with the sheet and the mat on the bamboo floor of the bedstead, a combination iniquitous as the naked floor—becomes wearisome. It rests the legs to pull on your back, and tuck under your knees. In the total ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... How is this, Pamela—you the solace of all our misfortunes, the prop of our old age, our ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... knew the weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could shew him—yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there are many ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... for monsieur's weight," he laughed, and putting the breakfast on the ground, contrived to prop ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... our Allies. When I said "I see no difference between Strassburg and Trieste," I said it chiefly for Sofia and Constantinople, for the overthrow of the Quadruple Alliance was the greatest danger. I still hoped to be able to prop the trembling foundations of the Alliance policy, and either to secure a general peace in the East, where the military opposition was giving way, or to see it draw nearer through the anticipated German break-through on ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... considering Moses a Schlemihl in comparison with many a fellow-immigrant, who brought indefatigable hand and subtle brain to the struggle for existence, and discarded the prop of charity as soon as he could, and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... own fate was to be? That thought made me furious: for the third time I approached the hand with my own: I clasped it, and at the same instant I tried to rise, to draw this dead body towards me, and be certain of the hideous crime. But, as I strove to prop myself on my left elbow, the cold hand I was clasping became alive, and was withdrawn—and I knew that instant, to my utter astonishment, that I held none other than my own left hand, which, lying stiffened on the hard floor, had lost heat ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... left Leipzig; he could not put his finger on a single person remaining with whom he had had a nearer acquaintance. No one was left to comment on what he did and how he lived. And this knowledge withdrew the last prop from his sense of propriety. He ceased to face the trouble that care for his person implied, just as he gave up raising the lid of the piano and making a needless pretence of work. Openly now, he took up his ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... over her shoulders. Go up to her from behind and take her dugs and put them in your mouth and suck them and when she asks you who you are, say: 'Don't you know me, old mother? I'm your oldest cub.' Then she will lead you in to the Lion who is so old that his eyelids droop. Prop them open and when he sees you he will tell you ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... that to be created does not belong to composite and subsisting things. For in the book, De Causis (prop. iv) it is said, "The first of creatures is being." But the being of a thing created is not subsisting. Therefore creation properly speaking does not belong ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... that the swelling lessens during the night, and from this usually learn that the proper treatment is rest. When it is absolutely impossible to remain in bed long enough for the swelling to disappear, the next best plan is to accept every opportunity, during the day, to sit down and prop up ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... a Pithaeo editis, carmen in laudem Solis; quod eum esse Liberum, et Cererem, et Jovem statuit. Huetius. Demonst. Evang. Prop. 4. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... his timid homekeeping countrymen, and giving careful measurements of everything measurable—the masts of the steamers, the length of the wharves, the height of the Arc de Triomphe, as if in some mysterious way statistics could prove a prop to the faint-hearted. Of the four lads in the "experiment," two afterwards filled high diplomatic posts. A certain Fang I was made Charge d'Affaires in London and later Consul-General in Singapore, while Chang Teh Ming ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... your favor," laughed the monarch. "I ever prefer sober manhood to callow youth about me. The one is a prop, stanch, tried; the other a reed that bends this way and that, or breaks when ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and Catiline too; Though story wrong his fame; for he conspired To prop the reeling glory of his ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... business, and decided on placing him in the army. To this the Junker, (he claimed nobility, and displayed above his arms a species of coronet, bearing considerable resemblance to a fragment of chevaux-de-frise, which he might have been puzzled to prop with a parchment,) had no particular objection, and might have made a good enough officer, but for his reckless, spendthrift manner of life, which entailed negligence of duty and frequent reprimands. Extravagant beyond measure, unable to deny himself any gratification, squandering money ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... amidst appearances sometimes dubious; vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging; in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts and a guaranty of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... take me to the village of Val Tournanche. We set off early on the next morning, and got to the summit of the pass without difficulty. It gave me my first experience of considerable slopes of hard, steep snow, and, like all beginners, I endeavored to prop myself up with my stick, and kept it outside, instead of holding it between myself and the slope, and leaning upon it, as should ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... fireplace, generally merely a slab of clay in a wooden framework placed near the centre. The outside wall of this side of the house is carried up to meet the roof. The entrance of light and air and the egress of smoke are provided for by the elevation on a prop of one corner of a square section of the roof, marked out by a right-angled cut, of which one limb runs parallel to the outer wall, the other upwards from one extremity of the former. This aperture can be easily closed, E.G. during ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... staircase with such velocity, that they at first mistook it for the application of drumsticks to the head of an empty barrel. This uncommon speed, however, was attended with a misfortune; he chanced to overlook a small defect in one of the steps, and his prop plunging into a hole, he fell backwards, to the imminent danger of his life. Tom was luckily at his back, and sustained him in his arms, so as that he escaped without any other damage than the loss of his wooden leg, which was snapped in the middle, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... mingled with our devotion. To think of death at all times is a duty—to suppose it nearer, from the finding of an old gravestone, is superstition; and you, with your strong useful common sense, which was so long the prop of a fallen family, are the last person whom I should have ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Mainmast is up so early," murmured Adams, rousing himself and using his elbow as a prop while he ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... such diligent use of his time, that in the course of the afternoon the mine was free of water and dirt, and Mike announced that he could commence digging in the morning if he had a few "shores" and boards to prop up the places where excavations had been going on. These we readily granted, and began to take an interest in our claim that we had not ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... great access of litigation in which the citizen Indian figures as a party defendant and in a more widespread disposition to levy local taxation upon his personalty, but in a decision of the United States Supreme Court which struck away the main prop on which has hitherto rested the Government's benevolent effort to protect him against the evils of intemperance. The court holds, in effect, that when an Indian becomes, by virtue of an allotment of land to him, a citizen of the State in which his land is situated, he passes ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... fixt, By making on't mixt, And by non-resistance o'erthrown; And preaching obedience Destroys our allegiance, And thus the Whigs prop up the throne. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... with which it was sought to prop up this tottering theological system consisted in maintaining that the wicked are often punished and the good recompensed in their offspring—a kind of spiritual entail in which the tenant for life is denied the usufruct for the sake ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... damned door-keeper! Your house but for this virgin that doth prop it, Would sink and ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... a dud bus—only does seventy-five on the ceiling. Too much stagger, and prop stops on a spin. Besides, I never did care for rotaries. Full ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... avenged Pons for the indifference of womankind by finding him a prop for his declining years, as the saying goes; and he, who had been old from his cradle, found a support in friendship. Pons took to himself the only life-partner permitted to him among his kind—an ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... mighty bad patch, Nan," he said abruptly. "Ef things kep hittin' their present gait, why, I don't jest see wher' we're to strike bottom. The pinch ain't yet, but you can't never kick out a prop without shakin' the whole darned buildin' mighty bad. An' that's how the Obar's fixed. Ther's a mighty big punch gone plumb out o' Jeff's fight, an', well, I guess we're needin' all our punch to fix ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... rural communities. Uzbekistan is now the world's third largest cotton exporter, a major producer of gold and natural gas, and a regionally significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Following independence in December 1991, the government sought to prop up its Soviet-style command economy with subsidies and tight controls on production and prices. Faced with high rates of inflation, however, the government began to reform in mid-1994, by introducing tighter monetary policies, expanding privatization, ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... St. Ives, and his daughter; I believe it was in the postscript; and that I was immediately going to—Pshaw! I am beginning my story now at the wrong end. It is throughout exceedingly whimsical. Listen, and let amazement prop your open mouth. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... through much importuning I was constrain'd to wear the hat that still From bad to worse it shifted.—Cephas came; He came, who was the Holy Spirit's vessel, Barefoot and lean, eating their bread, as chanc'd, At the first table. Modern Shepherd's need Those who on either hand may prop and lead them, So burly are they grown: and from behind Others to hoist them. Down the palfrey's sides Spread their broad mantles, so as both the beasts Are cover'd with one skin. O patience! thou That lookst on this and doth endure so long." I at those accents saw the splendours down From step ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... infirmities of age, which now prevented him from grasping his sword; but his arm was grown nerveless, and for the first time in his life the helpless cavalier felt bitterly the recollection that all his brave sons had sacrificed their lives in the defence of their country, not one now remaining to prop the honor of his falling house. Don Manuel was a man, and this transitory feeling of regret was natural to a father under his affliction, who knew not to whom to ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... lave me, Honor? Is it that you thought would plase me, Honor?—To lave your father alone in his ould age, after all the slaving he got and was willing to undergo, whilst ever he had strength, early and late, to make a little portion for you, Honor,—you, that I reckoned upon for the prop and pride of my ould age—and you expect you'd plase ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... the fall of the present tyranny in Peru, of which there are not only indications, but their result is inevitable; unless, indeed, the mischievous counsels of vain and mercenary men can suffice to prop up a fabric of the most barbarous political architecture, serving as a screen from whence to dart their weapons against the heart of liberty. Thank God, my hands are free from the stain of labouring in any such work, and, having finished all which you gave me to do, I may now rest ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... seemed unconscious of it, as she stood rigid and motionless, with her wild eyes dumbly imploring help of earth and heaven. Suddenly both strength and excitement seemed to leave her, and she would have fallen but for the living, loving prop ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... is my fellow man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... leaders: Autonomous Haitian Workers or CATH; Confederation of Haitian Workers or CTH; Federation of Workers Trade Unions or FOS; National Popular Assembly or APN; Papaye Peasants Movement or MPP; Popular Organizations Gathering Power or PROP; Roman ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... story—which for myself was the impression, first, of a little lonely, soft-voiced, gentle, relentless lady, in a dull Surrey garden of a summer afternoon, more than half blind and all dependent on the dame de compagnie who read aloud to her that Saturday Review which had ever been the prop and mirror of her opinions and to which she remained faithful, her children estranged and outworn, dead and ignored; and the vision, second and for a climax, of an old-world rez-de-chaussee at Versailles, goal of my final pilgrimage, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... shall point as with a wand and say "This portion of the river of my mind Came from yon fountain?" [S] Thou, my Friend! art one 210 More deeply read in thy own thoughts; to thee Science appears but what in truth she is, Not as our glory and our absolute boast, But as a succedaneum, and a prop To our infirmity. No officious slave 215 Art thou of that false secondary power By which we multiply distinctions; then, Deem that our puny boundaries are things That we perceive, and not that we have made. To thee, unblinded by these formal ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... love. I have the strong delight that beats within the bosom of the boy who has the parents' trusty smile for ever on him. I dream of pouring happiness into those fond hearts—of growing up to be their prop and staff in their decline. I pierce into the future, and behold myself the esteemed and honoured amongst men—the patient, well-rewarded scholar—the cherished and the cherisher of the dear authors of my life—all brightness—all glory—all unsullied joy. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... fellow Shintaro[u]. Ah! Did beautiful eyebrows inspire this deed? Was it the love for O'Hagi now, or love for O'Han hereafter? As rival to his lordship the rascal Shintaro[u] had no chance with O'Shimo Dono. The clothes prop is the most useful instrument of the house. It brings things long unseen to light and sight. Jisuke Dono will be the clothes prop for this completed wickedness—unless his silence be well bought. Come! Fifty ryo[u]: not down: but ten suffices for the occasion.... Come and demand it of the Okusama? ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... and bound with stout cord to the clothes-prop, and the process of "salving" the wrecked ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... thus unwittingly revealed a strong phase of her character. She saw that her tendency was to lean upon the nearest prop; and, as to be "forewarned is to be forearmed," she resolved to ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... had been led tottering into the adjacent parlor, which was fitted up as his bedroom, and placed comfortably on a high prop of pillows, Marcus drew out his watch, made an amiable pretence of very important business down town, and bade his venerable ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... "Assiduus. Prop, sitting down, seated, and so, well to do in the world, rich. The derivation ab assis duendis is therefore to be rejected. Servius Tullius divided the Roman people into two classes, assidui, i. e. the rich, who could sit down and take their ease, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... the pear-tree, and even in his preoccupation he was struck with the signs of its extraordinary age. Twisted out of all proportion, and knotted with excrescences, it was supported by iron bands and heavy stakes, as if to prop up its senile decay. He tried to interest himself in the various initials and symbols deeply carved in bark, now swollen and half obliterated. As he turned back to the summer-house, he for the first time noticed that the ground rose behind it into a long ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... valley, where, quite unexpectedly, we came upon Bylands Abbey, the rival of Rievaulx, but far more fallen into decay. It stood alone in the midst of the wide valley; no caretaker hindered our steps to its precincts and no effort had been made to prop its crumbling walls or to stay the green ruin creeping over it. The fragment of its great eastern window, still standing, was its most imposing feature and showed that it had been a church of no mean architectural pretension. The locality, it ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... education in the stern, rude, heroic virtues that prop a people's life, there has been an education in some others, which, though apparently opposed, are really kindred. Unselfish courage is noble, but always with the highest courage there lives a great pity and tenderness. The brave ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hypothesis) by the origin of force and motion in matter. However, President Lowell, of Harvard, twenty years ago said that the nebular hyopthesis was "founded on a fundamental mistake." ("The Solar System," p. 119.) Do we find that scientists, though forced to surrender this prop, have given up atheistic evolution? By no means. Evidently, their atheism is older ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... ligament, which the Indians call a drop of water—goutte d'eau—fall from the tree and take root in the earth; there it swells, and grows in proportion with the size of the branch, and acts to it as a living prop. Besides which, around the trunk, and at a considerable distance from the ground, are natural supports, which rise up in points or spirals to about the middle of the trunk. Has not the Grand Architect of the world ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere |
