"Props" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and marking the intersections by slight stakes the next business is to plant the trees that are to become props to the pepper, as the Romans planted elms, and the modern Italians more commonly plant poplars and mulberries, for their grape-vines. These are cuttings of the chungkariang (Erythrina corallodendron), usually called chinkareens, put into the ground about a span deep, sufficiently ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... presumption. In short they soon began to hold a sort of carnival. The pots and pans became, as it were, musical, to the evident distress of the slumbering seaman—especially when the large grey rat fairly overturned a small rice-jar, which in its fall removed several props from other utensils and caused a serious clatter. Still the wearied men slept through it all, until the enemy took to scampering over their bodies. Then the enraged Ebony, being partially awakened, made a fierce grasp at one of the foe, and caught Hockins by the ear. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... twenty men left." Said Bahram, "O holy man! when didst thou leave them?" "But this night,"[FN437] replied she. He cried, "Glory be to Allah! to Him who hath rolled up the far distance for thee like a rug, so that thou hast sped thus walking upon thy feet and props upon a mid-rib of palm-tree! But thou art one of the saints which fly like birds when inspired and possessed by His directions."[FN438] Then he mounted his horse, and he was perplexed and confounded by what he had heard from the beldam so strong in lies and ill calumnies, and he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... purchases. There would be time enough to sleep it off before half-past ten. He was careful to have everything ready that evening. The ways were carefully smeared with tallow and soft soap, and put in their places; the props were all ready to be removed; and everything that might get in the way in the harbour, was hauled out of the way ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... scattered dominions, and he understood in a canny way the need of an effective army and of the closest economy which would permit a relatively small kingdom to support a relatively large army. Under Frederick William I, money, military might, and divine-right monarchy became the indispensable props of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... so cheerful and optimistic, might have competently served for an artist's study of "Gloom." He felt as if the props had been kicked from beneath a line on which ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... aught Telemachus replied, But left the mansion with a lofty stride: Schemes of revenge his pondering breast elate, Revolving deep the suitors' sudden fate, Arriving now before the imperial hall, He props his spear against the pillar'd wall; Then like a lion o'er the threshold bounds; The marble pavement with his steps resounds: His eye first glanced where Euryclea spreads With furry spoils of beasts the splendid beds: She saw, she ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the art of breaking and loading coal. He expected, he said, to have a chamber himself after a while, and then he would take the boy on as a laborer. Indeed, Ralph had already learned many things from him about the use of tools and the handling of coal and the setting of props. But he did not often have an opportunity to see Conway at work. The chamber in which the young man was laboring was the longest one in the tier, and the loaded car was usually at the foot of it when Ralph arrived with his trip of lights; so that he ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... we 'ad, on the lawn, wos a spree and no error, old man. They call it a "Soap-Bubble Tournyment." Soapsuds, a pipe, and a fan, Four six—foot posts stuck in the ground with a tape run around—them's the "props," And lawn-tennis ain't in it for larks. Oh, the ladies ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... soul? Does it really need anything else for its happiness? You will remember that when Madame Guyon was not only homeless, but deprived of her liberty, she was perfectly happy. "A little bird am I." [5] It seems to me that when God takes away our earthly joys and props, He gives Himself most generously; and is there any joy on earth to be compared for a moment with such a gift?... My husband has just come in and described the scene at Mrs. De Witt's funeral, [6] when her husband said, Good-bye, dear wife, you have been my greatest ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... excursions to Table Mountain and to the famous vineyards of Constantia. M. Gaimard observes, "The vines that we rode amongst are in the midst of alleys of oak and of pine; and the vine-stems, planted at the distance of four feet from one another, are not supported by props. Every year the vines are pruned, and the earth about them, which is of a sandy nature, is turned up. We noticed here and there plenty of peaches, apricots, apples, pears, citrons, as well as small plots cultivated ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... of having them return and return again, some system soon will be devised of giving them timely notice when the case is to be reached. Exhausting the patience of the men who are the props and mainstays of truth does not seem reasonable, and after a few visits to court they are not anxious to come again. If possible they ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... prolonged as far as the edge of the ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals, by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the hostile city. Julian checked ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... by a sickly smile and broken words; and Irene was prepared, by the presentiments of her own heart, for the stroke that fell—victory was to her brother—his foe was crushed—Rome was free—but the lofty house of the Colonnas had lost its stateliest props, and Adrian was gone for ever!—She did not blame him; she could not blame her brother; each had acted as became his several station. She was the poor sacrifice of events and fate—the Iphigenia to the Winds which were to bear the bark ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... only stood for a time. So long as the heavy weights and props which held it up remained, so long as the strings, which were tightly tied to nails in the wall, were uncut; just so long the tree remained upright and unmoved. But the very instant that the props and supports were taken away our tree came ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... Hopalong, running to the door, looked out through a crack as sudden firing broke out around the rear of the shack, and fell to pulling away the props, crying, "It's a puncher, Red; he's riding this way! Come ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... and due note should be taken of the skilful way in which a structural necessity has been turned to artistic advantage in the erection of the flying buttresses. In the earlier work they exist, but are hidden away as unsightly props beneath the roof of the aisles. Their artistic possibilities having caught the eye of the builder, they are here brought out into the light, and form a very pleasing feature in the general design. The visitor should now ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... downfall of his own firm! Splendid! Props up his reactionary rule by means of royal pronouncements, confidential ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... funereal foliage droops in Hilo, and it was it that I noticed all along the windward coast as having a most striking peculiarity of aerial roots which the branches send down to the ground, and which I now see have large cup-shaped spongioles. These air-roots seem like props, and appear to vary in length from three to twelve feet, according to the situation of the tree. There is one variety I saw to-day, the "screw pine," which is really dangerous if one approached it unguardedly. It is a whorled pandanus, with long sword-shaped leaves, spirally ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... father told it me, Poor Old Leoni—Angels rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel. Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... to old Rouault, returned to the room before leaving, he found her standing, her forehead against the window, looking into the garden, where the bean props had been knocked down by the wind. She turned round. "Are you looking ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... young man's heaving breast. "I'm going to give you a chance, young fellow! I staged that little play a few moments ago so that you'd see what a fool house of cards you're living in! I hope you noted carefully that we did not need to go off the premises for any of our props. I, myself, had noted in your case that everything that was used came from the premises. Real robbers usually bring their own stuff. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... but surely, in preparation for the battle, we can give each other some help. Some natures seem made to stand, and others to lean. A prop is not of much account, but it may serve to keep a plant straight while it is gathering strength. The big oaks need no props; they are so strong that they can't understand; they have no ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... with the Markovians. They are peaceful and creative, but only a few generations behind them are pirates who were not fit to sit in the Councils of civilized beings. They have no tradition of culture to support them. It knocks the props out from under them, so to speak, to have it known what lies behind them. They cannot be friends with such a man. They cannot even endure ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... sail's belly and the dark wave sang loud about the stem as the ship made way, and she sped across the wave, accomplishing her journey. So when they were now come to the wide camp of the Achaians, they drew up their black ship to land high upon the sands, and set in line the long props beneath her; and themselves were scattered amid their huts ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... But wait a bit. I object to pirates as sons-in-law. KING: We object to major-generals as fathers-in-law. But we waive that point. We do not press it. We look over it. GENERAL: (aside) Hah! an idea! (aloud) And do you mean to say that you would deliberately rob me of these, the sole remaining props of my old age, and leave me to go through the remainder of my life unfriended, unprotected, and alone? KING: Well, yes, that's the idea. GENERAL: Tell me, have you ever known what it is to be an orphan? PIRATES: (disgusted) Oh, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... often a good thing that a human voice which speaks the divine word, should be silenced; just as it is often a good thing that other helps and props should be taken away. No man ever leans all his weight upon God's arm until every other crutch on which he used to lean has been knocked ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... little order was preserved in the streets on that day. People in passing to meeting thro' Prison Lane, (as County-street was then called) and its environs, encountered frequent and large groups of men and boys, noisily engaged in gambling with props, pitching coppers, &c. occasionally enlivened by ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... hope and confidence at all times, specially so is it, mourners in Zion! in your seasons of sorrow. When human refuges fail, and human friendships wither, and human props give way, how sustaining to have this "anchor of the soul sure and steadfast"—union with a living Lord on earth, and the joyful hope of endless and uninterrupted union and communion with Him in glory! Are you even now enjoying, through your tears, this blessed persuasion, and exulting in this blessed ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... great scurrying around after props after the Alleyites came back from the Island after that last rehearsal. Migwan, checking up her list, was constantly coming upon things that had ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... factors of our environment are so many sources of suggestion, constantly working upon our minds. Could we always command powerful and inspiring moral influences, and keep out of range of evil ones, our morals would perhaps take care of themselves. But while seeking so far as possible these external props, and if necessary having recourse to the still more effective help of the professional hypnotists, there remains a vast deal that we must do for ourselves if we are to resist successfully the downward pull of evil influences, solve our own individual problems, ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... big room, that seemed filled with all sorts of scenery, parts of buildings, rustic bridges—in short, all sorts of "props." She had been behind the scenes often in some of the plays in which her father took part, so this was not startlingly new to her. Yet it was different from the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... many enclosed basins as there were bridges. Some of these basins in the heart of old Paris would have offered precious scenes and tones of color to painters. What a forest of crossbeams supported the mills with their huge sails and their wheels! What strange effects were produced by the piles or props driven into the water to project the upper floors of the houses above the stream! Unfortunately, the art of genre painting did not exist in those days, and that of engraving was in its infancy. We have therefore lost that curious ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... time, Gideon Spilett and the sailor hoisted themselves over the palisade, leapt into the enclosure, threw down the props which supported the inner door, ran into the empty house, and soon poor Herbert was lying on Ayrton's bed. In a few moments, ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... that this endeavour is its actual essence, and implies indefinite time, and that the soul, in fine, sometimes with a clear and distinct idea, sometimes confusedly, tends to persist in its being with indefinite duration, and is aware of its persistency (Ethic, Part III., Props. VI.-X.). ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... Why had the bridge gone down, was his first thought. The storm was of far too brief duration to have done the mischief. Then those keen young eyes of his saw beyond the tempest and the ruined bridge. They saw about the useless supports and wooden props fresh chips from a recent axe. In a second his brain grasped the fact that the bridge had been cut away on purpose. His thoughts flew forward—for what purpose was it destroyed? Like a dream seemed to come the captain's voice in his ears: "Better take a gun with ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... immediate profits could not be obtained from the oak plantations, which would, however, increase in value at the rate of about 15,000 pounds a year; and moreover that a considerable revenue from the sale of timber-props for the mine-works, &c., might be expected. Mr. Machen also reported an improvement in the order and conduct of the inhabitants of the Forest generally, the fruit, it may reasonably be assumed, of the many years ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... this observation a little daunted me when I found myself at the door of the house. The tavern was by way of being an ancient one, for the oak props were blackened with age and the upper storeys jutted out one above the other, in the way our forefathers were used to build in walled towns, where every foot of space was of account. Nor did the place look to be ill-kept, though situated in a mean part of the town beside the ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... see that sufficient props were reared, and then proceed with vigor, though always with caution. Courage in such an experiment is less to be dreaded than timidity. Half the evils of life, social, personal and political, are as much the effects of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the Three were tightening their harness on their backs, The Consul was the foremost man to take in hand an axe: And Fathers mix'd with Commons seized hatchet, bar, and crow, And smote upon the planks above, and loosed the props below. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... Object? Alas! Honora's heart was not feeling that Object sufficient! Conscientious, earnest, truly loving goodness, and all connected with it; striving as a faithful, dutiful woman to walk rightly, still the personal love and trust were not yet come. Spent as they had been upon props of earth, when these were taken away the tendrils hung down drearily, unemployed, not ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he had buckled round his shoulders a purple mantle of double fold, the work of the Tritonian goddess, which Pallas had given him when she first laid the keel-props of the ship Argo and taught him how to measure timbers with the rule. More easily wouldst thou cast thy eyes upon the sun at its rising than behold that blazing splendour. For indeed in the middle the fashion thereof was red, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... very shame of its thriftlessness. Age had twisted the house askew, so that the mud daubing crumbled from between the logs, and the chimney was ready to tumble through the roof with the next puff of wind. The shanty barn was aslant and leaned heavily for support on long props. The hay burst through every side of it, and the sole occupant, an ancient white mule, had burst through too, and with his head projecting from an opening and his ears tilted forward, he was regarding me critically. Everywhere the weeds were rampant. Everywhere there were signs of a feeble battle ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... these ranks of sunny little faces assembled here to learn the way of life; to learn to be good; to learn to be useful; to learn to be pious; to learn to be great and glorious men and women; to learn to be props and pillars of the State and shining lights in the councils and the households of the nation; to be bearers of the banner and soldiers of the cross in the rude campaigns of life, and raptured souls in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... individualism, however, which, according to Dr. Spurrell, dissolved the Empires of the past, exists already, in a marked degree, in every modern State; and the problem before us is to discover how democracy and liberty of the subject can be made into enduring props rather than dissolvents. It is the problem of making democracy genuine. And certainly, if that cannot be achieved and perpetuated, there is nothing to prevent democracy drifting into anarchism and ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... I have taken all this pains because I wanted to say a Yankee mechanic's say against monarchy and its several natural props, and yet make a book which you would be willing to print exactly as it comes to you, without altering ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... see them now, those four low props That held the haystack o'er my head, The dusky framework from their tops Like a large ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... heavy piece of woodwork from the place where it had been standing, to the position it was to occupy, where we laid it flat on the ground. It was at the proper moment to be lifted up, and supported by stout pieces of timber, serving as props, on the inner side. It would thus shelter us, and prevent our ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... starring a globe-trotting duke, have his ancestry all straightened out in advance, because he's bound to break into the newspapers and the motto of the newspaper editor is 'Show me.' And the yacht—just one of the props of the comedy, Joey; and with a little cockney steward in livery to say 'Your ludship'; and the name of the yacht changed in case she'd ever heard you speak about the Seafarer; and the cabin done over in white enamel ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... roads or galleries that had been formed by the taking away of the coal; from these again branched other roads, and so on, that you might walk for miles under ground, in and out of the workings of the mine. As the coal is hewn away the roof is supported by props of wood. In some places it was so low that Brownlee had to walk stooping. Of course Charlie did not find all this out at first, for they only had the light given by their lamps to guide them ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... roar and rush, and the devil let loose in the thick of it. My eyes are worn out with it. Take the glass, Erema, and tell us who is next to be washed away. A new set of clothes-props for Mrs. Mangles I paid for the very day I ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... wept piteously. I had almost a fellow-feeling with Miss Higglesby-Browne when she relapsed from her rigidity for a moment and turning on Aunt Jane fiercely ordered her to be still. This completed the wreck of Aunt Jane's universe. Its two main props had now fallen, and she was left sitting solitary amid the ruins. She subsided into a lachrymose heap in the corner of the cabin, where I let her remain for the time, it was really such a comfort to have her out of the way. At last I heard ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... are like hops that never rest climbing so long as they have anything to stay upon; but take away their props, and they are of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... "he's one of the Chivalry; one of the main props; one of the fellows who are trying to bring about Secession in the hopes of being Dukes, or Marquises, or Earls—High Keepers of His Majesty Jeff. Davis's China Spittoons, or Grand Custodians of ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... his List) Eates not the Flats with more impittious haste Then young Laertes, in a Riotous head, Ore-beares your Officers, the rabble call him Lord, And as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, Custome not knowne, The Ratifiers and props of euery word, They cry choose we? Laertes shall be King, Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, Laertes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... committed by women, were held to be shameful, and a serious crime. As is well known, even to-day not few are the men who prefer the company of a pretty female sinner to that of their own wives, and who not infrequently belong to the "Props of the State," the "Pillars of Order," and are "guardians of the sanctity of ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... however, did not succeed; for the walls were so prodigiously thick, and the blocks of stone of which they were composed were so firmly bound together, that, instead of falling into a mass of ruins, as Richard had expected, when the props had been burned through, they only settled down bodily on one side into the excavation, and remained nearly as good, for all ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the body requires supports and props and, above all, a firm foundation on which to rest. Iron and lime, whose union is secured by their opposition to one another, bring into conjunction materials of contrary disposition for the creating of organic forms of the nature of ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... ingrowing virtue which shuts so many people off from the world—a sense of duty. To Mamie Calligan duty (a routine conformity to such theories and precepts as she had heard and worked by since her childhood) was the all-important thing, her principal source of comfort and relief; her props in a queer and uncertain world being her duty to her Church; her duty to her school; her duty to her mother; her duty to her friends, etc. Her mother often wished for Mamie's sake that she was less dutiful and more charming physically, so that the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... offer. Some of my friends have richer abodes, but what matter? Where did Van Eyck, who immortalized himself by that one painting, known throughout Europe as the Dantzic picture, reside? Why, in one of those wretched buildings, ill supported by props and pillars, near the Grime Thor, but which his fellow-townsmen are at this moment prouder of than they are of the Artimshof or the Stockthurm. How did Andreas Stock live? In obscurity and penury, without one smile of good fortune ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... of opinion as to the value of pledges. It would seem unwise, however, when a man has broken a pledge, to encourage him to renew it. Let him try a promise to himself, and prove that he can be a man without artificial props. ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... particular subject of slavery. I felt great concern, as that dispute went on, about the result. I was in hopes that the difference of opinion might be adjusted, because I looked upon that religious denomination as one of the great props of religion and morals throughout the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, and westward to our utmost western boundary. The result was against my wishes and against my hopes. I have read all their proceedings and all their ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... man, ye cud search fr'm wan end iv th' town to th' other f'r me akel with th' ladies. Ye niver see me in them days, but 'twas me had a rogue's eye an' a leg far beyant th' common r-run iv props. I cud dance with th' best iv thim, me voice was that sthrong 'twas impossible to hear annywan else whin I sung 'Th' Pretty Maid Milkin' th' Cow,' an' I was dhressed to kill on Sundahs. 'Twas thin I bought th' hat ye see me wear at th' picnic. ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... till night, With two bony thumbs Could rub my old gums, Or scratching my nose And jogging my toes; But at present, forsooth, I must not rub a tooth. When my elbows he sees Held up by my knees, My arms, like two props, Supporting my chops, And just as I handle 'em Moving all like a pendulum; He trips up my props, And down my chin drops From my head to my heels, Like a clock without wheels; I sink in the spleen, A useless machine. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... consequences could flow from an act so casual and trivial as securing a fishing rod never entered his innocent and pre-occupied mind. He did not know that in the hasty calculations of Townsend all the component parts of this system of props and fetters were necessary one to another. He removed the brick and the cathedral fell and there followed a catastrophe compared to which the World War is a mere incident. If he had pulled the north pole out of the earth the sequel could hardly ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... twice trodden one to the fall, he naturally turned into the mine and followed along the path, torch in hand, hallooing jovially as he went, but his voice only returned to him, reverberating hollowly. Then, remembering the ledge where they had last worked, and how he had meant to put in props before cutting away any more, he ran forward, certain of calamity, and found his young friend lying where he had fallen, the blood still oozing from a cut above the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... ditch, which once surrounded the city, but is now filled up except at these points. The streets of Algiers are all crooked, and all narrow. The best are scarcely twelve feet in breadth, and even half of this is occupied by the projections of the shops, or the props placed to support the first stories of the houses, which are generally made to advance beyond the lower, insomuch that in many places a laden mule can scarcely pass. Of public buildings, the most remarkable is the Cassaubah, or citadel, the situation of which we have already mentioned. ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... were tightening Their harness on their backs, The Consul was the foremost man To take in hand an ax; And Fathers mixed with Commons Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, And smote upon the planks above, And loosed the props below. Meanwhile the Tuscan army, Right glorious to behold, Came flashing back the noonday light, Rank behind rank, like surges bright Of ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... first twelvemonth of rural retirement, Sechard senior showed a careful countenance among his vine props; for he was always in his vineyard now, just as, in the old days, he had lived in his shop, day in, day out. The prospect of thirty thousand francs was even more intoxicating than sweet wine; already in imagination he fingered the coin. The less the claim ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... next week and, sure enough, Frankling declined to allow his name to be put in the hat. We put Ole's name in and were prepared to have him draw a Class A girl; but what happened knocked the props out from under us. His name came fourth and he drew the mortgaged and ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... of January were passed in working extra hard in the unshipping of the cargo and the dismantling of the Halbrane. We slung the lower masts by means of yards forming props. Later on, West would see to replacing the main and mizzen masts; in any case, we could do without them until we had reached the Falklands or some other ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... sentry line in last night's operations; at dinner, we brag about our Company musketry returns, and quote untruthful extracts from our butt registers. At breakfast, every one has a newspaper, which he props before him and reads, generally aloud. We exchange observations upon the war news. We criticise von Kluck, and speak kindly of Joffre. We note, daily, that there is nothing to report on the Allies' right, and wonder regularly how ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... and low one, and had been terribly shaken. In some places the props had been torn away, in others they were borne down by the loosened blocks of coal. The dim light of the "Davy" Joan held up showed such a wreck that Grace spoke to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... climbed the slope under low orchard boughs. The trees were young, too quickly grown; like child mothers, they had lost their natural symmetry, overburdened with hasty fruition. Each slender parent trunk was the centre of a host of artificial props, which saved the sinking boughs from breaking. Under one of these low green tents they stopped and handled the great fruit ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... says Mr. Scranton, with a sigh, "you can't ameliorate the system as it stands: that's out of the question. Begin to loosen the props, and the whole fabric will tumble down. And then, niggers won't be encouraged to work at a price for their labour; and how are you going to get along in this climate, and with such an enormous ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... we had to cross the Kologa. It was but a large rivulet; two trees, the same number of props, and a few planks were sufficient to ensure the passage: but such was the confusion and inattention, that the Emperor was detained there. Several pieces of cannon, which it was attempted to get across by fording, were lost. It seemed as if each corps ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... In other words, whatever the kind of house, remember that windows are intended to let in light and air. Both constitute excellent reasons for living in the country. Proper curtains and draperies lend a softening and pleasing effect but, as in a stage setting, they are only props and must not be allowed ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... have outwitted Palmerston for once. But vengeance was not long delayed. The "Citizen King" had few friends among the monarchical states of the Continent, and in forfeiting the friendship of England he kicked away one of the props of his own throne. Within two years came the Revolution of 1848, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... exchange that 'eternity of personal enjoyment' to which ordinary devotees look forward as their reward, and whose virtue I honour as approaching the sublime, on account of its independence of all the props and stimulants which ordinary virtue finds indispensable. But the sublimest virtue does not of itself constitute religion. For, besides the 'creed,' 'conviction,' and 'sentiment' indicated above, there is needed some suitable object of worship ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... destitution. Refused by her, he was in a disordered and desperate emotional state until military and political success gave him sufficient self-confidence to try once more. With his feet firmly planted on the ladder of ambition, he was not indifferent to securing social props for a further rise, but was nevertheless in such a tumult of feeling as to make him particularly receptive to real passion. He had made advances for the hand of the rich and beautiful Desiree Clary;[57] ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... "perfectly practical and most ingenious men; they worked experimentally: if their buildings were strong enough, there they stood; if they were too strong, they also stood; but if they were too weak they gave way, and they put props and built the next stronger." That was their science—and very good practical science it was—but in many cases they imperilled their work, and gave trouble ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... up the massive and enduring structures which form the buildings of the Rayas mine at Guanajuato, whose striking architectural features of flying buttresses, massive walls, and sculptured portals arrest the traveller's attention. No sheds of props and corrugated roofs are there; but arches, pillars, and walls of solid stone, cut and carved, defying the centuries—and above their portal is the sculptured ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... formerly kept a school, and her portrait would have done very well for a frontispiece to Mrs Trimmer. She was what is called prim in her manner, and as delicate as an American. She always called the legs of a table its props—for the word legs was highly unfeminine. She admired talent, and gave it vast quantities of tea and toast. Her drawing-room was a temple of the Muses, and only open to those who were bountifully endowed with the gifts of nature or of fortune; for she considered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... honest and romantic, loud of speech, and somewhat stupid, but at the same time very brave and very upright, and still clinging with ardent faith to the principles of the great Revolution. However, his Jacobinism was getting out of fashion, he was becoming an "ancestor," as it were, one of the last props of the middle-class Republic, and the new comers, the young politicians with long teeth, were beginning to smile at him. Moreover, beneath the ostentation of his demeanour, and the pomp of his eloquence, there was a man of hesitating, sentimental ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... finds are the weak props supporting the desperate claim of the brute origin of man. Dr. Chapin says (Social Evolution, p. 68): "Other skulls and bone parts of prehistoric man have been found, and preserved in museums, but the specimens described (the four above mentioned) are sufficient to illustrate ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... scientific investigation. All that I have described as really happening might happen if men were found who, convinced as I am of the untenability of existing conditions, determined to act instead of merely complaining. Thoughtlessness and inaction are, in truth, at present the only props of the existing economic and social order. What was formerly necessary, and therefore inevitable, has become injurious and superfluous; there is no longer anything to compel us to endure the misery of an obsolete ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... confines of such narrow entries, and being compelled to reflect upon the immense mass of rock and earth resting above, and prevented from crushing him down into everlasting silence only by insignificant props of wood, whose melancholy groaning in the darkness bore evidence of the vast weight they upheld. There was nothing for me but to struggle onward, although I do not claim that it was without quaking heart, or many a start at odd noises echoing and re-echoing along that grim gallery. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... enrich'd with spoils: Now shameful flight alone can save the host; Our wealth, our people, and our glory lost. So Jove decrees, almighty lord of all! Jove, at whose nod whole empires rise or fall, Who shakes the feeble props of human trust, And towers and armies humbles to the dust. Haste then, for ever quit these fatal fields, Haste to the joys our native country yields; Spread all your canvas, all your oars employ, Nor hope the fall of ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... But for all the props, buttresses, flying-buttresses, that keep the monument up, one thing there is that makes it totter. There is no loud battering from without, but a certain softness in the very foundations, which attacks the crystal with an imperceptible thaw. What thing ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... much as that rubber-tired igloo is mine. They're my props, like the two British Peers on the box. Gee! I'd like to stick chewing-gum in the side-whiskers of the tall one— the one with the cramps in his elbows. His name's Riley, and he gets nine dollars a week for looking like that. A man's board ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... breaking down beneath its own ponderous weight—the rotting props and pillars unable to sustain the gilded roof? Are the prophecies of Scripture about to be fulfilled—the world rushing headlong to ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... of currents or the assaults of the open sea the props cannot hold the cofferdam together, then, let a platform of the greatest possible strength be constructed, beginning on the ground itself or on a substructure; and let the platform be constructed with a level surface for less than half its extent, while the rest, which is close to the beach, ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... understand presently; the intangible power in his demeanor roused her, I think; and her whole soul, every fibre of her body, rose up in mutinous revolt. Whither was this swift current carrying her? What great wave was this that struck at the very props of her own strength and reliance? How did this man dare to invade the walled sanctities of her being? She would have none of him: she would go on her solitary way, sufficient for herself. She, who had never loved amid all the beguilements ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... people to the receipt of custom. The noble tree had been one of magnificent growth, but age or accident had severed the trunk, and within its heart decay had long been revelling. It was now perfectly hollow, and afforded a free passage; two enormous props had been found necessary, to prevent its making a last resting-place of the earth it had for ages triumphantly protected. The cavity that time had created was sufficiently extensive to afford shelter during a storm to three or four persons; and it was ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... that the thought of being without him carries with it the sense of a void, to which it is difficult to assign a limit. Three aequales I shall have lost—Badeley, H. Bowden, and Bellasis; and such losses seem to say that I have no business here myself. It is the penalty of living to lose the great props of life. What a melancholy prospect for his poor boys! When you have an opportunity, say everything kind from me to Mrs. Bellasis. I shall, I trust, say two masses a week for him. He is on our prayer lists. What a vanity is life! how ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... a carriage, like an old man. The hunchback Kohn idly leaned against a Catholic church, thinking about existence. He said to himself: "Yet how odd existence really is. And yet one props oneself up, somewhere, somehow, without connection, irrelevant; one could just as well continue for better or for worse, anywhere. That makes me unhappy." Before him a small, silent whore's dog had stopped, had listened humbly, ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... dissolved into excellent lime; which, when used in building, lasts forever. The same stones, when cold, serve to make their walls and vaults, as they cannot be broken or cut except with an iron instrument. The vaults which they build with these stones are so light as to require no props for supporting them[15]. On account of these great conveniences, the monks have constructed so many walls and buildings of different kinds, as is really wonderful to see. The coverings or roofs of their houses are constructed for the most part in the following manner: Having carried ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... then suddenly rising): Not there! what, seated?—no! (They spring toward him): Let no one hold me up— (He props himself against the tree): Only the tree! (Silence): It comes. E'en now my feet have turned to stone, My hands are gloved with lead! (He stands erect): But since Death comes, I meet him still afoot, (He draws his sword): And ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... (systole and diastole Of Truth's mysterious heart!)—yet, other ways, It may be that this dying serves the cause. For Truth stays not to build her monument For this or that co-operating hand, But props it with her servants' failures—nay, Cements its courses with their blood and brains, A living substance that shall clinch her walls Against the assaults of time. Already, see, Her scaffold rises on my hidden toil, I but the accepted premiss whence must spring The airy structure of her argument; ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... same revulsion that shows itself in modern times, when a spirit essentially religious has been turned against the forms and expressions of religion, because these forms and expressions have been made the props and bulwarks of tyranny, and even the name and teachings of the Carpenter's Son perverted into supports of social injustice—used to guard the pomp of Caesar and justify the greed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... would become of the present regimen in Nuka-hiva; whether the highways might not be suffered to close up, the pier to wash away, and the Residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent officials. And yet, though the hereditary favourer, and one of the chief props of French authority, he has always an eye upon the past. He showed me where the old public place had stood, still to be traced by random piles of stone; told me how great and fine it was, and surrounded on all sides by populous houses, whence, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had seen several boats launched from these yards. Great crowds would gather for this event. After the hull was completed in the docks the boat was ready to launch. The blocks that served as props were knocked down one at a time. One man would knock down each prop. There were several men employed in this work on the appointed day of the launching of the boat. The boat would be christened with a bottle of champagne on its way to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... in the doorway of the Manor Cartier in my pinafore. I don't know why I tell you, but maybe it was meant I should. I obey conviction. While you are able to keep logic and conviction hand in hand then everything is all right. I have found that out. Logic, philosophy are the props of life, but still you must obey the impulse of the soul—oh, absolutely! ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... undergraduate period, but I was actually a witness to the last iniquity which terminated that period. Hi happened to passing under the house of my friend the Warden of Brikespeare, which is semi-detached from the College and connected with it by two or three very ancient arches or props, like bridges, across a small strip of water connected with the river. To my grive astonishment I be'eld my eminent friend suspended in mid-air and clinging to one of these pieces of masonry, his appearance and attitude indicatin' that he suffered from the grivest apprehensions. After a short ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... with stately buildings, as became the capital of the world, showed a succession of glittering spires and orders of architecture, some of them chaste and simple, like those the capitals of which were borrowed from baskets-full of acanthus; some deriving the fluting of their shafts from the props made originally to support the lances of the earlier Greeks—forms simple, yet more graceful in their simplicity, than any which human ingenuity has been able since to invent. With the most splendid ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... families; the entire identification of the more independent portion, the county members, with the great landholders; the different classes whom this narrow oligarchy was induced, for convenience, to admit to a share of power; and finally, what he called its two props, the Church, and the legal profession. He pointed out the natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this composition, to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former and become the predominant section by ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... weariness; the solitude depressed my spirits. The sultry air impregnated with dust, the heat and smoke of burning palaces, palsied my limbs. Hunger suddenly came acutely upon me. The excitement which had hitherto sustained me was lost; as a building, whose props are loosened, and whose foundations rock, totters and falls, so when enthusiasm and hope deserted me, did my strength fail. I sat on the sole remaining step of an edifice, which even in its downfall, was huge and magnificent; a few broken walls, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... front it is left quite open, down to the bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof. It has two seats for the passengers, who sit with their faces towards the horses. The roof is supported by small props, which are placed at the corners. On each side of the doors, above the pannels, it is quite open; and, to guard against bad weather, there are curtains, which are made to let down from the roof, and which fasten to buttons, placed for ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... the orchard, whither we immediately turned our steps. A really magnificent sight met our eyes—thousands of trees, whose branches, covered with the finest fruit, were so loaded that it had been necessary to place props under many of them, lest they should break beneath the weight of their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... at the seal and sea-lion. Of all the feet that I have looked at I know only one more utterly ridiculous than the twisted flipper on which the sea-lion props his great bulk in front, and that is the forked fly-flap which extends from the hinder parts of the same. How can it be worth any beast's while to carry such an absurd apparatus with it just for the sake of getting out into the air sometimes and pushing ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... were then enlarged to a full-sized heading and timbered, as shown on Plate LXI and Fig. 3, Plate LX. The rock near the shaft contained many wet rusty seams, and settlement was detected in the segmental tunnel timbering soon after the widening of the heading was completed. Short props were placed under the timbers, and the street surface was opened with a view of stripping the earth down to the rock and thus lightening the load on the timbering. Street traffic was maintained on a timber structure with posts eventually carried down to the rock surface, and the walls of ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason
... was told to do the best for himself with a ground sheet. To derive shelter in such a storm with a few feet of oilcloth, no props, no light, is a task to which sweeping back the Atlantic with a toothbrush is ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... afterwards by a copious supply. But it would require an entire volume to enumerate all the errors and superstitions of this description which have been propagated by the clergy in Spain, and which form the chief props of ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... started back along the shaft. We were feeling our way along with the shells dropping overhead like hail, when all at once two "Krupps" landed on the tunnel just over my head; there was a terrific explosion, the props of the tunnel gave way, and in another instant I found myself choked with dust and half buried under a pile of dirt. The Corporal was crawling along three or four yards ahead, and in the darkness he could not see what had happened. As soon as I could get my ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... rode abroad, like any other Tory buck. His intimates were all of the King's side,—of the worst of the King's side, I should say, for I would not be thought to cast any slur on the great number of conscientious men of that party. But, being the son of one of the main props of the Whigs, Mr. Tom went unpunished for his father's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ix. 1. For I saw indeed, there was cause of rejoicing for those that held to Jesus; but for me, I had cut myself off by my transgressions, and left myself neither foot-hold, or hand-hold, among all the stays and props in ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... continuation of the "cabin-deck," projected forward and supported by pillars that rest upon the main deck below. The roof, or "hurricane-deck," also carried forward to the same point, and resting on slight wooden props, screens this part from sun or rain, and a low guard-rail running around it renders it safe. Being open in front and at both sides, it affords the best view; and having the advantage of a cool breeze, brought about by the motion of the boat, is usually a favourite ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... sandy field near the road; it had no door in the hollow doorway, no sash in the one gaping window; the step was broken leading to the sill, and some of the weather-boarding had rotted from the skeleton. The old end-chimney bore it toughly up, however, and the low brick props under the corners stood plumb. Within lay a single room with open beams, a sort of cupboard stairway projecting over the fireplace, and another door and window were in the rear. Before this fireplace sat Meshach Milburn on an old chair, fairly ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... thrust her head through the opening and looked out, and then stepped over the little black dog and stood before her tent to watch the Happy Family mount and ride away with Wagalexa Conka in their midst and with the mountain wagon rattling after them loaded with "props" and the camera and the noonday lunch and Pete Lowry and Tommy Johnson, the scenic artist. Applehead was going to drive the wagon, and she scowled when he yanked off the brake and cracked the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Your instances are not to the purpose, for he who cultivates my land, does not benefit the land, but me; he who props my house so that it does not fall, does this service to me, for the house itself is without feeling, and as it has none, it is I who am indebted to him; and he who cultivates my land does so because he wishes to oblige me, not to oblige the land. I should say the same of a ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... tweaked, interrogative ears,—Beautiful-Lovely, the Wolf Hound, reared up majestically in his own chair. He also, once convinced that the mask was not a gas-box, resigned himself to the inevitable, and corporeally independent of such vain props as Chemistries or Sermons, lolled his fine ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... instruments of their toilsome bands, the fishing-creels, the rods of reed, the hooks, the sails bedraggled with sea-spoil, the lines, the weels, the lobster-pots woven of rushes, the seines, two oars, and an old cobble upon props. Beneath their heads was a scanty matting, their clothes, their sailors' caps. Here was all their toil, here all their wealth. The threshold had never a door nor a watch-dog. All things, all, to them seemed superfluity, for Poverty was their sentinel; they had no neighbour by them, but ever ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... props, and costumes of the London production of "Splendour" were slow in coming back. But finally they did come. Josie received them with the calmness that comes of hope deferred. It had been three years since she last saw the play. She told herself, chidingly, that she had been sort of foolish over that ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... bench with these sub-kings, distinguished from them by height of stature, and calm collectedness of mien, no less than by their caps of maintenance and furred robes, are those props of strong thrones and terrors of weak—the earls to whom shires and counties fall, as hyde and carricate to the lesser thegns. But three of these were then present, and all three the foes of Godwin,—Siward, Earl of Northumbria; Leofric of Mercia (that ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... track behind the box, and above two trees. Passing the rope around this timber, we had our purchase in the right place. When we shifted the cross stick down the hill, the box was held by a couple of props. In this manner we descended the slope. It was dinner time then, and we halted in our triumphant progress to refresh ourselves with boiled ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... upon the common consciousness that the individualistic family of one young couple and their children needed props from within if it had lost those from without—those ancient props which sustained as well as controlled young fathers and mothers in the collective family. Hence grandmothers, and grandfathers, as well, became of recognized use in the care and upbringing ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... won't forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,—I know, I know. I shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin', and no ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... observed), religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume would not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it be simply asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... time Napoleon appointed the first Marshals of the Empire, and determined that they should be called Monsieur le Marechal when addressed verbally, and Monseigneur in writing. The following are the names of these sons of the Republic transformed into props of the Empire: Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, and Besaieres. The title of Marshal of the Empire was also granted to the generals Kellerman, Lefebvre, Perignon, and Serrurier, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... intolerably wretched misfit, this union of Conscience and Eben Tollman, but so bent was the woman upon redeeming the hopeless experiment that she sought to brace the doomed and tottering structure with fictitious props. To be an "unimpeachable" wife was not to her thinking a sufficient meeting of her problem. Her own fastidiousness and cleanness of character would have made that less a duty to her husband than to herself. The more difficult requirement was to close, and keep closed the port of her thoughts ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... transit deserves a passing notice. The waggon consisted of an oblong shallow wooden tray on four wheels; on this were placed three boards resting on high unsteady props, and the machine was destitute of springs. The ponies were thin, shaggy, broken-kneed beings, under fourteen hands high, with harness of a most meagre description, and its cohesive qualities seemed very small, if I might judge from the frequency with ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... somethin' horrible that she couldn't turn away from, and then she goes to pieces in a weepin' fit of her own. Nobody interferes, and right in the midst of it she breaks off, marches over to a wicker porch table where the mirror and washcloth had been left, props the glass up against a vase, and goes to work. First off ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... comfortable and unchanged.] The unassuming, but for their purposes very practical houses, of boards, bamboos, and (nipa) palm leaves, are supported on account of the damp on isolated beams or props; and the space beneath, which is generally fenced in with a railing, is used as a stable or a warehouse; such was the case as early as the days of Magellan. These dwellings [45] are very lightly put together. La Perouse estimates the weight of ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... got together and had a nice, fancy, appetizing label printed, and we didn't economize on the gilt—a picture of a steer so fat that he looked as if he'd break his legs if they weren't shored up pretty quick with props, and with blue ribbons tied to his horns. We labeled it "Blue Ribbon Beef—For Fancy Family Trade," and charged an extra ten cents a dozen for the cans on which that special label was pasted. Of course, ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... more surely the impression of having been dipped from the fullness of life. One does not feel that these men and women—Hanne Schael and Siebenhaar, old Bernd and the Flamms—are called into a brief existence as foils or props of the protagonists. They led their lives before the plays began: they continue to live in the imagination long after Henschel and Rose have succumbed. How does Christopher Flamm, that excellent fellow and most breathing picture ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... would probably strike him more than even the railways and the telegraph wires. Returning with his old-world ideas, he would wonder how life and property had survived the removal of their time-honoured props, or how, when all fear of punishment had been removed from the press, Church and State were still where he had left them. Reflecting on these things, he would recognise the fact that he himself had been living in ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... nature, and some not: and to say that there is a certain cultivation of them, nourishing, and causing them to grow, which is the science and art of the farmer, which prunes them, cuts them in, raises them, trains them, props them, so that they may be able to extend themselves in the direction which nature points out; in such a manner that the vines themselves, if they could speak, would confess that they ought to be managed and protected in the way they are. And now indeed that which protects it (that I ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... an exterior and interior embankment, into which, from the remnants left, we saw that oak and elm scantling had been struck as props to the roofing; in one part of the enclosed space some coal-sacks were found, and in another part numerous wood-shavings proved the ship's artificers to have been working here. The generally received opinion as to the object of this storehouse was, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... appeared with two heavy pieces of scantling; unmindful of Palmer, he began spiking the props under the edge of the platform. The strokes of the hammer completely drowned Palmer's voice. When Jake sent the last nail home he arose from his knees with a "Dere, tam you, I ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... machine kept whizzing round and round the room as soon as the slat was withdrawn, and Bradley, in an ecstasy of rage, flung it out the back window into the yard. It continued to make such a clatter there that he had to go down and pile up barrels and slop-buckets and bricks and clothes-props and part of the grape-arbor on it, so that all it could do was to lie there all night buzzing with a kind of smothered hum and keeping the next-door neighbors awake, so that they pelted it with bootjacks, under the impression that it ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... cultivated like ordinary field-vegetables, and cut at the age of a very few years for the sake of the bark and young twigs used by tanners. In England, trees are grown at the rate of two thousand to the acre, and cut for props in the mines at the diameter of a few inches. Plantations for hoop-poles, and other special purposes requiring small timber, would, no doubt, often prove high remunerative.] But the modern improved methods of sylviculture show vastly more favorable ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... [Duties of owner, lessee or agent relating to supplying timber.] The owner, lessee or agent of a mine shall keep an adequate supply of suitable timber constantly on hand, and deliver to the working place of each miner, the props of approximate length, caps and other timbers necessary to securely prop the roof thereof: Such props, caps, and other timbers, shall be delivered in mine cars at point where the miner receives his empty cars, or unloaded at the ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... 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
... reinforced the sagging posts with props of fallen limbs and stones carried from the trail below. They piled brush where the wire had parted, filling the opening with an almost impassable barrier of twisted branches. Until the last rain, the spring-hole fence had appeared solid—but one night of rain in the ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... One of the chiefs jerked himself on to his feet and harangued the Prince like a master rating an apprentice. He was almost as long and thin as one of Jane's line-props, and had high, jutting cheek-bones and jaws that snapped on the ends of his sentences like ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... ago,(181) and never brought to the knowledge of the Apostolic See by your predecessors; under this project(182) which from its outset was tottering and has already collapsed, you now wish to place too late and useless props.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} The rights of provincial primates may not be overthrown, nor metropolitan bishops be defrauded of privileges based on antiquity. The see of Alexandria may not lose any of that dignity which it merited ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... your mouth, and hear the genuine creed; The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed; The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, And that young earthquake t' other day was great at shaking props. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... possible, Titus would not resort to the use of fire; but ordered his men to force the gate, with crowbars and levers. After great efforts, a few of the stones of the threshold were removed; but the gates, supported by the massive walls and the props behind, defied all ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... circumspect, and commercially competent as he had been, his intelligence was not of a high order. The intelligent never wilfully make enemies; Neergard made them gratuitously, cynically kicking from under him the props he used in mounting the breach, and which he fancied he no longer needed as a scaffolding now that he had obtained a foothold on the outer wall. Thus he had sneeringly dispensed with Gerald; thus he had shouldered Fane and Harmon ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... in the state of salvation? He goeth, before God, as surely damned to thirty thousand basketsful of devils as a pruning-bill to the lopping of a vine-branch. To revile with opprobrious speeches the good and courageous props and pillars of the Church,—is that to be called a poetical fury? I cannot rest satisfied with him; he sinneth grossly, and blasphemeth against the true religion. I am very much offended at his scandalizing ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... around for the skull-case, hoping we'd find it, hoping we'd made a mistake and stumbled by accident into an open-air dissecting laboratory and were looking at ghastly props made of plastic and glittering metal instead of bone and muscle ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long
... proclaimed: 'There is no God but God!' His wild and foolish fictions were based on that grand, unalterable truth. That truth is big enough to bear up more lies than even he ventured to cover it with. The human heart leaped up to grasp the great fact that props the Universe—'GOD IS!'—and, in its love for that, accepted also the falsehoods woven into ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... to the dim blue heaven, From the world, far down in whose breast are driven The props of my pillared throne; And the rosy fires of morning glow Like a glorious thought, on my brow of snow, While the vales are dark and lone! Ere twilight summons the first faint star, I seem to the nations who dwell afar Like a shadowy cloud, whose ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... table butter went with the rest. The heavy stoves in the steerage cook-room were turned half-way round, and the capping of the huge smokestack was moved several inches. The terrible wind lifted the hurricane-deck, so that six of its props fell out. There was danger of the upper deck and stateroom being blown away. That was a time to try people's souls, to make them consider whether they were the Lord's or not. It was a blessed thing to feel that we were in God's hands, that even if the water ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... had picked up in a motion picture magazine had hurtled into the logical chain of Dundee's reasoning: assistant directors were in charge of "props"; it was their business to see that no article needed for the production of a picture was lost or missing when the director needed it. Dexter Sprague had said that he had "dropped everything" to come when Nita Selim wired him of the Chamber of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... leading between them and from the support at each end to the banks. The rope of tough vines had been stretched as a hand-rail, necessary with such precarious footing. The rise of the river had swept away the bridge, but the props and the rope hand-rail remained. In the afternoon, from the boat, Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey with a prehensile tail. It ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... it, of course—strongly, perhaps. Well, though my dear girl is worthy of any station; and a man like me, devoted to mercantile interests, may hold his head up anywhere as one of the props of this commercial country," (he ran his fingers rapidly through his hair, and tried to look independent), "still I am prepared to admit, under all the circumstances—I say under all the circumstances—that his disapproval ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... uses. Its wood is compact and heavy, weighing forty-four pounds to the cubic foot. In France it is much used in turnery; and wine-casks are made from it, as it gives to white wines an agreeable flavour of violets. Vine-props and fences are made from its branches; and out of its bark—by a process which I have not time to describe—a cloth can be manufactured almost as fine as silk itself. The fruit of the white mulberry—where it grows ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... ascribes a false importance, in relation to his theory, therefore that theory is overthrown. But, if an architect, under some fancied weakness of a bridge which is really strong and self-supported, chooses to apply needless props, I shall not injure the bridge by showing these to be rotten props and knocking them away. What is the real strength and the real use of Mr. Malthus's theory of population, cannot well be shown, except in treating of ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey |
