"Prop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to one; Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark, Tossed by the deluge in their common ark. Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends, Another Babel soars—but Britain ends. And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants, 650 And prop the hill of these agrarian ants. "Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;" Admire their patience through each sacrifice, Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride, The price of taxes and of homicide; Admire their justice, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... away, I badly missed him and found out, for the first time, what an all-round, valuable creature he has become at 'The Seven Stars.' When he was along with his dying relation, I missed the man a thousand times in every twelve hours and I felt properly astonished to find how he was the prop and stay of my business. That may seem too much to say, seeing I'm a fairly clever woman and know how to run 'The Seven Stars' in a pretty prosperous way; but there is no doubt Legg is very much more than what ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... out and saw Raggedy smiling at them, and Daddy got the clothes prop and climbed out of the attic window and poked Raggedy Ann out of the tree and she fell right into Marcella's arms where she was ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... young feller. He raised himself slow as I come near him, leaning on one arm and trying to set up. The other arm hung loose and helpless. Half setting up that-away he made a feel at his belt with his good hand, as I come near. But that good arm was his prop, and when he took it off the ground he fell back. His hand come away empty from ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... country, and notably the slave-holding states in the forty years preceding the Civil War, have suffered widespread intellectual blight. The best talent of the South, for a generation, went into politics, in the passionately loyal endeavor to prop up a doomed economic and social system; and the loss to the intellectual life of the country cannot be reckoned. Over vast sections of our prosperous and intelligent people of the Mississippi Basin to-day the very genius of commonplaceness seems to hover. Take the great State of Iowa, with ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... room I found my friend bolstered upright in bed, with a small two-legged crutch at hand to prop his head on when he became weary of the perpendicular position. This had been his attitude for fifty days. Whether from its impeding his circulation, the distribution of his nervous currents, or both, the prostrate posture invariably brought on cessation of the heart—and ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... 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 Catholic Church ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in 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 ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... can't use an internal combustion engine, for the explosions in the cylinders would be as visible as though the cylinders were made of clear quartz. He cannot have an electric motor, for the storage cells would weigh too much. Furthermore, if he were using any sort of prop, or a jet engine, the noise would give him away. If he used a glider, the noise of the big plane so near would be more than enough to kill the slight sounds. The glider could hang above the ship, then dive down upon it as it passed beneath. He has a very simple system ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilst strong, required no enunciation to prove it so. The "No, I won't" of Bathsheba meant ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... every type and species of prop or association or support which threw the responsibility upon civilisation or society, or anything but the individual conscience. He has often been called a prophet. The real ground of the truth of this phrase is often neglected. Since the last era of ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... monarchy's 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
... asked him if I could help. "Yes, if you can carry messages to the engineer and translate them into Spanish." I ran to and fro, stumbling up or down, forgetting every time I passed that a certain part of the ship had a raised ledge. The effort was to prop the boat with spars that it might not tip as it crunched and settled down upon the coral reefs. We could hardly wait until daylight to measure the predicament. When the light grew clear so that I saw the illuminated ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... devoted to their sons: his devotion was something more than theirs. How should it be otherwise? In him, and in him alone, the father saw the zealous guardian of his lawless rule, the champion of his old age, the sole prop of tyranny. If grief did not kill him on the spot, despair, I knew, must do so; there could be no further joy in life for him when his protector was slain. Nature, grief, despair, foreboding, terror,—these were ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... that had been supplied him; before lighting the burner he gave Lily a drink of milk and tried arranging both pillows to prop her up as he had been shown. When the water boiled he dropped in two bouillon cubes the nurse had given him, and set out some crackers he had bought. He put the milk in two cups, and when he cut the bread, he carefully collected every crumb, ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... conscious of the evil. He recognized that the fault of the government lay in the fact that it did not govern, and he deplored that his own function, in a decadent age, was but "to prop up mouldering institutions." He was not constitutionally averse from change; and he was too clear-sighted not to see that, sooner or later, change was inevitable. But his interest was in the fascinating game of diplomacy; he was ambitious of playing the leading part on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... Hoarse thunder mutters through the aerial way: All Nature feels the pangs, the storms renew, 100 And sprouts, with fatal haste, the baleful yew. Some power avert the threatening horrid weight, And, godlike, prop Britannia's sinking state! Minerva, hover o'er young George's soul; May sacred wisdom all his deeds control! Exalted grandeur in each action shine, His conduct all declare the youth divine! Methinks I see him shine a glorious star, Gentle in peace, but terrible in war! Methinks each region ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... afraid of their proximity. One of them did not hesitate to thrust a book into my hands, saying, "Give that to that fellow over there, will you?" while another of them exclaimed as he pushed past me, "By your leave, young fellow!" and a third made use of my shoulder as a prop when he wanted to scramble over a desk. All this seemed to me a little rough and unpleasant, for I looked upon myself as immensely superior to such fellows, and considered that they ought not to treat me with such familiarity. At length, the names began to be called ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... precise parallels to many episodes in the Aeneid. He also drew certain hints from the Phoenissae and Oedipus of Seneca: for details see Legras, Etude sur la Thebaide de Stace, part i, ch. 2, part ii, chh. 1 and 2. The subject had been treated also by one Ponticus, the friend of Propertius (Prop. i. 7. 1, Ov. Tr. iv. 10. 47) and possibly by ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... around her mother's fingers that you would think that they were not curls at all but golden dreams of curls that had for the moment come true and would fade back into fairyland whence they came. And the passing year had to prop the child at a window while the dusk came creeping into the quiet house. There she sat waiting, watching, hoping that the proud, handsome man who came at twilight down the way leading to the threshold, would smile at her. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... and gay, of these fabled paragons of wisdom to the dimensions of ordinary vain and amorous humanity. Lilith and Eve unmask themselves under stress of terror, as Balkis and Solomon at the compulsion of the magic ring, and Adam urbanely replaces the mask. Jochanan Hakka-dosh, the saintly prop of Israel, expounds from his deathbed a gospel of struggle and endurance in which a troubled echo of the great strain of Ben Ezra may no doubt be heard; but his career is, as a whole, a half-sad, half-humorous ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... the body's prop she stand— If on the body's life her life depend, As Meleager's on the fatal brand; The body's good ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not infrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and the 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 ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 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
... young brothers, patient with 'em always, ready to mend bad rents in their clothin' and their behavior—tryin' to prop up their habits and their morals, givin' 'em all the schoolin' she could, givin' 'em all a good trade, all but the youngest, him she kep with her always till the Lord took him (scarlet fever), took him to learn the mysterius trade of ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... may be compared to the efforts of a man to prop up his falling house who so surrounds it and fills it with props and buttresses and planks and scaffolding that he manages to keep the house standing only by making it ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... shattered and open, and others were boarded up. Trees and shrubbery were growing neglected, so as quite to block up the lower part. There was an aged barn near at hand, so ruinous that it had been necessary to prop it up. There were two old carts, both of which had lost a wheel. Everything was in keeping. At first I supposed that there would be no inhabitants in such a dilapidated place; but, passing on, I looked back, and saw a decrepit and infirm ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum"—— Last of its timber—they couldn't sell 'em, Never an ax had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin, too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through"—— "There!" ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... Metropolitan Museum, learned something about pictures and porcelains, took singing lessons, though he had a voice like a crow's. When he sat down to his baked apple and doughnut in a basement lunch-room, he would prop a book up before him and address his food with as much leisure and ceremony as if he were dining at his club. He held himself at a distance from his fellow-workmen and somehow always managed to impress them with his superiority. He had inordinate vanity, and there are many stories about ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... subject and a brave soldier. He died in battle for his country. He left you an infant, the heir of all his honors, and the last prop of his house. Little did he think of the treacherous influences that surrounded you to lead you astray. Your mother's mind, weakened by sorrow, surrendered to the insidious wiles of false teachers, and she again ignorantly wrought your ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... prostrate branches occur have, in addition to the usual radiating crown of roots at the base, aerial roots growing out of the upper nodes of the branches and fixing them to the soil. Such roots become supporting or prop roots and are particularly conspicuous in several stout tall grasses such as Andropogon Sorghum, Zea Mays and Pennisetum typhoideum. ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... nothing. It is not as though he were coming to you to prop him up in the world. It does not look like that at least. Of course, we ought to make inquiry as to ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... Marxists," says 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 case they flow in overwhelming proportion out of the ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... to shake her down by hammering on the spout with a stick; but the more he pounded, the louder she yelled, and the two noises roused the entire neighborhood and attracted the attention of the police. Then he procured a clothes-prop; and ascending to the roof, he endeavored to push the animal out. But the stick was not long enough to reach her. All it was good for was to make her howl more loudly; and it did that. At last Potts concluded to take the spout down and coax the cat out. When he got it on the ground, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... of the mine still bear on their rocky walls the marks made by the pick of the workman who toiled to excavate them. The space between each prop in the underground galleries might be marked as a miner's grave; and who can tell what each of these graves has cost, in tears, in privations, in unspeakable wretchedness to the family who depended on the scanty wage of the worker cut off in his prime by fire-damp, ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... forlorn party that toiled up the slope: Sarah clinging to Hempel's arm, Mahony bearing one heavy child, and—could she believe her eyes?—Jerry staggering under the other: her bashfulness was gone. She ran forward to prop poor Sarah on her free side, to guide her feet to the door; and it is doubtful whether little Polly had ever spent a more satisfying hour ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... surrounded with high stone-walls, or ditches, planted with a kind of cane or large reed, which answers many purposes in this country. The leaves of it afford sustenance to the asses, and the canes not only serve as fences to the inclosures; but are used to prop the vines and pease, and to build habitations for the silkworms: they are formed into arbours, and wore as walking-staves. All these gardens are watered by little rills that come from the mountains, particularly, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... prop up another, and that in turn mortgaged to save a third. Like links in a chain. Any chain is only as strong as its weakest link, remember. And we've got the links. Look at these, please." He laid before her two or three slips of paper. Mary ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up—me and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Besides, the moonlight was bright enough in all conscience. Then I scooped that awful thing up in th' spade. I had a sight o' trouble doin' it. It slid off, and tipped over, and I couldn't bear Ev'n to touch it with my foot to prop it, But I done it somehow. Then I carried it off be'ind the barn, Clost to an old apple-tree Where you couldn't see from the house, An' I buried ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... he was only following up this handicraft as a prop to lean on while he prepared those greater engines which he flattered himself would be better fitted for him, he yet was interested in his pursuit on its own account. He now had lodgings during the week in the little town, whence he returned to Marygreen village every Saturday evening. And thus ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... 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
... when barbarous Scythians come From their cold north to prop declining Rome. That I should see her fall, and ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... of those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails; those 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 ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... in earnest. What would Robert Skill have done? How does a gentleman dispose of a dead body, honestly come by? He remembered the inimitable story of the hunchback; reviewed its course, and dismissed it for a worthless guide. It was impossible to prop a corpse on the corner of Tottenham Court Road without arousing fatal curiosity in the bosoms of the passers-by; as for lowering it down a London chimney, the physical obstacles were insurmountable. To get it on board a train ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fits a little Shrine, A little Prop best fits a little Vine, As my small Cruse best ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... he exclaimed. "Let us shut the window quick," he added impatiently; and then creeping softly up to the place, he took hold of the prop which held the shutter up, and gently drawing it in, he let the shutter down ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... Until yesterday, I never saw him off duty, never saw him (he is the best of butlers) with the appearance of having any mind for anything but the glory of his master and his master's friends. Yesterday morning, walking in my slippers near the house of which he is the prop and ornament—a house now a waste of shutters—I encountered that butler, also in his slippers, and in a shooting suit of one colour, and in a low-crowned straw-hat, smoking an early cigar. He felt that we had formerly met in another ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... in the case. If the Tritons of the Solway shall proceed to pull down honest Joshua's tide-nets, I am neither Quixote enough in disposition, nor Goliath enough in person, to attempt their protection. I have no idea of attempting to prop a falling house by putting my shoulders against it. And indeed, Joshua gave me a hint that the company which he belongs to, injured in the way threatened (some of them being men who thought after the fashion of the world), would pursue the rioters at law, and recover ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... after proving that its premises are rotten. I shall accordingly confine myself to a few of the points that captivate beginners most; and assume that if they break down, so must the system which they prop. ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... struggle unprecedented in length, in the fury with which it was carried on, and in the terrible destruction and ruin which it caused. The issue had its importance, which has extended to the present day, as it established religious freedom in Germany. The army of the chivalrous King of Sweden, the prop and maintenance of the Protestant cause, was largely composed of Scotchmen, and among these was the hero of the story. The chief interest of the tale turns on the great struggle between Gustavus and his chief ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... came to a ford that led across a muddy brook. As the horse entered the water, the forward end of the rickety old "saloon" pitched sharply downward. The prop that had held the door fast loosened and the door ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... to the stables, and returned in a few seconds with a clothes-prop, with which he dealt the disturber of our peace a few rapid, but vigorous, blows, breaking its spine in several places. Then the step-ladder was brought out, and Ted, seizing the reptile by the ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... man shakily heaved himself into a hammock 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 ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... of charcoal should be placed in the refrigerator to keep it sweet. When putting your best tea or coffee urn away, drop a small piece of charcoal in it and prop the lid open ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... substances be granted, they must be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications (Prop. iv.). If only by the difference of their attributes, it will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an identical attribute. If by the difference of their modifications—as substance is naturally prior to its modifications (Prop. i.)—it follows that setting the modifications aside, and ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... children, all the money I had earned and could earn by my night labor was consumed, till I found myself reduced to five dollars, and this I lost one day in going to the plantation. My light of hope now went out. My prop seemed to have given way from under me. Sunk in the very night of despair respecting my freedom, I discovered myself, as though I had never known it before, a husband, the father of two children, a family looking up to me for bread, ...
— The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. • Lunsford Lane
... remains, a regular wall of masonry, which rises to the height of the third story between the adjoining buildings. This ruin can be recognized by two large square windows which are still to be seen there; the middle one, that nearest the right gable, is barred with a worm-eaten beam adjusted like a prop. Through these windows there was formerly visible a lofty and lugubrious wall, which was a fragment of the outer wall of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... He had discovered that her "divine intuitions" were mere shrewd guesses, where they had any meaning at all; that her eloquent silences were screens for ignorance or boredom—and so on through the list of legends that prop the feminist cult. ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... I hope he will recover. Just imagine, general; he was found by the road, and brought home with a dagger in his breast, like a prop in a vineyard." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... of the Reformation imagined that the hour of their triumph was at hand. They did not know on what a treacherous prop they were leaning, or what sore trials were yet in store for them ere that triumph should be gained. They knew the regent to be weak and timid; they did not know him to be deceitful—so deceitful that, within six weeks after the last of the messengers were despatched with ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... again, "it seemed to have been written in Katya's fate, that she should be unhappy. She was convinced of it herself from her early youth. She would prop her head on her hand, meditate, and say: 'I shall not live long!' She had forebodings. Just imagine, she even saw beforehand,—sometimes in a dream, sometimes in ordinary wise,—what was going to happen to her! 'I cannot live as I wish, so I will not live at all,' ... was her adage.—'Our life ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... things relating to propriety came, he felt instinctively, within the natural sphere of woman, and to be forced, on the spur of the moment, to decide a delicate question of manners, awoke in him the dismay of one who sees his accustomed prop of authority beginning to crumble. Surely Pussy knew best about things like that! He would as soon have thought of interfering with her housekeeping as of instructing her in the details of ladylike conduct. And, indeed, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... great rock rolling down a cliff. Idomeneus and Aias led the Greeks who fought to hold them back. Hector cast a spear at Aias and struck him where the belt of his shield and the belt of his sword crossed. Aias was not wounded by the stroke. Then Aias cast at Hector a great stone that was used to prop a ship. He struck him on the breast, just over the rim of his shield. Under the weight of that blow great Hector spun round like a top. The spear fell from his hands and the bronze of his shield and helmet rang as he fell ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... gone through such wretched treatment, Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread, And scarce remembering what meat meant, That my poor stomach's past reform; And there are times when, mad with thinking, I'd sell out heaven for something warm To prop a horrible inward sinking. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... wore the papal tiara or the English crown. Two hundred years after Wyckliff, in 1582, laws were still fulminated against "divers false and perverse people of certain new sects," for Protestant England would support but one form of religion as the moral prop of the state. She regarded all innovations as questionable, or wholly evil, and their authors as dangerous men. Chief among the latter was Robert Browne. But before Browne's advent and in the days of Henry the Eighth, there had been a large, respectable, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... 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 me by ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... army, however strong, do more than prop up existing institutions. These themselves were rotten. Despotism cannot save a state. The reign of Louis XIV. was one of the most brilliant in modern annals. But no reign ever more signally undermined the state. It is the patriotism of soldiers that saves, not their physical force. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... as this remarkable production, in which one of the most exact of observers, most cautious of reasoners, and most candid of expositors, of this or any other age, is held up to scorn as a "flighty" person, who endeavours "to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of guess and speculation," and whose "mode of dealing with nature" is reprobated as "utterly dishonourable to Natural Science." And all this high and mighty talk, which would have been indecent in one of Mr. Darwin's equals, proceeds from a writer whose want of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... dissolved the Assembly, suspended the constitution, encouraged his officials to browbeat the voters, and thereby gained a docile Chamber, which carried out his behests by decreeing a Septennate, or autocratic rule for seven years. In order to prop up his miniature czardom, he now asked the new Emperor, Alexander III., to send him two Russian Generals. His request was granted in the persons of Generals Soboleff and Kaulbars, who became Ministers of the Interior and for War; a third, General ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... said as Bessie put out her arm for the bowl, "you prop up his head. I've got a steddyer hand: you'd just spill it all ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... ghastly and still, while Storri rambled on for the mere pleasure of torture. He did not leave Mr. Harley a hope wherewith to prop himself. The deal in sugar had been in Mr. Harley's sole name—an individual deal. There was not the flourish of a pen to prove Storri's interest. Storri would even show how, for that very sugar stock, in that very market, he was dealing ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... is but a game, and much may be done by a player who handles his pawns wisely, Eudemius began to conjure up hopes which, in spite of himself, he knew might never see fulfilment. The more he saw of Marius, the more he coveted his strength to prop his dying house. His fortune would be safe in Marius's hands, his name would be safe in Marius's keeping. For with all his faults Marius had a soldier's honor, and could guard what was given to his charge. Forthwith, then, Eudemius began to lay silent plans; to scheme indirectly, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... must turn from that Slave Oligarchy which now controls the Republic, and refuse to be its tool. Let its power be stretched forth toward this distant Territory, not to bind, but to unbind; not for the oppression of the weak, but for the subversion of the tyrannical; not for the prop and maintenance of a revolting Usurpation, but ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... life before morning." Indeed, there was a general chorus of commiseration, which Burt brought to a prosaic conclusion by saying: "Crocodile tears, every one. You'll all enjoy the pot-pie to-morrow with great gusto. By the way, I'll prop up one of these little fellows at the foot of Ned's crib, and in the morning he'll think that the original 'Br'er Rabbit' has hopped out of Uncle Remus's stories to make ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... that her ovaries are exhausted. The next day, she is 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 ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... stop that awful racket and let Heine go out for his scraps. Well, I brought you your breakfast—Virginia isn't feeling very well—and I hope you're going to be all right. No, get right back into bed and I'll prop you up with pillows; Charley's got a hundred or so. I declare, it's a question which can grab the most; old Charley or Stiff Neck George. Every time anyone moves out—and sometimes when they don't—you'll see those two ghouls hanging around; and the minute they're gone, well, you never saw ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... living in overpopulated rural communities. At the same time, Uzbekistan is 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, 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 stepped up the pace of reform in mid-1994, by introducing tighter monetary ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stead was of the collapsible kind and Helen had to prop it up with empty trunks in order to get a night's rest, but what with the squalling of the office cats and the noise of the clerks and servants below, it was in the small hours of the morning before either she or Marshland got a wink ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... 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 ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Savoy. As I have previously assured you, no woman is Republican. The demonstration was a mistake. Public characters should not let their personal preferences betrumpeted: a diplomatic truism:—but I must add, least of all a cantatrice for a king. The famous Greek amateur—the prop of failing finances—is after her to arrest her for breach of engagement. You wished to discover an independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you not? One would suppose her your wife—or widow. She looked a superb thing the last night she sang. She is not, in my opinion, wanting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... issued in that respect. One of our great Misfortunes is, that we have neither an English or Dutch Man of War in the Harbour. Some of their Carpenters and Sailors would have been of great use to me on this occasion, in helping to prop up my House; for as the Weather, which has hitherto been remarkably fair, seems to threaten us with heavy Rains, it will be impossible for the Refugees in my Garden to hold out much longer; and how to find Rooms in my ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... though he dignified them himself by the name of toes. As to his looks, he was a fine-looking man to just below his hips, and there he had been razed, as he called it to Aleck Donne, while the most peculiar thing about him as he toddled along was what at first sight looked like a prop, which extended from just beneath his head nearly to the ground, as if to enable him to stand, tripod-fashion, steadily on a windy day. But it was nothing of the sort, being only his pigtail carefully bound with ribbon, and the thickest and longest ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... resuscitated for a time. We had a powerful set of pulley tackle by which, when made fast to a neighbouring tree, they could be restored to the perpendicular, after enlarging the hole left by the roots, making the ground firm again round the tree, and placing a strong sloping prop to take the weight on the weak side; good yields would then often continue ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... last frail prop had been knocked from under her precarious foothold in the faith and favour ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... we ascend from the conception of a bare physical maintenance for an average family to such a wage as would provide the real minimum requirements of a civilized life and meet all its contingencies without having to lean on any external prop, we should have to make additions to Mr. Rowntree's figure which have not yet been computed, but as to which it is probably well within the mark to say that none but the most highly skilled artisans are able to earn ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... She looked to heaven, and cried, "Thy will be done!" But, oh! the father no such solace found— Dark, cheerless anguish wrapt his spirit round; He was a stranger to the Christian's hope, And in bereavement's hour he sought a prop On which his pierced and stricken soul might lean; Yet, as he sought it, doubts would intervene— Doubts which for years had clouded o'er his soul— Doubts that, with prayers he struggled to control; For though a grounded faith he ne'er had known, He was no prayerless man; but he had ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... despondingly; "first one prop's taken away, and then another; and after a bit the roof'll fall in, and make an ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch; also the childish amusement of riding upon the two ends of a plank, poised upon the prop underneath its centre, called also see-saw. Perhaps tatter is ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... eclipse, I may say. The fact is, my head is so heavy, that it rolls about on my shoulders; and I must have a stiffener down my throat to prop it it up. So Moonshine, shine ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... passively acquiesce in them; there is an exertion of confidence in depending upon them and assuring ourselves of their force. The inward energy of the reason has to be evoked, when she can no longer lean upon the outward prop of custom, but is thrown back upon herself and the intrinsic force of her premisses. Which reason, not leaning upon custom, is faith; she obtains the latter name when she depends entirely upon her own insight into certain grounds, premisses, and evidences, and follows it ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... brooch of copper in the cloak over his breast; a hooded kirtle girded around him reaching down to his calves; a straightsword with ornaments of walrus-tooth on his left thigh." "But who might he be?" [LL.fo.98b.] asked Ailill of Fergus. "I know him indeed," Fergus made answer. "He is the prop of battle; [2]he is the wild heat of anger; he is the daring of every battle;[2] he is the triumph of every combat; he is the tool that pierces, is the man who comes thither. Connud macMorna, from the Callann in the ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... sat by her bedside. Often she could not get her breath, and he had to lift her and prop her up with pillows; and four times he lit the candle, and, with tired eyes, mixed the meal and placed it on her throat. The firelight played upon the ceiling, the kettle sang softly, the sufferer moaned, the light brought the rumble of a cart, and they awoke from shallow sleeps that blurred ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... whose business it was to despoil and betray; the business men, drawn more or less into the vortex of dissipation; the miners from the creeks, the Man with the Poke, here to-day, gone, to-morrow, and of them all the most worthy of respect. He was the prop and mainstay of the town. It was like a vast trap set to catch him. He would "blow in" brimming with health and high spirits; for a time he would "get into the game;" sooner or later he would cut ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... 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
... silent for a moment, and he saw her hand go up and prop her chin while she considered what she ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... last, that I would 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 pass ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... universal sway, He spoke, and kindled up the blaze of day; First fairest offspring of th' omnific word! Which like a garment cloath'd it's sovereign lord. He stretch'd the blue expanse, from pole to pole, And spread circumfluent aether round the whole. Of liquid air he bad the columns rise, Which prop the starry concave of the skies. Soon as he bids, impetuous whirlwinds fly, To bear his sounding chariot thro' the sky: Impetuous whirlwinds the command obey, Sustain his flight, and sweep th' aerial way. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... 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 ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... not made for such work and such sights. I could never be at home in that trade. Face swords and the big guns and death? It isn't in me. No, no; count me out. And besides, I'm the eldest son, and deputy prop and protector of the family. Since you are going to carry Jean and Pierre to the wars, somebody must be left behind to take care of our Joan and her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... with her head drooping, as if the blackmailer's words had taken away the last shoring prop of her ambition and hope. After a while she ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... until after they were on the steamer. He was really very gentle with her, he tried his best to make her comfortable, he did not refer at all to the events of the night before as he wrapped a steamer rug about her and helped the whining-voiced stewardess to prop a pillow under ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... property which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving his family in poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came when on her return to France, whither her mother was going with her, she lost this last prop of her youth and childhood. Madame d'Aubigne died, and her body was committed to the waves; and, as a destitute orphan, Francoise d'Aubigne ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... of six of my predecessors, has taught me that individuals are nothing in the sight of God. Six emperors have succumbed to the immutable laws of Nature, but the house of Hapsburg is still erect. What, then, if I meet with reverses? The Lord has given me a son, who, if I should be unfortunate, will prop up our dynasty, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... the hall, in a chamber darkened as hers had been, he was lying now, worn out with constant anxiety and watching. When Nina left, his prop was gone, and the fever which had lain in wait for him so long, kindled within his veins a fire like to that which had burned in Edith's, but his strong, muscular frame met it fiercely, and the ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... interests. His use of the term introduced into competition the notion of struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. This new conception, in which competition appears as a fundamental process in all life, has been a powerful prop to the laissez faire policy and has led to its continuance regardless of the misery and destitution which, if it did not create, it certainly did not remedy. The works of Herbert Spencer, the greatest expounder of the doctrine of evolution, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... this: True friendship is a goodly thing and a rare in this world, and, therefore, to be treasured; 'tis thing no man may buy or seek, since itself is seeker and cometh of itself; 'tis a prop—a staff in stony ways, a shield 'gainst foes, a light i' the dark. So do I love friendship, Robin, and thou'rt my friend, yet must leave thee, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... remembered the occasion when Mrs. Spruce had sent for him as a 'man o' God' to serve as a witness to her system of unpacking her lady's wardrobe. That was the dress the garrulous old housekeeper had held up in her arms as though she were a clothes- prop, with the observation, 'It's orful wot the world's a-comin' to- -orful! Fancy diamants all sewed on to a gown!' The gown with the 'diamants' was the very one which now clothed Maryllia,—falling over an underskirt of palest pink satin, it glittered ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... as was the case with a certain gallant captain renowned in song? Neither the one nor the other. The simple fact was, that Sir Francis Levison was in a state of pecuniary embarrassment, and required something to prop him up—some snug sinecure—plenty to get and ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... is not much of a center, Miss Dawes alighted from the buggy and entered a building bearing a sign with the words "Metropolitan Variety Store, Joshua Atwood, Prop'r, Groceries, Coal, Dry Goods, Insurance, Boots and Shoes, Garden Seeds, etc." A smaller sign beneath this was lettered "Justice of the Peace," and one below that ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of Leon, so celebrated in the history of the ninth century as one of the upholders of Breton independence, and known to tradition as 'the Prop of Brittany,' is the subject of a remarkable series of ballads or hero-tales in the Barzaz-Breiz which together constitute what is almost an epic. These tell of his life, death, adventures, travels, and the marvellous feats of derring-do he accomplished. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... 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 heavy rain, by ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... ejaculating from time to time that he found it not; and thus he kept them a little while in suspense. But they, who, were in their way as cunning as he, kept on exhorting him to make a careful search, and, seizing their opportunity, withdrew the prop that supported the lid of the tomb, and took to their heels, leaving him there a close prisoner. You will readily conceive how Andreuccio behaved when he understood his situation. More than once he applied his head and shoulders to the lid and sought with might and main to heave it up; but ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... services as well as punish injuries. The story of Rhoecus proves this. Rhoecus, happening to see an oak just ready to fall, ordered his servants to prop it up. The nymph, who had been on the point of perishing with the tree, came and expressed her gratitude to him for having saved her life and bade him ask what reward he would. Rhoecus boldly asked her ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Const^l right to emigrate thither with their property & demand for it the protection afforded by the Const^n. It became, in course of time, a matter of dispute whether the South could take their slaves there as property. (As a matter of course this arose from jealousy—the N. having no such prop, to take.) This great quest. was decided, however, by the Chief Justice in the highest Tribunal in the world, in favor of the South; viz. that slaves were property. I refer to the "Dred Scott" Case. This should have been sufficient, as it came from the highest authority in the Gov^t. But some ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... France! behold them start Nor shed one teardrop, as your ships depart. Ye love-charmed bowers of Spain! your Houris' eyes Are rayless now—for brighter lustre vies! Ye, boundless plains, and giant hills, that rise In craggy pride, and prop Columbia's skies, Ye view your maddened sons, with guilty haste, Roll from your shores and tempt the watery waste— Forgotten every claim that Virtue knows, Despised the scenes, where early childhood ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... gravely said, "Ah, let it not betide, On one man's hand to venture all his host! No private soldier thou, thou are our guide, If thou miscarry, all our hope were lost, By thee must Babel fell, and all her pride; Of our true faith thou art the prop and post, Rule with thy sceptre, conquer with thy word, Let others combat ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... tried to raise himself a little. "Prop me up," he said. "I speak with difficulty—I ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... welcomed her by pushing up against the roof prop and giving her two thirds of the driver's seat. With her hands clipped between her ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... my prop and safety always. Who would not have done what I did? Not Santa Felicita herself," she said, with ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... 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
... interj. What's here! s. [height and tite, weight]. A board or pole, balanced in the middle on some prop, so that two persons, one sitting at each end, may move up and down in turn by striking the ground with the ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... accident had happened. The dainty roof was crushed in, and the poor little egg, for which such loving preparations had been made, lay pathetically on the ground outside the door. My comrade crept carefully up, raised the tiny roof to place, and with deft fingers put a twig under as a prop to hold it, then gently laid the pretty egg in ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... and we might see either emigrants to California moving west, or the post to one of the forts, and thus obtain assistance. Obed and I soon got up the tent. I sat down, and he made his shoulders serve as a prop while I stuck in the pole, and thus in a few minutes we had a comfortable roof ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... maiden aunts who spend affection and money upon the families of their relatives; who help their younger brothers and sisters through college; who take care of the aged and invalid in the family connection, and act often as stay and prop to all the weaker and more burdened of their kin. What many families would do without this type of unmarried woman is hard to tell. They are often grateful for their release from wearing domestic cares and enjoy their sense of power in general serviceableness to those ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... uttered—all done in half-an-hour—his whole nature had concentrated itself into one keen tense force, like a coiled spring. He felt power tingling to his finger-tips—power and the dulness of an immense despair. Every prop had been cut, every brace severed; he, the City of Rome, the Catholic Church, the very supernatural itself, seemed to hang now on one single thing—the Finger of God. And if that failed—well, nothing would ever matter ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... wild bees and black bumblebees floated in through the open windows. Mrs. Marston's black and white hens and the minorca cockerel pecked about the open door and came in inquiringly, upon which Martha, who sat near the door for that purpose, swept them softly out with the clothes-prop, which she manipulated in ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... "And suppose we prop up two or three pieces of fallen tree trunk before it," added Robert. "Warriors watching on the opposite slopes will take them for our figures and will not dream that we're attempting ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... are talking about," he said roughly, and turned his back to her. It was almost insulting to have her assist him to his attitude of contempt, and to prop him in it with pillows behind his back. Lying there he tried hard to remember that this woman belonged to his hereditary foes. He was succeeding in hating her when he felt her heavy hand on ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... greater the truth.' Take that with you. A lie must, somewhere, have a truth to prop it. In the heart of every big successful lie you will find some reality. Of course you cannot build a house on nothing. A pyramid cannot be constructed in the air. Now a lie is nothing, the very definition of nothing. It is what is not. So, of course, no pure ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... Quaestors also, as military tribunes, began to be elected from the commons a few years before; nor had the Roman people been dissatisfied with any one of them. The consulate still remained for the attainment of the plebeians; that it was the bulwark, the prop of their liberty. If they should attain that, then that the Roman people would consider that kings were really expelled from the city, and their liberty firmly established. For from that day that every thing in which the patricians surpassed them, would ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... and the law has Convicted and Sentanced him to the Stats prison for 10 yeares his White Frands ofered 2 thousen Dollers to Redem him but they would not short three thousen. I am in Canada and it is a Dificult thing to get a letter to any of my Frands in Maryland so as to get prop per infermation abot it—if you can by any means get any in telligence from Baltimore City a bot this Event Plese do so and Rit word and all so all the inform mation that you think prop per as Regards the Evant and the best mathod to Redeme him and so Plese ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... intersections at n being composed of two compound derived shadows, forms a compound shadow and not a simple one, as happens with other intersections of compound shadows. This occurs, according to the 2nd [diagram] of this [prop.] which says:—The intersection of derived shadows when produced by the intersection of columnar shadows caused by a single light does not produce a simple shadow. And this is the corollary of the 1st [prop.] which says:—The intersection of simple derived shadows never ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... this reading has far the best MSS. authority, it must be kept, and adhibenda etiam begins the apodosis. Madvig (Emendationes ad Ciceronis Libros Philosophicos, Hauniae, 1825, p. 108) tacitly reads continentur without cum, so Orelli and Klotz. Goer. absurdly tries to prop up the subj. without cum. Quam quibusnam: Durand's em. for quoniam quibusnam of the MSS., given by Halm and also Baiter. Madv. (Em. p. 108) made a forced defence of quoniam, as marking a rapid transition from one ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... is at least this comfort. I had her life in my hands. By acting as I did, I have saved that life. This reflection shall be the prop of ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... much reputation as a remarkably successful teacher, and her services were in constant demand. She was also a favorite in all classes of society and knew how to adjust herself to the humblest and the highest of her fellow creatures. From the time of her father's death she had been the prop of the family, the mover in all their plans and the provider of their needs. Over me she had a special charge and a sacred duty, for my father, conscious of the too gentle nature of his wife and the poverty in which he was about to leave her, had on his deathbed, committed, had indeed made ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... The children took a few handfuls of wheat, which they scattered upon the ground; and, as Maggie could sew better than the boys, she strung some grains of wheat on a small thread. This was tied to a slender prop which held up the cover of the trap, which was made by putting four blocks together in the shape of a box. In it was a handful of wheat. When all was ready the children hid behind some shrubbery and watched and waited the result. ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... a-follered by the flunk, which last pretty soon came down ag'in an' told me I was to go up. I don't think I ever felt so much like a wringed-out dish-cloth as I did when I went up them palatial stairs. But I tried to think of things that would prop me up. P'r'aps, I thought, my ancient ancestors came to this land with his'n; who knows? An' I might 'a' been switched off on some female line, an' so lost the name an' estates. At any rate, be brave! With such thoughts as these I tried to stiffen ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... son," cried the old man in despair, "how cruel is the fate that has robbed me of you, the only prop of my declining years! Oh, my boy, my boy, would that I had not sent you on so perilous a journey! Who now will look after my grave ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... blinding light streamed around her. The child was gone, and she felt herself lifted up. She raised her head, and saw that she was lying in the churchyard, upon the grave of her child. But in her dream God had become a prop for her feet, and a light to her mind. She threw herself ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... you," she said, recovering her poise instantly; and summoning a girlish perversity, she led him straightway from sentiment to the substantial. "Each one must mount up in his own strength, like these splendid old trees, without prop or help, only the light from above to draw it upward," and a very demure look crossed her ever-changing face as she finished the ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... 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. By this method, and by the selling of the church-lands, is the ballance of the ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... the father, and then he recounted his experience of the night before. "I had hoped she would not fall in love, but be a prop and comfort to me now that I am alone. I am dismayed at the prospect ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... the top of the other so as to form a rough T, and was now busy in fitting a smaller stick into the angle between them, by manipulating which, the cross one could be either cocked up or depressed to any extent. He had cut notches, too, in the perpendicular stick, so that, by the aid of the small prop, the cross one could be kept in any ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... one, for we children were fond of one another and all loved the father and mother who worked so hard for us. We were the first to realize that our home was insecure, upheld by a single prop, our father's labor. The breaking of his right arm might have broken up our home. We wanted to acquire property so that mother would be safe. For we knew that God was a just God. He did not ordain that one class should labor and be insecure while another class owned property and was ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... that in thy secret treasury below, beneath those rude Oscan arches which prop thy stately halls, thou hast piles of gold, of vases, and of jewels, which might rival the receptacles of the wealth of the deified Nero. Thou mayst easily spare out of those piles enough to make Calenus ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... ambitious adventurer inscribed on his coins, but his countrymen knew that the bayonets of his soldiers were the actual mainstay of his pretentious title. Neither his earlier career nor the size of his following was sufficiently impressive to assure him popular support if the military prop gave way. His lavish expenditures, furthermore, and his arbitrary replacement of the Congress by a docile body which would authorize forced loans at his command, steadily undermined his position. Apart from the faults of Iturbide himself, the popular sentiment of a country bordering ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... teach his horse (which was free from vice) to gallop full speed up to the verandah of a house, and when almost against it, the animal would stop in his stride (or prop), when the rider vaulted lightly over his head on ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... so? Never heard that folks that set fire to other people's prop'ty got there, did you? Yes, and folks that helps 'em gits there, too, sometimes. Who was it hid a ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... be seized with remorse at the sight of this dreadful catastrophe, and cried out in a loud voice, 'Unhappy wretch that I am! What have I done? Like a madman I have killed the woman who is the prop and stay of my old age. How could I ever go on living without her?' Then he seized a pipe, and when he had blown into it for some time Nina ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... the devoted George, saying things to him which he should not have said. But his retainer took it all in the day's work, and never bore malice, continuing in his own cadging pigheaded sort of way to labour early and late to prop up his master's broken fortunes. "Lord, sir," as he once said to Harold Quaritch when the Colonel condoled with him after a violent and unjust onslaught made by the Squire in his presence, "Lord, sir, that ain't nawthing, that ain't. I don't pay no manner ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard |
