"Prop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through the hurtling prop, the night rushed at him; the dark hills melted away to either side; clear ground swept into view and then a long black thread that was the spillway channel. Behind was the bubbling, leaping flow of the spillway itself, and Gatun Dam. The smooth cement ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... of Orientalism, the corner-stone is frequently referred to as the appropriate symbol of a chief or prince who is the defence and bulwark of his people, and more particularly in Scripture, as denoting that promised Messiah who was to be the sure prop and support of all who should put their trust in his ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... people of the house. To this remote home he found himself, at a very early hour in the morning of the next day, condemned to set forth on foot. He was a young man of a portly habit; no lover of the exercises of the body; bland, sedentary, patient of delay, a prop of omnibuses. In happier days he would have chartered a cab; but these luxuries were now denied him; and with what courage he could muster he addressed himself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 of heed to that. Folk du say ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... sat staring at her companion. The last prop of her faith in the man who had married her was crumbling. She could not give up this last illusion of Druce's faithfulness without a struggle. The blood flamed to her cheeks and ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... is about to tumble to pieces; that somebody is going to introduce a new plank into the platform, and if he does, the Union must tumble down; until at last I begin to think it is such a rickety old platform that it is impossible to prop it up. But then I bring my own judgment to bear, instead of relying on witnesses, and I come to the conclusion that the Union is strong and safe—strong in its power as well as in the affections ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... head in full stand out from among the vast mass of bushy curls surrounding it. I proposed we should have a mutual suck on the floor, with her bottom to the light, that I might have a full view of all her glorious parts. She humoured my fancy, and pulling a couple of pillows off the bed to prop up my head, she stepped across my body, and kneeling down, took my prick in her mouth, and brought her splendid backside and lascivious cunt down to my face. I first glued my lips to the open cunt, thrust my chin in, and ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... of the fold, The stay that saves the ship, of lofty roof {870} Main column-prop, a father's only child, Land that beyond all hope the sailor sees, Morn of great brightness following after storm, Clear-flowing ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... 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 danger ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... not in our power to overturn the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him to remove them—if the King set so little value on his promise—a promise now known to the whole city, and which he must in self-defence now speak openly of, he foresaw the speedy downfall of the kingdom. Who, he asked, will subject themselves to be deceived in an endeavour to prop it up by the removal of those who were living on its heart's blood, or be made liars by reporting promises never to be fulfilled?" Thus ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... was a good friend of mine, but it would have required a bolder man than I was at that time to ask him for the gift of his niece, who was the head of his household, and, according to his own frequent statement, the main prop of his declining years. Had Madeline acquiesced in my general views on the subject, I might have felt encouraged to open the matter to Mr. Hinckman, but, as I said before, I had never asked her whether or not she would be mine. I thought of these things ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... included in that family relationship. Cousin Gustus distrusted youth. He thought young people were always either lying to him or laughing at him, and indeed they often were. Only not so often as he thought. He was no prop on which to repose confidence, and it was very easy both to tell him lies and not ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... Clementine learned to honor the virtues of her aunt, but she adored her mother. When she had the affliction of losing her, she found herself alone in the world, leaning on Mlle. Sambucco, like a young plant on a prop of dry wood. It was then that her friendship for Leon glimmered with a vague ray of love; and young Renault profited by the necessity for expansion which ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... 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, ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... fell upon the pear-tree, and even in his preoccupation he was struck with the signs of its extraordinary age. Twisted out of all proportion, and knotted with excrescences, it was supported by iron bands and heavy stakes, as if to prop up its senile decay. He tried to interest himself in the various initials and symbols deeply carved in bark, now swollen and half obliterated. As he turned back to the summer-house, he for the first time noticed that ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... thousand! Umph! Let's see! Bond and mortgage'll do for me. Good! That gal that passed me by Scornful like—why, mebbe I Some day'll hold in pawn—why not?— All her father's prop. She'll spot What's my little game, and see What I'm after's ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... conscious, and not in great pain. I'm not much of a prop to lean on, but I think we can make ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... have gone, And proud pluralities subside 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 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... to see the stilt plover move; to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to be but a bad walker: but what adds to the wonder is that it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop support its steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... the lie the 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 ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... touch trade, even when it proffered a bag of money in a well-gloved hand, was to be defiled beyond the restoring power of a Belgravian Duchess. To be sure, even the highest and the driest of these censors contrived to close an indulgent eye when a moneyless scion of nobility sought to prop his tottering house by rebuilding it upon a commercial foundation, and cementing it with the dower of a "tradesman's" daughter. But if these blameless ones, whose exclusive dust has long since been consigned ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... appearances sometimes 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 ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... relics of the saints trodden under foot. "You," continued the eloquent pontiff (and Urban II. was one of the most eloquent men of the day), "you, who hear me, and who have received the true faith, and been endowed by God with power, and strength, and greatness of soul,—whose ancestors have been the prop of Christendom, and whose kings have put a barrier against the progress of the infidel,—I call upon you to wipe off these impurities from the face of the earth, and lift your oppressed fellow-Christians ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... which George could think only of the ghastly figure on the sofa. She sat upright, generally, against a prop of cushions, dressed in a white French tea-gown, slim enough to begin, with, but far too large now for the shrunk form—a bright spot of rouge on either pinched cheek, and the dyed "fringe" and "coils" ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... We've both got hold of bits of the truth! In the end we must win through for ourselves, 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 ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... better," he said. "I am well. I want to thank you—and the others." He made a step toward her, and the strength of his left leg gave way. He would have fallen if she had not darted to him so quickly that she made a prop for him, and her eyes looked up into his whitened face, big and frightened and ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... 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
... nor need a critic dissect a whole system 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
... have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all her former ones, will be but temporary; but I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me and I miss a prop. All my strength is gone, and I am like a fool, bereft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I should think wrong; so used am I to look up to her in the least and the biggest perplexity. To say all that I know ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... think of following your meteoric career in the papers! As I nibble at my toast of a morning I prop the New York Herald against the water giraffe and read, spilling my coffee down my neck: 'The life of the party was Right Tackle Thayer. Seizing the elongated sphere and tucking it under his strong left arm, Thayer dashed into the ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... king, the highly-puissant son of Vasudeva (Krishna) also addressed him. Knowing the king, the son of Pritha, afflicted in mind, and bereft of his relatives and kinsmen slain in battle, and appearing crest-fallen like the sun darkened eclipse, or fire smothered by smoke, that prop of the Vrishni race (Krishna), comforting the son of Dharma, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... interference on his father's part. It had seemed to be admitted that he was a better man than his father, better than the other Claverings—the jewel of the race, the Clavering to whom the family would in future years look up, not as their actual head, but as their strongest prop and most assured support. He had said to himself that he would be an honest, truthful, hard-working man, not covetous after money, though conscious that a laborer was worthy of his hire, and conscious also that the better the work done the better should be his ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... (R. C.) Yes, and Catiline too; Though story wrong his fame; for he conspired To prop the reeling glory of his country, ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... saving. There has been no propaganda as yet appealing to women to value dress according to durability and comfort rather than according to its prettiness, to bow to no fashion which means the lessening of power. To corset herself as fashion dictates, to prop herself on high heels, means to a woman just so much lost efficiency, and even the most thoughtless, if appealed to for national saving, might learn to turn by preference in dress, in habits, in recreation, to the ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... Fargo. They had wired ahead to ground the plane. They wanted to check it over before it flew again. When they arrived, only a matter of hours after the incident, they went over the airplane, from the prop spinner to the rudder trim tab, with a Geiger counter. A chart in the official report shows where every Geiger counter reading was taken. For comparison they took readings on a similar airplane that hadn't been ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... alone in her lowly cabin. She had hoped for a prop and stay in her advancing years. The little boy was always active, kind and helpful. Her tears fall as she speaks of her loss, yet with an upward glance she says: 'He's gone to a better worl'. There's nary night, nor sin, nor sickness. Pie use to read to me all about ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... of horrible doubts and fears assailed him. He felt deeply his helpless condition, poor fellow. Had he been sound in wind and limb he would have cared little; for a brave and a strong man naturally feels that he can fight a stout battle for life in all or any circumstances. But part of this prop (namely, strength) having been removed by his recent accident, he felt ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... endowed with added beauty from the lovely names they wear—a tragic yet a charming legacy from Kanonsis and Kanonsionni, the brave and mighty people of the Long House, and those outside its walls who helped to prop or undermine ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... which could have tempted an impostor to fabricate such unpretending compositions. Though given as the veritable Epistles of Pius by the highest literary authorities of Borne, they are certainly ill calculated to prop up the cause of the Papacy. If their claims are admitted, they must be regarded as among the earliest authentic records in which the distinction between the terms bishop and presbyter is unequivocally recognized; and it is obvious that if alterations in the ecclesiastical constitution ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... love correctly? He turned to Proposition xxxiii. "If we love a thing which is like ourselves we endeavor as much as possible to make it love us in return." His eye ran over the proof with its impressive summing-up. "Or in other words (Schol. Prop, xiii., pt. 3), we try to make it love us in return." Unimpeachable logic, but was it true? Had he tried to make Klaartje love him in return? Not unless one counted the semi-conscious advances of wit-combats and intellectual ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 'the Bread of God that came down from heaven to give life to the world.' Do I want an outward object for my intellect? I have it in Him. Does my heart feel with its tendrils, which have no eyes at the ends of them, after something round which it may twine, and not fear that the prop shall ever rot or be cut down or pulled up? Jesus Christ is the home of love in which the dove may fold its wings and be at rest. Do I want (and I do if I am not a fool) an absolute and authoritative command to be laid upon my will; some one 'whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... densely populated rural communities. Uzbekistan is now the world's third largest cotton exporter, a large producer of gold and oil, and a regionally significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Following independence in December 1991, the government sought to prop up its Soviet-style command economy with subsidies and tight controls on production and prices. Faced with high rates of inflation, however, the government began to reform in mid-1994, by introducing tighter monetary policies, ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... also caused high interest rates and led to operating losses for the bank. Early in 1998, it relaxed its monetary policy in an effort to correct these problems, but increased pressure on the quetzal has prompted the bank to intervene to prop up its value. ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... place for other thoughts. The vivid hope of Percy's faithful recollection enduring at least for a year, had come to give her strength and courage in the very time when her youthful energies had almost broken down under the weight of so many troubles; it had been a kind of prop on which she leaned through her last partings and anxieties, and which seemed to be the very foundation of her recent content. To have it struck away from her suddenly, left her helpless and confused; her own natural forces, ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... practices are of a most cruel and brutal nature. I have seen them frequently pull the plumes from wounded birds, leaving the crippled birds to die of starvation, unable to respond to the cries of their young in the nests above, which were calling for food. I have known these people to tie and prop up wounded egrets on the marsh where they would attract the attention of other birds flying by. These decoys they keep in this position until they die of their wounds, or from the attacks of insects. I have seen the terrible red ants of that country actually eating ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... his watch, his horse, and any sum of money they should name. They rejected his offers with indignation; and the gold that could seduce a man high in the esteem and confidence of his country, who had the remembrance of his past exploits, the motives of present reputation and future glory to prop his integrity, had no charms for three simple peasants, leaning only on their virtue, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... of milk, gleaming along the wall of Herons' Holt, drew every stray cat within a radius of two miles. Beneath, each armed with a clothes-prop, toiled Mr. Fletcher and Frederick under the immediate ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the character of the dwellers therein. The cheeky-looking villa, with its superabundance of ornament, is a monument in masonry to the successful mining jobber on a small scale. The solemn-looking, solid dwelling, standing in its own grounds, where every flower bush has its individual prop, where the lawn is trimmed with mathematical exactitude, and not one vagrant leaf is allowed to stray, speaks with a kind of brick-and-mortar eloquence of virtue that has never grasped the sublime fulness of the Scriptural text which saith: "The way of transgressors ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... a lord of parliament; but I will front him in both capacities, and frankly tell him, that in the first he is a burthen to his own estate, and not a benefactor; and in the second, a peer but not a prop. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... was beginning to settle comfortably into this strange order of things. Her face, as she sat thus, wore the ready curves of smiles instead of tears. Elmira was one whose strength would always be in dependence. Now her young brother showed himself, as if by a miracle, a leader and a strong prop, and she could assume again her natural attitude of life and growth. She was no longer strange to herself in these strange ways, and that was wherein all the bitterness of ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... poor dear!' Then, she immediately ran out of the house to wash her face, in order that she might sit quietly beside him, and be found at work there, when he should awake. In short I left her, when I went away at night, the prop and staff of Mr. Peggotty's affliction; and I could not meditate enough upon the lesson that I read in Mrs. Gummidge, and the new experience she ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... drooping, as if the blackmailer's words had taken away the last shoring prop of her ambition and hope. After a while she raised her white, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... napkin; change his position sometimes and let him lie on his stomach for awhile. Of course this exercise cannot be taken after a meal and before the fourth month. Take a large clothes basket, put a blanket and some large pillows in it and prop baby up in a half sitting position for a little while each day, beginning with fifteen minutes, then one-half hour, and you can also at this time (fourth month) play with baby for a short time every day, but never just before bedtime, and the best time is just ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... of our wrecked village and that carved-up and bloody madman have taught me that I am 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
... 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 north, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... for himself. Parts of the passionate rebuke which suffering and indignation had forced from him remained branded upon her memory; and she wept in shame, feeling her helplessness, her ignorance, her inexperience, feeling that she had no longer any sure support or prop. For how could she trust those who had drawn her into this hideous, this cruel business? Who, taking advantage at once of her wounded vanity, and her affection for her brother, had led her to this act, from which she ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... (Vol. ii., p. 473.).—In your number for December 14, 1850, one of your correspondents, referring to Bartholomeus de Prop. Rerum, mentions a paper-mill near Stevenage, in the county of Hertford, as being probably the earliest, or one of the earliest, established in England. I should feel much obliged if your correspondent, through the medium of your pages, would favour me with any further particulars on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... were fitted in a pair of bits in the deck, through which ran a piece of horizontal timber, on which they worked; so that they could be raised or depressed at pleasure. The after pole was shorter than the others, and served as a prop to them. When the pirates intend to board an enemy, they allow this mast to fall over the bows, and it serves them as a ladder to climb on to her decks. They were steered in a curious way, by two broad-bladed ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... stated that 1,511 cattle were requisitioned from their owners for slaughter purposes. This was a great trial both to the officer who carried out this duty and to the owners. The Kaffir lady Ugumba did not want to part with her pet cow, which was the prop of her house, had been bred up amongst her children, and had lived in the back yard. The white owners discovered suddenly that their cattle were of the very highest breed, and had been specially imported from England or Holland at enormous cost. However, most of these cattle, except milch ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... of compulsion; that real nationality is a psychological state, a tribute of sympathy, a voluntary service to which the mind is drawn by affection. To some who lightly praised the idea, treating it as an admirable prop to war, the consequences and application will bring dismay. For here you have the pivot of a social revolution such as the world has never yet seen. It cannot only remain a question of Belgium, or ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... proceed no further, is one effect of its virtue, yes, one of those of which it is most proud. One while in an idle and frivolous subject, I try to find out matter whereof to compose a body, and then to prop and support it; another while, I employ it in a noble subject, one that has been tossed and tumbled by a thousand hands, wherein a man can scarce possibly introduce anything of his own, the way being so beaten on every side that he must of necessity ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... was scarcely possible for him to shape his course so as not to give one or both of his employers reason to complain. For a time he acted as fairly as, in circumstances so embarrassing, could reasonably be expected. At length he found that, while he was trying to prop the fortunes of another, he was in danger of shaking his own. He had disobliged both the parties whom he wished to reconcile. Essex thought him wanting in zeal as a friend: Elizabeth thought him wanting in duty as a subject. The ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... congratulate you, sir, on being without reproach in your business relations. You will suit me to a nicety. I lost two years ago the old man who sat at this desk for the last forty years. He was the only friend I had in the wide earth. He was my prop and support, and now that he is gone, I feel tottering and weak. I want some one to assist me in the cares of my immense business; a partner, young, active, and possessed of just the requisites which ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Our moral sentiment is itself a feeling chiefly of that nature, and our regard to a character with others seems to arise only from a care of preserving a character with ourselves; and in order to attain this end, we find it necessary to prop our tottering judgement on the ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... seemed unconscious of it, as she stood rigid and motionless, with her wild eyes dumbly imploring help of earth and heaven. Suddenly both strength and excitement seemed to leave her, and she would have fallen but for the living, loving prop that sustained her. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... off a small, worn, gold ring which had lost its "set," and laid it in the man's hand, saying, "That's all the prop'ty I've got except eight hens which I gave Gail for those I poisoned. It had a ruby in it once, but the old rooster picked it out and et it. I used to have two bunnies, too, but last Christmas the German kids ate ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... was counted well on the way to the shelf at forty-five. Janet, be it remembered, lacked but two years of the fatal age. Already chits of thirty-five or seven were generously alluding to her as the prop of her father's age; so small wonder if she simpered instead of passing with a nifty air when ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... wit so large, Hath now the power, death's warfare to discharge, It's not my goodly state, nor bed of downs That can refresh, or ease, if Conscience frown, Nor from Alliance can I now have hope, But what I have done well that is my prop; He that in youth is Godly, wise and sage, Provides a staff then to support his Age. Mutations great, some joyful and some sad, In this short pilgrimage I oft have had; Sometimes the Heavens with plenty smiled on me, Sometime again rain'd all Adversity, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... lavished rings in largesse, When the fights' red rain-drips fell, Bright of face, with heart-strings hardy, Hogni's father met his fate; Then his brow with helmet shrouding, Bearing battle-shield, he spake, 'I will die the prop of battle, Sooner die than yield an inch, Yes, sooner die than yield ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... and the 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 ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... the sounding water: let me gaze Till every sense of man and human ways Is wrecked and quenched for ever, and I drop Into the whirl of time, and without stop Pass downward thus! Again my eyes I raise To thee, dark rock; and through the mist and haze My strength returns when I behold thy prop Gleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack. Surely thy strength is human, and like me Thou bearest loads of thunder on thy back! And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black— A breezy tuft of grass which I can see Waving serenely from a ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... doubtless exist. Panuel Lovell now came forward to greet and welcome Wilderspin. Sinfi and Cyril had evidently walked at a brisk rate, for already tea was spread out on a cloth. The fire was blazing beneath a kettle slung from the 'kettle-prop.' The party were waiting for us. Sinfi, however, never idle, was filling up the time by giving lessons in riding to Euri and Sylvester Lovell, two dusky urchins in their early teens, while her favourite ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... higher a virtue is, the greater the number of things to which it extends, as stated in De Causis, prop. x, xvii. Wherefore from the very fact that wisdom as a gift is more excellent than wisdom as an intellectual virtue, since it attains to God more intimately by a kind of union of the soul with Him, it is able to direct us not only in contemplation ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... wide expand, The pride of Turkey and of Persia land! Soft quilts on quilts, on carpets carpets spread, And couches stretch'd around in seemly band, And endless pillows rise to prop the head. ... Here languid Beauty kept her pale-faced ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... entry made Beneath the immense, full-bottom'd shade; While the gilt cane, with solemn pride To each suspicious nose applied, Seemed but a necessary prop To bear the weight of ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... "You are my prop and safety always. Who would not have done what I did? Not Santa Felicita herself," she said, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of all this, I've to go on being a prop to you, we need not go on trying any more. Props are rotten and cowardly, whether they are props of love or not. I want to see you grow so that, if I go out of life, you'll stand up straight with your head in the sun and the wind. Not propped, my dear! Father was all wrong, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... me to think of myself as alone." The strong lines in Scarborough's face were in evidence. "But it would disturb me if I were propped up and weren't sure I could stand alone. I'm afraid to lean on any one or anything—my prop might give way. And I don't want any friends or any associates who value me for any other reason than what I myself am. I purpose never to 'belong' ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... 'You don't un'stand prop'ly. It's a inside white frock over our hearts. Nobody sees it but Jesus and the angels at the gate—and God. Our hearts are quite dirty and black till we ask Jesus to wash them and put the white dress on. ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... cried with angry energy, "while we are seeking help he may— Yes; still beating. Quick! Open that door. No, no; that's the way into the street! The other door—the consulting-room. Prop it open with a chair. We must get him on to the sofa, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... up and set going to run another year. We do these things differently in the country. We don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,—but keep living in it all the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung and grown like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was revived, and it became manifest that the prop upon which she had leaned had been slipped from under her. The spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her boy failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and horrible waste of life gave the lie to the splendid fighting ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... trade or property at such a crisis?" interrupted an enthusiast, in figured trowsers and a gay cravat. "Our beloved Union must and shall be preserved. The fabric that our fathers reared for us must not be allowed to crumble. We will prop it with our mangled bodies," and he brushed a speck of dust from the fine broadcloth ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... Canyon; and at that hour Evan Blount, blinking dizzily, and with his head bandaged and throbbing as if the premier company of all the African tom-tom symphonists were making free with it, was letting Mrs. Honoria beat up his pillows and prop him with them, so that the drum-beating clamor might be ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... a state of the greatest excitement, were the doctor and Helen, with Peter Cribb, with a clothes-prop to be used for a different ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Harry, divining his intention, hastened to assist Ned. Their united efforts soon placed the table in position. It was the work of but a moment to raise the trap door and prop it up with a short piece of wood from the wreckage strewn about. Making the well-known signal used by railroad men in the United States as a sign for a fireman to shovel more coal into the firebox, ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... them, 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 ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... not apt to have ideals,' said Albinia; 'nor do I think Maria will be so trying. Do you remember that creeper of Lucy's, all tendrils and catching leaves, which used to lie sprawling about, entangling everything till she gave it a prop, when it instantly found its proper development, and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the hotel within five feet of the chimney and dropped so low that his prop wash flattened the reeds in the marsh. Then, climbing again, he swung wide and went over Seaford at a legal altitude. He was, even the critical Gus admitted, a safe-and-sane flier, but the temptation to get back at Carrots Kelso a little was too much. High ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... this wood smoke from my throat, Brother Carter, and about as much again to prop open your eyes," he said, dragging Carter before the bar, "and glasses round for as many of the boys as are up and stirring after a hard-working Christian's rest. How goes the honest publican's trade, and who have ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... fallen to his knees, to help his master in his plea for blessing, and he called out after the peasant girls: "Oh, princess and universal lady of El Toboso, is not your heart softened by seeing the pillar and prop of knight-errantry on his ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... weakness of this prop to his hypothesis, as well as the best logician could shew him—yet so strange is the weakness of man at the same time, as it fell in his way, he could not for his life but make use of it; and it was certainly for this reason, that though there are many stories in Hafen Slawkenbergius's ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Miss Mary Welsh, a dear friend, one of my old St. Louis patrons, called to see me, and on broaching the cause of my grief, she condoled with me. She knew that I had looked forward to the day when my son would be a support to me—knew that he was to become the prop and main-stay of my old age, and knowing this, she advised me to apply for a pension. I disliked the idea very much, and told her so—told her that I did not want to make money out of his death. She explained away all of my objections—argued that Congress had made an appropriation ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... upbraiding howl at his men. They were not disposed to second him yet. They one and all approved his personal battle with Fate, and never more admired him and felt his power; but the affair was exciting, and they were not the pillars to prop a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sent for her immediately, and met her when she was within an hour or two of home. As she entered the sala, Don Guillermo, Reinaldo, and Prudencia literally flung themselves upon her; and she stood like a rock, and supported them. She had loved her mother, but it had always been her lot to prop other people; she never had ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Mr. Jope answered cheerily. "You come along o' me to Plymouth an' I'll put you into the very job. A cook's galley, it is, and so narra' that with a wooden leg in dirty weather you can prop yourself tight when she rolls, an' stir the soup with ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hollow trunk of a decrepit ash the ivy was blossoming profusely, gathering its support from the frail prop which it was fated to destroy. The insects were humming and frolicking about on their tiny wings, taking their last enjoyment of their little day, ere they gave place to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... cut him off from marriage—together with the ardent temperament, the charm, the imaginative insight which had been his cradle-gifts—these things ever since he was a lad had made him again and again the guide and prop of natures stronger and stormier than his own. Often the unwilling guide; for he had the half-impatient breathless instincts of the man who has set himself a task, and painfully doubts whether he will have power and time to finish it. The claims made upon him seemed to ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for the little one: no, not like that; upside-down, so he won't roll out; and it's still warm from the mare's back. Prop it up on each side with ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... as if I were a Person of Quality; And when any comes hither they are won by my complemental and genteel Discourse; my comely presence brings in many a Guest into the House, besides particular Acquaintance: So that I may well affirm I am the Prop of the House. If I didn't introduce Gentleman into your Company, I wonder what you'd do; you might e'en sit still, and be forc'd to make use of a Dildo, before any Body would come to you if ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... bob-tailed pinto, saddle-galled, cast in th' near eye, Star Diamond brand, white stockin' on th' off front prop, with a habit of scratchin' itself every other minute?" went ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... off. Without precaution, if he merely tried to march away from where he was, his feet would walk out from under him and he'd be left lying on his back in mid-air. Again, to stop without putting one foot out ahead for a prop would mean that after his feet paused, his body would continue onward and he would achieve a full-length face-down flop. And besides, one could not walk with a regular up-and-down motion, or in seconds he would find his feet churning emptiness in ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... weight by pruning away branches which have been blown too far to the leeward. Sometimes trees can be straightened by moving part of the soil and pulling into the wind and bracing there by a good prop on the leeward side, but that, of course, is not practicable if the trees have attained ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... like the grain of mustard-seed in the parable; and, like that grain, grew into a tree, in whose branches a whole aviary of fowls took shelter. That element is the element of Endowment. It differed from the preceding, in its original design to serve as a prop to the young plant, not to be a parasite upon it. The charitable and the humane, blessed with wealth, were very early penetrated by the misery of the poor student. And the wise saw that intellectual ability is not so common ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley |
