"Props" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I was so grateful. Oh, how beautiful it is to see these ranks of sunny little faces assembled here to learn the way of life; to learn to be good; to learn to be useful; to learn to be pious; to learn to be great and glorious men and women; to learn to be props and pillars of the State and shining lights in the councils and the households of the nation; to be bearers of the banner and soldiers of the cross in the rude campaigns of life, and raptured souls in the happy fields ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... an overwhelming sympathy on the other, and were drawn together by hours of mutual anxiety. In each case the worst dread was unfulfilled, but what remained to be borne required all the fortitude which they could summon. The Vicar's wife saw one of the props of the home disabled for life, and Mrs Chester's kind heart was wrung with anguish at the thought that her child had been the cause of so much suffering. It seemed a strange dispensation of Providence that she, the main object of whose life had been to help her ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... locked the door of the workshop a year ago, after Nicky's death, and had not opened it again until to-day. This afternoon in the orchard he had seen that the props of the old apple-tree were broken and he had thought that he would like to make new ones, and the wood was in ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... shoes beneath a chair, the white strings trailing; they take out their combs and let their hair roll down as it will. Little they care if their husbands see the puffs, the hairpins, the artful props which supported the elegant edifices of the hair, and the garlands or the jewels that adorned it. No more mysteries! all is over for the husband; no more painting or decoration for him. The corset—half ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... thou ask'st, the Master's word, The Schoolman's shibboleth that binds the herd? To the soul's haven is there but one chart? Its peace a problem to be learned by art? On system rest the happy and the good? To base the temple must the props be wood? Must I distrust the gentle law, imprest, To guide and warn, by Nature on the breast, Till, squared to rule the instinct of the soul,— Till the School's signet stamp the eternal scroll, Till in one mold some dogma hath ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the comedy is over and the second act now begins.—The faction has convoked the delegates of the primary assemblies to Paris for a purpose. Like the primary assemblies, they are to serve as its instruments for governing; they are to form the props of dictatorship, and the object now is to restrict them to that task only.—Indeed, it is not certain that all will lend themselves to it. For, among the eight thousand commissioners, some, appointed by refractory assemblies, bring a refusal instead of an adhesion;[1122] others, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... needles of good quality, 3 in. long, 1/24 in. thick. The ends of these were placed against steel props, 2-1/8 in. asunder. In making an experiment, a wire was fastened to the middle of a needle, the other end being attached to a spring weighing-machine. This was then pulled until the needle gave way. Six of the needles, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the bombardment to preserve the Ships. For instance, all the decks were propped up by a number of spars, by which means if a bomb fell it did no other mischief than forcing its way through and carrying all before its immediate course, whereas without the props it might have shaken the timbers and weakened the access considerably. In every ship also were 2 cartloads of earth, to throw over any inflammable substance which might have fallen on board. From this mole hill of a truth was engendered ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... stitched up or darned half the costumes in it this last twelvemonth, though there are so many of them that I swear the drawers have accordion pleats and the racks extend into the fourth dimension—not to mention the boxes of props and the shelves of scripts and prompt-copies and other books, including a couple of encyclopedias and the many thick volumes of Furness's Variorum Shakespeare, which as Sid had guessed I'd been boning up on. Oh, and I've sponged and pressed ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... was good for him and for many others in like case, who had to learn by that loss that the soul of man cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and wise, and good; but that He upon whom alone it can stand and lean will knock away all such props in His own wise and merciful way, until there is no ground or stay left but Himself, the Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a sure foundation for every ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... painted, while all the rubbish of the building-yard was cleared away, so that everything looked neat and clean. The stocks, or framework on which she had been built, sloped towards the water, so that when the props were knocked away from the ship, she would slide by her own weight into the sea. Ships are always built on sloping stocks near to the water's edge; for you can fancy how difficult it would be to drag such a ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... ground, when it shot out in broad boughs laden with lustrous leaves of the deepest green. And all round the lower part of the trunk, thin, slab-like buttresses of bark, perfectly smooth, and radiating from a common centre, projected along the ground for at least two yards. From below, these natural props tapered upward until gradually blended with the trunk itself. There were signs of the wild cattle having sheltered themselves behind them. Zeke called this the canoe tree; as in old times it supplied the navies of the Kings of Tahiti. For canoe building, the woods is still used. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... had picked up in a motion picture magazine had hurtled into the logical chain of Dundee's reasoning: assistant directors were in charge of "props"; it was their business to see that no article needed for the production of a picture was lost or missing when the director needed it. Dexter Sprague had said that he had "dropped everything" to come when Nita Selim wired him of the Chamber of Commerce project ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... first thought. The storm was of far too brief duration to have done the mischief. Then those keen young eyes of his saw beyond the tempest and the ruined bridge. They saw about the useless supports and wooden props fresh chips from a recent axe. In a second his brain grasped the fact that the bridge had been cut away on purpose. His thoughts flew forward—for what purpose was it destroyed? Like a dream seemed to ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... Germany acorns are sown and the young seedlings cultivated like ordinary field-vegetables, and cut at the age of a very few years for the sake of the bark and young twigs used by tanners. In England, trees are grown at the rate of two thousand to the acre, and cut for props in the mines at the diameter of a few inches. Plantations for hoop-poles, and other special purposes requiring small timber, would, no doubt, often prove high remunerative.] But the modern improved methods of sylviculture show vastly more favorable financial results; and when ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... reminds me of some very successful ones, and particularly that of a Highlander, the whole of which was made on the spot from the club's "props" and was complete even to a practical bagpipe, which was composed of three tin horns, a penny whistle, a piece of burlap, and a rubber tobacco pouch. Both in tone and looks it was an exceedingly good imitation of the ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 10, October 1895. - French Farmhouses. • Various
... o'erleap Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry? Fires from beneath and meteors from above, Portentous, unexampled, unexplained, Have kindled beacons in the skies, and the old And crazy earth has had her shaking fits More frequent, and foregone her usual rest. Is it a time to wrangle, when the props And pillars of our planet seem to fail, And nature with a dim and sickly eye To wait the close of all? But grant her end More distant, and that prophecy demands A longer respite, unaccomplished yet; Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak Displeasure in His breast who smites the earth Or heals ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... unit poured out beneath the sky—or what would have been a sky had not incarnate fiends usurped it—Jeb found himself moving next to Bonsecours. Even in this strain, when men were thinking in terms of armies, the famous surgeon with infinite tact went about supporting the props of one human atom. After all, he had been trained to mend one man at a time! He spoke no word until they had climbed the sloping roadway and laid flat, peeping over; then, with his lips close to ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... another to do his bidding, while the spirit is in concealed rebellion. Such a government, in proportion as it severs this national soul from the body, is weak through constant liability to overthrow, from any chance failure of its material props. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... close as their similar natures and needs would suggest. While Mrs. Orr may not have been jealous, she preempted her husband's home hours mercilessly; but in her father's death Hortense came to know that one of the few props of her stability had been removed. Moreover, her mother's incessant reiteration of her loneliness and sorrow, and the endless discussion of the details of her depressing widow's weeds, and of her taxing, exhausting widow's responsibilities, ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... Champagne and the dense clouds of white dust, raised by the cars ahead, half smothered us. The only trees on this rolling country were scrub evergreens and only enough of these had been left for cover, the rest having been cut for stakes, and pit props. Through these bits of woods and across the open country ran the numerous white ditches used for ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... the little quivering figure closer in her embrace as she answered, "Don't say that, child, don't say that. A human friend often leads astray—God never. We must not rest our entire confidence on human guides, or lean altogether on earthly props, but, holding out our hands to the great Father above, with all the simplicity of little children, leave ourselves unreservedly in his keeping. Sometimes the way is dark—so dark, dear" (and the gentle voice faltered for a moment), ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... that we have not crosses the mind of man, he realizes what may be truly termed intellectual despair. Is this world an illusion, a phantasm of the imagination? If things material and tangible, and therefore the most solid props of knowledge, are thus abruptly destroyed, in what direction shall we turn? Within a single century Greek philosophy had come to this pass, and it was not without reason that intelligent men looked on Pythagoras almost as a divinity upon earth when ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... continuation of the "cabin-deck," projected forward and supported by pillars that rest upon the main deck below. The roof, or "hurricane-deck," also carried forward to the same point, and resting on slight wooden props, screens this part from sun or rain, and a low guard-rail running around it renders it safe. Being open in front and at both sides, it affords the best view; and having the advantage of a cool breeze, brought about by the motion of the boat, is usually a favourite resort. A number ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... expansion of cosmopolitan life and the organization of the Great Society, as Graham Wallas has called it, seemed destined to banish all the minor languages, dialects, and obsolescent forms of speech, the last props of an international provincialism, to the limbo of forgotten things. The competition of the world-languages was already keen; all the little and forgotten peoples of Europe—the Finns, Letts, Ukrainians, Russo-Carpathians, Slovaks, Slovenians, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... bodies which are called SOLIDS, receive into their composition a great number of homogeneous, similar, and analogous particles, disposed to unite themselves with energies conspiring or tending to the same point. The primitive beings, or elements of bodies, have need of supports, of props; that is to say, of the presence of each other, for the purpose of preserving themselves; of acquiring consistence or solidity: a truth, which applies with equal uniformity to what is called physical, as to what ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... failures that the price of stock and of produce fell, and that so much stress was put upon the said individuals through no fault of their own. He would go further, and he would say that had it not been for the noble efforts of such individuals—the pioneers of agriculture and its main props and stays—the condition of farming would have been simply fifty times worse than it was. They, and they alone, had enabled it to bear up so long against calamity. They had resources; the agricultural class, as a rule, had none. Those resources were the manure they had put into the soil, the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... less color, less reflection of light than in Santa Cruz; there is less quaintness; no Spanish buildings, no canary-colored arcades. All the narrow streets are gray or neutral-tinted; the ground has a dark ashen tone. Most of the dwellings are timber, resting on brick props, or elevated upon blocks of lava rock. It seems almost as if some breath from the enormous and always clouded mountain overlooking the town had begrimed everything, darkening even ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... life they laboured, in sordid grief they died, Those sons of a mighty mother, those props ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... no set of dogmas, no sacred book, no moral code. The absence of a moral code is accounted for in the writings of modern native commentators by the innate perfection of Japanese humanity, which obviates the necessity for such outward props.... It is necessary, however, to distinguish three periods in the existence of Shinto. During the first of these—roughly speaking, down to A.D. 550—the Japanese had no notion of religion as a separate institution. To pay homage ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... the heaven that they too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider prospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the blue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props are struck away we can lean our whole weight upon God. When Uzziah dies the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... platoons; at tea, we explain, to any one who will listen, exactly how we placed our sentry line in last night's operations; at dinner, we brag about our Company musketry returns, and quote untruthful extracts from our butt registers. At breakfast, every one has a newspaper, which he props before him and reads, generally aloud. We exchange observations upon the war news. We criticise von Kluck, and speak kindly of Joffre. We note, daily, that there is nothing to report on the Allies' right, and wonder regularly ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... pilot—we say in the bow, and not at the stern, where the helmsman is generally found. In navigating under such circumstances a rudder is of no use. Long oars have no effect on a raft of such dimensions, even when worked with a hundred sturdy arms. It was from the sides, by means of long boathooks or props thrust against the bed of the stream, that the jangada was kept in the current, and had its direction altered when going astray. By this means they could range alongside either bank, if they wished for any reason to come to a halt. Three or four ubas, and two pirogues, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... hamlet, or solitary house from which yesterday or to-day you slipped your cable, beyond disguise you find yourself but one wave in a total Atlantic, one plant (and a parasitical plant besides, needing alien props) in a ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... I'm glad I caught you at home. Got your props there? Good. Hickie of Hickie and Flanagan broke his ankle during their turn at the first house just now, and I want you to take their place at the second house. Your turn's at 9.40: it's a quarter past eight now: I'll have a car for you at your place at ten to nine sharp. Bring your band ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... grandeur mocks the woe Which props the column of unnatural state! You the plainings, faint and low, From Misery's tortured soul that flow, 40 Shall usher to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of Pericles consisted of this conclusion. He resolutely struck away all the props that still sustained the artificial preponderance of wealth. For the ancient doctrine that power goes with land, he introduced the idea that power ought to be so equitably diffused as to afford equal security to all. That one part of the community should govern the whole, or that one class should ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... possible, Titus would not resort to the use of fire; but ordered his men to force the gate, with crowbars and levers. After great efforts, a few of the stones of the threshold were removed; but the gates, supported by the massive walls and the props behind, defied all ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,—I know, I know. I shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to him, I know that; he's one o' them fine ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... right, while, committed by women, were held to be shameful, and a serious crime. As is well known, even to-day not few are the men who prefer the company of a pretty female sinner to that of their own wives, and who not infrequently belong to the "Props of the State," the "Pillars of Order," and are "guardians of the sanctity ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... about the atmosphere by a real hurricane which fought against the house as if the prince of the air in person were putting the final stroke to Peter's labors. The framework being so much weakened and the inward props removed, it would have been no marvel if in some stronger wrestle of the blast the rotten walls of the edifice and all the peaked roofs had come crashing down upon the owner's head. He, however, was careless of the peril, but as wild and restless as the night itself, or as the flame that quivered ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Madame Graslin fell back into utter solitude. She returned with eagerness to the arms of the Church. Her great soul, clothed with so weak a flesh, showed her the multiplied commandments of Catholicism as so many stones placed for protection along the precipices of life, so many props brought by charitable hands to sustain human weakness on its weary way; and she followed, with greater rigor than ever, ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... appease. Habit, however, had its share in it, since, accustomed to defer to rank from boyhood, and the architect of his own "little fortune," he had ever attached more importance to the commendation of his superior, than was usual with those who had other props to lean on than their own services. As soon as the honours of the quarter-deck had been duly paid—for these Sir Gervaise never neglected himself, nor allowed others to neglect—the vice-admiral intimated to Captain Parker a desire to see ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... stage managers, scenic artists, stage hands, costumers, modern mutation of the Greek chorus, stays and props for the weak and timid, brakes for the overbold—in fact, we are around to do any work that ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... Gentlemen of eminence and influence, hitherto considered as props of the —— party, are about to take a novel and decided course next Session. It is to obtain the aid and personal co-operation of Mr. Cleveland that I ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... shower of pitying tears; Forgive those faults my passion did commit, 'Tis punished with the life that nourished it; I had no power in this extremity To save your life, and less to see you die. My eyes would ever on this object stay, But sinking nature takes the props away. Kind death, To end with pleasures all my miseries, Shuts up your image ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... devil a chance I've ever had of a gossip: and, as for news, I've had to fall back on the wormy Bible That props the broken looking-glass: so, now I've got the chance of a crack, my tongue goes randy; And patters like a cheapjack's, or a bookie's Offering you odds against the favourite, life: Or, wasn't life the dark horse? I have talked My wits out, till I'm like ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... it against any number of savages, while as for the boat it would have been useless to them, and they could scarcely have injured it. Even when it was finished there was nothing on board to attract them. They might have knocked away the props and tumbled her over, but they would have had to blockade us in our fort while they did anything to her; for otherwise we could have moved along the cliff to a point where we should have commanded the boat, and could there have kept up a ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... knock my props from under me," Lyman replied. "I am not equipped with that firmness which men call justice. Nature sometimes makes sport of a man by giving him a heart. And what does it mean? It means that he shall suffer ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... remain, may be represented by the panes themselves. After the various passages have been cut out, the masses are again cut into, pillars only remaining, each of which is about twelve feet by twenty-four feet in thickness. At length these pillars are removed, and props of wood placed instead, and thus the whole mine is worked out. There are miles and miles of passages in which tramways are laid down, leading to the shaft, up which the coal is raised. As the air in the mine has a tendency ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... that babtism made a man a Babtist, but old Brother Bascom said if a man wasn't a Babtist in his heart, all the water in the sea wouldn't make him one. And Brother Gyardner said that was knockin' the props clean from under the Babtist faith. 'For,' says he, 'if bein' a Babtist in the heart makes a man a Babtist, then babtism ain't necessary to salvation, and if babtism ain't necessary, what becomes ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... representative and declared successor, during his own lifetime; so he took counsel with the chiefs, in view to giving the Prince a share of his authority and a place on the Imperial Throne. The chiefs, who are the Pillars of Majesty and Props of the Empire, represented that His Majesty's proposal to invest his Son, during his own lifetime, with Imperial authority, was not in accordance with the precedents and Institutes (Yasa) of the World-conquering Padshah Chinghiz Khan; but still they would consent to execute a solemn ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... any one, we decided to go out ourselves, and we started back along the shaft. We were feeling our way along with the shells dropping overhead like hail, when all at once two "Krupps" landed on the tunnel just over my head; there was a terrific explosion, the props of the tunnel gave way, and in another instant I found myself choked with dust and half buried under a pile of dirt. The Corporal was crawling along three or four yards ahead, and in the darkness he could not see what had happened. As soon as I could get my breath I yelled, ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... as Italy, the shoots of the vines are either trained upon trees, or supported, so as to display all their luxuriance, upon a series of props. This was the custom of the ancient vine-growers; and their descendants have preserved it in all its picturesque originality.[9] The vine-dressers of Persia train their vines to run up a wall, and curl ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... just rescued from the French Revolution, was tottering and had yet to test the strength of its new props, the "Holy" and the "Quadruple" alliances, and the policy of intervention to maintain the status quo. Congresses at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, at Troppau in 1820, and at Laibach in 1821, decided to refuse recognition to governments ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... plunged through the yielding marsh the boat came reeling and lurching toward the road. Here they laid planks and rollers and jacked her across. This was not so much a matter of brute strength as of skill. The two men with the aid of the Stanton chauffeur were able, with props of the right length, to keep the Good Turn on an even keel, while the boys removed and replaced the rollers. It was interesting to see how the bulky hull could be moved several hundred feet, guided and urged across a road and ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... they were wrong, would work its forfeiture. A respect held on so frail a tenure were little worth. But it is not so. I believe that manhood and womanhood are too truly harmonious to need iron bands, too truly noble to require the props of falsehood. Truth, simple and sincere, without partiality and without hypocrisy, is the best food for both. If any are to be found on either side too weak to administer or digest it, the remedy is not to mix it with folly or falsehood, for they are poisons, but to strengthen the organisms ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... and Long Shon, with old Tonal' to help, were busily fixing props against the old gates which had ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... arts, and the most unremitting perseverance in them; though party, cabal, and intrigue; though accidental advantages, and even whimsical circumstances; may conspire to make a very moderate genius the idol of the implicit multitude: works that lean upon such fickle props, that stand upon such a false foundation, will not be long able to support themselves against the injuries of time. Such buildings begin to totter almost as soon as their scaffolding ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... being much too little to receive us all, it was necessary to fall upon some expedient, without delay, which might serve our purpose: accordingly the gunner, carpenter, and some more, turning the cutter keel upwards, and fixing it upon props, made no despicable habitation. Having thus established some sort of settlement, we had the more leisure to look about us, and to make our researches with greater accuracy than we had before, after such supplies as the most desolate coasts are seldom ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... S. Barnaba in Venice, in the following manner. A gentleman had a house that was in danger of falling down, and he entrusted the matter to Michelozzo; wherefore he—according to what Michelagnolo Buonarroti once told me—caused a column to be made in secret, and prepared a number of props; and hiding everything in a boat, into which he entered together with some builders, in one night he propped up the house and replaced the column. Michelozzo, therefore, emboldened by this experience, averted the danger from the palace, doing honour both to himself and to those by whose ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... was the celebrated Dr. Rescan, a distinguished clergyman. and a most excellent man. ] His external appearance was not prepossessing. A remarkably fair complexion, strangely contrasted with a black wig without a grain of powder; a narrow chest and a stooping posture; hands which, placed like props on either side of the pulpit, seemed necessary rather to support the person than to assist the gesticulation of the preacher,—no gown, not even that of Geneva, a tumbled band, and a gesture which seemed scarce voluntary, were ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... however, the body requires supports and props and, above all, a firm foundation on which to rest. Iron and lime, whose union is secured by their opposition to one another, bring into conjunction materials of contrary disposition for the creating of organic forms of the nature of plant ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... had got out all right, the fire havin' started on the stage from the strip-light, and also our people had got out through the little stage-entrance, though havin' to leave many of our props—a good coat I had to lose meself, fur-lined around the collar, by way of helpin' the Sisters Devere get out their box of accordions that they done a Dutch Daly act with for an enn-core. Well, as I was sayin', we'd all hustled down these back stairs—they was already red hot and smokin' up ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... maid, and cause her come up hither to me." The husbandman, knowing her by her voice, replied:—"Alas! Madam, who set you there? Your maid has been seeking you all day long: but who would ever have supposed that you were there?" Whereupon he took the props of the ladder, and set them in position, and proceeded to secure the rounds to them with withies. Thus engaged he was found by the maid, who, as she entered the tower, beat her face and breast, and unable longer ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... for the unpleasant things in your conditions you might just as well profess the old thought as the new. The very fundamental principle of mental science is the statement that man is a magnet and able to attract what he will. To repudiate this statement is to knock the props out from under the whole philosophy. Better stay an old-thoughter and let Jesus suffer for your sins and those of your relatives and friends. At least Jesus took the sins of the world to bear, all of his own free will. ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... Lord, but the earth drove him away, and refused to let him gather up dust from it. Gabriel remonstrated: "Why, O Earth, dost thou not hearken unto the voice of the Lord, who founded thee upon the waters without props or pillars?" The earth replied, and said: "I am destined to become a curse, and to be cursed through man, and if God Himself does not take the dust from me, no one else shall ever do it." When God heard this, He stretched ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... expression of things changed. Madoc rose and said: "Well, my friends, let us proceed to business. Fasten the doors and shutters quietly! You, ladies, may go to bed!" His two tattered followers looked more like robbers themselves than like props of law and order. Each drew a club with a knob of lead attached to one end, from his trousers' leg, and Madoc tapped his breast pocket to make sure that his pistol was there. This done, he bid me lead them to the loft. We climbed the stairs. Having ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... face all up and think ye're laughing, ye can, but be the time ye'd struck a few t'ousand o' these bean-poles and clothes-line props that Torrance here calls a threstle, ye'd be looking like a pin-cushion dress-making day. It's dangerous, I call it, to lave splinters like thim with their ends up. Some day a thoughtless brakesman like yeerself ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Firm props like reeds are waving; For trust is left no stay; Our thoughts, like whirlpool raving, No more ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... only in the boring of the cylinder that it is necessary to be careful that there is no change of figure, for it will be impossible to face the valves truly in the case of large cylinders, unless the cylinder be placed on end, or internal props be introduced to prevent the collapse due to the cylinder's weight. It may be added, that the change of figure is not instantaneous, but becomes greater after some continuance of the strain than it was at first, so that in ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... carries with it the sense of a void, to which it is difficult to assign a limit. Three aequales I shall have lost—Badeley, H. Bowden, and Bellasis; and such losses seem to say that I have no business here myself. It is the penalty of living to lose the great props of life. What a melancholy prospect for his poor boys! When you have an opportunity, say everything kind from me to Mrs. Bellasis. I shall, I trust, say two masses a week for him. He is on our prayer lists. What a vanity is life! how it crumbles ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... soap, or oil. If the farmer were also an artisan and made things, he had to pay the produce of his craft; a smith would have to make lances for the abbey's contingent to the army, a carpenter had to make barrels and hoops and vine props, a wheelwright had to make a cart. Even the wives of the farmers were kept busy, if they happened to be serfs; for the servile women were obliged to spin cloth or to make a garment for the big house ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Hopalong, running to the door, looked out through a crack as sudden firing broke out around the rear of the shack, and fell to pulling away the props, crying, "It's a puncher, Red; he's riding this way! Come on an' ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... work, my boy," Runnels said at last. "I know these people better than you, and yet—Lord! if it does come off!" He whistled softly. "Well, they may kick the political props out from under us, but there will be an awful crash when we hit. Now, don't mention this rumor about Blakeley. I want ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... She had seen the props on which she might depend removed from under her feet. If her father and Wolf left her, she would look in vain for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... however, did not succeed; for the walls were so prodigiously thick, and the blocks of stone of which they were composed were so firmly bound together, that, instead of falling into a mass of ruins, as Richard had expected, when the props had been burned through, they only settled down bodily on one side into the excavation, and remained nearly as good, for all purposes of defense, ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... hatted, with a dust coat on, is sitting in the window-seat with her body twisted to enable her to look out at the view. One hand props her chin: the other hangs down with a volume of the Temple Shakespeare in it, and her finger stuck in the page she ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... room our antique and Spartan Jane was made to feel the need of yet stronger props to hold her up against the overbearing weight of latter-day magnificence. She found herself surrounded now by a sombre and solid splendor. Stamped hangings of Cordova leather lined the walls, around whose bases ran a low range of ornate bookcases, constructed ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... weakness, or indiscretion, must have their creeds and forms; they must have their props—they cannot walk alone. Let them hold by what is purest in doctrine and simplest in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... shade in summer, quale sopor fessis in gramine, meat and drink to him that is hungry or athirst; Democritus's collyrium is not so sovereign to the eyes as this is to the heart; good words are cheerful and powerful of themselves, but much more from friends, as so many props, mutually sustaining each other like ivy and a wall, which Camerarius hath well illustrated in an emblem. Lenit animum simplex vel saepe narratio, the simple narration many times easeth our distressed mind, and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... lost it. The car started, and he walked to the rear. With the badge on my coat I collected eight fares within, stepped forward, and sprang into the street. Poverty is my only apology for the crime. I concealed myself in a cellar where men were playing with props. Fear is my only excuse. Lest they should suspect me, I joined their game, and my forty cents were soon three dollars and seventy. With these ill-gotten gains I visited the gold exchange, then open evenings. My superior intelligence enabled me to place well my modest means, and at midnight I had ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore, and which are not too insignificant to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form, from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now it is understood to be a successful one.—Then, all that sought ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... could have been more than Abraham Lincoln a man of his own time and place. Until 1858 his outer life ran much in the same groove as that of hundreds of other Western politicians and lawyers. Beginning as a poor and ignorant boy, even less provided with props and stepping-stones than were his associates, he had worked his way to a position of ordinary professional and political distinction. He was not, like Douglas, a brilliant success. He was not, like Grant, an apparently hopeless failure. He had achieved as much and as little as ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... period, but I was actually a witness to the last iniquity which terminated that period. Hi happened to passing under the house of my friend the Warden of Brikespeare, which is semi-detached from the College and connected with it by two or three very ancient arches or props, like bridges, across a small strip of water connected with the river. To my grive astonishment I be'eld my eminent friend suspended in mid-air and clinging to one of these pieces of masonry, his appearance and attitude indicatin' ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... on the clergy man. "It wasn't any fault of yours. The prescription was all right, but, you see, the wine wasn't good. If it had been pure, the kind you drink, all would have been well. I should have gained strength instead of having the props ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... 'taxied' over the aerodrome that the roar of the engine on each side of me, the flashing of lights, the other machines as they passed us or waited with slowly 'ticking-over props' for us to pass, the different-colored lights which were being fired down from machines already in the air and the lights fired up from the ground, all combined and whirled through my excited brain like a meaningless nightmare. Then there ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... honour by my ingenuity in hanging my fellow-creatures! The canting and prejudging part of the Press has affected to set before you the merits of 'honest ability,' or 'laborious trade,' in opposition to my offences. What, I beseech you, are the props of your 'honest' exertion,—the profits of 'trade'? Are there no bribes to menials? Is there no adulteration of goods? Are the rich never duped in the price they pay? Are the poor never wronged in the quality they receive? Is there honesty in the bread you ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have not heard of them have heard of Wolsey. The pursy old cardinal furnishes the surviving one of the two main props of Hampton's glory. An oddly-assorted pair, indeed—the delicate Italian painter, without a thought outside of his art, and the bluff English placeman, avid of nothing but honors and wealth. And the association of either of them with the spot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... than any other. More timber was required for huts and sheds, for railway sleepers, and a variety of other purposes. For the construction of aircraft special kinds of timber were needed. The demand for pit props in enormous quantities was urgent and continuous. At the same time the loss of shipping through submarine action became very serious. Fortunately our French Allies had been more provident in conserving and promoting their home ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... typified the light, and, standing on the top of a staircase at Hermopolis Magua, [Footnote: See above, pp. 69 and 89.] he raised up the sky and held it up during each day. To assist him in this work he placed a pillar at each of the cardinal points, and the "supports of Shu" are thus the props of the sky. ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's best, yet never dressed; come to see the sport, and have a hand in what is going,—to know "what's the row," if there is any; to be where some men are drunk, some horses race, some cockerels fight; anxious to be shaking props under a table, and above all to see the "striped pig." He especially is the creature of the occasion. He empties both his pockets and his character into the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the social slush. There is no ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... the rural districts there is much milling of corn, brick and tile making, smith-work, brewing and distilling, cart and farm-implement making, casting and drying of peat, and timber-felling, especially on Deeside and Donside, for pit-props, railway sleepers, laths and barrel staves. There are a number of paper-making establishments, most of them on the Don ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... nature. "Do this, and thou shalt live." If the man has to negate all concerning the preservation of his natural individuality, the new world he has gained for his soul will have abundant affirmation within itself, without the support of any earthly props. It is his own highest life which testifies to him that "death ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... we thought of? Or, earlier still, when we paddled on the river through that fine-grained September air, did there not appear to be something new going on under the sparkling surface of the stream, a shaking of props, at least, so that we made haste in order to be up in time? Did not the rows of yellowing Willows and Button-Bushes on each side seem like rows of booths, under which, perhaps, some fluviatile egg-pop equally yellow was effervescing? Did not all these suggest that man's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... King's side,—of the worst of the King's side, I should say, for I would not be thought to cast any slur on the great number of conscientious men of that party. But, being the son of one of the main props of the Whigs, Mr. Tom went unpunished for his father's sake. He was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his friend in his knowledge of the history and metaphysics of religion. Their creeds, however, were in many respects opposite. Where one discovered only confirmations of his faith, the other could find nothing but reasons for doubt. Moral necessity, and calvinistic inspiration, were the props on which my brother thought proper to repose. Pleyel was the champion of intellectual liberty, and rejected all guidance but that of his reason. Their discussions were frequent, but, being managed with candour as well as with skill, they were ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... There mov'd Montalto with superior air: His stretch'd out arm displayed a volume fair; Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide, Through both he pass'd, and bow'd from side to side; But as in graceful act, with awful eye, Conpos'd he stood, bold Benson thrust him by: On two unequal crutches props he came, Milton's on this, on that one Jonson's name. The decent Knight retir'd with sober rage, Withdrew his hand, and clos'd the pompous page: But (happy for him as the times went then) Appear'd Apollo's may'r and aldermen, On whom three hundred gold-capt youths await, To lug the pond'rous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... to make its meaning clear. Nor, too, is anything gained by calling colours harmonies or symphonies. Let such pictures strike their own chords and blow their own trumpets. Catalogues of all kinds are but props to artistic inefficiency. If dumb-show plays did not rely on "books of the words," pantomime would have to become a finer art. If ballets had no thread of narrative attached to them, their constructors would be driven to achieve greater ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... is so stable as that which is bottomed on opinion, and depends for its existence on general utility, and the consent of the governed? Dominion may, indeed, be acquired, and continued by force and terror; but if it have no other props to support it, it is at best but precarious, and must, sooner or later, fall, either by the resistance of those whom it would hold in subjection, or by undermining their moral and physical energies, and thus rendering them unfit even for the vile ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... is there aught that is disturbing thy peace? Are providences dark, or crosses heavy? Are spiritual props removed, creature comforts curtailed, gourds smitten and withered like grass?—write on each, "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." It was He who increased thy burden. Why? ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... His helicopter props spun, and the scout nestled down lightly on the tarmac. Lance switched off the faithful Rahl-Diesels, swung open the tiny door and leaped from ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... in the sense of reading all sorts of Protestant controversial literature and listening to all kinds of heretical sermons. If he does not this, he is false to his principles; he contradicts himself by accepting and not accepting an infallible Church; he knocks his religious props from under himself and stands— nowhere. The attitude of the Catholic, therefore, is logical and necessary. Holding to Catholic principles how can he do otherwise? How can he consistently seek after truth when he is convinced that he holds ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... is used for columns, props, posts, and spokes, the weight of the load tends to shorten the material endwise. This is endwise compression, or compression parallel to the grain. In the case of long columns, that is, pieces in which the length is very great compared with their diameter, the failure is by sidewise bending ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... to a stranger who has never seen the orange grown under such favourable conditions as are experienced here. The yield is often so heavy that the trees actually bend to the ground with the weight of their fruit, and a stack of props has to be used to prevent the tree from splitting into pieces. Those who have seen the enormous crops of apples that are produced on some trees in Tasmania or the old cider orchards of Devon or Somerset can form an idea of the crops; but the writer, ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... forests are hardly tapped, and there are plenty more logs, like one I saw cut the other day at Burrard Inlet, of forty inches square and ninety and one hundred feet in length, down to sticks which could be used as props for mines or as cordwood for fuel. The business which has assumed such large proportions along the Pacific shore of the canning of salmon, great as it is, is as yet almost in its infancy, for there is many a river swarming with fish from the time of the first run of salmon in spring ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... to the fall, he naturally turned into the mine and followed along the path, torch in hand, hallooing jovially as he went, but his voice only returned to him, reverberating hollowly. Then, remembering the ledge where they had last worked, and how he had meant to put in props before cutting away any more, he ran forward, certain of calamity, and found his young friend lying where he had fallen, the blood still oozing from a cut above the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... 9. Meeting again at Churchville. "The Great Prophet" is my subject to-day. Dine at Brother Props's, and stay ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... had heard about it!" Then he props himself up with the pillows and begins, "I went over there to-night and them boobs was havin' a racket of some kind, I guess, because all the automobiles in the West was lined up outside the doors of the club. I tried to horn in the line with that boat of mine and the biggest ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... aught Telemachus replied, But left the mansion with a lofty stride: Schemes of revenge his pondering breast elate, Revolving deep the suitors' sudden fate, Arriving now before the imperial hall, He props his spear against the pillar'd wall; Then like a lion o'er the threshold bounds; The marble pavement with his steps resounds: His eye first glanced where Euryclea spreads With furry spoils of beasts the splendid beds: She saw, she wept, she ran with eager pace, And reach'd her ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the Three were tightening their harness on their backs, The Consul was the foremost man to take in hand an axe: And Fathers mix'd with Commons seized hatchet, bar, and crow, And smote upon the planks above, and loosed the props below. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... might happen if men were found who, convinced as I am of the untenability of existing conditions, determined to act instead of merely complaining. Thoughtlessness and inaction are, in truth, at present the only props of the existing economic and social order. What was formerly necessary, and therefore inevitable, has become injurious and superfluous; there is no longer anything to compel us to endure the misery of an obsolete system; there ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... wanted to go to Missisquoi Bay, and the skipper sailed the Goldwing to that part of the lake. The second day was like the first. On the third they had drank so much that they could not keep up the debauch, and they gambled with props in the cabin. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... frantic with joy at the idea of scalding the Godons.[515] The attack was repulsed; but two days later the French perceived that the outworks were undermined; the English had dug subterranean passages, to the props of which they had afterwards set fire. The outworks having become untenable in the opinion of the soldiers, they were destroyed and abandoned. It was deemed impossible to defend Les Tourelles thus dismantled. Those towers which would once have arrested ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... designed as props to support the government, but they were swept away by his majesty. On the 18th he was employed in making dispositions for the formation of a new cabinet, and at twelve o'clock that night a messenger delivered orders to Fox ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Dost thou think, Friar John, by thy faith, that he is in the state of salvation? He goeth, before God, as surely damned to thirty thousand basketsful of devils as a pruning-bill to the lopping of a vine-branch. To revile with opprobrious speeches the good and courageous props and pillars of the Church,—is that to be called a poetical fury? I cannot rest satisfied with him; he sinneth grossly, and blasphemeth against the true religion. I am very much offended at his ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... leader of the soldiers, "it will be pretty tough if Props' rag baby gets scalped, that's a fact. Come on! Shack along, boys! They are looking for us ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... and Bradley, in an ecstasy of rage, flung it out the back window into the yard. It continued to make such a clatter there that he had to go down and pile up barrels and slop-buckets and bricks and clothes-props and part of the grape-arbor on it, so that all it could do was to lie there all night buzzing with a kind of smothered hum and keeping the next-door neighbors awake, so that they pelted it with bootjacks, under the impression that ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... but he knew well the nature to which he confided; he knew well how strong was that young heart in its healthful simplicity and instinctive rectitude; and he appreciated his manliness not too highly when he felt that all evident props and aids would be but irritating ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and unchanged.] The unassuming, but for their purposes very practical houses, of boards, bamboos, and (nipa) palm leaves, are supported on account of the damp on isolated beams or props; and the space beneath, which is generally fenced in with a railing, is used as a stable or a warehouse; such was the case as early as the days of Magellan. These dwellings [45] are very lightly put together. La Perouse estimates the weight of some of them, furniture and ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... do you, seeme to loose your eyes on me? Here's nothing but a pile of wretchednesse; A branch that every way is shooke at roote And would (I think) even fall before you now, But that Divinity which props it up Inspires it full of comfort, since the Cause My father suffers for gives a full glory To his base fetters of Captivity. And I beseech you, Sir, if there but dwell So much of Vertue in you as your lookes Seeme to expresse ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... woman lay, still and straight. Midnight was long past. Outside, the hot wind could be heard every now and then, listlessly flapping the carved wooden lattice-work shutters of an overhanging balcony built out on timber props over the river Maritza, whose turbid waters surged beneath with steady plash. Inside, the striped silken curtains were closely drawn. The atmosphere was stuffy and airless, filled with languorous ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... been the first floor of the structure had been weighted down heavily with railroad iron and concrete to form the roof of the commander's dugout. The sides of the decrepit structure bulged outward and were prevented from bursting by timber props radiating on all sides like the legs of a centipede. A mule team stood in front ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... when used in building, lasts forever. The same stones, when cold, serve to make their walls and vaults, as they cannot be broken or cut except with an iron instrument. The vaults which they build with these stones are so light as to require no props for supporting them[15]. On account of these great conveniences, the monks have constructed so many walls and buildings of different kinds, as is really wonderful to see. The coverings or roofs of their houses are constructed for the most part in the following manner: Having ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... negligent of tasks and oblivious of the plainest duty. And he goes about saying, 'Oh, if thou hadst been here!' or if, if something else had happened, then this would not have happened. And the other man, passing through the same circumstances, finds that, when his props are taken away, he flings himself on God's breast, and, when the world becomes dark and all the paths dim about him, he looks up to a heaven that fills fuller of meek and swiftly gathering stars as the night ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... first elevate thy view; See Quito's plains o'erlook their proud Peru; On whose huge base, like isles amid sky driven, A vast protuberance props the cope of heaven; Earth's loftiest turrets there contend for height, And all our Andes fill the bounded sight. From south to north what long blue swells arise, Built thro the clouds, and lost in ambient skies! Approaching slow they heave expanding ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... demands of such a nature, that it became evident, that more hope was placed in the justice of their case than in arms. For they demanded back the tribunitian office and the right of appeal, which, before the appointment of decemvirs, had been the props of the people, and that it should not be visited with injury to any one, to have instigated the soldiers or the commons to seek back their liberty by a secession. Concerning the punishment only of the decemvirs was their demand immoderate; for they thought it but just that ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... it me, Poor Old Leoni—Angels rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel. Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. And so ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... This knocked the props from under the whole theory he had built up to account for the disappearance of Esther McLean. If Esther were not the widow of his uncle, then the motive of James in helping her to vanish was not apparent. Perhaps he told the truth and knew nothing ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... you arrive at the seal and sea-lion. Of all the feet that I have looked at I know only one more utterly ridiculous than the twisted flipper on which the sea-lion props his great bulk in front, and that is the forked fly-flap which extends from the hinder parts of the same. How can it be worth any beast's while to carry such an absurd apparatus with it just for the sake of getting out into the air sometimes and pushing ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... sufficient props were reared, and then proceed with vigor, though always with caution. Courage in such an experiment is less to be dreaded than timidity. Half the evils of life, social, personal and political, are as much the effects of moral cowardice ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... anchor in that river, would be inevitably destroyed, and inconceivable damage would accrue to the cities of London and Westminster. They, moreover, observed, that the magazine was then in a dangerous condition, supported on all sides by props that were decayed at the foundation; that in case it should fall, the powder would, in all probability, take fire, and produce the dreadful calamities above recited: they therefore prayed that the magazine might be removed to some more convenient place, where any accident would not be attended with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the shoeing-horn of literature! it draws on a great many books, and some too tight to be very useful in walking. The penny tract quotes a celebrated writer—you long to read him; it props a startling assertion by a grave authority—you long to refer to it. During the nights of the past winter, Leonard's intelligence had made vast progress; he had taught himself more than the elements of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spring in the sole so as to make them the more supple for the foot in walking. Personally, I object to all additional height being given to a boot or shoe; it is really against the proper principles of dress, although, if any such height is to be given it should be by means of two props, not one; but what I should prefer to see is some adaptation of the divided skirt or long and moderately loose knickerbockers. If, however, the divided skirt is to be of any positive value, it must give up all idea of 'being identical in appearance with an ordinary skirt'; it must diminish ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... questioned), is deeply and nobly generous to York, who would condemn his own son, and to the Bishop of Carlisle, who would die rather than not speak his mind. Men who sacrifice themselves are a king's only props. Richard allies himself with men who prefer to sacrifice ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Utopia, and knew by the signs that the poor woman was his wife. And at the next high tide he towed the tree away back home, although it wasn't worth the trouble, and built another house, using the old tree for the foundation and props, and called it after her, "Mary's Ark!" But you may guess the next house was built above high- water ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the water and it ferried her across. Not long after she reached the other side of the river, and she inquired for the house of Gimbangonan. Asindamayan answered, "You look for the house where many people are putting props under the house. That is the house of Gimbangonan. Her porch has ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... around the keel; but she scudded through the wave, holding on her way. But when they reached the wide armament of the Greeks, they drew up the black ship on the continent, far upon the sand, and stretched long props under it; but they dispersed themselves through their tents ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... to establish order; and the first duty of every official, in State and city alike, high and low, is to see that order obtains and that violence is definitely stopped .... I have the greatest regard for the policeman who does his duty. I put him high among the props of the State, but the policeman who mutinies, or refuses to perform his duty, stands on a lower level than that of the professional lawbreaker.... I ask, then, not only that civic officials perform their duties, but that you, the people, insist upon their performing them... ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... the confines of such narrow entries, and being compelled to reflect upon the immense mass of rock and earth resting above, and prevented from crushing him down into everlasting silence only by insignificant props of wood, whose melancholy groaning in the darkness bore evidence of the vast weight they upheld. There was nothing for me but to struggle onward, although I do not claim that it was without quaking heart, or many a start at odd noises echoing and re-echoing along that grim gallery. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... were celebrated. France seemed to have outwitted Palmerston for once. But vengeance was not long delayed. The "Citizen King" had few friends among the monarchical states of the Continent, and in forfeiting the friendship of England he kicked away one of the props of his own throne. Within two years came the Revolution of 1848, which cost him ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... into a great number of small streams, this scene is repeated on the edge of each one, while the expanse of sand which occupies the centre of what ought to be the river-bed is one forest of clothes-props, with all the wash of Madrid hanging on the lines. On the banks the children, in the intervals of school, are playing bull-fights, or some of their innumerable dancing and singing games; the women are one and all performing the gradual descent of the gamut with variations called ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... couldn't turn away from, and then she goes to pieces in a weepin' fit of her own. Nobody interferes, and right in the midst of it she breaks off, marches over to a wicker porch table where the mirror and washcloth had been left, props the glass up against a vase, and goes to work. First off she ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... enjoyed its shade almost four thousand years ago. The trunk is thirty-two feet in circumference, but the tree is not tall like the American oaks. It is now in a dying condition, and some of the branches are supported by props, while the lower part of the trunk is surrounded by a stone wall, and the space inside is filled with earth. The plot of ground on which the tree stands is surrounded by a high iron fence. A little farther up the hill the Russians have a tower, from which we viewed the ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... the two great props of the Rosicrucians?" asked Frederick—"the two charlatans whom they have told me make hell hot for the crown prince, continually lighting it up with ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach |
