"Bolster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to prove a theory—much like the stuff they put between the covers of school history books—so Ali Baba's lecture, although gorgeous fiction in its way, hardly enriched knowledge. Not that he was free from the latterday craving for accuracy whenever it might serve to bolster up ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... platform there now appeared, amid palms and chrysanthemums, a long, rotund man like a bolster. He held a paper in his hand and wore a platform smile. His attitude was that of one who hesitated to demand silence from so well-bred a throng. His high, narrow forehead shone in the light of the candelabra. This was Lord Ferriby—a man whose best friend ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... disillusion him. Standish tried to bolster him up with undergraduate slang, and to convey to Henry the fact that all the hill-folk were solidly behind him, but he knew better than to come out flat with commiseration. Then, too, Standish was conscious of a vague cloud which had come up to blur their ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... Figure 5 represents a thick strap of iron which clasps the trunion or axis of the mortar, and holds it in its place. This strap is held by two other straps, 6, 6, all iron, and very strong. The figure 7 represents what is called a bolster. You see it is in the shape of a wedge. It is used to raise or depress the muzzle of the mortar. The figure 8 represents what is called a quoin, and keeps the bolster in its place. The figure 9 represents one of the many bolts by which the whole ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... knowledge, that's taken up by three lodgers already. (After a pause, in which the rest seem disconcerted.) I have hit it. Don't you think, Stingo, our landlady could accommodate the gentlemen by the fire-side, with——three chairs and a bolster? ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... business. "Dodd" found his employer an exact man—one who required service by the card. This the young man could not, or rather would not render. He blundered in his work on more than one occasion, and resorted to tricks to bolster up his carelessness or inefficiency. The result was that after a few weeks' service he was discharged. He was chagrined, mortified, angry. But he "cheeked it through," as the young men of his class would say. It ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... some other cause—he dropped the knife in the bed, and was not able to find it again. The wounds upon the hand of the dead man indicated his having caught and struggled to hold the blade of the weapon with which he was assailed. The impression of a bloody hand thrust under the bolster, where it was Sir Wynston's habit to place his purse and watch, when making his arrangements for the night, supplied the motive ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in his case by an effort to bolster up the courage of his comrades or not, the sentiment has at all times been largely practised upon in the army ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... the same good Jephson who wouldn't exchange my button-stick for a Field-Marshal's baton—Jephson brought in my morning tea and laid across the foot of my bed a bundle of newspapers as thick as a bolster. ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... decided one, and when I laid my gun down and gave a tug at him, it was like pulling at something long and limp, say a big bolster, that gave way everywhere, till in my impatience I doubled my fist and, quite in a rage, gave him, as his head fell back, a smart ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... attention from it, as a subject lying beyond the range of all sober speculation, and as unsuited to the investigation of our finite minds. If this be a wise conclusion, it would be well to leave it to support itself, instead of attempting to bolster it up with the reasons frequently ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... there silent, with clasped hands. The bitterness of disappointment wore away slowly, and as the uneventful hours left them in the same helpless condition, they fell again into fitful conversation, merely to thus bolster up courage, and lead their minds to other thoughts. It was maddening to sit there motionless and stare off across the desolate water, seeing nothing but those white-crested surges sweeping constantly toward them, and to feel the continuous leap and drop of the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... nearest shop, an' buy—let me see—sassengers and steaks and—oh, you know better than me what a sick man wants. Get along with you, and be back sharp. Stay! where are your matches? Ah! Any coals? Good, now away with you and fetch a doctor too, else I'll fetch a policeman, you bolster of bones." ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... also learnt, through a letter received that very day, that Mr. Bolster has led Miss Plank to the altar, or she has led him—it don't make much difference. Anyway, she has walked offen the Plank of widowhood, and settled down onto a Bolster ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... broke out angrily at last. 'Look here. Tell the blackguard—let me see—I don't well know what I'm saying. Tell him you've spoken to me—no, to your brother—mind, you needn't say which—and that he'll come and see about it. Now give me that bolster, and take yourself off. Tell them I want no dinner, and don't let any one come! Get along, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here and dawdle all day," exclaimed Deppingham. "We must be moving about—arrange our batteries, and all that, don't you know. Get out a skirmish line, nominate our spies, bolster up our defences, set a watch, court-martial the prisoners, and look into the commissariat. We've got to stave these devils off for two or three weeks, at least, and we'll have to look sharp. Browne, that's the third cup of coffee you've had. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... and bed-linen will depend upon the size of her house and the style in which she lives. Six sheets and six pillow and bolster slips are allowed to each bed, and twelve towels, half of them bath towels, to each bedroom. She should have dinner and lunch cloths, with napkins to match; it is usual to allow a dozen napkins to each cloth. It is good economy to purchase all these in ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... she had been vexed by the women in question, who "did violently draw her by the haire of the head, and layd her on the toppe of a Hay-mowe." This delightfully absurd charge was coupled with some testimony about the appearances of the accused in animal form. Three men attempted to bolster up the story; but no "matter of witchcraft" was proved, says the for once incredulous Mr. Potts. The women seized the decisive moment. They kneeled before the judge and requested him to examine ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... other Frenchmen the government of Boston, had chosen her own governor, New York had always received hers from the court. What is most curious in this affair is the attitude of Louis XIV., who abhorred republics, and yet was prepared to bolster up one or more of them beyond the Atlantic,—thinking, no doubt, that they would be too small and remote ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... II, but the French continued to rule until 1954 when they were defeated by communist forces under HO Chi Minh, who took control of the north. US economic and military aid to South Vietnam grew through the 1960s in an attempt to bolster the government, but US armed forces were withdrawn following a cease-fire agreement in 1973. Two years later North Vietnamese forces overran the south. Economic reconstruction of the reunited country has proven difficult as aging Communist Party ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stirring until the mixture is thick like dough. Put it on a pasteboard and when cold roll to the desired thickness, about one-quarter of an inch thick; lay any kind of jam over the paste, roll it into a bolster-like form and bake. Serve cold, whole, or in slices nearly an inch thick. Time twenty to twenty-five minutes ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... you graceless, hopeless fellow!" said Bateman, discharging the sofa-bolster at his head. Meanwhile Sheffield ran to the door, and quickly found himself with ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... room, religiously clean, with its walnut bureau, and its monastic bed furnished with white hangings. No doubt the servant had thrown herself across this bed, in which she had slept alone all her woman's life, and was burying her face in the bolster to stifle her sobs. ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... he, having found the child perfectly well made, went to the Prince de Conti, and said to him: "Monseigneur, I have examined the shape of the young Prince who is just born: he is at all points well formed, let him sleep without a bolster that he may remain so; and only imagine what grief it would occasion to the Princesse de Conti, who has brought him into the world straight, if you should ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and prevented it. So giving him hasty directions to act as her agent, she passed through the dangerous Anjengo surf and got on board. A letter to her from Lapthorne, written a few weeks later, relates that the only property he could find belonging to her were 'two wiggs and a bolster and ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... example; that faith was not estimation merely; that regeneration was not a mere external change of life; that the Divine government was a perpetual interference to bring good out of evil, even if it were in accordance with natural law. He knew that the boastful philosophy by which some sought to bolster up Christianity was that against which the apostles had warned the faithful. He knew that the Church was attacked in her most vital points, even in doctrines,—for "as a man ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... Succubus, whose claws still clutched my heart, causing me infinite pains; still, while reanimated by the voice of my servitors, relations, and friends, I tried to make the sacred sign of the cross; the Succubus perched on my bed, on the bolster, at the foot, everywhere, occupying herself in distracting my nerves, laughing, grimacing, putting before my eyes a thousand obscene images, and causing me a thousand wicked desires. Nevertheless, taking pity on me, my lord the Archbishop ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... conscious of it, believing himself far from sleep, and convinced that he required no effort to keep awake, he suddenly slept. When he awoke a ray of pale sunlight filled the room, and leaning her elbow on the bolster, Phillis was watching him. He made a brusque movement, throwing himself backward. "What is the matter?" he cried. "What have I said?" Instantly his face paled, his lips quivered; he felt his heart beat tumultuously and his throat pressed by painful constriction. "But nothing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... feet and shut a tight hand upon the collar of the manacled doctor; "got you, you dogs, and your little game is up. Oh, you needn't bluster, doctor; you needn't come the outraged innocence, Colonel. You'll, neither of you, bolster up the rascally claim of your worthy confederate, the Tackbun Claimant; and your game with the X-rays, your devil's trick of rotting away a man's arm to destroy tattooed evidence of a rank imposter's guilt is just so much time wasted and just so ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in 1788, made the institution responsible for the intellectual rudeness of the Negroes who, though "naturally possessed of strong sagacity and lively parts," were by law and custom prohibited from being instructed in any kind of learning.[1] He styled this policy an effort to bolster up an institution that extinguished the "divine spark of the slave, crushed the bud of his genius, and kept him unacquainted with the world." Dr. McLeod denounced slavery because it "debases a part of the human race" and tends "to destroy their intellectual ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... principles of spiritual art, as he hoisted them one by one, as you might say, out of the depths of his moral consciousness. His benignant and imperturbable pomposity gave Roderick the sense of suffocating beneath a large fluffy bolster, and the worst of the matter was that the good gentleman's placid vanity had an integument whose toughness no sarcastic shaft could pierce. Roderick admitted that in thinking over the tribulations of struggling genius, the danger of dying of over-patronage ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... while in the hall which was used also as a dining room, are flock-beds, chests, guns, pistols, swords, drums, saddles, and bridles. The chamber contains every variety of article in use in the household. One of the rooms in the house of Thomas Osborn contained a bedstead with feather-bed, bolster, rug, blanket and sheets, two long table cloths, twenty-eight napkins, four towels, one chest, two warming pans, four brass candle-sticks, four guns, a carbine and belt, a silver beaker, three tumblers, twelve spoons, one sock and ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was—had been—the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had played ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... was perfectly clear, but there were even more facts to bolster it. Why had he been tested, for instance, after he had been made a demi-God? In spite of what Vulcan had said, was he slated for further honors if he passed the new tests? He was sure that Vulcan had been telling the truth as far as ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... practicable arrangement involved my sharing its pillow with the two infants or with the ancient dame; and at the bare thought of either alternative, I shivered from head to heel. At last, with infinite difficulty, I obtained permission to sleep on my horse-rug spread on the floor, with my saddle for a bolster; when this point was once settled, I spent the evening very contentedly, basking in the blaze of the huge oaken logs; if stinted in all else, the mountaineer has always large luxury of fuel. I was curious to find out if my host knew anything of his own lineage; but he could tell me nothing ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... the notion of the slumbering fortress. Fancy Sir Robert Wilson, his nose just visible over the sheets, his night-cap and the huge key (you see the very identical one in Reynolds's portrait of Lord Heathfield) peeping out from under the bolster! ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... course, he neglects an important piece of proof through gross carelessness. All he has to do is to solve a problem and to place his answer before a magistrate, and then a judge and jury to decide whether he's right or wrong. No one but a fool would attempt to bolster up a wrong answer. In this case, too, you must remember that there are finger-prints. They cannot lie. If we get the right man—Grell or any one else—there will be no question ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... that the men who saw the evils and who tried to remedy them attempted to work in two wholly different ways, and the great majority of them in a way that offered little promise of real betterment. They tried (by the Sherman law method) to bolster up an individualism already proved to be both futile and mischievous; to remedy by more individualism the concentration that was the inevitable result of the already existing individualism. They saw the evil done by the big combinations, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... though the great brute by this show of fearlessness, and through the medium of his wild voice, was endeavoring to bolster up his courage to the point which would permit him to take the rifle in ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... better argument to bolster the case he was developing. "Christmas mail is to and from Christians, isn't it? Sure! Egypt is a Moslem country. Moslems don't send Christmas cards or presents, and they don't get them, either. The Christians in Egypt are Coptic—anyway, they don't celebrate ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the last scene of "Othello," had this exquisite passage: "Upon which the Moor, seizing a bolster full of rage ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... life—the way those two bustled about—and the quantity of things they put on—and the trouble they gave her in tying strings and fastening buttons—'Really they'll be more like bundles of old clothes than anything else, by the time they're ready!' she said to herself, as she arranged a bolster round the neck of Tweedledee, 'to keep his head from being ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... again irritated by another stroke on his chops, he gave her such a remembrance in the guts, that she began to roar loud enough to be heard all over the house. Adams then, seizing her by the hair (for her double-clout had fallen off in the scuffle), pinned her head down to the bolster, and then both called for lights together. The Lady Booby, who was as wakeful as any of her guests, had been alarmed from the beginning; and, being a woman of a bold spirit, she slipt on a nightgown, petticoat, and slippers, and taking a candle, which always burnt in her chamber, in her hand, ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Little, Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its place, and the pillow in its place upon the bolster; and upon the pillow was the little Old Woman's head, which was not in its place, for she had ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... You needn't be alarmed. I'm not going to bite a hole in the ship and scuttle her. Moreover, I am a very meek and lowly individual on board this ship. There's a lot of difference between being in supreme command with all kinds of authority to bolster you up and being a rat in a trap as I am now. Up in Copperhead Camp I was a nabob, here I'm a nobody. Up there I was the absolute boss of five or six hundred men,—I won't say I could boss the women,—and I made ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... arrive. There had to be got ready not only a new crown and sceptre, and new robes and ermines, but also the velvet bed, with the gold embroidery, the lining of satin or cloth of silver, the satin quilts, the fustian quilts to lie under the satin quilts, the down bolster, the fustian blankets, the Spanish blankets, the Holland sheets, with other accoutrements for his Majesty's own bedroom, besides similar furnishing for the bedrooms of the Dukes of York and Gloucester, a new coach for his Majesty, liveries ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... should mistrust as having an ulterior aim on which he is more intent than on the furthering of our better understanding. We want to know who is doing his best to help us, and who is only trying to make us help him, or to bolster up the system in which his interests are vested. There is nothing that will throw more light upon these points than the way in which a man behaves towards those who have worked in the same field with himself, and, again, than his style. A man's style, ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... Boston banker, gets control of an old, reliable trust company, wrecks it to bolster up another business, and disappears. Police and reporters hunt him in vain. As Ashley, a reporter, is "combing" the neighborhood of Newhall's home for evidence, a young girl draws him inside a house, where he finds the banker dead, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... past two years he had spent millions of florins out of his own pocket. His magnificent fortune and boundless credit were seriously compromised. He had found it an easier task to take Ostend and relieve Grol than to bolster up the finances ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... during the summer the boats of the Hudson Bay Company—the great trading corporation of the country—brought us from civilisation, our yearly supplies. These consisted of: a few bags of flour, a keg of bolster, a can of coal oil, tea, sugar, soap, and medicines. They also brought an assortment of plain, but good, articles of clothing and dry goods which we required in our own household, and with which we also paid the Indians whom we had to hire, as fishermen, dog-drivers, canoemen ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Bernard, "this is a serious matter you suggest. The man may be honest, and yet it may be of no use trying to help him. I don't want to bolster him up for a few months in order to see my money go after his. That's not what I've got to do with it. No doubt I could lose as much as you mention, without being crippled by it, for I hope it's no disgrace in me to be rich, as it's none in you ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... other sisters were enjoying their feast, a witch passed by, and catching sight of the open door, she walked in. She went up to the eldest girl, and said: 'Where shall I begin on you, you fat bolster?' ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... Hayti has been brought into a position where it is on the high road to better things in future. That has been the result of the prescriptive American policy. With Mexico, the case is far stronger. We all know that in 1848, after our war of spoliation, we had to bolster up a semblance of a government for Mexico, with which to negotiate a treaty of peace. Mexico at that time was reduced by us to a condition of utter anarchy. Under the theory now gaining in vogue, it ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... I know of no reason why a chorusman should not wear spectacles if he needs them in his business or if he thinks they will add to his native beauty; but the spectacle of that bolster-built youth, dressed now as a Spanish cavalier and now as a Venetian gondolier, prancing about, with his spectacles goggling owlishly out at the audience, and once in a while, when a gleam from the footlights caught on them, turning ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... they are to-day. One came to the conclusion that "ignorance is the worst cause of suffering on our coast, and our 'religion' is fostering it. True, it has denominational schools, but these are to bolster up special ecclesiastical bodies, and are not half so good as Government schools would be. The 'goods delivered' in the schools are not educational in the best sense, and are all too often inefficiently offered. Instead of making the children ambitious to go on learning through life, they make ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... whether we boldly embrace this scheme or not, it will force itself upon us or else entail some great disaster. It is more to our interest to reward the army with Southern land-grants than it is even for theirs to accept them. The longer we bolster up in its possessions an insolent enemy, so much the longer shall we have to support an army and pay taxes. The sooner we weaken the enemy by introducing industrial rivals into his country, the better it will ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... can juggle the law—that's your business. But you can't juggle the law enough to horn in on the Double A. If you do, I'm comin' for you with a law of my own!" He tapped his gun bolster significantly. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... plot it is not at all unlikely that Overbury knew of it. If there was need of such a scheme to bolster the nullity petition it would have had to be evolved while the petition was being planned—that is, a month or two before the commission went first into session. At that time Overbury was still Rochester's secretary, still Rochester's confidant; and if such a scheme had been evolved for getting ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... solid cube of gunpowder. The cartridge which holds this powder is a pillow, an absolute bolster, of some three feet in length and twelve inches in diameter. It had need be, for the shell which it is meant to propel is the size of a small boy and the weight of an average ox, namely 814 lbs. The length of each 38-ton gun ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... extraordinary. Could she be laughing at him? The prospect of a new building had been, it was true, a joke for many years and evidently she put no more confidence in the statement than he did himself. "Of course, you are aware," he continued to bolster his assertion, "that the road has been bought by an immensely rich lot of ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... got a hunch that we will," chirped his cousin, with a sublime confidence that quite won Andy's heart; if he could not see any good reason for hope himself, the fact that his chum pinned his faith on it was enough to bolster up ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... hand with humid kisses, and, slowly rising, he bent towards her face, which she again began to hide. Suddenly he threw one arm across the bed, winding it around his wife over the clothes, and slipped his other arm under the bolster, which he raised with her head upon it; then he asked, in ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... fond transport warms To lull your infant in maternal arms; Who, bless'd in vain with tumid bosoms, hear His tender wailings with unfeeling ear; 385 The soothing kiss and milky rill deny To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!— Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof, The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!— Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains, 390 And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains! No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest, So soft no pillow, as his Mother's breast!— —Thus charm'd to sweet repose, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... on it wor, at when at last he did fall asleep, it wor to dream at he'd wed an angel just like her, an he wakkened to find th' bolster cuddled up in his arms. Sundy passed someway, but nawther schooil nor sarmon did him onny gooid. Unconsciously he'd set up an idol an wor worshippin it wi all th' strength ov ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... he tried to bolster up his slipping courage, as he fell in behind the two men, and marched out of the shanty prison. Larry trotted along in the rear; for Phil purposely refrained from slipping his arm in that of his chum; wishing to make it appear that Larry ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... began Leila would have found it hard to say. Perhaps her first real partner was the cab. It did not matter that she shared the cab with the Sheridan girls and their brother. She sat back in her own little corner of it, and the bolster on which her hand rested felt like the sleeve of an unknown young man's dress suit; and away they bowled, past waltzing lamp-posts and houses ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... That was in September, in M. Heger's absence. Later, she tells Emily how she went into the cathedral and made "a real confession to see what it was like". Charlotte's confession has been used to bolster up the theory of the "temptation". Unfortunately for the theory it happened in September, when M. Heger and temptation were not there. In October she finds that she no longer trusts Madame Heger. At the same time "solitude oppresses me to an excess". She gave notice, ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... this casuistry did not go down, though he tried to hammer it down with many violent gestures. He began to have certain qualms that he recognized as premonitory signs of weakening; and he struggled to bolster up his anger. Damn Haig! If he had only finished him that day in the timber, when the others had wanted to! But this was a vain regret. There remained the present situation. Gradually his steps faltered. He stopped often to look vacantly at the stars. They had nothing to say to ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... Britain has become a vast vested interest in the hands of men who have nothing to teach us. They try to bolster up their vicious system by such artificial arguments as the "mental training" fallacy. Forced to admit the utter uselessness of the pretended knowledge they impart, they fall back upon the plea of its supposed occult value as intellectual discipline. ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... witness to the truth. All true whole men succeed; for what is worth Success's name, unless it be the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A noble purpose to a noble end, 160 Although it be the gallows or the block? 'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need These outward shows of gain to bolster her. Be it we prove the weaker with our swords; Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, And clings ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... myself," was her next astounding statement, "but I wanted some one else's opinion to bolster mine up. I can't decide even on my own appearance. Just as soon as I've decided that I'm pretty I begin to feel miserably that I'm not. Besides, have a horrible old great-aunt who is always saying to me, with a mournful ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Thought) he repeated seven or nine Times, I know not which; but I was so disturb'd at it, that I began to wake, and with my Eyes but half open was preparing to rise; when I fancy'd I felt a cold Hand take me by the Hand, and force me on my hard Bolster again, with these Words, take thy Rest, Miles! This I confess did somewhat surprize me; but I concluded, 'twas the Effect of my Melancholy, which, indeed, has held me ever since I last left England: I therefore resolutely started up, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Sarah, sensibly enough, wants to get it over before dinner, so I've promised to come over right after lunch and sit on your porch so I'll be here no matter how early Hugh gets home. You and I have to bolster up the weak spots ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... much in this year, was so really efficacious in restraining for a time the greed and violence of the aristocracy, that it is not surprising that he was taught to believe in himself. There were, too, enough of others anxious for the Republic to bolster him up in his own belief. There was that Cornelius in whose defence Cicero made the two great speeches which have been unfortunately lost, and there was Cato, and up to this time there was Pompey, as Cicero thought. Cicero, till he found himself candidate for the Consulship, had ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... this position with him, however, since he has not deigned to give any reasons for it, but chosen to let it rest upon his assertion merely. We shall, therefore, have to argue the point with Mr. Albert Barnes, and other abolitionists, who have been pleased to attempt to bolster up so novel, so original, and so bold an interpretation of Scripture with exegetical reasons ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the bolster of the bed the purse with the fifty pieces of gold I had brought with me, and took leave of the lady, who asked me when I would see her again? Madam, said I, I give you my promise to return this night. She seemed transported with my answer, and, conducting me to the door, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... Evangelisches Magazin appeared "under the auspices of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod," Pastors Helmuth and Schmidt being the editors. Its avowed purpose, however, was not to represent Lutheranism, but specifically to bolster up the cause of the German and to oppose the introduction of the English language. The "Proposal to Synod" concerning the new German paper states: "1. We want to aid the German language as much as we can, because we are convinced that, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... Little Small Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its place; and the pillow in its place upon the bolster; and upon the pillow was the shining, ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... and bolsters, front view: 1, Axletree. 2, Bolster, showing wear plates. 3, Upper bolster, actually part of the wagon bed. 4, Axle, ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile
... which she only did unwillingly, as concession to a force majeure. Then the old lady said:—"Is she gone? I would not have her see her brother's letter. But I would be glad you should see it, my dear." She was exploring feebly under her pillow and bolster, to find it. Gwen understood. "It's not there," said she. "I have it here. Granny Marrable got at it to show to me." She hoped the old lady was not going to insist on having that letter re-read. It made the foulness of the criminal world, unknown to her except as material for the legitimate ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... platform which is filled in with withies and made flat. Another set of five poles is tied above, and to these the roof is affixed. On the platform, is placed the bedding belonging to the deceased, the undercloth, counterpane, etc., and at the head are laid the pillows, bolster-shaped and stuffed with cotton-tree fluff, or shredded palm-leaves, and covered with some gaily-coloured cotton cloth. In every case I have seen— and they amount to hundreds, for you cannot take an hour's walk ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... thirty-seven. This vote might be justified, more or less, on the principle laid down by Pitt, that the income tax should be held in reserve as a war tax only, or on the ground that it was equally wasteful and mischievous to keep up so large a peace-establishment, especially if it might be used to bolster up despotism abroad. It was also unfortunate that Castlereagh, ignoring the heroic efforts made by the people of England for more than twenty years, should have deprecated "an ignorant impatience to be relieved from the pressure of taxation". Still, it is remarkable that friends ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint James's. Mr Twemlow returning to his sofa, lays down his aching head on its slippery little horsehair bolster, with a strong internal conviction that a painful interview is not the kind of thing to be taken after the dinner pills which are so highly salutary in connexion with ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... spiders and huge dead flies, and the living generation of spiders descending and ascending through the gloom, I say that you also would have been surprised at the sight of those nice clean sheets. Rodriguez noted the fact and continued his preparations. He took the bolster from underneath the pillow and laid it down the middle of the bed and put the sheets back over it; then he stood back and looked at it, much as a sculptor might stand back from his marble, then he returned to it and bent it a little in the middle, and after that he ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... some feet, a paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a kind of lace ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... rather, indited me an epistle, or, I should say, indictment, in his most Roman manner which—but egad! I'll read it to you, I have it here somewhere." And the Viscount began to rummage among the bedclothes, to feel and fumble under pillow and bolster, and eventually dragged forth a woefully crumpled document which he smoothed out upon his knees, and from which he began ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... frugal mind. After pulling half the feathers out of Lucinda's bolster, she remembered that she herself was in ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... Bertillon had never appeared in a handwriting case before, or that his skill in this line was unknown. He was a man of science, of great renown in other lines, and the government relied on these facts to bolster up its claim that Dreyfus wrote the incriminating papers Bertillon reported in favor of the government's contention, and it was an easy matter to get some alleged experts—weak as to will and ability—and one or two honest but misguided men to agree with ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... grandmother taught me them lines when I wasn't more'n eleven, and I've never forgot 'em. Next you spreads the sheet just so, and you must be careful not to leave any creases in it. Then you beat up the bolster and pillow, and lay them like that," suiting the action to the words. "Then comes the top sheet, and the blankets. You must tuck each one in at the bottom first, and then at the sides, and leave the top end loose, so that when you've got the blankets spread, ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Fantine's bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing, Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the curtains, and was listening. All ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... is to strike his spear into the ground or sand. When my friend Ouweek was napping near me at the well of Tadoghseen, his spear was struck into the sand close by his head. So it is said, "And, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster." (1 Samuel, chap. xxvi. ver 7.) The Sheikh of highest rank now seated, the Sheikhs next in dignity take their seats around him, at a short distance off, in the form of a semicircle, these generally ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... principle, required at least in theory by the middle class, of the equality of all people; secondly, the Confucian great-family system was irreconcilable with middle-class individualism, quite apart from the fact that the Confucian form of state could only be a monarchy. Every attempt to bolster up Confucianism in practice or theory was bound to fail and did fail. Even the gentry could scarcely offer any real defence of the Confucian system any longer. With Confucianism went the moral standards especially of the upper classes of society. Taoism was out of the question as a substitute, ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... the police will bolster each other up when a mistake is made. That is, of course, preposterously false throughout the service. There have been cases where police officers have been prepared, quite honestly, to swear to a man as an old offender, and the department has stepped in in time to prevent ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... uncles, who had seen the world, were ever ready to bolster the matter through, and as they were brawny, broad-shouldered warriors, and veterans in brawl as well as debauch, they had great sway with the multitude. If any one pretended to assert the innocence of the duchess, they interrupted him with a ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... crowd of people. A man lay on the camp-bed, lying aslant for he was too long for it. A sheet covered his lower limbs, but his breast and shoulders had been bared. The head was nearest to the entrance, propped on an outjutting bolster. ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... I help? I had no money to bolster up affairs! Wilmarth was awfully blue. I didn't suppose anything could be made of the business, it was in such a muddle. And it couldn't now, mother, if Floyd had not sunk thousands; I don't see how he expects to get it back if we ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Shirt-sleeves rolled up lead on to best broad cloth; and he who is not ashamed of the apron will soon be able to do without it. "Diligence is the mother of good luck," as Poor Richard says; but "idleness is the devil's bolster," John Ploughman says. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... was in the game in an effort to bolster up the offense, not because he has anything as an outfielder on Bodie, whose place he took in the batting order, but the switch did not work out just as planned. Fournier made no better use of his stick than the rest of the Sox, and gave way to Daly, who ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... faster than it could move. Exchange jumped to the gold-shipping point of $4.89 per pound sterling, and did not stop. In some cases it reached $7. This was partly due to the desire to get our gold and bolster up a credit structure, tottering before the deadly blow of war; but it was also partly due to the need of ready money for supplies of all kinds. This need applies not only to the Governments, but to the individual people. To obtain this ready money they threw back on us the securities ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... full of horsehair sofas and chairs. These displeased Frank, but some handsome china—an entire tea service in Crown Derby—reconciled him to the room. In the bedroom they found a huge four-poster of old time, with a lengthy bolster and imposing pillows, and they were shown into another and a similar room. One looked out on the green, the other on the fields that lay between the green ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... extraordinary and indescribable: a hundred elephants were tearing through the jungle as rapidly as their unwieldy forms would let them, crushing down the heavy jungle in their headlong career, while their riders were gesticulating violently, each man punishing his elephant, or making a bolster of himself as he flung his body on one side or the other to avoid branches; while some, Ducrow-like, and confident in their activity, were standing on the bare backs of their elephants, holding only by the looped rope,—a ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... have given most trouble. One German officer who was sent to Austria to help bolster up her army told me that he didn't worry over the desertion of Bohemians singly and in small groups. He expected that. But he did take serious exception to the increasingly popular custom of whole battalions with ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... was gathered up loosely, with some graceful turn that showed its fine shining strands had all been freshly dressed and handled, under a wide-meshed net that lay lightly around her head; it was not packed and stuffed and matted and put on like a pad or bolster, from the bump of benevolence, all over that and everything else gentle and beautiful, down to the bend of her neck; and her dress suggested always some one simple idea which you could trace through it, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... throat, and she went to the floor like a toppling bolster. It was the old man that lifted her face from the rug, ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. The son just wavered in his chair ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... of a bolster-slip, and thrust her arm down the sack, and brought forth a specimen of the article, which Nelson seized, and vainly endeavored to break. It was like leather. The General gave it a sudden twist and broke it in ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... coverlet made off with it. One of them was aware of the theft, and said to the other, "Get up, and run after the man that has stolen our coverlet." "You blockhead," replied his companion, "wait till he comes back to steal the bolster, and we two will master him." And has "Joe" got this one?—A pedant's little boy having died, many friends came to the funeral, on seeing whom he said, "I am ashamed to bring out so small a boy to so ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student's overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to bolster up Catholic courage. The intelligent Catholic layman of the present day makes his own observations, and draws his own conclusions as to the status and the future prospect of Protestantism. Therefore, he must be invited to "acquaint himself with the ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... concerned, these passages from Justin are the developments of the Johannean statements. The statements in St. John contain, in germ, the whole of what Justin develops; but it is absurd to assert that, after Justin had written the above, it was necessary, in order to bolster up a later, and consequently, in the eyes of Rationalists, a mere human development, to forge a now Gospel, containing nothing like so explicit a declaration of the Trinity as we find in writings which ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having made those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head of sealing-wax, into the bolster. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... back to Washington, the old man reflected: "Now, she'll persuade Sloane to do the sensible thing—talk." Then, to bolster that hope, he added a stern truth: "He's got to. He can't gag himself with ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... spins once more for sheet and bolster long, Spin, spin away, Oh, and spin, spin away! For Ditte and the prince to lie and rest upon, Fal-de-ray, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... victorious bearer away of University prizes, now bent down to the humiliating desire of keeping a day school, for a morsel of bread! The man, whose genius has scarcely been surpassed, proposing to "attend" scholars, "children or adults," and to bolster up his head, at night, in "cheap lodgings!" Oppressed with debt, contracted by expending that money on opium, which should have been paid to his impoverished friend; and this, at a moment, when, for the preceding dozen ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... more—respectful than these Germans were? She felt they had. But it was not only that. She recalled the men she remembered teaching week by week through all the years she had known them... the little bolster-like literature master, an albino, a friend of Browning, reading, reading to them as if it were worth while, as if they were equals... interested friends—that had never struck her at the time.... But it was true—she could not remember ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... in his neighbourhood, have the power to waken him. When he wakes, he does so gradually, perhaps yawning and stretching himself. The nervous child may move at the slightest sound, or with a sudden start or cry is wide awake at once. A hard mattress should be chosen without a bolster, and with only a low pillow. Flannel pyjamas, which cannot be thrown off in the restless movements of the child, should be worn. The temperature of the room should be cool, and the air from the open window should circulate freely, while draughts ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... shock,) the earth had a shivering fit between one and two; but so slight that, if no more had followed, I don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again-on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... light a cigarette, and let it fall back immediately. This attitude is particularly favourable to hallucinations. It is sometimes enough to lie down with one's head thrown back to see and to hear imaginary shapes and sounds. That is why I advise you, my child, to sleep with a bolster and a fat pillow." ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... appear that the objectionable statements on pp. 56 and 62 of "Esoteric Buddhism," which are alleged to create an "historical difficulty," were not made by Mr. Sinnett's correspondent to bolster a western theory, but in loyalty to historical facts. Whether they can or cannot be accepted in those particular localities where criticism seems based upon mere conjecture (though honoured with the name of scientific hypothesis), is something which concerns the present writers as little ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... possibilities, and it's just our part to draw them out. It's the divine foolishness of women's love that serves their need, that makes them feel after better things. No woman ever won a man by despising him. He may be inferior—he is—but he wants real love to bolster him up. I guess the dear Lord thought of that ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... brittle—yours strong as brass. I never knew any ailment you had. You can go out at night in all weathers, sit up all hours. Well, I don't want to moralise. I only wish to say that if you are enclined to a game at Doubly Dumby, I would try and bolster up myself in a chair for a rubber or so. My days are tedious, but less so and less painful than my nights. May you never know the pain and difficulty I have in writing so much. Mary, who is most ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... make sure of that, I gathered up a good armful of the rushes wherewith the floor was covered, and spreading them under the table, crept in upon them in my clothes, and keeping on my hat, laid my head upon one end of the table's frame, instead of a bolster. ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... got half an hour," said Clover, unhooking the rules, and carrying them to the window,—"Half an hour; and this says that we must turn the mattress, smooth the under-sheet over the bolster, and spend five minutes in silent devotion! We'll have to be quick to do all that besides ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... cheerfully, "we must make up some sort of a nest for the little creature. Let me see, the bolster and pillows from our bed, with a thick blanket folded under them, and four chairs for a bedstead; that will do very nicely. You remember, Chester, when our Isabel was ill, she fancied that sort of bed before anything. Would you like to sleep ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... disheartening to find his old publishers dubious about undertaking the republication, and for a time the work went hard. "I am growing a sad laggard in literature," he wrote to his nephew, "and need some one to bolster me up occasionally. I am too ready to do anything else rather than write." For more than a year his time was largely devoted to overseeing an enlargement of the cottage, and a renovation of the grounds, at Sunnyside. At last he got it all into satisfactory ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... surprising to any German who reads it as the statements made by Germans about England have often been to me. It is true, however, that tall people do find the old-fashioned German bedsteads short; and it is true that the big square downy pillows are supported by a wedge-shaped bolster called a Keilkissen. But the Plumeau is what the German loves, and the Briton hates above all things: the mountain of down or feathers that tumbles off on cold nights and stays on on hot ones. You hate it all the year round, because in winter it is too short and in summer ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... gestures. Maurice was already sound asleep, with the tranquillity of death resting on his face, on a bed that had been improvised for him beside the stove, and Henriette was busying herself about a sofa on which a mattress had been thrown; she brought in a bolster, pillow and coverings; with nimble, dexterous hands she spread the white sheets, snowy white, dazzling in ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Perronnette's observing that my garments were moist; and, lastly, that I was seized with a violent fever, owing to the chill and the excitement of my discovery, an attack of delirium supervening, during which I related the whole adventure; so that, guided by my avowal, my governor found, under the bolster, the two pieces of the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... consumption of commodities. The principle is unsound. Its outcome is that it inoculates people with artificial needs. But it is this artificially excited greed which, in the last resort, continues to bolster up slavery in the shape of exploitation and war. Property created war, and property maintains war. For the weak only, is property a source of virtue, since the weak will not make efforts without the stimulus ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... There is no doubt that by day Mr Swiveller firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more; that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties, had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of Swiveller you must reject all circumstantial ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... that was reflected in his face must have been the counterpart of what I myself felt, but in that brief instant I determined to hide my own misgivings that I might bolster up ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sent for the serjeant, who was his first acquaintance among these military gentlemen. Unluckily that worthy officer having, in a literal sense, taken his fill of liquor, had been some time retired to his bolster, where he was snoring so loud that it was not easy to convey a noise in at his ears capable of drowning that which issued from ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... process a tidy servant will put back through the seam of the tick; she will also be careful to sew up any stitch that gives way the moment it is discovered. The bedclothes are laid on, beginning with an under blanket and sheet, which are tucked under the mattress at the bottom. The bolster is then beaten and shaken, and put on, the top of the sheet rolled round it, and the sheet tucked in all round. The pillows and other bedclothes follow, and the counterpane over all, which should fall ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very night I daresay she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes' meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again! No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes." Goody! For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures. What? Has ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... only way of leaving the court was by a door reserved for the governor alone, the key of which was always carried about his person. By day it was suspended from his belt, by night it was under his bolster. To gain possession of this key was the most ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... of a room, rude board floor unswept, 2 chairs, unpainted white pine table—void the furniture! Had a good firm bed, solid as a rock, & you could have brained an ox with the bolster. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... funny part is that he doesn't know it. He has simply assumed he is devoted to me, because all respectable people are devoted to their wives. I can assure you, mon ami, he would be a veritable Othello, if there were any scandal, and would infinitely prefer the bolster to the divorce-court. He would have us followed and ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... uttering a peculiar growling sound, and, to the astonishment of mother and son, he caught up the pillow and gave Vince a bang with it which knocked him back on the bolster. "Cold pudding!" he cried. "Here! try a shoe-sole to-morrow night, and see if you can digest that. Come to bed, my dear. Look here, Vince: tell Mr Deane to give you some lessons in natural history, and then you'll learn that ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... skull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens |
