"Prop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my old St. Louis patrons, called to see me, and on broaching the cause of my grief, she condoled with me. She knew that I had looked forward to the day when my son would be a support to me—knew that he was to become the prop and main-stay of my old age, and knowing this, she advised me to apply for a pension. I disliked the idea very much, and told her so—told her that I did not want to make money out of his death. She explained away all of my objections—argued that Congress ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... leaders of the opposite parties, for Joab, as next of kin to Asahel, was by the law and custom of the country the avenger of his blood. For some time afterwards the war was carried on, the advantage being invariably on the side of David. At length Ishbaal lost the main prop of his tottering cause by remonstrating with Abner for marrying Rizpah, one of Saul's concubines, an alliance which, according to Oriental notions, implied pretensions to the throne (cp. 2 Sam. xvi. 21 sqq.; 1 Kings ii. 21 sqq.). Abner was indignant at the deserved rebuke, and immediately ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the eloquent pontiff (and Urban II. was one of the most eloquent men of the day), "you, who hear me, and who have received the true faith, and been endowed by God with power, and strength, and greatness of soul,—whose ancestors have been the prop of Christendom, and whose kings have put a barrier against the progress of the infidel,—I call upon you to wipe off these impurities from the face of the earth, and lift your oppressed fellow-Christians from the depths into ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... plain of anguish. "How am I to be sustained through this dreary journey of life?" she exclaimed. Upon this question she felt, more poignantly than ever, her loss of innocence: innocence would have been her support, but, in place of this best prop to the afflicted, guilt flashed on her memory every time she ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... my faith is strong, His arm is my almighty prop: Be glad, my heart; rejoice, my tongue, My dying flesh ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... replied, "for now I will call you so, your grief, though deep and poignant, will pass away in time, but mine will abide with me whilst I stay here. That period, however, will not be long; the prop of my existence, the source of my happiness, is gone; and I will never know what happiness is until I rejoin her and her blessed mother. Good-by, my daughter; I will have neither reply nor remonstrance, nor will I be moved by any ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... at its remoter margin into commerce should be the absolute world-ruler, is of course a very considerable over-belief. Over-belief as it is, though, it is an article of almost every one's religion. Most of us pretend in some way to prop it upon our philosophy, but the philosophy itself is really propped upon this faith. What is this but to say that Religion, in her fullest exercise of function, is not a mere illumination of facts already elsewhere ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... this same poet my sad chance discern'd?" 10 I durst the great celestial battles tell, Hundred-hand Gyges, and had done it well; With Earth's revenge, and how Olympus top High Ossa bore, Mount Pelion up to prop; Jove and Jove's thunderbolts I had in hand, Which for[236] his heaven fell on the giants' band. My wench her door shut, Jove's affairs I left, Even Jove himself out of my wit was reft. Pardon me, Jove! thy ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... I had lost a stay or prop," replied Mrs Seagrave. "So accustomed have I been to look to him for advice since we have been on this island. Had he not been thus snatched from us—had he been spared to us a few years, and had we been permitted to surround his ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Federation of Workers Trade Unions or FOS; Autonomous Haitian Workers or CATH; National Popular Assembly or APN; Papaye Peasants Movement or MPP; Popular Organizations Gathering Power or PROP ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... condition of this most interesting monument of an age which has utterly passed away? If there is any building in the world which belongs wholly to the past, towards which the duty of the present is simply to preserve, to guard every stone, to prop if need be, but to disturb nothing, to stay from falling as long as human power can stay it, but to abstain from supplanting one jot or one tittle of the ancient work by the most perfect of modern copies—it is surely the ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... municipal corporation; hence the town hall is scarcely needed save for some itinerant Thespians, an occasional public meeting, or as a storehouse of rubbish. It begins to fall into decay, and the decayed town is not rich enough, or public-spirited enough, to prop its weakened timbers. For the sake of the safety of the public it has to ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... doubt ye are the people: Wisdom's flame Springs from your cannon—yea from yours alone. God needs your dripping lance to prop His throne; Your gleeful torch His glory to proclaim. No doubt ye are the people: far from shame Your Captains who deface the sculptured stone Which by the labor and the blood and bone Of pious millions ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... in your favor," laughed the monarch. "I ever prefer sober manhood to callow youth about me. The one is a prop, stanch, tried; the other a reed that bends this way and that, or breaks when you ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... gentleman had been led tottering into the adjacent parlor, which was fitted up as his bedroom, and placed comfortably on a high prop of pillows, Marcus drew out his watch, made an amiable pretence of very important business down town, and bade his ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... three degrees: sanctification, sanctity of life, holiness. Holiness is ascribed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And since here the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, but the spirit of holiness (prop. sanctity, hagiosune), we must further inquire what this remarkable expression denotes. The name spirit is expressly and very frequently given to the Holy Spirit; but God is also called a spirit; and the Lord Jesus Christ is called a spirit, but in contrast to ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... that urge the old medicament, Whose fusty vials have long dried impotent, Why prop ye meretricious things, Denounce the sane as vicious things, And call outworn ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... surmised pretty nearly the truth. Speedily dismounting, he told the servants to prop him up. "Uncle Hsueeh," he laughed, "you daily go in for lewd dalliance; but have you to-day come to dissipate in a reed-covered pit? The King of the dragons in this pit must have also fallen in love with your charms, and enticed you to become ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... effects of over-confidence, kept his man at fighting edge by a little judicious pessimism now and then, and rumors of the popularity of Purplevein among the hard drinkers. Day after day Quimbleton and Miss Chuff, after a little psychic communing, would prop the editor among cushions in the big gray limousine and spin him about the city and suburbs to bow, smile, say a few automatic words and pass on. Over the car floated a big banner with the words: Let Bleak Do Your Drinking For You: He Knows How. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... a stop after running a few yards further. But finding that no lives were lost, it put on steam and disappeared on its course, and Zene and his trembling assistant were trying to prop up one corner of the wagon when Grandma Padgett brought her spectacles to ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... that poor consolation had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift, limpid, upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand, he knew himself to be forgotten. Once that same look had been raised to him, and he had gauged its meaning. Indeed, his conceit had crumbled; its last prop was gone. Why had it ended thus? There had been no quarrel between ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... war in a remote country, in spite of the violent opposition made by a powerful faction at home, which refused him supplies of every kind, and thwarted him on all occasions; it may be affirmed, that Hannibal, during the whole series of this war, seemed the only prop of the state, and the soul of every part of the empire of the Carthaginians, who could never believe themselves conquered, till Hannibal confessed that he himself ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... life. Poetry was the basis of their education, the guide and commentary of their practice, the inspiration of their speculative thought. If they have a proposition to advance, they must back it by a citation: if they have a counsel to offer, they must prop it with a verse. Not only for delight, but for inspiration, warning and example, they were steeped from childhood onwards in an ocean of melodious discourse; their national epics were to them what the Bible was to ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Pine, the Cedar proud and tall, The Vine-prop Elm, the Poplar never dry, The Builder Oak, sole King of Forests all. The Aspine good for Staves, the Cypress Funeral. The Laurel, Meed of mighty Conquerors, And Poets sage; the Fir that weepeth still, The Willow worn of forlorn Paramours, The Yew obedient to the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in these registrations of the day's doings need do no one hurt. Surely, one newspaper is enough for any man to prop against his morning water-bottle to fend off the smiling hatred of his wife's glance. If he be foolish enough to read four he is no wiser than ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... fully conscious of the evil. He recognized that the fault of the government lay in the fact that it did not govern, and he deplored that his own function, in a decadent age, was but "to prop up mouldering institutions." He was not constitutionally averse from change; and he was too clear-sighted not to see that, sooner or later, change was inevitable. But his interest was in the fascinating game of diplomacy; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... elder pupils. The school-room stands where it did, looking into a discolored, dingy garden, in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's Buildings. It is still a school,—though the main prop, alas! has fallen so ingloriously,—and bears a Latin inscription over the entrance in the lane, which was unknown in our humbler times. Heaven knows what "languages" were taught in it then! I am ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... ensue; Though it might aggrandise the state, Could private luxury dine on plate? Kings might indeed their friends reward, But ministers find less regard. Informers, sycophants, and spies, Would not augment the year's supplies. 40 Perhaps, too, take away this prop, An annual job or two might drop. Besides, if pensions were denied, Could avarice support its pride? It might even ministers confound, And yet the state be safe and sound. I care not though 'tis understood I only mean my country's ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... after a moment he said, "If you take away one prop, old chap, you must provide another. A broken thing can't stand alone. But need we discuss it now? As I told you, she is coming out presently, and this glorious air is bound to make a difference to her. It tastes ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... vine is a creeper with a knotty stem that if unpruned will reach the height of near thirty feet, but in order to render the vines more productive they are kept down to about a dozen or fifteen feet, and each is trained over a separate pole or prop. At each joint of the stem the plant puts out its fibrous tendrils, grasping the prop, and so climbing to the top. Whenever a vine happens to trail on the ground these tendrils, like strawberry "runners," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... of ancient authority, of which he retrospectively took possession, he boldly invoked the highest reasons and the most venerated names, in order to justify an arbitrary resolution, and the grasping selfishness which swayed his mind. It was the practice of the French Revolution to prop up its violent and despotic proceedings by the loftiest principles; the Emperor Napoleon had not forgotten ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... if we understand God to be the cause of all things, we do for that very reason consider Him to be the cause of sorrow. But I reply that in so far as we understand the causes of sorrow, it ceases to be a passion (Prop. 3, pt. 5), that is to say (Prop. 59, pt. 3) it ceases to be a sorrow; and therefore in so far as we understand God to be the cause of sorrow do we rejoice." The third proposition of the fifth part which he quotes merely proves that in so far as we understand passion ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... never keep to anything long. Variety is the mother of Enjoyment. At Ems I shall not be a conjuror: but I never part with my box. It takes no more room than one of those medicine chests, which I dare say you have got with you in your carriage, to prop up your couple of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... its memory as a period of his existence most interesting and fascinating." "In life," he told her, "one must have for one's thoughts a sacred depository, and Lord Beaconsfield ever presumes to seek that in his Sovereign Mistress." She was not only his own solitary support; she was the one prop of the State. "If your Majesty is ill," he wrote during a grave political crisis, "he is sure he will himself break down. All, really, depends upon your Majesty." "He lives only for Her," he asseverated, "and works only for Her, and without Her all is lost." When her birthday came he produced an ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... my life and all; pardon not that: You take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life When you do take the ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... and in making toast before a blazing fire, stand the wire toaster upright before the fire and prop ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... refuse to be its tool. Let its power be stretched forth toward this distant Territory, not to bind, but to unbind; not for the oppression of the weak, but for the subversion of the tyrannical; not for the prop and maintenance of a revolting Usurpation, but for ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... 'main prop,' George, the eldest boy, "that gentleman who gave me the half dollar for going to the bank for him, last week,—you know him we washed for at the United States Hotel,—said he was to be here again to-morrow. I was to call for his clothes; so I will go, mother, to-morrow; ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... has announced himself as the enemy of Greece, and the prop of the Ottoman Empire. At the subscription ball given at the Opera in Berlin, did he not walk arm-in-arm with Ghalik Bey, the Turkish Ambassador, and authorise him to telegraph to the Sultan that, under existing conditions, he might count upon his sense ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... quite so regardless of consequences, his brother Dominick arose and endeavoured to prop the weak part of the structure with an ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... if Miss Howe had not been a Protestant and so impervious he would have excommunicated her—and as he looked his movement imperceptibly changed to afford him a better place. He put an undecided hand upon a prop of the box that rose behind Alicia's shoulder, and so stood leaning and looking, more conspicuous in the straight lines and short shoulder-cape of the frock of his Order than he knew. Hilda, in one of those impenetrable ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... by it, because I saw that the powers of the performers were being relaxed by eternal repetition, and it was now evident that I must trust to my own ability to pull the matter quickly through as I thought best. But it was not the fatigue due to this system that finally made Niemann, the main prop in my work, recoil from the task which at the start he had undertaken with an energy full of promise. He had been informed that there was a conspiracy to ruin my work. From this time forward he was a victim to a despondency to which, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... heaven, and cried, "Thy will be done!" But, oh! the father no such solace found— Dark, cheerless anguish wrapt his spirit round; He was a stranger to the Christian's hope, And in bereavement's hour he sought a prop On which his pierced and stricken soul might lean; Yet, as he sought it, doubts would intervene— Doubts which for years had clouded o'er his soul— Doubts that, with prayers he struggled to control; For though a grounded faith he ne'er had known, He was no prayerless man; but ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... at the moment of their interment and install them in glass tubes with a few tiny bits of paper which will serve them as a prop. There is no sand, no building-material other than the creature's spittle and my very few shreds of paper. Under these conditions can the pill-shaped cell ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... hope he will recover. Just imagine, general; he was found by the road, and brought home with a dagger in his breast, like a prop ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... better be off! Wander over the face of the earth, young sirs, like vagabonds as you are, and do not presume to remain in a spot which is hallowed by the grey hairs of the patriarchal gentleman to whose tottering limbs I have the honour to act as an unworthy, but I hope an unassuming, prop and staff. And you, my tender sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, addressing himself in a tone of gentle remonstrance to the old man, 'how could you ever leave me, though even for this short period! You have absented ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... light there is, in any house, save presence of the master— So runs the saw, ye aged men! and truth it says indeed— On you I call, the wise and true, to ward us from disaster, For all my hope is fixed on you, to prop us ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... antiquities and rare marble fragments, in a spacious room surrounded with laden shelves, Romola was his daily companion and assistant. There was a time when he had hoped that his son, Dino, would have followed in his steps, to be the prop of his age, and to take up and continue his scholarly labours after he was dead. But Dino had failed him; Dino had given himself up to religion and entered the priesthood, and the passion of Bardo's resentment had flamed into fierce ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Mr. Wells?" said Wyngate, with affected politeness; "or possibly your uncle may have been English, and a title goes with the 'prop,' and you may be Lord Wells, or Very ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... the millionaires, the parvenus, the great capitalists, enriched in the provinces. A part of the nobility, after having long despised them, sets itself to fraternise with them, to marry their wealthy daughters, cause them to share power; seeks to prop with their millions the pre-eminence of its own rank, menaced by the discontent, the spirit of revolt, the growing pride, of the middle class. Meanwhile, another part of the aristocracy, either too haughty ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... this: True friendship is a goodly thing and a rare in this world, and, therefore, to be treasured; 'tis thing no man may buy or seek, since itself is seeker and cometh of itself; 'tis a prop—a staff in stony ways, a shield 'gainst foes, a light i' the dark. So do I love friendship, Robin, and thou'rt my friend, yet must leave thee, though friendship ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... believed in my father's love for me; and I think now that you were more to me than I realized. But, Roderick, have you ever watched a woodman in the forest chopping down a tree? And have you ever seen that tree fall, when its natural prop was stolen away by the sharp edge of the axe? It may have taken that tree a hundred, or a thousand years to grow; but when it crashes down, it is gone forever. A little, puny man has gone into the forest with an axe ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... uncomfortable lodging, it being a perfect swamp; and we had nothing to cover us, though it rained very hard. The Indians were little better off than we, as there was no wood here to make their wigwams; so that all they could do was to prop up the bark they carry in the bottom of their canoes with their oars, and shelter themselves as well as they could to leeward of it. They, knowing the difficulties that were to be encountered here, had provided themselves with some seal; but we had not the least ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... took a few handfuls of wheat, which they scattered upon the ground; and, as Maggie could sew better than the boys, she strung some grains of wheat on a small thread. This was tied to a slender prop which held up the cover of the trap, which was made by putting four blocks together in the shape of a box. In it was a handful of wheat. When all was ready the children hid behind some shrubbery and watched and waited the result. They whispered to each ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... window," he exclaimed. "Let us shut the window quick," he added impatiently; and then creeping softly up to the place, he took hold of the prop which held the shutter up, and gently drawing it in, he let the shutter ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... to be? That thought made me furious: for the third time I approached the hand with my own: I clasped it, and at the same instant I tried to rise, to draw this dead body towards me, and be certain of the hideous crime. But, as I strove to prop myself on my left elbow, the cold hand I was clasping became alive, and was withdrawn—and I knew that instant, to my utter astonishment, that I held none other than my own left hand, which, lying stiffened on the hard floor, had lost heat ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the speaker, "behold all the tribes of our league assembled!"—and he named them one by one. "We are but a handful; you are the prop and stay of this nation. A thunderbolt has fallen from the sky, and rent a chasm in the earth. We shall fall into it, if you do not support us. Take pity on us. We are here, not so much to speak as to weep over our loss and yours. Our country is but a skeleton, without flesh, veins, sinews, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... strengthen the old notion, that it was of no use for us to enlarge our markets unless other countries did so also at the same time and in the same way; and in condemning all reduction of import duties that was not based on "reciprocity," he certainly added all the weight of his authority to prop up a system whose injurious influence has affected the very vitality of our social state, and whose overthrow will yet require no small amount ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... the room and the bed with flowers, they brush away the dark soft hair, they array her in a dainty embroidered night-robe, and prop her up with pillows. There is the fever fire on her wan cheeks, the fever fire in her shining eyes. But she is unutterably happy—you have but to look into her face to see that. Death is ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... abandoned coal shaft. Jones recognized this as his opportunity, and taking his lasso and an extra rope, he crawled into the hole. Not fifteen feet from the opening sat one of the cougars, snarling and spitting. Jones promptly lassoed it, passed his end of the lasso round a side prop of the shaft, and out to the soldiers who had followed him. Instructing them not to pull till he called, he cautiously began to crawl by the cougar, with the intention of getting farther back and roping its hind leg, so as to prevent disaster when the soldiers ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... first mistook it for the application of drumsticks to the head of an empty barrel. This uncommon speed, however, was attended with a misfortune; he chanced to overlook a small defect in one of the steps, and his prop plunging into a hole, he fell backwards, to the imminent danger of his life. Tom was luckily at his back, and sustained him in his arms, so as that he escaped without any other damage than the loss of his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... behold the full-mapped mind Of his opponent, Marmont arrows forth Aide after aide towards the forest's rim, To spirit on his troops emerging thence, And prop the lone division Thomiere, For whose recall his voice has rung in vain. Wellington mounts and seeks out Pakenham, Who pushes to the arena from the right, And, spurting to the left of Marmont's line, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Sweet—A lump of charcoal should be placed in the refrigerator to keep it sweet. When putting your best tea or coffee urn away, drop a small piece of charcoal in it and prop the lid ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... displayed the force of many sympathies. Our moral sentiment is itself a feeling chiefly of that nature, and our regard to a character with others seems to arise only from a care of preserving a character with ourselves; and in order to attain this end, we find it necessary to prop our tottering judgement on ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... spirits drop. I saw those of Hepatica and the Skeptic and the Philosopher drop, although they made haste to prop their countenances ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... appear; O'er hills and vales perennial gardens run, Cities unwall'd stand sparkling to the sun; The streams all freighted from the bounteous plain Swell with the load and labor to the main, Whose stormless waves command a steadier gale And prop the pinions of a bolder sail: Sway'd with the floating weight each ocean toils, And joyous nature's ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... to convince A hungry fisherman Of his unfitness for the frying-pan. The fisherman had reason good— The troutling did the best he could— Both argued for their lives. Now, if my present purpose thrives, I'll prop my former proposition By building on a small addition. A certain wolf, in point of wit The prudent fisher's opposite, A dog once finding far astray, Prepared to take him as his prey. The dog his leanness pled; "Your lordship, sure," he said, "Cannot be very ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... lodge, remain, continue, abide; support, prop, buttress, brace, uphold, strengthen; delay, obstruct, hinder, restrain, appease, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... most urgent wants indeed, Mrs. Haller has relieved; but whether she has or could have given as much as would purchase liberty for the son, the prop of ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... Paul, who was like iron with mob and mutiny, was pitiably helpless before such a prop of the aristocracy. He flew into a rage, and rated the landlord in Scotch and English, and I was fain to put my tongue in my cheek and turn my back that my laughter might not anger ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... directors were due to the machinations of that sly and persuasive old dog, Colonel Mapleson. Nilsson had but one rival, and she was Mme. Patti. Her Colonel Mapleson had secured; not only her, but, report said, Scalchi, Tremelli, and Tamagno also. Mme. Scalchi had been a strong prop of the first Metropolitan season, and Tremelli and Tamagno, though they had not been heard in America, had names to conjure with. Tremelli never came, and it was not until 1890, when Mr. Abbey was again in the traces of an Italian opera manager, and was exploiting ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... your letter. The man's waiting for it. That's why I ran all the way up here." By this it may be seen that Betty had lost all her awe of the young soldier. Maybe it left her when he doffed his uniform. "Here's your crutch. Doesn't it hurt you to stand alone?" She reached him the despised prop. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... are exhausted. The next day, she is dead. The eggs are dabbed in a continuous layer, at the entrance to the throat, at the root of the tongue, on the membrane of the palate. Their number appears considerable; the whole inside of the gullet is white with them. I fix a little wooden prop between the two mandibles of the beak, to keep them open and enable me to see ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... regular trade in these things, I figured that he probably bought it from some juggler whose performance had given him the idea. So," continued Jones, producing a specimen of his advertisements in the theatrical publications, "I set out to find what professional had sold a 'prop', to an amateur. I found the sale had been made at Marsfield, Ohio, late in November of last year, by a 'Slippery Sam,' termed 'The Elusive Edwardes.' On November twenty-eighth of last year Mr. Harvey M. Greene, of Richmond, Virginia, was registered at the principal, in fact the only decent ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a Pithaeo editis, carmen in laudem Solis; quod eum esse Liberum, et Cererem, et Jovem statuit. Huetius. Demonst. Evang. Prop. 4. p. 142. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... tired and went off to bed. I was tired, right enough, but I was something else too. All that business about the girl I meant to find and marry may sound like a child's silly game to you, but it had been more than a game to me. It had been a solid prop to hold to in ugly places where a man might slip if he had not clean love and a girl in his head. And now, at seven-and-twenty, I wanted my child's game to come true: just my own fire, and my own girl, and a life that held ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... her back was fetching from the clothes-prop a waterglobe upon its stand; she set it down on the table before the rush-light, moving on tiptoe, for to her the writing of a letter was a sort of necromancy, and she was distressed for Katharine's sake. She had heard ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... round arch of a given span can be only half as high as it is wide, but the pointed arch may have a great diversity of proportions. The development of the Gothic style was greatly forwarded by the invention of the "flying buttress." By means of this graceful outside prop it became possible to lighten the masonry of the hitherto massive walls and pierce them with great windows which let a flood of light ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... Center, which is not much of a center, Miss Dawes alighted from the buggy and entered a building bearing a sign with the words "Metropolitan Variety Store, Joshua Atwood, Prop'r, Groceries, Coal, Dry Goods, Insurance, Boots and Shoes, Garden Seeds, etc." A smaller sign beneath this was lettered "Justice of the Peace," and one below that ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Rebel Troops, And strait with me to Abdelazer's Tent, Where all his Claims he shall resign to you, Both in my self, the Kingdom, and the Crown: You being departed, thousands more will leave him, And you're alone the Prop to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... Lordship read in my partial defence of Kilkee, a slight attempt to prop up my own case, and felt confused and embarrassed beyond ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... old-fashioned expression of wifely pride and womanly tenderness in the fine old lady, who forgot her own gifts, and felt only humility and gratitude to the man who had found in her a comrade in intellectual pursuits, as well as a helpmeet at home and a gentle prop for ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch; also the childish amusement of riding upon the two ends of a plank, poised upon the prop underneath its centre, called also see-saw. Perhaps tatter is a rustic pronunciation ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... projector, proprietor, and editor, was Mr. Gilbert a Beckett, whose name—with those of men of vastly superior literary attainments—was associated in after years with the early fortunes of Punch. The literary part of the performance was indeed sorry stuff,—the main stay and prop of the paper from its very commencement was Seymour, whose drawings however suffered severely at the hands of the engraver and paper maker. An eccentricity of the publication perhaps deserves notice. It professed to look with sovereign contempt ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... frequented the Elysee, but without giving his adherence. He promised his support to General Bedeau, who counted upon him. At daybreak on the 2d of December some one came to waken X. It was Edgar Ney. X. was a prop for the coup d'etat, but would he consent? Edgar Ney explained the affair to him, and left him only after seeing him leave the barracks of the Rue Verte at the head of the first regiment. X. took up his position at the Place de la Madeleine. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... densely populated rural communities. Uzbekistan is now the world's third largest cotton exporter, a major producer of gold and natural gas, and a regionally significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Following independence in December 1991, the government sought to prop up its Soviet-style command economy with subsidies and tight controls on production and prices. Faced with high rates of inflation, however, the government began to reform in mid-1994, by introducing tighter ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... proximity. One of them did not hesitate to thrust a book into my hands, saying, "Give that to that fellow over there, will you?" while another of them exclaimed as he pushed past me, "By your leave, young fellow!" and a third made use of my shoulder as a prop when he wanted to scramble over a desk. All this seemed to me a little rough and unpleasant, for I looked upon myself as immensely superior to such fellows, and considered that they ought not to treat me with such familiarity. At length, the names began to be called out. The gymnasium men walked ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... they used to turn pots down at night so that they could pray. They had big pots then—big enough for you to get into yourself. I've seen some of them big old pots and got under 'em myself. You could get under one and pray if you wanted to. You wouldn't have to prop them up to send your voice in 'em from the outside. The thing that the handle hooks into makes them tilt up on one side so that you could get down on your hands and knees and pray with your mouth close to the opening if you wanted to. Anyway, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Smith choked, and reached for a tent prop. The next moment his hand was at the Indian's throat. With a quick twist of his collar band he shut off the Siwash's wind, choking ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff greatly disturbed the even-going tenor of Irene's life. It withdrew also a prop on which she had leaned often in times of weakness, which would recur ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran" the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts—she had knitted sixteen of them, ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the state, would have been delighted with the marrying tendencies of the chapel people. A venerable old gentleman—a great pillar of the body—after the decease of his first wife married her sister, and again, upon her removal, married his cook. Another great prop—elderly indeed, but still upright and iron-grey, a most powerfully made man, who always spoke as if his words were indeed law—rule-of-thumb law—has married three sisters in succession, and has had offspring by all. Their exact degrees of consanguinity I cannot tell ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... care of her young brothers, patient with 'em always, ready to mend bad rents in their clothin' and their behavior—tryin' to prop up their habits and their morals, givin' 'em all the schoolin' she could, givin' 'em all a good trade, all but the youngest, him she kep with her always till the Lord took him (scarlet fever), took him to learn the mysterius trade ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"— Last of its timber,—they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he "put her through." There! said ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... self-complacency there may be in their outward bearing, it is visible enough, by their feverish jealousy of each other, how little confidence they have in the sterling value of their several doings. Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up; and there is too visible distress and hopelessness in men's aspects to admit of the supposition that they have any stable ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... you have given us ALL, and your prop has been taken away, you are justly entitled ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... my unfortunate old age, whose prop And only staff is gone, dead ere I die! These should have been his tears, and I have been That body to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... This prop is not found in the natural character of man, who, being selfish and violent, directs his energies rather to the destruction than to the preservation of society. Nor is it found in his moral character, which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ground, crossed the rails in the fortunate shadow of one of the posts. There he found a place where, with his back to a pole-prop right at this curve in the trolley system, the ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... may be compared to the efforts of a man to prop up his falling house who so surrounds it and fills it with props and buttresses and planks and scaffolding that he manages to keep the house standing only by making it impossible ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... excite envy, or to purchase attention. Her husband, her children, are no more!—one, one only comfort remains—one friend, one solace in adversity—one ray of light in the dark hour! Amidst universal desertion, RUTH has not forsaken her; but is become her joy in sorrow, her companion in solitude, her prop in decrepit age! Can we wonder that she wishes to discard a name which awakened such recollections, and only recalled the dream of happiness? "Call me not Naomi,—call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... movements,' and I sympathise with all that is said in favour of them. But I would remind you that the precursor of every genuine forward movement is a Godward movement, and that it is worse than useless to talk about lengthening the cords unless you begin with strengthening the stakes. The little prop that holds up the bell-tent that will contain half-a- dozen soldiers will be all too weak for the great one that will cover a company. And the fault of some Christian people is that they set themselves to work upon ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... heads of noble Rhodians, which had struck A general sorrow 'mongst the knights. All look Who next the lists should enter; each desires The task were his, but honour now requires A spirit more than vulgar, or she dies The next attempt, their valour's sacrifice; To prop whose ruins, chosen by the free Consent of all, Argalia comes to be Their happy champion. Truce proclaimed, until The combat ends, the expecting people fill The spacious battlements; the Turks forsake Their tents, of whom ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... prisoners. The sight of these enemy soldiers in greenish and red rags gives us an impression of power, of victory. Some voices question them in passing. They are dismayed and stupefied; the fists that prop up their yellow cheekbones protrude triangular caricatures of features. Sometimes, at the cut of a frank question, they show signs of lifting their heads, and awkwardly try to give vent ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... fer a lantern, Besides, the moonlight was bright enough in all conscience. Then I scooped that awful thing up in th' spade. I had a sight o' trouble doin' it. It slid off, and tipped over, and I couldn't bear Ev'n to touch it with my foot to prop it, But I done it somehow. Then I carried it off be'ind the barn, Clost to an old apple-tree Where you couldn't see from the house, An' I ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... pleasure." Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes in, and then Witchem and me go off with him to the Hotel. Mr. Tatt he's got up quite regardless of expense, for the occasion; and in his shirt-front there's a beautiful diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound - a very handsome pin indeed. We drink our sherry at the bar, and have had our three or four glasses, when Witchem cries suddenly, "Look out, Mr. Wield! stand fast!" and a dash is made into the place by the Swell ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... purpose is right. The comprehension of my teachings would enable any one to prove these books to be filled with blessings for the whole human family. Fatiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries are employed to explain and prop old creeds, and they have the civil and religious arms in their defense; then why should not these be equally extended to support the Christianity that heals the sick? The notions of personality to be found in creeds are far more mystic than ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy
... the waterhole with a clothes prop, and made good time, too; but we got across and away ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... the midst of a not unpleasing picture of herself as the wise, considerate prop of the whole family, looked up to by her parents, leant upon by Lady Myrtle, a Lady Bountiful to all within her reach, a——But here I think her imaginings probably faded into the ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... and not in great pain. I'm not much of a prop to lean on, but I think we can make ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey |
