"Prop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left your charms on earth, that I, reminded By them, might be consoled though you depart; But vainly! Far from you, by sorrow blinded, I find no prop of comfort ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... 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 into the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... for the first time, what an all-round, valuable creature he has become at 'The Seven Stars.' When he was along with his dying relation, I missed the man a thousand times in every twelve hours and I felt properly astonished to find how he was the prop and stay of my business. That may seem too much to say, seeing I'm a fairly clever woman and know how to run 'The Seven Stars' in a pretty prosperous way; but there is no doubt Legg is very much more than what he seems. He's ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... part of the plateau which was invisible from the plain, and here in feverish haste they built a little cairn. Many flaky slabs of stone were lying about, and it did not take long to prop the largest of these against a rock, so as to make a lean-to, and then to put two side-pieces to complete it. The slabs were of the same colour as the rock, so that to a casual glance the hiding-place was not very visible. The two ladies were ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... she s'anter ter de winder wid 'er gun sort o' hangin' loose, an' holler: 'Adam! Come outer dem bushes 'fo' I pickle yo' hide! You my witness ob dis ruffian trispassin' on my prop'ty an' cussin' an' seducin' a ol' woman widout 'er consent,' she says. 'Has I retched my age,' says ol' Mis' Scarlett, 'to have his fowls ruinin' my gyardin', an' him whut's a dunghill rooster himself flyin' ovah my ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... strike the right note in these matters," he said. "And it weren't till the third time that I struck it with your sister. Afore that I talked of being her right hand and protector and so on, and I offered to be a prop to her declining years, and all that. And I knew I'd failed almost before the words were spoken. But the third time I just went for her all ends up, as if we was boy and girl, and told her that I loved her, and wanted ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... example of what my own fate was 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 ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... day away! She shrank and trembled at the prospect of relying upon herself alone for six long days. Every prop had been taken away from her. Even the dubious prop of the strange, unsatisfactory Keith. For had he not failed her? She had said, "must" and "at once"; and he had responded with three words of ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... Probably Wain will want to see you, and tell you all about things, which is your dorm. and so on. See you later," he concluded airily. "Any one'll tell you the way to the school. Go straight on. They'll send your luggage on later. So long." And his sole prop in this world of strangers departed, leaving him to find ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... would then describe, in the most glowing language, the domestic happiness which he enjoyed in his native isle. He would paint, in harrowing sentences, the eternal misery and disgrace which his ignominious execution would entail upon the grey-headed father, who looked up to him as a prop for his old age; the affectionate mother, who perceived in him her husband again a youth; the devoted wife, who could never survive his loss; and the sixteen children, chiefly girls, whom his death ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... lean and he is sick; His body, dwindled and awry, Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; 35 His legs are thin and dry. One prop he has, and only one, His wife, an aged woman, Lives with him, near the waterfall, Upon the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... minister to the male communicants alone, but we think that every baptized adult person who contributes to the maintenance, should have a vote in electing." [Footnote: History of Brattle St. Church, p. 25, Prop. 16.] ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... did, he was exceedingly apt to visit his wrath on the head of the devoted George, saying things to him which he should not have said. But his retainer took it all in the day's work, and never bore malice, continuing in his own cadging pigheaded sort of way to labour early and late to prop up his master's broken fortunes. "Lord, sir," as he once said to Harold Quaritch when the Colonel condoled with him after a violent and unjust onslaught made by the Squire in his presence, "Lord, sir, that ain't nawthing, that ain't. I don't ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... meat or fish, 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
... of my third fo' some time back," he said. "She got a divorce six years ago. I've kept the matter secret as a so't of insurance policy. I've allus been sort of unbalanced in my leanin's to'ards the sex, you see. An' it sure acted as a prop an' a defense ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and the guarantee of the plans by which they ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... By making on't mixt, And by non-resistance o'erthrown; And preaching obedience Destroys our allegiance, And thus the Whigs prop ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Mr. Jope answered cheerily. "You come along o' me to Plymouth an' I'll put you into the very job. A cook's galley, it is, and so narra' that with a wooden leg in dirty weather you can prop yourself tight when she rolls, an' stir ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... things differently in the country. We don't build a house by way of experiment and live in it a few years, then tear it down and build another. We live in a house till it cracks, and then we plaster it over; then it totters, and we prop it up; then it rocks, and we rope it down; then it sprawls, and we clamp it; then it crumbles, and we have a new underpinning,—but keep living in it all the time. To know what moving really means, you must move from just such a rickety-rackety old farmhouse, where you have clung and grown like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... given him—a sight of the uncleanness of his best performance. The former sight of his immoralities did somewhat distress him, and make him betake himself to his own good deeds to ease his conscience; wherefore this was his prop, his stay. But behold, now God has taken this from under him, and now he falls. Wherefore his best doth also now forsake him, and fly away like the ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... leaders: Autonomous Haitian Workers or CATH; Confederation of Haitian Workers or CTH; Federation of Workers Trade Unions or FOS; National Popular Assembly or APN; Papaye Peasants Movement or MPP; Popular Organizations Gathering Power or PROP; Roman Catholic Church ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... that Felicia hardly dared to look at him until after they were on the steamer. He was really very gentle with her, he tried his best to make her comfortable, he did not refer at all to the events of the night before as he wrapped a steamer rug about her and helped the whining-voiced stewardess to prop a pillow under the ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... then 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. As he arrived there La Rochejaquelein, thrust ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... sit still. He rose, and went to prop himself against the corner of the mantel-piece, at a different angle from her face. But when she had pressed her handkerchief against her cheeks, she turned and looked up at him, awaiting ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... survive his loss. Other fathers may be devoted to their sons: his devotion was something more than theirs. How should it be otherwise? In him, and in him alone, the father saw the zealous guardian of his lawless rule, the champion of his old age, the sole prop of tyranny. If grief did not kill him on the spot, despair, I knew, must do so; there could be no further joy in life for him when his protector was slain. Nature, grief, despair, foreboding, terror,—these were my allies; ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... granted, they must be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications (Prop. iv.). If only by the difference of their attributes, it will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an identical attribute. If by the difference of their modifications—as substance is naturally prior to its modifications (Prop. i.)—it follows that setting the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... "first one prop's taken away, and then another; and after a bit the roof'll fall in, and ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... was a man, the most wedded to his idols of my generation. I was a dweller under roofs: the gull of that which we call civilisation; a superstitious votary of the plastic arts; a cit; and a prop of restaurants. I had a comrade in those days, somewhat of an outsider, though he moved in the company of artists, and a man famous in our small world for gallantry, knee breeches, and dry and pregnant sayings. He, looking on the long meals and waxing bellies of ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the chapel; but we didn't understand the young man, couldn't fathom his "excursion" sentiments, and afterwards threw ourselves into the arms of one of the ministers for numeric protection. There is a good gallery in the building, and the pillars which support it prop up a sort of arched canopy, like an oblong umbrella, which is too low, too near the head, and must consequently both confine the air, and develope sweating when the place is filled. There is a neat pulpit in the chapel, and it is ornamented ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... (and pays you too) so much, Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more: You have repaired Legitimacy's crutch, A prop not quite so certain as before: The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch, Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore; And Waterloo has made the world your debtor (I wish your bards would sing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... his daughter; I believe it was in the postscript; and that I was immediately going to—Pshaw! I am beginning my story now at the wrong end. It is throughout exceedingly whimsical. Listen, and let amazement prop your open mouth. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... way as I took yer that night, Master Nic, and then work your way up for a hour or so, and all under they tree-ferns you'll find pools and pools with lots o' fish in 'em; but I don't know how you're going to get on with that long thin clothes-prop of a thing. But, there, you're a gen'leman, and I s'pose you ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... reality possessed such an authority, not having availed himself at a crisis like the one in which he was called upon to act, rendered his conduct doubtful, and all his intended operations suspicious to both parties, whether his feelings were really inclined to prop up the fallen kingly authority, or his newly-acquired republican principles prompted him to become the head of the democratical party, for no one can see into the hearts of men; his popularity from ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... reality, however, was sadly different from his expectations. In vain, by his orders asphalt paths were made in all directions, and landscape gardeners worked for months, trying with stones cunningly inserted to prop up the steep, slippery slope, and to form little terraces on which something might have a chance of growing. With the slightest shower, down tumbled these plateaus; and the work of building had to begin again. It was amusing, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... their daring hands from seizing your crown. To whom—to whose party does your tutor belong? Who are his allies? What authority has he? What services can he do you? What weight do his words carry? Instead of finding a prop to sustain your power, you have cut the ground from under it. The Cardinal de Lorraine is a living threat to you; he plays the king; he keeps his hat on his head before the princes of the blood; it was urgently necessary to ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... make all the words clear and distinct; open your mouth and let the sound out. Once I had a big grown boy in one of my classes who did not open his lips properly when he spoke. So I asked him to prop his mouth open with a piece of stick and then talk. I made him do it until he learned to speak much more clearly. A famous Greek orator, named Demosthenes, who had a habit of mumbling his words, trained himself to speak clearly by putting pebbles in his mouth and then reciting ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... entirely in the merits of Jesus Christ, he found a satisfying sense of God's saving presence and power to the very last. He would often say, 'my feet are on the Rock of Ages. I cannot sink under such a prop, as bears the world and all things up.' His affliction, water on the chest, and an enlargement of the heart brought on by his frequent plunges into the water, and exposure to wet and cold, was protracted and very severe. He found great difficulty ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of their lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which they would thenceforth ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the tender age of four years, having no brothers or sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's side. All my mother's relations kept ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... prevailing strength on the part of that huge bully world, which seemed really to embrace the atmosphere. Emma had said: 'The rules of Christian Society are a blessed Government for us women. We owe it so much that there is not a brick of the fabric we should not prop.' Emma's talk of obedience to the Laws, being Laws, was repeated by the rebel, with an involuntary unphrased comparison of the vessel in dock and the vessel ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... neighborhood; a slave who had once undergone the shame of this, and been thus seen by the household and the neighbors, had no longer any trust or credit among them, and had the name of furcifer; furca being the Latin word for a prop, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of course a good deal alarmed. We made the door fast with a prop in case an attack ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... in a mystie morning if thou wilt Make pitfalls for the larke and pheldifare, Thy prop and sweake shall be both overguilt, With Cyparissus selfe thou shalt compare For gins and wyles, the oozels to beguile, Whilst thou under a bush shalt ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... favor on his daughter. And since love, like life, is but a game, and much may be done by a player who handles his pawns wisely, Eudemius began to conjure up hopes which, in spite of himself, he knew might never see fulfilment. The more he saw of Marius, the more he coveted his strength to prop his dying house. His fortune would be safe in Marius's hands, his name would be safe in Marius's keeping. For with all his faults Marius had a soldier's honor, and could guard what was given to his charge. Forthwith, then, Eudemius ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... augment, and win } His share of future spoils, reward of clamorous din. } The torrent of sedition swells amain, Disloyalty invades the firmest Dane; And Christiern's arm, outstretch'd without delay, Alone has power to prop his tottering sway. Haste, while in momentary bounds is kept, The struggling flood, which else may intercept Your passage; haste! your new dominions quit; Their care to some experienced chief commit; Haste, and by ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... one day she sent Jack to market to buy the finest Goose he could find. It was early in the morning when he started, and his way lay through a wood. He was not afraid of robbers; so on he went, with his Mother's great clothes-prop over his shoulder. The fresh morning air caused Jack's spirits to rise. He left the road, and plunged into the thick of the wood, where he amused himself by leaping with his clothes-prop till he found he had lost himself. After he had made many attempts to find the path again, he ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... the door, and we drove up the mountain, took the little narrow-gage railroad which is there to carry the logs down to the lake. Sitting on the front logs, we rode down the mountain. The big beams of timber are brought to the mines in order to prop up the places where the ore has been taken out. These logs do a lot of traveling. They are cut on the other side of Lake Tahoe, dragged over the lake by a tug, sawed the right length by a sawing-mill, then carried ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... of milk, gleaming along the wall of Herons' Holt, drew every stray cat within a radius of two miles. Beneath, each armed with a clothes-prop, toiled Mr. Fletcher and Frederick under the ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... read. This List you will observe is headed by one of our Judges of the Admiraltry, & seconded by another—there is also the Solicitor General (a Wedderburne in Principle but not equal to him in Ability) the Advocate General &c &c. The whole Design of these Addresses is to prop ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... subtlety and her desire to conceal, made her suddenly realize their altered relations with a vividness that frightened her. Where was the beautiful friendship that had been the comfort, the prop of her bereaved life? It seemed already to have sunk away into the past. She wondered what was in store for her, if there were new sorrows being forged for her in the cruel smithy of the great Ruler, sorrows that would hang like chains about her till she could go no farther. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... of the chivalrous past, was a source of still more satisfaction to the baron than he cared to avow. The congratulations of his numerous acquaintance pleased him, and he felt it a prop to his self-respect, which it often needed. A week later, Ehrenthal came on his way to the neighboring village to offer his congratulations too, and just as he was making his final bow he said, "You had once a notion, baron, of setting up a beet-root-sugar factory. I find that a ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the dust at least one insolent and murderous Invader;—these have attested the efficacy of the passions which we have been contemplating—that the will of good men is not a vain impulse, heroic desires a delusive prop;—have proved that the condition of human affairs is not so forlorn and desperate, but that there are golden opportunities when the dictates of justice may be unrelentingly enforced, and the beauty of the inner mind substantiated ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... if I were a Person of Quality; And when any comes hither they are won by my complemental and genteel Discourse; my comely presence brings in many a Guest into the House, besides particular Acquaintance: So that I may well affirm I am the Prop of the House. If I didn't introduce Gentleman into your Company, I wonder what you'd do; you might e'en sit still, and be forc'd to make use of a Dildo, before any Body would come to you ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... greater the truth.' Take that with you. A lie must, somewhere, have a truth to prop it. In the heart of every big successful lie you will find some reality. Of course you cannot build a house on nothing. A pyramid cannot be constructed in the air. Now a lie is nothing, the very definition of nothing. It is what is not. So, of course, no pure and simple lie exists. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... gods! when barbarous Scythians come From their cold north to prop declining Rome. That I should see her fall, and ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... 1835, chance avenged Pons for the indifference of womankind by finding him a prop for his declining years, as the saying goes; and he, who had been old from his cradle, found a support in friendship. Pons took to himself the only life-partner permitted to him among his kind—an old man and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Giraud How is this, Pamela—you the solace of all our misfortunes, the prop of our old age, ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... I hope he will recover. Just imagine, general; he was found by the road, and brought home with a dagger in his breast, like a prop in ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... out of the wood the track became worse and worse. The rough-hewn runners constantly sank into snow-drifts and the sledge canted over, so that the poor man, trembling with fear and cold, had to prop it up with all his strength. If his twisted foot gave way, there was an end to him and ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... was revived, and it became manifest that the prop upon which she had leaned had been slipped from under her. The spirit which had made her strong to endure the death of her boy failed when the sordid bald truth of a miserable and horrible waste of life gave the lie to the splendid fighting ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... in the case. If the Tritons of the Solway shall proceed to pull down honest Joshua's tide-nets, I am neither Quixote enough in disposition, nor Goliath enough in person, to attempt their protection. I have no idea of attempting to prop a falling house by putting my shoulders against it. And indeed, Joshua gave me a hint that the company which he belongs to, injured in the way threatened (some of them being men who thought after the fashion of the world), ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... in that warm, cosy little 'WE;' it took her into the firm so pleasantly. She was a weak prop indeed when it came to cows, but all the courage in her soul rose to arms when Elisha said, "What shall WE do next?" She became alert, ingenious, strong, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... opinion not only of the victors, but of the vanquished, to have given the finishing stroke to the American Revolution, Lee's force, augmented by the junction of the troops marching down to join him, was the sole prop and stay of the ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... its population lives in densely populated rural communities. Uzbekistan is now the world's second largest cotton exporter, a large producer of gold and oil, and a regionally significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Following independence in December 1991, the government sought to prop up its Soviet-style command economy with subsidies and tight controls on production and prices. The state continues to be a dominating influence in the economy and has so far failed to bring about much-needed structural changes. The IMF suspended Uzbekistan's $185 million ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... 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 ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... within five feet of the chimney and dropped so low that his prop wash flattened the reeds in the marsh. Then, climbing again, he swung wide and went over Seaford at a legal altitude. He was, even the critical Gus admitted, a safe-and-sane flier, but the temptation to get back at Carrots Kelso a little was too much. High ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... refuse them all nourishment, and permit them to die with hunger; or they may KILL THEM as enemies, who violate the rights of humanity.—Escobar, Theolg. Moral, vol. 4, lib. 31, sec. 2, precept 4, prop. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... come almost every afternoon to inquire. One day she found Charles alone, crutching himself slowly along the terrace, and she thought nothing showed the forlorn state of the family so much as to see him out of doors with no one for a prop. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cruel and brutal nature. I have seen them frequently pull the plumes from wounded birds, leaving the crippled birds to die of starvation, unable to respond to the cries of their young in the nests above, which were calling for food. I have known these people to tie and prop up wounded egrets on the marsh where they would attract the attention of other birds flying by. These decoys they keep in this position until they die of their wounds, or from the attacks of insects. I have seen the terrible red ants of ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... was only about a mile from the village. But Joe and Moll would be sure to follow them, in order to make an attempt to recover their captives. Several times before Joe had tried to kidnap an attractive smart child whom he could train to be a sort of golden prop upon which his laziness could lean, but hitherto he had always been balked in his purpose. He would be furiously angry, Bambo knew, when he discovered that, just when a life of ease and idleness such as he had longed for seemed certain in ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... so many years, a 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 ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... I'll tell thee; But listen with attention while I speak; And yet I know 'twill shock thy gentle soul, And horror o'er thee 'll spread his palsy hand. O, my lov'd Son! thou fondness of my age! Thou art the prop of my declining years, In thee alone I find a Father's joy, Of all my ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... enough extra to experiment around on his own. And, primarily, it had always been the experimentation that had been the purpose of Bending Consultants; the consulting end of the business had always been a monetary prop for the lab itself. His employees—mostly junior engineers and engineering draftsmen—worked in the two-story building next door to the lab. Their job was to make money for the company under Bending's direction while Bending himself ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... grunted in reply. He pursed his lips for a meditative whistle, thought better of it, took the frying-pan from its prop, and sounded the ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... flagrantly as Southern, Confederate credit in Europe declined. Her bonds were soon withdrawn from the market. At the same time Walker succeeded in borrowing $250,000,000 from European bankers, and thus at a critical period he was able to prop the declining fortunes of his country. To say that Walker destroyed the credit of the Confederacy and at the same time restored that of the Union would be an exaggeration. But his services were of incalculable value to ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... my beloved son, he whose birth made all my happiness, whose infancy and growing years were all my occupation, whose youth was my pride and consolation, and who would, as I hoped, be the prop of my old age, no longer lives. He has been taken from us in the midst of completed happiness, and of the happiest prospects of the future, whilst each day he gained in virtue, in understanding, in wisdom, following the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... that this and the other little prop has been added, where possibility allowed. Civil-list and Privy-purse were from of old well cared for. King's Constitutional Guard, Eighteen hundred loyal men from the Eighty-three Departments, under ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... anything about anythin'. Never have any church. Effen you go you set in de back of de white folks chu'ch. But de niggers slip off an' pray an' hold prayer-meetin' in de woods den dey tu'n down a big wash pot and prop it up wif a stick to drown out de soun' ob de singin'. I 'member some of de songs we uster sing. One of dem went ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... p. 219. A careful examination of the evidence adduced in support of the latter assertion, shows it to be of the most flimsy description, and refers it to its true basis, viz. hearsay: the reasoning and inferences which prop ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... eyes as she kissed her son; old Gottlieb said: "Philip, you are the prop and stay of our old age. Continue to be honest and good, and to love your parents, so will a blessing rest on you. I can give you nothing for a New Year's gift, but a prayer that you may keep your heart pure and true—this is in your power—you will be rich enough—for a clear ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... 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, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... to 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
... 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 ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... lavished rings in largesse, When the fight's red rain-drops fell, Bright of face, with heart-strings hardy, Hogni's father met his fate; Then his brow with helmet shrouding, Bearing battle-shield, he spake, "I will die the prop of battle, Sooner die than yield an inch. Yes, sooner die than ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... After the christenin', he took a pal or two round to the same bar to stand treat. That time the two halves of the door were closed, an' any ass could see that the letters stood for 'No Smoking.' Well, the other fellows told me his language was so sultry that his prop caught fire." ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... his chair, pale as ashes. All was lost, then. Cora had betrayed him! But he resolved not to commit himself. Perhaps Madeline had only verbal information. While he was trying to frame a speech, however, she knocked this last prop from under him. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... is nigh, my faith is strong, His arm is my almighty prop: Be glad, my heart; rejoice, my tongue, My dying flesh shall ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... nailing at the Craddock family estate pretty early in the action though it's none too soon, and mighty glad I am to see you do it while there is still a little odd lumber left. I've always said that it's women folks that prop a family and it will soon tumble without 'em. I am so glad you've come, honeybunch, that tears are laughing themselves out of the corner of my eyes." This time the white kerchief was dabbed ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... constrain'd to wear the hat that still From bad to worse it shifted.—Cephas came; He came, who was the Holy Spirit's vessel, Barefoot and lean, eating their bread, as chanc'd, At the first table. Modern Shepherd's need Those who on either hand may prop and lead them, So burly are they grown: and from behind Others to hoist them. Down the palfrey's sides Spread their broad mantles, so as both the beasts Are cover'd with one skin. O patience! thou That lookst on this and doth endure so long." I at those accents saw the splendours down From ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Umph! Let's see. Bond and mortgage'll do for me. Good. That gal that passed me by Scornful like—why, mebbe I Some day'll hold in pawn—why not?— All her father's prop. She'll spot What's my little game, and see What I'm after's ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... of his limbs. He accordingly had him carried into a little room, where he desired the gentleman to attempt to stand. 'That is impossible,' answered the patient, 'for I have not been able to use a leg these three years.' 'Prop yourself, then, upon your crutches, and lean against the wall to support yourself,' answered the physician. The gentleman did so, and the doctor went abruptly out, and locked the door after him. He had not been long in this situation before he felt ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... considering the shape of 'em. Ginger Dick nearly lost 'is temper with 'im, and it was all old Sam could do to stop himself from casting 'im off forever. He was finished at last, and arter Peter Russet 'ad slipped downstairs and found a bit o' broken clothes-prop in the yard, and 'e'd been shown 'ow to lean on it and make a noise, Ginger said as 'ow if Ted Reddish got 'im for a 'undered pounds 'e'd get ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... and there In peace and promise reconciled Unite them: nor could Nature's care With subtler sweet beneficence Have fed the springs of penitence, Still keeping true, though harshly tried, The vital prop of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... couldn't stop 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 buried it, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... men mutter, but they seldom fight. O holy Alha! that I live to see Thy Granadines assist their enemy! You fight the christians' battles; every life You lavish thus, in this intestine strife, Does from our weak foundations take one prop, Which helped to hold ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... Fulke, who to his brother will convey All his Italian birth-right, and command To take a mighty dukedom far away From his fair home, in Almayn's northern land. There he the house of Saxony shall stay, And prop the ruin with his saving hand; This in his mother's right he shall possess, And with his progeny maintain ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... friend the Dairyman was in any danger of falling into idolatry, his child would have been the idol of his affections. She was the prop and stay of her parents' declining years, and they scarcely knew how sufficiently to testify the gratitude of their hearts for the comfort and blessing which she was the ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... and Harrington went away—the younger partner taking leave of the older with a sneer for an outworn prop which no man could ever again have use for. Old and beaten—that was all Harrington now stood for in Quarrier's eyes. Never a thought of the past undaunted courage, never a memory of the old victories which had made the Quarrier fortune possible—only contempt for age, a sneer for the mind ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... filled her ambitious little head. Yes, father would see that he was right in trusting her; Nell would discover that there was no one so clever as Polly; Mrs. Power would cease to defy her; Alice would obey her cheerfully; in short, she would be the mainstay and prop of ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... the child was the child of her son, and upon the babe she lavished all the loving tenderness of her great, welling, mother heart. She had no words but those of gentleness and love for the son that had brought this charge to her. And did she guess that this child would be the sustaining prop for her son when she, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... back, the muscles relax, and the patient rests. In packing and fomenting an inflamed knee, for example, it is usually better done in a slightly bent position, which is more restful than a straight one. Employ two or three small pillows to prop it comfortably. And so on, in multitudes of cases, the earnest healer will be guided by the patient's own restful feelings. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... 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 of moral force ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... replied. "He might prop a little, certainly; but it's only playfulness." So I swung into the deep seat of the stolen saddle, and lightly touched the lotus-loving Memphian with ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Notional 'information-space' loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called 'cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of {cyberpunk} SF. At the time of this writing (mid-1991), serious efforts to construct {virtual reality} interfaces modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are already under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... 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 ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... our wheels whenever they should get entangled, also, to be himself the drag, to prevent our too rapid descent. Such generosity deserved trust; however, we women could not be persuaded to render it. We got out and admired, from afar, the process. Left by our guide—and prop! we found ourselves in a wide field, where, by playful quips and turns, an endless "creek," seemed to divert itself with our attempts to cross it. Failing in this, the next best was to whirl down a steep bank, which feat our charioteer performed with an air not unlike that of Rhesus, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... not easy to get him down the two flights of stairs. More than once they had to prop the case on a step while they rested; and at one time, just before they reached that curious heap of rubbish at the foot of the upper stairs, Jackson's strength gave way and it looked as though the whole thing would get away ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... this House stands firm upon its ancient foundations, and is not, by time and accidents, so declined from its perpendicular as to want the hand of the wise and experienced architects of the day to set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration;—whether it continues true to the principles upon which it has hitherto stood;—whether this be de facto the constitution of the House of Commons, as it has been since the time that the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... knit him a warm jacket," said Mary, "and surely Edmund could help them to prop up ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... these all their Instruments; to prop Their Mighty Cause, and Israels Murmurs stop; They find a sort of Academick Tools; Who by the Politick Doctrine of their Schools, Betwixt Reward, Pride, Avarice, Hope and Fear, Prizing their Heav'n too cheap, the World too dear, Stand bold and strong for Absolons Defence: Interest the ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... he walked with no less indecision than Cosette. He protected her, and she strengthened him. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; thanks to her, he could continue in virtue. He was that child's stay, and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the balances ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... surmised pretty nearly the truth. Speedily dismounting, he told the servants to prop him up. "Uncle Hseh," 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 his son-in-law that you've come ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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 ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... steps. Again he was an unregarded and negligible spectator. I presume he missed Johnny's hand in Albert's, and Johnny's pressure on Albert's shoulder—the one with the stain; and I hope he did. It was the hand of the stronger, taking possession. "My prop, my future mainstay!" said ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... away the chief prop which sustained the Alderman, and when the news of its passage reached Philadelphia, Tom was the most indignant man that had been seen there ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... policy we are all, of whatever party, firmly bound by the voice of the people—a power vastly more potential than the expression of any political platform. The paramount duty of Congress is to stop deficiencies by the restoration of that protective legislation which has always been the firmest prop of the Treasury. The passage of such a law or laws would strengthen the credit of the Government both at home and abroad, and go far toward stopping the drain upon the gold reserve held for the redemption of our currency, which has ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... a large branch which came out on one side, and which hung down loaded with fruit. It would have broken down, perhaps, if there had not been a crotched pole put under it, to prop it up. ...
— Rollo at Work • Jacob Abbott
... we to do?" went on Odilon Barrot. "How are we to rebuild this old society in which everything is collapsing? Efforts to prop it up only help to bring it down. If you touch it, it topples ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... 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 ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... 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. The ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... body's prop she stand— If on the body's life her life depend, As Meleager's on the fatal brand; The body's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... prop and safety always. Who would not have done what I did? Not Santa Felicita herself," she said, with ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that of a nurse maid. "I had to hol' the baby all de time she slept" she said "and sometimes I got so sleepy myself I had to prop ma' eyes open with pieces of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... INVOLUCRUM.—Any kind of wrapping or propping condition of leafage at the base of a flower may properly come under this head; but the manner of prop or protection differs in different kinds, and I will not at present give generic names to ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin |
