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Mainstay   /mˈeɪnstˌeɪ/   Listen
Mainstay

noun
1.
A prominent supporter.  Synonym: pillar.
2.
A central cohesive source of support and stability.  Synonyms: anchor, backbone, keystone, linchpin, lynchpin.  "The keystone of campaign reform was the ban on soft money" , "He is the linchpin of this firm"
3.
The forestay that braces the mainmast.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Mainstay" Quotes from Famous Books



... their mainstay, their guide, the best part of their youth, of that happy portion of their lives which had vanished; she had been the bond that united them to existence, the mother, the mamma, the creative flesh, the tie that bound ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... invested largely in the shares of the old Bank of the United States, and in 1812, purchased its building and succeeded to much of its business. He was the financial mainstay of the government during the second war with England—in fact, it was he who made the financing of the war possible. And yet he was, to all outward appearances, a singularly repulsive and hard-fisted old miser. In early youth, an unfortunate accident had caused the loss of one eye, and ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... Overview: The mainstay of Andorra's economy is tourism. An estimated 13 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. The banking sector, with its "tax haven" status, also contributes significantly ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... know the nater of the oath you're about to take. For over two years you've been the mainstay an' support of your mother. You've had to carry the burdens and responsibilities of a man, Davy. The testimony you give in this case will be the truth, the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth, so help you ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... Ebenezer Webster knew that he was old before his time and not destined to many more years of life. With the perfect and self-sacrificing courage which he always showed, he did not shrink from this new demand, although Ezekiel was the prop and mainstay of the house. He did not think for a moment of himself, yet, while he gave his consent, he made it conditional on that of the mother and daughters whom he felt he was soon to leave. But Mrs. Webster had the same spirit as her husband. She was ready to sell ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... the Eleven. The team which had beaten the O.B.s had not had the benefit of his assistance, Lorimer appearing in his stead. Lorimer was a fast right-hand bowler, deadly in House matches or on a very bad wicket. He was the mainstay of the Second Eleven attack, and in an ordinary year would have been certain of his First Eleven cap. This season, however, with Gosling, Baynes, and the Bishop, the School had been unusually strong, and Lorimer had had ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... of the usurper, Rosalynde, Alinda (Celia), and the shepherds Montanus (Silvius), Coridon (Corin) and Phoebe, while to Shakespeare we owe Amiens, Jacques, Touchstone, Audre, and a few minor characters; whence it appears that Lodge's contribution forms the mainstay of the plot as familiar to modern readers. Moreover, in spite of the stiltedness of the style where the author yet remembers to be euphuistic, in spite of the long 'orations,' 'passions,' 'meditations' and the like, each carefully labelled and giving to the whole ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... their eyes ere yet the nobles had rallied from their astonishment. And they were downcast and oppressed with boding cares, and they held counsel among themselves what to do; for Rustem was their mainstay, and they knew that, bereft of his arm and counsel, they could not stand against this Turk. And they blamed Kai Kaous, and counted over the good deeds that Rustem had done for him, and they pondered and spake long. And in the end they resolved to ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... Canal will probably cut in two the distance to China, and give us a monopoly of the cotton goods trade in the Pacific; but I think cotton goods are unhealthful, and I don't want to go to China. The Suez Canal may be the mainstay of the British Empire, but I have no doubt that it would make just as satisfactory a mainstay for some other empire. My interest in the Erie Canal is connected entirely with the fact that when it was opened somebody said, "What hath ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... the knot in his own fashion. Tired of Ormond's discretion and Ormond's inconvenient sense of honour, he secretly sent over Edward Somerset, Earl of Glamorgan, to make terms with the Confederates, who, excited at finding themselves the last hope and mainstay of an embarrassed king stood out for higher and higher conditions. The Plantation lands were to be given back: full and free pardon was to be granted to all; Mass was to be said in all the churches. To these terms and everything else required, Glamorgan agreed, and the Confederates, thereupon, ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... large variety, of procuring the required quantity of different nutrients than when restricted to a very limited dietary, because, if the dietary be very limited they might by accident choose as their mainstay some food that was badly balanced in the different nutrients, perhaps wholly lacking in protein. It is lamentable that there is such ignorance on such an all-important subject. However, we have to consider things as they are and not as ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... mainstay of our football eleven ever since it was organized!" stormed Slugger Brown. "I helped to win every victory that came ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... bureaucrats the dominance of an unprogressive habitant majority. The first leader of the opposition which developed in the Assembly after the War of 1812 was James Stuart, the son of the leading Anglican clergyman of his day, but he soon fell away and became a mainstay of the bureaucracy. His brother Andrew, however, kept up for many years longer a more disinterested fight. Another Scot, John Neilson, editor of the Quebec "Gazette", was until 1833 foremost among the assailants of the bureaucracy. But steadily, as the extreme nationalist ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... she had written down, at her old Anna's dictation, a list of groceries and other things needed at the Trellis House. And then she looked round, instinctively, towards the corner of the large shop where all that remained of what had once been the mainstay of Manfred Hegner's business was always temptingly set forth. This was a counter of Delicatessen. Glancing at the familiar corner, Mr. Hegner's customer told herself that her eyes must be playing her false. In the place of the familiar sausages, herrings, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... girls, was past eighteen, but had not as yet been trained to any special work. The other children, George, aged fourteen; Martha, twelve; William ten, and Veronica, eight, were too young to do anything, and only made the problem of existence the more complicated. Their one mainstay was the home, which, barring a six-hundred-dollar mortgage, the father owned. He had borrowed this money at a time when, having saved enough to buy the house, he desired to add three rooms and a porch, and so make it large enough for them to live in. A few years were still to run ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... Widow O'Neill," he answered, without trepidation, in the native Irish in which he was addressed, "and I am her mainstay and support. If you hang me you will bring the malediction of Heaven, and the widow's curse will rest upon you. If I know your secrets, I am not about to divulge them; I am too much of an Irishman to do that, if I give you my promise ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston

... hour, or fifty and sixty grains of quinine in one day or remission to be absolutely imaginary." He is "convinced that it is not a stimulant," and with many apologies he cautiously sanctions alcohol, which should often be the physician's mainstay. As he advocated ten-grain doses of calomel by way of preliminary cathartic, the American missionaries stationed on the River have adopted a treatment still more "severe"—quinine till deafness ensues, and half a handful of mercury, often continued till a passage opens through the palate, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... honors to the Red Fox patrol. He had his quart of water boiling a full minute before either of his rivals; and retired amid thunderous applause. Wallace would show up in several other events, for he was the mainstay ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... flowers and other matters which I haven't the heart to burn. You will be the best judge what should be done with them. If you see your way to managing it, I should like her to know that I had sent them all to you, and that, whatever may happen to me hereafter, my love for her has been the mainstay and the guiding-star of my life ever since that happy time when you all came to stay with us in my first long vacation. It found me eaten up with selfishness and conceit, the puppet of my own lusts and vanities, and has left me—well never mind what it has left me. At any rate, if I have ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... trade and industries of the Netherlands were in a highly prosperous state. The Burgundian provinces under the wise administrations of Margaret and Mary, and protected by the strong arm of the emperor from foreign attack, were at this period by far the richest state in Europe and the financial mainstay of the Habsburg power. Bruges, however, had now ceased to be the central market and exchange of Europe, owing to the silting up of the river Zwijn. It was no longer a port, and its place had been taken by Antwerp. At the close of the reign of Charles, Antwerp, with its ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... he says in another place, "that the mainstay of an efficient reform is the adoption essentially of the Italian vowel system: it combines beauty, firmness and precision in a degree not equalled by any other system of which I have any knowledge. The little ragged boys in the streets of Rome and Florence enunciate their vowels ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord

... damage done; no victims worth mentioning. The fertile fields were intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather round the family board. Family life, the sacred hearth! It was the pride, the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and right conduct. Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the parents' teaching and example—nothing! And this poor boy, now threatened ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... Japan—proved more than even the conservatism of China could endure. Within the few years since the dawn of the twentieth century the torpid leviathan of the East has shown decided signs of awakening. Most prominent among these indications is the fact that the ruling empress, but recently a mainstay of the conservative party, has entered the ranks of reform and given her imperial assent to radical changes in Chinese ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... from fever. No one was in really buoyant health. For some weeks we had been sharing part of the contents of our boxes with the camaradas; but our food was not very satisfying to them. They needed quantity and the mainstay of each of their meals was a mass of palmitas; but on this day they had no time to cut down palms. We finally decided to run these rapids with the empty canoes, and they came down in safety. On such a trip it is highly undesirable ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... After his day's work with Boreland, he had his meals to prepare. There were brown beans to clean and cook, and sourdough hotcakes to set for the morning. Kayak had taught him to prepare his sourdoughs—a resource which was to become the food mainstay of all on the Island. Harlan learned from the old man that the sourdough hotcake, or flapjack is as typical of Alaska as the glacier. The wilderness man carries, always, a little can filled with a batter of it; with ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... taken the night shift on a trolley car, and otherwise earned money until, in his junior year, his income from newspaper correspondence and tutoring made further manual labor unnecessary. It is with profound regret that we cannot point to Harwood as a football hero or the mainstay of the crew. Having ploughed the mortgaged acres, and tossed hay and broken colts, college athletics struck him as rather puerile diversion. He would have been the least conspicuous man in college if he had not shone in debate and gathered up such prizes and honors as were ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... we never think of accomplishing anything without his help. He is our mainstay. But how ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... been my mainstay for more years than I care to think about. A well-educated sense of Humor will save a woman when Religion, Training, and Home influences fail; and we may all need ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... mainstay of Andorra's tiny, well-to-do economy, accounts for roughly 80% of GDP. An estimated 9 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. Andorra's comparative advantage has recently eroded ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... this up-country which had been the mainstay of the Jeffersonian party. Calhoun was a son of this region, and he had grown up in the midst of the bitterest opposition to the eastern aristocracy. But gradually, under the influence of cotton-growing, he and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... must be strong. But what is the secret of strength? It is fundamental to the whole question to understand this rightly, and, once grasped, make it the mainstay of individual existence, which is the foundation of national life. So much has the bodily power of over-riding minorities been made the criterion of absolute power, that to make clear the truth requires patience, insight, and a little mental study. ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... collusion, but they are none the less complementary propositions and they are none the less indicative of a common trend of convictions among the men who are best able to speak for those pacific nations that are looked to as the mainstay of the prospective league. They both converge to the point that the objective to be achieved is not victory for the Entente belligerents but defeat for the German-Imperial coalition; that the peoples underlying the defeated governments are not ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... was not to be snubbed, though she was very much given to snubbing others. She had attained this position for herself by a mixture of beauty, rank, wealth, and courage;—but the courage had, of the four, been her greatest mainstay. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... having as its support, in addition to the twig, the cells already built. From six to ten chambers are thus grouped side by side. Lastly, one coat of mortar covers everything, including the twig itself, which provides a firm mainstay ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... to devote his life to the cause of aviation. The next morning he started for Paris, and with the help of M. Archdeacon founded the earliest aeroplane factory in France—the firm of the brothers Voisin, which became the mainstay of ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh

... whisper, save at the bidding of their rulers; nevertheless this can never be carried to the pitch of making them think according to authority, so that the necessary consequences would be that men would daily be thinking one thing and saying another, to the corruption of good faith, that mainstay of government, and to the fostering of hateful flattery and perfidy, whence spring stratagems, and the corruption of every ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... the seas. A numerous and happy band of workmen look up to you as to a father. By calling new branches of industry into existence, you have laid the foundations of the welfare of hundreds of families. In a word—you are, in the fullest sense of the term, the mainstay of our community. ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen

... removed to 22 Hans Place, where they had under their charge Mary Russell Mitford. Still later, after the fall of Napoleon, the St. Quentins moved to Paris, together with Miss Rowden, who had long been the mainstay of the school. It was while the school was here that it received Fanny ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

... their concert in a specially constructed "hall" in the desert. Sandbags were the mainstay of the platform and a large tarpaulin, G.S., formed the drop-scene. The walls were of rough canvas, upon which it was inadvisable to lean, lest the whole structure collapsed. Primitive, no doubt, but it suited the environment; and I have never ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... is the mainstay of the student in regard to examples of form for the old kingdom; but for all periods detailed and trustworthy drawings and photographs are found among the enormous mass of ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... he inquired, anxiously. "Precious sight, and reasons of his own, says you. Reasons of his own; that's the mainstay; as between man and man. Well, then"—still holding me—"I reckon you can go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see Silver, you wouldn't go for to sell Ben Gunn? wild horses wouldn't draw it from you? No, says you. And if them pirates came ashore, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hanging on to anything when I've once made up my mind; and if a man has but ordinary capacity, and will set to work with heart and soul, and stick to it, he can do almost anything.' With this maxim, which has been pretty much my mainstay throughout life, I fortified myself in my determination to attempt the law. But how was I to set about it? I must quit this forest life, and go to one or other of the towns, where I might be able to ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... prince to the peasant. The severity of her discipline was tempered by a tolerant and half-amused insight into the pardonable foibles of humanity. She held back her nuns with one hand from "the frenzy of self-mortification," which is the mainstay of spiritual vanity, and with the other hand from a too solicitous regard for their own comfort and convenience. They were not to consider that the fear of a headache,—a non-existent headache threatening the future—was sufficient excuse for ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... her so badly. He died, and for a time she was broken-hearted; but gradually she came to prove the reality and comfort of her religion, and then, taking up the interests of those around her, she had cheerfully buried her own sorrow, and became the mainstay of her aunt and her household. Perhaps Agatha felt most keenly being shut out from her aunt's dying room, she certainly uttered with heartfelt fervour morning and evening, 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... expected, and he did not know, at such short notice, how to answer them. Suddenly a hymn was started by a voice which every one knew, though they seldom heard it in prayer-meeting. It belonged to Judge Prency's wife, who for years had been the mainstay of every musical entertainment which had been dependent upon local talent. ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton

... mainstay of the subsequent discussion and put all doubtful matters in a clearer light. 'Increase your fats (carbohydrate)' is what science seems to say, and practice with conservativism is inclined to step ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... Renshaws lose their property and emigrate to New Zealand. Wilfrid, a strong, self-reliant lad, is the mainstay of the household. The odds seem hopelessly against the party, but they succeed in establishing themselves happily in one of the pleasantest ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... would have been a profanation," said Felix. "I love you so deeply, with a tenderness so little proof against your wishes, that I promised a thing contrary to my conscience. Conscience, Celeste, is our treasure, our strength, our mainstay. How can you ask me to go into a church and kneel at the feet of a priest, in whom I can see only a man? You would despise ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... 1848, Mary Slessor was the daughter of a Scottish shoemaker. Her mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman. After her father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. Working in a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the family moved when Mary was eleven) she educated herself while ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... person will refuse to do many actions, and religion is of course a mainstay, though irrational accretions, fasting, and superstitious views of the ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris

... shams, and he hated all forms of caste-feeling. He was one of the few continental statesmen who never exaggerated the power for good of government; he looked upon the private citizen who plods at his business, gives his children a good education, and has a reserve of savings in the funds, as the mainstay of the state. ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... have pushed west all the way from eastern Canada, following the fur trade. They have followed up the Red River and down the Athabasca, and they have overrun all the intervening tribes and elected themselves chiefs and bosses pretty much. You may call the Cree half-breed the mainstay of ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... order in which foods stand in the matter of freedom from earthy impurities is as follows: Fruits, fish, animal flesh (including eggs), vegetables, cereals; so that the advocates of a strictly vegetable diet find themselves confronted by the formidable fact that their mainstay is that class of foods that contain the largest proportion of those substances that hasten ossification. Ample proof is at hand that a strictly vegetable diet results in what is known as atheroma (chalky deposit), an affection ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell

... official circle. He was then sent as the representative of Prussia to the restored Diet of Frankfort. As an absolutist and a conservative, brought up in the traditions of the Holy Alliance, Bismarck had in earlier days looked up to Austria as the mainstay of monarchical order and the historic barrier against the flood of democratic and wind-driven sentiment which threatened to deluge Germany. He had even approved the surrender made at Olmuetz in 1850, as a matter of necessity; but the belief now grew strong in ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... and looked up in his face. Stead's hand patted the rough, wiry hair, and there was a sort of comfort in the creature's love. But how hard it was to believe that only yesterday he had a father and a home, and that now his elder brother was gone, and he had the great charge on him of being the mainstay of the three younger ones, as well as of protecting that treasure in the cavern which his father had so solemnly entrusted ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge

... stronger wills than the nobler. In marrying us you style us, 'the mistress of the house,' and if the elders of the citizens grow infirm, in this country it is not the sons but the daughters that must be their mainstay. But we women have our weaknesses, and chief of these is curiosity.—May I ask on what ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... don't lose the fine courage that has been your mainstay through other troubles," Nellie said, as she laid a hand on his arm and looked steadfastly into the young ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... letter from Guy, and that fact disheartened her more than any other. She had never before had to wait so long for word from him. Very brief, often unsatisfying, as his letters had been, at least they had never failed to arrive. And she counted upon them so. Without them, she felt bereft of her mainstay. Without them, the almost daily, nerve-shattering scenes which her step-mother somehow managed to enact, however discreet her attitude, became an infliction hardly to be borne. She might have left ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... I tell of it! Jean, who had become my sister, who was part of Grant Harlson, drifted away before my eyes! It was harder, almost, for us than the fierce fight with death of the one who had been the mainstay of us all. Somehow, we knew she was going to leave us, and the grief of the children was something terrible. She listened to them and was kind to them, wildly affectionate at times, but she lapsed ever into the same strange apathy. We had the best physicians again. I talked with one ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... Moslems that she was glad and wept for excess of joy. But she said to herself, "By the truth of the Messiah, there remaineth no profit of my life, if I burn not his heart for his brother, Sharrkan, even as he hath burned my heart for King Hardub, the mainstay of Christendom and the hosts of Crossdom!" Still she kept her secret. And the Wazir Dandan and King Zau al-Makan and the Chamberlain remained sitting with Sharrkan till they had dressed and salved his wound; after which they gave him medicines and he ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... whose aid the services of the Church could scarcely have been carried on. In post-Reformation times he continued his career without losing his rank or status, his dignity or usefulness. We have seen him the life and mainstay of the village music, the instructor of young clerics, the upholder of ancient customs and old-established usages. We have regretted the decay in his education, his irreverence and absurdities, and have amused ourselves with the stories ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... companion. At first, the little girl noticed not the difference between their mode of living and that of the rest of the tribe, all the other members of which lived together, surrounding the spring of water, their life and mainstay; but very quickly, as the child grew older, she saw, only too plainly, that her grandmother was looked upon as different from the others: and the Indian regards all those of his kin, no matter how near, who display any peculiar form of mentality, either with reverence, as something of the ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... having failed in discernment and grown-upness. She ought to have noticed that the scissors and buttonhook were not hers. She had pounced on them with the ill-considered haste of twelve years old. She hadn't been a lady,—she whose business it was to be an example and mainstay to Anna-Felicitas, in all things going ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... suffered all the pains and penalties of love from that repository. She was to-day upbraided for her want of coquetry and neatness; to-morrow, for proposing to desert her mother and elope with a person she had never thought of. The mainstay of the establishment, she was not aware of her usefulness. Accepting every complaint and outbreak as if she deserved it, the poor girl lived at the capital a beautiful scullion, an unsalaried domestic, and daily forwarded the ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... without reference to party, accompanies all our brothers who have been called to the front. [Vigorous applause from all sides of the House.] We are thinking also of the mothers who must give up their sons, of the women and children robbed of their mainstay and support, of those whom, to the anxiety of their loved ones, the pangs of hunger threaten. To these will very soon be added tens of thousands of wounded and crippled soldiers. To stand by them all, to ease their misfortune, to alleviate their immeasurable need—this ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... looked around for his mother, but that mainstay was nowhere in sight. He thought of whistling, so as to appear unconscious of her tears, but concluded that would be merely rude. To take up a paper or book and read it in the face of a woman's weeping appeared hideous, although for the first time in many ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... O'Rapley had not arrived; so after his meal Mr. Bumpkin looked into the other room to see how Joe was getting on, for he was extremely anxious to keep his "head witness" straight. "Joe was his mainstay." ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... said brokenly. "Dinna you break doon noo, for you hae been the mainstay o' us a', when we wad hae lost heart often. I used to think that oor lot couldna be harder, when the bairns were a' wee, an' we were struggling frae haun' to mooth, to see them fed an' cled. But wi' ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... climatic zones and great wealth and variety of vegetation, it might have been supposed that agriculture, not mining, would have been the great mainstay of Mexico. But the fame of silver has overshadowed that of corn, wine, and oil, to the country's detriment, in a certain sense. Agriculture must be the foundation of greatness, in the long run, of any country, especially of those which are not manufacturing ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... He himself was wont to laugh at these names—for he was a man who could laugh—and to declare that his only ambition was to fight the devil under whatever name he might be allowed to carry on that battle. And he was always fighting the devil by opposing those pursuits which are the life and mainstay of such places as Littlebath. His chief enemies were card-playing and dancing as regarded the weaker sex, and hunting and horse-racing—to which, indeed, might be added everything under the name of sport—as regarded the stronger. Sunday comforts were also enemies which ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... with the Abbe Xavier Dufresne, a devout and enlightened priest of Geneva, and with his father, Doctor Dufresne, well known as the mainstay of all the works of charity and religion in that city. The Abbe Dufresne became much attached to Father Hecker. "The Almighty knows," he wrote to him, "how ardently I wish to see you again, for no one can feel more than I the want of your conversation, it was so greatly to my improvement." ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... this provision. But whether they stood in the line of succession or no, the favour which was shown them alike by Henry the Fifth and his son drew them close to the throne, and the weakness of Henry the Sixth left them at this moment the mainstay of the House of Lancaster. Edmund Beaufort had taken an active part in the French wars, and had distinguished himself by the capture of Harfleur and the relief of Calais. But he was hated for his pride and avarice, and the popular hate grew ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... it has been tried and has failed as it was bound to fail. Infidelity lives upon concealment. Shew it in broad daylight, hold it up before the world and make its hideousness manifest to all—then, and not till then, will the hours of unbelief be numbered. WE have been the mainstay of unbelief through our timidity. Far be it from me, therefore, that I should help any unbeliever by concealing his case for him. This were the most cruel kindness. On the contrary, I shall insist upon ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... return. The pinch of necessity had come at last: the world no longer offered him the life of an elegant dawdler. He had a serious business before him,—to gain a competency for himself and his brother. The unpractical younger brother was to be after this the mainstay of the family fortunes. And what especially makes this the finest moment of his life is the sudden and clear perception that to gain this end he must depend upon the steady and fruitful exercise of his gift for writing. It was not to be taken up as a last resort, but as a matter of ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... still considered Bett-Bett one of the shadows but she persisted that she was the mainstay of the staff. "Me all day dust 'im paper, me round 'im up goat" she would say. "Me ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... D spent its time in Blancheville with mounted hikes forming the mainstay of the schedule. Each day the outfit looked for orders to join the division ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... boy, and my mainstay now, for it is hard sometimes to manage for so many; but will you not please tell me some more ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... mad, but one seems to see in politics over here a lack of definition and purpose, a tendency to cling to the abstract and to precedent—'the mainstay of the mandarin' one of the papers calls it; that's a good word—that give one the feeling that this kingdom is beginning to be aware of some influence stronger than its own. It lies, of course, in the great West, where the corn and the cattle grow; and between ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... adverted to the events of which the XVth. and XVIth. chapters of La Politique Boer give a summary. The Jameson raid is, of course, the mainstay of the delegates' argument. After showing what this is really worth, and also discussing the arbitration question, ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot

... West India Company, displayed their strength in a spirit of indocility which caused great embarrassment to the governor. Although in time of peace the freebooters kept the French settlements in continual danger of ruin by reprisal, in time of war they were the mainstay of the colony. As the governor, therefore, was dependent upon them for protection against the English, Spanish and Dutch, although he withdrew their commissions he dared not punish them for their crimes. The French buccaneers, indeed, occupied a curious and anomalous position. They were not ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... which, strain had exhausted him very much both physically and mentally. His success in maintaining his ground was undoubtedly largely influenced by the fact that two-thirds of the National forces had been sent to his succor, but his firm purpose to save the army was the mainstay on which all relied after Rosecrans left the field. As the command was getting pretty well past, I rose to go in order to put my troops into camp. This aroused the General, when, remarking that he had a little flask of brandy in his saddle-holster, he added ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan

... without interruption, not halting until they arrived at the Mincio, where they were protected by the famous Quadrilateral, consisting of the four powerful fortresses or Peschiera, Mantua, Verona, and Leguano, the mainstay of the Austrian ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... be unjust to depreciate the influence of mother and wife among Hindus, and we freely acknowledge that, after custom, the mainstay of the zenana system is concern for the purity of the female members of the household. Saying that, we must now also note that modern ideas of the just rights of the female sex have made little progress in India. Some progress there has ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... could have lived more comfortably. We had buffalo robes and bearskins of our own killing. We always kept the house clean—using the word in a rather large sense. There were at least two rooms that were always warm, even in the bitterest weather; and we had plenty to eat. Commonly the mainstay of every meal was game of our own killing, usually antelope or deer, sometimes grouse or ducks, and occasionally, in the earlier days, buffalo or elk. We also had flour and bacon, sugar, salt, and canned tomatoes. And later, when some of the men married and brought out their wives, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... religious faith departing from him, as he thinks it must necessarily depart from all intelligent male Parisians, he wept. Since that moment, however, a gaiety, serene and imperturbable, has been the mainstay of his happily constituted character. The girl to whom his uncle desires to see him united—odd, quixotic, intelligent, with a sort of pathetic and delicate grace, and herself very religious—belongs to an old-fashioned, devout family,. resident at ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... Dolorosa—chafing the tiny cold feet; at the head her husband bent over her and chafed her hands. About the room, but not near enough to intrude upon the sacred grief of the stricken mother and husband, sat several of the good women whose friendship had been the mainstay of the three. Through the window, gaining brilliance from the ice-laden branches outside, fell the rays of the setting sun, glorifying the room and the bed. Scarce a word was spoken, but upon the request of the dying girl for music one of the visitors began to sing in ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... down the paper with a thrill of horror. Poor Edie! How absolutely his own small difficulties with Lord Exmoor faded out of has memory at once in the face of that terrible, irretrievable calamity. Harry dead! The hope and mainstay of the family—the one great pride and glory of all the Oswalds, on whom their whole lives and affections centred, taken from them unexpectedly, without a chance of respite, without a moment's warning! Worst of all, they would probably learn it, as he did, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... sentiment, frequently reproached for its fickleness, but in reality protective in its vacillation, demanded a change. Federalism had lost prestige. Its leaders were at enmity. Washington, its unconscious mainstay, was dead. ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... up among the scattered prostrate logs, and had again taken up the question of the business of wood-cutting. 'No, George; it would never have done for you; not as a mainstay. I thought of giving it up to you once, but I knew that it would make ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... once the mainstay of England and now trodden down and neglected, cannot rise alone and without help from those above them. "What right have we to keep them down? . . . What right have we to say that they shall know no higher recreation than the hogs, because, forsooth, ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... after that we knocked at the door of Montague's bedroom. When he woke up enough to open the door—it took some time, 'cause eating and sleeping was his mainstay—we told him that we was planning an early morning fishing trip, and if he wanted to go with the folks he must come down to the landing quick. He promised to hurry, and I stayed by the door to see that he didn't get away. In about ten minutes we had him ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... although it is true this disrespect was only whispered. Evil means had produced such fine results, such political successes, dynastic principles covered so completely base workings, that no one in 1834 thought of the mud in which the roots of these fine trees, the mainstay of the State, were plunged. Nevertheless there was not a single one of those great bankers to whom the confidence expressed in the house of Mongenod was not a wound. Like English houses, the Mongenods ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... of the ultra-Royalist party, contrived to throw her in the way of Louis XVIII., in the hope of counteracting the more Liberal influence which M. de Cazes had acquired over the King. Madame du Cayla became the hope and the mainstay of the altar and the throne. The scheme succeeded. The King was touched by her grace and beauty, and she became indispensable to his happiness. His happiness was said to consist in inhaling a pinch of snuff from her shoulders, which were remarkably broad and fair. M. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... and Triscuits, while another stood by the "Artox" Biscuits. Besides these there are several other specially good whole-wheat biscuits, among which may be mentioned Chapman's Nut Wheat Biscuits; Winter's "Mainstay" series of Diet Biscuits, including some dozen varieties, all excellent, ranging in price from 4d. to 8d. per lb.; and the "P.R.," a Wallaceite specialty. Among the latter the "Barley Malt," "Crispits," "P.R. Wheatmeal," "New P.R. Crackers," &c., are to be specially ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill

... when native industries were forbidden or their output monopolized not only by the Dutch West India Company in New Netherlands, but by other companies elsewhere in the colonies, that ownership of land became the mainstay of large private fortunes with agriculture as an accompanying factor. Subsequently the effects of this continuous policy were more fully seen when England by law after law paralyzed or closed up many forms of colonial manufacture. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... this continent was so far-reaching in extent, and so enormous in potential value, that it fairly staggers the imagination. From the landing of the Pilgrims down to the present hour the wild game has been the mainstay and the resource against starvation of the pathfinder, the settler, the prospector, and at times even the railroad-builder. In view of what the bison millions did for the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Kansas and Texas, it is only right ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... me: "Abandon Me to become My disciple." This thought sustained and emboldened me. I may say that from that moment my Vie de Jesus was mentally written. Belief in the eminent personality of Jesus—which is the spirit of that book—had been my mainstay in my struggle against theology. Jesus has in reality ever been my master. In following out the truth at the cost of any sacrifice I was convinced that I was following Him and obeying the most imperative ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... only one vast flower-garden, but at the same time a vast conservatory, the choice flowers exported for princely tables in winter being all reared under glass. How necessary, then, that every detail of this delightful and elaborate culture should be taught the people, whose mainstay it is, a large proportion being as entirely dependent upon flowers as the honey bee! Here, and in the neighbourhood of Nice, they are cultivated for market and exportation, not for perfume ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... by saying, "It is difficult to measure the calamity which the United States and the world have sustained by the murder of President Lincoln. The assassin has done his best to strike down mercy and moderation, of both of which this good and noble life was the mainstay." ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... secret was now revealed. Ransom's secret, about the penny, was a very good one, so far as it went. But he had not really told the whole truth. He could not venture to tell his less fortunate comrade that the root of all domestic prosperity, the mainstay of all domestic comfort, is the wife; and Ransom's wife was all that a working man could desire. There can be no thrift, nor economy, nor comfort at home, unless the wife helps;—and a working man's wife, more than any other man's; ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... neighbourhood proved himself a mainstay of help and consolation during this time of general anxiety and suspense, and this was Julian Adderley. He was always at hand and willing to be of service. He threw his 'dreams' of poesy to the winds and became poet in earnest,—poet in sympathy ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... wild beast in Asia, but hardly were my escort come up to view the spoil and acclaim my prowess, than there arrived also a wretched cultivator, swearing with tears and howls that I had wantonly destroyed the friend of his family, the mainstay of his lowly cot. I held a court on the spot, and desired to know what sum would compensate him for this cruel loss. The opportunity of taking in the stranger was too promising to resist, and he requested leave to retire and consult with his friends—an interval ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... he should get a cant it might be fatal to him. I did not think America could furnish such a specimen of the negro race... nor did I ever see such a simpleton. It is impossible to teach him anything and... he can hardly tell the main-halliards from the mainstay. ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... of Junkers have been the mainstay of the Prussian State; therefore an aristocratic government is a corollary of the monarchic form of government, and the French democratic theory of government is the arch-heresy (paragraphs XIX. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... non-comprehension of the Serb, traditional hatred of the Turk—all these are intensified by egoism. New Greece, with her hazardous northern frontier, needs to cultivate friendship, and will have to employ all her strategy to gain any. Her mainstay is, of course, England. For us Greece has the natural respect which a weak country pays to a strong friend, but she has also a curious covert regard for us as one nation of sailors for another, a petty maritime State for a great one. Her weakness is in asking material favours at the ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... way for trade; perhaps—but they have also gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. Yet I give to them—a little—it is a matter of conscience with me to identify myself with all the enterprises of the Church; it is the mainstay of social order and a prosperous civilization. But the best forms of benevolence are the well-established, organized ones here at home, where people can see them and ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke

... the word to use with these people to whom money was the paramount consideration, the thought behind every other thought, the feeling behind every other feeling, the mainspring of their lives, the mainstay of all the fictions ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... himself in person. At first he would not have them do this, but at last, when he was nearly fifty-five years old, he began to find the treatment he had formerly contemned very pleasant; and reckoning himself the mainstay of all monasticism, he gave more care to the preservation of his health than had heretofore been his wont. Although the rules of his order forbade him ever to partake of flesh, he granted himself a dispensation (which was more than he ever did for another), declaring ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... on which Kauiki Hill stands) heard of it, he appointed Ku-ula to be his head fisherman. Through this pond, which was well stocked with all kinds of fish, the King's table was regularly supplied with all rare varieties, whether in or out of season. Ku-ula was his mainstay for fish-food and was consequently held in high esteem by Kamohoalii, and they lived without disagreement of any kind between ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various



Words linked to "Mainstay" :   anchor, champion, forestay, supporter, protagonist, admirer, booster, support, friend



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