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More "Props" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Norman Lloyd during all that time did not reopen his factory, and in the autumn two others shut down. The streets were full of the discontented ranks of impotent labor, and all the public buildings were props for the weary shoulders of the unemployed. On pleasant days the sunny sides of the vacant factories, especially, furnished settings for lines of scowling ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... as slavery is left, there is antipathy between the two halves of the country, and the recurrence of actual war will be only a question of time. It is the nature of evil to be aggressive. Without moral force in itself, it is driven, by the necessity of things, to seek material props. It cannot make peace with truth, if it would. Good, on the other hand, is by its very nature peaceful. Strong in itself, strong in the will of God and the sympathy of man, its conquests are silent and beneficent as those of summer, warming into ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... only afterwards that we realise that this danger is the root of all drama and romance. The strongest argument for the divine grace is simply its ungraciousness. The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... the uttermost limits of the earth, when all barriers were breaking down, and the steady expansion of cosmopolitan life and the organization of the Great Society, as Graham Wallas has called it, seemed destined to banish all the minor languages, dialects, and obsolescent forms of speech, the last props of an international provincialism, to the limbo of forgotten things. The competition of the world-languages was already keen; all the little and forgotten peoples of Europe—the Finns, Letts, Ukrainians, Russo-Carpathians, Slovaks, Slovenians, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... past distrust of God and His promises with shame and wonderment, and proceed to revise our cataloguing of spiritual values and degrees of sin. For the really destructive thing, before all others, is a weakened faith that compromises in a half obedience to Christ and a search for earthly props. The work of Satan has even been the prompting of distrust of God in the human family, just as the work of redemption means so largely the re-establishing of it in the Person of Jesus Christ. From the first temptation of man to the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... withdrawn, and Bradley, in an ecstasy of rage, flung it out the back window into the yard. It continued to make such a clatter there that he had to go down and pile up barrels and slop-buckets and bricks and clothes-props and part of the grape-arbor on it, so that all it could do was to lie there all night buzzing with a kind of smothered hum and keeping the next-door neighbors awake, so that they pelted it with bootjacks, under the impression that ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... had cowed the stubborn nobles with the headsman's axe. Gustav Adolf drew them to him and imbued them with his own spirit. He found them a contentious party within the state; he left them its strongest props in the conduct of public affairs. Nor was it always with persuasion he worked. His reward for the unjust judge has been quoted. When the council failed to send him supplies in Germany, pleading failure of crops as their excuse, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... My husband's father told it me, Poor old Leoni!—Angels rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell and saw 20 With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel? Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree, He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool 25 As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And rear'd him at the then Lord ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that society rests on that, and other falsehoods. The more I screw myself down to hours, the more I become expert at giving out thought and life in regulated rations,—the more I weary of this world, and long to move upon the wing, without props ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... relieved from the pressure of her late conflict with England; it was prosperous and quiet; every thing seemed propitious to a calm and dispassionate consideration of the claims of slaveholders to add props to their system, by admitting indefinitely, new slave states to the Union. Up to this time, the "EVIL" of slavery had been almost universally acknowledged and deplored by the South, and its termination (apparently) sincerely hoped for.[A] By this ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... popular or imperial; the storms of war and revolution, and the chill frost of despotism, were equally fatal to its tender life. Where its supports were strong its own strength came out, and that with such luxuriance as to hide the props which lay beneath; but when once the inspiring consciousness of sympathy and aid was lost, its fair head drooped, its fragrance was forgotten, and its seeds were scattered to the waste ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... place the next week and, sure enough, Frankling declined to allow his name to be put in the hat. We put Ole's name in and were prepared to have him draw a Class A girl; but what happened knocked the props out from under us. His name came fourth and he drew the mortgaged and ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... applied for the position of office boy. I accepted the twenty applicants, and sent them on scouting parties throughout the deserted French village. These parties were to search all the attics for discarded civilian clothes, and anything that we could use in the props of our proposed Company. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... have his will! I tell thee, brother, We treat these little ones too much like flowers, Training them, in blind selfishness, to deck Sticks of our poor setting, when they might, If left to clamber where themselves incline, Find nobler props to cling to, fitter place, And sweeter air to bloom in. It is wrong— Thou striv'st to sow with feelings all thine own, With thoughts and hopes, anxieties and aims, Born of thine own peculiar self, and fed Upon a certain round of circumstance, A ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... think of any letter that could ever have been intended for the picture of a heart, but the triangle I knew to be the letter A. This was originally written without the cross-bar from prop to prop, and the two feet at the bottom of the props were not separated as now, but joined; so that the letter formed a true triangle. It was meant by the primitive man to be a picture of his primitive house, this house being, of course, hut-shaped, and consisting of a conical roof without walls. I had thus, with the exception of the heart, disentangled ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... think that wuz so, for one husband and one wife is as much as the Lord in his mercy ort to ask one human creeter to tend to and put up with. Not but what marriage is a beautiful institution and full of happiness if Love props it up and gilds it with its blessed ray. But one is enough," sez I firmly, "and enough is as good as ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... were looking at each other, waiting for breeze or undercurrent to move one vessel faster than the other and separate them, a general palaver began. Leaning over the side, but holding each other off at a respectable distance with their long wooden props, like besieged pikemen repelling an assault, they began to chat about home, the last letters received, and sweethearts ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... "That knocks the props out from under him, Frank," remarked Bob; "because he was bent on getting away with one or ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... fairly measured with those of an opponent; they must labour for the public without hope of profit; they must reject every attempt to create a personal dependence. Candour, force, and elevation of mind, in short, are the props of democracy; and virtue is the principle of conduct required ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... royaltie, rising from a clapdish; That rules so much more than his suffering King, That he makes kings of his subordinate slaves: 30 Himselfe and them graduate like woodmongers Piling a stack of billets from the earth, Raising each other into steeples heights; Let him convey this on the turning props Of Protean law, and (his owne counsell keeping) 35 Keepe all upright—let me but hawlk at him, Ile play the vulture, and so thump his liver That (like a huge unlading Argosea) He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a clergie man that is in voice 40 A lark of heaven, ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... difficulties attending its removal." He observed that large immediate profits could not be obtained from the oak plantations, which would, however, increase in value at the rate of about 15,000 pounds a year; and moreover that a considerable revenue from the sale of timber-props for the mine-works, &c., might be expected. Mr. Machen also reported an improvement in the order and conduct of the inhabitants of the Forest generally, the fruit, it may reasonably be assumed, of the many years of ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... well confess that Dr. Powers's address two weeks ago knocked the props out from under me. What he said cut under me like a great ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... listen, exactly how we placed our sentry line in last night's operations; at dinner, we brag about our Company musketry returns, and quote untruthful extracts from our butt registers. At breakfast, every one has a newspaper, which he props before him and reads, generally aloud. We exchange observations upon the war news. We criticise von Kluck, and speak kindly of Joffre. We note, daily, that there is nothing to report on the Allies' ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... sufficient props were reared, and then proceed with vigor, though always with caution. Courage in such an experiment is less to be dreaded than timidity. Half the evils of life, social, personal and political, are as much the effects of moral cowardice ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... passengers. It is simply the continuation of the "cabin-deck," projected forward and supported by pillars that rest upon the main deck below. The roof, or "hurricane-deck," also carried forward to the same point, and resting on slight wooden props, screens this part from sun or rain, and a low guard-rail running around it renders it safe. Being open in front and at both sides, it affords the best view; and having the advantage of a cool breeze, brought about by the motion of the boat, is usually ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... the way across the floor, along a twisting and turning path, through furniture, furnishings and an accumulation of "props" to the door. As they stepped out into the daylight again her face was more unlike the face of the Consuello John knew than it had been in the half ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... of axle-grease and mud. Twentieth-century merchandise stares out at you from either side—Paris' hats and gowns, American boots, typewriters, sewing-machines, phonographs, pianos. One of the oldest corner buildings, which looks as if it needed props immediately to save you from being caught by a falling wall, is the emporium of enamel bathtubs and stationary washstands, with shining nickel spigots labeled "Hot" and "Cold." These must be intended for the villas of the environs, for surely no home in this old town could house a bathroom. ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... which have not existed heretofore, and which are not too insignificant to merit attention. That our government should have been maintained in its original form, from its establishment until now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now it is understood to be a successful one.—Then, all that sought celebrity and fame and distinction expected to find them in the success of ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... my own account. For even now I retain the warmest affection for their dead father, as I have shown in my pleading and my books. Now but one of his three children is alive, and only one remains to support a house which a little time ago had so many props to sustain it. But my grief will be greatly relieved should Fortune preserve him at least to robust and vigorous health, and make him as good a man as his father and grandfather were before him. I am the more ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... for nothing can be baser than manly strength, in the specious form of protection, injuring an unhappy woman. When we should be props to the lily in the storm, 'tis damnable to spring up like vigorous weeds, and twine about the drooping flower, till ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... little to receive us all, it was necessary to fall upon some expedient, without delay, which might serve our purpose: accordingly the gunner, carpenter, and some more, turning the cutter keel upwards, and fixing it upon props, made no despicable habitation. Having thus established some sort of settlement, we had the more leisure to look about us, and to make our researches with greater accuracy than we had before, after such supplies ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... stones three feet high. In the centre of the house there are two, and sometimes three, posts or pillars, twenty feet long, sunk three feet into the ground, and extending to and supporting the ridge pole. These are the main props of the building. Any Samson or giant Tafai pulling them away would bring down the whole house. The space between the rafters is filled up with what they call ribs—viz. the wood of the bread-fruit ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... that whatever props up the walls of light would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down, and it would be thick black dark for ever. Not sleep, which is grey with dreams, nor death, which quivers with birth, but heavy, ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... that the stones could not be removed with the pickaxe, and also because the tower was a very high one. Niccola, however, caused a piece to be cut out of one of the sides of the tower and closed the gap with wooden supports, a braccia and a half long, he then set fire to the props, and so soon as these were consumed the tower fell down and was totally destroyed. The idea seemed so ingenious and so well adapted for such emergencies, that it afterwards came into general use, so that whenever it was necessary to destroy ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... Some of these basins in the heart of old Paris would have offered precious scenes and tones of color to painters. What a forest of crossbeams supported the mills with their huge sails and their wheels! What strange effects were produced by the piles or props driven into the water to project the upper floors of the houses above the stream! Unfortunately, the art of genre painting did not exist in those days, and that of engraving was in its infancy. We have therefore lost that curious spectacle, still offered, though in miniature, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... the props on which she might depend removed from under her feet. If her father and Wolf left her, she would look in vain ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... scare Marcia and that Charliet would probably be on my side, anyway. If he were and sneaked down now to provision the stope, the thing would be dead easy, even to firewood, for Thompson had yanked in a couple of loads of mine props and left them there. I lit out into the passage to hunt Charliet and find out where the bunk-house men had gone to. But there was no sign of either in the wind and snow outside the shack. I bolted the door on the storm, turned ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... individuality and the personal will; rebelling against motherhood, and life-long marriage; clamouring for easy divorce, and denouncing their own fathers, brothers and husbands, as either tyrants or fools; casting away the old props and veils; determined, apparently, to know everything, however ugly, and to say everything, however outrageous? He himself was a countryman, an English provincial, with English public school and university traditions of ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shade almost four thousand years ago. The trunk is thirty-two feet in circumference, but the tree is not tall like the American oaks. It is now in a dying condition, and some of the branches are supported by props, while the lower part of the trunk is surrounded by a stone wall, and the space inside is filled with earth. The plot of ground on which the tree stands is surrounded by a high iron fence. A little farther up the hill the Russians have a tower, from which we viewed the country, ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... piety of my grandmother, her urbanity, her regard for the established order of things are graven in my heart as the best pictures of that old-fashioned society based upon God and the king—two props for which it may not be easy ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... died on the way. [Sidenote: Desperate defence of the Piraeus.] At the Piraeus scenes occurred which were afterwards repeated at the siege of Jerusalem. Archelaus undermined the earthwork and Sulla made another determined attempt to take the wall by storm. He battered down part of it, fired the props of his mine and so brought down more, and sent troops by relays to escalade the breach. But Archelaus, like the Plataeans in the Peloponnesian war, built an inner crescent-shaped wall, from which he took the assailants in front and on both flanks when they tried to advance. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... and rush, and the devil let loose in the thick of it. My eyes are worn out with it. Take the glass, Erema, and tell us who is next to be washed away. A new set of clothes-props for Mrs. Mangles I paid for the very day I came ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... and then are united by bold arches that sustain the parapet and battlements, so he attempted the same thing at Narbonne on a smaller scale. Now these buttresses or piers at Avignon are 5 ft. 1 in. by 2 ft. 9 in., whereas the measurements of M. le-Duc's little props are reduced to 1 ft. 2 in. by 1 ft. 6 in. Relative proportions are changed as well as sadly reduced. The result is that they are ludicrous. Moreover, instead of sinking his facade modestly—a little, eighteen inches would have ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... days they had a shelter made with boats turned keel upwards, and placed on props, while the sides were ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... supported above them; and the edifice was already beginning to show signs of falling, on account of the weight being too great for the walls. And it would certainly have fallen down but for the genius of Antonio, who filled up those little chambers with the aid of props and beams, and refounded the whole fabric, thus making it as firm and solid as it had ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... shining hardly as he props his drawn, miserable face on his hands). Home! Home!! (He drops his arms on the table and bows his head on them, but presently hears someone approaching and hastily sits bolt upright. It is Gloria, who has come up the steps alone, with her sunshade and her book in her ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... heard and Hopalong, running to the door, looked out through a crack as sudden firing broke out around the rear of the shack, and fell to pulling away the props, crying, "It's a puncher, Red; he's riding this way! Come on an' ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... in the fields around the suburbs of Calicut, and even in some places within the city. It grows on a weak and feeble plant, somewhat like vines, which is unable to support itself without props or stakes. It much resembles ivy, and in like manner creeps up and embraces such trees as it grows near. This tree, or bush rather, throws out numerous branches of two or three spans long, having leaves like those of the Syrian apple, but ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... the stones could not be stirred with the pickaxe, and also because it was of the loftiest; whereupon Nicholas, causing the tower to be cut, at the foot of it, all the length of one of its sides; and closing up the cut, as he made it, with short (wooden) under-props, about a yard long, and setting fire to them, when the props were burned, the tower fell, and broke itself nearly all to pieces: which was held a thing so ingenious and so useful for such affairs, that it has since passed into a custom, so that when it is needful, in this ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... had seen several boats launched from these yards. Great crowds would gather for this event. After the hull was completed in the docks the boat was ready to launch. The blocks that served as props were knocked down one at a time. One man would knock down each prop. There were several men employed in this work on the appointed day of the launching of the boat. The boat would be christened with a bottle of champagne on its way ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... casual and trivial as securing a fishing rod never entered his innocent and pre-occupied mind. He did not know that in the hasty calculations of Townsend all the component parts of this system of props and fetters were necessary one to another. He removed the brick and the cathedral fell and there followed a catastrophe compared to which the World War is a mere incident. If he had pulled the north pole out of the earth the sequel could ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... navigating under such circumstances a rudder is of no use. Long oars have no effect on a raft of such dimensions, even when worked with a hundred sturdy arms. It was from the sides, by means of long boathooks or props thrust against the bed of the stream, that the jangada was kept in the current, and had its direction altered when going astray. By this means they could range alongside either bank, if they wished for any reason to come to a halt. Three or four ubas, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... After it was once more in good condition Emery announced that he wanted to work out a few scenes of an uncompleted "movie-drama." The action was snappy. The plot was brief, but harmonized well with the setting, and the "props." Dodd, who was a big Texan, was cast for the role of horse thief and bad man in general. Bert's brother, Morris Lauzon, was the deputy sheriff, and had a star cut from the top of a tomato can to prove it. John was to be a prospector. He would need little rehearsing ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... grace that was taking place about this time, throughout the whole bound of Christendom; for I could mark a visible darkness of infidelity spreading in the corner of the vineyard committed to my keeping, and a falling away of the vines from their wonted props and confidence in the truths of Revelation. But I said nothing. I knew that the faith could not be lost, and that it would be found purer and purer the more it was tried; and this I have lived to see, many now being zealous members of the church, that were abundantly ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... long discussion, during which the door was several times shaken, they became quiet once more, and I knew that they were going to make a third attempt to break it down. I was almost in despair. The props had been severely tried in the two previous attacks, and I was sorely afraid that this would prove too ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... morning they wanted to go to Missisquoi Bay, and the skipper sailed the Goldwing to that part of the lake. The second day was like the first. On the third they had drank so much that they could not keep up the debauch, and they gambled with props in the cabin. ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... that there is no surer way to lose freedom than to lose our resolve. Today the brave people of Afghanistan are showing that resolve. The Soviet Union says it wants a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan, yet it continues a brutal war and props up a regime whose days are clearly numbered. We are ready to support a political solution that guarantees the rapid withdrawal of all Soviet troops and genuine self-determination ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... in all things that concerned the faith. The questioner this day was Jean Beaupere (Pulchri patris, as he is called in the Latin), a theologian, Master of Arts, Canon of Paris and of Besancon, "one of the greatest props of the University of Paris," a man holding a number of important offices, and who afterwards appeared at the Council of Bale as the deputy of Normandy. He began by another exhortation to speak the truth, to which Jeanne replied as before that what she did say she would say truly, but that ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... part of the roof was knocked to pieces, and the rafters were used for levers and props. The main portion of the roof was next turned over, and got out of the way. Then one by one the logs were removed; all hands, from Lord Betterson down ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... the discovery that those wandering Bohemian engineers, who, he tells us, are in sorrow and heaviness over the short-comings of American technical journals, would turn out after all to be slender props for him to lean upon. We think it probable, however, that with a little more snap, a journal like Engineering might possibly attain a circulation, in this country, of ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,—I know, I know. I shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to him, I know that; he's one o' them fine gentlemen as get money ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... new decorative construction was matured," he writes, "not thwarting and controlling, but assisting and harmonizing with the mechanical construction. Every member, every moulding, becomes a sustainer of weight; and by the multiplicity of props assisting each other, and the consequent subdivision of weight, the eye was satisfied of the stability of the structure, notwithstanding curiously slender aspects of the separate parts." An art which sprang out of the social life of ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... have faith in himself, and take an earnest hold of life, scorning all props and buttresses, all crutches and life-preservers. Instead of wielding the rusted swords of valorous forefathers, let him forge his own weapons; and, mindful of the Providence over him, let him fight his own battles with his own ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... have been more than Abraham Lincoln a man of his own time and place. Until 1858 his outer life ran much in the same groove as that of hundreds of other Western politicians and lawyers. Beginning as a poor and ignorant boy, even less provided with props and stepping-stones than were his associates, he had worked his way to a position of ordinary professional and political distinction. He was not, like Douglas, a brilliant success. He was not, like Grant, an apparently hopeless failure. He had achieved as much and as little as hundreds of others ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... bombardment to preserve the Ships. For instance, all the decks were propped up by a number of spars, by which means if a bomb fell it did no other mischief than forcing its way through and carrying all before its immediate course, whereas without the props it might have shaken the timbers and weakened the access considerably. In every ship also were 2 cartloads of earth, to throw over any inflammable substance which might have fallen on board. From this mole hill of a truth was engendered a mountainous falsehood for home consumption. I ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... are like hops that never rest climbing so long as they have anything to stay upon; but take away their props, and they are of ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... literature. Literature does not ask the assistance of pictures to make its meaning clear. Nor, too, is anything gained by calling colours harmonies or symphonies. Let such pictures strike their own chords and blow their own trumpets. Catalogues of all kinds are but props to artistic inefficiency. If dumb-show plays did not rely on "books of the words," pantomime would have to become a finer art. If ballets had no thread of narrative attached to them, their constructors would be driven to achieve greater intelligibility, or to give ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... I believe, thou ask'st, the Master's word, The Schoolman's shibboleth that binds the herd? To the soul's haven is there but one chart? Its peace a problem to be learned by art? On system rest the happy and the good? To base the temple must the props be wood? Must I distrust the gentle law, imprest, To guide and warn, by Nature on the breast, Till, squared to rule the instinct of the soul,— Till the School's signet stamp the eternal scroll, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... picknicking gaily on the grass, for it was accepted as a great gala day in the township, and flags of all shapes and colours, devised from all kinds of discarded garments, fluttered from tree-tops, chimneys, posts, clothes-props, and any other eminence to which a streamer ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... props spun, and the scout nestled down lightly on the tarmac. Lance switched off the faithful Rahl-Diesels, swung open the tiny door and leaped from ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Sebastian," came Hiram's pleading voice. "Le'me think it over all to-night. You've plumb knocked the props ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... look those champions wore; Full grief is mine that such should die! Those sons, whom Cathbad's daughter bore; Those props, who Cualgne's[FN45] war ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... rising): Not there! what, seated?—no! (They spring toward him): Let no one hold me up— (He props himself against the tree): Only the tree! (Silence): It comes. E'en now my feet have turned to stone, My hands are gloved with lead! (He stands erect): But since Death comes, I meet him still afoot, (He draws his sword): And sword ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... Those for the road nets should be twice the height, (17) and those for the big (haye) nets five spans long, (18) with small forks, the notches not deep; they should be stout and solid, of a thickness proportionate to their length. The number of props needed for the nets will vary—many or few, according to circumstances; a less number if the tension on the net be great, and a larger number when the nets ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... cares intensely for nothing but justice (and could not give even that caring a name, if questioned), is deeply and nobly generous to York, who would condemn his own son, and to the Bishop of Carlisle, who would die rather than not speak his mind. Men who sacrifice themselves are a king's only props. Richard allies himself with men who ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... ground and marking the intersections by slight stakes the next business is to plant the trees that are to become props to the pepper, as the Romans planted elms, and the modern Italians more commonly plant poplars and mulberries, for their grape-vines. These are cuttings of the chungkariang (Erythrina corallodendron), ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... as myself to relate them. For, after all, gentle reader, cities of themselves, and, in fact, empires of themselves, are nothing without an historian. It is the patient narrator who records their prosperity as they rise—who blazons forth the splendor of their noontide meridian—who props their feeble memorials as they totter to decay—who gathers together their scattered fragments as they rot—and who piously, at length, collects their ashes into the mausoleum of his work, and rears a triumphant monument to transmit their renown ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Butte. Tim and I had discussed the procedure as we walked. I was for lying in wait outside; but Tim pointed out that the tunnel entrance was well down in the boulders, that even the sharpest outlook could not be sure of detecting an approach through the shadows, and that from the shelter of the roof props and against the light we should be able to hold off a large force almost indefinitely. In any case, we would have to gamble on Brewer's winning through, and having sense enough in his opium-saturated mind to make a convincing yarn of it. So after a drink at ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... For I saw indeed, there was cause of rejoicing for those that held to Jesus; but for me, I had cut myself off by my transgressions, and left myself neither foot-hold, or hand-hold, among all the stays and props in the ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... must have smitten the King's heart to remember that the tender poet, whose rhythm none could appreciate better than he, was also the sturdy Puritan pamphleteer whose blows had thwacked so terribly upon the last props that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Kent, "he's one of the Chivalry; one of the main props; one of the fellows who are trying to bring about Secession in the hopes of being Dukes, or Marquises, or Earls—High Keepers of His Majesty Jeff. Davis's China Spittoons, or Grand Custodians of the Prince of South Carolina's ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Heaven about violence and international law, law of the sea, and laws of humanity could do. In the innocent exalted island kingdom many a fellow is already striking; why should not even the recruit strike, who is also beginning to get a glimmer of the truth that there are no props ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... you up myself," he answered. "You're no great weight. And haven't those shafts got props and ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... great props of the Rosicrucians?" asked Frederick—"the two charlatans whom they have told me make hell hot for the crown prince, continually lighting it up with their prayers ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... together Came down, and the wind came after, Bending the props of the pine-tree roof, And ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... do you mean? If an old friend may be frank, you are talking great rubbish." And, with a few well-worn formulae, he propped up the young man's orthodoxy. The props were unnecessary. Rickie had his own equilibrium. Neither the Revivalism that assails a boy at about the age of fifteen, nor the scepticism that meets him five years later, could sway him from his allegiance to the church into which ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... me, "Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy as other people" (Hosea 9:1). For I saw indeed there was cause of rejoicing for those that held to Jesus; but as for me, I had cut myself off by my transgressions, and left myself neither foot-hold, nor hand-hold, amongst all the stays and props in the precious ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... excessive ingrowing virtue which shuts so many people off from the world—a sense of duty. To Mamie Calligan duty (a routine conformity to such theories and precepts as she had heard and worked by since her childhood) was the all-important thing, her principal source of comfort and relief; her props in a queer and uncertain world being her duty to her Church; her duty to her school; her duty to her mother; her duty to her friends, etc. Her mother often wished for Mamie's sake that she was less dutiful ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... cooped within the confines of such narrow entries, and being compelled to reflect upon the immense mass of rock and earth resting above, and prevented from crushing him down into everlasting silence only by insignificant props of wood, whose melancholy groaning in the darkness bore evidence of the vast weight they upheld. There was nothing for me but to struggle onward, although I do not claim that it was without quaking heart, or many ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... however, a long lane which has no turning, and at last we got to a small corner shop, below which were two clothes props, one being very much out of the perpendicular, an open piece of ground, numerous bricks in a heap, and a railed round edifice rising calmly, sedately, and diminutively. This was St. Luke's—the shrine we had been looking for, the Mecca we had been in search of. ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... captain softly. "Best thing he can do. Sleep's a fine thing, and it seems the best thing in the world when you've got the watch and your eyelids keep on sticking together and making you feel as if you must break up a couple of sticks to turn into props. Now come and have some breakfast, my lad. I want mine. Eh? what do you ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... wept piteously. I had almost a fellow-feeling with Miss Higglesby-Browne when she relapsed from her rigidity for a moment and turning on Aunt Jane fiercely ordered her to be still. This completed the wreck of Aunt Jane's universe. Its two main props had now fallen, and she was left sitting solitary amid the ruins. She subsided into a lachrymose heap in the corner of the cabin, where I let her remain for the time, it was really such a comfort to have her out of the way. At last I ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... prolonged as far as the edge of the ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals, by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the hostile city. Julian checked ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... frequently attacked,—and this is the chief source of my dissatisfaction with the present-day critics of our elementary schools. In a great many cases, they have set up a man of straw and demolished him completely. And in demolishing him, they have incidentally knocked the props from under the feet of many a good teacher, leaving him dazed and uncertain of his bearings, stung with the conviction that what he has been doing for his pupils is entirely without value, that his life of ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... that type. In other words, whatever the kind of house, remember that windows are intended to let in light and air. Both constitute excellent reasons for living in the country. Proper curtains and draperies lend a softening and pleasing effect but, as in a stage setting, they are only props and must not be allowed to ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... to old Rouault, returned to the room before leaving, he found her standing, her forehead against the window, looking into the garden, where the bean props had been knocked down by the wind. She turned round. "Are you looking ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... must have been dozing when the order went through sending them to France. In wash-out records they were the grand champions. They had left behind them a long train of cracked props, broken wings, stripped landing gears—and a few wrecks so complete that the drivers thereof had been sent home in six foot boxes draped with flags. But whatever may be said against them, one thing was ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... Science of the age has its hands upon the pillars of the Temple, and rocks it to its foundation. As yet its destructive efforts have but torn from the ancient structure the worm-eaten fret-work of superstition, and shaken down some incoherent additions—owl-inhabited turrets of ignorance, and massive props that supported nothing. The structure itself will be overthrown, when, in the vivid language of a living writer, "Human reason leaps into the throne of God and waves her torch over the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... seen the props on which she might depend removed from under her feet. If her father and Wolf left her, she would look in vain for counsel ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and Spartan Jane was made to feel the need of yet stronger props to hold her up against the overbearing weight of latter-day magnificence. She found herself surrounded now by a sombre and solid splendor. Stamped hangings of Cordova leather lined the walls, around whose ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... the waters had borne away every vestige of fencing around his cherished ten-acre lot. The highest part of the fence had been under water many feet on that calamitous night, and with the loss of the rails had gone down another of the earthly props on which he had leaned for his daily bread ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... are bound to admit as a cause, and in so doing partly explain the comparative, almost total, immunity of the hind-feet from the disease. The fore-limbs, as we have already pointed out, are little more than props of support, and the force of the propelled body-weight is transmitted largely down their almost vertical lines, to end largely in concussion in the foot. With the hind-limbs matters are different. 'These,' as Percival explains ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... a moment that I was perilling my salvation. I had a foundation of repose, stronger than mere theology can give, deep and sure beneath me. I had indeed my anxieties. I felt as if I were putting in peril all my worldly welfare. All the props which a man builds up around him in his early studies, all the props of church relationship and religious friendship, seemed to be suddenly falling away, and I was [48] about to take my stand on the threshold of ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... abilities fairly measured with those of an opponent; they must labour for the public without hope of profit; they must reject every attempt to create a personal dependence. Candour, force, and elevation of mind, in short, are the props of democracy; and virtue is the principle of conduct required ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... told it me, Poor Old Leoni—Angels rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel. Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... across the floor, along a twisting and turning path, through furniture, furnishings and an accumulation of "props" to the door. As they stepped out into the daylight again her face was more unlike the face of the Consuello John knew than it had been ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... an intolerably wretched misfit, this union of Conscience and Eben Tollman, but so bent was the woman upon redeeming the hopeless experiment that she sought to brace the doomed and tottering structure with fictitious props. To be an "unimpeachable" wife was not to her thinking a sufficient meeting of her problem. Her own fastidiousness and cleanness of character would have made that less a duty to her husband than to herself. The more difficult requirement was to close, and keep closed the port of her ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... loftily. "Batteries and motors and all those things are marks of the force of man—yes, Mr. Flambeau, and the force of woman, too! We shall take our turn at these great engines that devour distance and defy time. That is high and splendid—that is really science. But these nasty props and plasters the doctors sell—why, they are just badges of poltroonery. Doctors stick on legs and arms as if we were born cripples and sick slaves. But I was free-born, Mr. Flambeau! People only think they need these things because they have been trained ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... all the rubbish of the building-yard was cleared away, so that everything looked neat and clean. The stocks, or framework on which she had been built, sloped towards the water, so that when the props were knocked away from the ship, she would slide by her own weight into the sea. Ships are always built on sloping stocks near to the water's edge; for you can fancy how difficult it would be to drag such a great thing into the water by main force. In order to ...
— The Life of a Ship • R.M. Ballantyne
... friend in his knowledge of the history and metaphysics of religion. Their creeds, however, were in many respects opposite. Where one discovered only confirmations of his faith, the other could find nothing but reasons for doubt. Moral necessity, and calvinistic inspiration, were the props on which my brother thought proper to repose. Pleyel was the champion of intellectual liberty, and rejected all guidance but that of his reason. Their discussions were frequent, but, being managed with candour as well as with skill, they were always listened ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... of the comedy is over and the second act now begins.—The faction has convoked the delegates of the primary assemblies to Paris for a purpose. Like the primary assemblies, they are to serve as its instruments for governing; they are to form the props of dictatorship, and the object now is to restrict them to that task only.—Indeed, it is not certain that all will lend themselves to it. For, among the eight thousand commissioners, some, appointed ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... topped by the barest skeleton of a roof. What had been the first floor of the structure had been weighted down heavily with railroad iron and concrete to form the roof of the commander's dugout. The sides of the decrepit structure bulged outward and were prevented from bursting by timber props radiating on all sides like the legs of a centipede. A mule team stood ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... additional boldness in their own party. If the report lasted only a few days, it obtained its purpose, and verified the observation of Catharine de' Medici. Those politicians who raise such false reports obtain their end: like the architect who, in building an arch, supports it with circular props and pieces of timber, or any temporary rubbish, till he closes the arch; and when it can support itself, he throws away the props! There is no class of political lying which can want for illustration if we consult ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... had much ado to keep awake at night, and it was fatal to arrange a too comfortable position with the warmth of the glowing fire and the soporific scent of the hops. Then Tom would announce that it was "time to get them little props out," which, in imagination, were to support our ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Henceforth be loved as heart can love, Or brain devise, or hand approve! Stand up, look below, It is our life at thy feet we throw To step with into light and joy; 620 Not a power of life but we employ To satisfy thy nature's want; Art thou the tree that props the plant, Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree— Canst thou help us, must we help thee? If any two creatures grew into one, They would do more than the world has done: Though each apart were never ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... number of instruments in there, and I realize they will mean a lot of work this trip. I wish you all luck. The honor of having designed the first ship like that, the first heavier-than-air ship that ever flew without wings, jets, or props—that is something to remember. And I think it's one of the most beautiful that ever ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... Pee-wee was not even an amateur engineer. That world-stirring consequences could flow from an act so casual and trivial as securing a fishing rod never entered his innocent and pre-occupied mind. He did not know that in the hasty calculations of Townsend all the component parts of this system of props and fetters were necessary one to another. He removed the brick and the cathedral fell and there followed a catastrophe compared to which the World War is a mere incident. If he had pulled the north pole out of the earth the sequel could hardly have ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... kin forgit em! I was stage manager of de old opery house here, you remember, for ten years, and worked around de old printin' office downstairs for seven years. No, I don't mean stage manager—I mean property man—yes, had to rustle de props. And did we have road shows dem days! Richards & Pringle's Georgia minstrels, de Nashville students, Lyman Twins, Barlow Brothers Minstrels, and—oh, ever so many more—yes, Daisy, de Missouri Girl, wid Fred Raymond. Never kin forgit ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... mother or some soft maiden rendering such an act of homage to a chit of a boy or a gross young gentleman impresses one unpleasantly. The curtsy of a lady to a prince or princess is something between kneeling and that queer genuflection one meets in the English agricultural districts: the props of the boys and girls seem momentarily to be knocked away, and they suddenly catch themselves in descending. It astonished me, I remember, at a court party, to see one patrician young woman—"divinely tall" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... shade in summer, quale sopor fessis in gramine, meat and drink to him that is hungry or athirst; Democritus's collyrium is not so sovereign to the eyes as this is to the heart; good words are cheerful and powerful of themselves, but much more from friends, as so many props, mutually sustaining each other like ivy and a wall, which Camerarius hath well illustrated in an emblem. Lenit animum simplex vel saepe narratio, the simple narration many times easeth our distressed mind, and in the midst of greatest extremities; so diverse have been relieved, by [3423]exonerating ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... proud, whose grandeur mocks the woe Which props the column of unnatural state! You the plainings, faint and low, From Misery's tortured soul that flow, 40 Shall usher to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... brawny "fireman," whom George had been long taught to regard as one of the props of law and order in the district, was effusively and honestly glad to see his employer. His wife hurried the tea, and George drank and ate as heartily as his own luncheon would let him in company with Macgregor and his ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that day. People in passing to meeting thro' Prison Lane, (as County-street was then called) and its environs, encountered frequent and large groups of men and boys, noisily engaged in gambling with props, pitching coppers, &c. occasionally enlivened by ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... sagging posts with props of fallen limbs and stones carried from the trail below. They piled brush where the wire had parted, filling the opening with an almost impassable barrier of twisted branches. Until the last rain, the spring-hole fence had appeared solid—but one night of rain in the California hills can work ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... He must die, and leave his empire in the hands of a woman and a child. His government had been wholly personal. He could not transmit his power, such is it was, to any other person,—least of all could he place it in feeble hands. There were no props to his throne. No Bismarck or Cavour stood beside him, to whom he might confide his wife and son, and feel that though his hand no longer held the helm, the ship would sail straight on the course he had laid down for her. The men about him were third and fourth rate men,—all of ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... aspect of the weather, it almost always happens that this ceremony is followed a few days afterwards by a copious supply. But it would require an entire volume to enumerate all the errors and superstitions of this description which have been propagated by the clergy in Spain, and which form the chief props of their power. ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... seen several boats launched from these yards. Great crowds would gather for this event. After the hull was completed in the docks the boat was ready to launch. The blocks that served as props were knocked down one at a time. One man would knock down each prop. There were several men employed in this work on the appointed day of the launching of the boat. The boat would be christened with a bottle of champagne on its way ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... with doors opening into the hall. On the floor of this box was straw with blankets thrown over it. The people got into these beds and closed the doors and so shut themselves in. Olaf's men could have set heavy things against these doors or have put props against them. Then the people could not have got out; for on the other side of the bed was the thick outside wall of the feast hall, and there were no ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall
... dismal stream at which he looked. The low tannery buildings of wood projected in part over the water, and were supported on iron props, to which were attached water-whitened skins and repulsive portions of entrails, that swung slowly from side to side as the river took them. The water here is little more than three feet deep, and beneath its soiled current can be seen a sandy bottom on which grow patches ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... now, those four low props That held the haystack o'er my head, The dusky framework from their tops Like a large ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... objects with care, and I soon perceived that a European had undoubtedly been led to seek a refuge in this retreat. Yet what changes had taken place in the scene of his labors! The logs which he had hastily hewn to build himself a shed had sprouted afresh; the very props were intertwined with living verdure, and his cabin was transformed into a bower. In the midst of these shrubs a few stones were to be seen, blackened with fire and sprinkled with thin ashes; here the hearth had no doubt been, and the chimney in falling had covered it with ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... a convicted person. Yet the percentage of the props and pillars of financial success and mercantile respectability who, in the self-candour and secrecy of their sleepless hours, are honestly unable to recall to mind one or more occasions when Portland, or Dartmoor, or Simonstown, or the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... to pirates as sons-in-law. KING: We object to major-generals as fathers-in-law. But we waive that point. We do not press it. We look over it. GENERAL: (aside) Hah! an idea! (aloud) And do you mean to say that you would deliberately rob me of these, the sole remaining props of my old age, and leave me to go through the remainder of my life unfriended, unprotected, and alone? KING: Well, yes, that's the idea. GENERAL: Tell me, have you ever known what it is to be an orphan? PIRATES: (disgusted) Oh, dash it all! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... so cheerful and optimistic, might have competently served for an artist's study of "Gloom." He felt as if the props had been kicked from beneath a line on which swung all ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... it is somewhat longer than that of a coach, but of the same shape. In front it is left quite open, down to the bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof. It has two seats for the passengers, who sit with their faces towards the horses. The roof is supported by small props, which are placed at the corners. On each side of the doors, above the pannels, it is quite open; and, to guard against bad weather, there are curtains, which are made to let down from the roof, and which fasten to buttons, placed for the purpose, on the outside. There is also a leathern ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... remained inside, secured details as nurses and ward-masters in the hospital, and went outside. In this crowd were Key, Ned Carrigan, Limber Jim, Dick McCullough, the six hangmen, the two Corporals who pulled the props from under the scaffold, and perhaps some others whom I do ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... duty. To Mamie Calligan duty (a routine conformity to such theories and precepts as she had heard and worked by since her childhood) was the all-important thing, her principal source of comfort and relief; her props in a queer and uncertain world being her duty to her Church; her duty to her school; her duty to her mother; her duty to her friends, etc. Her mother often wished for Mamie's sake that she was less dutiful and more charming ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... song, are frigid and unfelt, compared with those existing between the master and his slaves; who served his father, and rocked his cradle, or have been born in his household, and look forward to serve his children; who have been through life the props of his fortune, and the objects of his care; who have partaken of his griefs, and looked to him for comfort in their own; whose sickness he has so frequently watched over and relieved; whose holidays he ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... have so much to do at home. Now that I can hobble out, you must get me four poles, and we will strip this fly off the tent and make a sunshade out of it—make an arbor in front of our quarters. Have the props ready, and in the morning Seay will show you how to stretch a tarpaulin for a sunshade. And then along towards evening, you must drift our little bunch of cattle at least a mile up the creek. I'm expecting more this evening, and ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... the night together Came down, and the wind came after, Bending the props of the pine-tree roof, And snapping many ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... surrounded the city, but is now filled up except at these points. The streets of Algiers are all crooked, and all narrow. The best are scarcely twelve feet in breadth, and even half of this is occupied by the projections of the shops, or the props placed to support the first stories of the houses, which are generally made to advance beyond the lower, insomuch that in many places a laden mule can scarcely pass. Of public buildings, the most remarkable is the Cassaubah, or citadel, the situation of which ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... had consisted of poles fastened to these supports, leading between them and from the support at each end to the banks. The rope of tough vines had been stretched as a hand-rail, necessary with such precarious footing. The rise of the river had swept away the bridge, but the props and the rope hand-rail remained. In the afternoon, from the boat, Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey with a prehensile tail. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... suspicion that we have not crosses the mind of man, he realizes what may be truly termed intellectual despair. Is this world an illusion, a phantasm of the imagination? If things material and tangible, and therefore the most solid props of knowledge, are thus abruptly destroyed, in what direction shall we turn? Within a single century Greek philosophy had come to this pass, and it was not without reason that intelligent men looked on Pythagoras almost as a divinity upon earth when he pointed out to them a path of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... this first denial, come to think of it, is only a fine farce. If she were not seeking a liaison she would not have visited me. No, she wanted me to beg her to do what she wanted to do. Like all women, she wanted me to offer her what she desired. I have been rolled. Her arrival has knocked the props out from under my whole method. But what does it matter? She is no less desirable," he concluded, happy to get rid of disagreeable reflections and plunge back into the delirious vision which he retained of her. "That night ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... time Napoleon appointed the first Marshals of the Empire, and determined that they should be called Monsieur le Marechal when addressed verbally, and Monseigneur in writing. The following are the names of these sons of the Republic transformed into props of the Empire: Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, and Besaieres. The title of Marshal of the Empire was also granted to the generals ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... with the Markovians. They are peaceful and creative, but only a few generations behind them are pirates who were not fit to sit in the Councils of civilized beings. They have no tradition of culture to support them. It knocks the props out from under them, so to speak, to have it known what lies behind them. They cannot be friends with such a man. They cannot even endure ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... refuse to be liberal in the sense of reading all sorts of Protestant controversial literature and listening to all kinds of heretical sermons. If he does not this, he is false to his principles; he contradicts himself by accepting and not accepting an infallible Church; he knocks his religious props from under himself and stands— nowhere. The attitude of the Catholic, therefore, is logical and necessary. Holding to Catholic principles how can he do otherwise? How can he consistently seek after truth when he is convinced that he holds it? Who else can teach him religious ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... the door of the workshop a year ago, after Nicky's death, and had not opened it again until to-day. This afternoon in the orchard he had seen that the props of the old apple-tree were broken and he had thought that he would like to make new ones, and the ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... the black darkness of the passage between the house and the wings. A short flight of damp steps surmounted, one of the strangest of all spectacles opened out before the provincial poet's eyes. The height of the roof, the slenderness of the props, the ladders hung with Argand lamps, the atrocious ugliness of scenery beheld at close quarters, the thick paint on the actors' faces, and their outlandish costumes, made of such coarse materials, the stage carpenters in greasy jackets, the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... closely fitted his own neat small head, the tweaked, interrogative ears,—Beautiful-Lovely, the Wolf Hound, reared up majestically in his own chair. He also, once convinced that the mask was not a gas-box, resigned himself to the inevitable, and corporeally independent of such vain props as Chemistries or Sermons, lolled his fine height against the ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... walnut-trees, twelve feet round the trunk, the boughs of which were themselves considerable trees, spreading above twenty-six yards across. Each tree covered above a rood of ground; and so massy were the lower branches, that it has been found necessary to support them with props. Their height is equal to their breadth, or about seventy feet; and I was surprised to find, that, notwithstanding their undoubted age, they still bear abundance of fine fruit. Mr. Penley assured me, that in his time he had seen no ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... mounted their steeds and came full gallop our way. They were quite a picturesque sight in their dark-red coats, or brown and yellow skin robes and their vari-colored caps. Some wore bright-red coats with gold braiding, and Chinese caps. These were officers. The soldiers' matchlocks, to the props of which red or white flags were attached, gave an additional touch of color to the otherwise dreary scenery of barren hills and snow. The tinkling of the horse-bells enlivened the monotony of these silent, inhospitable regions. The Tibetans dismounted some three hundred ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... sit in studios and, by light that is not light, to fake subjects from pots and pans and rags and bricks that are called 'pieces of colour.' Their collection of rubbish costs in the end quite as much as a ticket, a first-class one, to new worlds where the 'props' are given away with the sunshine. To do anything because it is, or may not be, new on the market is wickedness that carries its own punishment; but surely there must be things in this world paintable other and beyond those that lie between ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... upon me, and I was in utter darkness. I heard him putting props against the door, and pounding them down so as to make it secure. Then all was still outside, and I concluded that he had gone up stairs. I had a faint hope that old Betsey would come down and release me; but I immediately went to work upon the ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... homage; their fall is a cause of sorrow; three sons of the sister of a king; three props of ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... ever saw, named Thorne. Well, one day, for some impertinence, Thorne struck him. Deering was an athlete; he weighed twenty pounds more than I did, fifty more than Thorne, I guess; he was quick as lightning, was most handy with his props, and in an instant he smashed poor Thorne's face with a blow which knocked him ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... notable proof of the estimation in which the patient was held, and was very far from springing only from pity or humanity. Half the people who came to Lady Adela for further information had some cause going on in which 'That Stick' was one of the most efficient of props. ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... parts. The cavern—its level roof supported by amorphous piers—might be extended indefinitely into the interior of the hills, and its outer facade continued almost without term along their flanks—the solid mass of cliff above forming one gigantic entablature, poised upon props instead of columns. Hence the predisposition to attempt in the built temple the expression of infinite extent, and to heap the ponderous ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... were bridges. Some of these basins in the heart of old Paris would have offered precious scenes and tones of color to painters. What a forest of crossbeams supported the mills with their huge sails and their wheels! What strange effects were produced by the piles or props driven into the water to project the upper floors of the houses above the stream! Unfortunately, the art of genre painting did not exist in those days, and that of engraving was in its infancy. We have therefore ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... legislation as a natural right, while, committed by women, were held to be shameful, and a serious crime. As is well known, even to-day not few are the men who prefer the company of a pretty female sinner to that of their own wives, and who not infrequently belong to the "Props of the State," the "Pillars of Order," and are "guardians of the sanctity of marriage ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... truly in all things that concerned the faith. The questioner this day was Jean Beaupere (Pulchri patris, as he is called in the Latin), a theologian, Master of Arts, Canon of Paris and of Besancon, "one of the greatest props of the University of Paris," a man holding a number of important offices, and who afterwards appeared at the Council of Bale as the deputy of Normandy. He began by another exhortation to speak the truth, to which Jeanne replied ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... each heap five or six grains; in the middle of May, when the maize is the height of a finger or more, they plant in each heap three or four Turkish beans, which then grow up with and against the maize, which serves for props, for the maize grows on stalks similar to the sugar-cane. When they wish to make use of the grain for bread or porridge, which they call Sappaen, they first boil it and then beat it flat upon a stone; ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... amid the fresh and fertile meads, The paradise he made unto himself, Mining the soil for ages. On each side The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond, Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise The mighty columns with which earth props heaven. ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... the present regimen in Nuka-hiva; whether the highways might not be suffered to close up, the pier to wash away, and the Residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent officials. And yet though the hereditary favourer, and one of the chief props of French authority, he has always an eye upon the past. He showed me where the old public place had stood, still to be traced by random piles of stone; told me how great and fine it was, and surrounded on all sides by populous houses, whence, at the beating of the drums, the folk ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after bidding farewell to old Rouault, returned to the room before leaving, he found her standing, her forehead against the window, looking into the garden, where the bean props had been knocked down by the wind. She turned round. "Are you looking for ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... features of the islands. Its funereal foliage droops in Hilo, and it was it that I noticed all along the windward coast as having a most striking peculiarity of aerial roots which the branches send down to the ground, and which I now see have large cup-shaped spongioles. These air-roots seem like props, and appear to vary in length from three to twelve feet, according to the situation of the tree. There is one variety I saw to-day, the "screw pine," which is really dangerous if one approached it unguardedly. It is a ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... cowrie, frightens away the devils as well as a horse-shoe, which by the way has also its cryptic meaning. Hence it was selected to cast for luck, a world-old custom, which still lingers in the game of props; and for the same reason it is hung on donkeys, the devil being still scared away by the sight of a cowrie, even as he was scared away of old by its ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... itself, and its cloisters if possible, Titus would not resort to the use of fire; but ordered his men to force the gate, with crowbars and levers. After great efforts, a few of the stones of the threshold were removed; but the gates, supported by the massive walls and the props behind, defied all ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... affection for their dead father, as I have shown in my pleading and my books. Now but one of his three children is alive, and only one remains to support a house which a little time ago had so many props to sustain it. But my grief will be greatly relieved should Fortune preserve him at least to robust and vigorous health, and make him as good a man as his father and grandfather were before him. I am the more anxious for his health and character ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... scurrying around after props after the Alleyites came back from the Island after that last rehearsal. Migwan, checking up her list, was constantly coming upon things that ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... not very firm or solid. As is manifest to every one in the works of Saint Peter's, the Corridore di Belvedere, the Convents di San Pietro ad Vincula, and other fabrics built by him, it has been necessary to put new foundations and to strengthen all of them by props and buttresses, like buildings about to fall. Now because he had no doubt that Michael Angelo knew these errors of his, he always sought to remove him from Rome, or, at least, to deprive him of the favour of the Pope, and of the glory and ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... The sultry air impregnated with dust, the heat and smoke of burning palaces, palsied my limbs. Hunger suddenly came acutely upon me. The excitement which had hitherto sustained me was lost; as a building, whose props are loosened, and whose foundations rock, totters and falls, so when enthusiasm and hope deserted me, did my strength fail. I sat on the sole remaining step of an edifice, which even in its downfall, was huge and magnificent; a few broken walls, not dislodged by gunpowder, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... got out all right, the fire havin' started on the stage from the strip-light, and also our people had got out through the little stage-entrance, though havin' to leave many of our props—a good coat I had to lose meself, fur-lined around the collar, by way of helpin' the Sisters Devere get out their box of accordions that they done a Dutch Daly act with for an enn-core. Well, as I was sayin', we'd all hustled ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... office-boy, call-boy he had become, by that time, a sort of unofficial assistant stage manager. No one acknowledged that he was invaluable about the place, but he was. When a new play was in rehearsal at the Thalia, Wallie knew more about props, business, cues, lights, and lines than the director himself. For a long time no one but Wallie and the director were aware of this. The director never did admit it. But that Hahn should find ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... had hitherto neither names nor punishments. Already do I see them attack the papal chair, which keeps together the fragile fabric through treachery and deceit, whilst it undermines itself through crime and luxury. The great props of the religion which we dread give way; and, if the sinking structure be not sustained by means of new miracles, it will disappear from the face of the earth, and we shall once more shine in the temples as worshiped divinities. Where will the spirit of man stop, when he has once undertaken ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... now assailed the tower in their turn. They undermined the part toward the city, placed props of wood under the foundation, and, setting fire to them, drew off to a distance. In a little while the props gave way, the foundation sunk, and the tower was rent; part of its wall fell with a tremendous noise; many of the Christians ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... any fault of yours. The prescription was all right, but, you see, the wine wasn't good. If it had been pure, the kind you drink, all would have been well. I should have gained strength instead of having the props knocked ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... expression of things changed. Madoc rose and said: "Well, my friends, let us proceed to business. Fasten the doors and shutters quietly! You, ladies, may go to bed!" His two tattered followers looked more like robbers themselves than like props of law and order. Each drew a club with a knob of lead attached to one end, from his trousers' leg, and Madoc tapped his breast pocket to make sure that his pistol was there. This done, he bid me lead them to ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... become legitimate! In any other point of view, we cannot possibly conceive how Sir Walter imagines "he has done something to revive the declining spirit of loyalty" by these novels. His loyalty is founded on would-be treason: he props the actual throne by the shadow of rebellion. Does he really think of making us enamoured of the "good old times" by the faithful and harrowing portraits he has drawn of them? Would he carry us back to the early stages of barbarism, of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... and Hopalong, running to the door, looked out through a crack as sudden firing broke out around the rear of the shack, and fell to pulling away the props, crying, "It's a puncher, Red; he's riding this way! Come on ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... mysterious formula is pronounced, no alteration in my own view, nothing short of physical impossibilities, must, for the welfare of my soul, alter my will. . . . I find something very satisfactory in the thought that man has the power of framing such props and weapons out of the most trivial materials, indeed out of nothing, merely by the force of his will, which thereby truly deserves the name of ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... that is disturbing thy peace? Are providences dark, or crosses heavy? Are spiritual props removed, creature comforts curtailed, gourds smitten and withered like grass?—write on each, "Your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." It was He who increased thy burden. Why? "It was needed." It was He who smote down thy clay idol. Why? "It was needed." ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... mountain, and traced the stream to its fountain-head, where we found it issuing from cavities in several parts of the hill, and was conveyed down the declivity in stone-troughs, and received on the plain by troughs of wood, supported about seven or eight feet above the ground by props; through this aqueduct, the water is carried to the center of the city, over a plain, from a distance of four or ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... nearness to a barred Paradise. Oswald loved Edith, loved her yet, with a flame time would take long to quench. Doris loved Oswald and he Doris; and not one of them would ever attain the delights each was so fitted to enjoy. Why shouldn't he laugh? What is left to man but mockery when all props fall? Disappointment was the universal lot; and it should go merrily with him if he must take his turn at it. But here the strong spirit of the man re-asserted itself; it should be but a turn. A man's joys are not bounded by his loves or even by the satisfaction ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... individuals in almost every grade of society; until you get to the rock bottom of existence, when the immediate problems of life are so menacing that men and women dare not play about with the gilded imitations. This "Kaiser-spirit"—or the spirit which, if it can't inspire homage, will buy the "props" of it and sit among the hired gorgeousness in the full belief that their own individual greatness has deserved it—is everywhere. Very few men and women are content to be simply men and women. They all seek strenuously to be mistaken for Great Panjandrums. The woman who takes a little air ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... however, the body requires supports and props and, above all, a firm foundation on which to rest. Iron and lime, whose union is secured by their opposition to one another, bring into conjunction materials of contrary disposition for the creating of organic forms of the nature ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... seen the orange grown under such favourable conditions as are experienced here. The yield is often so heavy that the trees actually bend to the ground with the weight of their fruit, and a stack of props has to be used to prevent the tree from splitting into pieces. Those who have seen the enormous crops of apples that are produced on some trees in Tasmania or the old cider orchards of Devon or Somerset can form an idea of the crops; but the writer, who has ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... etc. Finished Blair's Dissertation on Ossian. Finished Trachiniae. Did 3 props. of Euclid. Question: Was deposition of Richard II. justifiable? Voted no. Good debate. Finished ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; For notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on. Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... in your standing, facing the school, with your mouth propped open. The props were of wood, and were one or two inches long, for ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... is dangerous work. Any blow of the pickaxe may break into a vein of water which will burst out and flood the mine. The wooden props which support the roof may break, or the pillars of coal may not be large enough; and the roof may fall in and crush the workers. There are always poisonous gases. The coal, as has been said before, was made under water, and therefore the gas which was formed in the decaying leaves and wood ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... Ramsdell and Duncan, yes. They have been wonderful props, and it's good to get on my professional legs again, whatever my bodily ones may do for me. Meanwhile, how ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... was that he did not resolutely refuse to accept the name without the power of a general. Had he remained quietly at his retreat in Friesland, he would in a few years have been recalled with honour to his country, and would have been conspicuous among the ornaments and the props of constitutional monarchy. Had he conducted his expedition according to his own views, and carried with him no followers but such as were prepared implicitly to obey all his orders, he might possibly have effected ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the household. We do not know his name, and seldom or never speak to him; but I follow him about, as you would some little animal, and observe his ways. I find that he always stands on his left leg, which is like an iron gate-post, and props himself with his right. I cannot discover whether he straightens out when he goes home at night, but when visible in the daytime, he is always bowed, either under the weight of his mussuk or the recollection of it. The ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... mine. I found out that they had knifed me; had helped pluck me to feather their own nests. It hurt, Dick; hurt like hell. Losing the big ranch in the South was a jolt, I'll admit; seeing those fellows take it over and split it two ways between them, sort of knocked the props out from under me. I believed in them, you see. After that I just wanted to get away and sort ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... spring in the sole so as to make them the more supple for the foot in walking. Personally, I object to all additional height being given to a boot or shoe; it is really against the proper principles of dress, although, if any such height is to be given it should be by means of two props, not one; but what I should prefer to see is some adaptation of the divided skirt or long and moderately loose knickerbockers. If, however, the divided skirt is to be of any positive value, it must give up all idea of 'being identical in appearance with an ordinary skirt'; ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... won't forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,—I know, I know. I shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? It signifies ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... hills, faintly blue in the morning light, rose, with very gradual slopes against the sky. To the right I could see there was a garden hidden now by trees, on the left a fine old barn, its thatched roof deep brown, the props supporting it black with age. In front of the pillared porch there was a little square of white cobble-stones and in the middle of these an old grey sundial. The whole place was bathed in the absolute peace ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... appease. Habit, however, had its share in it, since, accustomed to defer to rank from boyhood, and the architect of his own "little fortune," he had ever attached more importance to the commendation of his superior, than was usual with those who had other props to lean on than their own services. As soon as the honours of the quarter-deck had been duly paid—for these Sir Gervaise never neglected himself, nor allowed others to neglect—the vice-admiral intimated to Captain Parker a desire to see him in his cabin, requesting Greenly and Wycherly to accompany ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... heavy piece of woodwork from the place where it had been standing, to the position it was to occupy, where we laid it flat on the ground. It was at the proper moment to be lifted up, and supported by stout pieces of timber, serving as props, on the inner side. It would thus shelter us, and prevent our ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... the intangible power in his demeanor roused her, I think; and her whole soul, every fibre of her body, rose up in mutinous revolt. Whither was this swift current carrying her? What great wave was this that struck at the very props of her own strength and reliance? How did this man dare to invade the walled sanctities of her being? She would have none of him: she would go on her solitary way, sufficient for herself. She, who had never loved amid all the beguilements the world had to offer, to be conquered ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
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