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Pedestal   /pˈɛdəstəl/   Listen
Pedestal

noun
1.
A support or foundation.  Synonyms: base, stand.
2.
A position of great esteem (and supposed superiority).
3.
An architectural support or base (as for a column or statue).  Synonyms: footstall, plinth.



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"Pedestal" Quotes from Famous Books



... erected by the late Mr. Penn to Gray. Alighting from the carriage at a lodge, we enter the park just at the monument. This is composed of fine freestone, and consists of a large sarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions on each side. Three of them are selected from the Ode on Eton College and ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... heart-smiles of the fair Glady, Victo's daughter. And, through revenge for having their suit frowned upon, these wicked knaves had joined hands with the priest in trying to drag the Sun Children down from their lofty pedestal. ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... the entrance is enthroned a colossal Buddha seated in his lotus—a gilded idol from forty-five to sixty feet high, mounted on an enormous bronze pedestal. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... early achieved the conversion of Tagals, Visayas, and some other tribes, after generations of evangelical devotion, ceased to be aggressive religiously, growing opulent and oppressive instead. They were the pedestal of the civil government. Their word could, and often did, cause natives to be deported, or even put to death. One of their victims was that beautiful spirit, Dr. Rizal, author of Noli me Tangere, the most ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... began to age, covered herself from the eyes of men with a veil, and went every day at evening to look upon her statue, in which the genius of Praxiteles had rendered permanent the beauty the woman could not keep. One evening, hanging to the statue's pedestal by a garland of red roses, the sculptor found a mirror, upon the polished disk of which ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... feeling was a keen artistic delight. On a colossal pedestal, the cliff,—motionless at the extreme edge of the capping rock and sharply outlined against the sky,—was an equestrian statue of impressive dignity. The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse, straight and soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carved in ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... and silver urn and tea service and flowers made quite a picture. Flowers had been in the cottage too, but not such wealth of them. Just opposite to Daisy in the middle of the floor stood a great stone basket, or wide vase, on a pedestal; and this vase was a mass of beautiful flowers. Trailing wreaths of roses and fuchsias and geraniums even floated down from the edges of the vase and sought the floor; the pedestal was half draped with them. It was a very lovely sight to Daisy's eyes. And then her mother ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... steps he crossed the garden, issued upon the park, and came to the Flying Mercury. A dark figure moved forward from the shadow of the pedestal. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... artificiality. The general form, however, seemed to be that of a square entered by a very short, narrow passage, and divided by broad paths, forming a cross of equal arms. At the central point of this cross was placed on a pedestal of emerald a statue in gold, which recalled at once the features of the Founder. The space might have accommodated two thousand persons, but on the seats—of a material resembling ivory, each of them separately formed and gathered in irregular clusters—there were not, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... idea that this was a sort of entertainment organized in honour of us until I got to it. The Bradder took the chair, and I am sure that I tried to feel grateful to Murray, but if you don't care much about being set on a small pedestal it is very hard to pretend that you do. I did, however, enjoy that dinner because every one was so very cheerful, and I made a speech which lasted—counting the applause—nearly ten minutes. The Bradder spoke more about Jack ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... hours my visitors depart, and we lose no time—for we must rise at cockcrow—in spreading our mats round the common room. You would admire the Somali pillow [29], a dwarf pedestal of carved wood, with a curve upon which the greasy poll and its elaborate frisure repose. Like the Abyssinian article, it resembles the head-rest of ancient Egypt in all points, except that it is not worked with Typhons and other horrors to drive away dreadful dreams. Sometimes ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... look at the marble statue of the Empress Josephine, which is called the greatest work of art in the West Indies. That is not fatuous praise, perhaps, but the figure needed the hand of no master sculptor to hold the eye and captivate the imagination. It is mounted on a huge pedestal and is of heroic size, the white glitter of its marble enhanced by its truly magnificent setting, a circle of towering royal palms. There she stands, the lovely Creole woman of Martinique, forever looking at "Trois Islets," ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of a statue of William Lloyd Garrison on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Among the inscriptions on the pedestal are these: "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." "My country is the world; my ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... traveller washing his feet. The first idea we receive from this picture is, that it is evening, and all the light coming from the horizon. Not so. It is full moon, the light coming steep from the left, as is shown by the shadow of the stick on the right-hand pedestal,—(for if the sun were not very high, that shadow could not lose itself half way down, and if it were not lateral, the shadow would slope, instead of being vertical.) Now, ask yourself, and answer candidly, if those black masses of foliage, in ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... Miss Todd keeps me shut up here till I'm a hundred. Loveday shielded me when I ran away to say good-bye to Lenox, and I vowed I'd do the same for her if ever I got the chance. Well, I've got it now, and no mistake. Only—Loveday! Loveday! I don't understand! You've toppled down somehow off a pedestal. I feel as if something ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... found himself floating upward. Then, frantically, he hauled himself back down to the control box, ignoring the stabbing pain in his stomach as he bent over again, one leg wrapped around the small pedestal that ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... superior, princely African tribes, showed the way to an unoccupied parlor. The room was luxuriously furnished with evidences of wealth and taste: a magnificent pianoforte, several well-chosen paintings, and a marble bust of some public character standing upon a high pedestal of the same material in the corner, attracting particular attention, and a pleasant fire in the open grate making the December evening social. A step presently heard in the hall, elastic, buoyant, and vigorous, was altogether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... morally disagreeable in the Dame aux Camelias first got lost in this brilliant halo of romance. I have seen the same play with the same part otherwise acted, and in exact degree as the love became dull and earthy, the heroine descended from her pedestal. ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... but to fail in a criminal case is a far more serious matter. It would be a pretty thing if you were shown not to have a leg to stand on, and the case ended in a decision of non-lieu. You couldn't find a better way to put our enemy on a pedestal as high as ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... some pre-vision of his future destinies now urged him to acquire it, as the basis for the free marauding life he planned. The headland of Musso lies about halfway between Gravedona and Menaggio, on the right shore of the Lake of Como. Planted on a pedestal of rock, and surmounted by a sheer cliff, there then stood a very ancient tower, commanding this promontory on the side of the land. Between it and the water the Visconti, in more recent days, had built a square fort; and the headland had been further strengthened by the addition of connecting ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... quietly standing there as a tin target for his enemy to fire at. There was, he noted, a small marble bust on a pedestal near the top of the staircase. This he seized in his iron grasp and hurled it at the elfish figure in the hall below. Now James was "quite some" thrower as they say in the state of Jersey. The dwarf was marvelously quick, too, but the white flash of stone came near getting him and as he ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... foundation of its charms, and the oak woodwork harmonizes with the tint in which Endymion is painted. At last I have Endymion where I always wanted it—in my husband's Study, and it occupies one whole division of the wall. In the corner on that side stands the pedestal with Apollo on it, and there is a fountain-shaped vase of damask and yellow roses. Between the windows is the Transfiguration [given by Mr. Emerson]. (The drawing-room is to be redeemed with one picture ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... ran between two mud walls with espaliered apricots, to a hawthorn hedge that separated it from the field. In the middle was a slate sundial on a brick pedestal; four flower beds with eglantines surrounded symmetrically the more useful kitchen garden bed. Right at the bottom, under the spruce bushes, was a cure in ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... protect the glass. One morning he picked up, from where it had fallen between the window and the shutter, a very large, and consequently very demonstrative, specimen of dialectical granite. He preserved it carefully, and mounted it on a handsome pedestal, inscribed with "The power of public opinion." He placed it on the middle of his library mantelpiece, and the daily contemplation of it cured him of his passion for Reform. During the rest of his life he never talked, as he had used to do, of "the people": he always said "the rabble," ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... clouds of smoke from his long clay pipe, and nothing broke the silence save the parrot (in a large gilded cage on a marble pedestal in the third window-niche), uttering from time to time a loud scream, or exclaiming in a sharp voice, "Good-morning!" The ticking of the bronze clock on the mantel-piece at the other end of the room could ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... porch, having letters between two borders, and within two banisters, on which are two twisted figures resembling dogs in a sitting posture. From their heads springs a graceful arch of five borders, between every two of which are knobs resembling heads. In the hollow of this arch or portal is a pedestal of two steps, from the upper of which rises a branch on each side, and over these, as if hung in the air, is a cross, said to resemble that of the military order of Alcantara; but in the print the ends resemble three crescents with their convex sides outwards and their points meeting, like ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... use the phrase in a Parliamentary sense) and I am resolved to do my best for him. I am told that the business which called the Judges into private consultation the other day was a proposal to place my bust, crowned with laurel, on a prominent pedestal in the Royal Courts of Justice. Well, I have done something in my time for justice; just now all my sympathies are with the Sweep. I receive deputations of them every day. No, they don't enter by the chimney, but come in by the front-door in ordinary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various

... Professor Masaryk, in America, through the influence of his words in the daily paper. As prominent a figure among the Czechs as any one man in the expedition is Kenneth Miller of New York, director of the Y.M.C.A., and held on a high pedestal in the affection of 10,000 men. He has had much to do with the moving of the Czech trains in all their complicated ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... issue of a lettre de cachet. But it was also very stupid. It was stupid of the Government because it put them for a time under the thumb of Boulanger. It was stupid of Boulanger, because it put the Comte de Paris at once on a pedestal and forced him before France and Europe into the position of a saviour of society, for whom all the conservative forces of French society must henceforth inevitably work. Whatever becomes of Boulanger in the next elections, he has condemned the Opportunists irretrievably either to hew wood for ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... and, though desolate enough, was certainly not without its bright and cheerful side. Behind us rose a majestic line of cliffs, climbing up into the clouds in giant steps, picturesque yet solid,—a great massive pedestal, as it were, supporting mountain piled on mountain, with caps of snow whitening their summits, and great glaciers hanging on their sides. Before us lay the town,—built upon a gnarled spur of primitive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... been a very large amount of rain, and the surface of the rock in the fissures was evidently wet; so I have no doubt that the filtering through of the warm rain-water had thawed the upper supports of the ice-cascades, and then, owing to their slightly inclined position, the pedestal had not provided sufficient support, and so they had fallen. One of them, perhaps, had brought down in its fall the free column, which had stood two days before on its own base, without any support from ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... almost beyond the penthouse of the brow; the upper lip is so long that it must have been almost a deformity, unless the sculptor artistically exaggerated its length, in consideration, that, on the pedestal, it must be foreshortened by being looked at from below. On the whole, Shakspeare must have had a singular rather than a prepossessing face; and it is wonderful how, with this bust before its eyes, the world has persisted in maintaining an erroneous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... thing that the square was entirely deserted. There wasn't a human being about—unless he counted a statue that stood on a high pedestal. The boy gazed long at the statue, which represented a big, brawny man in a three-cornered hat, long waistcoat, knee-breeches and coarse shoes, and wondered what kind of a one he was. He held a long stick in his hand, and he looked as if he would know ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... went out; the rats came and ran across the floor; as the hours crept on through midnight and past, the cold intensified and the air of the room grew like ice. August did not move; he lay with his face downward on the golden and rainbow-hued pedestal of the household treasure, which henceforth was to be cold forevermore, an exiled thing in a foreign ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... highest respect for Pompey's memory. There stands to the present day, among the ruins of Alexandria, a beautiful column, about one hundred feet high, which has been known in all modern times as POMPEY'S PILLAR. It is formed of stone, and is in three parts. One stone forms the pedestal, another the shaft, and a third the capital. The beauty of this column, the perfection of its workmanship, which still continues in excellent preservation, and its antiquity, so great that all distinct ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... the thought," answered Babe, "for you couldn't play third fiddle in her string now. You remember old Dennis O'Shea was land-poor all his life. Well, in the land and cattle boom a few years ago he was picked up and set on a pedestal. It's wonderful what money can do! The old man was just common bog Irish all his life, until a cattle syndicate bought his lands and cattle for twice what they were worth. Then he blossomed into a capitalist. He always was ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... that the fantasy persists. It is slower to be realised than even in our own dream-period, for now it must come through the horn-gate of the maiden's own judgment. Man has fallen from the self-erected pedestal of "superiority." He had placed himself badly on it, such as it was—the pose was ignoble, the balance insecure. One day, he will himself look back, rejoicing that he is down; and when—or if—he goes up again, ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... modern Protestant; and the sarcasms which Clement and Tertullian flung at the Pagan creed, the modern sceptic returns upon their own. Of what use is it to destroy an idol, when another, or the same in another form, takes immediate possession of the vacant pedestal? ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... pedestals the tops of which were hollowed out so that they resembled the ordinary bird drinking- and bathing-fonts so commonly seen on suburban lawns. A seat protruded from each of the four sides of the pedestals—just a flat board with a support running from its outer end diagonally to the base of the pedestal. ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Liberty Enlightening the World, the generous gift of the people of France, is expected to reach New York in May next. I suggest that Congressional action be taken in recognition of the spirit which has prompted this gift and in aid of the timely completion of the pedestal upon which ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... being present), That an equestrian statue of General Washington be erected at the place where the residence of Congress shall be established," and a committee appointed for the purpose reported a plan for a pedestal to support the statue, with historical basso relievos upon it, and an appropriate inscription. But this statue, like many other monumental testimonials, ordered by the old Congress, was never made. Washington submitted ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... High Priest, he crossed the threshold of Death and passed through all the Elements. The Sun shone upon him at midnight, and he saw the Gods of Heaven and of Hades. In the morning he was clad in the Robe of Heaven, set up on a pedestal in front of the Goddess and worshipped by the congregation as a God. He had been made one with Osiris or Horus or whatever name it pleased that Sun-God to be called. ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... pedestal and I find you have feet of clay. You have blurred the image which I formed of you. I can never think of you again without picturing you as you stood in ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... inscription. At the upper end is an obelisk of porphyry, probably brought from Egypt, the hieroglyphics all very entire, which I look upon as mere ancient puns. It is placed on four little brazen pillars, upon a pedestal of square free stone, full of figures in bas-relief on two sides; one square representing a battle, another an assembly. The others have inscriptions in Greek and Latin; the last I took in my pocket-book, and ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... was excavated. The same sculptured slabs that appear in picture 8 in the foreground on the right, are seen resting against a mound, in their supposed original position, and serve to indicate the identity of the localities. In the rear of the slabs is probably the heap of stones forming the pedestal for the stone figure of a tiger spoken of in the ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... 6 of the year 20, No. 4 (plate xiii) agrees; it was also found on a Jaina pedestal. With better readings from a rubbing of the first side only, I propose for the other portions, of which I have no rubbings, the following emendations,—l. 1, Vaniyato kulato, sakhato; l. 2, ku[t.]umbimye; I ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler

... set the young woman on such a pedestal of innocence and purity—that Fandor wondered if the pugilist were not laughing at him. But Dixon, quite unconscious, did not conceal his intention to elope with Josephine and shortly take her to ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain

... II., figure 1. This figure of the Lingham presents a kind of Trinity, the vase represents Vishnu, from the middle of which rises a column rounded at the top representing Siva, and the whole rests upon a pedestal typifying Brahma. From the Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, par M. Sonnerat, depuis 1774 jusqu'en 1781. Tom. ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... of the following year (1832), there was also erected by his Lordship a small monument on the battle-field to indicate the spot where WOLFE expired, which structure, having become injured, has since given place to a pedestal and column about thirty-five feet high, surmounted by a Roman helmet wreathed with a laurel, and sword; ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... displeased with their actions, and was about to leave them and go over to Alexander. Upon which, as if the god had been a deserting soldier, they seized him, so to say, in the act, tied down the statue with ropes, and nailed it to the pedestal, reproaching him, that he was a favorer of Alexander. Another time, Alexander dreamed he saw a Satyr mocking him at a distance, and when he endeavored to catch him, he still escaped from him, till at last with much perseverance, and running about after him, he got ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... the first muttering of insurrection. What history its stagnant annals record is purely anti-British. Its two principal monuments, after the Jubilee fountain, are the tombstone of the founder of the Dopper Church—the Ironsides of South Africa—and a statue with inscribed pedestal complete put up to commemorate the introduction of the Dutch tongue into the Cape Parliament. Malicious comments add that Afrikander patriotism swindled the stone-mason out of L30, and it is certain ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... and is, particularly the shaft and architrave, similar to Trajan's pillar in Rome; and being built of a very durable material, (black marble,) will no doubt stand as many ages as that noble, though now mouldering relic. The pillar stands on a square pedestal, with a small door on the east side, which fronts the town, where the monument is ascended by a flight of steps. Over the door, in large characters, is the hero's name, PICTON; and above this, in basso relievo, is represented part of the field of battle, with the hero falling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various

... wayside corner of the world into which he had crept. And Elaine, who held so many desirable things in the hollow of her hand, could not make up her mind to be even moderately happy. She did not even know whether to take this hero of her childhood down from his pedestal, or to place him on a higher one; on the whole she was inclined to resent rather than approve the idea that ill- health and misfortune could so completely subdue and tame an erstwhile bold ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... ago the Istrian town of Pirano unveiled a statue, not exactly to one of its illustrious sons, but to the only one of its children who ever became famous, so far as we know. The pedestal ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands

... of Western culture, which desires to have idealism outraged, sacred things ridiculed, high conceptions of beauty and duty dragged into the gutter, and ugliness, brutality, and bestiality placed upon a pedestal so long as a consuming thirst for things hot in the mouth may be slaked, it makes a strong appeal. To Mr. Hammerstein its success meant much. It was a reward for another exhibition of a bold and adventurous ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... a monstrous gymnastic club standing upright, with a broad button to secure the grip. Another was a mighty centre-table, fit for the halls of the Scandinavian gods, consisting of a solid prop or pedestal twelve feet high, swelling out at the top into a leaf fifteen feet across. Another was a stone hat, standing on its crown, with a brim two yards in diameter. Occasionally there was a figure which had lost its capital, and so looked like a broken pillar, a sugar loaf, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... arch was this inscription: Pro Imperatrice Josephina; on the other, Votiva lumina ardent. At the entrance of the castle gate stood a little temple bearing this inscription: Salve. In the middle of the garden was a larger temple, in which was to be seen on a pedestal the Emperor's bust, crowned with laurels and surrounded with palms. The inscription ran: Maximis triumphis sacrum,—"Consecrated to the greatest triumphs." On two pyramids was to be read this motto: "Love leads to glory." November 29, there was a grand reception and concert in her honor at ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... she returned, sobering. "It might, if those people weren't such frozen-faced smart Alecks. If they'd had the decency to come down off the perch a little I probably wouldn't think it was funny, but to see 'em sit up on their pedestal all the time they're eating dirt—well, I think it's funny! That girl sits up as if she was Queen Elizabeth, and expects people to wallow on the ground before her until they get near enough for her to give 'em a good kick with her old patched shoes—oh, she'd do THAT, all right!—and then she powders ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... him like a beacon. To the sick he spoke words of comfort, with the vision of Carmen always before him. At the altar in the empty church, where he offered the Mass in fulfillment of his promise to the people, her fair form glowed with heavenly radiance from the pedestal where before had stood the dilapidated image of the Virgin. He prepared the sacred wafer and left a part of it on the altar for the people to carry in their procession to Santa Barbara. The other portion he took to the sick ones who had asked ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... many a row of orange-trees and pomegranates—many a white and richly sculptured vase, on its marble pedestal—many a fountain, that scattered its low music round the breathless air. Upon a terrace that commanded a stately view of the spires and palaces of Madrid stood Calderon, alone; beside him, one solitary and gigantic aloe cast its deep gloom of shade and his motionless attitude, his folded arms, ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ordered from Italy to adorn his new house. He is a man of original ideas in regard to such matters, and in this instance had gone so far as to have this end of the house constructed with a special view to an advantageous display of this promised work of art. Fearing the ponderous effect of a pedestal large enough to hold such a considerable group, he had planned to raise it to the level of the eye by having the alcove floor built a few feet higher than the main one. A flight of low, wide steps connected the two, which, following the curve of the wall, added much to the beauty of ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... pedestal of a statue in the garden, panting, shuddering, a sight to touch the heart of a far less sensitive man than the man who now approached her. "Sydney!" he said. "Dear little Sydney!" She tried to speak to him in return. Breath and strength failed her together; she lifted her ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... is not intended in some way to benefit mankind? Else we were but butterflies, and our works but mists. In the past ages the world has not seen and appreciated this fact; but the world of to-day does appreciate it, and will certainly set every worker upon his proper pedestal, high or low, according as his efforts have conduced or not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... he has accomplished among us, this is the work which he has left us,—a work lofty and solid,—a monument robustly piled in layers of granite, from the height of which hereafter his renown shall shine in splendor. Great men make their own pedestal, the future will be answerable for ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... been a surprise to her to discover in the past days that she was not John's chief interest. She accused herself now of a snobbish inclination toward Sylvia, entirely aside from the perplexity and disapproval the girl had caused her. Edna knew herself to be accustomed to a pedestal. She feared that she had come to taking it for granted that even among her peers she should be preeminent, and that, as for this Western protegee whom she had patronized for Thinkright's sake, it had been a surprise to find ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him." "It is the merit and preservation of friendship that it takes place on a level higher than the actual characters of the parties would seem to warrant." This is to put friendship on a pedestal indeed; and yet the root of the matter is there; and the last sentence, in particular, is like a light in a dark place, and makes many mysteries plain. We are different with different friends; yet if we look closely we shall find ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... reflecting stage. Then, like a person who has stumbled upon some object in the dark, she wondered what she had got; mentally walked round it, estimated it; whether it were rare or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; were a clog or a pedestal, everything to her ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... library of John Faust, a large handsome room panelled in dark oak and lined with rows of books in open book-shelves. On the right is a carved white stone fireplace, with deep chairs before it. In the far left corner of the room, on a pedestal, stands a stiff bust of George Washington. Near it hangs a wonderful Titian portrait, a thing of another world. The furniture looks as if it were, and probably is, plunder from the palace of some prince ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... his years and impenetrable dignity, was not to be considered from the ordinary view-point of woman. She would coquet with Senator Burleigh; it was on the cards that she would love him, for he was brilliant, ambitious, and honourable; but Senator North was exalted to the vacant pedestal reserved for ideals, and Betty settled herself comfortably to his worship; not guessing that he would be under her memory's dust-heap in ten days if Senator ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... admit that it can't. No doubt it's the artist's fault, but I'm willing to admit that a young girl would be rather apt to credit a man with a face like that with qualities he didn't possess." Then she sat down again with a thoughtful expression. "The fact is, you set him up on a pedestal and burned incense to him when you were not old enough to know any better, and when he came home for a few weeks four years ago you promised to marry him. Now it seems he's ready at last, and wants you to go out. Perhaps it doesn't affect ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... her—realised her age and all that, and it would have been over—exploded! Instead of this, he became fascinated by her, she refused him; and then, to make it ever so much worse for me, Lord Selsey, whom he's so fond of and thinks such a lot of, goes and puts her upon a pedestal, constantly in sight, ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... had recently been acquired for the Grand Ducal library, where it had been placed on a lofty pedestal opposite the bust of Goethe; and in this pedestal, which was hollow, it was resolved to deposit the skull. The consent of the family having been obtained, the solemnity was delayed till the arrival of Ernst von Schiller, who could not reach Weimar before ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby

... led her goats to graze. While she was making cheeses of their milk, she loved to see them browse on the maiden-hair fern which clothes the steep sides of the rock, and hung suspended by one of its cornices, as on a pedestal. Paul, observing that Virginia was fond of this spot, brought thither, from the neighbouring forest, a great variety of bird's nests. The old birds following their young, soon established themselves in this new colony. Virginia, at stated times, distributed amongst ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... fine equestrian statue of Peter the Great near the Admiralty. The lower part is not a pedestal, but left shapeless and rough like a real rock. The horse is rearing, and has a serpent coiled about its hind feet, on which, I think, it is treading. If this had been put up in Berlin, Peter would no ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... the mud hovel that their father was not an exemplary character; they did not want him to be drowned; and Norah, hearing in extreme youth of the hero who had interposed between him and such a cruel death, had mentally built a pedestal for the hero and kept him on ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... daughter of Robert I. and the mother of Robert II. "The head of the figure is surmounted by a large cusped canopy, placed in a horizontal position, on the end of which is carved a crucifixion. The pedestal is carved with a series of Gothic compartments, in each of which there is carved a shield, enriched with heraldic blazons and figures of ecclesiastics. The panels at the west end contain—the first the fess cheque of the ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... century who had been set upon by highwaymen at this spot and delivered from death just as hope seemed lost. In summer it was a pleasant place, for the deep woods on either side murmured, and the heather, which grew thick round the granite pedestal, made the light breeze taste sweetly; in winter the sighing of the trees was deepened to a hollow sound, and the heath was as gray and almost as solitary as the empty sweep of the clouds ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... interior from the fact that it affords accommodation for three thousand spectators. Our way lies onward still. What noble figure is this? Simple but commanding in character and attitude, it fixes your attention at once. Look at the superscription. Upon a scroll on its pedestal are the words "Frederick William III. to Field Marshal Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt, in the year 1826." Yes! the impetuous soldier, figured in eternal bronze by the first sculptor of Prussia, Rauch himself, here claims and receives the admiration of his countrymen. Bare-headed ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... a beautiful pedestal in the garden attracted him first. It proved to be the statue of a centaur. An inscription informed the unlearned visitor that it exactly represented Chiron, the beloved of Apollo and Diana, instructed by them in the mysteries ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... king, show us that he conquered the North also and slew 47,209 "Northern Enemies." The contorted attitudes of the dead Northerners were greatly admired and sketched at the time, and were reproduced on the pedestal of the king's statue found by Mr. Quibell, which is now at Oxford. It was an age of cheerful savage energy, like most times when kingdoms and peoples are in the making. About 4000 B.C. is the date of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... my honored name dragged in the dust By her to whom I did confide its keeping; And she herself, my cherished wife, upraised Upon a pedestal of shameful guilt For filthy mouths to spit their venom at. Slowly now. Whatever haps I'll be Cornelius Tacitus for the nonce, nor brave My state with that true name which marks me out As Publius Cornutus. I ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... of them," answered Juanita, with a shrewd and mystic smile. "It is Cousin Peligros who fears them. She scolded me for speaking to one of them on the verandah. It undermines the pedestal upon which a lady should always stand. Am I on ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... in London, every post from every part of the country brought tidings of some new insurrection. Lumley had seized Newcastle. The inhabitants had welcomed him with transport. The statue of the King, which stood on a lofty pedestal of marble, had been pulled down and hurled into the Tyne. The third of December was long remembered at Hull as the town taking day. That place had a garrison commanded by Lord Langdale, a Roman Catholic. The Protestant officers concerted with the magistracy a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... as a philosophic principle that humanity exists not for the democratic purpose of securing the highest development of all, but for the aristocratic purpose of producing a race of supermen, an elite of strong, forceful, "leonine" beings. And in his doctrine that the many exist as a kind of pedestal for the grandeur of the few, he finds support the world over. Men are but too ready in this age, when the energies of the strong have been unfettered and moral restraints have become weakened, to put Nietzche's doctrine into practice too. From ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler

... its name when it was purchased by Edward the First, who, seeing the great natural advantages of its position, formed here a fortified town and port. There is nothing very attractive in the appearance of the place; but we were interested by a visit to a fine column on a square pedestal, erected to the memory of the great Wilberforce, whose statue adorns the summit. The town contains two colleges, several hospitals, and numerous other public institutions. We went on board the guardship stationed here, with some of the officers, with whom papa ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... Teraphim, an apeing of the high-priestly Ephod with the Urim and Thummim. The four objects mentioned in Judges xvii. and xviii. are such as were separable although connected, and connected although separable. The molten work is the pedestal under the image; the image is clothed with the Ephod, and in the Ephod were the Teraphim, from whom information and good counsel for the future were expected. For, that this is the object of the whole contrivance, is plain from chap. xviii. 5, 6, where the priest ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... Liberty, something wrong. With her Utopias ending in blind alleys, or issues unforeseen: with her sages discovered to be less sages than they seemed: with her Science turning superstitious, her Literature wallowing in the gutter, and her women descending from the pedestal of sex to play the virago in the contamination of the crowd: with so many other things, not here to be considered, to raise a doubt, whether this Liberty is taking her just where she wished to go, what wonder if even Europe should begin to meditate on means of emancipation, even if only ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... saw simply, sir," said the Doctor sternly; "and recollect that you do not stand upon a very good pedestal, for you were playing one of the meanest parts a human being can take, that ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... corridor, and into a peristyle with a double colonnade. In the midst of a little garden, planted with flowering shrubs, rose the statue which its late owner had most prized, an admirable copy of the Aphrodite of Cnidos; it stood upon a pedestal of black basalt and was protected by a light canopy with slender columns in all but transparent alabaster. Round about it were marble seats, and here, shielded from the sun by little silken awnings, sat Heliodora and her guests. At once Basil became aware of the young Vivian, whose boyish form ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... of Isabel Lady Burton, which consists of Lady Burton's unfinished autobiography and a continuation by Mr. W. H. Wilkins. The work is a valuable addition to Burton lore, but Mr. Wilkins's friendship for Lady Burton led him to place her on a far higher pedestal than we have been able to give her. Perhaps it was natural that in dealing with the True Life he should have betrayed some heat. However, death has now visited Miss Stisted [696] as well as Lady Burton, and the commotion made by the falling of the stone into the pool is at this ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... come down from her poor little pedestal then, but she made her descent gracefully enough. "If you care to see me at my work, we may even find time for friendship," she said, smiling bravely, although her face was still very pale; "but work and I are such close comrades that only Sunday ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... four days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of twelve. More than forty men were employed to make it go, and there were fourteen logs to go beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards they worked until June 8, 1504, to place it on a pedestal where the Judith used to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the palace. The said giant was the work of Michael Angelo Buonarroti."(81) The great marble David stood in the Piazza three hundred and sixty-nine years; it was removed ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... last consecrated by Archbishop Laud. The old monumental tablets have been carefully preserved, and hang on the walls of the present building. The most important object in the church is a bronze bust of Charles I. on a pedestal 8 or 9 feet high, of black and white marble. Beneath the bust is ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... passed by a stone cross, on the pedestal of which was an inscription commemorating a horrible murder of a native of Lisbon, which had occurred on that spot; it looked ancient, and was covered with moss, and the greater part of the inscription was illegible, at least it was to me, who could not bestow ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... good-natured and expansive, as they are apt to be at table. That blessed clairvoyance which sees into things without opening them,—that glorious license, which, having shut the door and driven the reporter from its key-hole, calls upon Truth, majestic virgin! to get off from her pedestal and drop her academic poses, and take a festive garland and the vacant place on the medius lectus,—that carnival-shower of questions and replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like bomb-shells from professional mortars, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... disturbance. And presently it became stationary, and standing up we could see through the slits in the walls the people of the camp rousing up from their uneasy rest, and clustering together round one who stood and talked to them from the pedestal of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... the pedestal of a leaden effigy of Julius Caesar and plucked his dressing-gown about him with fumbling bewildered hands. Was the whole British Army pouring into his peaceful park? What had he done to bring down on his head the sportive mockery of heaven, and at ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... because, they said, it would shelve him, politically, use up his brains which ought to be spent on higher work, and allow the country which was just beginning to know him to forget his existence. Men drop out of sight so quickly at Washington unless they can stand on some pedestal which raises them above ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... purposes, or to pay dividends, though the speculations were sound. These misfortunes coincided with the events of 1827. In 1829 it was too well known that Claparon was a man of straw set up by the two giants; he fell from his pedestal. Shares that had fetched twelve hundred and fifty francs fell to four hundred, though intrinsically they were worth six. Nucingen, knowing their value, bought ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... knees by my direct allusion to the hideous crime of which I imagined him to be guilty. My stepfather occupied the room as a sleeping-apartment when he was ill, ordinarily he only dressed there. The walls, hung with dark green damask, ill-lighted by one lamp, with a pink shade, placed upon a pedestal at some distance from the bed, to avoid fatigue to the sick man's eyes, had for their only ornament a likeness of my mother by Bonnat, one of his first female portraits. The picture was hung between the two windows, facing the bed, so that M. Termonde, when he slept ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... have been his favourite pupil. His most noted work was the statue at Rhamnus of Nemesis, by some attributed to Phidias himself. Of this statue part of the head is in the British Museum; some fragments of the reliefs which adorned the pedestal are in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... suppose you did. But it's the finishing touches that count in these things, my boy. And if she chooses to fit me out with a halo and a pedestal—why, when she discovers the truth, I shall really be finished off. But after all," with reviving cheerfulness, "it ain't my fault if she is kind enough to endow me with imaginary virtues. She blushed, anyhow. ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... allegiance subsisting at all between the chief and the army; and, while the new constitution possessed all other elements of vitality, it lacked one—the moral tie between ruler and ruled, without which every state rests on a pedestal of clay. In the rejection of the proposal to admit the Latins to the franchise it had been demonstrated with decisive clearness that the multitude in fact never voted for Gracchus, but always simply for itself. The aristocracy conceived the plan of offering battle to the author of the corn-largesses ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... admired enormously her slim delicacy, her faintly coloured face, her grey eyes. He liked her way of talking, too, and the long silences which held her; her quiet dignity, the way she moved. He placed her on a pedestal in his thoughts, which was a thing he had never dreamt of doing for any other woman, and before long his admiration melted into love. Then being forty-two the disease took rapid and tense possession. He was only happy when he was with ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... seen something in the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing years of his life were shaded with misery and disgrace. Fifty years after his death the Athenians erected a bronze statue to his memory, and upon the pedestal placed this inscription: ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... the front of the Exchange, which they had fixed upon as the theatre of my public orations, in consequence of my having accidentally mounted one of the pedestals on the memorable day of Sir Samuel Romilly's public entry into Bristol. I left the carriage, remounted the pedestal, and addressed at least twenty thousand of the inhabitants, who had accompanied me thither with the most deafening shouts. I never had seen such enthusiasm in my life. I briefly animadverted upon the trick which was intended to have been played off upon them by the worthy ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... just been reading your last night's speech at the Municipal Club and I'm quite effervescing with it. I want to put you up on a pedestal and call the attention of Mr. Frank Lenox to you. He is one of the innumerable excellent gentlemen, over the length and breadth of the land, who are so busy running everything else that they let city politics go to the place that I'm not allowed ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... placed round mounds which have evidently served the purpose of altars, on which human sacrifices probably were offered. One of the most interesting which has been brought to light is twelve feet high, sculptured from a single block, and representing a human figure seated on a high pedestal, the stone at the back of the head being cut in the form of a cross. The limbs are heavy, and the face large and ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... doubtful advantage of knowing that, in spite of Dick's shrewdness respecting shades of difference in muscatels, she and Lady Newhaven were nevertheless ranged on the same pedestal in Dick's mind as flawless twins of equal moral beauty. But after this particular day she observed that Lady Newhaven had somehow slipped off the pedestal, and that she, Rachel, had the honor of occupying ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... woman who has made such a noise in the world, you will find her at Versailles, without any other notice taken of her or the quarrels about her, than the following words written (I think) upon her pedestal, La Venus d'Arles. This ended the dispute, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... child (often drawn from his little grandson), his superb youth, and his splendid gentleman, Mr. du Maurier's pretty woman is the pedestal upon which he has erected his reputation—at least, so far as Punch is concerned. His pretty woman, he declares, is the granddaughter of Leech's, and he beseeches the public to love her, paternally at least as he ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... must have enjoyed when the savour of the fruit was still unfaded between their lips; and I recognise that this must be the man's habitual state. He has the forbidden fruit in his waistcoat pocket, and can make himself a god as often and as long as he likes. He has raised himself upon a glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the summit of ambition; and he envies neither King nor Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest, content in an elevation as high as theirs, and much more easily attained. Yes, certes, much more easily attained. He has not risen by climbing himself, but by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hut stood above their heads on a pedestal of stone; from its side the haunch of the stone bridge sprang away into the air, but stopped abruptly where it had been broken off. The hut, once perhaps a toll-house, was on a level with what had been the height of the bridge, and now ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... not probable, that those very advantages might have been used to decry the doctrines which he had made it his life's mission and desire to propagate, and the mission of his ordained sons likewise. To put with one hand a pedestal under the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the other to exalt the unfaithful by the same artificial means, he deemed to be alike inconsistent with his convictions, his position, and his hopes. Nevertheless, he loved his misnamed Angel, and in secret mourned over ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... formed his death couch is preserved in its original position, but sunk beneath the ground to protect it from the ravages of the relic hunter. The column is supported on a pedestal of rocks formed of boulders from the scene of the battle, conspicuous among which may be seen the actual rock upon which Wolfe was supported when he breathed his last. The stones of the monument are strongly cemented together, embedded in ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... the Cup back on its pedestal with hurried hands. The handkerchief dropped unconsidered to the floor; he turned and sprang furiously at the boy, who stood against the wall, still smiling; and, seizing him by the collar of his coat, shook him to and ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... the odd, enigmatic physiognomy, preferred by the art of that day, within the sphere of religious devotion. The King's manuscript, declining, in verse really as good as Ronsard's, the honour not meant for him, might be read, attached to the pedestal. The ladies of his own verse, Marie, Cassandre, and the rest, idols one after another of a somewhat artificial and for the most part unrequited love, from the Angevine maiden—La petite pucelle Angevine—who had vexed his young soul by her inability to yield him more than a faint Platonic affection, ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater

... over an eight-armed octopus even: so am merely a very helpless loving nonentity which merges itself most happily in you, and begs to be lifted to no pedestal at all, at all. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... dread culmination. The great stroke had been made and it had disastrously failed. Quebec still remained towering on its granite pedestal. British power still stood defiant. The Continentals had broken their victorious campaign against this gigantic obstacle. Montgomery was dead. Arnold was wounded. One half of the army was captured. The broken remnant shrunk back to its quarters amid the snowbanks of the St Foye road. Had Carleton ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... lengthwise through the centre of the temple. The front half was left as a reception hall and living room and the rear half was divided into two apartments, each fifteen feet square. They were to serve as sleeping rooms. These ruthless improvements made it necessary to remove the great stone idol from his pedestal. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... Pitti gallery at Florence may serve as a typical example. Andrea del Sarto's chef-d'oeuvre—the Madonna di San Francesco (Uffizi)—may also be assigned to this class, although the arrangement is entirely novel. The Virgin, holding the babe in her arms, stands on a sort of pedestal, carved at the corners with a design of harpies, from which the picture is often known as the Madonna of the Harpies. The pedestal throne is also seen in two of Correggio's Dresden pictures, but here the Virgin is seated, with the child on ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll

... front of the little bookcase, and folded the documents. There he was, beside her, in all his masculinity—his moustache, his blue chin, his wide white hands, his broadcloth—there he was planted on his massive feet as on a pedestal! She did not see him; she was aware of him. And she was aware of the closed door behind them. One of the basket-chairs, though empty, continued to creak, like a thing alive. Faintly, very faintly, she ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett



Words linked to "Pedestal" :   column, support, staddle, socle, pedestal table, dado, plinth, brass monkey, footstall, position, pillar, status, stand, trivet



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