"Bolster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prospectus, Jack: I want to see it before I make up my mind." Jack complied, and Sedgwick read it carefully through. The statement of the mine, the description of its development, and of the value of the ore, had been prepared by an expert so eminent that he could not afford to sell his name to bolster up a fraud. ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... boys, please. Tell me if you can see a small tin box anywhere. Of course I must have dropped it when I fell in that faint," Mr. Clausin was saying; but Paul fancied it was more to bolster up his own courage, than because he really ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... mean to tell me," she cried, "that you took that money an' spent it for a coffin, a white one with shiny handles, an' a satin bolster that'll done be wore out, an' et up by moths, 'fore you ever git a chancet ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... bedstead is quite sui generis, and requires a ground plan. The ordinary size is six feet square. It is completely covered with mosquito curtains, and has no clothes, the broad expanse being broken by two pillows for the head and a long bolster (called a Dutch wife) which lies at right angles to the pillows. This latter is one of the numerous contrivances for securing coolness. The ordinary routine of hotel life is much the same as elsewhere in the island. At ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... he, "and in defiance of your laughter, I lay behind her bolster, and supported her in my arms; and, upon my soul, I believe I felt more pain in my mind than she underwent in her body. And now answer me as honestly: Do you really think it a proper time of mirth, when the creature one loves to distraction is undergoing the most racking torments, ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... the natives do not use tables and chairs in their houses. Neither do they, as a general thing, use bedsteads. They have no beds. They sleep on mats, which are spread down on the floor. Sometimes they use a cotton bolster for their heads. More generally their pillows are hard boards, which they put under the mat. In addition to cooking, the females have to prepare the rice for this purpose, by taking it out of the ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... account for all the changes. I say, in reply, if you deny my conclusion, grounded on positive evidence, I toss back your conclusion, derived from negative evidence,—the inflated cushion on which you try to bolster up the defects of your hypothesis." [The punctuation of the imaginary dialogue is slightly altered from the original, which is obscure in one place.]) If my views ever are proved true, our current geological views will have to be considerably modified. My greatest trouble ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... paillasse is placed over it, then the feather-bed, so that it literally requires a ladder to ascend to the top of this mountain of bedding, and then it is difficult to crawl into it. There were a bolster and two pillows covered with velvet, which, with the sheets, were all trimmed with a kind ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... often used for chair legs was the X that shows Flemish influence. The lit-de-repos, or chaise-longue, was a seat about six feet long, sometimes with arms and sometimes not, and with a mattress and bolster. The beds were very elaborate and very important in the scheme of decoration, as the ladies of the time held receptions in their bedrooms and the king and nobles gave audiences to their subjects while in bed. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... sob was the answer. Frances went in, and closed the door. Nola was lying face downward on her pillow, like a child, and Frances found on putting out her comforting hand that the fickle little lady's bolster was wet with tears. She sat on the bedside and tried gently to turn Nola's face toward her. That brought on a storm of tears and moanings, and agonized burrowing of her face into ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... 1418, a plot was contrived for opening to the Burgundians one of the gates of Paris. Perrinet Leclerc, son of a rich iron-merchant having influence in the quarter of St. Germain des Pros, stole the keys from under the bolster of his father's bed; a troop of Burgundian men-at-arms came in, and they were immediately joined by a troop of Parisians. They spread over the city, shouting, "Our Lady of peace! Hurrah for the king! Hurrah for Burgundy! Let all ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... here and dawdle all day," exclaimed Deppingham. "We must be moving about—arrange our batteries, and all that, don't you know. Get out a skirmish line, nominate our spies, bolster up our defences, set a watch, court-martial the prisoners, and look into the commissariat. We've got to stave these devils off for two or three weeks, at least, and we'll have to look sharp. Browne, that's the third cup of coffee you've had. Come ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... knife, but fell upon it tooth and nail. He ate and ate till school began, and after school was over he ate again; at night, too, it was the same thing till bedtime—nay, a little fellow that Henry had for a playmate told me that he put the cake upon his bolster when he went to bed, and waked and waked a dozen times, that he might take a bit. I cannot so easily believe this last particular; but, then, it is very true, at least, that on the morrow, when the day was hardly broke, he set about his favourite business once again, continuing at it all ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... She lay for a minute in his arms, her head bent down, and her face hidden, while he looked not so much at her as above her. His eyes wandered over the mass of her dark-brown wavy hair that Mrs Flint said was not wavy by nature, but crimped to make her look like a Blandamer, and so bolster up her father's nonsensical pretensions. His eyes took full account of that wave and the silken fineness of her dark-brown hair, and then looked vaguely out beyond till they fell on the great flower-picture that ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... the supreme advantage that the rank and file of her mighty host really believe what she teaches; they do not have to listen to table-rappings and flounder through swamps of automatic writings in order to bolster their hope of the survival ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... it? Had her masters been more—respectful than these Germans were? She felt they had. But it was not only that. She recalled the men she remembered teaching week by week through all the years she had known them... the little bolster-like literature master, an albino, a friend of Browning, reading, reading to them as if it were worth while, as if they were equals... interested friends—that had never struck her at the time.... But it was true—she could not remember ever ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... his head—Super caput. On the back of the bolster that supported his head; part of which might be higher than the ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... casters, where the little boys, Archie and Jamie, lay tossed about in a tangle of bare limbs and blankets. Elizabeth brushed back her hair from her sleepy eyes, and peered into the dim room. The green paper blinds were partly raised, and she could discern through the gloom John's black head on the bolster beside Malcolm's fair one. The black head was hanging half out of bed and its mouth was wide open. Elizabeth giggled softly. She longed to stuff something into that yawning cavity; but she knew that dire consequences followed upon tampering with John. She ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... an indispensable complement to beauty, and, as public opinion was adverse to it, she kept her use of it profoundly secret. Amelia alone saw and knew it—Amelia alone was a witness to all the little secrets and artifices by which Josephine, the woman of thirty-three years, had to bolster up her beauty. But only the head stood in need of some artificial assistance. The body was as yet youthful, prepossessing, and remarkable for its attractiveness and luxuriant forms, and when Josephine now had finished her task, she was truly a woman ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... 1873, noted that the Irish University Bill was "going badly in the country, and the Noncons. and Leaguers in the House ought to have the game in their hands." He wished "they would have the pluck to tell Mr. Gladstone that they will do nothing to bolster up a Ministry which will not give satisfactory assurances upon English education;" and he wanted Mr. George Dixon to go on with his resolution in favour of universal free schools and carry it ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... gen'ly does—an' I'm 'feered he's a-gittin' it now." An', sir, with that, she thess gathered up her apron an' mopped her face in it an' give way. An' ez for me, I didn't seem to have no mo' backbone down my spinal colume 'n a feather bolster has, I was ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... indited me an epistle, or, I should say, indictment, in his most Roman manner which—but egad! I'll read it to you, I have it here somewhere." And the Viscount began to rummage among the bedclothes, to feel and fumble under pillow and bolster, and eventually dragged forth a woefully crumpled document which he smoothed out upon his knees, and from which he began to read ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... places is possible only when society as a whole is corrupt or indifferent to corruption. This prejudging of a case from hatred of the accused as a destroyer of sacred tradition, and this hunting for evidence to bolster up a foregone conclusion, are preeminently the vices of ecclesiastical tribunals and not of Jewish Sanhedrim or Papal Inquisition only. Where judges look for witnesses for the prosecution, plenty will be found, ready to curry favour by lies. The eagerness to find witnesses against Jesus is witness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... poles, which are crossed by three others, over which canes are laid so close as to form an even surface, and upon these are laid several bear skins, which serve for the bed furniture; a buffalo's skin is the coverlet, and a sack stuft with Spanish beard is the bolster. The women sometimes add to this furniture of the bed mats wove of canes, dyed of three colours, which colours in the weaving are formed into various figures. These mats render the bottom of the bed still smoother, and in hot weather they remove the bear skins and lie upon them. Their seats ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... assumed an air of increased authority, in which he intended that paternal anger should be visible; but he seated himself, and prepared to receive, at any rate, some of the arguments with which Nora intended to bolster up her bad cause. "I have promised Mr. Stanbury that I ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... you must bring over the bolster—so, and tuck it right down under the mattress nice and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... understand their plight. If we know ourselves we are strengthened that much, because we can bolster up our weaknesses. We will know enough to combat timidity. We can then know what we are capable of, and thus become conscious of our innate powers that only need to be called into action in order to become useful. We cannot imagine for an instant a great ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... the words struck Laurence. "If you tarry long among us," the king had said. Even these were ominous, and made in favour of the sinister design he had so accidentally discovered. Yet could this courtly hospitality, of which he was the object, indeed cover such a horrible purpose? Well, he dare not bolster himself up with any hope to the contrary, for now many and many an incident returned to his mind, little understood at the time, but, in the light of the conversation he had overheard, as clear as noonday. The fear, the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... instants after, Madame de Merret collected all her remaining strength to move her right hand, and slipped it, not without infinite difficulty, under the bolster; she then paused a moment. With a last effort she withdrew her hand; and when she brought out a sealed paper, drops of perspiration rolled from her brow. "I place my will in your hands—Oh! God! Oh!" and that was all. She clutched a crucifix that lay on ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... table, on its right, is a ship's fire bucket. On the port side of the room, near the bookshelves, is a sofa with its back to the windows. It is a sturdy mahogany article, oddly upholstered in sailcloth, including the bolster, with a couple of blankets hanging over the back. Between the sofa and the drawing-table is a big wicker chair, with broad arms and a low sloping back, with its back to the light. A small but stout table of teak, with a round top and gate legs, stands against ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... least in theory by the middle class, of the equality of all people; secondly, the Confucian great-family system was irreconcilable with middle-class individualism, quite apart from the fact that the Confucian form of state could only be a monarchy. Every attempt to bolster up Confucianism in practice or theory was bound to fail and did fail. Even the gentry could scarcely offer any real defence of the Confucian system any longer. With Confucianism went the moral standards especially of the upper classes of society. Taoism ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... mattered not that Bertillon had never appeared in a handwriting case before, or that his skill in this line was unknown. He was a man of science, of great renown in other lines, and the government relied on these facts to bolster up its claim that Dreyfus wrote the incriminating papers Bertillon reported in favor of the government's contention, and it was an easy matter to get some alleged experts—weak as to will and ability—and one or two honest but misguided men to agree with him. Some of these afterward ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... to meet a similar one." "TO PIANO-FORTE MAKERS.—A lady keeping a first-class school requiring a good piano, is desirous of receiving a daughter of the above in exchange for the same." "The Moor, seizing a bolster boiling over with rage and jealousy, smothers her." "The Dying Zouave the most wonderful mechanical representation ever seen of the last breath of life being shot in the breast and life's blood leaving the wound." "Mr. T—— presents his compliments ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... it, Sobieski, Go out on the streets and preach your philosophic anarchy if you don't believe it. See what it will do to you. Law's a device to bolster up the strong and ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... he was in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was—had been—the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had played ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... To bolster up his case, Maeterlinck urges that "the capacity for folly so great in itself argues intelligence," which amounts to saying that the more fool you are, the more ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... at that. His derision cut me like a whip. If what I did was the act of a braggart, yet it almost seems I could do no less to bolster up my former boasting—or what ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... part to draw them out. It's the divine foolishness of women's love that serves their need, that makes them feel after better things. No woman ever won a man by despising him. He may be inferior—he is—but he wants real love to bolster him up. I guess the dear Lord thought of that when ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... this line herself. At least, she knew how weak the real Ida May's story must sound to most people in the neighborhood, unless the claimant had actual proof of birth and name to bolster her attempt to win the Balls. There was but a tenuous thread connecting Ida May with Big Wreck Cove, or any other part of Cape Cod. The Bostwicks—the girl's ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... reason for their being accredited with these life-prolonging qualities. But once the latter virtues had become attributed to them the fact that the trees were "hardy and long-lived" may have been used to bolster up the belief by a process ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... we search beneath bolster, mattress, and blankets; yea, even downwards to the fundamental straw. Not a trace was to be seen of Cox Savory's horizontal lever, jewelled, as Tom pathetically remarked, in four special holes, and warranted to go for a year without more than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... meat to four-ninths of melted or boiled grease; it is put into a skin bag or tin can whilst warm and soft. The grease ought not to be very warm, when poured on the dry meat. Wild berries are sometimes added. The skin bags for the pemmican should be shaped like pillow (not bolster) cases, for the convenience of packing on horseback. The pemmican is chopped out with ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... atmosphere was oppressive with the concentrated foulness of numberless evil odours. A bed there was in the darkest corner of the room on the floor. It looked as though composed of the refuse raked from a pig-sty, and thrust into a sack which had been used for the conveyance of dust and bones. Bolster or pillow it had none, but against the wall, where the bed's head was supposed to be, were three or four logs of rough wood piled together, over which was laid a faded cloak crumpled into a heap. Such was ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the Lord taketh away, according to His good will and pleasure," I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the bolster and laid it ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I am incoherent. If a great old family can only bolster up its greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then let the family ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... there, on a poverty-stricken little bed, low down near the ground, behind the loom, huddled deep on his bolster under a dirty blanket: a thin little black chap, leaning against a pillow in the dancing twilight of the lantern. His eyes were closed and his bony face half-hidden in the blue night-cap. His breath rustled; and each ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... awoke, it was to the conviction that he, Mr. Fogo, being a bolster, had been robbed of his rightful stuffing by some person or persons unknown. He had lain for some time pondering this situation with a growing resentment, when he was aware of some one sitting between him and ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dollar and limited the growth in the monetary base by law to the growth in reserves. Inflation fell sharply in subsequent years. In 1995, the Mexican peso crisis produced capital flight, the loss of banking system deposits, and a severe, but short-lived, recession; a series of reforms to bolster the domestic banking system followed. Real GDP growth recovered strongly, reaching 8% in 1997. In 1998, international financial turmoil caused by Russia's problems and increasing investor anxiety over Brazil produced the highest domestic interest ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... leave me just for one full moon, and come back to me only when I am starving for you all—for my tea to be brought to me in the morning, and all the paddings and cushionings which bolster me up from morning till night—with what a sigh of wisdom I would drop back into your arms, and would let you draw the rose-colored curtains ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... not bolster up a dying belief; and the Bodins, Gersons, and Glanvils of today cannot long bolster up the dying belief in all religions ... no matter what their ability or capacities may be. The handwriting is on the wall; the past teaches us what the future may be, but there is still ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... hard time finding you . . ." he began, and suddenly broke off. Then, as if to bolster up his courage, he attempted to shove aside a chair that interfered with his actions but pushed it so hard that it ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... I do now with my spouse But abide her of my gentleness, Till that she look out of her house Of fleshly affection? love mine she is; Her bed is made, her bolster is bliss, Her chamber is chosen; is there none mo. Look out on me at the window ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... reappear in very formidable strength, though in particular places the Tory party is entirely crushed; the sooner it is so altogether the better, for no good can be expected from it, and it would be far better to erect a Conservative party upon a new and broader basis than to try and bolster up this worn-out, prejudiced, obstinate faction. But the times are difficult and men are wanting; the middle classes are pressing on, and there are men enough there of fortune, energy, activity, zeal, and ambition—no Cannings ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... into the room, there was a scramble for the beds, which were nothing better than wooden boards, with canvas bags laid on them, and a second piece of canvas placed for covering. But bad and comfortless as these beds looked, without either pillow or bolster, they were all eagerly coveted, and all soon full. Two and even three got into each, and those who could not get accommodation in that way were glad to throw themselves on the floor, as near to a great stove, which burned ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... interrogating, the servant conjecturing, Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the curtains, and was listening. All ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... pathless beauty of Death's grey eyes, "some fear, some mock, some despise him; some violently, some without complaint pursue; most men would altogether dismiss, and forget him. He is but a child, no older than the sea, no stranger than the mountains, pure and cold as the water-springs. Yet to the bolster of fever his vision flits; and pain drags a heavy net to snare him; and silence is his echoing gallery; and the gold of Sleep his final veil. They shall play on; and see, lady, flame has left the clouds; the birds are at rest. The earth breathes in, and it is day; and exhales ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... time they sat there, and were only aroused by a confused noise outside. Rising, and going to the door, they beheld a strange sight. The slashers were all lined up in front of the house, surrounded by armed mast-cutters. Ben Bolster, the boss, was giving orders to the rebels. He was telling them that they must go to work, and make up for some of the trouble they had caused. Those who objected were to step forward. At this the three ringleaders advanced, and flatly refused to ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... an even better argument to bolster the case he was developing. "Christmas mail is to and from Christians, isn't it? Sure! Egypt is a Moslem country. Moslems don't send Christmas cards or presents, and they don't get them, either. The Christians in Egypt are Coptic—anyway, they don't celebrate Christmas the same way. So ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... to endeavour to strengthen the corner-stone. Germany absolutely refused to relax in any way the pressure which her "potential energy" was exercising at this point, therefore it was necessary above all for France and Great Britain to bolster up the ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... assistance, a horrible combat with the said Succubus, whose claws still clutched my heart, causing me infinite pains; still, while reanimated by the voice of my servitors, relations, and friends, I tried to make the sacred sign of the cross; the Succubus perched on my bed, on the bolster, at the foot, everywhere, occupying herself in distracting my nerves, laughing, grimacing, putting before my eyes a thousand obscene images, and causing me a thousand wicked desires. Nevertheless, taking pity on me, my lord the Archbishop caused the relics of St. Gatien ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... obliged, perhaps, to sleep in the same bed with the French teacher, who disturbs him for an hour every night in papering and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the bolster." ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... very great at the latter accomplishment, he rides home on the bullock, which is a necessary part of the stock and trade of every prosperous dhobi. The bullock carries the clothes, which are formed into a sort of huge bolster, which, when put on the back of the bullock, nearly touches the ground ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... miserable for a week if they can't get it. His idea was to run over to Homerton. Did I know old Jumbo? Fat old Jumbo. Jumbo, who kept Jumbo's, under the arches, where you got cut from the joint, two veg., buggy-bolster, and cheese-roll. I did. So to Jumbo's we went by the Stoke Newington 'bus, whose conductor shouted imperatively throughout the journey: "Aw fez pliz!" though we were the only passengers; and on the way I made a little, soft song, the burden of which was: "I do love my ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Boston banker, gets control of an old, reliable trust company, wrecks it to bolster up another business, and disappears. Police and reporters hunt him in vain. As Ashley, a reporter, is "combing" the neighborhood of Newhall's home for evidence, a young girl draws him inside a house, where he finds the banker dead, a pistol beside him. The police call it suicide, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... objects which must not be forgotten, and above all a mattress, bolster, and counterpane, as the berths are generally unfurnished. These can be purchased very cheaply in any ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... that Flechter's fear of a conviction led him to invite testimony in his behalf which would not bear the test of careful scrutiny. Many an innocent man has paid the penalty for uncommitted crime because he has sought to bolster up his defense with doubtful evidence without the incubus of which he would ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... and a change of posture, and also so as to form a comfortable sloping back inside in the cabin, while it supports a large soft pillow, the whole being used as a sofa to recline on while reading or writing, or finally being converted into a bolster by lowering it when the crew is piped to bed for the night, or at least such hours of it as the tide and wind may ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... stiff dough, roll it out thin; first lay the slices of bacon out all over this, and then upon the slices of bacon spread out the slices of apples and the slices of onion; roll up the paste so as to secure the bacon, etc., in it; place the bolster pudding in a cloth, tied at each end, and let it boil for two hours in a two-gallon pot, with ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... upstairs trembling all over. I took the bolster and pillow and put them under the covers, to look as like me as I could, and I put the old sheepskin coat at the top of all; and as you come into the room any one would have thought it was me lying there with the toothache. Then I took my hat and shawl ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... the worst! They have sent Mahmoud Bey, against us. I would rather any six other Turks. Mahmoud Bey is not a fool. He is a young successful man, who looks to this campaign to bolster his ambition. He is ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... important piece of proof through gross carelessness. All he has to do is to solve a problem and to place his answer before a magistrate, and then a judge and jury to decide whether he's right or wrong. No one but a fool would attempt to bolster up a wrong answer. In this case, too, you must remember that there are finger-prints. They cannot lie. If we get the right man—Grell or any one else—there will be ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... not going to bite a hole in the ship and scuttle her. Moreover, I am a very meek and lowly individual on board this ship. There's a lot of difference between being in supreme command with all kinds of authority to bolster you up and being a rat in a trap as I am now. Up in Copperhead Camp I was a nabob, here I'm a nobody. Up there I was the absolute boss of five or six hundred men,—I won't say I could boss the women,—and I ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... behind a bit of rising ground a figure rose on to its hands and knees. I pointed my revolver at it, and pulled the trigger. The figure collapsed, and rolled forwards till its progress was arrested by a rocky projection, over which it finally lay, doubled up like a bolster. As it fell my heart gave a sickening leap, either of excitement or ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... appeared "under the auspices of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod," Pastors Helmuth and Schmidt being the editors. Its avowed purpose, however, was not to represent Lutheranism, but specifically to bolster up the cause of the German and to oppose the introduction of the English language. The "Proposal to Synod" concerning the new German paper states: "1. We want to aid the German language as much as we can, because we are convinced that, with her language, our ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... elderly men, very respectable, with two wives, one apiece, lawful and right, and their children, and Miss Schack and her three children, and a Mr. Bolster, and that wuz all there wuz of us, includin' and takin' in my ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... made his statement. "Perhaps," he said, "no falser accusation than this had ever been brought forward against a minister of the Crown, for it specially charged his noble friend with resorting to the employment of unconstitutional practices to bolster up his parliamentary support, whereas it was known by everybody that there would have been no matter for accusation at all had not the Duke of his own motion abandoned a recognised privilege, because, in his opinion, the exercise ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... on the country year by year, the political, it is asserted, amounting to L30,000,000 and the commercial to L40,000,000. These figures have been placed even higher by those who wish to blacken the Indian Administration in order to bolster up a malicious agitation against this country. I think it is incumbent upon the representative of the Indian Government in this House to deal with the statement. I may at once say that it has no ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... sound asleep, and required some shaking before they could be convinced that it was time to get up. Then each boy put his bolster in his bed, rolled up his night shirt into a ball and laid it on the pillow, and then partly covered it up with the clothes. Then they slipped on their shirts, breeches, and stockings and, taking their jackets and shoes in their hand, stole out of the door at their ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... ignoring his very existence. He sustained the slight with an admirable cheerfulness, and babbled and sputtered and flounced about with his hands. He grew pinker in the generous firelight, and he looked very fat as he sat in a heap on the floor. He seemed to have threads tightly tied about his bolster-shaped limbs in places where elder people prefer joints—in his ankles and wrists and elbows—for his arms were bare, and although his frock of pink calico hung decorously high on one shoulder, it drooped quite off from the ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... day stretching out before her like a gray corridor. It was real life now: letters to write, costumes to mend, last night's tights to wash in the basin.... Lily, sitting on the edge of her bed, took her purse from where she had hidden it under the bolster—a habit she had acquired in marriage, because of Trampy's nightly ferretings—and emptied it on the sheets: one blue banknote; one, two, three gold coins. How much did that make in pounds, shillings and pence? ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... come in. Then she drew a sword and thrust it at Thord and gave him great wounds, the sword striking his right arm and wounding him on both nipples. So hard did she follow up the stroke that the sword stuck in the bolster. Then Aud went away and to her horse and leapt on to its back, and thereupon rode home. Thord tried to spring up when he got the blow, but could not, because of his loss of blood. Then Osvif awoke and asked what had happened, and Thord told that he ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... vestige of smoke vanished, neither said a word, but sat there silent, with clasped hands. The bitterness of disappointment wore away slowly, and as the uneventful hours left them in the same helpless condition, they fell again into fitful conversation, merely to thus bolster up courage, and lead their minds to other thoughts. It was maddening to sit there motionless and stare off across the desolate water, seeing nothing but those white-crested surges sweeping constantly toward them, and to feel the continuous ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... a thing first, and then searches for proof to bolster his opinion. Every observer must have noticed the tenuous, cobweb quality of reasons that are deemed sufficient to the person who thinks he knows, or whose interests lie in a certain direction. The limitations ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... could leave something in your bed that looked vaguely like you in the dark? A bolster with a pyjama-coat round it, and one arm outside the blanket, and a pair of socks or something for the head. You know the kind of thing. I think it would please him to feel that you were ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... most extraordinary and indescribable: a hundred elephants were tearing through the jungle as rapidly as their unwieldy forms would let them, crushing down the heavy jungle in their headlong career, while their riders were gesticulating violently, each man punishing his elephant, or making a bolster of himself as he flung his body on one side or the other to avoid branches; while some, Ducrow-like, and confident in their activity, were standing on the bare backs of their elephants, holding only by the looped rope,—a feat I found easy enough in the open country, but fearfully ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... near, and night is our day. Softly, with feet of moss, the Shadow stalks out of the South. The brilliant eye of the Sun is blotted over, and with a remorseless mantle of mist the silvery cusp of the new moon is enfolded. Follow fast the stars, the little brethren of the sky; and like a huge bolster of fog the Shadow scales the ramparts of the dawn. We are lost in the blur of doom, and the long sleep of the missing months is heavy upon our eyelids. We rail not at the coward Sun-God who fled fearing the Shadow, but creep noiselessly to the caves. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... in the main arcade are of Barnack stone, which is harder than clunch and so more suitable for bearing a weight. The Norman stonework was cut with an axe, the Transition with a chisel. The Early English is bolster-tooled; the Decorated ashlar (including the bays on the south side of the nave) is claw-tooled, the mouldings being scraped; the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... skulks on one knee behind his canoe, pushing it with one hand, and dragging himself along by the aid of the other. Then, it is disagreeable to have to use a gun so heavy that the stock is fitted with a horsehair pillow, or even with a small bolster. The whistle of widgeon and the shrill-sounding pinions of wild geese may be attractive noises, and no doubt all shooting is exciting; and a form of shooting which stakes all on one shot must offer some thrilling moments of expectation. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... tumbled in every direction, inside and out; ribbons, laces on floors; chairs overturned; my desk wide open covered with letters, trinkets, etc.; bureau drawers half out, the bed filled with odds and ends of everything. I no longer recognized my little room. On the bolster was a little box, at the sight of which I burst out laughing. Five minutes before the alarm, Miriam had been selecting those articles she meant to take to Greenwell, and, holding up her box, said, "If we were forced to run for our lives without a moment's warning, I'd risk my life to save this, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... merry bowl Again shall bolster up my soul Against itself. What, good man, hold! Canst tell me where red wine is sold? Nay, just beyond yon peach-tree? There? Good luck be thine; ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... seem advisable or proper to suppress an article which had been admitted into other general collections of voyages and travels. The remainder of this introduction is from the work of Mr J. R, Forster, extracted partly from Ramusio, and partly consisting of an ingenious attempt to explain and bolster up the more than dubious production of Marcolini: But these observations are here considerably abridged; as an extended, grave, and critical commentary on a narrative we believe fabulous, might appear incongruous, though it did not seem proper ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... Wilder, you dear old boy!" said Bessie, laughing and blushing, "though I sha'n't scold you, Charlie, for that!" in a whisper in my ear. "It's Dr. Bolster of Lee. Hiram has been riding all over the ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... making a game effort to bolster up that little tin-pot township with its coterie of highly-paid, useless officials, who for six years past have battened on the public revenues. It was the misfortune of a representative of this journal to be obliged to spend two weeks in Port Denison not long ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... ideal. We must really envisage the wants of humanity. We must want the wants of all men. We must get rid of the fascination for exclusiveness. Here, in a world full of folk, men are lonely. The rich are lonely. We are all frantic for fellow-souls, yet we shut souls out and bar the ways and bolster up the fiction of the Elect and the Superior when the great mass of men is capable of producing larger and larger numbers for every human height of attainment. To be sure, there are differences between men and groups and there will ever be, but they will be differences of beauty ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A noble purpose to a noble end, 160 Although it be the gallows or the block? 'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need These outward shows of gain to bolster her. Be it we prove the weaker with our swords; Truth only needs to be for once spoke out, And there's such music in her, such strange rhythm, As makes men's memories her joyous slaves, And clings around the soul, as the sky clings Round the mute earth, forever beautiful, And, if o'erclouded, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... threats so fervent and precise; but Gerard only gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hard bolster with kindling eye. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... laughingly, "I know everything! You don't at all come to look me up on account of verses or paintings, but simply to take revenge on P'ing Erh's behalf! I never had any idea that P'ing Erh had such a backer as yourself to bolster her up! Had I known it, I wouldn't have ventured to strike her, even though a spirit had been tugging my arm! Miss P'ing come over and let me tender my apologies to you, in the presence of your ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... beat well four fresh eggs, add them with the grated rind of a lemon, stirring until the mixture is thick like dough. Put it on a pasteboard and when cold roll to the desired thickness, about one-quarter of an inch thick; lay any kind of jam over the paste, roll it into a bolster-like form and bake. Serve cold, whole, or in slices nearly an inch thick. Time twenty ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... prison,—it required a man of more nerve than he had. The dread of the place which his poor wife had entertained seemed to have taken possession of him since her death. All the arguments which he once used, in the endeavor to bolster her courage, he had now forgotten. He was very cautious when he began to speak of the prisoner, and tried to divert Adolphus from the point by saying that he would much prefer a house full of convicts to one so empty as this. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... sat endeavouring to shake it off. He also tried to bolster himself up by thinking he might perhaps be able to assist his mother to come out from her narrowness, and discover too how warm and glorious the sun shone outside, where people loved and helped each other. Then ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... but for sympathy, his face, his voice, his manner all showed it, because his heart felt it. So gentle was he, so thoughtful, so calm, so absorbed in the case before him, not to turn round and look for a tribute to his sagacity, not to bolster himself in a favorite theory, but to find out all he could, and to weigh gravely and cautiously all that he found, that to follow him in his morning visit was not only to take a lesson in the healing art, it was learning how to learn, how to move, how to look, how to feel, if that ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... throat, and she went to the floor like a toppling bolster. It was the old man that lifted her face from the rug, ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. The son just wavered in his chair and ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the more readily because of the narrow way in which most professional Taxidermists bolster up their art in a secret and entirely unnecessary manner—unnecessary because amateur can, but by the severest application, possibly compete with the experience of the technical or professional worker. No pictorial artist ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... to bolster up Catholic courage. The intelligent Catholic layman of the present day makes his own observations, and draws his own conclusions as to the status and the future prospect of Protestantism. Therefore, he must be invited ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... General Washington with their principles. But that may have happened in this case which has been often seen in ordinary cases, that, by often repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves. It is a mere artifice in this party, to bolster themselves up on the revered name of that first of our worthies. If I have dwelt longer on this subject than was necessary, it proves the estimation in which I hold your ultimate opinions, and my desire of placing the subject truly before ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... eight. They were left orphans, and were obliged to take care of themselves. Many of the articles of furniture left them had been disposed of to supply the calls of urgent want. In the room was an old four post bedstead, with curtains almost worn out, one mattrass with two small pillows, a bolster that was almost flat, three old blankets and cotton sheets, of coarse description, three rush-bottom chairs, an old claw table, a chest of draws, with a few battered band-boxes on the top of it, a miserable bit of carpet before the fire-place, a ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... should mention all the other things that go to bolster up a belly, it would be a waste of time. I must off this minute to perform my official duties and pass judgment on bacon and help out hams that are still untried and in suspense. [EXIT INTO HOUSE, ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... let go of the ropes at the same time. Together they dropped down to the hay—and then something happened! The two older Bobbsey children jumped too near the edge of the mow, where the hay was piled in a big roll, like a great feather bed bolster, over the top rail. And Bert and Nan, in their drop, caused a big pile of hay—almost a wagonload—to slip from the mow and down to the barn floor. And directly underneath were Flossie ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... firm in the whirlwind of opinions, that she needed not to bolster it by bigotry. To the friends, who once murmured against her too great tolerance, she replied, "Of what use is it to live, if one is never to hear any thing but his own voice?" Her compassion and her patience were unconquerable. Nothing ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... social scale. It was not a simple matter of ordering pills for them from the pharmacy, or castor oil from the medicine room. I had to sit beside their beds when they heard the truth; I had to see the women crumple up and go limp; I had to tell the blind child's father that he did it, to bolster up the weak girl, to rebuild the wife's broken ideals, to suppress the rowdy and the roysterer, to hear the vows of the boy who was paying for his first mistake, and listen to the stories of the pimp and the seducer. What made syphilis terrible ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... have led to a long and recriminatory correspondence in the columns of The Tittersham Observer. The Rev. Eldred Bolster, Vicar of Little Titley, writing in the issue of May 9th, characterises them as grotesque and preposterous fabrications. He points out, to begin with, that the Nether Wambleton Parish Magazine only contains eighteen pages, of which no fewer than sixteen are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... kept her love intact, because She would not be a partisan; Not hers the voice that made the laws, Nor hers prerogative to ban, Or bolster them ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... pairs of sheets, three pairs of pillow cases, three bolster cases, one or two pairs of blankets, two counterpanes, and an ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... thoroughly fictitious and illegitimate was this Theodoric's claim to kinship; since assuredly neither Alaric, nor Ataulfus, nor Theudemir, nor any of the genuine kings of the Goths, ever needed to bolster up their authority over their subjects by any such figment of an Imperial concession; and on the other hand, as it coincides in date with the time of Theudemir's and his Theodoric's entrance into the Empire, it shows us the distracting influences to which the large number ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... servants; into each of whose care the articles are to be entrusted, with a list, the same as is done with plate. Tickets of parchment with the family name, numbered, and specifying what bed it belongs to, should be sewed on each feather bed, bolster, pillow, and blanket. Knives, forks, and house cloths are often deficient: these accidents might be obviated, if an article at the head of every list required the former to be produced whole or broken, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... did themselves about eatin'. We all had the same kind of food. All had plenty of clothes but only one pair of shoes a year. People went barefooted a lot then more than they do now. We had good places to sleep, straw mattresses and chickenfeather beds and feather bolsters. A bolster reached clear across the head of ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... on it wor, at when at last he did fall asleep, it wor to dream at he'd wed an angel just like her, an he wakkened to find th' bolster cuddled up in his arms. Sundy passed someway, but nawther schooil nor sarmon did him onny gooid. Unconsciously he'd set up an idol an wor worshippin it wi all th' ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... them. What a collection was in those old-time linen chests! Humphreys, in her Catherine Schuyler, copies the inventory of articles in one: "35 homespun Sheets, 9 Fine sheets, 12 Tow Sheets, 13 bolster-cases, 6 pillow-biers, 9 diaper brakefast cloathes, 17 Table cloathes, 12 damask Napkins, 27 homespun Napkins, 31 Pillow-cases, 11 dresser Cloathes and a damask Cupboard Cloate." And this too before the day of the washing-machine, ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... volunteers in a semi-circle at the back of the stage, Mr. Curtis, standing in the centre of the stage, again addressed his audience. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said; "the secret of separating the mind—or what Spiritualists, who love to bolster up their pretended knowledge of the other world by the invention of pretentious nomenclature, call the 'ethical ego'—from the body, lies in intense concentration. If you wish to acquire the power, practise concentration—concentrate ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... knock at the door. McShane was summoned, and soon returned, saying, "There's a little fellow that wants to speak with you, and won't give his message. He's a queer little body, and not so bad-looking either, with a bolster on the top of his head, and himself not higher than a pillow; a pigeon could sit upon his shoulder and peck up peas out of his shoes; he struts like a grenadier, and, by the powers! a grenadier's cap would serve as an extinguisher for him. Shall ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... to bolster up my nerve, Jack It's mighty nice of you in the bargain. I'll need your counsel more than a few times from now on, and I'm right glad I can have some one to go to when I feel so sick with the suspense, All the while I'm waiting and hoping I've got to tremble every time my father speaks to me That's ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... bolster, in her little old plain linen nightdress buttoning to her neck, two long plaits hanging over her shoulders. The light of the rose-shaded lamp streamed on the flowery walls and floor of her compulsory ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... she was light. Still, it was no easy matter to get her limp form into his arms. With a desperate effort he got her on his knee; with an inelegant hitch he sent her across his shoulder, where she hung like a limp bolster, as he made for the fence. May and Tottie stood there rooted to the earth in horror. To walk on uneven ground with such a burden was bad enough, but Phil had to run. How he did it he never could tell, but he reached the ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... house, and never laid her gloom aside. He would have made a struggle for some domestic comfort, had any seemed to be within his reach. As it was, he struggled for domestic propriety, believing that he might so best bolster up his present lot in life. But the task became harder and harder to him, and the gloom became denser and more dense. He did not think of her unhappiness, but of his own; as she did not think of his tedium, but of hers. "If ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... it dramatically. "I'll not let them take me," he shouted, as if to bolster up courage by the sound of his own voice. "I'll never ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... But now the farce is at an end, and they must annex Granthistan. Our ikbal[1] stands fairly high, but it can't take the risk of a war bad enough to drag the C.-in-C. from his Olympian retirement every two or three years. I'm sorry for Sir Edmund, who has done his very best to bolster up the Durbar, but facts are ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... vainly hoping for a reestablishment of the imperial regimen, as they pinned their fate to this last desperate conflict. Among these, none had been prouder, none more loyal to the Spanish Sovereign, and none more liberal in dispensing its great wealth to bolster up a hopeless cause than the ancient and aristocratic family at whose head stood Don Ignacio Jose Marquez de Rincon, distinguished member of the Cabildo, and most loyal subject of his imperial majesty, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... haid up wid de blanket—an' de bolster—an' de piller when hit's astormin'," said Hattie, in an awed undertone. "An' Ah squeals lak a pig ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon |
