"Mainstay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to discourse as he pleased: his wife was wholly given to the recent visitor to Earlsfont, whom she informed that Caroline was the youngest daughter of General Adister, her second brother, and an excellent maiden, her dear Edward's mainstay in his grief. At last she rose, and was escorted to the door by all present. But Captain Con rather shame-facedly explained to Patrick that it was a sham departure; they had to follow without a single ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... has blown over his contemporaries, and left empty space there." Still, when he saw his childish religious faith departing from him, as he thinks it must necessarily depart from all intelligent male Parisians, he wept. Since that moment, however, a gaiety, serene and imperturbable, has been the mainstay of his happily constituted character. The girl to whom his uncle desires to see him united—odd, quixotic, intelligent, with a sort of pathetic and delicate grace, and herself very religious—belongs ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... in it. I should have gone again to-day to the Davenport range, to see if I could find the quartz reefs by striking it more to the south-west, but it would be too much for the horses, which are my mainstay, and this water will not last longer than to-day; it is going very fast. I do wish to goodness it would rain, for I do hate going back. Muller returned at sundown. He has been about twelve miles down the ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... seeds. The export of cotton jumped from 192,000 lbs. in 1791 to 6,000,000 lbs. in 1795. Slave labour had been found, or was believed, to be especially economical in cotton growing. Slavery therefore rapidly became the mainstay of wealth and of the social system in South Carolina and throughout the far South; and in a little while the baser sort of planters in Virginia discovered that breeding slaves to sell down South was a ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... of Widow O'Neill," he answered, without trepidation, in the native Irish in which he was addressed, "and I am her mainstay and support. If you hang me you will bring the malediction of Heaven, and the widow's curse will rest upon you. If I know your secrets, I am not about to divulge them; I am too much of an Irishman to do that, if I give you my promise that I ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... mainstay. Her last forgery was a very serious affair—she did not realize how serious, or how large the sum, until the first excitement had died down, and all the money had been paid away. The possibility of raising any more funds ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... page shows the quantity and value of the principal exports of the Dominican Republic since 1913 and is the best illustration of the fact that agriculture is the mainstay of the country. ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... Arignotus, who was generally looked up to as a man of inspired wisdom—my incredulous attitude towards the supernatural was loudly condemned on all hands. However, I was not frightened by his long hair, nor by his reputation. 'Dear, dear!' I exclaimed, 'so Arignotus, the sole mainstay of Truth, is as bad as the rest of them, as full of windy imaginings! Our treasure proves to be but ashes.' 'Now look here, Tychiades,' said Arignotus, 'you will not believe me, nor Dinomachus, ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... strain in Selma Gordon's character—impulse and frankness. But she was afraid of Victor Dorn as we all are afraid of those we deeply respect—those whose respect is the mainstay of our self-confidence. She was moving toward him to pour out the violence that was raging in her on the subject of this flirtation of Jane Hastings. The spectacle of a useless and insincere creature like that trifling with her deity, and ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... acting as cook and mother for a brood of ten. A few months later she persuaded the father to let the girl come down to her school, and in the succeeding years she became St. Hilda's right hand and the mainstay in the supervision of the kitchen, housework, and laundry, and even in the management of the Mission's farm. No one had the subtle understanding of St. Hilda's charges as had Juno—no one could handle them quite so well. So that it was with real grief and great personal ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... life might have been called a game of cards. He carried a deck forever next his heart. Sometimes he gambled with other vehicles—stocks, shares, currency—but the cards were still his mainstay, and he was well acquainted with every known or obsolete game. There was no trick, nor fraud, nor waggery which he had not at ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... of stern dispute may have had their influence on the sturdy English soldier living in the midst of Dutch life and Dutch disputations, and made him lean to the side of Puritanism, even if never openly avowing it as his religious faith. It is, indeed, a singular fact that the mainstay and chief protector of the first Puritan colonists of America was neither of their communion nor of their connection, and is openly censured by Puritan writers as one who, so says Hubbard, "had been a soldier in the Low Countries and had never entered the school ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... and two centuries later. It followed that when native industries were forbidden or their output monopolized not only by the Dutch West India Company in New Netherlands, but by other companies elsewhere in the colonies, that ownership of land became the mainstay of large private fortunes with agriculture as an accompanying factor. Subsequently the effects of this continuous policy were more fully seen when England by law after law paralyzed or closed up many forms of colonial manufacture. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... were in the midst of our labours, and warmly begged us to leave everything to her, as she would put our things away for us. The red-haired young lady had sent her, and she became a mainstay of practical comfort to us during our visit. She seemed a haven of humanity after the conventions of the drawing-room. From her we got incidental meals when we were hungry, spirits of wine when Fatima's ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Brazils, and a gale came on, that I never seed the like of. We were obliged to have three men stationed to hold the captain's hair on his head, and a little boy was blown over the moon, and slid down by two or three of her beams, till he caught the mainstay, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... reserved woman who maintained shiny order in her house. "She even scalds her dishes," folks said, which by the water-hauling populace was considered unpardonable aristocracy. Imbert was the pride and mainstay of his parents. There were warm fires, clean soft beds, and a real Christmas dinner. There was corn-popping, and bob-sledding with jingling bells behind a prancing team, with Imbert and Ida Mary sitting together as ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... her brother who was one of the instructors at the Seminary. That he should have fallen in love with her, and soon become engaged to her is therefore not surprising. They were married the year after his graduation, and she continued a faithful, industrious and uncomplaining wife; his mainstay in ill-health and misfortune till the end. They were not always happy together; but it is a rare marriage where that is the case. Wasson's struggle with the world was often reflected in his own family, disturbing the harmony and comfort of it. His wife once said quite gravely, that there were ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... non-existence) and Parinirwana (absolute nothingness). Moreover, the great Turanian family, actually occupying all Eastern Asia, has ever ignored it; and the 200,000,000 of Chinese Confucians, the mass of the nation, protest emphatically against the mainstay of the western creeds, because it "unfits men for the business and duty of life by fixing their speculations on an unknown world." And even its votaries, in all ages, races and faiths, cannot deny that the next world ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... it would have been a profanation," said Felix. "I love you so deeply, with a tenderness so little proof against your wishes, that I promised a thing contrary to my conscience. Conscience, Celeste, is our treasure, our strength, our mainstay. How can you ask me to go into a church and kneel at the feet of a priest, in whom I can see only a man? You would despise me if ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Revenue. I. Land Tax.—In China, as in most oriental countries, the land has from time immemorial been the mainstay of the revenue. In the early years of the present dynasty there was levied along with the land tax a poll tax on all adult males, but in 1712 the two were amalgamated, and the whole burden was thrown upon land, families not possessing land ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... up the anchor with?" he was saying. "Why, with yonder big rope that goes from masthead to bows." and he pointed to the great mainstay of our ship. "One must have a long purchase, if you know ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... day, however, when she laid her well-worn family Bible aside. It had been her mother's, and amid all the anxieties and tribulations incident to the life of a woman who had free negroes and a miserable husband to manage, it had been her mainstay and comfort. She had frequently read it in anger, page after page, without knowing what was contained in the lines. But eventually the words became intelligible and took meaning. She wrested consolation from it by mere ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... anxiously. "Precious sight, and reasons of his own, says you. Reasons of his own; that's the mainstay; as between man and man. Well, then"—still holding me—"I reckon you can go, Jim. And, Jim, if you was to see Silver, you wouldn't go for to sell Ben Gunn? Wild horses wouldn't draw it from you? No, says you. And if them pirates camp ashore, Jim, what would ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in another place, "that the mainstay of an efficient reform is the adoption essentially of the Italian vowel system: it combines beauty, firmness and precision in a degree not equalled by any other system of which I have any knowledge. The little ragged boys in the streets of Rome and Florence enunciate ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... seen Jesus saying to me: "Abandon Me to become My disciple." This thought sustained and emboldened me. I may say that from that moment my Vie de Jesus was mentally written. Belief in the eminent personality of Jesus—which is the spirit of that book—had been my mainstay in my struggle against theology. Jesus has in reality ever been my master. In following out the truth at the cost of any sacrifice I was convinced that I was following Him and obeying the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... away of Lucy Stone, our president, the beloved pioneer of woman suffrage, who has been, ever since 1847, its mainstay and unfailing champion, the cause of equal rights in this State and throughout the Union has suffered an ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... is the mainstay of the small, open Aruban economy, with offshore banking and oil refining and storage also important. The rapid growth of the tourism sector over the last decade has resulted in a substantial expansion of other activities. Construction has ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... particularly beef, and in any of the big, popular "beer restaurants," so common in Berlin, an ordinary steak for one person costs from thirty-five to fifty cents. Pork, the mainstay of the poorer people, is comparatively expensive, because hogs have been made into durable hard sausages for the army, and potatoes, also expensive, have been bought up in large quantities by the government, to be sold in the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... which had beaten the O.B.s had not had the benefit of his assistance, Lorimer appearing in his stead. Lorimer was a fast right-hand bowler, deadly in House matches or on a very bad wicket. He was the mainstay of the Second Eleven attack, and in an ordinary year would have been certain of his First Eleven cap. This season, however, with Gosling, Baynes, and the Bishop, the School had been unusually strong, and Lorimer had had ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... written down, at her old Anna's dictation, a list of groceries and other things needed at the Trellis House. And then she looked round, instinctively, towards the corner of the large shop where all that remained of what had once been the mainstay of Manfred Hegner's business was always temptingly set forth. This was a counter of Delicatessen. Glancing at the familiar corner, Mr. Hegner's customer told herself that her eyes must be playing her false. In the place of the familiar sausages, herrings, the pretty ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... of the natural increase in population, we are not developing the industry of agriculture. We are not breeding in proportionate numbers a race of independent and independence-loving landowners, for a lack of which no growth of cities can compensate. Our farmers have been our mainstay in times of crisis, and in future it must still largely be upon their stability and common sense that this democracy must rely to conserve its ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... account, for lack of evidence. To all appearances it was the wildest wild beast in Asia, but hardly were my escort come up to view the spoil and acclaim my prowess, than there arrived also a wretched cultivator, swearing with tears and howls that I had wantonly destroyed the friend of his family, the mainstay of his lowly cot. I held a court on the spot, and desired to know what sum would compensate him for this cruel loss. The opportunity of taking in the stranger was too promising to resist, and he requested ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... you to be presented to her," Colonel Maclvor said to Hector. "Everyone knows her reputation; she is the cleverest woman in France, and one of the most intriguing. She is the queen's greatest friend, and has been her mainstay in her struggle with Richelieu. Of one thing we may be sure, that she will not tamely see Mazarin step into his place, and she has, it is whispered, already thrown herself into the arms of 'The Importants,' ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... remarks were not exactly what he had expected, and he did not know, at such short notice, how to answer them. Suddenly a hymn was started by a voice which every one knew, though they seldom heard it in prayer-meeting. It belonged to Judge Prency's wife, who for years had been the mainstay of every musical entertainment which had been dependent upon local talent. ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... all food usually carried on expeditions, none is so complete in itself, nor contains so large a proportion of nutriment as pemmican. It is especially useful to those who undergo severe work, in cold and rainy climates. It is the mainstay of Arctic expeditions, whether on water, by sledge, or on foot. But, though excellent to men who are working laboriously, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... penalties will dishonesty ever be completely extirpated from our midst, for the reason that its roots have struck too deep, and that the dishonourable traffic in bribes has become a necessity to, even the mainstay of, some whose nature is not innately venal. Also, I know that, to many men, it is an impossibility to swim against the stream. Yet now, at this solemn and critical juncture, when the country is calling aloud for saviours, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that example of fair and impartial justice—trial and execution." Jason coughed again and drained the bowl of water. "Didn't you ever hear of presumed innocence until proven guilty? It only happens to be the mainstay of all jurisprudence. And how could you possibly justify trying me on Cassylia for actions that occurred on this planet—that aren't crimes here? That's like taking a cannibal away from his tribe and executing him ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... tiller like the old one: her head fell off in an unlucky moment when seven waves were rolling in one, and, on coming to the windward again, she shipped a sea. It came in over her bow transversely; broke as high as the mainstay, and hid and buried the whole ship before the mast; carried away the waist bulwarks on both sides, filled the launch, and drowned the live stock which were in it; swept four water-butts and three men away into the sea, like corks and straws; and sent tons of water ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... were the mainstay of their living and to lose the hunt might mean privation. They were in need of the skins for clothing, kayaks and summer tents, and the flesh and blubber for food for themselves and their dogs, and the oil for their ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... Kadetten-Anstalten, military academies, of which Gross-Lichterfelde bei Berlin is the most famous. The real backbone and stiffening of the German army and navy is the noncommissioned officers recruited from the rank and file. In fact, this body of men is the mainstay of the thrones in the German Empire, especially of Prussia. These men, after about twelve years of service in an army where discipline, obedience, and efficiency are the first and last word, are then drafted into all the minor administrative ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... his meaning had depth to it. "Now I have formed a plan. There is old Uncle Israel and his wife; then there is the widow Manley, with four little children, suffering for want of the actual necessaries of life; and then there is Mrs. Williams—she is very poor. Her son Philip, who is her mainstay, was sick all the summer and fall, and is sick now; so the woman got nothing from her little patch of land, and is now absolutely reduced to beggary, with herself and sick son to support. Now let us take these three cases in ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... was bound to fail. Infidelity lives upon concealment. Shew it in broad daylight, hold it up before the world and make its hideousness manifest to all—then, and not till then, will the hours of unbelief be numbered. WE have been the mainstay of unbelief through our timidity. Far be it from me, therefore, that I should help any unbeliever by concealing his case for him. This were the most cruel kindness. On the contrary, I shall insist ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... in hand, during the whole time of his conversation with Dr. Gilbert; who made many flattering and benedictory remarks to Mr. Richardson, declaring that he was the supporter of virtue, the preacher of sound morals, the mainstay of religion, of all which points the honest printer himself ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their concert in a specially constructed "hall" in the desert. Sandbags were the mainstay of the platform and a large tarpaulin, G.S., formed the drop-scene. The walls were of rough canvas, upon which it was inadvisable to lean, lest the whole structure collapsed. Primitive, no doubt, but it suited the environment; and I have never seen in the most elaborate West-end theatre ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... are gifted with stronger wills than the nobler. In marrying us you style us, 'the mistress of the house,' and if the elders of the citizens grow infirm, in this country it is not the sons but the daughters that must be their mainstay. But we women have our weaknesses, and chief of these is curiosity.—May I ask on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at these names—for he was a man who could laugh—and to declare that his only ambition was to fight the devil under whatever name he might be allowed to carry on that battle. And he was always fighting the devil by opposing those pursuits which are the life and mainstay of such places as Littlebath. His chief enemies were card-playing and dancing as regarded the weaker sex, and hunting and horse-racing—to which, indeed, might be added everything under the name of sport—as regarded the stronger. Sunday comforts were also enemies ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... room. The girls at this lunch room had long borne a bad reputation. Even in the days before the big hotel had been built, when the railroad company maintained merely a little red frame building there, known as the Eating House, these waitresses had been a mainstay of local bachelordom. Their successors were still referred to by their natural enemies, the respectable ladies of the town, as "those awful eating house girls"; while the advent of a new "hash-slinger" was always a matter of considerable interest ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... husband bent over her and chafed her hands. About the room, but not near enough to intrude upon the sacred grief of the stricken mother and husband, sat several of the good women whose friendship had been the mainstay of the three. Through the window, gaining brilliance from the ice-laden branches outside, fell the rays of the setting sun, glorifying the room and the bed. Scarce a word was spoken, but upon the request of the dying girl for music one of the visitors began to sing in low, tremulous tones, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... Americans, Davis and Young, his faithful friends and subjects, and they proved his mainstay in the work of conquest. It was no easy matter, even with his cannon and muskets. The chiefs of the other islands resisted him fiercely, and it took many years, with all the stern will and unyielding perseverance ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... this, again, hinged to some extent upon the course of fashions there. On one occasion the fashion of wearing low-crowned hats cut the value of beaver skins in two. Beaver was the fur of furs, and the mainstay of the trade. Whether for warmth, durability, or attractiveness in appearance, there was none other to equal it. Not all beaver skins were valued alike, however. Those taken from animals killed during the winter were preferred to those taken at other seasons, while new skins did not bring as high ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... personal form or features, but dress and manners came within the permitted range and the complaints were regularly mailed to the offenders. This surprised me a little as I would have thought that such a practice would have made the League unpopular, but on the contrary, it was considered the mainstay of the organization, for the recipient of the complaint, if a non-member, very often joined the League immediately, hoping ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... And there's a feeling about the old regiment too. I can excuse her, though I wish she had not been so impatient. I fancy that eldest daughter is really a good girl and the mainstay ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... canon law, might be in a state of grace, for war was as necessary as eating, drinking or any other business. Statesmen like Machiavelli and Bacon were keen for the largest armies {488} possible, as the mainstay of a nation's power. Only Erasmus was a clear-sighted pacifist, always declaiming against war and once asserting that he agreed with Cicero in thinking the most unjust peace preferable to the justest war. Elsewhere he admitted that ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... confidential, and little by little they unfolded to one another the story of their lives. One prisoner, well versed in law, who knew Antonio's father, showed the boy much sympathy. Another prisoner, a sailor, grieved over the old parents whose mainstay he had been for many years. "Oh," sighed he, "now hunger and want will overtake them." Another, a fisherman, somewhat older than the rest, was the saddest of them all. He sat apart at one end of the ship, holding his head in ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... one juicy fruit is suggested, another may be substituted. In place of the succulent vegetables named, others may be used. Any of the starches may be selected in place of the ones given. However, no mistake will be made in using the whole wheat products as the starch mainstay. ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... have most explosive results. It found expression first in a further revolt against the dominion of the Roman Church. Most of the sovereigns joined in a determined attack against the Jesuits, the enthusiastic and devoted priests who had become the mainstay of the papal power. After a long resistance, the Jesuits succumbed; their order was abolished by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... and beautiful Sophie Arnould, who had a train of princes at her feet, was the principal exponent of Gluck's heroines, while Mile. La-guerre was the mainstay of the Piccinists. The rival factions made the names of these charming and capricious women their war-cries not less than those of the composers. The public bowed and cringed before these idols of the stage. Gaetan Vestris, the first of ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... neighbourhood proved himself a mainstay of help and consolation during this time of general anxiety and suspense, and this was Julian Adderley. He was always at hand and willing to be of service. He threw his 'dreams' of poesy to the winds and became poet ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... official circle. He was then sent as the representative of Prussia to the restored Diet of Frankfort. As an absolutist and a conservative, brought up in the traditions of the Holy Alliance, Bismarck had in earlier days looked up to Austria as the mainstay of monarchical order and the historic barrier against the flood of democratic and wind-driven sentiment which threatened to deluge Germany. He had even approved the surrender made at Olmuetz in 1850, as a matter of necessity; but the belief now grew ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... first stone at the dictates of conscience and with a sort of holy joy in her own fitness to do so. For years she had been the richest woman in Middleborough, the head of everything charitable and religious, the mainstay of ministers, the court of final appeal in the case of sinners and backsliders. Now, in a moment, through no fault of her own, the whole fabric of her life had crumbled. Again had ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... to the horrible nature of such a proceeding. I will now relate a tale somewhat resembling those already given, but in this latter case, the supposed changeling became the mainstay of his family. I am indebted for the Gors Goch legend to an essay, written by Mr. D. Williams, Llanfachreth, Merionethshire, which took the prize at the Liverpool Eisteddfod, 1870, and which appears in a publication called ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... largely under the personal direction of the proprietor, assisted by his manager, M. Otto Schenk, to whose ability and energy, M. Durend was always ready to acknowledge, it owed much of its success. The latter was now, of course, the mainstay of the business, and it was with every confidence in his ability that Madame Durend appointed him general manager with ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... pot of his own manufacture is his mainstay. It resembles the ollas or earthen pots used so universally throughout the Philippines. In addition to this there is used, though very rarely among the remote Manbos, an imported cast-iron pan.[5] It is from 5 centimeters to 10 centimeters ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the original proposition, eleven had been postponed for further consideration, and seventeen had been directly negatived. The hundred and seventh ordered the bodily searching of nuns for jesuitical symbols by aged clergymen, and was considered to be the real mainstay of the whole bill. No intention had ever existed to pass such a law as that proposed, but the government did not intend to abandon it till their object was fully attained by the discussion of this clause. It was known that it would be ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Miss Lucy, aged about twelve, and a little son, aged about ten years. They occupied a neat cottage near his quarters. They were a nice, intelligent family, then in deep mourning for a son and brother, the hope and mainstay of the family, who had fallen in battle a few months before. Young Dean had proved so good a soldier and had so distinguished himself for personal bravery from all the battles through the Wilderness on down to Petersburg, that his officers had given ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... the elders, and offenders were judged in kirk-sessions. Witchcraft, Sabbath desecration, and sexual laxities were the most prominent and popular sins. The mainstay of the system is the idea that the Bible is literally inspired; that the preachers are the perhaps inspired interpreters of the Bible, and that the country must imitate the old Hebrew persecution of "idolaters," ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... spirit of indocility which caused great embarrassment to the governor. Although in time of peace the freebooters kept the French settlements in continual danger of ruin by reprisal, in time of war they were the mainstay of the colony. As the governor, therefore, was dependent upon them for protection against the English, Spanish and Dutch, although he withdrew their commissions he dared not punish them for their crimes. The ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... never find out. She's been jawing me no end about responsibility, and looking after the kids and supporting the mater and all that. Rubbed it in hard, I can tell you! Great Juggins! Do I look like the mainstay ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... Bett-Bett one of the shadows but she persisted that she was the mainstay of the staff. "Me all day dust 'im paper, me round 'im up goat" she would say. "Me sit ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Rockingham became Premier, and a week later Burke, through the good offices of an admiring friend who had come to know him in the newly-founded Turk's Head Club, became Rockingham's private secretary. He was now the mainstay, if not the inspirer, of Rockingham's policy of pacific compromise in the vexed questions between England and the American colonies. Burke's elder brother, who had lately succeeded to his father's property, ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... own seams, I'll miss my reckonin'. I've had a strong foreknowledge that we wouldn't get across in her. I saw the rats leaving in Jamaica—taking up their line of march, like marines on the fore. It's a sure sign. And then I'd a dream, which is as sure as a mainstay—never deceives me. I can depend on its presentiment. I have dreamed it several times, and we always had an awful passage. Twice we come within a bobstay of all goin' to Old Davy's store-house. I once ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... of the Controller-General. To prevent unnecessary expense on fitting out or refitting of any of the cruisers, the use of leather was to be restricted to the following: the leathering of the main pendants, runners in the wake of the boats when in tackles, the collar of the mainstay, the nip of the main-sheet block strops, leathering the bowsprint traveller, the spanshackle for the bowsprit, topmast iron, the four reef-earings three feet from the knot. All old copper, copper-sheathing, ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... as to the former, why should I not permit him to hang about a little longer? I see you do not quite take me. I will, therefore, endeavor to explain myself more clearly! If, for instance, I should be too quick in issuing a writ, I provide him in doing so with a species of moral support or mainstay—I see you are laughing?" (Raskolnikoff, on the contrary, had no such desire; his lips were set, and his glaring look was not removed from Porphyrius's eyes.) "I assure you that in actual practice such is really ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... spoke of were natural enough. He was the founder and mainstay of the association—probably paid its expenses. The whole object of the institution, it may be suspected, was to exalt the founder. In such a state of things, it was natural that there should be an opposition, or discontented party, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... the first, 50 miles and the other 40, till they reached the sea, pouring a flood of white hot lava into the ocean, destroying everything in their paths and killing in the waters of the ocean the fish, the mainstay of the inhabitants, who were reduced by the disaster, directly or indirectly, to less than five-sixths of their former strength; and third to that of Galungung, in 1822, which devastated such an immense area in Java; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... mainstay, was irrevocably gone. He realised that, and it was a severe blow. He must accept it. As for Mrs. Braiding managing, she would manage in a kind of way, but the risks to Regency furniture and china would be grave. She did not understand Regency furniture ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... to the events of 1880. Finding that the Premier was no longer to be the mainstay of their hopes, the Boers began to renew their agitations. These agitations, it will be remembered, during the end of the Zulu war and Sir Garnet Wolseley's arrival in the Transvaal, were merely suppressed, because at that time British ascendency throughout the country seemed to be established. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... English sailors with a belief in their own invincibility, when opposed to the Spaniards. They looked, to a certain extent, upon their mission as a crusade. In those days England had a horror of Popery, and Spain was the mainstay and supporter of this religion. The escape which England had had of having Popery forced upon it, during the reign of Mary, by her spouse, Philip of Spain, had been a narrow one; and even now, it was by no means certain that Spain would not, sooner ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... leaving the party to make the best of their way to the heights above the valley where we had first encamped, and where plenty of food and water could be found for the ponies; these, in the event of anything having happened to the schooner, would become the mainstay of our hopes. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... of the road to the village, and nearly opposite the forge, was a small cabin of one room, the abode of the respectable Mrs. Wallop, the mainstay of Beechhurst as a nurse in last illnesses and dangerous cases—a woman of heart and courage, though perhaps of too imaginative a style of conversation. Although it was but a work-day, she was sitting at her own door in her Sunday black gown and bonnet, and, ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Barlow, graduates of the great French Revolution University, had come to teach them the new jargon: the virtue and wisdom of the people; the natural rights of man; the natural propensity of rulers and priests to ignore them; and other similar high-sounding words, the shibboleth and the mainstay of the Democratic party to this day. The Anti-Federalists were as much pleased to learn that they had been contending for these beautiful phrases as was Monsieur Jourdain when told he had been speaking de la prose all his life. They assumed the title of Citizen, invented ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... seen on new farms, and that may fairly be termed the pioneer's mainstay, is a simple one of stakes. This is the kind we went in for, as we had the material for it in any quantity upon our ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... beyond the possibility of belief," he says, "thet them conglomerations uv ice, hard froze an' lookin' ez tight fixed ez a mainstay, for all thet hev a downard slitherin' motion, jest like a stream o' water, tho' in coorse thousands or millions o' ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... Reading, for the St. Quentins afterwards removed to 22 Hans Place, where they had under their charge Mary Russell Mitford. Still later, after the fall of Napoleon, the St. Quentins moved to Paris, together with Miss Rowden, who had long been the mainstay of the school. It was while the school was here that it received Fanny Kemble among ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... In another charter, given by the lord of the manor in 1305, the first allusion is made to Welsh coal, for the people among other privileges are allowed to dig "pit-coal in Ballywasta." Thus began the industry that has become the mainstay of prosperity in South Wales. Warwick's Castle at Swansea has entirely disappeared, the present ruins being those of a castle afterwards built by Henry de Gower, who became Bishop of St. David's. What is left of it is almost hidden by modern buildings. It has the remains of a curtain-wall and ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... perhaps—but they have also gotten us into commercial and political difficulties. Yet I give to them—a little—it is a matter of conscience with me to identify myself with all the enterprises of the Church; it is the mainstay of social order and a prosperous civilization. But the best forms of benevolence are the well-established, organized ones here at home, where people can see them and know ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... eastern Canada, following the fur trade. They have followed up the Red River and down the Athabasca, and they have overrun all the intervening tribes and elected themselves chiefs and bosses pretty much. You may call the Cree half-breed the mainstay of ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... Universal Ointment in from the bunk-house, and while that fiery mixture warmed her lame back, the thought of its origin probably warmed her lonely heart. I have suddenly wakened up to the fact that Struthers is getting on a bit. She is still the same efficient and self-obliterating mainstay of the kitchen that she ever was, but she grows more "sot" in her ways, more averse to any change in her daily routine, and more despairing of ever finally and completely capturing that canny old Scotsman whom we still so affectionately designate as Whinnie, in short for ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... curule ancestors, were united into one body with the patrician families, and became a sort of hereditary nobility. This body of exclusive families really possessed the political power of the State. The Senate was made up from their members, and was the mainstay of Roman nobility. The equites, or equestrian order, was also composed of the patricians and wealthy plebeians. Noble youths gradually withdrew from serving in the infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a closed aristocratic corps. Not only were the nobles the possessors of senatorial privileges, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... December 1592, deprived Philip of the genius which had for years past been the mainstay of his power. Henry's public announcement of his return to the Holy Catholic Church, in the summer of 1593, deprived the Spanish king of nearly all the support he had hitherto received in France. Before this Maurice had opened his attack on the two great cities which the Spaniards still ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... Thus, though the mainstay of the analysis, or at least the original point of departure, is the difference in the names of the divine Being, many other phenomena, of vocabulary, style, and theology, are so distinctive that on the basis of them ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... Overview: The mainstay of Andorra's economy is tourism. An estimated 13 million tourists visit annually, attracted by Andorra's duty-free status and by its summer and winter resorts. Agricultural production is limited by a scarcity of arable land, and most ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the arrangement of the original work, and unite two sections which Mr. Rarey has divided, either because when he wrote them he was not aware of the importance of what is really the cardinal point, the mainstay, the foundation of his system, or because he wished to conceal it from the uninitiated. The Rarey system substitutes for severe longeing, for whipping and spurring, blinkers, physic, starving, the twitch, tying the tail ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... the son of a London goldsmith.[24] Oswald Cary, who settled in Middlesex in 1659 was the son of an English merchant.[25] There was no man in the colony during the second half of the 17th century that exerted a more powerful influence in political affairs than Philip Ludwell. He was for years the mainstay of the commons and he proved to be a thorn in the flesh of more than one governor. He was admired for his ability, respected for his wealth and feared for his power, an admitted leader socially and politically ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... he said brokenly. "Dinna you break doon noo, for you hae been the mainstay o' us a', when we wad hae lost heart often. I used to think that oor lot couldna be harder, when the bairns were a' wee, an' we were struggling frae haun' to mooth, to see them fed an' cled. But wi' a' the hardships, thae days were happy. We were baith young, an' I was ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... Xenocrates from taking an oath in the witness-box, or when, upon the accounts of Metellus Numidicus[99] being as usual handed round, a Roman jury refused to look at them. The compliment paid me, I repeat, was much greater. Accordingly, as the jurymen were protecting me as the mainstay of the country, it was by their voices that the defendant was overwhelmed, and with him all his advocates suffered a crushing blow. Next day my house was visited by as great a throng as that which escorted me home when I laid down the ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... producing constant revenue from year to year, mere fiction will accomplish little to make or save the publisher. The real sources of stability lie elsewhere, far beyond the ken of the superficial observer, and they are very commonly overlooked. In one instance, this mainstay is religious books; in another a cyclopaedia; in another medical books, or educational; in another a dictionary; in another a periodical; and fortunate the house that has not one, but two or three, such sources ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... ranks in the march of life, and perish by the wayside. And such comrades! Gone the brilliant, meteoric A'Beckett; fiery, impulsive, scathing Jerrold; playfully cynical Thackeray; and now—John Leech! There stood Shirley Brooks, who since Jerrold's death has been Punch's literary mainstay; Tom Taylor, working now in other channels, but still attached to the staff; Horace Mayhew and Percival Leigh, old colleagues of the dead man; F. C. Burnand and H. Silver, the youngest of the corps; ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... admiration, seems already at this time to have been extraordinary. Of the theatricals which the young folks were wont to get up at the paternal house, especially on the name-days of their parents and friends, Frederick was the soul and mainstay. With a good delivery he combined a presence of mind that enabled him to be always ready with an improvisation when another player forgot his part. A clever Polish actor, Albert Piasecki, who was stage-manager on these ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the seas. A numerous and happy band of workmen look up to you as to a father. By calling new branches of industry into existence, you have laid the foundations of the welfare of hundreds of families. In a word—you are, in the fullest sense of the term, the mainstay of our community. ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... Nor was this all. Such was the attraction of the privateer's life that it drew to it seamen from every branch of the maritime calling. The fisheries and the West India trade, which had long been the chief mainstay of New England commerce, were ruined, and it seemed for a time as if the hardy race of American seamen were to degenerate into a mere body of buccaneers, operating under the protection of international law, but plunderers and spoilers nevertheless. Fortunately, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... his time and not destined to many more years of life. With the perfect and self-sacrificing courage which he always showed, he did not shrink from this new demand, although Ezekiel was the prop and mainstay of the house. He did not think for a moment of himself, yet, while he gave his consent, he made it conditional on that of the mother and daughters whom he felt he was soon to leave. But Mrs. Webster had the same spirit as her husband. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... mother died, and many brilliant visions of hope filled her ambitious little head. Yes, father would see that he was right in trusting her; Nell would discover that there was no one so clever as Polly; Mrs. Power would cease to defy her; Alice would obey her cheerfully; in short, she would be the mainstay and prop ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... each year, and had been compelled not only to spend its accumulated surplus on current needs, but to borrow heavily. The tariff duties, collected at the custom-houses, were, as they always had been, the mainstay of the revenue. But these had not met the needs of the three ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... time for evacuation. To his rage panic seized his men and they turned and fled, leaving him almost alone not a hundred yards from the enemy. A stray shot at that moment might have influenced greatly modern history, for, as events were soon to show, Washington was the mainstay of the American cause. He too had to get away and Howe's force landed easily enough. Meanwhile, on the west shore of the island, there was an animated scene. The roads were crowded with refugees fleeing northward from New York. These civilians Howe had no reason ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... that, if ever they had the imprudence to change any of their old laws, they would necessarily never have more than one meal a day as long as they lived. Finally, he recalled to their recollection that he had made the island what it was, that he was their mainstay, and that his counsel and exertions had rendered them the wonder of the world. Thus, between force, and fear, and flattery, the Vraibleusians paid for their corn nearly its weight in gold; but what did that signify to a nation with ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli |
