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Pillar   Listen
noun
Pillar  n.  
1.
The general and popular term for a firm, upright, insulated support for a superstructure; a pier, column, or post; also, a column or shaft not supporting a superstructure, as one erected for a monument or an ornament. "Jacob set a pillar upon her grave." "The place... vast and proud, Supported by a hundred pillars stood."
2.
Figuratively, that which resembles such a pillar in appearance, character, or office; a supporter or mainstay; as, the Pillars of Hercules; a pillar of the state. "You are a well-deserving pillar." "By day a cloud, by night a pillar of fire."
3.
(R. C. Ch.) A portable ornamental column, formerly carried before a cardinal, as emblematic of his support to the church. (Obs.)
4.
(Man.) The center of the volta, ring, or manege ground, around which a horse turns.
From pillar to post, hither and thither; to and fro; from one place or predicament to another; backward and forward. (Colloq.)
Pillar saint. See Stylite.
Pillars of the fauces. See Fauces, 1.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pillar" Quotes from Famous Books



... continuity, this prestige of antiquity, this resting back on a great body of experience, unless we know and use the language and the phrases of our fathers. It is to the God who hath been our dwelling place in all generations, that we pray; to Him who in days of old was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to His faithful children; to the One who is the Ancient of Days, Infinite Watcher of the sons of men. Only by acquaintance with the phrases, the petitions of the past, and ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... Claud, starting back, with suspended oar, as now, coming out in view of the lake, his eye fell on the huge pillar of smoke, which, deeply enshrouding that part of the distant forest lying east of the outlet of the lake with its expanded base, was rolling upward its thousand dark, doubling folds; "good Heavens, Phillips, look yonder! Where ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... to see the cloven hoof," said Marston, bitterly, and raising his booted foot a little as he spoke; "but, after all, I am but a vulgar sinner of flesh and blood, without enough of the preternatural about me to frighten an old nurse, much less to agitate a pillar ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... step, clinging to the veranda pillar. He came hastily to her, the darkness covering the emotions that had paled his face, and bent over the exhausted girl, kissing her ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... of national interest was engraved upon it. Such memorials have been described by Hebrew writers as aumad or ammod, literally, the lips of the people, or, the words of the people, but actually meaning a pillar. Records in this form and the early name they bore account for the strange legends of mediaeval times referring to speaking stones—a name by which such monuments were probably still called long after time had effaced the speaking record, and the original ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... waist, the form was about as complete an example of female anatomy as humanity could show of whatever race or clime. The head, well set, was carried rather proudly, the cut of the cool, light blouse displaying a pillar-like throat. Hazel eyes, melting, dark fringed; brows strongly marked, enough to show plenty of character, without being heavy; hair abundant, curled in a fringe upon the forehead, and drawn back from ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... flew upward from the crackling branches toward the open roof, and with them a column of warm smoke rose straight into the pure, cool morning air; but as the door of the women's apartment now opened, the draught swept the gray, floating pillar sideways, directly toward Semestre, who was fanning ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... one else was there, too, hidden behind a pillar, where he could hear every word she said, and this listener was ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... were a case in which a man's aid were necessary, there stood Sypher, a great pillar of comfort. Unconsciously she compared him with the man with whom she had come in contact during her travels—and she had met many of great charm and strength and knowledge. For some strange reason which she could not analyze, ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... what think you then of Cromwell? Is he Ambitious, cruel, eager, cunning, false, Slave to himself and master sole of others? Is his religion but as puppet-wires, To set a hideous idol up of self, Like some fierce God of Ind? Or is he but A fiery pillar leading the sure way— Arriv'd, content to die by his own light, As others lived upon his burning truth, And struggled to him ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... say that, Heer Botmar, and I trust that they are right, for you will need nothing less than a cloud by day and a pillar of fire in the darkness to protect you from all the dangers in your path. Also I hope that the hosts of Pharaoh, in the shape of English soldiers, will not fetch you back before you cross the border, for then, when you have sold your birthright in Egypt, and are cut ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... the flooring seemed newer than at other parts. Calling to Cludde, with his assistance I prized up one of the boards, and the secret was instantly revealed. The board rested on one of the broad wooden pillars supporting the veranda. A hole had been cut down the center of the pillar, and there lay the missing ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... old Simeon saw him shining as a pillar of light, when St. Mary the Virgin, his mother, carried him in her arms, and was filled with the ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... adventure, for the road runs between the open heath on one side and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a park which is studded with magnificent trees. There was a main gateway of lichen-studded stone, each side pillar surmounted by mouldering heraldic emblems; but besides this central carriage drive I observed several points where there were gaps in the hedge and paths leading through them. The house was invisible from the road, but the surroundings all ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us along mysteriously crept away, as if ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... stretch away in such solemn vastness, the shallow transepts emphasise the grand impression and the apse of the choir hollow itself out like a dusky cavern fretted with golden stalactites, is all matter for exposition by a keener architectural analyst than I. To sit somewhere against a pillar where the vista is large and the incidents cluster richly, and vaguely revolve these mysteries without answering them, is the best of one's usual enjoyment of a great church. It takes no deep sounding ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... before they were twenty-five—many of them not till after. They are now the pride and glory of their husbands, of the communities and States in which they live. I hold that a noble and influential woman is an honor to the country and a pillar of civil and religious liberty. Every such woman is a central sun radiating intellectual and moral light, diffusing strength and life to all about her. The hope of the country—ay, of the world—is in its women; I ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... pillar of the Court, As mud between the beams thereof is wrought; And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops Is subject-matter ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... continued, turning to the people, "what are you doing? What are you adoring? An idol made of bread! Oh! Adore the living God in heaven! He is blessed for evermore!" The priest ordered him to hold his peace. He only shrieked the louder. He was seized, his head was dashed against the pillar, and he was dragged bleeding to prison. Next day he was tried, and asked to explain why ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... who may read this to have me in abhorrence, as a soul so obstinate and so ungrateful to Him Who did so much for me. I could wish, too, I had permission to say how often at this time I failed in my duty to God, because I was not leaning on the strong pillar of prayer. I passed nearly twenty years on this stormy sea, falling and rising, but rising to no good purpose, seeing that I went and fell again. My life was one of perfection; but it was so mean, that I scarcely made any account ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... released guard, headed by the band playing merry tunes, march back to their barracks followed by an enthusiastic crowd. The fresh guard take their place beside the sentry-boxes, which stand around the palace square. These are tall red pillar-boxes curiously like giant letter-boxes! ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson

... good master Governor! your slave! The prop! the pillar of our family! To whom, at my departure hence, I gave My ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... and ignorant men, and public credit was freely voted away to new enterprises. The State was undeveloped, and this wholesale system of public improvement became popular. Unworthy men were scrambling for public station, and the times were out of tune. In the midst of this demoralization Toombs was a pillar of fire. He was tireless in his withering satire, his stinging invective, his uncompromising war upon ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... mush and partly solid, and swept the boat out towards the middle of the Yukon. They could see the struggle plainly from the bank,—four men standing up and poling a way through the jarring cakes. A Yukon stove aboard was sending up a trailing pillar of blue smoke, and, as the boat drew closer, they could see a woman in the stern working the long steering-sweep. At sight of this there was a snap and sparkle in Jacob Welse's eyes. It was the first omen, and it was good, he thought. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... year of the commonwealth, the censors, according to their annual custom, reported the pillar of Nilus, by which it was found that the people were increased very near one-third. Whereupon the Council of War was appointed by the Senate to bring in a state of war, and the treasurers the state of the Treasury. The state of war, or the pay and charge of an army, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... central door it opened for him. On entering the hall he passed into several rooms without meeting with anyone; but, when he reached the principal apartment, he found himself in a circular room, in which were a thousand pillars, and every pillar was of marble, and on every pillar save one, which stood in the centre of the room, was a little white cat with black eyes. Ranged round the wall, from one door-jamb to the other, were three rows of precious ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... words, I had stood partly concealed by a slender marble pillar. I now turned, and the usual greetings ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... by the Hoy Sound, the shortest and orthodox route, and this caused us to miss the proper sea view of the "Old Man of Hoy," which the steamboat from Stromness to Thurso always passed in close proximity, but we could perceive it in the distance as an insular Pillar of Rock, standing 450 feet high with rocks in vicinity rising 1,000 feet, although we could not see the arch beneath, which gives it the appearance of standing on two legs, and hence the name given to the rock by the sailors. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... vibrated half-seconds and accordingly could be made with a pendulum short enough for the timepiece to be placed on a shelf as the former one had been. It was, however, of an entirely new design, having a dial in the upper half, painted glass in the door and an ornamental pillar at each side of the case. On top was a decorative scroll of wood and altogether it was a product so novel and well suited to the home that immediately the ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... rich set, as the girl had said. It seemed to Merton Gill that it would be called on the screen "One of those Plague Spots that Eat like a Cancer at the Heart of New York." He lighted a cigarette and leaned nonchalantly against a pillar to smile a tired little smile at the pleasure-mad victims of this life who were now grouping around the roulette and faro tables. He must try for ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... take into his calculations. The first was the sort of fascination which that talk, and all the associations of the old world, and the charms of the professional sorceress, would exercise upon himself after his settling down as the head of a family and pillar of the State. He had not thought how much amused he would be, how the contrast even would tickle his fancy and affect (for the moment) his life. He laughed within himself at the transparent way in which his old friend bade for his sympathy and society. She was the same ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... a pillar, and, being there unseen, was able to lounge a little. She was dreadfully tired. So was everybody but myself. For me, my curiosity was so awake to every thing, that I seemed insensible to all inconvenience. I could not, in such a library, prevail with myself to so nodest a retirement ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... invoked as witness of his oath the august shade of Marat, martyr of Liberty, whose bust had lately been set up against a pillar of the erstwhile church, facing that ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... who was for years a pillar of strength in Congress, and who started the first newspaper correspondence ever thought of, in the Portland Advertiser, which he edited before he was twenty years old, was a native of Portland, which city he represented in the legislature, then travelled ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... prospects in the short run rest heavily on the fortunes of the tourism sector, which depends on growth in the US, the source of more than 80% of the visitors. In addition to tourism and banking, the government supports the development of a "third pillar," e-commerce. ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... rolled back from its pristine bed and, in its stead, lofty mountains lifted their bald beads above the surrounding desolation, and stand to-day as they have stood in massive grandeur ever since the ancient days of their upheaval. Rugged and bleak they tower high, or take the form of pillar, spire and dome, in some seemingly well-constructed edifice erected by the hand of man. But the mountains are not all barren. Vast areas of fertile soil flank the bare rocks where vegetation has taken root, and large fields ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... to me and not to Lamachus. As market-inspectors I appoint these three whips of Leprean[229] leather, chosen by lot. Warned away are all informers and all men of Phasis.[230] They are bringing me the pillar on which the treaty is inscribed[231] and I shall erect it in the centre of the market, well ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... against the veranda pillar, Mary Thorne watched the group of mounted men canter down the slope, splash across the creek, and file briskly through the gate leading to middle pasture. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... Grellet's visit, he especially mentioned Louis Majolier as "a father and a pillar" amongst the little flock.[86] And it may not be unworthy to note that the daughter of the same Louis Majolier is at the present time one of the most acceptable female preachers of the Society of Friends ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... pillar bearing the name of High Cross, and which formed some years ago one of the supporters of a light temple looking building of the same name, that served as a shelter to the country people who here hold a ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts

... all, I dragged my stubborn pony through the mob to the gate by which I had entered. My men were not to be found. I did not know the road nor much of the language. I sat down on a granite pillar to undergo an embarrassing half-hour. Presently my men hailed me, and approaching, swore with imposing loftiness at the discomfited guide. My bull-dog coolie dropped his loads, the fu-song somehow lost his footing, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... preserved the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, when he went to hear mass at Saint-Sulpice, at that same chapel of the Virgin whither his aunt had led him when a small lad, he placed himself behind a pillar, being more absent-minded and thoughtful than usual on that occasion, and knelt down, without paying any special heed, upon a chair of Utrecht velvet, on the back of which was inscribed this name: Monsieur Mabeuf, warden. Mass had hardly ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... hotel with Hames, and there was an awkward silence when they had disappeared. Nasmyth leaned against a wooden pillar, and Waynefleet sat still, waiting for him to speak. Nasmyth ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... of the most evanescent brilliancy and tremulous imbecility.—There is no other fault to be found with the Pleasures of Memory, than a want of taste and genius. The sentiments are amiable, and the notes at the end highly interesting, particularly the one relating to the Countess Pillar (as it is called) between Appleby and Penrith, erected (as the inscription tells the thoughtful traveller) by Anne Countess of Pembroke, in the year 1648, in memory of her last parting with her good and pious mother in the same place ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... steadily to the navel; the Taskodrugites who remained statuesque for a long period with the finger applied to the nose; the Jogins who could hibernate at will; the Dandins of India who became cataleptoid by 12,000 repetitions of the sacred word Om; St. Simeon Stylites who, perched on a lofty pillar, preserved an attitude of saint-like withdrawal from earthly things for days; and even Socrates, of whom it was said that he would stand for hours motionless and wordless—all these are probable instances of ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... the sleeping-room was up in a moment, lights were procured, and the judge was seen upon his knees with his hands upon his hinder quarters; his neighbour Fielding was dead, and the same ball which had passed through his back and chest had blazed the bark off the nether parts of this pillar ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook him—sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery by the roadside; sometimes by a mud-pillar shrine of Kala Pir, where the Jogis, who are another misty division of holy men, would receive him as they do those who know what castes and divisions are worth; sometimes on the outskirts of a little Hindu village, where the children would steal up with ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... towards the end, finding his spirits almost quite exhausted, not able to support himself in any other posture, he lay on the ground. However, it is probable, that in his advanced years he admitted some mitigation of this wonderful austerity. When on his pillar, he kept himself, during this fast, tied to a pole; but at length was able to fast the whole term, without any support. Many attribute this to the strength of his constitution, which was naturally very {091} robust, and had been gradually habituated to such an extraordinary abstinence. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... proper and the new cloister included in the aisle. The tower was not yet removed, in fact its demolition did not occur until about one hundred years later, towards the end of the thirteenth century. The present wooden roof was then erected, instead of a fine vaulting springing from a central pillar, which seems to have ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer

... Now that was the signal for Otho to meet the soldiers. Pretending then that he had purchased an old house, and was going to show the defects to those that had sold it to him, he departed; and passing through what is called Tiberius's house, he went on into the forum, near the spot where a golden pillar stands, at which all the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... found but for the testimony to be given. Deeper lessons were learned as time advanced—lessons of "grace" as well as "truth." Keen discrimination was tempered by love toward that Body which, though distorted and maimed, was still beloved by her Lord, and though besieged by error was still "the pillar and ground ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... shoulders, toddled to the Mohican Club to play bottle-pool with his old friend, G. Pomeroy Keese. Every Sunday the editor's venerable figure was conspicuous in a front pew of the Baptist church, in which he was a pillar, and always held up as an example to the youth ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... said you were maturing in regard to the Emperor of Russia. You must not be a schemer, but determine on a steady, uniform course. It is an old adage that 'a rolling stone never gathers any moss'; so a person that is driving about from pillar to post very seldom lays up anything against a rainy day. You must be wise, my son, and endeavor to get into such steady business as will, with the divine blessing, give you a support. Secure that first, and then you will be authorized to indulge your taste ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse

... art was kept in each temple, and sometimes engraved on marble. The inventories included also the furniture and properties of the sacristy. In 1871 the following remarkable document was discovered in the Temple of Diana Nemorensis. The inventory, engraved on a marble pillar three feet high, is now preserved in the Orsini Castle at Nemi. It has been published by Henzen in "Hermes," vol. vi. p. 8, and reads ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towards the westward stage. Throb throb throb, throb throb throb. The twilight was creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been so dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of the moving ways and the translucent roofs and domes and the chasms between the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the tempered radiance of the electric light that the glare of the day overpowered. The three efficient stages that the ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design, and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. That argument has for its ground-work beggarly assumptions and for its main pillar, reasoning no less beggarly. Nature must have had a cause, because it evidently is an effect. The cause of Nature must have been one God; because two Gods, or two million Gods, could not have agreed to cause it. That cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... him swiftly crossing the chancel, mounting the pulpit steps, and he towered above her, a dominant figure, his white surplice sharply outlined against the dark stone of the pillar. The hymn died away, the congregation sat down. There was a sound in the church, expectant, presaging, like the stirring of leaves at the first breath of wind, and then ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Jaime leaned against a pillar of the porch, his head held high, his bearing arrogant, his figure standing erect against the horizon, and it seemed as if he could feel the hostile eyes fixed on him under cover of ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and hillside, enhance by contrast these modulations of the one prevailing hue. Etna is the dominant feature of the landscape—[Greek: Aitna mater ema—polydendreos Aitna]—than which no other mountain is more sublimely solitary, more worthy of Pindar's praise, 'The pillar of heaven, the nurse of sharp eternal snow.' It is Etna that gives its unique character of elevated beauty to this coast scenery, raising it to a grander and more tragic level than the landscape of the Cornice ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... Deccanees.[1] The conversion of sums from one coinage to another, many of them of unstable value, must have been an everlasting trouble.[2] In August we find Harvey writing to the Council to say that he had at Tellicherry a chest of pillar dollars weighing 289 lbs. 3 ozs. 10 dwts., which he requests may be paid into the Company's cash there, and in return a chest of dollars may be ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... you are all agreed, And resolute to follow Brutus hosts, Favor my sons, favor these Orphans, Lords, And shield them from the dangers of their foes. Locrine, the column of my family, And only pillar of my weakened age, Locrine, draw near, draw near unto thy sire, And take thy latest blessings at his hands: And for thou art the eldest of my sons, Be thou a captain to thy brethren, And imitate thy aged father's steps, Which will conduct thee to true honor's ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... found myself an important pillar of the scheme. Pillars, you know, are the parts of an edifice that bear the weight. Their function is to be sat upon by the arches. In this case the arches were Jones the doctor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various

... breakfast we watched a girl drawing water from the well. Every house in Finland, be it understood, has its well, over which is a raised wooden platform something like a table with a hole in the middle for the bucket to pass through. A few feet back a solid pillar stands on the ground, through the fork-like top of which a pine-tree trunk is fixed, generally about thirty feet long. It is balanced in such a way that at the one end of it a large stone is tied to make it heavy, while suspended from a fine point, standing in mid-air, ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... in this my book art worst, Because not plac'd here with the midst, or first. Since fame that sides with these, or goes before Those, that must live with thee for evermore; That fame, and fame's rear'd pillar, thou shalt see In the next sheet, brave man, to follow thee. Fix on that column then, and never fall, Held ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... "Fergus," replied the tall pillar, sternly, "they shall not perish if I can help it. At all events, if they do, I shall die in the attempt ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... this: it was to the master's interest that the slave should be well fed. Capital was shrewd, selfish, experienced, astute, strong: labor was kept in ignorance lest it might learn its worth, its rights; it was half-starved that it might be weak; it was driven from pillar to post with a more cruel than slave-driver's whip, that it might never be able to perfect ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... was that no one had come to meet her. And then the wildest and most unreasoning terror of this situation, directly grown from some of those travellers' tales of her aunts' weaving, overwhelmed Arethusa. She stood closer to the pillar as a sort ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... during the following year, he was advised to reassume the clerical habit, and after Napoleon's proclamation of a First Consul, he was made Archbishop of Lyons. In 1802, Pius VII. decorated him with the Roman purple, and he is now a pillar of the Roman faith, in a fair way of seizing the Roman tiara. If letters from Rome can be depended upon, Cardinal Fesch, in the name of the Emperor of the French, informed His Holiness the Pope that he must either retire to a convent or travel to France, either abdicate his own sovereignty, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... under a curse,' said another, 'like the Jews, to be wandering always; and they have some religion of their own, but it's a bad one. It's likely St. Patrick put the curse on them; for a fleet of children of tinkers went after him one time, mocking at him, and he turned one of them into a pillar of stone.' ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... mosque is the Iron Pillar which has been the cause of so much perplexity both to antiquaries and chemists, and meat and drink to Sanscrit scholars. The pillar has an inscription commemorating an early monarch named Chandra who conquered Bengal in the fifth century, and it must have been brought to ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... books of the Gospels, embellished with gold and jewels, from the Church of St. Sophia, Constantinople; a crystal vase containing the blood of the Saviour (!); a silver column supporting a fragment of the pillar at which Christ was scourged; a cup of agate containing a portion of the skull of St. John; the sword of the Doge Morocini; cuneiform writings from Persepolis; an episcopal throne of the seventh century, said to have been St. Mark's; and many other things, the genuineness ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... beginning all over again," said Amy, leaning her head against a pillar of the porch and gazing dreamily up at the stars. "I never had such a ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope

... entered displays a large collection of Egyptian stelae and other monuments, while the outer cases and sarcophagi of several mummies are placed in another apartment. The word stela means merely a memorial pillar or tombstone; and in this room the reflective mind will find much food for meditation. We have here the first elements of all religion brought visibly before us in the carvings—the recognition of a deity, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various

... command; went to the little shrine where the turnkey's wife had opened her friperie, and equipped myself with the dress appointed; and, with the card fixed upon my bosom, returned to take my station beside the pillar. But no sylph came again; no form rivaled the zephyr before me. I listened for that soft, low voice; but listened in vain. Yet what was all this but the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... with the writer of "Freemasonry, the Synagogue of Satan," as with a witness whose evidence has broken down, it must be repeated that he has, by his exalted position, elegance of method, and show of learning, been a chief pillar ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... lamb! You poor, little, unfledged birdling! I suppose you fancy she is really attached to him. Do you, indeed? About as much as that pillar of salt in the plain of Sodom was attached to the memory of Lot. About as much as this peerless Niobe of mine is attached to me." He struck the marble ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... from the Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors.—"In a very heavy squall which occurred in the gale of December 2 of last year, the stay of the lofty iron pillar outside of the Park Rails, which carried our telegraph wires, gave way, and the pillar and the whole system of wires fell."—"An important alteration has been made in the Magnetic Observatory. For several years past, various plans have been under ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... ever the signal gun That blazed before Fort Sumter had wakened the North as one; Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud and fire Had marked where the unchained millions marched on to their heart's desire. On roofs and glittering turrets, that night, as the sun went down, The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a jeweled crown, And, bathed in the living glory, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... by groves of emerald trees. The gold and marble gleamed with divine lustre never seen by man. Slowly it sank to earth but did not disappear. It stood in beauty where before the temple of Balder had stood. Its broad walls were of silver, and each pillar seemed cut of deep blue steel. The altar was carved of a single precious stone. The ceiling seemed like the blue sky with twinkling golden stars, and there sat the gods of ...
— Northland Heroes • Florence Holbrook

... ornamentation. But the most glorious work of Hiram was the construction of the two majestic brasen pillars, called Jachin and Boaz, They were stately in height, the shaft of each measuring 27 feet, a base of 12 feet, and two capitals of 13 1/2 feet, thus the whole height of each pillar being 52 1/2 feet. The decoration was equally graceful and elaborate, especially upon the capitals. The lower capitals had a fine network over the whole, and chain-work hanging in festoons outside. There were also pomegranates wrought upon them. The upper ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.

... the railing at her side, and the white and red roses that embraced the pillar shook against his thick dark hair in the infant ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... statue tall, on a pillar of stone, Telling its story to great and small Of the dust ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... sure of it, I steered west-north-west all night, and kept going on with an easy sail, intending to coast along the shore at a distance. At 10 o'clock I saw a great fire bearing north-west by west, blazing up in a pillar, sometimes very high for 3 or 4 minutes, then falling quite down for an equal space of time; sometimes hardly visible, till it blazed up again. I had laid me down having been indisposed this 3 days: but upon a sight of this my chief mate called ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... other early travelers felt the truth of it; and Captain Marsh, who has piloted river craft through every navigable foot of the entire system of rivers, having sailed the Missouri within sound of the Falls and the Yellowstone above Pompey's Pillar, feels that the Yellowstone is the main stem and ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... was his daughter, Louisa,—the keen observer of life and manners; the witty story-teller with the pictorial mind; always sympathetic, practical, helpful—the mainstay of her family, a pillar of support to her friends; forgetting the care of her own soul in her interest for the general welfare; heedless of her own advantage, and thereby obtaining for herself as a gift from heaven, the highest of all advantages, and the ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... instant he stared at her, incredulous. Then he swung aside a little, his hand gripping the pillar against which he had been leaning till his knuckles showed ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night, to guide no one. Paradise had fewer wants for him to satisfy than hell had, all which he fed to repletion; but let us rather look to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... thanks to the patriotic fair of South Carolina and Georgia for their heroism and virtue in those dreadful and dangerous times whilst we were struggling for our liberties. Their conduct deserves the highest applause, and a pillar ought to be raised to their memory. Their conduct was such as gave examples even to the men to stand firm; and they despised those who were not enthusiasts in their country's cause. The hardships and difficulties they experienced were too much for their delicate frames to bear; yet they ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... a broad wooden bench running round the walls. The Gadfly chose a corner with a good view of the hills, and Zita, seating herself on the low wall with her feet on the bench, leaned back against a pillar of the roof. She did not care much for scenery; she preferred to ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... a very mild sort of "shocker," about a very ordinary murder. The villain simply slew one of his typists in the counting-house with a sword-umbrella and concealed his guilt by putting her in a pillar-box. But it had "power," and it was very favourably reviewed. One critic said that "the author, who was obviously a woman, had treated with singular delicacy and feeling the ever-urgent problem of female employment in our great industrial centres." Another said that the book was "a brilliant ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various

... until it came to a certain point near the beach, where a tall black pillar stood, surmounted by ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... place." "Tight-lacing is ugly, because it distorts the natural lines of the figure, and gives an appearance of uncertainty and unsafeness.... Men seldom take to wife a girl who has too small a waist, whether natural or artificial." "In architecture, a pillar or support of any kind is called debased and bad in art if what is supported be too heavy for the thing supporting, and if a base be abnormally heavy and large for what it upholds. The laws of proportion and balance must be understood. In a waist of fifteen inches both ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... lips, the people, according to Scotch habit, hurried out of the chapel, as if they could not possibly endure one word more. But Annie, who was always put up to the top of the pew, because there, by reason of an intruding pillar, it required a painful twist of the neck to see the minister, stood staring at the blind woman as she felt her way out of the chapel. There was no fear of putting her out by staring at her. When, at length, she followed her into the open air, she ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... detested party politics, and desired to pass the short remainder of his life in quiet at Mt. Vernon. He announced his intention to retire in a Farewell Address, which should be read and studied by every American. In it he declared the Union to be the main pillar of independence, prosperity, and liberty. Public credit must be carefully maintained, and the United States should have as little as possible to do with European affairs. In declining a third term as President, ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing

... had to bear much from you.... But I will forget everything if only you will make amends for this one thing. You are light-minded, but you are not bad ... you cannot be bad... you, too, have had a mother.... I have seen her... she was standing at our confirmation by the third pillar on the left, and crying just as my mother cried, and my mother—oh, fie!" He interrupted himself, for he felt overwhelmed with shame at having mentioned the name of his saint before these scoundrels; but the fear of having to return home without any consolation ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... saying that his empire has endured for more than three thousand years, which no other empire is able to assert. He also puts into his titles the following: 'We, the sovereign in my realms, uniquely beloved of God, pillar of the faith, sprung from the race of Judah, etc.' The boundaries of this empire touch the Red Sea and the mountains of Azuma on the east, and on the western side it is bordered by the River Nile which separates it ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... and thirsted, watched and prayed, to undertake the good work of your conversion, and who would be content to die the instant that a work so advantageous for yourself and so beneficial to Scotland were accomplished—Yes, lady, could I but shake the remaining pillar of the heathen temple in this land—and that permit me to term your faith in the delusions of Rome—I could be content to ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... one friend (for such he will prove himself, indeed, if from such a danger he can save this child) is pretty near to her. But alas! he is still nearer to a murderer. At this moment he is unnerved for any exertion whatever; he has changed into a pillar of ice; for the objects before him, separated by just thirteen feet, are these:—The housemaid had been caught by the murderer on her knees; she was kneeling before the fire-grate, which she had been polishing with black lead. That part ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... arguments have much logical force, yet on the other hand such certitude as empiricism can provide brings little consolation to the multitude, who require some imperative command; they look for a pillar of cloud or fire to go before them day and night, and a land of promise in the distance. Scientific exposition works slowly for the improvement of ethics, which to the average mind are rather weakened than strengthened by loosening their foundations; and religious ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... The pillar of cloud for day and light for night, that went before the children of Israel in the wilderness, was indeed a marvel. It was an aqueous cloud that kept them well watered by day, and shadowed from the heat of the sun; by night it showed its light side to the Israelites, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... had been mine, and should remain so, come what might. I added a postscript, asking her to wire me permission to travel down to Hereford to see her; then, sealing up the letter, I went out along the Marylebone Road and posted it in the pillar-box, which I knew was cleared at five o'clock ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... in Monte Carlo and faced the charge against me," declared Hugh fervently. "Being hunted from pillar to post like ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... the centre from which all the artificial features of the scene appeared to flow. The roofs, the gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the clustered offices in the rear, all seemed to crowd about the great chimney. To this central pillar the paths all converged. The single poplar behind the house,—Nature is jealous of proud chimneys, and always loves to put a poplar near one, so that it may fling a leaf or two down its black throat every autumn,—the one tall poplar behind the house seemed ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... tradesman. Our old friends the horse-hair cedar couch, the gent's and lady's chairs together with four balloon high chairs, turn up again. There is a four-foot chiffonier, a tapestry carpet, a gilt chimney-glass, a hearthrug, a bronze fender and fire-irons, and a round table with turned pillar and carved claws. In the parents' bedroom are a half-tester bedstead with coir-fibre or woollen flock mattress, two cane chairs, washstand, toilet-table, glass and ware, towel-horse, chest of drawers, and a couple of yards of bedside carpet. The ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... Ardmore. This embraces a beautiful and perfect round tower, a singularly interesting ruined church commonly called the cathedral, the ruins of a second church beside a holy well, a primitive oratory, a couple of ogham inscribed pillar stones, &c., &c. ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous

... and one-sided battle went on as I fled from post to pillar up and down and back and forth in the "permitted" area, doing a bit of extra bookkeeping here and another there. The result was always the same. Work of that kind necessarily carried more or less responsibility, and in consequence I was never retained more than ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... before the shower, and at some distance above high-water mark. Jack, however, suggested a cause which seemed to me very probable. We used often to see waterspouts in the sea. A waterspout is a whirling body of water, which rises from the sea like a sharp-pointed pillar. After rising a good way, it is met by a long tongue, which comes down from the clouds; and when the two have joined, they look something like an hour-glass. The waterspout is then carried by the wind—sometimes gently, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... Mental strabismus! He had let his over-sensitive imagination wreck and ruin him. A woman's laughter had given him the viewpoint of a careless world; and he had fled, and he had gone on fleeing all these years from pillar to ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... Religione"—without exception. [Sidenote: January 28, 1573] But, liberal though the law was, it was vitiated in practice by the right retained by every master of punishing his serfs for religious as well as for secular causes. Thus it was that the lower classes were marched from Protestant pillar to Catholic post and back without again daring to rebel or to express ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... beginning of winter, whence the year was measured, were called Pucuy Sucanca. Those notifying the beginning of spring were Chirao Sucanca. Suca means a ridge or furrow and sucani to make ridges: hence sucanca, the alternate light and shadow, appearing like furrows. Acosta says there was a pillar for each month. Garcilasso de la Vega tells us that there were eight on the east, and eight on the west side of Cuzco (i. p. 177) in double rows, four and four, two small between two high ones, 20 feet apart. ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

... the field. Yet a colossal statue of bronze represented the emperor on horseback, preparing to march against the Persians in the habit and armor of Achilles. In the great square before the church of St. Sophia, this monument was raised on a brass column and a stone pedestal of seven steps; and the pillar of Theodosius, which weighed seven thousand four hundred pounds of silver, was removed from the same place by the avarice and vanity of Justinian. Future princes were more just or indulgent to his memory; the elder Andronicus, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... school of poetry and pathos." The amende honorable with a vengeance. The review of The Giaour, Byron thought, was "so very mild and sentimental that it must be written by Jeffrey in love".—Moore's Life, p. 191.] It was reserved for Southey, a pillar of the Quarterly, to rank him as the "Goliath" ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... other with the utmost congeniality. Next to the writer, Ivan's fancy locked itself with that of bullet-headed, homely, great-hearted Balakirev: a man who has been the inspiration of a dozen greater than he; who, for thirty years a pillar of Russian music, has let his greatest ideas go to feed the brains of those who have learned to stand towards him, as the public towards themselves. Finally, there was young Ostrovsky, later one of the great playwrights and librettists of the country; who, even ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... parliament decreed the erection of a pillar opposite the palace of the Inquisition, to perpetuate the memory of the destruction of that nest of abominations; but before that or any other monument could be raised, the French army besieged and took the ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... army; the familiar hero of ballad and story; the mirror of chivalry, and the god of popular worship. Throughout the Netherlands he was hailed as the right hand of the fatherland, the saviour of Flanders from devastation and outrage, the protector of the nation, the pillar of the throne. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley



Words linked to "Pillar" :   tower, construction, spile, protagonist, footstall, capital, vertical, pillar of strength, stilt, structure, shaft, telamon, cap, pile, atlas, column, from pillar to post, champion, piling, rule, newel, booster, support column



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