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Pedestal   Listen
noun
Pedestal  n.  
1.
(Arch.) The base or foot of a column, statue, vase, lamp, or the like; the part on which an upright work stands. It consists of three parts, the base, the die or dado, and the cornice or surbase molding. "Build him a pedestal, and say, "Stand there!""
2.
Hence: A short free-standing column or column-like object designed to support a work of art or other object; a column serving the same function as the base of a statue. It may be made of wood, marble, or other suitable material.
3.
(Furniture) A part of a desk which contains a frame and drawers, stands on the floor, and provides support for the desk surface. There may be zero, one, or two such pedestals in a desk.
4.
(a)
(Railroad Cars) A casting secured to the frame of a truck and forming a jaw for holding a journal box.
(b)
(Mach.) A pillow block; a low housing.
(c)
(Bridge Building) An iron socket, or support, for the foot of a brace at the end of a truss where it rests on a pier.
Pedestal coil (steam Heating), a group of connected straight pipes arranged side by side and one above another, used in a radiator.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pedestal" Quotes from Famous Books



... her lantern to her satisfaction upon its Bacchic pedestal, she slipped from the room as quietly as she had entered it, answering as she went, with a glance of disdain, the passion of admiration that glowed in the eyes and twitched in the fingers of Norman Passepoil. The people that kept ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... going to tell you, Mr. Holt. But you have given me the opportunity, and it may do you good—after tomorrow. I came to you because I foolishly misjudged you. I thought you were different, like your mountains. I made a great gamble, and set you up on a pedestal as clean and unafraid and believing all things good until you found them bad—and I lost. I was terribly mistaken. Your first thoughts of me when I came to your cabin were suspicious. You were angry and afraid. Yes, afraid—fearful of something happening which you didn't want ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... cherry-colored, velvet portieres were draped over the windows and the doors. A clump of azaleas and rhododendrons between the windows formed an oasis of gorgeous greenery, accentuating the beautiful lines of a yellowish plaster statue of Venus de Milo which stood on a pedestal draped ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... pedestal theory—that women are away up on a pedestal, and down below, looking up at them with deep adoration, are men, their willing slaves. Sitting up on a pedestal does not appeal very strongly to a healthy woman—and, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung

... was there? He could not wantonly haul the figure of his father down from its pedestal of blameless life. And his mother and sister! Theirs would indeed be a frightful position. No, there was no ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... cannot understand the discrepancies of an artistic nature. Women have been to me heretofore as beautiful abstractions. I have adored them as I adore the works of the great masters. I would as soon have thought of plucking a virgin from the canvas—a Venus from her pedestal, as of appropriating one of them. Enrica Guinigi"—there was a tender inflection in Count Marescotti's voice whenever he named her, an involuntary bending of the head that was infinitely touching—"Enrica Guinigi is an ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... woman as she is, not as you wish to see her, and if she disappoint it does not matter. You are not left to choose between systematic self-deception and a humiliating admission of your mistake. The lady has not been placed upon an impossible pedestal, and she has not toppled down. In this case the lady started at the most advantageous disadvantage; every admirable quality, her candour, her courage, her spirited independence, her evident determination to piece ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... own level of existence, and was a little vexed and disappointed to find that her elder sister could condescend to such youthful matters. On the whole, she rather blushed for Mary, and felt sadly as if she had come down from an imaginary pedestal. And then Mr Proctor, so old and so ordinary, whom it was impossible to think of as a bridegroom, and still less as a brother. "I shall get used to it presently," said Lucy, with a burning flush on her cheek, and a half feeling ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... Jenny! so you've come down from your pedestal? Going to be very grand, weren't you?—couldn't see your old acquaintances last Sunday! But hey, presto, all is changed, and my fine young madam come down to a ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... down, but still on the bank. When we drew nigh to him he bade us get on the bank; we did so and followed him some way, midst furze and lyng. All of a sudden he exclaimed, "There it is!" We looked and saw a large figure standing on a pedestal. On going up to it we found it to be a Hercules leaning on his club, indeed a copy of the Farnese Hercules, as we gathered from an inscription in Latin partly defaced. We felt rather disappointed, as we expected that it would have ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... Statue's Pedestal on which She had been seated, and attempted to escape by flight. Her Companions at the same moment uttered a terrified scream, while Lorenzo arrested the Fugitive by the arm. Frightened and desperate She sank upon her ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... Your pedestal should help us much. Thereon your acts, your title, (Secure from cold Oblivion's touch!) Had doubtless due recital; Vain hope!—not even deeds can last! That stone, of which you're minus, Maybe with all your virtues past Endows ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... side temple near the entrance is enthroned a colossal Buddha seated in his lotus—a gilded idol from forty-five to sixty feet high, mounted on an enormous bronze pedestal. ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti

... ugly chest of drawers was a great bowl of roses, a queer little ivory figure set in an arched frame of copper—a figure almost sacerdotal, with its face turned towards the east—and a little shower of rose leaves, which could scarcely have fallen there by accident, at the foot of the pedestal. Lutchester inclined his head gravely, as he looked towards it, a gesture entirely reverential, almost an obeisance. Nikasti's eyes were clouded with curiosity. He slipped down ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... little oppressed by the greatness which, much against his will, they had thrust upon the unfortunate James. They had set him on a pedestal, and then were disconcerted because he towered above their heads, and the halo with which they had surrounded him dazzled their eyes. They had wished to make a lion of James, and his modest resistance wounded their self-esteem; it was a relief to learn that he was not worth ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... the impression made by Gordon's disinterestedness on the Chinese people, who elevated him for his courage and military prowess to the pedestal of a national god of war. The cane which he carried when leading his men to the charge became known as "Gordon's wand of victory"; and the troops whom he trained, and converted by success from a rabble into an army, formed the nucleus of China's modern ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... with the scale of the petiole, thorax, coxae, and femora blood-red. Thorax: the lateral margins raised above, with two slightly curved divergent spines in front, and two stout, acute, long curved spines in the middle, directed backwards; the scale of the petiole forming a long erect pedestal, which terminates above in two much bent acute hooks, directed backwards, and being as high as the basal segment of the abdomen; the spines and hooks black ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... Helen in its flood of happiness; and, with a smile, which seemed to picture the very heavens opening before her, she turned her eyes from him to a crucifix which stood on a table, and bowing her head on its pedestal, was lost in ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... discovered on the margin of the Lincolnshire fens, and was to be publicly exhibited before a most discerning public. There were low rumours, besides, that William Gifford intended to place the new Burns on the pedestal of the 'Quarterly,' spreading the fame of the humble poet into the most distant regions. Accordingly, when the first volume of Clare's poems was published, on the 16th of January, 1820, there was an immediate rush to the shop of Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, in Fleet Street. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... was re-echoed by Mrs. Curtis, who had erected dear Alexander to a pedestal of infallibility, and was always treated by him with a considerate kindness that made her pity Fanny for the number of years that must pass before Stephana could give her the supreme blessing of a son-in-law. Fanny, on her side, had sufficient present blessing ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to be taken in with general valuation. It is not fair to ask if a girl who entertains a preference for one of our toiling, stirring, ambitious sex, who may be double her age or have a snub nose, but who looks dignified and imposing on a pedestal of state, whether she would like him as much if stripped of all his accessories, and left unredeemed to his baptismal register or unbecoming nose. Just as well ask a girl in love with a young Lothario ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... solace, how much valued counsel has our archdeacon received within that sainted enclosure! 'Tis there alone that he unbends, and comes down from his high church pedestal to the level of a mortal man. In the world Dr Grantly never lays aside that demeanour which so well becomes him. He has all the dignity of an ancient saint with the sleekness of a modern bishop; he is always the same; he is always ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... and warmth that stone does not have. In shape—well, she seemed to be a great flower, an unopened tulip-like blossom five feet or so tall. The petals were closely enfolded, concealing whatever sort of body lay hidden beneath, and at the base was a convoluted pedestal that gave the odd impression of a ruffled, tiny skirt. Even now I cannot describe Lhar coherently. A flower, yes—but very much more than that. Even in that first glimpse I knew that Lhar was more ...
— Where the World is Quiet • Henry Kuttner

... not Southern, educated to a notion of office as a pedestal, were inclined to play the turkey cock and spread their tails a trifle. Since that sort of self-conceit never fails to transact itself at the expense of the spectator, Richard looked upon it with no favor, and it drew from ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... rustling in the tree-tops. A man came in to put the chairs in order, and placed two candles in an iron chandelier riveted to the stone pillar; then he pulled into the middle of the aisle a sort of stretcher with a pedestal, its black wood stained with large white spots. Other people entered the church, and a priest clad in his surplice passed us. There was the intermittent tinkling of a bell and then the door of the church opened wide. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... was noticed loitering through the narrow streets of the imperial city. He had passed the great Galcarian or western gate, from which the statue of the reigning emperor on that memorable morning was found razed from its pedestal. The outer and inner faces of the gate were whitened for the writing of edicts and proclamations by the government scribes, and likewise for the public notices of minor import, these being daubed on the walls with various degrees ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... a poor man's church, visited by strangers for its early Titian and a "Last Supper" by Tintoretto. The Titian, which is dark and grimy, is quite pleasing, the infant Christ, who stands between S. Andrew and S. Catherine on a little pedestal, being very real and Venetian. There are, however, who deny Titian's authorship; Mr. Ricketts, for example, gives the picture to Francesco Vecellio, the painter's son. Tintoretto's "Last Supper," on ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... mad! Vidocq—Rocambole! You mix up legend and history, bracket murderers with detectives, and make no distinction between right and wrong! You would not hesitate to set the heroes of crime and the heroes of law and order on one and the same pedestal!" ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... one fell in one direction, and one in the other. Stilt number one fell to the right, crash into the flower-stand, and chopped some of the best branches off the fuchsias; while stilt number two—oh! unlucky stick!—went crash down upon the great antique vase that stood in the hall upon a pedestal, knocked it off, and there it lay, shivered ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

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

... partner the terrible Tim—who cracked jokes and threw his feet about in the most astounding fashion. And Ethelyn bore it all, feeling that by being there with such people she had fallen from the pedestal on which Ethelyn Grant once stood. Her lavender dress was stepped upon, and her point applique caught and torn by the big pin Andy had upon his coat cuff. Taken as a whole, that party was the most dreadful of anything Ethelyn had endured and she could have cried for joy when the last guest had ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... barks upon the blaze she was able to scent the place to her taste. And the Bow-leg, seeing her mastery of the mysterious and dreadful scarlet tongues which licked upwards from the hollow on their rocky pedestal, regarded her less as a woman than as a goddess—a being who, for her own unknown reasons, chose to be beneficent toward him, but who plainly could become destructive if he should in any way transgress. Toward Grom—who regarded him altogether impersonally ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... stretched in Isis' calm retreat, To books and study gives seven years complete, See! strewed with learned dust, his night-cap on, He walks, an object new beneath the sun! The boys flock round him, and the people stare: } So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear, } Stepped from its pedestal to take the air! } And here, while town, and court, and city roars, With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors; Shall I, in London, act this idle part? Composing songs for fools to get by heart? The Temple late two brother sergeants saw, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... was the contrast between the modern and pretentious monument and the graves of the humbler forefathers of the village, that even the Americans who chanced to visit it were shocked at what they believed was the ostentatious and vulgar pride of one of their own countrywomen. For on its pedestal was inscribed:— ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... Ombos there are two sanctuaries, one dedicated to Sebek, the other to Heru-ur, or Haroeris, a form of Horus in Egyptian called "the Elder," which was worshipped with Sebek here by the admirers of crocodiles. Each of them contains a pedestal of granite upon which once rested a sacred bark bearing an ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... and down, indecently clamouring his name and address, and at last turns our meditation to despair. Certain stock devices become as painful as popular autotypes. There is the lily broken on its stalk; we meet it here on a cross and there on an obelisk, presently on the pedestal of an urn. There is the hand pointing upward, here balanced on the top of an obelisk and there upon a cross. The white-robed angel, free from the remotest shadow of expression, meets us again and again. "All this is mine," says the tradesman ghoul. "Behold the names of me—Slap ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... nature's own constructing. It was a single, solitary shaft of green limestone, which stood on the brink of a deep ravine, and was marked by the slaty limestone that once encased it. The length of the column was apparently about five hundred feet, and the pedestal of sandstone on which it stood was itself upwards of ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... it with Lady Isabel? Just as it must be expected to fare, and does fare, when a high-principled gentlewoman falls from her pedestal. Never had she experienced a moment's calm, or peace, or happiness, since the fatal night of quitting her home. She had taken a blind leap in a moment of wild passion, when, instead of the garden of roses it had been her ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... conventional women to whom I was accustomed, and, even at first, the things you said every now and then gave me a creepy feeling, but you were inspiring to look at—though now that the scales have fallen from my eyes I wonder at my infatuation—and I continued to worship you as a goddess on a pedestal. I used to say to Gregory, 'there's a couple who are to the manner born; they never have to make believe. They are genuinely free and gentle souls.' Your husband? I can't believe that I have been deluded in regard to him, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... pedestal one, with a centre drawer and four drawers on either side. The first drawer burst open was the top one on the left, and from it Edwards drew two bundles of letters, each secured by ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... hemisphere was only half enough, And Christopher Columbus globed his fame. And now ye build my statue, Genoese, After three silent centuries have died, When the old fourth is failing, ye do well With lagging stones to pile the pedestal, And shape my sculptured seeming. Not with wrath, Nor scorn. Good God and less with gratitude, Be those worn features wreathed. I love ye not, Ye are no friends of mine. I did not ask A block of marble for my memory, But gold to carve my hope. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... countries'—and so on, and so on. Then, to prove your case, draw a comparison between Rabener, the German satirical moralist, and La Bruyere. Nothing gives a critic such an air as an apparent familiarity with foreign literature. Kant is Cousin's pedestal. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... Leslie and your other fool patrons seem to have given you a fair opinion of yourself. Because you, in your omniscience, think a thing bad, which I ... which I obviously consider good, and have stated so in print ... you don't so much as deign to argue the question, but get upon your pedestal and ask me why I tell lies. You think one thing and I think another; of course, you must know best, but I presume I may be allowed to hold my misguided and ill-informed opinion without being accused blankly of fraud. Upon ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... was commissioned to supply two statues, each on a cubical pedestal. It is with these pedestals that we are concerned. They were of unequal sizes, as will be seen in the illustration, and when the time arrived for payment a dispute arose as to whether the agreement was based ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... conventional levels; but her eye fell upon a terra- cotta figure which sent the blood surging into her head so fiercely that a rushing sound seemed to fill her ears. It was the nude figure of a soldier lying dead upon a trampled mound, with broken poppies about him, while across the pedestal ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... solemn entrance into Paris, the Duchess d'Angouleme being in the carriage with the King. His Majesty proceeded first to Notre Dame. On arriving at the Pont Neuf he saw the model of the statue of Henri IV. replaced, on the pedestal of which appeared the following words: 'Ludovico reduce, Henricus redivivus', which were suggested by M. de Lally-Tollendal, and were greatly preferable to the long and prolix inscription composed ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... severity even the famous winters at the beginning of the seventeenth century, so minutely observed by Dr. Gideon Delane—the same who was, in his quality of apothecary to King James, honoured by the city of London with a bust and a pedestal. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... like them very much, Fanny—" To her interruption that that was evident he paid no attention. "He is an extremely nice man, a little too conscious of his pedestal, but solid and cordial. Mrs. Grove is more unusual; I should say she was a difficult woman to describe. She dresses beautifully, Paris and the rest of it; but she isn't a particle good-looking. Not a bit! It's her color, I think. She hasn't any. Women would fancy her more than men; no one could call ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... still those clear notes pealed out, and still the rush of people increased till the whole town was abroad and streaming along the principal street. At last we reached the square, which was now packed with citizens, and there, high on the pedestal of the great cross, we saw the herald in his brilliant costume, with his servitors about him. The next moment he began his delivery in the powerful voice proper ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... lighter tints, marbled, smoked, shaded, pearl-coloured, and black. But the walls of the room were hung with admirable stuffs, and the working materials disappeared in the midst of a marvellous luxury of furniture. In one corner, on an old tabernacle which served as a pedestal, a great gilded statue of the Blessed Virgin seemed ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... image, or collective symbol of sacred mysteries, rather than as a dramatic representation. Even in Tintoret's great Crucifixion in the School of St. Roch, the group of fainting women forms a kind of pedestal for the Cross. The flying angels in the composition before us are thus also treated with a restraint hardly passing the limits of decorative symbolism. The fading away of their figures into flame-like cloud may perhaps be founded on the verse, "He maketh ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin

... will be this: that whatever it may be which the ordinary man produces, and in whatever sense he produces it, the great man, in the same sense, produces a great deal more. The difference between them in efficiency will be no more lessened by the fact that both are standing on the pedestal of a common past, than the difference in stature will be lessened between a dwarf and a giant because they are both standing on the top of a New York skyscraper, or because they have both been nourished on the same ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... visibility, interpretation, and possession that the hearts of men sought. Possession, first of all—the getting hold of some hewn log of wild olive-wood that would fall on its knees if it was pulled from its pedestal—and, afterwards, slowly clearing manifestation; the exactly right expression is used in Lucian's dream,—[Greek: Pheidias edeixe ton Dia]; "Showed[12] Zeus;" manifested him; nay, in a certain sense, brought forth, or created, as you have it, in Anacreon's ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... run the wheel of the broken tire on a block in order to raise the wheel clear of the rail and the box up in the driving box jaws. Remove the oil cellar and place a block between the driving journal and pedestal brace to carry the disabled wheel center clear of the rail. Would also block up on top of the box of the wheel ahead or back as the case might be, in order to take the weight from the disabled wheel. It might not be necessary to take off any of the rods, but would run the ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous

... who love their kind, yet there is less of both than those looking down from a more elevated social position upon the weltering heap of humanity, are ready to imagine; especially if they regard it likewise from the pedestal of self-congratulation on which a meagre type of religion has elevated them. But at length his little stock of money was nearly expended, and there was nothing that he could do, or learn to do, in this seaport. He felt impelled ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... all. Mary's money will give him the pedestal he wants, and trust Cliffe to take care of his own individuality afterwards! Now, if you'll transfer your alarms to ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was due to himself and to her, that however constrained her attitude might be while receiving his adorations, like the image of some deity, who is neither supposed to feel nor to reply to the homage of its votaries, still the idol feared that to step prematurely from her pedestal would be to degrade herself in the eyes ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... aged dames, men's haying hats and visored caps,—and she proved superior to every test, looking as pretty as a pink in the best ones and simply ravishing in the worst. In fact, she had been so fashioned and finished by Nature that, had she been set on a revolving pedestal in a show-window, the bystanders would have exclaimed, as each new charm came into view: "Look at her waist! See her shoulders! And her neck and chin! And her hair!" While the children, gazing ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... sum of money had been paid to Anderson, but no one knew that it had been handed to him in person by an interested party. Had Anderson and his wife even whispered that such a visit had occurred, the town would have gone into a convulsion of wrath; the marshal's pedestal would have been jerked out from under him without compunction or mercy. Eva cautioned him to be more than silent on the subject for the child's sake as well as for their own, and Anderson saw wisdom in her counselling. He even lagged in his avowed intention to unravel ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... Trafalgar Day in some beastly solution which was most unsuitable to me. I cannot shake off the cold. Hang on!" shouted the Lion suddenly, "I am going to sneeze, and I may shake you off the pedestal." Whereupon the Lion grabbed Ridgwell gently with his paw to steady him, and after sneezing heavily, proceeded. "After washing me for Trafalgar Day, which was most unnecessary, they hung a ridiculous wreath round my neck with a large N in leaves upon ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... it was more precocious. But after-judgment has, I think, not declared either of the suggestions to be true. I will make no comparison between two such rivals, who were so distinctly different from each, and each of whom, within so very short a period, has come to stand on a pedestal so high,—the two exalted to so equal a vocation. And if Dickens showed the best of his power early in life, so did Thackeray the best of his intellect. In no display of mental force did he rise above Barry Lyndon. I hardly know how the teller of a narrative shall hope to mount in simply ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... same age and temper feel when they are bent on the same pursuit. How can one of two Bacchanals stoop in adoration of the other, when both are bounding in the procession of Silenus? Valentine fell from his pedestal and became a comrade instead of a god. He was no longer the chaperon of the dancing hours, but their partner. And a new fire shone in his blue eyes, an unaccustomed red ran over his cheeks, as he heard Julian's answer to his question. From that moment he ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... learned that the great orator would speak in the porch of a tavern fronting the large court-green, ... pushed his way through the gathering crowd, and secured the pedestal of a pillar, where he stood within eight feet of him. He was very infirm, and seated in a chair conversing with some old friends, waiting for the assembling of the immense multitudes who were pouring in from all the surrounding country to hear him. At length he arose with ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... Octagon in Figure, open before, from the Wast upward, but whole at the Back, with a Flat extended over it for Reverberation, or doubling the Sound; doubling and redoubling, being frequently thought necessary to be made use of on these occasions; 'tis very Mathematically contriv'd, erected on a Pedestal of Wood like a Windmil, and has a pair of winding Stairs up to it, like those at the great Tun ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that of course congregated ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... horses. He felt quite dizzy as he beheld in this carriage Francesca, beautifully dressed, by the side of an old lady as hard as a cameo. A servant blazing with gold lace stood behind. Francesca recognized Rodolphe, and smiled at seeing him like a statue on a pedestal. The carriage, which the lover followed with his eyes as he climbed the hill, turned in at the gate of a country house, towards ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... "there is a great deal of railing about the figure, but we can all see through it!" at the same time thrusting his walking-stick through the iron-fence that surrounds the pedestal. As for delicacy, it is a word that is used so indiscriminately, and has so many significations, according to the mode, that few people rightly understand its true meaning. We say, for instance, a ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

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

... necessary, risk it cheerfully, but as an abstract proposition he cared little whether the Dauphin lived or died. Next after Ursula came Commines. There had been a bitter moment when Commines had tottered on his pedestal, but Ursula's hand had steadied him just when the touch was needed. Ursula again! It was marvellous how the whole of Amboise had its orbit round Ursula. In the end Commines had justified himself, and in that belief the loyal heart of Stephen La Mothe found the early May ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... happened on a passage he often repeated and knew by heart: 'Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief!'—and he put away all the doubts that had arisen. As one replaces an object of insecure equilibrium, so he carefully replaced his belief on its shaky pedestal and carefully stepped back from it so as not to shake or upset it. The blinkers were adjusted again and he felt tranquillized, and repeating his childhood's prayer: 'Lord, receive me, receive me!' he felt not merely at ease, but thrilled and joyful. He crossed ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... died out of Domini's ears she stood by the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie. Rather militant than priestly, raised high on a marble pedestal, it faced the long road which, melting at last into a faint desert track, stretched away to Tombouctou. The mitre upon the head was worn surely as if it were a helmet, the pastoral staff with its double cross was grasped as if it were a sword. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... whereby we shall be doubtless chosen as pillars and buttresses, under our excellent Lord-General, for supporting and sustaining the same, and endowed with proper revenues and incomes, both spiritual and temporal, to serve as a pedestal, on which we may stand, seeing that otherwise our foundation will be on the loose sand.—Nevertheless," continued he, his mind again diverging from his views of temporal ambition into his visions of the Fifth Monarchy, "these things ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... naked feet) under the warning to travellers that is graven upon stone, which interpreters take to be "It Is Better Not"; not to touch the berries that are there for a purpose, on the right side going down; and so to come to the guardian on his pedestal who had slept for a thousand years and should be sleeping still; and go in through the open window. One man was to wait outside by the crack in the World until the others came out with the golden box, and, should they ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... western end of the old monastery there is a broad open space, between the buildings and the overhanging rocks, at the base of which there is a deep recess, almost amounting to a cave, in which stands a great black cross planted in a pedestal of whitewashed masonry. A few steps lead up to it. As the moon rose higher the cross was in the shadow, while the platform and the buildings ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

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

... burned in Christine's bedroom. It stood low on the pedestal by the wide bed and was heavily shaded, so that only one half of the bed, Christine's half, was exempt from the general gloom of the chamber. The officer had thus ordained things. The white, plump arm of Christine was imprisoned under ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... man has been largely corrected through the influence of education and experience which have made him conscious of the ridiculousness of his demands for recognition of his supremacy. Each one of those high, old eastern Emperors had to have his pedestal, and his title of god, without reference to his real character. Modern men do not expect to be real head-up gods. They know too much to be so ridiculous. But there are those who seem to feel that they are at least "little tin gods ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... jewel of the soul lay unheeded and despised of men. Before Christ came, men honoured the rich, and the great, and the wise, as we honour them now; but man as man was of little or no account. If one had, or could get, a pedestal by which to lift himself above the common crowd, he might count for something; but if he had nothing save his own feet to stand upon, he was a mere nobody, for whom nobody cared. We turn to the teaching of Jesus, and what a ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson

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

... "where passion reigns, has become a crystal vase filled with earth no longer penetrated by the rays of the sun." The iron pedestal of passion's throne was not yet shivered in the heart of Alvira, nor were tears a sign that the sun of grace had pierced the crystal vase of the worldly heart. Great will be the grace that will draw Alvira from the zenith of a golden dream in which a ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... argument with a flood of nonsense, a common custom with this young gentleman; and, by the way, we might recommend it as remarkably convenient at such times, to prevent the pain of a total discomfiture, it being more pleasant to slip quietly and unseen from your pedestal to some perfectly remote topic, than to allow yourself to be hurled roughly therefrom by the rude hand of a more sound and ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... air, he now mounted the pedestal of the main-top-sail sheet-bitts, imposing silence by a theatrical wave of his hand; meantime, his subordinates were rummaging the bags, and assorting their contents ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... have left it there; but Eleanor was never more irresistible than when she was in a yielding mood, and now, when she lifted starry eyes of gratitude, he tumbled off his pedestal of noble detachment, and drew her suddenly ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder that ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

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

... of masters, etc, and yielding to the pleasing and easy illusion that inflates the minimum to seem the maximum of freedom, and uses the noblest ideal of history, viz., that of pure autonomous oughtness, as a pedestal for idols of selfishness, caprice and conceit. The trouble is in interpreting these moral instincts, for even the authorities lack the requisite self-knowledge in which all wisdom culminates. The moral interregnum which the Aufklaerung [Enlightenment] ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... the warrior-goddess in complete armor, formed by Phidias out of the spoils taken at Marathon. The square base, partly sunk in the uneven rock, is as perfect as if just put in readiness to receive the pedestal of that famous work. A road bending to the right and slightly hollowed out of the rock leads to the Parthenon. The outer platform which sustains this celebrated temple is partly cut from the rock of the hill and partly built up of common limestone. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

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

... and containing the names of the artists who made them. It was a common practice, in the case especially of independent statues in the round, for the sculptor to attach his signature, generally to the pedestal. Unfortunately, while great numbers of these inscribed pedestals have been preserved for us, it is very rarely that we have the statues which once belonged on them. Moreover, the artists' names which we meet on ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... to a prepared and biangular pedestal is so special that there is no care and no spectacle further than just enough to show the reason of the respect and ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

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

... of a wand. The statesman's widow survived her husband more than thirty-six years, but never outlived her friends or her faculties. There is a temple dedicated to Friendship, which was erected to perpetuate the coming of age of one of the late Lords Holland; on a pedestal ornamented by a vase, are inscribed some verses by General Fitzpatrick; another placed by Mrs. Fox to mark a favorite spot where Mr. Fox loved to muse, is enriched by a quotation from the "Flower and the Leaf," concluded by two ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... but are triple and rectangular. The chapel internally is 20 feet 10 inches long and 11 feet 6 inches wide, and is not at right angles to its western wall, but inclines considerably toward the south. In the middle of the entrance is an octagonal basin, supported on a pedestal and having a shield on each of its sides. This is thought to have been a stoup for holy water. It is not, perhaps, in its original position, and the pedestal does not seem to belong to it. Opposite to the blocked ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

... and was profoundly, abjectly wretched in her triumph. Great sobs seemed to tear at her very heart-strings. She had pulled down Paul's idol from her pedestal, but the one look she had cast at his face had shown her that she had ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... held a great religious ceremony at the base of his pedestal, and as a part of the rites the Missionary was roasted whole. As the tongue was removed for the high priest's table, "Ah," said the Idol to himself, "that is the Sword of the Spirit—the only Sword that is ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... luxurious home and an idolising husband rather than continue intimate intercourse with the enemy of my religion. This new sort of flattery intoxicated me with its fumes. I recoiled from the thought of shattering the pedestal to which I had found myself elevated. What if I should discover my daughter in one from the touch of whose robe these holy women would recoil as from the rags of a leper! No; it would be impossible for me to ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Aurora rendered her son, the glorious Memnon, vocal,"* (* These are the words of an inscription, which attests that sounds were heard on the 13th of the month Pachon, in the tenth year of the reign of Antoninus. See Monuments de l'Egypte Ancienne.) the voice was that of a man hidden beneath the pedestal of the statue; but the observation of the natives of the Orinoco, which we relate, seems to explain in a natural manner what gave rise to the Egyptian belief of a stone that poured forth sounds ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal this side of the year 2209. Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly, disbelief in a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby has never been known to disintegrate swiftly; it is a very slow process. It took several thousand years to convince our fine race—including every ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... supposedly humorous, and nearly all uninformed. She became, Arnaud said, the champion of the esthetic against Dagon. He elaborated this picture until she was forced to smile against her inclination, her profound seriousness. Linda had the feeling that she, too, was on the pedestal that held the bronze effigy of Simon Downige challenging the fog that obscured men. Its fate was hers. She didn't ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... and comes not; while the god that Bruno proclaims he already finds within himself. Tasso dies in his bed in the cloister, uneasy as on a bed of thorns; Bruno, amidst the flames, stands out as on a pedestal, and dies serene and calm. We must now follow our ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... happened. These fires had not been permitted to burn themselves out. They had been extinguished, deluged out of existence when the idol of his worship was flung headlong from its pedestal by the complete revolt of his moral being. His prejudices, his instincts, matured through years of effort, were the stronger part of him, and the conflict was decided before it began. The shock of discovery had brought a terrible ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum

... softened by delicate pink shades, and upon a pedestal beneath Aunt Marcia's portrait, stood a huge jardiniere filled with roses the glowing petals of which seemed to repeat the color of the brocaded court ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... representation of objects. But whatever he did, all his writings (including the Annals), bear the stamp of one mind: they indicate alike the predominance of three powers exercised in an equal and uncommon degree, and without which no one can stand, as he does, on the loftiest pedestal of literary merit,—sensibility, imagination and judgment, working together like one compact, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... sure of that," she replied thoughtfully. "I want the pedestal of my hero to be a low one; and Cooee declares that she wishes no pedestal at all. If her hero is worthy of the name, he must bear inspection even from above. The worst flaw of all might lurk in the ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... Bourbons.' A short time after the dejeuner the consul entered, and Josephine had nothing more pressing to do than to relate to him all these details. 'And have you inquired,' asked her husband, 'whether this column would have for a pedestal the corpse of the first consul?' The beautiful duchess was still present, and with her winning ways she was well calculated to carry her point. 'I shall ever be happy,' said she, 'and grateful for the kindness of Madame Bonaparte in having ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... poignards into the body, two being affixed to the front of the face, to penetrate to the brain through the eyes. "That this machine had formerly been used cannot be doubted; because there are evident blood-stains yet visible on its breast and part of the pedestal." This machine was introduced to Nuernberg in 1533, and is believed to have originated in Spain, and to have been transplanted into Germany during the reign of Charles V., who was monarch of both countries. At this period there were great ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... God for the metaphysicians who is not the God of the vulgar. Before we immolate upon His altar the conscience and the heart, it is worth our while to examine whether the statue of the God of the reason rests upon a solid pedestal. Here are the theses which are proposed to us: "It is impossible for our feelings to supply any light for science. Truth may be gloomy, and despair may gain its cause. Virtue may be wrong, and immorality may be the true. Reason alone judges of that which ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... It is reached by steps from the sacristy through a doorway in the main side wall. It is a small and unpretentious structure of wood, with wooden sounding-board above. It rests upon a solid stone pedestal, cut into appropriate shaft and mouldings. The door is of solid ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

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

... and character-analysis; subject only, and that not much, to the limitations of the time. In fact, if I do not do some of these panegyrists injustice, we ought to have a fancy bust of Chrestien, with the titles of his works gracefully inscribed on the pedestal, as a frontispiece to this book, if not even a full-length statue, robed like a small St. Ursula, and like her in Memling's presentation at Bruges, sheltering in its ample folds the child-like figures of future French novelists and romancers, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... more fortunate when on Mars, for they could become accustomed to the altered conditions. Only had to be careful they didn't overdo. He remembered vividly a quick move he had made on his first visit to Mars. Carried him twenty feet to slam against a granite pedestal. Bad cut that gave him, and the exertion in the rarefied atmosphere ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... them into a narrative on the same plane as a newspaper, leaving readers to convert them back again into reality or not, according to their choice or ability. His life seemed to him a dream, not a newspaper obituary, not an equestrian statue on a pedestal in Albemarle Street opposite John ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

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

... watched her husband deteriorate, but with every excuse known to a woman who loves she tried to bolster up her waning faith in the man and his ability. With an obstinacy which was pathetic, she endeavored to keep him on the pedestal where she had placed him. She listened with a fixed smile of interest to the extraordinary schemes he outlined to her, sometimes hypnotizing herself into believing in them, until he returned with the exaggerated swagger which proclaimed another failure. Then she would join him in ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... rather than of the young. Her spiritual eyes and virginal face were often before him in his dreams and waking thoughts. There was a maidenlike modesty, as it were, even about her graceful bodily self, which belonged, in his imagination, to a saint upon an altar, rather than to a statue upon a pedestal. There was something in the sweep of her soft dark brown hair which suggested that it would be sacrilege and violence for a man's hand to touch it. There was a dewy delicacy on her young lips, as though they could kiss nothing more earthly than a newly opened ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... with the victor's statue, hewn of the same frozen marble. In a few days or weeks thereafter, the passer-by would observe a shapeless mound upon the level common; and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask, "How came it there? Who reared it? And what means it?" The shattered pedestal of many a battle monument has provoked these questions, when none ...
— Snow Flakes (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... liberty, and despotism, and all the scenic decorations suitable to the frenzied orgies of a republican fete. Thank God! they appeared to be tolerably well covered with dust and cobwebs. At the end of this noble room, seated upon a high pedestal, was the goddess of liberty, beautifully executed in marble. "Look at that sanguinary prostitute," cried Mons. G——, to me, pointing to the statue, "for years have we had liberty and bloodshed, thank Heaven! we are now no longer free." Upon which, he wrote his name in the first ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr



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



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