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More "Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was visible only from one place, and that was directly looking up the valley. If one went too far to the right or left the head disappeared from view behind jutting crags, and it was impossible to see it from overhead, because the head was almost under a great spur of a mighty mountain. ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... my 'poetic career' began. At thirteen I wrote a long poem a la 'Lady of the Lake'—1300 lines in six days. At thirteen I wrote a drama of 2000 lines, a full-fledged passionate thing that I began on the spur of the moment without forethought, just to spite my doctor who said I was very ill and must not touch a book. My health broke down permanently about this time, and my regular studies being stopped I read voraciously. I suppose the greater part of my reading was done between fourteen ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... and those already named, the schooner, for so we must call her, carried two heavy, but graceful topsails upon her fore and mainmasts, and even a jigger sail or spanker and gaff above it, on a slender spur rigged from the quarter deck. Altogether the schooner with her various appurtenances, resembled such a yacht as some of the English noblemen sail in the channel and about the Isle of Man in ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... Lady Mason, becoming courageous on the spur of the moment, "I want you to leave that for a moment and ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... remaining portion of our journey to Hazree Soolt[a]n, which was a distance of eighteen miles, was nothing but a barren waste with occasional patches of low jungle. We were now evidently on the farthest spur of the Hindoo Khoosh; the hills were low and detached, gradually uniting into the endless plain which bounded the horizon to the north and west. On the road we met a messenger who was on his way to Sir Alexander Burnes at K[a]bul, having come from Bokhara, bearing a letter from the Vakeel, ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... concerted action of spur, whip, and rein, Judith swung the Prince about so that he was headed for the open valley, running toward the west, giving him his head only a little, driving him. He broke into a thundering run, snorting as, with mane and tail flying, he dashed through ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... was another settler in Alexandria. He followed Strato at the head of one of the schools in the museum. He was very successful in bringing up the young men, who needed, he used to say, modesty and the love of praise, as a horse needs bridle and spur. His eloquence was so pleasing that he was wittily called Glycon, or the sweet. Carneades of Cyrene at the same time held a high place among philosophers; but as he had removed to Athens, where he was at the head ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... head of cattle, under the lead of one of my friends out here, a grumpy old sea captain, who has had a rather diversified life, trying his hand as sailor, buffalo hunter, butcher, apothecary (mirabile dictu), and cowboy. Sewall tried to spur his horse which began kicking and rolled over ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... And to spur her on and to stimulate her, Mr. Barrett published several volumes of her poems. It was immature, pedantic work, but still it had a certain glow and gave promise of the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... lists were made—the trumpet's blast Rang pealing through the air. My 'squire made lace and rivet fast And brought my tried destrerre. I rode where sat fair Isidore Inez Mathilde Borghese; From spur to crest she scann'd me o'er, Then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 27, 1841 • Various
... to her fingertips. The psychology of fear is a fascinating thing. Fanny had reached the second stage. She was quite taken out of herself. She forgot her stone-bruised feet. She was no longer conscious of cold. She ran now, fleetly, lightly, the ground seeming to spur her on. She had given up the trail completely now. She told herself that if she ran on, down, down, down, she must come to the valley sometime. Unless she was turned about, and headed in the direction of one of those hideous chasms. She stopped a moment, peering through the snow curtain, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... India, in 1893, the face of a spur four thousand feet high, of the lower ranges of the Himalayas, slipped into the gorge of the headwaters of the Ganges River in successive rock falls which lasted for three days. Blocks of stone were projected for a mile, and clouds of limestone dust were spread over the surrounding ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... it had done before, and from that I judged that I had grown into a fine rider. Yet my complacency was soon marred by an unfortunate occurrence, Desiring to outdo Woloda before the audience in the carriage, I dropped a little behind. Then with whip and spur I urged my steed forward, and at the same time assumed a natural, graceful attitude, with the intention of whooting past the carriage on the side on which Katenka was seated. My only doubt was whether to halloo or not as I did ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpses of far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets to toys and obliterated the sheep altogether; and every now and then some ermined monarch of the Alps swung magnificently into view for a moment, then drifted past an intervening spur and disappeared again. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The biologist, who had befriended him before, had given him some work in his laboratory. The work was not well paid, but the association with the students, which aroused his intellectual appetites, had given him a new spur. What saddened her was that it was all entirely beyond her sphere of influence, of usefulness to him. Living, as they should, in an almost savage isolation, she dreaded his absorption in anything ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the mountain-side. Drawing off his hat he stretched out his arms to meet it, and his eyes closed as the cool wind struck his throat and face and lifted the hair from his forehead. About him the mountains lay like a tumultuous sea-the Jellico Spur, stilled gradually on every side into vague, purple shapes against the broken rim of the sky, and Pine Mountain and the Cumberland Range racing in like breakers from the north. Under him lay Jellico Valley, and just visible in a wooded cove, whence Indian Creek crept into sight, was a ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... lasted long enough to form and season my character. I had been driven to exertion by a mixture of pride and generosity; my understanding being uncultivated, I had acted from the virtuous impulse of the moment, but never from rational motive, which alone can be permanent in its operation. When the spur of the occasion pressed upon me no longer, I relapsed into my former inactivity. When the great interests and strong passions, by which I had been impelled to exertion, subsided, all other feelings, and all less objects, seemed stale, flat, and unprofitable. For the tranquillity ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... same circumstances. Petersen's tale on board the Josephine and the strange code he had had; the finding of a similar one in the cave; the chest and the powder-horn and pistol; the queer black rock and Sam's story in connection with it; all these events had combined to spur the four young adventurers on in their quest. Now they had discovered another odd looking box and with the hope that springs eternal in the human breast they were anxiously and eagerly awaiting a ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... wince under Miss Day's scepticism! It was only a wonder the governess had not there and then taxed her with the fib. For who believed in old nurses nowadays? They were a stock property, borrowed on the spur of the moment from readings in THE FAMILY HERALD, from Tennyson's LADY CLARE. Why on earth had such a far-fetched excuse leapt to her tongue? Why could she not have said Sarah, the servant, the maid-of-all-work? Then Miss Day would have had no chance to sniff, and she, Laura, could have believed ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... were heard firing incessantly all day and every day. His shells were now seen bursting on a southern spur of ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... to deliver herself from the unpleasantness of her enforced espial by the utterance of some frightful cry such as would at the same time punish with the pains of terror their fool-hardy intrusion. But the spur of the moment was seldom indeed so sharp with Dorothy as to drive her to act without reflection, and a moment showed her that such persons being in the marquis's household as would meet in the middle of the night, and on prohibited ground, apparently ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... pedestal. And so on this occasion he went into the caucus with a written speech in his hat, eulogistic of his favorite. He had meant to have the speech at his tongue's end, and to get it off as if on the spur of the moment. But the speech stayed where it was put, in the speaker's hat, and failed to materialize where and when it was wanted on the speaker's tongue. As the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet like a sensible prophet went to the mountain. Our orator ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... they bound instantly to their saddles, and spur away from the spot; Harkness, as commanded, following at their horses' heels. This he does without daring to disobey; trotting after, in company with the dog, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... training for that high faculty of imagination by virtue of which, after all, we so largely love and hate, choose right or wrong, bear and forbear, adapt ourselves to the ups and downs of this world, and spur our dull souls to the high hopes of a better—anxiety on these ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... dancing. Each dancer composed his own steps on the spur of the moment, but executed them with a degree of precision and violence that would have caused civilised dancing masters to blush with shame and envy. Mrs Gore and Nelly danced too, weeping the while with joy, and ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... peril in which she was placed by the condition of her screw propeller. He resolved to rely on the mainsail for keeping in the right route as far as possible, and to brace the yards obliquely, so as not to present a direct front to the storm. The yacht turned about like a swift horse that feels the spur, and presented a broadside to the billows. The only question was, how long would she hold out with so little sail, and what sail could resist such violence for any length of time. The great advantage of keeping up the mainsail was that it presented to the waves only the most solid portions of the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... his uncovered head. The wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity to the Emperor shocked Rostov. Rostov saw how the Emperor's rather round shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his left foot began convulsively tapping the horse's side with the spur, and how the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not stir. An adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to place him on a stretcher that had ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... exclaimed Seyton; "stretch to your oars, or I will spur you to the task with my dagger—they will launch ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... which registered 7,310 feet, to Killa Rabat (3,900 feet) in the Panjkhora Valley, was for the first half of the distance by a long and densely wooded spur, within an easy slope, but on nearing the foot we found it very stony. Our party was met at the entrance by the khan, and later on we were invited to dinner by him. Long before this I had got quite used to eating with my fingers, but on this occasion ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... several gentlemen of fortune who lived in the neighborhood. To the nearest one, a gentleman on horseback was directing his way. The horse required no direction, in truth, for so accustomed was he to the ride to Exeter, and to the good fare he enjoyed on arriving there, that neither whip nor spur was necessary; he traced the familiar road ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... special groups of nerve-cells which produce directly opposite effects. One of these has the power of accelerating the action of the heart, while the other has the power of retarding or arresting this action. One acts as the spur, the other as the bridle. According as one or the other predominates, the action of the heart will be stimulated or restrained. Among the great modern discoveries in physiology is that of the existence of a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a sudden violent temper at one of the helpers in the fields that the man ran as for his life, and refused to set foot again on any of the Chiltern farms. In the afternoon he sent for Honora to ride with him, and scolded her for keeping him waiting. And he wore a spur, and pressed his horse so savagely that she cried out in remonstrance, although at such times she had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... object within five miles. I now applied the spurs to my horse, who dashed madly down the declivity. Giving one look behind, I saw that Roche, or at least his horse, had entirely given up the chase. The prairie was comparatively smooth, and although I dared not to spur my horse to his full speed, I was soon alongside of the huge animal. It was a bull of the largest size, and his bright, glaring eyeballs, peering out from his shaggy frontlet of hair, shewed plainly that he was maddened by his wounds and ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... was accomplished as only your father could manage such a matter on the spur of the moment—consequences accepted with his usual philosophy and bonhomie. If he could have foreseen all the consequences, he would not, I think, have refused to give ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... lost in the roar of his motor. The speed-boat shot forward like a horse at the touch of a spur. In a whirl of white water Mascola sped ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... take charge of the first four prisoners we bring out. Put the nooses round their necks, and draw them tight enough to let the men feel that they are there. Fasten the other ends to your saddles, and warn them, if they put up their hands to throw off the nooses, you will spur your horses into a gallop. That threat will ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... called the "Serpent Mound." The head of the serpent lies towards the point of the spur, and then like the serpent, its body winds gracefully back for 700 feet, the tail curved into a triple coil. From this and other evidences lately collected, we may assume that the serpent was among ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth
... dinners, or suppers at a restaurant, unless organized on the spur of the moment, are ordered beforehand, and everything, including the waiter's tip, arranged and settled for. If you have not an account at the restaurant, pay the bill at the time you order the menu and reserve the table. Flowers ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... well enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb: against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt. However, I accepted the responsibility—not, certainly, without fear, but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... attempt to achieve a perfect tie. This son of mine, whom I have not seen for these twenty-five years, generously counted, was a self-willed youth, always too ready to utter his unchastised fancies. He, like too many American young people, got the spur when he should have had the rein. He therefore helped to fill the market with that unripe fruit which his father says in one of these papers abounds in the marts of his native country. All these by- gone shortcomings he would hope are forgiven, did he not feel sure that very few of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... prince,—the Miramare, where the half-crazed Empress of the Mexicans vainly waits her husband's return from the experiment of paternal government in the New World. It would be hard to tell how Art has charmed rock and wave at Miramare, until the spur of those rugged Triestine hills, jutting into the sea, has been made the seat of ease and luxury, but the visitor is aware of the magic as soon as he passes the gate of the palace grounds. These are in great part ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... Matthew's boarding house, in Montreal. At the table d'hote there was a raw-boned young English merchant, who remarked that Fawcett, to have been wounded in the heel, must have been running away. Fawcett's Irish blood rose to his forehead, and on the spur of the moment he felled the thoughtless Englishman ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... his life before had Caspar such motives for displaying his hunter-skill. His liberty—that of all of them—depended on all his success in procuring the necessary number of hides; and this was spur enough to ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... comes up faster than the wind; Leon hears the sound of his steps, his spurs jingle; he catches up with Leon, seizes him by the mane, flings himself with a bound upon his back, and goads him with the spur. Leon rears; the rider bends over toward his ear and says, stroking him with his whip: "I am not heavy to carry:—thirty pounds of colonel." The unhappy lover of Mlle. Clementine makes a violent effort and springs sideways; ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... one or two of these riders would spur in pursuit, rope him by horns or legs, and throw him to the ground. Then dismounting and springing nimbly upon the prostrate beast, they quickly fastened the beast's feet with a "hogtie" hitch so that he could not rise, ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... worthless took the value of Ophir. Its features had before been as unknown to me as the Mountains of the Moon, and now my memory became wonderfully quickened. I recalled the rough map of my possessions, the first careless ride round their boundaries. Yes, the land on which I stood—for miles, to the spur of those farther mountains—the land was mine, and, beneath its surface, there was gold! I closed my eyes; for some moments visions of boundless wealth, and of the royal power which such wealth could command, swept athwart my brain. But my heart ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consciousness that, although a betrothed bride, the young lady still was fancy free: not a bit in love. It was but a marriage of convenience, with mitigations. And so there hovered in my curiosity some little flicker of egotistic romance, which helped to rouse my spirits, and spur me on to action. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... feeling of unrest, that first told her Millville was mean, shabby, and an unfit place for an ambitious girl to try to exist in. Her very love for her mother and father, to say nothing of her affection for the other members of her family, seemed a spur to her ambition "to get away and ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... Consistory; with the title of Count Palatine and all the advantages attached to those dignities. His children were thereby raised to the rank of nobles of the empire, with all the honours appertaining to families with four generations of ancestors. He was also made Knight of the Golden Spur, with the right of entrance to court. This was great return for two portraits of a king, but it shows what a king could do ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... reality, the hog's back or ridge of a lofty spur of the mountains. Except for the vast bluish canyons and gorges far below, the view was somewhat restricted here, since towering summits, in a conclave of peaks, arose to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... a leg and spur on each side of the horse to urge and to guide him, should ride without any whip at all if the horse has been subjected to the leg, so as to have the right hand as free for the reins as the left: there should be no such thing as "a bridle hand." ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... another word—Dill with the spur sticking in his skull, a regular cavalry spur, as big as a five-crown piece. He only turned up the whites of his eyes a little and looked sadly at his wife's picture, that she should have permitted such ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... moment, before we had time so much as to spur our horses, much less to draw sword, we were seized and pinioned by the men in spite of the rearing of the frightened steeds. Plainly it was not the first time they had handled men in that wise. Then, with a warrior on either side of us, we were hurried seaward; and I thought it best to hold ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... and over a spur of the mountain to the valley of the Yellowstone, which we followed up eight miles to our present camp. Along on our right in passing up the valley was a vast natural pile of basaltic rock, perpendicular, a part of which had been overthrown, ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... see the whole fight through without relying upon supports. The way in which junior officers and N.C.O.'s have acted upon their own initiative during some of this fighting has been beyond praise. The attack went through up to time. The supports had to come in parties organised in the dark on the spur of the moment. The Germans had several machine-guns going. But as another German officer told me, "This time they came on too thick. We might have held them in front, but they got in on one side of us; then we heard they were in on the other; then ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... a very shrewd game, Elizabeth. You want to wake me up. You're using the spur to make me work. I don't blame you for using the bluff, even if it's a rather cruel one. But, of course, it's impossible for you to be ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... and its blood; and, moreover, has particular to itself so many several sorts of sharp and wounding passions, and so dull a satiety attending it, as equal it to the severest penance. And we mistake if we think that these incommodities serve it for a spur and a seasoning to its sweetness (as in nature one contrary is quickened by another), or say, when we come to virtue, that like consequences and difficulties overwhelm and render it austere and inaccessible; whereas, much more aptly than ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... letter was lost, to make it plain that she was in danger of being taken for a Vestal and bid her father come quickly to interfere and her lover to ride fast to claim her in time. She enjoined both slaves to spur their horses, gave them money in case they needed to hire fresh ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... was guiding them. To her, the level prairie, rank with goldenrod, pink-flowered smartweed, and purple aster, was a land of wondrous growth. For twenty years her home had been an arid mesa far to the south, where her father captained the caretakers of a spur railroad track. The most western station-house in Texas, standing amid thorny mesquite, was her birthplace and that of her sister Marylyn; the grey plateau across which the embankment led was their playground; there they grew to womanhood under the careful guidance of their ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... these particular roads. Later on the trench tramway system, which already existed on the right, was improved and extended to the Essars sector, and eventually stores of all kinds were taken up each night to both sectors in that way, the trains being loaded up at "Speedwell Spur," near Fouquieres. The engine was taken off at Essars on the left, and at Le Quesnoy on the right, and from there the trucks were man-handled forward to ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... occasion, when devotees of various countries came to perform their worship at it, the people of those villages said to them, "Why do you not fly? The devotees whom we have seen hereabouts all fly"; and the strangers answered, on the spur of the moment, "Our wings are ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... own that I have never skirted the ravine at night without feeling a certain uneasiness; and I would not like to swear that on some stormy nights I have not given my horse a touch of the spur, in order to escape the more quickly from the disagreeable impression this neighbourhood ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... on the bare shoulder of a spur free from the small trees and undergrowth clothing the mountains the Deb Zimpun pointed to the roofs of the buildings in the little station a thousand feet below them ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... deep-glowing fervor of enthusiasm for what is highest and best is worth more to you, and to any man, than all that may be learned in colleges. If ambition is akin to pride, and therefore to folly, it is none the less a mighty spur to noble action; and where it is not found in youth, budding and blossoming like the leaves and flowers in spring, what promise is there of the ripe fruit which nourishes life? The love of excellence bears us up on the swift wing and ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... quality of our inner and outer life takes its tone from the things in which we find pleasure, from our standard of taste. If we are severe in our requirements, hard to please, and at least honest with ourselves, it will mean that a spur of continual dissatisfaction pricks us, in all we do, into habitual striving for an excellence which remains beyond our reach. But on the other hand we shall have to guard against that peevish fastidiousness ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... objectives were the Petit Bois and the Maedelsteed Spur, lying respectively to the west and the southwest of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... for this more hateful. I gave life, And I will take—if he, with shameless rage, Scandal the womb that bore him. Ye proud nobles Who war against my son, ye have no right To pillage him. What injury has he done To you? what duty violated? Ambition and low envy spur ye on: I, who begot him, have a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... their way in a southeasterly direction, following the edge of the woods, with the open country to the north and east of them. Presently they reached the "spur," as Tom called it, which seemed to consist of a little "cape" of woods, as one might say, sticking out eastward. They could shorten their path a trifle by cutting through here, and this they did, Roscoe (notwithstanding Tom's stolid self-confidence) watching ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... swayed about in his seat like a drunken man. Amid the blare of the band and the riders and chargers almost upon the struggling horse and motionless girl, lying on the tanbark, Broussard, coolly, as if he were on the parade ground, lifted Gamechick by the bridle, gave him a touch of the spur, and the next moment cleared both mare and girl, with twenty inches between Gamechick's iron-shod hind hoofs and ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... retain a spice of mystery in our mental food. It may constitute no part of the nutriment, and may often be deleterious, but it meets a want, somehow or other, and wants, however undefinable, must be recognized. It is a spur that titillates the absorbent surfaces and helps to keep them in action. It is a craving that the race is never going to outlive, and that will afford occupation and subsistence to a considerable class of its most intelligent and respectable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... marvel that I have ridden after thee on the spur; so here is the tale shortly. Your backs were not turned on the walls of the Burg an hour, ere three of my riders brought in to me a man who said, and gave me tokens of his word being true, that he had fallen in with ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... not venture to bear his honors; his wife merely puts 'La Comtesse du Bruel' on her cards. The sometime playwright has the Order of Leopold, the Order of Isabella, the cross of Saint-Vladimir, second class, the Order of Civil Merit of Bavaria, the Papal Order of the Golden Spur,—all the lesser orders, in short, ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... dashed tricky thing, of course, to have to decide on the spur of the moment. I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. And pretty silly ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... each side of which is forty rods in length. The streets are more than a hundred feet wide, and are all unpaved. There is not a single sidewalk of brick, stone, or plank. The situation is well chosen, being directly at the foot of the southern slope of a spur which juts out from the main Wahsatch range. Less than twenty miles from the city, almost overshadowing it, are peaks which rise to the altitude of nearly twelve thousand feet, from which the snow of course never disappears. But during the summer months, when scarcely a shower falls ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... and the accompaniment was sparsely indicated by figures written above a bass. The recitative which separated one aria from another was improvised by the singer, and was accompanied on the harpsichord by the kapellmeister, who was naturally obliged to improvise his part on the spur of the moment, following the caprice of the singer. There was no creating an atmosphere for a tragic or dramatic situation by means of the accompaniment; as soon as the situation arrived, an aria was sung explaining ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... line of frontiers where the last settlers dwell, and where he may see the first labours of settlement, the mode of clearing the earth, in all their different appearances; where men are wholly left dependent on their native tempers, and on the spur of uncertain industry, which often fails when not sanctified by the efficacy of a few moral rules. There, remote from the power of example and check of shame, many families exhibit the most hideous parts of our society. They are a kind of forlorn hope, preceding by ten or ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... quondam gentleman highwayman, returns to take up the offices of the long-lost heir, Henry Morvan. Troubles thicken about him and along with them the romance develops. Through it all rides "The Lady of the Spur" with a briskness, charm, and mystery about her that give an unusual zest to the book from its very ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... headquarters then wuz the valley camp, It wuz down by the redwood way, With Chaparel across the spur, 'Bout fifty miles away. Wall, what I'm goin' to tell you, pard, Happened thar whar the trail runs into the sky; And if it hadn't a-bin fer Yosemite Jim, Wall, I'd be countin' my ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... hollyhocks made a gorgeous splash of color against the wall of the house beneath the end window. Four-o'clocks, ragged-robins and blue lark-spur struggled up through the cabbages and long grass of the little garden, to bid them welcome, and at the door they were met by the mistress of the house, who had heard ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... plight and proved that what she had conceived in an hour of discontent and executed on the spur of an envious instant could nevermore be undone. What had been planned to be mere temporary appropriation of an outfit of clothing—"to be returned in good order, reasonable wear and tear excepted"—was one thing; safe-breaking, with the theft of Heaven only knew what treasure, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... there and then solemnly vowed and resolved that henceforward it should be the great object and aim of my life to demonstrate this to him to the point of positive conviction. "Yes," I exclaimed, springing to my feet with renewed hope, "I had already one incentive—my love for Inez—to spur me forward to great and noble achievements: I have now another—the justification of my dead mother's memory; and henceforward these shall be the twin stars to guide me onward in my career. 'For Love and Honour' shall be my motto; and, with these two for guerdon, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... 7% necessary to reduce poverty significantly. Privatization of government-owned copper mines relieved the government from covering mammoth losses generated by the industry and greatly improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth. However, low mineral prices have slowed the benefits of privatizing the mines and have reduced incentives for further private investment in the sector. Cooperation continues with international bodies on programs ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... national horizon. Let trade suffer as it might, there was nothing for it but to discard all new-fangled notions and to revert to the system which the usage of ages had sanctioned. The return was imperative. Failing what Junius stigmatised as the "spur of the Press," the right men in the right numbers were not to be procured. The wisdom of the nation was at fault. It could find ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... many acts remained and tentatively felt for their cigarette-cases. He saw George Oakleigh lean towards Barbara, glance at his watch and draw himself slowly to his feet. The movement was a signal and spur for a dozen others. Barbara moved into his place and called a greeting to Deganway who was on the opposite side; he stood up and bent over her, ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... taken led them along a high spur of the hill, past a small body of soldiers, some of whom called to them; but, not hearing what they said, they went on; when, coming to the extreme end of the spur, they saw a deep glen before them. Plunging into it, they quickly climbed up on the other side, when they again ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... case," said the cavalier, "I will not spare the spur. My nag up yonder at the town will be ready for the road in a trice, and thou mayst reckon on my being with Old Noll—thy General, I mean—in as short time as man and horse may consume betwixt Woodstock and Windsor, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... no—your mistake. I only asked you if you'd read Sabrina's Uncle's Other Niece, and, as I made up the title on the spur of the moment, I should have been rather surprised if you had. He never wrote a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... persistence, felt not the inward spur which sought relief in speech, but Iris was compelled ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... philanthropic natures, certainly never in purely sentimental natures. I think its opening is made not by love but by hatred. A man may love God with all his heart, all his mind, and all his soul, without feeling the spur of fanaticism in his blood. But let him hate sin with only a part of his heart, mind, and soul, and he becomes a fanatic. His hatred will grow till it ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... go back to Watson and Miss Day," said Quarles. "Miss Day was silent on the question of love, fearful, I take it, that her natural repugnance to the man might serve to betray the conspiracy. I believe the conspiracy was formed on the spur of the moment, just before Watson came from behind the curtains that evening and asked whether you were a doctor. I should say the dead man had pestered her, and that she was relieved by his death. I find some confirmation of this in Watson's attitude. He talks of some ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... on his Indian mustang, that like a goat scrambles over the craggy track; for a moment or two he disappears, being hidden by a jutting rock; we hear him yell a sort of 'war-whoop,' awakening the echoes in the encircling hills; reckless of falling, we too spur on, dash round the splintered point, and slide rather than canter down a shelving bank, to reach a second sand-beach, over which the guide is galloping and shouting. We can see the fluttering garments of a girl, who ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... sunshine the place adds that of a peculiar beauty. The Apennines rise like a screen behind the amphitheatre of soft hills that enclose it—hills soft with olive woods, and dipping down into gardens of lemon and orange, and vineyards dotted with palms. An isolated spur juts out from the centre of the semicircle, and from summit to base of it tumbles the oddest of Italian towns, a strange mass of arches and churches and steep lanes, rushing down like a stone cataract to the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... accomplished. Two years have since elapsed. During that period the work has been pushed in every State and Territory and possession of the United States, and in every civilized country on the earth. The disappointments experienced and the obstacles encountered have but served to spur to renewed effort those who, from the inception of the movement, had determined to carry it ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... each chief[142] whose warriors rife, Are burning for the slaughter, Would let their volley, like fire to holly, Blaze on the usurping traitor. Full many a soldier arming, Is laggard in his spirit, E'er his blood the flag is warming Of the King that should inherit. He may be loon or coward, That spur scarce touch would nearly— The colours shew, he 's in a glow, Like the stubble of the barley. Onward, gallants! onward speed ye, Flower and bulwark of the Gael; Like your flag-silks be ye ruddy, Rosy-red, and do not quail. Fearless, artless, hawk-eyed, courteous, As your princely strain beseems, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... each. They seemed perfectly satisfied. It was the regulation amount; had I given more they would have clamoured for something additional. That afternoon we stopped for a long rest at a tiny, lonely inn, perched most picturesquely on a spur of the mountain. I sat in my chair while the coolies drank tea inside, and a number of children gathered about me, ready to run if I seemed dangerous. Finally one, taking his courage in both hands, presented me with the local substitute for candy,—raw ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... of the matter were that Alderman Keats had never before dared to fire the revolver, and that the infernal noise and the jar on his hand (which had held the weapon too loosely) had given him what is known in the Five Towns as a fearful start. He had offered to shoot on the spur of the moment, without due reflection, and he had fired as a woman might have fired. It was a piece of the most heavenly good fortune that he had put the bullet through the keyhole. Indeed, at first he was inclined to believe that ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... play of eloquent thought, that enlivened, if it did not kindle, all around it. If you want the real philosophy of it, I will give it to you. The chance thought or expression struck the nervous centre of consciousness, as the rowel of a spur stings the flank of a racer. Away through all the telegraphic radiations of the nervous cords flashed the intelligence that the brain was kindling, and must be fed with something or other, or it would burn ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a spur of one of the mountains which had hitherto barred their vision, they found themselves suddenly face to face with a small band of Manganja men, whose woe-begone countenances told too eloquently that the hand of the destroyer had ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... tell the colonel the other day that what he needed was a brake instead of a spur in handling his bunch of ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... file they galloped along the path, until they found themselves by noon, at the foot of a spur of mountains that extended from the main coast range to the ocean. Jim regarded this barrier in their way with ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... to the right and giving him the spur, he sent him on a swift, zigzagging scramble up the smooth slope. A third rifle-shot echoed from the cliff, and was answered by a smaller weapon, much nearer, and, with his hair almost on end with excitement, ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... But, in spite of that you must take him on my representation, and be gracious to him in spite of what he has done. You must be content to do that; or in quarrelling with him you must quarrel with me also." And it was done at the spur of the moment— without delay. She, who not five minutes since had been loudly condemning the unknown Englishman for his rudeness, had already pardoned him, now that he was known to be her friend; and had determined ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... individual workman in this system is kept life-long at the performance of some task quite petty in itself, and which he soon masters, and having mastered it has nothing more to do but to go on increasing his speed of hand under the spur of competition with his fellows, until he has become the perfect machine which it is his ultimate duty to become, since without attaining to that end he must die or become a pauper. You can well imagine how this glorious invention of division of labour, this complete destruction ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... a Soldier, and wrapt up in the Fruition of his Glory, whilst with an undesigned Sincerity they praised his noble and majestick Mien, his Affability, his Valour, Conduct, and Success in War. How must a Man have his Heart full-blown with Joy in such an Article of Glory as this? What a Spur and Encouragement still to proceed in those Steps which had already brought him to so pure a Taste of the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... they descried a range of lofty mountains printing the clear horizon, some of them evidently capped with snow. These they supposed to be the Bighorn Mountains, so called from the animal of that name, with which they abound. They are a spur of the great Rocky chain. The hill from whence Mr. Hunt had this prospect was, according to his computation, about two hundred and fifty miles from ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... action, hoisted at 1 P.M., was hauled down a half-hour later. Hood, who realised the conditions plainly visible, as well as the reasonable inferences therefrom, wished the order given for a general chase, which would have applied the spur of emulation to every captain present, without surrendering the hold that particular signals afford upon indiscreet movements. He bitterly censured the Admiral's failure to issue this command. Had it ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... was some stray farmer lost off his route," declared Fogg. "Why, that old spur has been rusting away for over five years, to my recollection. As to the old road beyond being a highway, that's nonsense. There's no thoroughfare beyond the end of the spur. The road ends at a dismantled, ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... Carnegies on the wall, "there is Lord Hay's letter, and he is a . . . worthy gentleman. Perhaps I did not give him so much encouragement as he took, but that does not matter. This is a . . . serious decision, and ought not to be made on the spur of the moment. Will you let the messenger go with a note to say that an answer will be sent on Monday? You ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... have been in many a perilous place, I who sprang from the Swaying Stone to the point of the Trembling Spur, and missed my aim, but never, never in such a one as this. Agony took hold of me; a cold sweat burst from every pore. I could feel it running down my face like tears; my hair bristled upon my head. And below, in utter silence, Leo turned round ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... head like a horse at the touch of the spur. His eyes blazed defiantly at the Kapellmeister for a moment, and then the light went out of them as flame from a coal. The glass fell from his hand and lay shattered in fragments on the floor. He stood looking ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... very wrong at times: the doctor fumed like his little craters; growled out long-winded, exhaustive German imprecations: wouldn't even eat. Then again the demon of work would drive him with thong and spur: he would rush to his craters, to his laboratories, to his ledger for the purpose of entering unintelligible commentaries. He had some peculiar contrivance, like a misshapen retort, with which he collected gases from the craterlets. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... after, when we were entered upon, a desert of about fifteen or sixteen miles over, behold, by a cloud of dust they raised, we saw an enemy was at hand; and they were at hand indeed, for they came on upon the spur. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... consciousness, and her movement in sitting up recalled me to my duty. I ran to Sir Cyril, and, kneeling down so as to screen his body from her sight, I drew the dagger from its sheath, and began hastily, with such implements as I could contrive on the spur of the moment, to ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... the town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor: to this person, whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in addition to the commissary's circular; and the family connection acting as a spur to his natural activity, a coast guard had been set before Garret's arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the mayor, with the aldermen, and twenty of the council, had kept privy watch," and searched suspicious houses at ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... Bohemia were destined to aid and assist the Russians in case they should be successful (and who can blame the Austrian Government for wishing to wash away the shame of the Treaty of Presburg?). Napoleon had not a moment to lose, but this activity required no spur; he had hastened the battle of Austerlitz to anticipate Prussia, and he now found it necessary to anticipate Russia in order to keep Austria in a state ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... is a miracle of man's wisdom and mankind's forbearance; it has not only been amassed and handed down, it has been suffered to be amassed and handed down; and surely in such consideration as this, its possessor should find only a new spur to activity and honour, that with all this power of service he should not prove unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure should return in benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or thirty, or a hundred thousand at his banker's, or if all Yorkshire or all California were his to ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to stay, dad," she said, in a whisper. But the half-hearted invitation acted like a spur, and The Pilot was determined to ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... to-day. But to-morrow they may be strung upon some other and nobler purpose. These gigantic beings of which the engineer is the master and slave, are neither benevolent nor malignant. To-day they produce destruction, they are the slaves of the spur; to-morrow we hope they will bridge and carry and house and ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... and rested his chin on his hands. "Well, your haughty guest touched me with too sharp a spur, perhaps," he said, "but she was right. I do waste my life. I have been thinking of my mother. I believe she might not be pleased with me sometimes. And then I felt mad, and now I must do something to forget. So ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... who, on the spur of the moment, during the play, tries something else, is taking a course sure to deceive an intelligent partner, and one which will probably reduce the number of ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... sunrise evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on the spur of ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... a triple girdle of black battlemented walls, the town is built near Cape Apcheron, on the extreme spur of the Caucasian range. But am I in Persia or in Russia? In Russia undoubtedly, for Georgia is a Russian province; but we can still believe we are in Persia, for Baku has retained its Persian physiognomy. I visit a palace of the khans, a ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... speak of," he muttered. "He wrote asking permission to sketch the house, and my father refused—just why I don't know; some business matter had vexed him that day, I fancy, and he dashed off the refusal on the spur of the moment. But a man does not commit a terrible crime for so slight a cause.... Oh, if only my head would cease throbbing!... Do as you like. Bates, see that ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the driver, evidently pleased at finding himself an object of interest, "wait until we round this spur here, and then we'll have a tolerable straight road ahead. I don't suppose, though, that you'll find ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... at last, not by gentleness and caresses—no such communication ever passed between them—but by plain, practical, hopeful suggestions spoken out clearly in the intervals of his whining. At length she esteemed it time to use the spur instead of stroking him any longer. "Get up on the tree, father, and I will give you the rest of the things when you are fixed on the branch. If Toyner's stirring again before I get home, he'll find means to keep me from coming to-morrow night. Climb up now. I'll give you ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... he come in the morning? She had made up her mind, at the spur of the moment, that the news which he had heard had settled that matter for ever. But if so, why should he come in the morning? Then she felt, as she sat alone in her room, that she had done him a foul injustice in that spur of the moment. It must be that ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... use—never let it part from you—your lives may depend upon it. God be with you, my brave boys. Adieu!" Basil took the case, passed the string over his shoulders, pushed the bag under the breast of his hunting-shirt, pressed his father's hand, and putting the spur to his horse rode briskly off. Lucien saluted his father with a kiss, waved his hand gracefully to Hugot, and followed. Francois remained a moment behind the rest—rode up to Hugot—caught hold of his great moustache, gave it a twitch that caused the ex-chasseur to grin again; and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... health and happiness. He began to throw up his milk after nursing, and to grow ill, giving signs of brain disease, and then my lord said, you must now give up these customs and take my counsel. So, on the spur of the moment, I accepted his advice and gave up the cradle. I unrolled the bindings and wrappings and gave up myself to putting things in due order. I clothed my child with garments adapted to his age and circumstances, and to the time and place, and ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm! But still I stood in the doorway, with baby on my arm. They came; they passed; with spur and whip in haste they sped along— Morgan, Morgan the raider, and ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... mustered, with a goodly sufficiency of ships. And on the day that he rode from the city unto his ships, when he had mounted up on to his horse, his wife went to him & would have spoken with him, but when he saw this he thrust at her with his heel, setting his spur in her breast so that it penetrated deep therein, and she fell and straightway died.Sec. But the Earl rode to his ships and fared with his host over to England. At that time was ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... need to know more of Pompeii itself. We need evidence also from other Italian towns of similar age. Here our ignorance is deep. Only one site which can help has been even tentatively explored. Norba, which once crowned a spur of the Monti Lepini above the Pontine marshes, was founded as a Roman town, according to the orthodox chronology, in 492 B.C.[50] But the received chronology of the earlier Republic, minute as it looks, probably deserves no more credence than the equally ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... book or paper before him, and continues from first to last as though the words came from him on the spur of the moment. It is known, however, that it is his practice to prepare his orations with great care and commit them entirely to memory, as does an actor. Indeed, he repeats the same lecture over and over again, I am told, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... was, however, quite enough to daunt the most determined foe, for in place of disheartening the engineer, the mishap seemed to spur him on to renewed exertions. He was on the spot by daybreak, and before long a strong dam was made across, to prevent the entrance of the sea-water; the drain was emptied, and while one gang was engaged in taking down the ruined side of the gowt, the rest of the men went on with the delving, ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... his toes into the stirrups, at the same time pulling down his trousers legs, which had a tendency to hitch up in what seemed to them a most exasperating disregard for form. To their certain knowledge, Mr. Blithers had never started out before without boot and spur; therefore, the suddenness of his present sortie sank into their intellects ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... without trial; when the head of the brave and good duke, who had fallen in the field, was, against all knightly and king-like generosity, mockingly exposed, like a dishonoured robber, on the gates of York, my father, shocked and revolted, withdrew at once from the army, and slacked not bit or spur till he found himself in his hall at Arsdale. His death, caused partly by his travail and vexation of spirit, together with his timely withdrawal from the enemy, preserved his name from the attainder passed on the Lords Westmoreland and Nevile; and my eldest brother, Sir John, accepted the king's ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me up to the mark for the next few weeks, but even it lost its terrors in time, and my preceptress had to apply the spur in other ways as the time ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... to spur on his legions to combat on the sands of an African desert, pointing them to the Egyptian pyramids that loomed up against the far-off horizon, he exclaimed, "From yonder summits forty centuries look down ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... do this there must be nothing in the nose or upper part of the pharynx to interfere with the free circulation of the air through these cavities. The cavities of the nose may be partly closed by polpi (tumors) on the upper and middle turbinate bone, a spur on the (septum) partition, deviation of the partition or enlarged turbinate bones, or adenoids in the upper part of the pharynx. These troubles almost close up the nose sometimes and the person is compelled to breathe through his mouth. He not only looks foolish, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... wings are so small that they can scarcely be called wings, and are not easy to find under the general plumage of the body. Its nostrils, strange to say, are at the tip of the beak. The toes are strong, and well adapted for digging, the hind one being a thick, horny spur. To add to the singularity of this creature, it has no tail whatever. The kirvi-kirvi conceals itself among the extensive beds of fern which abound in the middle island of New Zealand, and it makes a nest ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... a lesser Cadis-worm, called a Cock-spur, being in fashion like the spur of a Cock, sharp at one end, and the case or house in which this dwels is made of smal husks and gravel, and slime, most curiously made of these, even so as to be wondred at, but not made by man (no more then the nest of a bird is): this is a choice bait for any flote fish, ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... that start the water circulatin' in the mouth; There are pies that wear the flavor of the warm an' sunny south; Some with oriental spices spur the drowsy appetite An' just fill a fellow's being with a thrill o' real delight; But for downright solid goodness that comes drippin' from the sky There is nothing quite the equal of a chunk o' ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... particularly to the officers and the superior class of the colonists: since the disputes and contests which take place between the lower orders of the inhabitants and the common soldiery, generally arise on the spur of the moment, and evaporate with the immediate cause of the provocation; while the others are more frequently the effect of cool and deliberate insult, and consequently settle into a fixed and inveterate hostility. ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... with some more burghers round here and have another shot at them." Behind us the British lancers were shouting "Stop, stop, halt you —— Boers!" They fired briskly at us, but our little ponies responded gamely to the spur and, aided by the darkness, we rode on safely. Still the lancers did not abandon the chase, and followed us for a long distance. From time to time we could hear the pitiful cries and entreaties of burghers ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... by his genius, misfortunes, and misconduct, published this year a poem, called The Race, by 'Mercurius Spur, Esq.[88],' in which he whimsically made the living poets of England contend for pre-eminence of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... paid to me as being President of the republic, and I endeavoured to behave myself with such mingled humility and dignity as might befit the occasion; but I could not but feel that something was wanting to the simplicity of my ordinary life. My wife, on the spur of the moment, managed to give the gentlemen a very good dinner. Including the chaplain and the surgeon, there were twelve of them, and she asked twelve of the prettiest girls in Gladstonopolis to meet ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... weaving, contributed greatly to enrich Gaul. Undoubtedly even before the Roman conquest, Gaul worked gold mines; it seems, however, that silver mines remained untouched until about the time of Augustus. At any rate, the discovery of some deposits of gold and silver then gave a spur to several flourishing industries; jewelry-making, and—an original Gallic industry of much importance—silver-plating and tinning. Here is another extract from Pliny, from which you will see that in those times they already ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... of ours was only three hundred yards from the Austrians, though we had between us and them the river Vippacco and a high hill, a spur of that on which the ruined monastery of S. Grado di Merna stood. The trenches here ran on either side of the Vippacco. An Italian Trench Mortar Battery had been here before us and, it was said, had been shelled out. But our gun pits, blasted out of the ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... other navigators, that Strong's Island was once inhabited by over twenty thousand people. At the present time the population does not reach five hundred. One of these places was situated on the summit of a spur of the great mountain range that traverses the island. The top of the mountain had been levelled as flat as a table, and a space of about an acre was covered with what appeared to be a floor of huge basaltic prisms, laid closely together. What the purpose of such gigantic labour was none of my companions ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... page, "I will hear it another day, when the rain is dashing against the windows, and there is neither steed stamping, nor spur jingling, nor feather waving in the neighbourhood to mar my marking it well. But, even now, I want to be in the world, and to look ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... animal, put together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur. Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed through sense, and is full of, the prickings and ticklings of desire, the obedient steed, then as always under the government of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... nobler powers!" Wisdom like this, as all things rich and rare, Must be acquired with pains, and kept with care; In books he sought it, which his friends might view, When their kind host the guarding curtain drew. There were historic works for graver hours, And lighter verse to spur the languid powers; There metaphysics, logic there had place; But of devotion not a single trace - Save what is taught in Gibbon's florid page, And other guides of this inquiring age. There Hume appear'd, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... makes use of lower things to picture and suggest the higher. The aim of the Heroic Enthusiast is to get at the Truth and to see the Light, and he considers that all the trials and sufferings of this life, are the cords which draw the soul upwards, and the spur which quickens the ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... trees. It forms as it were a cornice, perched three thousand feet above the valley, over which it commands a view of mountain and bay and inlet, but never a house, never a church, and the farthest point is beyond Calvi, thirty miles away. There is but one spur—a vast buttress of fertile land thrown against the mountain, as a buttress may be thrown against a ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... blow up horse-flesh, as the butcher doth veal, which shall wash out again in twice riding betwixt Waltham and London. The trade of spur-making had decayed long since, but for this ungodly tireman. He is cursed all over the four ancient highways of England; none but the blind men that sell switches in the road are beholding to him. His stable is filled with so many diseases, one would think most part ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... hats that had been harvested in the summer of '65. Here and there you saw a sombrero, the wide hat of the cowboy, and the big, soft, shapeless head cover of the Mormon, with a little bunch of whiskers on his chin. General Dodge came from his arsenal car, that stood on an improvised spur, in a bright, new uniform. Of the special trains, that of Governor Stanford was first to arrive, with its straight-stacked locomotive and Celestial servants. Then the U.P. engine panted up, with its burnished bands ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... seems the effort of spur and whip, Or the hoarse, hot cry of the pallid lip, When once we have fallen back. It is better to keep on stirrup and rein, The steady poise and the careful strain, In speeding ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Most boys are fond of red apples, but Conrad cared for nothing else but apples and apple dumplings, not even for his cantering horse, and readily exchanged him for Gaspar's apple, which he could be constantly eating. Off rode Gaspar with whip and spur, sure now that the little gray man ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... is elliptical, about 1-1/2 times as long as broad, rounded at the extremities. The left border of the carapace bears a spur-like projection. The ventral cirri are short and thick, and are very characteristic of the species. When moving slowly they look much like nicely-pointed paint brushes, but when the animal is compressed they quickly become fibrillated, and then look ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... the woods he stands and laments, "O my pinions!" Thou didst love a lion of perfect strength, Seven and seven times[897] thou didst bury him in the corners (?), Thou didst love a horse superior in the fray, With whip and spur[898] thou didst urge him on, Thou didst force him on for seven double hours,[899] Thou didst force him on when wearied and thirsty; His ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... heels, or if the man desired to move the horse had his own opinion and proved restive. At last, horses and men came out on a bit of level woodland opening into glades full of snow. We were eighty-four hundred feet in air, on a spur of Amethyst or Specimen Mountain. We had meant, having made eighteen miles, to camp somewhere on this hill, but the demon who drives men to go a bit farther infested the major that day; so presently the bugle sounded, and we were in the saddle again, and off for a delusive five-mile ride. As ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... rein sufficiently tight to check her speed, she stopped short, and shook her head angrily. I attempted gently to urge her on—not a step except backwards would she stir—at length in despair I touched her slightly with the spur, and then "the fiend within her woke," and proceeded to make up for lost time with a vengeance. The moment the mare felt the spur she reared until she stood perfectly erect, and fought the air with her forelegs. Upon this I slackened the rein, and, striking ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... that flourish, rank and wild, no longer cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from Palermo one sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun, indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... eyes are fixed upon the goal, The skilful lads from town are on the prowl, Swift fly the steeds along the even green, Bored by the bloody spur, and quickly seen The champion full in front, and as he goes He wins by half a head, or half a nose; Then betting fair ones fumble for their purse, Eager the trifling wager to disburse. Alas! they've nothing hanging by their side, Save but the string by ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... it so that they throw us off their trail, Roger. You know Mr. Dillon said they could branch off at Talpoll Crossing. That is where a spur of the railroad cuts in, to reach the mines on the other side of the hills—the railroad I suppose the Landslide Mine would have to use in ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... laboured under the impression that it is safe from detection, has revealed its presence unwittingly and upon the spur of the moment. If the men be steeled against the bomb attack, it is almost impossible to resist the inclination to take a shot when the airman, swooping down, ventures so temptingly near as to render him an enticing target almost impossible to miss. As a rule, however, the ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... expedition, while in the Martignac ministry M. de la Ferronays, minister of foreign affairs, was bent upon negotiating. It needed a second insult—the firing on "La Provence,'' a vessel carrying a flag of truce, in the harbour of Algiers (August 3, 1829)—to spur the French government to further action than an ineffectual blockade. An expedition against Algiers was then decided upon, and Marshal de Bourmont, the minister of war, himself took the command. On the 14th of June 1830 the French troops ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a pretty business indeed, and a very nice question for me to decide on the spur of the moment. What was my duty, under the circumstances? On the one hand, here was a British merchantman, doubtless carrying a very valuable cargo, in imminent danger of being captured and plundered, and, possibly, her crew massacred, for the brig was overhauling the Indiaman hand over hand; ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... slipping off the road to certain death among the rocks and boulders below. For the chestnut had succeeded in wrenching his hindquarters outward, his heels were already over the edge, and his rider, leaning well forward, was applying whip and spur with a coolness and vigour that could not fail to ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... me with the most evident fatherly pride. He had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made on her return home from her first morning at the English school. Impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of the moment. No; I could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly not demanded ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... that such an uncommon and romantic marriage might be a spur to Clavering's genius, which might weaken in a conventional marital drama set in the ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... nigh on forty miles they sped And spoke of words not four, And horse and spur with blood were red When they ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the gray metal with his torch and found a slender spur of thorium perhaps two feet high a short distance from the boat. "Here's a hold," he said. "Come on, Frenchy. You, ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... energy of style, and boldness of hypothesis, were powerful to awaken and stimulate the genius of the age. The logic of De Crousaz had prepared me to engage with his master Locke and his antagonist Bayle; of whom the former may be used as a bridle, and the latter applied as a spur, to the curiosity of a young philosopher. According to the nature of their respective works, the schools of argument and objection, I carefully went through the Essay on Human Understanding, and occasionally ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... that we may give our boys and girls too much help; that life be made too easy for them; that their moral backbones may grow flabby by reason of too much support. Normal young people do not need aid and support. They need guidance and direction—and the majority of them, either the sharp spur of necessity or the relentless urge of an ambition which will not be denied. Almost without exception we have found that the only difference between genius or millionaire and dunce or tramp is a willingness to pay ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... thought of the summons that he had received. And so, not unlike one who had come to the conclusion that it was indeed a farewell, he waved his hand resignedly in the direction that the stage had taken and, calling to his vaquero, he gave his horse a thrust of the long rowel of his spur and galloped off towards ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... up-raised eyes of those of fuller maturity, the practice in most of his own kind of turning aside, pressing their hands about their middle parts, and bending forward into a swollen attitude devoid of grace, on the spur of a sudden remembrance, and in the auspicious but undeniably embarrassing manner in which all the unfledged ones of the village clustered about his retiring footsteps, saluting him continually as one "James," upon whom had been ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... 'neath rocks uphurled, In which I dwell, though poor and small, A spur of that stupendous wall, The eighth great wonder of the world, Doth in its little space excel The grandest palace where ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... and twenty, by her most suspicious account, in which, according to all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that stale stage in which those of her profession are reduced to think of showing company, instead of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... disappointment in that a tree that we particularly wanted was found to have died only two years before. It was the old story of being too late. Certainly such experiences ought to spur this association to new efforts in trying to locate the best nut trees ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... gathereth the meetings of men, let be, my friends, and leave me alone to waste in bitter grief;— unless it so be that my father, the good Odysseus, out of evil heart wrought harm to the goodly-greaved Achaeans, in quittance whereof ye now work me harm out of evil hearts, and spur on these men. Better for me that ye yourselves should eat up my treasures and my flocks. Were YE so to devour them, ere long would some recompense be made, for we would urge our plea throughout the town, begging ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... future. Now a great hereditary fortune is a miracle of man's wisdom and mankind's forbearance; it has not only been amassed and handed down, it has been suffered to be amassed and handed down; and surely in such consideration as this, its possessor should find only a new spur to activity and honour, that with all this power of service he should not prove unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure should return in benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or thirty, or a hundred thousand ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Others thought that it betokened irritation in him, and that a man in his high position ought not to punish persons who were presumably trustworthy by branding them so conspicuously. In fact, I suppose, he sometimes applied the brand too hastily, under the spur of sudden resentment. The most-open of men himself, he had no hesitation in commenting on anybody or any topic with the greatest indiscretion. For he took it for granted that even the strangers who heard him would hold his remarks as confidential. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... to him. The continual menace could not but fill Wahb with uneasiness, for he was not young now, and his teeth and claws were worn and blunted. He was more than ever troubled with pains in his old wounds, and though he could have risen on the spur of the moment to fight any number of Grizzlies of any size, still the continual apprehension, the knowledge that he must hold himself ready at any moment to fight this young monster, weighed on his spirits and began to tell on ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... scaffold he prayed almost incessantly. There was sufficient spur for prayer in the menacing fortress before him with its hundred tiny windows, and the new scaffold, some five or six feet high, that stood in the foreground. He wondered how the bishop was passing his time and thought he knew. The long grey wall beyond ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... the words she darted away in the direction of the hall as fast as her feet could carry her over the level greensward; rage seeming literally to lend her wings, so rapidly did her fiery passions spur her on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... desert green with bajadas, prickly pears, and mesquit. To the right, close to a spur of the hills, were the dwarfed houses of a ranch. The fans of a windmill caught the sun and flashed ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the fowls on which he was dining would rise again in full feather. The miracle is performed. The cock and hen spring from the ocean of their own gravy, clacking and crowing, with all appurtenances of spur, comb, and feather. Pierre, of course, is liberated, and declared innocent. The cock and hen become objects of veneration—live in a state of chastity—and are finally translated—leaving just two eggs, from which arise another immaculate cock and hen. The breed is perhaps ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... on the spur of the moment, during the play, tries something else, is taking a course sure to deceive an intelligent partner, and one which will probably reduce the ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... his ride it was already a little after nine. Could he reach Santa Teresa before midnight? The question loomed grim before him, but he answered only with the spur. Pepe was hardy, and, as Felipe well knew, of indomitable pluck. But what a task now lay before the little animal. He might do it, but oh! it was ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... the forest, and went northwards, until, on the fifth day, they reached the boundaries of Saxon Land. And Siegfried gave spur to his horse Greyfell, and, leaving the little army behind him, hastened forwards to see where the enemy was encamped. As he reached the top of a high hill, he saw the armies of the North-kings resting carelessly in the valley beyond. Knights, mounted ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... themselves possessed of a large and lively family, all methods of discipline, whether sanctioned by long custom or invented on the spur of the moment, through the extreme urgency ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... to repeat and elaborate the story which he had already told regarding his mythical friend who had at last a commercial wireless "televue," as he called it on the spur of the moment, when Jane, the aged caretaker, announced Dr. Scott. The new doctor was a youthfully dressed man, clean-shaven, but with an undefinable air of being much older than his smooth face led one to suppose. As he ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... she got us to the border, dragging a pack of linens with her! The night my father's feet were bleeding in the snow, when they took him! How with me a kid in the crib, my—my brother's face was crushed in—with a heel and a spur—all night, sometimes, she cries in her sleep—begging to go back to find the graves. All day she sits making raffia wreaths to take ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shrapnel was bursting, and these were wisped away into the heavy clouds. Now and again one heard the high singing note of shells travelling towards us—the German answer to this demonstration—and one saw the puff balls resting on the hill-spur opposite our observation post. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... with excitement. Looking neither to the right nor the left, unconscious in what direction he was going, he urged forward, with whip and spur, the little mustang, to the utmost speed of the animal, and yet scarcely in the least diminished the distance between him and the swift-footed buffaloes. Ere long, it was evident that he was losing in the ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... hail any idea, any suggestion, which should allow her to indulge the love that, though so strong, she rigidly repressed. I dare say I told my story in a halting kind of way; it was difficult for me on the spur of the moment to know clearly what to say and what to leave unsaid. As I told the countess about Eugen's and my voyage down the river, a sort of smile tried to struggle out upon her lips; it was evidently as good as a romance to her. I ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... and all Northern Egypt fell under the Arab sway. The native kings were driven south from the Fayymn to Abydos, Koptos, and Thebes, and at Thebes they were buried, in a new necropolis to the north of Der el-Bahari (probably then full), on the flank of a long spur of hill which is now called Dra' Abu-'l-Negga, "Abu-'l-Negga's Arm." Here the Theban kings of the period between the XIIIth and XVIIth Dynasties, Upuantemsaf, Antef Nub-kheper-Ra, and his descendants, Antefs III and IV, were buried. In their time the pressure of foreign invasion seems ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... answered, on the spur of the moment, "I have no such qualities as you naturally seek in a secretary. I received my education at Eton and at Cambridge University. If you want a secretary to bowl you a straight ball, or pull a fairly strong oar, I am your man, for I learnt little else. I possess, indeed, ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... us to the crest of a spur covered with a species of white cedar, whose branches were literally swarming with doves and pigeons, feeding upon small, sweet-scented berries about the size of English haws. Here we rested awhile, the ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... transport and communications, trade, and public utilities has increased markedly in recent years. Tourism's direct contribution to output in 1994 was about 20%. In addition, increased tourist arrivals helped spur growth in the construction and transport sectors. The dual island nation's agricultural production is mainly directed to the domestic market; the sector is constrained by the limited water supply and labor shortages that reflect the pull of higher wages in ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... be found in the catalogues of fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a little tributary of the Clinch River. Lakelands proper is a contented village of two dozen houses situated on a forlorn, narrow-gauge railroad line. You wonder whether the railroad lost itself in the pine woods and ran into Lakelands from fright ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... her heart made a call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur, and the black horse made good his reputation. In a second all was hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men and horses made, for all they were worth, down the road after Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... officer in the cavalry of the United States. He danced a minuet with her at a ball in Washington, was heard to swear an oath by her eyes at punch before the supper was over; and proceeded the following week to spur his courtship upon old William as daringly as he had ever spurred his ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... possible—having been broken up. In the Crewe engine as it now exists it is not quite clear how the power was taken off from the crankshaft, but from the particulars of similar engines recorded in the "Life of Richard Trevithick," it appears that a small spur pinion was in some cases fixed on the crankshaft, and in others a spurwheel, with a crank-pin inserted in it, took the place of the crank at the end of the shaft opposite to that carrying the flywheel. In the Crewe engine the flywheel, it will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... from that claiming to underlie the immediate special applications. Your practical man is given to appealing to such theories now and then; though I confess that he too often leaves the impression of having taken them up on the spur of the moment to round a peroration and to give dignity to a popular cry; and that, in his lips, they are apt to sound so crude and artificial that one can only wonder at his condescending to notice them. He ridicules them as the poorest of platitudes whenever they ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... her head, and I saw her eyes all radiant and her red lips up-curving in a smile. "Nay, Martin, I do marvel how eloquent you grow upon your wrongs, indeed 'tis as though you feared you might forget them. Thus do you spur up slothful memory, which giveth me sure hope that one day 'twill sleep to ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... to float a true philosophy of history on to the currents of world-thought: and for this end it is our business to be thinkers, using the divine Manasic light within us to some purpose. H.P. Blavatsky supplied something much greater than a dogma: she—like Plato —gave the world a method and a spur to thought: pointed for it a direction, which following, it might solve all problems and heal ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... his opinion, quite unfit for it; he had none of that decision, boldness, readiness, and clearness which was necessary to lead a Party, to inspire it with confidence, and, still [more], to take at times a decision on the spur of the moment, which a leader had often to do. Then he said that he could not in honour sacrifice Mr Disraeli, who had acted very straightforwardly to him as long as they had had anything to do with each other, and who possessed the confidence of his followers. Mr Disraeli ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... the Jordan, in the tribe of Reuben. Although its precise site has not been discovered, we may infer that it was perched on one of the many rocky heights among the mountains of Abarim,—perhaps a spur of the great mount Nebo, from whose summit Moses was permitted, before death, to get a view of the Land of Promise. The northern portion of the waters of the Dead Sea would be seen from it, and the pastoral mountains of Judah in the distance. From its name, as well as from its being a border ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... the yoke in vain Quiver; their nostrils vainly void as foam Dense tides of lava; and in vain they rear; For Number on their mettled haunches poised Holds them, or duly with the rein controls, Or in their flanks buries his spur divine." (3/8.) ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... this last account to spur me on to visit him. I only doubted whether or not I should endeavour to see Idris again, before I departed. This doubt was decided on the following day. Early in the morning Raymond came to me; intelligence had arrived ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... is defined by the Century Dictionary as "that which moves the mind or stirs the passions; that which incites or tends to incite to action; motive, spur." ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... obtain food. Satisfactory results can be obtained in an experiment whose success depends chiefly upon hunger only when the animal is so hungry that it constantly does its best to obtain food, and when the desire for food is equally strong and equally effective as a spur to action in the repetitions of the experiment day after day. It is easy enough to get almost any mammal into a condition of utter hunger, but it is practically impossible to have the desire for food of the same strength day after day. In short, the desire for food is unsatisfactory as a motive ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... within about eight hundred yards. He now lashed the catamaran's helm for a moment, leaving her to steer herself, and, picking up one of the rifles, took careful aim with it at the flying canoe, hoping to send a bullet near enough to her to spur her crew to renewed exertions, so tiring them out and compelling them to take the direction in which he desired them to go. He waited a favourable opportunity, and presently, when the canoe was hove up into plain view, brought both sights ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... enter this monastery. On one occasion, when devotees of various countries came to perform their worship at it, the people of those villages said to them, "Why do you not fly? The devotees whom we have seen hereabouts all fly;" and the strangers answered, on the spur of the moment, "Our wings are ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... outjutting spur of the ridge, six hundred feet from the caves and in full view of them. A lone tree stood there, its dead limbs thrust like white arms through the brown foliage of the limbs that still lived. Craig and Barber waited under the tree, Bemmon between them. The lowering sun ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... stretched the long line of wagons, the ponderous freighters of the Santa Fe Trail, rolling into Independence from the Spanish towns that lay beyond the burning deserts of the Cimarron. They filed by in slow procession, a vision of faded colors and swarthy faces, jingle of spur and mule bell mingling with ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... this evenin', an' I follered hit right up an' I ast roun' till I pinned Jute. He was over the fur side of the run lookin' fur a stray crow, an' he seen 'em. But they was bein' chased lively. Mad Whately—beg pardon—Mr. Madison was arter them with whip and spur. Didn't yer hear a crack of a rifle? I did, and reckoned it was one o' the Simcoe boys out gunnin', but Jute says hit was one o' our men fired the shot, en that they chased the Yanks to'erds the big woods. They was all ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... saw my hesitation, and attributed it to a cause which was not present in my mind at the moment, though the subject was one of the greatest importance when strangers consent to join themselves together for a time, and agree to become no strangers on the spur of the moment. ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... conclusion, the mother and the grandmother also were so taken, so carried away with the inspiration, as it were, of the young man's noble and generous ambition, that they not only consented, but were ready on an occasions to spur him on to a perseverance, and not only sent to speak on his behalf with the men with whom they had an interest, but addressed the other women also, knowing well that the Lacedaemonian wives had always a great power with their husbands, who used to impart to them their state affairs with greater freedom ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... large proportion of the annual harvest of the sea in the process of curing, or in transportation to the places of its consumption. [Footnote According to Berthelote, in the Gulf of Lyons, between Marseilles and the easternmost spur of the Pyrenees, about 5,000,000 small fish ate taken annually with the drag-net, and not lees than twice as many more, not to spekak of spawn, are destroyed by the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and I hardly ever go out—and, when I do, always regret it. This might have been a pleasant one;—at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. Lady Lansdowne's [2] to-morrow—Lady Heathcote's [3] Wednesday. Um!—I must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... as if struck by lightning. His great plan known to this man, this man who feared not even torture, or death, or the world to come! He shrank visibly both mentally and physically, but then his courage came back under the spur of dreadful necessity. ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... no man's lips; for save they may each think herself better than all the rest, then is not life dear unto them. I will forsake this land, and go where the truth may be spoken nor the speaker thereof hated." He put on his armour, with never lady nor squire nor page to draw thong or buckle spur, and mounted his horse and rode forth to leave the land. And it came to pass, that on his way he entered a great wood. And as he went through the wood, he heard a sobbing and a crying in the wood. And he said to ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... annul. To me is given The wonders of the human world to keep, Space, matter, time, and mind. Futurity 50 Exposes now its treasure; let the sight Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope. O human Spirit! spur thee to the goal Where virtue fixes universal peace, And midst the ebb and flow of human things, 55 Show somewhat stable, somewhat certain still, A lighthouse o'er the wild of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... before, the most powerful force we can enlist against the Federal deficit is an ever-expanding American economy, unfettered and free. The magic of opportunity—unreserved, unfailing, unrestrained—isn't this the calling that unites us? I believe our tax rate cuts for the people have done more to spur a spirit of risk-taking and help America's economy break free than any program since John Kennedy's tax cut ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... range on, Till each man drop by lottery. But if THESE,— As I am sure they do,—bear fire enough To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen, What need we any spur but OUR OWN CAUSE To prick us to redress? what other bond Than secret Romans, that have spoken the word, And will not falter.... Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous, Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls That welcome wrongs; ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... problems facing other underdeveloped countries, such as a top-heavy civil service and a generally unfavorable climate for business enterprise. Since 1990, the government has embarked on various IMF and World Bank programs designed to spur business investment, increase efficiency in agriculture, improve trade, and recapitalize the nation's banks. In June 2000, the government completed an IMF-sponsored, three-year structural adjustment program; however, the IMF is pressing ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and had only succeeded because of a multitude of self-submissions and abnegations, humilities and contempts, flatteries and sycophancies that would have tired and defeated a less determined soul. But, in the background, there were the figures of Mrs. Bond and four little Bonds to spur him forward. He adored his family. "Whatever I am, I'm a family man," was one of his favourite sayings. In so worthy a cause much sycophancy may be forgiven him. To no one, however, was he so completely sycophantic ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... those brilliant years was due to other factors as well as Mr. Wells. Other Socialist Societies, in which he took no part, also increased their numbers and launched out into fresh activities. But for us Mr. Wells was the spur which goaded us on, and though at the time we were often forced to resent his want of tact, his difficult public manners, and his constant shiftings of policy, we recognised then, and we remember still, how much of permanent ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... and sideways, so that the boy's curly head, now capless, lay against his thigh. With one arm half around and upon that senseless head, holding the slight frame from slipping, he still manipulated the alert Bleriot, that responded instantly to each human spur with a ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... and we revere him. We are prouder of our citizenship because he is our fellow citizen; and we feel that his life and his writing, both alike, spur us steadily to fresh effort toward high thinking and right living. To have written "The Man Without a Country" by itself would be quite enough to make all the nation his debtor. I belong to the innumerable army of those who owe him much, and through ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... defend themselves very fiercely, and sell their lives dear when they can keep them no longer. On four sides they see their battalions coming to succour them; and the king's men gallop upon them as fast as they can spur. They rush to deal them such blows on the shields, that together with the wounded they have overthrown more than five hundred of them. The Greeks spare them not at all. Alexander is not idle, for ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... brighter outlook, a more confident hope of being able to keep his head above water. The experience of life suggests that hope is a better stimulus than fear, confidence a better mental environment than insecurity. If desperation will sometimes spur men to exceptional exertion the effect is fleeting, and, for a permanence, a more stable condition is better suited to foster that blend of restraint and energy which makes up the tissue of a life of normal health. There would be those who would abuse their advantages as there are ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... your old Poems are a third time in the press; why not set forth a second volume? * * * Your "Christabel", your "Three Graces",[1] which I remember as the very consummation of poetry. I must spur you to something, to the assertion of your supremacy; if you have not enough to muster, I will aid you in any way—manufacture skeletons that you may clothe with flesh, blood, and beauty; write my best, or what shall be bad enough to be popular;—we will even make plays "a-la-mode" ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... rider that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... free and bold, His blood is noble from of old, Through dams, and sires, many a one, Up to the steed of Solomon. He needs no spur to rouse his ire, His limbs of beauty never tire, Then, give the Arab horse the rein, And their dark squares will close in vain. Though loud the death-shot peal, and louder, He will only neigh the prouder; ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... before her with downcast eyes and suffused cheeks: even the spur of contempt failed to arouse his energies. Then the maiden called to her friend, who was picking jasmine flowers so as not to witness the scene, and angrily asked why that strange man was allowed to stand and stare at her? The friend, in hot wrath, threatened ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... scabbard and jingle of spur, And the fluttering sash of the queen went wild In the wind, and the proud king glanced at her As one at a wilful child—, And as knight and lady away they flew, And the banners flapped, and the falcon too, And the lances flashed ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... and, what was worse, her power had not declined after he had awakened to his danger; but he felt that Amy and all the family would despise him—indeed, that he would despise himself—should he so speedily transfer his allegiance; and under the spur of this dread he made especial, though very unobtrusive, efforts to prove his loyalty to Amy. Therefore Webb had grown despondent, and his absences from the camp were longer and more frequent He pleaded the work of the farm, and the necessity of coping with ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... are apt to have of others. Therefore, how to join the prudence of the serpent with the innocency of the dove, in this affair, is the most difficult point. It is not so hard to find an honest man, as to make this honest man active, and vigilant, and skilful; which, I doubt, will require a spur of profit greater than my scheme will afford him, unless he will be contented with the honour of serving his country, and the reward of a ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... men desire above all things to be relieved of their misery; "the poor fellows, after three years of longing on the summits of the Alps, reach the promised land, and want to enjoy it."[1233] Another spur consists in the pride which is stimulated by the imagination and by success; add to this the necessity for finding an outlet for their energy, the steam and high pressure of youth; nearly all are very young ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the common sort, and of a deep purple colour: a new verbascum, from the Levant; it was about four feet high, the leaves were almost as woolly as those of the Stachys lanata, and terminated in a point like a spur; it had not yet flowered. And a new solanum, with ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... burnt-skinned boy, hard as a nut, shrieking with an irrepressible sense of being alive, loped past on a mustang. Once a small, old man, in mean clothes and with a fine bearing, crossed the Square, cracking his whip nervously, his spur clicking on his boot as he walked. Once a large florid man and a tall girl came down the street and entered the door of a two-story brick building next the Grange. The man had an expansive, blustering way. The girl looked as though she were accustomed to admire ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... to felness hath relaps'd From having lost correction of the spur, Since to the bridle thou hast set thine hand, O German Albert! who abandon'st her, That is grown savage and unmanageable, When thou should'st clasp her flanks with forked heels. Just judgment from the stars fall on thy blood! And be it strange and manifest to all! Such as may strike thy successor ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... pushed the canoe into the stream, and Roland, urging his terrified steed with voice and spur, and leading his cousin's equally alarmed palfrey, leaped in after him, calling to Dodge and Emperor to follow. But how they followed, or whether they followed at all, it was not easy at that moment to determine; for a bright flash ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the city," said one, with a Gascon accent; "three hundred more blows with the whip, and one hundred with the spur; courage ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... rounds the headland's bristling pines; She threads the isle-set bay; No spur of breeze can speed her on, Nor ebb of tide delay. Old men still walk the Isle of Orr Who tell her date and name, Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards Who hewed her ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... new things would be our experience. After walking fast all day we came to quite an elevation, where we could stand and look in all directions. The low black range where we left the Jayhawkers was in sight, and this spur of the great snowy mountains extended a long way to the south, and seemed to get lower and lower, finally ending in low rocky buttes, a hundred miles away. Some may think this distance very far to see, but those who have ever seen the clear atmosphere of that region ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... waves, and encounter the enemy; whereas they, either on dry ground, or advancing a little way into the water, free in all their limbs, in places thoroughly known to them, could confidently throw their weapons and spur on their horses, which were accustomed to this kind of service. Dismayed by these circumstances and altogether untrained in this mode of battle, our men did not all exert the same vigour and eagerness which they had been wont to exert in engagements ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... be a surprise to him after the occurrence at the table, but he was not prepared to give an affirmative answer on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... shadows grew longer and longer, and they wire just making up their minds that they must soon lie down among the goats beside the trail and wait for morning, when a turn in the path brought them out on a spur of the mountain where they could look for miles across a deep valley towards the west. On the farther side, range after range of snow-capped peaks gave back the golden glory of the sunset, and from somewhere came the ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... alone, even though it had been used in transcribing her name, would have served to recall the incident to my mind. But the shade of the envelope—it was of a peculiar greenish tint—gave that unconscious spur to the memory which was needed to bring back the very look of the writing which had been on the letter I had so carelessly handled; and I found, as others have found before me, that there is no real forgetfulness in this world; that the most superficial glance ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... Spur Street, off of 'Orseferry Road, Westminster." This identification is to help Rosalind, as she may not be able to spot this particular doss-house among ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... unseen, but in the effects, remains. Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse, 80 Want as much more to turn it to its use; For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife, 'Tis more to guide than spur the Muse's steed, Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed; The winged courser, like a generous horse, Shows most true mettle ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Channel, the Mediterranean, the Arctic Ocean and even the Baltic, but until challenged were quite unknown to all other vessels of the Allied navies. Theirs was a secret service, performed amidst great hardships, with no popular applause to spur ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... Osborne and Dr. Shower to examine the body; and his anxiety then concerning the nature of the instrument used in the commission of the crime struck me as being a bit unusual. He seemed to dread, apparently, that this would be shown to be something caught up on the spur of the moment, something belonging in the room. Without putting it in so many words, he seemed to insinuate that a regulation weapon, such as might have been brought into the house by an unknown, had been used. In ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... sort of yell, which came not amiss into his part, started up with his club, and dealt a sound douse or two on each side of him; and then, like a coach-horse pricked by the spur, started off at once into the full career of his address, and by dint of active prompting on the part of Dickie Sludge, delivered, in sounds of gigantic intonation, a speech which may be thus abridged—the reader being to suppose that the first lines were addressed to the throng ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... society on the principles and ideals of Christianity. But in view of the fact that the trend of evolution is towards the elimination of commercial competition, the question which must seriously concern us today is—What in the future shall be the spur of individual initiative? Orthodoxy and even democratic practice have hitherto taken it for granted—in spite of the examples of highly socialized men, benefactors of society—that the average citizen will bestir himself only for material ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bargain, this time, in buying two century old flower-vases for fifty cents. Mrs. Fabian saw an old engraving of "Washington Crossing the Delaware," as it was taken from the wall behind the door, and offered for a quarter. On the spur of the moment she raised the bid five cents and got the picture which later proved to be one of the rare old ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... through the road; To groan beneath the carrier's load? How feeble are the two-legged kind! What force is in our nerves combined! Shall, then, our nobler jaws submit To foam and champ the galling bit? Shall haughty men my back bestride? Shall the sharp spur provoke my side? Forbid it, heavens! reject the rein, Your shame, your infamy disdain. Let him the Lion first control, And still the Tiger's famished growl! Let us, like them, our freedom claim; And make him tremble ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... manner of my coming by it. It might show more refinement of feeling perhaps to hang my head and let a certain ugly word blast my prospects. But I don't happen to see the business that way. On the contrary I hope to get every ounce of advantage out of it I can—use it as a spur rather than a hobble. And I love my profession too. It gives you room and opportunity. I am waiting now for my first ship, my first command. That's a fine thing and a strong one. For your first ship is as a bride to you, and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... 2nd D.L.I. to the effect that he was established in the stables of the chateau with a few men, and asking that rations and ammunition might be sent up to them. On the left not only was all the ground lost on the 30th July regained, but an important spur north of the Menin Road, which had hitherto been in German occupation, was included in the final position consolidated. Three officers and 124 other ranks were taken prisoners, and over 500 of the enemy were counted ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... polished an ornament, buckle, or pin. The struggle of Aileen to be perfect was, as usual, severe. Her meditations, as to the most becoming gown to wear were trying. Her portrait was on the east wall in the art-gallery, a spur to emulation; she felt as though all society were about to judge her. Theresa Donovan, the local dressmaker, had given some advice; but Aileen decided on a heavy brown velvet constructed by Worth, of Paris—a thing ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... rested his chin on his hands. "Well, your haughty guest touched me with too sharp a spur, perhaps," he said, "but she was right. I do waste my life. I have been thinking of my mother. I believe she might not be pleased with me sometimes. And then I felt mad, and now I must do something to forget. So ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... lets the tortoise pass him on the road. Ride, Dawkins, ride! by flashing tarn and fen And haunted hollow! Look not where in chains On Hounslow heath the malefactor hangs, A lasting terror! Give thy roan jade spur, And spare her not! All Devon waits for thee, Thou, for the moment, most important man! A sevennight later, when the rider sent To Town drew rein before The Falcon inn Under the creaking of the windy sign, And slipped from saddle with ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... handicap all my life," she said, while she tickled The Fop with a spur in order to check a threatened belligerence. "But I early learned to keep the irritation of it off my nerves and the weight of it off my mind. In fact, I early came to make a function of it and actually to derive enjoyment from it. It was the only way to master a ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... I wonder if he's looked out o' the crib o' him to gather up the bag o' siller. If he hasna done that, it will hae been a braw windfa' for somebody, and I'll be finely flung.—Come, Tarras," said he to his horse, striking him at the same time with his spur, "make mair fit, man; we maun be first on ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... power the greater the responsibility," he answered. "I couldn't say on the spur of the moment. If I were given time, no doubt I should be able ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... married?" said Dame Scratchard. "I don't expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's Gray Cock flirting about, fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a sitting hen ought to have,—poor old Long Spur! he never minded a peck or so and then. I must say these modern fowls ain't what fowls used ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... intrusted to his trumpeter and squire, Anthony Van Corlear, that man of emergencies, with orders to travel night and day, sparing neither whip nor spur, seeing that he carried the vindication of his patron's fame in his saddle-bags. The loyal Anthony accomplished his mission with great speed and considerable loss of leather. He delivered his missive with becoming ceremony, accompanying it with ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... noon hour stop found on mounting his horse that the bronco spirit was still existent, and that bucking was evidently the order of the day. But the policeman was ready. He banged the horse over the head with his hat and used the spur till the unruly animal made a few kangaroo-like leaps and came to a sudden halt at the edge of the hole where the camp fire had left a bed of hot coals. The rider was not disturbed by the shock, but the buckle of his cartridge belt gave way under the strain and the whole thing dropped ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... this sage but an impostor. Now, thanks to you, the Revolution can no longer bite, you have cut the lion's claws; the people is more formidable to its conductors; they have reassumed the whip and spur, and you fly. Let civic crowns strew your paths, though we remain; but where shall we find ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... belted a knight, Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright; Allen-a-Dale is no baron or lord, Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word; And the best of our nobles his bonnet will vail, Who at ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... high-peaked hats. Behind them stretched the long line of wagons, the ponderous freighters of the Santa Fe Trail, rolling into Independence from the Spanish towns that lay beyond the burning deserts of the Cimarron. They filed by in slow procession, a vision of faded colors and swarthy faces, jingle of spur and mule bell mingling with salutations ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... all, and at last turned back for want of a casting motive to incline the scale. Tucker gives this as an instance of professional indecision, or of that temper of mind which having been long used to weigh the reasons for things with scrupulous exactness, could not come to any conclusion at all on the spur of the occasion, or without some grave distinction to justify its choice. Louvet in his Narrative tells us, that when several of the Brisotin party were collected at the house of Barbaroux (I think it was) ready to effect their escape from the power of Robespierre, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... into whose blossom we saw the humble-bee poling his head, takes still more care of its pollen-dust. It hides its honey down at the end of its long spur, and only sends out one stamen at a time instead of five like the geranium; and then, when all the stamens have had their turn, the sticky knob comes out last for pollen ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... army in Sicily, which Alkibiades could have raised with the greatest ease, if he had wished to do so. Indeed, the soldiers became disheartened when he left them, and looked forward to long delays and periods of dull inaction under Nikias's command, now that he who used to spur matters on was gone. Lamachus, indeed, was a brave and skilful soldier, but his poverty prevented his opinions ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... to boot, to keep you in mind that you met the Devil's Dick, and to teach you another time to beware how you spoil the sport of any one who wears the flying spur ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... in case to bear thyself like a galliard? Now, cut me a caper—ha! one—two—three—admirable. Again—give him the spur (here a satellite of the Indian gave Oliver a slight touch with his sword). Nay, that is best of all: he sprang like a cat in a gutter. Tender him the nut once more; nay, no compulsion, he has paid forfeit, and deserves ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... lumbering animal, put together anyhow, with a short, thick neck; flat-faced, and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip or spur.'[8] Just think how long I have lived at a distance from you, and how all those temptations you speak of have endeavoured to lure me away, not perhaps without some success, even though I myself may not have observed it. I now see more clearly than ever the necessity ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... all, but thou canst work! My brother, take this belief, that God worketh all in you, for the ground of your confidence, and feel that unless He do all, you can do nothing. Take this conviction, that thou canst work, for the spur and stimulus of thy life, and think, These desires in my soul come from a far deeper source than the little cistern of my own individual life. They are God's gift. Let me cherish them with the awful carefulness which their origin requires, lest I should seem ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sunny vineyards and grey olive orchards beyond the town they followed the winding road, and, as night came on, the weary children saw that they were approaching a ruined castle set high on a spur of the Apennines. The wind swept over the bare hill-top and whistled through the windows of its ruined towers, where hundreds of years before lovely ladies had watched their ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... not shoot yourself, count, for the enemy will not overtake us. Forward! Put spur to ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... fortune,—that he, who had in truth taught himself to think that he deserved so much good fortune, should be made the subject of care on behalf of his friend, because of danger between himself and his wife! On the spur of the moment he did not know what answer to make. "He is not a man whom I like myself," ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... volumes which we now lay before the reader, as grave matter of fact, that is not entitled to the most implicit credit. We scorn deception. Lest, however, some cavillers may be found, we will present a few of those reasons which occur to our mind, on the spur of the moment, as tending to show that everything related here might be just as true as Cook's voyages themselves. In the first place, this earth is large, and has sufficient surface to contain, not only all the islands ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... up in the Fruition of his Glory, whilst with an undesigned Sincerity they praised his noble and majestick Mien, his Affability, his Valour, Conduct, and Success in War. How must a Man have his Heart full-blown with Joy in such an Article of Glory as this? What a Spur and Encouragement still to proceed in those Steps which had already brought him to so pure a Taste of the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... motive; for the love of them, and for her own sake, that John might think she had done well that she might presently please and satisfy Alice above all, that her mother's wishes might be answered. This thought, whenever it came, was a spur to her efforts so was each of the others; and Christian feeling added another, and kept all the rest in force. Without this, indolence might have weakened, or temptation surprised her resolution; little Ellen was open to both; but if ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... dark," Arizona had promised, "I'll make my start. Have your hoss ready. Be in the saddle, and the minute you see us come down that trail out of Sour Creek, be ready to feed your hoss the spur and join us, because when we come, we'll come fast. Don't make no mistake. If you ride too slow we'll have to ride slow, too, and slow ridin' means gunplay on both sides, and gunplay means dead men, because the evenin' is a pile worse nor the dark for fooling a man's ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... outlook and relief if I clambered alone into some high solitude and thought. I had a crude attractive vision of myself far above the heat and noise, communing with the sky. It was the worst season for climbing, and on the spur of the moment I could do nothing but get up the Rochers de Naye on the wrong side, and try and find some eyrie that was neither slippery nor wet. I did not succeed. In one place I slipped down a wet bank for some yards and held at last by a root; if I had slipped much further ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... mounted rather on an ambling preambling palfrey, than on any determinate charger; curveting and prancing, and rambling and scrambling at his own unmanaged will: scorning the bit and bridle, too hot to bear the spur, careless of listing laws, and wishing rather playfully to show his paces, than ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... in two days. We here assume, as in the case of Lagrange's horses, that all the men are exactly equally capable of work. But we assume even more than this. For when three men get together they may waste time in gossip or play; or, on the other hand, a spirit of rivalry may spur them on to greater diligence. We may assume any conditions we like in a problem, provided they be clearly expressed and understood, and the answer will be ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... in a marble case, with a bronze figure on the top; and it was so heavy that she was obliged to hunt for something which she could use as a lever. The thing proved to be not easy to find on the spur of the moment. Having at last laid her hand on what she wanted, she contrived so to lift the clock a few inches and drop it again on the mantelpiece, as to ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... the road. The remaining three wheeled about, and taking to their heels, went off as if old Nick had been bringing up the rear. Then you might have heard the roar, and seen the dust, which dragoons can raise, when, with whip and spur and wildly rolling eyes, they bend forward from the pursuit of death. My charger being but a heavy brute, was soon distanced. But they could not distance the swift-footed Selim. Rapid as the deadly blast of the desert, he pursued their dusty course, still gathering upon them at every jump. ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... came riding along as usual; but the horses, as they arrived at the spot where the magic horse was buried, reared and plunged violently — their nostrils distended with terror — their manes grew erect, and the perspiration ran down their sides in streams. In vain the riders applied the spur — in vain they coaxed or threatened, the animals would not pass the spot. On the following day, their success was no better. They were at length compelled to seek another spot for their exercise, and Thomas Aquinas was left ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... pawed its white hoofs to the spur of its helter-skelter rider, a strong blast from the Eastward, and, giving three cheers from decks, yards, and tops, we crowded all sail on St. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... out a rotten sepulchre, a thing neither commendable in a writer, nor profitable to the reader. But howsoever it be done, I have had an especial eye unto the truth of things, and for the rest, I hope that this foule frizeled Treatise of mine will prove a spur to others better learned to handle the self-same argument, if in my life-time I doo not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... come down their chimney, they could not have seemed more astonished. Not making out what they said, I went down to the house, and learned to my chagrin that we were still on the Mill Brook side, having crossed only a spur of the mountain. We had not borne sufficiently to the left, so that the main range, which, at the point of crossing, suddenly breaks off to the southeast, still intervened between us and the lake. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... to Ruin? Pooh! preacher trite! 'Tis a gallant race, and in glorious flight, With the clinkety-clank of scabbard and spur, O'er moor and meadow, by linden and fir, With the wind of speed blowing brisk in one's face, A Long-Distance ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... There was little about his attire which would have attracted attention in a Northern city except, possibly, the wide-brimmed hat and the boots with high heels. He was about thirty years of age. In the shack shone a polished spur—there seemed to be nothing else of cowboy accoutrement. She could not make him out. He seemed taciturn at times and ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... for the slaughter, Would let their volley, like fire to holly, Blaze on the usurping traitor. Full many a soldier arming, Is laggard in his spirit, E'er his blood the flag is warming Of the King that should inherit. He may be loon or coward, That spur scarce touch would nearly— The colours shew, he 's in a glow, Like the stubble of the barley. Onward, gallants! onward speed ye, Flower and bulwark of the Gael; Like your flag-silks be ye ruddy, Rosy-red, and do not quail. Fearless, artless, hawk-eyed, courteous, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of Lolita Martin, but the added information concerning her was not ineffective: it operated as a spur; ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... discharged, answered with the loud roarings of great guns rending the heavens with noise at the loss of so great a man." When Governor Leverett died, in 1679, the bearers carried banners. The principal men of the town bore the armor of the deceased, from helmet to spur, and the Governor's horse was led with banners. The funeral-recording Sewall has left us many a picture of the pomp of burial. Colonel Samuel Shrimpton was buried "with Arms" in 1697, "Ten Companies, No Herse nor ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... leisurely volume to itself; perhaps in this way we should have gained, in the laying out and concentration of the narrative, and in what helps to bring it as a whole before our thoughts. But a man's account of himself is never so fresh and natural as when it is called out by the spur and pressure of an accidental and instant necessity, and is directed to a purpose and quickened by feelings which belong to immediate and passing circumstances. The traces of hurried work are of light account when they are the guarantees that a man is not sitting down to draw a picture of himself, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... across the stalls; the men looked at their programmes to see how many acts remained and tentatively felt for their cigarette-cases. He saw George Oakleigh lean towards Barbara, glance at his watch and draw himself slowly to his feet. The movement was a signal and spur for a dozen others. Barbara moved into his place and called a greeting to Deganway who was on the opposite side; he stood up and bent over ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... quarter of a pound of Sugar, and a little Rosewater, with some beaten Spice, and as much Cream as will work it into a Paste, work it very well and beat it, then rowl it as thin as possible, and cut them round with a Spur, such as the Pastry Cooks do use; then fill them with Currans first plumped a little in Rosewater and Sugar, so put another sheet of Paste over them and close them, prick them, and bake them but let not your Oven be too hot; you may colour some of them with Saffron ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... with some little surprise who my friend was. The individual whose courteous salutation had provoked the question was a horseman mounted on a remarkably fine black mare. Whether, in consequence of some little touch with the spur, or whether merely from high condition and high spirits, the animal was curvetting and rearing and dancing about a little as she crossed the piazza, and the perfect ease—and one may say, indeed, elegance—of the rider's seat, and his consummate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... impelled by habit or some small spur of reason, he had risen to go on deck and fallen. He went on vapouring pitifully, gazing with sufficient steadfastness to let me understand that his vision received something of my outline, though he would fix his eyes either ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... gone; and a mild and playful image of herself, who bore her name no less than most of those features which had rendered her own youth more than usually attractive, sought, without success, a massive silver spur, of curious and antique workmanship, which she had been permitted to handle until the moment when the family had been ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... to fall in with some more burghers round here and have another shot at them." Behind us the British lancers were shouting "Stop, stop, halt you —— Boers!" They fired briskly at us, but our little ponies responded gamely to the spur and, aided by the darkness, we rode on safely. Still the lancers did not abandon the chase, and followed us for a long distance. From time to time we could hear the pitiful cries and entreaties of burghers who were being "finished off," but we could see ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... old friend," I said as I pressed the unnecessary spur into my horse's flank. "Au revoir, and look out for the ghost of the gallant Chevalier Gluck. Tell him, with my compliments, not to play such latter-day tunes as the gavotte ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the stirrup. It is quite useless to bellow, "That will do, Steggles!"—his ideal is the unattainable perfection, and he persists. I have to escape by giving Sapphira the spur at the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... a 'labourer.' Unhasting, unresting labour was the rule of his life; and the only relaxation, not to say recreation, which he seems to have allowed himself was a change of task or the calls of sleep. This natural activity was partly due to the spur of his genius, and partly to his energetic spirit. For a man of his temperament science is always holding out new problems to solve and fresh promises of triumph. All he did only revealed more work to be done; and many a scheme lies ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... Sister Martha? You know what we Hawaiians are. You know what we were half a hundred years ago. Lilolilo was wonderful. I was reckless. Lilolilo of himself could make any woman reckless. I was twice reckless, for I had cold, grey Nahala to spur me on. I knew. I had never a doubt. Never a hope. Divorces in those days were undreamed. The wife of George Castner could never be queen of Hawaii, even if Uncle Robert's prophesied revolutions were delayed, and if ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... rises just when that of others usually fails: without an instant's hesitation she stooped down, and the next moment the high wooden heel of one of her shoes sent the window-pane flying in shivers out upon the road. A touch of the spur at once brought her escort alongside of ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... purification and freedom, and the author makes use of lower things to picture and suggest the higher. The aim of the Heroic Enthusiast is to get at the Truth and to see the Light, and he considers that all the trials and sufferings of this life, are the cords which draw the soul upwards, and the spur which quickens the ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... appropriate in name, color, and form. Its name is suggestive of Columbia, and our country is often called by that name. Its botanical name, aquilegia, is derived from aquila (eagle), on account of the spur of the petals resembling the talons, and the blade, the beak, of the eagle, our national bird. Its colors are red, white, and blue, our national colors. The corolla is divided into five points resembling the star used to represent ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... heavy to be held erect. The larger fruit is a trifle more than two inches in diameter. The feature spots are now still more prominent on these apples, the ribs more pronounced, the blush against the sun more warm. Both these fruits, from one spur, will mature; but the smaller one will be blemished, for the apple-scab fungus has established itself on the crown and about the calyx. Already the growth is checked in that area, and the apple looks flattened. There is no evidence in either ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... spiritual sentiment under David and the Psalmists, the more magnificent views of Hezekiah's prophets, finally in the Babylonish captivity the new tenderness assumed by that second Isaiah and the later Psalmists. But ceremonialism more and more encrusted the restored nation; and Jesus was needed to spur and stab the conscience of his contemporaries, and recal them to more spiritual perceptions; to proclaim a coming "kingdom of heaven," in which should be gathered all the children of God that were scattered abroad; where the law of love should reign, and ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... Casneau I had the constant spur of commendation and assistance as well as affection. I passed all my spare time in the Library of Congress and knew its arrangements at least as well as Mr. Meehan, the librarian, and Robert Kearon, the assistant, much to the surprise ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the stirrups, at the same time pulling down his trousers legs, which had a tendency to hitch up in what seemed to them a most exasperating disregard for form. To their certain knowledge, Mr. Blithers had never started out before without boot and spur; therefore, the suddenness of his present sortie sank into their ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Olympius needed no spur or encouragement. He turned to his guests with the passion and fire of a fanatical leader, of the champion of a great but imperilled cause, and bid them be men and stand by him to resist the foe till death. His voice was husky with excitement as he spoke his brief but vehement call to arms, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of this to any one. I should like to take up the Vida es Sueno too in the same manner; but these plays are more difficult than all the others put together: and I have no spur now. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... not wish to get rid of you; I merely wish to take the shortest and simplest way to relieve you of your more pressing anxieties, and so enable you to give yourself unreservedly to your work. Want may be a wholesome spur to effort at times; but it is difficult to suppose any really sane and well-proportioned work of art can be produced without a sense of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... gaed up, like spur an' whip, Till Fraser brave did fa', man; Then lost his way, ae misty day, In Saratoga shaw, man. Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought, An' did the Buckskins claw, man; But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save, He hung ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... her choosing, if you mean that," said Lord Lufton. They went on walking about the garden for an hour, but they hardly got any farther than the point to which we have now brought them. Mark Robarts could not make up his mind on the spur of the moment; nor, as he said more than once to Lord Lufton, could he be at all sure that Lucy would in any way be guided by him. It was, therefore, at last settled between them that Lord Lufton should come ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... yet our friend does not venture to bear his honors; his wife merely puts 'La Comtesse du Bruel' on her cards. The sometime playwright has the Order of Leopold, the Order of Isabella, the cross of Saint-Vladimir, second class, the Order of Civil Merit of Bavaria, the Papal Order of the Golden Spur,—all the lesser orders, in ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... that he was the inevitable instrument of its desecration; but over the hill, just in sight from the spring, carpenters were putting a new piazza round a cottage that stood remote from the camp, where a spur of the hills descended steeply towards the valley. Arnold took a great interest in this cottage. He was frequently to be seen there in the evening, tramping up and down the new piazza, and offering to the moon, that ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... reporters were supplied with a few grave, not sensational words, suggested by the spur of the moment; they receded into the background, and Marshal Henkel, zealous to do his whole duty, and prevent the escape of an elderly gentleman through locked doors, echoing corridors, and the resistance of half a dozen lusty guards, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... lies through a ravine cut by the Mohawk River through a spur of the Adirondack Mts. The town is picturesquely situated on the sides of the gorge overlooking the rapids and falls. The Mohawk here descends 45 ft. ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... honourable among us, the birds. For instance, among you 'tis a crime to beat your father, but with us 'tis an estimable deed; it's considered fine to run straight at your father and hit him, saying, "Come, lift your spur if you want to fight."(13) The runaway slave, whom you brand, is only a spotted francolin with us.(14) Are you Phrygian like Spintharus?(15) Among us you would be the Phrygian bird, the goldfinch, of the race of Philemon.(16) Are you a slave and a Carian ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... meet this view, and after 1750, all grants were made in fee simple.) He also explained that the obligation to plant a certain number of mulberry trees per acre, or forfeit the land, was intended to spur lazy colonists, and would not be enforced in the case ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... cellars, drew the seigniorial fish-ponds, demolished the castles of the nobles who resisted, and burned the convents. Opposition had inflamed the passions of these rude men; equality no longer satisfied them; they thirsted for blood, and swore to put to death every man who wore a spur. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Imperfect but ridable donkey-trails follow the dry moat around to the Meshed road, which takes a straight course southeastward from the city and is seen in the distance ahead, leading over a sloping pass, a depression in the Doshan Tepe spur of the Elburz range. The road near the city is now in better condition for wheeling than at any other time of the year; the daily swarms of pack-animals bringing produce into Teheran have trodden it smooth and hard during the ten days' continuous fine weather, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... purpose, he could only exercise his own brute will. He did not believe in the least in the education he kept inflicting year after year upon the children. So he must bully, only bully, even while it tortured his strong, wholesome nature with shame like a spur always galling. He was so blind and ugly and out of place. Ursula could not bear it as he stood there. The whole situation ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... one million years ago, but the Rmoahal race came into existence between four and five million years ago, at which period large portions of the great southern continent of Lemuria still existed, while the continent of Atlantis had not assumed the proportions it ultimately attained. It was upon a spur of this Lemurian land that the Rmoahal race was born. Roughly it may be located at latitude 7 deg. north and longitude 5 deg. west, which a reference to any modern atlas will show to lie on the Ashanti coast of to-day. It was ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... crude parody on the "Marseillaise Hymn" (see Chap. 9) is printed in the American Vocalist, among numerous samples of early New England psalmody of untraced authorship. It might have been sung at primitive missionary meetings, to spur the zeal and faith of a Francis Mason or a Harriet Newell. It expresses, at least, the new-kindled evangelical spirit of the long-ago consecrations in American church life that first sent the Christian ambassadors to foreign lands, and followed them ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... is becoming almost an industry in itself, and there are those who believe it destined to become the largest industrial spur in the Nation before too ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... always known, sir, that the Service had men; but I had no idea that any one man could possibly do, on the spur of the moment, what you have just done—unless that man happened to be ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... could ride without being instructed, Without any saddle or bridle or spur? Our legs are so long, and so aptly constructed, I'm sure that an accident could not occur. Let us all of a sudden hop down from the table, And hustle downstairs, and each jump on a horse! Shall we try? Shall we ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... underbrush, vanished before she had gone fifty yards; but the little octoroon was no stranger to nocturnal rambles, her keen eyes, and, keener still, her sense of direction, led her unerringly through the shades toward the rearward spur of the granite cliff. Creepers and hanging mosses brushed her face and limbs; alone she might have ignored them; but there was a quality in the sighing and rustling about her that seemed to give ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... a little scrambling, you can climb from here up to the last spur of the Jebel Guettor which overlooks the plain—it is crowned by a ruined building, once whitewashed, and easily visible from Gafsa. On its slopes I struck a vein of iron, another of those scientific ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... mouth, with its quick revelation of little white teeth, and to see the foolish blood faintly deepen her satin cheek as you watched. For Mrs. Tretherick was very sweetly conscious of admiration, and, like most pretty women, gathered herself under your eye like a racer under the spur. ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... creator. So at least he felt. Yet he also felt unable to refuse his wife's request. To do so, after all her beneficent energies employed on his behalf, would be churlish. He might have tried to explain that the something within him which was really valuable could not brook bridle or spur, that unless it were left to range where it would in untrammelled liberty, it was worth very little to the world. He knew this. But a man may deny his knowledge even to himself, deny it persistently through long periods of time. And there was the weakness in Claude which instinctively ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... that dwell beneath the setting sun on the spur of Libya, shudder for dread, even now the Syracusans poise lances in rest, and their arms are burdened by the linden shields. Among them Hiero, like the mighty men of old, girds himself for fight, and the horse-hair ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... Parthenissa's robe? Is not the beat of the horse's hoofs as rapid to Angelica pursued as the throbs of her own heart huddling upon one another in terror, while it is slow to Sister Anne, as the pulse that pauses between hope and fear, as she listens on the tower for rescue, and would have the rider "spur, though mounted ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... sometimes the other; and she was as pretty as ever she could be. She was one of those girls, so common in Ireland, whom men, with tastes that way given, feel inclined to take up and devour on the spur of the moment; and when she liked her lion, she had a look about her which seemed to ask to be devoured. There are girls so cold-looking,—pretty girls, too, ladylike, discreet, and armed with all accomplishments,—whom to ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... life in early youth might lead him to. The old goldsmiths were indeed the best patrons of ancient art; but for them an important branch of it—ornamental design—would have wanted the constancy of inventive spur, and the art of engraving and printing from incised plates originated in their workshops. They were intimately connected with the artists of their day; and the greatest among them did not disdain to furnish designs for their artisans. Hence the great variety and flow of fancy exhibited in ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... as many fine points as any man's horse, and so I hung my hat on one of them, behind the saddle, and swabbed the perspiration from my face and started. I named him after this island, "Oahu" (pronounced O-waw-hee). The first gate he came to he started in; I had neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued the case with him. He resisted argument, but ultimately yielded to insult and abuse. He backed out of that gate and steered for another one on the other side of the street. I triumphed by my former process. Within the next six hundred yards he crossed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... luck than I, or that I am a greater fool than he? Bah!" that was the concluding word by the aid of which D'Artagnan, having become wise, now terminated every thought and every period of his style. Formerly he said, "Mordioux!" which was a prick of the spur, but now he had become older, and he murmured that philosophical "Bah!" which served as a bridle to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... back with the same ancestral pride to their great progenitor, the friend of God. This has never been the case with any other nation, for the Arabs are not a nation. One can hardly imagine a greater spur to patriotism than this union of pride of descent with pride in one's nation and its institutions. The proudest and poorest Jew shared it together. There was one distinction, and that the most honorable, which belonged ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... the piece of copper is made to correspond to the design of the clock. The circular hole in the copper can be cut with the expansive bit by first punching a hole in the center to receive the spur of the bit, placing on a block of wood and boring through a little way. The spur on the cutter will cut out the copper. Fasten the copper to the front with copper nails or ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor
... mountains sent out two far-reaching spurs of pine-clad ridges between which lay Rattlesnake Valley. Due south, as Lonesome Pete's outstretched finger indicated, lay the road which they were to follow and the headquarters of the Half Moon. There again a thickly timbered spur of the mountains ran down into the plain on each side of a deeply cleft canon from which Lonesome Pete told them that Indian Creek issued, and in which were the main corrals and the range house of ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... this his rider trusted. At the eighth the line was hardly broken, but as the quarter was reached Black Boy had forged a length ahead, and Mosquito was at his flank. Then, like a flash, Essex shot out ahead under whip and spur, his jockey standing straight ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... It was discovered by the Rev. Mr. Ellis, and sent home alive, nearly thirty years ago; but civilized mankind has not yet done wondering at it. The stately growth, the magnificent green-white flowers, command admiration at a glance, but the "tail," or spur, offers a problem of which the thoughtful never tire. It is commonly ten inches long, sometimes fourteen inches, and at home, I have been told, even longer; about the thickness of a goose-quill, hollow, of course, the last inch ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... in mind something much bigger than the slender volume of verse,—an adventure into authorship more suited to his metal,—a story for which an intense personal sympathy would furnish fitting atmosphere, with the final spur to his ambition a letter from the Atlantic even at the moment stowed ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... the silent worship of your nature. When I came the last morning to the cottage, it was to tell, and to ask, all. Since then for a moment your image has never been absent from my consciousness; your picture consecrates my hearth and your approval has been the spur of my career. Do not reject my love; it is deep as your nature, and fervent as my own. Banish those prejudices that have embittered your existence, and if persisted in may wither mine. Deign to retain this hand! If I be a noble I have none of the accidents of nobility: I cannot offer you wealth, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... of names to wing the imagination upward into the ethereal regions of beauty, pure art, and lofty emotion! The imperial pianist discourses upon the genius and peculiar gifts of his brother musician. Before us arises a vision of the strong and fiery Hungarian, with clanger of steel, flash of spur, and ring of hoof, compelling his audiences to attention and enthusiastic admiration; and also of the gentle-mannered and suffering, but no less fiery Pole, shrinking from all rude contact, and weaving enchanted melodies and harmonies, teeming with ever-varying pictures of tender love, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... by which now, as then, the royal coffers require to be replenished or the royal purse relieved by the application of a judicious spur to the backward generosity of the subjects of the King of Kings. Still, as described in "Hajji Baba," is the visit of the Sovereign to any of his officials the recognised intimation that a large money equivalent is expected for the unsolicited honour. ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... small and slender by the side of the grand animal that was taking easy, swinging strides, apparently without effort and without speed, his tongue lolling at one side. But we could see that the pace was really terrific—that Lieutenant Baldwin was freely using the spur, and that his swift thoroughbred was stretched out like a greyhound, straining every muscle in his effort to keep up. He was riding close to the buffalo on his left, with revolver in his right hand, and ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... gain, which was the victorious motive that spurred on the commercial advertisers in these and countless other instances, is to be counted more mighty than the desire to do a service to our fellowmen and to fulfill the duties of our positions—which should spur us on? ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... gripped in his hand. His eyes had become riveted upon a low hill far out across the valley. It looked as though it rose sheer out of the forest below, but the watching man knew full well that it was only a spur of the giant that backed it. It was the summit of this clear-cut hill, and what was visible upon it, that held his fascinated attention. Suddenly a half-whispered word escaped him and Ralph was beside him ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... competence; that 'fatal gift,' as it is called, which encourages idleness in youth by doing away with the necessity for exertion. I never hear the same people inveighing against great inheritances, which are much more open to such objections. The fact is, if a young man is naturally indolent, the spur of necessity will drive him but a very little way, while the having enough to live upon is often the means of preserving his self-respect. One constantly hears what humiliating things men will do for money, whereas the truth ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... is about a year old, a spur, hard like horn, begins to grow on the inside of each leg. Upon the old cocks these spurs are long and sharp, and he can ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... the spur of ambition to show Alice Yorke and those who surrounded her that he was not a ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... all possible speed. The mayor, with the aldermen and several gentlemen, planted themselves opposite to the prison, and were spectators to this diverting scene, calling out to stop them, not with an intention to do them any prejudice, but only of adding a spur to their speed: however there were some who were ready enough to lay hold on them, and our hero, in a struggle of this nature, left a skirt of his garment behind him, which might be done without much violence, as we may reasonably conclude it to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... to gild the western sky; And now it is about the very hour That Silvia, at Friar Patrick's cell, should meet me. She will not fail, for lovers break not hours, Unless it be to come before their time; 5 So much they spur their expedition. See where ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... little toss of her head. "'Mistress Betty'! Very well, so be it; and thanks to the star of good fortune which guided my steps up the road to-day. I wonder how she comes here, and why," and Captain Yorke gave his horse the spur ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... led them along a high spur of the hill, past a small body of soldiers, some of whom called to them; but, not hearing what they said, they went on; when, coming to the extreme end of the spur, they saw a deep glen before them. Plunging into it, they ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... right?" she asked on the spur of the moment, thinking to divert his attention from ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... these exegetical commentaries, the Northern reader probably needs to be informed that the phrase "peerten up" means substantially 'to spur up', and is an active form of the adjective "peert" (probably a corruption of 'pert'), which is so common in the South, and which has much the signification of "smart" in New England, as e.g., a "peert" horse, in antithesis to a "sorry" — ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... so long! The lively scratching of pencils soon began to lag, and the teacher had to spur them on again, and now and then she walked down between the desks and looked at the slates to see that no ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... prefers exercise before all physic, rectification of diet, or any regimen in what kind soever; 'tis nature's physician. [3220]Fulgentius, out of Gordonius de conserv. vit. hom. lib. 1. cap. 7. terms exercise, "a spur of a dull, sleepy nature, the comforter of the members, cure of infirmity, death of diseases, destruction of all mischiefs and vices." The fittest time for exercise is a little before dinner, a little before supper, [3221]or at any time ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... this appetite or natural impulse must have Reason for its rider; for as a horse at liberty, however noble it may be by nature, by itself without the good rider does not conduct itself well, even thus this appetite, however noble it may be, must obey Reason, which guides it with the bridle and spur, as the good knight uses the bridle when he hunts. And that bridle is termed Temperance, which marks the limit up to which it is lawful to pursue; he uses the spur in flight to turn the horse away from the place from which he would flee ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... his obstinate resolution was strengthened since it received a spur from his own avarice, and that also of those who at that time were about the palace, and were constantly seeking new sources of gain; while if on any rare occasion any mention was made of humanity, they styled it slackness; and ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... splendid animal in her prime," rejoined Mr. Lee. "I have heard father say that she would travel off hour after hour, ten miles to the hour, without the spur or the whip; indeed, I never knew him to use the whip but once. Somehow, she got a habit of not standing quietly while he was getting into the chaise and preparing to start. One day she was unusually ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... a bias towards going to parties; but, as the evening advances, my stimulus fails, and I hardly ever go out—and, when I do, always regret it. This might have been a pleasant one;—at least, the hostess is a very superior woman. Lady Lansdowne's to morrow—Lady Heathcote's Wednesday. Um!—I must spur myself into going to some of them, or it will look like rudeness, and it is better to do ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... soldiers alike would have scouted the idea of obtaining supplies otherwise than from the country traversed, but weapons for the men and transport for the guns, and ammunition for both, were necessaries difficult to improvise on the spur of the moment. The Habshiabadis took the field at last, in a state that would have made a European commander tear his hair, and Gerrard hustled them on, blooding them by a smart little engagement with a force sent by Sher Singh's nearest governor to dispute their passage. ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... worthy of a theatrical costumier, the detectives converted themselves and the two young men into ship's firemen. No more effective or simpler disguise could have been devised on the spur of the moment, nor one that might be assumed more readily. Boots offered the main difficulty, but Clancy's purchase fitted Devar, and Curtis made the best of a pair of canvas shoes, while a mixture of grease and coffee extract ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... the mine taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network of tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker. As they came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a movement in one of the empties and crouched ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man, that is, the best he can do, you will see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, diligence in the national service is the sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and official power. The value of a man's services to society fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... not tell her that he liked that, but he knew that he did like it and that her mere words touched him like a spur. It was, of course, her lifelong breathing of the atmosphere of millions which made for this fashion of moving at once in the direction of obstacles presenting to the rest of the world barriers ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... was melancholy. He had attained that period in life when the spirits flag and enthusiasm needs a constant spur, and of late there had been a lack of special excitement, and he felt dull and superannuated. He was even contemplating resigning his position on the force and retiring to the little farm he had bought for himself in Westchester; and this ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... they had crossed. By going straight, they could reach the river by a much shorter journey than the previous one. Senzanga's plan was adopted, so after a cheerless rest of a few hours they started, working slowly up a long spur to the westward of the high peak flanking the ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... nimble gray neighs at the yett, My shouthers roun' the plaid I throw; I've clapt the spur upon my buit, The guid braid bonnet on my brow! Then night is wearing late I trow— My hame lies mony a mile awa'; The mair's my need to mount and go, Guid night, an' joy be ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... great trees. The track, little more than a line of flattened underbrush, vanished before she had gone fifty yards; but the little octoroon was no stranger to nocturnal rambles, her keen eyes, and, keener still, her sense of direction, led her unerringly through the shades toward the rearward spur of the granite cliff. Creepers and hanging mosses brushed her face and limbs; alone she might have ignored them; but there was a quality in the sighing and rustling about her that seemed to give voices to the ghostly fingers that touched her, and to support her courage as well as ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... were, too. They showed culture and breeding all right, and the latest style in gowns. Of course those intellectual high-brows in your set didn't need an introduction to you; you were advertised as an example of ultra-fashionable perfection, to spur the ambition of those lower down in the social scale. Perhaps it's a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... momentary union was soon dissolved. The daughter of Catharine could look with little but hate on the daughter of Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth's tendency to the "new religion" jarred with the Queen's bigotry; and the warnings of the imperial ambassador were hardly needful to spur Mary to watch jealously a possible pretender to her throne. The girl bent to the Queen's will in hearing mass, but her manner showed that the compromise was merely a matter of obedience, and fed the hopes of the Protestant ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... the blossom—the part where it joins the stem—one of the petals has a little spur which points back towards the stem. The blossom is therefore said to be spurred; we may presently see other ...
— Wildflowers of the Farm • Arthur Owens Cooke
... even say what point of the surface corresponded with what point of the mine. He knew that above this seam lay the Firth of Clyde, that there extended Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. Those columns supported a spur of the Grampian mountains. This vault served as a basement to Dumbarton. Above this large pond passed the Balloch railway. Here ended the Scottish coast. There began the sea, the tumult of which could be distinctly heard during the equinoctial ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... Wishing-Gate is, or the short cut by the quarries to arrive by from the South, instead of the fine mail-road which now winds between the hills and the margin of the lake. John Wordsworth guided his brother and Coleridge through Grisedale, over a spur of Helvellyn, to see Ullswater; and Coleridge has left a characteristic testimony of the effect of the scenery upon him. It was "a day when light and darkness coexisted in contiguous masses, and the earth and sky were but one. Nature lived for us in all her wildest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... possible stroke of luck, she who had taken such pains to attain so little, just to become Mrs. Trampy, to have the honor of working for Trampy and feeding Trampy. Oh, she was tired of it, did all she could to find him work, to spur him on! She even wanted him to practise. And she mentioned Tom and Jimmy to him, all those beginners, all the ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... complained to the Bailli of Amiens had not such good cause as this man's wife, but, notwithstanding that she could often have dispensed with this pleasant task she was always obedient to her husband, and never restive under the spur. ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... hill he had passed. For hours such was the character of the chase, until the road narrowed and began to wind amid an uncultivated and uninhabited mountain wilderness. Here Shamus's horse tripped and fell; the rider, little injured, assisted him to his legs, and, with lash and spur, re-urged him to pursue his course. The animal went forward in a last effort, and for still another span of time well befriended his rider. A rocky valley, through which both had been galloping, now opened at its farther end, presenting to Shamus's eye, in ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... upon his horse by voice and spur for all the speed there was in him. He could see the fugitive ahead urging his horse to its utmost. The race was on in earnest. Thus they came to a long stretch of open, level trail. Here Rathburn's ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... may be either a complicated affair which has occupied you all the day before, or the most impromptu expedition which you arrange on the spur of the minute; and the last kind are often more fun. Any place out of doors will answer for a picnic, but if possible it should be near water. Anything will answer for a picnic lunch, but it is pleasant, if ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... eyes and be able to fulfil it. The difficulty lies in comprehending the need. Most of us have rich storehouses, but to the man who needs of us a crutch we give dancing shoes: to him who needs a spur we offer wrappings of cotton-wool. ... We ask tolerance and sympathy for our failings, patience for our inadequacies ... we give and get only disappointment.... Partly this is because our needs are the things we hide most jealously from each ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... With this spur, Elizabeth was soon dressed, and then walked into Mrs. Haye's room. Rose apparently had had leisure for meditation and had made up her mind upon several things; but her brow changed ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... mists the blood-red manteline he wore over his mail, the grinning teeth of the boar's head which crested his helmet, flashed and gleamed wherever his presence was most needed to encourage the flagging or spur on the fierce. And there seemed to both armies something ghastly and preternatural in the savage strength of this small slight figure thus startlingly caparisoned, and which was heard evermore uttering ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Land Act of 1903 was not, as some suggest, a short cut to the millennium, evolved on the spur of the moment, and translated into fantastic finance. It had two bases, the one practical, the other moral. In the first place, it was founded on the ripe experience garnered during eighteen years from the operation of preceding purchase ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... disciples, who quoted and betted on his predictions as though they were the utterings of an oracle; but the pessimists gradually prevailed, for we met bad weather and heavy head-seas on entering the bay. It was not till sunrise on Friday itself that we sighted land, a white spur of cliff, with a faint suggestion of that long unseen colour, green, behind it, seen across some miles of wind-whipped foaming blue. The optimists said it was the Needles, the pessimists the Start; the latter were right, and we guessed ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... neither to right nor to left, as the three men had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana's horse swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had it prancing ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... granting for the moment the absolute untrustworthiness of the confessions and accusations there are incidental statements which imply the practice of magic. For example, Elizabeth Device's young daughter quoted a long charm which she said her mother had taught her and which she hardly invented on the spur of the moment. And Demdike was requested to "amend a ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... lightly on their guns, the cavalry crane forward in their saddles. We pause and wait until we see the green badge of O'Driscoll's scouts on the hats of the advancing riders. O'Driscoll rides towards the staff with loosened rein, and every spur in all his gallant little troop shows how the scouts had ridden. We strain our ears to catch the news the Irish scout has brought. It comes at last Clements has met the foe, and death is busy in ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... of his sister, his devotion to his books, and his disappointment made him a sadder and a wiser man. His home at Shadwell had been burned, and he removed to Monticello, a house built on the same estate on a spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains, five hundred feet ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... he would not be able to reach Dimples in time, but with frequent prods of spur and crop, uttering little encouraging shouts to the frightened horse, he dashed on, dodging fleeing showmen and runaway horses at ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... (In 1739 the law entailing property in Georgia was modified to meet this view, and after 1750, all grants were made in fee simple.) He also explained that the obligation to plant a certain number of mulberry trees per acre, or forfeit the land, was intended to spur lazy colonists, and would not be enforced in the ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... from doing it; for he knew the girls would laugh at him. They might do even worse than that. They might tell him that he need not trouble himself to call upon them any more (for things had come to that pass already), so he brought forward the best excuse he could think of on the spur of ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... makes up the life of the mind in the sense in which it is a vital part of the life of the community. Will the life of the mind in this sense be helped or hindered by Socialism? And will there still be a sufficient spur to progress to prevent a condition ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... was concerned he fluctuated between extremes of doubt and confidence. He felt that under the urgent spur of occasion his friend could rise to any emergency, while a sustained activity made demands which he could not satisfy; then his efforts were discounted by his insane desire to realize at once on his opportunities; ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... tricks of gallantry they play at who can best conceal their thoughts, but one day of forgetfulness suffices to inter the whole virtuous past. The poor woman is taken in her joy as in a lasso; her sweetheart proclaims his presence, or sometimes his departure, by some article of clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the position of friend in a family so exalted he had manifestly intended to signify the much more manifest insufficiency of his hearer to fill a place of higher honour even than that of friend. Had the words come at the spur of the moment, the man must, thought Roden, have great gifts for extempore preaching. He had thought the time in the hall to be long, but it had not been much for the communication of the Earl's wishes, and then for the preparation of all these words. It was necessary, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... fire come into my eyes, to be spoken of so by a brute; and then I saw Charlie Doone spur up the bridge, leaning forward and swinging a ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... days of the muzzle-loading rifle. McKiernan and a partner were holding down timber claims in the mountains and living in a cabin overlooking a wide canyon. One morning they saw a Grizzly turning over rocks at the foot of a spur jutting from the main ridge into the canyon, and taking their rifles they followed the ridge around to the spur to get a shot at him from that point. It so happened that the bear also fancied that he had business on the top of the spur, and ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... rates, are concerned. The private car owners and the owners of industrial railroads are entitled to a fair and reasonable compensation on their investment, but neither private cars nor industrial railroads nor spur tracks should be utilized as devices for securing preferential rates. A rebate in icing charges, or in mileage, or in a division of the rate for refrigerating charges is just as pernicious as a rebate in any other way. No lower rate should apply on goods ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... surprise who my friend was. The individual whose courteous salutation had provoked the question was a horseman mounted on a remarkably fine black mare. Whether, in consequence of some little touch with the spur, or whether merely from high condition and high spirits, the animal was curvetting and rearing and dancing about a little as she crossed the piazza, and the perfect ease—and one may say, indeed, elegance—of the rider's seat, and his consummate mastery of the animal he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Ralph, who was bubbling over with excitement, the slight wound he had received acting as a spur to his natural desire to punish some one for his pain. "Can't you see that if we make a dash at them on one side, we shall only have two to fight for a bit till the others can come up; and we might wound the first two if we're quick, before ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... and the ass. The Cathari were wont to tell the story of "a good Christian," one of "the Perfected," who remembered, in a previous existence as a horse, having lost his shoe in a certain place between two stones, as he was running swiftly under his master's spur. When he became a man he was curious enough to hunt for it, and he found it, in the self-same spot. Such humiliating transmigrations were undoubtedly rather rare. A woman named Sybil, "a Believer" and later on one of "the Perfected," remembered having been a ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... we had never supposed we should do, some act that is the fruit of our unregulated inner life. [Footnote: Cf. George Eliot in Romola: "Tito" (who, having posed as a rich and noble gentleman, being unexpectedly confronted with his plebeian father, on the spur of the moment disowned him with the merciless words, "Some madman, surely!") "Was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... southern spur of the Capitoline Hill, which overlooks the Forum, and named after Tarpeia, a legendary traitress, who, tempted by golden ornaments of besieging Sabines, opened to them the gate of the citadel, of which her father was a governor during the regal period. As they ...
— The Twelve Tables • Anonymous
... one of the parent birds, of the Strong-footed Bush-Warbler were sent me from Sikhim. Both nests were found in thick brushwood or low jungle, at elevations of 5000 to 5500 feet—the one at Lebong on the 12th June, the other on another spur of ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... bluff, where the spur rises at an angle of about 30 deg., it has been terraced and the terrace as well as the crown of the spur have been used as a cemetery; portions of the terraces are still perfect; all the burials appear to have been made in rude stone cists, that vary in size from 13 inches by 3 feet to 2 ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... Porter's novels, they linger on your mind like perfumes; and they float down your memory—with the figure, the step, the last words of those young girls who raised them—like the types of some dimly shadowed but deeper passion, which is some time to spur your maturer purposes and to quicken ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... says I, 'and what's more, these lawyers,' says I, 'which is very sharp folks, wont stand it,' says I. But I don't suppose I done him much good, for he's always been that way, sir, though I'm sure I've worked my best to spur him up. But a poor, weak woman can't do everything, though you'd think ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... in the offing had not told a similar tale. General Oshima and I walked a couple of miles to the northward along the slopes of Mount Sampson, in order to get a good view of the bay, clear of the northern spur of the Nanshan Heights, just to make assurance doubly sure; but it was scarcely necessary to point out to him the wildly plunging hulls of our ships to make him understand the hopelessness of the case, and that once clearly established, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... be no alarm to-night, Ellison," I said on the spur of the moment, and I caught the Princess's eye. She rose, shut her book, ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... be, to the building of civilization, or of bringing happiness to their kind, they feel that they live; and whatever be the wounds received, they are not out of the battle of life—the inequality of arms only increases their ardor." This inequality of arms should, and usually does, act as a spur to the courageous man or woman, but to the mind of the average sighted person, this inequality seems to apply inability, and so very little is expected of the blind, and little thought is given to their possibilities. Senator Gore, the blind Senator from Oklahoma, says: ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... lord. And as with your own golden scepter, at times upon your royal teeth, indolent tattoos you beat; then, potent, sway it o'er your isle; so, Lombardo. And ere Necessity plunged spur and rowel into him, he knew not his own paces. That churned him into consciousness; and brought ambition, ere then dormant, seething to the top, till he trembled at himself. No mailed hand lifted up against a traveler in woods, can so, appall, as we ourselves. We are ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... for they are now too heavy to be held erect. The larger fruit is a trifle more than two inches in diameter. The feature spots are now still more prominent on these apples, the ribs more pronounced, the blush against the sun more warm. Both these fruits, from one spur, will mature; but the smaller one will be blemished, for the apple-scab fungus has established itself on the crown and about the calyx. Already the growth is checked in that area, and the apple looks flattened. There is ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... village of Noysi on horseback for a ride, his horse stopped short in the midst of the Rue Feret, opposite the chapel, and he could not make him go forward, though he touched him several times with the spur. There was a shepherd standing leaning against the chapel, with his crook in his hand, and two black dogs at his side. This man said to him, "Sir, I advise you to return home, for your horse will not go forward." ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... rides with the unmistakable seat of an old cavalry man, and his behaviour on horseback was a marked contrast to that of the mounted contingent he drilled every day in the open place in front of the hotel. His steed, artfully stimulated by the spur, caracoled, danced, and lashed out with his hind feet, and Monsieur Dorn, with one fist stuck against his own fat ribs, swayed to the motion with admirable nonchalance. His voice, which has the barky tone inseparable from military command, would ring about the ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... problem, but two very important improvements must be effected before full advantage can be taken of the principle involved. In the first place it is obvious that if a ratchet runs freely in one direction and only catches on the tooth of the spur-wheel when it is drawn in the other, the power developed and used is concentrated on one stroke, when it might, with greater advantage, be divided between the two; and in the second place the shock occasioned by the striking of the ratchet ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... although in his broken temples his brain was parting asunder, and the pain was more than he could bear. Once more he winded his feeble horn, and Charles heard it as he came with his army to the relief of the rear guard. "Spare not spur nor steed for Roland's sake. I hear the sighing of his horn and know that he is in a last distress. Sound all our ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Abraham Lincoln fell forward upon the front of the box unconscious and dying. A wild-looking man, who had entered the box unobserved and had done his work, was seen to strike with a knife at Major Rathbone, who tried to seize him. Then he jumped from the box to the stage; he caught a spur in the drapery and fell, breaking the small bone of his leg. He rose, shouted "Sic semper tyrannis," the motto of Virginia, disappeared behind the scenes, mounted a horse that was in waiting at the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... must be part of a word, and not an odd letter thought of on the spur of the moment. When there is any doubt as to the letter used by the last player being correct, he may be challenged, and he will then have to give the word he was thinking of when adding the letter. If he cannot name the word, he loses a "life"; ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... Majesty,—has got into some difficult defence of the Kaiser; defence very difficult, or in reality impossible. The cautious man is flustered by the intricacies of his position, by his Majesty's indignant counter-volleys, and the perilous necessity there is to do the impossible on the spur of the instant;—gets into emphasis, answers his Majesty's volcanic fire by incipient heat of his own; and, in short, seems in danger of forgetting himself, and kindling the Tobacco-Parliament into a mere conflagration. That will ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... close-buttoned jockey-coat, or wrap-rascal, as it was then termed, with huge metal buttons, coarse blue upper stockings, called boot-hose because supplying the place of boots, and a slouched hat. He only wanted a loaded whip under his arm and a spur upon one heel, to complete the dress of the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... silence during this scene, now shouldered their arms; the muleteer mounting the baggage mule, and leading, by his right hand, that which carried the youthful prisoner, from which the soldiers never for an instant withdrew their eyes, soon set the animals in motion by the well-known touch of the spur, and the journey commenced—when, for the first time, a piercing cry escaped the lips of the fair Sol:—"Adieu! adieu!" exclaimed she; "adieu for ever, my native land!" And soon they entered on the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... saddle. As he galloped off he heard shouts calling him back, but using whip and spur he was soon out of the town, nor did he pull rein till he was beyond reach of any pursuers. At the first hamlet through which he passed, several of the people seeing him riding fast, inquired if anything unusual had happened. Without ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... to sprint as though engaged in a road race with some of the best runners in Carson High athletic circles, Toby kept looking to the right and to the left, and then behind him; for he more than half anticipated that this retreat on his part might spur the unknown enemy on to ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... passions. There's no good lamenting that they're not different, and it's silly to beat them to death and make a merit of not having ridden anywhere because they might have carried you into trouble. Learn to ride them—control them—spur them. But don't forget that they're you just as essentially as the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... its rise at the foot of the small hill called Bolai, a spur of the Velesh range of mountains. Its route is very circuitous, the entire distance from the source to its mouth being about one hundred and thirty miles, while its average width is computed at about one ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... every stimulus but what could be desired from intellectual exertion, my mind would rouse itself perforce. It is not so. Even intellect, even imagination will not dispense with the ray of domestic cheerfulness, with the gentle spur of family discussions. Late in the evening and all through the nights, I fall into a condition of mind which turns entirely to the past—to memory, and memory is both sad and relentless. This will never ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... received from a Lance-Corporal of the 2nd D.L.I. to the effect that he was established in the stables of the chateau with a few men, and asking that rations and ammunition might be sent up to them. On the left not only was all the ground lost on the 30th July regained, but an important spur north of the Menin Road, which had hitherto been in German occupation, was included in the final position consolidated. Three officers and 124 other ranks were taken prisoners, and over 500 of the ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... honour of your acquaintance, and since it is out of my power to make that claim by the least service of mine to you, I shall do it by asking a friendly office of you to me.—I should be much hurt, Sir, if any one should view my poor Parnassian Pegasus in the light of a spur-galled Hack, and think that I wish to make a shilling or two by him. I spurn ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... waited for Carley to catch up. "He's loafing on you, Carley. You ought to have on a spur. Break off a switch and beat him some." Then she whipped the mustang across the flank with her bridle rein, which punishment caused Spillbeans meekly to trot on with alacrity. Carley had a positive belief that he would not do it for her. And after Flo's repeated efforts, assisted by chastisement ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... shall have to trust to what I can say on the spur of the moment. If you notice I'm breaking down, please begin to clap, and then everybody will suppose I have finished. Here comes Miss Russell. I believe she wants me to act umpire too. Greatness is being thrust upon me. I hope I shan't ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... day, too, the current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the carcass could float again ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... of adventure was glutted in something like four minutes and thirty seconds. On this eleventh day after he'd begun at the bottom he started to let two big freight cars loaded with concentrates down the spur track, from one of the mines at Burke, having orders to put 'em where the regular train for Wallace could pick 'em up. Burke is seven miles up the canon from Wallace and the grade drops two hundred and thirty-five feet to the mile, being a masterpiece ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... beyond the barrier, some English voice that had the indefinable tone and accent of high breeding, some figure of Englishman or Englishwoman whose rough, careless clothing had the unmistakable cut of Bond Street, some face recognised under the grey felt or the white Panama, would spur them to the desire of leaving it behind them. Then the valises would be repacked, the oxen would be hastily inspanned, and their owners would start again upon that never-ending journey in search of something that the woman was to be the first ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... about the business of striking camp, and for a time was fully occupied. Meanwhile his mind was in a whirl. That the professor had invented a plausible lie on the spur of the instant to save him, was of course obvious; but it was apparently not all lie, for he had certainly drugged the ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... of tramps and travellers moved upon it in all lands as by a common impulse, and were now in all places drawing near to the inn door and the night's rest. The pictures swarmed and vanished in his brain; a surge of temptation, a beat of all his blood, went over him, to set spur to the mare and to go on into the unknown for ever. And then it passed away; hunger and fatigue, and that habit of middling actions which we call common sense, resumed their empire; and in that changed mood his eye lighted upon two bright windows on ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ministers of this body live in brotherly love, and entertain uniform sentiments." (7.) Nor did the staunch, unbending doctrinal position of Tennessee prove to be a hindrance of, and a check upon, their efforts at unity and peace, but rather a spur to most earnest endeavors in this direction. Moreover, after having themselves fully realized that the Lutheran Confessions contain nothing but God's eternal truth over against the manifest errors of the Roman and other churches, it was, as shown above, the ambition and prayer ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... late, anguish, despair, and remorse took possession of the mind of Judas. Satan instantly prompted him to fly. He fled as if a thousand furies were at his heel, and the bag which was hanging at his side struck him as he ran, and propelled him as a spur from hell; but he took it into his hand to prevent its blows. He fled as fast as possible, but where did he fly? Not towards the crowd, that he might cast himself at the feet of Jesus, his merciful ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... guess that's pretty good on the spur of the moment," he wheezed, and, taking his inseparable note book from his pocket, wrote the impromptu down. "I guess She'll like that-it rings spontaneous. She'll be tickled, tickled to death, when she knows what's behind it." He repeated it with gusto. "She'll dote on it," he added—the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was obeyed, Aziel being set down upon the very verge of the cliff. Close to him a spur of granite jutted out twenty feet or so from the edge. At the end of the spur a groove was cut and over this groove, suspended by a thin chain from a pole, hung a wedge of pure crystal carefully shaped and ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... for which Spain was paid a good round sum because certain gentlemen on the Paris Commission lacked geographic accuracy; while to the east and north are coral islands belonging to the same group as Bongao. The garrison is situated on a mountainous spur of land running down steeply to the water. It is laid out like a park, the soldiers' quarters, hospital, library, and storehouses being of bamboo and nipa, over which the men have trained vines and creeping plants, while before each door bloom ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... passing over a Yorkshire moorland, with its purple backing of hills, for the sky was lowering and threatened rain. Then the scene would as quickly change to a Swiss valley, when, on rounding the base of a spur, one would strike a weird, volcanic-torn country whose mountains piled up in utter confusion like the waves of the stormy Atlantic; and further on we would come out upon a plain once more scattered with gigantic bowlders of porphyry and trap, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... girls, from window high In wonder peep at the sparks that fly From our horses heels, as down the street Of the earl's town we ride so fleet. Spur on!—that every pretty lass May hear our horse-hoofs as we pass Clatter upon the stones so hard, And echo round the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... continued peace, between Russia and the Porte. [348] It was the triumph of Metternich to have diverted the Czar's thoughts during the succeeding years from his grievances against Turkey, and to have baffled the Russian diplomatists and generals who, like Capodistrias, sought to spur on their master to enterprises of Eastern conquest. At the Congress of Verona the shifting and incoherent manoeuvres of Austrian statecraft can indeed only be understood on the supposition that Metternich was thinking all the time less of Spain than of Turkey, and struggling ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... so she might, if she would, and at the same time preserve her honour. "Madam," said the maid, "do but shew me how; and glad shall I be to do just as you wish." Whereupon the lady, to whom necessity taught invention, formed her plan on the spur of the moment, and expounded it in detail to the maid; who (as the first step) hied her to the leech, and, weeping, thus addressed him:—"Sir, it behoves me to ask your pardon of a great wrong that I have done you." "And what may that be?" inquired the leech. ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... monarch, "or you die the death yet. And do you, Mardonius, take Prexaspes, who somewhat knows this country, spur forward, and discover who are the madmen ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... to myself to hearken for myself. So did the adverse party make inquire, But either fall full of contrary desire: The old king's part would kill me being stain'd; The young king's keep me from their violence. So then thou need'st not fear; go boldly on, Brave Hal, Prince Dick, and my spruce hot-spur John, Here's their safe-conduct. O, but for Rosamond! A fig for Rosamond! to this hope I'll lean, At a queen's bidding ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... this prospect was unspeakably frightful to me. Under its spur I hatched the craziest scheme that man ever thought of, and took steps which, as I look back at them, seem almost beyond belief. I must get Miss Falconer off for Paris, I determined. And since it was possible that the villagers would see us leaving, she must appear ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... study for Joel. It was not in his nature to remain long despondent over the loss of the Goodwin scholarship, and a week after the winter term commenced he was as cheerful and light-hearted as ever. But his failure served to spur him on to renewed endeavors, and as a result he soon found himself at the head of the upper middle. Rightly or wrongly—and there is much to be said on both sides—he gave up sports almost entirely. Now and then West ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of human countenances lift, with a look set beyond the mill—toward who can say what vain horizon! The Stream wanders slowly toward the Houses of Labour, although whipped by invisible scourge of Need. Without this incentive and spur, think you it would pursue a direction toward thirteen hours of toil, shut from air and sunlight and day, taking in its rank the women, the young ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... not yet fully recovered from his fall from his horse, and it was known that he generally travelled in a closed car or horse-litter. This vehicle he posted in a conspicuous place on the northerly spur, and planted over it his standard. In front of it were massed the London militia, mainly infantry and the least effective element in his host. Meanwhile the knights and men-at-arms were mustered on the southerly spur under the personal direction ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... once, and touched his horse with the spur without another glance at his enemy. And then we shouted, and Raven spurred forward with a great oath, for Hodulf plucked his sword from the scabbard, and with a new treachery in his heart, rode after our brother and was almost on him. The shout was just in time, for Havelok turned ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... toward us. If we had come down their chimney, they could not have seemed more astonished. Not making out what they said, I went down to the house, and learned to my chagrin that we were still on the Mill Brook side, having crossed only a spur of the mountain. We had not borne sufficiently to the left, so that the main range, which, at the point of crossing, suddenly breaks off to the southeast, still intervened between us and the lake. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... of a little spur of warehouses which breaks out into mountainous stores and open valleys of streets around the corner, but which itself overlooks no fairer view than a narrow, muddy alley of a thoroughfare scarcely broad enough to admit two drays abreast, and, by actual measurement,—taken ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... which, bad as it was, was locked. Upa said we had ridden so slowly that it would be dark before we reached the volcano, and only allowed us to rest on the grass for half-an-hour. He had frequently reiterated "Half Way House, you wear spur;" and, on our remounting, he buckled on my foot a heavy rusty Mexican spur, with jingling ornaments and rowels an inch and a half long. These horses are so accustomed to be jogged with these instruments that they won't move without them. The prospect of five hours more ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... that men who become the leaders of the public, less by the spur of passion than by previous study and conscious talent—men whom thought and letters prepare for enterprise—are rarely eager to advance themselves too soon. Making politics a science, they are even fastidiously alive to the qualities and the experience demanded for great ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... used to ride On a mouse-gray mustang close to my side, With blue serape and bright-belled spur; I laughed with joy as I looked at her. Little knew she of books or of creeds; An Ave Maria sufficed her needs; Little she cared, save to be by my side, To ride with me, and ever to ride, From San Saba's shore to Lavaca's tide. She was as bold as the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... mansion, told him that the place was too small, he answered with the flattery of gratitude, "Not so, madam, your highness has made me too great for my house." Leicester having suddenly asked him his opinion of two aspirants for court favor, he responded on the spur of the moment, "By my troth, my lord, the one is a grave councillor: the other is a proper young man, and so he will be as long as he lives." To the queen, who pressed him for his sentiments respecting the effect ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, Being first of those to whom the Power was shown, Stood first of all the Host before The Throne, And when the Charges were allotted burst Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first. Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed Their own high judgment on their lightest deed. Zeal was their spur that, when relief was given, Urged them unwearied to fresh toil in Heaven; For Honour's sake perfecting every task Beyond what e'en Perfection's ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... You've seen my doings this day, and let you save me from the old man; for why would you be in such a scorch of haste to spur ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... said gently, "These are the only things to take to heart. We only live to prepare for that other life. Can we be too earnest dear, when eternity hangs upon the use we make of time? That thought is a continual spur to make me eager for my duty to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the country is, except at a few places where permanent water is found, altogether sterile and hot. If we view the physical aspect looking north and north-west from Jacobabad, we notice a wide bay of plains extending between the broken spur of the Sulimani, and a second range of hills having a direction parallel to the outer range. This plain is called the Kachi, extends in an even surface for 150 miles from the Indus at Sukkur, and ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... exclaimed hurriedly, as we came to a broken bank by the lane-side—I was glad of the excuse for not answering. I turned my mare's nose towards the bank, touched her with the spur, and at once she ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... carrying it round the room, amidst the bellowing of long-drawn-out dirges; behind them marched the poet, with the table-cloth tied round his neck by way of mantle, declaiming d—d bad Alexandrine verses on the spur of the moment; while Master Jock himself had shouldered a fiddle (he always carried one about with him wherever he went), and was dashing off one friss-magyar after another with all the grace and dexterity of a professional gipsy fiddler, at the same time making the two little ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... allallu bird thou didst love. Thou didst crush him and break his pinions. In the woods he stands and laments, "O my pinions!" Thou didst love a lion of perfect strength, Seven and seven times[897] thou didst bury him in the corners (?), Thou didst love a horse superior in the fray, With whip and spur[898] thou didst urge him on, Thou didst force him on for seven double hours,[899] Thou didst force him on when wearied and thirsty; His mother Silili ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... thou and thy horse—my dear— Have not so much as drunk, or litter'd here; I wonder, though thyself be thus deceas'd, Thou hast the spite to coffin up thy beast; Or is the palfrey sick, and his rough hide With the penance of one spur mortified? Or taught by thee—like Pythagoras's ox— Is then his master grown more orthodox Whatever 'tis, a sober cause't must be That thus long bars us of thy company. The town believes thee lost, and didst thou see But half her suff'rings, ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... Stimulus to intellectual awakening. Spur to scholarship. Help in getting a firm grip on the vital issues of life. Personal kindness. ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... me, and had little or nothing to say when that honor and happiness was conferred on them. It is surely very wrong and ill-mannered in people to ask for an introduction unless they are prepared to make talk; it throws too great an expense and trouble on the wretched lion, who is compelled, on the spur of the moment, to convert a conversable substance out of thin air, perhaps for the twentieth time that evening. I am sure I did not say—and I think I did not hear said— one rememberable word in the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... horse-raising community. It was an understanding of horses, indeed of all brute creatures, that amounted almost to wizardry. There was never a colt so unmanageable that he could not bring it to terms, without the aid of either whip or spur; never an equine ailment too subtle for him to discover and alleviate. At all hours of the day or night owners of sick beasts sent for the young rector as they had sent for his father, ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... this suit, that I took witness and outlawed Otkell before my neighbours for that bloody wound which I got when Otkell gave me a hurt with his spur; but thee, Geir the priest, I forbid by a lawful protest made before a priest to pursue this suit, and so, too, I forbid the judges to hear it; and with this I make all the steps hitherto taken in this suit void and of none-effect. I forbid thee by a lawful protest, a ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... Upon a spur Of Sleemish, eastward on its northern slope, Stood Patrick and his brethren, travel-worn, When distant o'er the brown and billowy moor Rose the white smoke, that changed ere long to flame, From site unknown; for by the seaward crest That keep lay hidden. Hands to forehead ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... "This is the spur that makes our coursers run; This is our harbor, safe from danger's floods; This is our bield, the blustering winds to shun: This is our guide, through forests, deserts, woods; This is our summer's shade, our winter's sun: This is our wealth, our treasure, and our ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... one of Wegstetten's little methods, when he found good qualities in his men and wished to spur them on, to make the meagre rewards that the service held out to them appear in a specially brilliant light. Regardless of exaggeration, he spoke of that week's leave as if it were an extremely rare mark of distinction unheard of for years. And on the whole he gained his object. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they left Colinton and marched to Rullion Green. There they arrived about sunset. The position was a strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between them lies a narrow band of flat marshy ground. On the highest of the two mounds—that nearest the Pentlands, and on the left hand of the main body—was the greater ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stock-breeding, made another attempt to cross the range during this year. They were: William Charles Wentworth, whose name is so familiar to Australians, Lieutenant Lawson, of the Royal Veteran Company, and Mr. Gregory Blaxland. They crossed the Nepean at Emu Plains, and attempted to follow up a main spur forming the watershed of the Grose, and for a time successfully pursued its twists and windings, keeping to the crown of the ridge. At last, like all their predecessors, they began to get entangled in the intricate net-work of deep gullies that rendered straightforward travelling ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... became a more idle man. The rich enervating climate began to tell upon his mind, as it did upon Lucia's health. He missed that perpetual spur of nervous excitement, change of society, influx of ever-fresh objects, which makes London, after all, the best place in the world for hard working; and which makes even a walk along the streets an intellectual tonic. In the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... become—ah, woe the while! so familiar, that we had ceased to shudder, or spur our stung horses to sudden speed, as we passed them. France in its best days, at least that part of France through which we travelled, had been a cultivated desert, and the absence of enclosures, of cottages, and even ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... they drew and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm! But still I stood in the doorway, with baby on my arm. They came; they passed; with spur and whip in haste they sped along— Morgan, Morgan the raider, and ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... miles as easily as thirty. We have only been together two days, yet we are firm friends, and thoroughly understand each other. I should not require another companion on a long mountain tour. All his ways are those of an animal brought up without curb, whip, or spur, trained by the voice, and used only to kindness, as is happily the case with the majority of horses in the Western States. Consequently, unless they are broncos, they exercise their intelligence for your advantage, and do their work rather as ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... hatchway, rushed to the side, waved their mittens—in default of caps—and gave vent to three hearty British cheers. The effect on the drooping spirits of the hunting-party was electrical. They pricked up like chargers that had felt the spur, wheeled round, and returned the cheer with interest. It was an apparently trifling incident, but it served to lighten the way, and make it seem less dreary ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... science and the rapid march of moral improvement the most effectual spur that has ever been applied was the Reform Bill. Before the introduction of that measure, electioneering was a simple process, hardly deserving the name of an art; it has now arrived at the rank of a science, the great beauty of which is, that, although complicated in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... This town of San Juan del Sur is entirely the creation of the Nicaragua Transit Company, and is the Pacific terminus of the Isthmus portage-road. It consisted of half a dozen board hotels, and a litter of native grass-thatched huts, and lay at the foot of a high, woody spur, which curves out into the sea and forms the southern rim of a beautiful little harbor, completed by another less elevated point jutting out on the north. The country inland is entirely shut out by a dense forest, into which the Transit road plunges and is immediately lost. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... as his works in ten large volumes (as edited by Duviquet) prove, but they do not in the least disprove his statement that he was not fond of work, and it is undoubtedly true that, had it not been for the spur of necessity, he would not have written "tant de neants plus ou moins spirituels," and the world would have been deprived of his best writings, for the poorest work that he produced was ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... answered: "How far I climb depends on the help of my best friends. I don't hide that. When my dear wife was with me, she was an inspiration to me. No man can drive his car to the summit without a woman to spur ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... these were wisped away into the heavy clouds. Now and again one heard the high singing note of shells travelling towards us—the German answer to this demonstration—and one saw the puff balls resting on the hill-spur opposite our ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... hill slopes off steeply in front of me, about eighty feet down to the bottom land. A spur of the hill runs off on my right three-fourths of a mile to the north. Another runs off on my left the same distance to the west. Between these two spurs, down in front of me, is an almost level valley, extending about a mile ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... Athenians and strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing," and if we would all be occupied in that way, not much would be accomplished in the world. If we would become disciples of every propagandist whose arguments we cannot answer on the spur of the moment, there would be nothing but change and confusion. Realizing the difficulties in the way of finding truth, and observing how even the wisest and best have been deceived and ensnared in error, naturally ought to make people conservative in accepting new ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... was now a success. What time Bobby could spare, he spent over his new work. In fact he would probably have printed out all his interest in the shape of cards for friends and relatives, did not an incident spur his failing enthusiasm. The little tin box of printer's ink went empty. Bobby tried to buy more at Smith's where other kinds of ink were to be had. Mr. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... the Sofala on her way. On the spur of the moment he had acted impulsively, turning to the thing most pressing. And what else could he have done? Later on he should see. It seemed necessary that he should come out into the world, for a time at least. He had money—something could ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... The spur-winged plover and a species of the curlew, black with a white bar across the wings, nearly as large again as the scarlet curlew on the sea- coast, frequently rise before you. Here too the muscovy duck is numerous, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... statues, if we may trust the unvarying witness of judicious persons, are conceived and executed in a style altogether above the stone-cutting level of the day, and give proof of real imaginative power. Mr. Story's genius and culture, with the fresh spur of so marked a success, will, we are sure, produce other works to his own honor and that of his country. For we feel that we have a country still,—feel it the more deeply for our suffering, and our hope deferred,—and out of the darkness of to-day we have still faith to see ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... to harass than to conduct a government; lastly, below them, were pitch-forked in, pell-mell, councillors of State, masters of requests, members of Parliament, well-informed and industrious gentlemen, fated henceforth to crawl about at the bottom of the committees, and, without the spur of glory or emulation, to repair the blunders which must be expected from the incapacity of the first and the recklessness of the second class amongst their colleagues." [Lemontey, Histoire de la Regence, t. i. p. 67.] "It is necessary," the young ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... found themselves possessed of a large and lively family, all methods of discipline, whether sanctioned by long custom or invented on the spur of the moment, through the extreme urgency ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... dialogue and portraiture of character, not to mention those flashes of sound wisdom with which ever and anon his pages are lighted up, his wit and genius had fair play, revelling and rioting in fun, and achieving on the spur of the moment those lasting triumphs which cast into the shade the minor and mechanical blemishes to which ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... of Senart, a ragged Peasant with a coffin: "For whom?"—It was for a poor brother slave, whom Majesty had sometimes noticed slaving in those quarters. "What did he die of?"—"Of hunger:"—the King gave his steed the spur. (Campan, iii. 39.) ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... judgment as the artificial enthusiasm of the evening evaporated from my veins. Strong as that repugnance became, I had an even stronger feeling that we were embarking on an important enterprise far too much upon the spur of the moment. The latter qualm I had the temerity to confess to Raffles; nor have I often loved him more than when he freely admitted it to be the most natural feeling in the world. He assured me, however, that he had had my Lady Lochmaben and her jewels ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... in the breast grievously; from thence to the spur his body is bloody.' Saxons, Lusatians, Hungarians perceive that his blows lessen and fall slow. 'Montjoie!' he cries many a time, but the French hear him not. 'When Baldwin sees that he will have no succour, as a boar he ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... beast has become, Being no longer by the spur corrected, Since thou hast laid thy ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... Costa pricked his horse gently with the spur, and dashing down the long avenue of cork-trees, strove to forget the torment of spiritual problems in the fury of physical movement, to leave theology behind with the monasteries and chapels of Porto. He rode with ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... their leaders. The force at St Denis was under the command of Wolfred Nelson, and that at St Charles was under the command of Thomas Storrow Brown. How these self-styled 'generals' came to be appointed is somewhat of a mystery. Brown, at any rate, seems to have been chosen for the position on the spur of the moment. 'A mere accident took me to St Charles,' he wrote afterwards, 'and put me at the head ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... in as cheerful and brisk a tone as she could call up on the spur of the moment, "it will be all ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... calld him forty marchmen bauld, Were kinsmen to the bauld Buccleuch, With spur on heel, and splent on spauld, And gleuves of ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... "Yes," said Bligh, "you —— hound, I do think so, or you could have given a better account of them." It was after this offensive accusation that Christian determined, in the first instance, to quit the ship, and on the morning of April 28, 1788, finding the mate of the watch asleep, on the spur of the moment resolved to lay violent hands on the captain, and assume the command of the Bounty. The language attributed to Bligh reads like a translation into the vernacular, but if Christian kept his designs to himself, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... rush of hosts again My dripping sabre seeks the front. Spur your mad horses! Forward, men! Meet with your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... the stirring of sudden and disagreeable excitement;—poor Elfie was crying for her Bible. It had been her father's own—it was filled with his marks—it was precious to her above price—and Elfie cried with all her heart for the loss of it. She had done what she had on the spur of the emergency—she was satisfied she had done right; she would not take it back if she could; but not the less her Bible was gone, and the pages that loved eyes had looked upon were for hers to look upon no more. Her very heart was wrung that she should have parted with ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... as being in the slightest degree evidential, but for its intrinsic interest, and because I am personally convinced that she had not sufficient imagination to have made it up on the spur of the moment. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... talk about him, but she thought the more. And—though had he known it, the pelf-despising Mr. Vanbrugh would never have forgiven such a desecration of Art—it was not her lightest spur in the attainment of excellence, to feel that as soon as her pictures were good enough to sell, she might earn money enough to discharge the claim of this harsh creditor, whose very name sent a ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... men assembled in Bohemia were destined to aid and assist the Russians in case they should be successful (and who can blame the Austrian Government for wishing to wash away the shame of the Treaty of Presburg?). Napoleon had not a moment to lose, but this activity required no spur; he had hastened the battle of Austerlitz to anticipate Prussia, and he now found it necessary to anticipate Russia in order to keep Austria in a state ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... he was a Uhlan," went on Jimmie, pointing to other tracks. "I can see the mark of the spur ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... dinner party gathered in the historic dooryard. The mountain air was sweet and invigorating, and the view in every direction most enchanting. A more picturesque spot scarcely can be imagined: in front, the long range of Berkshire hills, a spur of the Green mountains of Vermont whose faint outlines are visible in the distance; at the back, glorious "Old Greylock," the highest peak in the State; at the right, the steep, winding road leading down to the village ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the warmth of the sun, glanced at him now and again and noted the strength and grace of his figure, the almost Grecian contour of the handsome face. She had made her wager with Howard on the spur of the moment, prompted by the vanity of a woman piqued by the story of Stafford's indifference to her sex; but as she looked at him she wondered how a woman would feel if she fell in love with him. But she had no fears for herself; there was a coldness in her nature which had hitherto guarded ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... her, and was standing beside the stirrup, one bold hand upon the rein. Her quirt went swiftly up and down, cut like a thin bar of red-hot iron across his uplifted face. He stumbled back, half blind with the pain. Before he could realize what had happened the spur on her little boot touched the side of the pony, and it was off with a bound. She was galloping wildly down the trail ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... good prospect, though a view from an old road between Hancock and Lanesboro is perhaps more striking. On either side are the valleys of the Hudson and Housatonic, the cities of Albany and Pittsfield, the distant Catskills and the Hoosac range. A little south of Pittsfield is a spur from the Taconic range, parting from it at Egremont. The various portions have received different names—the northern being called Lenox Mountain, the middle Stockbridge Mountain, and the southern Tom Ball. The last named is the highest part of the spur, and is located in the township ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... nothing really. One just happens to have the knack of keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some people ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... He prick'd with his spur his courser tall, Which sprang, at once, over the gate and wall. Tygge Nold there he has stretch'd in blood, And his twelve sons too, that beside him stood. Look out, look out, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... Charite, in a woman, who, in consequence of a whitlow, had lost the whole of the 3d phalanx of one of the forefingers. The soft and fleshy cushion which here covered the 2d phalanx was terminated by a small, blackish nail, like a grain of spur rye. It is probable that in these cases the soft parts of the 3d phalanx, and especially the ungual matrix, had not been wholly destroyed. In his lectures ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... had already gone through enough to convince him he had better not lose the chance that offered. He concluded by saying, "Don't worry about me, dear grandmother. I shall think of you always; and it will spur me on to work hard and try to do right. When I have earned money enough to give you a home, perhaps you will come to the north, and we can all live ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... bleus" could be heard continuously as she hunted for some article of dress or polished an ornament, buckle, or pin. The struggle of Aileen to be perfect was, as usual, severe. Her meditations, as to the most becoming gown to wear were trying. Her portrait was on the east wall in the art-gallery, a spur to emulation; she felt as though all society were about to judge her. Theresa Donovan, the local dressmaker, had given some advice; but Aileen decided on a heavy brown velvet constructed by Worth, of Paris—a thing of varying aspects, showing her ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... it is no longer optional whether they shall fall into that channel. The nature of the case requires all to conform alike to the general arrangements, and whoever is not sufficiently urged by the natural motives, is brought under the spur of a new kind ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... western front. It is true that not much was accomplished in Alsace in either April or May; for the fighting in the plains had been for the most part what may be termed trench warfare. The most important engagement had been the effort to take and hold Hartmannsweilerkopf, the spur of the Molkenrain massif, which controls the union of the Thur and the Ill. The top of this rise of ground, it will be remembered, had been won by the Germans on January 21, 1915; but the heights west of it and their slopes ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... dislodged them from this position, and they retreated in disorder to Calatafimi. Not wishing to tempt fortune further for that day, Garibaldi bivouacqued on the field of battle. In a letter written to Bertani, on the spur of the moment, he bore witness with a sort of fatherly pride to the courage displayed by the Neapolitans: 'It was the old misfortune,' he said, 'a fight between Italians; but it proved to me what can be done with this family when united. The Neapolitan soldiers, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... business, which the ascetic reformer looked upon as the curse that robbed prelates and churchmen of that spiritual authority which could alone meet the vice and suffering of the time. Whatever baser motives might spur Lancaster and his party, their projects of spoliation must have seemed to Wyclif projects of enfranchisement for the Church. Poor and powerless in worldly matters, he held that she would have the wealth and might of heaven at her command. Wyclif's theory ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... fidelity so long as they were exposed to the attacks of the Jebusites in their rear: as soon therefore as David found he had nothing more to fear from the Philistines, he turned his attention to Jerusalem.* This city stood on a dry and sterile limestone spur, separated on three sides from the surrounding hills by two valleys of unequal length. That of the Kedron, on the east, begins as a simple depression, but gradually becomes deeper and narrower as it extends towards ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... spur he urged his horse forward. But quick as thought the Hermit with his staff drew a circle around himself and John and the doe, which still lay panting at his feet, wrapped ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... He had attained that period in life when the spirits flag and enthusiasm needs a constant spur, and of late there had been a lack of special excitement, and he felt dull and superannuated. He was even contemplating resigning his position on the force and retiring to the little farm he had bought for himself in Westchester; and this in itself did not tend to cheerfulness, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... of the latter, but the long, rolling gallop of the bays ate up the ground, and bore them down on the leaders in a bright hurricane. The cowpunchers, hearing that volleying of hoofbeats, went to spur and quirt to stave off the inevitable, but at five furlongs Lady Mary left her sisters and streaked around the tiring range horses into the lead. Marianne cried out in delight. She had forgotten her hope that the mares ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... the name of a range of mountains in northern Argentina, being a spur of the Sierra de Aconquija crossing the province of Catamarca ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... merely puts 'La Comtesse du Bruel' on her cards. The sometime playwright has the Order of Leopold, the Order of Isabella, the cross of Saint-Vladimir, second class, the Order of Civil Merit of Bavaria, the Papal Order of the Golden Spur,—all the lesser orders, in ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... on, however, he began to admit to himself that it was strange that in making all things bend to his pleasure he did not secure more. He wearied of certain things. Stronger excitements were needed to spur his jaded senses. His bets, his stakes at cards grew heavier, his pleasures more gross, till a delicate organization so revolted at its wrongs and so chastised him for excess that he was deterred from ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... the first few days he had to drive himself to his work with bit and spur. His feet lagged and he groaned in spirit—perhaps audibly, too—as he approached his books. But he did it, and little by little it became easier, until, as Mr. Daley had predicted, it had become a habit with him to do certain things at certain hours and he was uncomfortable if his ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... grooms came riding along as usual; but the horses, as they arrived at the spot where the magic horse was buried, reared and plunged violently — their nostrils distended with terror — their manes grew erect, and the perspiration ran down their sides in streams. In vain the riders applied the spur — in vain they coaxed or threatened, the animals would not pass the spot. On the following day, their success was no better. They were at length compelled to seek another spot for their exercise, and Thomas Aquinas was left in peace. [Naude, "Apologie des Grands Hommes accuses de ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... in the province of Moscow, near the hamlet of Melihovo. As an estate it had nothing to recommend it but an old, badly laid out homestead, wastes of land, and a forest that had been felled. It had been bought on the spur of the moment, simply because it had happened to turn up. Chekhov had never been to the place before he bought it, and only visited it when all the formalities had been completed. One could hardly turn ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... of the monotone in lowest horns. The fateful phrases are ringing about, while pervading all is the hope-destroying blast of the brass. But the storm-centre is the sighing motive which now enters on a quicker spur of passionate stride (Allegro frenetico, quasi doppio ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... relation of mine, as she herself told me. Mrs. Luttrell!—it sounds a little odd. Odder, too, to think that I must never sign myself Brian Luttrell any more. Bernardino Vasari! I think I might as well stick to the plain John Stretton, which I adopted on the spur of the moment at San Stefano. I suppose I shall soon have to meet the woman who calls herself—who is—my mother. I will say nothing harsh or unkind to her, poor thing! She has done herself a greater injury ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... however, maddened by the shouts which had greeted her from all sides, and the strange manner in which she was being ridden, never swerved from her course. When she was within five yards of the party, the general turned his horse, touched him with his spur, and leaped him lightly over the wall; one or two others followed his example, but the others had not time to do so before the mule was among them. Two horses and riders were thrown down, one on either side, with the impetus of the shock, and then, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... he rode away, opening the gate and letting himself through without dismounting. He disappeared finally around a small spur of the hill, and Lorraine found her knees trembling ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Spartans, then he should be a great king indeed. In conclusion, the mother and the grandmother also were so taken, so carried away with the inspiration, as it were, of the young man's noble and generous ambition, that they not only consented, but were ready on an occasions to spur him on to a perseverance, and not only sent to speak on his behalf with the men with whom they had an interest, but addressed the other women also, knowing well that the Lacedaemonian wives had always a great ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... let me take a six-shooter or a rope," said Curly. "I ain't fixed for this here tenderfoot game you-all have sprung on me. If it wasn't for that there spur, I'd have sent Doc's ball plumb over Carrizy Mountain that last carrom. You watch me when onct I get the hang of ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... her side. He seemed hardly able to control himself for joy. As a matter of fact he was acting, and acting a desperate part too, suggested on the spur of the moment by the risk he ran of losing this woman and her fortune on the very eve of marriage. Now he seized her hand, and drawing her arm through his, led her quickly backwards and forwards, talking fast and earnestly. It would not do to hesitate, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... define them all clearly on the spur of the moment; but I must have leave to go and see my daughter whenever I choose, and she must have the right to spend one day in the week ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... who was bubbling over with excitement, the slight wound he had received acting as a spur to his natural desire to punish some one for his pain. "Can't you see that if we make a dash at them on one side, we shall only have two to fight for a bit till the others can come up; and we might wound the first two if we're quick, before their ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... Privatization of government-owned copper mines relieved the government from covering mammoth losses generated by the industry and greatly improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth. Copper output has increased steadily since 2004, due to higher copper prices and the opening of new mines. The maize harvest was again good in 2005, helping boost GDP and agricultural exports. Cooperation ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... at Saint X against him. Huge incomes were necessary to the support of their extravagant families and to the increase of the fortunes they were piling up "to save their children from fear of want"—as if that same "fear of want" were not the only known spur to the natural lethargy of the human animal! They explained to their workmen that the university industries were not business enterprises at all, and therefore must not be confused and compared with enterprises that were "practical"; but the workmen fixed tenaciously ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... as they arrived at the spot where the magic horse was buried, reared and plunged violently—their nostrils distended with terror—their manes grew erect, and the perspiration ran down their sides in streams. In vain the riders applied the spur—in vain they coaxed or threatened, the animals would not pass the spot. On the following day their success was no better. They were at length compelled to seek another spot for their exercise, and Thomas Aquinas was left ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... to evolve an idea like that on the spur of the moment, but I can at least act up to it when it is presented. Without a moment's delay we shut the door and ran. As we went I saw the McGinnis dog licking his chops over in their yard. I have been ashamed ever since of my feelings toward that dog. They were murderous. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Cynic Fathers was it who defined virtue as an attitude of the mind toward externals? One may not always recall a pat quotation on the spur of the moment, but it sounds like Demonax or another of the later school, when the philosophy of cynicism had sunk to the level of a sneer at ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... that I have never skirted the ravine at night without feeling a certain uneasiness; and I would not like to swear that on some stormy nights I have not given my horse a touch of the spur, in order to escape the more quickly from the disagreeable impression this ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... now I see black smoke rising at my right hand, and I hear the whistle of the Union steam vessels, and I almost cry for joy, and at the turning of the road my horse rears and almost throws me to the ground, and I see the black horse lying dead, and I spur my horse to pass, and give a cry of terror as a man springs from the left, with carbine presented, and shouts, "Your horse! your horse! Dismount at once, or I'll blow your ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... troop of the enemy, while separated by a quarter of a mile of darkness and stiff rising ground from me, who alone carried their credentials. Little need to say in what hurry I wheeled my mare about to the slope, struck spur, dragged my trumpet loose on its sling and blew, as best I could, the call that both armies accepted for note of parley. Belike (let me do the villains this credit), with the jolt and heave of the mare's shoulders knocking the breath out of me, I sounded it ill, or in the noise and scuffle ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... is the spur, that the clear spirit doth raise, (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon, when we hops to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind fury with th' abhorred shears, And slits ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... elegancies of speech, being "a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well and in fashion, practiseth by his glass how to salute ... can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand," thus describes the Arcadian music which falls from the lips of the lady Saviolina: "She has the most harmonious and musical strain of wit that ever tempted a true ear ... oh! it flows from her like nectar, and ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... the end of Cremorne Point, a spur of rock running into the harbour. Clara ran forward with a cry of pleasure, her troubles forgotten as she saw the harbour lying like a map at her feet. The opposite shore curved into miniature bays, with the spires ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... his horse feels the spur, or that the hare is afraid when the hounds approach her; the disciple of Malbranche, who maintains that the man was not hurt by the bullet, which, according to vulgar apprehension, swept away his legs; the follower of Berkeley, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... studies, counting-houses, professions—not knowing the food, or rather poison, on which their wives' and daughters' intellectual life is sustained. It is precisely those who are most unfitted to sustain the danger, whose feelings need restraint instead of spur, and whose imaginations are most inflammable, that ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... such urging was to make me angry. I wasn't going to be rushed into khaki on the spur of an emotion picked up in a music-hall. I pictured the comfortable gentlemen, beyond the military age, who had written these heroic taunts, had gained reputation by so doing, and all the time sat at home in suburban security. The people who recited or sung their effusions, ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... Guarded at friendship's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew. It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field; Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield. Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew, Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too. Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... is a good horse, and his pace is slow and sure; but he goes no faster because you goad him with a golden spur; but every thing is prepared, sir; and now, sir Rowland, I have an ugly sort of an awkward affair to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... Holland high as the sprit-sail-yard, and yet what good came of it? The rogue played with us, as your portsman trifles with the entangled trout; and when we thought we had him, he would shoot without the range of our guns, with as little exertion as a ship slides into the water, after the spur shoars are ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... was no objection. Banker jumped at the quick touch of the spur as Stephenson's heel went home. Side by side they cantered steadily until Norah pulled her pony in at length at the entrance to the timber, where the creek swung ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... golden, pink and violet tints. In the west, surrounded by a host of golden stars that still glittered in the purple black depths of vanishing night, the silver moon hung half-way dipped as it slowly sank behind the towering crest of the Sahuaripa range, an isolated spur of the Sierra Madres. A vast plain intervened between them and the distant Sierras at whose foot ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... terrific. Night, then, is black as the inside of a trunk, and day is so feeble that your hand, held before your face at arm's length, is just a shadow. The westward part of the forest of M'Bonga projects a spur of the pestiferous rubber-bearing land into the isthmus of healthy woods. It was just at the tip of this spur that Berselius and his ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... not that the pity, You that would carry well a spur or a boot; I would put clothes in the fashion on you from cloth that would be lasting; I would send you out like a ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... into fragments—into forest-topped hillocks which are genuine fortresses, where the struggle was terrific and where the Allies were able to advance only one step at a time: on Hill 204, west of Chateau-Thierry, in the Bois de Mont St-Pere, the forest of Feze above Jaulgonne, and especially on the spur of the forest of Riz; and south of the Marne, at the broad, wooded bastion of Saint-Agnan and at La Chapelle-Monthodon, where the fighting was so intense from the 15th ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... service time were on the alert for "spur money," a fine due for the wearing of spurs. "Paul's Walk" (the central aisle of the nave), said Bishop Earle, of Salisbury, "is the land's epitome.... It is the general mart of all famous lies." Shakespeare was thinking of his own time, as well as of the time of Henry IV. (2 Henry IV., ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... eager to listen to those who desire to give you their advice. For not only can you hear and accept any useful proposals which a speaker may have thought out before he came here; but such, I conceive, is your fortune, that the right suggestion will often occur to some of those present on the spur of the moment; and out of all these suggestions it should be easy for you to choose ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... Cattle Out Back The Star of Australasia Middleton's Rouseabout The Vagabond The Sliprails and the Spur "In the Days when the World was Wide, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... of thought. His uncertain course brought him at last to the waterfront, and he idled along the black, odorous docks until he came to a pier where a ship was under steam, making ready to put out to sea. The spur touched the heart of Harrigan. The urge never failed to prick him when he heard the scream of a steamer's horn as it put to sea. It brought the thoughts of ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... seemed to me so vague, and it didn't attract me in the least. I don't know whether you can understand what I mean, but to me it appeared to be an entirely artificial suggestion. If such a thing had been reasonable at all, I should have said that it was an offer invented on the spur of the moment by Herr Freudenberg, to get ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Teller's Point from whose banks Colonel Livingston bombarded the Vulture, thereby leading to the capture of Andre, by this one action saving, possibly, the collapse of the War for Independence. From a further spur of the same hill comes into view the broad expanse of Haverstraw Bay with its background of jagged hills known as Clove Mountain and High Tor, under whose shadow Arnold and Andre met. Elson's concise and graphic description of this ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... Ceylon, remarkable for the delicate pencillings of its plumage, as well as for the peculiarity of the double spur, from which it has acquired its trivial name, is the Galloperdix bicalcaratus, of which a figure is given from a drawing ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... sitting up recalled me to my duty. I ran to Sir Cyril, and, kneeling down so as to screen his body from her sight, I drew the dagger from its sheath, and began hastily, with such implements as I could contrive on the spur of the moment, ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... farewell to their native land they did so in the firm conviction that they themselves should see the day when the Church of the Brethren should stand once more in her ancient home; and as they stood on a spur of the Giant Mountains, and saw the old loved hills and dales, the towns and hamlets, the nestling churches, Comenius raised his eyes to heaven and uttered that historic prayer which was to have so marvellous an answer. He prayed that in the old home God would preserve a "Hidden ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... is very much in earnest," she whispered, "but very very slow. Dicky is just the sort of man to spur him on. He admires Penelope, and does not mind showing it. She is such a dear girl that I should love to have her comfortably ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and drive the enemy effectually from the field. The cavalry charges were generally such as mounted infantry could have just as well made; charges in which the pistol and carbine played the principal part, instead of the spur and sabre. It was not until the fight at Brandy Station, in June, 1863, that sabres were used, to any extent, at close quarters. Thus, neither of the contending armies was able to break up and disperse, destroy, or capture its enemy's infantry masses, in the ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... is no spur more powerful than for a man to see his children starving. An idea entered Stan's head, and he said boldly, "What would you give me, if I released ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... two points by an active man accustomed to climbing. Both of these points are near the western or left-hand end of the ruin; toward the right the rock becomes vertical. Immediately below this ruin there are the remains of a large settlement on a low spur near the stream, now much obliterated, and above and below it on suitable sites there were a number of small settlements which may have been ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... his helpmate (Lord help him and forgive me!); and Miss Black, preferring rather to stay in Ireland and become Mrs. M'Crule than to return to England and continue companion to Lady O'Shane, hath consented (who can blame her?) to marry on the spur of the occasion—to-morrow—I giving her away—you may imagine with what satisfaction. What with marriages and separations, the business of the nation, my bank, my canal, and my coal-mines, you may guess my hands have been full of business. Now, all for ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... from a Lance-Corporal of the 2nd D.L.I. to the effect that he was established in the stables of the chateau with a few men, and asking that rations and ammunition might be sent up to them. On the left not only was all the ground lost on the 30th July regained, but an important spur north of the Menin Road, which had hitherto been in German occupation, was included in the final position consolidated. Three officers and 124 other ranks were taken prisoners, and over 500 of the enemy were counted dead on the captured ground. The gallant work of the R.E. in wiring ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... Arabs, with a tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness and attachment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop: their sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their powers are reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup, than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if their friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till he has recovered ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... all closed now and silent; then up in the citadel, and through the mosque of Yusef; then down and scouring over the flying sand among the grand old tombs of the Mamelukes and of the caliphs; then off at break-neck speed toward the Mokatamma mountains, from a rise on the lower spur of one of which we saw, in the shadow of the coming night, the Pyramids and the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... his horse and rode off to Plumstead Episcopi; not briskly and with eager spur, as men do ride when self-satisfied with their own intentions; but slowly, modestly, thoughtfully, and somewhat in dread of the coming interview. Now and again he would recur to the scene which was just over, support ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... beside his empty chair. The hostile eye with which he regarded the belcantoing Pee-Wee reminded me of the time he'd spoken of his own off-spring as "squalling brats." And the memory wasn't a tranquillizing one. It was still another spur roweling me back ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... village accompanied by the two brothers. A half hour's ride brought us to the spot, from which one gets one of the most lovely views in all this picturesque country. Standing on the end of a little spur upon which the village lies, one sees the handsome river below, which separates this municipio from that of Villa Juarez. To the left, rise magnificent mountains covered with brilliant green vegetation, broken here and there by bare rock faces, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... cavalry and a portion of the infantry reached Villa Real, where, on the evening of the same day, two divisions of infantry arrived. That night Terence with his men having on the 4th marched along the hills parallel to the road, made a forced march, crossed the road and took up a position on the spur of the mountains between Montalegre and the river. Even yet it was doubtful which route Soult intended to follow, as the division at Villa Real might be intended only to prevent Romana and Silveira falling upon his flank. As he marched down the valley of the ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... gave way, forming a lane in their midst through which our friends passed in fear and trembling, exposed for a minute or so to the coarsest ribaldry which the ruffianly band could summon to their lips on the spur of the moment. It was not until they had all been passed safely into the two whale-boats, and Dickinson's little band had drawn themselves closely up with drawn cutlasses in a compact line between the boats ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... had gone on a bit farther, their road passed under a steep spur of rock, where they heard something digging ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... Feeble beings have the colic. Napoleon slept. Before assailing the confidence of a life-long friendship, and breaking down all the barriers of pride and self-assurance, an honorable man must needs feel in his heart—and feel it more than once—the spur of that cruel rider, necessity. Thus it happened that Birotteau had been goaded for two days before he could bring himself to seek his uncle; it was, indeed, only family reasons which finally decided ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... remarkable in all this. Yet the character is there, if one could but seize upon it, since every place has its genius. Perhaps it lies in a certain feeling of aloofness that never leaves one here. We are on a hill—a mere wave of ground; a kind of spur, rather, rising up from, the south—quite an absurd little hill, but sufficiently high to dominate the wide Apulian plain. And the nakedness of the land stimulates this aerial sense. There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or public garden that lies on the highest ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... low tone, some of them already spreading their blankets among the shelving rocks. The embers from the cook fire glowed a deeper red as the darkness gathered in the pass, and every man seemed to start as though stung with sudden spur when sharp, quick, and imperative there came the cry from the lips of ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... boots and skirt were clotted with it; so was the single army spur. Her horse stretched a glossy, sweating neck and rolled wisely-suspicious eyes at the dazzling light. On the gray saddle cloth glimmered three gilt letters, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... dull Life, the light Amusements that connect and change, Spur on the creeping Circle of the Year; I love to humour an unbounded Genius, to give a lose to ev'ry spring of Fancy, to rove, to range, to sport with different Countries, and share ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... does not hesitate to take liberties even with German, if he can but catch the vivid, darting imagery of juvenile fancy, the "ohs" and "ahs" of the nursery, its changing intonations, its fears, its smiles, its personal appeals, and its venerable devices to spur attention and kindle sympathy. Action, or imitation, takes the place of description. We hear the trumpeter's taratantara and "the pattering rain on the leaves, rum dum dum, rum dum dum," The soldier "comes marching along, left, right, left, right." No one puts himself ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... That done, the servants applied themselves to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through which could be heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular did the "gawk" and the "thief" work hard at their tasks. As a matter of fact, their appellations had been given them merely to spur them to greater activity, for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but, rather, a kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on without a sharp word or two. That is to say, he needed them ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to indicate the age. The feet of a young chicken are smooth and soft; whereas, those of an old bird are rough, hard, and scaly. The claws of a young one are short and sharp; but as the bird grows older they grow stronger and become blunt and marred with use. The spur, which is a projection just above the foot on the back of each leg, is small in the young chicken, and increases in size as the age increases. However, the spurs are more pronounced in ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... when his parents drove him to die, Honoura lived like a beast, lacking the lamp and the fire, Washed by the rains of the trade and clotting his hair in the mire; And there, so mighty his hands, he bent the tree to his foot— So keen the spur of his hunger, he plucked it naked of fruit. There, as she pondered the clouds for the shadow of coming ills, Ahupu, the woman of song, walked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the finest men at Big Draw. They worked hard and minded their own business. They were not given to much talk, due, no doubt, to long years in the wilderness. Neither were they carried away by any sudden impulse on the spur of the moment. They never had anything in common with Curly and his gang, although they had often listened to their vapid boastings. So now when they learned of the despicable affair up the narrow creek, they did not take matters into their own hands, and visit upon the miscreants swift ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... him. He is an object lesson in both the advantages and the risks of an aggressive life policy. He has a suggestion to make in every emergency, a line of conduct for each of his company, all marked out or supplied on the spur of the moment by his own quick sense of appropriate action; and for him, as for no one else, to hesitate is to ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... representation of the two opposite methods which He adopts for curing opposite diseases, and bringing both back to the same state of health. He stimulates the too sluggish, He represses the too willing (if such a paradox may be allowed). His treatment is at once spur and bridle. To the one man He administers a sobering representation of what he is undertaking with so light a heart; to the other He gives the commandment that sounds so stern: 'Leave the highest duty, if you cannot do it without conflicting with your ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... think that you will do well to leave this young cock alone, since I like not the look of that red spur of his," and he glanced at the sword Wave-Flame. "Though he be weary, he may have a kick or two ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... always liked him very much, but still I think that sort of thing, is not right, but he always was impetuous, never considered anything, but just acted on the spur of the moment, and he is very soft hearted" he added laughing. "I wonder if ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... them[348] is a child of Abraham. All looked back with the same ancestral pride to their great progenitor, the friend of God. This has never been the case with any other nation, for the Arabs are not a nation. One can hardly imagine a greater spur to patriotism than this union of pride of descent with pride in one's nation and its institutions. The proudest and poorest Jew shared it together. There was one distinction, and that the most honorable, which ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... without making an effort to remove a garment, till he caught sight of a derisive look upon Kenneth's face—a look which made the hot blood flush up to his cheeks, and acted as such a spur to his lagging energies, that in a very few minutes he was ready, and, after satisfying himself that the water was not too deep, he lowered himself slowly down, gasping as the cold, bracing wave reached his chest, and ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... through 1997, but has registered an increase every year since. Negotiation of production-sharing arrangements (PSAs) with foreign firms, which have thus far committed $60 billion to long-term oilfield development, should generate the funds needed to spur future industrial development. Oil production under the first of these PSAs, with the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, began in November 1997. A consortium of Western oil companies began ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... and cliffs of the middle ridges having been scrambled over, on the following morning they stood on the summit of Cumberland mountain, the farthest western spur of this line of heights. From this point the descent into the great western valley began. What a scene opened before them! A feeling of the sublime is inspired in every bosom susceptible of it, by a view ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... from the town is limited; but if we ascend a little to the plateau swept by a perpetual breeze, which stands above the highest houses, the landscape is magnificent. On the west stretch the fine outlines of Carmel, terminating in an abrupt spur which seems to run down sheer to the sea. Next, one sees the double summit which towers above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal period; the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque group to which is attached the graceful or terrible ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... fairy-like reflection in the mirror—to a subtly insidious fragility that verged upon the unreal; and the boy, quivering to his tangled sensations, felt this unreality quicken his self-distrust, touch and goad him as a spur. ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... seeing men on the wing, who come and enter this monastery. On one occasion, when devotees of various countries came to perform their worship at it, the people of those villages said to them, "Why do you not fly? The devotees whom we have seen hereabouts all fly"; and the strangers answered, on the spur of the moment, "Our wings are ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... of a mother toward her young. Gradually, this interest absorbed both Mr. Heath and Mrs. Tiffany. The table talk became a series of monologues by young Bertram Chester, Judge Tiffany throwing in just enough replies to spur and ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... yourself a wild ravine, gashing a mountain spur, and with here and there in its course abrupt descents. One of these is so deep and sheer that it might ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... seduce his wife! It was a hideous and incredible idea, some mad mistake which could be easily explained. Dundee, throwing off his black and brooding burden of thought, would touch his horse with the spur and gallop for a mile in gayety of heart and then ride on his way, singing some Cavalier song, till Grimond, who kept away from his master those days and rode among the troopers, would shake his head, and say to himself, "God grant he be not fey" (possessed). Dundee would continue in high spirits ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... towards the meridian of 65 degrees; it gives birth to the great river known by the name of Desaguadero de Mendoza and extends from San Juan de la Frontera and San Juan de la Punta to the town of Cordova. The second spur, called the Sierra de Salta and the Jujui, of which the greatest breadth is 25 degrees of latitude, widens from the valley of Catamarca and San Miguel del Tucuman, in the direction of the Rio Vermejo (longitude 64 degrees). Finally, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... her riding jacket; boots and skirt were clotted with it; so was the single army spur. Her horse stretched a glossy, sweating neck and rolled wisely-suspicious eyes at the dazzling light. On the gray saddle cloth glimmered three ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... bear out the statements of Duperrey and other navigators, that Strong's Island was once inhabited by over twenty thousand people. At the present time the population does not reach five hundred. One of these places was situated on the summit of a spur of the great mountain range that traverses the island. The top of the mountain had been levelled as flat as a table, and a space of about an acre was covered with what appeared to be a floor of huge basaltic ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... drove it into the ground at his feet as others stirred his hair and cut the buckle off his pretty sombrero. Tex, dazed, but wise enough to stand quiet, felt his belt tear loose and drop to his feet, felt a spur rip from its strap and saw his cigarette leap from his lips. Throwing the guns to Red, Hopalong laughed and abruptly turned and was lost in ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... contrived to give her precaution the slip, for, as he was on horseback, he lingered behind the carriages until they had fairly turned the corner in the road to Knockwinnock, and then, wheeling his horse's head round, gave him the spur in the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... but what the people need is the good, homely, honest stuff—something that'll stick to their ribs—make them laugh and tremble and feel sick to think of the littleness of this popcorn ball spinning in space without ever even getting a hot-box! And something that'll spur 'em on to keep the hearth well swept and the wood pile split into kindling and the dishes washed and dried and put away. Any one who can get the country people to read something worth while is doing his nation a real service. And that's what this caravan of culture ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... steadily gained on the little mare, who was not disposed to do her utmost even under whip and spur, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... growing oil exports. Azerbaijan's oil production declined through 1997, but has registered an increase every year since. Negotiation of production-sharing arrangements (PSAs) with foreign firms, which have committed $60 billion to long-term oilfield development, should generate the funds needed to spur future industrial development. Oil production under the first of these PSAs, with the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, began in November 1997. A consortium of Western oil companies began pumping 1 million barrels a day from a large offshore ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a place where the ground was ploughed up, as if a drove of hogs had been rooting it. Here there had been a terrible fight among the bulls—it was the rutting season, when such conflicts occur. This augured well. Perhaps they are still in the neighbourhood, reasoned I, as I gave the spur to my horse, and galloped forward ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... he was doing or intended to do. Very seldom did he do the thing which his enemy thought he would do; which seemed most likely and proper according to military science. He thought and acted quickly in crises, relied constantly on the element of surprise and invented new strategy on the spur of the moment. ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... commendable in a writer, nor profitable to the reader. But howsoever it be done, I have had an especial eye unto the truth of things, and for the rest, I hope that this foule frizeled Treatise of mine will prove a spur to others better learned to handle the self-same argument, if in my life-time I doo not ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... though they had been bursting snowballs. If the boy ahead noted anything, Grafton could not tell. Basil turned his head neither to right nor left, and at the foot of the muddy hill, the black horse that he rode, without touch of spur, seemed suddenly to leave the earth and pass on out of sight with the swift silence of a shadow. At the foot of a hill walked the first wounded man—a Colonel limping between two soldiers. The Colonel looked up smiling—he had a ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... effort of spur and whip, Or the hoarse, hot cry of the pallid lip, When once we have fallen back. It is better to keep on stirrup and rein, The steady poise and the careful strain, In speeding ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... had, in fact, enumerated them when proclaiming the impossibility of establishing a durable peace or a solid League of Nations as long as Russia continued to be a prey to anarchy. But even with the prizes and penalties before their eyes to entice and spur them, they proved unequal to the task of devising an intelligent policy. Fitful and incoherent, their efforts were either incapable of being realized or, when feasible, were mischievous. Thus, by degrees, they hardened the great ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... of their guest, were gone; and a mild and playful image of herself, who bore her name no less than most of those features which had rendered her own youth more than usually attractive, sought, without success, a massive silver spur, of curious and antique workmanship, which she had been permitted to handle until the moment when the family had been commanded ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... of which the chief features are a pair of high peaks joined by a nek to a plateau, from which a spur, ending in a kopje called Conical Hill, juts out at right angles to the nek, which becomes a spur of the plateau at a Little Knoll east of the summit. Its tactical importance was derived from its height, as the summit, though not the peaks, ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... the Birth of the Messiah Shoemaker Shops under Covered Market, Fifteenth Century Shout and blow Horns, How to Simon, Martyrdom of, at Trent Slaves or Serfs, Sixth to Twelfth Century Somersaults Sport with Dogs, Fourteenth Century Spring-board, The Spur-maker Squirrels, Way to catch Stag, How to kill and cut up a, Fifteenth Century Staircase of the Office of the Goldsmiths of Rouen, Fifteenth Century Stall of Carved Wood, Fifteenth Century Standards of the Church and the Empire State Banquet, Sixteenth Century Stoertebeck, Execution of Styli, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... stood watching while the general hurried to the waiting motor-car. When the car whirled away in a din of dust he returned leisurely to the train that had been shortened to three coaches. Then be gave the signal to start up the spur-track, that leads to Jamrud, where a fort cowers in the very throat of the dreadfulest gorge in ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... it pity, was it sympathy for him in his long deferred happiness, that prompted me to act as I did? Even at this day I myself cannot answer the question. Perhaps it was just unthinkingly on the spur of the moment that I did what I did. Without a word I thrust into Mirza Shah's hand the roughly completed horoscope. There was no note in it of the flaming star that at the last had ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... Protestant? No; I have not been converted, but, I repeat, advised. I have seen Christianity working, not only in churches, but, which is much more edifying, in individuals. Yes, I have seen it in turns the inspirer of language, the spring of actions, the spur and the discipline, rule and support of the future, impregnating, so to speak, the flesh and the spirit. Such a spectacle excites one to reflection. We have been in too great haste to exclaim, Christianity ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... seen his winter quarters; we had seen his lookout posts, and the trail of his explorations. They all said, Onward! To be sure, we did not at once know by which route he had gone onward. The uncertainty, however, gave a spur to those about to be engaged in the searching parties, and each man thought there were especial reasons for believing one particular route to be the true one. The majority—indeed all those who gave the subject any consideration—believed ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... There, asking short questions, moving for witnesses to be called in, and all that kind of small ware, will soon fit you to set up for yourself. I am told that you are much mortified at your accident, but without reason; pray, let it rather be a spur than a curb to you. Persevere, and, depend upon it, it will do well at last. When I say persevere, I do not mean that you should speak every day, nor in every debate. Moreover, I would not advise you to speak again upon public matters ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... trust to what I can say on the spur of the moment. If you notice I'm breaking down, please begin to clap, and then everybody will suppose I have finished. Here comes Miss Russell. I believe she wants me to act umpire too. Greatness is being thrust upon me. I hope I shan't disgrace ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... came surprise and relief in that there was no hurt. And, finally, her face was proudly happy with a smile of triumph. She even smiled to Billikens her pride at making good her love to him. And Billikens relaxed and looked love and pride back, until, on the spur of the second, Harris ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... The Indian camp was pitched on an open plain of several miles in extent, which took a sudden bend half a mile distant, where a spur of the mountains shut out the further end of the valley from view. From beyond this point the dull rumbling sound proceeded. Suddenly there was a roar as if a mighty cataract had been let loose upon the scene. At the same moment a countless herd of wild horses came thundering round the base ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell, To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well. Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be "Rider" to your troop, And branded with a blasted worsted spur, When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly Who blacks your boots and sometimes ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... ravishingly pretty girl sitting on the same rock with him, and he was looking at the sunset. The plane behind him was an official Watch plane, which civilians are never supposed to catch a glimpse of. It had brought Thorn Hard and Sylva West to this spot. It waited now, half-hidden by a spur of age-eroded rock, to take them back to civilization again. Its G.C. (General Communication) phone muttered occasionally like ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Camilla's troop, their mistress slain, Then, routed, the Rutulian ranks give way, And fierce Atinas gallops from the plain, And scattered chiefs and squadrons in dismay Spur towards the town for shelter from the fray. None dares that murderous onset of the foe To stem with javelins, nor their charge to stay. Slack from their fainting shoulders hangs the bow, The clattering horse-hoofs ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... guide? A thousand horse—and none to ride! With flowing tail, and flying mane, Wide nostrils—never stretch'd by pain, Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein And feet that iron never shod, And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod, A thousand horse, the wild, the free, Like waves that follow o'er the sea. On came the troop.... They stop—they start—they snuff the air, Gallop a moment here and there, Approach, retire, ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... his death; and Father Juan de las Missas, [who perished] at the hands of the hostile Camucones; besides other fathers. I regard it as superfluous to expatiate further on this, or to attempt to spur on those who are running so gloriously. Therefore I conclude with the words, which the glorious bishop and martyr, St. Cyprian, wrote in a similar case in his epistle number 81, to Sergius Rogatianus and his companions: Saluto vos fratres charissimi [ac beatissimi] optans ipsse quoque ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... great delight," says old Nashe, "to see a young gentleman with his skill and cunning, by his voice, rod, and spur, better to manage and to command the great Bucephalus, than the strongest Milo, with all his strength; one while to see him make him tread, trot, and gallop the ring; and one after to see him make him gather up roundly; ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... the word 'coward' used of the family—I'll soon be one of!" Asgill returned, speaking on the spur of the moment, and wondering at himself the moment he had made the statement. "That's what I'm meaning! Do you see? And if you are for repeating the word, more by token, it'll be all the breakfast you'll have, for I'll cram it down your ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... speech of the boasting of works of the battle, After when every atheling by craft of the earl Over the high roof had look'd on the hand there, Yea, the fiend's fingers before his own eyen, Each one of the nail-steads most like unto steel, Hand-spur of the heathen one; yea, the own claw Uncouth of the war-wight. But each one there quoth it, That no iron of the best, of the hardy of folk, Would touch him at all, which e'er of the monster The battle-hand bloody ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... Yes, what's the use of plying whip and spur When there is not a penny of reward For him who tears him from the festal board, And mounts, and dashes headlong to perdition? Such doing for the deed's sake asks a knight, And knighthood's now an idle superstition. That was your ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as long as our race and language. The officers who commanded the troops in the districts through which his course lay had orders to furnish him with whatever military aid he might require. His ferocious temper needed no spur; yet a spur was applied. The health and spirits of the Lord Keeper had given way. He had been deeply mortified by the coldness of the King and by the insolence of the Chief Justice, and could find little consolation in looking back on a life, not indeed blackened by any atrocious crime, but ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the deed, he scarcely knew that it was doing. It was a horrid, mad excitement, where the soul had spread its wings upon the whirlwind, and heeded not whither it was hurried. A terrible necessity had seemed to spur him onwards all the while, and one thing so succeeded to another, that he scarce could stop at any but the first. From the moment he had hidden in the shower-bath (but for God's interposing mercy), his doom appeared to have been sealed—robbery, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... national spirit, and the embodiment in practice of devotion to principle," "a great ornament to the empire," "a pillar of the constitution," "a valuable institution, tending to the honour of the nobles, and based on a compassionate feeling towards the official caste," "a pillar of religion and a spur to virtue." The whole debate (which is well worth reading, and an able translation of which by Mr. Aston has appeared in a recent Blue Book) shows the affection with which the Japanese cling to the traditions of a chivalrous ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Englishman, you will be sure to have this, or something like it, 'Oh, he has plenty of go in him; but he knows when to pull up.' He may have all other defects in him; he may be coarse, he may be illiterate, he may be stupid to talk to; still this great union of spur and bridle, of energy and moderation, will remain to him. Probably he will hardly be able to explain why he stops when he does stop, or why he continued to move as long as he, in fact, moved; but still, as by a rough instinct, he pulls up pretty much where he should, though he was ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... shouts?" broke in Ailsa, as the hum of many voices reached their ears. "'Tis surely the young king that they are hailing. Spur on the horse, for I would not willingly miss the sight of ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... necessary to reduce poverty significantly. Privatization of government-owned copper mines relieved the government from covering mammoth losses generated by the industry and greatly improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth. Copper output increased in 2003 and is expected to increase again in 2004, due to higher copper prices. The maize harvest doubled in 2003, helping boost GDP by 4.0%. Cooperation continues with international bodies on programs to reduce poverty, including ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... beds of which are generally dry wastes, and the country is, except at a few places where permanent water is found, altogether sterile and hot. If we view the physical aspect looking north and north-west from Jacobabad, we notice a wide bay of plains extending between the broken spur of the Sulimani, and a second range of hills having a direction parallel to the outer range. This plain is called the Kachi, extends in an even surface for 150 miles from the Indus at Sukkur, and is bounded ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... have made themselves absolutely useful to him. This Scot, being a most inveterate enemy to France, lets the Prince rest neither night nor day, but is still inspiring him with new hopes of a crown, and laying him down all the false arguments imaginable, to spur the active spirit: my lord is not of the opinion, yet seems to comply with them in Council; he laughs at all the fopperies of charms and incantations; insomuch, that he many times angers the Prince, and is in eternal little feuds with Hermione. The German ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... the toil has not harmed him—the poverty has not cramped him, nor crippled his energies. "Poverty is very inconvenient," he said on one occasion, in speaking of those early years, "but it is a fine spur to activity, and may be ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... found in the catalogues of fashionable summer resorts. It lies on a low spur of the Cumberland range of mountains on a little tributary of the Clinch River. Lakelands proper is a contented village of two dozen houses situated on a forlorn, narrow-gauge railroad line. You wonder whether the railroad lost itself in the pine woods and ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... like the Courier of Saint Petersburgh in the circle at Astley's or Franconi's: only he sits his own horse instead of standing on him. The immense jack-boots worn by these postilions, are sometimes a century or two old; and are so ludicrously disproportionate to the wearer's foot, that the spur, which is put where his own heel comes, is generally halfway up the leg of the boots. The man often comes out of the stable- yard, with his whip in his hand and his shoes on, and brings out, in both hands, one boot ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... first markore was to fall so easily. After this we tracked the first herd for a long distance over the snow, until they scampered down an almost perpendicular face of snow and ice, and here we gave them up, halting on a spur of the mountain for a repast of chicken, eggs, chupatties, and cold tea. During our morning's work we had come across some most break-neck places, and had one or two narrow escapes, which, at the time, one was hardly conscious of. The snow ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... reasoning is entitled to rank in the political classics of America as the Address to the Electors of Bristol ranks in the political classics of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the graces of oratory ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... changes. Thus he trained her carefully and with precision, and when Cantemir saw the trap that held him where he was and gave Lord Cedric the upper-hand, he fell into the spleen and played out of time, and Cedric flung around and caught his spur in Dame Seymour's petticoats, and he swore beneath his breath, and Katherine smiled at his discomfiture and her own untutored grace, and she made bold and took a step or two on her own dependence. Then there chimed eight from the old French clock of black ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... religious interest; news of it spread from Inverary as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn that, up to a late hour that Saturday, it was not yet concluded: and all men began to suppose it must spread over to the Monday. Under the spur of this intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan having agreed to be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the piece in my hand and munching as I went. Duncan brought with him a flask of usquebaugh and a hand-lantern; which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shrill voices were lost in the distance. There were other people in the street, of other features and in different garbs, of prouder bearing and hot, restless manner, broad-shouldered, erect, manly, with spur on heel and sword at side. The outline of the old synagogue melted into the murky air and changed its shape, and stood out again in other and ever-changing forms. Now they were passing before the walls of a noble ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... start early and run through to Brown's Park. Halfway down the valley, a spur of a red mountain stretches across the river, which cuts a canyon through it. Here the walls are comparatively low, but vertical. A vast number of swallows have built their adobe houses on the face of the cliffs, on either ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... food and cooking pots, started off just as the moon rose over the nearest cedars, and laughed at Fred marshaling the sleepy porters by lamplight in the open space between the house and barn. He was to follow as fast as the loaded porters could be made to travel, and with that concertina of his to spur them on there was little likelihood of losing touch. But the rear-guard, when it comes to pursuing a retreating enemy, is ever ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... you know?" his mother asked. Ben's eyes looked violent and he bit his lips. Adelaide commenced speaking before her mother had finished her question, as if she only needed the spur of her voice to be lively and agreeable, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... till Peter was growing tongue-tied, and as red in the face as a bubbly-jock; and, to speak the truth, my own een began to reel with the merligoes. In a jiffy, both of us found our hearts waxing so brave as to kick and spur at all niggardly hesitation; and we leuch and thumped on the good-man of the inn-house's mahogany table, as if it had been warranted never to break. In fact, we were as furious and obstrapulous as two unchristened Turks; and it was a mercy that ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... happiness was conferred on them. It is surely very wrong and ill-mannered in people to ask for an introduction unless they are prepared to make talk; it throws too great an expense and trouble on the wretched lion, who is compelled, on the spur of the moment, to convert a conversable substance out of thin air, perhaps for the twentieth time that evening. I am sure I did not say—and I think I did not hear said— one rememberable word in the course of this visit; though, nevertheless, it was a rather agreeable one. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... part," says he, "I like a child who is encouraged by commendation, is animated by a sense of glory, and weeps when he is outdone. A noble emulation will always keep him in exercise, a reprimand will touch him to the quick, and honour will serve instead of a spur. We need not fear that such a scholar will ever give himself up to sullenness." Mihi ille detur puer, quem laus excitet, quem gloria juvet, qui virtus fleut. Hic erit alendus ambitu: hunc mordebit objurgetio; hunc honor excitabit; in ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... of the ducks rising from the water. Show the reeds at the mouth of the creek and the rocky spur toward which the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... rage, Caldelas turned his horse, leaving to Don Rafael the duty of collecting the dispersed soldiers, and, furiously plying the spur, he galloped off towards the ground where Regules was still contesting the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality, and such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with the vigour of these impersonations, the strange scale of language, flying ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the readiness of the merchantman Valeria and of Commander Stockwell's destroyer to turn happy accidents to the best account on the spur of the moment. The Valeria bumped over a rising submarine at three o 'clock one summer morning off the coast of Ireland. Instantly all hands ran to "action stations," when the gunner saw, to his delight, that ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... down with the current, and brushed me off. I did the same; but he met me with his feet, and I drifted by. However, I had him by the leg with my one good hand, and he came with me. We swam, side by side; but he beat me, and scrambled to his feet on the small spur of rock that meant life to each of us, but not to both. I swam weakly around to the south, and then down on him; realizing that my strength was giving out. But the fight went on, and I soon realized that his gun was soaked, or left behind; otherwise he ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... a wet morning I arrived at Charles City, from which I was to take "the spur" for Osage. Stiffened and depressed by my night's ride, I stepped out upon the platform and watched the train as it passed on, leaving me, with two or three other silent and sleepy passengers, to wait until seven o'clock in the morning for the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... his teeth. 'Close as wax, I see; and perhaps not quite so pliable. But take care, my pretty youth,' he added, scornfully; 'Hugh Redgauntlet will prove a rough colt-breaker—he will neither spare whipcord nor spur-rowel, I ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... the year the Tonkawanda irrigation district was opened, he settled himself on a spur of San Jacinto where it plunges like a great dolphin in the green swell of the camissal, and throws up a lacy foam of chaparral along its sides. Below him, dotted over the flat reach of the mesa, the four ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... "can one solitary speech fill the hearer's soul on the selfsame day with honour and uprightness, guard him from all that is base, spur him to undergo, as he ought, for the sake of glory every toil and every danger, implant in him the faith that it is better to die sword in hand than to escape by flight? [52] If such thoughts are ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... I am a subject of the Republic of Venice, by profession a man of letters, and in rank a Knight of the Golden Spur. I have sufficient means, and I travel for my pleasure. I am known to the Venetian ambassador, the Count of Aranda, the Prince de la Catolica, the Marquis of Moras, and the Duke of Lossada. I have offended in no manner against the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was all done literally on the spur of the moment, and scarcely five minutes after the mad idea had entered Tommy's head the three boys stood in a dark corner of the drive with their booty, consisting of table silver, some valuable miniatures, and a collection of gold coins, securely tied up in a gaudy gold-embroidered ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... places. Being A Preservative against Melancholy. Gathered by Andrew Board, Doctor of Physick. This may be Reprinted, R. P. London: Printed for W. Thackeray at the Angel in Duck-lane, near West-Smithfield, and J. Deacon at the Angel in Gilt-spur-street. ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... the winter time they are very stationary, each band staying within a very few miles of the same place, and from their size and the open nature of their habitat it is almost as easy to count them as if they were cattle. From a spur of Bison Peak one day, Major Pitcher, the guide Elwood Hofer, John Burroughs and I spent about four hours with the glasses counting and estimating the different herds within sight. After most careful work and cautious reduction of estimates in each case ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... acted on the spur of the moment. With clenched fists and blazing eyes he stood between the drover and the bound man. For a moment there was silence except for the moaning of the tortured man. Mick looked at Sax and said, with a cruel smile: "Well, and who told you ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... sixteenth century did not find them, nor did the seventeenth, nor the eighteenth.' But it may be urged, in reply to this, that the theoretic conjecture often legitimately comes first. It is the forecast of genius which anticipates the fact and constitutes a spur towards its discovery. If, instead of being a spur, the theoretic guess rendered men content with imperfect knowledge, it would be a thing to be deprecated. But in modern investigation this is distinctly not the case; Darwin's theory, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the unusual shape and pleasing colours of the shell, it is remarkable because it seems to be actually incorporated with its host. The foot of the mollusc is extended into a peduncle, consisting of fibres and tendons, by which the animal is a fixture to a spur of coral. At the point of union (to facilitate which there is a hiatus in the margins of the peduncle) the sarcode or "flesh" of the coral is denuded, its place being occupied by ligaments, which by minute ramifications adhere ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... view of Vaygats Island. It appears, when seen from the sea off the west coast, to form a level grassy plain, but when we approached Yugor Schar, low ridges were seen to run along the east side of the island, which are probably the last ramifications of the north spur of Ural, known by the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... were not invented by him on the spur of the moment. They were arranged beforehand. Their outlines are laid down in the German war book. They are part of the system in which Germany has been scientifically trained. It is the essence of that system to make such ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... alternation was repeated until, on the evening of the third day, we left Durumaland behind us and entered upon the great desert that stretches thence almost without a break as far as Teita. We once got very near to our advance-guard; I gave my steed the spur, in order to see the men at their work, but they made it their ambition to prevent us from getting quite close to them. With eager haste they plied knife and hatchet in the thick thorny bush, until ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... his arm, and fiercely raised, And sternly shook his hand on high, As doubting to return or fly;[cz] Impatient of his flight delayed, Here loud his raven charger neighed— Down glanced that hand, and grasped his blade; That sound had burst his waking dream, As Slumber starts at owlet's scream. The spur hath lanced his courser's sides; Away—away—for life he rides: 250 Swift as the hurled on high jerreed[70] Springs to the touch his startled steed; The rock is doubled, and the shore Shakes with the clattering tramp no more; The ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... afford to waste idle hours and empty plants while awaiting the end of the recession. We must show the world what a free economy can do—to reduce unemployment, to put unused capacity to work, to spur new productivity, and to foster higher economic growth within a range of sound fiscal policies and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... trail on which we traveled during the morning ran over an exceedingly rough lava formation—a spur of the lava beds often described during the Modoc war of 1873 so hard and flinty that Williamson's large command made little impression on its surface, leaving in fact, only indistinct traces of its line of march. By care and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... John's soul, appreciative of the beauties of nature at the dread hour of execution, seeing in them doubtless the handiwork of nature's God, exclaimed "This is indeed a beautiful country." In the front, dim in the distance, was Winchester, readily discovered by the bold mountain spur in its rear. Smaller villages dotted the valley, variegated by fields and woods—all rebellious cities of the plain, nests of treason and granaries of food for traitors. A blind mercy that, on the part of the Administration, that procured its almost total exemption from the ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... we came to the side of a spinney with a low wall of rough stones cutting it off from the field. I was intently looking ahead, when on a sudden Sultan swerved so powerfully that I rocked in the saddle. I wouldn't have touched him with the spur, short of utter necessity, for a fistful of guineas, and I soothed him, and then turned to look for what ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Something more human. Something which made success a thousand times more pleasing to contemplate. He felt that with Kate at his side giant's work would become all too easy. Her ravishing smile of encouragement would be a gentle spur to the most jaded energies. The delight of bearing her upon his broad shoulders in his upward career, would be bliss beyond words, and, in the interim of his great efforts, the care and happiness of her loyally courageous heart ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... even in that moment of renunciation, that it was a wonderful thing that he could at last go on alone. A year ago he had needed all of Mary's strength to spur him to the effort, all of her belief in him. Now with his heart still crying out for her, needing her, he could ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... road was a hollow, a sunken ravine,[95] Overshadowed completely by wood like a screen; I clambered the bank, and I needs must confess, That one touch of the spur grazed the side ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and wisdom out of long experience, and being set by God and nature in charge over the headstrong instincts of ignorant or capricious youth, cannot avoid the duty of frequently applying the curb to excessive desires, and the spur to defective ones. A sense of chafing, an impulse to resent and rebel, will naturally often arise. And, in every such collision of passion and rule, there is a tendency to hostility. It is needless to say how lamentably frequent are the examples in which this tendency ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... over Ballinrobe Fair Green, the illuminated tents light up the foreground pleasantly, while the moon tinges the tree-tops and the river Robe with silver. All is beautiful enough were it not for the persistent rattle of the sabre and the jingle of the spur. So far as can be ascertained at present the Ulster contingent will consist of no more than fifty men, who will probably arrive by train at Claremorris about three o'clock to-morrow afternoon. Early in the forenoon a hundred infantry and sixty sabres of the Royal Dragoons ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... can't express myself.—What you say of "Sid Hamet" is well enough; that an enemy should like it, and a friend not; and that telling the author would make both change their opinions. Why did you not tell Griffyth(39) that you fancied there was something in it of my manner; but first spur up his commendation to the height, as we served my poor uncle about the sconce that I mended? Well, I desired you to give what I intended for an answer to Mrs. Fenton,(40) to save her postage, and myself trouble; and I hope I have done it, if ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... foot of mine?' says you. 'Well, it's pointed to the next townland, where there's just as pretty a one as you.' And you'll find her come around; maybe there'll be a bit of an argument, but she'll come around. And if she doesn't, there'd have been no hope for you, anyway. A touch o' the spur for the lazy mare and a bit sugar for the jumper! And when you've done loving her, gie her a chuck in the chin: 'Good-by! Good luck! What you keep to yoursel' 'll worry nobody,' says you. And ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... into the little conspiracy against the extension of Mr. Grayson's knowledge, even Churchill, under the whip and spur of Harley's will, promising a sullen silence. The case itself presented aspects that stirred these men, calling as it did for an alertness of mind and delicacy of handling that appealed to their sense of responsibility; hence it aroused their interest, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Canadians in his hire, his enemies had found means to detach them, also, from his interests."—Yet, "under the pressure of all his misfortunes," says a missionary, "I have never remarked the least change in him; no ill news seemed to disturb his usual equanimity: they seemed rather to spur him on to fresh efforts to retrieve his fortunes, and to make greater discoveries than he had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... and gilt spur, beautifully enamelled, which once decked the heel of a noble knight, have been found in our fields, and remind us of those battles which were fought ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... Ethelindy but she mus' up an' offer to show the officer the way out by that thar cave what tunnels through the spur of the mounting down todes the bluffs, what sca'cely one o' the boys left in the Cove would ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of reading the life of Mary Fletcher I find much deep instruction and encouragement. Many of her remarks have proved like a goad to spur me on in the way of holiness. An extract made by her from Dr. Doddridge's life aptly speaks the language of my heart, when in my silent breathing to the Almighty I am led to crave an enlargement of my gift in ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... said? Just on the spur of the moment—I said, "Madam, I don't want to be unkind, but I really think the reason you are not happy is that you haven't been ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... was aware that he was hungry; ay, even through the tortures of the cold, even through the frosts of despair, a gross, desperate longing after food, no matter what, no matter how, began to wake and spur him. Suppose he pawned his watch? But no, on Christmas-day - this was Christmas-day! - the pawnshop would be closed. Suppose he went to the public-house close by at Blackhall, and offered the watch, which was worth ten pounds, in payment for a meal ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... appear'd as if in haste To spur the steps of June; as if their shades Of various green were hindrances that stood Between them and their object: yet, meanwhile, There was such deep contentment ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... pieces of wood from the seats to throw at him. Insults and invectives were showered on the picadors, until at last one of them, stung by the filthy abuse of the mob, drove his spurs so deep into his horse that the animal reared a little; the picador then, with spur and knee, almost lifted him on to the long pointed horns of the bull, who, forced back against the hoarding, had lowered his head in anger as the blood streamed from the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... brought themselves back, sir," replied Wilson with a smile. "It's a pleasure to command such a nervy crowd as that. You don't need to use the spur. I'm mostly busy putting on the brakes. It would have done your heart good if you could have seen the way they waded into the Huns. That fellow Sheldon particularly is a crackerjack when it comes to a scrap. He's as strong as an ox and as quick as ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... because of a sick woman's whim! If I had not let you go to Fontenoy, we might to-day have heard the rushing of a mightier river than the Rivanna yonder! Delay, delay, where haste itself should have felt the spur!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... single slip or false step and away one would go over the edge, to bring up, perhaps, on a rock a thousand feet below. I shall hook on the rope-ladder, and endeavour to make a start from yonder naked spur of rock." ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... for a minute or two later the Cato struck upon an outlying spur of the reef, not a cable-length away. Like the Porpoise, she at once fell over on her side, but with her deck facing the sweeping rollers, and each succeeding wave spun her round and round like a top and swept ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise his green legs in the deep jelly ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... The lofty spur of the Chiltern Hills which overhangs the church of Ellsborough is traditionally the site of ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... reluctantly that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... not the greatest help and spur to commerce that property can be so readily conveyed and so well secured by a compte en banc, that is, by only writing one man's name for another's in ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... him by the two elbows behind, and he started like a horse that has never felt even the whip will do at the spur's touch. Almost at the same time my heart came leaping into my mouth, and if ever a woman nearly died of fright, I was that woman, for some one behind me put a hand on my shoulder and ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... counter; but whatever good qualities he may have once possessed, he was evidently now one of the sorriest of jades—worth no more than the value of his own skin. Notwithstanding the repeated strokes of the spur, which his rider administered without stint, it was impossible to force him into anything more rapid than a shambling walk, and at this slow pace was he proceeding, evidently to the great chagrin ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... with every species of red pottery, from cups to immense water-jars, in great nets on the backs of horses, asses, men, and women. Beyond the railroad the trail picked its way, with several climbs over rocky spur-ends, along the marshy edge of the lake, which was so completely surrounded by mud and reeds that I had to leave unfulfilled my promised swim in it. The trip was made endless by the incessant chatter of the "doctor," who rattled on in English ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... northwards, while Morano's heels kept his horse up close to his master's. Morano rode as though trained in the same school that some while later taught Macaulay's equestrian, who rode with "loose rein and bloody spur." Yet the miles went swiftly by as they galloped on soft white dust, which lifted and settled, some of it, back on the lazy road, while some of it was breathed by Morano. The gold coin on the green silk ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... whose courage would not respond to the spur of some huge burglar would die rather than be beaten by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... the north-bound passenger train that departed five minutes later. But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was flagged to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape. There were telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at electricity and steam. Saddle and spur were his rocks ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... literature that warps the imagination and weakens the will should be placed on the tabooed list. In my case, however, the best literature failed to meet with any responses. Nothing was inclined to spur me into action. I did not care to read of great exploits; they gave me mental unrest. Once I read that a person by walking three hours a day would in seven years pass a space equivalent to the circumference of the globe. This thought staggered me and I believed there must be something wrong ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the pendant crucifix. His frame was angular and above the ordinary height. His face was long and narrow, with a hawk-like nose, pointed chin, thin, straight lips, prominent cheek bones and deep-set grey eyes that glittered and chilled like those of a snake. He swept the others from helm to spur with a single glance, and Aymer saw his eyes fasten for an instant on the Ring ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... sedan-chair when we arrived at an imprint in the marble rock known as 'Martinsdruck.' The gigantic peaks of the Schreckhorn, the Eiger, the Kischhorn, rose around us, almost overwhelming us with their grandeur. To the right, the Mittelegi, a spur of the Eiger, elevated its bare and polished sides. Suddenly the songs ceased, and my travelling companions uttered those exclamations, familiar to Alpine populations, which re-echoed from rock to rock. They had caught sight of a hunter, gliding phantom-like along the steep ascent of the ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Edict of the Sex The World-child The Heights On seeing 'The House of Julia' at Herculaneum A Prayer What is Right Living? Justice Time's Gaze The Worker and the Work Art thou Alive? To-day The Ladder Who is a Christian? The Goal The Spur Awakened! Shadows The New Commandment Summer Dreams The Breaking of Chains December 'The Way' The Leader to be The Greater Love Thank God for Life Time Enough New Year's Day Life is a Privilege In an Old Art Gallery True Brotherhood The Decadent Lord, speak again My Heaven Life God's Kin Conquest ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the Petit Bois and the Maedelsteed Spur, lying respectively to the west and the southwest of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... knowledge of God as Friend and Father; that we seek to bring him into a full, rich experience of spiritual union with the divine; that we desire to ground his life in personal purity and free it from sin; that we would spur him to a life crowned with deeds of self-sacrifice and Christlike service; that we would make out of him a true Christian. This is well and is a high ideal, but in the end it sums up the results of the religious knowledge, attitudes, and acts we have already set forth as our ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... burning frontier, sleeps with his hand on his weapon, like an American lieutenant among the Sioux behind a western stockade. His dwelling is simply a camp and a refuge. Straw and heaps of leaves cover the pavement of the great hall, here he rests with his troopers, taking off a spur if he has a chance to sleep. The loopholes in the wall scarcely allow daylight to enter; the main thing is not to be shot with arrows. Every taste, every sentiment is subordinated to military service; there are certain ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... grasp, see connections that have escaped him, understand the force of arguments which he missed; and he will assume a more independent and critical attitude toward what he has heard than was possible on the spur of the moment, when he was driven on and could not stop and reflect. At home, in the quiet of his study, he can organize the material, see the parts of the discourse in their relations to each other, and re-create the whole as it lived ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... head, "and we can't walk by each other's consciences. But talking about seeing 'all the truth' makes me think of something. You know I was in the Berkshire Hills last summer? Well, I saw Greylock from several points of view. From one it seemed a rather sharp spur; from another it was long and obtuse; and from the last,—when somebody pointed out an ordinary, featureless ascent and said: 'That's Greylock,' I could scarcely believe it. I imagine our views of the truth are somewhat like that. It will take time to walk all around ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... so directly to the core of the matter, divesting a question always of all superfluous details, and with such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling in deep water, with no footing under me. Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But when he challenged the truism ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... think a woman says what I have said on the spur of the moment? Do you think I merely happened to see you to-day, merely happened to say what I've said? You know better. This has been coming for months. I fought it hard at first; with convention, with your idea of right and wrong. Now I laugh at them ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... shown to the enemy, the artillery to be put in position loaded with shell, spiked and wheels cut down. The detachment of the Seventh being the rear guard was ordered to remain in position one hour after the column moved, which movement was made to the left and around a spur of the mountain out of sight, striking the valley again, five miles further down at Childer's Gap, finding one regiment of the enemy's cavalry, which made a hasty retreat down the valley after receiving one volley from the First Tennessee ...
— History of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry • R. C. Rankin
... life came knocking at the door, he welcomed it. For when morning broke on the 12th of April, 1861, and the first guns of the Civil War roared upon Sumter, Grant marched to the front, and soon became a brigadier-general "The spur of disappointed hopes, the fire of his ambition, and the iron will that lay back of many of his failures—all the qualities latent in the man of coming greatness, sprang ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... poor must study hard so that they may become rich. They become doctors, functionaries, officers. I shall be a 'tinkler.' A sword at my side, spur on my boots. Cling, cling! And what are you ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... father's dissoluteness and of an ancient quarrel between him and yours, to bleat of my trumped-up course of piracy and my own ways of life as a just cause why I may not wed your sister whilst the real consideration in your mind, the real spur to your hostility is not more than the matter of some few paltry pounds a year that I hinder you from pocketing. A God's name ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... summoned to his banner. If he was forced to give battle, he resolved to give it on ground he had himself chosen, and advancing near enough to the coast to check William's ravages he entrenched himself on a hill known afterwards as that of Senlac, a low spur of the Sussex downs near Hastings. His position covered London and drove William to concentrate his forces. With a host subsisting by pillage, to concentrate is to starve; and no alternative was left to the Duke but a decisive victory ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... were only two places where he could go—his grandfather's in Park Lane, and Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less deplorable? At his grandfather's he would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy's they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance to tip him was hardly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ridge from Samaria through Nablus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron to Beersheba. Communications from east to west are, however, more easy along the spurs and intervening valleys. To attempt an advance northwards, from spur to spur, is tedious work; after a comparatively short push a pause is necessary to enable roads to be constructed for bringing forward guns and supplies. We had an illustration of this in March, 1918, when a forward move of this character met at first ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... and masses of quartz and small ranges composed of shining slabs of a grey, tough and wavy stone with masses of quartz. A good deal of spinifex but no scrub to interrupt us. Will make for a distant low spur of main range tomorrow in ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... my recreant muse—sometimes apt to refuse The guidance of bit and of bridle— Still blankly demur, spite of whip and spur, Unimpassioned, inconstant, or idle; Only let me puff, puff, till the brain cries, "Enough!" Such excitement is all I'm in lack o', And the poetic vein soon to fancy gives rein, Inspired ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... only friend," said Maudelain, "I may not comprehend, but I know that by no unhallowed art have you won back to me." Hair by hair he scattered upon the floor that which he held. "Time is! and I have not need of any token to spur my memory." He prized up a corner of the hearthstone, took out a small leather bag, and that day purchased a horse ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... mechanical career, and yet having attained some distinction by it he could not forego this work which raised him, in a way, to a position of dominance over these people. Now the sight of presumably so efficient a person in need of aid or exercise, to be built up, was all that was required to spur him on to the most waspish or wolfish attitude imaginable. In part at least he argued, I think (for in the last analysis he was really too wise and experienced to take any such petty view, although there is a subconscious "past-lack" motivating ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... to take a motherly interest in the charming Violet, and whose honest frankness had appealed to him from the first, appeared to be the good genius of the little company. As he came to know her better during the next few days, under the sharp spur of adversity, he realised more and more how much goodness and strength of character lay hidden under the rough exterior and the sharp tongue, and his liking changed into an honest admiration. Mr. Smith was ponderous and ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... spears and moony spokes Gleam from the rocks and lighten through the oaks— A sea of splendour! How the chariots rolled On wheels of blinding brightness manifold! While stumbling over spike and spine and spur Of sultry lands, escaped the son of Ner With smitten men. At this the front of Saul Grew darker than a blasted tower wall; And seeing how there crouched upon his right, Aghast with fear, a black Amalekite, He called, and said: "I pray thee, man of pain, Red from the scourge, and recent from the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... to the left, leading along a narrow outstanding spur of table-land to a summer-house, the prospect from which is among the noted beauties of Brockhurst. This summer-house or Temple, as it has come to be called, is an octagonal structure. Round-shafted pillars rise at each projecting angle. In the recesses ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... life he had had a horror of definite appointments. An invitation to tea a week ahead had been enough to poison life for him. He was one of those young men whose souls revolt at the thought of planning out any definite step. He could do things on the spur of the moment, but plans ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... mine—a wooing that precluded the possibility of winning, and yet a wooing that had won. Aye, it had won; but it might not take. I made fine distinctions and quaint paradoxes as I tugged at my oars, for the human mind is a curiously complex thing, and with some of us there is no such spur to humour as the ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... by the same principles as himself, will be bound by the sacred and priceless law of mutual support. Accordingly, both he and all his fellows fix their minds on acting with zeal and judgment upon the spur of the moment, and with the certainty that they will not be deserted. Experience shows, on the contrary, that a Frenchman or a Spaniard, working under a system which leans to formality and strict order being maintained in battle, has ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... had reached a lower spur of that range on which were located both the sawmill and Plant's summer quarters. He drew a deep breath and looked about him over the topography spread below. Then he examined with an expert's eye the wooded growths. His glance fell ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the whole of her life. The palace seemed a different place to her, now that it contained the doll that had come from Fairyland; and she immediately named her the Lady Emmelina, which was the most important name she could remember on the spur of the moment. From that day the Princess and her doll were never separated. When the Prince and Princess went for a drive, the Lady Emmelina sat up stiffly between them; when the Professors came to give the children their lessons, they found that they had to give them also to a little lady in a ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... historical representations in one of his principal palaces; Hercules I. kept the anniversary of his accession to the throne by a splendid procession, which was compared to the festival of Corpus Christi; an Order, which had nothing in common with medieval chivalry, called the Order of the Golden Spur, was instituted by his court, and conferred upon those who reflected lustre by their deeds or their literary gifts upon the house of Este; while, to crown all, we read at this day on the tower of the cathedral ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... of the desert, and his words were a spur to her quick pride. She rose at once, her bosom rising and falling fast. She would ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... concerned. The private car owners and the owners of industrial railroads are entitled to a fair and reasonable compensation on their investment, but neither private cars nor industrial railroads nor spur tracks should be utilized as devices for securing preferential rates. A rebate in icing charges, or in mileage, or in a division of the rate for refrigerating charges is just as pernicious as a rebate in any other way. No lower rate should apply on goods imported ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... diligently; urged on by a three or four-fold motive; for the love of them, and for her own sake, that John might think she had done well that she might presently please and satisfy Alice above all, that her mother's wishes might be answered. This thought, whenever it came, was a spur to her efforts so was each of the others; and Christian feeling added another, and kept all the rest in force. Without this, indolence might have weakened, or temptation surprised her resolution; little ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... after weaving, contributed greatly to enrich Gaul. Undoubtedly even before the Roman conquest, Gaul worked gold mines; it seems, however, that silver mines remained untouched until about the time of Augustus. At any rate, the discovery of some deposits of gold and silver then gave a spur to several flourishing industries; jewelry-making, and—an original Gallic industry of much importance—silver-plating and tinning. Here is another extract from Pliny, from which you will see that in those times they already made in ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... built on a long series of separate plans or "stunts,'' each of which was begun and executed in a burst of creative enthusiasm. His first few months' achievement as sales manager was due to the same stimulus, but as the months went by the spur of novelty became dulled. Lacking the discipline which would have enabled him to force voluntary attention and the resulting interest in his tasks, he failed also to trace the cause of his flagging invention ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... Umzinyati River; thence down the course of the Buffalo River to the junction with it of the Blood River; thence up the course of the Blood River to the junction with it of Lyn Spruit or Dudusi; thence up the Dudusi to its source; thence 80 yards to Bea. I., situated on a spur of the N'Qaba-Ka-hawana Mountains; thence 80 yards to the N'Sonto River; thence down the N'Sonto River to its junction with the White Umvulozi River; thence up the White Umvulozi River to a white rock where it rises; thence 800 yards to Kambula ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... twenty others. Twelve of these were accoutred with war saddles, and frontlets of proof, being intended for the use of as many cavaliers, or troopers, retainers of the family of Arnheim, whom the seneschal's exertions had been able to collect on the spur of the occasion. Two palfreys, somewhat distinguished by their trappings, were designed for Anne of Geierstein and her favourite female attendant. The other menials, chiefly boys and women servants, had inferior horses. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... less than five hundred militia and friendly Maoris, the Governor sat down before the fort, which rose on a high, steep kind of plateau, above a small river. But though too strong for front attack, it was itself liable to be commanded from an outwork on a yet higher spur of the hills. Bringing common sense to bear, Grey quietly despatched a party, which captured this, and with it a strong reinforcement about to join the garrison. The latter fled, and the bloodless capture of Weraroa was justly regarded as among the most brilliant ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... outgrown. Hence the older part of all these river towns, from Bremen to Koenigsberg, rests upon hills, while in every case the newer and lower part is built on piles or artificially raised ground on the alluvium.[412] So Utrecht, the Ultrajectum of the Romans, selected for its site a long raised spur running out from the solid ground of older and higher land into the water-soaked alluvium of the Netherlands. It was the most important town of all this region before the arts of civilization began the conquest by dike and ditch of the amphibian coastal belt which now comprises one-fourth ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... baits, be not sufficient, there be many others, which will of themselves intend this passion of burning lust, amongst which, dancing is none of the least; and it is an engine of such force, I may not omit it. Incitamentum libidinis, Petrarch calls it, the spur of lust. "A [5141] circle of which the devil himself is the centre. [5142]Many women that use it, have come dishonest home, most indifferent, none better." [5143] Another terms it "the companion of all filthy delights and enticements, and 'tis not easily told what inconveniences come by it, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Sawyers found themselves possessed of a large and lively family, all methods of discipline, whether sanctioned by long custom or invented on the spur of the moment, through the extreme urgency of the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... back the curtains That surround each other's lives, See the naked heart and spirit, Know what spur the action gives, Often we should find it better, Purer than we judged we should, We should love each other ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... as my uncle the Cardinal gave it to me,' Don Alberto answered with assurance, though he had invented the commission on the spur of the moment, quite sure that he could easily make it a genuine order, though it would never be executed if his own plans for carrying off Ortensia on Saint ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... One just happens to have the knack of keeping one's head and acting quickly on the spur of the moment. Some people ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... treated as I treated Simpkins this afternoon without feeling a little sorry for him. I bumped his head in the most frightful manner when I was dragging him down. No; I think it's all right now as far as Miss King is concerned. I'll go in and see Simpkins to-morrow and spur him on a ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... stream down the middle. Then we left the river, and rode along the high bank flanking the valley. All paved roads had ended at Tengyueh, and the track was deeply cut and jagged by the rains. At one point in to-day's journey the road led up an almost vertical ascent to a narrow ledge or spur at the summit, and then fell as steeply into the plain again. It was a short-cut, that, as you would expect in China, required five times more physical effort to compass than did the longer but level road which it was intended to save. So ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Spooner Shubab Spooner William Spooner Jonathan Sprague Simon Sprague Philip Spratt Charles Spring Richard Springer John Spriggs Joshua Spriggs Thomas Spriggs William Springer Alexander Sproat Thomas Sproat Gideon Spry Long Sprywood Nathaniel Spur Joshua Squibb David Squire John St. Clair Francisco St. Domingo John St. Thomas John Staagers Thomas Stacy Thomas Stacey Christian Stafford Conrad Stagger Edward Stagger Samuel Stalkweather John Standard Lemuel Standard Butler Stanford Richard Stanford ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... the 3rd regiment, and two hundred men of the 2nd irregular cavalry, who, with Lieutenant Swinton, had volunteered to serve on foot, were to advance upon another face of the ridge, from the little village of Chulbarah, where they had been posted; this party, ascending a spur of the hill on its left, was to co-operate opportunely with the advance of the other detachments. Major Fisher, at the head of a body of regular native infantry and irregular cavalry, with guns mounted upon elephants, were in support, and to ascend (the cavalry, of course, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
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