"Spread-eagle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Two or three of them, in fact, to spread-eagle whatever it is. Never take any chances. It's probably an Osnomian, but you never can tell. It may be one of those other people. We know they were around here a few weeks ago, and they're the only ones I know of that have intra-atomic power besides ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... noble sons of Old Eli!" he began, with a spread-eagle gesture that came near causing him to lose his balance and fall off headlong. "This is the great day when we can get up on our hind legs and make the welkin ring with war whoops of victory. To-day we stand with one foot on Princeton's neck and the heel of the other foot gouging into Harvard's back. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... a marvel in size and massiveness, and the heavy mahogany posts nearly black with age, and carved like the twisted strands of a rope, supported a tester lined with turkey-red pleatings, held in the centre by the talons of a gilt spread-eagle. So tall was the bed, that three steps were required to ascend it, and the space thus left between the mahogany and the floor, was hidden by a valance of white dimity, garnished with wide cotton fringe. Over this spacious place of repose, a patchwork quilt of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... The stranger was more dumb than ever with amazement; at last violently remonstrated; but in vain; for as his tearfulness of falling made him keep his hands glued to the ropes, and so prevented him from any effectual resistance, he was soon made a handsome spread-eagle of, to the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... rang again. The horses knew the sport, and away they went, but suddenly over went old Jack, belly-deep in a bog, and sent me flying over his head. There is nothing like companionship in an accident, and Momus accordingly pitched upon his nose in the same bog, my brother describing a fine spread-eagle as he sprawled in the soft ground, We were close to the bay; the horses extricated themselves directly, and again mounting we rode hard to ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... the hovel-wall of that dense female, Mounted and tense, spread-eagle, out-reaching out of the shell In tortoise-nakedness, Long neck, and long vulnerable limbs extruded, spread-eagle over her house-roof, And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved beneath her walls, Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... thirty cents a day in these times for a man who has to maintain himself and his family?" (Great sensation among negroes, and a buzz, with mutterings of "that's so," etc.). Then a paymaster made a spread-eagle speech. Then Colonel Ellwell was called out by Mr. French. Then Judge Smith mounted the pulpit and explained to the negroes the meaning of preemption, how it was formed of two Latin words. Colonel Ellwell contrived to mystify the ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... the seven days' battles before Richmond, which terminated in the retreat of General McClellan. We had a Fourth of July dinner on board, but between seasickness and heart sickness it was the toughest experience of making a spread-eagle speech I ever had. After landing at Queenstown I went to Belfast and thence to Edinburgh. I found the people of Edinburgh intensely excited over our war and the current of popular sentiment running against us like a mill-race. For instance, I was recognized ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... was a Franco-Canadian of the spread-eagle kind referred to. Departing widely from the conservative prejudices of his race, his wandering propensities took him away, at an early age, from the primitive colonial village in which he first saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... exceeding fine, so far as the number of convictions is concerned. Of those brought to the bar for trial few escape; for modern talesmen, being hard-headed men, regard the whole thing as a matter of business and try to get through with it as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The bombastic spread-eagle orator, the grandiloquent gas bag, the highfaluting stump speaker gain few verdicts and win small applause except from their clients. And district attorneys who ape the bloodhound in their mien and tactics ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... also a "war-hawk," had said that "in four weeks from the time of the declaration of war the whole of Upper and part of Lower Canada would be in possession of the United States." All of this was only the spread-eagle bombast of amateur filibusters, as events proved, but good cause for Brock, who had been appointed janitor of Canada and been given the keys of the ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... the easy man who was to provide him with ready money, as he hoped. He admired ease as much as anybody, and believed that he had it. But he was very much in love with Lucy, and felt the highest disapproval of Urquhart's kind of spread-eagle hardihood. He bent over his plate like the willow-tree upon one. His eyelids glimmered, he was rather pink, and used his napkin to his lips. To his neighbour of the left, who was Lady Bliss, he spoke sotto voce of "our variegated friend," and felt that he had disposed of ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett |
