"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 |
