"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 |
