"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pushed ahead in her studies and became a leader, this seemed the spur that made Edith display her enmity toward the girl. For Edith was so self-centered that any charm she might have possessed was being smothered and her sly and treacherous ways, kept her acquaintances either indifferent to her or decidedly ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... green; So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast,— Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene. The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire, And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see; For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . . Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Man. "How clever! Came on the spur of the moment. I must remember that to tell the Club. Do not hollo. Scare the ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... for leaving his roommate at all. But Billy's had been so near and his chance with his many assailants had seemed so slim that he had done what seemed the right thing to do on the spur of the moment. He had not fancied that the sophomores would be able to get Harry away before he could arouse the freshmen and bring them ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... streaming he blew the recall. Looking for its effect, I saw Euonymus trying to swim and Charmer quitting the chase. But the young dog kept on. The current was carrying Euonymus away. Twice through vines and brush, while I cried: "Catch the fallen tree below you! Catch the tree!" I tried to spur my horse down into the stream, and on the third trial ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... reluctantly that my sunrise evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on the spur ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... named from their note "ma-wang," were seen daily, and were beginning to pair. Large flocks of spur-winged geese, or machikwe, were common. This goose is said to lay her eggs in March. We saw also pairs of Egyptian geese, as well as a few of the knob-nosed, or, as they are called in India, combed geese. When the Egyptian ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... would I have lived at peace with all men; but the editorship of a Non-Intrusion newspaper involved, as a portion of its duties, war with all the world. I held, besides—not aware how very much the spur of necessity quickens production—that its twice-a-week demands would fully occupy all my time, and that I would have to resign, in consequence, my favourite pursuit—geology. I had once hoped, too—though of late years the hope ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... more earnest passages aroused the most conflicting feelings in the minds of the auditors. True oratory is never altogether fruitless, and it would seem as if this powerful speech must have given the spur to feelings which, sooner or later, were bound to produce specific results. So far, however, as any immediate effects upon the action of the House were concerned, it might as well have remained unuttered. The report was adopted by a vote of more than ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... McGuire asked the question abstractedly, her mind plainly on her own trouble; but Susan, intent on HER trouble, did not need even the question to spur her tongue. ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... He gave her the impression of a smouldering mine with the fire eating close up to the powder. She judged that his body had been racked by every passion till now it hung jaded and weary, yielding only to the spur ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... nearly crazed me. I rushed back to the city, not sparing the spur to my poor horse. A thousand projects flashed through my mind to rescue her. Arrived in the city, I hurried to the General's and ran into his room. He was walking up and down smoking his meerschaum. Seeing me he stopped, ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... Italy.—Italy is a spur of the Alps extending into the Mediterranean Sea. From its earliest history it has been an agricultural state, and, excepting the periods when it has been rent by wars, it has been one of the most productive ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... white; fragrant, alternate, clustered in thick, dense spikes from 3 to 15 in. long. Upper sepal and toothed petals erect; the lip of deepest shade, 1/2 in. long, fan-shaped, 3-parted, fringed half its length, and prolonged at base into slender, long spur; stamen united with style into short column; 2 anther sacs slightly divergent, the hollow between them glutinous, stigmatic. Stem. 1 to 5 ft. high, angled, twisted. Leaves: Oval, large, sheathing the stem below; smaller, lance-shaped ones higher up; bracts above. ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... ravishingly pretty girl sitting on the same rock with him, and he was looking at the sunset. The plane behind him was an official Watch plane, which civilians are never supposed to catch a glimpse of. It had brought Thorn Hard and Sylva West to this spot. It waited now, half-hidden by a spur of age-eroded rock, to take them back to civilization again. Its G.C. (General Communication) phone muttered occasionally like ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... of the 7th of last month, and fear you are quite in the right about a history of the house of Medici— yet it is pity it should not be written!(1030) You don't, I know, want any spur to incite you to remember me and any commission with which I trouble you; and therefore you must not take it in that light, but as the consequence of my having just seen the Neapolitan book of Herculaneum, that I mention it to you again. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... fell steeply, shaded by trees and dappled by the sunlight, to a valley, at the bottom of which flowed the river swift and black under overarching boughs. There was a fall, where the water slid over rocks with a smoothness so unbroken that it looked solid except just at one point. There a spur stood sharply up, and the river broke back upon itself in an amber wave through which the sun shone. Opposite this spur they sat for a long while, talking at times, but for the most part listening to the roar of the water and watching its perpetual flow. And at last the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... field to any hiding-hole in England," said the King. "Could I but find my way to this hut where the horses are, I would try what arguments whip and spur could use to get them to the rendezvous, where I am to meet Sir Thomas Acland and fresh cattle. Come with me, Colonel Lee, and let us run for it. The roundheads have beat us in battle; but if it come to a walk or a race, I think I can show ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... write them nothing. They were her friends in fullness of sympathy. They, like herself, were of those to whom each day and night is a privilege, to whom sorrow is an enrichment, delight an unfoldment, opposition a spur. They were of the company of those who dared to speak the truth, who breathed deep, who partook of the banquet of ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... they not only can pull still, but pull well too. I am ashamed to say how these two beloved women had almost to carry me, a stout youth; and even all their strength might have been insufficient but for the potent spur of the dragoons' return. With an arm round the neck of each, and resting almost my entire weight on their shoulders, I managed to scuffle along, very slowly and with fearful pain, towards Les Arenes. We paused now and then, under the deep ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... down Trail creek and over a spur of the mountain to the valley of the Yellowstone, which we followed up eight miles to our present camp. Along on our right in passing up the valley was a vast natural pile of basaltic rock, perpendicular, a part of which had been overthrown, showing transverse seams in the rock. Away at the ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... sanction, spur'd to nobler aims, Our country, now, the Muses' tribute claims: When o'er fair Albion war destructive lours, Oh! be those Patriot feelings ever ours, Which from the public mind spontaneous burst On that infuriate foe, by crimes accurst, Who'd o'er our ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... roan of which friend Fogg had been deprived, exhibited occasional evidences of a desire to break my neck. I was obliged to dispense with the spur in riding him, but he nevertheless dashed off at times, and put me into an agony of fear. On those occasions I managed to retain my seat, and gained thereby the reputation of being a very fine equestrian. As there were few civilians in camp, and as I wore a gray suit, and appeared to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Petit Bois and the Maedelsteed Spur, lying respectively to the west and the southwest of the village ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... capita output perhaps one-third above the Yugoslav average. The economy emerged from its mild recession in 2000 with tourism the main factor, but massive structural unemployment remains a key negative element. The government's failure to press the economic reforms needed to spur growth is largely the result of coalition politics and public resistance, particularly from the trade unions, to measures that would cut jobs, wages, or social benefits. As a result, the country is likely to experience only moderate ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... Doltaire could not pay such a like that. M'sieu' Doltaire smile ver' wicked, and answer, 'Make it three hunder' thousan' francs, your Excellency.' It is so still in the Chamber of the Joy that all you hear for a minute was the fat Monsieur Varin breathe like a hog, and the rattle of a spur as some one slide a foot ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Lance-Corporal of the 2nd D.L.I. to the effect that he was established in the stables of the chateau with a few men, and asking that rations and ammunition might be sent up to them. On the left not only was all the ground lost on the 30th July regained, but an important spur north of the Menin Road, which had hitherto been in German occupation, was included in the final position consolidated. Three officers and 124 other ranks were taken prisoners, and over 500 of the enemy were counted dead on the captured ground. The gallant work of ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... smite horse with spur and come thither where the three robber-knights were assailing Lancelot. Each of the twain smiteth his own so wrathfully that they thrust their spears right through their bodies and bear them to the ground dead. ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... scattered in periodical works are collected in this volume, and I have added a reprint of "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude": the difficulty with which a copy can be obtained is the cause of its republication. Many of the Miscellaneous Poems, written on the spur of the occasion, and never retouched, I found among his manuscript books, and have carefully copied. I have subjoined, whenever I have been able, ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... wanted the information he was after, he could not have told himself. It was a pet aphorism between O'Connor and him that they had often traveled to success on the backs of their hunches. And his proposition to Mercer was made on the spur of one of those moments when the spirit of a hunch possessed him. His morning had been one of unexpected excitement, and now he leaned back in an effort to review it and to forget, if he could, the distressing thing that was bound ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... just flashed across my mind," said the other, somewhat shamefaced at his brother's eulogy and almost blushing. "It came just on the spur of the ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... ulterior motive, yet what it was the girl was unable to discover. She would surely have been cleverer than most people had she been able to discern the hidden, sinister motives of James Flockart. The truth was that he had not seen Murie, and the story of his anxiety he had only concocted on the spur of the moment. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... the clock chimed a quarter to ten. The tone of its bell seemed to act as a spur to ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... Spooner David Spooner Shubab Spooner William Spooner Jonathan Sprague Simon Sprague Philip Spratt Charles Spring Richard Springer John Spriggs Joshua Spriggs Thomas Spriggs William Springer Alexander Sproat Thomas Sproat Gideon Spry Long Sprywood Nathaniel Spur Joshua Squibb David Squire John St. Clair Francisco St. Domingo John St. Thomas John Staagers Thomas Stacy Thomas Stacey Christian Stafford Conrad Stagger Edward Stagger Samuel Stalkweather John Standard ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... propaganda that first created in her breast the feeling of unrest, that first told her Millville was mean, shabby, and an unfit place for an ambitious girl to try to exist in. Her very love for her mother and father, to say nothing of her affection for the other members of her family, seemed a spur to her ambition "to get ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... as he spoke, to the shoulder or spur of one of the mountains which rose at a considerable distance in the interior, and from which they were separated by a dark glen or gorge; for none of the ravines in this part of the country merited the name of valley, save that through which flowed the Caniapuscaw River. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... So on the spur of the moment he had suggested to the artist the new book, though he knew that his publisher would demur. For his fame had raised him altogether out of Bragdon's class. But it was the only tangible way of putting out that helping hand the artist so obviously needed just ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... following account of himself. He said that Bob trotted nicely about half a mile, after which he could not get him to go a pace faster than a walk; he tried all he could do to make him move, but Bob was so obstinate, that he became afraid of keeping Mr. Martin waiting. He then wished for a spur, and after thinking and thinking, he recollected having some large pins stuck in the sleeve of his coat. He thought they would do, could he contrive to fix them on his feet, but how to do this he did not very well know, as he had no shoes to fasten them ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... range, in the direct road to Chattanooga, running south, flows the Sequatchie River through the valley of that name, formed by another range jutting off slightly to the east from the main range, and between it and the Tennessee River. This spur is known by the name of Walling's Ridge [NOTE from Brett and Bob: This is probably what is now known as Walden's Ridge which was named after a Mr. Walling or Wallen as subsequently described. This Ridge was quite sparsely ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... thing known to men is to veil it in a measure, in order that the very obscurity, like the morning mists which prophesy a blazing sun in a clear sky by noonday, may demand search and quicken curiosity and spur to effort. He is not a wise teacher who makes things too easy. It is good that there should be difficulties; for difficulties are like the veins of quartz in the soil, which may turn the edge of the ploughshare ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... for France if the undertaking succeeded, so the act was not perhaps as unselfish as it seems; however, such a donation was of course a great spur to the workmen, who immediately began making not only dinner-sets and ordinary dishes but all sorts of fantastic and beautiful things. They fashioned colored statuettes, vases of fanciful pattern, ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... long, glittering lights of ice pleased him and whenever he was sure that he was unobserved he took a boyish run and long slide. During his walk he had reached Mrs. Slade's house, and since he worked in his pastoral calls whenever he could, by applying a sharp spur to his disinclination, it had occurred to him that he might make one, and return to his study in a virtuous frame of mind over a slight and unimportant, but bothersome duty performed. If he had had his wits about him he might have seen the feminine heads at the windows, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hiding his wrath, double-faced, and cruel, exceedingly clever in concealing his thoughts, and never moved to tears either by joy or grief, but capable of weeping if the occasion required it. He was always a liar not merely on the spur of the moment; he drew up documents and swore the most solemn oaths to respect the covenants which he made with his subjects; then he would straightway break his plighted word and his oath, like the vilest of slaves, who perjure themselves ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... lectures without any 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, without the change ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... say thou camest a secret spy!"— "They do, by Heaven!—Come Roderick Dhu, 40 And of his clan the boldest two, And let me but till morning rest, I write the falsehood on their crest."— "If by the blaze I mark aright, Thou bear'st the belt and spur of Knight."— 45 "Then, by these tokens mayest thou know, Each proud oppressor's mortal foe."— "Enough, enough; sit down and share A soldier's couch, a ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... on each side, are fought for hundreds of dollars aside. The fowls are armed with steel spurs or 'gafts,' about two inches long. These 'gafts' are fastened upon the legs by sawing off the natural 'spur,' leaving only enough of it to answer the purpose of a stock for the tube of the "gafts," which are so sharp that at a stroke the fowls thrust them through each other's necks and heads, and tear each other's bodies till one or both ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... they had gone a bit farther, they came under a steep spur of rock, and up there they heard something ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... of the members of the congregation attend the meetings or are members of the Michigan Menorah Society. In the course of time, the relationship between the two organizations will doubtless be adjusted more satisfactorily. But in the experience at Michigan we have a concrete illustration of the spur to religion which Menorah men derive from ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... 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 himself, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... transverse, oblique, and longitudinal striae-less muscles,—the latter attached to the basal disc. In all the pedunculata, I have reason to believe that these muscles are in constant slight involuntary action. This being the case, I conceive that the small, blunt, spur-like portion of the peduncle, descending beneath the basal rim of the lowest disc, would inevitably partake slightly of the movements of the whole distended animal. As soon as the Lithotrya has reached that depth, which its instinct points out as most ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... retreats, farewell, Where my days in the wilderness Of languor and of love did tell And contemplative dreaminess; And thou, youth's early inspiration, Invigorate imagination And spur my spirit's torpid mood! Fly frequent to my solitude, Let not the poet's spirit freeze, Grow harsh and cruel, dead and dry, Eventually petrify In the world's mortal revelries, Amid the soulless sons of pride ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... was curious. As she slowly reached the gate, the man came almost alongside. And at that moment a rabbit scuttled across the road, right under the horse's nose. With the nervousness of the thoroughbred, it shied. The man had it in hand in an instant, and touched it with his left spur to keep it away from the girl. The horse sprang sideways, set its near foot on a stone, and fell, and the next instant the man was ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Goliath—by the pebble and the sling," answered Almamen, carelessly. "Now, then, spur forward, if thou art ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Giovanni drew back quickly. On the spur of the moment, he acted with a subtlety worthy of long premeditation. Antonia and he were by an odd fatality alone together in that chamber of the ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... of cable which I had cut in the ship, and laid them in rows, one upon another, within the circle, between these two rows of stakes, up to the top, placing other stakes in the inside, leaning against them, about two feet and a half high, like a spur to a post; and this fence was so strong, that neither man nor beast could get into it or over it. This cost me a great deal of time and labour, especially to cut the piles in the woods, bring them to the place, and ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... rose, a party of mournfully shrieking black-backed, herring, common, and black-headed gulls were gathered around the soaked and bedraggled carcasses of a polecat and a buzzard, stranded by the falling tide upon a mud spur, and still locked savagely ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... one knows) the rational faculty to the charioteer, and the concupiscent to one of the horses, which was resty and unmanageable altogether, bristly about the ears, deaf and disobedient both to whip and spur; and the irascible he makes for the most part very obsequious to the bridle of reason, and assistant to it. As therefore in a chariot, the middling one in virtue and power is not the charioteer, but that ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... requires great enthusiasm or great discipline to be proof against a surprise. It is said that Suwarrow, even in peace, always slept fully armed, boots and all. "When I was lazy," he said, "and wanted to enjoy a comfortable sleep, I usually took off one spur." In regard to persistency, history is full of instances of unexpected reverses and eleventh-hour triumphs. The battle of Marengo was considered hopeless, for the first half of the day, and a retreat ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... a point from which we could see in the distance the Jebel el Magara, a mountain spur of soft outline, we descended into a hollow. To our right, between sandy ridges, lay Garif Bir el Abd, an extensive Melleha, overgrown with rushes and purslane, and containing a small quantity of rain-water. The ...
— The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria • Ludwig Salvator
... file, sprang just in time to save himself, as the treacherous crust above some yawning chasm between two heavy "Pans" crumbled under his feet; and once he fell headlong, clutching at a friendly spur, just in time to escape tumbling among a lot of jagged and flinty ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... about, and untiringly shakes his certain spear. Haply Chloreus, sacred to Cybele and once her priest, glittered afar, splendid in Phrygian armour; a skin feathered with brazen scales and clasped with gold clothed the horse that foamed under his spur; himself he shone in foreign blue and scarlet, with fleet Gortynian shafts and a Lycian horn; a golden bow was on his shoulder, and the soothsayer's helmet was of gold; red gold knotted up his yellow scarf with its rustling lawny folds; ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... 50 m. The tendril, when in full action, stands vertically up, with the projecting extremity of the young stem thrown a little on one side, so as to be out of the way; but the tendril bears on the inner side, near its base, a short rigid branch, which projects out at right angles like a spur, with the terminal half bowed a little downwards. Hence, as the main vertical branch revolves, the spur, from its position and rigidity, cannot pass over the extremity of the shoot, in the same curious ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... 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
... of protestation, and the Governor waved his hand and smiled again. "Oh, I shan't blame you; young men are ambitious. It is natural that they should wish to advance themselves in life. In your case, too, if I may say so, there is the further spur of a desire to recover the position your family once held, and lately lost through the mistake or misfortune of ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... I thank you enough for your magnificent present? It is, indeed, kind of you thinking of me, and I can assure you that the spurs shall remain an "heirloom" to decorate the dinner-table (a novel ornament) and match the silver spur poor old White Melville gave me. Why you should have so honoured me I do not know, but that I fully value your kindly thought ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... she hunted for some article of dress or polished an ornament, buckle, or pin. The struggle of Aileen to be perfect was, as usual, severe. Her meditations, as to the most becoming gown to wear were trying. Her portrait was on the east wall in the art-gallery, a spur to emulation; she felt as though all society were about to judge her. Theresa Donovan, the local dressmaker, had given some advice; but Aileen decided on a heavy brown velvet constructed by Worth, of Paris—a thing of varying aspects, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... countless throats a shout, On rolling wings leaps madly out; A yell, a raging roar, that flies On bounding winds o'er hill and glen, And 'round the land electrifies A thousand living miles of men! A mammoth stir, A sudden dash, Swift whip and spur Together clash, And wheels on wheels that totter crash! They're off! They're off! Away, away, In mad array! No stop nor stay! The hurried charge they ride to-day Would shame and scoff The Tartar, Turk and Romanoff! The race is on; The host is gone; The thronging legions ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... so," agreed he. "It seems to me I've got a new grip on things. I needed a turn such as your friend Davy Hull gave me. Nothing like rivalry to spur a man on. The old crowd was so stupid—cunning, but stupid. But Hull injects a new element into the struggle. To beat him we've got to ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... Atlantic, the English Channel, the Mediterranean, the Arctic Ocean and even the Baltic, but until challenged were quite unknown to all other vessels of the Allied navies. Theirs was a secret service, performed amidst great hardships, with no popular applause to spur them on. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... statements. He read furiously through the story. It proved to be one of those newspaper masterpieces which uses an enormous number of words and says nothing. Carroll was quoted as saying only what he had actually said. It was the personal conjecture of the reporter writing the story which had given spur to the vivid imagination of the ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... only reasonably busy human creature on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this morning's landslip on the mountain road: the sun already visibly declined; night was imminent; and if he would avoid the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of the dead, the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline a hospitable ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... except at a few places where permanent water is found, altogether sterile and hot. If we view the physical aspect looking north and north-west from Jacobabad, we notice a wide bay of plains extending between the broken spur of the Sulimani, and a second range of hills having a direction parallel to the outer range. This plain is called the Kachi, extends in an even surface for 150 miles from the Indus at Sukkur, and is bounded on the north by successive spurs lying between the ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... Dick. As a matter of fact he and his friends had forgotten to name the canoe, but he supplied the name on the spur of the moment. It made a prompt hit with ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... needs;[644] places of historical interest;[645] land taken for the purpose of exchange with a railroad company for a portion of its right of way, required for widening a highway;[646] land by a railway for a spur track;[647] establishment by a municipality of a public hack stand upon the driveway maintained by a railroad upon its own terminal grounds to afford ingress and egress to its patrons.[648] Likewise, damages for which ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of the smile that died On the sweet pale lip where his kisses were ... Yet still she turns her delicate head aside, If she may hear him come with jingling spur Through the fresh fairness of the Spring to ride, As in the old days when he rode ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... the other hand, is a work of considerable interest. The meaning of the word silva, in the literary sense, is 'raw material' or 'rough draft'. It then came to be used to mean a work composed at high speed on the spur of the moment, differing in fact but little from an improvisation.[571] That these poems correspond to this definition will be seen from Statius' preface to book i: 'hos libellos, qui mihi subito calore et quadam festinandi voluptate ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... of the curtain projects a spur work protected by two curtains, one of which, 4 feet thick and 24 feet high, only remains, with a shouldered postern door opening on the scarp of the ditch at its junction with the main curtain. This spur work was the entrance to the ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... of a sick woman's whim! If I had not let you go to Fontenoy, we might to-day have heard the rushing of a mightier river than the Rivanna yonder! Delay, delay, where haste itself should have felt the spur!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... spoke : (wheel), radio. sponge : spongo. spontaneous : propra'mova, -vola. spot : makulo. spout : sxpruci. sprain : tordi, distordo spread : disvast'igi' -igxi; etendi, sterni. spring : printempo, fonto, risorto, salti. sprinkle : sxpruci, aspergi. spur : sprono. spy : spioni; esplori. squadron : skadro, eskadro. square : kvadrato; rektangulilo; placo. squint : strabi. squirrel : sciuro. staff : (officers), stabo. stage : estrado, scenejo. stain : makul'o, -i. stair : sxtupo. stake : paliso, fosto; ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... on the backs of your own 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 Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... pardon to be proclaimed in a public Act. All the Manila officials were treated by the Patriarch with open disdain, but he created the Armenian captain of the vessel which brought him to Manila a knight of the "Golden Spur," in a public ceremony in the Maestre de Campo's house in ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the march of those maddened hordes was obviously impossible. Were his people to be forced back into the swamp, to resume the cramped and ape-like life among the branches? Having ordered the building of a half-circle of fire around a spur of the jungle, he climbed a ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... philosopher, The pedant wise, whose wisdom makes him cold. Instructs, but cannot stir The heart of work, whose hope is tried and old; But this one strives to spur The rebel in the blood and ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... how I have always acted toward you in the past, but would have rather said: 'Michelangelo remembers what he wrote to us, and if he does not now do what he promised, he must be prevented by something of which we are ignorant,' and then have kept your peace; because it is not well to spur the horse that runs as fast as he is able, and more than he is able. But you have never known me, and do not know me. God pardon you; for it is He who granted me the grace to bear what I do bear and have borne, in order that ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... 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. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... magnificent scene which filled the vast outlook before him. Peak upon peak, spur upon spur, rose a vast array of wild mountains running to the north-west, till a range of great summits closed in ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... thousands. In the other building were a number of fire-insurance patrolmen, covering goods to protect them against water damage. One of these—Patrolman John Rush—stepped out on the ledge, and edged his way toward a spur of stone that projected from the bank building. Behind followed Patrolman Barnett, steadying him and pressing him close against the wall. Behind him was another, with still another holding on within the room, where the living chain was anchored by all the rest. Rush, at the end of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... 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 ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... great riding-cloak. Clotilde was one of those women whose courage rises just when that of others usually fails: without an instant's hesitation she stooped down, and the next moment the high wooden heel of one of her shoes sent the window-pane flying in shivers out upon the road. A touch of the spur at once brought her escort alongside of ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... visible. The clouds hung low; the glacier below them upon their left had a dull and unillumined look, and over the top of the Breche de la Meije, the pass to the left of their mountain, the snow whirled up from the further side like smoke. The hut is built upon a great spur of the mountain which runs down into the desolate valley des Etancons, and at its upper end melts into the great precipitous rock-wall which forms one of the main difficulties of the ascent. Against this wall the clouds were massed. Snow lay where yesterday the rocks had shone grey ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... acted as an almost equally powerful incentive to spur him into the face of danger to accomplish his design, so that it was a desperate man that lay hidden in the foliage beside the little river searching with eager eyes for some sign of a small canoe which might be easily handled ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... henceforth, forever. So we rode Across the grass, beside the stony path, Until we gained the highway that is lost, Leading from Sana, in the eastern sands: When, with a cry that both the Desert-born Knew without hint from whip or goading spur, We dashed into a gallop. Far behind In sparks and smoke the dusty highway rose; And ever on the maiden's face I saw, When the moon flashed upon it, the strange smile It wore on waking. Once I kissed her mouth, When she grew weary, and her strength returned. All through the night ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... him as he rode away, opening the gate and letting himself through without dismounting. He disappeared finally around a small spur of the hill, and Lorraine found her knees trembling ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... a way that he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a little child instead of a maiden just fifteen. This he had never done before, and it made me a little frightened. He saw it, and spoke on the spur of the thought, though still with one ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... be the great object and aim of my life to demonstrate this to him to the point of positive conviction. "Yes," I exclaimed, springing to my feet with renewed hope, "I had already one incentive—my love for Inez—to spur me forward to great and noble achievements: I have now another—the justification of my dead mother's memory; and henceforward these shall be the twin stars to guide me onward in my career. 'For Love and Honour' shall be ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... slightly upward course. The angle was so steep that a false step would have been fatal. The high ground was on their right. After a while, the hillside on the left hand changed to level ground, and they seemed to have joined another spur of the mountain. The ascending slope on the right hand persisted for a few hundred yards more. Then Sullenbode bore sharply to the left, and they found ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... Empress of the Mexicans vainly waits her husband's return from the experiment of paternal government in the New World. It would be hard to tell how Art has charmed rock and wave at Miramare, until the spur of those rugged Triestine hills, jutting into the sea, has been made the seat of ease and luxury, but the visitor is aware of the magic as soon as he passes the gate of the palace grounds. These are in great part perpendicular, and are over clambered with airy stairways climbing to pensile arbors. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... are illustrated on first page, are 10 ft. long, and are made of wrought iron, the top roll being 12 in. and the two bottom rolls 10 in. in diameter. Each of the bottom rolls carries at its end a large spur-wheel, these spur-wheels, which are on opposite sides of the machine, each gearing into a pinion on a shaft which runs from end to end below the rolls, and which is itself geared to the shaft carrying the belt pulleys, as shown. This is a very simple and direct mode of driving, and avoids ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... to take care of my parish, and it would be madness to take upon myself any new [177] burden. See there a fine fellow I should be to have charge of the "Examiner," who have written present three times in as many lines! However, I am writing now in terrible haste, on the spur of an instant determination; for I must and will put this thing off from my mind. I have kept it there for a fortnight. I have wished to do this. First, because you wished it; secondly, because others wish it; and, thirdly, I had a ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... quickly as the door swung to softly, with the scarcely perceptible click of a lock, and then moved forward with as much indifference as she could muster on the spur of the moment, feeling the eyes of the Arab upon her. Gardens stretched before her with groves, and arbours, and every device conceivable for throwing shade upon her path. The stream, bending in an S, rippled and ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest |
