"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sidle, he follows her round and round with a remnant of a shirt, rubbing mud-spots off my boots in the stirrup. It is quite useless to bellow, "That will do, Steggles!"—his ideal is the unattainable perfection, and he persists. I have to escape by giving Sapphira the spur at the risk of knocking Steggles into the mud, or be late ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... will with a trice bestride my shoulders. Well, if he ride me, let the fool sit fast, for my wit is very hickish: which if he spur with his copper reply, when it bleeds, it will all ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... after starting, found a little water in a gully and gave our horses a drink. Ascended a spur of the range and had a good view ahead, and was very pleased with the prospect. Steering N.E. towards a large range about fifteen miles off, we found a great deal of spinnifex, although the country generally was thickly wooded. I rode Mission, who went ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... his progress in 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 regulated the times of his eating and play ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... numerous scars that traversed his flanks and counter; but whatever good qualities he may have once possessed, he was evidently now one of the sorriest of jades—worth no more than the value of his own skin. Notwithstanding the repeated strokes of the spur, which his rider administered without stint, it was impossible to force him into anything more rapid than a shambling walk, and at this slow pace was he proceeding, evidently to the great ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... cab and ran ahead. Stooping, he cursed the corroded lock of the unused switch which creaked and jarred to the pull of the lever as old No. 9 headed wheezily onto the rust-eaten rails of the rotting spur. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... for the airport," Coburn explained, "I bent a pin around the band of a ring I wear. I could let it lie flat when I shook hands. Or I could make it stand out like a spur. I set it with my thumb. I saw Pangalos' eyes, so I had it stand out, and I made a tear in his plastic skin when I shook hands with him. He didn't feel it, of course." He paused. "Did anybody go to ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... listened to Ned, the cooler he felt himself grow. Another disagreeable impression was left by the grudging, if-nothing-better-turns-up fashion, in which Ned accepted an impulsive offer on his part to take him into the store. It was made on the spur of the moment, and Mahony had qualms about it while his words were still warm on the air, realizing that the overture was aimed, not at Ned in person, but at Ned as Polly's brother. But his intuition ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... lwoad, an' shoot, An' spur his heaps o' dung or zoot; Or car out hay, to sar his vew Milch cows in corners dry an' lew; Or dreve a zyve, or work a pick, To pitch or meaeke his little rick; Or thatch en up wi' straw or zedge, Or stop ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... indeed, his travel-stained clothes supported that idea. If the two men facing him, though, could have seen him scattering dust in liberal proportions over himself and his horse a short time before, they might not have fallen into his trap so easily. With quirt and spur, he had worked his horse into a sweat. At such tricks, ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... I loved you; that I had gone away to prove my love, to see if it would stand the test of absence? It was a serious matter for us both, and I would not let myself act on the spur of an impulse. If I had, Cornelia, you know that I should have spoken long ago!—that night on the river. You knew it at the time. I saw it in your eyes.—I made you promise to let me know if you left Norton during my absence. It was ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... second the horse stood with heaving body. It was only a moment, but in that moment he spread out his feet as though to save himself from falling. Then in answer to the spur he sped on. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... seated instincts in the human breast; if Mr. Darwin's theory be correct, it is through the operation of these fundamental instincts that such a being as man has come into existence at all. In any case these instincts have hitherto been the chief ingredients of all human progress, the most effective spur to energy of all kinds, and when properly utilised they are the most potent of all deterrents to crime. Were it possible for the hand of social justice to descend on every criminal with infallible certainty; were it universally true that no crime ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison
... over rough, hilly roads brought the visitor to Cordelia's place just after the noon hour of a sweltering July day, and the shade of the tall water oaks near the little cabin was a most welcome sight. The house stood only a few feet from a spur of railroad track but the small yard was enclosed by a luxurious green hedge. Roses predominated among the many varieties of flowers in evidence ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... can't ride anywhere except 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 ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... place, where we found Rumanika, its intelligent king, sitting in a wrapper made of antelope's skin, smiling blandly as we approached him. He talked of the geography of the lake, and by his invitation we crossed the Spur to the Ingezi Kagera side, showing by actual navigation the connection of these highland lakes with the rivers which drain the various spurs of the Mountains of the Moon. Rumanika also told me that in Ruenda ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... this chamber and across this nation have pursued a new strategy for prosperity: fiscal discipline to cut interest rates and spur growth; investments in education and skills, in science and technology and transportation, to prepare our people for the new economy; new markets for American products ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... only with the spur Of such wit as may occur, Knightly Rider of the Knee, In thy shriek ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... plain of coarse grass was bounded by the steep spur of a rise. To the left a little river would burst, all at once, in all its windings into a bluish sulphurous glow; and between the crashes of thunder there was heard the long-drawn, whistling swish of the rushes and cane-brakes springing on the boggy ground. We skirted the rise. The rain beat ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... rein. Her quirt went swiftly up and down, cut like a thin bar of red-hot iron across his uplifted face. He stumbled back, half blind with the pain. Before he could realize what had happened the spur on her little boot touched the side of the pony, and it was off with a bound. She was galloping wildly down the trail ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... Nohant. We have seen this legend disproved by one who knows. This Polonaise is not as feverish and as exalted as the previous one. It is, as Kleczynski writes, "the type of a war song." Named the Heroique, one hears in it Ehlert's "ring of damascene blade and silver spur." There is imaginative splendor in this thrilling work, with its thunder of horses' hoofs and fierce challengings. What fire, what sword thrusts and smoke and clash of mortal conflict! Here is no psychical presentation, but an objective picture of battle, of concrete ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... The spur-winged jacanas are very skilful in their dainty treading of water-lily leaves; but here were good-sized insects rowing about on the water itself. They supported themselves on the four hinder legs, rowing with ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... hidden her well. I didn't expect to hear not yet," said Elsworthy. Though Mr Wentworth did not know what he meant, his little audience in the shop did, and showed, by the slightest murmur in the world, their conviction that the arrow had gone home, which naturally acted like a spur upon the Curate, who was not the wisest man ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... grows hot with burning thought, That struggles for form and wings, I can hear the beat of my swift blood's feet, As it speeds with a rush and a whir From heart to brain and back again, Like a race-horse under the spur. ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... became a road over which one might have marched a field battery, so broad and firm and good was it: we were nearing Kiangan. Presently we turned a low spur to the left, and the Ifugao town burst upon our view. It was the headquarters of a Spanish Comandancia in the old days, and here Padre Juan Villaverde lived and worked, seeking to convert the people, and to teach them to grow coffee and ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... resources. The economy rebounded in 1992, largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers returning from the Gulf. After averaging 9% in 1992-95, GDP growth averaged only 1.5% during 1996-99. In an attempt to spur growth, King ABDALLAH has undertaken limited economic reform, including partial privatization of some state-owned enterprises and Jordan's entry in January 2000 into the World Trade Organization (WTrO). Debt, poverty, and unemployment are ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... thing, of course, to have to decide on the spur of the moment. I was reading in the paper the other day about those birds who are trying to split the atom, the nub being that they haven't the foggiest as to what will happen if they do. It may be all right. On the other hand, it may not be all right. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... sojourning there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing," and if we would all be occupied in that way, not much would be accomplished in the world. If we would become disciples of every propagandist whose arguments we cannot answer on the spur of the moment, there would be nothing but change and confusion. Realizing the difficulties in the way of finding truth, and observing how even the wisest and best have been deceived and ensnared in error, naturally ought to make people conservative in accepting new ideas, and the same reasons ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... the duke, smiling, "that, nevertheless, for the future you spur the Sire d'Hocquetonville to ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... hearing some cry—a workman's whistle perhaps—high in mid-air. Now, among the trees, it was the thrush trilling out into the warm air a flutter of jubilation, but fear seemed to spur him, Fanny thought; as if he too were anxious with such joy at his heart—as if he were watched as he sang, and pressed by tumult to sing. There! Restless, he flew to the next tree. She heard his song more faintly. Beyond it was the humming of the wheels and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... old gentleman,' said he.—'Pretty fair,' was my reply.—'Mine's a good 'un too,' rejoined he; 'and I'll trot you to Hampton-wick for a pot o' beer.' I declined the match; and the butcher's boy, as he stuck his single spur into his horse's side, exclaimed, with a look of contempt, 'I thought you ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... away to about three hundred yards off, and I dashed into the open, and, hastily cocking the left-hand trigger, aimed at a proud fellow trotting royally before his fellows, and by good chance sent a bullet through his heart. A fortunate shot also brought down a huge goose, which had a sharp horny spur on the fore part of each wing. This supply of meat materially contributed towards the provisioning of the party for the transit of the unknown land that lay between us and Mrera, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... political classics of America as the Address to the Electors of Bristol ranks in the political classics of England. As a debater in the House Mr. Davis may well be cited as an exemplar. He had no boastful reliance upon intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to civil rights leaders was the conviction that the armed forces had set up artificial and self-imposed barriers to a needed social reform. In the end this conviction seemed to spur them on. The American Veterans Committee, for example, demanded that when a community "mistreats American troops, such as in Montgomery, Alabama, or flaunts its Ku Klux Klan membership, as does Selma, Alabama, the entire area should be placed 'off ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... spur. The three men left the cave together. It was so intensely dark that the road could not be distinguished, but the hermit and his man were so familiar with it that they ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... spur of initiative, that little armor of selfish indifference to the clinging hands at home, and how many a soul might not have reached the stars? Look at the women who were crowding the rolls of fame of late just because all womankind had broken ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... and neck for the three. The cowboy, Curly, had slightly the advance of the others, but needed to spur hard to keep even with Battersleigh, the old cavalryman, who rode with weight back and hands low, as though it were cross country in old Ireland. Franklin challenged both in the run up, riding with the confidence of the man who learned ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... mile away there was a long grove of birch trees, the projecting spur of a second growth of forest that covered the distant rising ground. Towards this Trenholme strode, for it was the only covert near in which a human being could travel unseen. It was more by the impulse of energy, however, than by reasonable hope that he came there, for by the time he had ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... subject than the unmanly luxuries of a debauched Court, or giddy intrigues of a factious city. Alit oemulatio ingenia, says PATERCULUS, et nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit: 'Emulation is the spur of wit; and sometimes envy, sometimes admiration ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... prosperity of the empire; for that prosperity had never been so distinguished as since the constitution had assumed full power; and, by protecting every man in the exercise of his industry, it had given a spur to national and intellectual enterprise and activity, of which the world had never before seen an example. And was this all to be hazarded for the sake of gratifying a party, who always shrank from the measure when in power, and who always renewed it only ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... then when she came most near it, in writing to him. But it was a nice matter to write letters for so many weeks out of a sick room and not let Mr. Linden find out that she herself was there all the while. His letters however were both a help and a spur; Faith talked a good deal of things not at Pattaquasset; and through all weakness and ailing sent her exercises prepared with utmost care, regularly as usual. It hurt her; but Faith would not be stopped. Her sickness she knew after all was but a light matter; and nothing could persuade her ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... must allow me to return with you to Woodbourne. But you are on foot."—"Or if the young laird would take my horse!"—"Or mine"—"Or mine," said half a dozen voices—"Or mine; he can trot ten mile an hour without whip or spur, and he's the young—. laird's frae this moment, if he likes to take him for a herezeld, [*This hard word is placed in the mouth of one of the aged tenants. In the old feudal tenures, the herezeld constituted the best horse or other animal in the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... cattle-trail dropped into a gulch, and looked behind him. Nothing was in sight. He half closed his eyes and searched the horizon. No, there was nothing—just the same old sand and sage-brush, hills, more sand and sage-brush, and then to the west and north the spur of the Rockies, whose jagged peaks were white with a fresh fall of snow. The wind was chill. He shivered, and looked to the eastward. For the last few hours he had felt snow in the air, and now he could see it in the dim, gray mist—still far off, ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... alongside his companion, as he passed, bringing the rowel of his spur sharply against the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... thatched and repatched and tattered, Where I had seven sons until to-day, A little hill of hay your spur has scattered.... This is not Paris. ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... literal lord. And as with your own golden scepter, at times upon your royal teeth, indolent tattoos you beat; then, potent, sway it o'er your isle; so, Lombardo. And ere Necessity plunged spur and rowel into him, he knew not his own paces. That churned him into consciousness; and brought ambition, ere then dormant, seething to the top, till he trembled at himself. No mailed hand lifted up against a traveler in ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... fortune, being kept by farmers and carriers, and other mean people, who put them to greater labour, and fed them worse." I described, as well as I could, our way of riding; the shape and use of a bridle, a saddle, a spur, and a whip; of harness and wheels. I added, "that we fastened plates of a certain hard substance, called iron, at the bottom of their feet, to preserve their hoofs from being broken by the stony ways, on which ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... 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
... Later came an interview with old Ellersly. "Not at all mysterious," he had said to the reporters. "Mr. Blacklock found he would have to go abroad on business soon—he didn't know just when. On the spur of the moment they decided to marry." A good enough story, and I confirmed it when I admitted the reporters. I read their estimates of my fortune and of Anita's with rather bitter amusement—she whose father was living from hand to mouth; I who could not ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... requirements of the law. William Wright grew up under the influence of the teachings of these relatives. Joined to this, his location caused him to take an extraordinary interest in Underground Rail Road affairs. He lived near the foot of the southern slope of the South Mountain, a spur of the Alleghenies which extends, under various names, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. This mountain was followed in its course by hundreds of fugitives until they got into Pennsylvania, and were ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... 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
... philosophical thought, and the quickness and versatility with which his thought at once assumed the right attitude of defence against any argument coming from any quarter. I used to think that while others of us could perhaps find, on the spur of the moment, AN answer more or less effective to some unexpected attack, your father seemed always able to find THE answer—I mean the answer that it was reasonable to give, consistently with his general view, and much the same answer that he would have given ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... innovation made in the present case, in the way of a diminution of the honor and dignity of the Sovereign Pontiff." At Rome only vague and dilatory answers had been received. In Paris the Emperor, leaving the matter to be decided on the spur of the moment, had only said: ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... only be compared to our doggerel verses.(24) The poems of Terence and those of Lucilius stand on the same level of culture, and have the same relation to each other as a carefully prepared and polished literary work has to a letter written on the spur of the moment. But the incomparably higher intellectual gifts and the freer view of life, which mark the knight of Suessa as compared with the African slave, rendered his success as rapid and brilliant as that of Terence had been laborious and doubtful; Lucilius became immediately ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... no touch from rein or spur. Those right and left of me bore round, and naturally mine went with them. Left incline, and we tore on still in as wild and reckless a race through the darkness as was ever ridden by a body ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... have obeyed, and have drudged my life away. Well! although I may seem of such trifling importance beside you, monseigneur, I do declare to you, that the recollection of what I have done serves me as a spur, and prevents me from bowing my old head too soon. I shall remain until the very end, a good trooper; and when my turn comes, I shall fall perfectly straight all in a heap, still alive, after having selected my place beforehand. Do as I do, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... round hill which I proposed ascending. Topar seeing us determined, got into a state of alarm almost bordering on frenzy; he kept shouting out "kerno, kerno," "rocks, rocks," and insisted that we should all be killed. This however had no effect on us, and we continued to move towards a spur, the ascent of which appeared to be less difficult than any other point of the hills. We reached its base at 10 a.m., and had little trouble in taking the cart up. On gaining the top of the first rise, we descended into and crossed a valley, and ascending the opposite side found ourselves ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... activity of Charlemagne acted as a spur to Alfred's personal ambition and to his desire to elevate his people. Although he did not follow the example of Charlemagne in seeking universal education for his people, he did urge that the children of every freeman should be able to read and write, and should have instruction ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... not know why you should spy on the prince," said Osra, "and I do not care to know where the prince is." And she touched her horse with the spur, and cantered fast forward, leaving the little house behind. But Christian persisted, partly in a foolish grudge against any man who should win what was above his reach, partly in an honest anger that she whom his worshipped should be treated lightly by another; ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... I, and into the nearest spur of woodland we went, and stayed not till we were beyond reach of the yells of the destroyers, who, as it seemed, ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... spectators. There was no room for jockeying in such a race, for inanimate matter was to be put in motion, and that moves only in accordance with immutable laws. The signal was given for the start. Instead of the application of whip and spur, the gentle touch of the steam-valve gave life and motion ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... on his hind legs raised, Upon a noble Charger gazed, Who docile to the spur and rein, Went through his menage on the plain; Now seeming like the wind to fly, Now gracefully curvetting by. "Good Sir," the little Tumbler said, And with much coolness, scratched his head, "In all your swiftness, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... the head of the horse, freed from the restraint, was as at once elevated in air. The suddenness of his motion whirled the ruffian to the ground; while the rider, wreathing his hands in the mane of the noble animal, gave him a free spur, and plunged at once over the struggling wretch, in whose cheek the glance of his hoof left a ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... added passion to reason as an incitement and spur. And you may see those very persons, whose opinions I am combating, frequently urging on the young by praises, and frequently checking them by rebukes, though pleasure follows the one, pain the other. For rebukes and censure produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... unheard, in the helmet. Making his horse wheel round on his hind legs, Sinclair rode at Oswald with uplifted sword. The latter again couched his spear under his arm and, touching his horse with his spur, the animal sprung forward; and before the sword could fall, the point of the spear caught the squire under the armpit, and hurled ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... in his head burst out afresh with his effort. And the Emperor heard it, and stopped for an instant on his march. 'My lords,' he said, 'things are going badly with us; we shall lose my nephew Roland to-day, for I know by the way he blows his horn that he has not long to live. Spur your horses, for I would fain see him before he dies. And let every trumpet in the army sound its loudest!' The Unbelievers heard the noise of the trumpets, which echoed through the mountains and ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... modern state of the industrial arts, varies from one country to another, according to the varying position in which they are placed, or in which they conceive themselves to be placed. Among the belligerent nations it has put the spur of fear to their need of concerted action as well as to their efforts to strengthen the national defense. But the state of opinion and sentiment abroad in the nation in time of war is no secure indication of what it will be after the return to peace. The American people, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... vivacity. His chief value, however, lay in his power of exciting Van Degen's jealousy. She knew enough of French customs to be aware that such devotion as Chelles' was not likely to have much practical bearing on her future; but Peter had an alarming way of lapsing into security, and as a spur to his ardour she knew the value of other ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... assurance, (trusty steed,) To thee the buried road is known; Home, all the spur thy footsteps need, When loose the ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... waves of a storm-tossed ocean, encircles him, and at his feet, green and wooded, lies a long fertile valley. Stretching far away into the gates of distance in its vast expanse, glitters the Lake of Scutari. Round a small dim spur of land running into the lake, lies Scutari itself, which is, however, not visible. To the left a forbidding chain of magnificent mountains, dwarfing the intervening hills into insignificance, fascinate him ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... happy heart—but father did, and I do, now. I understand things better than I did. I can see there's ever so much more bravery in denying yourself day after day what you want, and bearing willingly what you don't like, than there is in doing some big deed that you carry through on the spur of ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Suffren's natural eagerness for action; but his ships sailed badly, and were poorly handled by indifferent and dissatisfied men. These circumstances, during the long and vexatious pursuit, chafed and fretted the hot temper of the commodore, which still felt the spur of urgency that for two months had quickened the operations of the squadron. Signal followed signal, manoeuvre succeeded manoeuvre, to bring his disordered vessels into position. "Sometimes they edged down, sometimes they brought to," says the English ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where the tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a fool. He knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favorite half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Spur up your steed, brave fellow—the flood is at his heels! Too late! the waves now gird him round; the gallant rider reels; Entombed beneath the debris his warning voice is stilled, But he, I trust, ran not in vain; ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... might strike a knight, nor be stricken again: nor no such thing. Nay, no memory had Aucassin of aught of these; rather he so dreamed of Nicolete, his sweet lady, that he dropped his reins, forgetting all there was to do, and his horse that had felt the spur, bore him into the press and hurled among the foe, and they laid hands on him all about, and took him captive, and seized away his spear and shield, and straightway they led him off a prisoner, and were even now discoursing of what death he ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... me? What? To think?" She laughed. "Solitude is a rare spur to thought. I listen to the gentlemen who talk with father; and I would gladly join and have my say, too, but that they treat me like a fool, and I have my questions for my pains. Yet I swear I am dowered with more sense than Sir John Johnson, with his pale eyes and thick, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Nek, after being for twenty minutes under a hot fire, were beginning to think they had had enough of it, when our lines ceased firing, and the mounted squadron advanced to take a hillock—the most advanced spur of the Boer left flank position. The 58th also prepared to charge. The officers commanding the mounted squadron were Major Brownlow and Captain Hornby, while Colonel Deane, Major Essex (an officer with a charmed life, who survived Isandlwana ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... substance, blood especially, they swim forward to the attack; and as they usually move in swarms, it is extremely dangerous for man or beast to enter the water with even a scratch upon their bodies. Horses wounded by the spur are particularly exposed to their attacks when fording a stream; and so rapid is the work of destruction, that unless immediate assistance is rendered, the fish soon penetrate the abdomen of the animal and destroy it: hence the name given to them by the Spaniards means "tripe-eater." When ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the success of her plot, which she had conceived on the spur of the moment, as most clever plots are conceived. On the way home she confided to her cousins a method of securing revenge upon the agent for selling them the three copies of the "Lives ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... fresh-coloured, black-haired, blue-eyed young lady, who could ride a horse, or play a sonata with any girl out of the County Cork, seemed to be the very person destined to insure Dobbin's happiness—much more than that poor good little weak-spur'ted Amelia, about whom he used to take on so.—"Look at Glorvina enter a room," Mrs. O'Dowd would say, "and compare her with that poor Mrs. Osborne, who couldn't say boo to a goose. She'd be worthy of you, Major—you're a quiet ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, Being first of those to whom the Power was shown, Stood first of all the Host before The Throne, And when the Charges were allotted burst Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first. Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed Their own high judgment on their lightest deed. Zeal was their spur that, when relief was given, Urged them unwearied to fresh toil in Heaven; For Honour's sake perfecting every task Beyond what e'en Perfection's self could ask.... And Allah, Who ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... assist the Russians in case they should be successful (and who can blame the Austrian Government for wishing to wash away the shame of the Treaty of Presburg?). Napoleon had not a moment to lose, but this activity required no spur; he had hastened the battle of Austerlitz to anticipate Prussia, and he now found it necessary to anticipate Russia in order to keep Austria in ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... ravaged fields and in her ruined villages. The freed provinces have had to submit to intolerable, vexatious, and odious outrages, but you are not to answer these crimes by the commission of violences, which, under the spur of your resentment, may ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... dog-days while Etruria's stage line was doing a land-office business and our poor little resource was wasted to a long-drawn-out puddle choked with cat-tails and lily-pads. But what dismayed other men seemed to spur Israel Booth, and one night, a bare fortnight before the commissioners' coming, his great conception saw its birth. Before he slept he took counsel with ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... has its romance, not a life which does not hide a secret which is either its thorn or its spur. Everywhere grief, hope, comedy, tragedy; even under the petrifaction of old age, as in the twisted forms of fossils, we may discover the agitations and tortures of youth. This thought is the magic wand of poets ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... several gentlemen, planted themselves opposite to the prison, and were spectators to this diverting scene, calling out to stop them, not with an intention to do them any prejudice, but only of adding a spur to their speed: however there were some who were ready enough to lay hold on them, and our hero, in a struggle of this nature, left a skirt of his garment behind him, which might be done without much violence, as we may reasonably conclude it to have been none of the soundest; and Coleman ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... while the hunter-naturalist, with Francesca by his side, sits in his saddle contemplating the shod hoof-prints in a reverie of reflection. He at length thinks of crossing the tributary stream, to see if these continue on with the Indian trail, and has given his horse the spur, with a word to his daughter to do likewise, when voices reach his ear from the opposite side, warning him to pull in again. Along with loud words and ejaculations there is laughter; as of boys at play, only not stationary in one place, but apparently moving onward, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... and lofty emotion! The imperial pianist discourses upon the genius and peculiar gifts of his brother musician. Before us arises a vision of the strong and fiery Hungarian, with clanger of steel, flash of spur, and ring of hoof, compelling his audiences to attention and enthusiastic admiration; and also of the gentle-mannered and suffering, but no less fiery Pole, shrinking from all rude contact, and weaving enchanted melodies and harmonies, teeming with ever-varying ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and stole quickly and softly after the boots and the spur-clank. He peeped into the upper room. The man was there - and it was Jakin, all dripping with moat-water, and he was fiddling about with the machinery which Robert felt sure worked the drawbridge. Robert banged the door suddenly, and turned the great key ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... certainly I never got so far—the verbs irregular giving me a distaste for the business—at least I fell into line, and in due time—but there I am anticipating. I am writing of the day, the wonderful day when the sharp spur of Uncle Rob's reproach entered into my soul and I resolved to be—I hardly knew what. A band of little boys, all eager to see the pirn-mill in the Marnhoul wood, volunteered to accompany Louis home. They went on ahead, ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... 'Ceremonialism more and more incrusted the restored nation, and Jesus was needed to spur and stab the consciences of his contemporaries, and recall them to more spiritual perceptions.' Well, thus came Christ to 'stab and spur'; and faith, I think 'stab and spur' were again needed by the end of the third century. Successive reformers are needed to 'stab and spur' ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... a walk through the garden and a bath at the well, I started, gun in hand, towards the jungly plain that stretches towards the sea. It abounds in hares, and in a large description of spur-fowl [22]; the beautiful little sand antelope, scarcely bigger than an English rabbit [23], bounded over the bushes, its thin legs being scarcely perceptible during the spring. I was afraid to fire with ball, the place ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... hat upon his coat. It had slipped to the floor and now lay there—a low, soft black hat of a kind formerly much worn by young Southerners of the countryside,—especially on occasions when there was a spur of heat in their mood and going,—much the same kind that one sees on the heads of students in Rome in winter; light, warm, shaping itself readily to breezes from any quarter, to be doffed or donned as comfortable and negligible. It suggested ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... wages or not. Men are said to be partial judges of themselves. Young men may be; I doubt if old men are. Life seems terribly foreshortened as they look back, and the mountain they set themselves to climb in youth turns out to be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges when, with failing breath, they reach the top. But if I may speak of the objects I have had more or less definitely in view since I began the ascent of my hillock, they ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... hope," he said quietly. "My prisoner took the knock just before you spoke. I felt it run through him. He shook like a pony under the spur. And you're wrong, you know. This gang must be cleared out." He peered through the broken panel. "It's all over," he ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... march brought 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 dogs behaving splendidly by lying down quietly and scarcely moving as they ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... injunctions and to the fact that they had reached the frontier of the land of Roum and were now in the enemy's country. So he rode on alone along the valley, till a fourth part of the night was passed, when he grew weary and sleep overcame him, so that he could no longer spur his horse. Now he was used to sleep on horseback; so when drowsiness got the better of him, he fell asleep and the horse paced on with him half the night and entered a forest; but Sherkan awoke not, till the steed ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... saving two or three shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of all payments to try his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay—the vanishing of toll-house ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... 1904 twenty-five gentlemen (five of whom were members of the Chit-Chat Club) formed an association for the improvement and adornment of San Francisco. D.H. Burnham was invited to prepare a plan, and a bungalow was erected on a spur of Twin Peaks from which to study the problem. A year or more was given to the task, and in September, 1905, a comprehensive report was made and officially sanctioned, by vote and publication. To what extent it might have been followed but for the event of April, 1906, cannot be conjectured, ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... do things like that on the spur of the moment. But if you saw a Spanish woman behave that way, it would seem wrong ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... fall down upon the roofs of the houses. It was planted with vines by King Lajos, who ascended the throne in 1342. The best wine called Tokay is, however, not made at Tokay, but at Kassau, two leagues farther into the Carpathians, of which Tokay is a spur. If you wish to drink the best Tokay, you must go to Vienna, to which place all the prime is sent. For the third time I ask you, O young man of Horncastle! why does your Government always send fools ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable, this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style, while my poor old troop-horse, in answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned hair or an abnormal heave, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... to spur Magsie suddenly into speech. She glanced at the tall old moonfaced clock that was slowly ticking near the door, as if to estimate the time left her, and sat suddenly erect on ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... of the 2nd irregular cavalry, who, with Lieutenant Swinton, had volunteered to serve on foot, were to advance upon another face of the ridge, from the little village of Chulbarah, where they had been posted; this party, ascending a spur of the hill on its left, was to co-operate opportunely with the advance of the other detachments. Major Fisher, at the head of a body of regular native infantry and irregular cavalry, with guns mounted upon elephants, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... enjoy itself without calling the heart to share. At the same time, his being in love, if already I may use concerning him that most general and most indefinite of phrases, so far from obstructing his study, was in reality an aid to his thinking and a spur to excellence—not excellence over others, but over himself. There were moments, doubtless, long moments too, in which he forgot Homer and Cicero and differential calculus and chemistry, for "the bonnie lady-lassie,"—that ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Honeymoon Scene The Cost The Voice God's Answer The Edict of the Sex The World-child The Heights On seeing 'The House of Julia' at Herculaneum A Prayer What is Right Living? Justice Time's Gaze The Worker and the Work Art thou Alive? To-day The Ladder Who is a Christian? The Goal The Spur Awakened! Shadows The New Commandment Summer Dreams The Breaking of Chains December 'The Way' The Leader to be The Greater Love Thank God for Life Time Enough New Year's Day Life is a Privilege In an Old Art Gallery True Brotherhood The Decadent Lord, speak again My Heaven ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... my Kaffir servant. "Let us go," I said, "perhaps we shall be able to fall in with some more burghers round here and have another shot at them." Behind us the British lancers were shouting "Stop, stop, halt you —— Boers!" They fired briskly at us, but our little ponies responded gamely to the spur and, aided by the darkness, we rode on safely. Still the lancers did not abandon the chase, and followed us for a long distance. From time to time we could hear the pitiful cries and entreaties of burghers who ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... than Speusippus or Xenocrates, should not have been nominated to the succession has been variously explained; he is said to have been lacking in respect and gratitude to the master; Plato is said to have remarked of him that he needed the curb as much as Xenocrates needed the spur. The facts really need no explanation. The original genius is never sufficiently subordinate and amenable to discipline. He is apt to be critical, to startle his easy-going companions with new and ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... undergrowth. The right and rear of the position were protected by a second stream, running south to the Chickahominy, and winding through a swamp which Stuart, posted on Jackson's left, pronounced impassable for horsemen. Between the head waters of these two streams rose the spur on which stands McGehee's house, facing the road from Old Cold Harbour, and completely commanding the country to the north and north-east. The flank, therefore, was well secured; the front was strong, with a ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... we purpose, ay, this hour we mount To spur three leagues towards the Apennine; Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count His ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... was nothing either rare or beautiful. It was nature with her simplest ornaments, and family life in the most unpretending tranquillity. But nothing was wanting. I had space, verdure, affection, conversation, liberty, and employment,—the necessity of occupation, that spur and bridle which human indolence and mutability so often require. I was perfectly content. When the soul is calm, the heart full, and the mind active, situations the most opposite to those we have been accustomed to possess their charms, which ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... people, who, standing on a level plain, set out on two roads, which diverging at different angles and continued in straight lines, must continue to take them farther and farther from each other the longer they proceed in them; rather, they resemble two persons who start to climb a spur of the same mountain from opposite sides; where, the higher they climb the nearer they come to each other, being bound ultimately ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... the Benedictine; and again consulting his memoranda, he added, "the arms on the dexter side are those of Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged of the same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel; they are two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country—the arms ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... of the tongue. A pair of hobbled horses left off snipping grass beside the trail and gazed with mild interest as the two passed, and beneath the wagon a dog barked. At length, just as the moon sank from sight behind the long spur of Tiger Butte, the trail slanted into a wide coulee from the bottom of which sounded ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... few spots on the world's surface more sacred to any Christian than that on which Bertram sat. Coming up from Bethany, over a spur on the southern side of the Mount of Olives, towards Jerusalem, the traveller, as he rises on the hill, soon catches a sight of the city, and soon again loses it. But going onward along his path, the natural road which convenience would take, he comes ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Transylvania. In the Tokay district the formations are partly eruptive, partly sedimentary, but nowhere older than the Tertiary period, say the geologists. The Hegyalia (which means "mountain-slopes" in the Magyar tongue) forms the southern spur of the extended volcanic region, composed of trachyte and rhyolithe, beginning at Eperies and terminating in the conical hill of Tokay, which protrudes itself so singularly into the ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... could have said this or how I ought to have done that—all, of course, now to no purpose whatever. But I shall not attempt to tell what I ought to have done or said, but what I actually did do and say on the spur ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... be out except morning and evening. But I doubt that, for they make an outcry about heat as soon as it is not cold. The transitions are so sudden, that, with the thermometer at 76 degrees, you must not go out without taking a thick warm cloak; you may walk into a south-easter round the first spur of the mountain, and be cut in two. In short, the air is cold and bracing, and the sun blazing hot; those whom that suits, will do well. I should like a softer air, but I may be wrong; when there is only a moderate wind, it is delicious. You walk in the hot ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... was an indignity to which the old fellow was not prepared to submit. Why, it was at least ten years since the stroke of a whip had been felt upon his glossy skin. Whip and spur were of the times long since gone by. Springing up as quickly as if he were only a colt instead of a grave old horse, Ned elevated his mane, and swept angrily around the now frightened lad, neighing fiercely, and striking out into the air with his heels at a furious rate. ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... a way out of his predicament, that Mary tossed her head triumphantly. This acted as a spur to his reeling wits. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... interior were well assimilated to the dreariness of the country through which they passed. Two common pack horses, lean, galled by the saddle, and callous from long acquaintance with the admonitory influence both of whip and spur, had been selected by Captain Jackson as the best within the fort, and, as a first evidence of the liberality ascribed to him by his Commander, the fastest of these (if a choice there was) he selected for his own use. Neither were the trappings out of keeping ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Ben-ledi's side? So near, so rapidly, he dash'd, Yon lichen'd bough has scarcely plash'd Into the torrent's tide. Ay! the good hound may bay beneath, The hunter wind his horn; He dared ye through the flooded Teith, As a warrior in his scorn! Dash the red rowel in the steed! Spur, laggards, while ye may! St. Hubert's staff to a stripling reed, He dies no death to-day! "Forward!" nay, waste not idle breath, Gallants, ye win no greenwood wreath; His antlers dance above the heath, Like chieftain's plumed helm; Right onward for the western ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... the first stage a down-hill greensward yields. But, oh— What rugged ways attend the noon of life! Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife, What pain we tug that galling load, a wife. All coursers the first heat with vigour run; But 'tis with whip and spur the ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... something that drove a puzzled frown into his eyes. It had caught in the frayed edge of the rug, and to have been so caught and so left meant that it had been done during the struggle he had already pictured. He took it up into his hand, trying to understand. For it was the rowel of a spur, a tiny, sharp, shining rowel that had come loose from a spur he remembered very well. And he remembered, too, that Winifred Waverly had had her spurs on when she came out to him at ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... to suppress them. In this state of things the assassination and murder of Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, by a troop of fanatics, who had been driven to madness by the oppression of Carmichael, one of that prelate's instruments, while it gave an additional spur to the vindictive temper of the government, was considered by it as a justification for every mode and degree of cruelty and persecution. The outrage committed by a few individuals was imputed to the whole fanatic sect, as the government termed them, or, in other words, to a description ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... vanity, which people call love of glory has been much blunted in me. I labour much less to catch the suffrages of the public, than to obtain that inward approval which has always been the sweetest reward of my efforts. Without doubt, in moments of disgust and discouragement, I have often needed the spur of vanity to excite me to pursue my researches. But all the compliments I have received from Arago, De la Place, and Biot never gave me so much pleasure as the discovery of a theoretic truth or the confirmation ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... with the overhead crane on it. T'other overhead crane on the mended pontoon, with the cart-road rivets from Twenty to Twenty-three piers—two construction lines, and a turning-spur. The pile-work must ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... acquaintance whose appearance induced my companion to ask with some little surprise who my friend was. The individual whose courteous salutation had provoked the question was a horseman mounted on a remarkably fine black mare. Whether, in consequence of some little touch with the spur, or whether merely from high condition and high spirits, the animal was curvetting and rearing and dancing about a little as she crossed the piazza, and the perfect ease—and one may say, indeed, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... people. They open mighty storehouses of information to the student. Every exposition, great or small, has helped to some onward step. Comparison of ideas is always educational, and as such instruct the brain and hand of man. Friendly rivalry follows, which is the spur to industrial improvement, the inspiration to useful invention and to high endeavor in all departments of human activity. It exacts a study of the wants, comforts and even the whims of the people and ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... populace—that they were men with a hope, with a cause to fight for and suffer for. There came times to Jurgis when the vision seemed far-off and pale, and a glass of beer loomed large in comparison; but if the glass led to another glass, and to too many glasses, he had something to spur him to remorse and resolution on the morrow. It was so evidently a wicked thing to spend one's pennies for drink, when the working class was wandering in darkness, and waiting to be delivered; the price of a glass of beer would buy fifty copies of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... muse,—Sometimes apt to refuse The guidance of bit and of bridle, Still blankly demur, spite of whip and of spur, Unimpassioned, inconstant, or idle; Only let me puff, puff, till the brain cries enough, Such excitement is all I'm in lack o', And the poetic vein soon to fancy gives reign, Inspired by a pipe ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... into the saddle. As he galloped off he heard shouts calling him back, but using whip and spur he was soon out of the town, nor did he pull rein till he was beyond reach of any pursuers. At the first hamlet through which he passed, several of the people seeing him riding fast, inquired if anything unusual had happened. Without considering that ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... ranching township in the northwestern corner of Montana lying roughly some twenty miles west of the foothills of the Cathill Mountains, which, in turn, formed a projecting spur of the main range of ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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! ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... on the last spur of a range of hills, and there was an abrupt descent between it and the next rounded hill-top. Covered with trees, the sharp little valley was full of shadow and mystery; and then beyond the great billowy tree-tops rose and fell for miles, until the brilliant early green ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... women are the cause of most of the disturbances which take place. The above translations, without being exactly literal, are as near the original as I could render them. As they are entirely uttered on the spur of the moment there is generally abundant evidence of passion and feeling about them; and although I might have added a great variety, I think that the above will give the English reader as good an idea of the peculiar mode of address of this people ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... was intrusted to his trumpeter and squire, Anthony Van Corlear, that man of emergencies, with orders to travel night and day, sparing neither whip nor spur, seeing that he carried the vindication of his patron's fame in his saddle-bags. The loyal Anthony accomplished his mission with great speed and considerable loss of leather. He delivered his missive with ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... they are surrounded with things new to them, their understanding loses its original force, and they become only the more timid the more they become aware of the danger of the irresolution into which they have fallen, and the more they have formerly been in the habit of acting on the spur of the moment. ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... mules trailing along behind. Soon afterward we look back to see the long procession of porters following along in single file. Our tent boys carry our third rifle, and behind them all comes the head-man, ready to spur on any lagging porters. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... [66] It is wholly surrounded by great rocks, except in one place which is sloping, at the foot of which slope there is a pond of salt water, coming from under a pebbly point, having the form of a spur. The surface of the island is flat, covered with trees, and containing a fine spring of water. In this place is a copper mine. Thence we proceeded to a harbor a league and a half distant, where we supposed the copper mine was, which a certain ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... pieces 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 foot and a half high, like a spur to a post; and this fence was so strong, that neither man or 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 drive them ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... can best conceal their thoughts, but one day of forgetfulness suffices to inter the whole virtuous past. The poor woman is taken in her joy as in a lasso; her sweetheart proclaims his presence, or sometimes his departure, by some article of clothing—a scarf, a spur, left by some fatal chance, and there comes a stroke of the dagger that severs the web so gallantly woven by their golden delights. But when one is full of days, he should not make a wry face at death, and the sword of a husband is a pleasant death for a gallant, if there be pleasant deaths. ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... hailed him with sober delight. Truly, the Lord was with him thus to spur on so broken-spirited a ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... which she had, in spite of her sentimental preoccupation, studied diligently every phase that passed before her keen critical vision, analyzed every person she had met, and passed many of her evenings in the study of the best contemporary fiction, had, associated with the spur of her own upheaval, developed her imagination, and her head was full of unwritten stories. They were highly realistic, of course, as became a modern ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... examine the specimens of Captorhinus and Dimetrodon in that institution. I am grateful to Mr. Robert F. Clarke, Assistant Professor of Biology, The Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia, Kansas, for the opportunity to study his specimens of Captorhinus from Richard's Spur, Oklahoma. Special acknowledgment is due Mr. Merton C. Bowman for his able preparation of ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox
... personal courage, he did not have eminent professional daring; nor, with considerable tactical acquirement, was he gifted with that illuminative originality which characterized Hood and Nelson. He therefore needed either a reasonable probability of success, or the spur of imminent emergency, to elicit the kind of action needed to save the British cause. The chances to windward of Martinique would have been ninety out of a hundred; from that time forward they diminished with continually increasing rapidity. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... pistol-shot and discharge their pieces at the Royal troops to set them into as disgraceful a panic as ever animated frightened men. The dragoons, ludicrously unmanned, turned tail and rode for their lives, rode without drawing bridle and without staying spur till they came to Leith, paused there for a little, and then, on some vague hint that the Highlanders were on their track, they were in the saddle again and riding for their lives once more. Dismayed Edinburgh citizens saw them sweep along what now is Prince's Street, a pitiable ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Cole, the Oxford proctor: to this person, whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in addition to the commissary's circular; and the family connection acting as a spur to his natural activity, a coast guard had been set before Garret's arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the mayor, with the aldermen, and twenty of the council, had kept privy watch," and searched ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... below the 5% to 7% necessary to reduce poverty significantly. Privatization of government-owned copper mines relieved the government from covering mammoth losses generated by the industry and greatly improved the chances for copper mining to return to profitability and spur economic growth. Copper output increased in 2003 and is expected to increase again in 2004, due to higher copper prices. The maize harvest doubled in 2003, helping boost GDP by 4.0%. Cooperation continues with international bodies on programs to reduce poverty, including a new lending arrangement ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... courtly old man, and he seemed to sympathise with us, for he left the mocking group of men, and came to see us off; and then, as if to divert us from the greater topic, he pointed to one of the mountains, a spur of the God King's mountain, famous in all South India, and volunteered to tell me its story. We were glad to make friends with him even over so small a thing as a mountain; but he would speak of nothing ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... the snares He for the knowing ones prepares. When late at night a felon tried To bribe a Dog with food, he cried, "What ho! do you attempt to stop The mouth of him that guards the shop? You 're mightily mistaken, sir, For this strange kindness is a spur, To make me double all my din, Lest such a scoundrel ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... like a horse to which the spur has been given, dashed onwards, plunging and leaping, as it were, over the fast rising waves. The noise I have described increased as the vessel began to plunge more and more furiously. At first, only masses of spray broke over her; but now the seas themselves ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... speedy downfall, because of the multiplication of churches and the loss of taxes enforced for its support. Experience had taught the authorities that, even when all the people favored one form of religion, compulsory support had to be resorted to as a spur to individual contributious. Moreover, the best governments of which they knew had recourse to a similar system in order to maintain purity of religion and the moral welfare of the state. The authorities could not see, as did the champion of ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... and pencil in hand, Clayton jotted down the various details of the new system in their sequence; the building of a forging plant to make the rough casts for the new Italian shells out of the steel from the furnaces, the construction of a new spur to the little railway which bound the old plant together with its shining steel rails. There were questions of supplies and shipping and bank credits to face, the vast and complex problems of the complete new munition ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in spite of the surface, but here again one cannot get the help one would wish. (T. 19 deg..) I cannot load the animals heavily on such snow. The scenery is most impressive; three huge pillars of granite form the right buttress of the Gateway, and a sharp spur of Mount Hope the left. The land is much more snow covered than when we saw it before the storm. In spite of some doubt in our outlook, everyone is very cheerful to-night and jokes are ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... says old Nashe, "to see a young gentleman with his skill and cunning, by his voice, rod, and spur, better to manage and to command the great Bucephalus, than the strongest Milo, with all his strength; one while to see him make him tread, trot, and gallop the ring; and one after to see him make him gather up roundly; to bear his head steadily; ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... 'great, rich, and fine city'; the 'trade, manufactures, and handicrafts,' and the 'necessaries in great plenty and cheapness,' appear to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame, than to the small Fu-yang hien ... shut in by a spur from the hills, which would hardly have allowed it in former days to have been a great city." (Note by Baron R.) The after route, as elucidated by the same authority, points with even more force ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Cleomenes, the hero of Sparta, he had been enamoured of glory, and had possessed a greatness of mind. Nelson preserved, also, a similar temperance and simplicity of manners. Nature, as Plutarch adds of the noble Spartan, had given a spur to his mind which rendered him impetuous in the pursuit of whatever he deemed honourable. The demeanour of this extraordinary young man was entirely the demeanour of a British seaman; when the energies of his mind ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... sun begins to gild the western sky; And now it is about the very hour That Silvia, at Friar Patrick's cell, should meet me. She will not fail, for lovers break not hours, Unless it be to come before their time; 5 So much they spur their ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... were with him when he laid the foundations of the world, and the song is unfinished, the fingers grow listless. As we receive these intimations of age our very sins become negative: we are still pleased if a voice praises us, but we grow lethargic in enterprises where the spur to activity is fame or the acclamation of men. At some point in the past we struggled mightily for the sweet incense which men offer to a towering personality: but the infinite is for ever within man: we sighed for other worlds ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell |
