"Spread-eagle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to take up his abode in "Elysium," where he would be Chesterton's next-door neighbour, and in the same number as myself. We were to have a quiet breakfast in each others' rooms in turn every morning; no gross repast of beef-steaks and "spread-eagle" fowls, but a slight relish of anchovy toast, potted shrimps, or something equally ethereal; and the chasse-cafe limited to one cigar and no bottled porter. It was cruel to interfere with such unexceptionable arrangements; but a college, though ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... chiefly. I think the men are ready for anything that'll come; but I also think we should guard against a revolt of the midshipmen by healthy discipline now. Therefore I'll instruct the lieutenants to spread-eagle every midshipman for twelve hours. There's a stiff wind; there's a good stout spray, and the wind and spray should cool their hot souls. Meanwhile, though without food, they shall have water as they need it. If at the end of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... impossible for a false doctrine to stand on its own feet that the spread-eagle advertisement of this school contradicts itself long before it gets to the "Sign here and mail to-day" coupon. "The first time you try to swim," shouts the advertisement, "for instance, you sink; and the first ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... questionless pluck Of the blood unaccustomed to yield, Preferred to spread-eagle the ruck, And make a long tail of the "field". Bear witness, ye lovers of sport, To races of which he can boast, When flyer by flyer was caught, And beaten ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... "He did not spread-eagle that fool," he said to himself, "but let me have the glory of pounding the ugly brute into jelly, and made me go in and win when I was ready to give in to the cad. Why did not Phil give him his cap? ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... assertion of patriotism and pride, and to question whether historical pageants and a "noiseless Fourth" will develop any better citizens than the fathers were. But on the purely intellectual side, the influence of that spread-eagle oratory was disastrous. Throughout wide-extended regions of the country, and particularly in the South and West, the "orator" grew to be, in the popular mind, the normal representative of intellectual ability. Words, rather than things, climbed ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... cases I get after, the ones who are in it for profit, and have been poking you fellows up because they're paid for doing it. All of a sudden all of you are yapping at me because I've played the game. I'm talking business with you now. I suppose I might spread-eagle to you about our grand old State, and the call of duty and the noble principles of reform; I might fly up on this fence here and crow just as loud as any of those reform roosters, and not have any more sense in what I was saying than they do. I see you've got hungry for that revival hoorah. But ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... downwards with a short axe is not easy work; so when I came within 3 or 4 feet of the rock, I forgot the rope, and set off for a short glissade. Christian, of course, thought something was wrong, and very properly put a prompt strain upon the rope, which reduced his Herr to a spread-eagle sort of condition, in which it was difficult to explain matters, so as to procure a release. When that was accomplished, I saw it would be easy to reach the point where the ice met the wall, so I called to Christian to come down, which he did ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne |
