"Spur" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... always of all superfluous details, and with such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling in deep water, with no footing under me. Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But when he challenged the truism I ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... rather difficult for Junius Keswick to answer a question like this on the spur of the moment. He arose and walked with Croft out of the arbor. His first impulse, as a Virginia gentleman, was to invite his visitor to stay at the house until the matter should be settled, but he ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... had regretted asking him to keep him company; it may have been done on the spur of the moment, simply because he chanced to resemble ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... you,' holding out her hand, English fashion. She did not see us, but M. d'Aubepine, who was slinking off the scene, like a beaten hound, as well he might, unaware that we were in the antechapel, caught his foot and spur in Madame Darpent's long trailing cloak, and came down at full length on the stone floor, being perhaps a little flustered with wine. He lay still for the first moment, and there was an outcry. One of the soldiers cried out to the other as Madame Darpent's ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the hills grow steeper, the breadth between them contracts, the enclosure lines are broken and deflected by rocks and patches of plantation, and the few farms stand more boldly and conspicuously forward, each on its spur of land, looking up to or away from the great masses of frowning crag which close in the head of the valley, and which from the moment they come into sight give it dignity ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... changed', whether man is guided solely by self-interest, or is only waiting to be set free from sordid cares to be guided solely by his love for his fellows, whether fear or hope, custom or the sense of adventure, form his natural and most compelling spur to action. Meanwhile in the great debate, in Burke's Reflections as in Marx's Capital, in Maine and Mill and Mazzini, as among the hacks who vulgarize their results in text-books and election literature, man as he is has vanished behind a cloud of doctrine ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... was melancholy. He had attained that period in life when the spirits flag and enthusiasm needs a constant spur, and of late there had been a lack of special excitement, and he felt dull and superannuated. He was even contemplating resigning his position on the force and retiring to the little farm he had bought for himself in Westchester; and this in itself did not tend to cheerfulness, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... I think that you will do well to leave this young cock alone, since I like not the look of that red spur of his," and he glanced at the sword Wave-Flame. "Though he be weary, he may have a kick or ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... 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
... platypus, or duck-bill, has the bill and webbed feet of a duck and the body and tail of a beaver. Stranger still, the female duck-bill lays eggs, but nurses her young after the eggs are hatched! The duck-bill carries a hinged spur on the hind legs, which also is a sting that injects a violent poison into whatever it strikes. Ordinarily the spur is folded against the leg of the animal, but when used as a weapon it stands out like the gaff of a fighting cock. The duck-bill may well boast of its sting, because ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... talk me over you can't. Seems to me I should have to be crazy to forget all in a moment what I've said over and over to myself, and drilled myself not to lose sight of. After you asked me the other day, though I knew it was just on the spur of the moment, I thought it all out in the night as much as if it had been serious, and I saw what would be the one safe course for little me. I mustn't; that's all there is to it. Everything is wrong for it to turn out happy in the end. I'm terribly fond of you, but I should be scared to death of ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... his skilful jockeyship, Loud rung the Tory cheer, While away, away, with spur and whip, Went the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... share in GDP of transport and communications, trade, and public utilities has increased markedly in recent years. Tourism's direct contribution to output in 1994 was about 20%. In addition, increased tourist arrivals helped spur growth in the construction and transport sectors. The dual island nation's agricultural production is mainly directed to the domestic market; the sector is constrained by the limited water supply and labor shortages that reflect the pull of higher ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... difficult to follow this logic. After telling us that we wouldn't "find any Socialists" in the penitentiaries, did Stedman suddenly bethink himself of the scores convicted, and then, on the spur of the moment, fix 2,000 as the number of "arrests" necessary to wring from Socialists the confession, "We are guilty"? From a Socialist work, Trachtenberg's Labor Year Book, 1919-1920, page 92, we quote the following figures ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... and as unreasonable as to expect an inversion of the order of nature to accommodate itself to our views. If it were necessary it could be easily proved to any person of a moderate understanding that an annual army or any army raised on the spur of the occasion besides being unqualified for the end designed is, in various ways that could be enumerated, ten times more expensive than a permanent body of men under good organization and military discipline, which never was ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... 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 ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... down towards the stream; but Burnham, from some freak which he did not explain, had driven his stakes and was slowly getting up his walls half a mile south of the other homestead, and high up on a spur of foot-hill that stood at least three hundred feet above the general level of the valley. From his "coigne of vantage" the whitewashed walls and the bright colors of the flag of the fort could be dimly made ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... inside out and flings them empty before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality, and such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with the vigour of these impersonations, the strange ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spur of the Rocky Mountains that we had came in through, and struck the Arkansas river near where Pueblo, Colo., now stands, and from here we polled for the headwaters of that river, carefully examining every stream we came to ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... covered with green woods in the depth of June foliage. The soft, varied hilly outline filled the whole circuit of the horizon; within the nearer circuit of the hills the little grey house sat alone, with only one single exception. At the edge of the meadow land, half hid behind the spur of a hill, stood another grey farm-house; it might have been half a mile off. People accustomed to a more densely populated country would call the situation lonesome; solitary it was. But Nature had shaken down her hand full ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... lightly on their guns, the cavalry crane forward in their saddles. We pause and wait until we see the green badge of O'Driscoll's scouts on the hats of the advancing riders. O'Driscoll rides towards the staff with loosened rein, and every spur in all his gallant little troop shows how the scouts had ridden. We strain our ears to catch the news the Irish scout has brought. It comes at last Clements has met the foe, and death is ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... rider that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... plainly see every object within five miles. I now applied the spurs to my horse, who dashed madly down the declivity. Giving one look behind, I saw that Roche, or at least his horse, had entirely given up the chase. The prairie was comparatively smooth, and although I dared not to spur my horse to his full speed, I was soon alongside of the huge animal. It was a bull of the largest size, and his bright, glaring eyeballs, peering out from his shaggy frontlet of hair, shewed plainly that he was maddened by his wounds and the ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... sand of the river trail it settled into a long, swinging gallop, under which the miles flew by rapidly and steadily. Sheila drew the animal up on the rises, breathing it sometimes, but on the levels she urged it with whip and spur, and in something more than an hour after leaving Doubler's cabin, she flashed by the quicksand crossing, which she estimated as being not more than twelve ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... villages appear, some looking just like a spilt box of child's bricks tumbled any way down a mountain spur. Then we catch sight of the great majesty of Etna, the third volcano we have seen in two days, and we stand lost in admiration of his ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... Buddha; the Malays here call it the 'flower of the dead.'" In this quarter the trees were larger and of more robust growth, and the appearance of the garden more natural to my Northern eyes. A sudden turn brought us to a projecting spur, on which was built a little summer-house commanding a view of the surrounding country. Far away the double mountain Pangerango and Gede rose blue and shadowy, with just a wreath of smoke showing from the volcanic peak. In the middle ground stretched masses ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... window and the dazzling rows of diamond rings and walked on. He remembered that he had not answered his brother's letter; on the spur of the moment he turned into the nearest post ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... Chance, pure chance. Moss had asked him to come along as a Department member. Then Franks had picked him out on the spur of the moment. And now they were rushing toward the surface, faster ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... to get my telescope steady enough for a second look, and with that I wheeled my horse, struck spur and posted back towards Salvatierra as fast as the brute would carry me through the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... sensible enough to sit down and look the future in the face. He realized that if he should marry Iris on the spur of the moment, that would be only the beginning ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... spur of the hill that dipped into the brush and overhung the canyon. From this we heard occasional barks away down at least a mile below us. It was a difficult situation. Nothing but a bluejay could possibly get down to the creek below. I never saw such a jungle! So we ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... indeed an adventure after the Lothario Duc's heart—an adventure with love as its reward and danger as its spur. And thus it was that, a few weeks after the Duchess had sent her invitation, two travel-stained pedlars, with packs on their backs, entered the city of Modena to find customers for their books and phamphlets. At the small hostelry ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... to suppose that this note is written with a view of communicating any information on the subject we both have considerably at heart: I have written letters but I have received no letters in reply yet. Belgium is a long way off, and people are everywhere hard to spur up to the proper speed. Mary Taylor says we can scarcely expect to get off before January. I have wished and intended to write to both Anne and Branwell, but really I have ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... hold that property for a few years it will be far more valuable than it is now. The State road has been built to within a few miles, and there is strong talk of its being carried directly past Mirror Lake. Not only that; there is also talk of the railroad putting in a spur through that district, and of course that will help a ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... over me for weeks. I could not make it true that I had ever been happy—that you really loved me. All that part of my life was a dream. Now, in that silence suddenly I felt you! I knew that you cared. It was cruel to die so if you did love me! It brought the 'pang and spur'! I fought the drowsiness that was taking away my pain. I had begun to lean on it as a comfortable breast. I woke up and tore myself away from that siren sleep. It was my darling,—her love that saved me. Without that thought ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... always come trembling up to court as if you were going to fight in armor and after speaking a few words in a low and half-dead voice you go away, not remembering a word of the speech you practiced at home before you came, and without finding anything to say on the spur of the moment. In making affirmations and promises you surpass all mankind in audacity, but in the contests themselves beyond uttering some words of abuse and defamation you are most weak and cowardly. Do you think any one is ignorant of the fact ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... boot, to keep you in mind that you met the Devil's Dick, and to teach you another time to beware how you spoil the sport of any one who wears the flying spur ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... observe only a lump of coal, a phial of pitch, a flask of oil; and the necromancer of the place has dipped his rod down into the central darkness of the earth and drawn up light like the day's. Yet beyond: an iron stirrup and a slender spur, and the sewing-girl has but to set her foot there and escape the shapes that dog her. Not far away, again, we remember the Oriental magician, who as often as the king cut off his head grew another in its place, as we see the machinery for a feat almost as wonderful in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... third occurred at the Hopital de la Charite, in a woman, who, in consequence of a whitlow, had lost the whole of the 3d phalanx of one of the forefingers. The soft and fleshy cushion which here covered the 2d phalanx was terminated by a small, blackish nail, like a grain of spur rye. It is probable that in these cases the soft parts of the 3d phalanx, and especially the ungual matrix, had not been wholly destroyed. In his lectures ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Jordan, which runs due south down a steep wooded cleft into the Dead Sea, the lowest water in the world, in a sort of pit of its own, with barren desolation all round it, so as to keep in memory the ruin of the cities of the plain. In the north, rise the high mountains of Libanus, a spur from which goes the whole length of the land, and forms two slopes, whence the rivers flow, either westward into the Great Sea, or eastward into the Jordan, Many of these hills are too dry and stony to be cultivated; but the slopes of some have fine grassy pastures, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... from the unusual shape and pleasing colours of the shell, it is remarkable because it seems to be actually incorporated with its host. The foot of the mollusc is extended into a peduncle, consisting of fibres and tendons, by which the animal is a fixture to a spur of coral. At the point of union (to facilitate which there is a hiatus in the margins of the peduncle) the sarcode or "flesh" of the coral is denuded, its place being occupied by ligaments, which by minute ramifications adhere so intimately to the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... me. Looking around amid the confusion I saw this horse without a rider. I was in mortal terror of being trampled by the shifting squadrons and did not delay, but sprang into the saddle and gave him the spur. When the Confederate bugles sounded the retreat I had a terrible struggle to keep him from obeying orders and carrying me away into their lines. After that, however, I had no trouble with him. But he is not kind to strangers, as a rule. I meant to have taken him home to ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... flanks beneath 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
... block, followed the horse-shoe, encircling at the base hospital in alphabetical designation. "N" and "O" blocks nestled in a glade of trees, partially sheltered from the Southern sun, just around the bend in the curve of the road from the base-hospital. "Y" block formed the other end of the spur at Admiral—while divisional headquarters rested on the knoll in the center ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... at a smart lope around a spur of the hill and along beside a wasted stream almost lost in its stony bed. A dense forest bordered either bank. The trail was broken and spread by the recent passage of a large number of travelers; these would be the main body ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... jungle, and had to be re-surveyed in order to locate smothered-up orange-trees. Our staff, domestic and otherwise, usually consists of one boy and his gin, and save for the housework, affairs are not conducted on a serious or systematic plan. The spur necessity not being applied, there is no persistent or sustained effort to make a profit, and, of course, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... 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 valleys, and they whispered fearfully ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... Sundays and holidays; the 7th, from the conclusion of high mass to sunset. The 12th forbids more than $50 to be staked on one contest. The 38th decrees that each cock shall carry but one weapon, and that on its left spur. By the 52nd the fight is to be considered over when one or both cocks are dead, or when one shows the white feather. In the London Daily News of the 30th June, 1869, I find it reported that five men were sentenced at Leeds to two ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... too absurd view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind; a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you were more sensible than to be offended—much less seriously ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... continuing the conversation, and in a different way the younger man was quite as much affected as his father. When the student with whom he had fought had cast in his teeth the evil deeds of Kuno von Rieseneck, he had unhesitatingly denied the story, thinking it a merely gratuitous insult invented on the spur of the moment. No one present during the altercation had thought fit to confirm the tale, and Greif had wreaked his vengeance upon his enemy in the most approved fashion, in the presence of the assembled 'Korps.' But the words had taken effect and he had determined to learn from his father's ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... see the masculine influence everywhere still dominant and superior. There is the first spur, Desire, the base of the reward system, the incentive of self-interest, the attitude which says, "Why should I make an effort unless it will give me pleasure?" with its concomitant laziness, unwillingness to work without payment. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... she'd go with him gladly if only he'd free her father; promising anything, everything, in the desperate attempt to keep him from discovering that his last henchman was out of the picture. But her words served only to spur Eddie to swifter action. He twirled the knobs of the dual control. The second robot was fading from view. He'd give Cadorna a dose of the thing he really feared. He eased off a little on the other ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... different race they could perfectly well have dashed in and made us prisoners, for the drawbridge was still intact. But their cowardice was our salvation, for they feared lest they should be trapped by the fire. So I think at least, but justice compels me to add that, on the spur of the moment, they may have found it impossible to clear the gateways of the mass of fallen or dead soldiers over which it would have ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... get Ruggieri off, for so she might, if she would, and at the same time preserve her honour. "Madam," said the maid, "do but shew me how; and glad shall I be to do just as you wish." Whereupon the lady, to whom necessity taught invention, formed her plan on the spur of the moment, and expounded it in detail to the maid; who (as the first step) hied her to the leech, and, weeping, thus addressed him:—"Sir, it behoves me to ask your pardon of a great wrong that I have ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... was startled by heavy infantry firing. Going around the spur of the forest which screens head-quarters from the prairie, we found the Guard dismounted, drawn up in line, firing their carbines and revolvers. The circumstance excites curiosity, and we learn that Zagonyi has been ordered to make a descent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... subscribed, Axel Oxenstiern, Chancellor of the Kingdom and Provincial Judge of the West Norlanders, of Lapland, Heredalia, and Jemptia, Earl of South Morea, free Baron in Kimitho, Lord in Tiholme and Tydoen, Knight of the Golden Spur; and Eric Oxenstiern, son of Axel, General President of the College of Trade, Earl of South Morea, free Baron in Kimitho, Lord in Tydoen, Viby, and Gorwallen, Senators of the Kingdom of Sweden, and Plenipotentiary Commissioners of the most Serene ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... sitting on the other side of the fire, prying at the rowel of his spur with a hunting-knife. He raised his head and laughed. "Another good man gone wrong, hey?" ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... hitherto undreamed horror came to him with that stammering whisper. The spur of it brought some of his ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... to tell you, Kenny," he added honestly, hoping to spur the culprit on to more and better work. "It may help. They said downstairs that you interpret everything, even trees and snow, in terms of unreality. You over-idealize. I suppose it's your eternal need of illusion. We've spoken of ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... If one of them should chance to strike a match to light a pipe, or any false movement of Craig's should excite suspicion! If he should even speak, his soft Southern drawl would mean instant betrayal. And how coolly he went at it; with a sharp touch of the spur, causing his jaded horse to exhibit such sudden restlessness as to keep the escort well to one side, while he ranged close up to our unwelcome guest, and laying firm hand upon her horse's bit, led forth to where I waited. It was quickly, nobly done, and ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... auspicious for his future career, was his desire to work for work's sake. He declared that the real aim of instruction should be to show him his own proper and special gifts, to strengthen them in him, not to spur him on to an empty competition with those who were plainly ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... east, while a sinuous and shallow channel running between Africa and Asia united the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Westward, the littoral followed closely the contour of the Libyan plateau; but a long limestone spur broke away from it at about 31 deg. N., and terminated in Cape Abukir. The alluvial deposits first tilled up the depths of the bay, and then, under the influence of the currents which swept along its eastern coasts, accumulated behind that rampart of sand-hills whose remains are ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... northward, overlooking the deep valley from which the road ascended. The rock capped a high cliff; a stone dropped from its outer edge would have fallen sheer downward one thousand feet to the tops of the pines. The angle where the soldier lay was on another spur of the same cliff. Had he been awake he would have commanded a view, not only of the short arm of the road and the jutting rock, but of the entire profile of the cliff below it. It might well have made him giddy ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... urging was to make me angry. I wasn't going to be rushed into khaki on the spur of an emotion picked up in a music-hall. I pictured the comfortable gentlemen, beyond the military age, who had written these heroic taunts, had gained reputation by so doing, and all the time sat at home in ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... upon which the Sabines being unwarily about to enter, met with a piece of good fortune; for Curtius, a gallant man, eager of honor, and of aspiring thoughts, being mounted on horseback, was galloping on before the rest, and mired his horse here, and, endeavoring for awhile by whip and spur and voice to disentangle him, but finding it impossible, quitted him and saved himself; the place from him to this very time is called the Curtian Lake. The Sabines, having avoided this danger, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to approach her. From this it may be inferred that her stock of classical allusions is not quite so accurate and complete as that of a genuine sportswoman should be. Next morning she may be seen schooling her horses in the park. She has a touching faith in the use both of spur and of whip whenever the occasion seems least to demand them, and she despises the man who rides without rowels, and reverences one who attempts impossible jumps without discrimination. During the summer she ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... have been calling out for prosecution and punishment? We remember when a poor nickname,[3] borrowed from an old play of Ben Jonson, and mentioned in a sermon without any particular application, was made use of as a motive to spur an impeachment. But after all, it must be confessed, they had reasons to be thus severe, which their successors have not: their faults would never endure the light; and to have exposed them sooner, would have ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... her spur into her mount's side. The animal leaped forward, striking Maenck's horse on the shoulder and half turning him aside, but the man clutched at the girl's bridle-rein, and, seizing it, brought ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were, of hills, like the 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, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... never know distinctly what is their own aim. During some portion of their career they commonly try to ride hard, and sometimes for a while they will succeed. In short spurts, while the cherry-brandy prevails, they often have small successes; but even with the assistance of a spur in the head ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... belted a knight, Though his spur be as sharp, and his blade be as bright; Allen-a-dale is no baron or lord, Yet twenty tall yeomen will draw at his word; And the best of our nobles his bonnet will veil, Who at Rere-cross ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... 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 ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Iron spur, found on the battle-field of the Cowpens. It is much rusted, and is believed to have belonged to one of Tarleton's men. From B. ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... excess of his peculiarities to be an effect of the portrait, and would have had him, according to her ideas of a young man of some depth of feeling, dreamier. On the contrary, he talked sheer commonplace. He had ridden to the spur of the mountains, and had put up the mare, and groomed and fed her, not permitting another hand to touch her: all very well, and his praises of the mare likewise, but he had not a syllable for the sublime of the mountains. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... It was made by the Dominion Government in pursuance of a high national policy, and it adequately and admirably meets the ends for which it was devised. The total length from Riviere du Loup to Halifax is 561 miles. There is a spur running down to St. John, in the Bay of Fundy, eighty-nine miles long, another branch fifty-two miles long to Pictou, a great coal district opposite the southern end of Prince Edward Island; while a ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... encounter the enemy; whereas they, either on dry ground, or advancing a little way into the water, free in all their limbs, in places thoroughly known to them, could confidently throw their weapons and spur on their horses, which were accustomed to this kind of service. Dismayed by these circumstances and altogether untrained in this mode of battle, our men did not all exert the same vigour and eagerness which they had been wont to exert in ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... about a year old, a spur, hard like horn, begins to grow on the inside of each leg. Upon the old cocks these spurs are long and sharp, and he can ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... purchase being effected on the recommendation of Mat Dawson, the trainer, and the horse was then a two-year-old. That he could go at a terrific pace is proved by an observation made one day by Fred Archer to the trainer. St. Simon was at exercise when Archer's spur touched him, unintentionally by the jockey. He bounded into a gallop—a state of action rarely seen before—and Archer subsequently said that he had never been whizzed through the air at such a terrific pace. In the very pink of condition, fresh and strong, the ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... action, clears the deck, and begins the attack. It would be a vast help to many boys and girls if the irksomeness of study in arithmetic or grammar, which is so fatal to will energy, could give way to the spur of interest, and when the wheels are once set in motion, progress would not only begin but ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... is, anything that disturbs our peace) is the spur which stimulates, and without which we should most likely remain stationary, blinded with empty vanities, ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... occasion, when devotees of various countries came to perform their worship at it, the people of those villages said to them, "Why do you not fly? The devotees whom we have seen hereabouts all fly"; and the strangers answered, on the spur of the moment, "Our wings are not yet ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... good round sum because certain gentlemen on the Paris Commission lacked geographic accuracy; while to the east and north are coral islands belonging to the same group as Bongao. The garrison is situated on a mountainous spur of land running down steeply to the water. It is laid out like a park, the soldiers' quarters, hospital, library, and storehouses being of bamboo and nipa, over which the men have trained vines and creeping plants, while before each door ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... fear for Freckles to spur her, Sarah Duncan blanched and began shivering at the idea of facing the Limberlost. The Angel looked ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... on to his own room, to consult his books. If only he could invent something on the spur of the moment,—a set of bedroom furniture, that in an emergency could be turned into parlor chairs! It seemed an idea; and he sat himself down to his table and pencils, when he was interrupted by the little boys, who came to tell him that ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... sunrise evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones was an honest man, and would scorn to invent a merry jest on the spur of the moment. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... but to check, to confine, to regulate, is the unfailing precept of this whole critical school. Literature, in the state in which they found it, appeared to them to need the curb more than the spur. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... issue of this contest, yet such is my confidence, that I would to God I had more. I vow to our Lady of the Broken Lances, that I desire every furrow of land I possess—every honour which I can call my own, from the Countship of Paris, down to the leather that binds my spur, were dependent and at issue upon this fair field, between your Caesar, as men term him, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the hills that shut in the valley is complete, and the whole impression is best conveyed by that very expressive French epithet morne. There are the very fragmentary ruins of a castle (of one of the bishops of Cavaillon) on a high spur of the moun- tain, above the river; and there is another remnant of a feudal habitation on one of the more accessible ledges. Having half an hour to spare before my omnibus was to leave (I must beg the reader's pardon for this atrociously false note; call the vehicle a ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... The spur of the moment had driven him to quick decision. His opportunity would come when Jean Croisset ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... freedom, and when the vessel arrived at its destined port, he made his escape, and travelled to Philadelphia, in hopes of finding some one willing to protect him. Unluckily, the very day he entered the City of Brotherly Love he met his old acquaintance Captain Cox; and on the spur of the moment he had invented the best story ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... hall 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
... republic, and I endeavoured to behave myself with such mingled humility and dignity as might befit the occasion; but I could not but feel that something was wanting to the simplicity of my ordinary life. My wife, on the spur of the moment, managed to give the gentlemen a very good dinner. Including the chaplain and the surgeon, there were twelve of them, and she asked twelve of the prettiest girls in Gladstonopolis to meet them. This, she said, was true hospitality; and I am not sure that I ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... his heart sank, and then a feeling of anger blazed up in his heart. What if Dick was killed, as these soldiers surmised. It was terrible to contemplate, and acting on the spur of the moment, Tom leveled his pistol, pointing in the direction from which the voices sounded, ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... that interval to the rear, where it is the business of battery horses to stand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag their guns out of the destruction or into it or wheresoever these incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and spur—in this line of passive and dumb spectators, whose fluttering hearts yet would not let them forget the iron laws of man's control of them—in this rank of brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous carnage. From the ruck of bleeding ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... oak limbs. But the fox has turned and plunged into a brake which no horse can go through, and we draw up and listen to decide where we can head him off with the greatest certainty; then turn in different directions and spur through the young black-jacks. Ah! there he goes, with dragging brush and open mouth, and the pack, running close enough together to be covered by a table-cloth, not sixty yards behind him. I am in at the death this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... their dates, on the spur of the moment, present the condition of affairs as viewed by General Sherman and myself when ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... One of those dreadful and unaccountable panics had seized the militia. Nothing could stop them. I saw Colonel Willett spur forward, sword flashing; officers rode into the retreating lines, begging and imploring them to stand. The pressure on my riflemen was enormous, and I ordered them to fall back by squads in circles to the fringe of woods. They obeyed very coolly and in perfect order, retiring step ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... coast of Spain. There is just enough sun to warm the water in the pools to a point that makes bathing the most desirable mid-day pastime, and over land and sea a solemn sense of peace is brooding. From where the tents are set no other human habitation is in sight. A great spur of rock, with the green and scarlet of cactus sprawling over it at will, shuts off lighthouse and telegraph station, while the towering hills above hide the village of Mediunah, whence our supplies are brought each day ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... progress of science and the rapid march of moral improvement the most effectual spur that has ever been applied was the Reform Bill. Before the introduction of that measure, electioneering was a simple process, hardly deserving the name of an art; it has now arrived at the rank of a science, the great beauty of which is, that, although complicated in practice, it is most easy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a little spur of warehouses which breaks out into mountainous stores and open valleys of streets around the corner, but which itself overlooks no fairer view than a narrow, muddy alley of a thoroughfare scarcely ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... am no judge of such matters, must be a very valuable one, or he would not have worn it; and I have had the pleasure of rendering a service to you, and Mademoiselle de Pointdexter. Therefore, I feel far more than duly rewarded, for a service somewhat recklessly undertaken on the spur ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... Purplish pink, of deeper and lighter shade, the lower lip white, and thick of texture; from 3 to 6 on a spike; fragrant. Sepals pointed, united, arching above the converging petals, and resembling a hood; lip large, spreading, prolonged into a spur, which is largest at the tip and as long as the twisted footstem. Sterm: 4 to 12 in. high, thick, fleshy, 5-sided. Leaves: 2 large, broadly ovate, glossy green, silvery on under side, rising from a few scales from root. Fruit: ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... bet with Horatio Turpin that he could ride the latter's filly, standing hitched to the fence of the shop. He was to ride it three times around the enclosure, and touch it once each time in the flank with the spur which the young horseman took ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... scarlet hat, the laurell'd stave Are measures, not the springs, of worth; In a wife's lap, as in a grave, Man's airy notions mix with earth. Seek other spur Bravely to stir The dust in this loud world, and tread ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... chair that stood near the table in the centre of the room and had dropped his 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 that he had been ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... think so," she answered, readily enough. "At least, I used to be very fond of Humphrey Degge,—that is the Marquis of Venour's place yonder, you know, just past the spur of the forest,—but he was only a younger son, so of course Father wouldn't hear of it. That was rather fortunate, as Humphrey by and by went mad about Dorothy's blue eyes and fine shape,—I think her money had a deal to do with it, too, and in any event, she will be fat as a pig at thirty,—and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... growing momentarily wise again under the spur of fear, preferred to temporize. Necker should be brought back yet once again, the three orders should sit united as the National Assembly demanded. It was the completest surrender of force to force, the only argument. The King went alone to ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... strain on our credulity." This is rather like describing the travels of Baron Munchausen as "unconvincing." The whole story of "The Dynamiter" is a kind of humorous nightmare, and even in that story "The Destroying Angel" is supposed to be an extravagant lie made up on the spur of the moment. It is a dream within a dream, and to accuse it of improbability is like accusing the sky of being blue. But Mr. Baildon, whether from hasty reading or natural difference of taste, cannot in the least comprehend that rich and romantic ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... tortured or terrorized. Naturally luxurious, he had suffered more than most men under the pinch of penury. Those first beautiful compositions, full of the folk-music of his own country, had been wrung out of him by home-sickness and heart-ache. I wondered whether he could compose only under the spur of hunger and loneliness, and whether his talent might not subside with his despair. Some such apprehension must have troubled Cressida, though his gratitude would have been propitiatory to a more exacting task-master. She had always liked to make people happy, and he was ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... white, like a sparrow; brown predominant. Male bird with more black about head, shoulders, and tail feathers, and a whitish patch, edged with black, under the eye. Underneath pale brown, shading to buff. Hind claw or spur conspicuous. Range — Interior of North America, from the arctic coast to Illinois and and Texas; Migrations — Winter visitor. Without ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Wegstetten's little methods, when he found good qualities in his men and wished to spur them on, to make the meagre rewards that the service held out to them appear in a specially brilliant light. Regardless of exaggeration, he spoke of that week's leave as if it were an extremely rare mark of distinction ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... forced it on, with spur and voice and hand, muttering, pleading with it incoherently, his own breath coughing in his throat, the muscles of his back cringing and rippling in momentary expectation of a flying missile that would burn and tear its way through them. But no bullet ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... way of talking and their ease of manner. The material luxury of Paris had alarmed him that morning; at night he saw the same lavish expenditure of intellect. By what mysterious means, he asked himself, did these people make such piquant reflections on the spur of the moment, those repartees which he could only have made after much pondering? And not only were they at ease in their speech, they were at ease in their dress, nothing looked new, nothing looked old, nothing about them was conspicuous, everything ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... spur that the clear spirit doth raise, (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... into that rest, any of us should seem to come short of it. One of the most inconvenient and uneasy states of mind, is that of insatiable curiosity—longing to know that which is concealed, dispirited at the delay of information, refusing effort except under the spur of absolute assurance. Far better and more healthful is that state of mind which performs present duty, and leaves the rest to the unfolding hand of time; which disdains that prying, inquisitive disposition which is all eye and ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... only two places where he could go—his grandfather's in Park Lane, and Timothy's in the Bayswater Road. Which was the less deplorable? At his grandfather's he would probably get a better dinner on the spur of the moment. At Timothy's they gave you a jolly good feed when they expected you, not otherwise. He decided on Park Lane, not unmoved by the thought that to go up to Oxford without affording his grandfather a chance ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the second largest economy in the world after the US (measured on a purchasing power parity basis). Agriculture and industry have posted major gains, especially in coastal areas near Hong Kong and opposite Taiwan, where foreign investment has helped spur output of both domestic and export goods. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced in its hybrid system the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and growing income disparities). Beijing ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... enough. The restive little man detested spur or curb: against whatever was urgent or obligatory, he was sure to revolt. However, I accepted the responsibility—not, certainly, without fear, but fear blent with other sentiments, curiosity, amongst ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... realized: he bought himself an estate. It was in the province of Moscow, near the hamlet of Melihovo. As an estate it had nothing to recommend it but an old, badly laid out homestead, wastes of land, and a forest that had been felled. It had been bought on the spur of the moment, simply because it had happened to turn up. Chekhov had never been to the place before he bought it, and only visited it when all the formalities had been completed. One could hardly turn round near the house for the ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... a miracle of man's wisdom and mankind's forbearance; it has not only been amassed and handed down, it has been suffered to be amassed and handed down; and surely in such consideration as this, its possessor should find only a new spur to activity and honour, that with all this power of service he should not prove unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure should return in benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or thirty, or a hundred thousand at his banker's, or ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time Ben Blair roused himself. The hand on the rein tightened, as the lariat had tightened, until the small head with the dainty ears curled back in a half-circle. Simultaneously the long rowels of a spur bit deep into the foaming flank, the swish of a quirt sounded keenly, a voice broke out in one word of command, "Whoa!" ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... as a citizen, in this world is: to spur men on to high and noble action. And this, ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... done, the servants applied themselves to bringing in various comestibles under covers, through which could be heard the hissing of hot roast viands. In particular did the "gawk" and the "thief" work hard at their tasks. As a matter of fact, their appellations had been given them merely to spur them to greater activity, for, in general, the barin was no lover of abuse, but, rather, a kind-hearted man who, like most Russians, could not get on without a sharp word or two. That is to say, he ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... fields, dotted by clumps of trees: racing ground, firm and springy. The air sang in their ears. The fences seemed as nothing; the good horses took them in racing style, landing with no shock, and galloping on, needing no touch of whip or spur. ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... disuse), and was preparing to pass over, the pipers and trumpeters, called Cornhiriet, from HIR, long, and CORNU, a horn, began to sound their instruments on the opposite bank, in honour of the king. The king's horse, startling at the wild, unusual noise, refused to obey the spur, and enter the water; upon which, the king, gathering up the reins, hastened, in violent wrath, to the ancient ford, which he rapidly passed; and the Britons returned to their homes, alarmed and dismayed at the destruction which seemed to await them. ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... menage in the world. She looks very graceful and elegant, and keeps him in great order, and is just the wife he wanted—a little sauciness and piquancy to spur him up at one time, and restrain him at another, with the real ballast that both have, makes such a perfect compound, that it is only too delightful to see anything so happy and so good in this world. They both seem to have ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dared to make this request if he had been left to himself. That was the difference in character of the two brothers. One was impulsive, ready to do anything on the spur of the moment: the other cautious, shrinking sometimes. He was just as anxious as Rex to extend the hospitality of the Pellery to their new acquaintance, but felt that he had not known the other long enough to warrant him in ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... customary for our bards gallantly to explain that the completeness of their domestic happiness leaves them no lurking discontent to spur them onto verse writing. This is the conclusion of the happily wedded heroes of Bayard Taylor's A Poet's Journal, and of Coventry Patmore's The Angel in the House; likewise of the poet in J. G. Holland's Kathrina, who excuses his ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... Wilkins's, where they profoundly understood human nature, was very intelligent. Somewhere in a central bureau at Wilkins's sat a psychologist, who knew, for example, that a supper commanded on the spur of the moment must be produced instantly if it is to be enjoyed. Delay in these capricious cases impairs the ecstasy and therefore lessens the chance of other similar meals being commanded at the same establishment. Hence, no sooner had the gentleman-in-waiting ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... not only a promise of activity here, but of activity which is its own law and impulse. That is a blessed promise in two ways. In the first place, law will be changed into delight. We shall not be driven by a commandment standing over us with whip and lash, or coming behind us with spur and goad, but that which we ought to do we shall rejoice to do; and inclination and duty will coincide in all our lives when our life is Christ's life ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... vibrant excitement which is apt to attend the conclusion of a long, hard drive over country roads. Maitland, on the other hand, (judging him by his preoccupied pose), was already weary of, if not bored by, the hare-brained enterprise which, initiated on the spur of an idle moment and directly due to a thoughtless remark of his own, had brought him a hundred miles (or so) through the heat of a broiling afternoon, accompanied by spirits as ardent and irresponsible as his own, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 we ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift |
