"Spurred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when he was passing along a road, certain men spurred by a malignant spirit incited a most savage dog to do him a hurt. But Queranus, trusting in his Lord, fortified himself with the shield of devout prayer, and said, "Deliver not to beasts the souls of them that trust in Thee, O Lord": and soon that ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... biography must always lie in the amount of character or essential manhood which the subject of it reveals to us, and events are of import only as means to that end. It is true that lofty and far-seen exigencies may give greater opportunity to some men, whose energy is more sharply spurred by the shout of a multitude than by the grudging Well done! of conscience. Some theorists have too hastily assumed that, as the power of public opinion increases, the force of private character, or what we call originality, is absorbed into and diluted by it. But we think Horace was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... and then they dressed their spears and spurred their horses, and ran so fiercely each against the other that both were smitten to the ground, both horses and men. But Sir Marhaus had struck a great wound in the side of Sir Tristram, yet so eager was the young knight that he knew not of it. They leaped up and avoided their horses, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... taking Valerie to figure as a type in this picture of manners. Some of these women yield to the double pressure of a genuine passion and of hard necessity, like Madame Colleville, who was for long attached to one of the famous orators of the left, Keller the banker. Others are spurred by vanity, like Madame de la Baudraye, who remained almost respectable in spite of her elopement with Lousteau. Some, again, are led astray by the love of fine clothes, and some by the impossibility of keeping a house ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Hubert spiritual strivings naturally sought the outlet of action. That his emancipation should declare itself in some exaggerated way was quite to be expected: impatience of futilities and insincerities made common cause with the fiery spirit of youth and spurred him into reckless pursuit of that abiding rapture which is the dream and the despair of the earth's purest souls. The pistol bullet checked his course, happily at the right moment. He had gone far enough for experience and not too far for self-recovery. The wise man in looking back ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... has recorded that when Henry IV. was besieging Paris, though not a loaf of bread could enter the walls, love-letters passed between city and camp as easily as if there had been no siege at all. And does not Mercury preside over money as well as Love? Jasper, spurred on by Madame Caumartin, who was exceedingly anxious to exchange London for St. Petersburg as soon as possible, maintained a close and frequent correspondence with Poole by the agency of the nurse, who luckily ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a moment alone with the rector to prepare him for what was coming. But as I drove through the gate Morten Bruus spurred his horse past me and galloped up to the very door of the house just as the rector opened it. Bruus cried out in his very face, "People say that you have killed my brother and buried him in your garden. I am come with the district judge ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... was a tall, big-boned, thin man, with something sinister in the lines of his horseman's cloak, and something reckless in the way he set his spurred heel on the ground. He was the son of an old Marsh squire. Old Rangsley had been head of the last of the Owlers—the aristocracy of export smugglers—and Jack had sunk a little in becoming the head of the Old Bourne Tap importers. But ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... read, and as soon as he could he borrowed or bought the book. The school book-shop about this time began to find in Gordon its most generous patron. At times Gordon would tell Foster to ask Ferrers questions that interested him. And the answers, usually a little vague and elastic, spurred Gordon on to fresh fields. His taste was beginning to grow, and football "shop" was no longer ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... falling in torrents, and the wind driving it in fierce gusts against his face. The tempest was at its very height, and it seemed at times impossible to breast the blast—it seemed as though steed and rider must be overthrown! Yet he lashed and spurred his horse, and struggled desperately on, thinking with fierce anguish of Marian, his Marian, lying wounded, helpless, alone and dying, exposed to all the fury of the winds and waves upon that tempestuous coast, and dreading with horror, lest ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... until he reached the fringe of the band who beset the door. Here his first attempt to pass failed; and he might have remained hampered by the crowd, if a squad of archers had not ridden up. As they spurred to the spot, heedless over whom they rode, he clutched a stirrup, and was borne with them into the heart of the crowd. In a twinkling he stood on the threshold of the house, face to face and foot ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... the Selatan's boat came to assist in bringing us on board again. After the captain's severe arraignment last night the mantri seemed to have spurred up his courage. He said that two rupia would be sufficient to pay for our luggage. I gave one ringit (f. 2.50), which the captain said was ample. The kapala, who had exerted himself to get our things on board again, thanked me for the visit ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... happened to be just starting off for a ride, and was mounted on a splendid black horse. He sat there in the saddle and listened to all that the overseers had to say, and when they'd finished, he spurred his horse at me, and swearing that he'd get the secret out of me, if he had to cut my heart out to find it, raised his heavy riding-whip, and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... signal-word that day Was the disastrous fight; It spurred us on like lightning's ray, And plunged us deep in bloody fray, And in the spears' ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sight of the oncoming band, fixed their attention, and, raising the shout of "Death to d'Artin," they spurred their horses to a gallop. I had barely disappeared down the deserted Rue Corneille when they debouched into the square, spreading out and circling round as hounds hot upon a scent. Here they were at fault, not knowing whither I had ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... now to behold that indefatigable mole, that rodent which undermines and disintegrates the soil, parcels it out and divides an acre into a hundred fragments,—ever spurred on to his banquet by the lower middle classes who make him at once their auxiliary and their prey. This essentially unsocial element, created by the Revolution, will some day absorb the middle classes, just as the middle classes have destroyed the nobility. Lifted above the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the question, if it were not better to give up at once. For a brief space of time, in the exhausted state produced by the un-equal struggle in which he was engaged, he felt like abandoning every thing; but a too-vivid realization of the consequences that would inevitably follow spurred his mind into a resolution to make one more vigorous effort to overcome the remaining difficulties of the day. With this new purpose, came a new suggestion of means, and he was in the act of leaving his store to call upon a friend not before thought of, when a carpet ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... Haggard and breathless he leapt mounds, rushed past multitudinous obstacles. He forced a passage through brambles, broke down palings, thrice caught his feet in wire work which he had not seen, and fell among nettles, yet picked himself up went on again, spurred by the stinging of his hands and face. It was then Guillaume and Pierre saw him pass, unrecognisable and frightful, taking to the muddy water of the rivulet like a stag which seeks to set a last obstacle ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... activity. "The market-place and streets and all other spare places were set with the crop and the colonie dispersed all about planting tobacco." Nor is this surprising. Tobacco alone promised them surcease from poverty and want. Hope for a bountiful harvest spurred them on as it has spurred farmers ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... reverses which followed Napoleon, he met the allies at Arcis. A live shell having fallen in front of one of his young battalions, which recoiled and wavered in expectation of an explosion, Napoleon, to reassure them, spurred his charger toward the instrument of destruction, made him smell the burning match, waited unshaken for the explosion, and was blown up. Rolling in the dust with his mutilated steed, and rising without a wound amid the plaudits ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... smarting under this check, and spurred to fresh efforts, invaded Sampson. That worthy was just going to dine at Albion Villa, so Alfred postponed pumping him till next day. Well, he called at the inn next day, and if the doctor was not just ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... body of Lawton lay in open view of the whole squadron. He was a universal favorite, and the sight inflamed the men to the utmost: neither officers nor soldiers possessed that coolness which is necessary to insure success in military operations; they spurred after their enemies, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... I might do: I might take my translatophone to her, and explain everything. But would there be any possibility, even if she did not fly from me in shame and never see me again, that I could make her believe in a love which had been so spurred on, even aroused, as she might well imagine mine had been? No; that would never do. Apart from anything else, it would be impossible for me to be so cruel as to let Mary know I had understood the Burmese words she had ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... as in harder trials before, shouldered my bundle of clubs, lifted my heavy bag, and started off on foot. They urged me fervently to desist; but I heard a voice repeating, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." There came back to me also the old adage that had in youthful difficulties, spurred me on, "Where there's a will, there's a way." And I thought that with these two in his heart, a Scotchman and a Christian would ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... short, sharp nod of her head she walked briskly onward. As a result of further meditations, however, she turned aside from the direct route and entered a post office. There she pondered for some moments, a telegraph form in her hand. The thought of a possible five shillings spent unnecessarily spurred her to action, and she decided to ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... was the stern order as the general spurred on to the front, and a score of soldiers, leaping from behind the stone walls, dashed at the barricaded doors. A young staff officer, galloping down the road, reined in at sight of the little party and whirled about by ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... all, except 400 Canadians who arrived in driblets, some while the battle was actually going on. Vaudreuil had changed his mind again, and had decided to recall the Mohawk valley raiders. But too late. Levis, Pouchot, and the Canadians had managed to get through only after a terrible forced march, spurred on by the hope of reaching their beloved Montcalm in time. The other men from the raid, and five times as many more from Canada, came in afterwards. But ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... major, thrusting out his spurred boot-heels towards the railing and tilting back in his chair. "You never heard, I suppose, that between her and Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Wilkins there was a regular intelligence bureau at Sandy two years ago. So you heard nothing about ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... of the flower to be the petals in Ranunculus, the sepals in Helleborus, Anemone, etc., and the stamens in most species of Thalictrum. In all these we have a simple regular flower, but in Aquilegia it is made complex by the spurred petals, and in Delphinium and Aconitum it becomes quite irregular. In the more simple class self-fertilisation occurs freely, but it is prevented in the more complex flowers by the stamens maturing before the pistil. In the Caprifoliaceae we have small and ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... was rewarded by a shout of laughter, and, spurred by the approval of his friends, he declared he had hit on the mode to which to sing his lines, as he did in a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... towers and ancient gates, they had viewed with proper quizzicalness the imprint in the stone parapet of the hoof of that blindfolded horse which the last of the Mamelukes, cornered and betrayed, had spurred ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... few moments all the riders, booted and spurred, came hurrying out from their quarters in response to the sharp clang of a bell, and in a trice had mounted their horses, and were waiting the ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... riding the country a few miles back from here looking up some of my loose horses. I happened to cast my eye over to one side and saw a bunch of the red devils out looking for trouble. I saw that I was outnumbered, so I spurred old Roaney down into a draw at the left, hoping that I hadn't been seen. I got down the draw a little piece and thought I had given them the slip, but the yelling told me that they were still after me. ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... and suddenly changed the stout man's opinion by singing it grandly, for the consciousness of her first failure pricked her pride and spurred her to do her best with the calm sort of determination which conquers fear, fires ambition, and changes defeat to success. She looked steadily at Rose now, or the flushed, intent face beside her, and throwing ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... sprang, and spurred and clashed; Shouted the officers, crimson-sash'd; Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow, In their faded coats of the blue and yellow; And above in the air, with an instinct true, Like a bird ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... said, "He was one of our least remarkable men." Then, spurred on by that perverse impulse which we Americans often have to make the worst of ourselves to an Englishman, he added, "The defaulter seems to be taking the place of the self-made man among us. Northwick's a type, a little differentiated from thousands of others by the rumor of his death in ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... to the proclamation—rushed forward, but involuntarily fell back, awed for the moment by the mighty spirit of one man; the knights, roused from their sullen posture, looked much as if they would, if they dared, have left the herald to his fate. Hereford and Berwick at the same instant spurred forward their steeds, the one exclaiming, "Madman, let go your hold—you are tempting your own fate! Nigel, for the love of heaven! for the sake of those that love you, be not so rash!" the other thundering ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... true love's steed, By the ae light o' the moon; She has whipped him and spurred him, And roundly she ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... The Collector, booted and spurred, with riding-whip tucked under his arm, came up the pebbled pathway, drawing on his gauntleted gloves. Dicky trotted beside him. Manasseh followed in attendance. Behind them in the porchway the landlady bobbed unregarded, like ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the first failure that Charles had at the Duke of York's was "The Christian," which had scored such an enormous success in America. But failure only spurred him on to further efforts. When an English friend condoled with him about his loss on this occasion ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Saladin, Richard, who, up to that moment, had neither given nor received a wound, suddenly sprang on his charger, drew his sword, laid his lance in rest, and with his sword in one hand, and his lance in the other, spurred against the Saracens, striking sparks from their helmets and armour, and inspiring such terror that his foes were completely routed. Naturally such an exploit made a strong impression on the imagination of aspirants to warlike fame, and the youth who had ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... That thrust spurred Carley to action. His words were jest, yet they held a hint of earnest. With her heart at her throat Carley stepped on the first rock, and, poising, she calculated on a running leap from stone to stone. Once launched, she felt she was falling downhill. She swayed, she splashed, she ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... first they were not able to do them naturally and easily and they found the friendship and confidence of the other girls hard to gain. But they had come to the conclusion in class that these things were right and the enthusiasm and approval of their teacher over the attempts they were making spurred them on. Then they began to make discoveries. They found out what interesting girls there were outside their "set." They found they had exaggerated their own importance. They began to enjoy the good times of the young people in the ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... factor in the midst of the selfishness, luxury, and greed of modern civilisation. It is a virile virtue in the midst of the calculating and slothful spirit which too ofter veils itself under the pretence or religion. It will have no putting off of justice to a far-off day of reckoning, and it is ever spurred on by the feeling, "The night cometh, when no man can work." Bereft of all hope of a personal future, it binds up its hopes with that of the race; unbelieving in any aid from Deity, it struggles the more strenuously ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... night long we pushed on, halting only at sunrise to eat a bite and give our poor ponies a few mouthfuls of grass. Again we were off, and throughout the day whipped and spurred along our animals as rapidly as possible. At night we halted for two hours to rest, and then mounted the saddle once more. On the fifth day we met a company of cavalry that had been sent out by Colonel Brown to look for us, and with ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... at once," replied Agias. "Any premature attempt on his life will certainly fail. But it is not Ahenobarbus that I fear; it is Pratinas. Pratinas, if baffled once, will only be spurred on to use all his cunning in a second trial. We must enmesh the conspirators so completely that when their stab is parried, not merely will their power to repeat it be gone, but they themselves will be in danger of retribution. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... As early as five o'clock Mr Crathie was abroad, booted and spurred—now directing the workmen who were setting up tents and tables; now conferring with house steward, butler, or cook; now mounting his horse and galloping off to the home farm or the distillery, or into the town to the Lossie Arms, where certain guests from a distance were to be accommodated, and ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... non-suited. When Austria appealed to it she was put out of court. And to crown all, the world was assured that the Fourteen Points had been triumphantly upheld. This depravation of principles by the triumph of the little prudences of the hour spurred some of the more impulsive critics to ascribe it to influences less respectable than those to which it may ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... left my father's castle before I met a stranger," said Sir Hokus, sitting up very straight, "who challenged me to battle. I spurred my horse forward, our lances met, and the stranger was unseated. But by my faith, 'twas no mortal Knight." Sir Hokus sighed deeply and lapsed ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... open they came, and the wolver, labouring far behind, got sight of them and fired again and again with his revolver, and only stirred the dust, but still it made her dodge and lose time, and it also spurred the Dog. The hunter saw the Coyote, his old acquaintance of the bobtail, carrying still, as he thought, the Jack-rabbit she had been bringing to her brood, and wondered ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... of Tom's early successes in getting acquainted with the chief men of the town—particularly with the gouty old Prussian general, who was the military governor of the district. Information which Tom had gained, the major whispered, had spurred the American authorities in this sector to remove the civilian population for several miles ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... of other men's plays, then a playwright on his own account; so perhaps Homer, from a singer of the old hymns, became an improver and restorer of them, then a maker of new ones. He saw the wretched condition of his people, contrasted it with the traditions he found in the old days, and was spurred up to create a glory for them in his imagination. His feelings were hugely wrought upon by compassion working as yoke-fellow with race-pride. You shall see presently how the intensity of his pity made him bitter; how there must have been something ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... yet intervened before the coming of the date fixed for the introduction of the bill, the centaur lobby did valiant service. Coatless, spurred, weather-tanned, full of enthusiasm expressed in bizarre terms, they loafed in front of the painting with tireless zeal. Reasoning not unshrewdly, they estimated that their comments upon its fidelity to nature would be received as expert evidence. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Gerald's horse was the best, and reached the tree which was to be our goal before either of the young gauchos, who, however, got in before me. I had as long as I was in sight of the camp belaboured and spurred my steed, but as soon as our competitors got ahead of me I let the animal go at the pace ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... were with him in an instant: the slaves quickly pulled off the fisherman's clothes, and put him on the habit they had brought. They had not quite dressed the caliph, who had seated himself on the throne that was in the hall, but were busy about him when Scheich Ibrahim, spurred on by interest, came back with a cane in his hand, with which he designed to pay the pretended fisherman soundly; but instead of finding him, he saw his clothes in the middle of the hall, and the caliph on his throne, with the grand vizier and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... enveloped in smoke and dust, dropped the bridle on the neck of his horse and drew his hat over his eyes, giving him up for lost. When he saw him, however, emerging from the cloud, waving his hat, and beheld the enemy giving way, he spurred up to his side: "Thank God," cried he, "your Excellency is safe!" "Away, my dear Colonel, and bring up the troops," was Washington's reply; "the day is ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... bane, and often he wheeleth him about, and maketh trial of the ranks of men, and wheresoever he maketh onset there the ranks of men give way, even so Hector went and besought his comrades through the press, and spurred them on to cross the dyke. But his swift-footed horses dared not, but loud they neighed, standing by the sheer edge, for the wide fosse affrighted them, neither easy to leap from hard by, nor to cross, for overhanging banks stood round about it all on either hand, and above it was furnished ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... the house in spite of the firemen's orders that all should stand clear. The girls screamed and called after her but their voices were drowned in the uproar, and none knew that the incentive which spurred the half-frantic woman on was the photograph of the professor with whom she had gone automobiling the day of the fly-paper episode. Poor Miss Sturgis. Her first and only hint of a romance came pretty ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... they entered one of the most beautiful prairies they had ever seen. To their astonishment they saw, on the plain, a large number of people, some on foot and some on horseback. Several of these came galloping toward them, booted and spurred, and seated on saddles. They were Indians who were in a high state of civilization, having long held intimate relations with the Spaniards. They gave the Frenchmen an earnest invitation to visit ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... her presence until this stain was removed from her father's name, but could she blame him for trying to save her from contact with her father's slanderer? No! He turned his horse abruptly into the cross road and spurred forward in the ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... combatants started simultaneously as in full collision, each advancing his round buckler, each poising on high his sturdy javelin; but just when within three paces of his opponent, the steed of Berbix suddenly halted, wheeled round, and, as Nobilior was borne rapidly by, his antagonist spurred upon him. The buckler of Nobilior, quickly and skillfully extended, received a blow which ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... would ever have crossed that parapet alive. Transfixed with amazement, I watched them until the thought flashed into my mind that in an instant some of their comrades would come in on top of me and I would be pinned down with a bayonet. The thought of a bayonet thrust was so terrifying, that it spurred me into a last effort, and with the mental ejaculation, "I never will die in that way," I sprang on top of the breastwork. Crouching there an instant with both hands resting on the headlog, I gave one startled look over my shoulder. The impression received was that ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... mention of the black racers spurred Jane to action. Hurrying to her room, she changed to her rider's suit, packed her jewelry, and the gold that was left, and all the woman's apparel for which there was space in the saddle-bags, and then returned to the hall. Black Star stamped his iron-shod hoofs and tossed his beautiful ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... Giantland, and the old sad tale of how Sigurd Fafnirsbane, noblest of men, went down to death for the love of a queen not less noble. Leif told them well, so that his hearers were held fast with the spell of wonder and then spurred to memories of their own. Tongues would be loosened, and there would be wild recollections of battles among the skerries of the west, of huntings in the hills where strange sights greeted the benighted huntsman, and of voyaging far south into the lands of the sun where the poorest thrall ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... The certainty spurred him to a fresh effort, and he cried: "It's no good your trying to humbug me—none at all. I've got evidence—plenty of evidence! And I'm going to act on it, too. I'm going to hound you out of the Army and that ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... Judah. He has been reading Monte Cristo, perhaps, or has somehow heard about the Indian Hemp, not the 'utilissima funibus cannabis' of practical Pliny, but Cannabis Indica, wherewith, I believe, Amrou spurred on his Arabs to their miraculous feats of war, when he conquered Egypt and drove Alexandria's Prefect into the sea,—the bhang of amok-running Malays, the haschish of Syria and Cairo. This is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... chroniclers, some not deficient in narrative power, paved the way for future historians. In imaginative and miscellaneous literature the fantastic extravagances of Lyly seemed as though they might have an evil effect. In reality they only spurred ingenious souls on to effort in refining prose, and in one particular direction they had a most unlooked for result. The imitation in little by Greene, Lodge, and others, of their long-winded graces, helped to popularise the pamphlet, and the popularisation of the pamphlet ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Boabdil spurred on at full speed, till his panting charger halted at the little village where his mother, his slaves, and his faithful wife, Amine—sent on before—awaited him. Joining these, he proceeded without delay upon his melancholy ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Then he spurred Sorrel to meet the horses fleeing down along the fence. They came in bunches, in lines, stringing for a mile or more along the barrier ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... The ranchman spurred on ahead at this, and Frank made no effort to overtake him, for he felt sure he had seen tears glistening in the other's eyes, and could appreciate his feelings, for the stockman's only child, a boy, at that, lay with the mother ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... strong positions on the Moronvilliers hills, the chief observation posts in the region, spurred the Germans on to make frequent and frenzied attempts to force the French out. In the night of July 15, 1917, the hills were subjected to sustained and violent bombardment. It was followed by German attacks on Mont Haut and a height known as the Teton. At Mont ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... that I felt that, with the required wealth within my grasp, there was a possibility of our being united, I began in my imagination to realise the happiness I anticipated. Whatever dangers or difficulties I was in, I always thought of her. She, though far away, spurred me on to exertion. She—in the tempest, on the lee-shore in unknown seas, in darkness and surrounded with rocks and shoals—was ever present, and I believe that, had it not been for her, I should more than once in despair have given ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... well who was following her, and knew, too, that she could do nothing to prevent him. Once, as she passed a species of caravansary—low-roofed, divided into many lockable partitions, and packed tight with babbling humanity—she caught sight of a pair of long, black thigh boots, silver-spurred, and of a polished scabbard that moved spasmodically, as ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... shell: a swishing rush of air and a vicious crack—a 4.2 H.V. It fell two streets from us. Another and another followed. Shouts from behind! The drivers spurred their horses to a trot. Clouds of dust rose. Odd civilians alternately cowered against the wall and ran panting for the open country, making frightened cries as each shell came over. A butcher's cart and a loaded market ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... deliberately, then faster and faster, until the rolling log threw a blue spray a foot into the air. Then suddenly slap! slap! the heavy caulks stamped a reversal. The log came instantaneously to rest, quivering exactly like some animal that had been spurred through its paces. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... gaiters of Zouaves, from the red breeches of the gendarmes, the knickerbockers of the cyclists, the white ducks of sergents de ville, and the knees of the boulevardiers, bagged with sitting cross-legged at the little tables. I could not escape these eyes;—how scornfully they twinkled at me from the spurred and glittering officers' boots! How with amaze from the American and English trousers, both turned up and creased like folded paper, both with some dislike for each other but for all other ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... which ended in a victory on the skirts of the great forest that covered Somerset to the east, settled the West-Saxons as conquerors round the sources of the Parret. It may have been the example of the West-Saxons which spurred Ecgfrith to a series of attacks upon his British neighbours in the west which widened the bounds of his kingdom. His reign marks the highest pitch of Northumbrian power. His armies chased the Britons from ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... hand on his sabre. They were now near the Paggia gate. During this altercation, a common artilleryman interfered, and called out to the hussar, "Why don't you arrest them?—command us to arrest them." Upon which the officer gave the word to the guard at the gate. His Lordship, hearing the order, spurred his horse, and one of his party doing the same, they succeeded in forcing their way through the soldiers, while the gate was closed on the rest of the party, with whom an outrageous ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... voice of their leader the archers spurred their horses towards the end of the street. The crowd, seeing one or two of their number knocked down by the horses and trampled on, and some others pressed against the sides of the horses and nearly suffocated, took the wiser course of ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... higher as we neared our goal, going up sheer close to the river. We judged the greatest of these walls to be about eleven hundred feet high. After four hours of steady pulling we began to weary, for ours were no light loads to propel; but we were spurred to renewed effort by hearing the sounds of an engine in the distance. On rounding a turn we saw the end of Glen Canyon ahead of us, marked by a breaking down of the walls, and a chaotic mixture of dikes of rock, and slides of brilliantly coloured shales, broken and tilted in every ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... you wouldn't understand," Aiken answered. Then, to show he did not wish to speak with me further, he spurred his mule into a trot and kept ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next and Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard on the head. It hurt and startled her, and roused ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... laggard courage was spurred to fight more than one duel for his wife's tarnished fame. Of one of these sorry combats, Maurepas writes, "Her conduct with her father became so notorious that His Grace the Duc de Berry, disgusted at the scandal, forced the Duc d'Orleans to fight a duel on the terrace at Marly. ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... Dickenson said, "for they do scarcely anything but sit and smoke that horrible nasty-smelling tobacco of theirs all day long. They like to take it easy. They're safe, and get their rations. They don't have to fight, and I don't believe nine-tenths of the others do; but they are spurred on— sjambokked on to it. Pah! what a language! Sjambok! why can't they call ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... were going to set on me, but the red knight held them back, saying: 'Nay, I am enough,' and we spurred ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... previous centrally planned system in 1990 and 1991. Stabilization policies - including a strict monetary policy, public sector layoffs, and reduced social services - have improved the government's fiscal situation and reduced inflation. The recovery has been spurred by the remittances of some 20% of the labor force which works abroad, mostly in Greece and Italy. These remittances supplement GDP and help offset the large foreign trade deficit. Foreign assistance and ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Association, so that the first news reached London from the States. Followed Reuter's man and the Liverpool reporters on Prince's landing-stage, who came to glean copy as in the ordinary course of events, and they being spurred on by wires from London for full details, got down all the facts available, and imagined others. Parliament was not sitting, and there had been no newspaper sensation for a week, and, as a natural consequence, the papers ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... was rising a little boat was rowed across the Charles river almost under the shadow of the British man-of-war. The boat reached the farther shore and a man booted and spurred, and if ready for a long ride, leaped out upon the bank. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... in the year of the Centennial Exhibition. Harper's sent the young man over to Philadelphia, or perhaps he went of his own accord; anyway, he haunted the art-rooms at the Exhibition, and got a lesson there that spurred his genius as it had ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... almost tongue-tied, incessantly rolling balls of chewing-gum around in his mouth, which put the finishing touch to the viscosity of his speech; and every one wondered why such an impotent creature had cared to become a member of the Assembly, what delirious female ambition had spurred on to public office a man so unfitted for the least important ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... now somewhat hardening me; moreover I was spurred on by mortal anxiety to discover if there was any kind of food to be met with in the vessel. So I stepped up to the figure whose face I had touched, and felt in his pockets; but neither on him nor on the other did I find what I wanted, though I was not a little astonished to ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Spurred by her zeal, others also were soon on their knees, scratching among the grasses and sifting the loose soil through their fingers. What they found, they brought to her, and after the search ended she took the ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... He whirled and spurred up through the mud of the streets. Bill Wheaton was snoring luxuriously when wrenched from his bed by a dishevelled man who shook him into wakefulness and into a portion of his clothes, with a storm of excited instructions. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... like that poor devil of his lying now in the creek. They had to listen to him dying for six hours, with his entrails torn with slugs. At any rate this was a life for a life. . . . And all this was said with the weariness, with the recklessness of a man spurred on and on by ill-luck till he cares not where he runs. When he asked Jim, with a sort of brusque despairing frankness, whether he himself—straight now—didn't understand that when "it came to saving ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... man usually given to excess, but he drank deeply that evening, to get out of the only company he had, that of his own self-reproachful thoughts. He had acted in haste—spurred on, not deterred, by Tabitha's bitter speeches; and he was now occupied in repenting considerably at leisure. He knew as well as any one could have told him, that he was an unpopular man in his neighbourhood, and that no one of his acquaintance would have done or suffered much for him, save that ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... thus pursue her answer meet:— "My sire is of a noble line, And my name is Geraldine: Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me, even me, a maid forlorn: They choked my cries with force and fright, And tied me on a palfrey white. The palfrey was as fleet as wind, And they rode furiously behind. They spurred amain, their steeds were white: And once we cross'd the shade of night. As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, I have no thought what men they be; Nor do I know how long it is (For I have lain entranced I wis) Since one, the tallest of the five, Took me from the palfrey's ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... spurred her horse right into the midst of the mob that was tormenting the old innkeeper, and exclaimed in ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... disturbed by no misgivings of the double mission which those little plates were to perform,—the good one first, thank God! but then how fatal a one afterward!—but resolved and hopeful as on that April night when he spurred his horse from cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in the sweet valleys of New England, "Up! up! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... sounded a charge, the Major rose in the stirrups, and thundered "Forward!" I reined aside, intuitively, and the column dashed hotly past me. With a glance at the heap of mortality littering the way, I spurred my nag sharply, and followed hard behind. The riderless horse seemed to catch the fever of the moment, and closed up with me, leaving his master the solitary tenant of the dell. For perhaps three miles we galloped like the wind, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... So, spurred on by the thought of competition, Nan did her best; went through the declensions with a rush, and quite outstripped her fellow-student in the ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... sufficient length of time to allow our bodies to recuperate from the struggle with the torrent; also, we began to feel the want of food. Harry was the first to falter, but I spurred him on. Then he stumbled and ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... born of these inner energies, the greatest and most imperative of which are Sex and Hunger. From the beginning of time, men have been driven by Hunger into a thousand activities. It is Hunger that has created "the struggle for existence." Hunger has spurred men to the discovery and invention of methods and ways of avoiding starvation, of storing and exchanging foods. It has developed primitive barter into our contemporary Wall Streets. It has developed thrift and economy,—expedients whereby humanity avoids the lash of King ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... as he was out of Mascaregnas his presence. Xavier heard him, but took no notice of it at that time, for fear of provoking him to any farther extravagance. But the next morning, when the same person set out before the company, according to his custom, he spurred after him at full speed. He found him lying under his horse, who was fallen with him from a precipice, the man sorely bruised, and the horse killed outright. "Wretched creature," said the father to him, "what had become of thee, if thou hadst died of this fall?" These few words ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... troops that the British officer, Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the mountaineers began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of their own comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out in front of his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage they sounded the war whoop again and renewed the ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... the head of the sovereign Court of Peers of this kingdom; and I never before have seen either duke, lord, or peer, or any other man whatever might be his quality, accused of the crime of lese-majeste as M. d'Epernon now is, who came into the presence of his judges booted and spurred, and wearing his sword at his side. Do not fail to tell the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... espied Sponge first; and having taken a good stare at him through his formidable spectacles, to satisfy himself that it was nobody he knew—a stare that Sponge returned as well as a man without spectacles can return the stare of one with—Jack spurred his horse up to his lordship, and rising in his ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... October eighteenth was passed by Kilpatrick's command at Gainesville, but the first faint streak of dawn saw him and his faithful followers in the saddle, booted, spurred, and equipped for some enterprise as yet unexplained to them, but evidently, in their leader's estimation, one of "pith and moment." At the word of command, the force, including the "Harris Light," moved forward at a quick ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... entablature have given rise to much learned discussion, and have led to a far more lucid arrangement of the city and its chief ornaments, than would in all probability have been accomplished, had not inquiry and investigation been spurred on by the difficulty of comprehending their ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the chief, stood with her daughters a little apart from the crowd on a rising knoll of ground, and the chief, who was mounted upon a horse taken from the Romans at the Trebia, spurred forward towards them, while Malchus hung behind to let the first greeting pass over before he joined the family circle. He had, however, been noticed, and Clotilde's cheeks were colouring hotly when her father rode up, from some laughing remark from her sisters. Brunilda received Malchus cordially, ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... He spurred his horse, and once more they fled through the pine woods. Before long they entered the valley of Carmelo. The mountains were massive and gloomy, the little bay was blue and quiet, the surf of the ocean roared about Point Lobos, Carmelo River crawled ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... invalid? I came home early on purpose to look after you." He was in well-worn grey riding clothes, booted and spurred, his whip in one hand and his gloves in the other: a slight, cool, well-knit figure of low tones and half-lights. "Have ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the Roman ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of a very romantic though wild character; and the luxuriant growth of the grass proved that the soil was rich. From the summit of a high hill, we at length, to our great joy, perceived beneath us the fortress of Ross, to which we descended by a tolerably convenient road. We spurred our tired horses, and excited no small astonishment as we passed through the gate at a gallop. M. Von Schmidt, the governor of the establishment, received us in the kindest manner, fired some guns ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... We reflected that there were scarcely any inhabitants to eat them, as the persons we met did not average more than a dozen in twenty miles, and on one occasion only six all told; so we turned into nut-gatherers ourselves, spurred on by the fact that we had had no breakfast and our appetites were becoming sharpened, with small prospect of being appeased ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... obtained from the prince, these two champions, the Englishman and the Hollander, spurred their horses through the narrow pass, with the waters up to the saddle-bow, at the head of a mere handful of troopers, not more than a dozen men in all. Two hundred musketeers followed, picking their way across the planks. As they emerged into the open country beyond, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... found him still staggering on, over rocks slippery with the night frost, over windfall tree on tree in a barricade, through brawling mountain brooks where his moccasins broke the skim of ice at the edge, past rivers where he half waded, half swam. He was now faint from want of food; but fear spurred him on. The morning air was so cold that he found it better to run than rest. By four of the afternoon he came to a clearing in the forest, where was the cabin of a settler. A man was chopping wood. Radisson ascertained that there were no Iroquois in the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... family. It was thought a pity he should not receive the same advantages with his elder brother Henry, who had been sent to the University; and, as his father's circumstances would not afford it, several of his relatives, spurred on by the representations of his mother, agreed to contribute toward the expense. The greater part, however, was borne by his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Contarine. This worthy man had been the college companion of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the third phalanges are all long and pointed, and the thumb is beautifully shaped. Whoever possesses a hand like this must be guided by ideals. He is a worshiper of the sublime and beautiful. He disdains small achievements, embarks enthusiastically upon forlorn hopes, and is spurred to victory by the fervor ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... can be dated. An annular eclipse, visible in 1836 in the south of Scotland, drew the careful notice of Francis Baily of Jedburgh in Roxburghshire to that curious phenomenon which we have already described, and which has ever since been known by the name of "Baily's beads." Spurred by his observation, the leading astronomers of the day determined to pay particular attention to a total eclipse, which in the year 1842 was to be visible in the south of France and the north of Italy. The public interest aroused on this occasion was also very great, for the region across which ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... a turn in the shrubbery, carrying some one on a hand-barrow—a gentleman on horseback, with a servant and many persons walking. Sir Ulick hastened towards them; the gentleman on horseback spurred ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... much-lamented times, who accused themselves of impossibilities under a contagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture, he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newly gone. He had been spurred and whipped and heavily sweated. If a record of the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scripture on the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken fright and run away ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens |
